Mr Clive Betts
MP for Sheffield South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I wholeheartedly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, both its content and its tone. I would like to ask about his discussions with our colleagues and allies in other countries who are looking to implement similar sanctions.”
“I offer two congratulations: first, to my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the First Secretary, on her well-deserved promotion—I am sure she will do an excellent job. Secondly, I congratulate her and the Prime Minister for their real commitment to devolution, which I have wanted to see for an awfully long time.”
“I apologise for the fact that—as I have explained to you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will have to leave straight after my question to chair Westminster Hall. I thank my right hon. Friend for doing this very challenging piece of work. I think that the theme of fairness, for the people who need benefits and for taxpayers, is right.”
“On the other hand, so many constituents with really serious conditions get turned down for PIP, and can get it only if they struggle through the appeal system, sometimes without any help at all. So the system is not fair to anyone at present.”
“When the previous Government let the contract, we were in a situation in which procurement could not properly take account of the past record of companies, and I understand that the Government have now changed that.”
“I will dive very deeply into the question, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Chair of the Committee sends his apologies for his absence; he is presently in a Committee meeting.”
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“It is not only a matter of Government funding being cut; it is about mortgage availability. With increased deposit levels, young people are not able to get on the housing ladder at present.”
“There is a role for different approaches to the provision of housing such as intermediate market rents, more private institutional investment in housing, or links between housing associations and private institutional investors. Those ideas are interesting, and I would welcome them if we were building social houses at existing rent levels at the same time. My concern is that the Government are withdrawing from that. The other ideas are interesting, and in some cases exciting. I support those ideas, but not to the exclusion of money for social housing or of funds to get all homes to a decent standard. I am worried about that, and my overall concern is that we are approaching a housing crisis. Levels of homelessness will rise as unemployment increases.”
“If changes are made to eligibility criteria for social care, if libraries and sports centres are closed and if bus services are withdrawn, will it not be those suffering the greatest deprivation and need who are hit hardest? Is it not likely that the housing crisis that is looming large will be worsened, not helped, by the Government’s measures? Those are my questions, and it is probably appropriate to end on them. I am sure that the Minister will have positive and good things to say in answer to all of them, although whether I totally agree with him remains a matter for doubt.”
“Yesterday, I met with organisations that seek a more direct way of getting institutional investment linked to people who may want to part rent, part own houses. Is the Minister willing to meet a delegation to look at that? Some interesting ideas ought to have cross-party support. I am sorry for taking up so much time, Mr Robertson, but I have tried to take interventions. My questions for the Minister are: why are local governments taking cuts that are well above the average for other Departments? Why is such front-loading necessary? It creates particular hardships, as councils up and down the country are explaining. The cuts have been large and fast. Is that why the Government have not been able to make them fairer, meaning that they hit poorest areas the hardest?”
“I am not going to defend the level of social housing building by the previous Government; I do not think that it was adequate and I have said that many times in the Chamber and in Committee. A lot of the things that the Labour Government did, including the decent homes programme, were good, but we ought to have built more social housing. I am not sure that the Government proposals will address that matter. There is effectively a total withdrawal of funding from social housing as we know it, so that does not address the reasonable criticism made by the hon. Gentleman. We should perhaps look harder at the tax and other impediments to real estate investment trusts. They are a good idea.”
“The hon. Gentleman described my earlier comment as dismissive, but that was not my intention. I welcome savings that can genuinely come from sharing back-office services or chief executives where appropriate, but it might not be appropriate in all circumstances. Indeed, the same is true of sharing services not only between local authorities, but between local authorities and other public sector bodies. My point was that I do not believe that could fill a 9% gap in the spending power of an authority, which is also the point that the LGA is trying to make. The Minister said that no cuts in front-line services were necessary because all the savings could be found by sharing services; I was disputing that.”
“I hope that the Minister responds specifically to this question; it is an important one. Is he saying that when the Government go out to consultation on a new method of funding for local government, including local authorities keeping their business rate, they will also deal with the question of how, in that context, redistribution in terms of need and resources can also be achieved?”
“The Secretary of State is right that local government was fearful of the up-front nature of the cuts, which is still there, and the disparities in the cuts, particularly in that they most adversely affect those authorities with the highest level of grant. Will he therefore produce figures comparing not only grant settlements year on year but total spending levels, including council tax, authority by authority? Although he says that the highest cuts in total spending power reduction will be 9%, if the average is 4.4%, does that not mean that some authorities will get no cuts at all, or even perhaps a small increase?”
“I am sure that my right hon. Friend really wants to help the Leader of the House to find some additional time, so I refer back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds). We were given an indication last week that an unspecified Bill was going to come before the House next Wednesday. The rumour is that it is the long-awaited and much-heralded localism Bill. There is a further rumour, however, that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is more enthusiastic about that Bill than some of his Cabinet colleagues. If that is the case, can my right hon. Friend give us any more information about whether the Bill has been lost in the fog of Whitehall, and whether there might after all be time to debate this business next Wednesday?”
“The Minister is aware that there is a proposal for a national trial for a tram-train in south Yorkshire, which would help to get people out of their cars and on to public transport. When I asked the Secretary of State last week about the status of that project, I believe that he said it was on his desk pending a decision. Can the Minister now enlighten the House on whether a decision has been taken to go ahead with that nationally important pilot project?”
“The right hon. Gentleman is well aware of the constitution and procedures of this House—probably better aware than anyone here—so surely he must have some concerns about the slightly ridiculous situation created by the possibility of a Minister coming to the Dispatch Box in the tuition fees debate to try to persuade the rest of the House to vote for a Government policy when he is not persuaded to vote for it himself.”
“Will the Minister confirm whether now or in the future he plans to reduce homelessness by changing either its definition or the categories of people who are entitled to assistance and re-housing because they are homeless?”
“Will the light rail improvements in Sheffield, which I think I am going to welcome, include not merely the four extra trams but the nationally significant tram-train pilot? The lack of electrification of the midland main line is a disappointment, but will the track improvements go ahead and include the extra £23 million requested, so that we can significantly reduce travel times to London, to less than two hours for the first train, and reduce times for the second train, too?”
“Can my right hon. Friend imagine the reaction in schools in my constituency, such as Birley and Handsworth Grange? They heard the Secretary of State’s announcement before the recess and believed that their school programmes would go ahead, yet in October, only a few weeks later, they were told to find a 40% cut in schemes that had already been designed. That does not merely destroy the aspirations and hopes of young people; it is ridiculous and a complete waste of money to have a school designed to such an advanced stage and then cut the programme at the last minute. People cannot find 40% efficiency savings at the drop of a hat.”
“That is precisely the issue that affects cities such as Sheffield as well. The Deputy Prime Minister has objected to the word “cleansing” and other Members have objected to the word “clearance”. In a disparate housing market such as Sheffield, the effect will be to disperse families from the affluent part, the Sheffield, Hallam constituency—the Deputy Prime Minister’s constituency—to the rest of the city. That will lead to a more segregated city, and it is that sort of effect that the Government should address.”
“I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to increasing the number of social houses built, but does he accept that under the comprehensive spending review the expenditure plans for new social homes have been cut in half? The only such homes that will be built on the current tenures and rents will be those to which the previous Government committed? All new homes built after that will cost 80% of market rents, and that building will be paid for by increasing the rents on re-let tenancies to that level as well, so this Government are committing to no new social housing at all.”
“If getting housing benefit costs down is the right thing to do, will there not be an increase in housing benefit costs from these new 80% market rents they are going to introduce, and how much will they increase by? I have asked that question, but no one can answer it. Do the Government not know or have they not done the figures? Is this another consequence of the impact assessment that they have not done? The Minister has done a lot of jumping up and down in the Chamber today, but he is surprisingly silent and sedentary at present. That is another major question to which we need an answer. Why are the Government intent on pushing up rents in the social housing sector? What will be the housing benefit costs of that, and is the fact that there will be such costs not an inherent and fundamental contradiction in the Government’s policy?”
“They will not be social houses, however; they will be houses at 80% of market rents—or at intermediate rents, if we prefer that term. Effectively, therefore, the Government are withdrawing from the provision of social housing. I know some Liberal Democrat Members will not agree that that is what the Government are doing—indeed, the Lib Dem Communities and Local Government Minister, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), said exactly the opposite in a recent Westminster Hall debate—but that is the policy. If it is not what they intend to do, the Minister who is currently in the Chamber should stand up and say so. As the Government claim that their key policy is to reduce housing benefit costs, they must also explain how the two bits of their agenda join up.”
“Let us look at Government policies on housing provision to deal with this fundamental problem. The hon. Gentleman mentioned social housing provision, but he ought to understand that this Government’s policy is to withdraw from social housing provision, and that is what they are doing. Under the comprehensive spending review, the budget for new social housing is being cut in half, and the half that is left will simply fund the houses to which the previous Government were committed, which is about half of the 150,000 target. Where will the other 75,000 come from? The answer is that there is an assumption that social housing landlords will raise the rents on new lettings to 80% of market rents and that that increase in rental income will then fund the building of these extra 75,000 so-called social houses.”
“From what the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) has said, I take it that he will be voting with us in favour of this motion, because it seems that that is where his heart lies, if nothing else. The issue as presented by the Government is that we have a problem with housing benefit. Two explanations have been given for that. One is that local housing allowance levels are pushing up rents, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) dealt with that very well. The other is that housing rents and housing benefit levels are rising because there is a shortage of houses in this country. The hon. Member for Colchester said that that was the case, and I have a lot of sympathy with his point about the need for more social housing.”
“However, almost every witness has said that in the meantime there is a complete vacuum in housing planning policy. The National Housing Federation has commissioned detailed research and it has been estimated that 160,000 planning permissions that would have been given under the previous planning regime have not now been given. That means that fewer houses will be built when eventually the housing market returns.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I am not sure how putting 1.6 million people in the dole queue is part of a grand strategy to get people back to work. At some point, somebody will add those bits of the grand strategy up and explain how they connect together. On the lack of joined-up thinking, we have been taking evidence in the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government about the impact of the Government’s policy of abolishing the regional spatial strategies. Some people have told us that that is a good thing to do, others have been more critical of the inherent aim of Government policy, and some have said that eventually we will get policies in the localism Bill that explain the Government’s long-term strategy.”
“Why is their home at risk because they have lost their jobs and housing benefit will not cover their rent as they are deemed to be under-occupying? This is simply not fair. It is a vicious and nasty policy that is aimed at hard-working people who happen to be unemployed and who then need to be re-housed too. These benefit reductions are not part of any grand policy on welfare reform and they are certainly not part of any clear housing strategy. They are part of an unfair agenda driven by the Chancellor, who has simply cut the incomes of some of the poorest people in our communities.”
“What we have not had a clear answer to is whether people who have to move home because they cannot pay their rent as housing benefit no longer covers it will be considered intentionally homeless. That is a fundamental point, so can we have an answer on it please? Can we also have an answer on whether the Government really are going to change the homeless legislation as Lord Freud indicated in order to see their way out of this problem without local authorities having to have the responsibility of housing people? Those are fundamental issues. Why is it necessary to punish the couple in their 50s who lose their jobs, whose family have left home and who are living in a three-bedroom council house?”
“The city will become more segregated and more divided. The situation will get worse, because local housing allowances are linked to the consumer prices index but rents rise at a higher rate. Therefore, over time, people will be dispersed from progressively more parts of the city. That is what the impact will be on cities such as Sheffield—that is the reality. At the same time, housing departments, such as Sheffield city council’s, will face pressure because unemployment will create more housing problems and more homelessness. The budgets of these departments will have been cut, yet they will have to deal with advising or re-housing people in desperate circumstances.”
“It is not the cap that affects cities such as Sheffield; it is the 30th percentile change that affects us. That is the fundamental problem and it will cost the average family on housing benefit in Yorkshire and Humber about £7 a week. The total cost of the change for the average family in Sheffield will be more than £30 a month, and it will lead to dispersal. There are considerable differences in the rates that apply in different parts of Sheffield, and not only the unemployed, but those on low wages who are renting in the private sector will be dispersed from richer parts of the city, in the constituency of Sheffield, Hallam, to other parts of the city. I did not use the word “cleanse” or “clear”, because “disperse” is an accurate and proper word to use when describing what will happen.”
“As Labour Members have clearly said, those on the Government Benches are involved in a complete misthinking about the fact that not everyone on housing benefit is unemployed; many people on housing benefit are on low wages and they will be affected by these changes too. There is a real issue to address about disincentives to work and tapers in the housing benefit system. I would appreciate those tapers being flatter than they have been or are now, but we all have to recognise that if the steepness of housing benefit tapers, or of any other benefit tapers, is reduced, the cost is increased. That is a problem and I look forward to seeing how the Secretary of State will solve it when he introduces his universal credit. I have alluded to the impact that these changes will have in Sheffield.”
“Two weeks ago, the Leader of the House announced a review of House sitting hours. Can he confirm that it will include a review of September sittings? Once it has taken place, will all matters, including September sittings, return to the House for a decision on a free vote? If so, will he provide to Members full information about the financial and other consequences for the long-term maintenance of the House of a shorter recess and less time to carry out maintenance during the summer?”
“I have indications from four hon. Members that they wish to speak. To get everyone in before the winding-up speeches, could Members take no longer than eight minutes? I have no power to impose a time limit, but consideration for colleagues will allow everyone to get in.”
“Order. I want to say something to the three hon. Members who have made interventions. It is fine that you made interventions, but on each occasion you have used the word “you” as part of your comments. This is just a small reminder—I did not want to stop you in mid-flow.”
“May I reinforce the calls for a debate on the housing benefit changes? This is a Government proposal and we should have a debate in this Chamber in Government time for the reasons given. What about a couple in their 50s living in a three-bedroom council property, the family home, which their children have now left? In future, because that couple will be deemed to be under-occupying that property, if they lose their job or go into short-time working, the rent will not be covered by housing benefit. They face the prospect of becoming homeless and will not be covered by the homelessness legislation. The proposal is unfair and unacceptable. We need a debate on it in this Chamber in Government time.”
“I have real concerns about the Secretary of State’s over-simplistic comments on housing and planning. It might surprise him to hear, however, that by page 8 of his statement I found something with which I might be able to agree. He said that local business rate retention will be considered, but will he confirm that that involves the consideration not merely of local authorities being able to keep marginal increases in business rates, but of the complete localisation of business rates, so that once again local authorities are able to control the majority of their resources? If he is prepared to confirm that, and subject to how it is done, he might find some cross-party support on that particular issue.”
“In five years’ time—I am sure that the Minister will be conscious of the relevance of that date for the Government—we could have a situation where fewer homes, in particular affordable homes, have been built, prices have started to rise sharply and rents in the private sector and elsewhere have gone up. People’s misery will have been compounded by the changes to housing benefit. That is not a happy record on which to fight an election.”
“According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, some of the proposals from the Financial Services Authority may have even bigger implications for mortgage availability in the future. Let us assume that in three or four years’ time, economic confidence eventually returns, families feel able to return to the housing market and there is mortgage availability. If over the years, fewer and fewer planning permissions have been awarded because of the change in Government policy, we will see a massive spike in house prices and we will go back to the same problems that we hit in the 1990s.”
“There is a disjunction between what the Government think they can offer, and what is likely to be achieved. A letter from the Secretary of State sent to local authorities last week stated that the new homes bonus may be paid not on the basis of homes built, but rather on consents given. Is that the case? If it is, we could find that a lot of consents are given in areas where homes will never be built. Money will be spent but nothing will be delivered. That situation also needs clarifying. The policy may not have an immediate impact because, as we all know, there is a shortage of demand at present. People are concerned about their futures, living standards and jobs. There is a fall-off in demand for housing; prices have been dropping recently. The major concern about the availability of mortgages has already been mentioned.”
“However, we have received a lot of evidence from people who were unhappy with the operation of the regional spatial strategies. People felt that they were heavy handed and did not take account of local needs. There was also a lot of concern that the Government had abolished the strategies without thinking through the replacement. One telling comment was made about the new homes bonus which, importantly, we understand is for every new home, not just additional homes. If the new homes bonus is set at a level that would achieve the number of homes needed in this country, even on the Government’s new target figure of over 200,000, it would not be affordable given the money that Ministers have indicated is available. If the new homes bonus is set at an affordable level, it would not achieve the number of new homes necessary.”
“Success will be achieved by building more homes than the Labour Government built before the recession; failure will be building fewer homes. Therefore, the target is to build more than 200,000 homes. That is what was happening previously, so by default, that is the new target introduced by the Government. We all know, for obvious reasons due to the recession, that there has been a fall-off in house building. We must find appropriate ways to get that building back. The Communities and Local Government Committee is conducting an inquiry into the abolition of regional spatial strategies, and housing targets at regional level being cascaded down to local level. I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the inquiry, as that would be wrong.”
“We need a clear explanation from Ministers about whether it will be compulsory for landlords to introduce those rents, whether that will have an effect on housing benefit, whether the rules will apply to existing tenants who move, and whether the policy will be linked in some way to access to a social housing grant, whether landlords introduce the measures or not. Those are key questions that have received no response. The Government have told us that they do not have housing targets—apparently they are out of fashion, along with regions and one or two other things. However, when the Housing Minister came to the Communities and Local Government Committee on 13 September, he accepted an important point.”
“If they do that, and if in future the option is available to keep rents at the current level and tenancies on the same basis for new tenants—we do not know whether it will be available—will they forgo access to a social housing grant? Will availability of the social housing grant be dependent on landlords being prepared to bring in new rent levels and tenancy conditions for new tenants? We need some clarity on the matter as it is unclear. A policy has been introduced through a few comments in the spending review. It has significant implications for housing but it has not been thought through—at least, if it has been thought through, we have had no explanation about how that was done.”
“We understand that there will be a cut of at least 50% and probably more in the amount of money available from the Government for social housing through the social housing grant. That extra money from rents, presumably partly funded by the DWP, is supposed to fill the gap. What is the situation regarding social housing grant? If a social landlord decides that they will not increase rents for new tenancies to the new 80% of market level, they will presumably forgo some of the money that they could otherwise have received to build new social housing. That is apparently the purpose of increasing rents to that level.”
“In his statement, the Chancellor said: “New tenants will be offered intermediate rents”. —[ Official Report , 20 October 2010; Vol. 516, c. 953.] Does “will be offered” mean that they will have a choice about whether they accept those rents, or will they have to have them? Will landlords have a choice? “Will be offered” seems to imply that all new tenants will have such rents, but the spending review document that the Treasury produced says: “Social landlords will be able to offer”. It introduces the word “able”, so what is the Government’s policy? Will social landlords have to introduce rents at that level for new tenants, or will they be able to offer them if they choose? What will happen if they choose to do so?”
“Suddenly, they will be moved to a one-bedroom or two-bedroom maisonette or flat somewhere with the all the costs involved at the very time that they lose their jobs. Such family situations will occur, and if people move, do they move to a property where the new rent will be 80% of market level? Will the Minister explain whether that will apply to transfers for existing social housing tenants, and to mutual exchanges and assignments? Will it be covered by housing benefit in total, in which case, will the Department for Work and Pensions pay if extra money comes into social housing through the introduction of the new higher rent levels? That is all unclear, and it is incredible that such a major housing policy is introduced with a few words in a spending review. What do 80% rent levels mean?”
“Let us take a couple in their late 50s who have brought up their family, who have now left home. That couple may be in work, but planning to retire at 65 and to move at some stage to a pensioner’s bungalow if they can find one. They will want two bedrooms because their grandchildren come to stay, and that is perfectly reasonable, but there is a shortage of bungalows, so they will have to wait some time, even when they have retired. Suddenly, they become unemployed—that is a prospect that will hit many people in the next few months—and cannot afford their rent because it is no longer covered by housing benefit. They have a family home in which they have invested and which contains their furniture and family memorabilia. They may have a garden that is their pride and joy, and which they use for recreation.”
“It will not be just the overall target figures for the maximum amount of housing benefit that can be paid that will have an impact, it will be the 30th percentile because of the large disparity of rents in cities such as Sheffield where people will be dispersed from the affluent parts in the Deputy Prime Minister’s constituency to the rest of the city. Those people will not be just the workshy, feckless families that the Government like to stereotype, but people in professional jobs who lose their jobs in the next few months and also lose their homes. That is the reality of the situation. My second example is the very unacceptable policy—I say no more than that—of dealing with people in under-occupied properties by telling them that the size of property that may be funded by housing benefit will be limited.”
“The Government should address that fundamental problem, and not try to find appalling ways of cutting benefits and forcing people into housing difficulties. I shall give two examples. The Deputy Prime Minister was upset in the Chamber yesterday when the words “socio-economic cleansing” were used. Undoubtedly, there will be a substantial dispersal of families from the centre of London to the outer boroughs because of the Government’s policy of housing benefit not covering private rents to the same degree as previously. That policy will apply not just in London, and the Deputy Prime Minister should be upset because the problem will also occur in Sheffield.”
“The Government’s comments on housing in the spending review suggest that the most pressing problem—indeed, almost the only one—is the increased bill for housing benefit. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) on securing this debate, and on the usual expert way in which he dissected the Government’s policy and its lack of an evidential base. The housing benefit issue has arisen not because more people have claimed it over the past few years, but because the amount being claimed has risen as rents have risen. Rents have risen because of a shortage of housing in this country, which is the same reason why house prices have risen in the private sector.”
“Can we make sure that the Minister is telling the whole truth about this? The National Housing Federation said that the figures might be achievable if one in four new tenancies was let under the new rents, but it also said that all the new houses that were built—the whole 150,000—had to be let under the new rents. Effectively, on the Minister’s definition that we should treat as social houses only those houses that are let on existing tenures at existing rent levels, no new social houses will be built under the programme proposed by him and his colleagues. Is that not true?”
“To try to take the positives out of the statement, I welcome the go-ahead for Sheffield’s PFI highway maintenance scheme and the amber light for the additional vehicles for Supertram. I understand that the passenger transport executive has proposed that the scheme should go hand in hand with the tram-train trial, as there will be cost savings from purchasing the vehicles together. That scheme is not mentioned in the statement. It could utilise under-used rail lines, get vehicles into the heart of the city and act as a pilot for the rest of the country. Will that scheme go ahead as well?”
“Is the Minister aware that in looking at the abolition of the regional spatial strategies, the Select Committee is receiving evidence that because those strategies had an evidential base—not merely in respect of house building numbers, but in many other matters on which local development frameworks were based—many local authorities are now having to go back and redo that evidential base at a local level, causing an enormous amount of work and inconvenience to them? Did the Minister take account of those extra burdens when he decided to abolish the regional spatial strategies?”
“With regard to the new rents at 80% of market rent levels for social housing tenants, when a tenant is out of work, will the rent be covered totally by housing benefit? In that case, is there no new money to pay for social housing? When a tenant is in work or seeking it, will not these new higher rents provide a disincentive to going out to work? Will the rents apply to existing tenants who seek to move home, which would be a disincentive to mobility?”