John Healey
MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough · Labour · United Kingdom
“Mr Spock, I think some would say, Mr Speaker! My hon. Friend is right. Despite global conflicts, trade tensions and rising threats in the world, which are pushing up inflation, bearing down on growth and pushing up borrowing costs, the UK economy is demonstrating huge resilience.”
“The Prime Minister and I have been clear that we must cut the costs of welfare. On levels of taxation, we had a period of Conservative Government, with low growth and high debt. They crashed the economy with the mini-Budget, and we had levels of taxation that were putting pressure on business, adding to the cost of living.”
“The hon. Lady is talking to the person who led the work to establish a defence and security partnership with the European Union and bilateral agreements with other countries, on which we now build both our economic strength and our national security strength. On the question of the Budget, I ask the hon.”
“Since day one in the job, the Prime Minister and I have been in lockstep in our determination to meet Britain’s fiscal rules. This is the bedrock on which we build good growth and help give a bit of breathing space to families and businesses.”
“May I start by paying tribute to my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves)? I am proud to have been a member of a Government with the first female Chancellor in 700 years.”
“My hon. Friend speaks up very strongly for his local area. He is right about the importance of pubs, social clubs and live venues, and about the importance of the 20% cut that we announced in July. These are the things that make the places where we live the places that we also love.”
The complete record
Every one of 6,340 lines we hold for John Healey, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 52 of 127.
“My hon. Friend is right. The Bill fails to get to grips with the problems of modern life and the crisis of homeownership, especially for young people and families on ordinary incomes. The so-called starter homes are simply out of reach in those areas where people most need help to buy a home of their own. Last week, Tory MPs voted against Labour proposals to make those homes more affordable. The Bill sounds the death knell for social housing, which has had support from all parties for over a century, and for the first time since the second world war, the Chancellor confirmed in the autumn statement that there is no national investment programme to build such housing. Starter homes will be built in place of affordable council and housing association homes, both to buy and to rent.”
“My hon. Friend is right; I could have extended the list. Tory Ministers and Back Benchers have voted against our proposals to reinforce councils’ hands so that they deal with such abuse from landlords and such exploitation of tenants, to require homes to meet standards that make them fit for human habitation and to mandate annual electrical safety checks. They rejected each and every one of those proposals, to which we will return in the other place.”
“After five years of failure, we desperately needed a Bill to give people hit by the high cost of housing and the cost of housing crisis some hope that things will change. But this is not that Bill. This is an extraordinary and extreme Bill, and we will vote against it again tonight.”
“My right hon. Friend may well be right in some cases. One of the weaknesses of the enforcement regime and council powers, not to mention the resources being stripped out by the deep cuts, is that action to deal with such problems, often with other agencies, is prevented. Those issues blight many areas when they could be dealt with. During the Bill’s passage the Prime Minister has been hyperactive with housing announcements; if press releases built homes, he would have had the housing crisis sorted by now. In years to come, people will judge him, the Government and the Bill on whether their housing pressures have eased, their housing prospects have improved and their housing costs have become more affordable.”
“There have been five years of failure on housing benefit costs, which rose by £4.3 billion in the last Parliament, despite punishing cuts such as the bedroom tax, even as housing investment was slashed. Finally, there have been five years of failure on house building. The House of Commons Library has confirmed to me that the previous Government built fewer new homes than any peacetime Government since David Lloyd George’s in the 1920s.”
“Rough sleeping has increased by more than half in the past five years, while statutory homelessness is up by more than a third and is rising rapidly. There have been five years of failure on home ownership. The rate of home ownership has fallen each and every year since 2010, and the total number of home-owning households in this country is now more than 200,000 fewer than when the Tories took control. It is young people who are being hit the hardest, with the number of homeowners under the age of 35 down by a fifth in the past five years. There have been five years of failure on private rents. While incomes have stagnated, private rents on new lets have soared—up by £1,400 a year—since 2010.”
“Above schools, wages, crime, foreign affairs and terrorism, people now place housing as their most pressing concern. It is fourth in Ipsos MORI’s latest long-running “Issues Facing Britain” survey. In all parts of this House, we know of the increasing pressure, frustration and sometimes despair that our constituents feel when a decent, affordable home to rent or buy is totally beyond them. That is why we have called today’s debate on the Government’s record on housing. It is a truly shameful record, with five years of failure on every front. For the Housing Minister, who I know is a fan of social media, we could call it #fiveyearsoffailure. There have been five years of failure on homelessness— [ Interruption. ] —which, despite the laughter of Conservative Members, we all feel keenly at Christmas.”
“I beg to move, That this House notes that the Government’s record on housing is one of five years of failure with rising homelessness, falling home-ownership, escalating rents, deep cuts in investment and the lowest level of house-building since the 1920s; further notes that the Spending Review and Autumn Statement will not result in the homes that young people and families on ordinary incomes need being built because it cuts the level of investment from that of 2010 and fails to prioritise genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy; notes Shelter Scotland's report of September 2015, Affordable Housing Need in Scotland, which states that overall house-building levels are well below their peak in 2007 and that the number of new social homes built has fallen by 44 per cent from 2010 to 2014; notes the widespread concern that the Government’s Housing and Planning Bill will lead to the severe loss of affordable homes, will be a let-down for aspiring home-owners, and will do nothing to help England’s private renters struggling with poor conditions and high renting costs; and calls on the Government to help families who are struggling with the cost of housing, including by building more affordable homes to rent and buy.”
“The Chancellor gave his autumn statement and spending review three weeks ago and, again, housing was a central theme.”
“The statistic that matters most is the number of homes that were actually built. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that 2009 saw the lowest level of house building under 13 years of Labour, but that figure was still higher than that in the best year in the past five years of a Tory Government. There have been five years of failure on every front, by every measure and in every area. Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister gave a speech in which housing was a central theme. He said—I am not making this up—that “this is a government that delivers”. Well, it does not deliver on housing. The Government spent the last five years blaming Labour, but they have their own track record now—and it is one of five years of failure on housing under Conservative Ministers.”
“That is exactly what the Chancellor said: “We’re doubling the money for housing to build 400,000 new affordable homes”. After the Chancellor’s autumn statement, the Government’s annual investment in housing will be £1.7 billion. Under the money inherited in 2010 from Labour, it was £3.1 billion. That is not an increase, but a cut—it is not a doubling, but a halving—of vital investment in housing in our country for our people.”
“The hon. Gentleman might like to reflect on the fact that, under 13 years of Labour, more than 2 million new homes were built in this country and the number of homeowners rose by more than 1 million, but in the five years under his Government that figure has fallen by more than 200,000. So much for the party of the so-called homeowners.”
“Most of those 400,000 homes had been announced before, so there is also double counting. Finally, many of the new homes will not be affordable for those on ordinary incomes either to rent or to buy. I would say to the Minister that we perhaps need a new hashtag. How about #fivemoreyearsoffailure?”
“My hon. Friend is right. He probably shares my view of our own Labour record. We are deeply proud of the billions of investment we made to make homes decent again, but we were perhaps too slow to start building new homes. When I was the Minister for Housing in the final year of the previous Labour Government, we got under way the largest council house building programme we had had for more than two decades. For the first time, councils were able to get the support on the same terms as housing associations to build the new affordable homes that were so badly needed in this country. I want to return to the Chancellor’s boast about doubling the money for housing for 400,000 new affordable homes. It was not a doubling, but a halving of the investment under Labour.”
“My hon. Friend is right. I will come on to starter homes and how Tory Ministers try to fiddle the figures by fiddling the definition, but this is not the first time they have redefined what constitutes “affordable”. The level of so-called affordable rented homes we are now seeing in many parts of London means that rents are more than £1,000 each month. That may be affordable in their book, but for many people—with ordinary jobs, on ordinary incomes—it is totally beyond their reach. More is required of this Government to help the people who are working hard and struggling most.”
“I am not sure how much attention the hon. Gentleman was paying. He should have looked at the reports from Savills and from Shelter, and he should have listened to my hon. Friends who led for Labour so ably and so strongly throughout the many scrutiny sessions in Committee. I want to the return to the fact that we have seen such a serious failure during the past five years under Conservative Governments.”
“It has warned of the consequences, “in particular on council waiting lists, homelessness and housing benefit.” In many ways, these are not simply abstract political arguments or dry statistics, but the lives of our friends, our neighbours and our constituents: the young couple on average income who want to start a family, but are now less, not more, likely to be able to get a home of their own; the family, renting privately, whose kids—like 1.4 million others in the same situation—are less, not more, likely to go through school without being forced out by their landlords and forced to move areas; and the pensioner needing affordable supported accommodation who is now less, not more, likely to find a suitable home and the help they need. These are the human stories of this housing crisis, which has worsened during the past five years.”
“My hon. Friend led in making those very arguments in Committee, and I hope we will get a chance to make those arguments again when the Bill returns to the House straight after the Christmas recess. He asked for my view about whether the forced sale of council homes, particularly in London, is likely to lead to a rise in homelessness. I agree with him that it will. In some ways, however, it is much more significant that the Conservative-led Local Government Association agrees, which is clearly why it opposes the plan.”
“My hon. Friend is right. He will remember how serious the levels of homelessness and rough sleeping were when Labour came to office in 1997 and how they fell with the policies that we put in place over 13 years. He is right to say that he, like Members on both sides of the House, has seen homelessness and rough sleeping rising again. We should pause ahead of the Christmas period, reflect on that and ask hard questions of the Housing Minister about why it is happening, what he will do about it and, in particular, what he will do over the Christmas period to help.”
“I was, indeed, involved in part of the solution. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that part of the solution is not the deep cuts in local council budgets that we will hear the detail of later this week. Part of the solution is not cutting the rents for supported housing, because that will lead to a cut in the provision for many of the most vulnerable people in this country. Unfortunately, we are still close to the start of a five-year Parliament. This is the most crucial part of the political cycle, when policy direction is set. It should be a time for stock-taking and fresh thinking, but the Budget, the autumn statement and the Housing and Planning Bill do nothing to correct the causes of the five years of failure and, in many areas, will make problems much worse.”
“Search me, guv. Ask Zoopla. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman— [ Interruption. ] I’m not sure I’ll bother, Mr Deputy Speaker. He is not listening anyway.”
“My hon. Friend makes a really important point that I hope will be a point of debate this afternoon. A serious question that must be asked in respect of the plans before us is whether it is the right use of public money to subsidise the demand for new housing, at a time when the housing market in many parts of the country is already out of control.”
“Meanwhile, the Housing and Planning Bill strangles the ability and obligation of both private and public sectors to build the affordable homes to rent and to buy that are badly needed in both urban and rural areas alike. In addition there is an extraordinary forced sell-off of council homes to fund an extension of the right to buy, with no prospect or commitment, as Labour has urged, of like-for-like, one-for-one replacements in the local area. I have to say that in many areas of the country, both rural and urban but especially in London, these council homes will go not to families struggling to buy, but to speculators, second homeowners, and buy-to-let landlords—and of course the greater the demand for affordable housing in an area, the higher the value of the houses, and the more the Chancellor will take in his annual levy.”
“No, I will make some progress. If the hon. Lady really wants to intervene later, I will give way. At this point in the political cycle, we need to look at what is ahead. Two areas demonstrate the direction that the Tory Government are taking on housing and serve as a warning of what is to come. The first is a systematic attack on housing opportunity for young people and families on ordinary incomes, the very people the housing market is failing most at the moment. Ministers have launched a full-frontal assault on council and housing association homes which will hit those on low and middle incomes hardest. The Office for Budget Responsibility has said that the result of both the Budget and the autumn statement together will be 34,000 fewer housing association homes built.”
“The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. If she looks at the Homes and Communities Agency data, they will confirm—as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), a member of the Select Committee, said at DCLG questions yesterday—that more than eight in 10 of the social homes and council homes built under the hon. Lady’s Government over the last five years were started and funded under the Labour programme.”
“On top of this, in the very last sitting of the Housing and Planning Bill Committee, Ministers introduced plans to scrap the secure tenancies that Margaret Thatcher herself brought in for council tenants, restricting them instead to fixed-term tenancies of between two and five years. So the message from this Government could not be clearer: “If you’re on a low or middle income and rent a council home, then a stable family home is too good for the likes of you.””
“My hon. Friend is right. The last Labour Government invested £22 billion to bring homes that were barely decent up to scratch—some 1.4 million council homes were given new kitchens, central heating, doors that fitted, double-glazing. Those homes were, for the first time, fit to live in, but they had been left as a legacy from the previous Tory Government. My fear for the future is that when Labour gets back into government, we will be faced with a similar legacy of neglect of our council housing. Over the next five years, we look ahead to a huge loss of affordable homes to rent and to buy in this country. In total, the Chartered Institute of Housing expects the loss of 195,000 affordable homes for social rent over the next five years.”
“I do indeed, and I say to the Minister, because there is still time for him to think again, that the Housing and Planning Bill is a huge missed opportunity to help 11 million people who live in the private rented sector without the security to start their lives and bring up their families. He could legislate for longer tenancies, better consumer rights, and better and more decent standards and obligations on landlords. He has refused to do that so far. I hope that he will think again.”
“I am certainly in favour of aspiration and of home ownership. Under the last Labour Government, the number of homeowners increased by more than 1 million. However, I confirmed on Second Reading that we will oppose right to buy funded by forced sale of council homes because it will lead to a huge loss of affordable homes to rent and buy that people in this country need. That policy will penalise people on ordinary, modest incomes.”
“Shelter calculates that, across the country, one would need an annual income of around £50,000 and a deposit of £40,000 to afford a starter home. In London, one would need an income of £77,000 and a deposit of £98,000. That is simply out of reach for most of those on middle incomes—working families, who need help to buy the most. Of course, there are no controls to stop those who can afford to buy without help from the Government taking advantage of the scheme. There is a big risk that those who need it least will benefit most.”
“My hon. Friend is right. Obviously, the Select Committee is examining those matters. It is not the first time that the sums do not add up, but if the Government are going to force the sale of council assets to fund the programme to extend the right to buy to housing associations, why do they not start with some of their own assets? Why do they not start by funding their policy with Government support, instead of taking it, like some medieval baron, from councils because their coffers are empty? Ministers made much of starter homes and there is clearly a need for more affordable homes to buy, especially given that the number has fallen in the past five years by nearly 30%. However, the Government’s starter homes will be a non-starter for families on ordinary incomes.”
“A host of organisations now echo Labour’s concerns about such open-ended powers, including the Campaign to Protect Rural England, Friends of the Earth and the Woodland Trust. There will be deep concern in all parts of the House if the Government’s dramatic failure on housing leads to such drastic steps and denies local communities a voice on development in their areas.”
“Those powers include a legalised annual cash grab from councils, which totally undermines their ability to plan for housing need in their area. The Bill also rips up the contract of localising local finance for housing, which until this point has been the subject of all-party support. Ministers will have sweeping new powers to award “automatic planning permission”—the so-called “permission in principle”. That is not, as the House has been led to believe, simply a policy for dealing with brownfield sites; it is a power and policy for any site allocated for use in a local plan. There will be no need to apply for full planning permission, no limitations on what sort of development can be built, and no planning gain or obligation on developers. Only the technical details will be left for the elected local planning authorities to deal with.”
“It is like the Health Minister tackling the GP shortage by reclassifying cashiers at Boots pharmacy as qualified doctors. The second area that demonstrates the direction that the Government are taking in this Parliament is the systematic side-lining of local people and local decision making. Whatever they say, Ministers’ actions are anti-localist. At every turn since the election, housing policy has been set to undermine the say of local people and override their local representatives. The Housing and Planning Bill puts 33 new centralising powers in the hands of the Secretary of State, from directing starter homes to be built instead of affordable homes, to fixing rents for so-called high-income tenants.”
“Has the hon. Gentleman ever heard the term, “shotgun arrangement”? If he talks to a lot of housing association chief executives, their boards or their tenants, as I have done, he will find that they feel that they are left with no choice. They do not like it, they do not believe it, they do not trust Ministers, but they signed up to it because it is the least worst option for them. With so many people’s dreams of buying their own home out of reach, Ministers have responded by announcing plans to fiddle the figures again, by changing the definition of affordable homes to include so-called starter homes for sale at up to £450,000. That is an insult to young people and families on ordinary incomes, and a mockery of common sense and sound policy.”
“No party can have a programme that will lead to a huge loss of genuinely affordable housing, and call itself the “party of working people”. This country has seen five years of failure on housing under Conservative Ministers. People desperately need and deserve better, and during this Parliament, this party—the Labour party—will prove itself to be the party of working people, of aspiration, and of one nation.”
“Now we know that the Minister is prone to a bit of bullish bluster, but that is going some. In his first year as Housing Minister, not 200,000, but 115,590 homes were built. Last year—the best year out of the previous Government’s five years—only 117,720 homes were built. The total number of homes built in that Government’s best year was still lower than in the worst year of the Labour Government’s 13 years, which was in the depths of the global banking crisis and recession. Even the Prime Minister has not gone as far as the Minister. In conclusion, no Government can sit back and see a whole generation priced out of a decent home, and call themselves a “one nation” Government. No political party can say nothing in their manifesto to the 11 million people living in private rented accommodation, and call itself a “party of aspiration”.”
“The hon. Gentleman is a master of distraction. I am making a point about clause 1 of the Bill, and he has enough experience to know what is at stake. If he reads the Bill, I know he will be worried about the sweeping, open-ended powers that it contains. If the Minister wants those powers, he should justify that in this House and the other place during the passage of the Bill, or tighten them up so that they do what he says he wants them to do. I look forward to the Minister’s response on that point, but I am not holding my breath. In the housing world the Minister has become known as “Mr Million Homes”. He said: “By the end of this Parliament success would mean that we have seen a build in total of something like a million homes”. In other words, an average of 200,000 homes a year.”
“The Minister has talked about extra housing investment, and I would not want him or the Chancellor, who has said the same thing, to mislead the House. After the Chancellor’s autumn statement, the annual housing investment from the Government will be £1.7 billion. Under the money inherited in 2010 from Labour, it was £3.1 billion—not an increase, but a cut; not a doubling, but almost a halving. Does the Minister agree, therefore, that this must be the reason why his Government have built 30,000 fewer affordable homes to buy via shared ownership than Labour did in our last five years?”
“The Minister is wrong on the big picture as well. Under our national affordable housing programme, the number of homes built each year was bigger than under the last Government when he was the Minister. The hard truth is that for so many people, the dream of buying their own home is totally unaffordable and out of reach. Now the hon. Gentleman plans to fiddle the figures again by changing the definition of “affordable” to include so-called “starter homes” that can be sold at up to £450,000. Will he at least agree with Labour and the Building Societies Association, whose members will lend for these homes, that the discount on these starter homes should be permanent, not a cash windfall at the end of five years, but there for the next generation of first-time buyers as well?”
“In his autumn statement two years ago the Chancellor said that “we must confront this simple truth: if we want more people to own a home, we have to build more homes.” —[ Official Report , 5 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 1108.] Will the Secretary of State confirm that the number of new homes built in the best year of the previous Parliament’s five years was still lower than in the worst year out of 13 years of the last Labour Government?”
“Never mind the bluster about starts—as the Chancellor said, new homes built are what count. Figures from the Secretary of State’s Department state that 124,980 homes were built in 2009 in the depths of the recession. Five years later in 2014—the Secretary of State’s best year—with a much-trumpeted growing economy, 117,720 houses were built. The answer to that failure was set out in his manifesto pledge, which mentioned 275,000 more affordable homes and 200,000 new starter homes in this Parliament. Will he guarantee that he will not double-count those numbers, and that new starter homes will be additional to affordable homes?”
“The Secretary of State will know that housing associations have a long, proud history as independent bodies and that the main reason many signed up to this voluntary deal was to avoid their reclassification as public bodies by the Office for National Statistics, but it has now done just that. When did he know that this reclassification was on the cards? Was it before or after he made the agreement with the housing associations?”
“The Secretary of State gives the House partial information. He will know also that the ONS made this decision in the light of government accounting changes introduced in 2011, not just the provisions of the 2008 Act. So I ask him again: what does he say to those housing associations that believe he has acted in bad faith, knowing this reclassification was on the cards but still willing to do the deal with them?”
“If you are a working family on modest wages in a council or housing association home, then you face your rent being hiked as a result of the Bill. If you are worried about rising rents and insecurity in your private rented home—one in four families with kids in England now brings them up in private rented accommodation—this Bill does nothing for you.”
“After five years of failure on housing under Conservative Ministers, we desperately needed a Bill to give people who have been hit by the cost of housing crisis some hope that things will change. This is not that Bill. There are some parts of the Bill that we welcome, but I have to say that they are few and far between. We welcome steps to control the worst private landlords, to help young people get their first foot in the housing market, and to speed up compulsory purchase. We aim to make those steps much stronger as the Bill goes through Parliament. However, if you are a young person or a family earning an ordinary income and trying to get on, then this is a bad Bill. If you want to buy your own home, then these so-called starter homes are a non-starter for you, and they are unaffordable to most people on average incomes.”
“I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add: “this House, whilst affirming its support for helping more people, particularly young people, to own their own homes and welcoming measures in the Bill that restrict the operation of rogue private landlords and letting agents, declines to give a Second Reading to the Housing and Planning Bill because the Bill will not help most people struggling to buy their own home, will mean a severe loss of affordable homes for local communities across England, will centralise significant powers in the hands of the Secretary of State and deprive councils of the capacity to meet the housing needs of their communities and local people of a proper say in the planning process, and will weaken the obligation of private developers to contribute towards affordable homes for local people.”
“My right hon. Friend is right. The Bill will lead to a decrease in the number of affordable rented homes, as well as affordable homes to buy, and to a huge loss in such numbers, particularly in areas such as Enfield. She is right to point to the problem that those in private rented accommodation now face with ever-rising rents, but if she looks at the Conservative manifesto, she will not find a single word about the millions of people who face spending their whole lives in private rented accommodation. That is why the Bill does so little for them and is such a big missed opportunity.”
“The real weakness in the private rented sector is that people who rent their homes from private landlords have so little protection, so few rights, and so little basic redress when their landlord does not do what they should as part of their obligations.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right, but perhaps he should address his remarks to the Secretary of State. In the previous Government the Tories built the smallest number of affordable homes in this country for more than two decades—10,920 affordable homes for social rent. That compares with three times that number in the last year of the last Labour Government, which, incidentally, was when I was Housing Minister.”