PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES - United Kingdom Parliament

1555 Easter Adjournment
26 MARCH 2013 Easter Adjournment
1556
5.10 pm
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab): Like my
hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen
Pound), I wish to discuss the housing crisis in London,
although five minutes is a very short time in which to
try to describe a truly appalling situation. Some 360,000
families are on the housing waiting list in London—that
excludes the large number of single people who usually
cannot even get on the waiting list—and 750,000 Londoners
are living in grossly overcrowded accommodation. The
housing solutions for them are non-existent, and will be
unless there is an enormous change in Government
policy and in the policy of the Mayor of London
towards this crisis.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op): My
hon. Friend is an inner-London MP for an area that has
a particularly severe overcrowding problem, but does he
agree that this issue affects the outer-London suburbs
as much as inner London? Does he acknowledge that a
huge number of people in Harrow in my constituency
are also waiting, without a great deal of hope, for a new
home?
Jeremy Corbyn: This is indeed a time for inner and
outer London solidarity, and I am happy to declare that
act of solidarity with my hon. Friends the Members for
Ealing North, for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) and for
Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), and with
many other outer-London boroughs. To be homeless in
London is to be homeless in London, to be overcrowded
is to be overcrowded, and to be on the waiting list is
clearly to be on the waiting list.
The solutions to this situation have to be sought.
Sadly, what was offered in the Budget is not a solution; I
suspect that it will result in those with deep pockets
being able to buy yet more properties, which they will
then keep empty, as part of the disgrace of private
sector land banking that is going on in London. I will
discuss the other solutions concerning owner-occupation,
social rented housing and private rented housing in a
moment. First, I wish to deal with the issue of the large
number of empty properties, often at the high end of
the market, deliberately kept empty by people who have
large amounts of money that comes from dubious
sources. They have bought these properties in order to
make a great deal of money out of them at a later date
when their value increases. Given the current housing
crisis, we should be giving powers to local authorities to
take over properties that are deliberately kept empty, so
that the people in desperate housing need can get somewhere
to live in London.
Alison Seabeck: Does my hon. Friend share my concern
that the spare homes subsidy could be misused by
exactly the people he is talking about, and that Government
and taxpayers’ money could be misused?
Jeremy Corbyn: My hon. Friend makes a strong
point. There is no clear definition of how this subsidy
being offered by the Chancellor will be used, so it seems
to be an opportunity for those with deep pockets to
make a great deal of money for themselves. The people
in desperate housing need, such as those represented by
me or by my hon. Friends the Members for Harrow
West or for Ealing North, will not have that same
opportunity.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con): Will
the hon. Gentleman give way?
Jeremy Corbyn: I will not give way any more, because
I would lose my time.
The second area I wish to discuss is the social rented
sector in London—council housing. The problems of
housing in London are not new; they were acute in the
19th century and in the early 20th century. It was the
inspiration and idealism of the Labour-controlled London
county council in the inter-war years that did a great
deal to build decent homes for people who were living in
appalling slums. Indeed, in my constituency and others
one can see the products of the inspirational work done
by Herbert Morrison and others. The post-second world
war council house building did an incredible amount to
give people decent places to live.
I had the great honour of being a member of Haringey
borough council from 1974 to 1983 and I remember
complaining in 1979 that we had built only 1,000 council
houses that year. I was complaining that we could have
done more, but 1,000 is more than have been built in the
whole of London in most of the past few years. I am
critical of my party in government and of the current
Government for not doing enough to build new council
housing.
The Government’s solution is to suggest to local
authorities that they should raise rents to 80% of the
market rent to raise some funds to develop new housing.
In my borough and those of most colleagues in London,
council house rents would more than double. Islington
borough council, to its credit, has refused to do that and
has managed to develop a substantial building programme
on its own land from its own resources. But obviously,
there are limits to that programme, imaginative though
it is.
We need central Government involvement in the building
of new council homes as a matter of enormous urgency.
The Mayor of London does not seem fully to grasp all
that. In fact, there are quite a lot of things the Mayor of
London does not fully grasp, but one of them is the
essential need for the building of new council houses.
The number of social rented properties—that is, council
or housing association properties—built under his watch
and by his means has reduced from 11,000 in 2010-11 to
only 983 in the current year. Goodness knows how
much lower than that the numbers will go in future
years. We must kindly ask central Government to get a
grip of the situation and do their best to intervene with
the Mayor and with borough councils to ensure that
there is a rapid increase in the supply of council housing
in London. That is the best and most efficient way of
solving the housing crisis. It provides jobs, provides
homes and helps people to have a secure place to live.
The final area I want to mention was covered in a
ten-minute rule Bill that I introduced and it is the
private rented sector. In London, 800,000 families live
in that sector—it is the fastest growing housing sector
by a long way. In my constituency, a third of all households
are in the private rented sector and that number is rising
fast. Generally speaking, people who live in the private
rented sector pay the most to live in the least efficient,