MIKE HEDGES AM CALLS FOR SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE IN COUNCIL HOUSE BUILDING

MIKE HEDGES AM CALLS FOR SUBSTANTIAL INCREASE IN COUNCIL HOUSE BUILDING

Speaking after a Plenary debate about Housing, Mike Hedges AM said….  I welcome the Welsh Government’s target of building 20,000 new homes but a percentage of these will be private housing and the Housing crisis is at the lower end of the market at the entry point for first time buyers and for people who will not be able to afford deposits. Part – and I argued today – a big part of the mix must be the building of a substantial number of council houses. A small start has been made by councils such as Swansea, but more must be done to encourage local authorities to build council homes on a substantial scale. The Welsh Government can do much to support and encourage this process.

Part of this support can be to through enabling councils to borrow against the value of their housing stock and through freeing up public land for housing. It can also help by challenging the negative stereotypes associated with council housing and promoting council housing as housing for all types of people, not just people on low incomes or people with social problems. 

First, can I welcome this debate and also welcome the Conservatives' 'Housing a Nation' White Paper? I don't agree with it all, but I think it's a good place for us to start talking. I don't believe we discuss housing anywhere near enough in the Assembly, and also the far too much general talk of housing is based around rising house prices being good for homeowners and mortgage payers as opposed to bad for first-time buyers, people renting and those who are inadequately housed, which includes a lot of my constituents.418

Housing is the great challenge facing all of Britain, including Wales. The post-war period in terms of housing can be broken down into two periods: first, the period 1945 to 1980. During this period, we saw a huge growth in council housing, the building of a large number of new estates, especially in larger urban areas. We also saw the growth of owner-occupation and the start of building of large private estates, again predominantly in the larger urban areas.419

Over recent years, there has been a large increase in the number of empty properties. I've heard all sorts of numbers, between 16,000 and 27,000. If I use the term 'over 20,000', to me, that's over 20,000 too many. A number of these, including some in my constituency, are in places people actually want to live. They're not sort of out in 'who'd want to live there?' People often want to live there; it's just that they've just been left. Something's got to be done about this. There's also been the increase in—. Housing tenure, there's been an increase in the number of single-person households, because people have got older and more young people are living alone, an increase in pensioner households, an increase in young people in houses of multiple occupation, especially, but not exclusively, students. Council housing has declined through the sale of a large number of houses and a failure to build new ones. There's also been a substantial growth in housing association properties but nowhere near enough to make up for the decline in council house building.420

The decline in the private rented sector of the 1960s and 1970s has been reversed, with a huge increase in private landlords, both the large-scale owners and those using an additional property as an alternative to a pension. As a consequence of benefit changes, demand has increased for smaller size accommodation. Since 1980, we have seen almost a complete end to council house building, the growth of owner-occupation, which has stalled, and the growth of housing associations into major landlords has occurred, but they're not going anywhere near making up for the loss in council houses.421

During the whole of this period, we've seen a reduction in the average number of adults living in each property, and the sale of council housing has had a serious effect on the housing market. It has reduced the supply of council housing, and that has increased demand for both housing association properties and privately rented. Anybody who's gone around council estates campaigning will have noted the number of 'for rent' signs—privately rented—on properties built by councils in the past. And can I let you know that the rents are substantially higher than the council charge?422

There were two periods in the twentieth century when housing supply did a reasonable job of meeting housing demand and need. The first was between the wars, when cities expanded horizontally into the suburban development of green fields, assisted by government initiatives, and builders could offer affordable home ownership to people on middle to low incomes. And that was because we didn't have a planning Act. I don't think anybody wants to do away with the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, as amended, so the other option, after the second world war, was council housing, which, at one stage, accounted for roughly half the number of houses built. Anybody who follows elections—if you look at the British general election in 1974, at the book that is produced after each election, you will see the number of constituencies, mainly in Scotland, where over 50 per cent of the housing was council, but, in a large part of Wales, including my constituency, over 40 per cent of the housing was council.423

So, we're now in a situation where we've got to do something. The number of private houses being built has always stayed roughly similar—it's gone up and down a little, but it's been fairly similar. Because, let's be honest, if you were a major house builder, why would you want to build surplus? If you build surplus, house prices will come down; you'll have empty properties. You want to keep demand high. And I don't blame the house builders for that; they'd be doing their shareholders a disservice. So, something has got to take up the slack. The only thing that's effectively taking up the slack is council housing, so that's where we've got to go.424

We have seen some local authorities, including my own in Swansea, starting building council houses, but they need to be built on scale. I mean, if you look—. The First Minister represents possibly the largest council estate in Wales, based in Ely. I represent one of the largest council estate areas, which really is a number of different names, but it stretches from Clase to Blaenymaes, across the north of Swansea. These provided houses for people. There are large obstacles to a renaissance of council-house building, including, but not only, the obvious one of money. How do we get around it? Well, allow councils to borrow against the value of their stock. I think that—.425

Can I just finish with two points? We need to build a substantial number of council houses and we need to bring more empty properties back into use. Bring the 20,000 empty properties back into use, get council houses built. And, if I'd had time, I'd have said how important co-operative houses were.