Building sustainable communities or promoting inequality and division?

This week, The Sheffield Star carried an editorial noting how ‘the city is one of the most divided cities in the UK in terms of wealth, health and equality of opportunities. Almost every indicator of life shows areas in the north and east of the city poorer than in the south and west.’

It called on all the decision-makers – private, public and third sector - to ‘successfully tackle those divisions that blight people’s lives and place them at a disadvantage to others purely because of where they happen to live.’

I agree with both the analysis and with the prescription that we need to address the inequalities between communities just a few miles apart. Most importantly, to build local sustainable communities will require positive action to ensure a variety and balance of housing tenures at a local level.

So, what then are we to do with the Policy Exchange report Ending expensive local tenancies, which promotes the view that all homes valued above a regional median owned by social landlords should be sold off and the proceeds be invested in new homes in areas with lower land values?

The simplest answer is ‘Put it in the bin’! It was clearly written by those who know the current cost of everything, but know nothing about value. It was a throw-back to Margaret Thatcher’s ‘There is no such thing as society’.

Unsurprisingly, as the headlines played well to the tabloid media, David Cameron voiced his support. Clearly, he hadn’t thought through the implications.

For me, the whole thrust of the report immediately brought to mind Shirley Porter’s unlawful gerrymandering plans to socially cleanse Westminster. Policy Exchange’s proposals would achieve the same result, not just for the whole of Central London but for a wide range of communities throughout England.

So, for example, Harrogate would become devoid of all social housing, with the proceeds invested in Bradford, some 20 miles away. I’m not convinced that the army of care assistants and cleaners who support the ageing population of Harrogate would be prepared to make the 80 minute each way bus journey from Bradford without a significant pay rise. Or, are they just meant to get on their bikes?

In Sheffield, it would almost certainly mean that Sheffield Homes and all other local housing associations would be required to sell the few remaining rented homes, when they became vacant, in most of Sheffield Hallam constituency, Wharncliffe Side and Worrall, Loxley, Nether Edge and Meadowhead. Beighton and Mosborough would not be unaffected. 

No Olympic delivery by the Housing Minister

When Housing Minister Grant Shapps gave evidence to the All-Party Communities and Local Government Select Committee which I chair on 13 September 2010, he said “Building more homes is the gold standard upon which we shall be judged. The idea is to get a system which delivers housing in this country.” [1]

However, whilst Britain’s athletes were delivering a record crop of gold medals last week, the latest house-building statistics show that the Housing Minister hasn’t even got his tracksuit off. He set his own target on which we should judge him. When Eddie the Eagle fell so far short of the achievements of other ski-jumpers, we could at least applaud his effort and determination. It is difficult to believe we should do the same for Mr Shapps.

New housing starts over the last year fell by another 10% to less than 99,000. There was another 10% drop in the last three months compared to the previous quarter. It was even worse for social housing, where housing association new building fell by 23%.

Further confirmation that we are heading for a housing crisis has been provided by other statistics published this week.

According to the latest Buy-to-Let Index[2], private sector rents hit a new record high in July, rising to £725 per month. Average rents rose by 1% compared to June, pushing annual rental inflation to 2.9%. What happened to the Housing Minister’s forecast that these would be falling as a result of the cuts in housing benefit? It is unsurprising that private rented tenant arrears rose for again, with 9.3% of rent late or unpaid. [For the record, this is significantly higher than any council or social housing provider achieves.]

Other government statistics[3] showed that homelessness is rising rapidly and that councils throughout the UK are increasing resources to assist families in preventing homelessness.

The Government’s policies are clearly failing. We need an alternative plan for jobs, homes and growth. Building new affordable homes would put unemployed building workers back to work, create jobs and apprenticeships for young people and provide a boost to the construction industry. When will it happen?

CLIVE BETTS MP [SHEFFIELD SOUTH EAST]

[1] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmcomloc/uc453-i/uc45301.htm

[2] http://www.lslps.co.uk/documents/buy_to_let_index_jul12.pdf

[3] http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/homelessnessprevention201112

The economy – it’s even worse than I thought

Since the brilliant opening event of the Olympics, it is clear that there has been a national mood swing as people have been captivated by the competitions, performances and venues. Even one national newspaper, which had been determined to deliver relentless reporting of bad news stories, realized it was out of synch with the national mood and was forced to celebrate the achievements. Although the men’s 100 metres was awesome, it was Jessica Ennis’s superb heptathlon gold medal that has proved the star of the show.

However, the contrast between the success of the Olympics and the dismal performance of the economy could not be greater. And, when the carnival has moved on and the current good mood has faded, it’s the harsh reality of the real economy that will become prominent – not just in the media, but for the prospects of most households and businesses.

Last month [see 23 July 2012 U-turn required below], I drew attention to the gloomy International Monetary Fund report, the significant increase in government borrowing and the unemployment statistics.

Now, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) has slashed its growth forecasts for this year and next year. Having previously expected zero growth this year, NIESR expects the economy to contract by 0.5 per cent and suggests that growth will be limited to 1.3 per cent next year, compared to its previous forecast of 2 per cent.

This means that George Osborne’s deficit-busting plans have been shot to pieces, with borrowing set to surge by £138.5 billion in 2012-13 as tax receipts fall. This is equivalent to a staggering 9 per cent of the UK’s Gross Domestic Product and far higher than the government claimed its plans would deliver.

NIESR said that if the Chancellor had not cut so fast and so deep – by delaying his fiscal consolidation plans for three years until 2014 - he would have saved the economy £239 billion over the next decade and staved off up to 200,000 job losses in the past two years.

The coalition government’s economic policies are disastrous and are causing long-term damage. A change of tack is still urgently required.

U-turn required

Three reports in the last few days have only sought to confirm that the government’s economic strategy is simply not working.

The International Monetary Fund, in its annual report, says that the government’s tax rises and spending cuts have cut economic growth by 2.5% and that the current economic policies risk causing permanent damage to the UK economy. Britain is one of only two of the G20 countries in a double-dip recession and with long-term employment rising.

Then, the IMF’s critique was confirmed, when it was revealed the following day, that UK government borrowing increased by £500 million in June compared to just 12 months ago. David Cameron keeps saying that his priority is to reduce UK government debt, but his policies are meaning that it keeps rising, month in month out.

With the double-dip recession and rising long-term unemployment leading to a bigger benefits bill, the Government has now borrowed £4.5 billion more in the year so far than in the same period last year. This is a rise of 11.7 per cent, compared to the 4.6 per cent fall predicted at the time of the Budget. And this borrowing of £42.9 billion is the highest amount ever recorded in the first three months of any financial year.

This all comes on top of the extra £150 billion the Government has already admitted it will have to borrow to pay for the costs of high unemployment and slow growth. Trying to raise taxes and cut spending too far and too fast has badly backfired and the Government’s pledge to balance the books by 2015 is now in tatters.

These reports were followed by the employment figures. Although the UK headline figures showed employment up and unemployment down – although this wasn’t the case in Yorkshire and Humberside where unemployment rose again – long-term unemployment is continuing to rise significantly. Older women are being hit the hardest, with a 41% increase in the last year alone.

This year, George Osborn has already made more u-turns than a car thief desperately trying to shake off the traffic cops. Unfortunately, he still shows no sign of making a u-trun on the change that really matters.

Unless he takes urgent action to boost the economy with a plan for boosting jobs and growth, he will end up borrowing billions more to pay for economic failure and cause long-term damage too.

Lording it over us

Listening to Nick Clegg, you’d think that in the Norfolk Arms and the local Co-op they talk about nothing other than House of Lords reform. In truth, just one constituent has raised it with me in the last three years.

The Liberal Democrat obsession with this issue, and their ability to force it to the top of the political agenda, is a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. It’s a great example of what happens in hung parliaments – typical in countries with proportional representation systems – where the obsessions of the smallest party in the governing coalition become the priority, even when the issue is completely out of step with the real concerns and instincts of the public.

Actually, I am in favour of reform. And, it’s worth remembering that, over the last decade, considerable change has taken place. 90% of the hereditary peers have been removed; there is an elected Speaker; the judiciary have been separated out with the creation of the Supreme Court; and ‘people’s peers’ have been created. But I’m not in favour of the rather squalid, ill-thought through proposals that the Cameron-Clegg coalition is trying to force through Parliament.

It’s little surprise that people instinctively react against things like 15 year terms of office – making China look like a model democracy – and regional proportional representation, an electoral system which takes real democratic choice out of the hands of voters, and even political party members, and hands it to party bureaucrats. It’s simply a way for the Liberal Democrats to try to institutionalize their representation.

So, what should be done?

First, there needs to be clarity on the role of a new Upper House, and especially its relationship with the directly elected House of Commons. Secondly, rather than seeking some lowest common denominator consensus on one proposal, there should be some options. For instance, why shouldn’t one option have an insistence on an equality of gender or age representation? Thirdly, the options should be subject to a referendum, so that everyone can have an equal say in such a big constitutional change.

If a referendum is essential to determine whether Sheffield has a directly-elected mayor or not, then who can argue against it being absolutely essential for the reform of the House of Lords? Just Mr Clegg, it appears.

Double whammy on the way

At the end of last week, the media was focused on Wimbledon’s Murray-mania. It resulted in the biggest ever TV audience, nationally and internationally, for a Wimbledon final.

Less surprisingly, the media almost totally ignored Sheffield’s Jonny Marray who became the first Briton to win the Wimbledon men's doubles title for 76 years after victory with wildcard partner Frederik Nielsen. Congratulations to Jonny. I hope local people will celebrate his success and that steps will be taken to recognise his incredible achievement.

Meanwhile, the government slipped out the latest details of the double-whammy it has planned for low-income working households next year.

First, low-income working families could face a 30% cut in council tax benefit from April 2013. The government is forcing each council to cut its council tax benefit by 10%, but as pensioners and the single-person discount are excluded from the equation, the cuts will hit working households hardest. [See Council Tax Benefit, 29 June 2012 below.]

Now, the government has revealed that its proposed ‘bedroom tax’ will hit harder and deeper than it had previously claimed. The ‘bedroom tax’ is designed to cut the housing benefit of working-age tenants if they are deemed to have a spare room.

Basically, a single person or a couple is allowed one bedroom, two children under 10 – regardless of gender - are expected to share a bedroom, and two children under 16 of the same gender are expected to share. Any bedrooms above that are deemed to be excessive and subject to a ‘tax’ which removes part of the housing benefit.

So, if a single person or working-couple live in a 2 bedroom flat, or a couple with four children (say a boy aged 8, a girl aged 9, and boys aged 14 and 15) live in a 4 bedroom house, their housing benefit is going to be cut  by an average £14 per week. An estimated 40,000 single workers are set to lose all their housing benefit as part of the 660,000 households nationally which are going to lose out.

The very hardest hit are likely to be couples under 60 in a three-bedroom house, whose children have now left home; on average, they will lose £25 per week and possibly more.  They will now have to make the choice between a big cut in income and having somewhere for their grand-children to stay.

The government says it is doing this to encourage people to move to smaller and less expensive accommodation and to create incentives for working-age people. However, the government admits, that in many areas, there isn’t enough smaller accommodation for people to move into.

Bankers get bonuses; low-income working people get berated and battered. Nothing better sums up this Conservative-Liberal Democrat government’s real values and policies.

The Government should cut crime, not the police

This week, the Government’s own advisers on policing – Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) published its own assessment of the impact on policing, nationally and locally, of the government’s policies.

Nationally, a minimum of 15,000 officers will be cut by 2015 and, as there is still a £302m gap between those spending plans and the likely resources, the reduction is likely to be even bigger. The report says “it is not unreasonable to assume a large proportion of the savings to bridge this gap will come from further workforce reductions”.

Frontline policing will be hit hard this year, with 6,000 frontline officers being cut, including 5,500 from neighbourhoods, 999 response and traffic. 179 police stations (14%) and 264 front counters (22%) will be closed.

Locally, Derbyshire Police is cutting about 1 in 11, and South Yorkshire Police about 1 in 9 of its police officers over the next 3 years, and this is on top of the more than 10% cut in police officers made since 2010.

David Cameron said that frontline policing would not be hit by the huge cuts being made in police budgets, but his own advisers have told him that for every five police officers on the frontline in 2010, there will be just four by 2015.

Now, haven’t we been here before? The last Conservative government, under John Major and Michael Howard, cut frontline policing and we had a massive increase in crime.

Tony ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ Blair invested heavily in both increasing the number of police and modernising the way it operated, and introduced new laws to tackle anti-social behaviour. The result? Between 1997 and 2010, crime fell by more than 40%.

With Cameron’s big cuts in frontline policing, who is now going to bet against crime rising again?

Each statistic is a tragedy

Over the years, it has not been uncommon to read articles and letters in national and local newspapers railing against the criminalization of various road safety laws.

The authors have been almost unanimous in opposing legislation which required the wearing of seatbelts, a limit on drinking and driving, and banned the use of mobile phones. All have been characterised as an unnecessary assault on individual freedom, despite the overwhelming evidence that each of those laws has led to dramatic reductions in deaths and serious injuries on the roads.

In recent years, there has been a similar campaign against speed limits and, in particular, speed cameras. Now, I’m quite happy to have an informed debate about speed limits and their enforcement, so let’s deal with the facts.

The new Labour government in 1997 introduced some targets to cut road deaths and serious injuries:

• A 40% cut in deaths and serious injuries
• A 50% cut in child deaths and serious injuries
• A 10% cut in minor injuries

By 2009, all those targets had been exceeded, including a 61% cut in child deaths and serious injuries and a 30% cut in minor injuries.

The incoming coalition government – opposed to targets and for what it saw as populist reasons – simply removed all targets, axed road safety grants, and removed all funding for speed cameras. We can now see the result.

Last year, deaths on the roads increased for the first time since 2003 and there were sharp increases in the numbers of pedestrians killed and cyclists seriously injured. The number of people killed or seriously injured rose to 25,023. Deaths among pedestrians rose by 12 per cent to 453, including a 27 per cent increase in the number of child pedestrians killed last year.

Of course, statistics are bland, But, each and every one of those is a tragedy. Just ask the families and the doctors and police officers who have to deliver the awful news.

Council Tax Benefit

It appears that low-income working families are heading for financial pain and an administrative shambles

This week, I joined MPs from all parties in challenging Liberal Democrat Minister Andrew Stunnell about the Government’s proposals for a 10% cut in each council’s council tax benefit budget.

It appears that Eric Pickles, the Conservative Secretary of State doesn’t care about the concerns, and that his Liberal Democrat Under-Secretary of State doesn’t understand them.

Under the Government’s proposals, the council tax benefit budget of each council is to be cut by 10% from 2013 and each council is meant to design a local scheme to achieve that reduction.

As the Government is exempting pensioners and the single-person discount from any reduction, the cuts will inevitably fall hardest on low-income working families. Thus, the biggest cuts in council-tax benefit will be felt by low-income working families in those areas which have the highest proportion of pensioners.

MPs from all parties challenged the Minister about the Government’s proposals:

• The biggest cuts will hit working-families in the poorest economic areas harder than in wealthier areas
• In areas with a high proportion of pensioners and single-person households, low-income working-families could face a 30%+ cut in council tax benefit
• The IT software providers to local authorities have consistently said that it will not be possible to have new schemes in place to meet an April 2013 start, because the Government itself is unable to provide the detailed regulations
• Because the Government is centralising housing benefit (under the Universal Credit) but localising different council-tax benefit schemes. This means that for any income changes, people will now have to notify – and provide the necessary evidence to - the council and the Job Centre (or online) separately.
• Big cuts to council-tax benefit will create work dis-incentives at the very time when Government says it wants to make work pay.

As each day passes, it is becoming clearer to MPs from all parties that the Government simply hasn’t thought things through.

Eric Pickles is relying on local councils taking the blame for cuts and administrative shambles, which are entirely of his making.

Ministers can’t even answer these three simple but crucial questions:

• Will universal credit be counted as income in the means test for council tax benefit?
• Will local authorities have access to universal credit data when calculating people’s council tax benefit?
• Do you accept that councils will not be in a position to implement any new system in time for April next year, because the Government is unable to specify the regulations in time?”

I am now very concerned about the way the Government is just moving on and failing to listen.

I just think back to 1999 when Sheffield City Council (then Liberal Democrat controlled) privatised the housing benefit service and transferred it to Capita in a rushed and botched way.

I remember my constituents, often elderly, coming to my surgeries in tears; not because they had done anything wrong, but because the administration of their benefits was in chaos and, as a result, the arrears on their council tax and rent had risen. They were distraught because they had never been in arrears in their lives.

I am really worried that we will end up in a similar situation next year.

You can read the full debate at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm120627/halltext/120627h0001.htm#12062755000294

Park homes challenge

Many local families have a ‘park home’ – it’s the posh name for a fixed caravan or pre-fabricated home – on sites in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, often by the coast. And many Sheffield people have moved to live in a park home on retirement.

I have to say that these homes are infinitely better-equipped and warmer than the two-bedroom, single storey, Sheffield Council pre-fab in which I was brought up in the 1950s. This was one of the near 160,000 pre-fabricated homes built in the UK to address the post-war housing crisis, originally announced by Winston Churchill in 1944 as the Emergency Factory Made (EMF) housing programme. They cost about £1200 each to build and were designed to last 10 years, although the vast majority were still in use thirty years later. Most were stuffed with asbestos insulation.

But, back to today’s park homes.

About 160,000 people live in 84,000 park homes on nearly 2000 park home sites across England, concentrated in rural and seaside locations. Many residents are retired or elderly, with 68% aged 60 or over. The vast majority of park home sites are privately owned, with a small number owned by local authorities.

I’ve been chairing an all-party committee inquiry into park homes. We received a massive number of representations, took written and verbal evidence from residents, site owners, local councils and other interested parties. In many cases, what we learned was quite shocking. This week, we published our report.

Whilst that there are some good site operators, we found that malpractice is widespread across the sector: Complaints from residents about unfair fees, poor maintenance and site owners making it difficult for residents to sell their homes are common.

Research confirmed that a quarter of park home residents had experienced problems with maintenance, security or safety standards; that nearly a fifth of residents had experienced problems with the written contracts they had with site owners; and that residents had experienced intimidation by site owners or managers at a significant number of sites in the UK.

The most widespread problems include:

- “Sale blocking”, where a site owner prevents a resident from selling their home on the open market by withholding ‘approval’ of the prospective buyer.

- Harassment by site owners and site managers;

- A licensing regime that is out of date which allows site owners to breach licence conditions with only a maximum fine of £2,500, a wholly inadequate deterrent;

- Confusion over contractual obligations between site owners and home owners, and

- Out of date legislation which leaves residents with little or no ability to take action if the site is not properly maintained.

The Government issued a consultation paper A Better Deal for Mobile Home Owners in April for just 6 weeks. Surprisingly, given the high proportion of pensioners and the much lower than average access to the internet, the consultation paper was only available on-line.

My committee doesn’t think the Government’s proposals go far enough. We have recommended that the Government takes reserve powers so that local authorities could withdraw and withhold licences from site owners who are found not to be ‘fit and proper’.

We’ve called for a further review in three years time to see how far things have improved and determine whether these further powers should be implemented.

If you want to find out more about the government’s proposals and my committee’s findings and proposals:

A better deal for mobile home owners - Consultation

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/mobilehomeowners

Communities and Local Government Committee Report on Park Homes

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/communities-and-local-government-committee/news/park-homes-report/