Member News
Baroness Ford writes for ePolitix.com ahead of her balloted debate today (Thursday) on the level of affordable housing.
The House of Lords will be debating the issue of 'levels of affordable housing' today for the first time since the 2006 session. This is an important debate. Since 2006 much has changed and the lives of many individuals and families have improved. But intractable problems remain.
Housing, for many people, remains their single biggest source of stress: because of homelessness or overcrowding, or lack of decent facilities, or the inability to escape abusive or dysfunctional relationships; perhaps because of the fear of repossession, or the dispiriting realisation that even on a decent salary as a young nurse or teacher, home ownership is entirely beyond their means.
I am sure that the debate today will recognise that although there has been a steady increase in the number of affordable homes built in the last ten years, it still is far from adequate. And when we reflect on the fact that in the 1960s, 350,000 homes were built each year, we will acknowledge that our efforts are falling severely short.
The new government has said that it will be heralding a revolution on housing and so I expect that the minister, Baroness Hanham, will be pressed on exactly what the housing minister Grant Shapps meant by that when he addressed the Chartered Institute of Housing last month. And it would also be interesting to understand what his concept of 'local housing trusts' actually means.
The government will also surely be pressed on the recently announced cuts to the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) budget, and the likely impact that such cuts will have on the affordable housing programme. The HCA has been remarkably effective in keeping production of social housing high during the credit crunch. But they have also been very astute in kick-starting private housebuilding too, safeguarding low-cost home ownership and many jobs in housebuilding and its attendant supply chain.
At a time of unprecedented planned cuts to public expenditure, the government has said that it will protect the vulnerable. The minister will be asked to say whether she agrees that homeless people are vulnerable and consequently, whether she will stand up for them in the forthcoming fight for resources.
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