David Lepper

Labour Party | Brighton Pavilion

Response to Brighton and Hove Private Sector Housing Forum

Response to Brighton and Hove Private Sector Housing Forum

Homelessness

1.
I regret that the refusal of the Conservative opposition to co-operate on the Homes Bill at the end of the Parliamentary session meant that the Bill fell when Parliament was dissolved on 14th May. It was this Bill which included proposals to strengthen the duty on councils to house vulnerable adults and young people.

As the chair of the Friends of Brighton and Hove Foyer I particularly regret this because it is an issue on which I have been working in Parliament. In that work I have welcomed the information which has been regularly supplied to me by the Council, Brighton Housing Trust, Hove YMCA, the Probation Service and other agencies.

I look forward to playing a part in taking the legislation through Parliament when it is reintroduced after the general election.

On the issue of funding - Labour's Housing Strategy includes £137 million specially to provide for the housing needs of people fleeing domestic violence, people with drug and alcohol problems and young people at risk. There is additional funding also proposed under the Disabled Facilities Grants Fund to enable disabled people to continue to live in their own homes.

This is against a background of a commitment to increase investment in social housing by an extra £2.5 billion over the next 3 years. Housing capital resources to local authorities will rise from £1.9 billion in 2000/2001 to £2.6 billion in 2003/2004. The extra investment in the Housing Corporation is expected to provide 56,000 homes for rent and 8,000 for ownership in the next 3 years.

2.
I have been lobbying on the need to reform Housing benefit and in particular the Single Room Rent restriction for under-25s and Local Reference Rent system since I was elected.

I am pleased that soon after the May 1997 general election I was successful in working with other Labour MPs in persuading the government to drop the proposals to extend the SRR restrictions to over 25s which had been proposed by the outgoing Tories and which would have caused additional hardship or many vulnerable adults in our area.

Last year, following a meeting with the Prime Minister to highlight these issues I submitted proposals from a range of agencies in Brighton and Hove for reform of the SRR. I put the case for more radical change to meet the needs of areas such as Brighton and Hove in a House of Commons debate in January. (I attach a copy of that speech.)

I welcome the limited change to SRR regulations which will come into operation from July and which have resulted from that lobbying in which local agencies in our area played a major part.

However, these changes do not go far enough and I am already discussing with Shelter at a national level the way in which, in the next Parliament, we can take forward the case to the government for more substantial reform.

In a letter to Angela Eagle, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Social Security I made the following points in a letter earlier this month.

“ I welcome the broadening of the single room rent announced recently by the Government. This will go some way to helping some of the young people in Brighton who currently face severe shortfalls between their housing benefit and their rent. However, I remain concerned about how much it will help those who are currently unable to access accommodation. I am also concerned that the definition continues to exclude much of the shared accommodation available in Brighton.

“I was also encouraged by your response that local authorities will have more discretion to award exceptional hardship payments from July. This is certainly something I will be discussing with Brighton and Hove Council. Will there be any arrangements for authorities to access additional provision, should the funds allocated to them prove inadequate?

“I also noted your answers about monitoring the impact of the new regulations. This is important, particularly given the lack of information about how the previous arrangements operated. I was interested in your suggestion that your Department may be considering carrying out some research. If this should be the case, I would like to suggest Brighton as an area in which it would be very useful to carry out fieldwork. It would also be useful to monitor the new discretionary payments arrangements.

“The new regulations will, of course, have no effect on the hardship that many people over the age of 25 continue to experience under the local reference rent. I understand that Shelter is suggesting a thorough review of the current rent restriction regime should be carried out as soon as possible. This is something I would like to return to when re-elected after the general election.”

I would also say, however, that Labour's economic and employment policies which have reduced long term unemployment by 60% and unemployment among under-25s by 85% since 1997 and created the stability in the economy which encourages employers to plan long term about taking on staff is important in combating the social and economic inequality which go hand-in-hand with housing need. These factors have made it possible for more people to move into the private rented sector. The £250 million which Labour has designated between 2001/2003/4 for the Starter Homes Initiative will help others take the first step to home ownership.

Landlords

1.
I have already made representations to the government on behalf of individual landlords about what they see as unreasonable aspects of possession procedures. Obviously the problem is to balance the rights of both landlords and tenants. The Labour Party has no commitments in its election manifesto on these issues.

2.
The Labour Party has made no commitments in its manifesto on these issues, but when re-elected, I would welcome a detailed submission from local landlords on the relationships between earned income, business assets, commercial indexation and rollover relief which I will take to relevant ministers.

Leasehold

1
I have a long history of campaigning for leasehold reform and the introduction of commonhold as a new form of tenure, which should eventually replace leasehold. In Parliament I was vice-chair of the all-party group on leasehold reform and commonhold.

I welcomed the government's bill, which, unfortunately, fell with the dissolution of parliament. I welcome Labour's manifesto commitment to continue with reform of the leasehold laws and to introduce commonhold after the general election.

As I told Brighton and Hove Leaseholders Association when I spoke at its AGM last month, I believe that the call by the Forum to withdraw the Bill was short-sighted and did nothing to help leaseholders. Indeed, it played into the hands of the entrenched vested interests who want to see no change.

The Bill dealt what my casework shows me to be the major concerns of leaseholders – an easier way top take over the management of their blocks and to enfranchise - and it extended the rights of “council” leaseholders. It also took the historic step of introducing commonhold.

The positive way forward is to lobby ministers on the issues which I know still concern some people such as - marriage value and the need to set a timetable to make commonhold mandatory.

2.
I was pleased to play a small part in the official launch of the pilot scheme for the registration of managing agents. Once again it is one of those ways in which Brighton and Hove has taken a lead nationally in supporting leaseholders. I welcome the involvement of ARMA in the scheme.

I have already made the point several times to Nick Raynsford, the Housing Minister, that I believe such schemes should have a statutory rather than a voluntary basis. I look forward to seeing the results of the review of the local scheme, which I anticipate, will strengthen the case for a national mandatory scheme possibly administered by local housing authorities.

David Lepper
Labour and Co-operative Party Candidate
Brighton Pavilion