Local priority

David Cameron’s speech about social housing and immigration today demonstates yet again the gap between perception and reality on the issue.

The prime minister says he wants to introduce an ‘expectation’ that local authorities will introduce a local residency test determining who should qualify for social housing:

‘New migrants should not expect to be given a home on arrival. And yet at present almost one in ten new social lettings go to foreign nationals. So I am going to introduce new statutory housing allocations guidance this spring to create a local residence test. This should mean that local people rightly get priority in the social housing system. And migrants will need to have lived here and contributed to this country for at least two years before they can qualify.’

According to Downing Street, this would mean that migrants would have to live in an area for, say, two years before they could go on the waiting list:

‘This will stop someone from turning up and immediately gaining access to social housing. To ensure UK nationals are protected when they are moving for genuine reasons – for example for work or because of family breakdown – local authorities will have the ability to set exceptions (e.g. in relation to work mobility, armed services personnel, for people escaping domestic violence etc).’

There will also be ‘a new legal requirement on landlords to check the migration status of new tenants, so they are not renting to an illegal immigrant’. Private landlords are warning that this could just drive vulnerable people into the hands of criminal gangs.

The speech, which also includes measures on access to benefits and free healthcare, is clearly designed to stop UKIP exploiting immigration as a political issue, and Cameron is not the only party leader announcing new policies.

However, is it much different to the policy announced by Labour in June 2009 as part of the Building Britain’s Future relaunch of Gordon Brown’s premiership? This pledged that ‘we will change the current rules for allocating council and other social housing, enabling local authorities to give more priority to local people and those who have spent a long time on a waiting list’.

The immediate response from Conservatives then was to claim that this would be illegal under the government’s own Equality Bill and contravene existing legislation too. A certain Grant Shapps, shadow housing minister, said: ‘Gordon Brown’s spin, pitched at Labour’s disillusioned core vote, has been exposed to be a sham. Housing waiting list policies need reform and we need more affordable homes. But Labour are unable to deliver the change we need.’

The move also contradicted research by the Local Government Association and Equality and Human Rights Commission showing that people who were foreign born and had arrived in the UK within the last five years – Cameron’s target group – occupied just 1.8 per cent of social homes. Another 10 per cent were occupied by people who were foreign born and had arrived longer ago than five years.

In total, 11.6 per cent of people who were foreign born and had arrived in the UK in the last five years were social tenants, compared to 16.6 per cent who were owner-occupiers and 63.6 per cent who were private tenants.

Looking at the housing options of all foreign-born nationals, 17.8 per cent were social tenants, 26.9 per cent were private tenants and 51.4 per cent were owner-occupiers.

A press release from Eric Pickles released after Cameron’s statement today claims that the proportion of new social lets to foreign nationals has risen from 6.5 per cent in 2007/08 to 9 per cent in 2011/12. However, that makes no distinction between people who have been in Britain for years and the ‘something for nothng’ recent arrivals singled out by Cameron. 

The data comes from parliamentary answer by housing minister Mark Prisk in January that spelt out the rules that already apply to allocations:

‘Most foreign nationals who have recently come to England are not eligible for an allocation of social housing. Broadly speaking, European economic area nationals are eligible if they are working, self-sufficient, or have a permanent right of residence in the UK (after five years lawful residence in the UK). Other foreign nationals are not eligible for social housing unless they have been granted leave to enter or remain in the UK with recourse to public funds (for example, people granted refugee status or humanitarian protection). Where foreign nationals are eligible, they will have their housing needs considered on the same basis as other applicants in accordance with the local authority’s allocation scheme. In this context, the Localism Act gives back to councils the freedom to manage their own waiting list. They will be able to decide who should qualify for social housing in their area, and to develop solutions which make best use of limited social housing stock.

This was a point also made on the World this Weekend yesterday by Mike Jones, the Conservative leader of Cheshire West and Chester Council and the LGA spokesman on housing. He argued that Cameron’s plan would just interfere with councils’ freedom to determine their own priorities without achieving very much.

So if the reality about housing and recent migrants is rather less dramatic than Cameron’s speech makes out, what about the perception? The 2009 report from the LGA and EHRC came up with several reasons why voters might see it as more of a problem than it actually is. These included: the Borders Agency’s use of empty social housing for asylum seekers, key worker schemes for groups such as health and care home workers with high numbers of residents from particular ethnic groups and the fact that on many new developments with mixed tenure it was hard to tell private from social; and the sale of former social homes under the right to buy.

Above all, however, there was the sale of social housing under the right to buy. The report pointed out that this had not just reduced the available stock, and therefore housing options for UK citizens, but:

‘In many parts of the UK, the sale of social housing and its subsequent use as private rental accommodation for migrants has fuelled misconceptions about the allocation of social housing. Perceptions that migrants displace UK-born social housing applicants may arise from the fact that some private rented housing which is now home to migrants is former social housing stock. Local residents may believe it is still “owned by the council” despite it now being in the private sector.’

That seems to be of particular relevance to a government that is now pulling out all the stops to increase right to buy sales. Under last year’s ‘reinvigorated’ right to buy, it increased the maximum discount first to £50,000, then to £75,000.

With sales failing to match ministers’ expectations, George Osborne increased this again to £100,000 in last week’s Budget. He also cut the qualifying period from five to three years and announced a simplified application process.

However, a survey by the Mirror earlier this month revealed that a third of flats sold under the original right to buy are now owned by people with a different address. These included at least 40 flats on one South London estate owned by the son of a former Conservative housing minster who lives in Surrey and another 57 owned by two companies based in Guernsey. There is no way of telling how many of their tenants are foreign nationals who their neighbours may believe have somehow jumped the housing queue.

A private member’s bill from Labour MP Gareth Thomas currently before parliament seeks to restrict sales of former social housing to people with a local connection. It would extend the use of local occupancy clauses, which were allowed under the original right to buy legislation. Local  authorities in areas of outstanding natural beauty were able to include a covenant stipulating that the right-to-buy property could only be sold to people living or working in the area.

Although it stands virtually no chance of becoming law, his Housing Market Reform Bill seeks to extend this exemption to other areas of the country where house prices have escalated out of the reach of local people. As he put it at the end of January:

‘Surely, helping local people who are not rich, who have lived and/or worked in an area for a considerable period and who are an integral part of their community to afford to buy by allowing local authorities to designate sales of former social housing to be just for local people was a sensible measure in the 1980s for those living in national parks and would be again now for many other areas of the country, particularly London.’

If Cameron is now so keen on local residency tests and local homes for local people, perhaps he should have a quiet word with his next-door neighbour in Downing Street about the right to buy.