My Lords, everyone supports these amendments. I do not wish to detain the House but I would like to add my voice to that support.
When I became a councillor in 1973, it was my duty to concern myself with the housing problems of constituents who lived in my ward. After seven years, when I became a Member of Parliament, I thought the housing problems would go to the councillor who took my place. That was not the case. Right up to my last week of being a Member of Parliament, I was still receiving housing complaints and problems. I recall in another life, when I was a member of the Labour Party, some of my friends saying, “Education, education, education”—that was the motto—but I said there should be something else: “Housing, housing, housing”.
If people do not live in decent homes, they will not be able to do anything. If dampness is coming down the walls, the brightest child will never be able to study properly and get the best out of his or her education. So I say to the Minister that sometimes it is the simple things that matter in housing, not the expensive things that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, has referred to.
I have mentioned dampness. There used to be a great deal of dampness in some of the houses in my area of Glasgow. A scheme was introduced—all credit to the Government, as it was not just the local authority —to bring in central heating. What a difference it made to the health of the young and old who lived in those houses. They could get up in the morning to a warm house and go to bed in the evening in a warm house. It meant that bronchitis, emphysema and all the other problems were greatly reduced.
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I do not wish to bring in a highly sensitive matter, but I have to say to the noble Earl, that it rolls off the tongue of some government Ministers, including the Prime Minister, to say, “There is a simple solution to housing underoccupation. We can get people out and give them another house, so we will have vacant properties for others”. What if the elderly person is occupying—or perhaps underoccupying—a four-apartment dwelling, and her daughter stays round the corner? If the person is moved, the daughter will not be able to give the support that is needed. The Government may say that
it does not apply to pensioners, but what happens if the person is in their 50s and is not too well, or suffers from an illness, such as asbestosis, which we debated in this House? If the person is moved away from family support, the support has to come from elsewhere.
I do not know whether I should, but maybe I will declare an interest. I am a member of the Glasgow North Housing Association, although with no pecuniary interest. Community-based housing associations have done marvellous things throughout the United Kingdom, and I have witnessed it in Glasgow. I talk about the small things again, such as a warden being available in sheltered housing. A person may have suffered a stroke or have some other illness. The very fact that that warden can chap the door and find out that the elderly person or stroke victim is all right makes a marvellous difference to the families of those with relatives in sheltered housing. It gives a great sense of security to families who sometimes live many miles away.
I remember one of the first cases that I ever had as a councillor. I was only 27 at the time and did not fully understand depression and the other problems that anxiety can bring. I remember a young woman saying to me, “I’m getting tablets from my doctor because of the anti-social behaviour in the tenement I’m living in”. I went about the business of trying to get her moved, and the local authority was able to do it. Her husband said, “I now know that I can go to work without getting a phone call to say that my wife is in a terrible situation. I know that my wife can now go to pick up the children from school as she liked to do before that deep depression”. In other words, the change of house and the relaxation that came from not having anti-social people around her made all the difference. Housing is so important to each and every one of us.