Live webchat with Grant Shapps, local government and housing minister, Tues 7 Dec, 2.30pm - 3.30pm

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're very pleased that our webchat guest on Tues 7 Dec is local government and housing minister Grant Shapps. He has recently been in the news over homeowners' rights and the government's social housing policy.

On Mon 6 Dec, he's setting out how the government intends to put more power into the hands of local councillors. Part of this is that the govt wants to encourage women, particularly mothers of school-age children, to consider becoming councillors. Grant would like to know what you think about becoming a local councillor? Are there any obstacles to you doing so? If you're already a councillor, what are your experiences, and what do you think are the opportunities for women in local government?

Grant is the MP for Welwyn Hatfield, he's married with three children - a boy aged nine and six-year-old twins.

Hope you can join him on Tues, 1.30pm-2.30pm. But if you can't and you have a question or comment, please post it here.

@SimonGBRefurb

Hello Grant, with your coming changes to the way planning is judged (rural shift to referendum-based decision making) do you anticipate an increase in new homes in the green belt?
Cheers

Thanks for your question. The answer is that we won't be deleting the green belt from here in Whitehall any more. We think that this was the wrong approach and unsurprisingly got people very annoyed.

Instead we're going to leave these matters in local hands and in rural areas people will be able to make their own decisions about whether a few more homes in their own village would be a better use of space.

They'll have to have a refendum about it and can only go ahead if they secure the support of other villagers.

Also the developments will be small scale in nature.

There's a really useful Q&A on this policy right here Q&A on Community Right to Build

@colditz

We need more social housing, not less, not more 'schemes', not new rules. We simply need more social housing.

We could start by turning all the buildings that have been unused for more than 5 years into social housing. We could continue by stopping this "part rent part buy" crap - NOBODY wants it, do you KNOW how hard it is to sell one of those? They are usually in HORRIBLE areas, and are horrifically over priced. 'Half' of the price of the house is, realistically, about 3/4 of the price of the house in exchange for half the house. That's not fair, is it? A 2 bed house round here goes for £120 grand, but 'half' is still about £75 grand - way more than half it's value. And once it's entirely bought - it's gone, isn't it?

This country needs fewer home owners, not more.

Also, I cannot believe that you, as the minister for housing, have come here to try and point us towards being local councillors when you must know that this ISN'T what we would want to talk about with you.

We want to talk about the huge numbers of families in inadequate housing. We want to talk about the horrendous price of housing. We want to talk about the shameful amount of homeless children in this country. Why don't you want to talk about that?

Hi Colditz, I am very happy to talk about housing issues which I take very seriously as Housing Minister. As I explained to Granted (but repeat here just in case) despite the public deficit, the Government is investing over £6.5 billion in housing, including over £2 billion to make existing social homes decent and nearly £4.5 billion to fund new affordable homes over the period 2011-15, which will deliver up to 150,000 new affordable homes.

We are introducing a new delivery model for Affordable Housing. As part of this, participating housing associations will be able to let some of their properties at an affordable rent (which is up to 80% of market rent). This will secure greater value for money for the taxpayer, whilst still providing protection for the most vulnerable.

Ah! Policy, we should run for local councillor together!

As independents, obviously!

Hully, good point.

@Hullygully

packof - They are Tories. They don't care. The poor don't count. Remember?

That's complete nonsense and untrue.

What everyone else has realised is that unless you tackle the problems of a huge deficit which costs £42bn a year just to service the interest, then it is the poor who suffer the most.

So the steps we're taking are to help the most vulnerable. Failing to tackle these problems is precisely what hurts the poorest in society.

My husband is the main carer of our child (I work as a science teacher, but still cannot afford private rents/to buy), but my borough says only I can be the main tenant even though if we separate our child will stay with her father because that is what we have decided is best for our family. If he was a woman in this position he would be given the tenancy, but as he is a man it seems he has no right to be the main tenant. Why are my borough allowed to decide the structure and living arrangements of our family, contradicting the Equalities and Human Rights Act when there is no provision to do this in the Housing Acts or the borough Housing Allocation Policy? Equality should be for everyone, not just women.

Just as an aside - and I know you were one of the MPs whose expense claims were deemed 'saintly' by the Telegraph:

'That's why we are making it a criminal offence to misuse public office ie if a councillor lies about or conceals a personal interest with the intention of putting their own interests before those of the public.'

Please refresh my memory (down with flu at the moment), there is legislation like this at national level too, isn't there?

"Everyone else" eh?

Interesting then that it is both the poor and women who stand to lose the most from your proposed changes, according to every measure used apart from that of the Tories and their little lapdog LibDems.

@longfingernails

Hi Grant,

My question is: can you please make squatting a criminal offence in England, coming with the possibility of a long prison sentence, and for foreign squatters, automatic deportation? Can you also make it straightforward to evict squatters, and until we have directly elected police commissioners, liaise with Theresa May and Eric Pickles to move squatter removal up the police priority list.

If I can be allowed a cheeky second question (sorry) - do you not feel in the medium term it would be sensible to get rid of housing benefit altogether for the non-disabled, and use the money to put up income tax thresholds at the bottom end instead? I guess something similar is part of the universal credit idea - but one slight problem with the otherwise excellent universal credit (which replicates an existing problem with housing benefit) is that employers will have financial incentives to keep wages at the bottom end artificially low, knowing that the State is ready and willing to pick up the slack.

Overall, well done on a fantastic set of policies on housing. The vast majority of the country is behind you - you can ignore the loudmouth provisional wing of the Guardian that seems to dominate MN!

On 8 November I published an online guide for home owners affected by squatters. This sets out homeowners rights and the action they can take. We are also taking steps to help get empty homes back into productive and lawful use, thus reducing the scope for squatting.
In view of public concerns, we are reviewing the options for strengthening the law in relation to squatting and the way in which it is enforced. We hope to conclude this work early next year.

I think there continues to be a role for housing benefit to support those who are genuinely in need.

@Worcswoman

Thank you, sir. My point is that the recent housing benefits changes discourage rather than encourage people to store assets in property. If you work and get made redundant you are better off selling your house and blowing the proceeds so that you get your rent paid, whatever the landlords charge, and your children do not go hungry. People who have worked and tried are persecuted more than someone who has never tried and never worked. Good changes? I don't think so. I would be most interested in your views.

Well I think you're certainly right that up until now people have found that when they work hard and play by the rules they're quite often penalised for having done the right thing.

I don't agree that our housing benefit changes are likely to lead to an increase in this problem and there are certainly many other policies which are designed to make sure that work always pays. Our wider benefit reform package in particular.

Anyway, take your point and we'll carefully consider how best to ensure that doing the right thing always pays in the future.

Or are those legal challenges being brought by The Fawcett Society inter alia sadly misguided, perhaps due to their little woolly female heads?

"There is NO CHANGE to whatever your social housing arrangement happens to be. And there never will be under us"

So no-one will have to move due to the cap in housing benefit then? That's excellent news...

Anyway, take your point and we'll carefully consider how best to ensure that doing the right thing always pays in the future.

Oh, that is my quote of the decade.

Does Dave know that's the agenda?

Can you really not see that we are concerned that the vulnerable in our society are bearing the brunt of this when Vodaphone manages to do a deal over a £6bn tax bill and Philip Green's can pursue his tax avoidance schemes?

Can you really not see that this is why we think the poor suffer most?

We're not all in this together.

Grant, I am sorry but I don't believe that. Things are going to be a lot worse for the poorest 20% of our country. From our point of veiw there has been a cap on hb, child benifit has been frozen vat going up from Jan. Where our we supposed to find the exta money from?
(dh and i don't claim hb as when we had it the council keept messing it up and it was costing us more to travel to rectify the errors that had been made!)

ISNT - Guess what?

Oh yes they will. But that's ok, because er, well, we, er, have carefully considered. Innit?

@snowmash

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimate that there is a shortfall of 300 000 wheelchair accessible homes in the UK (social housing or not).

I know of many wheelchair users who have been 'rehomed' into nursing homes or residential homes, due to lack of social housing (and otherwise accessible housing).

Do you feel this is appropriate in this day and age, and if not what does your government plan to do about it?

Hi Snowmash,

Thx for the question. From my experience each case is different and what's appropriate in one situation isn't in another.

There is a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) which is administered by local housing authorities. It helps to fund a wide range of home adaptations, for instance, grab rails, walk-in showers, stair lifts and if appropriate extensions or conversion of existing property. Following the Spending Review, the DFG is being increased from £169million in 2010-11 to £185million in 2014-15.

Grant, LFN will be on here in a mo, telling you that putting the homeless on St Kilda would be a votewinner.

Please tell me you don't have any plans to do that.

(It'll just be the Home Cunties, won't it)

@packofcards

Sorry Grant, but a lot of people are in fear of losing their homes. Yes you might not be changing existing tenures but there has been a cap on hb which is the source of people worrying. Please do not laugh of our fears.

Sorry, I hadn't twigged you were referring to Housing Benefit changes here.

We don't think it's fair that working people should pay their taxes to ensure that others can live in the kind of homes that they themselves could not possibly afford.

However, the changes we're making are pretty moderate. The maximum that will be paid under Housing Benefit will still be £21,000 per annum.

How many people can afford a rent of £21k? Not many and that's AFTER we've made these changes.

Obviously I don't know your exact situation, but I'd be happy to answer in more detail [email protected] if you'd like to take me up on that.

Argh! You see it can happen to anyone! That's what happens when you type too fast.

I've had my Naughtie moment!

(PS LFN is lovely btw. Just makes Thatcher look like Red Rosa Luxembourg)

What are you going to do about making the housing stock more energy efficient? You mentioned a figure for the Decent Homes programme - how does that compare to what has been spent so far?

Mr Shapps, thank you for your reply, but basic maths should tell you that you've made it MORE difficult for those who've 'done the right thing'. The right thing has now become the stupid thing - I would be better off if I sold my house and spent the proceeds. Expect an invite to the champagne sell-up. I'm not prepared to see my children go hungry any more.

Follow-up to planning question

Would it make sense to tie planning approval in green belt areas to above-standard environmental credentials. Maintaining some form of equilibrium? In fact should this be extended to all conversions, extensions, and other planning-triggered chances to improve the energy performance of our homes?
Cheers

@earwicga

Welcome to Mumsnet. Lovely to see you have twins, I do too. My twins are 8 now, and they will become homeless with me because of your government's housing and housing benefit policies.

My question is: How much do you laugh when you watch - is it a slight chuckle throughout, or a hearty belly laugh?

Earwicga,

You couldn't be further from the truth on this. Actually
I am committed to preventing and tackling homelessness. In fact, this is one of the main reasons why I became an MP in the first place! One of the first things I did when I became a Minister was to establish a cross-Government Ministerial Working Group on homelessness, and to ensure that we have an
accurate picture of rough sleeping across the country by getting information from every local authority. As I mentioned above, I have also maintained levels of funding for homelessness services with investment of £400 million over 2011-15.

In relation to the changes to Housing Benefit, you are right that these are concerning many people. But it is important to point out that in 32% of cases, households will experience no shortfall in their rent, because they are currently receiving an excess. Around a third of properties in London and at least a third outside London will still be affordable on Local Housing Allowance rates, and families will continue to be able to claim rents of up to £21,000 a year. The Government is also making £190m of additional funding available to help local authorities to provide support where it is needed e.g. helping people to stay in their home or to move to cheaper accommodation. As a result, no-one should be left without a home owing to the changes we have announced.

Thanks Grant - I did a quick 'ctl f' for 'stake' in the in the document you pointed to and found one instance of it, in the word 'mistaken' .

But seriously, I know you think you can placate a lot of people by promising them that the new proposals won't affect existing social tenants - but what you probably fail to understand is that some people have a social conscience and do not want the ladder to long term affordable housing pulled up behind them.

The kind of 'mobility' I'm interested in is social mobility - e.g. through mixed communities. Not just 'mobility' that you're proposals are aimed at encouraging (i.e. to get ordinary people out of the nice areas of central London and other big cities).

Also, on another point, can I just say that this government has done more to encourage me to become more directly involved in politics and become a councillor myself than any other previous administration. A Labour councillor, that is