Support for Women (Economic Downturn) debate

Anne Main raises the issue of overcrowding and highlights the fact that over 500,000 households live in overcrowded conditions.

Anne Main (St. Albans) (Con): I am conscious of the time, but I particularly wish to draw attention to one of the greater pressures affecting families across the country: overcrowding. Unfortunately, this Government have presided over a complete sclerosis in both the delivery of social housing and help to deliver housing that is affordable to rent. They went down the fundamentally flawed route of saying that everybody needed to buy, buy, buy. I wish to discuss housing and overcrowding, and its effects on women and families, because I believe that in this economic downturn, when people are going to lose their homes and when people may well be taking back "boomerang children" and other members of the family who are returning for whatever economic reasons, the pressure of overcrowding in homes will get even greater.

One thing that has not been mentioned is the fact that today is world book day, which got me thinking of a very famous essay that was made into a book. I, like many others, read it as a teenager as part of my school course for O-level, as it was at the time. I am talking about "A Room of One's Own", which is a sort of stream of consciousness, written by Virginia Woolf, about how if a woman had a room of her own and a small amount of money, she would be in an empowered state to be able to study, to better herself and to progress. I wish to read a little extract, because the book was written in 1928 and it is amazing how the sentiments are still so valuable today.

Virginia Woolf tells us that she had just received through her door a legacy of

"five hundred pounds a year for ever"

from an aunt who had died in India and that she had also been made aware of the fact that she could vote. She continued:

"Of the two-the vote and the money-the money, I own, seemed infinitely more important."

She wondered why there were no colleges endowed for women to study, to better themselves and to get on. She came to the conclusion that the reason was that women who might have endowed colleges were busy bringing up children; they had not made wealth themselves to give to colleges. She concluded that without a small amount of money and a small amount of personal space to call one's own, one would never be able to progress, to think and to write great literature; one would instead be burdened with the responsibilities and worries, as a woman was then, of running a family, with little hope of making money and having independence.

That is why I wish to return to the idea of overcrowding. The Government set themselves an extremely ambitious target of building some 3 million houses, but more than 500,000 households in England still live in overcrowded conditions-those are Government figures. The survey of English housing and the 2008 labour force survey showed that 565,000 households live in cramped conditions. The tragedy is that the situation has got worse, and it is has done so in a boom time. It has got worse at a time when the Government were throwing money into supposedly relieving poor conditions and overcrowding. Only 1 per cent. of owner-occupiers were classed as being overcrowded, yet social overcrowding has become worse under this Government's watch.

Shelter, the housing charity, has said:

"It's shocking that in the 21st century we are seeing a rise in the number of people trapped in cramped, squalid conditions that have more in common with the Dickensian era than those of a modern nation."

Given that more and more people may well, as I have said, be living in overcrowded conditions, and more children will be staying at home, the Government have to accept that they have been part of this problem. The failure to provide enough housing for those most in need has been well established. Less housing has been built under this Government than under previous Conservative Administrations. The current level of construction of social housing is running at a fifth of what it was in 1997.

Women are being disproportionately most affected by this situation. The number of single women waiting on social housing lists has increased year on year since 2003-it has been rising by 77 per cent. across those councils that have specifically recorded information on women. The increase in the number of homes being repossessed, which will also mean that more and more will be seeking those scarce social housing vacancies, will, I am sure, lead to increased pressures and increased hidden homelessness, whereby women, particularly young women, will end up sofa-surfing or staying with inappropriate partners or in inappropriate relationships simply to have somewhere to lay their head for the night.

It was very interesting that the "Homes Fit for Families" report by the Family and Parenting Institute pointed out that the increase in house repossession may lead to a rise in family arguments, sleep deprivation, lack of privacy for parents and poor attainment at school. Nothing much has altered since 1928. Why have the Government burdened the housing market with the home information pack, which does not work, and why did they encourage people to take out inappropriate mortgages, when they should have been in either private or social rented housing that was affordable and within their means?

The report highlights the serious emotional turmoil of living in a cramped house. One survey found that as many as 74 per cent. of parents living in overcrowded homes are sharing their bedroom with children, which naturally leads to a lack of privacy. The stress of domestic tension caused by overcrowding affects women more, as was revealed in the press yesterday. Marital stress increases heart disease in women, but not in men, according to the medical profession. A strained relationship affects women's mental health, increases their blood pressure and the risk of obesity and leads to high cholesterol levels. All those factors contribute to increased risk of heart disease. How much will those problems increase if the Government do not deliver enough social housing or relieve overcrowding by freeing up the housing market?

The Government have to take responsibility. It is no good saying that all the bad loans started in the US: we were culpable here. Adam Sampson appeared before the Communities and Local Government Committee and I asked him whether we were enshrining a rump lower class by saying that people had only made it in life if they had bought their own home. He more or less agreed with that statement. When people were told that they must buy, no matter whether they could not afford to do so or how little a part of a house they could afford, very little emphasis was placed on delivering social housing, so this Government have presided over a massive increase in statutory overcrowding. That is not a record of which to be proud. It will haunt us in the future, with people facing job losses, home repossessions, returning to live with their mum and dad-who may be very elderly-or putting up members of their extended family. When people lose their homes, they lose their security. We will see a return to Dickensian conditions and, as Adam Sampson of Shelter said, the Government should be ashamed of that. In years to come, we will see the results.

5.22 pm

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ANNE'S OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DEBATE

Anne Main (St. Albans) (Con): The hon. Lady has made an interesting point, but may I caution her, as a mum who looks at her elder son and thinks "What he needs is a girlfriend to civilise him"? Mothers are known to say such things, but I say them in jest. I should hate to think that women are there to exert a civilising and controlling effect on men. We are there as equals.

Lynne Featherstone: I take the hon. Lady's point. We are equals. However, conflict resolution is an issue, and that may include bank boardroom conflict resolution. I should like to think that I am as able to negotiate and understand risk as anyone else, but I would argue that the absence of women creates a different dynamic in the boardroom. Indeed, we might find that there have been leaders of this country who have been dynamic in a way that I might not describe as wonderful.

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Anne Main: My hon. Friend is right. The looming problems of the economy led to the situation in my constituency in which there were no midwives to give advice to first-time mums before they had their babies, because of a shortage of midwives and of funding to provide antenatal classes-and it has taken a long time to get those classes back. That was an example of cost-cutting that was detrimental to new mums.

Mrs. Laing: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I shall come to that point in just a few moments, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will talk about it, too, in her speech.

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Anne Main: Many volunteers who work in charities are women, but the recession is altering their economic situation at home so much that, for instance, it is becoming difficult for them to afford to use their car to deliver meals on wheels or take people to hospital. Does my hon. Friend agree that if such costs become disproportionately high for their family budgets, many women volunteers will be tempted or forced to withdraw the charitable support that they give? I thank and pay tribute to the volunteers in St. Albans, because if they all packed up and went home, the town would cease to function. Most of the people who come to the thank-you party that I hold for my volunteers are women, and I fear for some charities if they cannot give their services free because their family budget will not allow it.

Mrs. Laing: My hon. Friend is, of course, absolutely correct. Charities and good works in this country and around the world will suffer, because people view donations to charities as discretionary giving and of course they feed their children before they put money in the Red Cross box. Both at home and abroad, it is those who most depend on charitable works who will suffer in a recession. It is very sad that the Government's handling of the economy has brought us to this point, as the United Kingdom could have been in a much stronger position had they managed things differently.

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Anne Main: My hon. Friend is making a hugely powerful point and I am reluctant to interrupt, but it could be said that women have a triple role. Many women are carers, and as a result of delaying having children, for whatever reason, many women find themselves in a dual role of looking after elderly parents as well as children, and also being economic contributors. That is not to say that men do not have a caring role; many do, but the expectation is that women, often with a young child, will take on caring roles, should the need arise at that time.

Mrs. Laing: As ever, my hon. Friend is correct. Whenever we talk about parents as carers, we do not mean only mothers of small children, although that has become common parlance. We mean men and women who have family responsibilities, as I said earlier in a different context. Often, the responsibility of caring for elderly relatives is far more difficult, emotionally draining and time-consuming than the responsibility of caring for small children.

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Anne Main: I would like to speak up on behalf of small businesses. I urge the hon. Lady to ensure that, when she is advocating more days off and more this, that and the other, she does not lose sight of the fact that businesses are struggling. We do not want to give another reason for them to say, "We don't want to employ women, or consider them, because it will mean giving them even more time off with a bank holiday." I suggest that we can commemorate the day in many ways, but more days off and fewer days work is probably not the way to do it.

Julie Morgan: I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. Any bank holiday that celebrated women would also, obviously, benefit men as well. I draw her attention to the fact that we have so few bank holidays in this country, and they are important. In Wales, we have failed to make St. David's day a public holiday-so far-but perhaps the Government might consider a public holiday that celebrated more than half the population.

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Anne Main: Let me gently chide the hon. Lady on her point about women in the kitchen. I would not want any women who are in the kitchen by choice to be undervalued in any way, shape or form. My only concern is that a woman should not be disadvantaged in the workplace if that is where she chooses to be. If she is doing the most valuable job that I think she can possibly do-looking after her family, supporting home life and perhaps cooking proper food for her children, when we all complain about people buying the ready-made stuff-I would really hate it if she felt that that job was not valued when people keep saying that she must be at work.

Julie Morgan: I accept the hon. Lady's point. If a women wants and is able to afford to be at home, that is fine and her choice, but we know that the vast majority of women want to go out to work and need to, because of the money and for many other different reasons. I am not devaluing those people who are able and want to stay at home-it is an enormously important job-but I also think that the majority of women want to go out to work.

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Anne Main: My hon. Friend made a valid point about 125 per cent. mortgages. When the Communities and Local Government Committee took evidence on the delivery of affordable houses, it became clear to us that the Government were driving more and more people towards the idea of buying homes-even if their incomes were much lower than those of most people entering the property market-while reducing the construction of social housing and affordable homes. An increasing number of people were encouraged to believe that their properties represented an ever-growing pension pot on which they could rely in their old age. That was something that the Government made much of.

Miss Kirkbride: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. The other thing that needs to be said is this. Yes, we did have a wonderfully prolonged period of economic well-being and growth that started, as we on the Conservative Benches often say, well before this Government came to power, under the wonderful stewardship of the present shadow Business Secretary, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke).

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Anne Main: As my hon. Friend will know, many businesses are going under, particularly small businesses. St. Albans is not alone in seeing a number of small retail units becoming empty because the business has folded. Many of those businesses were started by women and are now being hit by the extra tax that the Government have slapped on businesses with empty commercial premises. That measure is not delivering what the Government thought it would deliver; it is delivering an extra financial burden on people during the recession. That is hitting businesses, families and women very hard.

Miss Kirkbride: Again, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Although I think there is some relief in this financial year for smaller business premises, we very much hope that when the Chancellor gives his Budget, he will recognise the error of his ways for introducing that tax in the first place. It is devastating given the state of the economy.

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Anne Main: My hon. Friend makes a hugely valuable point, but I would like her to include young men in what she says, because for every young woman left with a baby, there is a young man who was involved. There could be no sadder case than that of the young 13-year-old who recently featured in the papers as a father with a 15-year-old girlfriend. The sexualisation of our children, which I find incredibly worrying, applies to both sexes.

Angela Watkinson: I thank my hon. Friend; she makes a valuable point. The very fact that the boy posed on the front page of a tabloid newspaper shows the difference between attitudes now and several decades ago, when the story would not have been made public. I look forward to a culture in which people are much more careful, and in which there is planning in children's sexual lives, so that they are wise and think of their economic lives and their education before having children-that is, so that they get their ducks in a row. Most of all, I look forward to the day when gender becomes irrelevant."