Lee Pitcher

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. Council housing saved my family’s life. Council housing gave me a life. Council housing meant that a once homeless lad got to be here to fight for everybody, to ensure that there is no homelessness in this country ever again. When we talk about council housing delivery, most people think about building from scratch, but there are other options. Buying and refurbing existing long-term empty houses and buildings means we can increase the housing stock at a lower cost and, crucially, we can do it faster. When we talk about housing, it is easy to think primarily about the housing market, the economic impacts, the cost of mortgages or rents, or the cost of living, but we are also talking about whether people have a permanent home or not. When we talk about homelessness, we often think first about rough sleeping. Yet homelessness takes many forms, and family homelessness cannot be overlooked. That is often not on the streets; it is whole families with children living on one mattress at a friend or relative’s house, as I did at 15 years old, or moving between a series of bed and breakfasts and other emergency—supposedly temporary—accommodation, which can last for years. Because it is not visible, and because we do not see the impact, we often do not treat it with the urgency it deserves. At the end of March this year, there were 177,530 children living in temporary accommodation in England. In Doncaster in 2025, we had more than 200 children living without a permanent roof over their heads. Perhaps even more concerning is that more than 22,000 families with children have been living in temporary accommodation for between two and five years. For some children, that could be the majority of their lives. There are 7,800 active households on the register in Doncaster right now. That insecurity of not having a place that is permanent can be devastating. It affects children’s education, their physical and mental health, their relationships and their opportunities later in life. A permanent home is about so much more than having somewhere to sleep; it is about having somewhere you belong. I can absolutely vouch for that, having had lived experience of it. There are more than 300,000 long-term empty homes across England. Acquiring long-term empty houses for social housing could deliver more than 8,000 additional social rented homes by June 2029, requiring 38% less Government grant per property than new build alternatives. That means more homes for the same level of investment, and families in them much more quickly. When we have families spending years in temporary accommodation, we cannot afford to overlook opportunities to deliver permanent homes much more quickly. It also makes sense financially: councils are spending billions each year on temporary accommodation, but investing in permanent housing can reduce our reliance on those arrangements. Ultimately, the success of our housing programmes must be measured not just by the number of homes delivered, but by the number of families who are able to leave homelessness behind and build secure, stable lives in the future. We need to deliver those homes, and we need to deliver them as fast as we possibly can.