15:07 - The House having divided: - Ayes: 222 / Noes: 310 - Question accordingly negatived.
17:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 223 / Noes: 298 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:13 - The House divided: - Ayes: 227 / Noes: 294 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:50 - The House divided: - Ayes: 300 / Noes: 216 - Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Robert Neill)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new schedule 2—‘Transfers and transfer schemes: tax provisions.
Government new clause 20—Authority may be required to carry on commercial activities through a taxable body.
Amendment 351, in clause 158, page 138, line 45, at end insert—
‘London Housing and Regeneration Board
“333ZDA London Housing and Regeneration Board
(1) The Authority must establish a London Housing and Regeneration Board within six months of the Localism Act 2011 being passed.
(2) The London Housing and Regeneration Board is to consist of such numbers (being not less than six) as the Authority may from time to time appoint.
(3) The Authority must appoint one of the members as the person with the function of chairing the London Housing and Regeneration Board.
(4) In appointing a person to be a member, the Authority—
(a) must have regard to the desirability of appointing a person who has experience of, and shown some capacity in, a matter relevant to the exercise of the functions set out in this Chapter,
(b) must be satisfied that the person will have no financial or other interest likely to affect prejudicially the exercise of the person’s functions as a member, and
(c) must ensure that at least 50 per cent. of the number of members on the Board are appointed representatives of London boroughs.
(5) In exercising its housing and regeneration functions and powers subsequent to the enactment of this Chapter the Authority must consult and obtain agreement from the London Housing and Regeneration Board.”’.
Government amendments 205 to 210 and 212.
Amendment 352, in clause 168, page 148, line 7, at end insert—
‘(e) a majority of those London borough councils whose borough contains any part of the designated development area agree to the designation.’.
Government amendments 213 to 215, 218 to 220, 223, 253 to 255 and 265.
Robert Neill
We are dealing with part 7 of the Bill, which relates to governance in Greater London, and part 3, which relates largely to business rate matters and, I am delighted to say, has not proven controversial. I hope that part 7 will not detain us terribly long either, as a good degree of consensus was achieved in Committee and there are just one or two matters that it is necessary to debate further.
I will start with new clause 21, the lead provision in the group, and the majority of associated matters. With the exception of only two topics that I will come to in a moment, the rest of the group comprises a large number of technical amendments relating to two tax issues. Although the new clause is the first new clause listed on the amendment paper, it is not really the natural starting point, so perhaps I will be forgiven if I leapfrog over it to new clause 20, which will amend the Greater London Authority Act 1999 and require the Greater London authority to undertake certain specified activities for a commercial purpose through a taxable body. It relates to the transfer of a large number of functions of the Housing Corporation in London to the Mayor, to the movement of the London Development Agency into the GLA’s main body, and to the establishment of mayoral development corporations in London. All of those potentially involve commercial activity, so we have to get the tax treatment right.
Mr Speaker
Order. It might be helpful if I interrupt to make the point to the House that, although that is indeed the lead new clause, the order in which representatives on the Treasury Bench deal with matters is entirely a matter for them. Members can come in on such matters within the grouping as they think fit.
Robert Neill
I am grateful, Mr Speaker.
I will encapsulate the technicalities as swiftly as I can, but it suffices to say that these amendments are necessary to ensure that those commercial activities that are undertaken by the GLA are done so within a taxable environment. As a local authority, it would normally have tax-exempt status, but some of those activities are not of a local authority nature but more of a commercial nature and so have to be properly taxable. There is a long-established tax principle in that regard to ensure a level playing field between the public and private sectors in relation to commercial activities. That is particularly important in this case because the GLA will inherit, as a consequence of our devolution measures, a significant portfolio of land interests, some of which operate on a commercial basis and are subject to corporation tax and capital gains tax. It is not a new state of affairs. Section 157 of the 1999 Act made like provision in relation to the activities of Transport for London. That is the background to what we are doing.
In a nutshell, the list of specified commercial activities, which will be set out in a detailed order, will be worked up by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the GLA during the passage of the Bill, but essentially the activities of the London Development Agency and Homes and Communities Agency will be transferred to the Mayor. That is how new clause 20 kicks off the whole proposition.
New clause 21 introduces new schedule 2, which will neutralise certain tax consequences—the other side of the coin—that might otherwise arise from the transfer of various property, rights and liabilities from the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords, the Homes and Communities Agency and the London Development Agency to other public bodies. There is a measure to enable the Treasury to make similar tax provisions for future mayoral development corporations. As we know, one is proposed, and we will come to that in a moment, but the provision will technically permit others to be set up and, therefore, embrace properly, within a legal framework, all those related activities.
Essentially, every Government new clause and amendment with which we are concerned relates to that process. The Opposition have tabled a couple of amendments, which I can deal with conveniently either now or in due course once they have been spoken to, but suffice it to say that the only Government amendments that do not form part of the tax treatment provisions are amendments 212 and 213. They relate to the mayoral development corporation, which is proposed for establishment, and I hope that we can find some common ground, because in Committee there was a discussion and Members generally accepted as desirable both the idea that the Mayor of London should have the power to establish a mayoral development corporation, and the current Mayor’s intention to establish such a corporation broadly relating to the Olympic park in east London.
The provision is more widely cast than that, for good reasons, and it will permit the establishment of other mayoral development corporations. None is envisaged by the current Mayor and I am not conscious of any envisaged by potential Mayors, either, but it would be on the books for the future.
The question that arose, and which the Government seek to address with the proposed changes, was what are the appropriate means of holding the Mayor to account for mayoral development corporation proposals. If a future Mayor—I am sure that it would not be the current Mayor—were to come up with a proposal for a mayoral development corporation which was thought objectionable, by what means would a control or brake be put on that process?
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the anecdotal evidence from the Thames Gateway is that the level of accountability and the funding streams were often indistinct, that there was an insufficient level of democratic accountability through boroughs outside London, London boroughs and the mayoralty, and that the proposed changes before us seek to rectify that situation?
Robert Neill
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is a history to the incremental growth of the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation, which did not prove satisfactory, and as he knows the Government are looking at the matter in a different context.
We seek to introduce proper accountability to the London mayoral development corporation. There was a debate about whether it would be appropriate to give the boroughs a veto, and that possibility has foreshadowed an Opposition amendment. The Government have reflected on the matter, and we take the view that it probably is appropriate and sensible to include a check and balance in the system, but we conclude that, because the Mayor of London is a strategic authority and charged with the economic development policy and oversight for London, the check and balance should not be through any one London borough or group of London boroughs, as they have their own important role, are in any event the statutory consultees on these matters and would have the opportunity to put their views forward anyway.
It is more appropriate if the check and balance mirrors other checks and balances in the GLA’s governance scheme, so that the London assembly, which is democratically elected and represents all Londoners, is able to veto a proposal for a mayoral development corporation by a two-thirds qualified majority vote.
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
I am grateful to the Government for accepting the approach that I outlined in Committee in response to an amendment moved by the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford). Will my hon. Friend confirm that, because of the two-thirds majority to which he refers and the GLA’s electoral system, one merit of the proposal is that it will effectively ensure the need for cross-party consensus behind any MDC designation?
Robert Neill
My hon. Friend is entirely right, and I am grateful to him for raising the suggestion in Committee, because it fits neatly with an established pattern of working in the GLA. As he rightly observes, the proposal will require any Mayor to achieve a measure of cross-party consensus. The system is established in relation to the Mayor’s budget and the various strategies that he is entitled to bring forward, and it is logical to include such an important issue in the same regime. Not only is there an electoral system in the GLA which requires cross-party consensus for a two-thirds majority, but the assembly is seized of certain powers not unlike our powers in this place to call for people and papers, so it can summon people and, therefore, carry out robust scrutiny.
Importantly, the assembly is also elected on a basis that includes constituency representatives and those elected through a list system, so any London borough that might be affected or concerned by a proposed mayoral development corporation has its constituency assembly representative at City hall who is able to stand up, ask questions and challenge on their behalf. I hope that that meets the Opposition’s point, and that their amendment will not be necessary.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I doubt it, because having representatives from borough councils on the assembly is not a strong enough measure; they may not comprise the majority. There is still the view in London borough councils, which we will hear more of when we come to our amendments, that they should have a veto. The designation of a mayoral development corporation in an area is a very powerful measure. I heard the Minister say that he did not believe the current Mayor had any extra MDCs in mind, but he could do, and the power is cast quite widely.
Robert Neill
I am disappointed in the hon. Lady’s response, because I thought that we had got a good deal of the way down the track to meet what were sensible concerns. There is a difference between recognising that the establishment of a mayoral development corporation is part of the outworking of London-wide policy, in which the Mayor will have to have regard to the strategic economic and developmental interests of the whole city, which may be different from the individual interests of a single local authority, and recognising that the assembly is the body that this House has already charged with holding the Mayor to account for the way in which he exercises those powers.
There is a difficulty with giving a veto to an individual London borough, because the borough’s interests are very properly not required to be strategic in the same way as those of the Mayor and of the assembly. Often they are, in fairness, and I do not mean to diminish the importance of the London boroughs. As the hon. Lady knows, I spent 16 years as a London borough councillor before spending eight years on the London assembly. That may indicate precocious sadness on my part, but that is a different matter. Both bodies fulfil very important functions, but they are different functions, and, if we are rightly going to put a check and balance on the Mayor’s exercise of his strategic role, we must do so through the assembly—the elected strategic check and balance. The boroughs have an important role in this because the Mayor is required to consult them, among other bodies, and they therefore have a powerful tool in being able to raise their concerns and to lobby their borough elected representative on the assembly to ensure that their case and their voice is heard.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Our colleagues on the London assembly are supportive of the Government’s amendments and new clauses, as are my London colleagues and other colleagues in this place. Let me seek clarification on one thing; I hope that I might catch the Speaker’s eye later to speak on the substance of it. If the Mayor were to set up development corporations in London, would there be any changes in the planning processes in those areas that took democratic control away from the elected councillors? That was controversial under the old urban development corporations set up by the Conservative Government when Lord Heseltine was the relevant Secretary of State.
Robert Neill
Yes, the corporations could act in that way. They do not have to, because we have not been as specific as was the case in the past with the old-style development corporations as to exactly what they have to include. The likelihood, it is fair to say, is that they would, because part of the objective of a development corporation generally is to bring the development function and the planning function for a particular area together to speed up development. In practice—I hope that this will reassure my right hon. Friend—the east London MDC that was proposed for the Olympic park area has been involved an iterative process, with a degree of discussion between the Mayor and the five London boroughs affected. There has been some negotiation, which is probably a mature thing to have in the current circumstances. The upshot is that we now have a proposal to which the Mayor and the London boroughs are satisfied they can sign up. The boroughs accept that they cede some planning power for a period, but now do so by agreement with the Mayor. I think the same process can be achieved in other cases.
Mr Stewart Jackson
Setting aside the sui generis nature of London governance, does my hon. Friend agree that the level of direct accountability of these Government proposals is greater than that which existed hitherto in, for instance, West Northamptonshire Development Corporation, North Northants Development Company and most of, if not all of, the housing market renewal areas? This is indeed an improvement in terms of direct accountability for regeneration policy.
Robert Neill
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, for two reasons. First, the power to set up the corporation is devolved, and a directly elected regional figure, in the shape of the Mayor, takes that decision. Secondly, there is the veto, which did not exist in relation to the other, earlier-style development corporations. There is therefore a significantly enhanced degree of accountability.
Simon Hughes
I heard what the Minister said about the discussions that have been going on in east London between the Mayor and the local authorities. If, for example, the current Mayor or any future Mayor had the further idea that there should be mayoral development corporations south of the river, would that, of necessity, require him to have the agreement of the local authority or authorities in question if they had a different view, given that there could be a conflict? Co-operation is fine, but a difference of view that means that the local authority’s views are disregarded is not so fine.
Robert Neill
In theory, a Mayor could seek to disregard a local authority’s views, but in practice we reckon that the new clause makes that unachievable. There are two reasons for that. First, the Mayor will have to consult the local authorities, which will have registered their objection. As with any public law decision, he has to behave in a way that is rational and reasonable within the terms of the Associated Provincial Picture Houses v. Wednesbury Corporation case. Secondly, because of the electoral arrangements in London, the local authority would be well placed to ensure that a blocking majority was created in the assembly to prevent the policy from going through. There is a theoretical possibility that the Mayor would be able to create the sort of rogue corporation that one might be concerned about, but in reality it is pretty much inconceivable.
Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
The Minister knows that it is not just a theoretical possibility. The Bill states very clearly that if the Mayor applies to the Secretary of State for a mayoral development corporation and has gone through the processes of consultation, if that proposal then comes before the Secretary of State, he must, under the terms of the Bill, create that mayoral development corporation. When I put these points to the Minister in earlier debates in this Chamber on Second Reading and in Committee, I said the real danger was that a Mayor who had considerable support in the assembly, as can happen following an election, would be in a strong position to railroad through his proposal against the opposition of the local borough. That remains the case, and I hope that the Minister will accept that.
Robert Neill
I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman has been consistently wrong on this point. If he will forgive my saying so, I know that he is offended when somebody comes up with an idea in London governance which is not his own. With respect to him, as he has considerable experience in this field, his solution to the risk, which I do accept, that a Mayor might seek to set up a rogue or an unacceptable development corporation was, in effect, to give the Secretary of State the veto—in other words, instead of saying, as the Bill does, that the Secretary of State “must” approve the proposal, that he “may” approve a policy, and that the veto would rest with a Minister. That was a highly centralising means of resolving the problem. Instead, the Government have trusted the elected representatives of London and said that the assembly, through qualified majority voting, may exercise the veto. That is much more consistent with the localist thrust of the Bill, and I would have thought it was closer to what the right hon. Gentleman, who after all introduced devolution in London, would himself wish to see.
Robert Neill
I give way first to my hon. Friend and then to the right hon. Gentleman.
Andrea Leadsom
As my hon. Friend knows, West Northamptonshire Development Corporation has been hated by local residents for the simple reason that it was forced on them to try to implement a central Government housing policy that has not been successful and that we hope to eliminate within the next couple of years.
Robert Neill
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing her experience of that body, which is a matter of great concern to her and to others. We have endeavoured to learn from past experience and past failings in the way in which we construct our arrangement, and we have therefore put a democratic veto into our proposals.
Mr Raynsford
I want to correct the Minister’s assertion that I was wrong in my interpretation of the Bill. I repeat the point that was put to him by the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes): if the Mayor decides to proceed with a proposal for a mayoral development corporation, the Secretary of State has to give effect to it if it is not blocked by the assembly. We have had debates about the proper mechanisms for blocking such a proposal. However, as the Minister must concede because it is in the Bill, if those mechanisms do not work, the Secretary of State has no discretion and has to give effect to the Mayor’s requirement to bring into effect such a development corporation irrespective of whether the individual borough is opposed to it. Will he now please concede that I was not wrong on that point, because that is what the Bill says?
Robert Neill
I will give the right hon. Gentleman this: he is right on textual analysis but remains wrong on policy, because his solution is a centralist one that would give the Secretary of State a veto. The whole point of what we are doing, in improving the Bill from its original state, is that we do not allow the Secretary of State to veto a decision taken by elected representatives in London; rather, we allow the assembly, which is the established body for keeping the Mayor of London in check, to exercise the veto. In policy terms, that is preferable.
I am disappointed that the Opposition object to this. As I recall only too well, in 1999 they made great play of having devolved power to London by establishing the Greater London authority. I now accept that that was the right thing to do. We are following the logic of that by enabling Londoners to take the decision as to what is the best shape and size of an important regeneration tool for London. They do that with the Mayor making the proposal and the assembly having the ability, if necessary, to veto it, and the boroughs being able to be consulted and to exercise influence through their elected members of the assembly. I am sorry that the Opposition seem to want to start a bit of a war where none need exist, because there is consensus among all parties in the assembly that it is desirable to go down this route.
Barbara Keeley
I think I am right in reporting the Minister as saying that a principle of the Localism Bill is to trust local representatives. I hope that Ministers will bear that in mind as they take the Bill through its final stages in the House, because I want to question them about why that does not carry through to the imposition of shadow mayors, although I know that that is outside the scope of this debate. If we are to be true to the principle of trusting elected representatives, which the Minister has just stated, we must not impose on them.
Various people have intervened in this debate. It would help if we moved on to considering the amendments fairly soon, because we will be able to take the arguments in the round if we do that.
Mr Speaker
Order. That is in the hands of the Chair. At this stage, the hon. Gentleman will continue his remarks.
Robert Neill
I am grateful, Mr Speaker. I am anxious to deal with as many of the issues raised by hon. Members as possible, because this debate is time-limited, and for good reason. I hope that I have dealt, in large measure, with why it is appropriate to adopt the Government amendments, and why that is preferable to placing a veto in the hands of the boroughs, which would create a potential conflict of interest, or the earlier Opposition proposition of leaving a veto with central Government, which would be entirely contrary to the spirit of the Bill.
I will cover one final topic before I finish, if I may. Another proposal in the group, which I anticipate will be put, is amendment 351, tabled by the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), the next-door neighbour of part of my constituency. The amendment relates to the London housing and regeneration board. It is important that the Bill transfers housing powers and responsibilities from central Government agencies, in the form of the Homes and Communities Agency, to the Mayor. That has been welcomed across the piece politically in London. It is envisaged that the London housing board will be the vehicle within which that work is carried out.
As I read it, and I will happily be corrected if I am wrong, the amendment would prescribe in statute a requirement that the GLA should have a London housing and regeneration board. I cannot go that far because although it is no doubt a sensible thing to have, certainly at the moment, and is something that works well enough with the involvement of the Mayor’s office and the boroughs, we do not think it is consistent with the spirit of localism for us to prescribe, in one particular area, the manner in which the GLA should carry out its activities. Interestingly, that again seems to be a little bit of potential centralism creeping in through the back door. I would prefer to give the Mayor and the boroughs flexibility in determining how to take those issues forward.
I hope that I have dealt with all the topics in what has perhaps been a livelier debate than might have been anticipated when we started to talk about tax clauses, which I note have not featured in the controversy at all, perhaps not surprisingly.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the two amendments in my name, although it feels rather strange to be doing so when we have already had much of the debate. I will speak to amendment 351, which relates to the establishment of a London housing and regeneration board, and seeks to guarantee that at least 50% of the membership of such a board would be made up of representatives from the local authority. I will also speak to amendment 352, which we have already debated at some length, and which relates to the process that has to be gone through to establish a mayoral development corporation. Under the amendment, the agreement of any council that is affected would be required before an MDC could be established. I am conscious that there is much to debate this afternoon, so I will limit my remarks.
I will move on to why I tabled the amendments. I should say at the outset that the amendments have been promoted and supported by London Councils, which, as hon. Members know, is the cross-party organisation that represents London boroughs. We can debate the localist merits of the Bill as a whole, but the provisions on London are distinctly regionalist. Whereas in other parts of the country there is the abolition of regional spatial strategies, we still have the London plan. The Bill proposes the winding up of the London Development Agency and the London part of the Homes and Communities Agency, with their powers being transferred to the London Mayor. Due to the Government’s understandable desire to ensure that the regeneration legacy of the Olympics takes effect, there are proposals in the Bill to enable the Mayor to set up a mayoral development corporation. However, as drafted, the Bill suggests that there could be an MDC anywhere in London, and not just at the Olympics site. My amendments would act as a brake on the concentrating powers that the Bill puts into the hands of the Mayor of London. They would give councils and councillors a voice, and they would give people in London the same say as people elsewhere in the country.
Amendment 352 would make it a requirement that a local authority in a proposed MDC area must agree to its establishment. If more that one local authority is affected, all must agree. The Bill as drafted gives complete power to the Mayor and the Secretary of State. Under Government amendment 213, the support of two thirds of the assembly will be needed for a proposal to move forward. That is not a sufficient assurance. There could be a situation in London in which local people are completely against the setting up of an MDC, councillors and the local authority in the area are completely against the setting up of an MDC, and the GLA constituency member is completely against the setting up of an MDC, and yet if the Mayor wants it to happen, it will happen. I ask hon. Members, what is localist about that?
We had some fun in Committee. On Second Reading, my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) talked about the prospect of a new Mayor of London—perhaps Ken Livingstone in a year’s time—choosing to establish a mayoral development corporation in Bromley. I will not repeat those comments.
Heidi Alexander
I will not repeat them because I am under strict instructions to keep the debate moving as quickly as I can.
Mr Stewart Jackson
I am interested in the hon. Lady’s views and I am listening to her with great attention. Does she not feel that her proposals are a recipe for institutionalised impasse? Having served on such benign bodies as the London Ecology Committee, the London Waste Regulation Authority and the London fire and civil defence authority, I know that it is almost impossible to get all the boroughs to agree. Therefore, if one borough has a de facto veto, there would never be any major progress on housing and regeneration across Greater London.
Heidi Alexander
That is quite a negative view of politics in London. I do not think that my proposal would lead to institutionalised impasse. The proposals on the ability to set up an MDC in any area are incredibly important. The things that an MDC could do, such as granting planning permission for different developments, compulsorily purchasing land and agreeing plans for an area, are significant matters for people who live in the neighbourhood. Local councils and councillors would also have views on those matters. I would hope that all parts of London government could come together and agree whether an MDC was an appropriate vehicle in a local area. I therefore question whether retaining the powers with the Mayor and the Secretary of State in the Bill is true localism. That was my reason for tabling amendment 352.
As the Minister said, amendment 351 to clause 158 proposes the establishment of a new London housing and regeneration board. With the winding up of the London Development Agency and the London part of the Homes and Communities Agency, many powers will be transferred to the Mayor of London. We also see in chapter 3 of part 6 that provision is made for the devolution of local authority housing finance. That will mean an enhanced role for local authorities in providing, commissioning and funding affordable housing in London.
Gavin Barwell
I will restrict myself to commenting on mayoral development corporations. There is an irony in the positions that the parties are taking today. It is rather strange for Conservative Members to be defending city-wide government and for Labour Members to be making the case for the boroughs. Incidentally, I say in passing that I always find it slightly grating when people refer to London as a region. It is a city, and I consider myself as living not in a region but in the world’s greatest city.
Having started on that note of disagreement, I wish to say that on Second Reading and in Committee the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) correctly diagnosed a problem with the Bill. There was a danger that a future Mayor would designate a mayoral development corporation despite widespread cross-party opposition in all parts of the affected area. There would be nothing that the Secretary of State could do but accept that designation. He was absolutely right about that, and we had a good debate about it in Committee.
As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the problem with the solution that the right hon. Gentleman proposed at that point was that it would have centralised the decision back with the Government. I made the suggestion, which I am grateful to the Government for adopting, that we should go with the grain of the existing arrangements, for which the right hon. Gentleman was probably responsible, and use the London assembly to hold the Mayor in check.
The hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), who made a very good contribution throughout the Committee stage, has proposed an alternative solution. The problem is that, if just one local authority were involved, that local authority would essentially be given a veto. There might be good public policy reasons for the Mayor wanting to pursue a development corporation solution in a particular area. I therefore believe that the Government have adopted the right model in the Bill. I suppose I would say that, having proposed it in Committee, but I hope that Ministers will consider a couple of minor tweaks that could be made. If they are persuaded, perhaps that can happen in another place. I shall come to those tweaks in a moment.
My hon. Friend the Minister will know that many of the people who serve on the London assembly are themselves councillors in the local authorities concerned. In Croydon and Sutton, our London assembly member, Steve O’Connell, is a Croydon councillor. In the neighbouring GLA constituency of Merton and Wandsworth, Richard Tracey is a local councillor.
Gavin Barwell
My hon. Friend, who is a former member of the assembly, knows that many members are in that position.
The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) referred to urban development corporations. I see that he is in heavy conversation at the moment, but he talked about the lack of democratic accountability in those corporations in the 1980s. It is important to make the point that in this case, the designation of a development corporation would be made not by central Government but by the Mayor of London, who is democratically elected.
I am conscious of the time and know that other Members wish to speak, so I end with two points that Ministers might wish to consider. Schedule 21 deals with the detailed arrangements for mayoral development corporations. Paragraph 1 is about the membership of them, and perhaps the Government could consider a requirement that the people whom the Mayor appointed to them, or at least some of them, should have a connection with the local area covered. That is not mentioned in the schedule. It sets out the need for people to have experience and to have shown some capacity in the relevant functions of the corporation, and for them to have no financial interest. Those are both good and sensible provisions, but there may well be a case for ensuring that at least some members have a local connection with the area and perhaps a relationship with the local authority.
Paragraph 6 of schedule 21 is about committees established by mayoral development corporations. Sub-paragraph (3) states:
“A committee or sub-committee may, with the agreement of the Mayor, include persons who are not members of the MDC, but a majority of the members of a committee or sub-committee must be members of the MDC.”
I, and I suspect other Members, have received representations from both the Mayor and the assembly stating that they would be happy with a much more relaxed rule that gave MDCs more freedom to appoint a greater proportion of people who were not members of its board. Those people may well be members of the local authority or have connections with the area. Given that we have not yet achieved complete consensus on this matter, the Government could look at some of the details of schedule 21, to see whether we can address some of those concerns.
In conclusion, it is greatly to Ministers’ credit that they listened to the debate in Committee and came back with a solution, which I think is a good one that improves the Bill. If they went away and looked at a couple of details on schedule 21, it might be possible to address some of the concerns that hon. Members have raised in this debate.
Simon Hughes
I shall make a brief contribution to what is an important debate for London, which I am happy to take part in once again.
I agree with the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) that the two biggest issues that affect my constituents and hers, and that fall directly or indirectly within the remit of local government, are jobs and housing. Most people are most concerned about those two issues most of the time. I am afraid that I come to this debate with long experience in this place. When I was first elected, Lady Thatcher’s Government had just set up urban development corporations throughout the country, of which the London Docklands Development Corporation was one. Indeed, that was the backdrop to my by-election, because my predecessor, Bob Mellish, was appointed as vice-chairman of the LDDC. That was not uncontroversial in Bermondsey, because people in general, and particularly those in the Labour party, did not think that a quango should be given the powers over Southwark, Newham and Tower Hamlets that the LDDC was given, so appointing a Labour MP to the LDDC was not consistent with Labour party policy.
That handover of powers to the UDCs was very controversial, because it meant that planning decisions were taken by a group of unelected people. It was possible to influence the people who took the decisions, but never possible to hold them directly accountable. I used to go to planning committee meetings following lots of community activity—they were not always in Southwark: sometimes, for major planning schemes in the Surrey docks or along the riverside, meetings were held at the LDDC in the Isle of Dogs or elsewhere—but communities often felt alienated afterwards. The legacy is the feeling of remoteness when decisions are not taken by locally elected representatives.
I am not saying that the local community comes away feeling deliriously happy after every local council planning committee meeting. I have seen enough local planning committees in Southwark over the years make controversial planning decisions—under Labour, Liberal Democrat and Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition administrations. However, at the end of the day, the public at least know that they can kick those people out at the next election if they want to do so. My premise, therefore, is that the starting point should always be accountable decision making, particularly on planning matters, and particularly on the big planning matters that “urban development” by definition implies. This is not about whether someone can have a bedroom in the mansard roof of a flat or house, or whether someone’s garage can be an extra bedroom; this is about schemes for industrial sites and other things on that scale.
Mr Stewart Jackson
I hasten to say that I do not know as much about the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency as he does, but surely the history of the LDDC is that the political administrations in, for instance, Tower Hamlets and Newham, which happened to be Labour-run at the time, were viscerally hostile to central Government, and refused to undertake any realistic action on regeneration or to face up to post-industrial decline in their boroughs. Central Government was therefore forced to step in to provide a template for regeneration and housing.
Simon Hughes
I shall not help the House to hold a seminar on London in the ’70s and ’80s, which would actually be very interesting. The hon. Gentleman is nevertheless right. Local authorities did not get on with development. There were frozen developments, including one in the Royal Docks and some in my constituency, after the closure of the London docks in the upper pool in places like Bermondsey, and their move down to Tilbury. That is why the Government intervened, and I understand why they did so. It was necessary to get something moving. Whatever else we say about it, the LDDC certainly did that. Its legacy has, in general terms, been very benign. The regeneration has been hugely successful. Southwark is as prosperous as it is, and the business rates that are collected in Southwark are as high as they are, because of the regeneration along the riverside from London bridge down to the end of my constituency at the other side of the Greenland dock, on the border with Deptford.
Mr Raynsford
I was a little surprised when the right hon. Gentleman said that he supported the restoration of the GLA. My recollection is that he and the Liberal Democrats voted against the creation of a Mayor of London. He might have supported the concept of an assembly, but the Liberal Democrats did not support the GLA architecture as it exists.
Simon Hughes
The right hon. Gentleman is of course correct. He knows that as well as anybody, because it was his plan that the Government were delivering on. Liberal Democrats wanted devolution to London, but we were not sold on that model, which is why we still—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. May I just say that we need to get back to dealing with the new clause? We are having a history lesson in the Chamber. As interesting as that is, other people are waiting to speak. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman now wishes to address the new clause.
Simon Hughes
I stand rebuked, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was tempted by the right hon. Gentleman, but I will not be any more. I will make a few more comments, and then sit down.
The next issue is how exactly the transfer of powers back to London will work. It is certainly right that, as the Bill proposes, we get rid of the London function of the Homes and Communities Agency, which is a quango, and transfer it to a democratically elected Mayor answerable to the 25 elected members of the London assembly. That is a good thing. It is also certainly right that the Government abolish the Government office for London. There is no need for a Government office for London as well as a Mayor, a London assembly and a Greater London authority. All those policies are heading in the right direction.
We now need to solve the further dilemma of how we strike the right balance between London-wide decisions, which are perfectly proper, and the interests of the boroughs. I understand that there is still some unresolved tension in that regard. My colleagues on the London assembly and across London think that, on balance, the Government are heading in the right direction, so today, although obviously the hon. Member for Lewisham East is entitled to make her case, we cannot support her. However, I do not want her to take that to mean that there are not further conversations to be had. Obviously the Bill will go to the House of Lords, and there will be opportunities to look at these things afresh.
I am hopeful that today’s debate will flag up the need to ensure—I am happy to have further conversations with colleagues about this—that the new architecture is the right architecture. I heard clearly what the Minister said about the Mayor’s power being subject to the two-thirds support of the London assembly, and I agree that that amounts to a requirement for a cross-party endorsement or cross-party veto. That will be a welcome control mechanism. I do not criticise the fact that the representatives, particularly the constituency representatives, should be able to speak for their constituencies, including for the borough councils within those constituencies, which is one of their jobs.
Heidi Alexander
What does the right hon. Gentleman make of what I see as something of a conundrum in the Bill? If a neighbourhood forum in his constituency came up with a neighbourhood plan, it could be completely overridden by the establishment of a mayoral development corporation, over which his community, councillors and local authority will have had no say.
Simon Hughes
They will have had a say, because, as the hon. Lady will know, the Bill contains a requirement for formal consultation with a list of people, including every local authority and others.
The Government are trying to take power from the centre and hand it down to the regions, including London, and then further down, not just to local authorities but to neighbourhoods. Southwark has eight community councils, which is very welcome. That is what the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), who has responsibility for planning, asks us to support. However, that does not mean that there should not be overarching responsibilities on a London-wide basis.
I say to the hon. Member for Lewisham East that there is certainly a wish to continue arguing for a London-wide responsibility for housing strategy, and we need to work out the best way of delivering that. Boroughs will do their own thing to develop as much as they can, but we will clearly need a London-wide policy to meet the needs of the homeless, asylum seekers and refugees, for instance, who do not immediately and naturally become the responsibility of a particular borough, because they do not have a fixed link with that borough. I and my London colleagues are keen to work with her and her London colleagues and the Minister and his colleagues to try to ensure that at the end of the deliberations we put in place the best possible structure, providing appropriate responsibilities at the level of boroughs and the Mayor and the London assembly, and as far as possible allowing for democratic accountability for all policies, particularly housing and regeneration.
Gavin Barwell
I tried to address in my speech the point that the right hon. Gentleman is making, but he was in discussion with a colleague at the time. If paragraph 6 of schedule 11 was amended, it would give the Mayor more flexibility to put people from neighbourhood planning groups or local authority representatives on to the MDC planning committee. That may be one way of squaring this circle.
Simon Hughes
At the moment, of course, the legislation provides for how the Mayor chooses the people to be on the development corporations. That could be looked at again. I do not think that my colleagues would object to there being nominees either from the local authorities in the areas in question—whether from more than one or a single local authority—or from the community councils and elsewhere. I think the hon. Gentleman’s idea, which we need to consider, is a good one.
There needs to be good democracy in London whereby people can be held to account for the decisions they make. The fact that the London Development Agency is going is helpful, because it means that the Mayor will be responsible for London’s economic regeneration as a whole. That is what mayors of big cities should do. Whether people support mayors in big cities is a separate debate, but if we have them, that is what they should do. The Mayor should be held to account by the assembly, so I hope that we can say to the Minister that he is on the right track, but that he should remain alert to the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Lewisham East and her Front-Bench colleagues. If we can get it, we need to aim for consensus by the time the Bill completes its passage through the House of Lords and Parliament.
Mr Stewart Jackson
I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). It goes without saying that I support the Government amendments. The Bill will disturb the equilibrium that we established in 1998 and the settled view of London governance. The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) piloted the legislation on this matter through Parliament. I had the pleasure—generally speaking—of serving with him in the last Parliament on several Bill Committees, but in some respects he is resiling from earlier commitments. His proposals opposing the Government amendments and the views expressed ably and articulately by the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) seek effectively to undermine the authority and autonomy of the boroughs. They would set up an institutionalised conflict between the boroughs and the Greater London authority, with the Mayor quite possibly acting as the de facto referee and invigilator. That is a serious concern.
On the hon. Lady’s amendment 351, we should acknowledge the consensus in the House on the need for more affordable housing, better-quality housing and aesthetically pleasing housing, and above all for regeneration to consolidate London’s position as the pre-eminent city in Europe. However, looking at what was delivered in the dozen or so years of the regional development agencies, when we had a centralised policy, and an over-prescriptive and—one may even say—draconian approach to housing targets, I am not convinced that instituting a pan-London borough body would achieve the key objectives that we all seek.
I mentioned earlier, albeit perhaps in a slightly irreverent way, that for eight years while I was a London borough councillor, I served on bodies that were largely non-political. To get agreement on waste transfer and ecology centres was difficult enough, so making value judgments as between different boroughs and in effect resiling from a strategic overview of what is good for a whole city or region probably would not work. Incidentally, I have to disabuse my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) of one notion. Peterborough is, in fact, the greatest city in the world, but we might have to beg to differ on that. However, with all due respect to the hon. Member for Lewisham East, while my heart agrees with her, my head says that her proposals probably would not work or deliver what we wish.
Let me briefly address the Government amendments and the points made by the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. As the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark said, we would be returning to something like the situation that prevailed with the London Docklands Development Corporation, with the Secretary of State required to make the value judgment that neither the boroughs nor the GLA could sort something out, and therefore to impose a regeneration body. We have moved on from that. We now have a more mature and nuanced political culture. Once we establish the bona fides of London governance through the GLA and the Mayor, with the proviso that there will effectively be a two-thirds veto for the directly elected individuals, who will debate among themselves and with their boroughs, it would seem invidious to undermine that by putting so much potential power—again, effectively in the form of a veto—in the hands of the Mayor.
Barbara Keeley
I want to speak briefly in support of the amendments so ably presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander). There was much consensus on this part of the Bill, unlike on others. There was much consultation with the Mayor, the Greater London assembly and London councils. To me, this part of the Bill shows the value of early and thorough consultation. Perhaps there is a lesson for us there.
As my hon. Friend has argued, the powers of a mayoral development corporation would be great. The power of the Mayor to establish new mayoral development corporations anywhere across the Greater London area is cast widely, as we discussed extensively in Committee. Amendment 352 quite rightly seeks to ensure that where a Mayor seeks to establish a further mayoral development corporation, the majority of the borough councils affected by such a designation would have to agree to it. The Opposition do not believe that this would create any form of impasse. However, it is important that a borough council with only a small representation in the assembly—one that could therefore in no way seek to achieve a two-thirds majority through its assembly representation—should be able to come to agreement with either one or all the other boroughs if another development corporation was designated. We agree with my hon. Friend’s amendment 352 and will support it in a Division.
Robert Neill
This has been an interesting and worthwhile debate, although I accept that there has been an element of déjà vu for some of us. I say that as someone who served on the old Greater London council and who found its abolition quite painless, partly because at the same time I was serving on the fire authority, the waste regulation authority, the waste disposal authority and the borough council. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) is quite right that we created a somewhat convoluted architecture thereafter, which is why it is right to restore as much decision making as we can to London. That is why I am grateful for his support for the general thrust of where we are going.
I understand the point that the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) made about the importance of employment and housing. She is absolutely right about that. I also accept the need to take all the agencies in London along with any such proposal, but I cannot accept her proposition that we cannot trust London’s politicians to come to a mature decision on the best way forward.
A powerful point about the history of London was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), and it was also reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough. They all have long experience in London government. Their point was that there are some details that can be looked at, but it is important to recognise that the relationship between the Mayor and the assembly has matured, even in the short time that the assembly has been in existence. Indeed, the relationship between the Mayor and the boroughs has matured regardless of party, under Mayors of both principal parties, as it happens. We should not underestimate the brokerage and leverage role that exists in the system, in addition to a purely legalistic role.
If I may be permitted to mention one bit of history, something that we learned from the previous GLC is that it was not simply the disagreements of Ken Livingstone with the Government of the day that undermined the GLC. Rather, the GLC was undermined by the tension between the two tiers and the risk, on occasion, of impasse —impasse that arose regardless of the party controlling the GLC and the London boroughs at the time. That is my concern. Giving boroughs an absolute veto in the way suggested by amendment 352 risks recreating the tensions of the old GLC days, rather than sticking with the more collaborative working that we currently have.
The proposal put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark also referred, is a sensible one. We can consider the details and discuss them sensibly to find a way to take it forward. We have learned from the rather remote model of operation of the earlier development corporations, and we want to embed that learning in how we go forward in future.
Even at this late stage, I hope that the Opposition will think about the necessity of pressing their amendment 352 to a vote. However, if they really insist, I would ask the House to reject it.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 21 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Schedule 2
‘Transfers and transfer schemes: tax provisions
Part 1
Transfer under paragraph 60 of Schedule16
1 (1) For the purposes of any enactment about income tax or corporation tax, the Office and the HCA are to be treated as the same person.
(2) In particular, the transfer effected by paragraph 60 of Schedule 16 is to be disregarded for those purposes.
(3) Accordingly, that transfer is not to be regarded for the purposes of Part 8 of the Corporation Tax Act 2009 (gains and losses from intangible fixed assets) as involving any realisation of an asset by the Office or acquisition of an asset by the HCA.
(4) In this paragraph—
“enactment” includes an enactment contained in an instrument made under an Act,
“the HCA” means the Homes and Communities Agency, and
“the Office” means the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords.
Part 2
Certain transfers under scheme under section161 or162
Interpretation of Part 2 of Schedule
2 In this Part of this Schedule—
“CTA 2009” means the Corporation Tax Act 2009,
“public body” means—
(a) a person which is a public body for the purposes of section 66 of the Finance Act 2003 (stamp duty land tax: transfers involving public bodies), or
(b) a person prescribed for the purposes of this Part of this Schedule by order made by the Treasury,
“relevant transfer” means—
(a) a transfer, in accordance with a transfer scheme under section161, to a taxable public body of property, rights or liabilities of the Homes and Communities Agency, or
(b) a transfer, in accordance with a transfer scheme under section162, to a taxable public body,
“taxable public body” means a public body which is within the charge to corporation tax,
“transferee”, in relation to a transfer in accordance with a transfer scheme under section161 or162, means the person to whom the transfer is made, and
“transferor”—
(a) means the Homes and Communities Agency in relation to a transfer, in accordance with a transfer scheme under section161, of property, rights or liabilities of that Agency, and
(b) means the London Development Agency in relation to a transfer in accordance with a transfer scheme under section162.
Computation of profits and losses in respect of transfer of a trade
3 (1) This paragraph applies where a taxable public body (“the predecessor”) is carrying on a trade or part of a trade and, as a result of a transfer scheme under section 161 or 162—
(a) the predecessor ceases to carry on that trade or part of a trade, and
(b) another taxable public body (“the successor”) begins to carry on that trade or part.
(2) For the purposes of calculating, in relation to the time when the scheme comes into force and subsequent times, the relevant trading profits or losses of the predecessor and the successor—
(a) the trade or part is to be treated as having been a separate trade at the time of its commencement and as having been carried on by the successor at all times since its commencement as a separate trade, and
(b) the trade carried on by the successor after the time when the scheme comes into force is to be treated as the same trade as that which the successor is treated, by virtue of paragraph (a), as having carried on as a separate trade before that time.
(3) If a trade or part of a trade is to be treated under this paragraph as a separate trade, such apportionments of receipts, expenses, assets and liabilities are to be made for the purposes of computing relevant trading profits or losses as may be just and reasonable.
(4) This paragraph is subject to the other provisions of this Part of this Schedule.
(5) In this paragraph “relevant trading profits or losses” means profits or losses under Part 3 of CTA 2009 in respect of the trade or part of a trade in question.
Transfers of trading stock
4 (1) This paragraph applies if—
(a) under a relevant transfer, trading stock of the transferor is transferred to the transferee,
(b) immediately after the transfer takes effect, the stock is to be treated as trading stock of the transferee, and
(c) paragraph 3 does not apply in relation to the transfer.
(2) Sub-paragraphs (3) and (4) have effect in calculating for any corporation tax purpose both—
(a) the profits of the trade in relation to which the stock is trading stock immediately before the transfer takes effect (“the transferor’s trade”), and
(b) the profits of the trade in relation to which it is to be treated as trading stock (“the transferee’s trade”).
(3) The stock is to be treated as having been—
(a) disposed of by the transferor in the course of the transferor’s trade,
(b) acquired by the transferee in the course of the transferee’s trade, and
(c) subject to that, disposed of and acquired when the transfer takes effect.
(4) The stock is to be valued as if the disposal and acquisition had been for a consideration which in relation to the transferor would have resulted in neither a profit nor a loss being brought into account in respect of the disposal in the accounting period of the transferor which ends with, or is current at, the time when the transfer takes effect.
(5) In this paragraph “trading stock” has the meaning given by section 163 of CTA 2009.
Continuity in relation to loan relationships
5 (1) For the purposes of the application of Part 5 of CTA 2009 (loan relationships) in relation to a relevant transfer of rights and liabilities under a loan relationship to which immediately before the transfer takes effect the transferor is a party for the purposes of a trade it carries on, the transferee and the transferor are to be treated as if at the time of the transfer they were members of the same group.
(2) For the purposes of the application of Part 5 of CTA 2009 in relation to a transfer that—
(a) is to a public body,
(b) is in accordance with a transfer scheme under section 161 or 162, and
(c) is of rights and liabilities under a loan relationship to which immediately before the transfer takes effect the HCA or LDA is a party otherwise than for the purposes of a trade it carries on,
the HCA or LDA, and the person to whom the transfer is made, are to be treated as if at the time of the transfer they were members of the same group.
(3) In this paragraph any reference to being members of the same group is to be read in accordance with section 170 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992.
(4) In this paragraph—
“the HCA” means the Homes and Communities Agency, and
“the LDA” means the London Development Agency.
Chargeable gains: disposal on transfer to be treated as no gain/no loss disposal
6 (1) For the purposes of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992, a disposal constituted by a transfer within sub-paragraph (2) is to be treated in relation to the transferor and transferee as made for a consideration such that no gain or loss accrues to the transferor.
(2) A transfer is within this sub-paragraph if—
(a) it is a transfer in accordance with a transfer scheme under section 161 of property, rights or liabilities of the Homes and Communities Agency and the transferee is a public body, or
(b) it is in accordance with a transfer scheme under section 162 and the transferee is a public body.
(3) In section 288(3A) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 (meaning of the “no gain/no loss provisions”) at the end insert—
“(m) paragraph 6(1) of Schedule [Transfers and transfer schemes: tax provisions] to the Localism Act 2011.”
Stamp duty
7 Stamp duty is not chargeable on a transfer scheme under section162 if the transferee is a public body.
Modifications of transfer schemes
8 (1) This paragraph applies if—
(a) a company delivers a company tax return,
(b) subsequently an agreement is made modifying a transfer scheme under section 161 or 162, and
(c) as a result of that, the return is incorrect.
(2) The return may be amended under paragraph 15 of Schedule 18 to the Finance Act 1998 so as to remedy the error, ignoring any time limit which would otherwise prevent that happening.
(3) An amendment may not be made in reliance on sub-paragraph (2) more than 12 months after the end of the accounting period of the company during which the agreement is made.
(4) Sub-paragraphs (5) and (6) apply if the company does not amend the return so as to remedy the error before the end of that 12 month period.
(5) A discovery assessment or a discovery determination may be made in relation to the error, ignoring any time limit which would otherwise prevent that happening.
(6) Such an assessment or determination may not be made in reliance on sub-paragraph (5) more than 24 months after the end of the accounting period mentioned in sub-paragraph (3).
(7) Expressions used in this paragraph and in Schedule 18 to the Finance Act 1998 have in this paragraph the meaning they have in that Schedule.’.
Part 3
Transfers under scheme under section171(1) or (4) or187(1)
9 (1) In this paragraph “transfer scheme” means a transfer scheme under section 171(1) or (4) or 187(1).
(2) The Treasury may by regulations make provision for varying the way in which a relevant tax has effect from time to time in relation to—
(a) any property, rights or liabilities transferred in accordance with a transfer scheme, or
(b) anything done for the purposes of, or in relation to, or in consequence of, the transfer of any property, rights or liabilities in accordance with a transfer scheme.
(3) The provision that may be made under sub-paragraph (2)(a) includes, in particular, provision for—
(a) a tax provision not to apply, or to apply with modifications, in relation to any property, rights or liabilities transferred;
(b) any property, rights or liabilities transferred to be treated in a specified way for the purposes of a tax provision;
(c) the Secretary of State or Mayor of London to be required or permitted, with the consent of the Treasury, to determine, or to specify the method for determining, anything which needs to be determined for the purposes of any tax provision so far as relating to any property, rights or liabilities transferred.
(4) The provision that may be made under sub-paragraph (2)(b) includes, in particular, provision for—
(a) a tax provision not to apply, or to apply with modifications, in relation to anything done for the purposes of, or in relation to, or in consequence of, the transfer;
(b) anything done for the purposes of, or in relation to, or in consequence of, the transfer to have or not to have a specified consequence or to be treated in a specified way;
(c) the Secretary of State or Mayor of London to be required or permitted, with the consent of the Treasury, to determine, or to specify the method for determining, anything which needs to be determined for the purposes of any tax provision so far as relating to anything done for the purposes of, in relation to, or in consequence of, the transfer.
(5) In this paragraph—
“relevant tax” means corporation tax, income tax, capital gains tax, stamp duty, stamp duty land tax or stamp duty reserve tax, and
“tax provision” means a provision of an enactment about a relevant tax.
(6) In sub-paragraph (5) “enactment” includes an enactment contained in an instrument made under an Act.’.—(Robert Neill.)
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 20
Authority may be required to carry on commercial activities through a taxable body
‘(1) The Greater London Authority Act 1999 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 34 insert—
“34A Restriction on exercise of certain powers except through a taxable body
(1) The Authority may carry on specified activities for a commercial purpose only if it does so—
(a) through a company that is a subsidiary of the Authority, or
(b) in pursuance of an authorisation under section 38(1), through—
(i) a body that is specified in section 38(2) and is within the charge to corporation tax, or
(ii) a company that is a subsidiary of a body specified in section 38(2).
(2) Subsection (3) applies if—
(a) the Authority carries on a specified activity for a commercial purpose otherwise than as permitted by subsection (1), and
(b) the activity is actually carried on by a body (whether the Authority or another) that, disregarding this section, is in respect of the carrying-on of the activity exempt from corporation tax and income tax.
(3) The body mentioned in subsection (2)(b) is to be treated in respect of the carrying-on of the activity as not being a local authority for the purposes of—
(a) section 984 of the Corporation Tax Act 2010 (exemption of local authorities from corporation tax),
(b) section 838 of the Income Tax Act 2007 (exemption of local authorities from income tax), and
(c) section 271 of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 (exemption of local authorities from capital gains tax).
(4) In this section—
“company” means—
(a) a company within the meaning given by section 1(1) of the Companies Act 2006, or
(b) a society registered or deemed to be registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies and Credit Unions Act 1965 or the Industrial and Provident Societies Act (Northern Ireland) 1969, and
“specified activity” means an activity specified in an order made by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury.”
(3) In section 420(8) (orders subject to annulment) after the entry for section 25 insert—
“section 34A;”.’.—(Robert Neill.)
Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.
Clause 161
Transfer of property of Homes and Communities Agency etc
Amendments made: 205, page 143, line 31, at end insert—
‘(ba) a company that is a subsidiary of the Greater London Authority,’.
Amendment 206, page 143, line 38, at end insert—
‘“company” means—
(a) a company within the meaning given by section 1(1) of the Companies Act 2006, or
(b) a society registered or deemed to be registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies and Credit Unions Act 1965 or the Industrial and Provident Societies Act (Northern Ireland) 1969;’.
Amendment 207, page 143, line 42, at end insert—
‘“subsidiary” has the meaning given by section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006.’.—(Robert Neill.)
Clause 162
Abolition of London Development Agency and transfer of its property etc
Amendments made: 208, page 144, line 8, at end insert—
‘(ba) a company that is a subsidiary of the Greater London Authority,’.
Amendment 209, page 144, line 17, at end insert—
‘“company” means—
(a) a company within the meaning given by section 1(1) of the Companies Act 2006, or
(b) a society registered or deemed to be registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies and Credit Unions Act 1965 or the Industrial and Provident Societies Act (Northern Ireland) 1969;’.
Amendment 210, page 144, line 21, at end insert—
‘“subsidiary” has the meaning given by section 1159 of the Companies Act 2006.’.—(Robert Neill.)
Clause 168
Designation of Mayoral development areas
Amendments made: 212, page 148, line 1, leave out from ‘has’ to end of line.
(e) the Mayor has laid before the London Assembly, in accordance with standing orders of the Greater London Authority, a document stating that the Mayor is proposing to designate the area, and
(f) the consideration period for the document has expired without the London Assembly having rejected the proposal.’.—(Robert Neill.)
Amendment proposed: 352, page 148, line 7, at end insert—
‘(e) a majority of those London borough councils whose borough contains any part of the designated development area agree to the designation.’.—(Heidi Alexander.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
The House proceeded to a Division.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the No Lobby.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Andrew Stunell)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 3—Disestablishment of an arm’s length management organisation—
‘Schedule [Disestablishment of an arm’s length management organisation] has effect.’.
New clause 24—Landlord notification of succession of tenancy—
‘In Schedule 2, Part 3, Ground 16, sub-paragraph (b) of the Housing Act 1985, after “date”, insert “on which the landlord was notified”’.
New clause 25—Recovery of a tenancy granted on ineligible grounds—
‘In section 167(8) of the Housing Act 1996, after “scheme”, insert “and any allocation which is not in accordance with the allocation scheme shall be void and shall not give rise to a tenancy”’.
New clause 26—Housing co-operatives—
‘(1) Schedule 14 of the Housing Act 2004 is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 6 insert new sub-paragraph—
“(3) This paragraph does apply to any building which is owned by a fully mutual co-operative housing association as defined by section 1(2) of the Housing Associations Act 1985, the management of which is undertaken by general meeting.”.’.
Amendment 273, in clause 123, page 108, line 11, after ‘1985)’, insert
‘or who have been owed such duties at any time within the previous five years’.
Amendment 360, in clause 124, page 110, line 37, Clause 124, leave out ‘two’ and insert ‘five’.
Amendment 270, page 110, line 39, at end insert—
‘(7A) In subsection (7AC) at end, insert—
“(d) In so far as reasonably practicable, the private rented sector offer must be within the local housing authority’s district.”’.
Amendment 269, in clause 125, page 111, line 33, at end insert—
‘(2A) Omit section 190 and replace with—
“190 Duties to persons becoming homeless intentionally or who are not in priority need.
(1) This section applies where the local housing authority is satisfied that an applicant is homeless and is eligible for assistance but are also satisfied that he became homeless intentionally.
(2) The local authority must—
(a) secure that accommodation is available for his occupation for such period as it considers will give him a reasonable opportunity of securing accommodation for his occupation, and
(b) provide him with (or secure that he is provided with) advice and assistance in any attempts he may make to secure that accommodation becomes available for his occupation.
(3) The applicant’s housing needs shall be assessed before advice and assistance is provided under subsection (2)(b).
(4) The advice and assistance provided under subsection (2)(b) must include information about the likely availability in the authority’s district of types of accommodation appropriate to the applicant’s housing needs (including, in particular, the location and sources of such types of accommodation).”.
(2B) Omit section 192.’.
Amendment 274, page 111, line 39, leave out ‘two’ and insert ‘five’.
Amendment 275, page 112, line 12, leave out ‘two’ and insert ‘five’.
Amendment 276, page 112, line 34, leave out subsection (6).
Amendment 361, in clause 126, page 113, line 15, at end insert—
‘(1A) In preparing its tenancy strategy a local authority must ensure that to the greatest extent possible, tenancies granted in its area provide security of tenure so as to support and develop stable and confident communities.’.
Amendment 363, page 114, line 19, leave out clause 128.
Amendment 13, page 114, line 36, leave out clause 130.
Amendment 271, in clause 130, page 115, line 7, at end insert—
‘(2A) Subsection (2) shall not apply to a secure tenancy if immediately before the tenancy was granted the person who became the tenant under the tenancy, or in the case of joint tenants, one or more of them was—
(a) a secure tenant of the same or another dwelling-house, or
(b) an assured tenant of a private registered provider of social housing or a registered social
landlord (otherwise than under an assured shorthold tenancy) in respect of the same or
another dwelling-house.’.
Amendment 272, page 116, line 33, leave out from beginning to end of line 30 on page 117 and insert—
‘sections 83 to 85A of the Housing Act 1985 shall apply equally to Flexible Tenancies and references to secure tenancies in those sections shall be read accordingly.’.
Amendment 362, page 116, line 33, after ‘Subject’, insert
‘to the discretion of the court, in circumstances where the tenant has made representations against the granting of possession, not to make an order if it considers that order disproportionate, and subject’.
Amendment 14, page 118, line 19, leave out clause 131.
Amendment 277, in clause 134, page 121, line 36 at end insert—
‘(c) or P is another member of the tenant’s family and has resided with the tenant
throughout the period of 12 months ending with the tenant’s death.’.
Government amendments 191 to 203.
Amendment 364, page 128, line 35, leave out clause 148.
Government amendment 204
Amendment 278, page 130, line 18 leave out clause 153.
New clause 23—Litter deposited from motor vehicles—
‘In Part IV of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (litter etc) in section 87 (offence of leaving litter) after subsection (7) insert—
“(8) Where litter is deposited from a motor vehicle, the person in charge of the vehicle shall, for the purposes of subsection (1) above, be treated as having deposited the litter whether or not he gave any instructions for this to be done.
(9) The registered keeper of a vehicle shall, for the purposes of subsection (8) above, be deemed to be the person in charge of the vehicle unless within twenty one days of receipt of the summons for an offence prosecuted by virtue of subsection (8) above the registered keeper provides in writing to the prosecutor notification of such identifying details as are available to him of any other person he claims to have been the person in charge of the vehicle at the relevant time.
(10) For the purposes of subsection (8) above a constable or an authorised officer of a principal litter authority may by notice in writing served on him, require any person to furnish such information specified in the notice as may reasonably be required to ascertain the person in charge of the vehicle at the relevant time, in such form and within such period, being not less than fourteen days following service of the notice, as is so specified.
(11) It is an offence for a person, without reasonable excuse to fail to comply with any requirement imposed under subsection (10) above.”’.
New clause 33—Street litter notices—
‘(1) In Part 4 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (litter etc.) in section 93(2) after “unoccupied” insert “or where there is multiple occupancy”.
(2) In Part 4 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (litter etc.) in section 94(1)(a) omit “commercial or retail premises” and insert “premium other than dwellings”.
New clause 38—Protection of businesses and non-domestic users of buildings from complaints—
‘(1) The Environmental Protection Act 1990 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 80(2) insert—
2AA (1) Except that a local authority must not issue an abatement notice to a business, place of worship or other non-domestic user of land for a statutory nuisance falling within section 79(1)(g) if the following conditions are met.
(2) The first condition is that the relevant premises was already in use for the same purpose at the time when the complainant became a local resident, and that such use resulted in a similar noise, and a similar level of noise, at that time.
(3) The second condition is that use of the relevant premises complies with the planning permission for that land and other legislation in force.”.’.
New schedule 1—‘Disestablishment of an arm’s length management organisation—
1 This Schedule applies to the disestablishment of an arm’s length management organisation (ALMO) by a local authority as a result of which responsibility for the management for housing previously managed by the ALMO is transferred to the local authority.
2 (1) The Secretary of State shall not entertain an application for his or her consent to the disestablishment of an ALMO and a transfer of management to which this Schedule applies unless the authority certify either—
(a) that the requirements of paragraph 3 as to consultation have been complied with, or
(b) that the requirements of that paragraph as to consultation have been complied with except in relation to tenants expected to have vacated the dwelling-house in question before the transfer;
and the certificate shall be accompanied by a copy of the notices given by the authority in accordance with that paragraph.
(2) Where the certificate is in the latter form, the Secretary of State shall not determine the application until the authority certify as regards the tenants originally consulted—
(a) that they have vacated the dwelling-house in question, or
(b) that the requirements of paragraph 3 as to consultation have been complied with;
and a certificate under sub-sub-paragraph (b) shall be accompanied by a copy of the notices given by the authority in accordance with paragraph 3.
Requirements as to consultation
3 (1) The requirements as to consultation referred to above are as follows.
(2) The authority shall serve notice in writing on each tenant informing him or her of—
(a) such details of their proposal as the authority consider appropriate, but including the identity of the person to whom the transfer is to be made;
(b) the likely consequences of the transfer for the tenant, and
(c) the effect of the provisions of this Schedule and informing the tenant that he or she may, within such reasonable period as may be specified in the notice, make representations to the authority.
(3) The authority shall consider any representations made to them within that period and shall serve a further written notice on the tenant informing him or her—
(a) of any significant changes in their proposal, and
(b) that the tenant may within such period as is specified (which must be at least 28 days after the service of the notice) communicate to the Secretary of State his or her objection to the proposal,
and informing him or her of the effect of paragraph 4.
(4) When a notice has been served under sub-paragraph (3) the authority shall arrange a ballot of the tenants in accordance with sub-paragraph (5) to establish whether or not the tenants wish the transfer to proceed.
(5) The authority shall—
(a) make arrangements for such person as they consider appropriate to conduct the ballot in such manner as that person considers appropriate; or
(b) conduct the ballot themselves.
(6) After the ballot has been held the authority shall serve a notice on each tenant (whether or not he or she voted in the ballot) informing the tenant—
(a) of the ballot result; and
(b) if the authority intend to proceed with the transfer, that the tenant may within 28 days after the service of the notice make representations to the Secretary of State or (as the case may be) the Welsh Ministers.
Consent to be withheld if majority of tenants are opposed
4 (1) The Secretary of State shall not give his or her consent if the result of a ballot arranged under paragraph 3(4) shows that a majority of the tenants of the dwelling-houses to which the application relates who voted in the ballot do not wish the transfer to proceed; but this does not affect his or her general discretion to refuse consent on grounds relating to whether a transfer has the support of the tenants or on any other ground.
(2) In making this decision the Secretary of State may have regard to any information available to him or her; and the local authority shall give him or her such information as to the representations made to them by tenants and others; and other relevant matters, as he or she may require.’.
Government amendments 221, 222, 224 to 252, 256, 257, 259 to 262, 267 and 268.
Andrew Stunell
The Bill brings forward a package of reforms to social housing. Taken together, they strengthen localism, giving greater flexibility to local authorities and to social landlords in providing the needed housing and the right basic safeguards for tenants. The provisions will allow landlords to make better use of resources, allocating existing homes more sensibly, making sure that support is better focused and providing the right basic safeguards for tenants.
The Bill’s provisions include: giving back to local authorities the freedom to determine who should qualify to go on the housing waiting list; new flexible tenancies in addition to, rather than replacing, secure and assured tenancies for council and registered social landlord tenants; flexibility to meet the homelessness duty with an offer of accommodation in the private rented sector; and, perhaps most popular of all, replacing the unpopular housing revenue account subsidy with a devolved system of self-financing.
New clause 19 relates to that, ensuring that the Secretary of State may continue to enter into agreements with local authorities to determine that specified new homes be exempt from the requirement that most of the receipts from any sale under the right to buy should be surrendered to central Government. This will help remove obstacles to local authorities investing their own resources in new homes. To be clear, new clause 19 preserves an existing relaxation in the rule that requires 75% of receipts to be paid to the Treasury in certain circumstances.
The Government are also taking the opportunity at this stage to make technical improvements with regard to flexible tenure and succession, which I would like briefly to outline. Amendments 202 and 203 exclude shared ownership leases from the landlord repairing obligation, in line with established practice and policy.
Amendments 191 to 201 are needed to rectify drafting errors in clauses 134 and 135, which deal with succession rights. They clarify the original intention that where there has not already been a succession, someone who is not a spouse or partner can succeed where there is an express term in the tenancy agreement to allow it.
The Opposition have tabled a number of amendments. Proposals for social housing reform proved to be one of the more contentious areas of the Bill in Committee, with strongly held views often reflecting points of principle. That is reflected in Opposition amendments 13 and 14 as well as in amendments 271 and 272, which would remove flexible tenure in the one case or, frankly, make it unworkable in the other. There have been some misunderstandings over points of detail, so it would be good for me to address them.
Simon Hughes
Before my hon. Friend deals with that, will he put it on the record that nothing in the Bill changes the status of any person who is a tenant in a local authority home or a housing association social home in England in respect of security of tenure? Will he also confirm that nothing in the Bill will require any local authority or any social landlord to change that policy in future—in other words, that the Bill is enabling, not prescriptive, in that respect?
Andrew Stunell
My right hon. Friend is right on both counts.
Let me begin by saying that, as I ended up summing up a two-hour debate in 16 seconds yesterday, I hope the House will forgive me if I do my summing up at the start of today’s debate.
There are some concerns that I think any sensible observer of the social housing market understands and shares. The current market does not work as well as it could. The right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), the shadow Secretary of State, made that point herself when her party was in government, and the facts speak for themselves. There are about 5 million people on the social housing waiting list, and a quarter of a million overcrowded households already in social housing. At the same time, there are 400,000 homes in the social housing sector in which more than one bedroom is under-occupied.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Will the Minister make it clear what the disparity between overcrowded and under-occupied properties actually means? Is it not the case that overcrowded accommodation is overwhelmingly concentrated in London and the south-east, while under-occupied property is almost wholly concentrated in the north of England? How does the Minister expect those two types of stock to be matched under his proposals?
Andrew Stunell
I have news for the hon. Lady. As one who represents a constituency outside London, I can tell her that I see both problems. In the last two months, I have been contacted by a family with three teenagers living in a two-bedroom house who have little chance of being allocated a larger house in the near future. Meanwhile, many older people, widowed, are under-occupying large three-bedroom houses. I appreciate that, as is often the case, London presents a special set of problems, but I do not want the hon. Lady to get away with the mythology that this particular problem does not affect every constituency. People visit the surgeries of all Members to discuss it. I hope that the hon. Lady is not seeking to sweep that under the carpet.
Ms Buck
The Minister may wish to respond to a statistical point anecdotally, and of course it is true that there are individual examples of both problems in almost every constituency and part of the country. However, will he confirm for the record that it is statistically the case that the bulk of under-occupation is concentrated in the north of England while most overcrowding is concentrated in London and the south-east? Nothing that we have seen so far in the Bill explains the mechanics of how it will deal with the problems of overcrowding in the south-east and under-occupation in the north without the need for large numbers of people to be moved.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I am sure that the Minister wants to answer that question briefly, but I think that any further interventions should relate directly to the new clauses and amendments.
Andrew Stunell
Thank you for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would have been tempted to talk about our housing investment programme and the impact that our affordable rents policy can have on the securing of new affordable accommodation, particularly in areas with high rental values, of which London and the south-east is an outstanding example, but as you—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I think the Minister is pushing his luck. As he knows, he will be summing up the Third Reading debate as well. I think that if he sticks to the new clauses and amendments from now on, everyone will be happy.
Andrew Stunell
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The housing measures in the Bill will provide greater discretion for social housing landlords and their professional staff. They will relax the rigid rules set by central Government in the past, and together they will allow landlords to exercise greater discretion, adapt the services they offer to local needs, and manage a valuable public resource more effectively in the best interests of local people.
I recognise that flexible tenure and the proposals to deal with homelessness have caused the most concern to date. Let me repeat what I said in Committee. In the vast majority of cases in which a social landlord offers a flexible tenancy, we will expect that tenancy to be for at least five years. It will often be appropriate to provide longer—in some instances, lifetime—tenancies. If an elderly lady is offered sheltered accommodation or a bungalow, any sensible landlord will doubtless provide a lifetime tenancy. However, if that family in my constituency with three teenagers in a two-bedroom house are finally allocated a three-bedroom house, it surely makes sense to give them a 10-year tenancy, subject to renewal. After 10 years, when the children are in their twenties and have probably left home and the family’s circumstances have changed, they will have had time enough to decide whether that is the accommodation they want.
Alison Seabeck
Does the Minister not accept that the situation he describes will end up involving an amazingly complex series of different tenures and rents, which will be a nightmare for housing providers to manage, and that it will clearly lead to the system stagnating at times and being hugely unfair?
Andrew Stunell
Of course I do not accept that. A housing provider who decides that this is too complex can choose not to take it up. As has been said, we are offering social landlords an additional way to let tenancies, and they can choose whether or not to take it up. They can base that decision on any sensible factor, including their administrative convenience. We propose that five years should be the minimum term in normal circumstances. We would expect it to be appropriate to offer less than five years only in very exceptional cases, and we have stated in the Bill a two-year lower limit.
Mr Raynsford
The Minister has said he would like the five-year limit to be the normal minimum, with shorter terms only in very exceptional circumstances. Will he therefore tell us why the Bill does not state that, and why he is proposing to vote against the Opposition amendment proposing that five years should be the normal minimum term?
Andrew Stunell
Yes of course I will, although I will take just a few minutes to reach that point in my remarks.
I want to put clearly on the record again that our proposal does not affect any existing tenant, even if they swap or transfer their home, and even if the person they swap with has a flexible tenancy. Our current system for social housing is not working as well as it can and should. A one-size-fits-all approach to social tenancies does not take account of the different needs of both individual tenants and local communities. A more flexible approach is essential.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
May I take the Minister back to the scenario he was describing of a family who move into a three-bedroom house until the children leave, perhaps to go to university or because they get jobs? I am a little confused as to what exactly will happen. After the children have left, will a housing officer turn up and tell the parents that they should move out of the property? Based on my experience as a councillor, this is what currently happens in such situations: a housing officer goes to the three-bedroom house to visit the person—often an elderly lady—and has a conversation with them about perhaps moving to a smaller property, but they may well choose not to do so, because that is their home.
Andrew Stunell
Under our proposals, gradually over a period of time there will be a more diverse pattern of tenancies for new tenants. There will not be a wholesale shift to short-term tenancies however, and social landlords have clearly indicated that they will remain focused on maintaining sustainable and cohesive communities and providing appropriate periods of stability to tenants.
Andrew Stunell
I will give an answer, but I thought it might be useful to give a complete answer, rather than a partial one.
The provisions already in the Bill and our proposals for a new tenure standard will be binding on every social landlord, and they contain important protections for tenants. Under the new system, the regulator will set a tenure standard, the local housing authority will have to develop a housing strategy, and the registered provider will have to publish a tenancy policy. That policy will be drawn up in consultation with tenants, and landlords’ decisions on allocating tenancies will have to be in line with it. A landlord’s decision to end a tenancy will be subject to appeal—that is in the Bill—and if the appeal is unsuccessful and the tenant is not satisfied, possession can only be granted by a court So such a process can never come as a surprise to a tenant. They will have taken that flexible tenancy knowingly, in advance of moving in. If, at the point when the tenancy is being allocated to them, they do not wish to accept the terms and they think them unreasonable, they can ask for a review of that tenancy before they start. They will be taking up any flexible tenancy knowing that it is flexible and knowing what the procedures will be subsequent to their doing so.
The Government have made it clear that we intend that the tenure standards, which the regulator sets out, will include the guidelines that cover all these matters. It is a little perverse that the Opposition’s amendment 363 would take away the Secretary of State’s power to issue instructions to the regulator to cover those tenure and mobility standards.
Brandon Lewis (Great Yarmouth) (Con)
Will not one of the results of this change be that local authorities such as mine in Great Yarmouth will have much more flexibility to manage the housing stock? That will ensure that they do not have problems with the situation that has been outlined, where people who need a one-bedroom property are in a three-bedroom property and families, including the ones I deal with in my casework all the time, cannot get into properties because they are not available. People are being blocked out and this flexibility will allow local authorities to have better management across their housing stock, which will benefit residents in each area.
Andrew Stunell
The hon. Gentleman is right.
This process is not going to be an instant event and a miracle cure; it will happen only as re-lets take place and only then when a social landlord decides that it wants to implement flexible tenancies for some or perhaps all of its tenancies. At the current national rate of turnover, which is about 5% a year, the evolution of this will be slow. Gradually, it will lead to a better match between the needs of tenants and the housing available for them.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
The Minister is doing a very good Pontius Pilate impersonation. He is saying, “I’ll wash my hands of it and we will leave it to others.” But he is leaving it to authorities such as Hammersmith and Fulham council or Notting Hill Housing, the second biggest social landlord, which have both said that they will opt for the minimum possible terms for all tenants, including the elderly and the disabled. What he is allowing as a Liberal Democrat Minister—if that means anything—against what many Liberal Democrats are arguing in constituencies such as mine, is the removal of all the security that people, including the elderly and the disabled, have come to depend on. Will he not take a stand on this issue?
Andrew Stunell
The hon. Gentleman has not been listening, and that is perhaps not unusual. We are setting tenure standards that the regulator will be imposing, if that is the correct word, and to which local housing authorities must have regard in creating their borough-wide housing strategies. In other words, there will not be a completely unregulated market and his fears are grossly overstated.
Andrew Percy
Of course one person’s flexibility is somebody else’s inflexibility—in this case, we are talking about the authorities and, potentially, the tenant respectively. Will the Minister confirm that he is saying what I think he is saying? Let us suppose that somebody has secured a flexible tenancy while their children are living with them and those children then leave home. Is it possible that such a person could find themselves in court and being thrown out of their home because a local authority wants the house back? Is that honestly the situation that we are creating?
Andrew Stunell
No, someone’s fixed-term tenancy is subject to review at the end of the term. There is no automatic eviction; the tenancy is subject to review and the—
Andrew Stunell
I will when I finish the sentence, if that is all right.
The tenure standard will prescribe what local housing authorities can and cannot include in their housing strategy—[Interruption.] At the moment, as the Minister for Housing and Local Government is correctly prompting me, we have ever-growing waiting lists, with people unable to access the accommodation that they desperately need. This is a step towards dealing with that problem. It is not the only step and it will not be a quick step, but it is an important step towards the better allocation of housing.
Ms Buck
Going back to the Minister’s assurances that landlords will not adopt the minimum standards of tenancy and that the approach will be regulated, how does he explain the fact that Notting Hill Housing wrote to everybody in my constituency on the homeless waiting list saying that from 1 April it would immediately adopt short-term tenancies at the lowest number of years permissible?
Andrew Stunell
Fortunately, I do not have to take responsibility for the actions of that body—[Hon. Members: “You do!”] Let us be quite clear that letters can be sent out by anyone to anyone saying anything. However, they are enforceable only if they are consistent with the tenure standards set by the regulator and with the housing strategy derived from them. Registered providers will need to have in place a tenancy policy that is published and drawn up in consultation with tenants. It sounds to me very much as though the letter to which the hon. Lady refers has been sent in advance of any of those things being in place. It is therefore of no value or significance other than that it does something that concerns me a great deal about our debate on this issue: that is, it serves to whip up misunderstanding and fear among existing tenants that in some way they might be affected by these new proposals. That is absolutely not the case.
Nic Dakin
I thank the Minister for giving way, as he is being very generous. I think the answer to the question from my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), is that clearly somebody who has had a 10-year tenancy and brought up their family can find that when their circumstances change they lose their home. These are homes that people invest in; they are not simply utilitarian houses.
Andrew Stunell
No, that is not correct. Let us be clear that the tenure standards will provide specific protection for the vulnerable. We have already said that in our response to the consultation, and the consultation responses themselves show that the vast majority of landlords will provide longer terms.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Does the Minister have any practical examples? He has talked about long waiting lists for family houses, but there are actually long waiting lists for pensioners’ accommodation, too. If a couple in their 60s, whose children have left home, were on a flexible tenancy, the local authority could ask them to move. If no pensioner accommodation was available, as bungalows are in very short supply in many areas, that couple could be forced to move into a block of flats where the majority of people were young single people or young couples with a completely different lifestyle. Is that the sort of situation that he envisages? If not, will he say precisely where in the guidelines it states that the regulator will stop a local authority or housing association doing that?
Andrew Stunell
The tenure standards will set that out, the housing strategy of the local housing authority will reinforce it and the tenancy policy of the provider, if it is not the housing authority itself, will also set it out.
I want to make some progress and move on to a second issue that is, I know, of real concern to Members: the provisions on homelessness. Much of the debate on our homelessness proposals started off from the proposition that landlords of private rented property are a rogue sector and incapable of offering decent quality accommodation to those families who might benefit from it. I made it clear in Committee, as has my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government on a number of occasions, that the draft legislation includes a number of safeguards that together provide reassurances that an offer of private accommodation would be made only when it is reasonable to do so and when the accommodation is suitable for the needs of the household.
It is important to go back to why we are making the changes in the first place. It is not because we want to make the plight of homeless families worse, but because we want to make their situation better. In London, the average stay in temporary accommodation of resettled homeless families before they get a permanent offer of social accommodation is two years. The impact of that time on schooling, quality of life, health and stress is not acceptable and needs to be tackled. I agree with the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) that this probably is not a countrywide problem, and I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle) does not have the problem, because he has 2,500 empty houses to begin with, but in places of high housing stress it is a real problem. That is why we are making these proposals.
In Committee and elsewhere, hon. Members have raised a number of concerns about the homelessness measures. Some of those focused on standards of accommodation in the private rented sector, the interplay that there might be with housing benefit changes and related issues of affordability. There were also concerns about the location of those private rented sector homes, and whether there might be some loophole in creating intentional homelessness. I want to respond to each of those points in due course.
Mr Slaughter
Before the Minister moves on, will he deal with two points regarding what he has said so far? First, how is it an improvement to go from an average two-year wait for permanent accommodation to never getting permanent accommodation and staying perpetually in the private rented sector? Secondly, I assume, but will he confirm this on the record, that in his definition of “suitable” he also means “local”? The biggest issue for my constituents is being placed far away from their friends, family, schools and jobs, outside London, based on the excuse of the cost of property. If that is for two years, it might be sustainable, but if it is for ever it will not be. Will he deal with those two points?
Andrew Stunell
Yes, I certainly will. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not mind if I do so in sequence, but I will respond.
We need to keep a realistic view of the private rented sector and the impact of welfare reform. I recognise that there are some concerns and I am prepared to consider further the need for additional protections for homeless households placed in the private rented sector. The Secretary of State already has powers to set out in secondary legislation the circumstances in which accommodation is or is not to be regarded as suitable and to specify other matters that are to be taken into account or disregarded when determining suitability. I am prepared to consider using those powers for the provision of additional protections on standards of accommodation or other matters.
Diligent readers of the Bill will know that there are already important safeguards. Any offer has to have regard to the health and welfare of the tenant, social impacts and affordability for the tenant. Existing legislation is already clear that any loss of income outside the control of the tenant cannot create intentional homelessness. That would be unintentional homelessness and so the duty to deal with that situation would remain with the local authority. The accommodation has to be suitable, or fit for purpose. On the point that the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) made, existing housing legislation says that as far as the local housing authority is concerned location must be in the local district so far as is reasonably practicable.
Ms Buck
I am grateful to the Minister, who is being extremely generous in giving way. In central London, which is obviously important to me as a central London MP, the changes in housing benefit mean that only 7% of the entire central London broad market rental area for housing benefit or local housing allowance purposes will be accessible to individuals on that benefit. How then can any central London authority obtain accommodation, as a reasonable discharge of duty, in the private rented sector when there is no accommodation to be obtained?
Andrew Stunell
The hon. Lady speaks of 7%. That was her figure; I do not know whether it is exactly right, but a proportion of the rental market will be affordable. Those who are in temporary accommodation in her borough or whose homelessness arises in her borough are being shunted around. We want to end that regime and have people permanently established in their borough in accordance with the legislation. We believe that our measure will achieve that.
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay) (LD)
My hon. Friend seems to suggest that there are protections in the Bill already for people discharged into the private rented sector, but there is a role that secondary legislation can play. When I pressed the point in Committee, in the context of the viability of a national accreditation scheme for landlords to ensure standards—not just in relation to suitability and size, but taking account of the types of lease offered and whether repairs are done in a timely way—the Government did not seem keen to pursue it. If that already exists de facto, can it not be brought together in a legal sense?
Andrew Stunell
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which he made in Committee. As he knows, there are a number of local accreditation schemes and in some boroughs it is a requirement that the landlords of tenants who receive housing benefit in their area are members of an accreditation scheme of one sort or another. I will take stock of his point. The Government are not minded to introduce a national scheme, but there may be aspects that he is rightly drawing to our attention for further consideration.
Simon Hughes
I was reassured by my hon. Friend’s words about the Government’s intention that people should not have to move outside the district or community. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has given a similar reassurance. There is particular concern in Greater London because of the acute pressure on property, property prices and so on. I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that his right hon. Friend has agreed, together with, I hope, the responsible Minister at the Department for Work and Pensions, Lord Freud, to meet to see whether, across parties and with the Mayor of London, the housing associations and local authorities, the remaining concerns can be alleviated. I hope my hon. Friend and his colleagues will give full assistance to that measure as the Bill proceeds from this place to the other end of the building.
Andrew Stunell
Yes. Perhaps my words were a little too opaque a little while ago when I said that we are prepared to consider the need for additional protections for homeless households. Clearly, what my right hon. Friend has just set out forms part of that process.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
Two unitary county councils have been established in the north-east of England in the recent past which are now the housing authorities. The right of a tenant to stay within the housing authority area becomes meaningless in the context of a county that provides housing, because the county can be 40 or 50 miles from border to border. If no housing is available in the immediate neighbourhood, the right to stay within the county means that a tenant may have to move many miles away.
Andrew Stunell
I take stock of what the hon. Gentleman says. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) might want to make a similar point. Perhaps that is one for us to consider more fully.
The existing legislation requires local housing authorities to locate people within their district so far as reasonably practicable. The homelessness code of guidance sets out all the factors that it is right and appropriate for housing authorities to take into account. Those of us who see real life at constituency level know full well that when those families eventually get their social housing offer, it is seldom in the plum house on the smart estate. It is more likely to be the bottom flat in the hard-to-let block on the least desirable estate in town. I hope we do not have a starry-eyed vision of social housing, when compared with the private rented sector, that blinds us to the essential reality we are trying to tackle, which is that the average stay in temporary accommodation for homeless families in London is two years. That is unacceptable and this reform puts us on the way to ending it.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Does the Minister not agree, however, that for many people the attraction of the housing association or council sector is security of tenure and the fact that they can settle, rather than living in the private rented sector, where they will always have a sword hanging over their head because the landlord may decide to end the tenancy at any moment? It is not just about the relative qualities of the properties, but about people’s sense of security.
Andrew Stunell
I understand the hon. Lady’s concern, but I think that it undervalues the history of tenants in the private rented sector. There is certainly a lot of churn, but there are also many people who spend long periods in very successful private rented sector accommodation. We must be careful not to generalise and should recognise that, if there is a need as a result of a tenancy breaking down, the duty on the authority to deal with that situation remains in the Bill and is part of the protection that tenants have.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government could perhaps do a little more to look at other ways of encouraging the private sector to offer longer tenancies—for example, through more work on real estate investment trusts—so that people can invest in property in a way that is more long term, rather than having buy-to-let properties with one or two landlords, which I think is the sort of thing that concerns Opposition Members? That might offer some assistance and I would like the Government to do more on that.
Andrew Stunell
Yes, I entirely agree that there is scope for innovative solutions. It is by no means the Government’s position that in a majority of cases it will be appropriate for social landlords to follow this route, but where it is clear that there is an obvious disadvantage to tenants who are stuck in the temporary accommodation loop, it is surely right to take steps to deal with that more effectively, and I hope that the House will agree.
The homelessness code of guidance provides that the location of accommodation will be relevant to the suitability of the tenancy and that the appropriateness of the location relates to all members of the household, who must all be considered. Employment, schooling, and family and social connections are all relevant matters that will be taken into account.
New clause 3 and new schedule 1 relate to changes in the governance of arm’s length management organisations, and I hope that I can be helpful to hon. Members as far as that is concerned. New clause 3 would oblige all councils with ALMOs to undertake a statutory ballot of their tenants and seek the consent of the Secretary of State before an ALMO can be closed down. I have listened to the comments that have been made and read the amendment and the briefing from the organisation. I am sympathetic to a number of the arguments put forward, particularly the need to protect tenants and have a consistent consultative model for ALMOs in cases where local authorities are minded to change their status and take them back in house.
For those councils that hold a ballot before establishing an ALMO, it seems reasonable that they should hold a ballot when they are minded to wind up such an organisation. I understand that of the 61 ALMOs that are currently extant, around 30 were formed following such ballots. The principle of “ballot in, ballot out” does not seem a bad one to hold on to. For those councils that did not hold a ballot, our departmental guidance already stipulates that they should consult widely with tenants before an ALMO is wound up. It does not stipulate what specific format the consultation should take. I have asked my officials to look again at that guidance and the options for strengthening it so that all tenants can be assured of their rights.
Stephen Gilbert
I welcome the commitment to “ballot in, ballot out” in the disestablishment of ALMOs, but the principle should be to give the 50% or so of ALMOs that are left—the 30 to which my hon. Friend referred—as much power as possible to set their own destiny, rather than being buffeted about by the will of the local authority. May I strongly impress upon my hon. Friend the fact that a ballot for all ALMOs seeking disestablishment would be very welcome?
Andrew Stunell
I understand that that would be very welcome, but at the moment I am not convinced of the need for councils to follow that rule. I remind my hon. Friend that ALMOs are completely the creatures of local government, but the tenant participation in ALMOs is a positive feature. The ALMO covering my constituency works well and is well regarded, but even so it is a matter for the local authority. It is not appropriate for a Minister or the Secretary of State to get in the driving seat, but it is right for us to give careful consideration to the guidance, particularly on the ballot point.
Mr Betts
I follow the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) in his request for a ballot in all cases, because that would give us the security of a proper consultation. Changing so fundamentally the management of a tenant’s home is almost as important as changing its ownership, and we should give weight to that. If the Minister is not prepared to go that far, but is simply going to look at “ballot in, ballot out”, which at least would be a step forward, and again at the guidance on consultation, will he have a real look at how the guidance might be underpinned statutorily so that, before an ALMO is allowed to be changed and moved back into a local authority, the Secretary of State can insist that real consultation takes place and tenants’ views are listened to? That does not happen at the moment.
Andrew Stunell
Yes. It is important that we review the guidance—I just said that we should do so—and it would be an unusual local authority that disregarded it. I undertake to reflect further on the best way forward, and I hope that my hon. Friends and the hon. Gentleman feel that that is a step forward which allows them not to press their amendments today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) has tabled new clause 26, which relates to a specific situation for fully mutual housing co-operatives. By a quirk of the legislation, they are caught by the houses in multiple occupation requirement for licensing and, sometimes, planning permission. The Department has been lobbied by the Friendly Housing Action campaign group to secure an exemption for fully mutual housing co-operatives, and I am very sympathetic to the campaign, as such organisations were never intended to be caught by the licensing provisions.
We have to be careful to ensure that in granting an exemption we do not inadvertently allow other categories to slip through the loophole, so I am asking for further advice on how we might achieve that. I hope to return to the issue at a later stage, so I hope that my hon. Friends will not feel the need to press new clause 26 to a Division.
I thank the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) for new clauses 25 and 24, which she and her hon. Friends have tabled. They both relate to cases in which courts made decisions that the common-sense man would not have expected. New clause 25 refers to a situation in which the housing allocation scheme was perverted—I think that is the right word—by an officer, and consequently the courts decided that, because of the nature of the current legislation, it was not possible to recover the properties that had been misallocated. I am certainly minded to take some steps in the right direction. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government recently launched a 10-point plan for tackling council fraud, and that included vetting staff. I hope that that means that it is very unlikely that the situation will recur, but we are going to look at how we might move forward. On a rather significant technical point, the place where Opposition Members have chosen to insert the words means that the provision would apply only to Wales; I suspect that that is not what they really meant to do.
New clause 24 deals with a situation where a death was concealed at the transfer of a tenancy and therefore a vital time line was missed and it then proved impossible to correct that. The new clause changes the time limit restrictions so that when a local authority seeks to repossess a property, the date at which it became aware of the change in circumstances, rather than the actual date of the circumstances, will be relevant. I fully accept the point drawn to our attention. We will explore the issue in more detail and talk to various local authorities and representative bodies with a view to tabling a Government amendment in the other place. I hope that the hon. Lady feels that that is a helpful way for us to proceed.
I cannot be so consensual on other amendments tabled by the Opposition. I do not want to detain the House unduly, but I must say that we have a considerable mixture of amendments of one type or another, to which I will perhaps respond in my final 16 seconds, if that is how it turns out. Some of them are direct negatives of our proposals in the Bill, some are wrecking amendments to one degree or another, and some are quite seductive in their tone, if not their impact. Several of them duplicate safeguards that are already in the Bill or even in legislation as it has stood for some time.
Some of the amendments seem to be based on an Opposition view that social landlords are even worse than they think private landlords are, with their principal business being to get people out of their homes as quickly as possible. Of course, that is not the primary purpose or intention of social landlords, which is to provide suitable accommodation for those who need it, as will continue to be the situation in future. Other amendments seem to be more about whipping up misunderstanding among vulnerable families than about making a contribution towards solving the heartrending problems of homelessness.
I urge hon. Friends and other Members to support the Government’s sensible and thoughtful proposals and to reject the many temptations offered by the Opposition.
Alison Seabeck
I repeat the declaration I made at the start of the Public Bill Committee, which is on the record.
I thank all those involved in Committee proceedings on this large and extensive Bill, including the two very patient Chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess). Although we had well-informed discussions in Committee—Members on both sides of the House are to be commended—I am left with the feeling that we could have done with significantly more time to debate the issues.
Yesterday, the Minister started by saying that the Committee was consensual—not so on the housing proposals, I am afraid. We debated more than 40 amendments and new clauses on this part of the Bill, and not one was accepted by Government Front Benchers. Although I welcome the moves that the Minister has made today on a couple of our proposals, I do not get a sense that he is giving any ground. Indeed, having listened to his speech and responses, I think he is rather digging in; of course, that is his prerogative.
The Opposition cannot let these proposals go unchallenged. I will therefore speak to amendments 269, 270, 273 to 276 and 360, new clauses 24 and 25, and amendments 13, 14, 271, 272, 277 and 278, which stand in my name and those of my hon. Friends. I flag it up at this stage, given that the Minister has not astounded us with a number of U-turns, that we will press for votes on amendment 13 on flexible tenancies and on amendment 271 on security of tenure.
Ms Buck
Earlier, the Minister assured us that there would be regulations to protect secure tenants—he mentioned a period of five years and, I believe, used the word “scaremongering”. May I share with my hon. Friend the letter from Notting Hill Housing that I mentioned, which I have now obtained? It states:
“The Government have recently set out their plans for the future of social housing. Up until now, this has been known as permanent housing. New homes will be let with fixed-term tenancies for a minimum of two years”.
It finishes:
“Since permanent housing will no longer be available, these changes will affect everyone seeking housing from April 2011.”
Does that not indicate that the Minister was completely wrong in the assurances that he gave?
Alison Seabeck
That is clear evidence of the case that we are trying to make. There is always a risk, when minimum standards are set, that eventually everybody will end up at that level. Clearly some people want to move more quickly than others in that direction.
Let us not forget that there is a stronger localist voice if a range of interests are represented in an area. Amendment 271 is intended to address the threat in the Bill to take security of tenure away from existing social tenants. That is something of a sore point for the Government, because the Bill represents just another broken promise. Before the general election, the now Prime Minister’s spokesman was briefing the media that the Tory party had no plans to alter security of tenure. The Liberal Democrat manifesto said nothing on the subject, and the Housing and Local Government Minister spent only about 10 minutes in the Chamber on Report.
Clive Efford
Some of us who fought very hard on the issue of secure tenancies and the future of rents at the last election were accused of scaremongering and lying. The Conservatives’ election manifesto explicitly states that they will
“respect the tenures and rents of social housing tenants.”
Ministers have made promises today on respecting the future of tenancies and rents, but how can we believe them when the Conservatives said that in their general election manifesto and wrote it off so soon afterwards in the coalition agreement?
Alison Seabeck
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. During the general election, we fought and battled hard throughout the country to get those assurances from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, but they are now reneging on them. It is as simple as that.
Simon Hughes
I am very clear that secure tenancies are a good thing, that council housing is a good thing, and that housing association properties are often good things—they are not always as good as council properties. Will the hon. Lady confirm that the proposal does not affect secure tenants? Does she now accept that? Will she also confirm that the proposal affects people only in future, and that it gives discretion to local authorities? If there were any Government imposition on local authorities, I would not support the proposal for one second, but the proposal gives discretion.
Alison Seabeck
If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me, I shall address some of those points later in my speech. I find the Liberal Democrat position quite extraordinary.
The Liberal Democrat manifesto said nothing on the issue, and as I pointed out, the Housing and Local Government Minister, who is, sadly, no longer in the Chamber—he obviously has more interesting things to do than listen to a debate on housing—said that
“there is no chance of, or way in which, a social tenancy can be broken or changed for anybody already in council or housing association homes.”—[Official Report, 28 February 2011; Vol. 524, c. 19.]
In November, I asked the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) whether he would give me his personal guarantee that secure tenancy rights would not be changed. He gave a brief, direct answer: “Yes.” If only the Bill that those Ministers now promote were consistent with their previous statements in the House.
The framework published by the Department is quite clear that tenancies will be secure only for tenants who have a secure tenancy before 31 March 2012. Therefore, tenants with a secure tenancy will lose their security if their family grows and they need to move to a larger home, or if a person wishes to downsize to a smaller home and the only properties available for re-let are offered on a flexible tenancy.
The Homes and Communities Agency is clear that the expectation is for both flexible tenancies and affordable rents in re-lets and new developments. In future, those families will have an absolutely impossible choice. Do they stay in a home that is no longer suitable for their needs, leaving them overcrowded but with the security they crave and a rent they can afford, or do they accept the move to a larger home, lose their security, and risk losing their home altogether if they are deemed no longer to meet the eligibility criteria for social housing, which could happen two years down the line?
Alison Seabeck
The right hon. Gentleman sits there and shakes his head, but there are enough questions about this measure. The Minister had four goes at answering those points in Committee, but his answers were not entirely satisfactory. I urge the right hon. Gentleman either to abstain on Government new clause 19, or to come into the Lobby with the Opposition.
Simon Hughes
I appreciate that this is very serious and I am listening very carefully to the hon. Lady—I do not doubt her commitment. I am open to correction, but my understanding is that in the circumstances she describes, when somebody needs to move from a council home because their family has grown, it does not necessarily follow that they will be unable to be offered a secure tenancy where they go to. If Southwark council kept secure tenancies for all its council stock, people would move to a secure tenancy if they moved to another council property. Will the hon. Lady please at least accept that that option will be just as possible next year as it is this year?
Alison Seabeck
The right hon. Gentleman makes a point about Southwark council, but evidence suggests that significant numbers of councils—largely Conservative councils, but no Labour councils—are already saying they want to introduce this proposal quickly. The system allows for discretion, but the evidence suggests that it will not be used, and that Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster and other councils will simply say, “Sorry, no!” If someone chooses to move—the key point is the choice—they will probably find themselves with a higher rent and a shorter tenure. These proposals contain no guarantees and are inadequate, which is why we tabled our amendments. We need to consider the tenants. The council in Southwark could become a Conservative council in the future—
Alison Seabeck
Perhaps, but the point is that there is clearly an appetite among Conservative councils for making use of this provision, offering the minimum they need to and removing security of tenure from people who choose to move.
It is not a choice I would wish on any family, and it will create disincentives to move within the sector by throwing sand in the wheels. We need to make it easier for people to move within the sector, yet the Government’s proposals will make it harder. If the Government press ahead and create this dog’s breakfast of a flexible tenancy, we want them to stick to their promise not to break secure tenancy rights of existing tenants, even if they choose to move. I and my right hon. and hon. Friends raised this issue with the Minister in Committee during the stand part debate on clause 132. He revealed that the previous guarantees given by his ministerial colleagues were worthless, when he said that the decision on whether tenants would keep their security of tenure would rest with the discretion of the landlord, but that
“if a tenant chooses to move to an affordable rent property, it is reasonable that discretion should be available to the landlord as to whether that remains in place”.––[Official Report, Localism Public Bill Committee, 8 March 2011; c. 856.]
For us, that is simply not good enough. It does not retain security of tenure, and gives landlords a degree of flexibility that we think is negative for tenants. That is why we oppose it. I am disappointed that amid the 234 Government amendments and new clauses there is no amendment to match their rhetoric. That is why we tabled amendment 271. The Government might not be willing or able to stand up for the rights of existing tenants, but the Labour party certainly is.
Amendment 277 is similar to an amendment debated briefly in Committee at the end of a morning sitting. At the time, the Minister said that clause 134 was part of a cleaning-up exercise, to which I said we would leave things there and consider whether we needed to come back to the issue on Report. As the House of Commons Library rightly points out, the clause removes the statutory right of those other than spouses and partners to succeed to a secure tenancy. Currently, in the absence of a spouse or partner, the close relatives of a secure tenant who have resided in a dwelling as their only or principal home for 12 months prior to the tenant’s death also have a right to succeed to the tenancy.
Our amendment would extend statutory succession rights beyond spouses and civil partners, to those who have acted as live-in carers for at least one year and siblings who have co-habited for at least one year. Carers contribute an enormous amount to society and to those—almost always close family members—for whom they care. We will all know of cases in our constituencies in which family members have moved into their parents’ or other relatives’ homes to act as carers. It is an act of love that can place tremendous strain on the carers, and the commitment it requires should not be underestimated. Nor, on a more transactional level, should the amount of money they save the Treasury be underestimated. Age UK, in its submission to the Bill Committee, wrote:
“Given the contribution of carers, they deserve to succeed to a tenancy or have an offer of alternative social housing with a lifetime tenancy.”
Andrew Stunell
Does the hon. Lady accept that the Bill will give registered landlords the opportunity to have tenancy agreements that allow carers to succeed to a tenancy even if they are not related to the person holding the original tenancy? The Bill will give landlords that flexibility for the first time, not take anything away.
Alison Seabeck
Yet again, this is all about discretion and saying, “Trust us.” I am afraid that we would like to see something clearer in the Bill.
Live-in siblings are another group for whom there should be statutory succession. Once again, we can all look at our constituency experience. During the passage of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, the Conservative Front-Bench spokesman said:
“It is profoundly unfair that carers and siblings who cohabit are disadvantaged on the death of one or other of them by being forced out of their home by their tenancy terms”.—[Official Report, 12 October 2004; Vol. 425, c. 188.]
That legislation was the wrong place for that debate. This Bill is the right place, and our amendments would address the issue. Something else that ought to be addressed, and which we sought to address in Committee, is the right of unmarried couples. I am pleased that the Government seem to have shelved the idea of giving £2 a week—or whatever it was—to get married. However, the Bill gives newlyweds more succession rights to a tenancy than a cohabiting unmarried couple who have shared a home for decades, even when those newlyweds have cohabited for only a matter of days. That is not fair or appropriate. If passed unamended, clause 134 would not reflect modern family life for many families in Britain.
The Minister said in Committee that there was some tidying up to be done. I acknowledge that Government amendments 194 to 201 try to improve the provisions and address the succession issues. In so far as they represent a degree of Government movement since Committee, I welcome those amendments. I also welcome the Minister’s acknowledgment at the time that the Bill was far from perfect. A host of Government amendments have been tabled—more than the norm on Report—which largely reflects the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny that the Bill received and the rushed consultations.
I shall try to get through our remaining amendments as quickly as possible. On the right of tenants to complain directly to the housing ombudsman, we oppose clause 153 and seek to remove it with amendment 278. Clause 153 would require tenants to seek permission and approval from their elected representatives to complain about their social landlord to the housing ombudsman. We support the National Housing Federation position on this issue. Amendment 278 would allow tenants the right to complain directly, as they can now. The National Housing Federation represents landlords, who possibly have the most to lose from the change, yet they are very relaxed about allowing tenants that direct link.
New clauses 24 and 25 seek to clamp down on loopholes in housing law that can be exploited by fraudsters and to deal with the issue of fairness—on which the Minister, he say yes! I am grateful to him for acknowledging that we brought to his attention something on which he thinks he can build. I look forward to seeing further amendments in the other place. When it comes to fairness in the allocation of homes and the transparency of the process, we felt that the local authorities in the cases that we highlighted needed a right of redress. Neither case is sub judice. They were highlighted for us by Arden Chambers, and they are Birmingham v. Qasim and Newport v. Charles. We would be grateful if both cases could be looked at in detail and amendments brought forward.
There are a host of issues concerning homelessness that, given enough time, deserve to be debated properly on the Floor of the House. However, given the constraints on Report, it is neither appropriate nor possible to give them another airing or vote on them all, as we did in Committee. I am sure that a number of those issues will be raised again in another place, given the depth of expertise there. In Committee, we sought a requirement for better standards in the private rented sector—a point touched on by the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert)—through proposals for an accreditation scheme. I would support any move in the other place to resurrect that and look at it in more detail.
Stephen Gilbert
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for indicating her party’s support for such a proposal. It could be quite transformative if the Government, while discharging the homelessness duties into the private rented sector, were to become a big purchaser of services in that sector, and we could drive up standards through an accreditation scheme. Does she agree with me on that?
Alison Seabeck
The hon. Gentleman knows that I agree. I tabled the amendments in Committee proposing exactly that, so the answer is yes. We tabled those amendments because we wanted to see an end to homeless applicants being placed in sub-standard or unsafe accommodation. Sadly, the Government rejected those amendments, and we shall have to wait to see how the matter pans out in the other place.
In Committee, we also sought to improve the advice offered to people presenting as homeless, but that, too, was rejected, as was our amendment to ensure that the Government’s changes to housing benefit would not leave families intentionally homeless. The Government also rejected our amendment to ensure that any private sector accommodation into which homeless applicants were placed should be deemed to be affordable, although the Minister has mentioned taking affordability into account. An amendment seeking to prevent homelessness through better advice, with statutory guarantees on the quality of that advice, was also rejected. The hon. Members for Bradford East (Mr Ward) and for St Austell and Newquay expressed similar concerns, but sadly, they withdrew all their amendments and held the coalition line. I hope that we will be able to convince some Members on the Government Benches to join us in the Lobby today because of the Government’s failure to listen to the arguments that we and they made in Committee. I am sure that their colleagues in the Lords will also look closely at these issues.
More than 160,000 people presented as homeless last year, and I am disappointed that a Bill that will have a profoundly negative impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people has returned to the Floor of the House after its Committee stage, and after a lengthy pause, with no amendments to address the criticisms and concerns of charities and experts who deal with homelessness on a day-to-day basis. Two very good reports have been published in the past fortnight. One from Crisis, on single homelessness, flags up the areas in which the most can and should be done to prevent homelessness. The other, from the Homeless People’s Commission, points out that offering better advice will save the Exchequer money.
The Bill is a retrograde step. Homeless applicants found to be in priority need and unintentionally homeless will no longer be able to draw on the security and stability of a social home with security of tenure. Instead, they will be placed directly into the private rented sector and if they refuse an offer, for whatever reason, the local authority will no longer have a duty to house them. They would then have almost nowhere to turn for help. It does not take much to realise the circumstances in which an offer might be unacceptable to an applicant. The accommodation might be too expensive, too far away from their child’s school—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter)—or too close to an abusive ex-partner. It might also be damp, mouldy or unsafe—the list goes on. Key among all this is the insecurity that a private rented sector offer can sometimes bring. There was a very good article in Inside Housing this week, following a survey that clearly showed that a homeless person placed in the private rented sector was likely to face eviction very early, and to be turned around and around in a circle of homelessness.
The third biggest cause of statutory homelessness last year was the loss of an assured shorthold tenancy. As I said earlier, stability is vital in order to prevent what people have referred to as the revolving door of homelessness. With tenancies in the private rented sector being less stable and of a shorter duration, the risk of recurring homelessness is greater, so the need for stronger statutory protection increases. Amendments 273, 274, 275, 276 and 360, taken together, would extend the period within which the homelessness duty would recur from two years to five years when the applicant was placed in the private rented sector. They would also provide, during that five year period, that a household accepted as homeless should receive “reasonable preference” on their local authority’s housing allocation scheme.
Under amendment 269, the duty of local authorities to find temporary accommodation for a period that enables the homeless person to find accommodation themselves would be extended to intentionally and unintentionally homeless people who were not in priority need. It is important to note that this duty to accommodate for long enough to give reasonable opportunities to secure other accommodation is distinct from the main homelessness duty. Extending this provision to those not in priority need would help an individual facing a crisis who might just need some short-term accommodation to get back on their feet. It would give the individual and the authority the opportunity to work towards resolving their homelessness, perhaps outside the social sector, helping to ensure that no one faced a situation with no option but to sleep rough.
Andrew Percy
I wish to discuss amendments 13 and 271, and in doing so to draw on my experience of serving for 10 years as a local councillor in the city of Hull in east Yorkshire. I represented a large council estate, including the house in which my dad grew up, as well as the three-bedroom house in which my grandma lived until the day she died, because it was her home.
I have no problem with the concept of flexible tenancies, and I think that councils should be given tools enabling them to offer some form of flexibility. However, although I broadly support the Bill—an odd feature of this place is that Members tend to get to their feet when they are unhappy rather than happy about something, but I assure Ministers that there are plenty of provisions in the Bill about which I am perfectly happy—I should like to be given a few more details. The Bill states that local authorities may offer flexible tenancies, but I should like to see more commitment with regard to the proportion that they should offer, and also an absolute guarantee that they will continue to offer secure tenancies.
The Bricknell estate, which I used to represent, illustrated the importance of mixed tenure. We had some problems. People lived in three-bedroom houses long after their children had left. The worst experience that I used to have at my surgeries was being asked by people after someone had died, “May we please have their house?” People were literally on death watch trying to obtain homes. I do not pretend that there is not a problem with people living in homes that are too big for them. However, they should not be forced out of their homes, to which they have a sentimental attachment. I do not want some official from the local authority to turn up all of a sudden and tell people whose children happen to have left home that under the terms of their flexible tenancies their time is up, and they must move on and make a home somewhere else.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an interesting point, but the fact is that many people downsize whether they are in social housing or not. They should not be forced out, but offering them alternative accommodation might be a solution.
Andrew Percy
My local authority had a clear policy. Housing officers would talk to tenants and try to encourage them to move into smaller, more appropriate accommodation if it was available, although of course it is not always available. There is nothing wrong with that, but I understood from the Minister’s response that people might end up in the courts when the terms of their flexible tenancies were enforced, and might effectively be forced out of their homes.
I am also worried about the two-year period. One of the problems on our estate was the difficulty of making people feel part of the estate and part of the community. A transitional arrangement, with people coming in for two years and then being forced out and different people coming in for another two years, does not help to maintain the sustainability and viability of the community.
Stephen Gilbert
My hon. Friend is making a number of excellent points. Does he agree that the Government cannot create a big society and increase community cohesion if we continue to move people around?
Andrew
Percy: I agree. We experienced several problems of antisocial behaviour in the community that I used to represent, but we dealt with them over a period. After a while, people who had moved in from outside the area started to appreciate the community in which they were living and became part of it. Children befriended other children at the local school, and their parents then befriended one another. The sense of community was protected, which had a major impact on what had been huge antisocial behaviour problems. We had a sustainable community in which people had invested and in which they wanted to remain. There is a risk here. If people are constantly moving after short periods of time, they might not look after their houses and gardens. That may sound a bit silly, but the condition of houses and gardens gives an impression of what a community is like. If people feel they have a personal investment in their homes, they will maintain their gardens and do work to their properties; they will have some pride in the house in which they live, because they see it as their home.
Alison Seabeck
The hon. Gentleman is making a strong case. Does he accept that because such rapid turnover of tenants will inevitably result in a lack of care for properties, lenders on housing association properties in particular will start getting nervous about their investment and may want to revisit their loan books and reduce their investment in certain properties?
Andrew Percy
That is an interesting point, and I hope all Members would want to avoid that, but it is a possible consequence of short-term tenancies. If authorities are to be allowed to offer flexible tenancies, I would prefer there to be a requirement on them to continue to offer secure tenancies as well so that people can work towards that and so that there is at least some tenure mix.
On the point about housing officers turning up at the end of a secure tenancy and suggesting to the tenant that it is time for them to move on, the issue of what independent advice will be available to tenants has been raised. I would not want tenants to go through a court process and, perhaps, end up being forced out of their home without ever having had access to the correct and appropriate advice.
If we are to take into account the structures of modern families, tenants cannot simply be told, “You have a three-bedroom house and two people have moved out, so you’re only using one bedroom,” because family members frequently move out and back in again. Where is the security for the parent and for the kid who pops off to university or to do a job somewhere else, or who moves out because they are in a relationship which then ends so they want to return to the family home? I keep using the word “home” because these properties are not merely a facility that belongs to the council—although I suppose legally they are that. They are much more than that, however, so where is the security for the young person who moves out and then wishes to return home? I have absolutely no doubt that these proposals have been made with the best of intentions. On the estate I represented we had huge problems with such patterns of occupation and young people not having a chance to get a home, but we do not want to use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut.
Mrs Main
My hon. Friend is making a powerful point, but I have to say that young families who are seeking a home—very much like ambulance chasers, although I am not saying they are like ambulance chasers—come to my surgery. This issue works both ways, and unless my hon. Friend comes up with an alternative solution, the proposal before us has to be considered as a creative thought that is worth exploring.
Andrew Percy
The radical solution that I have always favoured—which is not very popular among my party colleagues—is that we should build more council houses, and I am pleased that Conservative-run East Riding of Yorkshire council in my constituency is, indeed, building more council houses in Goole, as it recognises there is a need there.
I think I did offer a solution to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), however. I said that I wanted better protection in the Bill so that we can ensure that secure tenancies are guaranteed and will continue. I have nothing against a proportion of council housing stock being made available for flexible tenancies, and as the Minister said, local authorities can certainly determine to do that. However, I fear that, particularly where there is high demand and limited stock, some local authorities will make decisions that will mean we end up with a situation where nobody can ever work towards having a secure tenancy. I would not want that at all.
We heard much about tenure standards from the Minister, and we had many assurances on that. Perhaps if he gets more than 16 seconds to respond to the debate, we can have a little more detail about those standards and how robust they will be. I agree there is a problem here, which is why I have concerns about amendment 13 on the basis that it takes out flexible tenancies entirely. Amendment 271 perhaps has more going for it.
Ian Mearns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck), the shadow Minister, for mentioning the new homes bonus, because people in Gateshead are considering what to do with the magnificent award of £68,000 that we have been given by the Government under the new homes bonus. That is approximately 28p per head of population to spend on the development of new homes within the borough of Gateshead. However, I do not want to discuss that today, because I want to talk about my new clause 23. I declare an interest, because I had assistance in drafting my new clause from staff at the Local Government Association, and I am a vice-president of that organisation.
New clause 23 proposes that the Bill should be amended to include a provision to support local authorities in reducing the level of littering from vehicles. The Bill provides an excellent opportunity to amend section 87 in part IV of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to enable local authorities to deal specifically with littering from vehicles. Such an approach would help to reduce the high level of litter, not only at road junctions, roundabouts and exits from service areas, which are difficult to clean up, but in our streets generally. The new clause fits with the overall aims of the legislation, and with the specific new powers for local authorities to tackle persistent fly-posting and graffiti.
Anyone who wanders around the streets of Britain will notice that litter thrown from vehicles is a problem affecting the cleanliness of highways and roadside verges, creating cleansing issues for many local authorities up and down the country. Furthermore, many drivers and passengers feel that they are anonymous when they throw litter from vehicles. The introduction of a specific offence where the owner of a vehicle is held responsible for such littering, unless they can prove otherwise, would discourage drivers and their passengers from throwing litter. Such an offence would also provide a further means for local authorities to tackle the growing problems of roadside litter.
Littering from vehicles is a major issue for the public. In 2009, Keep Britain Tidy launched a campaign to encourage members of the public to report incidents of littering from vehicles. Although the campaign ended two years ago, more than 9,500 such reports were received from members of the public. We have all seen drivers who smoke depositing the contents of their ashtrays on the kerbside, usually not in their own street but in someone else’s or, as is common, around the country. We have all witnessed soft drinks containers, fast food wrappers, residue from fruit, half-eaten sandwiches and much worse being flung from moving vehicles or being deposited from a vehicle parked at the side of the road when a snack break is over.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I endorse what my hon. Friend is saying. Is he also aware that those of us who cycle face a danger from unthinking motorists who open their window and throw rubbish out, and that is an assault on cyclists?
Ian Mearns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point, with which I wholeheartedly concur. I was going to come on to that. It is mainly cyclists, pedestrians and local residents who have to negotiate their way through the mess that is left. This selfish, antisocial and irresponsible activity must be curtailed.
In London, the power to tackle littering from vehicles was recently introduced by the London Local Authorities Act 2007. Section 24 gives a London borough council the power to serve a penalty charge notice on the registered keeper of a vehicle if any passenger throws litter from it. In that case, the use of a penalty charge notice rather than a fixed penalty notice means that that is a civil offence rather than a criminal one. Furthermore, due to defective drafting, the 2007 Act is not active until amending legislation has been given Royal Assent. I propose that the enforcement section of the Localism Bill should be amended to include a reference to vehicle related litter. That would follow on from the commitment to finding a solution to the problem made by Lord Henley, the Minister responsible for local environmental quality, at the national litter convention in December last year.
New clause 23 has legislative precedent and is in line with the legislation on other road traffic investigation and fly-tipping offences and the approach taken to littering from vehicles in the 2007 Act. The Government have a chance today to do something about the problem and I hope that they will do so. I am convinced that the vast majority of the public whom we serve would not regard new clause 23 as contentious in any respect whatsoever.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I shall be very brief, as I wish my colleagues to have time to make their quite important contributions. We have some concerns about the issues raised this afternoon.
Let me start with new clause 26, tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends. I was pleased with the Minister’s response. The clause aims to free small fully mutual housing co-operatives from burdensome regulation and significant costs that they cannot and really should not have to shoulder in the same way as private landlords. This would obviously help to provide a more conducive environment for new housing co-operatives and would not cost the Government much money. I know it fits in well with the coalition Government’s agenda for community self help and a mutual approach. That and other innovative schemes will, I hope, emerge from the Bill.
I also want to endorse the amendments on arm’s length management organisations. I, too, urge the Minister to consider a ballot if there is a question of bringing things in house, whatever the circumstances. Poole Housing Partnership, which is an excellent and outstanding ALMO, has provided a lot for our local communities over and beyond good housing stock. I want to put that on the record.
Let me turn now to the key issues we have discussed this afternoon. Is there a place for flexible tenancies? We must ask that question. I think there is a place for flexible tenancies, but is there a case for two-year flexible tenancies? That question really needs to be addressed in the other place. I would hate to see the churn that might happen. I also think that the idea of a mix of tenancies, from a minimum of, say, five years through to secure tenancies, probably has quite a lot to offer. We should not need to be prescriptive from the centre. We ought to be enabling local authorities, but obviously some alarming information has been put before us today and that means that the regulatory side will have to be very secure.
Annette Brooke
If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I would like to be brief so that my colleagues can get in.
I want to put on record my concern about the two-year tenancies. True, it is said that they will be exceptions but there is a big “but” once we start using the term “exceptions”. The Liberal Democrats want this issue to be revisited in the House of Lords. It is incredibly important to get it right.
Let me briefly address the homelessness issue. Having a roof over one’s head by having something in the private sector might be a good option. However, the point has been made—and I have to go along with it—that we must look at all the individual circumstances such as whether there has been domestic violence and whether there are children in the family who have to be able to access their current school. If they have experienced trauma, it is important that they stay in their school.
As yesterday, time is incredibly short and we are left with very important issues to address, which will affect people’s lives, and we have no time to get to the bottom of them. That is why it is so important that as we pass this Bill to the other place, we do so with a lot of questions.
Mr Betts
May I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) on her effective criticism of the Government’s proposals on security of tenure? Her comments were excellent and I thoroughly support them.
I also give credit to the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who made some very perceptive comments. The reality is that people will be dragged out of their homes at the end of a flexible tenancy and told, “That is no longer your home.” If people resist, they will be dragged in front of the courts and evicted. That is what is going to happen; there is no getting away from that. He was absolutely right to say that it changes the status of the offer that is made to someone at the beginning of a tenancy from offering them a home that will be theirs for as long as they want it, as long as they abide by the tenancy rules, to offering them a temporary residence. With that temporary residence comes the risk of temporary schooling, temporary communities and all the problems that the hon. Gentleman rightly identified, such as lack of community stability and the possibility of simply creating estates of people on benefits who are moved out as soon as they get off benefits and get a job because their tenancy is then brought to an end. That is not the sort of arrangement that I want to see.
Jeremy Corbyn
I absolutely endorse what my hon. Friend is saying. Is there not a strange contrast here in that Parliament is apparently about to vote to take away permanent tenancies for new council tenants but the Government would not dream of doing the same thing for owner-occupiers or others in our society? Why should we demote council tenants to this level of insecurity?
Mr Betts
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. These measures are changing the status of council tenants, downgrading them almost to second-class citizens. That is what this effectively means, and it is creating a form of welfare housing. There will be people who are so desperate for security that they will over-extend themselves in trying to become owner-occupiers, which could lead to real problems. I say to the Liberal Democrats that they should not hide behind the idea that the measures are all right because existing tenants will not be affected or because local authorities will have to choose whether to go for these forms of tenancies. The reality is that, currently, as long as people abide by the rules, they cannot be evicted from council or housing association properties—they cannot have their tenancy ended by their landlord—but under the Bill that will be possible, and if Liberal Democrats vote for the provisions, they will be allowing that to happen.
Let me say one thing about the homelessness provisions. It might surprise some to hear that I am not, in principle, against local authorities being able to discharge their homelessness responsibilities by making an offer in the private rented sector, but I do want to see clear safeguards. If a house becomes available in my constituency, where some areas have very limited social housing, it is by no means apparent to me that someone who has just become homeless should get that property as opposed to someone who has been in the private rented sector waiting on a housing list for six years. However, if an offer is made, it has to be made with the standards of the private rented property being approved by the local authority, with the landlord or their agent being part of an accredited scheme—probably with regular inspections to make sure that the property is kept to a reasonable standard—and with a minimum tenancy length. I would certainly want those conditions to be included.
Finally, let me address new clause 3, which is in my name. I heard the Minister’s comments but I still feel that a ballot is the best way of ensuring that the views of ALMO tenants are really taken into account and that we do not simply have consultations in which the tenants say one thing and the local authority does another, which are already happening. A ballot is the best way forward, but if the Minister is saying that the same process that was used to set up an ALMO should be used to dismantle it, he must firm up the guidance and make it a statutory obligation for local authorities to comply with that. I see him nodding, and that is very good.
Andrew Stunell
I did give that assurance; we certainly are going to take a very close look at the point that the hon. Gentleman is raising.
Mr Betts
The Housing Minister has said that he is prepared to have a meeting with me and other officers of the parliamentary all-party group on arms length management organisations. The information we have got from the National Federation of ALMOs, with which we recently had a very good meeting, shows that, in a number of cases, local authorities have simply been flouting the correct processes. Councils are saying, “We are going to get rid of your ALMO; it doesn’t matter what you say—it’s going.” They are then putting factually inaccurate reports to housing committees. They are not offering people a real choice in the consultation, they are not explaining the facts, and they are not presenting balanced arguments. They talk about saving money on the general fund as one reason for getting rid of ALMOs. They do not refer to the new proposals on self-finance or the Government’s reforms.
All those facts are being kept from tenants in unbalanced, one-sided consultations. I hear what the Minister says. I shall not press the new clause, and I look forward to further discussions with him and his colleagues about the best way of constructing the measure to get the best deal for ALMO tenants and to ensure that in the end they make the decisions which affect their homes.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
Like the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), I shall speak not about housing, but about litter, and I shall say a little about new clause 33. The new clause would extend street litter control notices to office buildings by amending the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Although this is only a minor amendment, it would have a major impact on the ability of local authorities to clean up their streets.
Four years ago I launched a project in my constituency called Litter Angels to highlight the nuisance of litter. The idea of Litter Angels—which has now applied for charitable status, so I suppose I should declare an interest as one of the trustees—is to work with our local primary schools to educate children about the harm that litter does to our local environment. We take the view that catching them young might encourage more of them to practise good habits as they get older.
More recently, Litter Angels launched a “Big Clean Up” campaign in Sittingbourne and Sheppey, which is encouraging local groups and individuals to commit to undertaking at least one project to clean up our local area. The “Big Clean Up” will take place during August, and I am proud that my constituency was one of the first in the country to embrace the national “Love Where You Live” campaign being run by Keep Britain Tidy.
It was Keep Britain Tidy which highlighted to me a particular problem with smoking-related litter, with which new clause 33 deals. Sections 93 and 94 of the 1990 Act give local authorities the power to issue street litter control notices on premises that have a frontage on a street and outside of which litter or refuse is causing a defacement of the land. The problem is that the legislation was originally envisaged to tackle fast food litter and other such rubbish, and pre-dated the ban on smoking in public buildings and places of work. The House might be surprised to learn that the latest local environment quality survey of England revealed that smoking-related litter is present on 76% of the sites surveyed and is the most frequently found litter type.
Much of that smoking-related litter can be found outside office buildings. Unfortunately, street litter notices cannot normally be served on office buildings unless they sell food and drink, whether or not for consumption on the premises—for example, from a canteen or snack kiosk. Extending the street litter notice provisions to include office buildings would provide local authorities with the means to deal with localised litter problems and would close an unintended loophole in the legislation. The new clause would also allow local authorities to require occupiers or owners of offices and non-food retail outlets to play a greater role in dealing with the scourge of litter and encourage members of the public to take increased responsibility for their litter.
It is worth pointing out that in June 2007 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs undertook a final regulatory impact assessment on the extension of street litter control notices. This was as a response to the potential impact of the smoking ban on littering and its extension to office buildings. That assessment confirmed that if local authorities were able to issue street litter control notices in respect of offices and other venues not currently covered by the provisions, it would give them the power to place a greater responsibility on the occupiers or owners of those premises to clean up, particularly the smoking-related litter in the area immediately around them, perhaps by installing appropriate disposal facilities where this form of littering is a significant problem.
The assessment noted that such a proposal was in line with changes introduced by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, which followed the “polluter pays” principle by improving the powers available to local authorities to take action. A cost-benefit analysis undertaken by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in June 2007 calculated that such a proposal would result in a net benefit to society overall because notices would be issued only in a minority of cases and that costs imposed on local authorities and businesses would be relatively small and outweighed by the benefits associated with improved amenity, reduced cleaning costs resulting from preventive measures, and a reduced fire risk.
To allow notices to be issued in respect of any type of office premises, rather than the current limited number of offices, the new clause proposes to widen the definition set out in section 94(l)(a) in part IV of the 1990 Act by omitting reference to “commercial or retail premises” and inserting “premises other than dwellings”—I draw the House’s attention to a typing error in today’s amendment paper, which shows “premium” rather than “premises”. My proposal has a legal precedent in London, where street litter control notice powers are currently extended to office buildings by part III of the London Local Authorities Act 2000, which, in reference to the 1990 Act, explicitly omits the words “commercial or retail premises” and substitutes the words “premises other than dwellings” for notices issued in the capital. All I seek to do is extend that principle to other areas of the country.
Additionally, section 93(2) of the 1990 Act states that the local authority may serve a street litter control notice
“on the occupier or, if the premises are unoccupied, on the owner of the premises”.
As office buildings may have multiple occupancy, I propose an amendment specifying that notices may be issued on the owner of any premises where there is multiple occupancy. New clause 33 is uncontroversial and designed simply to close a loophole in the current legislation. I hope that the Minister will agree to include it in this important Bill.
Mr Raynsford
I draw attention to the interest I declared at the beginning of the Bill’s passage through the House and again in Committee.
It is, in my view, a sad day for housing when we come to consider this Bill on Report, as it involves a series of retrograde steps that are damaging to the future housing prospects of millions of our fellow citizens, weaken tenant rights and safeguards for homeless people, and undermine the future of social housing in this country.
It is particularly sad that we have had most of the debate during the extraordinary absence of the Minister for Housing and Local Government, who is responsible for this and yet graced us with his attendance for only a few minutes in a previous sitting and has made no contribution whatsoever to the passage of the Bill through the House. That is an extraordinary comment on his values. His approach, which the Government have adopted since coming to power last year, has been to cut drastically the funding for social housing, including a massive 65% reduction to the Homes and Communities Agency budget.
We are seeing individual rights cut back, such as tenant rights for homeless people. There is a curious element in this that the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) hinted at in his impressive contribution. He rightly highlighted the fact that the Government are giving greater priority to the interests of the providers of housing than to the public, the customer and the user of services. That is not compatible with normal Conservative rhetoric, and we have heard, again and again, their attack on provider interests and their wish to support the position of the customer and the user of services, but not here. Tenants’ rights and the rights of homeless people are being cut back, and when we argue that point we get the answer, “Don’t worry, because the providers will do the right thing. They will look after the interests of tenants. They will give lots of security, they won’t undermine tenants’ security and they will look after the interests of homeless people. Trust the providers.”
That is an interesting stance for the Government to take in this policy area, because in almost every other we hear a completely different rhetoric—the rhetoric of increasing the power and the influence of the customer, of the user of the service. Indeed, this Bill contains a great many passages where exactly that has motivated the Government, so there is a curious disconnect between the Government’s rhetoric and what they are doing on housing. The only way I can explain it is by saying that they clearly have no interest at all in the future of social housing or in the interests of the people who live in social housing or depend on it for their future prospects.
Andrew Stunell
We do have a concern: it is for the 5 million people who are waiting for social housing, and about trying to make a better fit between the houses and homes that we have and the people who desperately need them.
Mr Raynsford
Were that true the Government would not have cut the Homes and Communities Agency investment budget by 65%. This Bill is the fig leaf presented by the Government to cover their embarrassment at their failure to provide adequately for the needs of social housing in the years ahead, and it is shameful that the Minister should try to cover that policy by pretending that they are acting in the interests of the homeless and the badly housed.
Andrew Stunell
I understand what the right hon. Gentleman says, but will he not acknowledge that at the end of 13 years of Labour government there were fewer social homes in this country than there were at the start? At the end of this period of government there will be more than there were when we started.
Mr Raynsford
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong. There is no way in which there will be more social homes, because he knows perfectly well that the only social homes provided will be provided because the previous Government funded them, and that most of the homes for which this Government will be responsible will be the so-called affordable homes—although that is a travesty of English, given that they are based on the principle of 80% of market rents, which will in many cases be a real test of affordability—and homes that are created as flexible tenancies under the Bill.
The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, because we have debated it and I am sorry he cannot acknowledge it, that the previous Government inherited from their predecessor the most disgraceful backlog of poor condition housing in the social sector and rightly concentrated investment in the early years on putting that backlog right. A huge number of tenants now live in decent homes because of the Labour Government’s work, but that Government also allowed those tenants who wanted to buy their homes to do so, and that inevitably accounted for some reduction in the volume of social housing.
Alison Seabeck
Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that in the five years between 2005 and 2010 the Labour Government built more than 250,000 affordable homes? In the five years between 2010 and 2015, we expect at most 150,000. Is that not pretty pathetic?
Mr Raynsford
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point that I entirely endorse. It shows that the Minister’s claim was entirely incorrect, and he should be ashamed of making it.
The first amendment in my name, amendment 361, is about security of tenure. It is not the wrecking amendment that the Minister tried to pretend it is. It simply states:
“In preparing its tenancy strategy a local authority must ensure that to the greatest extent possible, tenancies granted in its area provide security of tenure so as to support and develop stable and confident communities.”
That is absolutely in keeping with the intelligent comments of the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) on how there is a place for flexible tenancies, but they should not take over, and to the greatest extent possible we should try to support security and help to build stable communities.
That is the purpose of the amendment, and I cannot understand why the Government are reluctant to accept it. I give the Minister one last chance. If he wants to be held to have any real credibility on the issue, he should accept it, because it would indicate that he is not simply performing a sleight of hand that will deny tenants security, but is genuinely interested in maximising the number of tenants who enjoy security of tenure. That would at least be a step in the right direction, and I hope that the Government will change their mind. I note, however, that he did not bother to respond to my question about why they have not accepted the amendment on a minimum of five years, so perhaps I might do a little better on this second try.
Simon Hughes
I remind the House that one of the new clauses and amendments in this group is my new clause 38. The Minister did not specifically refer to that in his introduction. I had helpful conversations with Ministers before tabling it, and I hope that the Government will be sympathetic towards it. I understand that it may not be possible to agree to it today, but obviously there will be other opportunities if the principle is accepted.
My proposal deals with the straightforward point that, often, an existing occupier of land who is acting perfectly properly and within planning permission, such as a bakery, a print works or another business, is challenged by people who move in nearby—often it is residential occupiers, who in my constituency will have paid quite a large price for their property—who complain about the activity that was known to happen there when they moved in. People who had moved into Bermondsey street alongside the Ticino bakery, which has been there for decades, if not centuries, complained that there was a noise at 4 o’clock in the morning because people were baking bread. That complaint is completely unacceptable. People who had moved in opposite the print works on Surrey docks complained that vans came in and out in the middle of the night to deliver newspapers. That is not altogether surprising and is absolutely obvious. That complaint is therefore unacceptable. I could go on. People who move in next to farms complain about the cockerels crowing, people who move in next to churches complain about the bells ringing, and people who move in next to mosques complain about the imam calling people to prayer. Those complaints are all nonsense.
I want it to be clear that caveat emptor—or caveat mover-in—is the principle that we should apply. The important point is that such unacceptable complaints threaten businesses. They threaten the livelihood of the farmer, the baker, the print works or the night club. My constituency is regularly afflicted by people who think that they have a right to complain, even though they are the Johnny or Joanna-come-lately. I hope that that issue can be dealt with.
I will move on to the wider subjects in this group of amendments. I am very supportive of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke), who expressed her concern not that the Government are not listening, but that they may need to go further in the House of Lords to accommodate the points made by those of us who for years have had a passionate concern for social housing and council housing.
I commend the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). I, like him, have an absolute commitment to council property, and think that we should have more, not less, of it. I think that local authorities should be encouraged to build it, not discouraged from doing so. He speaks from his personal and constituency experience. I think that I am still the Member of Parliament who represents more council tenants than any other Member in England, so this issue is hugely important in my constituency.
Of course we need to deal with under-occupying and with the fact that people may become council tenants when they are poor and then become very rich. It seems to me that the way to deal with that is not to evict them, but to ask them to pay more money for the property, so that rather than changing their status, the cost of the property reflects their ability to pay. Otherwise, communities are broken up. Social housing should provide people with a spare bedroom to deal with the flexibility of the household. The hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole referred to that issue. As they grow older, a couple may need two bedrooms rather than one. Somebody might need a carer or their family or friends to come and stay. I therefore hope that we will always assume that there should be a spare bedroom.
Lastly, I hope that while accepting the principle of flexibility, the Government will have a presumption that the stability and security of communities is what we are striving for. Every year, about a quarter of the electors in my constituency move on or off the electoral roll. They do not necessarily move in or out of the constituency, but sometimes within it. I appreciate that the position in inner London is more extreme than elsewhere. However, we must build communities, and that is done by having more, not less, security. That does not mean that there should be no flexibility or that councils and other providers should have no ability to have tenancies that are not secure, but security of tenure should be the presumption. I hope that as the Bill goes from this place to the other place, the concerns from across the House will continue to be considered. This is not just an urban issue, but a rural one.
I look forward to Ministers being positive about the noises that they have heard from Government Members, as well as from Opposition Members, this afternoon.
Sheila Gilmore
I rise to speak in support of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck). There appears to be inherent conflict between different Bills that are proceeding through the House. I have been sitting on the Welfare Reform Bill Committee, and it seems to me that we are not looking at the whole picture. That Bill is concerned with, among other things, the amount of housing benefit that is paid out. There are concerns about the rising bill and what has to be done about it, and the Government are proposing measures to bring down the bill that will affect people up and down the country.
At the same time, there are proposals in the Localism Bill that would have the opposite effect. For example, it would create so-called affordable houses at 80% of market rate. However, the people who need those houses, the people everybody is wringing their hands about, will not be able to afford those properties unless they can get housing benefit, which means that the housing benefit bill will rise. The Government are cutting benefit for some people and making their lives more difficult, but at the same time creating measures that will inherently increase the housing benefit bill.
In the same way, increasing the use of the private rented sector for homeless families will have an effect on the housing benefit bill, because inevitably their rents will be higher than they would be if we could find genuinely and truly affordable homes for people. I am concerned that two parts of the Government appear to be proceeding in conflicting ways.
Another aspect of welfare reform that we hear about constantly, in the Welfare Reform Bill Committee and elsewhere, is the need to make work pay and get people into employment, which we all agree about. Flexible tenancies may well have exactly the opposite effect. I was not on the Localism Bill Committee, so it may have been different there, but I noticed today that the one issue related to flexible tenancies that the Minister was comfortable in talking about was the vexed question of houses that are under-occupied or overcrowded. We all know that that is a problem, and it is not a simple one to address. Flexible tenancies are not only intended to address that situation, but that was what the Minister wanted to talk about. Perhaps it is the slightly more cuddly side of flexible tenancies. It might make people think, “Oh, I can see the point of that. We have to get a bit of flexibility to get that changed.”
Actually, flexible tenancies are about much more than that. If they are implemented in the way suggested in some of the speeches that we have heard and the articles that we have read, it will mean that people who are trying to get back on their feet and have found jobs may be told that it is time to leave their home. What incentive does that give people to enter employment or work harder to increase their income?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Could the hon. Lady turn around, so that the microphone picks up her voice and the whole House can hear her?
Alison Seabeck
Sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Does my hon. Friend share my surprise at the fact that the Minister has signed a number of early-day motions on the subject, including one clearly saying that is he a supporter of security of tenure, for all the reasons that we have been giving?
Sheila Gilmore
I certainly find that extremely surprising given what is in the Bill.
We have to ask the Government why they are moving in different directions in different legislation and why they cannot get their act together. Surprisingly, however, there is an underlying similarity between the two Bills—they are about shrinking the welfare state and leaving only residual provision, whether it is residual housing for the poorest and neediest or residual benefits for the most vulnerable. That illustrates the difference between the Government and Opposition, about which we must be clear. There are inconsistencies in the Bills, but at the same time there is a united theme to which we are opposed. We are concerned that in four or five years, the welfare state will have shrunk out of all recognition.
Dan Rogerson
The key to social housing is longer-term tenure, which gives families, and particularly those with young children, confidence that they have a home for their family for the future. That is why we need to focus on the fact that social housing is meant to be not for short-term crisis accommodation but for family homes.
I should preface my remarks by saying that I absolutely accept that my hon. Friend the Minister’s intention is to tackle the waiting list problem, which is a huge—[Interruption.] I hear an Opposition Member say, “Build more homes,” but as we all know, the waiting list is longer than it was when the Labour Government took office 13 years ago. We can therefore take that with a pinch of salt.
I absolutely understand the Government’s aspirations to increase the availability of social housing, but we need to look at how we can increase and stretch shorter-term tenancies in the private sector, rather than reducing social housing tenancies to equivalent levels.
I also accept that the Government are saying that the minimum level would not be an expectation, but, as we have already heard, some providers of social housing are taking it as such. Good councils and the better registered social landlords will not do that, but some will be waiting to implement that measure, which concerns me. I am worried about tenants when providers take that proposition seriously.
We have more second homes than council houses in my area. The previous Government failed to tackle that huge problem, but I hope that this Government listen to what Cornwall Members and Members for other rural areas say about it. We need to look at how to ensure that those who are fortunate to get a social tenancy can have confidence that they can raise their family without fear of being moved on. People live in fear of being pushed into assured shorthold tenancies in the private sector, where they might be asked to move on every six months or so. We must avoid that situation.
Although my hon. Friend the Minister’s intention is to provide good local authorities with the flexibility to use the measure when that might help, my worry is that the measure is not robust enough to stop others misusing it and making it the norm. That is where my concerns with new clause 21 lie.
This is not Third Reading, but I should say that I am very keen on many aspects of the Bill. However, I am very concerned about the provisions on tenure. I should like a great deal of reassurance in that regard from those on the Treasury Bench before I join the Government in the Division Lobby.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
In two minutes, I shall try to make three points. I apologise for not being in the Chamber throughout the debate. I was here at the beginning, but then I attended a debate in Westminster Hall and chaired a meeting elsewhere.
My first point is a warning, and it comes from the excellent speech by the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). He asked whether tenants will be evicted when councils come round to inspect a property. The answer is that they will be—that is what will happen. Just as universities increased fees to £9,000, the bulk of councils will seize upon the two-year tenure rule. As a result, we will see the invidious inspection of properties to see how much people are earning, and there will be evictions. I give this warning to hon. Members: if this measure is enacted, MPs will be the first people those tenants will come to. On Monday, I tied to prevent a constituent from being evicted from a private rented property. She was being evicted not because she had not paid the rent and or because of antisocial behaviour, but simply because the landlord wanted the property back so that he could re-let it at a higher rent. That will happen time and again, and those who are evicted will come to our surgeries. I warn Members to be careful what they vote for tonight. The measure will cause untold suffering that will land on our doorsteps.
My second point is a statement. The reality is that tonight is the end of council housing as we know it. The argument has been made that there is a turnover of 5% a year in tenancies. If so, within a generation nobody will be given a secure tenancy. We need to be aware of what voting for this legislation would mean: let us admit that it is the end of council housing.
Thirdly, as someone who is proud to have been brought up in a council house in a thriving community, I do not understand why council tenants should be discriminated against in this way. We are not a different type of people: we, too, want secure accommodation; sometimes when our children grow up and leave, we enjoy that extra bedroom, or when things go wrong and they want to come home, we want them to be able to do so—but above all people want security. This is discriminatory legislation, and to be frank it discriminates on class grounds. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) said, it is as though council house tenants are second-class citizens, yet their rents cover the costs of their properties—in fact, they subsidise others because of the amount they pay in relation to the cost of the property itself.
For those three reasons, people need to think very carefully before voting tonight. People will interpret this measure as an attack on a large number of people, some of whom are vulnerable, and it will undermine the basis of housing in our country for a long time to come.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I will be brief, because many of my points have been made already. Indeed, I could have written the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) for him. If he needs a speechwriter, I am readily available. My speech will contain some repetition, therefore.
The Government’s aim not just in the Bill, but in all their policies, is to build and strengthen communities, but strong communities mean strong, stable and settled communities. I have a concern about the Bill, so I put this simple question to the Front-Bench team: how will the Bill and the tenancy provisions build stronger, more settled communities? I am afraid that I remain unconvinced. It has been said that people grow attached to their homes. They are not just bricks and mortar; they are homes, not houses. I suppose, in one sense, I speak from experience, because I was brought up in a council house. I can vaguely remember moving from Fuller street in Cleethorpes at the age of 5 to a new-build council house in the centre of Grimsby. No doubt that was under the enlightened Conservative Administration at the time and the targets determined by Harold Macmillan.
I cannot get my head around the aim of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole used a line I gave him during one of his interventions: more flexibility for the landlord means more inflexibility for the tenant. What happens when children who have left home want to come back has not been satisfactorily dealt with. I share the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) that a spare room for carers or returning children should always be available in a home. Ministers know of my concerns. I raised them with three Ministers in Committee and on Second Reading—I am sure that my Second Reading speech was bedtime reading for all Front-Bench Members—but to sum up: how will shorter tenancies help to achieve stable communities?
Andrew Stunell
I certainly have longer than yesterday, but not quite long enough to answer all the points raised.
I start by saying that we absolutely and emphatically refute the argument that we are ending security of tenure for social housing tenants. We are not doing that. This is not the end of council housing or social tenancies. On spare rooms, I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) that the under-occupation figures that I quoted were for properties with more than one spare bedroom.
The amendments are wide-ranging, but at their heart they are about not permitting a flexible tenancy arrangement at all, and about under no circumstances transferring families for whom the council has accepted a homelessness duty to the private rented sector. To my hon. Friends and Opposition Members who have raised concerns that there might be unscrupulous public landlords as well as unscrupulous private landlords I would say that the point of having a housing regulator and tenure and mobility standards is to provide a solid framework for the decisions that providers make when they draw up their housing strategies and tenancy policies, which they will be required to do in consultation with tenants too. There is a legislative framework, and there will be tough rules and guidelines. There is also the guide on homelessness, which sets out the factors that must be taken into account.
Let me say to colleagues on both sides of the House that the Government are trying to help homeless families to get into satisfactory accommodation sooner, not handicap them. In relation to those who require social housing, our reform and the introduction of flexible tenancies will be one way of improving the fit and getting more of the 5 million people who need council housing into council housing. There are various myths, one of which is about the insecurity of the private rented sector. In fact, in the past three years only 8% of low-income households in the private rented sector moved because the tenancy was ended by the landlord. The other 92% moved because they wanted to move. We need to keep the facts of the case in proportion and try not to overdo the mythology.
Let me deal with some of the other issues raised. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) for her kind words about our views on new clause 26. I have already responded to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) on the ALMOs legislation. To those who have raised their concerns about tenure security let me say that the guidelines on tenure standards will be available for inspection shortly.
Let me deal now with those Members who have made specific proposals. I can tell my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) that I am making “sympathetic noises”—I think that is the correct phrase—even if the neighbours are not in his case. On new clause 23 and 33, let me tell the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns)—who was speaking, I thought, on behalf of the LGA—and to one of my hon. Friends who made the same point in relation to a separate amendment that we will certainly look carefully at the matters that have been raised.
I am under strict instructions to stop promptly. I apologise to the House for not responding in the depth that I would have liked to the many points that have been raised. I have been listening, as have my colleagues, and we will obviously take forward the views that have been expressed and ensure that they are not overlooked when the Bill is considered in the other place in due course. I urge my hon. Friends to support the Government amendments this evening and to resist the Opposition amendments.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 19 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
Clause 130
Flexible tenancies
Amendment proposed: 13, page 114, line 36, leave out clause 130.—(Alison Seabeck.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Reference | Extent of repeal |
|---|---|
Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 | Section 5. |
Section 19. | |
Section 62(3).’. |
‘ | In section 18— (a) subsections (4) and (5), and (b) in subsection (6) the words “in Wales”.’. |
‘ | (aa) in subsection (2ZA) the words “in Wales”,’. |
‘ | (b) subsection (2A)(a) and (b),’. |
‘ | (da) in subsection (10A) the words “in Wales”,’. |
‘ | (ea) in subsection (13)(c) the words from the beginning to “in Wales”,’. |
‘ | (a) in subsection (3) the words from “(in the case of a local authority in England” to “Wales)”, (b) in subsection (6)(a) the words from “section 236” to “2007 or”, (c) subsections (10) and (11), and (d) in subsection (12) the words “in Wales”.’. |
(a) in subsection (1)(b) sub-paragraph (ii) and the word “or” immediately preceding that sub-paragraph, (b) in subsection (2) the words “or providing a copy of the document to a relevant partner authority”, (c) in subsection (6) in the definition of “exempt information” the words “section 246 of the National Health Service Act 2006 or”, and (d) in that subsection the definition of “relevant partner authority” and the word “and” immediately preceding that definition.’. |
‘ | In section 21F (as inserted by the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011), in subsection (1) the words “in Wales”.’. |
‘ | Section 31.’. |
‘ | Section 32.’. |
‘ | In section 33ZA the words “in Wales,”.’. |
‘ | (ab) subsection (2),’. |
‘Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 (nawm 00) | Section 36(1)(b) and (c).’. |
The Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I shall keep my remarks brief because many hon. Members are anxious to attend the funeral of our late colleague, David Cairns. It is appropriate that everyone who can attend that funeral does so with the good will of the House.
Let me begin by thanking Members who have taken part in the scrutiny of the Bill on Second Reading, in our 24 Committee sittings and during the past two days on Report. The level of interest in the Bill across the House and during the 80 hours of scrutiny that it has received so far is testament to its importance and significance in the future of our national life. As well as paying tribute to members of the Committee, who laboured long in the Committee Room upstairs, I thank in particular my ministerial colleagues for all their hard work in preparing and speaking to the Bill, as well as the Whips of both parties who kept us in order and made sure that we considered every clause without needing to curtail our deliberations. I thank my parliamentary private secretary, the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), whose seminal paper, “Open Source Planning”, was the source of inspiration for many of the policies in the Bill. I pay tribute to all my officials and to Officers of the House who have worked hard on what has been a very long and detailed Bill to get us to the state we are in today. I pay tribute to all the efforts that went into that.
I am sure that I speak for everyone who served on the Committee when I pay tribute to the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess), who chaired the Committee sittings with aplomb and expertise, thereby making for very good-humoured and good-tempered scrutiny. I think that I speak for every member of the Committee when I say that we have enjoyed scrutinising the Bill in Committee and in the House. It is fair to say that there was never a dull moment. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), sadly, is not in his place—perhaps he has gone ahead of us to the funeral I mentioned—[Interruption.] He has gone to the Dog and Duck, it is said; I know that is a favourite place of his. He treated the Committee to a tour of British history from the Magna Carta to the Chartists. We enjoyed that and were grateful for his contribution.
The right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) offered some historical perspectives of his own, some of which were drawn from his experience of introducing the measures we then went on to repeal. The fact that he mostly kept his composure during that time, I think we acknowledged. He had a flair for simile, we noted, comparing Ministers and the Secretary of State to everyone from Draco to Henry VIII to Dr Pangloss and everyone in between. A phrase that might have gained his approval is one that we were not able to offer as frequently as he would have wished—“I agree with Nick.” Perhaps, there will be other opportunities for that. [Interruption.] I am delighted to see that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington is now back in his place.
In Committee, we had contributions of passion and deep experience of local government and community leadership from both sides of the Committee. It would be invidious for me to single out individual members, but the representation on the Committee of people with long experience of local government and civic and community leadership marked the Committee out as having been selected particularly appropriately and well. The Chamber tends to produce more partisanship than is often the case in Committee or below the surface. Of course we have had our disagreements during the past two years, but I do feel that we were able to make substantial progress with the Bill in Committee. It is a landmark Bill.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Let me continue in that spirit of partisanship. The Welsh branch of the Minister’s party had a manifesto commitment in the recent National Assembly elections to devolve planning power over energy stations up to 100 MW—up from the current 50 MW level. Will he include that pledge, which was made to the people of Wales only last month, at this late stage of the Bill?
Greg Clark
We have a national system for consenting to major infrastructure projects. I have had meetings with Welsh Assembly Ministers on that and no doubt we will have meetings following the election of the new Assembly. I am very happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and Ministers from the Welsh Assembly Government to discuss that point.
As Members know, the main features of the Bill are to establish a general power of competence for local government, to increase opportunities for members of the public to participate directly in local democracy, especially via referendums, to vest in communities new rights to challenge the way in which services are provided and to own assets of importance to their communities, to reform the planning system to remove the regional tier, to permit neighbourhood planning and to establish a new duty to co-operate at the strategic level. We have clarified the functioning of local democracy in London with a degree of consent, as was pointed out earlier today, and we have introduced new flexibilities into the housing system so as to house people more reliably.
At the beginning of our deliberations, on Second Reading and in Committee, I gave a commitment to respond positively to constructive debate and I hope that the House believes I have done so. An hon. Member was kind enough to mention yesterday that I have taken a listening approach, and I expect that to continue when the Bill goes to another place. I have not regarded my task as being simply to carry the Bill through Committee unamended and without influence from the House, and that continues to be my view as it progresses through Parliament.
Thanks to our proceedings in Committee and in the past couple of days we have introduced safeguards over the use of the general power of competence and we have strengthened the duty to co-operate. We have substantially improved the provisions on neighbourhood planning to make them more open and more representative and allow them to cross neighbourhood boundaries. Those are some examples of the progress that we have been able to make.
In a centralised system it is necessary, however paradoxical it may seem, for the centre to lead on localist reform. It does not happen without a positive programme, but the centre should do so in a spirit of co-operation. I will disclose to the shadow Chancellor, who I know is fond of his dividing lines, that the discussions that I have had with the Opposition Front-Bench team have been very constructive. Even where we have not been able to agree totally, we have been able to reach a better understanding of each other’s position and to make improvements as a result.
I had hoped that that might be reflected in both sides being able to support the Bill tonight. We will see in a few minutes, but I am led to believe that that might not be the case, and I regret that. Although we may disagree on some of the particular measures to implement the vision of localism, I think localism is a cause whose time has come. It attracts support from across the political divide. What unites us in this place on localism is greater than our points of difference, which the House of Lords will no doubt continue to pursue.
Greg Clark
I will not, because I made a commitment that Members would be free to go to our late colleague’s funeral.
It is a shame that, although the Opposition say they support localism, they have hit upon an ingenious solution to oppose it in practice, which is to seize on any instance in which central Government intervene to pass down power and to focus on that intervention, rather than on the transfer of power which is its purpose. But the blindingly obvious fact is that the Bill is overwhelmingly decentralising. It favours the local over the central. Like the movement en masse on a Thursday afternoon of Members from this place to their constituencies, so the effect of the Bill is to see power leave Westminster and go where it is better vested, in local communities, and to give them their head.
This is a significant Bill. I hope we will make continued progress in the House of Lords. I believe that we will look back in 10, 20 or 50 years and see today as a turning point. The tide of centralisation has turned, not just because of the Government’s decentralising measures, but because communities across the country are demanding change. That change is already under way. The Bill will speed up the process and establish it in law. For its part in that change, I commend the Bill to the House.
Barbara Keeley
We have had more than 70 hours of debate and evidence during the Commons stage of the Bill, but I say to Ministers and Government business managers that to have only 90 minutes or so on Report to discuss groups containing 70 new clauses and amendments, as we did yesterday, was not satisfactory. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) said that the Government had allowed a shameful amount of time for the debate, and for once we agree with him.
I, too, thank all members of the Committee for their work on the Bill, and particularly Opposition members who, I think we agree, carry a heavier work load. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford), and my hon. Friends the Members for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds). I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Plymouth, Moor View (Alison Seabeck) and for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) for their excellent work and for leading the debates on our amendments.
I should mention the staff of our shadow ministerial team who worked long hours on speaking notes. Our work was supported immensely by the wise counsel of Sarah Davies and her team in the Public Bill Office. I join in the thanks to our two able Committee Chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and the hon. Member for Southend West (Mr Amess).
Sadly, we still have concerns about and objections to a number of the Bill’s proposals. We object most strongly to the 142 extra powers that the Secretary of State wants to take to himself, the most toxic of those being the Henry VIII powers in part 5 which we discussed yesterday. Our amendment 37 proposed limits to those powers to amend, repeal, revoke or disapply any statutory provision.
Ministers still do not understand the alarm and consternation they have caused by introducing these powers and the way they are conducting the review of the statutory duties of councils. I hope they will reflect on the debate and do more in the Bill’s later stages to limit those excessive powers. We disagree profoundly with the proposal to impose shadow mayors on 12 of our largest cities, a proposal that Ministers spent months denying they intended to introduce. It enjoys almost unanimous opposition from political leaders in the cities affected, such as Bradford and Leeds. The Institute of Local Government Studies at the university of Birmingham stated in a recent article:
“It takes quite a determined political masochist to design a policy that unites in opposition to it 100% of those most immediately affected, regardless of party. Yet Communities Secretary Eric Pickles would seem to have pulled it off with his Localism Bill’s elected mayoral package”.
I strongly urge Ministers to look again at their proposal to impose shadow mayors when the Bill goes to the other place.
On pay transparency, we welcome Ministers indicating that they will look at expanding their proposals to include low pay, but they have not gone far enough. Fairness and transparency must be applied to the private sector wherever staff are being paid from the public purse. Ministers can be assured, however, that our opposition on a number of other issues not tested in Divisions is as implacable now as it was in Committee.
We reject the Government’s proposal to levy EU fines on local councils, which we think will prove unworkable and hope will be thrown out when the Bill is debated in the other place. Ministers have talked about reducing burdens on local councils, but they are creating new duties and financial responsibilities at a time when councils are struggling with the challenge of dealing with the Government’s swingeing, front-loaded cuts. Most importantly, we still have serious concerns and objections to their proposals on planning and on homelessness and social housing tenure. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington said, the Government have not moved far enough on the duty to co-operate. Worse than that, the additional changes to planning announced in the Budget and Government new clause 15 have created, as my hon. Friend suggested yesterday,
“confusion, chaos and nothing short of a car crash.”—[Official Report, 17 May 2011; Vol. 528, c. 276.]
I hope that it is clear to Ministers after yesterday’s debate that there are grave concerns about Government new clause 15, which allows financial matters to be a material consideration in planning applications. This effectively means that planning decisions could be for sale. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich said, the new clause poses a threat to the integrity of the planning system. The national planning policy framework should have been made available so that it could be part of our consideration. The Minister says that it will be launched for consultation later, but that is not good enough in the context of a Bill that makes such radical changes to the planning system.
The Opposition want to give communities a say over the future of their high streets. I hope that our new clause that proposes bringing in a retail diversity scheme will find favour in the other place after Government Members rejected it yesterday.
Ministers did not listen to our concerns or objections on their proposals on homelessness and tenure reform in social housing, and there was no consensus on these proposals. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View made it clear that there is much in the Bill’s housing proposals with which we cannot agree, from the Government’s plans to weaken the homelessness duty to their plans to remove security of tenure, which would act as a brake on aspiration and a barrier to employment.
On security of tenure, the Bill will cause instability and insecurity for tenants. We are concerned about the Government taking away the rights of existing tenants. Their proposals to put homeless people straight into the private rented sector could lead to a cycle of evictions and further homelessness. We hope that scrutiny of the Bill in the other place will achieve important changes, including an accreditation scheme for the private rented sector.
In more than 70 hours of debate, we have worked hard to improve the Bill, but much more needs to be changed and revised. A Bill should not be rushed on to the statute book when it was not ready to start with, when it was not subject to adequate consultation and when Ministers have rejected many sensible amendments put forward during this and earlier debates. Therefore, we will vote against the Bill, because we want to send the message that much more change and improvement is needed.
Andrea Leadsom
I wish to speak very briefly on behalf of my constituency of South Northamptonshire. I and my constituents thoroughly welcome the Bill, because at last it gives people the chance to allow communities to determine the fate of their own environment. For so long, Northamptonshire has been subject to a regional spatial strategy that has dumped housing all around its green spaces, and people have not been able to have a real say over what happens.
We have the West Northamptonshire Development Corporation, which was given planning powers to see through those developments, yet we have not had the section 106 money, and we do not have the infrastructure, roads or even school places and GP surgeries to cope with the amount of centrally determined housing that has been foisted on Northamptonshire.
On behalf of my constituents, I thoroughly welcome the Bill, but some questions remain, particularly in my area, about how we get from where we are today to where we want to be. Surely bodies such as the West Northamptonshire Development Corporation and the West Northamptonshire joint strategic planning committee, both of which the previous Government foisted on us, have to be removed in a post-Localism Bill world. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench will listen to that very carefully.
Finally, on wind farms, we are desperately keen to see local people able to influence the siting and number of them in their area.
Stephen Gilbert
Before I move on to my remarks about the Bill, I should like to join colleagues from all parts of the House in paying tribute to David Cairns, the former Member for Inverclyde. I understand that Opposition Members want to finish in order to attend his funeral, and that is perfectly understandable, so I will be as brief as I can.
Overall, this is a landmark Bill that should be welcomed on a cross-party basis. Taking Whitehall out of the town hall has been a key feature of the double devolution that the right hon. Member for South Shields (David Miliband) has spoken and written about. It will help enable the big society, the vision of our country described best by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and it is a huge step in the right direction of the community politics that Liberals and Liberal Democrats have articulated for many a year.
The Bill frees councils, enables councillors and empowers local communities. For the first time, councils get the power of general competence: the ability to act in any area where they think that that is in the best interest of their local communities. They get extra financial freedoms, and the housing revenue account, long hated by councils and councillors, is being reformed. We are seeing increased rights and responsibilities for councillors, and the end of the ridiculous notion that having an opinion on a local issue before going into a meeting to talk about it will predetermine how they act. We are seeing the right of communities to buy assets, which might have been lost to those communities without this Bill. We are seeing local organisations have the right to challenge badly performing local authorities for contracts, and through the ability to hold referendums we are seeing additional democratic checks placed in our community.
For 13 years we have seen that increasing centralisation—an increasing reliance on a top-down approach to our communities—does not work. We know that centralised systems cannot display initiative or difference, because they are too big to fail. By dispersing power throughout the country, we are going to have a plethora of different approaches to service delivery, reflecting the particular needs of local communities, and that will be healthy for the communities concerned and for the country as a whole.
Briefly, I should like to turn to my concern, which we were not able to debate yesterday, about the asymmetry of the planning process. Colleagues will be aware that I tabled new clause 4, which would have introduced a limited community right of appeal. I am quite clear, however, that the other 18 Members who signed that new clause are keen to see work proceed to ensure that developers no longer have the whip hand on planning applications, and I know that the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), gave assurances on plans to address that concern in the national planning policy framework. It was, after all, a manifesto commitment of both coalition partners.
I pay tribute to my fellow members of the Bill Committee. It seemed like a marathon session over many months, and indeed it was. I pay tribute to the Clerks who supported us in our deliberations, and to the officials, who are already making an early exit from their Box. I note that we managed to keep them awake for the past two days. I hope that our noble colleagues at the other end of the building are equally able to keep them on their toes. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess), who so ably chaired our discussions, which were broadly non-partisan—although we saw a little bit of opportunistic opposition from Labour Front Benchers this evening.
Question put, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On Friday, a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs written statement said that there would no ban on exotic animals in circuses, as had been expected. On Monday and Tuesday, I sought to ask an urgent question on that, and made a point of order on Monday. It transpires that there is doubt as to the accuracy of Friday’s statement. Is it possible for a Minister to come to the House to clarify that statement, because it is almost certainly wrong?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
No Minister has notified me that they wish to make a statement on this matter, or indeed on any other matter, but I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard exactly what the hon. Gentleman says.