Housing and Planning Bill

Baroness Redfern Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 52, which is in my name and has the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young, for his comments. I also want to note my support for Amendment 51, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Beecham, which would serve to better protect areas of high value, such as St Albans city and district in my own diocese, from a potential loss of social housing to other parts of the country.

The purpose of my amendment is to ensure that any home sold by housing associations under right to buy in rural areas is replaced in the same or an adjoining parish. This would shift the terms of the current right-to-buy deal from one in which housing associations have discretion over the sale of assets under right to buy in rural areas to one in which they are unable to take advantage of right-to-buy funding in rural areas unless they guarantee replacement housing in the same or an adjoining rural area. Such an amendment is widely supported by coalitions of rural landowners such as the CLA, the Campaign to Protect Rural England and rural housing associations such as Hastoe Housing Association.

I recognise that many Peers have a legitimate concern about preserving the status of housing associations as independent providers of social housing, and that this would lead them to support increased individual choice for housing associations wherever possible. However, I have to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, who pointed out in Committee that,

“the circumstances of rural communities and villages are exceptional”.—[Official Report, 8/3/16; col. 1209.]

As has been repeatedly stated in this House, just one in 10 homes in rural areas is classed as affordable housing, compared with one in five in urban areas, despite the fact that in 90% of rural authorities, the average home costs eight times the average salary. That leaves a large proportion of rural communities struggling to make ends meet in the private rental market, desperately waiting for affordable rents to become available, or forced to leave their communities altogether. The Government’s facilitating the sale of what little affordable housing exists in rural communities seems to me to be a failure of policy, particularly given the immense difficulties associated with securing new or replacement rural affordable housing. In many rural communities it is virtually impossible to build more social housing.

Along with other noble Lords, I have raised this issue several times in the House already, and every time it has been pointed out that under the terms of the voluntary agreement, housing associations are exempt from the requirement to sell in rural areas. I am well aware of that. My concern is what happens when housing associations do choose to sell rural properties, given that there is currently no requirement for them to build replacements in the same area.

In Committee, several Peers indicated that we need simply to take it on trust that housing associations, because they are close to the actual situation on the ground, will not sell rural homes in areas where they cannot or will not be able to replace them. That seems highly questionable to me. Most housing associations, unless they have a specific rural focus in the very nature of what they have set out to do, have a duty to the vulnerable that transcends rural and urban boundaries. It would not be for me to criticise a housing association which, in selling off one rural affordable home—it will probably be an extremely valuable property, or certainly a more costly property—was able to provide affordable housing for two families in an urban area.

That sounds an eminently sensible thing to do for the overall good of everybody. However, for the individual housing association, it could make perfect financial and charitable sense to consolidate the housing stock in, say, quite a limited urban area—a town or a city—where the costs of development tend to be cheaper and where it can support more families. But for the rural communities in question, that would be devastating: not just for the individual families who are unable to live in the local village and perhaps where many generations of their family have lived in the past, but for the sustainability and the future of the wider community. Without people of all incomes living and working in the local area, no rural community can sustain flourishing schools, shops, pubs and churches. Rural communities need hope for a sustainable and secure future. This is particularly true when it comes to the development of rural exception sites, which are a crucial route to securing affordable housing for rural communities.

Speaking personally on my own area of interest, many dioceses in the Church of England, including my own, are committed to using glebe land to provide for rural exception sites where possible, but the extension of right to buy will make the provision of such sites much more difficult for us as a charitable body, given that charitable assets might be transferred to individual ownership, where they could be used for profit. I know that the CLA has spoken to many landowning members who have similar reservations about providing land for rural exceptions sites without strong guarantees that the resultant affordable housing will remain available to the local community in perpetuity. I welcome the concession the Government have already made on rural exception sites regarding starter homes, and can only hope that today might find the Minister in a similarly understanding mood—I smile at her hopefully.

The sale of vital and scarce affordable housing should not receive government subsidies in rural areas unless local replacement is guaranteed. This cannot be left to the discretion of housing associations, which will face immense pressure on their resources in the coming years. Securing the sustainability of rural communities is the duty of government, and I hope the Government will make the necessary amendments to the Bill.

[Baroness Redfern (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 51. This new, reinvigorated right to buy will certainly help housing associations to retain their independence, and will, I am sure, bring about a new era for building and bring an end to the housing crisis. Associations are a vital piece of the housing predicament jigsaw and together, working closely with government, will help to bridge the generation gap and give that boost to those Britons whose overwhelming ambition is to become home owners.

Housing associations are professional organisations that have sound commercial and social principles and manage their estates extremely well. The important fact to emphasise is that they are well established, intuitively know what type of housing is best suited for their area, and know where their new build is in greatest need.

Another part of the jigsaw is job opportunities—a possibility that turns people’s ambition into reality for the very first time. That is why it is so important for tenure to be taken locally. A voluntary agreement with the National Housing Federation and the housing association sector gives the flexibility to replace nationally, since housing associations know their customers’ needs best. Because of that, it is particularly important that an agreement also gives them flexibility and discretion over sales of properties in rural locations.

My noble friend Lord Young alluded to housing associations having the inner knowledge and expertise where local demand is required. As we know, different parts of the country have unique demands. Therefore, government should not be instructing them where to build replacement homes; rather, it should recognise the importance of ensuring that rural communities are protected, but believe that the best way of doing that is not by preserving them exactly as they are now. Instead, we should be supporting living, working and sustainable rural communities, with tenants having real choices about where and how they live. Allowing rural tenants the same opportunities to access home ownership as other tenants is a good thing.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham (Lab)]

My Lords, the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Young, confused me. Will the Minister very briefly clarify them in her response? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans mentioned in particular the situation of a housing association such as Hastoe, which is well known as a rural housing association that did not sign up to the voluntary deal, is opposed to it and did not want to participate in it. Now what will happen? We may or may not get rural exception sites and so on, but even there my understanding is that the Government proposed that any tenant in such a position would port a discount to somewhere else where they would be able to buy. However, if an entirely rural housing association that is opposed to the voluntary deal and may wish to exercise its discretion not to engage in it has no property that is non-rural, can the Minister clarify what is then the situation? If a housing association is opposed to the voluntary deal, who will ensure that, if the Government deem that this is the right course forward, none the less sales will go ahead? Secondly, if it is entirely rural, with no property to which a tenant can port the discount, what happens then?

I would be glad of some reassurance because the description given by the noble Lord, Lord Young, of what goes on in rural areas bore no resemblance at all to my experience as a former chair of a housing association that was largely rural.