Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I do not know whether other noble Lords have been watching it, but there has been a very interesting series on television of a Danish drama called “Follow the Money”, which would be an appropriate title for this group of amendments. That series had the benefit of subtitles and, with all due respect to the Minister, I must say that we could all have done with some subtitles, not necessarily on the day but in the form of a briefing note that could have helped us get our heads around this complicated and arcane topic.
I raise one issue with the noble Viscount. I understand, having been so advised by Shelter, that the Bill originally provided that in the event of insolvency of a housing association the first priority would be to maintain social housing in the sector and secure a transfer to another housing association. The amendments collectively before us make that objective secondary to the interests of the creditors. Therefore, the properties might simply be sold off rather than continue to be held within the social housing sector. Will the noble Viscount indicate whether he or the Government take that as an acceptable position? What would the potential impact be in the event of this crisis emerging with any particular association? Why was it necessary to change the original thrust of the Bill’s proposals and downgrade that priority of maintaining the social housing stock in favour of dealing with the needs of the creditors?
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to speak against government Amendment 78P. I heard what the Minister said about hoping that there would be no insolvencies, but the Government appear to be expecting a number of registered providers to become insolvent during this Parliament and for the marketplace to have fewer larger housing providers. That will mean that some of the smaller ones will go to the wall.
On Amendment 78P, the land over which there is a current planning permission belonging to a registered provider that has now become insolvent would be sold on. Presumably, that would be to a developer for it to carry out the extant planning permission. However, the Section 106 planning obligations that the local authority in good faith had attached to the granting of the application, in order to serve both the existing communities around the site and the residents who would move into the proposed dwellings once the site been completed, would be waived. I fear that this is gerrymandering on a large scale and does not serve the communities within the local authority concerned at all well.
Of course, removing the planning obligations means that either the developer gets a bargain or that the housing administrator is able to get a higher price for the land. Either way, the local communities will suffer as no leisure or community facilities will be provided which were the subject of the original planning application. I fear that this is penny-pinching and shabby in the extreme.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Beecham
I endorse the noble Lord’s last plea, and I think that it is one that the Minister will feel able to agree—or I hope that she will, because it would certainly make a great deal of sense. I very much welcome the Government’s more flexible approach to these matters, and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, who is doing rather better than his namesake in many respects at the moment, on achieving two substantial concessions from the Government. They are not perfect, perhaps, but go a long way towards meeting the particular requirements of communities that are in many ways very hard-pressed and would undoubtedly have suffered significant difficulties if the Government had stuck to their original proposals. In that spirit of collaboration, I look forward to the Minister dotting the last “i” and crossing the last “t” in relation to the transfer from one property to another not requiring a sale.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I support the amendment in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Cameron of Dillington, Lord Best and Lord Beecham, to which I have added my name. We debated rural housing at length in Committee and I remain concerned that we will see a radical change in housing in rural areas as a result of the implementation of this Bill, if it remains unamended. I welcome the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, with which I completely agree, as well as those of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Beecham.
I have seen and read the Minister’s letter—not the one that came today—on this subject, and I am afraid that I do not believe that tenants in rural areas will be disadvantaged in the way that she indicates, or be treated differently from other tenants in more urban areas. I regret to say that it often appears that the Government do not always understand the countryside and rural areas. I have found from personal experience, when working in the Palace of Westminster in the past, that it was often extremely difficult to get people to understand the impact of their policies on residents in Greater London, outside Westminster, and completely hopeless to get any understanding of the impact on those further afield. That is especially true if one lived in an area that was considered as somewhere where one went for a holiday and did not actually live your life there. I therefore fully support the amendment and welcome the assurances from the Minister so far on safeguards and exclusions from rural communities, and I wait to hear what she has to say.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
Lord Beecham
On behalf of the Opposition, I congratulate the noble Lord on apparently achieving his objective of persuading the Government to be reasonable. We very much welcome the indication that that will be the case. I hope this is a trailer for what might happen when we discuss right to buy and its impact in rural areas. It is a parallel situation. There are particular needs in those areas which have to be reflected in the legislation and the changes the Government envisage. I will not ask the Minister to commit herself today to that point, but we look forward to a sympathetic response on similar lines when we get to it. I am sure the House will join me in thanking the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Best, for pursuing this case so assiduously and with what is apparently a very satisfactory outcome—although we will read the small print when it arrives.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
I, too, thank the noble Lords, Lord Cameron and Lord Best, for having negotiated what looks like an agreement we can all sign up to, but I will be looking forward to the detail at Third Reading. I gave a long and detailed speech in Committee on this subject. Your Lordships will be pleased to know that I am not going to do the same today, but I still feel very passionately about rural exception sites and protecting rural communities, so I will be looking closely at what comes forward at Third Reading.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I support Amendment 66D. I refer your Lordships to my entry in the register of interests as a vice-president of the LGA and a district councillor. I also support the amendments tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Cameron, Lord Best and Lord Kennedy.
As I expounded last Tuesday—probably for longer than I should have done and I will not repeat myself today because the arguments are on the record—I am passionate about the nature of our English countryside and that it should be preserved, with a true mix of people from all income brackets and all walks of life being able to live there. If social, affordable or other low-cost housing is sold off under the right to buy, that will have a very detrimental effect on rural and smaller communities, as the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, eloquently laid out.
I am grateful to the Minister for listing last Tuesday those types of properties, organisations and locations where right-to-buy exemptions would exist, including the national parks. It is useful to have those in Hansard, but I have to press her on the categories listed in the amendment: rural populations under 3,000 and settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people. Many of these, as has been said, will be small but vibrant market towns, essential for serving the small villages and communities around them. This vital lifeline must be protected for all classes of residents, not just the well-off. I support all the amendments in this group.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, support the amendments in this group. The noble Lord, Lord Best, made a very powerful case in relation to the problems that would arise from the right to buy of council housing. Rural areas have commanded and will continue to command a great deal of concern in your Lordships’ House as the Bill progresses.
I confess that I am old enough to recall listening to “The Archers” when Grace Archer was consumed by a fire in, I think, about 1954. I have not been a particularly regular listener since, but I understand that, by chance or otherwise, the question of rural housing has featured rather largely in recent editions. I believe I am right in saying that the Grundy family have encountered enormous difficulties in finding suitable local accommodation and may be driven to palming off their ancient father into some sort of care. Whether this was motivated by concerns over the Housing and Planning Bill is perhaps questionable but nevertheless it illustrates a real concern in those areas.
Of course, there has been right to buy council housing for some considerable time. I wonder whether the Minister can indicate to us the extent to which the right to buy has been exercised and what proportion of houses that have so far gone under the right to buy have ended up as second homes or private lettings, and what the impact generally has been on the provision of council housing in rural areas.
Needless to say, I searched in vain for any reference to this issue in what passes for the impact assessment on the Bill, which makes no reference at all in relation to the relevant clauses that we are debating today to the impact of government policy. Again, the Minister may or may not have the information. Those who drew up the impact assessment clearly were not interested in having it. If the information is not available today, and it may not be, will she take steps to ensure that by the time we get to Report we will have an assessment of what will happen to the existing stock of council housing that will be subject to the right to buy—and, for that matter, to housing association properties that will also be subject to the right to buy—given the unlikelihood of like-for-like replacement being achieved?
I find it very frustrating—and I am afraid it is becoming a constant refrain of Members around the House—not to be able to form a judgment about what the Government’s policies are actually going to lead to. They are leading us, and perhaps themselves, into a blind valley, as it were, without any apparent awareness of the impact of their policies upon communities, where unfortunately there is very little political gain to be made by my party as they are regarded as the natural territory of the Conservative Party. Perhaps they take it for granted. However, they cannot take for granted the needs of young and older people with very little choice of accommodation, a choice likely to be increasingly narrowed if this legislation goes through without the kind of safeguards that the amendments in the group would provide, limited though they are but nevertheless very desirable. I look forward to hearing some kind of explanation from the Minister as to how the aspirations of people in those communities are going to be met if the legislation passes in the form it is presented to us at the moment.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
Lord Beecham
If people are moving in, paying the private rent and relying on housing benefit, that is a cost to the Exchequer, and if they pay the sort of rents that my noble friend referred to, they are likely to be in a much better position than other people in greater housing needs who cannot afford it.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I shall be brief because the hour is late. I do not want to be here at midnight because there is a problem on the Tube line that I travel home on.
I wish to speak to Clauses 65 and 66, which I oppose. As far as we are concerned, the part of the Bill on right to buy is not acceptable as it stands, and that is why we have given notice of our intention to oppose the clauses. It is quite clear to us that if the Government’s ability to make grants were removed, the right-to-buy voluntary deal would collapse and be off the table. If housing associations are not fully compensated, they will not carry out right to buy. Therefore, the removal of these clauses would stop the right-to-buy extension from going ahead, and I shall say why we think that that is really important.
For us, it is absolutely not acceptable for the extension to be funded by the sale of high-value council housing. This will be detrimental to local councils and will mean that there will not be enough houses for the 1.6 million households—especially those with large families—on social housing waiting lists. For us, it is also vital that one-for-one and like-for-like replacements are written into the Bill. For that reason, we oppose the clauses.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I support Amendments 20 and 22 and do so with a slightly sinking feeling because it should not be necessary.
We have in the recent past discussed issues around landlords not keeping their properties in a decent state of repair. I was pleased to speak to the retaliatory evictions amendments during the passage of the Deregulation Bill. These make it an offence for tenants to be served with a notice of eviction if they bring a fault with their home to the attention of the landlord. They quite rightly expect him or her to rectify the problem. It would appear that either tenants are unaware of their rights under this legislation or that the legislation is being flouted by landlords. At all events, many tenants are still paying rent and living in properties that are far from what you and I would call fit for human habitation.
We have heard a great deal of rhetoric today and, because I consider this such a serious issue, I am afraid that I will repeat some of it now. This morning I received a useful brief from a partner at Anthony Gold Solicitors who specialises in landlord and tenant law. Outside of the retaliatory evictions, the law on tenants’ complaints is currently enforced by local authorities, as other Members have said. Karen Buck MP from the other place commissioned a report, published last December, on the challenge of tackling unsafe and unhealthy housing. Local authorities were contacted across the country and asked a number of questions about complaints from private tenants.
The number of complaints received in 2011-12 was 52,820; in 2012-13 it had gone up to 62,818; and in 2013-14 it had gone down but only to 51,916. The numbers of inspections carried out by local authorities over the same three-year period were 25,867, 31,634 and 29,768 respectively. Only about half of the properties about which tenants had made complaints were inspected.
As my noble friend Lady Grender has said, the categories of hazards and faults identified were damp and mould, excess cold, crowding and space, falling hazards and fire. The number of improvement notices served in 2011-12 were 1,519; in 2012-13, 1,645; and in 2013-14, 1,958. If local authorities had the resources to inspect the properties of all the complaints then no doubt the number of improvement notices could have been doubled. However, the number of prosecutions undertaken was less than 100 in each of the three years.
Some people are living in really dreadful conditions, as my noble friend Lady Grender has said. Under the current out-of-date legislation, tenants can take action themselves only if their rent is less than £80 a year in London and £52 a year elsewhere. I would be very hard pressed to find a property with a rent of £52 a week in my area, never mind a year. Perhaps I might get a bedroom in an HMO with a kitchen and bathroom shared, but that would be about it.
We know from other sources that 11 million people live in private rented accommodation in England. Of these, one in four are in families. Local authority budgets are overstretched. They are doing the best they can with shrinking resources but it is time that more is done to raise awareness about tenants’ rights and the law strengthened to give them the power to do this for themselves. If we remove the rent limit, we free up people to take responsibility for themselves.
I turn to Amendment 22, which we have heard about so eloquently from the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours. The 11 million people in the private rented sector are spending 47% of their income on rent—they have the highest rents—compared with 23% of the income of people with a mortgage and 32% of the income for those in the social rented sector. However, 30% of private rented properties in England would fail the Government’s decent homes standard compared with 15% in the social rented sector.
Landlords are required to carry out annual checks on gas installations, as we have heard, and mercifully there are very few incidents involving gas, whereas 350,000 people are injured through electrical incidents. In 2013-14, 49 people were killed as a result of electrical fires in the home. The amendment is asking not for annual inspections, as is the case with gas, but for an electrical safety inspection every five years. This would not be overly onerous. Surely the Minister will agree that saving lives is important.
I live in a rented property in London that has both gas and electricity supplied by the same company. Before Christmas I received a postcard saying that an engineer had cause to inspect the gas and electricity meters, and asking me to make an appointment for that to be done. I contacted the supplying company and fixed a date for when the House returned in January. I waited in and an engineer duly called and inspected both meters, making a couple of comments. He was required to do this quite separately from those who came to read the meters. He was satisfied with the state of the meters and showed me how to switch the gas off should I need to do so, which I was quite pleased about because I did not know how to do it before. However, he did not inspect the electrical cabling, nor did I expect him to. I am satisfied that the meters are safe and working properly, and that I am not paying more than I should for the energy I consume. What I do not know is the state of the wiring once it leaves the meter and goes into the rest of the flat.
Many people have fears about certain aspects of everyday life. For some it will be the fear of water and drowning, for others it will be being trapped in a dark and confined space, and for some it will be being caught in a fire. Whatever their fears, they are valid, and wherever possible we must do all that we can to ensure that such fears do not become reality. This is a simple and straightforward amendment that could save people’s lives and bring reassurance to thousands. I fully support both amendments.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I warmly endorse the first two amendments in this group. I find it inconceivable that the Government should stick to their position of declining to accept these basic amendments about the obvious need for properties to be fit for human habitation and electrically safe. It is not asking too much of landlords to ensure this; as we have just heard from the noble Baroness, a five-yearly inspection would hardly be costly, and in any event would no doubt be reflected in the rents charged over that period. At £150 or something like that, that would be only £30 a year. It is ridiculous to suggest that that would be too much of a burden for landlords to accept. And how anyone could resist a requirement for properties to be fit for human habitation escapes me.
However, I want to address the third amendment in this group, which is about property guardianship, and particularly about the condition of the properties that are dealt with in that fashion. I have to confess that I was entirely unfamiliar with the concept of property guardianship, or indeed the existence of property guardians, until I read an article in a newspaper—appropriately, the Guardian—in December. It seems that empty buildings, often large ones, are let out at low rents, but the renters have no security, with some companies—it tends to be companies which operate these properties—offering just two-week notice periods. Normal standards of safety and the condition of the property do not appear to apply or to be achieved.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, when I spoke previously I should have drawn your Lordships’ attention to my entry in the Register of Interests as a district councillor of South Somerset District Council and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I will speak, in the first instance, to Amendment 9. I will then speak to Amendments 10, 12, 13 and 14. On Amendment 9, it is only fair and proper that those who have the prospect of a banning order being imposed on them should have the right of appeal. My colleagues and I are happy with the process laid down for dealing with appeals, with one exception. Both the landlord and his tenants, plus the local housing authority, will be in some uncertainty during the appeal process. Uncertainty leads to stress, and this will be extremely unwelcome for tenants, who are already fraught because of the situation in which they find themselves. The state of their accommodation may be less than we would wish, and they may have been threatened. They will want their ordeal to be finalised as quickly as possible. Likewise, the landlord will be waiting for the sword of Damocles to fall, and this could be unjustified, as we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, earlier. It is only fair and equitable that this uncertainty be as short-lived as possible for all concerned. That is why I have tabled this amendment, requiring the appeal to be heard within 28 days so that the decision is reached quickly and efficiently for the benefit of all concerned. I hope the Minister can agree to it.
Turning to Amendment 10, the register of rogue landlords is one of the most important steps forward in this Bill. Those of us who have been, or are still, councillors will know at first hand what misery can be caused by a tenant who has what is now classed as a rogue landlord. All housing department officers know who they are as the tenants of these landlords are frequently in their offices or on the phone complaining about the treatment meted out to them. The frequency of evictions by these landlords, or the sudden ending of tenancies, alerts officers to where they are and the properties that they own and run.
It is essential that a register of rogue landlords be set up which can be accessed by those agencies supporting their tenants. These agencies will be well-known, trusted deliverers of advice and support, including the local authority, the CAB, the DWP, jobcentres and possibly food banks. It is vital that tenants are also able to access this register if they are not to go from one poor landlord to another. It will always be the case that those who are the most desperate to find a roof over their head for themselves, their partner and perhaps even their children will be most at risk of being exploited. They need this information to assist them to make the right choices.
It is not as though the names of those who are likely to arrive on the register will not already be in the public domain. Local newspapers are full of court reports. Someone on the register is also likely to be engaged in other activities and will have come to the notice of police and local authorities. If they have previously held a licence for a HMO, that will have been reported in the local newspapers. I can understand that there are some sensitivities here, but we must protect tenants by allowing them access so that they can make value judgments. This is a freedom of information issue and I hope the Minister will be able to concede this amendment.
I turn now to Amendments 12, 13 and 14. As already said, it is important that all those who are operating in the private housing market are able to provide for and assist their tenants to have a secure and untroubled home. It is to no one’s advantage for people to be continually seeking alternative accommodation; to be moving within an area where they are currently living or having to move to a different area is stressful. This is especially true if there are children involved. Disrupting a child’s education as they are forced to move schools is very harmful and will set back their educational progress.
It is essential that tenants are able to access the register of rogue landlords so that, having moved from one such landlord, they do not fall foul of another operating in a similar type of accommodation. Let us not forget that the people and families looking for the accommodation which is likely to be provided by those on the register will have little choice because of their straitened circumstances. However, like everyone else, they deserve to be protected from exploitation.
As I have already indicated, the information on rogue landlords is likely to already be in the public domain through court proceedings and other avenues. I urge the Minister to consider these amendments and respond positively to them. I beg to move.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I support the amendments moved by the noble Baroness. I have one query about Amendment 12, which removes a requirement for information disclosed from the database to be anonymous. It would be helpful if it were made clear that any information concerning a tenant would continue to be anonymous. It is not clear whether there would be any information about a tenant revealed or recorded but, to be on the safe side, such a tenant should not have his or her details revealed. That ought to remain guarded by anonymity.
This group of amendments addresses a large range of issues designed to facilitate dealing with the problems occasioned by rogue landlords. Amendment 15 specifically bars any landlord on a database of rogue landlords from obtaining a house in multiple occupation licence. It would be good to have that in the Bill.
The background to this group and much of what we are discussing today in the Bill was set out recently in disturbing statistics produced by Citizens Advice in its response to the welcome funding by the Department for Communities and Local Government to tackle the problem on the ground.
I am bound to report that a grant of £80,000 has been received to be applied in the ward that I represent on Newcastle City Council, in an area just half a mile away from the new properties that the noble Baroness visited recently. We got a selective licensing scheme for that area—eventually; it was not easy to obtain. About a third of the landlords in the area were clearly not conforming to the requirements. I am glad that we have received this funding to enable us, as a council, to pursue matters.
Lord Beecham
But the rogue landlord must be the owner of the property; otherwise he would not be the landlord, presumably.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for mentioning the anonymising of tenants’ names on the list. It is very important that their names should not be released.
I cannot pretend that I am anything other than disappointed with the Minister’s response. It is very important that the appeals are heard in a timely manner and I think 28 days is a reasonable time in which to hear an appeal. In other parts of the Bill we shall come to issues of abandonment, where there are very definite timescales that people must abide by. So I find it somewhat strange that we cannot have a timescale for hearing the appeals. This may be something we wish to return to on Report.
With regard to the list of landlords being anonymised and not released to tenants, I cannot see the point of holding a list if it is be anonymised. That seems somewhat perverse. Tenants should have access to the list and should be able to see whether their landlord is on the database. I accept that rogue landlords will be on the database when they may not have a banning order. I understand that difference but, nevertheless, these are not the kinds of landlords we wish to promote. The Minister has indicated that she does not wish to drive rogue landlords out of business, but what of the good landlords? There are hundreds and thousands of responsible landlords operating their properties for the benefit of their tenants and just one or two rogue landlords are in danger of giving other landlords a very bad name. We should be able to name and shame these rogue landlords.
However, I understand the Minister’s view. It is possible that we may return to this but I will withdraw my amendment.
Lord Beecham
May I revert to my Amendment 15 about the HMO licence? I do not understand the logic of the Minister’s position. If a landlord is described as a rogue landlord and is on the database accordingly, why should that not operate as a bar to obtaining a licence for a house of multiple occupation?
Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [HL]
Debate between Lord Beecham and Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. As has been demonstrated by the noble Earl, it is really important that homeless children and their families have somewhere to live. If children are not able to have the safety and security of a home, they are not able to take advantage of education and therefore not able to make the best use of their lives. In terms of looked-after children and those in care, we have heard that a large proportion of these very disadvantaged children end up in the justice system in one way or another and are therefore doubly penalised for something which is not within their power to alter.
Therefore, I support the amendment on homelessness and housing need, and I obviously also support the supply of affordable housing, which is a real issue and not just in areas in the east and the north. While I am not expecting this Bill to solve all the ills of the housing market, I do not think that it should make them worse.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I can well see the point of having housing strategy determined at the level of the combined authorities that will potentially emerge as a result of this legislation. Personally, I rather regret that the previous Government abandoned the concept of regional housing policy. That led to what we might call the “Stevenage situation”, where a borough with very tight limits on its land was unable to secure the agreement, notwithstanding the alleged duty to co-operate under other legislation, from an adjoining authority in terms of housing. One can see that a regional—or, in this case, sub-regional—strategy is certainly a matter for a combined authority.
However, I have two problems. One is that we must not disconnect the operational workings of local authority housing and its third sector partners. Often, these partners are arm’s-length management organisations from the locality. My noble friend may say a little more about that when he responds from the Front Bench.
I am also somewhat concerned about the term “affordable housing”. Affordability is capable of very elastic definitions. Under the Government’s terms as it relates to housing provision, I understand that affordable rent, for example, is 80% of the current market rent. Current market rents in the private rented sector have, as we learn daily, been soaring over the last few years. Indeed, the number of private landlords has been soaring. I read—today, I think—that the proportion of housing now owned by private landlords is 20% of the total housing stock, having more than doubled in the last few years. Of course, there are places in London where there are certainly a lot of them, but in many of the areas that we are talking about rents in the private sector have increased hugely.
To talk about 80% of the private rent level as being affordable is, to put it mildly, stretching a point where many people are concerned. Certainly the residents of the ward that I represent in the west end of Newcastle would find it very difficult to pay 80% of the rent in the private rented sector for the better housing that they would wish to occupy. All the talk about affordability in the recent election seemed to be about home ownership. Of course, we are all anxious to ensure that people have the opportunity to buy, if that is what they want, and to try to facilitate it in terms of making finance available. However, there are increasingly large numbers of people for whom that aspiration is at the moment—and, frankly, for the foreseeable future—unachievable.
The notion that here we might be looking at the provision of affordable housing on a combined authority level needs to be qualified. There needs to be an explanation of what we mean by that affordability. Of course, it is crucial that we refer to the provision of good-quality housing. I referred in previous debates to the space standards of the housing provided in this country. The space provided is much less than in most of the rest of Europe. Therefore, it may be affordable in financial terms but the new housing that is being built is not particularly good.
More particularly, my concern is with the people who will be unable to afford even well-designed, relatively modest premises on the basis of the current market and will need to rent. Unless we have a clearer definition, I cannot quite see how combined authorities will be able to influence that. If the noble Earl’s intentions are acknowledged by the Government and a review of the kind that he is asking for takes place, we may have some more realistic answers, but ultimately the delivery of affordable housing will vary even within a given area. By definition, we are talking about large populations. We are also talking about—I keep repeating this, I am afraid, but it is something that we have to deal with—an area in the north-east which has a lot of rural areas within it. There, again, the pressure is very high but it is rather different from that of the urban areas.
We must be careful not to exclude or substantially diminish the role of the local housing authorities, as they are currently constituted, in the context of a combined authority’s strategic plan. I acknowledge that there is a role there, but it should not be an exclusive role at the combined authority level. Local needs and what is affordable, for example, will vary significantly, not only within different parts of the housing sector but within geographical areas. It is a bit more complicated than at first sight might be thought to be the case. I am not saying that the noble Lord is not cognisant of that fact, but, necessarily, an amendment does not set out all the subtleties that one perhaps needs to get into.
I am interested to hear the Government’s thinking about affordable housing, their definitions and how that might relate to the concept of the combined authority and, in any event, to housing policy generally.