Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Lord Kerslake
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, before addressing the substantive issue before the House I wish to draw attention to material which appeared in today’s edition of the Sun, reporting on our deliberations yesterday. The article began by stating:
“Ministers last night vowed to make MPs sit through the night to pass new Right to Buy laws after Labour peers blocked them”.
It went on to claim:
“The Lords again voted down key funding arrangements to extend the 1980s policy to all housing association tenants”.
There are only three things wrong with that statement. First, there was no call for MPs to sit through the night—or indeed at all—on this issue until, as I understand it, this afternoon. Secondly, the vote in favour of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, included Lib Dem and several Cross-Bench Peers as well as Labour Peers. Thirdly, the amendment did not amount to the alleged voting down of key funding arrangements. In fairness to the Sun, it has clearly been fed this distorted version of events by the Government.
What is much worse, however, is the astonishing personal attack on the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, by the Minister, Brandon Lewis, which the paper also reports. Mr Lewis says of this distinguished and highly respected public servant:
“Not only is Lord Kerslake unelected, he is the owner of his own home who is trying to stop others from owning theirs”.
Quite apart from the offensive language unworthy of a Minister of the Crown, this disgraceful attack entirely overlooks the role of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, in supporting the voluntary agreement between the housing association movement, of which he is a leading member, and the Government in extending the right to buy to their tenants. He is owed a prompt and full apology.
I turn now to the substantive issue before us. The House has twice asked the House of Commons—yesterday by a small majority—to reconsider its position in respect of one aspect of the Bill in relation to the sale of high-value homes and their replacement. It has declined to do so, and we now have reluctantly to accept the position. But I wish to return to the question of financial privilege, the claim to which has been reiterated by the Commons and has already been the subject of debate in your Lordships’ House. Yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, made much of the issue and criticised the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, in terms which I think, on reflection—although by no means to be compared with those of Mr Lewis—he might just regret. He and I have had brief exchanges on the issue of financial privilege—a matter which my ancestors appear unaccountably to have omitted as the 11th commandment when they recorded what was engraved on the tablets of stone handed down at Mount Sinai.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, averred correctly that the designation of an amendment as one involving financial privilege is not made by the Speaker, the Government or the House of Commons. But that is not the end of the matter. In a paper on financial privilege in February 2012, the Clerk of the House and the Clerk of Legislation set out the position with complete clarity. When the Commons considers Lords amendments in which financial privilege is involved, the Commons can waive its privileges. If the Government use their majority, which of course they are entitled to do, the reason given to this House will be the financial privilege reason. The paper goes on to affirm that “the Commons can accept” such an amendment and “waive its privileges”, and continues:
“The Commons waives its privilege far more often than not. For example, 115 LAs”—
Lords amendments—“to the Localism Bill”, emanating, I remind noble Lords, from the same department that has fathered the present Bill,
“were designated as involving financial privilege. The House waived its privilege on all of them”.
Moreover, it adds:
“In the last three years”—
therefore including more than a year of the last Labour Government—
“sixteen Bills have come back from the Lords with amendments which involved privilege”.
On eight of them, privilege was waived on all the Lords amendments; on seven, privilege was waived on most, but not all; and on only one was privilege not waived because it required a money resolution.
It is therefore clear that this House is not acting improperly in passing amendments that might invoke privilege and that the Commons can, if it chooses, waive such a claim. There is no justification for intemperate claims about the actions of this House in the exercise of its duties to scrutinise and if possible improve legislation, let alone for the kind of attack on an individual Member which was launched today.
I will conclude on a more congenial matter, which is to express once again the thanks of the Opposition and I suspect all Members of the House to the noble Baroness the Minister and her colleagues—but especially to the noble Baroness, who has seen through this dreadful Bill with as much charm, patience, skill and effort as could be demanded of anybody. We are extremely grateful to her and to those who have supported her. We end up, in the view of many of us, with a very bad Bill that is by no means the fault of the noble Baroness, and she takes with us our good wishes for a relaxing weekend—before eventually we start going through the mass of secondary legislation that will flow from her efforts.
Lord Kerslake (CB)
My Lords, I first declare my interest as chair of Peabody and president of the Local Government Association. The absence of another amendment signals that today will be considerably less dramatic than yesterday. I hope that the House, though, will bear with me while I say a few final words on this Bill.
In the end, any contest between this House and the other place will be an unequal one. That is as it should be: it is elected and we are not. However, that should not dissuade us from making our case clearly and forcefully on issues that really matter. In this case the matters involved matter a great deal. The underlying concerns about this Bill have been about its fairness, its commitment to localism and its deliverability. Most of all it has been about whether it will deliver the additional houses of all types and tenures that this country so desperately needs.
These issues came to the fore in yesterday’s debate. It is now clear that some manifesto commitments come ahead of others. In the competing demands of funding the extension of right to buy and funding the one-for-one replacement—both manifesto commitments —replacement will come a very clear second. Local authorities will have to draw on their own very scarce resources if one for one has any chance of being delivered. It has also become abundantly clear that the sums simply do not add up. How otherwise could you explain the resistance to what was after all a very modest amendment—certainly not a wrecking one—other than that it was born out of this financial discrepancy? It became very clear in yesterday’s debate, by seeking to align the means with the ends, that the financial means are simply not there. However, that will be a debate for another time, and it will go on outside and inside Parliament.
I, too, thank the Minister for her unfailing courtesy and integrity during the passage of this Bill. It is not her fault that she was lumbered with a Bill containing some deeply controversial policies and which in all truth was not really ready. I hope she will understand that it is the issues in the Bill that have created such passion, not the handling of it by her or her team.
I also thank all those organisations outside Parliament, such as Shelter, the Local Government Association, the Chartered Institute of Housing and the National Housing Federation, which have provided such great support to me and others during the Bill’s passage. As a result, we have been able to make some important improvements to it. We have also been able to change the terms of the debate about what its real impact will be.
Finally, I am not immune to the constitutional concerns nor the anxieties about the future position of the Cross-Benchers. I had an increasing number of fireside chats as we approached the vote yesterday, and with each one the temperature was turned up a notch. However, I have to balance these important issues against what I know about the world outside—as president of the LGA, the deep concerns of local government about the impact of the Bill; as chair of Peabody, the challenge of building more social rented homes; but most of all, what I know about the personal lives of ordinary people. I give just one example of a family with five children living in a two-bedroom flat less than half an hour from this House. The five children share a single bedroom. Will their chances of securing a decent family home be enhanced or diminished by the passage of this Bill? I fear we know the answer to that question. In my view, it is the interests of this family and the many others like them that should come first in our deliberations in this House.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Lord Kerslake
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, I have added my name to the other amendment in this group for the simple reason that the intended effect of the policy has not been how it has worked out in practice. If we cast our minds back to when this policy was developed, the economy was still struggling to recover from the impact of the financial crisis and the intention, therefore, was to unlock animal spirits and let the market take its course. There is no doubt that permitted rights has unlocked a series of new developments of housing. However, the intention was for it to address industrial sites or office sites where the prospect of new economic development was unlikely ever to happen but, for whatever reason, the local authority was not recognising that reality and moving on. In that sense, it had its effect. Where it has not done what we anticipated was that there was a policy of exemptions which would prevent particular areas being unduly affected. The City and Westminster formed part of those exemptions, but the area was not drawn widely enough.
Let us move forward to the present. The values that can be achieved through the development of residential housing, particularly in London—and I believe that this is predominantly a London issue—far exceed the values that can be achieved through economic use such as offices, retail space and so on. Instead of taking sites that will never be used for economic development, we are taking perfectly viable business sites and then forcing them into residential use, often at high values, which is not helping with the immediate housing need, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, has just described. There are plenty of different ways that this issue can be addressed, but I urge the Minister to look constructively at how this issue can be tackled. It is likely to carry on growing in areas where these values are so different. Its consequence will be to damage the character of those areas and permanently lose economic activity.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I support Amendment 116B, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord True, my noble friend Lord Kennedy and the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Tope. They made a powerful case for dealing with what is potentially a damaging development in many town and city centres and some of the suburban areas as well. I am not so keen on Amendment 116A but I think that the Minister should go back to Amendment 116B. I would urge her to give serious consideration to the suggestion it contains. To adapt an old phrase, I would advise her, “to her own True, be helpful”. It would be wise not to ignore the experience of significant change—and change not for the better—particularly as identified by the noble Lord, Lord Tope, as a result of allowing this kind of development to take place and, indeed, under the legislation, actually facilitating it. So I hope there will be some second thoughts on this.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Lord Kerslake
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord True, on his amendment. He is absolutely right to deplore the Government’s imposition of this rule, effectively allowing the conversion of commercial properties in high streets to residential, without any consideration of local need or the property market and to the detriment of the high street. This is Mary Portas in reverse. As the noble Lord said, it is an extraordinary step for a Conservative Government to take.
On an earlier day in Committee, I raised the issue of property guardians and the possible exploitation of people being housed on a very temporary basis in buildings awaiting development. That is an undesirable state of affairs, but this provision is worse because here we are seeing not just buildings that have become empty over time but buildings that are deliberately being emptied of their current occupants, comprising businesses contributing to the local economy, to make profits for private developers, as the noble Lord rightly said, on which he was supported by the noble Lord, Lord Tope. The system is thereby exclusively tilted in their favour without any regard whatever to local circumstances or the views of local people or local authorities. It is another example of the Government imposing their policies with complete disregard for the localism which they repeatedly proclaim is their watchword, and is totally indefensible.
The noble Lord’s amendments are quite lengthy but very much to the point and deal very effectively with the problem that he described. I hope that the Government will look again very carefully at what they are doing. Have they made any assessment of the impact of their policy? We have a very poor impact assessment for the Bill. What kind of impact assessment was undertaken when the Government made the decision to change the planning system in the way that they have in this respect? Where did they look for evidence of the impact? Did they consider the position in London, where there is huge pressure in any case on the housing market and huge pressure for the provision of residential accommodation? That should be met by properly thought through housing development and not at the expense of the local economy and local business. For example, have the Government consulted local chambers of commerce in London or anywhere else where these measures have been implemented? Can the Minister tell us what is happening up and down the country in terms of the number of conversions? We have heard very telling figures from two noble Lords in relation to their authorities. Do the Government have any idea what the national position is and what the impact has been not just in terms of the numbers of people but the viability of the local high street—and not just in terms of shopping, as the noble Lord said? He cited the case of a medical practice, and there will be other services as opposed to simple retail, important though that is, which will find life increasingly difficult.
It would be interesting to learn exactly what the Government know about the situation. Have they conducted any kind of review? Will they conduct any kind of review into what is happening on our high streets? Where does the process end? Is there any indication of even a balance of residential property with office and commercial and other uses of property in the high street? If not, the Government have failed lamentably to fulfil their responsibility to look at the picture in the round and, above all, to consult localities. There may be different approaches in some places. Some areas may be ready to accept conversions of this kind, but that is what a planning process is for. It is not a matter to be laid down arbitrarily by Whitehall.
I strongly support the noble Lord’s amendment. He may not call a Division on it today—I assume that he will not—but if we get to Report without any indication from the Government that they are prepared to change their position on this, I hope that he will test the opinion of the House. I can say with confidence that the Opposition will support him. The Government need to rethink the position they have created and the damaging effects they have caused, and to do so urgently.
Lord Kerslake
I support the amendment and, in doing so, declare my interests as chair of Peabody and president of the Local Government Association. It is worth going back to when this policy came in. It was in the context of an economy struggling to recover and the Government’s desire to stimulate development rapidly. It was particularly focused on the issue of office developments that had outlived their useful economic life and an unwillingness on the part of local authorities to contemplate change to an alternative use. That was the context in which the policy came forward. There was considerable debate about the issue, but the difficulty was that what worked in one part of the country may well not have worked in others. The safeguard introduced at the time was, essentially, to allow certain areas to be excluded from the application of the permitted development rights. In reality, only very few areas were excluded. The exclusions were very narrowly drawn to include areas, such as the City, that were very concerned about the issue.
We now know that, while the policy was well intentioned, the consequences have been perverse in some parts of the country, particularly in London and particularly in places of it that we have heard about, such as Richmond and Sutton. Having that information now, it is right that the Government revisit this issue and think again. For the price of a small addition of new housing, we are in danger of denuding significant areas of their economic capacity to grow and develop. The case is compelling: we should learn from how policies have worked in practice and be open to revisiting them.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Lord Kerslake
Lord Kerslake
Perhaps I could add one further point. It is perfectly possible to pilot this in a way that would not be inequitable to tenants. What you would be piloting is the information-gathering on income and how the different exemptions and changes might work on the ground. You do not need to change the rental position. What we really need to know is: does the system work in a way that is effective and fair? It would be perfectly possible to do that, modelling the system at local level without disadvantaging those tenants who were part of the pilot.
Lord Beecham
I have a final final question for the Minister. She said that the Government are going to discuss matters with Citizens Advice and tenants groups. I very much welcome that. But are we to infer from that that until now they have not discussed the scheme and how it might work—that they will be discussing the final scheme, as it were, and how both groups might advise residents, as opposed to involving them in the first place in designing this scheme?
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Lord Kerslake
Lord Kerslake
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. However, if the Government were really worried about allowing flexibility for individual difference, we might not be debating this top-down policy at all.
Let me deal with the point that the noble Lord raised. The commitment from the Government is to achieve one for one; it does not say one for one in one part of the country and not one for one in another part of the country. It is reasonable to say that, within the boundaries of a local authority, there will be areas of high demand for new, affordable housing that the local authority will want to meet. I do not think we would be comfortable with a situation where some parts of the country made no effort to replace one for one and were given a retention of funding without that requirement while, in other areas, we did expect it. In my view, it would go against the stated intent of the Government to achieve one for one. One for one in a particular neighbourhood may not be exactly right but one for one in a local authority, or indeed in a combined authority, would absolutely be a reasonable expectation of this policy. Indeed, as I said, that is the stated government intent here.
I will conclude by making a number of points. Putting it in the Bill should overcome whatever doubts there are about the intent. I have raised some concerns about how possible it is to achieve this in the current financial regime. The Minister has quoted statistics, which I have some concerns about, as she knows, to show that it is already being achieved. If it is, there should be no difficulty in putting it in the Bill. If we are already confident that it can happen, putting it in the Bill should not create any difficulties at all.
A huge number of people are anxious about this issue and a huge number doubt the Government’s true intent in relation to affordable rented properties, or indeed affordable properties at all. Putting it in the Bill would put beyond doubt the Government’s intent. It would make it clear that they are serious about the policy of one for one. Contrariwise, if it is not in the Bill, people will draw their own conclusions. These are reasonable amendments that would do what the Government say they want to anyway and, crucially, provide the necessary funding for local authorities.
Lord Beecham
Does the noble Lord think that it would be desirable to include in any such arrangement a period within which that replacement has to be made, or does he think that it should be left open? It strikes me that some moderate period would be sensible. In respect of newly built property, does he think there should be at least a limited exclusion of a further right to buy if it has been provided for rent?
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, those are two important details that we could reasonably look at in the Bill or, had we the regulations in front of us, reasonably consider in regulations. The important point to make is that the absence of the regulations is compounding complexity on complexity. This is our difficulty here. We have a stated intent of government, but nothing in front of us that tells us how that intent will be delivered. Yes, there is an issue of timescale—we currently have three years; that may or may not be the right timescale for an expanded programme and should be consulted on with local authorities—but one thing that in my understanding is an irreducible intent of government is one for one. That is why it should be on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Lord Kerslake
Lord Beecham
Well, yes—it might bring it to a rapid end. It does appear to be a very useful way forward. I also endorse my noble friend Lady Hollis’s reference to Help to Buy as another avenue through which it should be possible to assist people into home ownership without making difficulties either for local authorities, or, more importantly, for other people who are in need of rehousing. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to the amendment.
However, I am slightly puzzled by the description by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, of the difficulties of replacing homes on the basis of the numbers being very hard to achieve. I think he said that something like 5,000 a year would be needed to replace and it was difficult to see how that number could be built. That 5,000 houses would be something like 2.5% of the Government’s annual target of 200,000.
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, if I can just explain, this is from the National Audit Office report. Part of what the NAO has looked at is the impact of the reinvigorated right to buy. Has one for one actually happened? What the NAO report essentially says is that the equivalent number that the Minister has referred to comes from comparing three years of build, effectively, against one year of sale, because local authorities have had three years in which to build. However, if one looks at the rate at which sales are accelerating, the rate at which build numbers have to accelerate is very rapid indeed. The analysis concludes that essentially, in order to make the one-for-one policy a reality over time, you effectively have to achieve a fivefold increase in the rate of build. I commend the report to the noble Lord for him to read because it sets out this issue in very clear terms.
Lord Beecham
Am I wrong about the numbers? I thought the noble Lord referred to a figure of 5,000 cited by the NAO. I am not saying that it is his figure.
Lord Kerslake
The key point I am making is contained in the following sentence, which I will read out again:
“To meet the target of replacing the roughly 8,512 homes sold in 2014-15 by the end of 2017-18, however, would require quarterly housing starts”,
to go from their current rate of 420 a quarter to 2,130 a quarter. In other words, we would have to speed up by five times to achieve a true one-for-one policy.
Lord Beecham
That sounds like a lot, given the record of the last few years. However, when I was first elected to the council in Newcastle in 1967, the city council built 3,000 council houses in a year. That was one authority. It cannot be beyond the capacity of the construction industry to achieve this, given the resources to invest. I obviously concede that it cannot be achieved overnight because we are starting from next to nothing, but over a three-year period I would have thought we could build—literally—up to that sort of figure, given the investment.
Lord Kerslake
I am conscious of the late hour but I will make one last point. I think the NAO report is on to something and I commend it to colleagues to read. It is saying essentially that it is a question of the ability to find both the land and the finance. Under the current right-to-buy policy, local authorities get to keep only a third of the receipts for any of the additional sales made. They have to borrow the balance to make the numbers add up. That in turn creates difficulties because it bumps up against their cap on HRA. So there are three reasons why the policy is challenging in terms of delivering one for one. The first is to find the land in higher-value areas to achieve true like for like, as I said earlier; the second is to get the momentum of construction under way; the third—this is crucial—is to make the finances work, given that you have to borrow and you have a cap on your borrowing.
Lord Beecham
The cap is imposed. It is not a cap that the authorities choose. That is in the Government’s hands. If they altered that, local authorities—and, indeed, housing associations for that matter—could gear up to provide the relatively modest number that we are talking about against a government target of 200,000, which is any case inadequate, over the next few years. So I think that the noble Lord is being a little conservative in his approach—heaven forfend—and I would have thought it would be more ambitious to look to the Government to facilitate that greater rate of replacement. However, that does not in any way invalidate the amendment to which he is speaking, which is in a rather different context. I certainly support that, but I hope the noble Lord will not let the Government get away with using his other comments to get off the hook in facilitating the number of houses we need.
Lord Kerslake
I will have one last go at this. The point I was making is that it is often said that we are now achieving the delivery of the one-for-one policy. We are not. That is the definitive point I am making. Indeed, that is what the NAO says. The delivery of the one-for-one policy is very difficult to achieve in its current form. You would have to change fundamentally the way you think about the financing, and you would go back to the question of whether the numbers add up.
Trade Union Bill
Debate between Lord Beecham and Lord Kerslake
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 90A in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Harris, and to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Hayter. I will not reiterate anything in relation to Amendment 90A that I have already referred to in the previous amendments to which I spoke about the position of local authorities, the GLA and the NHS, except to say this. Why are the Government seeking powers to explicitly control one area of local authority expenditure—and by definition a very small percentage, whatever view one takes of it—out of all the functions of local government? What is it that has so concerned the Government that they are taking this quite exceptional course? I cannot see any evidence of such a serious issue. When one thinks of other areas of public policy where things occasionally go wrong, in local government or, indeed, in central government or the health service, where is the equivalent penal exercise that this provision seeks to impose?
Having said that, I revert to the provisions of Clause 13 itself, and I entirely endorse what my noble friend said about the clause. It strikes me as extraordinary that the Government should seek to intervene in this way. The Explanatory Notes, for example, refer to the fact that:
“The reserve powers may be exercised so as to limit the paid time off taken by … trade union representatives … to a percentage of the representatives’ working time. For example, if a public sector employer employs a number of trade union representatives who spend 100% of their working time on facility time, the cap may limit the time spent by such trade union representatives to 50% of the working time”.
What criteria would the Government apply in those circumstances? Would it be related to the number of employees involved and the number of trade union representatives? Suppose there is only one trade union representative in a particular place? I referred to the fact that Newcastle schools employed 1.6 people, but it may be one full-time representative. Will the Government say in that situation that only 50% would be permitted for that one person? Or will they say that 50% of the total can be found, but that means that no individual can spend 100% of his time? Two people could spend 50% of their time, or will that not be permitted?
What are the Government so concerned about in this particular area of public policy that they feel they have to take the power to prescribe in such detail as opposed to almost anything else either in the employment field of local government or the policy field? An extraordinary amount of attention is being paid to what, while it is certainly not an unimportant service, is one that still involves few people and a very small amount of money. That is what feeds the suspicion of some of us that the Government are bent on doing more than just ensuring an economical approach to the matter; there is a different agenda here to which Members of the Committee have referred many times today.
I hope the noble Baroness can give us a better clarification of the objectives here and a better reason for interfering in the rights of bodies which, I repeat, are accountable anyway. They are accountable to their electorates and are overseen by audit committees, and very often the local media will be keen to investigate any alleged difficulties. Why is it that Whitehall assumes that it should be prescriptive about the activities of hundreds of local authorities which have as legitimate an electoral mandate, if not more, than those that seek to oppose these restrictions?
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, I shall speak in support of Amendment 90A. If Clause 12 was about transparency, for which I have a great deal of sympathy, Clause 13 is essentially about compulsion—top-down “Whitehall knows best” micro-management. That is what it adds up to. If transparency has the desired effect, which the Government argue it will have, it is difficult to conceive of why there is a need for Clause 13. If this was seen as such an unacceptable expenditure in Sheffield, Doncaster or Brighton, the electorates would be able to make their decisions accordingly.
Let us take first the example we have just heard about from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. There are arguments in favour of full-time trade union officials and arguments in favour of part-time ones. I have worked in different organisations with different models. What I would never presume to know is which one is right for any particular organisation, and I cannot conceive of circumstances in which the Government would know the right model. The second point I would like to make is that the requirements in relation to facility time would not vary just between organisation and organisation; they will vary in time as well. If a local authority is going through a major restructuring, it is perfectly reasonable—I have done this—to agree to extra time for trade unions in order to enable them to play their part fully in that change. If a cap is introduced, flexibility in the process is taken away.
It is not clear whether Clause 13 will apply to individual public bodies, individual local authorities or groups of local authorities. It seems to allow for all possibilities, so it would be interesting to hear from the Minister which she thinks it would be. But if we are talking about groups of local authorities, you will almost certainly get it wrong in either direction. If the cap is set high then people will not unreasonably take it as being the marker that the Government think is appropriate. If the cap is set too low, you will undermine the effectiveness of negotiations and the proper running of affairs in a local authority. All of this adds up in my mind to an example of centrist government at its very worst and I think that it should be dropped from the Bill. At the very least, local authorities should be given the flexibility to make this decision for themselves. If we believe that they are capable of leading economic development, running social care and being responsible for developing new housing supply, we must surely think that they are capable of deciding what the right level of trade union facilities is for them.