Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Best Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, we are now deep into the debate on the implementation of the voluntary right to buy for housing association tenants. I did not feel able to add my name to the amendments in this group that seek to exclude some or all housing association tenancies from the grant to be made available to pay for the discounts for these tenants. I am, however, alongside my noble friend Lord Cameron of Dillington, and I support amendments in the names of a number of other noble Lords directing where the proceeds from any right-to-buy sales should be reinvested.

A good deal of controversy greeted the promise of a right to buy for housing association tenants when it appeared in the Conservative Party’s election manifesto last year. In the event, the initial right-to-buy policy was changed to a voluntary scheme negotiated between the National Housing Federation and the Government. The resulting agreement has led to the federation being criticised for doing a deal with the Government rather than fighting to get this measure abolished. Parallels have been drawn with the last time the Government proposed a right to buy for housing associations, in March 1983. I was the chief executive of the federation at that time, and it mounted a campaign to persuade this House to reject the proposal. The House, which was largely Conservative then, did so by a large margin. As a result, the Government abandoned the measure and the stock of housing association homes has avoided being depleted by sales at heavily discounted prices over the past 33 years.

Should I now be exhorting your Lordships once again to reject this measure? The revamped policy still subsidises housing association tenants to purchase their homes, and therefore still means that they are not available to be re-let in the future to lower-income households. However, the deal now done differs from the earlier proposal of a statutory right to buy in fundamental ways.

First, no statutory right is being offered to housing association tenants. Rather, tenants will be able to buy, and receive substantial discounts to do so, if the housing association’s board so decides. This acknowledges that housing associations are independent bodies, mostly charities, and they should decide on matters as important as this, rather than being told what to do by central government. It means that housing associations can protect some or all of their housing stock where, for example, they do not believe it can be replaced. For example, Hastoe Housing Association, a leading rural housing association, has announced that it will not be offering the right to buy to its tenants in rural areas, as defined in several amendments to the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)]

My Lords, perhaps I may add just marginally to the Minister’s burden in that regard. I want to pick up on some of the rationale that has been advanced for the voluntary deal, which does not seem to me to be fair. We are calling it a voluntary deal but of course it is underpinned by a mandatory portable discount—so how voluntary is that? For once in my life I must take exception to what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said. He pointed out that this is different from the 1980s because housing associations are getting paid the full value for the property, but in the next sentence he said that this has nothing to do with housing associations because they have not lobbied in any way for councils to pick up the tab.

I accept that there is no formal link, but when housing associations made their judgments, they must have known full well that the tab was going to be picked up by local authorities. It was already a manifesto commitment, and indeed the briefing note sent to us by the Minister stated that this measure—the high-value local authority housing provision—was announced as part of the Conservative Party manifesto where it stated that local authorities would be required to,

“manage their housing assets more efficiently, with the most expensive properties sold off and replaced as they fall vacant”,

in order to help fund the extension of right to buy to housing associations. It was clear that that was the intent and therefore, with respect, the housing associations must have known that the hit was going to fall on local authorities.

I accept that it was a difficult judgment and that they were between a rock and a hard place and trying to carve the best way through. But we ought to be straight on the rationale for this. The result of that voluntary association is that local authorities will have to sell off more high-value housing than they otherwise would, because that is how housing associations will be kept whole.

[Lord Best]

Perhaps the noble Lord will give way on that point. I think it is fair to say that the National Housing Federation also made clear its public opposition to the way in which these discounts were to be funded. There may be common cause here on the way in which they are to be funded—including with the noble Lord, Lord Porter.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, if the noble Lord, Lord Best, will forgive me, I am not sure that that is correct. The chief executive of the National Housing Federation said:

“How this policy is paid for is a matter for the government, not for the National Housing Federation”.

That is known as the washing-of-hands defence.