Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 73 and 76. I am not au fait with all the technicalities of many of the issues in the Bill, but I know that the proposals to raise the rents—as the noble Lord, Lord Best, pointed out, this should more properly be thought of as a tax—of so-called high-income tenants or households has given rise to great anxiety on the part of local authority housing tenants with quite modest incomes who enjoy subsidised rent. It is important that the Government should know that there is real concern about this right around the House.

I have received representations from a council tenant in Camden who currently pays £700 a month who has told me that she faces her rent being raised to £4,000 a month under the provisions of the Bill if they are not modified—a level she would be completely unable to pay. She has recently been widowed and is particularly concerned that if 2015-16 is taken as the base year, three months of her late husband’s pension will be taken into account in computing her income, thus artificially inflating the income by reference to which she will be deemed liable to have her rent raised to market levels. That is similar to a point just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

In briefings as the Bill has passed through the House, the Minister has consistently offered warm words about the Government’s concern to find ways of softening the impact of these provisions in the Bill, but so far they have completely failed to come up with any alleviation and today the taper has been confirmed as 20p in the pound. I therefore strongly support the amendments that would raise the threshold and smooth the taper to more realistic and much fairer levels.

[Viscount Hanworth (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak to my Amendments 77A, 77B and 77C to Clauses 82 and 83. These clauses concern the pay-to-stay regime whereby those whose earnings exceed a threshold level would have their council rents increased. It must be clear that, if a penalty is to be faced by a household whose joint income exceeds a threshold level, there will be an incentive to keep their income below that level. If the pay-to-stay policy is to result in significant revenue, sufficient to defray the costs of administering the regime, the income threshold will have to be set at a very low level. In other words, people on very low incomes will be discouraged from attempting to secure higher incomes. It is extraordinary that such an impediment to earning should be posed by a party that claims to support the workers and the strivers of our society. This speaks of an utter carelessness if not of a naked duplicity.

Two of the amendments in this group propose to set a level-of-income threshold significantly higher than the one contemplated by the Government. Another amendment proposes that the penalty should be subject to a taper to increase step by step with the excess or earnings above the threshold level. I strongly support all of those amendments.

My own amendments deal with some further and possibly minor details of the pay-to-stay proposal. In common with so much of this Bill, the clauses in question are enabling provisions that allow the Secretary of State to determine regulations after the passage of the Bill. Clause 82(1) allows the housing authority to remove an extra rent charge that has been imposed on higher earners when the income has fallen back to a level below the threshold. I propose, in Amendment 77A, that in such circumstances the authority “must” reduce the rent. Clause 82(1) also allows the housing authority to remove an extra rent charge that has been imposed as a penalty on a tenant who has failed to provide information or evidence of their income. The clause proposes that the authority “may” remove the charge when information is forthcoming and it has been demonstrated that the tenant’s income is below the threshold level. In Amendment 77B I propose that in such circumstances the authority “must” remove the penalty.

In Clause 83, we see a provision for an appeals procedure to which the housing authority “may” have recourse. In Amendment 77C I propose that the provision should be mandatory. I acknowledge that it may be costly to establish an appeals procedure and that in these times of economic stringency there is an incentive to avoid such costs. However, the recourse to justice should not be regarded as an optional extra, affordable only in times of affluence. Such an attitude would threaten the very basis of our civil liberties.