Housing Act 1996 (Additional Preference for Armed Forces) (England) Regulations 2012

Lord Palmer of Childs Hill Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Palmer of Childs Hill]

My Lords, first, I apologise to my noble friend the Minister for missing the beginning of what she said. I was contributing to the debate on the Statement in the Chamber, so I hope that I will be forgiven for being a few minutes late. I declare an interest because I am still a councillor for the London Borough of Barnet, and my comments will take that into account. Of course, I echo the comments about the debt that we owe our veterans. Speaking on defence, as I do, I make these comments about our Armed Forces very often from another angle.

The point that I want to explore is whether local authorities and housing associations are really going to be aware of these provisions. Yes, they will be told, but my experience of local authorities is that there are all sorts of provisions and my guess is that these will not figure very highly unless they are very much promoted with all those local authorities.

How will these provisions affect those local authorities that have little housing stock? Only this week I have been dealing with someone who has a brain tumour, three children and a husband partially in work, and they have been graded only at grade 2 rather than grade 1; they were evicted on Monday and I have been concerned with finding them some accommodation. I use that as an example of how in the London boroughs, certainly in north-west London, there is a great lack of housing, and to put this additional strain on them is going to make it even more difficult for people such as this woman. I think that I have got her into a house, but they are still dealing with the void and getting it into a state for her to go there. It has taken me since March, knowing that she was going to be evicted, to do this. How do we house the veterans and people whom we need to?

Another point is how the claimants decide in which geographical area to seek to exercise their claim. If you have been in Germany or Afghanistan or wherever and you do not really have a base other than a military base at, say, Colchester, where do you go to exercise your claim on a local authority? There are some places in the UK where there is spare housing but, in the places that I know, this does not apply.

Have the Government consulted veterans’ associations? Our veterans’ associations in the UK are nothing like the veterans’ associations in the United States. There is a good argument for consulting them and perhaps trying to tie in with these regulations previous debates that we have had on the Armed Forces covenant over how we deal with housing for members of the Armed Forces. With the return of service personnel from Germany and Afghanistan, and the fact that they are going to be based more permanently in garrison towns, there was talk during consideration of the Armed Forces Bill of encouraging members of the Armed Forces to purchase property in the area in which they would now live more permanently—previously they were not living permanently anywhere—so that when they retired or were invalided out there would be a house or a flat nearby that they owned. We are trying to encompass within social housing a large group of people for whom there is not enough social housing. I hope that when the Government consider this they will think outside the box about how, looking in the longer term, we can encourage people in the forces to acquire properties in their own right that they can then live in in their retirement or disablement, rather than trying to squash people into an area of social housing that does not exist in many parts, particularly in London.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I thank the two noble Lords for their contributions. To start with the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, the veterans’ associations have been consulted. It was largely because of their response that the changes were made following that consultation to ensure that the Reserve Forces were included in this, and also serving members. When the regulations started, they were for those who had left the Army and were not serving at the time. These changes have been made as a result of that.

I appreciate that the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Palmer, said that there is not a huge excess—if I can put it that way—of social housing. These regulations are very specific and put to the top of the pile those who have been injured and have to leave their place in their barracks, or wherever they are, and who have nowhere else to go and need adapted or new property. It is not clear at the moment how many this will amount to. However, it is perfectly clear that the able-bodied who are leaving the service will either have made their own provision, which I suggested they would have done before they leave, or will have to make it subsequently—they will not be at that top priority level. We are looking particularly at those who are most vulnerable. Members of the Armed Forces are of course already within the top priority for housing as far as regulations are concerned. This just takes them out of that top priority and puts them one higher. Local authorities have always had to have some form of priority and, although the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is right about localism, I think that they will accept this as an edict that they will not complain too much about.

As for guidance and whether anybody will know anything about it, we have produced new guidance that has made it clear that these regulations are being put forward. We will also be writing to local authorities when the regulations finally come into force to draw their attention to that. I am sure that the noble Lord’s authority will be well aware of them; if not, I am sure that he will draw them to its attention.

It will be up to anybody claiming a local connection to decide where they want to go. If somebody comes back wounded from Afghanistan in need of housing accommodation and decides that they want to go and live in Sheffield, to Sheffield they will go and they will go to the top of the list. If they want to come to the noble Lord’s borough, they will do the same. The local connection, which applies to practically every housing matter other than this, including homelessness, does not apply.

Those are the main points. I am not going to open up the debate on affordable housing, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, was tempting me to do. I will say only that he and I know that great efforts are being made to ensure that there is more affordable housing. If we can get the Ministry of Defence to release quite a lot of its property and land, we may be able to move that on. I hope that, with those explanations, noble Lords are happy for these regulations to be agreed.