Lord Shipley
Main Page: Lord Shipley (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, now that we are at Third Reading, I declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. I support Amendment 6, the case for which has been so well put by the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said that Amendment 6 goes to the heart of the issues in the Bill. I agree entirely. The amendment contains a crucial matter of principle about the need to have social homes built for rent. It is a reasonable and important amendment.
Government Amendment 2 reminds us:
“Where the agreement is with a local housing authority outside Greater London, it must include terms and conditions requiring the authority to ensure that at least one new affordable home is provided for each old dwelling”.
As we pointed out during earlier stages of the Bill, the terms of that amendment could be met by building starter homes for sale rather than social homes for rent, since in Clause 158 the Bill amends the definition of “affordable homes” to include starter homes for sale. That is why we should support Amendment 6: because it would make it clear in the Bill that a replacement home should be let as social housing on terms similar to those on which the old dwelling was let, where there is a demonstrated need.
Given that many households now renting could never aspire to a starter home even with a 20% discount, we really have an obligation to protect the needs of low-income households by ensuring a new supply of social homes for rent. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, would do that, while the Government’s Amendment 2 on its own does not. If the noble Lord is minded to test the opinion of the House, he therefore should be supported in that.
I noted that in opening the debate on this group of amendments the Minister used a particular phrase: I think she said that the Government could not accept Amendment 6 “at this stage”. I noticed those three words and wondered at which stage the Government might decide that they could accept the amendment or something extremely close to it. I hope the Minister might explain that to us.
Lastly, the noble Lord, Lord Best, has quoted from the Conservative Party’s manifesto. I remind the Minister that another part of that manifesto states that the party would require,
“local authorities to manage their housing assets more efficiently, with the most expensive properties sold off and replaced as they fall vacant”.
The implication of that to a neutral reader is that they are going to be replaced with something very similar. Replacing them with starter homes with a 20% discount for owner-occupation—that is now in Clause 158 as part of the definition of “affordable housing”—seems to miss the crucial point that there is a crying need to build social homes for rent in this country. I wonder whether the Minister understands that. If the blockage here lies with the Treasury, I hope very much that your Lordships can demonstrate a deep strength of feeling on this issue. Otherwise, those who depend upon renting are going to find it increasingly difficult to rent at levels they can afford.
Lord Porter of Spalding
My Lords, if noble Lords will excuse me, I have a note here because I intend to quote a few people and I do not want to get any of the quotes wrong. Before I start, I refer noble Lords to my interests in the register. Specifically, I am the leader of South Holland district council and the chairman of the Local Government Association.
I am not going to support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Kerslake, as I said last time, because it restricts some of what I would like to see in the Bill, and I cannot support the noble Baroness’s amendment because, again, it restricts something that we are doing. Noble Lords may not know this but we are in negotiation with the Government to allow the capital receipts from right-to-buy sales of our own properties to be spent across more than just our own area, and I would like the flexibility of being able to spend the money that we retain across other areas if that is how we, as local government, determine that it would best be used. That could be on the basis of interest-free loans to our friends next door who might not necessarily be in the same housing market area. For that reason I think that it is restrictive and I cannot support it.
It is worth pointing out that we have had this Bill for about a month now and it is better than when we started. If we had it for about two years it would probably be perfect. But we have not got two years and I have already been told to speed up so I am going to speed up a little bit—but not completely.
The Minister confirmed last week that we would be sticking to our manifesto commitment about how we dealt with the capital receipts from these buildings and I said last week that I would probably offer to sell all of the council homes that I have in South Holland on the basis that the capital receipts would be greater than the sum of money that I would need to be able to replace those units and therefore I would be able to put money towards the Government’s noble aim of freeing up social mobility and allowing more people to buy their own property and at the same time replace my own housing stock, most of which was built between the 1930s and the 1950s, with brand-new units and therefore save my housing revenue account money.
I am not going to read all this now. I was going to read what the Prime Minister said but noble Lords will all have read our manifesto, which is really good. People voted for it so we are going to stick to it, which is what we said we were going to do. That is why I disagreed with my noble friend Lord Lansley and the noble Baroness, who argued about the tenure. The tenure is not important; the important part of this is that the Government allow councils to keep sufficient capital receipts to build replacement units.
The tenure needs to be decided locally: whether we need rented units or starter homes. In South Holland I would do a mixture because if I build starter homes I will keep all the capital receipts when I sell them. A starter home built for £80,000 and sold for £110,000 will increase the sum of money that I have to build more council houses. Noble Lords probably will not know this but South Holland got back into building council houses in 2006 when the party opposite was in charge of the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, who is not in his place, issued a challenge to build those homes. So I am pro-council housing but I am also pro-social mobility and the only part of this discussion that I do not like is the fact that the capital receipts are going to go to RSLs. I begrudge giving any of that money away but it is clear that the Government are not going to give way on that, so I am not going to keep banging on about it.
Let us not lose sight of the fact that this is not going to be about us selling high-value homes; it is about a new form of levy being put on councils with council stock. All I want is for us to be able to minimise the size of that levy and maximise the amount of capital we have to spend in our own areas. Neither of the amendments tabled do that. The Government have a clear manifesto commitment to do something about it and I am prepared to challenge them to make sure that at some point, when we do this ping-pong thing that I am not yet familiar with, the Bill comes back even better than it currently is. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, will press his amendment to a Division and I will be going through on the Government’s side.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, we now turn to Amendments 16 to 32, which respond to commitments I gave on Report to bring forward amendments that would enable local authorities to grant longer-term tenancies in certain circumstances.
Before speaking to the amendments, it may be helpful to remind noble Lords that the Government’s aim with these provisions is to assist local authorities to get the most out of their social housing and to help the 1.24 million households on housing waiting lists by ensuring that it is firmly focused on those who need it the most for as long as they need it. That is why we want to ensure that local authorities carry out regular reviews of a tenant’s household circumstances so that tenants can be moved into more appropriate housing as their needs change over time, or supported into home ownership where this is a viable option. However, we recognise that there may be situations in which it makes sense to offer longer-term tenancies.
These amendments will give local authorities discretion to offer tenancies of up to 10 years in length, and potentially longer for families with children, to which I shall return. The amendments include a power for the Government to issue statutory guidance to which local authorities must have regard. This means there will be clear expectations on what the local authority should consider when making these decisions, and they can be held to account if they fail to follow the guidance. We will use the guidance to set out the circumstances in which we expect local authorities to issue shorter-term tenancies and the circumstances in which they may exercise their discretion to offer longer-term tenancies. This will enable councils to consider appropriate provision for households where there is someone with a disability or a long-term illness, older people, and those who provide long-term care for a person in this situation. This will help local authorities to get the best use out of accommodation which has been adapted and give those with longer-term needs a sense of stability. We will work with local authorities in developing the guidance and we will ensure that noble Lords have an opportunity to consider it before it is finalised.
As I have said, the amendments also enable local authorities to grant tenancies to cover the period that a child is in school. We have listened carefully to the debate on this issue. We absolutely agree that it is important that children are brought up in a stable environment and recognise that frequent moves can be disruptive to a child’s education. To keep this relatively simple for local authorities, the amendment provides that where a local authority is notified that a child lives in the household, they may provide a tenancy with a fixed term that lasts until the child turns 19. This will allow local authorities to ensure that the relevant child has completed secondary education.
The amendments also make consequential changes to allow landlords to continue to operate an introductory tenancy regime in relation to longer fixed-term tenancies and make necessary changes to the legislation governing demoted tenancies and family intervention tenancies to deliver the policy.
We have listened carefully to the debate and hope that the changes I have set out will be welcomed. With this, I beg to move.
Lord Shipley
I welcome what the Minister has said. It is an improvement on the Bill when first published. I repeat that I think it is a matter for the local housing authority to have the discretion to make decisions—I suppose that the Localism Act, as it stands, is probably adequate. However, given that the Government are keen to see changes, I acknowledge that the amendments here are a marked improvement on the original Bill, because of the extension from five to 10 years and, of course, longer where there are children and young people under the age of 19. I thank the Minister for the flexibility that the Government are showing. Section 86A of Schedule 7 makes it clear that this change does not impact current secure tenancies and that a new secure tenancy of a dwelling house can be offered to a tenant at the end of the current tenancy, so in that respect the power to grant a further secure tenancy lies with the local authority. Although I would have preferred no change at all, what we have now is better than what we had a few weeks ago and I thank the Minister for that.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
My Lords, I welcome the amendment and what the noble Baroness has said. I have two brief but related points. First, on reading Hansard, I realised that I never formally said thank you on the record for the concession that was made on Report with regard to those who give up a secure tenancy because of domestic violence—I am pleased to do so now. I also suggest that, when the work is done to put this into regulations, the department works with organisations, such as Women’s Aid and, particularly, Solace Women’s Aid, whose research I drew on heavily in drafting my amendment. I think that they can give insight into how this works on the ground.
Secondly—I am sorry to sound like a broken record—I have still not received the frequently promised equality statement on this clause, despite the noble Baroness’s promise in col. 512 of Hansard to come back to me on it as soon as possible. I raise this now only because it raises questions about the status of equality statements. It suggests that they are being treated as an add-on rather than integral to the policy process, as they are supposed to be. I suggest that the department may want to reflect on how it treats equality statements.