Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Just before I call the next speaker, I want to remind the House that the knife falls at 7 o’clock. The Minister has not spoken yet and it will be necessary to hear him speak.

[Simon Hughes]

I will be brief. I want to make a couple of comments on clause 6 and affordable housing, and to follow on from the comments made by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) on her amendments.

I have concerns about the protection of affordable housing, both as it is traditionally defined—social rents, council rents or target rents—and as it may be defined now or in the future, which is at a higher percentage of market rents. I have raised this personally with the Minister—he has been very helpful—and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster). I would be grateful if the Minister addresses three questions.

First, how can I be assured that my constituents, local councillors and I, as the MP, will be able to see any deal that is done between our local council and the developer, and be able to ensure that the argument about viability is justified? To be blunt, I do not often believe developers when they say, “The figures don’t stack up.” I have reasons for not believing them. On the south bank, for example, developers got out of an obligation with the local authority on the basis that the figures did not stack up, but, when the properties were sold, the sale price was much higher than the likely sale price they put down. Clearly, then, their profit was greater and they could have afforded to build many more affordable homes. How can my hon. Friend the Minister assure me that we can know publicly what is economically viable?

Secondly, how can we guarantee input into the discussions about the guidance, about which the Minister has spoken and written to me, to ensure that it is effective? Bills are often outline structures implemented by secondary legislation and guidance, so I would like reassurance about the effectiveness of guidance in ensuring viability—accurately defined—and transparency and a common way of assessing it that applies all over England. It is no good having a viability argument in Southwark that is different from one in the north-east; we need a common formula that developers and councils have to follow.

My final question relates to a point made, perfectly properly, by the hon. Lady. How can we provide for the deliverability of affordable housing to go up and down? If the market drops, I could understand developers saying, “We can’t deliver,” although they would need to explain their case publicly. But if, as with the case on the south bank, the market goes up and the money to be made by the developer is greater, the community, represented by the local authority, needs to be able to say, “We want some money back. We want an additional affordable housing component.”

I hope that the Minister will put on the record some of what he has written and spoken to me about and what I have discussed with the Under-Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath. I also hope he can reassure us that in the remaining work on the Bill—before it becomes law and in subsequent secondary legislation and guidance—the House can have an input into what is drafted and confidence that we will not lose affordable housing because developers that can afford to deliver on that simply say that they cannot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 59, page 32, line 9, leave out clause 25.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendments 22 and 23.

Amendment 60 in clause 25, page 32, line 13, leave out ‘or becomes’.

Government amendment 24.

Amendment 37, page 32, line 14, at end insert—

‘(za) the individual has been an employee of a company for at least two years.’.

Amendment 61, page 32, line 15, leave out ‘the company’ and insert ‘a majority of the employees of the company’.

Government amendment 25.

Amendment 62, page 32, line 21, after ‘£2,000’, insert—

‘if the individual has been an employee of the company for less than three years, increased by an additional £2,000 for every additional year for which the individual has been an employee of the company’.

Amendment 40, page 32, line 23, at end insert—

‘(1A) The Secretary of State shall make by statutory instrument such regulations as are necessary to safeguard an employee who declines to enter into an agreement under subsection (1) from any consequential detriment.

(1B) The Secretary of State may not make any regulations under subsection (1A) unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing the regulations has been laid before, and approved by, a resolution of each House of Parliament.’.

Amendment 41, page 32, line 23, at end insert—

‘(1C) The Secretary of State shall issue such guidance as is necessary to safeguard any person who declines to enter into an agreement under subsection (1) from any consequential reduction or withdrawal of any state benefit to which they are entitled by virtue of their current employment status.’.

Amendment 63, page 32, line 23, at end insert—

‘(1A) The Secretary of State shall provide by regulations for there to be, for every company having employee shareholders, a director who is elected by those employee shareholders.

(1B) Regulations under subsection (1A) shall be made by statutory instrument and shall not be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.’.

Amendment 39, page 32, line 24, leave out from beginning to end of line 11 on page 33.

Government amendments 26 to 31, 64, 65, 32 and 66.

[Ian Murray]

We now come to the worst clause in a bad Bill. In the words of the Christmas song, ’tis the season to be jolly, but sadly this out-of-touch Government are dampening the festive spirit with a measure that embodies the characteristics of the classic Dickens character, the miserly employer Ebenezer Scrooge, at his worst. I would never accuse the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), of being such a character, but I hope that he will prove to the House that he is not, by removing clause 25 from the Bill.

As in that Christmas tale, let us look back at the ghost of Beecroft past. It was back at the beginning of October when, much to everyone’s surprise, the Chancellor announced the Government’s intention to introduce a new employment status. A company would be able to offer an employee shares in its business in exchange for some of that individual’s rights at work. The proposal has had a quick passage since the Chancellor’s speech, in which he spoke of

“owners, workers and the taxman, all in it together. Workers of the world unite.”

I have to give it to the Chancellor; he has certainly fostered a sense of unity. He has unified outright opposition to this policy from every quarter. It has received a lukewarm response, at best, from the business community, and it has been roundly trounced by employee organisations, trade unions, business leaders and charities. Only five of the 219 consultation responses welcomed the proposals. We therefore believe that our amendment 59 is the only acceptable option, as we can see no way in which the clause could be amended to make it more palatable. I appreciate that amendments have been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who is in his place, but, to be honest, he is trying valiantly to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) said on Second Reading, this measure is about cash for repeal. For as little as £2,000-worth of shares, an employee would be able to give up legal rights such as their right to training, their right to unfair dismissal protections, their right to a redundancy payment—even though their shares might be valued at less than the statutory redundancy payment—and their right to flexible working, which would fly in the face of announcements made by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills only last week.