Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Helen Hayes

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 11th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I wish I could say that it is a pleasure to be here once again to debate the many flaws in the Housing and Planning Bill, but I am grateful to the noble Lords for being so robust in their scrutiny and response. The Government have talked much about the obstructive nature of the Lords in relation to the Bill, but the Lords are not being remotely obstructive or difficult. They are simply not convinced that the Government have done their work or that the Bill will deliver on the Government’s manifesto commitment to one-for-one replacement. This is about a transparent and accountable legislative process that gives both Houses the confidence that there is any basis at all to believe that the Bill will deliver what the Government say it will.

Local authorities know their communities best. They undertake housing needs assessments and have statutory housing duties. They are democratically accountable to their local population. They know the mix of homes that is needed in their area. Nobody in the Opposition is saying that starter homes should not be a part of the mix; we want them to be part of a mix that is locally determined by councils that are democratically accountable to their local communities, and we want one-for-one replacement before the proceeds from forced sales are spent on anything else.

The Government are once again rejecting sensible, pragmatic advice from the House of Lords. They are ideologically committed to a Bill that will make the housing crisis worse than it already is. I urge the Government to listen to the House of Lords in its further assertion and to accept the amendment it proposed.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The Minister has complained about the behaviour of the noble Lords, but I am extremely grateful that they are standing up for people in housing need across the country. I only wish that the Government would listen to them and to the vast numbers of people, both in this House and outside the building, who are campaigning hard and loud for a decent housing settlement.

The Government’s refusal to accept the amendment has caused huge concern at local level. My constituency is facing a massive housing crisis, and another 10% rise in private sector rent is expected within a year. We desperately need more council homes, not fewer. It is vital that we get the replacement policy right in the Bill, or we risk seeing a reduction in genuinely affordable homes in the context of an already chronic social housing shortage. The Government have claimed that they are meeting their manifesto commitment to fund the replacement of council properties and to fund right to buy, but they are not. First, the money for replacement is not secure. Secondly, the offer of one-for-one replacement—two-for-one in London—is not the same as like-for-like replacement, which means the same tenure, the same affordable rent and the same area. The bottom line is that council housing assets should not be used to fund the right to buy for housing association tenants. In a housing crisis, we should not be adopting a top-down, blanket policy of forcing the sell-off of council assets.

The Chartered Institute of Housing concluded in its assessment of the policies that

“funds raised by high-value area sales will not fully cover the cost of local authority (LA) replacements and the cost of discounts under an extended right to buy”

and that funding the right to buy discounts

“could be achieved only at the cost of not building the replacement LA units”.

In other words, under the Government’s proposals, one can only be achieved at the expense of the other. The Government’s intention is that local authorities fully fund the right to buy, yet Ministers have not released any figures to demonstrate that additional funding would not be needed from central Government. That has been raised time and again, both in this House and in the other place, yet we still do not know how the numbers will add up.

Rightly, much has been made of the Public Accounts Committee report on this subject. The Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), rightly said that

“there are no costings or workings out. We are not talking about a ‘back of an envelope’ calculation—there is no envelope at all.”

The Government appear to be hedging their bets by not releasing an impact assessment and appear to have undertaken little or no consideration of how the proposal would be funded in practice. Lords amendment 47E has called them out. Ministers have estimated that they will get £4.5 billion of receipts from the forced sale of council homes. Shelter has calculated that 23,500 vacant council properties will need to be sold each year to deliver that figure. That equates to nearly a third of all vacant council stock and will leave those who rely on social housing with an even more minuscule chance of ever getting the secure council home they need. If Ministers were ever serious about replacing the council stock that they seek to flog off, it is surely only reasonable for the Government to take the precaution of ensuring, in legislation, that the funding will be there for local authorities to do so.

That prompts the question as to why the Government are digging their heels in. Why are they refusing to accept an amendment that simply seeks to secure their own manifesto commitment in the Bill? I fear the answer is that the proposal amounts to a tearing-down of the bricks and mortar of the welfare state: social housing. By objecting to amendment 47E, the Government are allowing council housing assets to be plundered to fund an ill-conceived attack on social housing, thereby pulling the rug from under those who need it most. That is why I hope that this House will continue to oppose the Government and will support the amendment from the other place.