Clive Efford
Main Page: Clive Efford (Labour - Eltham)Housing and Planning Bill
Clive Efford Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Zac Goldsmith
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I stood on a manifesto that included a commitment to extending the right to buy to housing association tenants. That is the right policy: it will enable hundreds of thousands of people to achieve home ownership who would otherwise not be able to do so.
Zac Goldsmith
In a second: I am just answering the previous intervention.
That achievement would not be possible without the sale of empty high-value council homes. If, as a consequence of amendment 112, each sale leads to two new affordable homes being built, I would regard that as a good thing for London.
Zac Goldsmith
I am not going to take any more interventions. [Interruption.] I did take an intervention.
Finally, will the Minister commit to ensuring that public bodies can take the widest possible and longest term view of best value when releasing land? That point has been raised with me time and again by great and small developers, as well as by housing associations. We need a redefinition or an expanded definition.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Like all London MPs, particularly inner-London MPs, I welcome any efforts that boost supply and tackle what has become an emergency situation for our capital city. Research by the City of London Corporation found that even the cheapest 10% of London’s houses are affordable only for the highest earning 25% of workers, and businesses now believe that housing supply costs are a significant risk to the capital’s economy.
We have heard contributions from MPs who represent Oxford, Bath, Sheffield and other cities, and it is increasingly apparent to me that there is now also an acute need for specific, London-based solutions to housing costs, so I hope that we can capitalise on the enthusiasm that we have heard in the House today towards devolution in that regard. I would like briefly to share with the Minister the thoughts of my two local authorities, and those of local housing associations, in the hope that we can start to carve out a proper London housing policy.
In almost every speech that I have made in this House on housing in the past 15 years, I have lamented the increasing polarisation of central London, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) referred. Those on medium incomes, and increasingly even those on high incomes, have been pushed out to cater for a new global super-rich and those who qualify for precious social housing. I say to my hon. Friend, and to the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), that as Londoners we recognise that we are an attractive city, largely because of the social capital that generations of Londoners before us have built up, but many future generations of Londoners will not have the opportunity of benefiting from that social capital.
Clive Efford
The right hon. Gentleman represents a major part of central London that has some of the highest land and housing values. Will he answer the question that the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) completely avoided and say whether he agrees that the two-for-one policy is absolutely worthless unless the income from the sale of those houses is reinvested in the same local authority area in central London?
Brandon Lewis
No, not at this stage.
Opposition Members had their chance to vote against these clauses in Committee—that is what clause-by-clause stand part debates are for—but they stayed quiet. I will not stay quiet this afternoon. I want to make it very clear that we are introducing these clauses because we have an elected mandate to do so. We will deliver new homes for those who need them, and that will include the opportunity to gain access to home ownership. There is no time to lose.
Brandon Lewis
Not at this stage.
Government amendments 9 and 11 will enable this part of the Bill to come into force on Royal Assent so that funding becomes available as soon as possible. We discussed amendment 51 in Committee as well. I want to ensure that we have full flexibility to use receipts to deliver new homes. Amendments 92 and 93 would result in a reduction in flexibility, and we therefore cannot support them. As I said in Committee, amendments such as amendments 89 and 109 represent the worst examples of the command-and-control, centralist approach that Labour seems to like. We see the same mindset in amendments 94 and 53, which attempt to limit the definitions of high value and high income, once more attempting to introduce exclusions into the Bill. As I have said time and again, we will let further engagement inform detailed policy.
Labour Members also want the Government to tell home owners that they must sell their properties at less than the market value, and to prevent them from letting their homes for a period of 10 years. I think that that is unfair and inappropriate. People should have the right to do with their own homes what any other home owner would do. The Government want a voluntary agreement with housing associations rather than the imposition of unnecessary requirements in legislation, which is what would result from amendment 91
Let me now clarify the position relating to the payment of grant under clause 61. I know that the National Housing Federation is interested in this. I am happy to confirm that, under clause 61, grant will be paid to housing associations as compensation for the right-to-buy discount. The terms of the grant-making power in the clause will enable it to be considered a revenue grant, so it will be sufficient to classify the grant as income. Of course, if the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) had his way, there would be no clause 61 or clause 62.
Brandon Lewis
No, not at this point.
We heard the thoughts of the hon. Member for City of Durham on amendments 57 to 60. Again at the risk of repeating myself, I want to make something clear. I have already made it crystal clear, in Committee and elsewhere, that we propose to introduce a taper so that there will always be an incentive to find and keep work. I accept that, as Opposition Front Benchers were not present for the whole Committee stage, they may have missed that at the time.
I want to ensure that our policy is simple to implement, as well as flexible. The option to create a central body to enable data to be transferred to landlords—which amendment 63 would remove—has been provided for the sake of simplicity. For example, the role could be carried out by one local authority on behalf of others.
I listened carefully to what was said by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) about new clause 39. As she knows from her engagement with the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, the Government have already decided to reduce social rents by 1% a year, so I do not believe that the body that she has proposed is necessary.
Let me now deal with Members’ opposition to chapter 5. The approach adopted by the hon. Member for City of Durham would mean that families continued to be trapped in overcrowded council homes, while older tenants whose children had left home continued to occupy homes that might no longer be appropriate for their needs, with no opportunity to move.
Brandon Lewis
No, I will not give way at this stage. I must try to deal with all the points that other Members have made.
Moreover, the hon. Lady’s approach would mean that some lifetime tenancies would be passed on to family members who were perfectly able to meet their own housing needs.
I can make it clear to the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), that when someone with a secure tenancy is asked to move, the tenancy will be transferred with that person. We will give local authorities the freedom and flexibility to apply that to voluntary moves as well.
Clive Efford
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the removal of secure tenancies from council tenants was not in the Conservative manifesto and that the Government have no mandate to introduce that abolition? Council tenants were not warned by the Conservatives that they would impose this on them.
Brandon Lewis
We had that debate in Committee and earlier today on Report. The hon. Gentleman should look carefully at the Bill because it does deliver our manifesto commitments. It will deliver homeownership to a whole new generation of people by bringing forward starter homes and it will extend homeownership to 1.3 million people who have been locked out of it. His party has fought to prevent both proposals at every opportunity, and disgracefully so.
Brandon Lewis
I will not take any more interventions on the Bill. This is about English votes for English laws.
I am proud of the steps the Government have taken to bring fairness to the devolution settlement. In that spirit, I ask this inaugural Legislative Grand Committee to consent to the certified clauses and schedules of the Housing and Planning Bill and the certified amendments made by the House to the Bill.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
It is customary on these occasions to thank all those involved in the consideration and scrutiny of the Bill in question. On this occasion, I would like to pay particular tribute to the Minister for Housing and Planning for having moved so elegantly that historic motion for the first time in this House. I also commend the Leader of the House of Commons for giving us the opportunity to carry out our consideration of the Bill in this way. Throughout our proceedings, the debate has been rich and vigorous from beginning to end. Those of us who were here last week for the first day of its Report stage will know that there was no let-up in the passion—or indeed the number—of the contributions, despite the lateness of the hour.
Before embarking on the traditional congratulations, however, I suggest to the whole House that a degree of humility would be in order on the part of us all. Housing and planning policy has been debated in this House and in the other place for decades, yet for decades this country has not built the number of new homes that we need, despite the improvements of recent years, including the 50% increase in new housing starts and the fact that planning permissions now stand at more than 200,000 a year. The last time we consistently built 200,000 homes a year was back in 1988.
Clive Efford
May I take the Secretary of State back to his comment about humility? Will he take this opportunity to apologise to council tenants for not informing them at the general election of the Conservatives’ intention to take away their secure tenancies and for introducing that measure only towards the end of the Bill’s Report stage? Council tenants were not given that information before they went to vote in the general election.
Greg Clark
Going back to 2010, the Prime Minister thought it was reasonable that when we were allocating homes and social tenancies, we should amend the idea that someone should inherit, without conditions, a tenancy. That business was notified as much as five years ago.
Evidence of the effects, over many Administrations, of not building the number of homes we have needed for many decades has been seen in the lives of those who could, should and want to be homeowners, but have been denied the opportunity that many of us have had. Those who say that we already build enough homes or that home ownership is not important would do well to remember that.
Clive Efford
We will take no lectures from the Government on home ownership. It is at its lowest level for a generation and has gone down in every year under their tenure. They have to explain why they scrapped the £8.4-billion investment that was put into the programme in 2008 to build houses of all sorts, including affordable houses to buy, and cut it down to £660 million in their first Budget.
This is a war on social housing. For London, it is a war on traditional, long-standing, established working-class communities that have played their part in the economy of London for generations. There are several measures in the Bill that will wipe out the future of social housing. On planning, section 106 funding used to pay for most social housing, but will now pay for starter homes. There is the forced sale of housing association properties and the forced sale of high-value council housing properties to subsidise the rebuilding of housing association properties. We are yet to see the figures that prove that that is financially viable.
To the Government’s eternal shame, there is the removal of secure tenancies, with no mandate from the electorate whatsoever. There was no warning. We said that this was what the Tories wanted to do in 2010. We were told that we were lying. We are not lying now, are we, because it is exactly what they have done at the first opportunity to introduce it.
There is pay to stay. If someone goes out and increases their income or if the family income increases, they will be penalised with a higher rent. In what other social field would the Tories introduce a policy like that? It is just a war on social housing.
However, the Tories are prepared to subsidise home ownership. I am happy to see the subsidising of home ownership through various schemes, but it is not fair when the money is taken away from social housing. The Chartered Institute of Housing estimates that the cost of this measure will be £3.3 billion. We are yet to see where that money will come from.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) says that there will be two-for-one replacement in Greater London. Where are the figures to show that that adds up? It is a fig leaf to cover his embarrassment at the Bill, which is disastrous for communities in London. It is an excuse written up on the back of the fag packet by Lynton Crosby, who is running his campaign. It will not work for people in London.
What the Tories do not understand is that social housing is an essential part of any major city’s economy. People need to live close to where they work. Particularly on the back of the fare increases that we have seen from this Tory Mayor, people cannot afford to do low income jobs, live in outer London and travel into central London. That is why low-cost social housing is so essential in areas of high land values in central London. The Tories do not understand it—they never have and they never will. They have always had a hatred of social housing. This is a Bill that Margaret Thatcher could not have dreamt of. It is a disaster for communities in London and I’ll tell you what: the Tories will rue the day that they did this.
Several hon. Members rose—