Housing and Planning Bill (Sixteenth sitting)

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I thought the Minister was going to make a serious intervention about the content of the new clauses. The point I was making is that the Government new clauses, which are wide ranging and controversial and have an impact on lots of people’s lives, should not have been brought to this Committee on the last day of its deliberations without any consultation, without an impact assessment and without any background information. It really is extraordinary. It is extremely bad practice and not good policy making.

It is the content of the clauses that concerns and outrages me. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) said this morning:

“People will be astonished that Ministers are legislating to deny families a stable home. This will cause worry and upheaval for tenants, and break up communities.”

Because the new clauses have not been in the public domain for long, people are only now trying to catch up with what the impact might mean for people. However, some housing lawyers have contacted us to say:

“Presently, local authorities generally grant periodic secure tenancies. Such tenancies have no automatic end date, rather, they end only when the court makes an order for possession or when a tenant gives up the tenancy. Moreover, if you are the spouse or civil partner of a local authority tenant then, on the death of that tenant, you can succeed to the tenancy on the same terms.”

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. I want to finish what I am saying about this particular issue. The housing lawyers who have contacted us said:

“The new clauses end both of these rights. If the new clauses are accepted, local authorities will only (save for limited exceptions which will mostly be dealt with in secondary legislation)”—

as we heard from the Minister earlier—

“be able to grant tenancies for a fixed term of between 2 and 5 years. Towards the end of the fixed term (defined as between 9 and 6 months before it ends) the landlord will decide whether to offer another fixed term. Whilst there is a right to ask a landlord to review a decision not to offer another fixed term, there is no right to challenge the decision, e.g. by appeal to a court.”

Therefore, the spouse or civil partner of a local authority tenant, on death of that tenant, might get a five-year tenancy, or they might not.

The lawyers continue:

“This is a major reform of housing law, probably the most important since local authority tenants were given security of tenure in the Housing Act 1980. It requires much more detailed (and technical) consideration than just being dropped in for debate on the last day of the Committee Stage. There are, for example, two unintended consequences”—

my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West has just raised one. There is great concern about the potential impact on the right to buy, but there is also major concern about provisions for recovery of possession at the end of the fixed term and for recovery of possession against a successor.

The lawyers say that the current proposals are simply unworkable because

“where a local authority grants a fixed term tenancy, possession proceedings operate by way of forfeiture. Yet the Bill excludes forfeiture from the remedies available against these fixed term tenancies.”

The lawyers direct the Minister to read “Flexible Tenancies and Forfeiture” by Andrew Dymond in volume 17 of the Journal of Housing Law so that he can see how the drafting is flawed.

The lawyers continue:

“a 2 year fixed term means, in reality, only 15 months of security (since the decision whether to extend your tenancy can start with 9 months remaining on the term)”.

A two-to-five-year churn, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West pointed out, has huge implications for the stability of families and communities. It is important that the Minister addresses some of the points about what churn could mean in practice for the stability of families.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

As my hon. Friend the Minister pointed out, there are 1.4 million people on the housing waiting list. Does the hon. Lady recognise that there is a real need to make the best use of our housing stock? People’s lifestyles change, as they go from living in a larger family to perhaps living on their own in a house that is larger than they need. Are these not sensible proposals to make sure we make best use of our housing stock?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Local authorities already have the power to grant fixed-term tenancies if they wish to do so. The issue we have been struggling somewhat to get across in the Committee to date is that, if there is a huge need for social rented housing, the way to deal with that need is to build more social rented housing units, not to make life more difficult for those who already occupy social rented housing by kicking them out using a whole variety of mechanisms.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Let me finish the point.

Increasing rents to a level that people will not be able to afford and having the bedroom tax in place means that a lot of people have to move out of their homes. Now, on the last day of our deliberations, we have this extraordinary set of measures, which seek to take secure tenancies away from people in the social rented sector. This is an extraordinary change. What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that the way of dealing with acute housing need is to build more housing across all tenures, including for social rent, and I hope he will accept that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I absolutely accept that. Does the hon. Lady therefore welcome the 55% rise in the number of affordable houses—25,000 more properties— built in 2014-15 versus 2013-14?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

A further thing I have been trying to do in the Committee is to make it clear that there are social rents and there are affordable rents. Affordable rents are not necessarily what we would all understand as affordable, because, in a lot of areas, 80% of the market rent is not affordable. Of course, that also applies to other measures for low-cost home ownership. Throughout the Committee’s deliberations, we have been questioning whether the Government’s definition of low-cost home ownership actually is low-cost home ownership.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

Yes. If this is the result, the circumstances will be absolutely dreadful. Whether or not families are ultimately moved on, they will now have to live with the insecurity of knowing that they could be moved on at any time. That is what is particularly pernicious about the measures. They are part of a continuing vendetta against social tenants in this country. That is what we must assume from how the measures have been introduced and their content.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead made the point beautifully. We all understand the need for social housing. She needed social housing at one time in her life, and the property was available. The measure is about making the best use of our housing stock.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

We dealt with that earlier. I ask the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to turn their attention to how we can deliver more social rented housing.