Lord Bassam of Brighton
Main Page: Lord Bassam of Brighton (Labour - Life peer)Housing and Planning Bill
Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts“Community cohesion
(1) Upon the coming into force of this Act, the Secretary of State must undertake a review into the effect that Chapters 3 and 6 of Part 4 will have on community cohesion within all local authority areas.(2) A report on the review must be published, and laid before each House of Parliament, no later than six months after the coming into force of this Act.”
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, these amendments would require the Secretary of State to give consideration to the issue of community cohesion—something that has come up several times in the debate on pay to stay this evening—and to consider family life when considering the measures in this Bill on rents for so-called high-income tenants and the ending of secure tenancies. They would require consideration to be given at the end of a fixed-term secure tenancy to the effect of not granting another tenancy, and the effect that that would have on family life—for example, whether a child is forced to move school and whether the family has to move away from local amenities they rely on or a family support network. They also require the Government to undertake a review into the effect that the pay to stay and ending of secure tenancies provisions in the Bill will have on community cohesion.
A council home does not simply provide a roof over one’s head. It enables a sense of belonging to a community, particularly a community that is inclusive of people from different and diverse backgrounds. My argument is that the measures in this Bill put this severely at risk. There is a risk of bringing this cohesion to an end. Shelter estimates that 113,000 affordable council homes will be lost as a result of this Bill. The Local Government Association analysis suggests that some 80,000 council homes will be lost by 2020. That in itself could drastically change the make-up of many of our communities. Add to that the number of people who will have to leave their homes as a result of the pay to stay provisions, and we are looking at the serious dismantling of communities across our country.
I think it was the Minister who said earlier that some 46,000 households in London would be affected by pay to stay. My guess is that we need to double that to get an estimate of the impact across the country. Put these figures together and the multiple impact of pay to stay and the ending of secure tenancies, and we will see big changes to the make-up of many of the communities that currently benefit from social housing. It will be particularly apparent in areas—many in London—that have extremely high market rents. In these areas council housing is even more vital to maintaining a mixed and cohesive community, providing housing in the area for people who would otherwise be forced out.
I argue that a community can thrive only if there is housing in the area for those who need to work there—the people who work in local shops, post offices and schools. If people have to live miles away to commute in to provide services for those who can afford to live in the area, we lose all sense of balance in the community and it is hollowed out. It is unsustainable. We can see it happening now in many London boroughs as private rents soar and people cannot afford to stay and live there. Council housing is supposed to even out this imbalance and to help those who cannot afford market rent, but also to allow people to live in mixed communities.
Under the Bill, households that reach the Government’s threshold of just £40,000 in London and £30,000 outside London will be forced to pay market rents or to leave. Market rents in boroughs such as Camden are completely out of reach for most working households, so what will happen to those now classed as “high income”? We will see people having to leave the areas that they have lived in for years and places in which they have built their lives and their children’s lives. The cost will be not just social break-up of communities, but a financial cost to the state, because when people are forced to move away from the social support networks that they have built up—away from families and friends, those who look after children or share caring—it becomes a cost. They will have to rely more heavily on local authority services.
To bring it down to individual households, just think of the potential damage that these provisions can do: parents unable to plan for their children’s schooling; friendships broken off every few years; few friendship groups and poorer community support networks, which currently thrive. I wonder whether the Government have given any thought at all to the impact on schools. What if a council decides on setting secure tenancies at three years at a time? Parents with children face the prospect of moving three, perhaps four times during the schooling of a child. It does not take much imagination to see how disruptive that can be for a family. Think, too, how disruptive it will be for the school, with a constantly revolving door of pupils and families, never knowing who or how many will be on the school roll from one year to the next. I ask this simple question: has the DCLG thought to talk to the Department for Education? If it has, what has the department said in response? Was this consideration ever factored into an impact assessment?
The Bill is a series of unintended consequences piled up as a cover for action designed to solve problems caused simply by lack of low-cost housing. The very least we can do is invite the Secretary of State to think about this measure and its impact on community cohesion, in particular on schools and families. The Bill, with its emphasis on reinforcing social housing as a tenure of last resort, runs the risk of taking us back to a world of rigid divisions in society. Worse than that, it would entrench them. Surely we should be encouraging mixed communities, full of people with different talents. Pay to stay, mixed in with short-term tenancies, will lead to social housing for just the very poorest. It will further stigmatise a form of tenure and, combined with short-term tenancies, create perpetually insecure families facing a series of costly moves.
I do not think the Government have thought through the long-term impact of the legislation, nor the multiple impacts of different changes that the Bill will bring in. If we are serious about community cohesion—something that the Prime Minister in particular has laid great store by in the past, with his plans for the big society—the very least we can do is begin to understand the long-term impact and the consequences of divisive and socially damaging legislation of this sort. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, two amendments in the group are proposed by my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton. As we heard in his contribution, they concern community cohesion and the effects of the pay-to-stay policies on it. Amendment 82AA would require the Secretary of State to undertake a review into the effect that the ending of secure tenancies and the pay-to-stay policies will have on community cohesion. Amendment 82GAB would require the landlord, at the end of the fixed-term tenancy, to consider the effect that a decision not to grant another tenancy would have on family life and community cohesion.
These seem very sensible amendments and should be of no concern to the Government. In fact, they should be fully in tune with the Government’s thinking. We might all have our own definitions of community cohesion; for me, it is as set out by my noble friend Lord Bassam of Brighton. It is where there is a common vision and a sense of belonging—family life and a role for everybody in the local community. It is where we have rights and responsibilities, a breaking down of barriers, a building of trust and the creation of a community.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, Lady Porter—sorry, Dame Shirley Porter—was a bit before my time but I certainly do not think that any of us would want to emulate some of the practices that went on then. No one could want cohesive communities more than I do. It is part of my government brief and the sort of thing I promote every single day, so I certainly agree with the sentiments behind the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. I also apologise to him because I started speaking to his amendment in a previous group when he was out of the Chamber and had not even spoken to it.
The noble Lord seeks a published review into the effect that the policies on income and rent setting and restricting lifetime tenancies will have on community cohesion in local authority areas. In the case of income and rent setting, I have already expressed our intention to keep the policy under review and I have also explained my views regarding the detrimental effect that low rents for households on high incomes can have on a community.
The provisions that will restrict lifetime tenancies—to which we will turn in more detail soon—will restore a sense of fairness to social housing, ensuring that it is properly focused on those who really need it for as long as they need it and that those who need long-term support are provided with more appropriate tenancies as their needs change over time. I am convinced that this is a better way to create strong and cohesive communities than continuing to grant tenancies with lifetime security to households which may only have a short-term need. Without these changes, families would continue to be trapped in overcrowded council homes, and older tenants whose children have left home would continue to occupy homes which may no longer be appropriate for their needs, while hundreds of thousands more remain on waiting lists without any hope of ever getting a council house.
The noble Lord has also tabled Amendment 82GAB, which would require local authorities, when they carry out the end-of-tenancy review, to consider the effects that not granting a further social tenancy would have on family life and community cohesion, and whether it would result in a child having to change school. I will say more about the end-of-tenancy review when we discuss the provisions on secure tenancies, but we would definitely expect social landlords to provide longer tenancies to families with children of school age and we will provide guidance to make this absolutely clear.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
Is it the Government’s intention that these blocks of five-year secure tenancies can just carry on being renewed?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, that is absolutely correct. If a child was at school, clearly the situation would not have changed.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
What is the purpose of these five-year tenancies if it is the Government’s intention that local authorities continue to allow five-year blocks of tenancy to persist? What does it actually achieve? It is not getting to grips with the problem—which the Minister seems to think is there—of spreading this scarce resource. Rather than having these false dates when tenancies just get renewed, the real answer is surely to build more housing so that the people whom the Minister is concerned about can come off the waiting list into social housing.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The noble Lord is right: the answer is both to build more housing and to check, at review intervals, whether the housing that is being provided for a family continues to meet their need or whether they need something else. That is the purpose of the review.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
Will the Minister assure me, and the Committee, that no family with children at local schools will ever be asked to leave a council home under one of these secure tenancies?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
The guidance will be absolutely clear on children of school age. We can think of every permutation and combination of family circumstances, but if there were six children, five of them had left and only one was still at home, there might be a conversation about the family downsizing within the local area—but the continuation of the child’s education would be paramount.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, that is a very good question. The timeline of the guidance will all be before us by the end of this week.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
I am reassured by some of what the Minister has said, but to be able to test the Government on this, we need to see the guidance. This is a deeply worrying set of provisions for many tenants. The interaction between family life, secure tenancies and people’s aspirations when they live in a local community is very intense. This is creating a sense of insecurity on many of our council estates.
Lord Beecham
It is also a disincentive for people to invest in their homes, which they do now. They not only look after their homes but improve them. If you are not sure of being able to stay on as your child gets to the point of leaving school, or if you are a couple living in a house and your five years is coming up, is that not likely to result in a decline in the investments that people make in their homes which do huge credit to many tenants now?
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, we will be coming to that, if the noble Lord will bear with me. I have some news for the noble Lord, Lord Bassam: the guidance will be published in time for the commencement of the provisions.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
I am sorry, my Lords, that is absolutely idiotic. The guidance will be published at the time at which the legislation is implemented—does the Minister really mean that? Surely we have to see that guidance before it is implemented.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, we will see the guidance before it is implemented but I am just saying that it will be published in time.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I am grateful that the noble Lord is grateful. I do not believe that providing social housing on a long-term basis to households that may experience only temporary need is a good use of scarce social housing, and I do not think it is likely to lead to strong and cohesive communities.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
I think that I should probably be withdrawing my amendment. I can see that the noble Baroness is troubled and waiting for something to happen.
I have been very intrigued and quite interested by what the noble Baroness has had to say. I was a little bit reassured, but I sat there thinking about it a bit and I am not as reassured as I was. When I left home to go to university in 1972, I left my poor mother in her council home on her own with a spare bedroom. Had this ridiculous piece of legislation been in place at the time, no doubt she would have had a visit from her local council inviting her to move to yet smaller accommodation. That is not a particularly constructive way to approach things. Nor do I think that it would have been in her interest or that of the local community, because she was a bit of a terrier in her place.
This is a seriously deficient piece of legislation that does not achieve what we really need to do here, which is to create more social housing for people to access, rather than spreading what we have ever more thinly on a recycling basis, forcing people out of their homes and communities. That was really the point behind my amendment. I shall give it further thought before we get to Report, but the Secretary of State ought to think long and hard about the whole issue of community cohesion. It is good that the noble Baroness is the policyholder for that, because I can see that it is something that she cares passionately about. Perhaps she, too, along with the Secretary of State needs to reflect on the issue.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Before my noble friend withdraws his amendment, the Minister has not replied to my question about review, which I have now asked twice. I asked what “review” meant and what considerations would be in the mind of the local authority.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
I should like to help my noble friend here, because I think he has misread my amendment. The review is one that the amendment calls for—from and by the Secretary of State, not the local authority. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Young of Cookham
As we have heard in earlier debates, every house that is being sold by a local housing association is being replaced and every house that is being sold by a local authority is going to be replaced so I simply reject the thesis the noble Baroness has put forward.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
My Lords, I have an amendment in this group. It follows immediately after the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. I am grateful for the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Young, because it has widened and opened up a fundamental debate. The noble Lord described social housing now as “residualised housing” because that is what it is. We are getting to the last knockings of social housing. I do not think that that is right or appropriate. The problem that we have is spiralling rents in the public sector, spiralling rents in the private sector and a diminution of supply. The noble Lord says that there will be like-for-like replacement. So far during the Conservatives’ time in government since 2010, we have not had anywhere near like-for-like replacement. I think that the figure is one in 10. That is a great shame, although the aspiration is absolutely right.
When I chaired a housing committee, with the capital receipts that we accrued we had the opportunity to get some of the way towards like-for-like replacement. Now, we are nowhere near it and that is part of the problem. We need to expand public sector housing provision on a massive scale. That will help to drive down rents in both the public and the private sectors, and we can get back to the point where social housing is no longer viewed as residual housing for the poorest in our communities and for those who are struggling to get on to the housing ladder.