Housing and Planning Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, and given that his previous amendment was subject to a claim by the other place that it was financially privileged, will he explain why this amendment does not meet the same obstacle and why it is not inappropriate for him to press the matter?

[Lord Kerslake]

My Lords, as I indicated, I have taken on board the comments made in the previous debate and revised my amendment significantly. In particular—and this is the crucial point—it does not seek to impose a requirement on the Secretary of State as regards social rented housing. It is clear beyond doubt, as perhaps the previous amendment was not, that this is a matter that the Secretary of State is asked to consider, but does not necessarily have to agree. It is therefore a choice for the Secretary of State and as such would not have financial implications. Secondly, the first leg of my amendment simply seeks to say that if you reach an agreement, it has to be funded. That is all it says.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I will not detain the House very long. A passing comment by the noble Lord, Lord True, has caused me to ask the Minister a basic question about financial privilege. The Minister has made it very clear to your Lordships’ House, and even clearer today, that when a higher-value affordable home is sold off, a local authority, should it negotiate with the Secretary of State, will be able to replace it with another property—a one-for-one replacement, or two for one in London.

The Minister has also made it very clear today that, when that takes place, the transaction costs and the cost of building the new property will be made available from the sale figures of the higher-value affordable home. I hope the Minister will confirm that that is definitely the case. Indeed, it covers the first part of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. If that is the case, and the Minister has agreed that a new property to replace—not like for like but one for one—will be funded, I am at a loss to understand why the discussion about what the tenure of that property will be makes any difference to the amount of money that will then be left available to pay for the other aspects of government policy.

In the other place, the Minister, Mr Brandon Lewis, said that these proposals,

“would significantly reduce the funding available for the voluntary right to buy, again preventing this Government fulfilling their manifesto commitment. Let me be very clear: this is a wrecking amendment”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/5/16; col. 461.]

The noble Baroness the Minister has repeated those very words today. I am at a total loss to understand where the loss of money comes from, because she has acknowledged that the building of a new property will be funded. What the tenure is does not alter the building cost. I hope that the noble Baroness can give a very clear explanation of the statement made by the Minister in another place and repeated by her today.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, I do not wish to address any issues of policy in respect of the Bill or the merits or otherwise of the proposals contained in the Bill. Unlike my noble friend Lord True, I am not elected or standing for election, so perhaps my words to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, will be a little less diplomatic than those of others. I do not know how much time Members of this House spend talking to people in the other place as we go about our work. I love this House and I think it does a fantastic job, but there is increasing irritation at the other end of the corridor about the activities of this House, and we should take account of that. There are proposals to reduce our powers, to which I am very strongly opposed. I believe that there are major issues concerning the use of secondary legislation and the provision of Henry VIII clauses, and no doubt we will address those in the next Parliament.

I have always very strongly supported the idea that the Cross Benches should have an important presence and role in this House. Traditionally, the Cross Benches have been composed of people with great expertise—the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, is a notable example—but they have always known where to draw the line and have respected the conventions of this House. We are in danger of crossing that line. I do not seek to argue whether the noble Lord’s view is correct or the Minister’s view is correct. What matters is that the other place has rejected this matter and has claimed financial privilege. As my noble friend Lord True has pointed out, the question of financial privilege is a matter for the elected House. We, in this House, have always respected the view that we do not put forward Motions in lieu where they have been rejected on the grounds of financial privilege in the past, and this is what we are in danger of doing this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. I think the argument is stronger than he put in relation to financial privilege being claimed, because that has happened twice. The second time, which was last Wednesday, the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, believed that the amendment would not invoke financial privilege, but it did. In that sense, the House has perhaps inadvertently sent an amendment back in lieu once, in contradiction of the financial privilege argument. To do so twice seems a serious breach of the convention.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My noble friend is absolutely right. As he knows, I always pull my punches, but he is right to invite me to make the case even more strongly. Of course, when I intervened earlier and asked the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, if he would deal with the issue of financial privilege, he said that in his opinion his amendment did not breach that; but that is what he said the last time, and the House of Commons took a different view. He has made his argument, and my noble friend the Minister has shown enormous patience throughout the passage of this Bill, along with the rest of us who have been here to support her in the Division Lobbies. I hope that the noble Lord will accept, as my noble friend Lord Cormack said, that he has taken this matter as far as he can and that it is a matter for the elected Government and for the House of Commons to take things forward.

[Lord Beecham]

My Lords, last night the Commons spent all of 52 minutes debating the amendments passed by your Lordships’ House. In the course of the debate, the Minister, Brandon Lewis, asserted that this House had,

“chosen again to oppose one of”,

the Government’s,

“most important manifesto commitments, namely the commitment to ensure that more homes are built: homes that we need, and homes that young people are crying out for”.

To borrow a phrase from a somewhat more famous Conservative, Winston Churchill, that is a “terminological inexactitude”. It is perhaps less personal than the assertion by a Conservative Back-Bencher that the manifesto commitment was,

“struck down and circumscribed by the unelected, unaccountable panjandrums in the House of Lords”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/5/16; cols. 458-59.]

I declare my interest, and perhaps others of your Lordships do so as well.

The Conservative manifesto commitment was to build 275,000 affordable homes by 2020 and all of—my words, not theirs—10,000 homes to rent at below market rents. Nothing in the Motion moved by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, conflicts with the manifesto commitment to build more homes. Part of the problem lies in the repeated use of the adjective “affordable”, and the failure of the Bill—and Ministers—to define the term other than in relation to starter homes, where the examples of affordability, reaching up to £450,000, are widely recognised as unrealistic. But the particular difficulty is the evident and extreme reluctance of the Government to acknowledge the need for affordable housing, which essentially means social housing, for rent, beyond identifying the massive programme of 2,000 houses a year at below market rents for the next five years.

The Government purport to address this issue by the provisions of the Bill which allow, but do not require, the Secretary of State to enter into agreements with councils to reduce the amounts they would have to pay to the Secretary of State, principally to fund the right to buy of housing association tenants. There is no requirement to do so, beyond the need in London, under an agreement for two-for-one replacement, and one-for-one elsewhere; but there is no requirement for the replacement to be by way of like-for-like tenure—only that replacements should be “affordable”. Moreover, as we have heard at some length during the passage of this Bill, the Government are unable to produce figures defining the meaning of “high value”, or the number of properties affected locally or nationally, or the likely rate of vacancies, or the cost of administering the scheme, or how they will judge how much to require councils to pay up-front annually, since the Bill envisages such payment will be required whether or not sales are effected. To misquote Marx—Groucho, not Karl—“A child of five could understand the impact of this policy. Bring me a child of five”, or perhaps, in these days, a special adviser.

Ministers constantly state that there are 16 million pieces of paper relevant to this issue and they are therefore unable to make any assessments. In that case, surely the answer is not to legislate before any real assessment of the impact is made, and not to rely on unamendable secondary legislation to ram through controversial and untested policies. That brings me to the claim that financial privilege prevents us from amending the Bill. The Government have already accepted some amendments with possible financial consequences, but the point is that financial privilege is not some God-given formula by which this House is prevented from amending legislation. We are not in the Moses Room with tablets of legislative stone; Governments can choose not to invoke or apply financial privilege, and we are entitled to invite them to do so. In any case, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, suggested, the amendment does not breach financial privilege.

The Motion moved by the noble Lord is a modest one. All that it seeks is that in calculating the financial adjustments to be made on the forced sale of high-value properties, councils should be able to retain sufficient money to provide two-for-one replacements in London, and one for one elsewhere, with the rider that the Secretary of State should consider allowing sufficient to be retained to permit that replacement by social housing for rent, when they can demonstrate need. It is not carte blanche—it is still a matter for the Minister to agree. It is the least that could reasonably be asked for. It is consistent with the manifesto pledge to build more homes, and it deserves the support of the House, and indeed of the Commons. In no way does it override a manifesto commitment, and if the noble Lord invites the House to ask the Commons to think again, the Opposition will support him.