Lord Kerslake
Main Page: Lord Kerslake (Crossbench - Life peer)Housing and Planning Bill
Lord Kerslake Excerpts
Lord Kerslake
“Additional homes
(1) The Secretary of State must make a determination for the local housing authority to replace every property sold as a result of section 67.(2) A determination should provide for local housing authorities to replace any properties sold with housing of the same tenure, as far as is practical.(3) A determination must allow local housing authorities sufficient borrowing capacity and flexibility to provide replacement housing.”
Lord Kerslake (CB)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 68B and 68C, which are in this group and are connected to my amendment. I declare my interest as chair of Peabody and president of the Local Government Association.
Just before I come to the specifics of my amendment, I want to pick up three things that have come out in the debate—two of them from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. The first is the title of the scheme that we are taking forward, and I do not think that this is a question of semantics. It is described as “right to buy” but in these circumstances it will in fact be not a right to buy but an opportunity to buy subject to the discretion of the housing association. It would be helpful to know how the Minister intends to deal with that point if we are to avoid there being an awful lot of disappointed people.
Secondly, I absolutely endorse the view that there is a need for more houses. This is the most important issue that we are addressing here, and it is also important to say that we need more houses of all types and tenures. That is because, no matter how fast we build—my London Housing Commission report, which was published earlier in the week, suggested that we needed to double the rate of supply in London—and even if we build for 10 years on that basis, it is clear that it will not be possible to get to a point where every property is affordable for an ordinary Londoner. It therefore follows that you have to look at policy in a more fine-grain way. We need both more houses and more affordable rented houses. If we do not produce both, we will exclude a large number of people. This goes to the heart of the debate that we are having at the moment.
Lastly on this issue, it is very important that we do not have any sense that these properties are surplus. I made that point this morning and I emphasise it because we have come back to this debate again. When I first went to Sheffield as chief executive in 1997, there were parts of the city where you could literally walk into a local authority property. But they have all gone. Almost every part of the country is now light years away from that world. In most areas there is now a desperate shortage, particularly of properties that are likely to end up being sold off as and when they become vacant. We must not lose sight of the heartache that it will cause people who are in desperate need. Examples that I know of involve families with five children in one bedroom who will see properties that they might have occupied being sold off. We must not lose sight of this point.
I come back to my amendment. Before lunch, the Minister said that my previous amendment lacked a requirement for one-for-one replacement. Well, here it is. This set of amendments would put in the Bill the following. First, they would make clear on the face of the Bill the requirement for one-for-one replacement outside London. Secondly, they say that, where practical—I absolutely accept that it will be difficult in some places—the intention of, and expectation on, local authorities should be to achieve not just one for one but like for like. That goes back to my previous point: it is not the same to take away a social rented property in one area and replace it with a starter home 20 miles away. They are not the same. So we are saying that, where practical, local authorities should look to achieve like for like as well.
The third thing that we say—this absolutely goes to the heart of deliverability—is that, if we are in a world where the Government will not wholly grant-fund the replacement process for local authorities, they will give local authorities the ability to borrow in order to do this. It cannot be borrowing within an existing cap, because that funding will almost certainly have been allocated for the renovation and improvement of existing properties and for existing new-build housing programmes. If this is genuinely to be additional funding, local authorities need additional borrowing capacity. It would be helpful if the Minister could say that not only has more money been put in but, if local authorities do not get the full funding, they can have absolute confidence that they will be able to get the equivalent amount of borrowing that they need, in addition to the borrowing capability that they already have. That would go a long way to addressing the issues.
The last point here is that where there is a case for moving around the expectations across a combined authority, exactly as has been said by a number of noble Lords, there should be flexibility within a combined authority area to focus resources in the places where the need is greatest. That is the effect of the amendment.
I say “outside London” because in the Bill there is a requirement for authorities in Greater London to replace not just one for one but two for one. It is a very stark requirement that says those authorities “must ensure” that the number of new affordable houses is at least two for one. For me, it is therefore inexplicable that we would not say the same thing for authorities outside London. I appreciate that demand in London is very high—that was absolutely the subject of my report. But demand is also high outside London as well. Yes, there is an issue of demand in London—there is also the issue of the mayoral election in May, which is worth noting—but that alone does not justify the completely different positioning of housing outside London from housing inside London. Will the Minister explain why we would have a situation where the Bill has a two-for-one requirement for London but nothing for the rest of the country? That is inexplicable to me, and I would be grateful for an explanation.
Lord Horam (Con)
Is not that surely because of the sheer difference between different parts of the country? The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, was going on about that at some length in previous debates. Things are very different in, say, Cumbria, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire. On the other hand, we know that London is a special problem with uniquely high prices. Surely the Government are right, therefore, to maintain the possibility of a different approach in different parts of the country.
Lord Kerslake
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. However, if the Government were really worried about allowing flexibility for individual difference, we might not be debating this top-down policy at all.
Let me deal with the point that the noble Lord raised. The commitment from the Government is to achieve one for one; it does not say one for one in one part of the country and not one for one in another part of the country. It is reasonable to say that, within the boundaries of a local authority, there will be areas of high demand for new, affordable housing that the local authority will want to meet. I do not think we would be comfortable with a situation where some parts of the country made no effort to replace one for one and were given a retention of funding without that requirement while, in other areas, we did expect it. In my view, it would go against the stated intent of the Government to achieve one for one. One for one in a particular neighbourhood may not be exactly right but one for one in a local authority, or indeed in a combined authority, would absolutely be a reasonable expectation of this policy. Indeed, as I said, that is the stated government intent here.
I will conclude by making a number of points. Putting it in the Bill should overcome whatever doubts there are about the intent. I have raised some concerns about how possible it is to achieve this in the current financial regime. The Minister has quoted statistics, which I have some concerns about, as she knows, to show that it is already being achieved. If it is, there should be no difficulty in putting it in the Bill. If we are already confident that it can happen, putting it in the Bill should not create any difficulties at all.
A huge number of people are anxious about this issue and a huge number doubt the Government’s true intent in relation to affordable rented properties, or indeed affordable properties at all. Putting it in the Bill would put beyond doubt the Government’s intent. It would make it clear that they are serious about the policy of one for one. Contrariwise, if it is not in the Bill, people will draw their own conclusions. These are reasonable amendments that would do what the Government say they want to anyway and, crucially, provide the necessary funding for local authorities.
Lord Beecham
Does the noble Lord think that it would be desirable to include in any such arrangement a period within which that replacement has to be made, or does he think that it should be left open? It strikes me that some moderate period would be sensible. In respect of newly built property, does he think there should be at least a limited exclusion of a further right to buy if it has been provided for rent?
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, those are two important details that we could reasonably look at in the Bill or, had we the regulations in front of us, reasonably consider in regulations. The important point to make is that the absence of the regulations is compounding complexity on complexity. This is our difficulty here. We have a stated intent of government, but nothing in front of us that tells us how that intent will be delivered. Yes, there is an issue of timescale—we currently have three years; that may or may not be the right timescale for an expanded programme and should be consulted on with local authorities—but one thing that in my understanding is an irreducible intent of government is one for one. That is why it should be on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Campbell-Savours
My Lords, I think the noble Lord said that it would be acceptable to replace within the local authority area. What happens if part of that area is in a very high-demand area, such as a national park, with the rest of the local authority area in a low-demand area, as happens in parts of the Lake District—for example, Carlisle, Kendal, Whitehaven and Workington surrounding the Lake District, with the Lake District split up among the various authorities? If we simply replace the property that is lost in a high-demand area with property in a low-demand area, we do not fulfil the local demand requirements.
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, my amendment goes as far as I think it is possible to go within the bounds of the legislation. If there were a way of constructing it, there would be an intent to replace in the same area. We will have that conversation in debate on the rural amendments, so the noble Lord’s point will perhaps come through then.
There is a trade-off here. I acknowledge the point about how much one can specify in the Bill and how much one has to leave to local authorities to lead on and understand where they have high-demand issues. However, if we do not have even one for one in the Bill, we are a long way back from where we need to be.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, I seek clarification on this amendment, in particular the phrase “the same tenure”. I thought that tenure meant how a property is occupied, whether it is freehold or leasehold, but the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said in his speech that the property should be the same size. I thought that that was rather different from the tenure.
I particularly want to ask about this because I took a little time out of the previous session of our debate on the Bill to go to a meeting of the British Property Federation in the House. A person who spoke at that meeting said that the federation was very much in support of build to rent and that hundreds of millions of pounds were available for that. He seemed to think that this would be a way to deal with the housing problem. These people already have the land, along with hundreds of millions of pounds that they would be putting in. Does the noble Lord think that local authorities could work with a scheme like this? Is it a possibility that should be considered?
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, the noble Baroness has raised two important points. What I am seeking to say in my amendment is actually related to tenure—retaining the same tenure. That goes to the point I made that the position in terms of access to social rented properties is different from access to market rent and market sale. As we have touched on in previous debates, if a social rented property is replaced with, let us say, a starter home, the people who can access those two different types of homes are very different in terms of their incomes and situation. Of course, it would be desirable in my view that wherever possible, a property is replaced in the same neighbourhood and is of the same size, but I recognise, in the spirit of some flexibility, that it would be very hard to specify to that level of detail. In the circumstances, it is reasonable to look at whether it is possible, where practical, to achieve the same tenure.
The noble Baroness also raised the question of build to rent. I am a strong supporter of this as a new mechanism of supply. But the whole point about build to rent is that it is market rent; it is not the same as affordable rent. What we need is more houses of all types and tenures. We need more houses for sale, more houses for market rent, more houses for shared ownership, and we need more affordable rented properties. It is not any single one of the above; it is all of them. Market rent is a very powerful mechanism for driving new supply, but it is for a particular income group which is not the same as social rented.
Lord Carrington of Fulham (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, gave an extremely eloquent description of the Churchill Estate in Westminster and the various problems it faces, which are very real. It is possible to look at other estates across central London that have quite similar problems and a trajectory that has led to the same type of housing tenure and ownership. However, many of the problems he described come from the overall shortage of housing supply in London and would be not necessarily eliminated but largely cured if many more houses were provided in London.
That is why the provision of two-for-one replacement in London is so welcome. It is not without its problems. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, mentioned that the replacement housing should be in the same local authority or general area. There is a tradition that London boroughs build social housing outside their own areas. I return to the City of London Corporation, which owns social housing spread out over quite a wide area across London. It has traditionally always done so. It is important that the replacement housing should be where the people who will occupy it wish to live. That is a critical deciding factor, and one that can be dealt with only by the local authority. It is not one that we can impose in the Bill, nor one that we should even contemplate imposing.
Lord Kerslake
I will make two points. I am not suggesting changing anything in the Bill for London. I support the two-for-one and the collective approach across London. Indeed, I am advocating the same kind of approach for other combined authorities. I entirely agree with the noble Lord’s general point that we should allow choice about the location of housing where there are combined authorities, and, indeed, in London. My point is simply that wherever you locate it, there is an intent in government of one for one, which should be in the Bill.
Lord Carrington of Fulham
There should certainly be an intent to replace housing; quite how prescriptive we should get is a different matter. Frankly, I do not think we should get terribly prescriptive about it at all, except possibly in London, where there is such a particular housing crisis that it has caused us to look to alternative means of solving it. It has been intractable for so many years.
There is one problem with the two-for-one proposal: the need for flexibility as to how that is funded. We have talked about raising borrowing powers for local authorities to enable them to fund any shortfall that comes from the retained receipts from sale of their housing, but we also need the flexibility to be able to fund it from other sources. Many London local authorities have other assets—other land they could sell or buildings they could convert. There are lots of ways of handling this, other than just using the resources that come from selling the high-value properties that they are required to sell under the Bill.
I suggest that we and my noble friend the Minister should contemplate allowing a great deal of flexibility as to how the two-for-one provision will be achieved, because its financing could be done in any number of ways. We need the creativity of the local authorities to be brought to bear to solve a problem that is in urgent need of resolution.
Lord Kerslake
Perhaps I may come in very briefly. I wish to make three points. First, in any process you need a balance between prescription and flexibility. If the intent is to achieve one for one, that should be the nature of the agreements that are formed with local authorities. When the statutory instruments are published, that provision may well be included. If the Minister says, “I guarantee that one for one will be in the statutory instrument”, we may not need this amendment. But in the absence of such a guarantee, there is no mechanism for knowing with confidence that the Government’s intent is that one for one can be delivered.
Secondly, in relation to capital borrowing, in everything other than housing, local authorities have the ability to borrow prudentially. As was said this morning, they could borrow to build three swimming pools. The one area where they are capped is housing. Therefore, if you do not fully fund the replacement, you have to have an ability to lift the cap to find the necessary capital borrowing. That is the reason why that provision is included in the amendment.
Lord Lansley
I do not dispute that that is the reason it is in the amendment; I just think that it is wrong. We are not in the business of giving additional borrowing powers to local authorities but of releasing value from high-value assets and determining to what extent that is used to fund the discounts for housing association tenants buying their homes—or, on the other hand, to provide for replacement housing. The first point is very straightforward: if one wants to do this, Amendment 66B would include it in the wrong place; it is too inflexible and would introduce too many rigid criteria.
When the Government begin to create agreements with local housing authorities for replacement properties, I think that many of us would share the wish that, in the right places, where agreements are entered into—which will, of course, not be everywhere—those agreements should look for at least one for one; otherwise, why is the local authority being given that reduction in its payment if it is not in recognition that there is a greater need for housing there than for that money to be made available to housing associations through purchase of the properties by their tenants? It seems to me that the theory is: do you take this into Clause 72 and do you make it a minimum requirement of a one-for-one replacement? That is an issue to look at. I certainly do not think you need a new clause to do it.
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response and to noble Lords in this Chamber for their contribution to this debate.
I will present the position simply. In relation to London, the Government have recognised a housing need and have a stated intent to achieve two for one. That is, therefore, specified in the Bill. In relation to the country as a whole, the Government have also recognised that there is a housing need and stated their intent to have one-for-one replacement. That is not in the Bill, and we have, as we sit here today, no way of knowing the mechanism by which that will be delivered. The amendment here seeks to put this point about the Government’s intent beyond doubt. It puts no more prescription on local authorities outside London than the Government are seeking to put on local authorities inside London, so this is an important aim.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord, but does he agree that the one-for-one replacement is in the voluntary agreements?
Lord Kerslake
There are, of course, two one-for-one policies here. There is one-for-one replacement in housing associations, which is one thing that we will need to focus on, but it is in a voluntary agreement. I am now talking about the one-for-one policy in relation to high-value sales—or higher-value sales, as I like to call them—which is in the Bill and statutory. That is what I have focused on in my amendment, not the housing association part.
The central point is that we see the need in London, and I would be the first to acknowledge the London need. Indeed, that was the subject of the London Housing Commission, whose report I published this week. There is also a big issue of need across the country. Some parts of the country do not match London but have very severe problems. For example, we have heard today that Bristol has huge housing need. The purpose of my amendment is to give the same degree of confidence about the national policy that we are clearly achieving in relation to the London policy. That does not seem an unreasonable thing to seek. It does not give the absolute confidence, which some noble Lords have sought, that you will get the same property in the same neighbourhood at the same time. Indeed, that is part and parcel of the flexibility to which other noble Lords have rightly referred. However, if there is complete flexibility, there is no confidence about the delivery of the policy, and that is where there must be some statement of intent. I do not care where this assurance is given within the Bill. I think I have put it in the right place, but the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, might have a different view. The key point is that we do not have the assurance.
I shall finish on two points. First, there are surplus resources in local authority HRAs to deliver maintenance and investment, but they have plans to use that funding. The question is how we deliver the plans that they already have and secure the delivery of this new policy that will put an additional demand on their borrowing requirements. It is perfectly possible and consistent with other government policies to say that if we are putting in additional demand, we will give the wherewithal to enable the delivery of that demand, hence the proposal in relation to capital. Secondly, in the amendment I very clearly sought to say that, in terms of tenure type, it should be the same where that is practical. We have not dictated that it has to be the same tenure type because clearly practical issues will come up in individual authorities.
This set of amendments addresses a central issue that concerns people about the practical delivery of one for one and would put the Government’s intent beyond doubt within the Bill. That said, in the normal fashion, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 66E, which relates to the point made a moment ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, about demand and whether a local housing authority would be required to sell off a high-value home which perhaps has a large number of bedrooms, even though that property could be in demand for rent. It also goes back to the discussion we had about the meanings of the words “vacant”, “empty” and “surplus” in the previous group, so I do not seek to go over that ground again.
I will emphasise two points, the first of which is that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake—again, in a previous group—clarified something which we all know: there is no surplus of council and local authority housing in this country. Maybe there was a few years ago but today there is not. So it is very important that we understand what the impact of selling vacant high-value properties will be on those who are on social housing waiting lists—and, as we know, 1.6 million people are on those lists. This amendment simply says that the local housing authority should deem that there is no demand for that high-value property for rent. That is it, and it is a perfectly legitimate test to apply. If there is a waiting list in that area for that property, there should be no compulsion on a local authority to sell it.
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 67B and 67C, which are in my name. Both amendments relate to the exclusion of certain types of property from the forced sale programme, which would therefore be suitably amended with regard to the formula for the so-called levy.
The first category identified in Amendment 67B seeks to exclude properties that any reasonable authority or person would regard as sensible not to be included in a forced sale policy. I will not go through all of them but will give a few examples. A local authority would seek to achieve the maximum flexibility possible in the progression of a regeneration scheme. To be forced to sell off certain properties that are critical to the delivery of the regeneration would be a perverse outcome indeed. The exemption of properties that are themselves exempt from the right-to-buy policy would also seem absolutely logical, and this comes back to the formula that we might see. Again, the regulations may do this—but we have no regulations to fall back on.
Another area is vacancy, which we have spoken about. Under the bald definition of “vacancy” that we have had hitherto, if a property becomes vacant, it will be put up for sale. For the purposes of the Bill, it will be essential that it is regarded as being considered for sale, albeit that it is covered by a formula rather than an individual requirement. If, however, existing tenants wished to move into that property because they had already been identified as being in need, the property would be excluded. That sits alongside the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, which covers much the same point. At the very least, the amendment would cover high-value properties where there is clearly an existing tenant in another property in the authority who might move into it on a transfer basis.
I hope that noble Lords will see that the intention behind Amendment 67B is sensibly to exclude properties that any rational assessment would judge to be not appropriate to form part of a forced sale policy. I hope that the Minister will explain why any of these properties should be in contention for being expected to be sold or for being taken into account in the formula. I would be grateful for the Minister’s response on that point, given the nature of the properties involved.
My second amendment in this group, Amendment 67C, relates to the issue that we discussed this morning. If a local authority is fortunate enough to be in the position of the authority of the noble Lord, Lord True, who spoke earlier, and has transferred its stock, it will not be subject to the levy. If, on the other hand, for very good reason it decides at a subsequent date to transfer its stock, it will continue to be subject to the levy. As we heard from the Minister, this will be a levy in perpetuity and there will be no situation in which the authority can escape it. This will happen despite the fact that the authority transfers the stock to another organisation and therefore has no direct role in relation to the efficiency or otherwise of the management of that stock. That seems perverse, and it will be extremely difficult for the Government to deliver without some form of challenge. One local authority, through a sheer accident of timing, will be subject to a levy when another authority which takes very similar action is not subject to it. That seems perverse.
Lord Stunell
Is this not actually a back-door way of abolishing stock transfers? There will be no more in the future.
Lord Kerslake
The noble Lord makes a very strong point. The stock transfer mechanism has been available to local authorities of all political persuasions as a means of improving the quality of the stock for, and therefore the well-being of, their tenants. It has been a very powerful model for improvement. Indeed, there are plenty of examples of transfers. They are not always appropriate but, where they have gone well, they have resulted in significantly improved stock. The question here is: why would a local authority continue to progress such a transfer when it would carry on paying a substantial levy with no means of financing it? Therefore, the noble Lord makes a very good point.
Local authorities are now in quite challenging circumstances in relation to managing their stock. A number of smaller authorities are asking whether they can sustain the management of their stock, given such things as the rent reductions and the impact those have on the viability of their stock. I know this for certain because I have been in conversation with a number of them. For some local authorities, the logical answer is to deliver a stock transfer. So, not only does it prevent the opportunity of transfer because of the positive benefit to a local authority; it also inhibits the transfer where local authorities have very significant issues that they need to address and that can only really readily be dealt with through a transfer process.
I should emphasise that I am not suggesting local authorities should or must transfer their stock—that must be their decision. What I am saying is that it is a perverse position that those authorities that choose to do that in a year’s time will be subject to a levy that those who chose to do it a year ago will not. I cannot believe that it is fair or reasonable for that to stay in the Bill. Therefore, I suggest that it be taken out.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 67, 68E and 69 in particular, but am generally supportive of all other amendments in this group. Other noble Lords have talked about how concerned they are that this part of the Bill will reduce the number of low-rent social homes in places where they are needed most. I am a governor of an inner-city school where over 50% of children are on pupil premium, but in an area where market rents are at a premium and house prices have continued to rise, even during the 2008 recession. I want to use that small community as an example of some of the challenges posed by this particular part of the Bill and to raise the questions that I have. I will then go on to explain my amendments.
How will key workers be able to live near a place such as I have described on reasonable rents? How will government objectives on the need for cohesive communities be met? We need a mix of tenure in every block and every street. I was particularly struck by what the noble Lords who spoke about that earlier had to say, especially the noble Lord, Lord Carrington of Fulham. What about children in the most challenged families who need a stable home near a school like the one I have described, in a very expensive part of inner-city London, so that they can have the stability they need to help them overcome all the other challenges in their lives? The school must stick with them throughout their childhood. For that reason, I support many of the amendments in this group and have extreme concerns about the sale of these high-value asset houses. I make those general comments as this is the first time I have spoken in the debate.
The amendments tabled by me and my noble friend Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville are about newbuilds for local authorities and an exemption of those from sales. Without an amendment of this nature, the threatened forthcoming sell-off puts at risk existing building programmes. I will focus on that because councils are pausing, rather than building an asset, because they believe that they may lose the value of that asset almost as soon as it is built.
Shelter estimates that almost 113,000 council homes are likely to be above the value threshold, of which 78,778 will be lost from the most affected local authorities, of which half are in inner-city London. As other noble Lords have said, we are basing this on Shelter figures because, at the moment, that is our best grasp of figures in this area pending more detail from the Government. The top 20 councils that are most impacted currently have plans to build 20,390 homes. However, even the threat of this legislation means that they are pausing in building these homes. For example, Islington Council has said that the policy could end its newbuild programme. I would be interested to hear how the Minister believes councils can even borrow at the moment to build, given that lenders can have no confidence in future revenue from that property if, as soon as it is built, it is in jeopardy of being sold. Indeed, existing council building programmes are often partly financed from the revenue projected from the sale of a small number of high-value council homes, with one fundamental difference, which has been much debated already: the councils get to keep the money.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I think that the noble Lord is right—he is more alert at this hour than some of us.
I also hear the reasons behind Amendment 68E, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. I am afraid that I cannot accept it, because it would radically change the duty for local authorities to consider selling high-value housing by preventing the duty from arising until a property has been vacant for more than six months. She talked about the policy increasing homelessness, temporary accommodation costs and the housing benefit bill. We have, as I have probably said to her on a couple of occasions now, invested more than £500 million to help local authorities prevent almost 1 million people from becoming homeless. The two-for-one replacement in London will mean that more families can be housed in the capital.
I bring us back again to the intentions outlined in the Government’s manifesto. The argument is similar to that which I spoke to last Tuesday. The legislation is framed to provide local authorities with some flexibility on what housing to sell and how to make payments to the Secretary of State. The duty is an important part of this, to ensure that the payments are focused on high-value housing, both in the calculation by government and the way they are met by local authorities.
I have listened to the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Kerslake, and thank them for Amendment 67C, but I cannot accept it. It is right that the Secretary of State should be able to continue to take into account housing stock that has been subject to a transfer when making a determination.
My noble friend Lord Carrington of Fulham asked whether we were trying to stop any stock transfers. Local authorities are still able to transfer their stock to a private registered provider. The legislation does not stop the transfer of stock, but it is important that local authorities do not try to avoid having to sell off their high-value assets by making stock transfers. Where there is a need for more homes, we should be unlocking the value that local authorities hold in vacant high-value housing in order to fund more homes and help people into home ownership. The legislation means that the sale of vacant high-value housing will have to be one area that local authorities consider as part of their negotiation of any transfer, just as it will be one of the considerations of the Secretary of State when deciding whether to grant consent to the transfer.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and my noble friend Lord Carrington talked about perpetuity and how long the Secretary of State will continue to demand payments. We do not intend to place a restrictive provision on the length of time after a stock transfer when a determination could still be made. This will be considered on a case-by-case basis, recognising that every local area is different.
Lord Kerslake
I want to come back to this issue, although I am conscious of the hour. The Minister said that it is right that the Secretary of State should have this power to take transfers into account, but she did not say why it is right. What about the potential consequences that would flow where some very valuable transfers were prevented as a consequence of this provision? It looks like a small technical provision but it is not. It will adversely influence the future well-being of many tenants. I would be grateful for an explanation of why it should be taken into account when the clear intent is transfer with a view to improving the stock and the tenants’ quality of life.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
It is important for the Secretary of State to make the decision because he can make a judgment on why transfer is taking place.
Lord Kerslake
I accept that in the Bill it is a discretion—it says “may”—but we have no sense of knowing in what circumstances the Secretary of State might allow a transfer to go ahead without a levy and in what circumstances he would not. It is not unreasonable to want to know those circumstances. Perhaps the Minister could write to me on that point.