Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken so clearly on this group.
As I said in my opening speech, and have made completely clear throughout the passage of the Bill in this House, a nationally set starter homes requirement is essential to delivering our 200,000 starter homes commitment. The amendment would mean that the requirement for starter homes would become something entirely different. This is not what we promised to deliver in our manifesto.
The Minister for Housing and Planning last night set out on the Floor of the House in the other place that we need to get on with helping those people to fulfil their dreams and get on to the home ownership ladder. Some 86% of our population want to be given that chance to do so. I am in complete agreement with him, and with my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham for reiterating the point that he made last night. It is,
“beyond astonishing that the upper House should try to amend a measure that has received such a clear message of support from this elected Chamber, and in respect of which we have an election mandate to help young people”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/5/16; col. 459.]
Elected honourable Members have been clear in their overwhelming support for delivering our starter homes commitment, and, as my noble friends Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Cormack, said, Amendment 10B was rejected with a majority of 83.
This House has done its duty. It has scrutinised, and the Government have revised as far as they possibly can. It is time to stop and to recognise and respect the will of the electorate and the primacy of a manifesto mandate. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, said that the legislation had been rushed through and that the Commons had not scrutinised it properly. However, I understand from the Commons that timings were agreed, including by the Labour Whips. I have already made clear to the House that Amendment 10B would fundamentally change the Government’s manifesto intention as proposed in the Bill, and that we therefore consider the Salisbury convention to be engaged.
I once again reassure the House that the Government are completely committed to ensuring that a range of housing tenures come forward. These include shared ownership and other affordable home ownership products. However, we are legislating for starter homes alone as a new product, designed to address a specific gap in the market, and we have a clear manifesto mandate to do that.
I also reassure the House that the Government are consulting on setting the percentage requirement. These proposals include exemptions where a starter home requirement will not be expected. I would be happy to meet noble Lords to discuss this further before the resulting regulations are brought back to this House.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said that the percentage requirement was set at 20%. Twenty per cent is currently a consultation proposal and is not yet fixed. However, we are consulting the sector on this and other aspects of the starter home regulations. The noble Lord also talked about current proposals being rigid and inflexible. We are consulting on how the starter homes requirement will apply. This includes setting out exceptions on the basis of viability and the types of housing being built, such as housing for older people.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, suggested that this was not a wrecking amendment. We promised the electorate that we would deliver 200,000 starter homes by 2020. This was our election mandate and this amendment would undermine delivering that.
I have listened carefully to the debate, and I hope our clear manifesto commitment for starter homes means that there is no need to divide your Lordships’ House. With these reassurances in mind, I invite the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment to my Motion.
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions to this debate on starter homes. I entirely understand and respect the constitutional issues at stake here. This House is clearly a revising and improving Chamber and, ultimately, the other place will prevail. That is the democratic propriety, and that is as it should be. I also recognise the issues associated with how the conventions work. The 2006 report referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Young, was not taken up within the context of the Companion, and my amendment complies with the rules as set out in the Companion. I absolutely respect the views put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. He and I worked very productively on the Trade Union Bill and saw very substantial improvements.
The challenge is judging the impact of what is proposed and whether it will deliver more homes—which we desperately need in this country—or, indeed, the 200,000 starter homes the Government seek. Personally, I severely doubt whether it will deliver what is intended. Notwithstanding what the Minister has said, it is in many ways a rigid proposition. I also recognise that it is a manifesto commitment and that Ministers have expressed a concern that the amendment will undermine that. I am alert to the Minister’s assurances on the consultation and the flexibility that will be built in. At this point I will, therefore, reluctantly withdraw the motion.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Kerslake (CB)
My Lords, I support this amendment. Buried among the thicket of amendments that we have considered in this, I am afraid, rather centralising Bill is a genuinely ingenious and localist approach that we should give serious consideration to. In many ways it mirrors the amendments that came forward during the passage of the Localism Act that paved the way for the city deals. That was a powerful model that opened up new opportunities. The proposed new clause is very open in the way it is described and I am sure that improvements could be made in the drafting, but it is a genuinely localist initiative that would allow different approaches and techniques to be used in different parts of the country.
The proposition in the London Housing Commission report that I chaired—I declare an interest—could help. It proposed that the mayor, through the London Plan, should be able to make that effectively the NPPF for London. If we recognise the fact that we live in a country with different housing markets and different planning environments, we should be open to some experimentation, and this proposed new clause could be very helpful in delivering that.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I thank noble Lords and in particular the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for speaking on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, another noble Lord whom we wish well, because they seem to be dropping like flies today—I do not know whether it is the housing Bill or something in the air. I support the key principle in the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Lucas and nobly articulated by both noble Lords that local planning authorities should have a greater role in tailoring the planning system to their local circumstances. This includes potentially having the power to suggest an alternative approach, as set out by the amendment.
I am sure the noble Lord would concede that, as drafted, there are some difficulties with his amendment. It is too broad, and it certainly does not provide the necessary reassurances of certain aspects of planning, such as the right to appeal, which must be retained to provide fairness for applicants. In addition, it does not provide a legal vehicle to support the transfer of the planning freedoms, which would lead to some practical difficulties. These concerns accepted, I applaud my noble Friend in his absence for the inventive approach his amendment proposes, and the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, for articulating it.
The Government are committed to driving up housing supply. I am sure that noble Lords know our ambitions. I think the House will agree that any agreement by the Secretary of State to an alternative planning system in a local area should happen only if that alternative system would deliver additional homes. I want that link to be explicit in any legislation.
I reassure both noble Lords that we are already making strong moves in this area. The Government are exploring a deal-based approach where a local authority requests certain planning freedoms in exchange for delivering housing numbers greater than their objectively assessed housing need. This includes instances where those housing numbers might be delivered by a large site such as a garden village or garden suburb.
I have listened to the thoughtful contributions from noble Lords, and I would like to consider how we can best take forward the key principle of the amendment of my noble Friend, Lord Lucas, particularly in light of the recent publication of the report of the local plans expert group and the consideration of responses to the Government’s recent consultation on the NPPF. I hope this explanation reassures the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, and that he is happy to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Baroness Williams of Trafford
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.
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.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I think the noble Lord and I will disagree on this but it is incumbent on owners, whether private owners, the Government or local authorities, to make the best use of their assets, whether that means selling expensive ones or not. I accept that we will have to agree to disagree on this but that is our view.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, talked about the right to buy not delivering one-for-one replacements and questioned how the policy would do so. In the first year following reinvigoration, 354,000 additional homes were sold, and by the end of the second quarter of 2015-16 there were 4,117 new starts and acquisitions. That means that, to date, authorities are delivering a new home for every one sold.
Lord Kerslake
I am intensely aware of just how long we have gone on but I cannot let that point pass. It is essential that the Minister address the analysis in the NAO memorandum, which clearly identifies the challenge here. This would all be a lot easier if we could see a set of numbers that said, “Here’s the potential receipts, here’s the potential deductions from those receipts and here’s how it will balance with the cost of the discounts”. We might then be able to have a sensible debate.
I make one last point on what the Minister said. I am absolutely up for efficient management of stock and I am very much up for a duty on local authorities to manage their stock efficiently. But this is not about efficiency; this is about a levy to pay for a government policy.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Kerslake
I will have one last go at this. The point I was making is that it is often said that we are now achieving the delivery of the one-for-one policy. We are not. That is the definitive point I am making. Indeed, that is what the NAO says. The delivery of the one-for-one policy is very difficult to achieve in its current form. You would have to change fundamentally the way you think about the financing, and you would go back to the question of whether the numbers add up.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, for both his endeavours and his amendment, which proposes an equity loan scheme for housing association tenants in place of the voluntary right-to-buy discount. I understand that part of the reason for introducing this amendment was to reopen the debate about the funding of the right-to-buy discount.
An equity loan, by its nature, is not a discount and has to be repaid by the tenant. This is a very different offer—more akin to the Help to Buy scheme than to an extension of the right-to-buy scheme. This will inevitably make home ownership less attractive to the very tenants we are trying to reach: those on lower wages who are being priced out of home ownership because of high house prices.
We had a clear manifesto commitment to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants, and the voluntary agreement with the sector will give 1.3 million families the chance to purchase a home at right-to-buy level discounts. Our extension of the right to buy is about offering housing association tenants the same opportunity as council tenants. Providing equity loans to tenants, as proposed under this amendment, would not provide the same offer to them. We have been clear that housing associations will be fully compensated for the right-to-buy discounts offered to tenants and that this would be funded through the sale of vacant local authority high-value assets. They will be fully compensated. There are billions of pounds locked up in local authority housing assets. It is only right that when they become vacant they are sold, enabling the receipts to be reinvested in building new homes and supporting home ownership through the right to buy.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the equity loan is not a discount. It is an equity loan. It is an entirely different mechanism. The discount gives an upfront reduction, whereas with an equity loan after five years you would have to start to repay it with interest. It is not comparing like with like. They are two different mechanisms.
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, I am very conscious of the hour, so I will keep this very short. I will make three points. First, the amendment was tabled in a genuine effort to deal with what I think is one of the most substantive problems with the Bill in its current form: namely, the decoupling of the right-to-buy opportunity from the means of funding it, which remains a running sore through the Bill which has not been resolved. It is a running sore because it is unfair and because we do not yet know—and, indeed, I think there are big doubts over—whether the numbers work.
Secondly, as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said, we have already departed from an absolutely like-for-like policy for housing associations and local authorities. That bridge has been crossed in what is in front of us now. It seems to me that the critical policy intent here was to give people in housing associations the opportunity to buy. The amendment does that, but it does not do it in a way that causes huge ructions and difficulties in other ways.
My third and final point is that it is clearly possible to deliver one for one in a different world. That was not the point I was making. The point I was making was that according to the numbers that we have, which have been tested by the NAO, we are not delivering one for one in the current arrangements. I have no confidence that we will do better on it given that nothing else changes within the proposals. So I ask the Minister to revisit this. I am confident that it is technically doable. It fits with the intent of the Conservative Party manifesto and it addresses some real difficulties with the Bill in its current form. Having said all that, I will of course not move the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, the noble Baroness asks who will benefit. Young people will benefit, and history shows us that it is young people for whom home ownership has been out of reach.
Lord Kerslake
There is a critical point here, which has perhaps been missed. When a couple or an individual seek to buy, they will make choices about what they can afford and, accordingly, where they can buy. In some situations, they will choose somewhere, as was said earlier, of lower value, because that is what they can access by way of mortgage; in other places they will go for somewhere of higher value but with a discount offered. They will make a choice about their purchase at that point. What they are essentially doing, when you put a second charge on a property, is making a trade-off between the discount—and the length of the discount—and the price they have to pay. That is what they are doing.
If you make it five years, anybody will go for that, whether or not they need it, as that will be the only way they can access the property. If you make it 20 years, it is much more likely to be the people who genuinely cannot access full market value who go for the property. This is a crucial point. If you really want to avoid deadweight squeezing out the people who might be able to purchase only with the discount, you have to have a longer taper than five years.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I think we are going to have to disagree on this. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made the point that owners would get the uplift from house price inflation. However, that could be the other way round, as after five years, a house could be worth less. The housing market is cyclical—prices go down as well as up—so there will not necessarily be an increase in the house price after five years.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I turn to Amendment 39A, which would enable Rent to Buy products to be considered as starter homes. We know that there is an appetite among housing providers and developers to deliver more home ownership in new and innovative ways. We know that we need a wider range of products to assist young first-time buyers to access home ownership when a generation is increasingly being priced out. The Government are supporting people who cannot afford a discounted purchase outright through the separate schemes that I have mentioned, such as Rent to Buy, Help to Buy and shared ownership.
Our commitments through this spending review will provide households that cannot yet afford a home on the market but aspire to home ownership in the medium term the opportunity to save for a deposit. It is a good product and, like other valuable products that support access to home ownership, affordable Rent to Buy can be considered by councils as part of their wider affordable housing requirements for their area. The clause will not prevent those developments from coming forward.
This is a new product. Our manifesto was clear that we would build 200,000 starter homes and this is central to our housing ambitions. The electorate will expect us to deliver on our commitment. The starter homes policy is a product for outright purchase that gives people the benefit of home ownership and, importantly, helps them to achieve a step up the ladder. I have tried to answer all noble Lords’ questions.
Lord Kerslake
Before the Minister sits down, I understand that Shelter will publish its data very shortly. I was keen to have the latest data for this debate. It would be helpful if the Government could also publish not just their data but the underlying assumptions behind them so that we could have a true like-for-like comparison.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I can say to the noble Lord that we will certainly request that—he has been teasing us all afternoon. I am looking forward to seeing that report and I am sure that we will debate it in full, comparing those data and the Government’s data. I ask noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy, Lord Beecham and Lord Kerslake, and the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, for their amendments. They give me an opportunity to explain our key parameters for the delivery of starter homes, particularly in relation to unviable and underused brownfield land and housing regeneration schemes.
Perhaps I may start by addressing Amendment 41, which seeks to restrict starter homes to underused and unviable brownfield land in line with our original starter homes exception site policy, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has said. Let me be clear that we still expect exception sites to make a significant contribution to starter home delivery, and the first planning applications have been submitted under the exception site policy which has been in place since March 2015. We expect these to deliver a substantial number of starter homes, boosting the overall housing supply, and we have consulted on planning policy changes to extend and strengthen this policy, as well as bringing forward more land for starter homes, building on the exception site policy. We want to ensure that sufficient appropriate land is brought forward to meet housing need.
This planning reform will be further strengthened by the £1.2 billion starter home land fund which was announced by the Prime Minister in January. The fund forms a significant part of the £2.3 billion allocated to deliver more starter homes in the spending review and will support further brownfield site preparation, delivering at least 30,000 starter homes. It builds upon £36 million made available this year to secure and prepare more land for a first wave of starter homes, and it includes £8 million offered to councils to support starter homes on 27 underused or vacant brownfield sites across England. The HCA is using the remaining funding to acquire further suitable brownfield sites to drive up housing delivery.
But we also need to deliver starter homes on more conventional housing sites so that first-time buyers across the country can benefit from discounted home ownership. Limiting this would limit the opportunity for home ownership. It will also bring the benefit of a new mix of housing types on site: discounted properties for first-time buyers alongside wider market housing and any shared ownership or rented housing secured on the site. It is our view that the opportunities for first-time buyers have too often been neglected. Starter homes provide for a new model which should be delivered alongside other housing types. My department will be consulting on proposals for starter homes requirement on conventional sites in a technical consultation to be launched in the near future, and we want to look carefully at the proportion of starter homes required.
Lord Kerslake
I apologise for intervening again, but there is a critical point to be made here. When you consider the viability of a regeneration scheme, you can juggle the mix between market, sale, affordable rent and shared ownership, but in the case of the proposals for starter homes, we will have a number dictated by central government that in effect will be required to be delivered. That will have an impact, whether we like it or not, on the viability of a scheme. The issue is the ability to deliver a scheme and the flexibility required to make it viable. That will be significantly impacted by an absolute requirement to deliver starter homes regardless of the other requirements.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I take the noble Lord’s point that the requirement to deliver starter homes might affect the viability of a site. That would be absolutely counterproductive, but it will often be the case that not only will the starter homes requirement be able to be met, but the council, in consultation with the developer, may well be able to provide other types of housing. I particular refer to houses for affordable rent, because they are quite often the grant-funded houses that effectively act as a pump-prime for the construction of homes.
Turning to my noble friend Lord Deben’s point on the green belt, we are very committed to protecting the green belt, despite what noble Lords might read in the newspapers, and we are maintaining the strong safeguards that are set out in national planning policy, which allow for development only where special circumstances exist. I agree with my noble friend that once it is gone it can never be got back.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Baroness Williams of Trafford
Lord Kerslake
I think that many of us split up our contributions in the expectation that we would consider Amendment 48 in more depth in the next grouping.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
In which case, do noble Lords want a response to it now, or to wait until the next group?
Welfare Reform and Work Bill
Debate between Lord Kerslake and Baroness Williams of Trafford(8 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Williams of Trafford
My Lords, I think I explained that the Government do not intend to take action on the private rented sector. In fact, the private rented sector being in a healthy position in terms of supply can only be good for the housing market. With those comments, will the noble Lord feel sufficiently reassured to withdraw his amendment?
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. I also thank my noble friend Lord Best, the noble Lords, Lord Beecham, Lord Horam and Lord Scriven, the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, for their helpful and supportive comments on the issues I raised in these amendments.
I will make a few points in response to the Minister. First, I was very clear in my presentation of the amendments that I recognised that government had determined the big picture of policy, and that we were therefore talking about appropriate amendments here. On that point the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, is correct. I have sought to set out a number of practical and realistic amendments that the Government could consider.
On social rents, it is worth saying that, yes, they have risen above inflation, but that has been a direct consequence of intended government policy to raise social rents. They have not gone up because of some wilful act by housing associations or local authorities; precisely because it is a controlled area, it comes from government policy. Previous Governments of different political persuasions have acknowledged the need to raise rents so that they are closer to market rents. Indeed, the affordable housing product introduced by the last Government was up to 80% of market rent. Therefore, there has been a clear consensus policy by Governments to raise social rents, and that is why they are as they are.
My second point is that in respect of new housing supply in the social sector, there is what is often called the three-legged stool: a combination of private borrowing, rents and government grant. Each of those needs to be clearly calibrated to deliver the best possible results. As the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, says, confidence about long-term returns is absolutely critical to this. That is how you get cheap private finance into the system. That is why I felt that the 10-year policy was an enlightened and sensible one that would encourage the development of new infrastructure. Because of the compelling demands of the welfare reform savings that the Government need to make, they have chosen to depart from that policy. The key question is, how do we get that confidence and certainty back into the system so that we can maintain the maximum level of supply? I have to tell noble Lords that there is clearly uncertainty in the sector about what will happen at the end of the four-year period; it needs to be addressed in a very clear way, and that cannot wait until 2020.
I am very reassured by the Minister that the exceptions, as we must now call them, will be considered sympathetically. It would perhaps help if it could be made clear how many of the exceptions we have proposed through the amendments will be covered by what the Government intend. I moved an amendment on housing specifically constructed for disabled and elderly needs. That is a crucial area, and we must keep the level of supply going. My noble friend Lord Best has identified other areas where this is critical.
Clearly, efficiencies can be made in housing associations. Anybody who suggests otherwise is being unrealistic. The key question is what you do with those efficiencies, and whether they are used to reinvest or to cover other government policies. We are left still with the question, raised by a number of noble Lords, of the balance between revenue savings and capital investment for the long term.
My last point concerns who benefits here. I was clear in my speech that two-thirds of tenants, not all of them, will benefit. The reality is that the bulk of the savings from this policy will benefit the Chancellor. That piece of arithmetic cannot be denied.
I welcome the debate we have had on some very important issues. I will withdraw my amendments in the light of the discussion and will return to some of the issues I have raised at a later stage.