Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 52, I do so very much in context rather than proposing it. I thank the Minister, first, for seeing me before Christmas on this and other issues and, secondly, for his very welcome letter this morning. At the same time, I salute my noble friend Lord Best for his mastery and tireless pursuit of social housing issues.

I am very glad that this moratorium has been imposed and I sincerely hope that the Minister will encourage urgent consultation with organisations such as the almshouses and the YMCA, which he mentioned in his letter, and which I would have mentioned if the amendment had been going forward as normal. What was unfortunate about the way that the Bill was proposed was that it led to unintended consequences, which I think officials would do very well to consider in the consultation, in which they will hear from the YMCA, the almshouses and others about what would have been the effect if these proposals had been allowed to go forward.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, from these Benches I join other noble Lords in commending the negotiating skills of the noble Lord, Lord Best. As a former Housing Minister, I know what a plausible advocate he can be on behalf of those in social housing. I also commend my noble friend the Minister for listening to the case made by both sides in this House a few weeks ago.

The only clarification I seek from my noble friend is in relation to Amendment 51, which says:

“Section 21 does not apply to social housing which meets the definition of supported housing”.

I wonder if my noble friend can confirm that it will be absolutely clear, if we go ahead with this amendment or something similar to it, exactly which housing schemes will benefit from the exemption and which will fall outside, and, related to that, how the good news he is about to announce will be communicated to those associations or organisations which run operations that will qualify under Amendment 51 and indeed some of the other related amendments.