Affordable Housing in Rural Communities

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a director of Anchorwood Developments and of Wessex Investors, and as a landlord of a single rural property in Devon.

I am less sanguine about this voluntary agreement. In the Housing and Planning Bill that was published in the House of Commons yesterday, there are just two pages on the right to buy and there are lots of blanks even on those. This gives an impression of plea bargaining, like in the United States, in that the Government have a proposition—they were elected on it, it was a manifesto commitment; no one is disagreeing with that—but they have looked at how to implement this and have thought, “Good grief, how are we ever going to get this through Parliament? How are we going to do this legally without the”—as my honourable friend Tim Farron called it—“Mugabisation of action in this area?”. The housing federations have said, “My goodness, how do we mitigate this problem?”. So there has been a sort of alliance that somehow bypasses Parliament and the democratic process to get to a solution that both sides see as a compromise because neither side wants to lose the whole thing completely. That really concerns me.

In the voluntary agreement there are a number of exceptions. What concerns me is the reference to:

“Examples of circumstances where housing associations may exercise discretion over sales”.

There is very little certainty there, particularly when we come back to the issue mentioned by many noble Lords, particularly my good and noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, around certainty for people who have offered in the past and wish to offer in the future parts of their estate for affordable housing to be provided. We have very little legal certainty into the future, which will not allow people to be beneficial in that way.

The other side of this is the selling-off of valuable properties. This really concerns me in rural and coastal areas in particular, such as Cornwall, where I live. If you go and knock on the doors of the main street of the port of Fowey, as I have done when electioneering, you will find that the properties are empty or certainly do not have residents there during the winter. Yet these are the most valuable properties—the ones most likely to be sold off. Who are the purchasers likely to be? They are not residents; they are second-home owners. One question I would ask—which was raised, very rightly, in the report of the noble Lord, Lord Best—is: will the Government guarantee that when these high-value properties have to be sold off there will be a covenant around them being the principal residences of those who buy thereafter? Otherwise, what are currently deserts in parts of those coastal villages will become much broader.

I just want to say one thing that is slightly off the agenda, concerning the private rented sector. One of the things I praised the Labour manifesto for in the last election was the fact that Labour wished to extend shorthold leases from six months to two years. This gives much more certainty and is particularly important in rural areas, where it is difficult to change schools and any move from one private rental to another is much more difficult. Will the Government look at that area? I am sure that my own tenant, who is on a shorthold lease, would appreciate that.

Lastly, the question I would really like to ask the Government is: what happens if and when those housing associations do not wish to be a part of this voluntary agreement? How do the Government deal with that situation?