Localism Bill

Lord Tope Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Lords Chamber

Without these amendments tenants will lose that choice and will lose access to justice. Residents who just happen to be in social housing will be further stigmatised. No other category of citizen is having their right to an ombudsman removed in the course of remedying a perceived democratic deficit. In the light of that, I hope we can retain the right of direct access to the Housing Ombudsman. I beg to move.

[Lord Tope]

Whereas the noble Baroness began by saying that she had been neither an MP nor a councillor, I begin by saying that I have been both. I was an MP for a rather short tenure a very long time ago but have been a councillor for the past 37 years, representing a ward with a substantial amount of social housing. Therefore, I have real and practical experience of some of the issues that have been spoken of. The noble Baroness will know well that I have considerable sympathy with much of what she has said. Indeed, my noble friend Lord Shipley and I have our names to Amendments 70 and 73 in this group. As I say, I have great sympathy with what the noble Baroness has said. My preference would certainly be to have unfettered direct access to the Housing Ombudsman. I feel strongly that tenants should have the right of direct access to the Housing Ombudsman when necessary, and I wish to spend a few moments considering when that is necessary.

It is for the Minister, and certainly not for me, to explain the Government’s reasons for the proposals in the Bill and for wanting to tackle the matter in this way. However, we have to recognise that, certainly in the 37 years that I have been a councillor, the involvement of local authorities, and therefore of councillors, in housing management issues has decreased. We have had the wholesale stock transfer and the creation of ALMOs. Generally, the move has been away from involvement. It is fair to say that some councillors—I cannot say that this has been my experience—have much less engagement in the day-to-day business of housing management, and therefore of knowing and understanding the issues that their constituents, as tenants, experience. If the Government wish to bring politicians, particularly councillors, closer to these issues—I do not know what the relevant phrase is—that is an objective we all share. We might have varying degrees of cynicism about how effective that will be, but it is an objective that we all share. I certainly share the Government’s objective in that regard.

If the Government’s objective is also to ensure that, whenever possible, complaints and issues are resolved locally, I am sure that we all share that objective too. That is clearly desirable for all sorts of reasons. It is usually quicker, more effective and engages people. I would expect that, in most instances when a tenant has a complaint of this sort, normally the first port of call would be a councillor or MP, partly because they are better known—or at least their existence is better known—than the Housing Ombudsman and they are more accessible and accountable. Therefore, I would normally expect an issue to be raised first with a councillor or Member of Parliament. I would expect that, in pretty well every case, that representative would try to get the matter resolved locally as that is what councillors and MPs do. Instead of immediately going off to the ombudsman, they go to the relevant housing management authority to try to resolve the issue and then tell their constituent what a wonderful job they have done in resolving the problem. That is what happens in reality. When they are successful, that is good, right and proper.

The difficulty that I have with the Government’s proposal is that, while I am sure that we all share those objectives, one of the—I hope unintended—consequences is that it will give councillors, Members of Parliament and tenants panels a right of veto. I have to say that that is wrong. I do not think that it is our job as councillors, Members of Parliament and so on to be the final adjudicator of the rightness or wrongness of the complaint. I would expect that in practice most Members of Parliament and most councillors would anyway refer something to the ombudsman—whether the Local Government Ombudsman or Housing Ombudsman. That was always my practice whether I thought the complaint was wholly justified or even unjustified. I felt that the complainant had the right to independent arbitration and to go to an ombudsman, and referred it that way.

I have had the opportunity to discuss this at some length with the Housing Minister, who says that as an MP that was what he always did. The reality, which I know from personal experience, is that some elected representatives, for whatever reason—and sometimes for no good reason other than personal idiosyncrasy—refuse to do that. That is wrong. I do not think that a Member of Parliament or a councillor should have the right to deny the tenant access to the ombudsman to have the complaint, whether justified or not in our view, properly investigated and independently decided upon.

A little later this afternoon we will get to Amendment 73A and those with it. Amendment 73A is a compromise to try to help the Government, which is always our objective on these Benches. Amendment 73A says that, if the designated person will not refer the complaint—we should have included the words, “or fails to do so within 30 days”, or some other given period—the tenant has the right to go direct to the ombudsman. That amendment has been decoupled from this group for reasons that I understand, but I hope that when the Minister replies she can give us clear and strong words of comfort that it is not the Government’s intention to give the right of veto to us councillors to decide whether or not a complaint is worth forwarding. We need to ensure that the tenant may do so when necessary—I come back to those important words—if a designated person who is willing to forward the complaint cannot be found. That is a pragmatic and sensible compromise to find a way through the entirely honourable and proper intentions of the Government, which we would probably all support, and the undesirable effects of the way in which they are trying to do it. I hope that the Minister can give us clear comfort on that. If she is able to do so, we will judge what to do with Amendment 73A when the time comes.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

My Lords, like the Minister I, too, have been a housing chair in a local authority, for some 11 years. I am also chair of a housing association—an interest that I have declared—and regularly sit at stage 4 of precisely these complaints panels that are the subject of discussion. I am sure that the Minister knows but I wonder whether your Lordships realise how thorough the complaints procedure is, and rightly so, within housing associations and local authorities, particularly encouraged by the TCA of the Homes and Community Agency.

At stage 1, the tenant’s complaint—often, it is a complaint against the behaviour of a neighbour of some sort—is investigated by the local senior housing manager. If that is not resolved to the satisfaction of the tenant, stage 2 means that it will go to the housing manager at the top of the organisation, who will then seek to get all the information, build the file and see whether some resolution can be arrived at. If that is not satisfactory, there is a stage 3 where the complaint goes to the chief legal officer, who is usually the deputy chief executive of the housing association, who goes through the file, takes the evidence, makes further notes and attempts again a further resolution of the difficulty. If that is not enough—by this stage, most complaints have been reasonably addressed—the matter goes to stage 4, which involves the panel, chaired by someone like me, alongside the tenant board representatives of the housing association and the senior staff. Five or six of us spend perhaps a couple of hours going through a thick file and seeking as best we can to hear and resolve the tenant's complaints and concerns.