Lord Young of Cookham
Main Page: Lord Young of Cookham (Conservative - Life peer)Housing and Planning Bill
Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts
Lord Kerslake
My Lords, I speak in support of this group, and specifically speak to my own amendment 82BA. It is a great shame that we reached this very important issue at this stage of the evening—an issue that will have a profound impact on the future of social rented housing. Why do I say that? At the core of the offer to a new tenant is that this becomes their own home. They do not own the home but it becomes the place they regard as home. The reason they feel that way is that they have a secure tenancy for an indeterminate period. Moving to this model of tenancies will change that experience. It will make it feel not like their own home but—however we wish to dress it up; however much we issue guidance on renewal after two or five years—a temporary home. That is the reality of this. We will overnight have changed the nature of the social contract, if you like, with social tenants.
This is not a small issue. It is a very profound issue, and it has to be seen alongside the other changes that we are making to social rented housing, as I have said in previous debates. Because of the forced sale of high-value assets, the opportunity to move to a bigger home is constrained. Pay to stay will mean, as we have just debated, significantly higher rents for tenants on relatively modest incomes, in reality. We will move to the end of the affordable rented programme by 2018. Then we add this final amendment, which essentially removes mandatorily the right to secure tenancies. How do the Government think that council tenants will see this combination of changes? Will they regard it as a commitment to their future or will they regard it as seeing the end to the form of council tenancy that the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, spoke about earlier? This is a very profound change going on around us.
We have a provision now for the issuing of flexible tenancies. It exists and has existed for a number of years now—three or four years. What is again a dangerous precedent is that, having had a voluntary policy for a relatively short period of time, the Government conclude that the voluntary policy has not been sufficiently actively exercised, so we make it mandatory. Is that now the way we do things? It is voluntary if you do it the way we want you to do it—otherwise we make it mandatory.
Voluntary is the right way to see this issue of tenancy, because I can see that there are circumstances in which individual local authorities will want some flexibility around tenure. There is a perfectly good case for that. I cannot see why we should have a single mandatory policy imposed on every local authority, which then requires a set of regulations and guidance to tell it how to do it. Where in any possible sense does this sit with localism?
Why should there be a variation here? In some low-demand estates, which we have heard about—and there are still some—it makes absolute sense to give people secure tenancies. In other situations there may be a need for choice, because of the nature of the demand and of what is happening. What is absolutely certain is that, whatever guidance and policy the Government produce, it will not be adequate for the different situations up and down the country. We will be creating another layer of bureaucracy and central government control. It is a very retrograde step and something that was not part of the manifesto, to go back to some of our previous debates. Indeed, it came in at a very late stage in the process.
I absolutely get the point about efficient use of stock, but that has to be done in consultation with persuasion of the individual tenants. The Minister spoke about older people, but do we seriously think that an older person who has been in their property on a renewable tenancy for 30 years—that might be the case, in 30 years’ time—is then going to be told, “You’ve finished your five years, off you go”? Do we think that is the position we are going to reach in relation to tenancies? Of course not. It has to be through persuasion and through making an offer to that older person that meets their needs.
The case for removing this provision is strong. As I say, there is already legislation that gives the flexibility to local authorities. But, if the issue is that local authorities are not actively using their potential discretion, I have put an alternative amendment in front of the Committee this evening that would encourage them to do so. It would remain discretionary but they would actively need to exercise that discretion. This should not be needed—I shall be clear about that—but if it is an alternative to a mandatory model, which I think is wrong in how it would operate and completely contrary to the direction of localism, I would hope that the Government would seriously consider it.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, quarter to 11 is not the right time to have this serious debate about the role of social housing. This set of amendments and the previous debate go to the heart of what social housing is for. Is it, as we heard in the previous debate, to provide stable and balanced communities or is it to provide housing for those in greatest need for—to use the words of my noble friend—as long as they need it? Over the last 30 or 40 years the role of social housing in this country has gradually changed from the first towards the second. It is now much more focused on those in greatest need than it was 30 or 40 years ago, when young couples would put their names on the waiting list and gradually get to the top and no one at that point would ever have asked whether it was right to question their entitlement to a lifetime tenancy.
Now, one really has to balance the legitimate expectations of council tenants for a lifetime tenancy with the needs of those on the waiting list—the two are directly related. I think the time has come to question the lifetime entitlement to a secure tenancy because people are in need of social housing. If one takes the view that the role of social housing has changed it makes sense to have fixed tenancies and a conversation when that tenancy comes to an end to see whether there are other options for that tenant. At that point it will be entirely up to the local authority whether it renews the tenancy or has guidance from the Government.
Lord Kerslake
Does the noble Lord not agree that if this is the change that is happening—I say we should be aiming for both secure communities and flexibility—why not leave that to the discretion of the local authority? Why impose it from central government?
Lord Young of Cookham
As we have heard, the local authority can renew the tenancy at the end of five years if it wants but there will be a conversation and options will be explained to the tenant, such as low-cost home ownership opportunities. I do not accept that the modest increase in mobility that may come from these measures will dramatically change the nature of local authority estates, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam. A few people may take up the options when their tenancy is reviewed and move on but, as we heard, many of these estates are very popular, with long waiting lists, and the implication that those who move in will dramatically alter the nature of the estate does not bear examination. We are looking for a balance between the legitimate expectations of those with tenancies to have those tenancies for life with the legitimate aspirations of those on the waiting list living in desperate circumstances to have an opportunity to move on. The local authority will have discretion at the end of the fixed-term tenancy to renew if it wants to but there will have been a break point, an opportunity for conversation, and I think this accurately reflects the changing role of social housing today.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the noble Lord has described very well the competing pressures on social housing and I do not disagree with his analysis, but does he not accept that the reason he and the Minister are so concerned to ensure that social housing is available for the neediest on the waiting list is a function of the shortage that they have constructed? But for that shortage, whether it is council house sales or the proposed sales that will fund our housing association discounts or whatever, the problem will get worse because nearly half the housing that was in the social rented sector has left it. The noble Lord, Lord Young, accurately describes what is happening but, none the less, the problem lies not in tilting the balance from one to the other but in remedying the underlying problem of the shortage of social housing.
Lord Young of Cookham
As we have heard in earlier debates, every house that is being sold by a local housing association is being replaced and every house that is being sold by a local authority is going to be replaced so I simply reject the thesis the noble Baroness has put forward.
Lord Bassam of Brighton
My Lords, I have an amendment in this group. It follows immediately after the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. I am grateful for the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Young, because it has widened and opened up a fundamental debate. The noble Lord described social housing now as “residualised housing” because that is what it is. We are getting to the last knockings of social housing. I do not think that that is right or appropriate. The problem that we have is spiralling rents in the public sector, spiralling rents in the private sector and a diminution of supply. The noble Lord says that there will be like-for-like replacement. So far during the Conservatives’ time in government since 2010, we have not had anywhere near like-for-like replacement. I think that the figure is one in 10. That is a great shame, although the aspiration is absolutely right.
When I chaired a housing committee, with the capital receipts that we accrued we had the opportunity to get some of the way towards like-for-like replacement. Now, we are nowhere near it and that is part of the problem. We need to expand public sector housing provision on a massive scale. That will help to drive down rents in both the public and the private sectors, and we can get back to the point where social housing is no longer viewed as residual housing for the poorest in our communities and for those who are struggling to get on to the housing ladder.