Growth and Infrastructure Bill

Debate between Simon Hughes and Clive Betts

Monday 17th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes]

I will be brief. I want to make a couple of comments on clause 6 and affordable housing, and to follow on from the comments made by the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) on her amendments.

I have concerns about the protection of affordable housing, both as it is traditionally defined—social rents, council rents or target rents—and as it may be defined now or in the future, which is at a higher percentage of market rents. I have raised this personally with the Minister—he has been very helpful—and the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster). I would be grateful if the Minister addresses three questions.

First, how can I be assured that my constituents, local councillors and I, as the MP, will be able to see any deal that is done between our local council and the developer, and be able to ensure that the argument about viability is justified? To be blunt, I do not often believe developers when they say, “The figures don’t stack up.” I have reasons for not believing them. On the south bank, for example, developers got out of an obligation with the local authority on the basis that the figures did not stack up, but, when the properties were sold, the sale price was much higher than the likely sale price they put down. Clearly, then, their profit was greater and they could have afforded to build many more affordable homes. How can my hon. Friend the Minister assure me that we can know publicly what is economically viable?

Secondly, how can we guarantee input into the discussions about the guidance, about which the Minister has spoken and written to me, to ensure that it is effective? Bills are often outline structures implemented by secondary legislation and guidance, so I would like reassurance about the effectiveness of guidance in ensuring viability—accurately defined—and transparency and a common way of assessing it that applies all over England. It is no good having a viability argument in Southwark that is different from one in the north-east; we need a common formula that developers and councils have to follow.

My final question relates to a point made, perfectly properly, by the hon. Lady. How can we provide for the deliverability of affordable housing to go up and down? If the market drops, I could understand developers saying, “We can’t deliver,” although they would need to explain their case publicly. But if, as with the case on the south bank, the market goes up and the money to be made by the developer is greater, the community, represented by the local authority, needs to be able to say, “We want some money back. We want an additional affordable housing component.”

I hope that the Minister will put on the record some of what he has written and spoken to me about and what I have discussed with the Under-Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath. I also hope he can reassure us that in the remaining work on the Bill—before it becomes law and in subsequent secondary legislation and guidance—the House can have an input into what is drafted and confidence that we will not lose affordable housing because developers that can afford to deliver on that simply say that they cannot.

[Mr Betts]

I want to raise a number of points on which I hope the Minister can provide the reassurance that, in previous debates in the Chamber and before the Communities and Local Government Committee, he has not provided.

First, where is the evidence of a problem? The Homes and Communities Agency wrote to me to say that it had had no difficulties with section 106 agreements holding up any of its schemes. The volume house builders, to which I presume the Minister talks—I have been at meetings with them—say that the problem is not the section 106 agreements or the planning system, but getting customers who have access to finance and the confidence to spend it walking through their doors wanting to buy their homes.

The part of the industry most in difficulty comprises the small builders; the volume house builders and larger companies have simply reduced how much they are building. The small builders build on small sites which, by their very nature, do not have section 106 agreements attached to them, yet it is those schemes that have largely stopped across the country, again because of a lack of customers and the fact that banks, by and large, have withdrawn finance from that section of the industry. In that area, there has been almost no growth at all; in fact, the industry is now at a standstill. Once again, that is not due to section 106 agreements.

Decent Homes

Debate between Simon Hughes and Clive Betts

Thursday 27th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Simon Hughes]

A fantastic unity is developing: I see the Minister nodding; the hon. Member for Islington North, who is not regarded as a right-wing socialist, is making the point; and I agree with the hon. Member for Islington North, so we are all in it together. That is absolutely the point. Many people improve their council properties and make them really nice. If they move, there is absolutely no reason why the new tenants should not be offered the option to keep the property as it is. It might need a bit of a tweak, but the tenants should be offered the chance to find somebody to help them make whatever small changes they need before they move in. Let us be intelligent about such things rather than monolithic, prescriptive and centralised. That approach is frustrating; it wastes time and money; and it keeps people out of housing at a time when we are desperately short of it.

I want to finish in good time—we might even finish the debate early. I have argued for a flexible decent homes standard that is agreed locally, and it should be for local authorities to negotiate that. Possibly such a standard would need Government clearance, but I am relaxed about that. If the local authority is happy, provided that the minimum health and safety standards are met, that is fine.

I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), has made this point, and I, too, am keen to have a modern, green homes standards. If we refurbish, let us make the homes energy-efficient at the same time and save on bills, as well as just making them look nice with new windows and so on. Let us try to minimise the short turnaround.

This is not special pleading, because I have a reason for making this plea. When money is being allocated to local authorities, sometimes there are high expenditure issues that should be factored in so that councils are not disadvantaged as a result. We had a huge fire in Camberwell. It was not in my constituency but in the neighbouring constituency of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman). It was just a couple of years ago and there were six fatalities. It was in Lakanal house on the Sceaux Gardens estate.

We had a fire in my constituency two weeks ago. It was in a tower block—Brawne house—on the Brandon estate. Mercifully, there were no fatalities and no serious injuries. I visited the 12th floor with the local councillor and secretary of the local tenants and residents association. Sometimes there are unexpected bills, because a terrible event has occurred, and I hope that councils will not be not penalised when such disasters strike, because they need to ensure that the properties are put back into decent nick. The matter concerns not only the homes affected but the block, and the council might need to repaint or deal with fire damage or whatever. It is not right to tell a local authority that there are no circumstances in which it cannot be regarded as a special case for extra help. I am not suggesting that there should be a differential formula for special help, but occasionally there has to be special help for those who have such problems.

Decent homes work is a fantastic opportunity for enhancing local apprenticeships and skills in the local community. There should not be any local authority or local housing association-owned property where decent homes work is going on that does not engage people from the local community in apprenticeships, skills enhancement and training. I hope that that can be encouraged and that the experience is positive. I know that Southwark does it, and we could do more of it.

Colleagues have made the point that leaseholders have a huge interest in what is being done. We need a better system for consulting about works. I have twice tried to get a Bill through to improve the rights of leaseholders, otherwise the leaseholders get ridiculously high bills. Pensioners with no savings can get a bill for £27,000 for works that they never assented to. The work may include replacing windows after people have already replaced them themselves, which is nonsense. I am not aiming that point at one particular council. The City of London corporation owns estates in my constituency and has been guilty of that in the past, when I had to struggle to get the bills down.

We need to ensure that there is fairness across communities and estates as part of the decent homes programme. That is a matter for the local authority to lead. Nothing is more frustrating for tenants who have been on an estate for 30 years than seeing that blocks one, two, three and four have had all the work done and look like new builds, and then somebody says, “You can’t have anything in block five for the next five years.” Those are all matters for local management. There needs to be sensitivity about how we roll out the decent homes programme. We are at the beginning of a new Government and the decent homes programme will continue for the next four years, which is welcome.

[Mr Betts]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that these are matters for local decisions, but they are also a matter for central Government if the first group of houses—blocks or individual houses—have been done under the first part of the programme, and suddenly central Government funding is cut, as some of my colleagues discussed earlier, perhaps before the right hon. Gentleman came in. Therefore, half the houses in the ALMO have been done, and the other half remain to be done, but then money is cut off as a result of the CSR, so it is surely a central Government rather than local government decision whether the programme continues.

[Simon Hughes]

I hope that we can finish the debate without falling out with the hon. Gentleman on fairly obvious political ground. The reality is that Governments allocate money for periods of years—years rather than one year—which is a good thing, because it gives certainty. The Government have chosen, as they were entitled to do, to have a four-year plan, but it has been broken down into two periods of two years each, which is the right sort of balance. I hope that Ministers will be able to show flexibility at the end of two years. That is my wish, but it will be their call.

Obviously, when we change Government, or when we have a new CSR, we will have to reassess what the public finances can afford. I have not met a single person in England who does not understand that we have to tighten our belts collectively—Government, local government and everybody else. Nobody fails to understand that point. The question is how we continue the programme that the Minister has announced and deliver it fairly. As councils make decisions about what they will do, I hope that they will seek to have fairness in their community, so that everybody feels part of the improvement programme not only for their own home, but for that community as a whole.