Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Shipley
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I think we are all agreed that it is imperative that housing associations have the freedom to continue to deliver our country’s much-needed homes. Classification back to the private sector provides them with the ability to access private finance to allow them to continue with their development. These amendments support this aim. Amendments 78A and 133B seek to reduce local authority control over housing associations. The amendments have one aim: to enable the removal of housing associations from the public accounts. As noble Lords will know, the Office for National Statistics took the decision to reclassify housing associations as public bodies, meaning that £64 billion was added to the national debt and the housing association sector was classified as public in the national accounts. Local authority control over housing associations was not one of the reasons why the Office for National Statistics reclassified the sector last year. However, we believe that certain governance arrangements may be seen as public sector control and could jeopardise the reclassification of housing associations.
I would briefly like to set the scene. Housing associations build around 40% of new homes each year and provide 2.7 million homes for around 5 million people, including for our most vulnerable households. Building new homes and helping people meet their aspirations for home ownership cannot be achieved without access to private finance. I shall now turn to the details of these amendments.
Amendment 78A relates to the rights of local authorities to nominate housing association board members and act as shareholders. This could allow local authorities, in a minority of housing associations, to block major constitutional changes. Such arrangements are typical in organisations which hold stock that was previously owned by the local authority. Housing associations’ constitutions and the way they are run differ between organisations. Officials in the Department for Communities and Local Government are considering these governance arrangements to assess whether they constitute public sector control. This work is continuing, with the expectation of bringing forward regulations in the autumn. It is for this reason that my noble friend the Minister is seeking secondary powers for the Secretary of State to reduce local authority control over housing associations, where it exists. The final content of these regulations will be informed by the work being undertaken by the Department for Communities and Local Government. Through Amendment 133B, such powers will be subject to the affirmative procedure, so both this House and the other place will have an opportunity to scrutinise the detail of the proposed measures.
These amendments will not impact on the core objectives of housing associations. We are making these changes to ensure that the Office for National Statistics can move housing associations back to the private sector, where they belong. It is vital that housing associations continue to develop much-needed homes and fulfil their social objectives. To do this, access to private finance is essential. If we do not act now by taking this provision, there is a risk that some housing associations will remain on the public balance sheet. I commend these amendments to the House.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I should repeat my declaration from last week that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association, because this impacts directly on local government. I welcome Amendment 133B, which confirms that we will have the affirmative procedure so that we can at least talk about the proposals that the Government finally come up with.
I want to be really clear about two things. The first is that the purpose of these amendments is, ultimately, to ensure that we build more social homes for rent than we otherwise would because of the powers of housing associations, particularly in terms of borrowing. Secondly, although local authorities will not have as much control as they do now, nevertheless, there is nothing in the legislation as now proposed that will prevent officers or members of a council joining a housing association board if invited to do so directly in their own capacity. That is my understanding of what is proposed, but I am very keen that the Minister should make it absolutely clear when responding to this group of amendments.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Shipley
Lord Shipley
My Lords, in moving Amendment 89ZA I will also speak to Amendments 89AZA, 89AZB and 89AZE. I will do so briefly.
Amendment 89ZA would ensure that where a local authority has complied with the relevant requirements in Section 20(2) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004—that is, it has complied with the relevant requirements to submit its planning document for independent examination, and believes it is ready for it—the examination of its development plan can continue. This is important because the powers given to the Secretary of State under Clause 130 are excessive, given that the local authorities may well have done what it was required to do. This amendment would simply mean that the powers of the Secretary of State in Clause 130(6A) would not apply where the local planning authority had already complied with Section 20(2) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004.
Amendments 89AZA and 89AZB would do two things. The former would make it clear that where the Secretary of State chooses to intervene in local development documents or schemes under Section 15 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, any expenditure incurred would be met by the Secretary of State and not by the local authorities as currently indicated in the Bill.
Amendment 89AZB would ensure that development documents prepared by local planning authorities have effect in decision-making until an intervention under Section 21 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 is actually made. In other words, it attempts to restrict some of the additional powers being granted to the Secretary of State to intervene when it is not necessary to do so.
There is a small drafting error in Amendment 89AZE. Three lines were missed out, so that the amendment simply states, “leave out lines 43 and 44”. In a sense, the meaning is the same. The amendment says that when the Secretary of State chooses to use default powers under Section 27 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, any expenditure incurred should be met by the Secretary of State and not by local authorities.
I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about all four of these amendments, which address the concerning issue of centralising power over the planning process as opposed to devolving it. I beg to move.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for his amendments. Before addressing them, I would like to make some introductory remarks about the importance of the policy and our proposed approach to ensuring that all communities benefit from the certainty that a local plan can provide. I hope that this will provide some helpful context for our discussions.
Communities deserve to know where new homes will be built. That is why we are committed to a plan-led system with local plans at its heart. Throughout the progress of this Bill, we have heard again and again from various organisations about the importance of local plans that set the vision for an area and provide the framework for how housing and other essential development needs will be met.
Since the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004, local planning authorities have had more than a decade to produce a plan. The majority—70%—have done so. However, not every local authority has made the same progress towards getting its local plan in place. We have made clear our expectation that all local planning authorities should have a plan in place. We have also been clear that plans should be kept up to date to ensure the policies in them remain relevant. If this is not happening, it is right that we take action.
Before I go on to explain our specific proposals, I also want to assure the Committee that, contrary to what some may have come to understand, our proposals do not seek to centralise plan-making. Perhaps I may remind noble Lords of the current position and then set out the reforms that we are proposing.
Parliament has already given the Secretary of State the power to intervene in local plan-making. The existing legislation enables the Secretary of State to direct that a plan or any part of it be submitted to him for approval. He can also already intervene if he thinks that a local planning authority is failing or omitting to do anything that is necessary for it to progress a local plan. He can also recover his costs in this situation, and the action we are proposing is not new. But currently where he intervenes, the Secretary of State commonly finds that his only option is to take over responsibility for the entire progress, and we want to change that. In cases where authorities are not making progress on their local plan, I can assure noble Lords that wherever possible we want to work with those authorities to bring plans forward. The provisions we are discussing today support this approach. We would retain our ability to intervene where it is necessary to do so, but the Secretary of State could also target his intervention and return responsibility for plan-making to an authority for decisions to be made locally wherever possible.
I shall now turn briefly to the specific amendments that have been laid. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for his comments on Amendment 89ZA. I was not in my place for part of them, but I did hear some of his speech. I shall respond on the understanding that the proposition is that, where a local planning authority considers that it has complied with Section 22 of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004—that it has complied with the requirements in the relevant regulations and it considers that its plan is ready for independent examination—the powers in Clause 130 allowing the Secretary of State to give directions to an examiner would not apply. This would be at odds with the very purpose of the clause, which is intended to ensure that authorities are given every opportunity to address any shortcomings identified at examination as an alternative to withdrawing a plan. The Noble Lord’s amendment would disapply the proposed powers in many cases.
The clause enables the Secretary of State to take a view and, where he considers it appropriate, to direct an inspector. He could, for example, direct that an examination be suspended, thus giving an authority the opportunity to undertake further work to address the shortcomings identified at examination. I should make it clear that the measures limit the directions that the Secretary of State could make only to matters of procedure.
I hope that my response has explained briefly to the noble Lord and the Committee why the Government cannot accept the thrust of his arguments on this matter, and I ask him to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, which I will read carefully in Hansard. I hope that he will have resolved these matters, but if not we may ask to have a further discussion on the issues involved. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lord Shipley
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Following on from my noble friend Lord Young’s remarks, the Minister has been on her feet for nearly an hour and a half and I think that the Committee might allow the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, to respond.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I had not anticipated, when I moved my probing Amendment 37B, that we would be discussing this group some two hours later. However, I think the debate has been very valuable because it has revealed the gaping void in the Government’s thinking. I hope that the Minister will understand that a huge number of questions have been posed. Like, I suspect, many other noble Lords, I have been astonished that the answers are not being provided. After all, this Bill was passed in the other place. It has arrived here; we have had Second Reading, at which the need to publish at least draft regulations was made clear; we are now on day three of seven in Committee and progress is very slow. I think Ministers ought to explain to your Lordships’ House why we are in a position where consultation is taking place so very late that the answers to that consultation are not in our possession as we debate the later stages of the Bill.
I was very disappointed by the response of the Minister as to when regulations are going to be published. I said previously that we would happily receive draft regulations, as opposed to the finished version, but, of course, we now understand why Amendment 45B has appeared on the Marshalled List. I remind noble Lords that it simply says:
“Regulations under this section may amend this Chapter.”
In other words, the Bill is going to be amended by secondary legislation. This is simply an unacceptable position for your Lordships’ House to be put into. Many questions have been raised and I do not think that the Minister has actually answered many at all. I am grateful for offers of meetings and letters, which, I guess, will be copied, but there has been a very large number of questions to which there have not been answers. It is now incumbent upon the Minister and the department to provide a question-and-answer sheet with a set of clear answers to every question posed by noble Lords on this group.
For example, we have a problem with numbers. The Minister cited that 65% of people outside London who are currently renting privately and 40% of people in London who are currently renting privately will be able to take on a starter home. As we know from other agencies, such as Shelter, those figures are disputed. On Tuesday, I think, the Minister agreed that we would have a detailed response to that so we can actually understand the facts with which we are trying to deal.
I was really concerned by the Minister’s remark, and I think I quote her rightly, that there is always going to be abuse of the system. That really is an unacceptable thing for noble Lords to confront. There should not be abuse of the system. There are ways in the planning system—and in the next group, which deals with “in perpetuity”—for this problem to be solved. So I hope that the Minister, in our proceedings after the lunch break, will work with the feeling across all sides of the Committee that we have to do something to make this a much better Bill; for, as it stands, it surely cannot proceed as it has been written. So, while I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 37B, I hope that the Minister has understood the mood of the Committee in demanding clear answers to questions which have also been very clear.