Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 67B and 67C, which are in my name. Both amendments relate to the exclusion of certain types of property from the forced sale programme, which would therefore be suitably amended with regard to the formula for the so-called levy The first category identified in Amendment 67B seeks to exclude properties that any reasonable authority or person would regard as sensible not to be included in a forced sale policy. I will not go through all of them but will give a few examples. A local authority would seek to achieve the maximum flexibility possible in the progression of a regeneration scheme. To be forced to sell off certain properties that are critical to the delivery of the regeneration would be a perverse outcome indeed. The exemption of properties that are themselves exempt from the right-to-buy policy would also seem absolutely logical, and this comes back to the formula that we might see. Again, the regulations may do this—but we have no regulations to fall back on Another area is vacancy, which we have spoken about. Under the bald definition of "vacancy" that we have had hitherto, if a property becomes vacant, it will be put up for sale. For the purposes of the Bill, it will be essential that it is regarded as being considered for sale, albeit that it is covered by a formula rather than an individual requirement. If, however, existing tenants wished to move into that property because they had already been identified as being in need, the property would be excluded. That sits alongside the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, which covers much the same point. At the very least, the amendment would cover high-value properties where there is clearly an existing tenant in another property in the authority who might move into it on a transfer basis I hope that noble Lords will see that the intention behind Amendment 67B is sensibly to exclude properties that any rational assessment would judge to be not appropriate to form part of a forced sale policy. I hope that the Minister will explain why any of these properties should be in contention for being expected to be sold or for being taken into account in the formula. I would be grateful for the Minister’s response on that point, given the nature of the properties involved My second amendment in this group, Amendment 67C, relates to the issue that we discussed this morning. If a local authority is fortunate enough to be in the position of the authority of the noble Lord, Lord True, who spoke earlier, and has transferred its stock, it will not be subject to the levy. If, on the other hand, for very good reason it decides at a subsequent date to transfer its stock, it will continue to be subject to the levy. As we heard from the Minister, this will be a levy in perpetuity and there will be no situation in which the authority can escape it. This will happen despite the fact that the authority transfers the stock to another organisation and therefore has no direct role in relation to the efficiency or otherwise of the management of that stock. That seems perverse, and it will be extremely difficult for the Government to deliver without some form of challenge. One local authority, through a sheer accident of timing, will be subject to a levy when another authority which takes very similar action is not subject to it. That seems perverse.