argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister explained the process for getting possession of a property believed to have been abandoned but she did not mention vulnerable tenants. Will there be any special provision for vulnerable people? I am worried that those people will not be opening their mail or looking at their emails or engaging in things and all of a sudden they will find themselves on the street.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): The Minister also said that when the tenant of the property believed to have been abandoned has been evicted, they can go to the county court. Will legal aid be available for the county court action?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Other
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): That would be very helpful. In this short debate we have highlighted a few issues with this section of the Bill so can I suggest that it might be welcome if a few noble Lords got together with the Minister to discuss some of them? There are issues which are not clear and could cause problems. The last thing we want is to get something on the statute book that causes everybody confusion.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): I have one further question. If the rent condition is initially not met but then there is a payment which starts the process again, where does that leave the warning notices that have been issued? Will they remain in place for a possible second bout of the application of these provisions?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): I declare two interests: one is my local government interest which is in the register. In that context I want to reflect briefly on the burdens that might be imposed on local authorities in terms of enforcement and point out that there is such a thing as the new burdens doctrine. Admittedly it is more honoured in the breach than in the observance by the present Administration—the noble Lord, Lord True, is nodding his wry agreement with that—but technically speaking, if a new burden is imposed and incurs costs then the Government are expected to meet that cost. We are presumably not talking about large sums of money nationally in any event, as I assume that there will not be a huge number of cases, unless the Bill incentivises such procedures I also declare a family interest inasmuch as my daughter practises at the Bar, particularly in the field of housing law, both as counsel and as a part-time deputy district judge. My impression is that legal aid would not be available. At the moment it is confined to cases of eviction. I assume that this case would not fall within the definition of eviction. It is effectively the tenant failing to respond to the procedure that is set out here. If I am wrong about that and if legal aid is applicable, it would be as well to have that on the record. If it is not, then I hope that the Minister will not only reply to that effect but consider very carefully and quickly whether legal aid should be extended to cases of this sort, particularly because, as my noble friend has indicated, there may well be vulnerable people who will need help in presenting any kind of case for resuming possession of a property which appeared to be abandoned.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, already social housing landlords—housing associations and so on—are beginning to deal with universal credit tenants. I am not confident of my figures, but I understand that something like 60% of them are in arrears and seeking alternative payment arrangements. Social landlords —local authorities or housing associations—are scrupulous in trying to ensure that vulnerable tenants who are finding it difficult to manage their money or whatever are not at risk of losing their home I fear that I have no such faith in the interest of private landlords. I am sure that many of them would seek to keep a vulnerable tenant afloat—but they are running a business, they cannot afford not to have rent payments and, as a result, given the changes that are now happening with universal credit for the private sector and the social sector, such tenants, vulnerable tenants in particular, will be more exposed to bad behaviour by landlords seeking a shortcut to rid themselves of an uncomfortable tenant.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and I thank the Minister for agreeing to meet noble Lords from across the House. There are clearly issues here that need addressing. This is about how vulnerable tenants are treated. Another issue is whether they are English speaking; I have just thought of that. There is a question about how people are treated in court when they have no legal aid. Before this gets on the statute book, we need to take a proper, vigorous look at it. If need be, we can seek amendments later on in the process. At this stage, I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I agree with those who say that these provisions should be recast. I want to pick up on the third warning needing to be, "given by fixing it to some conspicuous part of the premises to which the tenancy relates" Conspicuous to whom? Is it the tenant, the whole world, the community that passes by the front door? It seems to me that giving notice to somebody by nailing something to their front door is almost medieval. You can imagine that somebody will put the notice up, the mobile phone will come out and a photograph will be taken but half an hour later it could be ripped off and be nowhere in view—certainly nowhere in view of the tenant. It seems an incredibly archaic approach. I think the whole thing should be recast but that particular provision jars immensely.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Other
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): Can the Minister tell us a little about where the pressure for these changes is coming from? We hear that there is not a big issue and not a problem here. The Government are going to meet us and seem quite determined about this. What is behind all this? Where has it all come from?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): Will the Minister help me on one other point, please? On the reference to rent not being paid, or rent being unpaid, what happens if a tenant, in struggling to pay the rent, pays an amount on account? Does that count as the rent being unpaid for a week, or a month? How is that dealt with? The Minister has used the expression that someone has effectively given up on paying the rent. There could be many instances where people are struggling to pay the rent, doing the best that they can, and making partial payments. If that is what they do, would that preclude the operation of these provisions?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
William David McKenzie (Labour, Centre-left): I understand that if the rent is paid in full you go back to square 1. But if the rent is only partly paid, what is the position? Our concern here, as many people have said, is about unscrupulous landlords who will use these provisions for a perverse effect. If somebody has only part-paid the rent that would give them the opportunity of doing so.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I am very supportive of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. Empty homes represent both waste and a missed opportunity. They also leave the property at risk of squatting and subject to vandalism, and there is the blight that brings to the wider community—to which the noble Lord referred Empty dwelling management orders are a legal device which enable local authorities to put an unoccupied property back into use as housing, securing its occupation and getting it back into use as a home. The amendment seeks that, within six months of the Bill becoming an Act, a review must be commissioned into their operation and effectiveness. These orders were brought into law with a lot of support but have not proved effective or to be a device that has been used very much in recent years. A review is sensible at this time as it would enable us to identify if there is a problem with them and, if there is, to identify a solution. The second part of the amendment would require a report to be published and placed before Parliament.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred specifically to properties in the north of England. In my former area of west Cumberland and Lancashire, terraced houses often fetched little more than £30,000 to £50,000 at auction. However, there is another group of properties, in the south, which I sometimes wonder what is happening with. In some of the most expensive parts of London you will see properties that have been effectively abandoned by their owners. It might well be that the local authorities are involved, but sometimes these properties remain empty for years. Only the other day I was looking, on behalf of a relative, at a property near Tooting. In the same street, there was a house which was shown on the internet as being sold at auction, but I understand it had been derelict for several years, despite the existence of EDMOs which were introduced in 2006. One wonders what is happening there. Might the review which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, is calling for include consideration of what is happening in the more expensive parts of the country to properties which stand abandoned but which would be better brought into use?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, on bringing forward this amendment. This is certainly a problematic area. The original legislation in 2004 was very well intentioned in its creation of the capacity for local authorities to make an order to take over the management of empty properties. However, only a trickle of orders have been made since then. In the first four years, only 43 orders were made in the country as a whole; 17 were made in 2014. That is not to say that other actions, short of an order, were not taken, perhaps of the kind described by the noble Lord and by my noble friend Lord Kennedy. Nevertheless, there is a clear issue here. The previous Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, changed the rules in 2012 to require a longer period—up to two years, as opposed to the original six months—after which an order could be started. This might be thought a somewhat perverse approach, given the paucity of cases before that time There is clearly a need, and I have experience of that in the ward I represent in Newcastle. About four or five years ago, my attention was drawn to two terraced houses—they are what are called Tyneside flats, with a lower flat and stairs leading up to one over it. They were empty, but they did not look in bad condition and were not creating any hazard in the area. It turned out that they had been like that for several years; it was a long-term problem. I got the council on the case, but the process is extremely protracted and difficult. In this case, it was compounded by arguments about who owned the property. It was not a straightforward question of looking it up at the Land Registry. Even apart from that, it was a very protracted process. Eventually, the council reached the point when—either by making the order but not directly taking over the property, or by coming to an agreement with the owners—the properties could be let That was bad enough, but there is another case, not that far away, of a property which is owned by an elderly lady who lives somewhere else. It is in a shocking state and the only thing I have been able to have done about it is to get the hugely overgrown garden cut back and the place tidied up. It has been empty now for many years. I have tried, more than once, to get the council to take proceedings and I think that it is now looking at that. It is in a nice residential street and is a great blot on the landscape—which at least the previous ones were not—and it lets down the whole character of the neighbourhood. I suspect that this is a significant issue and I hope that the Government will acknowledge that a properly considered view, based on evidence, should be formed.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): Sorry, I am not going to let this question go. Some unoccupied homes have council tax paid on them. There are quite a lot in London, where people who own expensive property leave it abandoned but continue to pay council tax. The question is whether they are included in the figures. I understand that this is a surprise question and I do not expect an immediate response, but I hope that we will be informed of that. If that is an issue—and there are a lot of these properties in London—then surely there should be some kind of report or review in the way that my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, have suggested. It would mean that there is an area of the market which we are not altogether aware of.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, that contribution was the key one in our debate, because it raises the issue of the impact of this legislation and how it will affect demand. What is absolutely clear is that many local authorities are expressing profound concern over this concentration on starter homes and a single source of housing supply to the exclusion of other forms of tenure. That is what has come through in the course of this debate—this feeling of concern about concentration on one area The noble Lord, Lord Horam, referred specifically to whether this work has been done. It is interesting to note that Bristol has actually done this work. I draw attention to a document sent to me that sets out findings in this area—because I suspect that what Bristol found mirrors a difficulty that we would find throughout the United Kingdom.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Mixed Topics
Janet Royall (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I hope I will be forgiven for intervening again. The noble Lord, Lord Horam, mentioned a meeting with the Minister which I regret I was not able to attend. He mentioned some modelling which civil servants were doing on the impact of this policy. Will the Minister say when we are likely to receive further information about that modelling and what the recommendations are? As I have expressed in this House before, I think it is invidious if we are asked to proceed with this Bill without seeing some of the key regulations tabled by the Secretary of State. We cannot be expected to make such important policy which is going to affect the lives and well-being of so many of our citizens if we are not able to see the outcome of the modelling and whether or not this Bill is evidence-based in any way.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, what worries me above all is that starter homes are supposed to fly the flag for affordable housing. Behind that is a recognition by the Government that the problem in this country is the lack of affordable housing, which in turn is determined by the lack of new and adequate housebuilding. Starter homes are just one part of a complicated jigsaw that the Government are offering us which all pushes in one direction—away from making social and affordable housing available to people on modest incomes. Later on in the Bill we are going to get the sale of housing association homes through right to buy, which, if council housing sales are anything to go by, will quickly be turned into buy-to-lets and then into student housing, and away from housing for young families who need affordable homes in which to bring up their children and live their lives Secondly, we are going to see the sale of empty council housing into owner occupation over and beyond local authority RTB in order to fund the discounts on the sale of housing association properties into owner occupation. So we will lose housing association properties and we will probably double the number of local authority housing sales—all away from affordable housing. On top of that we are ensuring that Section 106 land and grants, which have been the source of so much housing association and local authority building, will now become monopolised by starter homes. At the same time we are knocking out shared ownership So what is actually happening is that the sole concept of affordable housing, both for the future and with the recycling of existing property, is going to be starter homes—the only game in town. Housing association properties should be sold with discounts into right to buy; local authority RTB will continue; and on top of that empty homes will be sold to fund the discounts for housing association tenants to be able to buy in order to send the stock into buy-to-let in due course. And on top of that, not only can local authorities and housing associations not replace that stock but they will now find—because of the requirements of central government—that their Section 106 land will be available exclusively and solely for starter homes. So for the whole of the next decade, if the Government have their way, the affordable housing programme for those in the greatest need, who have least leverage in the market, whose need is highest, will have just one option, starter homes—which, we are told by Savills, will not benefit 90% of them. I ask the Minister: what on earth do the Government think they are doing?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Janet Royall (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, how does the noble Baroness square that circle? It is great that the Government wish to ensure that everybody who aspires to own their own home can do so, but the figures that the noble Baroness gives do not match the figures that we have quoted around the Chamber on the finances that individuals and families have. Even with the 20% discount it is clear that the vast majority of people in this country are unable to buy the starter homes.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Patricia Hollis (Labour, Centre-left): We all share the concept of mixed tenures. I built several thousand houses for sale when builders would not and attached 100% mortgages when building societies would not, to give people choice. That is fine. My problem, which the Minister has not so far addressed—maybe she will go on to do so—is that by exclusively emphasising starter homes while reducing affordable rent in the housing association and local authority sectors, those at the bottom will be squeezed out of the opportunities not of buying, but of living in a decent affordable home.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): One of the interventions the Government have made has been to impose a 1% reduction in rents for social housing, which is going to have a significant impact on the capacity of local authorities and the housing association sector to maintain or improve stock or build. That reduction will reflect itself in a reduction in housing benefit to local authority tenants but will not in any way contribute towards meeting housing need.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): On that matter the Minister said that a £150,000 house was affordable on an income of £26,000. That was the reply she gave. I was just looking it up on a mortgage calculator. After tax it is about 40% of income.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Janet Royall (Labour, Centre-left): I am terribly sorry—I know that it is dinner time and people are anxious to move away from this debate—but my frustration in terms of regulation and consultation is mighty. I do not blame the Minister because this is a blight on many Governments. The noble Baroness mentioned twice the consultation that is about to begin on starter homes. Why start the consultation now? We will finish this Bill, I presume, around Easter, by which time we will not have had the results of the consultation and the Government will not have been able to shape their policies in relation to the consultation. Either it is a sham consultation—that does sometimes happen—or, what is the point?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, most of the relevant points have been made and I do not want to repeat what other noble Lords have said, but I have a simple question for the Minister Amendment 48A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, refers to the need to take into account, "those over pension age, … those on below average incomes, and … those to whom it owes a statutory housing duty" Amendment 50, tabled by my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark, refers to an exemption requirement for housing for, "younger people; … older people; … people with special needs; or …people with disabilities", or where there is a proposal to build, "a homeless hostel; … refuge accommodation; or … specialist housing". We have, this evening, repeatedly heard the case that starter homes are to be given priority over everything else. How will those that I have just listed be protected in the new regime which the Government are promoting? In other words, how can we be assured that the groups referred to and embodied in those two amendments will be provided for under a system which gives priority to starter homes? If the Minister can answer that question, she will be able to answer most of the issues raised in this debate.