Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am not going to give way Most importantly, Clause 83 will give tenants the right to appeal the calculation of their income, should they believe that they are incorrect. Clause 83 is fundamental in ensuring that tenants have the opportunity to challenge a calculation I will start with Amendment 70A, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Best, Lord Cameron, Lord Kerslake, and Lord Kennedy. This amendment seeks to restrict the amount by which rent is increased within this policy. I have already outlined in some detail our commitment to introduce a taper to ensure that increases in rent are more closely linked to increases in income. This will ensure that rent rises are affordable and protect the incentive to find and keep work Amendment 71 seeks to establish a test of local affordability in rent setting. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Beecham, for this amendment. The Government believe that this is best achieved through a correct setting of market rents within areas, and I have confirmed already that we are considering how this will work. We need to find an approach that can be easily implemented by local authorities but that is a fair representation of the market rental rate. This issue forms a key part of our engagement work with local authorities Noble Lords opposite have also tabled Amendments 72 and 77. Amendment 72 asks us to take into account the need to promote socially cohesive and mixed communities. I find this a slightly odd amendment, as I would have thought that the issue of low rents for households on high incomes is actually a divisive issue for communities. Social housing should be aimed squarely at those in real housing need, and it is absolutely right that when families need support they benefit from being in a mixed community. This is our policy However, there are more than 40,000 households with incomes of £50,000 or more who are benefiting from lower rents than their neighbours in the private rented sector. Far from being an issue, our policy aims to establish a level playing field across communities. It is worth pausing again here to consider the home ownership offer that the Government have for tenants of social housing, which they may wish to take up—but I am certainly not directing them to take it up Amendment 77 seeks to define high income in relation to average incomes in an area. Currently, the median household income figure is £26,000, which I should point out includes both working and non-working households. It is important to recognise that there are working households in the private sector on or below this median amount who are expected to find rents higher than that enjoyed by social tenants on similar incomes. On that basis, our starting threshold of £30,000 nationally is a fair point at which higher rents should become payable. I have already outlined our commitment to a taper to ensure that rent rises are gradual beyond this income threshold The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, who is not in his seat, asked what constituted a household. There is a definition in the voluntary scheme; it includes tenants, joint tenants, spouses, partners and civil partners. That is the kind of thing that we are looking at The noble Lord, Lord Cameron, tabled Amendment 77A, which seeks to include a provision to take into account the variability of household income within the definition of high income. The amendment is unnecessary as we already have the power set out in regulations to treat variations in income within a year. That goes back to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. We certainly intend to cover this in regulations. There will be circumstances that are obvious candidates for inclusion, such as the death of a household member or a sudden and significant drop in income, but beyond that we must strike a balance between allowing a review of rent and minimising the burdens on landlords. We cannot have landlords constantly reviewing rents, for example, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, suggested. There must be a sensible approach Amendment 79A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, seeks to put higher income thresholds in the Bill. We are not doing this as it would prevent us from bringing forward changes to the thresholds if the evidence supported a change. Our intention is to keep the policy under review and I am sure that that will be supported. I am sure—the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, confirmed this—that the purpose behind the amendment is to question the starting thresholds that were set at the Budget. We have said that rents should rise where household income is more than £30,000—£40,000 in London—but I once again draw attention to my commitment to put in place a taper. It will ensure that for those households on £30,000 the rental increase will be limited to a few pounds each week. While the starting incomes for thresholds are right, we have accepted that there is a need to protect work incentives and this is the purpose of the taper Amendments 79B and 79D concern the ability to raise rents where income information has not been provided by tenants. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Kerslake, Lord Beecham, Lord Kennedy, and Lord Low, for tabling these amendments as this is an important part of the Bill. I recognise why there are concerns about the power to raise rents for non-declaration. I will spend some time outlining how we see this power working. Tenants may be required to declare their household income and I have already outlined that we are thinking through the options for defining "income". We are also considering what evidence is needed to support a declaration. It will be important for tenants to have plenty of time to gather this evidence and I have set out our intention to communicate this policy effectively to landlords and tenants groups It is, however, inevitable that there will be some households who, for whatever reason, do not declare details of their income. In these circumstances the Government face a choice. Do we make it a criminal offence or do we take a different approach? My preference is for the latter as a criminal offence seems entirely disproportionate. The power that we have taken therefore would give landlords the ability to set rents at the highest available in that area if there is a consistent failure to declare details of income. When I say "consistent", I mean that there will be clear guidance for landlords on the amount of effort that they should put in to trying to contact tenants, and only when all of these approaches have failed should rents be raised I also make it clear that we do not see higher rental rates applying for the whole of the rental year. If raising rents for non-declaration spurs a household to take action to declare details of income at a later point in the year, the Bill allows for the rent to be set back to the correct level and regulations will set out this approach. I also give a firm commitment that we will clearly communicate this area of policy to landlords. Guidance will require them to set out the impact right from the start in all communications to tenants. On Amendments 80B and 80C, tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, I refer back to some of the discussion on how reviews of rent could be treated. There will be certain circumstances in which a review of rent would be appropriate: for example, the death of a household member or a sudden loss of income. The power in question, however, deals primarily with circumstances when the income level of the household drops below the threshold for a high-income rent. In those circumstances we intend to use regulations to state that the rent levels should revert to the original level. This will include circumstances where rent has been raised as a result of non-declaration and it is subsequently determined that the rent level should remain as it is currently Finally, Amendment 82AA, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, seeks a published review into the effect that the policy would have on community cohesion within all local authority areas. I have already expressed our intention to keep the policy under review and also explained my views regarding the detrimental effect that low rents for households on high incomes can have on communities.