Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the Bill’s provisions in relation to higher-value council properties and pay to stay—I beg your pardon; I think I may have the wrong group. Let me just check I am sorry, I got slightly confused after so many hours in the Chamber. I dare say I am not alone in that. I was right to start where I began The Bill’s provisions in relation to higher-value council properties and pay to stay, which we are dealing with later, but not today, are predicated on a myth; namely, that council housing is subsidised by the taxpayer. In reality, housing revenue accounts have to balance their books, matching their expenditure to their income, and we have heard that the Government are deliberately reducing that income by their imposed cuts on rent levels for the entire social housing sector—councils and housing associations alike. As I have said, this single action will cost the sector billions over time. In Newcastle’s case alone, it will cost £593 million that otherwise would have gone into maintaining or improving the existing stock and investing in new homes. Similar effects will be felt at different levels by housing associations The ostensible reason for selling high-value homes is that this will release money with which to build new ones—but, as we have heard, in reality most of it will go to the Treasury, ostensibly to facilitate right-to-buy housing association properties. This is not likely to lead to new building, let alone to new building in the locality whence the sales proceeds derive. I refer again by way of example to the situation that this will create in Newcastle. I suppose I ought to remind the Committee, if it needs reminding, of my interests as a councillor in Newcastle and generally in local government. Newcastle has some 26,000 council houses, 1,651 of which would fall under the Government’s definition of "high value", according to Shelter—I particularly like the "1" in that figure—although I understand that the city council believes that the number could be greater On the Shelter figure, some 82 higher-value homes a year could be the subject of forced sales in the event of their becoming vacant, or deemed sales if they do not, which would generate a very substantial payment—on this sort of figure, something like £1.2 billion, if one took a median figure of a two-bed house at around £155,000. There are proposals for different levels of assumed value in London and elsewhere, and the Shelter list indicates a range in Newcastle for two-bedroomed houses of £125,000-£155,000 and, for larger houses, a figure of £250,000. Clearly, very substantial sums could be raised by the sales of these 82 homes—or, as I say, a likely larger number, obviously yielding a larger amount This group of amendments identifies a series of house types that will be exempt from this levy. Amendment 66, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Kennedy, would exempt housing managed by existing tenant management organisations, to which we have had some reference already in Committee—the very kind of organisation that one might have thought would be attractive to the Government and indeed to the Policy Exchange think tank that spawned the concept Amendment 68 would require regulations to provide that housing forming part of a housing regeneration scheme, or consisting of specialist housing or recently improved housing, should be excluded. It defines housing regeneration schemes and describes specialised housing as that designed or intended for occupation by the elderly, people needing care or support with mental health problems or learning disabilities, or that with other features designed to make it suitable for use by disabled people. These are clearly priority areas that should be protected. Equally, the amendments propose that where properties have recently been improved or substantial repairs have been being carried out in the previous two years, where again, clearly, the local housing revenue account will have contributed substantially to the current state of the property, they should also be exempt The amendment chimes well with the views of Nottingham City Homes tenants, about whom we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, who clearly have written to a number of Members of the Committee. The chairman is a tenant of 40 years’ standing, who asserts in her letter: "Our properties have been adapted for tenants with disabilities. If they are sold then other homes will have to be adapted too, at extra cost" Clearly that will be a burden on the local authority housing revenue account, and the benefit will accrue to the Government or those who buy the home if it is sold on the market. She makes a telling point: "There will no longer be any affordable council housing in certain neighbourhoods—council housing will be marked out as something that is only in poorer areas" That trend is already under way. The street in which I live, in my non-£5.9 million house, is a nice street in a residential area of Newcastle, at the bottom of which there used to be a block of council flats. All those council flats have long since been given over to other tenures.