Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Housing
Susan Williams (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, many of your Lordships have spoken passionately both here in the Chamber and to me in private about how we plan to implement the manifesto commitment to pay for the voluntary right-to-buy agreement through the sale of high-value assets The role of your Lordships’ House is to revise and to improve, to make sure that we consider how our policies affect not just those in London but those in communities across the country, and to bring to our attention the questions raised by community groups and housing associations. Noble Lords often spend time declaring their interests as members of local authorities and of the boards of housing associations, and those interests mean that the Bill is scrutinised by those directly affected. I have met many noble Lords since we introduced the Bill and I have been struck by many of the arguments eloquently made at Second Reading and in Committee. Indeed, I have been struck by the level of expertise across this House. Earlier today I sent noble Lords a letter which set out how those arguments have shaped our thinking. I have placed a copy of that in the Printed Paper Office and the Library, and I hope that most noble Lords have got hold of it If I may, I would like to set out my thinking on the level of detail in the Bill and the ability of your Lordships’ House to scrutinise how the sale of high-value vacant housing will work in practice. What constitutes "high" or "higher", to which I will return in a moment, is a matter which, upon reflection, I agree that Parliament should consider and approve before regulations come into force—the arguments here have been persuasive. Later today we will debate whether to remove clauses from the Bill altogether. I hope that affirmative regulations will give assurances that noble Lords will get to see and approve the details I know that some noble Lords will argue, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, did on his blog yesterday, that regulations cannot be changed. However, I would say that this debate, alongside other conversations that we can have outside it in the coming months, will help ensure that we get them right the first time. We have the best of both worlds here: Parliament approving the detail and your Lordships sending an improved clause implementing a manifesto commitment back to the other place At the heart of this policy is a desire to build more homes that meet the needs of local communities. I am clear that we should be building at least one new affordable home for each dwelling that is sold. That has always been our policy, and it is a point that has been reinforced by compelling arguments made by noble Lords from across the Chamber. I would like to consider further how best we can reflect this in the Bill What has also come across strongly in our debates has been the valuable point that different areas have very different needs. This is a statement of the obvious. Noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, have argued that local communities led by local authorities are best placed to set out those needs. He has pointed out a number of times that this is a Government who champion localism. I want to make sure that this policy both reflects the diversity of housing markets nationwide and respects the views of local people and local leaders. There is a powerful argument, therefore, about the important role of local authorities in making the case for the right balance of housing in their area and the importance of government taking that into account when making agreements to deliver new homes. I say from the outset that that is something that I will consider reflecting on the face of the Bill at a later stage A strong case has also been made for looking carefully at the potential impact of the clauses in rural areas where the pressure on housing is exceptionally high. I shall go into more detail later on, but I intend explicitly to state in regulations that homes in areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks are excluded and are not to be taken into account when calculating authorities’ payments. I hope that this is a helpful frame for our debate today I wrote last week to give some background on what I am about to move, but I am aware that noble Lords raised their eyebrows at the thought of an amendment which would change "high" to "higher". I hope that I can provide some reassurance. The change is a direct result of concerns expressed in your Lordships’ House about the potential impact of these clauses in areas of very high housing pressure, where a very high proportion of local authority homes can be considered as "high value" under the current definition. I shall go into further detail on that later, but for now turn to the amendments that we are about to debate I am grateful to noble Lords who contributed in Committee, because the Bill has a central role in delivering the Government’s housing objectives and the commitments that we made on home ownership which formed a significant part of our manifesto. It has the potential to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens, more than 85% of whom have home ownership as an aspiration. It is important that we work together to make this legislation as good as possible, and I am grateful to noble Lords for their careful contributions Later, we will discuss other important amendments, including the amendment on one-for-one replacements, but I want to speak now to government Amendments 54, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61 67, 69, 70 and 71, which replace all the references to "high value" throughout Chapter 2 of Part 4 with "higher value". In Committee, noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kerslake, voiced their concern about the impact in some areas of setting the threshold for high-value properties on a regional or national basis. As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, pointed out, even within London there is a huge variance in property values, with outer London boroughs such as Sutton, Barking and Dagenham having very different housing markets from those in inner boroughs such as Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, Camden and Islington. The point was echoed by my noble friend Lord Carrington. Other noble Lords have cited concerns about the possible impact of the policy in London, as well as in other areas of high housing demand where there is a significant concentration of high-value properties I have listened carefully to all the points that noble Lords made in Committee, just as Members did in the other place. In addition, there have been many fruitful discussions outside the Chamber between the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kerslake, myself, the Minister for Housing and Planning, and the Secretary of State. In response, we have reflected carefully on the "high value" definition and how it could be applied in practice. The effect of the provisions in their current form is to require a definition of high-value housing which relates to wider housing market values. As I have said, those values vary hugely, even within quite small areas We recognise that in areas of highest housing pressure, such as the inner London boroughs, the provisions could apply to a high number of dwellings. If we choose to look at high value for each region, the same issue would apply to those areas within a region which experience a high level of housing demand in comparison with their neighbours. For example, places such as Harrogate, Oxford and Cambridge could all have a high proportion of their stock defined as high value.