Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-05-10
Topic: Housing
Robert Kerslake (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, Amendment 47E seeks to do two things. First, it seeks to put it beyond doubt that sufficient funding will be available to local authorities to deliver at least one new affordable home for each higher-value property sold; in London this will be at least two for one. Secondly, it gives a local authority the opportunity, where it can demonstrate a need for social rented housing in its area, to make the case for the Secretary of State to consider There are few parts of this Bill that have caused such concern at local level and, indeed, where the impacts are so serious. Even today, I have received an open letter from tenants setting out their serious concerns. Even at this very late stage, we still do not have the vital detail needed to properly assess the impact. This point is made very strongly in the recent Public Accounts Committee report Shelter has calculated that to deliver the estimated £4.5 billion of receipts identified by the Government, 23,500 vacant council properties a year will need to be sold. This equates to nearly a third of all stock that will become vacant. It follows that it is absolutely vital to be clear in the Bill how this replacement will be delivered in practice. A huge amount depends on getting this right. Under Clause 72, the Secretary of State may enter into an agreement with a local authority to reduce the amount that it has to pay under the higher-value sales levy. The Bill now makes it clear that where such an agreement is entered into, the manifesto commitment of at least one-for-one replacement must be delivered. What is glaringly absent from the Bill, however, is that the local authority will be able to retain enough of the levy to pay for this replacement. So we have the ends but not the means in the Bill. The first part of my amendment seeks to put this point right: it seeks to align ends with means. It has been argued previously that this is unnecessary, since Ministers have given a commitment. If that is the case, it ought not to be controversial My concern about the Minister’s argument in the other place is that it raises precisely the issue of whether the funding will be adequate, because it suggests that to agree this amendment or something close to it would compromise the delivery of the right-to-buy policy. One way or another we need to be clear whether the funds will be there to deliver the policy in the Bill. Given the huge uncertainty about how the sums will add up, it is reasonable for this House to take the precaution of seeking clarity in the Bill that the funding will be there. What would be the purpose of reaching an agreement if it did not have the underpinning funding to support it The second part of my amendment has been significantly revised from the version that we previously debated. It simply seeks to give the opportunity to a local authority to make its case on grounds of need to replace a social rented home with another social rented home. It does not require a local authority to make a case if it decides that it already has sufficient social rented housing. If it wishes to go for a different mix of affordable housing, it can do so. Nothing in my amendment prevents the flexibility to which the Minister referred. It simply provides an opportunity Equally, my amendment does not require the Secretary of State to agree with those representations. It asks only that the Secretary of State consider the case on its merits. It therefore fits completely with the Government’s intention to do bespoke local deals. The discretion is there for the local authority to make its case. The power is there for the Secretary of State to say no if he is not persuaded by that case. It is hard to see how you could be more flexible and responsive than that I understand the reluctance that some in this House will have about pressing these issues again. I have thought long and hard about them. I would not put the amendment forward unless I thought it was of such vital importance. Unless we get this replacement policy right now, on funding and discretion, we shall inevitably see fewer genuinely affordable homes available. The consequences of that would be rising numbers of low-income families living in temporary accommodation. There are now some 54,000 homeless families with children living in temporary accommodation. That number is rising. Unless we get this right, it will carry on rising, and we shall have missed a major opportunity. I ask the House to support this amendment. I beg to move.