Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Housing
Donald Foster (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank the Minister for her earlier remarks, which offered at last to provide us with the information about the state of play regarding secondary legislation, and for her commitment to provide us with a response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s two reports—the 20th and 21st—before Report. I draw noble Lords’ attention to pages 7, 8 and 9 of the 20th report, which give the committee’s response to some of the issues we are discussing I genuinely believe that a case can be made for a discretionary, flexible, locally set pay-to-stay arrangement, with the money raised reinvested locally to meet locally identified housing need. It is very difficult to make a case for an imposed, inflexible scheme with no opportunity for the money to be reinvested at the local level and no account taken of individual circumstances or of local conditions. That case is made even more difficult by some of the language that has been used—not by the Minister but, for example, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has talked about the burden of this being placed on other working families by the subsidy made on social rent I remind the Chancellor that the taxpayer and those working people make very large subsidies to other forms of tenure, whether it is to the owner-occupiers who attract relief from capital gains tax and are not taxed on the value of their homes, right the way through to the first part of this Bill where we are going to give very large subsidies to those who choose to acquire a starter home. Of course, the right to buy itself is another form of subsidy. The case is not made easy by the language in this part of the Bill about rents for "high income" social tenants. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, has pointed out, a family with two people on the living wage would have an income that puts them only just below the threshold level proposed as a "high income" for the imposition of the right to stay It is not as if the right to stay is new. It was introduced in 2012 by the coalition Government when they introduced a voluntary scheme starting for payments over an income of £60,000. During the preparation for that introduction there was another consultation that looked at what people thought of such a scheme. It is quite reflective to look back at some of the things that people said during that consultation—indeed, they said all the very things that people are saying this time round. They said, first, that you had to be very careful about the threshold levels so you did not create a disincentive; secondly, that there had to be locally determined setting of levels because of fluctuating local circumstances; and thirdly, above all, that it should be a discretionary scheme enabling, for example, local authorities to decide whether or not to introduce it and the details of doing that That is why I am so supportive of the amendments before us, in whichever combination you choose, because in one way or another they are all basically saying that we should change the compulsory nature, get rid of the imposition of pay to stay and allow a voluntary scheme of one sort or another. But, as I said, we have already had a scheme introduced. I am assuming that the Government would have looked in detail at the operation of the current voluntary scheme in coming forward with a revision of that scheme, which is what is before us in the Bill today. Can the Minister tell us in some detail what information has been gleaned about the scheme introduced in 2012? She will be in some difficulty, because last July, in answer to a Parliamentary Question, the Government admitted that they had collected no data whatever and had no information whatever about whether any local authorities or any other providers of social housing had even introduced such a scheme. But they have had time since July, so—not wishing to embarrass them—I am assuming that they have that information, and we look forward to having it. Of course, lack of information is the problem that we have had throughout this Bill. I am absolutely delighted that the Government have now said that they are going to introduce a taper scheme. It is amazing that that was not included at the very outset of the Bill, because only a couple of years ago the previous Government made it absolutely clear that a pay-to-stay scheme must not have a built-in disincentive for people to go out and earn more by getting a better job or working longer hours. That was very clear—yet the failure to include a taper at the beginning of this scheme has led to a very large number of people being extremely concerned about what the future may hold It is equally bad that we are in a situation whereby, notwithstanding the fact that there is a taper or, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Best, there will be either a 10% or 20% scheme, we do not know which it is—we do not know the details of it or what level of income is going to come in as a result, and we do not know how much local authorities are going to be allowed to keep back to pay for their costs. So we have no idea what the impact of the legislation that we are debating today is going to have either on the people whom it will affect or on the Exchequer of the country. The sooner we get that information, absolutely the better Above all, the best thing would be for the Government to do what they have already done and back down in respect of something being compulsory. We know that the Government have backed down in respect of requiring housing associations to impose right to buy, and we hope that on this occasion they might back down on imposing pay to stay on councils. After all, it makes much more sense for a local council to have that discretion and be able to take account of local circumstances and invest the money in providing for local housing need that it has identified. It does not make sense that housing associations are to have that freedom both to decide whether or not to do it or to be able to use the money, if they introduce it, to invest in housing stock to meet what they have identified as housing need I have a second question for the Minister, because it is important that we at least have this on record. Could she confirm that one reason why there has not been an imposition on housing associations to introduce pay to stay is because it is part of the package of measures to try yet again to get the ONS to reclassify housing associations so that they are no longer public bodies? If that is the case, we need to know and, if there any other reasons, we need to know. Above all, these amendments would get rid of compulsion, give flexibility and give an opportunity for local determination. That is why I am so keen to support them.