Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-14
Topic: Civil Rights
Dale Norman Campbell-Savours (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, the case made by my noble friends Lady Hollis and Lady Lister on this amendment has been utterly devastating. They have totally undermined the Government’s case and one is left wondering, having listened to their contributions, how this section of the Bill managed to clear the officials. They would have had access to the data produced by my noble friends and I simply cannot understand how the Minister will be able to respond to what they have said—in particular to the comments of my noble friend Lady Hollis, who said that information of a private nature, on private incomes, will now, within the law, for the first time ever, be given to private companies acting on behalf of local authorities At this end of this debate we need a clear statement from Ministers as to whether they accept that that is the case. We believe that it is the case, but Ministers should be prepared to say at the Dispatch Box whether it is true that information of a private nature on personal incomes can now be handed over to private companies—with all that that implies. It means leakage within communities where people may well find that they are in a position to discuss the private incomes of individuals I support the first five amendments in this group and would like to ask some questions that have not been asked during this debate. I do not really want to repeat anything that other noble Lords have said, apart from what my noble friend Lady Hollis said. Clause 78(2) states: "The regulations may, in particular, require the rent—(a) to be equal to the market rate, (b) to be a proportion of the market rate" I think we should at this stage know where. When the people were on the streets of London yesterday—I understand there were thousands of them—demonstrating about the consequences of this Bill for them as individuals and the breach of privacy that it entails, many of them were perhaps unaware that in many parts of the country the full market rate will be the target. It might well be that some of them thought that their properties might be simply covered by the provision of the "proportion of the market rate" in paragraph (b) That question is relevant because in the Shelter briefing—and Shelter has been one of the main sources of information on this Bill rather than government departments, certainly when it comes to statistics—we find from DCLG tables 702 and 704 that the London average social rent in local authority-owned housing is £455 per month. If that property were in the private sector, according to the private rental market statistics summary of monthly rents recorded between October 2014 and September 2015, that rent would be £1,626 per month for a two bed flat. In other words, the rent nearly quadruples. So if the target is market rents, people in London have to expect that the Government’s ultimate objective is to secure a market rent of £1,626 a month on a property that currently on average costs £455 a month. That is a huge increase I move now to Clause 79. Again, we have the problem that we have a skeleton Bill. We are not given the answers. This is a classic example of the problem of this Bill. It says: "Meaning of ‘high income’ etc … Rent regulations must … define what is meant by ‘high income’ for the purposes of this Chapter" We had a debate about that and we broadly know what the figures are—the £30,000 and £40,000 thresholds But then Clause 79(2) says: "The regulations may, in particular … define ‘high income’ in different ways for different areas". What will that mean for London, Newcastle or Birmingham? Is a different area going to determine what the high-income level is? Again, that will be in regulations, so we cannot see what it means. The differential in England may well be very controversial but we cannot debate it at this stage of the Bill Clause 79(2)(b) says that the regulations may, "specify things that are, or are not, to be treated as income" Will they include unearned income, pensions, all benefits, the benefits of dependants, the unearned income of dependants, or the unearned income or benefits of relatives who might stay in the property? Once again, a whole area is excluded from consideration by this House. My noble friends Lady Hollis and Lady Lister at least tried to put wings on it but we still do not know the detail Clause 79(2)(c) then says that the regulations may, "make provision about the period by reference to which a person’s income is to be calculated" Is it to be weekly, monthly, annually or biannually? Again, we are not told Paragraph (d) says that the regulations may, "make provision about how a person’s income is to be verified" Noble Lords should remember that my noble friend Lady Hollis said that everyone who lives in a council house and is not on housing benefit could be subject to an inquiry about their income by their local authority. Can we presume that if you live in a council house in the United Kingdom and your total household income exceeds £30,000 a year, the local authority will be able to ring up your employer or anybody they want—for example, your pension provider, your private pension provider or any other organisation that might be paying someone an income—to ask how much you are being paid? We know that that already exists in law for means-testing systems, but now we are talking about people who are outside the benefits system and will suddenly be brought into the whole world of means testing. I believe that that is fundamentally wrong That brings me to my final objection. This Bill will fail for the reasons that have been given by my noble friends. If the annual income for your household outside London is over £30,000 a year, you are going to be very tempted to go on the fiddle. There will be hundreds of thousands of people who say, "I’m not going to declare that income. I’m going to take a little job here and get a bit of extra money there. I’ll go and work in a hotel and do a few little jobs here and there". They will find all sorts of ways to get round these rules I do not normally attack officials but I cannot understand how even officials do not realise what is going on in the real world. Parliament has become unwieldy—it just does not understand what is going on in the population. People calculate how they can maximise their income, and if they are going to be caught by the £30,000 threshold, as a lot of people in the United Kingdom will be, they will find ways of getting round it. There will be an army of people trying to track down people’s incomes, and people will get very upset. As my noble friend Lady Hollis said, this will turn into another poll tax. We have warned the Government: there will be abuse and massive fiddling. I think that, even at this late stage, the Government should take stock of the nonsense provisions in this stupid Bill.