Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-10
Topic: Housing
Nicholas True (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I think the answer is yes I have listened with intense interest to the debate. I was not intending to intervene—I remind the House that I have interests as a leader of a London borough, and as a member of the leaders committee of London Councils—but, on looking at Clause 67(4), I point out that my local authority does not keep a housing revenue account. We are an exceptional authority, in that a former Liberal Democrat administration carried out a large-scale voluntary transfer, so we are entirely dependent on housing associations. We are not a housing authority. I became leader in a situation where a previous administration had transferred away our council stock It is with some diffidence that I intervene. I know that there is greater concern in London, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said, about some of the detailed impacts of these clauses and others, but I am aware that the Government and local authorities in the London area are having many discussions about how this will operate. I hope my noble friend will say that greater clarification is certainly needed before Report of such discussions and the details that will lie behind the Bill. Parliament really needs to have more insight into the details. I wish to follow the comments of my noble friend Lord Porter about housing associations, although I would not perhaps put them in the characteristically sharp way that he did. I listened very carefully to the carefully scripted remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Best. I will look at his speech in Hansard tomorrow, but he appeared to say quite clearly, from a script, "Don’t look to the housing associations to make a contribution. We’re strapped for cash. We’ve got reserves, but we cannot afford to chip in, old boy, so it’s over to you". Maybe I misinterpreted that, but I will look carefully at the record Of course, housing associations are vital and respected, and I welcome the partnerships that we have. Housing associations are going to the market and raising enormous amounts of money. One of my local associations raised some £100 million recently. At the same time, they are moving to separate from their close relationship—for many of them—with former local authorities. We were asked to relinquish our places on the local housing association board to facilitate the association’s financial advancement, which we were very happy to do in the broader interest of securing more finance for public resource and public investment in housing However, it is important that housing associations—I make no accusation in any particular way—remember that they own a public interest and must work with local authorities. They cannot be divorced from responding to the challenge that my noble friend Lord Porter put forward. It is important that we retain confidence that they are cognisant of their accountability locally. Looking at the amendment—I do not necessarily agree with it—how can we be sure that housing should be replaced in the same area? I was unable to be present at earlier discussions in Committee on this, but can I be guaranteed that my housing association will replace in my local authority area? By what accountability will that be delivered? I would like to hear the noble Lord, Lord Best, say, perhaps at a later stage, that housing associations will take all that into great consideration My noble friend Lord Horam talked about the need for a mandatory hammer, if you like, but with flexibility—talk softly but carry a big stick, as Teddy Roosevelt would have put it. I do not necessarily dissent from that. But my problem is that we are seeing a lot of negotiations going on, a lot of deals being cut, which, at the end of the day, we hope will respect local conditions and local authority. I want policy to be delivered by local conditions, not by the need to get figures for housing on a piece of paper in answer to a Written Parliamentary Question in the House of Commons. We want responsive, locally-led housing policy. So the more open those negotiations can be, the better. I do not like deals cut in quiet rooms with unelected officials, whether they are in City Hall or in the Treasury. So let us have a bit of flexibility and I am sure that my noble friend, by Report, will be able to shed a bit of light on what I hope will be the voluntary agreements that are emerging I want to cover one other point. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, spoke about London’s extraordinary diversity. Much of policy—this is implicit in the Bill, with the two-for-one and the one-for-one replacement—is dependent on and recognises a line on the map, which is the Greater London area boundary. I think that London is evolving in a strange way. Perhaps we are going back to the days when there was an LCC and an outer London. It may well be reflected in the way that votes are cast in the coming mayoral election. It is very difficult to define a single policy. I do not think that anyone in this House would say it would be easy to define a single policy for the whole of London, let alone the whole country. I worry about policy that is defined simply on the basis of a line on the map which is the edge of Greater London. There are travel-to-work areas. Look at the emerging Gatwick corridor. It might be quite legitimate to replace, even with a one-for-two policy. Is there anything wrong in replacing two houses just south of Sutton, if you like, or just outside the Sutton area, which could be for Sutton people, in the same travel-to-work area? I hope that that can be considered and that we will not allow a line on the map to dictate policy absolutely, particularly at the fringes of London Because of outer London’s changes and the high land values in certain places, we must look at new policies and new powers. It will have to be, in my submission, for local authorities to deal with some of the issues that arise. I will conclude with one example. In my own authority the Ministry of Defence has lately put up for sale a significant, large facility, Kneller Hall, which houses the Royal Military School of Music. It is very controversial. The rationale is money. The ministry says it wants to build houses, yes, but when probed, of course, it wants to build houses of maximum value for the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury. As I understand it—I have not had this confirmed—some of the land has already been sold to a developer before we are anywhere near a planning application. In those circumstances, do the Government not own a responsibility to play a part in this kind of policy The Government lecture local authorities—and we accept the responsibility—to do our best to provide affordable housing. But is there not, within the parameters of disposal of publicly-held property, a collective responsibility which the Government, government departments and government agencies should share, to put this aspect of public policy into their plans for disposals? I am straying a bit from the Bill—I was intending to bring it up in the planning stages of the Bill—so I do not expect the Minister to answer on that, but can we look, when we come to the planning area, at whether we could find ways of pressing public authorities more generally, through the planning process, to share some of the responsibilities that these clauses put upon local authorities?