Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-08
Topic: Housing
Jeremy Hugh Beecham (Labour, Centre-left): In that same spirit, perhaps the Minister will confirm that we will have the information on starter homes before Report It is interesting to look at what the impact assessment says about the right to buy for the housing association sector. It says: "Primary legislation is also required to monitor how these opportunities are being adopted so potential homeowners can hold their housing association to account, if necessary" That is an interesting perspective on the degree to which the Government trust their partners in the housing association sector More important, however, is the next paragraph, which purports to outline the impact of intervention: "The Government expects the clauses within the Bill to facilitate housing associations offering home ownership opportunities to their tenants. Without the legislation, the Secretary of State, or the Greater London Authority would not be able to compensate a housing association for the cost of the discount … The Government will issue a prospectus setting out more detail of the scheme in due course" There is not a word about the impact of the Bill on the number of homes that might be transferred by housing associations, the amount of money that will be received by the associations or, indeed, where it comes from. That is not an impact assessment; it is an announcement about the objectives of the policy. I shall return to this theme, I am afraid, in later amendments. I do not blame the Minister for this, but it is a pretty poor effort The Minister rightly referred to people’s aspiration to own their own home, and it is true that a very high proportion of people have that aspiration. But if that aspiration is to be fulfilled, it should not be at the expense of those who cannot afford to buy their home and who need to rent. We know what has happened to property sold under the previous policy of the right to buy council housing. As my noble friend has said, 40% of those houses are now not owned by aspiring owner-occupiers; they are owned by aspiring buy-to-let landlords who let out the property at much higher rents and at greater cost to the public purse than would otherwise have been the case because of the way in which housing benefit works. It is not, therefore, a simple case of catering to that need, as if there were no potential adverse consequences The Minister also referred to the opportunity for older and disabled tenants to buy their properties. However, these properties are very often purpose-designed and, as she said, fitted out for a particular purpose. There is nothing to ensure that after the original purchase, those properties will remain available for older people and people with disabilities. They could simply disappear and the people who would have had the benefit of those facilities may not get them The noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Horam, talked about the risks of reclassifying these properties as part of the public sector, the implication being that this would have devastating consequences because it would somehow increase public indebtedness and the like. But the money is not going into thin air, it is going into assets. The assets will remain on the balance sheet. This is a phantom criticism, it seems to me, of the objections to the way in which the Government have proceeded We entirely support all the other amendments moved by the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kerslake. I am disappointed that the noble Lord does not see the merit in Amendment 55, but I think that the arm of the housing association sector is going to be twisted. Indeed, the rather minatory words that I quoted from the impact assessment contain that implication—that pressure will be put on those housing associations. The noble Lord, Lord Porter, my successor—I was the first chairman of the LGA and the noble Lord is the current chairman; quite for how long remains to be seen but I suspect it may not end as quickly as I would like—was critical of aspects of what some of us have been suggesting but nevertheless made the very strong point that local authorities should not be expected to pay for this. I entirely endorse what he said in that respect Other issues have been raised. I do not propose to take much more time in winding up, but I would just like to refer to the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, who is no longer in her place. She congratulated the Government on the basis that the Bill would get the country building. There is absolutely no evidence for that. There is no requirement even for replacement building, for example. There is nothing, certainly in what we are discussing today, which will encourage building, let alone building in areas where it is most needed, including the rural areas about which we have heard a great deal. The case for this arrangement has been far from adequately made in terms of the future impact on the housing needs of people who cannot afford to buy, who are having to pay extortionate private rents. Given that concern has been raised—I think by the noble Baroness, Lady Redfern, herself—about the unfortunate position of people who cannot afford properties, the reality is that there will be more of those people in rented accommodation than will be helped by this move I still take the view that while this is currently a voluntary deal, if ultimately the Government are not satisfied with the numbers—and of course we do not know whether they have a target number because there is nothing in the impact assessment to say what that might be—they will have recourse to legislation. I would be very surprised if that was not the case. The noble Lord, Lord Young, possibly slightly misunderstood me. My fear is that a second Conservative Government —or third Conservative Government, in effect; their former allies have dissociated themselves these days—would be driven to pushing further and requiring the same provision for housing association properties as they imposed 30 years ago on local authorities, with, in many cases, very adverse results. Having said all that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.