Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-04-13
Topic: Housing
Robert Rogers (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, Clause 67(1) gives power to the Secretary of State to make a determination requiring a local housing authority to make a payment to him in respect of vacant high-value housing—or, if later government amendments are agreed to, higher-value housing. The vehicle of a determination has been well described by the distinguished legislative draftsman Daniel Greenberg, who is also the editor of Craies on Legislation, as "quasi-legislation". It nevertheless has the force of law and as such it can, for example, modify, dilute or remove rights. Clauses 67 to 71 set out some undemanding parameters for the Secretary of State in making his determination, although the Government regard it as, "setting out clearly the scope of the determination-making power" But in essence, in the Bill as reported, the Secretary of State would have extensive freedom of action in an area which may be the subject of considerable contention Amendment 53, in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Kerslake and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, would require any determination made by the Secretary of State to be by regulations. Taken together with Amendment 132, any determination that affected more than one authority would be subject to the affirmative procedure. Amendment 132 would additionally apply the affirmative procedure to regulations that contained more than one determination. It would also make the definition of high-value—or higher-value—housing subject to parliamentary approval Parliamentary approval and authority is at the heart of this issue. This is not about the threshold between primary and secondary legislation—much in our minds in the Strathclyde context—although those issues will be very much to the fore in the very last group on the Marshalled List. Instead, this is about what Ministers may do without seeking the approval of Parliament. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a member, under the exemplary chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, reported on this proposed delegation in its 20th Report of this Session. The committee concluded that it was, "inappropriate to delegate to the Secretary of State a power to determine the amount of the payment to be made by local housing authorities without any form of Parliamentary scrutiny, particularly in view of the paucity of detail on the face of the Bill to guide how the power is to be exercised" The Minister responded to that report and to the following one dealing with the second half of the Bill on 23 March. Although I am speaking in an understandably critical vein, at this point I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for the care and courtesy with which she has handled proceedings on the Bill and for her readiness to engage with noble Lords in all parts of the House. However, I have to take issue with her on what she said in her reply to the Select Committee. She said: "The nature and amount of information that will be contained in the determination … means that it is appropriate to use a determination rather than a statutory instrument. The determination will contain the formula, the assumptions and the payments for … each of the 165 local housing authorities … including, amongst other things, the authority’s vacancy rate, the value of its high value housing, the number of high value properties and amounts in respect of transaction costs and attributable debt … In setting out such a large and complex set of data there is the potential for errors to creep in, which would only be noticed by the relevant local authority. We therefore want to ensure that there is flexibility to amend the determination very quickly to correct any such errors" There is a syllogism here which I hope the noble Baroness will acknowledge. She is in effect saying: first, there is a huge amount of information; secondly, all that information must be in the determination; thirdly, it is too much information to put into an SI, especially if correction might be needed; and fourthly, ergo, the determination cannot be in an SI. But that is not so, and I hope that I can help the noble Baroness out of this particular cul-de-sac. The sharp end, as it were—the formula, the assumptions, the payments for each authority—can be in an SI subject to the approval of Parliament. The extensive supporting working can of course be published at the same time, but it does not have to be in a form which is formally subject to the approval of Parliament in an SI The distinction in Amendment 132, applying the affirmative procedure to a determination which is of general application and the negative procedure to any which has specific application to an individual authority, would deal very neatly with the Minister’s concern about needing to correct mistakes which could be noticed only by the relevant local authority. A correction of that sort could be done very quickly by a negative SI without needing explicit parliamentary approval—which of course I agree would take time. On the other hand, a systemic error, or a major change in assumptions, would attract the affirmative procedure and Ministers would have to explain themselves to Parliament. That is as it should be and as I hope it will be. I beg to move.