Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, I first declare an interest: I am a non-executive director of the Taylor Wimpey plc house-building board. I am also a trustee of East Foundation, a charity aligned with the East Thames housing association. Like other noble Lords, I, too, welcome the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Best, was absolutely right when he read out the list. I am not doing that, and thank him for doing it for me and saving me a bit of time. We have probably all received briefings from those organisations. It must be encouraging to my friend the Minister that none of those organisations disagrees on the fundamental acceptance of the Bill; they all feel that it is a major step forward. It is a Bill of some substance for the housing sector and the homes of the people of this country today. It brings together the Housing Corporation’s investment and regulatory role, English Partnerships’s investment role and some of the departments’ housing delivery roles under the aegis of the Homes and Communities Agency and—a dreadful word—Oftenant. I hope that they do not swap it around and call it ““Tenantof””, because that would certainly be awful. This is a four-part Bill, but I will concentrate my remarks on two. Before I do, it is important at this stage to pause for a moment and recognise the major and constructive contribution that the Housing Corporation has made to the nation’s housing over 30-odd years: as the noble Lord, Lord Best, mentioned, regulation of in excess of £50 billion of investment with next to no corruption at all. There has been no housing failure among any of the housing associations because that has been dealt with by the regulatory arm of the Housing Corporation. That kind of strength must be taken into the new organisation. English Partnerships, particularly under the chairmanship of my noble friend Lady Ford, has been creative in a private sector way in bringing together packages of land, essentially to make them available for social housing. Under her predecessors, that had not been done to the degree that she and her colleagues have done. In making these changes, it is essential to take into the new Bill the strengths of the organisations that have been working in this field, but also to ensure that those changes are workable for the future. Therein lie some of the differences that we may have in this Chamber. I thank the Minister for being so available in a listening mode despite the fact that the Bill had substantial amendments as it went through the other place—in excess of 400. The Bill we get is much better, and in a fitter state, than it was when it arrived in the other place. I thank the Minister for listening, which has been extremely helpful in answering some of my questions in coming to this debate. There is no doubt that the Homes and Communities Agency is at the heart of the Bill. We must be careful not to be distracted into spending an inordinate amount of time on the regulatory side—Oftenant—although it is an important issue and we must address it. The nature of this new agency will be critical to the type and quality of housing we can deliver to people in Britain who desperately need it. Clause 2 sets out the agency’s objectives, but I hope we can discuss that during the passage of the Bill through this House. It is key to our wider agenda in working with local authorities, for instance, and regional development agencies. The new agency will be a partner authority whereas, in the past, its predecessors have been present when invited; they have not necessarily been there by right. I can tell your Lordships, from my own experience, that that has sometimes meant that the worst areas in the country at providing houses have been the very areas which have made sure that the Housing Corporation has never been at the table for debate. So I welcome that, and the increase in local targets, very much indeed. I know that there is some concern about the potential loss of control for local authorities. I do not see it like that at all; I see it developing as a partnership between the local authorities and the new agency. They must work in partnership together with a new, equal, agenda for discussion. An essential part of the Bill is that the new agency will have enormous influence and powers. It is therefore essential that an agency which will affect the lives of so many of our citizens cannot be a remote national agency. It may be a national agency, but it must have a local presence, input and a listening ear. In that way, it will influence the decisions taken. One of the key areas that has not yet been mentioned in this debate is rural housing. In future, the Secretary of State will not have the authority to direct in this area. The Minister directed the Housing Corporation to move the target for rural housing, from 850 a year, four times. The corporation had to report to the Secretary of State on whether it had delivered that target. It is essential that, somewhere within the new system, there is something ensuring that rural housing is not forgotten. It would be so easy to forget it. In reporting, we also found that some of the worst areas for providing rural houses were the counties with the biggest rural areas. Again, it is essential not only to have targets but to monitor them. Design is another area, but I know that other noble Lords will be covering that. Part 2 of the Bill, on Oftenant—the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords—is key. Much of it comes from Professor Cave’s review, Every Tenant Matters: A Review of Social Housing Regulation. I welcome the Minister’s statement today that tenants will be at the heart of the system; a simple statement, but critical. I am afraid that my experience has not been exactly that expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, from the Dispatch Box. I hope that he has not been beguiled by the very professional lobbying of the National Housing Federation. Again, from my experience, many housing associations put tenants at the front of all that they did—but some did not and never would. They would have it there in name, and some would think that tenant involvement was one tenant on the board; ““Tick that box, we have done it””. That is not tenant influence, involvement and power. I am looking forward to this new agency bringing that about. One of the strengths of this sector has been its independence, which has brought with it a lot of creativity and innovation, as the noble Lord, Lord Best said, in areas that the Government of the day would not have thought about. That is because they are risky—and Governments do not do risky things, do they?—but also because there were a lot of new ideas that needed to be tried and tested. We must therefore ensure that, when the Bill leaves this House, that independence is not compromised in any way—certainly as regards the private-sector classification of housing associations. The Minister has given me her assurance and repeated it today, but it cannot be repeated often enough while the Bill is in this Chamber. That area gives me some concern. Regulation is an area we need to look at with forensic application. The forced amalgamation of housing associations worries the sector, and it worries me too. I have some sympathy with the sector’s view, and I equally do not accept that bigger is always better. In fact, some of the smaller housing associations are the ones that delivered much of what is needed in many of our communities. We do not want to go so wide as to challenge that independence. We do not want the regulator forcing amalgamations without real means. I accept the assurances that we have been given, but nevertheless I would like to debate it more. Objective 10 of Clause 88 requires regulation to be proportionate and reasonable, which are critical factors. At the moment, proportionality of regulation does not exist for the Housing Corporation. It is almost either do nothing or force them to amalgamate with nothing in between, so I welcome that provision. Clause 215 requires the regulator to have regard to the seriousness of the failure. That is important and will be on the side of the housing association under scrutiny. The other area of concern I have is the potential to regulate and require housing associations to carry out non-housing activities. That would be a recipe for disaster because those that do it are very good at it, and those that do not usually do not do it because they have no idea where to start. Requiring the regulator to say that they are all going to do this or that would be a big mistake. Too much direction would be wrong. I know that the Minister may argue that it is not there because, in her words, they want to make sure that it is connected with social housing, but that is a long word for interpretation. I would welcome some clarity on that in the debate. Domain regulation is another area that I have concerns about. I think that noble Lords are also concerned, as is another place down the corridor. The Cave review recommended that ALMOs, local authorities and everyone should be covered by the same kind of regulation. I know a report on this is coming out in May, but I would like some assurance that we are going to stick with that because the Government accept the principles of what is being said. It is how we get there and the timetable, which would be quite interesting to debate. I feel very strongly about private landlords. Anyone who has worked in this sector and has seen, as some of us have, for instance, housing in the north-east bought for £18,000 a house, and with the building problem we have at the moment, some of those prices will be going down. Buy a house, advertise it in the local media and people on benefit need only apply. The state is paying the benefit to pay the rent to the private landlord who is not covered by regulation. That cannot be right. It is certainly something that needs to be addressed as the Bill goes through this House. I am aware that a review is taking place, by Julie Rugg and David Rhodes, and that it is due to be published in October. However, we cannot leave this there. We need to see some real progress. Other areas that concern me include governance. If we track any failure in a housing association, it tracks back to bad governance. We need to have assurances on that. I very much welcome the reference in the Bill to the Armed Forces who have had a raw deal on housing from the public sector in this country. Housing has been on the agenda quite a lot in recent years, particularly under this Government but, a bit like buses, we have not a major housing Bill like this for some time. Now we have it, good as it is now, it is our job to make sure that it leaves this House better than when we received it. I look forward to taking part in the discussions.