Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, housing has long been regarded as too important to be left to the market mechanism to determine its distribution. This Bill fits into the long and noble tradition of supporting the access into decent housing of low-income families. I declare my interest as the leader of Wigan Council. In doing so, I declare a partiality, because we were in the first swathe of ALMOs. Perhaps my noble friend will take the criticism that the Government have been reticent about giving news of the success of their policy of arm’s-length management of local authority housing. There are now 68 ALMOs, with almost 1 million properties, investing to deliver the Government’s decent homes standards. In doing so, they have transformed some of the most difficult and challenging communities in our land. The Government have a model of tenant involvement in the operation of ALMOs, which can stand comparison with what happens anywhere else and could be a good model for other housing providers to follow. In Wigan, we recently asked our tenants about the rent increase that they would wish to have. We gave them a number of scenarios and, perhaps surprisingly to some cynics, they did not choose the lowest increase; they chose one that would give improved services. With an 83.5 per cent level of satisfaction in the Wigan ALMO, the tenants think that it is a good organisation. I shall comment on three aspects of the Bill and on one omission. The creation of the Homes and Communities Agency is important, for the reasons that so many noble Lords have already given. It starts with a high level of stakeholder approval. By bringing together housing and regeneration, it should help to build sustainable communities and to bring forward difficult sites. When my noble friend Lady Ford mentioned the sites that she would bring forward, she did not mention an important one in my ward: the old Bickershaw colliery site, where a former mining community is beginning to be transformed. The HCA has the ambitious target of building affordable homes and homes for social need and it will clearly have to work closely with local authorities. As other noble Lords have mentioned, local authorities will feel confidence in the new chief executive, Bob Kerslake. I am sure that he will build up that record of making sure that there is a strong partnership with local authorities, which will work very well. I also think that the HCA will work closely at the regional level in developing strategies for the regions and, therefore, local authorities, which also can be well established. I have already met the potential HCA lead in the north-west, who gave me great confidence in his view and his strategy for housing. The second important part of the Bill is the establishment of the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords, the new regulatory authority. I wish to make two comments in addition to saying that it is a welcome development. First, one of the duties is to provide information to tenants about performance. That needs to be tackled carefully and we should look at whether we need to extend the Bill. We need to make sure that the information for tenants is as simple and as informative as possible. There are many good examples where ALMOs give such information to tenants. In addition, if tenants are meant to compare different landlords, they need to have proper information that compares them in a straightforward manner. There should be comparisons with the local housing market. We do not want national statistics about housing; we want to know how it compares in a local area. A number of noble Lords have mentioned the omission of the local authorities and ALMOs within the remit of the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords. I was pleased to hear my noble friend’s commitment to include local authorities within the scope of the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords but disappointed that she implied that it might be up to two years before this is achieved. There are two problems with that. The first is the danger that the ethos of the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords, which is to be established as a regulator of housing associations, will develop only in relation to such organisations, so that adding the local authority sector later on will be more difficult. But what will be most worrying for local authorities and ALMOs that want to be regulated by the Office for Tenants and Social Landlords is that the future legislation that that might imply may be difficult to achieve. I hope that, as a number of noble Lords have suggested, my noble friend will consider whether an enabling clause could be introduced to enable the new regulator to extend its remit to local authorities at an appropriate time after the review. I was pleased to hear my noble friend mention in her introduction the changes proposed for the housing revenue account on the restrictions placed on housing funding within local authorities. The Local Government and Housing Act 1989 needs fairly substantial review and this minor change is important. It means that local authorities will be encouraged to do what they have not been doing for some time, which is to build new properties for rent. That is important if we want to achieve the targets that we have set. The additional flexibility will mean that local authorities must begin to do the job. Authorities will have to think about their approach by recognising that new vehicles will be required and they will have to be creative in their thinking on making arrangements for such properties to be built. They will also be able to access money from the private sector, but that means that they have to accept that there is some risk involved, as well as the rewards in terms of what might be achieved. Finally, I turn to the omission mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and my noble friend Lady Dean. This Bill will assist many vulnerable tenants living in low-cost rented accommodation but not all of them. It will miss those renting in the private sector. That sector can make a profit in low-rent accommodation by keeping management costs down and ensuring a high usage of the buildings. In the ward that I represent on Wigan Council, we have a large amount of terraced property that is a mix of owner occupation and private rental. I receive two kinds of complaint from local residents about the private rented accommodation. The first concerns the state of the properties. The properties are kept in only a minimum state of repair and therefore detract from the visual amenity of a terrace, reducing the value of the owner-occupied properties alongside. That is a cause for concern. Moreover, the poor state of repair of these properties, particularly if the guttering is faulty, can cause physical damage to adjacent properties. However, the overwhelming number of complaints concern anti-social behaviour among the tenants in the form of late-night partying, petty crime and drug dealing. All sorts of issues emerge. Frankly, we need to accept that, provided that the rent is paid, private landlords have little incentive to concern themselves about the behaviour of their tenants in the neighbourhood. We have tried a number of methods to improve the situation. We have set up partnership forums, but inevitably only the better landlords turn up at these events while the ones whom we really want to see—the ones who change their names by the month and their addresses by the season and who cause the most nuisance—do not turn up. I doubt whether my noble friend wants to extend this Bill to regulate the private sector, although I think that we ought to address it, but I ask her to consider a minor amendment for the benefit of the tenants of private landlords. We find that when private sector tenants manage to summon up what is undoubtedly the courage to report landlords to the council over the physical state of properties, in many cases their reward is to be served with a notice to quit. That is because the council serves an order for improvements to be made and the landlord knows who has made the complaint. It is perfectly legal, but we should try to stop it. Where there is a local authority order on a property to improve, the landlord should not have the right to get rid of the tenant. I hope that my noble friend will consider this small change to the legislation. This is an important and timely Bill and I am sure that with detailed examination we will improve it. Under the expertise and guidance of my noble friend, I am sure that we will be able to pass a Bill that we can be proud of.