Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, I begin with an apology for having missed the Minister’s speech and that of the Opposition Front Bench. Like many speakers in the debate, I have waited a long time for a Bill as comprehensive as this. I understand the desire of the Minister and her colleagues to ensure that the Bill contains as many answers to the needs in housing as possible. I believe that this is the most important housing Bill since 1997 and perhaps even before then. It is well worth waiting for. I have listened to most of the debate and I have been very impressed. We shall undoubtedly have good Committee and Report stages. We have heard from many people who have experience in this area. In preparation for the debate, I looked up the Second Reading debate in the other place. Mr Grant Shapps began by moving what euphemistically is called a reasoned amendment. I have never read a more unreasonable reasoned amendment in 35 years at Westminster. It is bleak, destructive, petty and unconnected with the needs of the country. I believe that the Opposition should recognise the opportunity presented by this Bill and build on it. I say to the Opposition, ““Oh ye of little faith, lift up your hearts””, because when we debate the Bill there will be opportunities to improve it. I do not look on housing as one of those political issues that ought to divide the political parties. I have experience as a constituency Member of Parliament and, more than once, after having listened to my constituents in surgery, I went to my car and sat and cried. The conditions, forlornness and misery which had come across the table made me realise, if I did not already know, that housing and its quality, accessibility and nature, are the bedrock of a happy family. I therefore congratulate the Government on what they are doing in the Bill. Like every Queen’s Speech, however, the value of the Bill is not necessarily what is in it, but what is not. I shall touch on two aspects on which I hope that the Minister will give me encouragement in believing that change is possible. First, earlier tonight, I attended a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Park Home Owners. The Minister knows of my interest in and long service to that group. The House will be aware that, as an alternative means of tenure and lifestyle, park homes are a vital segment of housing provision. There are 1,600 park homes in the country and over 200,000 people live on them. They are therefore entitled to have their needs given consideration by the Government. The contribution of this Minister, who had direct responsibility for park homes, is deeply appreciated; a great deal of progress was made under her stewardship. Her departmental colleague Mr Iain Wright now carries the primary responsibility for park homes and has certainly impressed me with both his grasp of the issues and his determination to put them right. The Minister will be aware that, while the majority of park homes are well managed, and the relationship between the owner and those who live on them is good, there are villains who own park homes. They terrorise the elderly, the frail and the disabled. They get away with murder because, despite the many opportunities which the Minister and her colleagues take to improve the situation, those owners ignore the law. They know that it is there, but ride roughshod over it. We need a cheaper method of resolving disputes, which I believe will be coming shortly. Currently, the general answer is, ““Well, if you are not satisfied, take the site owner to court””. That is a petrifying experience for those who might be elderly, frail and on their own, so the Government need a reminder that access to a cheap method of settling disputes of this kind by arbitration is sorely needed. There are loopholes in the law, and I am sorry that we have been unable to introduce remedies in this Bill. The Minister quite fairly told me and others last year that it was not possible because there were so many other priorities. However, she gave us an indication that there might well be legislative opportunities in the not-too-distant future, so I would be glad to hear an assurance from the Minister—nothing specific—that, as and when opportunities occur, advantage will be taken of them. I will spend a minute or two on the issue raised by my noble friend Lady Jones, who is not in her place. I was delighted that she touched on the issue of community land trusts. As they often say in the papers, this is an idea whose time has come. When the Bill was in another place, there was an attempt to make some progress. My noble friend Lady Jones touched on the nub of the issue: the need to legally clarify precisely what is meant by ““a community land trust””. As the House knows, I am strongly attached to the co-operative movement, and co-operatives are very keen on exploring and exploiting this issue. Although the House will be in favour of all the good things in the Bill, there is a niggle. We want more affordable housing provision, not only for individuals, landowners, councils and investors but for whole communities by helping to create a comparatively new vehicle for doing so. As I understand the situation, community land trusts are a means of engaging communities in their sustainable development, in particular by increasing the provision of permanently affordable rented and intermediate market housing. We are indebted to a group attached to the University of Salford that is currently carrying out a review, supported by the Housing Corporation, of the national CLT characteristics. The purpose of a CLT is to hold land and other assets for the benefit of its defined local community. The CLT balances the needs and interests of the individual with the interests of the community as a whole by separating the value of the land from the value of the property on it. The CLT holds the land in perpetuity and leases it to the owners of the buildings on it, who may be individual home owners, mutuals, co-operatives or occupants of affordable rented housing. It is this community ownership and stewardship of the land assets that regulates the occupancy, limits the resale value of the homes built upon it and ensures that the housing built on it remains affordable to the community in perpetuity. What is wrong with that? As the Minister knows, one of the things that has irked me for many years is the manner in which council housing was sold under the regime that brought it in in 1979. Nothing has irked me more than hearing colleagues on the other side of the Chamber bemoaning the fact that there is no affordable housing in their areas, particularly in rural areas. The reason why is that it has been sold under legislation and not replaced. The CLT attempts to keep the key to this, the land, in the ownership of the community. The community controls it. The Minister and her colleagues will do well if they accept an amendment I intend to table in order to help the Government and those who wish to use this weapon. I understand the reason why a suggestion was rejected in the other place was that it appeared to prescribe the powers and activity of the major agency. We can get round that. I will table an amendment with a form of words that will ask the Government to agree to a precise legal definition. It will not put the onus on the Government to do much more than that. I believe that it will be well received. Community land trusts go back at least to the garden city movement. CLT arrangements in the USA and Australia have empowered communities to contribute to increasing the supply of housing to rent that will remain permanently affordable from one generation to the next. In the housing Green Paper of 2007, the Government stated their support for CLTs. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have also done so, so I ought to be knocking at an open door. I am not putting cost or time on the Government; I am giving them a further weapon in their armoury. Over the years when I was the leader of a council and chairman of a housing committee, by and large, housing was either privately owned or council owned—other ways were very limited. Now we have a range of ownerships and opportunities. In the Bill, a number of mechanisms will empower tenants to take a better interest and activity in their home. There can be no great prize for an individual who cannot afford to or does not want to buy but wants a stake in what is happening to his community and his home. The community land trust mechanism should be considered. I conclude by congratulating the Minister on her courage, because it is not easy. As we have heard, and as my postbag has demonstrated, there are a lot of people who, for their own vested interest, object to what the Government are trying to do. I am not averse to examining some of those—nor, I believe, will be the Minister. At the end of the day, I hope that we can take housing out of the political maelstrom that it has been in for the past 20 or 30 years. This is a good opportunity and I congratulate the Minister and her colleagues on providing a Bill that I believe will be in the best interest not only of the country but of our communities.