Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, I should start by declaring an interest. I am a member of the group board of the Hyde Group, which is a housing association and a registered social landlord. I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Sawyer, who thought that he was the last Back-Bencher to speak in the debate. Although my name appears after the gap, which indicates that I am making a winding-up speech, I should rightly be listed in the main body of speakers, as I am speaking not from the Front Bench but in my personal capacity. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Patten, who is now in his place, made some specific points—some might even say that it was a full frontal assault—about Somerset council. I shall not respond to that but he may wish to look at Hansard tomorrow to see the response of my noble friend Lady Miller to those specific points. This is a significant Bill in several respects. It follows the logic that the supply of what is known as affordable housing cannot simply be allowed to grow organically and that a step change in its availability is now pressing. It recognises that the Government cannot any longer just exhort housebuilders and landlords to do more but that a framework must be provided for them to meet the demographic and social challenges to provide housing that is so desperately needed. Many noble Lords touched on that. In the creation of Oftenant—I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, that the word does not slide off one’s tongue—the Government recognise that home ownership should not be the only model available and that those who do not, or cannot, avail themselves of that option should nevertheless live within frameworks that allow them to make informed choices about how they live and to determine the quality of their accommodation. The operative words in the Government’s briefing on the Bill relate to their desire to give tenants more choice and voice. While both are to be welcomed, it appears that this ambitious objective is in many ways contradicted by aspects of the Bill. On the one hand their measures indeed improve the choices available to tenants, not least through having a regulator to enforce their rights, but on the other hand the powers entrusted to the Homes and Communities Agency and to Oftenant in Parts 1 and 2 will serve both to tie the hands of providers such as housing associations and to limit the existing powers of local authorities to be involved in decisions taken on their patch at local level. Let me turn first to the challenges that will affect housing associations. Those bodies provide more than 2 million homes for over 5 million people. Over the next three years alone, they expect to deliver some 155,000 new homes, with an investment of £12 billion from private borrowing and their own resources to supplement £8.4 billion provided by the Government. Housing associations invest some £0.5 billion a year in non-housing-related community services and activities. Their role is not simply as providers of social housing but as partners in ensuring the viability of local communities. I say that to illustrate how central they are to meeting the need for social housing and how central they are as players in meeting the needs of tenants, which go beyond housing into other areas of training and caring. That is often unrecognised more widely. The Bill says much about promoting the interests of tenants and improving board accountability, but it seems to imply that it is the regulator rather than the board that has a duty of accountability to tenants and that knows best what tenants might wish for. As drafted, boards would have to comply with the regulator’s requirements of them or face regulatory intervention rather than fit in with local needs of local provision of services. A broader area of concern is the lack of proportionality that runs through the Bill in terms of the powers of the regulator. I recognise that due regard to proportionality is provided as the final objective in the fundamental objectives of the social housing regulator. However, it is just one of 10 objectives. Hence, we find the regulator setting rules to do with broad areas that may well impinge on and direct the social purpose functions of RSLs; in other words, it is setting rules to do with the delivery of non-housing activities such as neighbourhood services. Those aspects fail to recognise that independent, not-for-profit businesses are already driven by a social purpose. They are required to reinvest their surpluses to the benefit of the community. The National Housing Federation argues in its briefing on the Bill that it is in a better position to design local solutions to local problems in partnership with tenants. Its claim to be more connected to the local appears to be stronger than the claim exercised by a distant regulator. I understand what the Minister said about the regulator not being distant, but nevertheless there is a view, which will need to be dispelled in Committee, that the regulator will be speaking from on high rather than connecting immediately on the ground with local communities. Likewise—I am not very well versed in planning rules—I was struck by the degree of intervention that the HCA can take on planning functions in a designated area. It does not appear that the subject local authority will decide for itself that the scale of the task to do with development or regeneration is such that it needs the support of the HCA. It will be the Secretary of State who will designate such an area, so the HCA will, in the words of the Local Government Association, ““usurp the powers”” of local government. Moreover, the Secretary of State will be able to amend the definitions of the planning-related provisions or relevant functions under Clause 14, which is hardly indicative of a hands-off approach. A final concern is the lack of a level playing field between RSLs and commercial developers. This issue comes up again and again in housing and property development. I recently read that there will be a considerable subsidy in the direction of private developers through a two-year delay in their requirement to meet environmental standards. In the Bill, housing associations will have a more stringent regulatory framework for building and managing low-cost homes than private homebuilders will. This will inevitably put housing associations at a cost disadvantage in competitive bidding. Several small measures are welcome. They may be small, but they are certainly not insignificant in this first attempt in 30 years to reform social housing. The support provided through family intervention tenancies is welcome, but there are further safeguards that I shall be seeking to ensure, whereby complete information is available to those families in advance of relinquishing their security of tenure. Likewise, the provisions that relate to Travellers and Gypsies, including securing their human rights, are welcome and long overdue, as the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, pointed out. There are several other measures to be scrutinised. Overall, this is a timely Bill that has much potential. I look forward to contributing to its passage.