Housing and Regeneration Bill

My Lords, I am slightly confused as to whether that was a Back-Bench contribution or a winding up speech, but it is now my turn. At the outset, I declare that for the past 10 years I have been a district councillor in Breckland in Norfolk and I am a private landlord. We have had a good debate with many informed and interesting contributions from all sides of the House. The aspirations of the Bill are admirable and generally accepted by all. The devil is in the detail. When I realised that I would be involved in the Bill, I asked myself, ““Why do we need it and what, after 11 years in power, are the Government trying to achieve?””. We are told that one of the Government’s main priorities is the provision of available and affordable housing. The conclusion must be that that objective, so far, has failed and there is a huge shortage in housing in urban and rural areas. The Government want us to believe that because they talk about more and better housing and regeneration, they will deliver it. They have not done that so far. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, found the remarks of my honourable friend Grant Shapps to be bleak and destructive. I would say that things are bleak and grim. The Government have set themselves a challenging target of building 3 million new homes by 2020 and 250,000 new homes each year. Sadly, during their 11 years, they have built only a pitiful 145,000 houses per annum. Even the Conservatives managed 173,000 per annum during their 18 years of power. This is yet another example of the Government failing to meet their own targets. If we delve a little deeper, the sad reality is depressing and bleak. In the past 11 years, councils have built on average just 4,000 council houses per annum. Last year the figure fell to 400. My noble friend Lord Dixon-Smith’s figures were lower. Perhaps I have been too generous. Housing associations, the Government’s preferred alternative for the provision of social housing, have managed on average only 22,000 new homes during the period. But demand for social housing by far exceeds this pitiful supply. The 2007 statistics reveal that there were 1.7 million applications filed on the waiting lists for social housing. The charity Shelter believes that nearly 4 million people in the UK are either homeless or live in temporary accommodation. Is it any wonder that these people are left with a feeling of total neglect? Some 130,000 children are homeless—double the figure of 10 years ago—most as a direct result of the lack of social housing. It is likely that housing shortages will be further aggravated to the point of crisis by the present credit crunch. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester mentioned repossessions. There were some 27,000 last year and it is estimated that there will be some 45,000 this year—and goodness knows how many next year. Presumably those whose homes are repossessed will all need rehousing in social accommodation. However, the bad news does not stop there. First-time buyers, who in the past have risked borrowing huge multiples of their earnings to get on to the property ladder, now cannot borrow and so will have to rely on the almost non-existent social housing sector. Therefore, the figure of 1.7 million on the waiting list for 2007 could be considerably higher for 2008-09—perhaps 2 million would be nearer the mark. In addition, this acute shortage of housing is not helped by the announcement last week by Persimmon. I shall not go into any details but this company probably will not be the last to take this view. My noble friend Lord Patten talked about the ““Persimmon pause”” and estimated that during 2008-09 only just over 100,000 new homes would be built. During that time, he argued, we should concentrate on how to achieve better designed homes, perhaps with the use of design review panels. I hope that the Minister will reply to his interesting ideas. Surely it is time to stop developers picking the same poorly designed houses from their catalogues and building the same houses in East Anglia, the West Country and the north of England with no regard to local design and materials. It is high time that we, the developers and planners listened to these arguments. Therefore, from this Front Bench I agree 100 per cent with the views of our Back-Bench contributors. It did not surprise me that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, followed this theme, as he initiated a debate on design only a few weeks ago. This chronic shortage in social housing is not unique to urban areas. The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, argued that rural housing must not be forgotten. Indeed, back in 2003 the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, issuing a report entitled Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future, acknowledged that the, "““availability of housing, especially social and other affordable housing, is a critical issue in many rural areas ... Rural housing is often in high demand from in-comers—long distance commuters, people moving in to retire, and owners of second homes and holiday homes. This can squeeze out local people on lower incomes””." That neatly sums up the problem that we find in Norfolk. Ten years ago, my district’s population was 100,000; it is now nearer 150,000. However, in spite of meeting the building targets, the waiting list for housing continues to grow, and I am sure that we are not alone. The new build that has taken place has not been going to those most in need—that is, local people needing affordable housing. Noble Lords will recall my noble friend’s remarks. He said that only 5 per cent of housing in villages is social housing, while the national average is 23 per cent. That means that people find it difficult or impossible to remain in the communities where they grew up. I know that this will not happen but, given the Government’s current record on housebuilding, if every new house built for the next 10 years was only social housing, the backlog of demand would still not be satisfied. It is against this depressing, grim and bleak backdrop that the Bill comes before the House. The Homes and Communities Agency’s role has been described by government as a one-stop delivery partner for local authorities which will provide essential support and help to local councils to deliver on housebuilding targets. The creation of the HCA is generally welcomed on the grounds that it makes sense to replace the current multiple overlapping agencies with a single delivery partner for local government. There are, however, serious concerns about the relationship between the HCA and local authorities, as many speakers have said, and fears that, like other regional bodies, the new agency risks taking power away from elected local authorities and giving it to an unaccountable body. Some have said that the Bill creates a top-down, centrally driven approach to development and regeneration, while local people in their communities are having their powers stripped away. The Local Government Association is concerned that the HCA should not impose its own vision on local authorities but should work in partnership with them to deliver their pre-existing vision for their communities. I ask the Minister, when summing up, to explain how the Government envisage the HCA working with local authorities and under what circumstances she envisages the HCA exercising its draconian powers, given that it will be able to do anything it considers appropriate for the purposes of its objects. The Bill allows much more power to be transferred to the HCA than was granted to English Partnerships and I have no doubt that there will be much debate on that as the Bill proceeds through the House. The Bill also includes provision to improve the availability of environmentally friendly housing by changing powers on establishing new settlements to allow low carbon, eco-towns to be built more quickly. Although it is not a wholly new power for the Secretary of State to designate the HCA as a local planning authority, there are fears that it will be used much more in the future as the Government seek to facilitate the rapid development of eco-towns. There are concerns that councils, as the democratically elected local planning authorities, should not lose their powers to take the lead on the creation and location of eco-towns. Can the Minister say which organisations will be represented on the board of the HCA to ensure adequate input in decision-making? Here I have in mind the Local Government Association and housing associations. Perhaps she can enlighten us. The same question applies to the board of Oftenant. I now turn to Oftenant, with its brief to protect and to promote the interests of tenants and board accountability. Interestingly, the National Housing Federation does not believe that Oftenant will protect and promote the interests of tenants, as it will operate on the basis that it, Oftenant, not the tenants, knows best. Housing associations will be required to comply with Oftenant’s rules, even if that goes against the wishes of the tenants. Surely, the whole point of Oftenant is to reinforce the wishes and interests of its tenants. The noble Lord, Lord Filkin, made some good points on monopolies of social housing landlords, the lack of choice for tenants, their ability to change landlord and the need for tenant choice and empowerment. No doubt we shall debate that. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Smith, that tenants should have better protection against retaliatory evictions. I am sure we shall consider that. The Cave report recommended that a new independent regulator should protect all social housing tenants, including council and ALMO tenants. The Local Government Association supports this recommendation, as do the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Whitty, and a number of others. It also believes that Oftenant should protect all tenants now rather than needing further legislation in two or three years’ time, or at any rate, that it should find some mechanism to include them at this stage. Can the Minister say why the Bill excludes council and ALMO tenants, thereby neglecting to give them the same protection that their housing association neighbours will receive? That is not only unfair but morally questionable. On the timetable of the implementation of sustainability certificates, which is not set out in the Bill, does the Minister agree that it is important to give the industry clarity? Has a timetable for implementation been agreed? Given the botched fiasco of the implementation of the home information packs, what assurances can the Minister give that there will be no repeat of that when the Government come to implement sustainability certificates for new homes? While on HIPs, we were promised a report on their assessment and effectiveness before phase 2 was implemented. This has never been produced and, in typical fashion, the Government rolled out phase 2 anyway. Can the Minister say when we can expect that report? The Government talk a good talk on meeting the aspirations of first-time buyers, but have done more than any other Government to build roadblocks to home ownership, including restricting the right to buy, ramping up stamp duty, driving up council tax and, now, introducing new costs with HIPs. When are the Government going to bring down these barriers? Do they realise that the more one encourages home ownership, the more pressure one releases from the ever increasing waiting lists for social housing? The situation is not helped by the Government now taking 75 per cent of money raised from each right-to-buy sale from local authorities. This has dramatically reduced the capital receipts that councils can use to build more homes. Given the Government’s penchant for pinching Conservative policies, let me give them one for free: increase the stamp duty threshold for first-time buyers to £250,000 so that nine out of 10 first-time buyers will pay nothing. Astonishingly, there were nearly 400 government amendments to the Bill when it was going through the other place, with no time to examine and debate the details properly. If I were charitable, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I might say that the Government had listened to the arguments. If I were not, I would say that it was because the Bill was badly drafted and thought out. The answer probably lies somewhere in between. I am sure that the House will want to debate all the issues fully when the Bill comes to Committee.