Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved Amendment No. 97Q: 97Q: Clause 70, page 34, line 16, leave out paragraph (b) The noble Lord said: Amendments Nos. 97R to 97T, all of which are in my name, are grouped with this amendment. These are fairly modest amendments probing some aspects of the part of the Bill to which we are now moving and which is headed ““Social housing””. I have exercised some self-restraint as I had thought of tabling quite a few more amendments to this part of the Bill about social housing, because there are some very important issues here that would bear discussion. The main reason I did not do so is that I was not sure that I would be able to be here this week. One of the reasons I have exercised self-restraint for the coming part of the Bill is that I shall not be here on Monday, for which I apologise. I imagine that apology will be accepted with alacrity by people wanting to get on. The purpose of these amendments is to test two things. The first, which we discussed briefly yesterday, is the meaning of ““low cost”” and ““affordability””. As part of a different discussion yesterday I made the point that in some places there is a requirement for social housing that may be let at a price that is not significantly lower than the market price for rented accommodation in that area because of conditions. Amendments Nos. 97Q and 97R are the other side of the same coin. They test how far below market rents affordable housing or low-cost rental accommodation has to be in areas where market rents are high. The amendment inserts the words, "““to such an extent that it is affordable for those on low incomes””." In other words, providing accommodation at a rent lower than the prevailing rent does not mean that it is low cost or affordable if the prevailing rents are high; it has to be sufficiently below the prevailing rent levels for people to be able to afford it. Circumstances are different in different parts of the country and in different areas. It would be unfortunate to have definitions that do not take account of that. When people look at needs in different areas, they would probably agree that that is the need. The wording of legislation should reflect that even though the need is different in different areas. Amendments No. 97S and 97T—I do not understand how people cope with all these numbers and letters, especially when the order in which Z comes in the alphabet is different in different amendments; some people understand these things but the rest of us just try to cope—make the same point, that while preference in social housing should be given to people in need of housing, it is also necessary to look at the nature of the communities that are being created, affected or changed. One of these amendments relates to accommodation for rent and the other to owner-occupied accommodation, but in both the key is the need to promote mixed and sustainable communities. To some degree this goes back to the report produced rather more than a year ago by Professor John Hills on the role of social housing, in which he identified a number of problems specifically about council housing but which also relate to social housing in general. One of the main problems he identified was the unsustainability of communities increasingly dominated by the poorest and most vulnerable. There is tension between providing accommodation for people in the greatest need and creating communities that are sufficiently mixed and sustainable. There are all sorts of different ways of dealing with this, but this is not the time to go into them. However, the purpose of the amendment is to make the point that, if we are not careful, social housing becomes ghetto housing of one sort or another, and it is very important that we avoid that. Let us consider what has happened to council housing in many areas over the years. Some council estates used to be entirely or mainly owned by the council. In many areas, particularly when the estates had existed for 25 years or more, there was a balanced and sustainable mix of ages, occupations, incomes and lifestyles, and the estates had become mature communities. The twin pressures of allocation policies that restricted new allocations to people in the greatest need for the very best of reasons, which we all supported, and of the right to buy, in which substantial parts of the estate were sold off and went into the private ownership sector—in many cases, these are now being sold on to private landlords, unfortunately—have resulted in those council estates being less mixed, less sustainable and less mature communities than they used to be. These are important issues. I do not want to detain your Lordships for very long, but these issues must underlie discussions about social housing in general, where we are going with it and what sort of communities we are creating. I beg to move.