Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved Amendment No. 10: 10: Clause 19, page 10, line 35, at end insert— ““(4A) The objects of the HCA are not to be read as preventing the HCA from exercising functions in relation to financial assistance (whether under this section or otherwise) which— (a) are transferred to the HCA from the Housing Corporation by virtue of this Act, or (b) would supersede functions of the Housing Corporation, in ways corresponding to those in which the Housing Corporation could have exercised its functions.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, these amendments, which are largely minor and technical, relate, in essence, to Schedule 5 to the Housing Act 1985. They will ensure that financial assistance to the HCA given under Clause 19 will not cause the right to buy to arise in respect of any property that it owns. Amendment No. 25 is extremely minor. Paragraph 10(3) of Schedule 9 repeals Section 10(2)(e) of the Housing Associations Act 1985. That section deals with exceptions to the requirement on unregistered housing associations to obtain the Housing Corporation’s consent—or the consent of equivalent authorities in Scotland and Wales—to dispose of grant-aided land. The amendments make it clear that in certain limited circumstances, the Homes and Communities Agency will not be prevented from exercising certain functions in relation to financial assistance that have either been inherited from the Housing Corporation or that would be superseding Housing Corporation functions. Amendments Nos. 10 and 12 will ensure that the HCA deals with a limited but important set of circumstances relating to Welsh tenants of English registered social landlords. Certain elements of housing legislation follow the location of the registered landlord rather than the property and, with the objects of the HCA related firmly to England, there are a few places where this can cause cross-boundary difficulties. As an example, Section 450A of the Housing Act 1985 provides that where a tenant of a registered social landlord has exercised the right to buy, they have a right to a loan in respect of service charges. Currently, this means that the Housing Corporation would have a duty to give a loan to a Welsh tenant of an RSL registered in England. Logically, the position after this Bill becomes an Act would be that the duty to provide a loan will pass to the HCA. However, the HCA’s objects are strictly limited to England and to the needs of people living in England. Giving such a loan might therefore require the agency to act outside of its objects. These are rare occurrences—there have been only 20 or so loans in both England and Wales combined in the past 16 years—and we do not expect this provision to have any great effect. However, we do not want to remove rights that tenants currently enjoy, particularly in times when loans may be becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. These amendments will ensure that in some very rare cross-boundary cases, the HCA will be able to act to assist Welsh tenants of English RSLs. I turn to perhaps the more important amendment in this group, Amendment No. 11. This is a direct response to the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in Grand Committee and at Report about Clause 30, which relates to the HCA’s ability to provide community services. She rightly raised concerns about the ambiguity of some of the language in this clause. Our amendment will delete the ““list”” of activities that caused concern and replace it with a new clause, which gives a general power to the HCA to provide such services for communities as it considers appropriate or facilitate the provision of those services. This is largely based on an excellent suggestion put forward by the noble Baroness in an amendment at Report. I now turn to Amendments Nos. 23 and 24, which are minor and technical amendments to Schedule 11 and which deal with tolerated trespassers. They amend the definition of ““commencement date”” in paragraphs 14 and 25. The effect is to exclude from the definition the order-making powers in Part 2 of Schedule 11. These amendments are necessary to allow for the order-making powers to be exercised before the main tolerated trespasser provisions in Schedule 11 are brought into force. There is one important instance where it will be necessary to do this. The main provisions in Part 2 restore tenancies on commencement to all tolerated trespassers where the landlord has not changed since they became tolerated. On Report, we introduced an order-making power that allows us to restore tenancies in the same way to those tolerated trespassers whose landlord has changed. This will be done by secondary legislation, rather than by the Bill, since we propose to consult on the issue before final decisions are made. However, our intention is that the secondary legislation would come into force at the same time as commencement of the tolerated trespasser provisions in the Bill. To do otherwise would leave a period when there was only one class of tolerated trespassers. The House will accept that this would be unsatisfactory and unfair. We therefore need to exercise the order-making power before the rest of the provisions come into force. This amendment ensures that we can do that. Finally, I look in more detail at Amendments Nos. 22 and 25, which are very minor. Amendment No. 22 amends Schedule 5 to the Housing Act 1985. It ensures that financial assistance to a housing association given under Clause 19 of the Bill will not cause the right to buy to arise in respect of property it owns. Amendment No. 25 is an extremely minor amendment. Noble Lords may be aware that Schedule 9(10)(3) already provides for the repeal of Section 10(2)(e) of the Housing Associations Act 1985. This section of the Act deals with exceptions to the requirement for unregistered housing associations to obtain the Housing Corporation’s consent to dispose of grant-aided land. Amendment No. 25 merely adds the reference to Schedule 16, which lists all the repeals of existing legislation that are made by this Bill. I hope that these amendments will find your Lordships’ favour, and in particular the favour of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who I think has much to be delighted with. I beg to move.