My Lords, I will be equally brief. Amendment 59A, in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and Lord Beecham, would require the Regulator of Social Housing to monitor and report where a community-led housing provider or TMO had used grants made by the Secretary of State in respect of a right-to-buy discount.
Let me be clear again that TMOs are not part of the right-to-buy arrangements. Under the voluntary right to buy, the landlord/tenant relationship is with the property-owning landlord as a registered provider, and the tenant would exercise their right to buy against that landlord. The amendment does not make sense in that landscape. If the concern is about different tenures—social tenants and owner-occupiers—being part of a TMO, there is no reason to believe that tenants and owners could not come together in this way.
I appreciate that the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy, want to protect TMOs and other community-led organisations that are not landlords so that they continue to help tenants to play an active role. The voluntary right-to-buy agreement contains protections that allow housing associations discretion not to sell properties that are important to their communities and clients.
The purpose of Amendment 82B is to create a definition of community-led housing, but there is no need to, as it is a colloquial umbrella term to cover a range of different and distinct structures and organisations, such as fully mutual co-operatives, community land trusts and tenant management organisations. The Government very much support community-led housing, and these bodies have distinct and specific legal definitions. Fully mutual housing associations are defined in Section 5 of the Housing Act 1985. Community land trusts are defined in statute in Section 79 of the Housing and Regeneration Act. TMOs are defined through the Housing (Right to Manage) (England) Regulations 2012, Part 1 Section 3.
Additionally, the organisations are different in nature. Fully mutual housing co-ops will generally own their homes, community land trusts may or may not, and TMOs will generally act as a managing agent for
housing owned by a local authority. Imposing an additional overarching definition would be unnecessary. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.