Housing and Planning Bill

My Lords, I intervene briefly on this group of amendments. I have listened with care and interest...

Actually, the Companion allows that. Because we are in Committee, noble Lords can speak on any as...

I am learning the advantages of being in your Lordships’ House as opposed to another place. This ...

There are repeated references to right to buy. There is no right to buy because housing associati...

The noble Lord said that the right to buy was popular in its time. He is right that it was popula...

In a way. I certainly do not propose to engage in a semantic debate about what the policy is desc...

Why not leave the decision to local authorities within whose boundaries these high-value properti...

I am grateful for that because I had not realised it until I listened to the Bill being discussed...

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, referred to the need to build more homes. There is a way of buildin...

I remember that when I was a young councillor in Southwark in the 1980s I got this exposed in the...

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is referring to a situation that the noble Baron...

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have spoken in the debate and the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy and...

What is the proportion between the right-to-buy discount and the provision of new homes?

My Lords, that has not been set out yet.

Again.

Well, we are all fairly frustrated about this, I think it is fair to say. I have to keep telling ...

I am sorry. We have been hammering away about SIs and all the rows we have had on this, but will ...

As I have just said, I anticipate that it will be after Royal Assent.

We have spent a long time on starter homes, where we are not going to get the detail until after ...

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham. It is a travesty of the House’s processe...

Perhaps I might add one further point. I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Young, would ag...

I endorse the comments of my noble friend Lady Hollis and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, about the...

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and hope I might be able to perhaps provide some comfort to...

Would it be appropriate for the Minister to ask the Leader of the House to make a Statement to us...

My Lords, I am not sure about the Leader making a Statement. I am certainly making a statement as...

I apologise, and I know that the Minister is as frustrated as the rest of us, but I just remind h...

I did say that—the noble Lord is absolutely right—and I will. One of the important things to be a...

My Lords, nobody, genuinely, is criticising the Minister. I would not want to be in her position ...

My Lords, we just heard a speech from my noble friend Lord Lansley, who is not in his place. I th...

We are not.

I am very glad to hear that. Perhaps that can be the end of these repeated exchanges with my nobl...

My Lords—

I shall give way in a minute. We would all like to have the information, but perhaps that would b...

I share the noble Lord’s view that this is not an attack on the Minister, who has been clear that...

My Lords, will the Minister report to the Government that this House very much regrets the imposs...

I thank noble Lords for their words, particularly my noble friend, given that I have not been her...

My Lords, perhaps the Minister could tell me when the next set will be. I thought the technical b...

My Lords, I have asked for additional briefings to be provided over the next week or so, until we...

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but I just wanted to make a brief point. Useful a...

I will be responding formally to the DPRRC’s report, and specifically to that point, very soon in...

Earlier today, the Minister assured me that I might be a little bit cheered by what she was going...

The days blur into one a bit, my Lords, when we think about the days we have spent debating.

Just to clarify, does that mean building new homes potentially in a different locality from that ...

My Lords, it could be, but the overall thing is that we will be adding to the stock of homes in t...

I thank the Minister for giving way: she has had a difficult day. She has just given us some welc...

My Lords, I would anticipate that it would be at a local authority level, although I acknowledge ...

The Minister referred to a local authority level. Will there be some local authorities that will ...

My Lords, that might well be the case, depending on how it looks when all of the data are analyse...

I shall suggest another scenario. Let us take my former constituency area of Workington. The coun...

I have just agreed, in a sense, with the noble Lord that we want to guard against some of the pro...

I think we are pleased that the Minister shares our concern, as we would expect her to do, about ...

My Lords, I will certainly undertake to engage with the different sectors because they are at the...

Before the Minister sits down, I think I heard her say that the money collected from councils wou...

I will look at it again. I am assuming that the debts and liabilities are housing loans.

There is one further point that has been troubling me. Given the hour, I was going to leave it, b...

I think the answer is yes. If it had kept its stock, it would be levied, as the noble Lord points...

Does that mean it would have no control over whether it could realise any of those high-value pro...

That is my understanding, my Lords, yes.

My Lords, as ever, it has been an interesting debate—necessarily, I am afraid, longer than any of...

Moved by

Lord Kerslake

66B: After Clause 67, insert the following new Clause—

“...

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 68B and 68C, which are in this group and are connected...

Is not that surely because of the sheer difference between different parts of the country? The no...

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention. However, if the Government were really worr...

Does the noble Lord think that it would be desirable to include in any such arrangement a period ...

My Lords, those are two important details that we could reasonably look at in the Bill or, had we...

My Lords, I think the noble Lord said that it would be acceptable to replace within the local aut...

My Lords, my amendment goes as far as I think it is possible to go within the bounds of the legis...

When Ministers look at these matters, it is important that they have in mind that, if they provid...

My Lords, I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, which I have also si...

My Lords, I seek clarification on this amendment, in particular the phrase “the same tenure”. I t...

My Lords, the noble Baroness has raised two important points. What I am seeking to say in my amen...

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, gave an extremely eloquent description of the Ch...

I will make two points. I am not suggesting changing anything in the Bill for London. I support t...

There should certainly be an intent to replace housing; quite how prescriptive we should get is a...

My Lords, I am still worried about the effect of redistribution, given that the levy will not app...

My Lords, in response to the noble Baroness, it seems to me that there is precisely a place where...

Perhaps I may come in very briefly. I wish to make three points. First, in any process you need a...

I do not dispute that that is the reason it is in the amendment; I just think that it is wrong. W...

My Lords, there is not much more I can add to the contributions that have already been made. I su...

My Lords, all the amendments in this group and the clause stand part notice are ones that either ...

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. In responding to Amendment 6...

I want to ask the Minister this as I genuinely do not know what the answer is. If the local autho...

My Lords, in that sort of situation, I would imagine that the local authority has a number of opt...

A moment ago, the Minister talked about vacant homes, and I really would like to be clear whether...

My Lords, when I talked about vacant as opposed to surplus, we were talking about assets that wer...

If a vacant home is a home which is empty, for how long does it have to be empty and can a local ...

That is precisely the point I am making. We will be defining what empty—that is, vacant—means in ...

So it is clear that a vacant home simply means that a tenancy has been given up and that, as a co...

When I used the term surplus, I meant surplus assets that government might seek to dispose of, an...

Could the Minister help me with a definition? Does succession to a tenancy create a vacancy along...

It would depend on the context of the succession. If the successor was a spouse, there would not ...

May I also seek clarification? What if a tenancy comes to an end and there is a long waiting list...

My Lords, the vacant high-value asset may not necessarily be a big property; it could be a small ...

Does that mean that housing need in a particular local authority will be discarded to fund discou...

My Lords, no, it does not mean that for housing in a particular local authority because housing n...

Is this not in danger of running in conflict with another government policy—the bedroom tax? If p...

On the spare room subsidy, if someone is in a property that has more bedrooms than they need to o...

My Lords, this comes up under Amendment 68A, which we are coming to. If you have moved out, it is...

I thank the noble Lord for that.

Where we have an agreement, we want local authorities to h...

My Lords—

I am just going to make a bit of progress if that is okay by the noble Baroness. Perhaps she can ...

It is simply that the people on that waiting list want that which is being sold, which is a socia...

My Lords, I have just been over that. I want to get to the point about the borrowing headroom.