My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 54 and the other amendments that would add those two letters, “er”, to the word “high” in the clause. Noble Lords will already appreciate my lack of a grasp of the English language, but even I could see how dangerous those two small letters would
have been in the wrong hands. I thank my noble friend the Minister for clarifying the Government’s intent to add those and where they will be applied. I ask her to confirm in her closing remarks that this will be used not as an attempt to raise additional income, but as purely a means to spread the burden across more authorities.
Had my noble friend not agreed in the letter she sent earlier and in her remarks on the manifesto commitment that councils would be allowed to retain sufficient receipts to build one-for-one replacement of the same tenure, I would probably have been speaking against these amendments. I should explain to noble Lords why I am prepared to move purely on that basis, and properly in response to the noble Lord, Lord Foster.
In councils such as mine, where we are able to retain sufficient receipts to build a council house out of the sale of a high or higher value, I would probably volunteer to sell all my council houses to anybody who would buy them on the open market, on the basis that the cost of building a replacement unit would probably be about 30% cheaper than the value received on the sale of that unit. I would be quite happy to replace my beautifully maintained 1,600 homes for 1,600 brand new homes in the immediate future, thus doubling the number of affordable homes in my district. On that basis, I earnestly thank the Minister and the Secretary of State in the other place for listening to our proper arguments and the case we made, and for responding appropriately.