Social Housing: Right-to-buy Sales

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Swinburne) (Con)]

As a temporary measure, councils were able to keep 100% of the right-to-buy receipts from sales in 2022-23 and 2023-24. As councils have five years to spend these receipts, we are continuing to track the impact of allowing authorities to retain 100% of right-to-buy receipts. As previously announced, the cap on acquisitions funded through right-to-buy receipts is at 50% until 2025-26, to enable councils to do more acquisitions. The Government are working with councils to support their supply and delivery plans, and we are keeping the right-to-buy receipt flexibilities under revie w.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, with 3.8 million people on council housing waiting lists, some having waited nearly two decades, and with the economic case for social housing comprehensively demonstrated in the recent study by the National Housing Federation and Shelter, showing that building 90,000 social homes would add £51 billion to the economy, the need for delivery of more social homes gets more urgent by the day. Since the right-to-buy programme started in 1980, there has been a reduction in the number of social homes by 1.5 million. Some 40% of those homes are now let privately, and councils have no choice but to use them as expensive temporary accommodation for homeless families. That has pushed up the housing benefit since 1991 from £9 billion to £29.6 billion. Councils should be able to use the proceeds from right to buy to deliver like-for-like replacements, but with councils able to receive £100,000 of discount, that is difficult enough. Taking away the ability to retain 100% is another blow. Does the Minister not consider that this is an economically illiterate move, depriving people of the homes they need and driving the benefit bill ever upwards?

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to the fact that the right-to-buy receipt is only one very small portion of the entire receipts that are available to deliver affordable housing. Indeed, the £11.5 billion affordable homes programme is delivering thousands of affordable homes, including, since 2010, 696,000 new affordable homes, with over 172,600 homes available for social rent.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness for my enthusiasm but I could not believe the bare-faced cheek of asking this Question. There would have been no receipts from the sale of council houses if the party opposite had had its way. It was a Conservative Government who brought in the right to buy, and it was a Conservative Government who enabled people such as the deputy leader of the Labour Party to buy their council homes.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend’s comments. We are genuinely committed to supporting home ownership, especially for first-time buyers, no matter how they get on the housing ladder.

Housing: Section 21 Evictions

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the vast majority of landlords do an excellent job, but we know that a small minority use the threat of Section 21 evictions to hike up rents or intimidate tenants into not challenging completely unfit conditions. That is why we have brought forward our proposal to abolish Section 21 evictions, but we have also brought forward a widening of the grounds for possession, so that the system works for both sides in this situation.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, why are so many landlords selling their properties and withdrawing from the market?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, we keep this matter closely under review. We do not see evidence of a reduction of available rental properties in the market and would be concerned if we did. We have worked very hard to make sure that these reforms work for landlords and tenants.

Local Authorities: Financial Difficulties

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 14th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend recall that we promised we would fix social care? The problem for local authorities is that the vast majority of their funding goes on providing social care, crowding out other vital services. Until we address the issue of social care, this problem will get worse, and it is worst in those local authorities where the tax base is lowest and the demand is greatest. This is urgently needed, not least because people are not getting the social care they need.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend. We made changes to local government financing in January, and we listened to local government and its priorities: £500 million of the £600 million extra that was given is going into social care.

Temporary Accommodation Costs

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for that question. No one wants to see families with children in temporary accommodation, and I am sure that every local authority across the country is doing everything they can to stop it happening. But sometimes, in emergency situations, it is important for the short term that those families have a roof over their head, a safe and secure place to go. We continue to work with the Local Government Association and local authorities on how many there are in such accommodation, and what more we can do—for instance, stopping people going into temporary accommodation in the first place. With the £1 billion grant for local authority homelessness prevention, we can also start to improve the quality of any temporary accommodation that we might have to use.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is quite right to draw attention to the pressure on local authority budgets. Given the hundreds of millions of pounds that we are spending on accommodating illegal migrants, might a possible solution for the right reverend Prelate and his colleagues be to go through Division Lobbies and support the Rwanda Bill?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I do not think that is within this Question. I will leave it to my noble friend to fight his corner on that one.

General Elections: Party-political Spending

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, further to the questions from the Liberal Benches, would they not carry more credibility if their party had not taken £3.5 million from a fraudster who is a fugitive from justice? Any respectable political party would have paid that money back.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, all political parties should seek to abide by the rules and, if they have not, they should definitely return the money that they owe.

Voter Authority Certificates

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Yes, my Lords; it is in legislation that local authorities will count the numbers, anonymously, of electors who are turned away and we will look at those and at all the other evidence from the electoral returning officers when we look at how this has worked.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Does my noble friend have any idea why the opposition parties should be against ensuring that the ballot is properly conducted and secure?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No, I do not, because it was the Labour Party, supported by the Liberal Democrat Party, that agreed in 2003 to Northern Ireland having a similar system. They voted for it and I cannot understand why they are not voting for it this time.

UK Citizens Resident Overseas: Verification

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The rules are the same for all electors making donations, whether they live in the UK or overseas. Political parties and other regulated campaigners will continue to have to take all reasonable steps to verify that individuals making donations are registered electors. Parties can use the electoral register to do this and the removal of the 15-year limit, which is one of the things we did in the Bill, will make no change whatever to this requirement.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend not think that where a political party discovers that money has been given to it fraudulently and by a criminal, it should be returned? Should the Liberal party not remember the case of Mr Michael Brown, who was convicted, and whose money the Liberals have still not returned?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that. It is absolutely clear that if a political party finds that money has come from a source that it should not come from then, yes, it has to give it back or give it to the Electoral Commission.

Prime Minister: Meeting with First Ministers of the Devolved Governments

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I take the point that the noble Lord has made on a number of occasions. It is clearly an important issue to maintain the union. The devolution settlement set out those responsibilities that fall within devolved and reserved competence. Scottish Ministers are accountable to their own legislature and electorate for their actions, including their expenditure decisions.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords, on the subject of ministerial responsibility and competence, my noble friend answered a Written Question yesterday indicating that the Government had decided that they would not make the QEII Centre available, should this House need to move, as part of their levelling-up agenda. Does my noble friend not realise that this is a matter for this House and not for the Government, and that £10 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent on looking at the suitability of the QEII Centre? Who will pick up the tab for this PR stunt?