Housing and Planning Bill
Debate between Lord McKenzie of Luton and Lord Lansley
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
The noble Lord said that the right to buy was popular in its time. He is right that it was popular at the moment it was introduced and probably for a short while thereafter. But now, if you go to the areas that I know in Luton, where all the estates have been pretty much sold off, mothers and fathers are worried about their children and grandchildren being able to access decent accommodation. That gives a different view as to how popular or right that policy was.
Lord Lansley
In a way. I certainly do not propose to engage in a semantic debate about what the policy is described as. We know what it is and it will rightly be regarded by housing association tenants as the creation of a right to buy. It may be circumscribed in certain ways, not least by housing associations themselves under a voluntary agreement. But everyone will know what it is, and that is what they will be looking for.
On the latter point, I must say to noble Lords that I do not think I have to judge whether the policy was popular: it was. People voted for it and, frankly, at the last general election they voted for right to buy again. I do not think we need to have that debate. Indeed, that was not my purpose in speaking. I was addressing the issue that, actually, my noble friend Lord Horam made perfectly clear in a previous intervention. He was absolutely right. As I said at Second Reading, this is about building more houses. If we are to solve all the problems we are debating, we will solve them more readily if we are able to increase the number of houses we build. Then, we will not be trying to parcel out who lives in which home and under what tenure—as appears sometimes to be the purpose of these debates—rather than giving more people more opportunities to have whatever home they want under whatever tenure they want. The more homes we build, the more likely we are to be able to satisfy more of those ambitions.
Completely contrary to what the noble Lord just said, this is about building more homes. The local authority may sell houses, but those houses do not cease to be occupied. They will go into the market. That value, realised through the right-to-buy discount, will enable people to own the homes they are occupying. The housing association will take the market value and will, as a consequence, be increasingly equipped to invest in further new housing in the future. There is that benefit.
At the same time, the Government have an opportunity, and this is where the flexibility in the architecture of the Bill comes in. The Government will have flexibility in certain circumstances to say, “No, we can actually do more by way of building more homes where we most need those homes to be built if we reach an agreement with a local authority to build more homes, through which we reduce the deduction—the payment it has to make”. That is why the single example of Greater London in the structure of the Bill is indicative. Frankly, one for one would not in itself be sufficient to justify substantial deductions on the payment.
In so far as there is a given amount that is required to be paid over to housing associations that arises from the discounts, such payments might therefore have to be met by the Government out of general taxation. I see nothing in the Bill that requires the two sums to be exactly the same. That flexibility allows the Government to enter into agreements with local authorities. There is a clear incentive for local authorities to come forward with proposals that would allow them to build more homes than one could otherwise anticipate being built as a consequence of simply transferring that money through to the right-to-buy discount. The consequence, one way or another—through the housing association route, or the local housing authority arriving at an agreement to build more homes—is that more homes should be built. That is devoutly to be wished for.
What will help us to explore the issues arising out of the discussions in Committee is to know more about Clause 72. What do these agreements with local authorities look like? For my own part, it is important to be able to see a practical example. I declare an interest as an unremunerated chair of the Cambridgeshire Development Forum. We want to see houses being built. We need more affordable homes. In my time as Member of Parliament for South Cambridgeshire, I saw the housing waiting list in my constituency more than double. We have a fast-growing area. We have rising land prices and property prices. We have a lot of demand for key worker housing and affordable homes. In that sense, we are very much like the most pressed and needy areas of London. My noble friend talked about the changing geography of London and that is absolutely right. There are places outside London that exhibit characteristics very like some of the most stressed parts of London.
In encouraging the process of fleshing out between now and Report, I say to my noble friend that it is not just about fleshing out the regulations; it is about engaging in conversations with local authorities. I would be happy if my noble friend would allow such a conversation to take place between her department, South Cambridgeshire District Council and Cambridge City Council and for me along with colleagues to be part of that. We should discuss the potential for these deductions and what they can deliver. The Government are right to believe that they should have the flexibility to give local authorities leeway regarding the assumptions that would lead to payments into the right-to-buy discount if they are building more houses and showing the additionality of being able to do so.
For that reason, there has to be flexibility in the architecture of the Bill regarding, on the one hand, the ambition to build more houses through local authority agreements that directly correspond financially to a flexibility in how much money is asked of individual local housing authorities; and to what extent that money corresponds with the money provided in right-to-buy discounts.