Lord Best
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(12 years, 8 months ago)
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“Proceeds of sale of social housing
(1) In section 11 of the Local Government Act 2003 (duty to determine affordable borrowing limit), omit subsections (2)(b), (3) and (4).
(2) Any regulation made under section 11(2)(b) of the Local Government Act 2003 shall cease to have effect from 1 April 2012.”
Lord Best
My Lords, Amendments 41 and 51 are also about local authorities having greater freedom to organise their housing affairs without constant barriers being put in their way. These amendments concern the restrictions on local authorities that flow from taxing the sales of right-to-buy properties or any other sales of properties by housing authorities at 75 per cent of the money received by the local authority. Housing associations can sell properties, whether under the right to buy that they operate or on the open market where they have a vacant property. They can recycle 100 per cent of their receipts back into housing, to improving their housing stock and to building new homes.
The housing association of which I used to be chief executive, the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, had a programme of selling alternative vacant properties on our estates so that we could get a better mix of people of different incomes living in the same community. We could replace every home that we sold because we received 100 per cent of the funds from that sale to recycle into new homes elsewhere. However, local authorities have to pay 75 per cent of their proceeds back to the Treasury. Now that we are in the mode of reforming the housing revenue account, this seems to be the moment at which that restriction should be lifted and local authorities should be liberated to recycle the proceeds from sales.
I understand that the Treasury is very reluctant to forgo the receipts that it currently collects. That perhaps is understandable, because this is serious money that is coming into the Treasury. It has managed to scoop the pool here for many years, and tens of billions of pounds from right-to-buy sales have gone into the Exchequer. I understand that it does not wish to say goodbye to those arrangements. I also understand that in settling the debt in the new self-financing scheme for local authorities, account has been taken of the rental income that people will forgo once a property is sold. Nevertheless, saying goodbye to 75 per cent of the proceeds from right-to-buy sales, in stark contrast with the way housing associations are treated, seems to be an item on which reform at this time would be very significant.
Let me make it clear that it is not only right-to-buy sales that attract a 75 per cent tax—not a tax on the capital gain, but a tax on the sum received—as it is also imposed on the sale of bits of land and properties that are vacant and not subject to the right to buy. Where local authorities, like the Rowntree trust, would like to sell council houses to get a better mix of incomes across an estate, local authorities will not be able to recycle the proceeds from those sales, as they will have to pay 75 per cent to the Treasury. I think that the Treasury will argue again that it would like to see those receipts coming back to it since deficit reduction is top of the list of the Government’s priorities, but the Treasury is not going to receive anything from the sale of properties outside of the right to buy if local authorities know that it is such a bad deal to sell them in order to regenerate an area using the money they raise. No businesslike authority will proceed with these sales in order to pay money to the Treasury as a voluntary act. Local authorities simply will not do it. The Treasury is not going to forgo capital receipts if the 75 per cent tax on councils is lifted for those properties where the right to buy does not exist—in other words, where the council can make a sale voluntarily rather than being compelled to do so, as with the right to buy. I hope that the Government will be able, if deficit reduction in this spending round is so paramount that nothing can be done about the right-to-buy receipts, at least to offer to some extent a reassurance in relation to the sales of other properties that are not subject to the right to buy.
During the summer I have had discussions and correspondence with the Minister, and I hope that she will be able to tell us this afternoon that there may be some change of the Government’s mind about this very severe restriction on local authority activity, one where the ludicrous level of taxation makes it very difficult to run a business. I beg to move.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, the noble Lord referred to the 75 per cent tax levied on the proceeds of right-to-buy sales. It is interesting to note that at the moment there is a good deal of pressure on the Government to abandon the 50 per cent tax charged on those with substantial incomes and that, indeed, at least part of the coalition Government is interested in a mansion tax, which I suspect would be levied at substantially less than 75 per cent. In the context of housing, we should not be thinking in terms of taxation. The nation is paying a very heavy price in terms of housing need for the refusal of Government, initially in the 1980s, to allow any of the proceeds of the sale of council housing to be reinvested in housing and, it must be said, for the somewhat belated and modest change that was made to those rules by the previous Government. It does not seem to make any kind of economic sense.
The money raised by the right to buy would be ploughed back into housing provision. That would have two effects, the first of which would be that it would create assets on the balance sheet; it would not disappear into thin air. Secondly, it would give a much needed boost to the construction industry and therefore to the economy at a time when, as the Chancellor has belatedly conceded, things are not looking good in terms of the projected growth rate. Thirdly, it would lead to employment being taken up and thus a reduction in the cost of paying benefits. Most particularly, I suspect that the result would be that houses would be built rather more quickly than through the hoped-for gains to be made by the proposals in the national policy planning framework, which seem to assume that planning is the reason for the low number of houses being built, whereas of course the key issues are in fact finance and people’s capacity to buy.
Looking at it purely in housing terms, the noble Lord’s amendment makes a great deal of sense. I hope that the Government will rethink their position because it would make an immediate and much more significant contribution to dealing with the housing problem, as well as helping with economic growth without damaging the balance sheet. Indeed, in some respects it would strengthen the balance sheet with assets that are likely to appreciate.
Lord Shutt of Greetland
I might have to think that one through, because I see the contra. On the other hand, there is only one central Government. The problem that we have all along is that some 170 local government entities are involved in housing. At least you know where you are with central government and that £862 million. The position can be entirely different in local government.
I would like to think that there will be a time when this policy is not in place. However, as I indicated, it is no longer the big deal that it was, given that so many former council houses have been sold and the amounts coming in are nothing like they were at their peak, when this Government were not in business.
Lord Best
My Lords, the housing revenue account is often compared to the Schleswig-Holstein question. Of the only three people who understood it, one had committed suicide, one was in a madhouse and one was in a monastery. Following the debate on the housing revenue account today has been a bit like that.
I am very grateful to noble Lords who have spoken on this. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, made two fundamental points. First, if only we had kept the receipts during the past 30 years, we could have built a lot of houses and renovated a lot more. That money has evaporated. If we could get that changed henceforth, that would be thoroughly commendable. The noble Lord also made the point that if local authorities had been able to sell vacant properties on some of their estates on the open market, they could have introduced people on different incomes and created mixed-tenure estates, which would have been better socially for everyone concerned. However, there is absolutely no reason why local authorities would do that, because they would lose all the money that they received from the sale and could not then replace the home that they had sold. I am very grateful for that intervention and for those of the noble Lords, Lord Beecham and Lord McKenzie.
I shall certainly bank the very important point that in respect of sales outside the right to buy—the voluntary sales by local authorities—the intention is that in future the levy will be lifted. That could be quite a significant change in the future. The leader of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, Councillor Stephen Greenhalgh, is very much in favour of this. He explained to me that he has properties which, going back to the days of municipalisation, are scattered in some streets and are now in need of substantial repairs or improvements, although they are also very valuable. Rather than spend a great deal of money on some of those properties when they become vacant, it would be much better for Hammersmith & Fulham to sell them on the open market and not spend the money on the repairs. That money would be recycled, getting two or three flats elsewhere for the price received for those properties in Parsons Green or wherever they happened to be in Hammersmith & Fulham. Therefore, the Minister’s concession here may open some opportunities for councils to take in receipts to recycle in a very meaningful way, and I am very grateful for that concession.
In relation to the right to buy, we live to fight another day. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Best
My Lords, I, too, support the role of councillors and their engagement in these processes, but I do not think that this is an either/or. My name is against Amendments 69, 71 and 72. If people do not wish to go to the councillor for any reason, surely they should have the opportunity to go directly to the ombudsman service. My interest is that I have been on the receiving end of the ombudsman’s judgment, complaints having been made about organisations that I have chaired and run, and I think the ombudsman service is great. It resolves complaints that have been running sometimes for ages; the filing cabinet is full of going backwards and forwards, the ombudsman sorts it out, the decision is final. It is a professional service. The British and Irish Ombudsman Association thinks that an essential ingredient in any ombudsman service is that the consumer has a right of direct access to that service.
I chair the Council of the Property Ombudsman, which looks after the private sector, separate from the arrangements for the Housing Ombudsman in the social housing sector. In the private sector, of course, tenants can go direct to the ombudsman; they do not have to go to a council, an MP or a tenant panel. That system works extremely well. I have watched the process from both sides of the fence. Ombudsman services really work and direct access to them seems an important ingredient.
We have one example. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said he did not think that there were any examples of there being a bureaucratic filter of this kind, but I think the Parliamentary Ombudsman is the last outpost of this approach. It applied to the Local Government Ombudsman but was scrapped as it was found to be unworkable and unnecessary, but with the Parliamentary Ombudsman, going through your MP remains. However, Ann Abraham, the Parliamentary Ombudsman, says:
“The MP filter delays the resolution of complaints by the ombudsman and even deters some people from taking their complaints to the ombudsman at all”.
I think it likely, as a result of the consultation now going on, that the filter will be dropped in that last case of the Parliamentary Ombudsman. So let us by all means engage councillors and encourage people to go to their councillor—sometimes that can be the best kind of mediation and local way of organising things—but let us allow people, if they wish, to go direct to the ombudsman service. It is there as a professional body and it sorts things out.
Lord True
My Lords, I also declare an interest as a local councillor. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, that my aged aunt, who has a great fear of spiders, says, “In September and October never talk about a spider, otherwise you will talk one up”, and one invariably comes up. I heard what he said about the contributions of Members on this side to these debates. When he makes such comments, I have to point out that we made very little progress with groups yesterday and there may be some connection—not with the Conservatives but with other Members in the Chamber.
I wish to follow very strongly what my noble friends Lady Eaton and Lord Tope said. I have visited a number of authorities and it is true, sadly, that in many authorities where there has been large-scale voluntary transfer, there is a growing disjunction between the council side and RSLs. As I see it, aspects of this proposal from the Government may be designed to break that down and to reinforce the role of a councillor. In my authority we have introduced a tenants’ champion system in order to encourage people to use the local resource of the council as a first resource for complaint and redress against social landlords. That is desirable. Surely in the spirit of this Bill things should be settled as locally as they can be. There are all forms of bureaucracy and the ombudsman system in itself is potentially that. I agree that tenants may not need a filter, but in some circumstances they may need a local champion.
I am not quite so absolutist about these proposals as some others who have spoken. However, I hope that my noble friend will listen to the debate, particularly to the points made by my noble friend Lord Tope, and see whether some middle ground can be found that will enable tenants to have this recourse, but perhaps in the normal course of events to encourage people to seek to settle matters locally.
Lord Best
Amendment 54 is in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy and myself. Currently, the Secretary of State is able to direct the regulator to set standards for social housing in certain areas. In a strictly limited number of cases, he is able to direct the content of these standards. Clause 163 of the Localism Bill seeks to strengthen his powers in this area, allowing him to shape the contents of standards regarding tenancy exchanges in which tenants can swap properties. The view within the housing world is that this is giving the Minister too many powers to direct the behaviour of social landlords. The danger of accumulating more and more powers in the hands of the Secretary of State is that eventually, as one Minister after another brings their own fresh and no doubt good ideas to bear, you are effectively nationalising the housing associations; they are becoming creatures of government. They then run the risk of being regarded by the EU and others as public sector bodies. If the housing associations are no longer independent bodies and are regarded as public sector agencies, then all their borrowing becomes public sector debt and we have lost one of the key elements in having a social housing sector that is outside of public sector control.
So I am very sympathetic to standards about exchanges and the mobility of labour, and to the Minister’s hopes that housing associations will behave in a particular way, but laying this down, through direction to the regulator over these standards, does seem a step too far. I beg to move.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, Clause 163 is important in increasing mobility for social housing tenants who may wish to move for work, or to give care to or receive care from family or friends. We want to increase opportunities for tenants to move through mutual exchange. We have been working with the existing main providers of home-swap services to develop a technical solution that will put in place a national scheme that enables tenants to receive information on all possible matches across all providers in a scheme. Alongside this, we want all landlords to be required to provide their tenants with access to good internet-based home-swap services. Indeed, the majority of landlords who responded to our consultation on housing reform also agreed with this approach and said they could see no good reason why landlords should not subscribe to such a scheme. We therefore propose, through using the powers in this clause, that the social housing regulator should set a mutual exchange standard to make sure that social landlords sign up to good-quality services.
The noble Lord also raised the issue of public sector debt. While I am not undertaking to reflect on that and come back at a later stage, I will undertake to satisfy myself, through discussions with my officials, that the problem which the noble Lord alludes to does not exist. While I accept that some noble Lords view this as an overly bureaucratic approach, we believe that the benefits of increasing choice and mobility for social tenants must be the priority and that we should seek to deliver this better service for them.
Lord Best
I am grateful to the noble Earl for that response. I agree entirely that improving mobility and exchange schemes is a thoroughly commendable line to pursue. I think that I am now on my 23rd housing Minister since I started in this world. They have all had important ideas to add to the things that housing associations ought to do; it is just that in the end, if one is not careful, the cumulative effect is the creation of an agency that is simply a government bureaucracy. I am grateful for the noble Earl’s reassurances and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Best
My Lords, this amendment concerns the terms of appointment of members for the new regulation committee. The intention is that “unsuitable” should be removed so that those who are indeed unfit or unable to serve could be removed by the Secretary of State but not those whom the Secretary of State deems to be unsuitable. That is extending the power a step too far—again, a theme of the amendments that I am bringing forward. “Unsuitable” could imply people being removed from office on grounds that would be comprehensible to the Secretary of State. It would not ensure the independence of those people to argue and, if necessary, to be a nuisance within that committee. They might do that in fear that they would be regarded as unsuitable somewhere down the line.
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee uses the terms unable and unfit to describe the powers for the removal of any members of that committee. Those words would seem sufficient for the regulation committee as much as for the Monetary Policy Committee, which has done well and which has had some members who have been quite happy to raise objections—and to be quite forceful in doing so—but who might have been regarded as unsuitable if there had been powers of ministerial intervention. This amendment simply seeks to lose “unsuitable”. I beg to move.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I would imagine that a committee could have very free and frank discussions, perhaps lasting all afternoon, without falling foul of the test of unsuitability. On the other hand, if a member of the committee regularly interfered with the operation of the committee so that it could not function, the Secretary of State would have to step in.
Lord Best
My Lords, I will certainly not press the matter further. However, it is important for the Government to know that the housing sector is very concerned that this regulation committee is independent and that the people on it feel able to say things that are contrary to what the Government might wish to hear. That independence is paramount. I hope that that point has been taken. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I offer my support and that of the Opposition to the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, as I have done on a number of occasions on Report. He has identified a problem that needs to be addressed. It involves real people with real concerns. If the matter requires further work, as he says, and it can be done—I hope that the Minister will comment on that—the issue may be sorted out. Given that we are discussing a charity, I understand that the issue may be more difficult than it at first seems, but I hope that the government Front Bench will give a positive response.
Amendments 65 and 67 in this group stand in my name. Amendment 65 would ensure that a parent company of a group of housing associations can be registered even if it owns no housing itself. This would allow the regulator to regulate group members via the parent rather than directly if he thinks that that would be more effective. Amendment 67 concerns the appointment of members to housing association boards. The law as it stands allows the regulator to make unlimited appointments to a registered provider’s governing body provided that they remain a minority. For a 10-member board, it would allow the regulator to make nine appointments. My amendment limits the number of appointments the regulator may make to no more than four. This is a proportionate number of appointments and would enable the regulator to strengthen the board by adding members with sufficient skills and abilities to deal with any concerns that they may have about the board’s performance. However, the number would not be too overbearing as this sort of appointment would be of a temporary nature to help the housing association board discharge its duties more effectively.
Lord Best
Amendment 67 stands in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. It concerns the appointments made by the regulator. It is important to note that this amendment relates only to appointments made by the regulator where the housing association has not failed in any way. It is not a disciplinary measure but constitutes a voluntary helping hand for the organisation. In a number of cases that I know well additional members have been appointed by the regulator as new members of the board and have been very helpful. However, there are limits to the number of appointments that the regulator ought to make to the board. We suggest that these be limited in future to a maximum of four. In my experience three new people are usually appointed to strengthen a board that has become weak—four is quite enough. We are trying to protect the independence and sovereignty of these organisations.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, as regards the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Shipley, I recognise the strength of local feeling in the case that he highlighted. We have looked at his proposal extremely carefully and have discussed it with the social housing regulator, the Charity Commission, the National Almshouse Association and the National Housing Federation. We have also received helpful representations from the United St Saviour’s Charity and from residents of the Hopton’s Almshouses in Southwark.
I fully understand the reasoning behind the proposed amendment. However, we are concerned that the amendment seems to require an increase in bureaucracy and potential state interference in the proper exercise of charity trustees' discretion. Currently, the identification of a new trustee is a matter for the existing trustee to decide and we are not convinced that new regulatory controls should be applied. The proposed amendment would apply only where the corporate trustee of an almshouse happens to be a registered provider of social housing. It is not clear that there is a strong rationale for requiring that these almshouse trustees, but not others, seek consent.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, in Committee, the noble Lords, Lord Best, Lord Patel, Lord McKenzie and Lord Beecham, tabled an amendment designed to liberalise Section 122 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008, which restricts the payments that housing associations may make to their members, and a similar amendment has been tabled again by the noble Lord, Lord Best.
The Government agree with the aim of the amendment and have put down our own amendments to achieve it. The amendments we have tabled would give the Secretary of State the power, by affirmative order, to add to the classes of permitted payments that housing associations may make to their members. Taking this matter out of the Bill will give us sufficient time to explore a new exemption that delivers greater flexibility while protecting public investment. Any order would be made only following consultation with the Charity Commission, the regulator and the housing association sector. I beg to move.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
We are grateful to the Government for responding to the earlier amendment. I acknowledge that the noble Lord, Lord Best, will not move his amendment, but are classes 4 and 5 specified in that amendment classes that the Government would support and take forward under the process that they have set down?
Amendment 63 refers to,
“modifying or removing a permitted class added by order under this subsection”.
Do the Government have anything in mind concerning modifying or removing a particular class?
Lord Best
This amendment is about the new powers for the ombudsman to apply to a court to make its rulings legally enforceable—in other words, to insist, having made a judgment through the courts, that the landlord complies with the ombudsman’s decision. This is quite a big jump from the current scheme, which is based on informality. At the moment it is an inexpensive scheme. It is very accessible to complainants and people do not come with their lawyers. It is not part of the legal processes. It is feared that the new scheme will rather change the nature of the way in which the ombudsman works. It also carries the same risk that I have been harping on about today, that housing associations will slide into the public sector and become indistinguishable from public sector agencies, which has the effect thereafter that all of their borrowing will become part of the public sector debt, which I know the Government are very anxious to avoid. There is a risk that if housing associations are subject to legally enforceable decisions based on the opinion of a public authority—the ombudsman—they may not be regarded as being outside the public sector. That would be a calamity.
Once again, this is about trying to retain the independence and non-statutory nature of the sector. The removal of these new legal powers would be helpful in sustaining that independence and the success of the ombudsman’s scheme to date, without making the ombudsman’s rulings legally enforceable.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendments 75 and 76. They would ensure that the ombudsman’s service is not damaged by unintended consequences. What is wonderful about the ombudsman’s service is that compared with the courts, proceedings are informal, inexpensive and accessible. It is respected as its rulings are complied with by registered providers. The Government are proposing to solve a problem that noble Lords on this side of the House do not believe exists. We should be careful not to undermine the service. Will the Minister tell the House where the proposal has come from? Who has asked for it? How has it arrived here?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am confident that my department has properly considered those matters. It is obviously a very important issue and I have already undertaken to write to the noble Lord, Lord Best. Other noble Lords will of course get a copy, and there will be a copy in the Library.
“Exclusion of certain rural dwellings from the preserved right to buy
The preserved right to buy under section 171A of the Housing Act 1985 (cases in which right to buy is preserved) shall not be available in respect of a dwelling-house let by a registered provider of social housing in a rural area designated for the purposes of section 17(1)(b) of the Housing Act 1996 (right of tenant to acquire dwelling: supplementary provisions).”
Lord Best
My Lords, Amendment 81 is about the exclusion of some rural dwellings from the preserved right to buy. Quite a few tenants who were previously in the public sector have become tenants of a housing association, through large-scale voluntary transfers. Those tenants, and indeed others in social housing, have the preserved right to buy: the opportunity, if they move around, to buy the place to which they move if it is another social housing home. However, if they wish to move into a home that falls under a Section 106 planning agreement, which provides that the property must be retained in perpetuity as a rented social housing home—that is; it is a condition of planning that a certain number of homes are for renting—they will be unable to do so because the landlord would be in breach of the Section 106 agreement. The preserved right to buy is rather paradoxically preventing people moving out of the council house that they are in at the time and into a new property that has been built under a Section 106 agreement.
This amendment excludes certain rural dwellings from the preserved right to buy, allowing the people to move in and not then be able to exercise the right to buy that property because of the Section 106 agreement and the restrictions on that property. This amendment would be helpful to people moving around—to tenants. It is unfair at the moment that they have to be turned away, even though the case is good, because the properties are restricted and cannot be sold into home ownership on a permanent basis.
During the summer, I received a lot of helpful correspondence from Ministers and the civil servants have been very helpful. On this matter, I had a reply which I think indicated that the point had not been fully understood by the civil servants. They have been marvellous in every other respect, but with this one aberration I did not get a satisfactory response. I am not entirely sure that the point was fully understood, which must have been my fault when making it in the first place. If this small, unintended consequence of legislation could be cleared up in the Bill, it would be helpful to the mobility of people in rural areas and in places where there are restrictions in the properties that have been built, thus helping mobility. I beg to move.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Best, in moving his amendment suggested that his point was not fully understood. He alarmed me somewhat because he talked about Section 106 and its consequences. Unfortunately, my notes do not refer to Section 106 and nor do the Q and As. If my response does not fully answer his question, I will of course write to him with further details.
Tenants who have been involved in a stock transfer from a local authority to a registered provider would have agreed to this transfer on the basis that they would retain their right to buy. We do not think that it would be proper to remove this right from the tenant. Equally, we do not think that it is right that secure tenants who are part of a future stock transfer should have their longstanding right to buy taken away simply because they live in rural areas and their homes have been transferred to a new landlord.
However, while we wish to ensure that transferred tenants are not denied their existing rights, there is statutory provision to ensure that the new tenants of these properties do not get the right to purchase their homes in order that the properties remain available to those in need of social housing. There are existing measures in place to ensure that homes in rural areas, which are sold under the preserved right to buy, remain available to people at affordable prices.
Landlords can already impose restrictions requiring owners who wish to sell to either resell only to people who have lived or worked locally for at least three years, or first offer their home to the landlord, giving them the opportunity to return the property to their existing housing stock if they wish to do so. These restrictions on reselling are already in place in a very significant proportion of our countryside and remain in place in perpetuity. In our view, this is sufficient.
I hope that I have met the noble Lord’s points. If I have not, I will urgently have a meeting with him and officials in order to further examine the issues.