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Mr. Clive Betts (Sheffield, Attercliffe): I support the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford)--that is, amendment No. 10. I support the proposal that the Secretary of State should be able to specify properties where section 106 agreements have been reached and should be able to ensure that they are excluded from the right to buy. In all the discussions in Committee about the right-to-buy properties for housing association tenants, we have said that we support the general approach and the general principle of the right to buy.
We support the right of housing association tenants to be on a similar basis to local authority tenants. On a number of occasions we have made it clear that we are not prepared to support exemptions where there are not exemptions for local authority tenants. We believe that housing association tenants have the same entitlement and we want to see it written into the Bill.
In speaking to amendment No. 10, my hon. Friend said that there is a possibility that the policy will lead to problems in rural areas, including a lack of social and affordable housing. We pressed for the development of a policy that will give protection to that sort of housing in those areas and we pressed for some exclusions from the rights that are generally available to housing association tenants. That is precisely why we have come to look at section 106 agreements.
We believe that the Minister should have the power, in certain circumstances, to exempt certain properties because of the potential for removing the availability of affordable social housing from certain parts of our community. If the right-to-buy policy were allowed to stand without any of the safeguards that we are trying to write into the Bill, there could be problems in terms of a lack of social housing in rural areas.
I shall illustrate my support for the amendment by referring to part of my constituency. There is an area in my constituency that is essentially a new town. It was brought into Sheffield at the beginning of the 1970s from Derbyshire for the purpose of allowing an expansion of Sheffield's community which could not expand within the given city boundaries of the time. The plans for the area were worked out in great detail, with public consultation and general support, and they included a balance of housing to buy and housing to rent. There has been a substantial change of housing policy in this country since the inception of those plans. The early townships had a balance of communities--they had houses to rent and houses to buy--but only housing to buy has been possible in later years.
The Government often attack the large council estates in our country--sometimes unfairly and sometimes indiscriminately. However, they bring out the fact that it
is unwise to have large areas in any city that are of the same tenure and that have no social mix. I contend that it is unwise to have large areas in our cities with only houses to rent and with people perhaps coming from a similar socio-economic background, but that it is equally unwise to develop large areas in our cities--such as Sheffield--where there are only houses to buy. People who choose to rent or who have no alternative but to rent do not have the opportunity to live in those communities.
There are areas in my constituency where people who cannot afford to buy or who do not want to buy are excluded--for example, people who want to rent a small flat. For example, I refer to younger people and to older people--who may have owned a house but who choose to move into rented accommodation later in life. Constituents who come to my surgery tell me, "I live in this area and own my property. Can you enable mum and dad to live near me? By the way, they want a council property or housing association property to rent. We do not really mind which, as long as there is a social landlord." The answer to such people is "No. We are very sorry. We can find somewhere, but it is three miles away." That is all right if the person concerned has a car in which to visit mum and dad, but it will not be so easy for mum and dad to visit in return, and they will lose some independence because no property is available to rent in the area.
It is also important to achieve a balance between communities. It used to be possible for local authorities to build suitable properties, but they cannot do so any more. In Sheffield we developed a very good partnership scheme enabling councils and housing associations to work with private builders. The Government have now stopped that scheme, but it has already put some rentable houses into the area.
We want to make housing association developments possible. In particular, we want to enable housing associations to afford to buy the available land. Section 106 agreements are a valuable asset, as they can be defined as part of an overall planning policy. I have just been talking about the planning arrangements for the Mosborough area in Sheffield. As part of their overall planning policy, local authorities should be able to wield a particular weapon: the ability to designate parts of a new community as areas where social housing will be provided. It is not sufficient to designate those areas in the first place, however; it is equally important to ensure that they remain areas for social housing in the longer term. The initial provision of a balanced community will be of no great benefit in 20 or 30 years' time if all the houses that were built for rent--often in attractive and desirable locations--suddenly become subject to the right to buy, and are sold. The initial planning policies that recognised the desirability of affordable housing must be maintained, and the amendment would empower the Secretary of State to ensure that they are.
Local authorities must not take such a use of planning policies lightly. In general, if areas are allocated for housing under planning policies, any sort of housing can be developed. Section 106 has a special function: as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich said, it is used by planning authorities in the light of a particular local need, when that is the best--often the only--way in which to ensure that suitable housing is built.
I am currently discussing the matter with representatives of the North British housing association, which has provided quite a few properties in the Sheffield area. It is now paying particular attention to the Mosborough area, and wants to talk to the local authority about the use of section 106 powers and the possibility of building properties in the area without the need for housing association grant from the Government. Naturally, the association fears that if it goes ahead using its own resources and other private funds that it can secure, the properties that it builds for specific purposes may be removed from the social rented sector soon afterwards.
Amendment No. 10 does not say that all section 106 properties will be exempt in all circumstances; it says that the Secretary of State should have a right and a power to remove properties from the right-to-buy scheme in some circumstances, when they are provided under section 106 powers and when they have clearly been provided to meet a local need that still exists. When the need has been assessed and identified, when it is clear that the houses were built to meet that need under section 106 and when it is still necessary to ensure that people are able to live in their communities when they can only afford to rent, the Secretary of State will be able to exercise his judgment and make certain that those properties remain available for social renting. I hope that the Secretary of State will recognise that this modest amendment could have a real impact on some people in some communities.
Mr. Peter Brooke (City of London and Westminster, South):
I rise to speak on my amendment No. 147, to which the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mrs. Maddock) referred. In Committee, we debated the general subject of this group of amendments, and I raised the issue with which the amendment deals with my hon. Friend the Minister. He implied that he understood the issue and would consider it. It is therefore a probing amendment, designed to provide a hook on which he can hang the outcome of his consideration.
Before I come to the amendment, I wish to say a word about the balance of inner-city housing. In Committee, I noted that social housing in inner cities was needed to enable the people who provide the key services that any city requires to live close to the centre. I recognise the Bill's potential implications for the existing provision of social housing and for any new housing that is provided. I argued that it would be wrong to build in any special purposes, beyond raising the issue of management in such areas.
I am conscious of the problem because we have some prior evidence. A housing association in my constituency manages housing that came to it following the abolition of the Greater London council, where a number of GLC tenants had exercised the right to buy before the block came into its hands. I dare say that it is partly that experience of mixed use in the housing that it currently has to manage that prompts its thoughts.
It is unquestionably the case that several tenants who exercised the right to buy in the middle 1980s have sold on, as the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) said. It is therefore arguable that the housing is no longer being used for the purpose for which it was originally designed. The problem about the subsequent ownership into which such housing comes is the same as that which applies in respect of leasehold enfranchisement. There can
be passionate arguments in favour of securing the right to leasehold enfranchisement, but, after it has been exercised, the house can be sold on to foreigners who were not part of the original debate and had not argued for the change.
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