| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
4.15 pm
Mr. Michael Jopling (Westmorland and Lonsdale): Over a good many years, I have taken an interest in the effects of right-to-buy arrangements that were introduced on to the statute book through the Housing Act 1980. Although I have always been a great enthusiast of the right to buy, I have been anxious that, in some areas of the country, the full effect of an open market on rented property should not apply to the right to buy.
I start by declaring--as I have in the Register of Members' Interests--that I own some rented housing, but none of it is in areas such as the national parks, about which I want to talk this afternoon.
Over the years, I have done my best--both from within and outside Government--to try to ensure that the effects of right-to-buy arrangements did not, in areas such as my constituency in the Lake district, make an already difficult housing situation infinitely worse. For all the years that I have been in the House--nearly 32--I have been extremely concerned about what happens in regions such as my constituency, where there is a huge demand from people from outside the area who wish to have retirement or holiday homes and who buy up properties. They drive the prices up to such a level that the local people who have been born, brought up and want to work in the area can no longer afford to live in it because of the serious escalation of house prices.
Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman (Lancaster):
That is by no means confined to the Lake district. Some of the lovely rural areas in my constituency are handicapped by the same process, which is why it is essential to keep some properties for indigent people, and their sons and daughters.
Mr. Jopling:
That is right. My hon. Friend, whose constituency joins mine and who is a distinguished former
I was always concerned that the right-to-buy arrangements could, if allowed to develop in an uncontrolled way, drive council houses out of the hands of locally born and locally employed people. I was concerned that the arrangements could drive those houses into the realm of people who wanted retirement or holiday homes.
When the 1980 Act was passing through the House, we put pressure on the Government--I did so from within Government--to curtail the power of new owners who had exercised their right to buy to resell their properties on the open housing market. I think that it was the House of Lords that eventually nudged the Government into rightly curtailing the resale of those houses after the right to buy had been exercised. They restricted that right to reasonably locally based people, which was a good move.
In my constituency--my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) is right to say that the same thing applies to many other parts of the country, particularly the national parks--council house tenants bought their council houses and found that it paid to let them as holiday homes. The massive profits they made allowed them to pay a mortgage on other houses in nearby towns where they went to live. They were running small cottage industries using their council houses. We were able to halt that practice in about 1988.
I was involved also in steps, which the Government supported, to prevent abuses involving houses that had been earmarked as joint ownership properties. Owners who could not afford to pay 100 per cent. of the property price were able to enter into a shared ownership arrangement with either the housing association or the local authority, and then try to staircase their ownership. We took steps to prevent those houses from coming on to the open housing market thereby ceasing to qualify as joint ownership properties for those who wanted to own their homes but who could not afford to pay the whole price.
Last summer, the Government announced in their White Paper that properties in rural areas owned by housing associations would be exempt from the new right to buy. The tenants would also be exempt from the right-to-buy provision in those circumstances. I welcomed that move. I thought that all was going well until I heard recently from the Country Landowners Association--of which I am a member--which expressed continuing concern about the situation. In winding up the debate, I ask the Minister to answer some questions that bother the CLA.
It wonders whether the Government have done enough in the Bill to restore certainty and enable the future development of affordable rented housing schemes. First, the CLA asks the Government how providers of land can be certain that low-cost housing will not be lost to the open market in future if, as the Government have said, the boundaries of rural area exemption are to be subject to reviews in the Bill. That is a danger to future confidence.
It leads to the CLA's second question: how will the Government deal with special cases involving, for example, small towns in national parks--I have talked about that problem in my constituency and in other areas--which exceed the 3,000 population threshold but
which do not have alternative housing options? That is a problem in my constituency, and it concerns other hon. Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and those whose constituencies encompass national parks.
Thirdly, the CLA asks how planning authorities can have the confidence to make section 106 agreements on exceptions sites in small towns such as those that I described, when the low-cost housing involved is not part of the rural areas exemption, or is likely to not be exempt in five or 10 years. They are important questions, and I shall listen very carefully to the Minister's response. The CLA tells me that it believes that there would be greater certainty if the Bill provided a once-and-for-all exemption for schemes in existence at the point of Royal Assent or at the date of planning permission for subsequent developments. It believes that there would be greater certainty if the Bill extended the definition of rural areas to cover special cases where the exercise of a right to buy would harm the interests of future generations.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the CLA, and I look forward to hearing what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say. Let me say in the friendliest way that the House of Lords gets very excited about exactly such issues: I strongly recommend that he gets his act together tonight, as that will save him a great deal of trouble when the Bill goes to another place.
Mr. William O'Brien (Normanton):
The right hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Jopling) has issued a firm warning. The Minister would be wise to take note of what the right hon. Gentleman had to say, because of his experience as a Cabinet Minister responsible for housing. He made it clear that there are anomalies in the drafting of housing and planning legislation, and concern has been expressed by Members on both sides of the House about the possible consequences.
I want to draw attention to a local concern and the views expressed by people responsible for housing matters in West Yorkshire and Humberside. Mr. Steve Close, the chief executive of the Chantry housing association in Wakefield, wrote to me to the effect that the Chantry housing association and the National Federation of Housing Associations remain concerned that, without some changes, the proposed grant scheme for housing association tenants would undermine the provision of affordable housing in areas where replacement is impossible.
Local authorities in the industrial and urban conurbations of West Yorkshire are finding it difficult to replace the affordable social housing that was sold under the right to buy. That affects the provision of affordable housing to meet specific needs. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that, in my constituency, there are areas with a specific need for social housing and for houses that people can afford to rent. The private sector does not provide such accommodation. Amendment No. 10 gives the Minister an opportunity to regulate matters, so that properties that were built for specific purposes under section 106 will continue to be available to those who require low-rent properties.
In Committee, we asked about houses that had been built specifically for certain purposes under certain conditions, particularly for the elderly or the infirm. Ministers have said that that practice will continue and
that such properties will continue to be available to specifically designated people. We want to look one step beyond the assurance given by the Minister in Committee, to ensure that section 106 housing will remain in the market for people in need of social properties at affordable rents.
The Government's planning policy guidance No. 3 issued in 1992 stated:
One purpose of new clause 5 is to secure the Government's acknowledgement that there is a need for affordable housing. We want the Minister's reassurance on that point, and an undertaking that properties that are considered by housing associations or local authorities as necessary under new clause 5 will remain available to people in need of social housing at rents that they can afford.
Affordable housing is defined as subsidised housing and low-cost market housing. I am pleased that the Minister nods in agreement--it appears that he is drawing nearer to meeting our request.
A local authority may include an affordable housing policy in its local plan where a shortage of such housing has been identified. In Wakefield and other areas where the mining industry was once predominant, social housing was provided under the former coal mine agreements. With the closure of the collieries, such estates have been demolished and replaced by high-price properties that local people cannot afford, and little low-rent properties remain apart from local authority or housing association homes.
Under the right to buy, the number of local authority properties available for rent is decreasing considerably, and as the Bill makes provision for the right to buy to be extended to housing association tenants, one can anticipate that people trying to obtain an affordable tenancy will have further problems unless changes are made to the Bill. If local authorities continue to include an affordable housing policy in their local plans where a shortage of such housing has been identified, that will enable authorities to negotiate with residential developers, to include an element of affordable housing on suitable sites.
I again draw attention to the situation in mining areas, where there has been a total clearance of social housing because of the mining industry's closure. Provisions for designating certain areas for social housing and including affordable housing need to be strengthened, which I hope that the Minister will consider today.
Government guidance suggests that affordable housing provided through a planning policy should be available in the long term, and states that local authorities must ensure that arrangements are in place to ensure that the
That point is reiterated in the amendments.
It is important for the Minister to assure us that, when new properties are available under section 106 or when agreement has been reached with local authorities and developers, those properties will be available for future generations. The destinies of people who will rely in future on social housing at affordable rents will be determined by the decisions that we take today.
"a community's need for affordable housing is a material planning consideration which may be taken into account in formulating development plan policies."
"benefit of affordable housing will be enjoyed by successive as well as by initial occupiers of the property."
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |