The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Chairman:
Mr.
Peter Atkinson
Beresford,
Sir Paul
(Mole Valley)
(Con)
Borrow,
Mr. David S.
(South Ribble)
(Lab)
Dunne,
Mr. Philip
(Ludlow)
(Con)
Efford,
Clive
(Eltham)
(Lab)
Goldsworthy,
Julia
(Falmouth and Camborne)
(LD)
Holloway,
Mr. Adam
(Gravesham)
(Con)
Jack,
Mr. Michael
(Fylde)
(Con)
Mactaggart,
Fiona
(Slough) (Lab)
Marris,
Rob
(Wolverhampton, South-West)
(Lab)
Reid,
John
(Airdrie and Shotts)
(Lab)
Rogerson,
Dan
(North Cornwall)
(LD)
Shapps,
Grant
(Welwyn Hatfield)
(Con)
Stringer,
Graham
(Manchester, Blackley)
(Lab)
Watts,
Mr. Dave
(Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty's
Treasury)
Wicks,
Malcolm
(Croydon, North)
(Lab)
Wright,
Mr. Iain
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for
Communities and Local
Government)Mark Etherton,
Committee Clerk
attended
the Committee
Fourth
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Tuesday 11
November
2008
[Mr.
Peter Atkinson in the
Chair]
Draft Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (Consequential Provisions) Order 2008
4.30
pm
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local
Government (Mr. Iain Wright): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (Consequential Provisions) Order 2008
Mr.
Atkinson, may I begin by saying what an absolute pleasure it is to
serve under your chairmanship. It is particularly pleasing to me to
have a fellow north-east MP to keep me in
check.
The
order is relatively straightforward. I hope that I will not disappoint
the Committee if I do not detain it too long. The order makes a number
of amendments to legislation which will be necessary once certain
provisions of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 are
commenced.
Before
I go into the substance of the order, it might be useful to hon.
Members if I set out the context and explain how the order fits into a
wider package of orders. In addition to this order, two orders are
before the House that are subject to the negative resolution procedure.
The first is similar in nature to this one, save that it amends
secondary legislation as opposed to primary. The second order transfers
existing functions of the Housing Corporation to the Homes and
Communities Agency and the new regulator, the Tenant Services
Authority. All of these orders are linked in terms of timing to the
commencement of section 5 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008.
There is no great secret to section 5 above all others, but the point
is that these orders should take effect in line with the relevant
commencement order for the Act. That is currently planned for 1
December.
Hon. Members
may recall that there was a large amount of support for the main
principles of the Actessentially the creation of the HCA,
bringing together investment and delivery and the creation of a new
regulator for social housing, the Tenant Services Authority, in line
with the recommendation of the Cave report Every Tenant
Matters. Hon. Members may also be aware that the new bodies now
actually exist, albeit in a limited form at present, for example, for
the purposes of appointing board members. This order will come into
force when the main powers and functions are turned on or transferred
from the existing bodiesthe Commission for the New Towns, the
Urban Regeneration Agency and the Housing Corporationto the new
organisations.
The
purpose of the majority of the amendments is to update references to
predecessor bodies and other references in existing legislation to
ensure that these reflect the position once the HCA has been created
and the predecessor bodies abolished. There is nothing pertinent to the
Tenant Services Authority in the order. Where taxation matters are
concerned, the intent is to leave the current position substantially
unaltered. The effect of the amendments, other than in the rewording of
existing
Acts, is therefore extremely limited. They do not contain substantive
policy issues, but are technical in nature. They are designed to
reflect the passing of certain functions and powers from the
predecessor bodies to the new ones, but to do so in a way that leaves
the rights of tenants and others unaffected, which is as far as
possible tax neutral and allows for co-operation between the HCA and
Welsh Ministers in respect of some of the functions of the
CNT.
Unless
the Committee wishes me to do so, I will not go into the detail of
every amendment in the order, but I will be happy to answer any queries
that hon. Members have on specific provisions in the schedule to the
order. I hope that, on that basis and on the basis of that explanation,
hon. Members will approve the order.
In some
respects, the world is a very different place to the one in which the
Homes and Communities Agency was discussed in Committee, but I still
think that the agency is essential, and the order helps to realise and
achieve it. I look forward to hearing the debate.
4.34
pm
Grant
Shapps (Welwyn Hatfield) (Con): I welcome you to the
Chair, Mr. Atkinson, and welcome the Minister back to
discussions about the HCA. He, as ever, has a good grasp of the Bill,
and speaks about it with great knowledge. However, none of that masks
the fact that this was a Bill which, as he will recall, was amended
umpteen times through the Committee and Report stages379 times
at my last countand today we come here to consider yet more
amendments to the Governments own legislation. I simply pose
this one simple question. How can it be that the Government and the
Minister failed to introduce a Bill that was better thought out in the
first place and dealt with some of the issues up front? Instead, during
the passage of the Bill, let alone today, the Government kept bringing
back additional clauses for us to debate. Some of the amendments, as
the Minister rightly says, are extremely technical in nature, but that
is not an excuse for poor direction or poor preparation of the Bill in
the first
place.
The
Minister also claimed that the Housing and Regeneration Bill and
indeed, the Homes and Communities Agency enjoyed large levels
of support. I am not certain whether we sat through the same
Committee and Report stages of the Bill; my recollection is somewhat
different. The HCA is a mammoth organisationa
mega-quangowhich has been designed to crush all that lies
before it. It has powers to compulsorily purchase, to plan, to provide
its own planning permission and powers to build and to be the
management for its tenants. It has awesome
powers.
Sir
Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con): Will my hon. Friend
give
way?
The
Chairman: Order. I remind the Committee that we are
dealing with consequential provisions, not having a debate about the
whole of the original
Bill.
Sir
Paul Beresford: Thank you, Mr. Atkinson, I will
try to keep within the bounds that you have set for me. It may interest
my hon. Friend to know that the Select
Committee on Communities and Local Government is talking about the
relationship between Government and local government. Most local
government leaders contend that there is Government interference and
regulation, of which this is a classic example. Leaders of all
political parties are bemoaning the fact that they are being landed
with quangos like the HCA, which are taking over control and taking
local democracy away.
Grant
Shapps: I will not dwell on my hon. Friends
intervention, Mr. Atkinson. The Minister did rather entice
me into that comment about the scope of the Homes and Communities
Agency by saying that its creation enjoyed large levels of
support. It did not. We will now have to see how it operates.
Although we have no objection to the amendments being made, in order
that the quango can operate, it would have been far preferable to have
this sorted out in the original legislation as far as
possible.
4.37
pm
Dan
Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD): It is a pleasure to serve
under your chairmanship, Mr. Atkinson. I cannot claim to be
a close neighbour, unlike the Minister, being from the south-west
rather than the north-east, but it is still a pleasure to serve under
your chairmanship.
The Minister
talked about the change in circumstances, and that is a crucial point
that the fledgling agency will have to get to grips with as it moves
forward in dealing with the huge tasks in front of it. It strikes me
that it has two tasks. One is taking forward regeneration of areas that
may be taking a further hit now as industries are suffering or will
suffer. Businesses in my constituency have contacted me about the
crisis that they may face and the need for Government agencies to be
mindful of that. The second, of course, is the pressing need for action
on housing. We debated in Westminster Hall last week the Select
Committees report on the rented sector and the
Governments response to that.
My party
supports the bringing together of agencies and the replacement of
several quangos with one or two. It is fair to say that my hon. Friends
who served on the Committee that considered the Housing and
Regeneration Bill supported the concept in so far as it replaced two or
more quangos with one. However, in common with the Conservative
spokesman, we would have preferred to see greater devolution of power
and responsibility to locally elected people so that they could take
strategic decisions on all sorts of important issues that affect their
area.
I shall be
grateful if the Minister can reassure me on a couple of points. Will he
assure me that the agency is not to be given any extra responsibilities
on top of the enormous task that it has already been given in the Bill?
That is crucial. It could take on a lot more responsibilities in other
areas of policy connected with what it has been given, but it is
crucial that it focuses on the main task in hand. Are there any
questions of oversight and prioritisation of the work of the agency?
Are there opportunities for local agencies, bearing in mind that
different parts of the United Kingdom are affected by the amendments?
Will there be as much opportunity as possible for locally elected
representatives to have input into the work of the agency as it moves
forward?
4.40
pm
Mr.
Wright: May I, through you Mr. Atkinson, thank
hon. Members for their comments. I wish to make three essential points
in response to hon. Members. The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield said
that a large number of amendments had been made during the passage of
the Housing and Regeneration Bill. He is right; there were an awful lot
of amendments, but we wanted to get the legislation exactly right. The
order before us this afternoon is entirely in keeping with
parliamentary procedure. Once a Bill has received Royal Assent,
consequential amendments to previous primary legislation are made. That
is entirely in order.
I do not wish
to disagree with the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield about how he
disagreed with the establishment of the HCA. I greatly enjoyed the
battles that we had in Committee on that. To be fair to him, he has
been incredibly consistent in using the phrase
mega-quango when talking about the agency. Let me quote
something from the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair
Burt), who played a key role in the Committee stage. He
said:
I
wish to indicate to the Minister our general approach to the clause
following the debate on Second Reading. As he knows, we are not
necessarily against the establishment of the HCA. The concerns that we
mentioned on Second Reading, which will be echoed in Committee, were
raised to query and scrutinise the plans and to ensure that the plans
achieve the objectives that have been set
out.[Official Report, Housing and
Regeneration Public Bill Committee, 10 January 2008; c.
149.]
That was
a sensible approach and it backs up my claim that there was wide
support for the creation of the HCA.
The hon.
Members for Mole Valley and for North Cornwall expressed concerns which
I took essentially to be the same thing. They were concerned about the
relationship between the HCAa very powerful national
agencyand local government. This was deliberated at length in
Committee. The chief executive, Sir Bob Kerslake, is firm on this, as
are Ministers and the Government as a whole. The HCA will be a national
agency delivering locally. Key to that is the relationship between the
agency and local authorities. It would be counter-productive,
particularly in the current economic climate, if the agency came in
with a top-down, one-size-fits-all approach. If the agency is really
successful, it will be flexible and work closely with local authorities
to help local partners realise their vision for development and housing
growth as well as the wider aspects of regeneration in their area. That
is key and it has been put at the heart of the agency
already.
Sir
Paul Beresford: The Select Committee had the privilege and
pleasure of meeting the chief executive and discussing the matter with
him before the agency was set up. He made it clear that he intended to
discuss with local authorities. However, I asked him whether, if it did
not work with the local authorities he had a sawn-off shotgun in his
bag. The answer was yes. In other words, it would be discussion as far
as it could go, but then he was prepared to steamroller local
authoritiesthe elected
members.
Mr.
Wright: I am fearful, Mr. Atkinson. We may be
straying too far into a sort of Second Reading debate and the
deliberations of a Public Bill Committee. Suffice
it to say that one of the key roles of the agency is to work with local
authorities to help engender a sense of development. This country needs
more homes. We are living longer; people are living in different ways
and in more complex family arrangements. We have had an undersupply of
housing for 30 to 35 years. That needs to be addressed. We are given
the idea that the HCA will go into a borough council and say,
This is what we are doing. Like it or lump it. That is
not the approach
that will be taken. The HCA and local authorities will need to work
closely together. The national agency will work to deliver locally. It
will work out whether there are any skills shortages or cultural
reasons why development might not be allowed. That is the key point. A
national agency delivering and working locally with local partners will
be at the heart of what the agency wishes to do and it is between the
lines of what this order is about.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Committee
rose at fifteen minutes to Five
oclock.