Clause
41
Information
services
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Raynsford:
I broadly support the purpose of the clause,
which is to give the new agency powers to provide information,
disseminate ideas and undertake research, thus carrying forward powers
that are available to the Housing Corporation and English Partnerships.
I seek guidance from my hon. Friend the Minister on whether he
envisages any new areas in which research may be undertaken,
information may be provided or ideas
disseminated— [Interruption.]
The
Chairman:
Order. The level of background noise is getting
rather
high.
Mr.
Raynsford:
Thank you, Mr. Benton.
I simply seek guidance on
whether there are likely to be any new areas of initiative taken by the
new agency. If so, what is the thinking behind that and what are the
resource implications? I understand, from our debates on Tuesday on an
earlier clause, that the agency will be able to recover reasonable
costs by levying charges for providing information or research. It
would help to know whether that is likely to involve any expansion of
the agency’s activity and, if so, in which
areas.
Mr.
Wright:
My right hon. Friend raises an interesting point.
Given that there needs to be a step change in what the agency does, in
comparison with its predecessor organisations, I anticipate that it
will work in new fields, such as project management. I understand that
English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation already have such
roles, but I imagine that there will be new and innovative research on
project management and perhaps communication.
We have
talked about how the agency will have to have a key role—a
primary role, following my response to my right hon. Friend—in
facilitating, enabling, partnership working and community engagement. I
do not want to box the agency in on what it does, but I imagine that as
a resource hub and repository of best practice, it will help people
step up to the plate and local communities to become involved in
planning permission. It will also help to ensure that infrastructure
projects are understood and communicated as much as possible.
In our deliberations on clause
27 my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South mentioned concerns that
work at the Housing Corporation’s centre for research and market
intelligence might be restricted if the agency were to undertake it
using the powers in clause 41. The HCA would be able to take on the
work of the CRMI under that clause and the following one, and would not
be restricted in any way by the wording of clause 41. I hope that
addresses my hon. Friend’s concerns, and that I have answered my
right hon. Friend’s points about how the agency will provide
research.
Question
put and agreed to.
Clause 41 ordered to stand
part of the Bill.
Clause
42
Advice,
education and
training
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Raynsford:
This is a supplementary point about the Academy
for Sustainable Communities, the body that is likely to become
Cinderella to the new agency unless we draw attention to it. All our
discussions have been about the merging of the Housing Corporation and
English Partnerships, the two big components of the new body, but the
third component is the academy, which has an important role in advice,
education and training—the subjects of the clause. I should be
grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister could indicate the areas where
the academy, in its new role as part of the agency, will address the
challenges that we face, not least of appropriate skills for the
achievement of the Government’s ambitious housing and
regeneration targets.
Mr.
Syms:
Over recent years, we have seen
the importance of involving communities, particularly disadvantaged
communities, on many of the larger estates. I am thinking of places
such as Castle Vale in Birmingham, where major schemes have involved
tenants and communities. Does the Minister envisage that an element of
the measure could be to help train community members to be advocates
for their communities and put forward what people want at grass roots,
so that when there are development schemes, one is better able to drill
down, there is no top-down process and the HCA does its best to involve
local communities and get community members to say what their
communities want in the way of redevelopment and
sustainability?
Mr.
Wright:
I am grateful to the Committee for bringing the
issue to wider attention. My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich
and Woolwich is right: although the focus has been on the establishment
of the HCA due to the merger of English Partnerships and the Housing
Corporation, we should not forget the vital role of the Academy for
Sustainable Communities in ensuring that we have real community
engagement. I am excited by what the academy does, and there is a real
opportunity in the Bill to expand its work.
To touch on
what my right hon. Friend said about clause 41, the academy focuses on
broader generic skills, such as project management, vision,
communication,
partnership working and community engagement, and following my response
to him on that earlier clause, I anticipate that the academy will
expand its role. The academy has identified three broad areas and three
major audiences on which its work programmes will focus when it becomes
part of the agency. The three major audiences include young people,
because it will need to capture their interest, raise their awareness
of sustainable community issues and encourage them to go into
sustainable community careers. Having spoken to stakeholders, I know
that there is a potential skills shortage, which may affect the number
of people going into sustainable community careers, such as
architecture and landscaping. I know, too, that my right hon. Friend is
working hard on the issue. We must work to encourage
people to have a stake in their communities and to realise that quality
of life and the built environment are important. People can become
productively and positively involved in their communities by taking up
careers as planning surveyors, architects or landscapers. I am really
excited by that work and I would like to drive it forward, certainly at
ministerial level.
Margaret
Moran:
Does my hon. Friend envisage the expansion of some
of the ideas that he has outlined? For example, I have been working
closely with Ashram housing association in Birmingham, which has worked
with its south Asian women tenants to ensure that they gain
qualifications in design and architecture and can help to design their
own homes. Such schemes give people skills and potential for
employment, while dealing with issues such as sustainable communities
and regeneration. I hope that the HCA will take a much more positive
role in expanding such projects.
Mr.
Wright:
I certainly hope so, too. I am pleased that my
hon. Friend mentioned Ashram, because its representatives have been to
see me. We talked about skilling specific diverse communities and about
ensuring that in areas where black and minority ethnic communities,
women and younger people are not involved in the careers that I
mentioned they step up to the plate to ensure that they become
involved. That is vital, so I am really encouraged and excited by what
is going on and I want to see those things go forward. The academy is
really good and will make still more progress when it is in the
agency.
Mr. Nick Hurd (Ruislip-Northwood)(Con):
Of course, the Bill is not the
only opportunity for the Academy for Sustainable Communities to expand
now that the Sustainable Communities Act 2007 is on the statute book.
As the promoter of the private Member’s Bill that led to the
Act, I am obviously delighted to support the academy’s
expansion. May I press the Minister a little further, however, on what
expansion means in this context? How much more financial assistance
will the Government put into that
expansion?
Mr.
Wright:
That will be an operational decision for the
agency’s chief executive and senior management. The clear
expectation is that the agency will help people to realise what they
can do to promote sustainable communities. In that respect, I pay
tribute to what the hon. Gentleman did in the 2007 Act. However, if the
agency is really to step up to the plate to ensure that
communities are engaged and that potential barriers to housing growth
and community infrastructure are identified, addressed and resolved,
the academy will need to play a bigger role. That is what I mean by
expansion.
I have mentioned young people
and potential skills shortages, but let me also mention professionals
because the professional bodies have a role to play. The academy has
identified the need to target professionals and deliver a co-ordinated
programme of integrated learning and skills training to those working
in sustainable communities. That will improve their skills and
awareness and ensure that future generations are attracted to the
relevant professions and that those working in them are excited by them
and want to move forward still further. Again, this is a real
opportunity, and I am really excited by it.
The third strand of the work
programme identified by the academy relates directly to the point made
by the hon. Member for Poole about community leaders. The academy wants
to raise awareness and understanding of sustainable community issues
among community leaders and to support the building of the capacity and
capability to deliver on those issues.
From what I have heard, the
whole Committee is really excited, as I am, about the Academy for
Sustainable Communities. As John F. Kennedy said,
“Ask not what your
country can do for you; ask what you can do for your
country”,
and the
academy will be doing that on a sustainable community level. It is
really exciting that people can make an impact in their area by using
architects, landscapers and planning surveyors to raise standards and
quality of life, and that planning and design, which we mentioned on
earlier clauses, can play a central role. Through the agency, the
academy will be able to ensure that that happens. I have been
encouraged by our debate, as I hope other hon. Members have been, and I
hope that they will be attracted to stuff that is going on in their
constituencies and will ensure that the agency plays a part across the
country.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause 42
ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause
43
Guidance
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
10.15
am
Lembit
Öpik:
I notice that the Minister has resorted to
quoting John F. Kennedy, which is appropriate because the Bill has such
a wide remit that technically it could organise a moon landing and not
go beyond the limits of its
involvement.
Mr.
Wright:
I think we need a debate on whether the agency
will be a direct provider of the moon launch, because I know that the
hon. Gentleman is interested in space and asteroids. Would it help to
facilitate that moon landing, or would it be a direct
provider?
Lembit
Öpik:
My understanding from our previous debate is
that the agency would be able to operate the rocket as long as it was
rented. If the rocket were
bought, the agency would have to get someone else to look after it.
Although I am not asking to do so, if called upon by the nation I would
be happy to offer my services and perhaps knock a few asteroids out of
the way in the
process.
In
a more mundane context, I have a simple question about the guidance
that the HCA can give
“to such persons as it considers
appropriate about any matters relating to its
objects.”
Clauses
48 and 49 make it clear that there is a difference between guidance and
directions. Although those clauses relate to the Secretary of State,
presumably there is some distinction between guidance and directions.
Due to my inexperience of my portfolio there may be a standard answer
that I do not know, but will the Minister clarify the matter? How
binding is the guidance that the HCA gives? Is it mandatory, or is it,
within the more conventional meaning of the word, exactly
that—guidance and advice? I hope the question makes sense to the
Minister, and that he can provide some
clarification.
Mr.
Raynsford:
My question to the Minister is on a different
tack. I assume that the main purpose of clause 43 is to allow the
agency to give guidance to providers and others involved in the
provision of social housing and regeneration in the way that both the
Housing Corporation and English Partnerships do at
present.
Within the
current arrangements, another area has always been problematic: the
relationship between the regulatory function of the Housing Corporation
and its investment function. The question has always been how to
maintain a proper distinction between those two functions, but without
allowing nonsense to develop whereby the investment side puts money
into an organisation that is subject to concern from the regulatory
side. That will be part of the framework under the new arrangements
whereby the regulator will be a different body from the funder and
there will at times be questions about whether it is sensible for
regulatory action to be taken in respect of an organisation that is
seen to be in
difficulty.
We
know that in general the record over the past 30 years or so has been
good in terms of successful housing associations. When problems have
arisen, the Housing Corporation has been able to intervene and the
problems have generally been overcome without loss of public money or
threat to tenants. However, as the recent case involving Ujima housing
association highlighted, unhappy circumstances can rapidly develop in
which an association that had previously been regarded as a safe
recipient of investment finance may seem to be getting into financial
difficulties or to be acting not entirely properly in its financial
decisions, and regulatory intervention may become necessary. In the
Ujima case, questions were asked about whether action was taken early
enough when the first warning signals appeared about the organisation
not performing as well as it should. My question is: does guidance in
clause 43 extend to guidance being issued by the agency to the
regulator in such circumstances?
It will be essential to have a
clear understanding and a mechanism to ensure the sharing of
information between the two bodies, where there are doubts about the
performance of individual bodies, and where regulatory action may be
necessary. If it is not provided under this part of the Bill, where
will arrangements be
defined to ensure that there can be a proper and appropriate system for
sharing information between the agency and the regulator in such
circumstances?
Andrew
George (St. Ives) (LD): I launched the probing
contributions made so far. Indeed my hon. Friend the Member for
Montgomeryshire launched a space probe a moment ago. I was not quite
sure which planet he was coming from, but I was reassured because in
the end it was a very thoughtful
contribution.
Lembit
Öpik:
You are supposed to be on my
side.
Andrew
George:
Just to reassure my hon. Friend, I fully support
him.
Presumably, the
HCA will be giving guidance to RSLs and others—local authorities
and so forth. Chapter 5 refers to guidance and direction from the
Secretary of State. To what extent will the HCA be expected to offer
formal guidance to Government agencies, to the Treasury and the
Secretary of State? That is not clear, so perhaps the Minister could
point out where it is formally provided for in the Bill?
We have noted
that the HCA produces an annual report. A lot of bodies that provide
housing—RSLs for example—will be making
representations to Government, and they would be greatly strengthened
if the HCA itself endorsed the concerns of those agencies. An example
is the manner in which stamp duty applies to shared equity properties.
In many parts of the country when such a property is purchased, the
contribution of the occupant is well below stamp duty level but they
still have to pay stamp duty because the value of the whole property is
above the stamp duty threshold. In those circumstances, and given the
fact that it is not open market housing, I hope that the HCA would
support social housing providers by endorsing that concern. The
Government need to address the anomaly whereby people they and the HCA
are attempting to support through low-cost shared equity properties are
penalised by having to pay stamp duty. In that instance, it would be
appropriate for the HCA to make representations not just to the
Secretary of State but to the Treasury itself. Can the Minister
reassure us that it would be a right and proper thing for the HCA to
do?
Mr.
Wright:
I am grateful to Members for
that interesting line of questioning. On the point raised by the hon.
Member for Montgomeryshire about whether the word guidance is to be
understood in the conventional sense, I reassure him that guidance is
guidance.
It might be
helpful if I set out what sort of guidance we expect the agency to
provide. It could provide guidance on anything relating to its objects
and we have discussed at length improving the supply and quality of
housing, regeneration and community development. The sort of guidance
the agency might issue could be similar to what English Partnerships
and the Housing Corporation have been doing. For example, in relation
to its investment functions, the Housing Corporation issues a piece of
main guidance called the capital funding guide, designed to help
registered social landlords understand the procedures and requirements
relating to capital grant.
It being
twenty-five minutes past Ten o’clock,
The
Chairman
adjourned the Committee without Question put,
pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjo
urned till this
day at
One
o’clock.
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