Mr.
Jackson: Obviously, I respect the right hon.
Gentleman’s knowledge and experience of housing. However, it
would be remiss of me not to say that I would take his intervention a
little more seriously had
his Government in the last 12 years done something about, for instance,
leasehold reform. They have had plenty of opportunities to make changes
through primary and secondary legislation, and have failed to do so.
This is about listening to and consulting people, and acting on
perceived current failings in respect of
leasehold. 9.45
am
Mr.
Raynsford: I hesitate to intervene again, but the hon.
Gentleman should reflect that the Government passed the Commonhold and
Leasehold Reform Act 2002. It would be incorrect to give the
impression that the Government have not legislated on this
subject. Mr.
Jackson: That is all very well, but, as the right hon.
Gentleman well knows, key provisions of that Act have never been
enacted. That is still a source of contention in the housing
sector.
Julia
Goldsworthy (Falmouth and Camborne) (LD): I am listening
to what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but would the establishment of
that body not enable tenants to press for exactly the changes he is
talking about? Is he not actually arguing against the amendment that
he has
tabled?
Mr.
Jackson: That is one interpretation. The hon. Lady always
likes a good argument. The clause and the debate around it encapsulate
the whole problem with this Government. If they cannot in the space of
seven years enact the proposals in the 2002 Act, I bow to the hon.
Lady’s optimism that establishing a consultative body across the
whole housing sector is going to bring about those necessary
changes.
In answer to
the intervention from the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich,
I believe that it is important for social tenants and tenants in the
private sector to be consulted on significant changes in legislation
that have an impact on their quality of life, housing tenure and their
future. Indeed, I would commend our housing Green Paper to the right
hon. Gentleman, as it touches on those issues—I am sure that he
has read it from cover to cover. However, we are looking at the
ramifications of the clause. It is too opaque, too loosely defined and
possibly falls outside the remit of the Bill, which deals with local
democracy. It is not a housing matter per se, and on that basis we
would not seek to support it if we divide.
Dan
Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD): It is indeed a delight to
see you back in the Chair, Mr Amess, however briefly this
morning.
The hon.
Member for Peterborough quite rightly proposed his amendment as a point
for debate—a probing amendment—so that we could discuss
the Government’s movement towards a situation which has been
envisaged for some time, with tenants having a far stronger voice at a
national level. I share some of the concerns expressed by the right
hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich about the principles behind the
amendment, which is seeking to create a stark distinction between
social landlords and other tenants.
There was an
opportunity to debate the housing policy of the main parties earlier
this week, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Sarah
Teather) and others discovered, there does not seem to be a huge
amount of enthusiasm among Conservative Members for social housing. That
is something that I discovered during the recent council elections in
my own constituency. A Conservative candidate who was not successful on
this occasion was keen to point out in a public meeting the problems
associated with social housing estates, describing them in a way I
thought we had all moved on from. I am sure that the hon. Member for
Peterborough and his hon. Friends in Committee would be of the opinion
that that candidate’s views are
outdated. Mr.
Jackson: The hon. Member for North Cornwall, who is a
fair-minded individual, would not wish to give the impression that the
Conservative party is not committed to social housing, given our record
in the period between 1979 and 1997. We saw lots of innovative methods
of delivering social housing—flats above shops, housing action
trusts and tenant management organisations, to name but a few. If he
read our Green Paper he would see that we remain committed, and because
we have so many councillors at local level it is Conservative
councillors who have been building council houses. In the
past 12 years, Labour councils have failed to do
so.
Dan
Rogerson: I am sure that councils of all parties would
want to reflect on the housing records of various councils. In
Conservative housing policy, I still detect a direction towards the
selling off of social housing. That is a continued theme, and a problem
when we are desperate to secure more affordable rented accommodation
across the country. I suspect, Mr Amess, that if I continue down this
line, you may well rule me out of order.
The Liberal
Democrats are a bit more sympathetic to the idea of a commonality of
problems and issues for all tenants who want to be sure that, in their
relationship with their landlord, they hold some of the cards, whether
their landlord is an RSL or a private landlord. We are somewhat less
concerned about the sorts of distinctions that the hon. Member for
Peterborough
raised. On
Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne
questioned the need for the body, given that the Office for Tenants and
Social Landlords has recently come into existence. The Government are
reacting and jumping around rather than thinking ahead and planning.
The Bill considers some housing measures, but it has become a hybrid
measure for all sorts of areas of policy. However, there are some
urgent issues that we need to consider. The Government have said that
they will act to deal with the issue of repossession when landlords are
in difficulty—that problem has huge consequences for the tenants
in that property in the buy-to-let market. They say that they will act
at the earliest opportunity to do something about that situation, and
perhaps the Bill is a missed opportunity, given that it considers
housing matters. In conclusion, the Liberal Democrats are less
concerned to make such a sharp distinction between tenants in social
housing and other tenants, but we are sympathetic to the view already
expressed that we are in danger of duplicating existing measures
.
Mr.
Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con): I have grave
reservation about this whole clause and whether it is worth trying to
amend it in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough
seeks to do.
It flies in the face of the whole concept we have developed in this
country of representative democracy. Normally if a body is to be
representative, we required it to be elected and to have the authority
to fulfil the wishes of those who elect it. In the Bill, we are told
that the Government are going to appoint a body, and so this body
represents those people. They do not choose it: it is imposed on them
and set up on their behalf. It is a soviet-style council elected and
imposed from the top. That is unless I am sadly mistaken and there is
some proposal for this body to be elected by the social tenants whom it
claims to represent. However, I see no such clause in the
legislation. Nor
does the body have any power to implement the policies which it is
supposed to introduce, support, sustain or promote on behalf of those
whom it represents. The people who do that, of course, are
councillors—they are the people who, in the past, have been held
to be the representatives of the social tenants and residents of other
residential property, not people who are appointed undemocratically by
a Government whose Prime Minister is not even elected himself and who
fears elections at every level. I therefore have grave reservation
about the
measure. Clive
Efford (Eltham) (Lab): Was the right hon. Gentleman in
John Major’s
Government?
Mr.
Lilley: I was, and I helped to secure his re-election. I
doubt whether the hon. Gentleman will achieve that in the case of his
leader. The other reasons for my reservations are the specific ones
that brought me onto this Committee as a result of my having taken part
in the debate on Second Reading. I want to reinforce the principle that
representatives are accountable to those whose interests they serve and
whom their policies directly affect. That means that if a council
chooses to build in the area of another council, and that affects both
the social tenants and the residents of other residential property in
that area, that is a monstrosity, because the council will not be
accountable to those whom it most
affects. Ian
Stewart (Eccles) (Lab): I have some sympathy with the
argument that local government should be more involved in these boards
in the way the right hon. Gentleman says. It is a wee bit rich of him,
however, to be arguing that case, given that under Mrs.
Thatcher, his Government stopped local councils building council houses
and restricted the budgets to local level. Saying that democracy should
be enhanced at local level is one thing; starving it of funds, as the
right hon. Gentleman’s Government did, is
another.
Mr.
Lilley: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will treat me with the
generosity of spirit for which he is renowned as a sinner who
repenteth. I hope in the same spirit to have his support when we come
to a Division on this clause and particularly on the new clause that I
will later introduce and which may remedy some of the defects in the
measure. Whatever
representative body exists—I hope that it will be councils
rather than something appointed on high by the state—I want it
to have responsibility for
what it does in its own area, and not be allowed to do things in other
people’s areas where it is not accountable to those whom it
affects. Why does the Minister think that that is satisfactory and what
sort of representation would she like to provide for the inhabitants of
Cockernhoe, Mangrove and Lilley in my constituency, who may find their
homes in their part of north Hertfordshire swamped by housing built by
Luton and South Bedfordshire councils. They will have no say in the
matter; they cannot vote against the councillors who proposed the
matter; they will have no influence over it; and they will have no one
to represent them, other than myself at parliamentary level. I would
like the Minister to tell me why she has not provided any
representation for them and restricted the responsibilities of the
councillors in Luton and South Bedfordshire to meeting the needs of
their own inhabitants in their own
areas. Mr.
Curry: I thank you for your indulgence in allowing me to
finish my cup of coffee, Mr. Amess. I wanted to make a small
gesture towards the modernisation of Parliament and I am glad that I
have been allowed to do so.
The
Chairman: Order. I have to confess that I had not seen
what the right hon. Gentleman was doing and I have to enforce rules.
Until there are changes, drinking tea or coffee is not permissible. I
just turned a blind eye, given that there was some confusion about the
start of proceedings.
Mr.
Curry: Reform often emerges from confusion, as indeed did
humanity, if I may
so.
Mr.
Lilley: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that under
this Government it usually ends in
confusion?
Mr.
Curry: Perhaps the hon. Member for Eccles should inquire
of the Housing Minister what has happened to the Government’s
proposals to look again at the destination of housing revenue. At the
moment, a significant amount is pre-empted by the Treasury. If he
wishes to see more funds committed to the construction of social
housing, perhaps he should ask the Under-Secretary what she intends to
do about the very large amounts of money which is in effect taxed away
from big authorities and which could otherwise go back into
housing.
Mr.
Jackson: Further to the comments of the hon. Member for
Eccles, does my right hon. Friend agree that in practice in the period
1979-97, a lot of housing subsidy was remitted from the south of
England to the north of England—to local authorities and Labour
voting areas—based on housing need, which is as it should
be?
Mr.
Curry: It was, but one has to be careful before one sees
hard geographic lines in that. This proposal comes from the Cave
report. Our attitude should depend on what clarification and precision
the Minister can give about how it will work in practice. I can see the
argument for having such a body—it was part of a well received
bunch of recommendations—but the question is how it will work in
practice.
As for the
expression, “other residential property”, I assume, along
with the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, that that is
intended to widen the net to embrace all categories of sub-market
provision. If the Minister would clarify that phrase—and if
there is no better way of capturing that concept than that particular
phrase—that might set some minds to rest. As things stand at the
moment, “other residential property”, could mean that if
Madonna decides to rent another mansion block somewhere, she could
claim representation on the tenants’ body, which, I assume, is
not the intention of the measure. Indeed, any MP who rents property in
London could claim they were a tenant and demand to be part of the
body, so I am just seeking some
precision. 10
am Secondly,
what will the body actually do? How is it going to be formed, and who
is going to sit on it? How are its members going to be chosen? We live
in a world in which more people sit on quangos in England than sit on
local councils as elected members. It is an astonishing statistic, but
it happens to be true; local democracy has largely given way to
quangocracy. We just need to be sure, if we are creating another
quango, that it really is necessary to do a particular job.
The Bill says
that the body could be an “existing body”. Will the
Minister give us an example of an existing body which might qualify
under this clause to be nominated as the tenant representative body?
Moreover, who is the interlocutor going to be? Presumably it is the
homes and communities quango—is that its interlocutor, or is the
interlocutor going to be the Department or the local councils?
Who is it going to talk to, and about
what? Most
of the complaints I receive from tenants are about the behaviour of
other tenants. It is about anti-social behaviour, or people using
drugs, or needles in the garden; it is basically about people whom they
do not think suitable being put in next door and creating all sorts of
disturbance and problems so that their lives become miserable. That is
the overwhelming category of complaints I receive from tenants. If this
gave some assistance to local councils in dealing with that issue, so
that people in social housing felt they had neighbours they could trust
and were at ease in their homes, that would be a great
asset. The
next category of things people are concerned about is allocations.
However many properties are transferred, the allocations usually remain
with the local authority, so the allocation policy is a council policy,
even if the ownership of the properties is moved
elsewhere—whether it is a transfer authority or an arm’s
length management organisation. That is another area of
concern. Often,
if there is a transfer, part of that deal is a programme of
modernisation of kitchens or bathrooms or whatever. A common concern is
that, if there is a modernisation programme going through the estate,
its progress appears to be inefficient, too slow or not up to required
standards. I would therefore like reassurance that the organisation, if
it is set up, will focus on very practical issues of concern for
tenants, and that it is not going to get itself into an ideological
argument about the nature of housing, or the merits or demerits of
transfer proposals—in other words, that it will deal with the
nitty-gritty of life, which is almost entirely the material which comes
into our
surgeries. If
the Minister can reassure us about the practicality of how this will
function, how it will represent the tenants, how its members will be
chosen, how it will report back, and how it will be accountable to
their tenants, and the nature of the interlocutors, there may
be a case for not opposing the clause. However, a huge amount hinges on
how the Minister responds to those
points.
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