Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
100-112)
CLLR NICK
STANTON, CLLR
KIM HUMPHREYS,
CLLR JOHN
LINES AND
MR SUKVINDER
KALSI
9 NOVEMBER 2009
Q100 Anne Main: I find it quite interesting
that both Councillor Lines and Councillor Humphreys welcome the
fact that this rent subsidy is actually not fair. My own constituents
have had the same problem and they think it is deeply unfair.
If that is the case, Councillor Lines, and you would like to see
a new system in place, do you believe that by having access to
that budget you have just described—£57 million—that
you could then enormously increase the amount of building? Do
you believe this has stifled the amount of social housing you
have been able to deliver by not having that?
Cllr Lines: We would welcome the
opportunity to actually prove again that councils can build large
numbers of houses. They have not necessarily all got to be in
rent; we do not necessarily have to go down the road of the '60s
where we were building those great big monolithic estates. We
believe we can provide homes for our people provided the government
allow us to spend the money that actually get in from rent. As
you can see, we are not actually doing that. We would like a level
playing with RSLs where they are allowed to keep their rent.
Q101 Chair: We are going off the
track again. In this inquiry we are not looking at the affordability
and supply of housing which we have done to death before. We are
concentrating on Decent Homes. The question, Anne, should have
been: would you be able to deliver your Decent Homes standards
quicker and sooner and possibly go even further, never mind the
house building for the moment? Can you just answer yes or no?
Cllr Lines: We would have done
it a couple of years ago.
Q102 Anne Main: Councillor Humphreys,
would you be able to do it because you are in a different position?
Would you be able to do it if the system was altered as you described?
Cllr Humphreys: I think it is
hard for me to answer that. I think the answer would be no in
the sense we would be getting less money, but there needs to be
a level playing field in terms of how you structure it. It is
fundamentally unfair that for people in one part of the country
their rent is going to subsidise the rent in another part of the
country. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Cllr Stanton: Southwark is one
of the largest authorities in London in terms of the amount of
new social affordable housing that has been built in the borough
over the last four or five years. A lot of that has been provided
to us through quotas of private developments which we have given
planning consent for and have clawed back 35 per cent affordable.
The hard answer to your question is: should local authorities,
like Southwark, with large amounts of social housing, have the
choice at a local level to say to a developer, "Rather than
take part of your development as new affordable housing we will
take a cash contribution towards our Decent Homes bill" and
at the moment National Planning Guidance prevents us from having
a planning framework that will do that but certainly my experience
and my constituents, when you get a bit development being built,
the developers go along to ask, "What would you like out
of this development?" and people say they want double glazing,
CCTV, playground for the kids and very little of that can actually
come out of section 106 because that is not what section 106 is
for. Certainly that would help us in Southwark meet our investment
gap at no cost to central government.
Q103 Chair: We have two more sets
of witnesses. If it is factual, Mr Kalsi, do you think you let
us have it in a note after?
Mr Kalsi: There is one point just
worth making. There are a lot of proposals that are helpful in
what is being proposed, but there is one issue that I think the
council feels quite strongly about and that is are they based
on effectively just maintaining the Decent Homes standard as we
are. We do not think that is adequate and it would mean a lot
of debt being reallocated across the nation. We are opposed to
any debt reallocation because I think that will limit our opportunity
in the long term to do exactly Decent Homes Plus. The other thing
I would just highlight to the inquiry is that actually, when you
look at the debt outstanding on our properties—£10,000
on average per property—compared to the value of our council
housing stock—which is about £40,000 per property and
even that is based on the existing use value for social housing
which is much depressed than what an open market value would be—I
think there is plenty of headroom if we had a positive financial
framework that is in line with the RSLs that would free us up
with the ability to perhaps mortgage and borrow a bit more on
our stock to do that investment knowing that it is a very, very
secure investment on the value of the properties.
Q104 Mr Turner: Debt reallocation
is actually fundamental to the proposals. Are you saying that
Birmingham would not take part and would try to put a veto on
it?
Mr Kalsi: Our initial calculations
indicate that we would be taking significantly more debt on.
Q105 Mr Turner: Would Birmingham
put a veto on the whole of the national scheme?
Cllr Lines: We would work with
anyone to ensure that we had better housing for the people of
the country as well the city of Birmingham.
Q106 Chair: That is not an answer.
Could we just have a yes/no answer: would you veto?
Cllr Lines: No. We would do anything
that would help our people.
Cllr Humphreys: You have sort
out the debt as part of the HRA. If you cannot sort out the debt
you are not going to sort out the HRA. The reallocation is fundamental.
Q107 Mr Betts: Are Birmingham saying
they will refuse to take any extra debt on as part of a reallocation
package to get a reform of the HRA?
Cllr Lines: We would be very,
very happy to debate that question.
Chair: Councillor Lines, debating things
is not the answer. We just need a yes/no answer. Would you like
to repeat it, Clive?
Q108 Mr Betts: Are Birmingham saying
that they would not, under any circumstances, take on extra debt
as a part of a national redistribution of debt in order to secure
a reform of the HRA
Cllr Lines: Of course we do not
want to take on extra debt. We have probably got more debt than
any one. I think that is a reality.
Q109 Mr Betts: Are you saying you
would refuse to take on any more debt to secure a reform of the
HRA?
Cllr Lines: We do not want any
more debt, thank you. We will work with anyone to ensure that
we have homes for our people.
Chair: I think we have got our answer.
We have just gone one more question which I would like a brief
answer to although I know it is quite technical which is in relation
to private sector homes.
Q110 Mr Turner: In respect of private
sector housing where you have a duty to review the standards within
that, can you just tell us how you do that? There have been some
criticisms that authorities do not do it properly. Do you accept
that as local authorities across the board as well as your own
authority?
Cllr Lines: You are talking about
private homes.
Q111 Mr Turner: Yes.
Cllr Lines: Obviously we are working
very closely with various organisations. They are ensuring that
money is available to those people who want to improve their homes
up to the Decent Homes standard. We have one organisation called
Kick Start which works very well. The difficulty we have for the
future is that the minister has reduced the budget for the West
Midlands region to invest in private homes. He has decided that
it will be moved into building new homes so in effect what we
are doing because of that is we are storing up problems for the
future. That aside, we will do all we can to ensure that money
is available for those people that want to borrow on equity or
any other way to ensure their homes do reach those standards but
these are difficult times.
Cllr Humphreys: In terms of the
private sector we are focussing on vulnerable residents. In 2008-09
the council made 307 private sector homes occupied by vulnerable
households decent. Many of these improvements were funded by sub-regional
targeted funding stream resources. These are uncertain going forward
in 2010-11 and this year we have only made 73 decent so far but
we work in the South East London Housing Partnership with our
colleagues in Lewisham, Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich in terms
of pooling the resources and expertise together to try to make
as many as possible but there is a significant job to be done
there.
Q112 Chair: I do not want an answer
now but, Councillor Lines, could you possibly drop us a note afterwards
to explain what Birmingham Council is doing under Section 3 of
the Housing Act 2004 to review the standards in the private sector?
Cllr Lines: Certainly.
Chair: Thank you all very much.
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