Appendix 3: Correspondence: Homes and Communities Agency (Transfer of Property etc.) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/8)
Letter from Lord Trefgarne, Chairman of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, to the Rt Hon. Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Homes and Communities Agency (Transfer of Property etc.) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/8)
Transfer of surplus land from NHS Trusts for release to market
As part of our scrutiny of secondary legislation, the Committee considered these Regulations at our latest meeting. The Regulations specify 16 NHS Trusts which are being designated for the purpose of transferring surplus land to the Homes and Communities Agency. The Agency will in turn prepare the land for release to market, in order to promote housing development.
On 3 October 2017, you announced a set of nursing workforce reforms, and this included a “Homes for Nurses” scheme to give 3,000 NHS workers first refusal on affordable housing generated through the sale of surplus NHS land.
In order to assist our consideration of the Regulations, we obtained additional information from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (which laid the instrument), drawing on input from your own Department. We were told that, since the October 2017 announcement, your Department has been “working through implementation of the policy”. We asked how many nurses had benefited from the offer of a first refusal on affordable housing on surplus NHS land, and were told that the cost of affordable housing depended on the type, tenure and location, and that DHSC was “exploring all potential delivery options including purchase and rental”.
In the absence of hard evidence that nurses are benefiting from the creation of affordable housing on surplus NHS land, we concluded that these Regulations may not achieve the objectives of the “Homes for Nurses” scheme, and we are reporting to the House accordingly.
We also agreed, however, that we should write to you about the outcome of our scrutiny, and seek assurance from you that your Department will make effective efforts to ensure that the “Homes for Nurses” scheme delivers the commitment that you made. We would welcome more detail about those efforts. It is an issue that may be expected to arise again if other NHS Trusts are designated through future Regulations, and one to which we would most likely return.
It would be helpful if you could reply to this letter by 20 February.
31 January 2018
Letter from Lord O’Shaughnessy, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health, to Lord Trefgarne
I write concerning your letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, regarding the Homes and Communities Agency (Transfer of Property etc.) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/8), Transfer of surplus land from NHS Trusts for release to market. I am responding as the Minister responsible for the surplus land programme.
Housing supply and affordability is one of the greatest challenges facing the country and one of the top priorities for this government. For this reason the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) surplus land programme has targets to dispose of surplus land for 26,000 houses by March 2020 under the cross-Government Public Land for Housing Programme, and to generate £3.3billion in capital receipts by March 2023 as set out in the 2017 Autumn Budget.
As part of this programme individual land owners, which are predominantly NHS Trusts and Foundation Trusts, will consider as part of their strategic health planning which, if any, parts of their land holdings are no longer needed, now or in the future, for use as health estate. Where this land is no longer required it is classified as surplus and the land owner will determine the best disposal method for the site. A potential disposal method is through Homes England (HE) (formerly the Homes and Communities Agency). HE will accept transfers of surplus health sites which meet appropriate criteria for upfront payment to the land owner and these will then be disposed to private residential developers for development. In order for the sites to transfer to HE, the names of the Trusts wishing to transfer land to HE are required to be listed within transfer regulations.
Separately to this, in October 2017, the Secretary of State announced a right of first refusal for NHS staff on affordable housing built on sold surplus NHS land. Our ambition is that this could benefit up to 3000 families. Officials in the Department’s Surplus Land Programme are currently implementing this policy and as part of this are exploring different approaches that Trusts could utilise, including purchasing and rental schemes. We expect to announce further detail about support for Trusts in due course.
While the Transfer Regulations are important for the disposal of the surplus health estate, we would not expect land transferred to HE to deliver the homes for staff policy. Further commitment will be required from Trusts to ensure an arrangement is made with developers to ensure their staff, where needed, can successfully access a first right of refusal.
I hope this clarifies the need for these regulations and how affordable homes for NHS staff fits within that.
8 February 2018