Housing and Regeneration Bill

moved Amendment No. 94: 94: Clause 88, page 41, line 14, at end insert ““, and (c) promotes dispute and complaint resolution at a local level”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, I shall say a few words also about Amendment No. 138A. Amendment No. 94 is in a sense timely. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has today made strong commitments to pass more power to tenants and provide effective redress systems for dissatisfied citizens. That points directly to the amendment and to concerns that some of us have about the Bill while welcoming in broad terms what it seeks to do. Those concerns are, first, that the Bill essentially empowers the regulator, not tenants, and that tenants get influence and purchase only indirectly through the regulator. Secondly, it creates what some of us would see as a rather old-fashioned central-state model of regulation just when the all mighty central state is going out of fashion. I go back to what Cave said that is directly relevant to this. First, he said, "““many of the activities necessary to achieve the regulatory objectives will be undertaken by regulated social housing providers rather than directly by the regulator””." He was wise. Secondly, he said, "““empowered tenants would play a key role in assessing performance and holding landlords to account for weaknesses in performance””." Where are we now in the Bill? It is clear that much progress has been made, through both the contributions of your Lordships’ House and my noble friend’s listening skills, which are as good as ever. Information for tenants on a cross-domain basis in a locality, so that they can compare the performance and value of services that they receive from their own social landlord with those of others, is to be welcomed. The question now is what they can do about it if they are dissatisfied. Also to be welcomed is the system of tenant triggers, which allows tenants to ask the regulator to intervene. However, it is clear that they can be used only in pretty extreme situations for reasons of economy, and will therefore not be an effective mechanism for the regulator to become involved in the hundreds of thousands of areas of day-to-day dissatisfaction that will be generated by 4 million tenancies. Triggers are necessary, but they do not address the issues about which many tenants are concerned. There is much to be welcomed, too, in a set of centrally determined standards, but many tenants locally may want something different from them. There will be greater tenant involvement in the regulatory system as a result of the changes that my noble friend the Minister has brought forward. That, again, is to be welcomed. But the argument behind this amendment is essentially that the regulator needs a guiding statutory duty to promote local choice and local complaint resolution. That is what the amendment says on the tin, and that is what it seeks to do. Why so? At one level, it is a statement of the blindingly obvious, because it is axiomatic in all dispute resolution systems that you seek to get things resolved as early and as low in the system as possible. It is better in economy terms and better for the complainants. It is necessary to give it statutory enforcement because the regulator should expect that local resolution to problems is sought first and vigorously. I am sure that the Minister will broadly agree with that. But the regulator needs to expect social landlords to be very proactive indeed, more proactive than I would suggest has been the tradition to date in listening to tenants, hearing what they are dissatisfied about and working to change it, when they wish to have proper changes brought about, even though that may go against the short-term interests of the landlord and their traditions—but of course not against the duty of the landlord and regulator—to protect the asset and the debt that sits behind that. It is possible to have both. In other words, if tenants want a different and better service and are prepared to pay more for it, and if they want a different manager, because they believe that the manager there has a local office and can provide a better service than their own manager here, there should be a duty on that RSL or other social landlord to explore this with them and open up options to them. The regulator should have a mindset that if the social landlord does not behave in this way, in vigorously exploring complaints and trying to resolve them at local level, and the complaint escalates unnecessarily to the regulator, it should be seen as poor practice. In other words, the regulator needs to incentivise social landlords to be very proactive in opening up choice options and resolving complaints or the wish for improvement by those tenants. Why so? Obviously it is there as the most efficient way in which to resolve complaints, but it is locally that tenants need to be empowered and have choice. It is only locally that most tenants will ever get empowered. If we do not open up empowerment at local level, most of this Bill will be a load of hot air—if we are not careful. The regulator needs to work over time to change the nature of supply relationships and choice at a local level, so that the regulator does not need to get involved. That has been almost the leitmotif of regulatory practice for at least the last decade. I shall say no more about that; I shall say a few words, however, about Amendment No. 138A, which is in a similar domain to an amendment that I moved in Committee. My amendment tried to ensure that, when tenants were dissatisfied with the housing management service that their landlord provided, they could do something about it. I shall not go into detail about what the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, are saying, as that is for them to do, but I would hope that the Government would accept that, in the spirit of what the right honourable Member the Secretary of State has been saying today, there has to be an effective way. If tenants collectively in an area are dissatisfied with the service provided by their manager and want to go somewhere else, and it is not in a situation of gross negligence—clearly there is a power of intervention in such a situation, but that is not the normality—and think that they will get a better deal elsewhere, it should be axiomatic in this Bill that the regulator would seek to open up that sort of choice. That is one means of achieving the aim; I offered another. The Minister will say that she does not like either of them, but what is her mechanism by which tenants can do this that does not involve gross negligence cases but deals with normal complaints? I have the greatest respect and affection for her, and naively wait in anticipation that I shall rejoice and be surprised and delighted today. I beg to move.