Localism Bill

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts—or perhaps it should be gifts of jars of pickles; I am not quite sure. In Scotland, we have more than three years' experience of what the end of ring-fencing means. Its end was welcomed by a lot of councils of various political persuasions, although I am glad that the Labour group on my own council did not fall into the trap of thinking that it would get more power as a result. That did not happen. At a time when a council tax freeze was being imposed on Scottish councils, taking away ring-fencing did not increase the freedom of local councils to make decisions; rather, it reduced it. More importantly, it prevented some important policy initiatives from being pursued. An example is the Supporting People programme, which was funded to provide preventive services to help people to stay in their own homes for longer and to prevent new tenants from being evicted because they did not have enough support to learn how to budget and manage their tenancies. Ending ring-fencing in a financial climate in which a Government's priority often has to be the statutory and crisis services has resulted in the slow-burn, long-term preventive work suffering. I predict that the same will happen up and down the country, especially as the past three years have been relatively benign in Scotland, compared with what is about to hit local authorities in England and, because of the Barnett consequentials, in Scotland. We have also heard about the community right to buy, and, yes, we already have that in Scotland, as the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) pointed out. Without funds to buy, however, it becomes an empty gesture. A community group in my constituency is setting up a community development trust, and it is very keen to go ahead. It knows which buildings and facilities it would like to take over, but at the moment it has absolutely no hope of any funding to enable it even to get started. When I was down here last summer, I took the opportunity to visit Shoreditch community development trust, which I had heard a lot about. It has done some fantastic work, well in advance of the big society, but the crucial factor in getting it started was the £3.8 million of Government funding that enabled it to take the first steps towards acquiring facilities that it could use to lever in more investment and facilities. Without funding, these proposals could become an empty gesture. On the housing provisions in the Bill, I have no objection to alternatives to traditional social housing if they constitute a genuine addition. If not, they will make the situation worse, not better. However, partly as a result of the Bill and partly through what has already been announced, the burden of paying for new housing is now going to fall on tenants, who will have to pay higher rents. They will also find it harder to get work, or might find that there is a disincentive to get work. There is a role for mid-market housing. We have some in my area, and there is a group of people who need and want it, but it is not a substitute for subsidised, low-cost housing. Nor is it right that people who move into the new housing now being built should be expected to move on after only a short time. To those who say that that will apply only to new tenants and that it will not affect others, I say that this is just the start. Various Conservative think-tanks have made this proposal over the past few years, but when I told people in the housing movement about it before the election they just laughed and said it would never happen. People should not believe that this will stop at new tenants; before we know where we are, security of tenure will be gone.