As we are all aware, the Government suffered a further defeat in the other place last night. As I said in our debate on Monday, after a string of defeats and concessions, some of the sharpest edges have been knocked off the Bill, but it remains an extraordinary and extreme piece of legislation, and a missed opportunity. Since 2010, homelessness and rough sleeping have more than doubled, house prices and private rents have risen dramatically and the housing benefit bill has ballooned, but the Bill does little to tackle those issues.
Lords amendments 47E seeks to put it beyond doubt that adequate funding would be available to local authorities to deliver at least one new affordable home for each higher-value property sold, and at least two in London. It gives local housing authorities the opportunity to demonstrate a need for social rented housing for the Secretary of State to consider. The Bill provides the statutory basis to extend the right to buy to housing association tenants paid for by a forced sale of council homes to the highest bidders, which could include buy-to-let landlords and overseas investors. Those homes have been paid for by our taxes and our parents’ taxes. They are public assets, but they will be sold to whoever has the money to buy them, and that could well be buy-to-let landlords and overseas investors.
Questions and concerns have repeatedly been raised about this, and the report from the Public Accounts Committee clearly identified the impact on local authorities and the risks of a policy so lacking in financial clarity. Lord Kerslake said in the House of Lords yesterday evening:
“It has been argued previously that this is unnecessary, since Ministers have given a commitment. If that is the case, it ought not to be controversial.” —[Official Report, House of Lords, 10 May 2016; Vol. 771, c. 1687.]
If the Government do not accept this like-for-like replacement, they need to explain why; otherwise, it will be clear that this is no more than another raid on local authorities’ finances, putting greater pressure on already-pressed local services. Shelter has calculated that, to deliver the estimated £4.5 billion of receipts identified by the Government, 23,500 vacant council properties a year will need to be sold. That is nearly a third of all vacant stock each year. Without a commitment in the Bill, there will be a huge loss of genuinely affordable homes as the Government sound the death knell for social housing. The Government have said that they are simply honouring their election manifesto, yet the relevant passage commits to a replacement, which is not in the Bill. The Bill and Government policy will make it near impossible for the delivery of new social rented and affordable rented housing as the new starter homes requirement will push social rented housing out of section 106 agreements.
The second part of the amendment seeks to give local authorities the opportunity to make a case, given local need, to replace a social rented home with another social rented home—if a local authority decides not to make such a case, that is fine, but if it wants to go for a different mix of affordable housing options, it can. The amendment would provide authorities with greater flexibility and expand opportunities for affordable housing. I had hoped that the Government would welcome that, but they insist on limiting new affordable homes to a restricted product aimed at one particular part of the housing
crisis. If we are serious about fixing the housing crisis and if the Government are serious about encouraging people on to the housing ladder, they must consider all forms of tenure.
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The Government were forced to make a string of concessions in the House of Lords and were defeated multiple times, showing the extent of the opposition to the Bill. It does nothing to fix the causes of the past six years of failure, sounds the death knell for social housing and will be a big let-down for people who are desperate for a home. While there are many things in the Bill with which we disagree, amendment 47E is an improvement and would put in the Bill the very thing that the Prime Minister confirmed is the Government’s intention to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) just an hour ago. I hope that the Government will reconsider and accept the amendment.