My Lords, perhaps I may add just marginally to the Minister’s burden in that regard. I want to pick up on some of the rationale that has been advanced for the voluntary deal, which does not seem to me to be fair. We are calling it a voluntary deal but of course it is underpinned by a mandatory portable discount—so how voluntary is that? For once in my life I must take exception to what the noble Lord, Lord Best, said. He pointed out that this is different from the 1980s because housing associations are getting paid the full value for the property, but in the next sentence he said that this has nothing to do with housing associations because they have not lobbied in any way for councils to pick up the tab.
I accept that there is no formal link, but when housing associations made their judgments, they must have known full well that the tab was going to be picked up by local authorities. It was already a manifesto commitment, and indeed the briefing note sent to us by the Minister stated that this measure—the high-value local authority housing provision—was announced as part of the Conservative Party manifesto where it stated that local authorities would be required to,
“manage their housing assets more efficiently, with the most expensive properties sold off and replaced as they fall vacant”,
in order to help fund the extension of right to buy to housing associations. It was clear that that was the intent and therefore, with respect, the housing associations must have known that the hit was going to fall on local authorities.
I accept that it was a difficult judgment and that they were between a rock and a hard place and trying to carve the best way through. But we ought to be straight on the rationale for this. By that voluntary association, the result is that local authorities will have
to sell off more high-value housing than they otherwise would, because that is how housing associations will be kept whole.