I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment. While I remember, I will happily extend the discussion with carers’ groups to cover this as well as the previous issue. I know it is late, but before I turn to the amendments perhaps it would be helpful to say a few words about the provisions in the Bill.
Clause 114 introduces Schedule 8, which changes the rules on succession to secure tenancies and makes equivalent changes in relation to introductory and demoted tenancies. Currently, there are significant differences between the succession rights of secure tenancies granted before April 2012 and those granted after that date when changes introduced by the Localism Act 2011 came into force. These provisions will deliver a consistent approach across all local authority tenancies by bringing the succession rights to tenancies granted before April 2012 in line with those granted after that date. They will put common law partners on an equal footing with married couples and civil partners. Other family members of those with secure tenancies granted before April 2012, who may have had an expectation that they would succeed because they had lived with the tenant for at least 12 months, will lose their statutory right to succeed. Instead, local authorities will have discretion to grant whatever additional succession rights they consider appropriate. Where local authorities grant additional succession rights, we expect them to apply the same rules to tenancies granted before and after April 2012. However, we will provide guidelines to assist local authorities to exercise their discretion.
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Spouses, civil partners and those who live together as such will continue to have an automatic right to succeed to a lifetime tenancy. However, in future, where local authorities decide to grant additional succession rights, if the deceased had a lifetime tenancy, the successor will be given a five-year tenancy. In line with other fixed-term tenants, there will be a review at
the end of the five years. Where the tenant is still in need of social housing, the landlord will be able to grant a further fixed-term tenancy of up to five years. These changes will not apply where the tenant died before the Bill comes into force.
Turning to Amendments 82GB and 82GC, which would give full-time carers a statutory right to succeed to introductory and demoted tenancies, we are concerned that they could lead to inconsistency and as a result could be confusing for tenants. The Bill will deliver a consistent approach across all local authority tenancies, whether they are secure, introductory or demoted, and will ensure that the succession rules are consistent with the changes that we are making to lifetime tenancies.
As I said, spouses, civil partners and those living together as a spouse or civil partner will continue to have a statutory right to succeed to a lifetime tenancy. However, we think it is difficult to justify why other people, who may not even need social housing, should have an automatic right to succeed when there are thousands of households on council waiting lists. Neither do we think it is right that they should be able to inherit a lifetime tenancy when all new tenants will receive fixed-term tenancies in future.
Instead, we think that it makes more sense for local authorities to have discretion to provide any additional succession rights they think appropriate. This will mean that local authorities will be able to give additional
succession rights, not just to close family members, but to other people including those who have given up their own home to care for a tenant over a number of years. However, where they grant additional succession rights, and the deceased tenants had a lifetime tenancy, they will receive a five-year fixed-term tenancy.
We believe that the changes strike the right balance between protection for tenants and their families, and flexibility for landlords. On the basis that we would be happy to discuss the issue further with Carers’ UK, we hope that the noble Lord will be happy to withdraw his amendment.