My Lords, once again, I am very pleased to report that I am aware that, after discussions, as the Minister has already hinted, the Government are minded to accept the case for the amendment, with a view to bringing forward their own at Third Reading, which I hope will go most of the way to catering for the problem that we are trying to resolve—we being me and the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Beecham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for whose support for the amendment I am very grateful.
First, let me spell out the problem as I see it. There are two issues. The first is that we are desperately short of affordable housing in rural areas. As has already been said, our rural England affordable housing stock consists of about 8% of overall housing, compared with 19% in urban areas. Our villages need far more affordable housing, not less, if they are to remain as vital, vibrant communities, with all the self-supporting social fabric that many of us have already described in debate on the Bill. We absolutely do not need to be selling one set of rural affordable homes from the public sector to pay for the replacement of mostly urban affordable homes belonging to the charitable sector.
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The second issue is that, in terms of market value and attractiveness, rural council houses will be at the top of the list. They will be the first to go. Equally, they will be at the bottom of the list in terms of their affordability to locals. In my part of the world, very few young families or working locals could afford to buy a village house. That means that most of the houses for sale get snapped up, largely by retiring couples who have sold a house in London on which they paid off the mortgage many years ago, and who are seeking to fulfil their rural dream in retirement. Any legislation involving the compulsory sell-off of rural council houses where no replacement is possible would be one more nail in the coffin of sustainable rural communities. That was the problem.
As we have just heard, the Government are happy that local authorities should have the obligation and the means to replace the high-value council houses that are sold. The trouble with that replacement policy, as we discussed in Committee on the same amendment, is that it is almost impossible to find the necessary sites in many villages, particularly those in national parks or AONBs and their equivalent. So I am pleased that, after discussion, the Government are minded to exclude local authority housing in those special areas from the calculations referred to in Clause 67. The further point that I made to them is that exclusion should not be only for houses in special areas. Even in the ordinary rural village in our universally attractive countryside, it is often hard to find appropriate sites, which is why I have said that, before I can give my agreement to any government Third Reading amendment, it should include villages with a population under 3,000, where the local authority can prove to the Secretary of State that it is impossible to find any alternative site to build a replacement.
Of course there are many villages where a replacement site or even sites will not be hard to find, but where that is impossible, the local authority should be able to
make a case to the Secretary of State and to have him or her acknowledge that those houses should not be included in the Clause 67 calculations. That is the key: we must always refer back to the Clause 67 calculations.
As I have said before, we have so few affordable houses in rural England and such overwhelming need that it is only right that there should be an exemption for rural communities. I am pleased that, in our discussions, the Government have recognised our case. Although we will obviously be carefully scrutinising the exact wording of their amendment before Third Reading, I am very grateful to and thank the Minister and, in particular, the Secretary of State, for their willingness to negotiate on this and for their recognition of the exceptional case we have made. I beg to move.