My Lords, I very much agree with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. Obviously, I welcome what my noble friend said: that there will be a good amount of time given to consider this rather new proposal. I understand the rationale in terms of the audit rules. However, I would like to make three points, one of which the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has anticipated. It surely cannot be the case that a member of a local authority should be excluded by that from using his or her experience in the service of housing interests—although, clearly, under subsection (1)(b) of the proposed new clause they would not be able to exercise any voting right. Recent legislation dashed local authority members, when they were told that they were not allowed to have pensions any more because they were not employees of local authorities. In those circumstances, clearly they are not employees of the local authority. Therefore, I do not think that that should be used to exclude them from potential membership where that is judged useful by the housing association.
My second point is on the wording, which, again, is relatively new to all of us, and therefore I have not been able to take advice from my office, which I will
when I have time. Subsection (5) of the proposed new clause states that appointing, in relation to an officer,
“includes nominating or otherwise influencing the selection of the officer”.
Local authorities that are responsible for housing individuals, and even those authorities that are not directly housing authorities, have a public responsibility to house effectively. In the course of that experience they will accumulate a great deal of knowledge about the local housing market, the capacity of individuals and, in some respects, the record of individuals. That wording—
“otherwise influencing the selection of the officer”—
could exclude the capacity of the local authority to offer advice on whether a person who has been put forward is an appropriate or effective person to carry out these very important functions.
That relates to my final point: accountability. A great deal in the Bill is about putting housing associations on one pedestal and local authorities and others on another. There has to be some recognition that the housing function is an important one for which local authorities have responsibility. I do not happen to think that putting councillors on boards is necessarily the best way of doing it. Indeed, I agreed to the removal of councillors from the board of our own major housing association. However, as we tease out what these proposals mean, particularly where there is a move from the local authority sector to the housing association sector, I hope we will not lose some thought as to the way in which relationships between housing associations and local authorities are sustained, and in which there is an element of mutual accountability between the two. Clearly, if this goes through, that may not be by appointment, but there must be some consideration of that point, in my submission.