My Lords, I strongly endorse the sentiments of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and refer to my local government interests. He is quite right to point to the issue of tenure, which has, frankly, been avoided by the Minister and the Government as a whole in discussion of this aspect of their policies.
In speaking to his amendments, the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, referred to the Shelter report. I do not know whether the Minister has studied it, but it raises a good many questions. As the noble Lord said, the report indicates that to reach the Government’s assumed target, which is estimated at £4.6 billion, to be raised by this process, 23,000 houses a year would have to be sold. Shelter calculates on that basis that the average cost to every council would be £26 million a year. That is an extraordinarily high amount to be raised. It ranges from a figure for Birmingham of just under £145 million, which would involve the sale of just under 1,200 houses a year, down to that for Hartlepool, at the bottom of the list, which would have to sell off only two houses a year, raising something under £200,000.
There is an interesting pair of authorities in the middle of the list, one of which is Newcastle—in which, as Members will be aware, I have an interest—where some 400 houses would have to be sold every year, raising just under £53 million. Immediately below it is Kensington and Chelsea, which would raise virtually the same amount of money from 41 houses. So there is a clear issue here about the expectations of how many houses will be sold and what will be raised—but there is also an issue about what will happen to the proceeds. In addition to the overriding requirement, which we understood to be the funding of the right to buy in the housing association sector, there will be some replacement of whatever kind of tenure emerges. What estimate have the Government made of the amount that will be available for their apparent primary objective of funding the right to buy? Presumably they have an estimate, but I do not think that we have ever had the benefit of hearing what it might be. It would be helpful to do so.
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There is another question, of course. As I understand it, the Government can insist on in effect a payment on account of future sales before those are actually effected. If that is the case—and I understand it to be the case —what estimate do the Government make of the impact on housing authorities? How will they raise the money, if the expected average of £26 million a year, or whatever the figure might be for an individual authority, is not raised? How much will they be required to pay and where will they get the money from to do that?
This is an extremely unsatisfactory way of dealing with a critical issue of housing supply. I strongly endorse the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and I hope that he will test the opinion of the House.