3rd reading in the Lords
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Baroness Royall of BlaisdonLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to acquaint the House that they, having been informed of the purport of the Housing and Regeneration Bill, have consented to place their Prerogative and Interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill. Read a third time.
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- 11:38
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Andrews)Labour- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 1:
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- 11:38
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Lord Dixon-SmithConservative- Quote
- My Lords, I am immensely grateful to the noble Baroness. We have argued this case gently for a long time. It affects a particular sector of the community that is never out of mind but is sometimes not sufficiently focused on. Over time this provision will bring relief to all sorts of families. As the noble Baroness said, one occasionally has temporary periods of incapacity after, say, major surgery or an accident. It is not just for the elderly, whom we are all becoming, and it will improve the utility of our homes across the whole spectrum of provision for the community. This is a generous concession by the Government for which, again, I am grateful.
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- 11:38
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Lord Howarth of NewportLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I, too, appreciate my noble friend’s willingness to table this amendment in response to the excellent earlier amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and supported so extensively across the House. After her early reservations in Committee, which were understandable enough, my noble friend has taken to embroidering Clause 2 with enthusiasm. I think that all of us who have been engaged in these debates greatly appreciated the latest of her letters, sent on 15 July. She is without a doubt my favourite correspondent. She brought us much good news about how the Government intend to ensure that good design genuinely is promoted by the Homes and Communities Agency and by the Government themselves in their broader strategy. She responded very constructively and helpfully to that tiresome but, I hope, pertinent list of questions that I put to her when welcoming the amendment to Clause 2(1)(d). In her letter she said that that amendment had strengthened the legislative framework, and this new amendment would strengthen it further. She also said: “Having put the framework in place, we must now ensure that the policy is effectively implemented”. She went on to say that she would be looking to local planning authorities to assist the Government and the HCA in this strategy, which brings us again to the question of skills. I am pleased to be informed by her about CABE’s programme to train officers of local planning authorities in the Building for Life methodology. It is also important that the Government, along with CABE, should pursue energetically making design review available in all the regions of the country—I understand that there are two regions where it is not yet available—and ensuring that it is of a high standard and works well.
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- 11:38
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Lord BestCrossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I add further thanks to the Minister for this important amendment. I hope that it means that the Homes and Communities Agency will be able to lend its support not just to hastening us towards the day when the lifetime home standards of accessibility and adaptability can be applied to all private homes as well as to housing association homes, but that that powerful HCA may be able to play its part in ensuring that building regulations are actually enforced as well as simply being amended to good effect. I greatly welcome and appreciate this amendment.
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- 11:45
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- My Lords, I am glad that noble Lords think we have achieved so much of our shared objective. It is a credit to the House that we have continued on this issue, and I think we have got it right. In response to the detailed questions from the noble Lord, I am afraid that our correspondence is not yet over. Space standards are a complex issue; he will understand that. The ebb and flow of space standards and regulation go back over many years, and that is not something I can address at the Dispatch Box. I will update him in a letter on how we are thinking about it with regard to all these other things. We have to strike a balance between simplifying building regulations—making them easier to enforce, frankly—and updating them. With regard to lifetime homes we are working with a team—a BRAC review, in fact—on considering building regulations and how they might accommodate different changes. The noble Lord is quite right when he talks about our ambition that all housing should meet lifetime homes standards by 2013. That is assisted by the changes we have made in the Bill. On the noble Lord’s specific questions about the disabled facilities grant, I think removing the 40:60 split is a positive move because it will give extra flexibility to local authorities to borrow across funding and policy boundaries. It is a mandatory grant. I have worked with local authorities; I go out sometimes with the DFG teams to see how these adaptations are being designed and implemented, and I know the seriousness with which those local authorities look at the need for DFG. They will make good use of that flexibility. We will be vigilant in ensuring that we secure, in a tight spending round, a significant increase for the disabled facilities grant. In our ageing strategy we made it clear that we are investing £35 million in a handyman service to ensure that the rapid repairs service, which is offered for people with disabilities and elderly people particularly, reaches more people to a higher standard and is more effective. It is one of the best things we do to help keep people independent in their own homes. I assure the noble Lord of my commitment to that. All that will be assisted by our debates. When it comes to the regional housing pot, we advise the regions that they must care for these particular priorities of vulnerable people. On Question, amendment agreed to.
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- 11:45
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 2:
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- 11:45
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Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat- Quote
- My Lords, the noble Baroness knows that I do not like the powers going to the HCA but I know when I have got as far as I can reasonably go. I am grateful to her not just for bringing forward the amendments but also for her willingness to discuss the issues. When during the course of this Bill the noble Baroness offered meetings, she must have wondered when on earth she would get them into her diary. I daresay her private office’s collective hearts sunk each time she offered that facility to Members of your Lordships’ House. She has been extremely generous with her time and willingness to engage in debate. We are all grateful for that. I can hardly object to most of these amendments. They are in language I used at the last stage, though I would never have spotted the hybridity point. My only comment, as the noble Baroness anticipated, is on the amendment to apply the arrangements for local government access to information and meetings. When I moved an amendment that was one or two lines rather than two pages I said I hoped it was a probing amendment. I am mildly shocked that it took a noble Lord on the Opposition Benches to point this out but never mind—that is what we are here for. We now have two pages making it perfectly clear that the HCA has got to live up to those standards. Again, let me express my thanks.
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- 12:00
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- Lord Dixon-SmithConservative
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- My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness. I congratulate her on her ingenuity in making the concession in such a way that she has not been forced to concede the point—if I can put it that way. She has maintained the architecture of the Bill which is apparently important to some but has generously allowed us to have the recognition we thought important that local government should be recognised from the start of the Bill. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, on adding better clarity and certainty to Clause 13 through her pressure for amendments. This whole section of the Bill is now much better than it was when it first arrived with us. I am most grateful. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 13 [Power of Secretary of State to make designation orders]:
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- 12:00
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 3 and 4:
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- 12:00
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 5 to 9:
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Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour- Quote
- moved Amendment No. 10:
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- 12:00
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- Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, the Minister writes—in officials’ language, I expect—a very long letter, in the middle of which he says that if noble Lords can find a different way of expressing it, the Government will be very interested to hear it. Well, I could not resist the challenge and I am grateful for this amendment. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 30 [Community services]:
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- 12:00
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 11:
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- 12:00
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 12:
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 13:
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- 12:00
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Lord Graham of EdmontonLabour- Quote
- My Lords, I rise with deep gratitude to my noble friend Lady Andrews, and especially to her advisers, for having listened, reflected and produced an answer to the basic issue, which was the need for a definition. That gratitude is unalloyed; it is clear and I am very grateful indeed. The Minister has demonstrated over recent weeks that she listens carefully and that, when there is a proposition that needs her reflection and advice, she takes it away. Today, we have the product of that. I warmly congratulate her and her colleagues. As with everything else, there is a “but”, an “if” and an “if only”. I understand that the amendments are as far as the department and the Minister can go. I echo the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who said some minutes ago that she knew how far she could go and that this was it. I accept the same; there is no question of muddying the water. We have gone as far as we can go. However, there has been intense discussion, particularly about defining who should be members of the trust. Amendment No. 14 defines a local community as, “the individuals who live or work, or want to live or work, in a specific area”. There is no objection to that, but everyone understands that a community is more than individuals; a range of other bodies is part of the community. I want the Minister to reflect on that and, I hope, to say that she and her advisers share my understanding. When amendments refer to “members” and “individuals”, there may well be a legal reason for those words—I do not quibble with that—but how wide should the interpretation of those terms be? For instance, a community includes voluntary organisations, parish councils, local councils, civic society organisations, schools, local health service organisations, key local employers and local shops. I understand the difficulty in putting something in the Bill that is all-embracing, so I seek an understanding that, when a trust is established, the beneficiaries from the product of the trust’s work can include the examples that I have given. I simply want an understanding. Perhaps I may help the Minister with the following illustration as a practical example. The local community land trust for one of the 14 national pilot projects supported by the Government is on the former Cashes Green Hospital site in David Drew’s constituency in Stroud, Gloucestershire. He is a personal friend and is sponsored by the Co-operative movement, in which I declare an interest. The CLT would like to encourage a local GP to provide health services to the village of Cashes Green by using some of its land to facilitate the provision of a health centre. Although it is part of the National Health Service, a GP practice is technically a privately run business owned by the doctors who are partners in the practice. Another local community land trust might want to provide premises for a local shop that is also run as a commercial enterprise. Such uses of a CLT’s assets benefit, “individuals who live or work, or want to live or work, in a specified area”, but that is an indirect, rather than a direct, benefit. I am not nitpicking and I am not being too pedantic, but such provision would enormously put the icing on the cake of what we have achieved. The main benefit of a CLT, as the Minister knows, is, “furthering the social, economic and environmental interests of a local community”, through working with or benefiting organisations, “by acquiring and managing land and other assets”. It would be satisfactory if my noble friend were able to say—I am not putting words into his mouth—that his understanding is that the bodies that I have listed could be embraced by that definition. I take this last opportunity to thank Members of all parties around the House. The Minister took on board the fact that this was not a party matter but a House matter, a housing matter and a community matter, which has been reflected in the Minister’s willingness to act. I am grateful for what has been achieved and, with the possibility of clarification, I am delighted with the amendments.
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- 12:15
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- My Lords, the noble Lord is generous in his congratulations and I can tell that he is delighted with the progress that has been made. I am pleased about that. Like the noble Lord, I am a firm “co-operator” and I suppose that I should declare that interest. I see the establishment of community land trusts as an important part of that movement. The noble Lord seeks some clarification. It comes down to this: how can the community land trust use its assets and make use of its profits and surplus and, in doing so, how can it benefit community organisations, even if such organisations have a private interest as well? Of course local people can be members of the community land trust, but that does not mean that only local people are eligible for membership. Others may become members, which will depend very much on how the community land trust defines its own rules of governance. These rules of governance can extend to cover local organisations—those listed by my noble friend would certainly be covered. As long as there is a benefit to those individuals who are members, I do not think that there will be a difficulty with the understanding that my noble friend has. That is certainly how we envisaged it working when we came back with this definition. I hope that that helps my noble friend Lord Graham. It is certainly intended to. This will enable community land trusts to have that broader social community role that noble Lords have argued for in our debates. I hope that we can agree to the amendments.
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- 12:15
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- Lord Graham of EdmontonLabour
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- My Lords, my noble friend has been enormously helpful. As I sat behind him listening, he clarified that the words in the Bill envisage that there will be more than individuals as members of the trust. The actions taken by the trust will be the members’ decisions. If the bodies that are members are locally based, they will be able to influence the decisions of the trust and to be beneficiaries of and subject to the trust. I am enormously grateful to my noble friend for that clarification. I do not want him to alter a word of what he said, so I shall sit down and be quiet. On Question, amendment agreed to.
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- 12:15
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- Lord Bassam of BrightonLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 14:
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- 12:15
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 15:
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- 12:15
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- Lord BestCrossbench
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- My Lords, again I give deep thanks to the Minister for listening to the representations made and for bringing forward this important amendment. I also thank all colleagues on all Benches in supporting a potentially lonely Cross-Bencher who alone can do very little. I know that this amendment will be much appreciated by the organisations representing tenants and landlords, including the Local Government Association, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the National Federation of ALMOs, the Tenant Participation Advisory Service and the National Consumer Council. It means that council tenants can enjoy the same protections and support from the regulator as housing association tenants without the need for another Act of Parliament. It will prevent anomalies and complexities as tenants move between council housing and housing association homes. All will have a similar service. It will ensure that council tenants will not be treated as second-class citizens. It will also enable the new Tenant Services Authority to establish a coherent culture, as the noble Baroness has said, to recruit a board and to engage staff on the basis of certainty that 4 million, not 2 million, tenants will be covered without waiting for a new Bill. If the Minister could give an idea of timetabling for consultation and action in taking forward the extension of the Tenant Services Authority’s role to cover council tenants, that would be appreciated. But that can await another day. I know that things will move forward as expeditiously as possible. I thank the Minister for this amendment, which I heartily support.
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- 12:30
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- Baroness HamweeLiberal Democrat
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- My Lords, when I was fairly new in this House, Lord Longford stood back to let me go through a Division Lobby first and then apologised and said, “I am sorry, we do not do things that way now, do we?”. I, too, should like to add my thanks. I apologise for lowering the tone, but I have a question. Under the new clause proposed in Amendment No. 15, subsection (2) allows registration of, “a specified local authority, or … a specified class of local authority”. That puzzles me. I had not anticipated that it might be necessary to differentiate between authorities. I gave the noble Baroness almost no notice of this question and I do not know whether she is able to explain why that is necessary.
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- 12:30
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- My Lords, I was grateful for the notice that I was given. We have yet to publish Professor Cole’s report, but, given that it has been circulated, I am not breaking any confidences in relating that it will recommend that only those local authorities which own stock should be subject to consultation. Specifying the local authorities gives us flexibility. The clause allows us to register such a class and gives us the ability to specify a particular authority. We will of course have to consult on this, along with the way in which we propose to handle registration of local authorities, when we bring forward draft regulations.
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- 12:30
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- Lord Dixon-SmithConservative
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- My Lords, if I am out of order, I apologise and I hope that the House will understand. I need to add my thanks, first, to everyone in the House who has taken part in this Bill. There is no question that the Bill will leave this House in a far better state than it arrived, which is the result of the work of so many people besides ourselves. I owe thanks to all those who have briefed us. They sometimes swamp us with information, but, as a consequence of that, we are much better informed when we study these Bills and are able to bring improvements forward. I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, who has been remarkably resistant to change and yet remarkably flexible at the same time, which is quite an achievement. If I have one regret, I have one only. The Bill was 32 pages longer this morning than when it arrived here. As a result of this morning’s work, it is probably 35 pages longer. Those out in the field who have to study the Bill in order to work will have to dig even further and mine even longer shafts in order to receive the nuggets they need on which their work is based. On Question, amendment agreed to. Clause 319 [Orders and regulations]:
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- 12:30
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 16 to 20:
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 21 and 22:
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- moved Amendments Nos. 23 and 24:
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- moved Amendment No. 25:
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- Baroness AndrewsLabour
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- My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons with amendments.
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- 12:30
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