Posted: May 11, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Right to buy, Social housing | Tags: Brandon Lewis, Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally posted on May 11 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
The end of resistance to the Housing and Planning Bill leaves one big question hanging: why was the government so completely determined to undo an amendment that delivered its manifesto commitment on higher-value sales?
On the face of it, the amendment by Lord Kerslake that ping-ponged back between the Commons and the Lords should not have been such an issue. It would have put on the face of the bill the funding of replacements for ‘higher-value’ homes where local authorities sign an agreement with the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG). It also gave them the chance to make the case for social rented replacements, though the DCLG would not be required to accept this.
But ministers treated this as a wrecking amendment and claimed financial privilege on the grounds that it would fatally undermine their plans to pay for Right to Buy discounts for housing association tenants. Their determination was reflected in a piece in Wednesday’s Sun that included a threat to make the Commons sit all night and a personal attack on Lord Kerslake by Brandon Lewis.
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Posted: May 5, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Pay to stay, Social housing | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally published on May 5 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
On Tuesday Brandon Lewis told the press that there would be no further concessions on the Housing Bill. A little over 24 hours later there were…further concessions.
On a day of five more defeats in the House of Lords, which will now ping pong back to the Commons, the biggest surprise for me was the last-minute changes to Pay to Stay announced by communities minister Baroness Williams.
The House of Commons overturned three previous Lords defeats on the controversial policy on Tuesday. To recap, the Lords had increased the thresholds to £40,000 and £50,000 in London, called for the thresholds to be increased in line with inflation every three years and reduced the taper rate from 20p to 10p. On all three the government claimed ‘financial privilege’, a strong message to the Lords to back off.
The stage was set for a new battle on Wednesday over slightly watered down Lords amendments but (probably fearing defeat) the minister announced a compromise – a taper rate of 15p and annual uprating of the thresholds in line with CPI inflation – that was accepted by peers.
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Posted: May 4, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Right to buy, Social housing | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally posted on May 4 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
What is the difference between ‘high’ and ‘higher’ value when it comes to the forced sale of council homes?
The two letters were added to the Housing and Planning Bill in a government amendment in the House of Lords last month. The government argued that the switch would help areas facing the highest housing pressure – inner London boroughs plus places like Harrogate, Oxford and Cambridge – that would all have ‘a high proportion of their stock defined as “high value”. The minister, Baroness Williams, said she could ‘confirm absolutely’ that it would not be used to raise more money.
But new analysis by Shelter suggests that the shift in the Bill to a levy on ‘higher value’ sales could mean councils having to sell 23,500 homes a year, six times more than under the previous ‘high value’ thresholds.
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Posted: April 29, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Legal, Pay to stay, Right to buy, Starter homes, Tenants | Tags: House of Lords, Housing and Planning Bill, Public accounts committee |
Originally published on April 29 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
The worst excuse for a Bill that I can remember in 25 years of writing about housing limps back to the House of Commons next week.
The Housing and Planning Bill’s tail is not quite between its legs as all the key elements are still there and the Commons will reverse some changes. But it’s been gutted in the Lords, with two more defeats for the government on Wednesday, and this morning (Friday) it’s the subject of withering criticism by the all-party Public Accounts Committee.
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Posted: April 19, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Legal, Pay to stay, Social housing, Tenants | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally posted on April 19 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
It was another day, another session of watering down the Housing and Planning Bill in the Lords. Peers reached sections of the Bill including Pay to Stay and security of tenure in the latest Report stage debate on Monday.
On Pay to Stay for ‘high income’ council tenants, they inflicted three more defeats on the government and they also forced some interesting clarifications of the detail out of ministers. As the Bill now stands, local authorities will have discretion about whether to apply Pay to Stay, the thresholds will be increased to £40,000 outside London and £50,000 in London, and the taper for higher rents will be 10p.
Obviously it remains to be seen how much of this the government will look to reverse in the Commons, perhaps citing financial privilege because the money raised by the policy goes back to the Treasury.
The government version of the policy – set out in an email to peers an hour before the debate – is that it will be compulsory for councils, the thresholds will be £31,000 and £40,000 and the taper will be 20p. That means tenants would pay an extra £200 a year in rent for each £1,000 they earn above the thresholds. (It’s not clear to me why the out-of-London threshold has been increased from the previous £30,000).
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Posted: April 14, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Local government, Rural housing | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally published on April 14 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
Day two of the Lords report stage on the Housing Bill brought concessions on forced sales but there were inevitably more questions too.
Peers reached Part 4 of the Bill covering social housing in England and the main business of the day was the first two chapters: implementation of the voluntary right to buy and the levy on sales of high value council houses to pay for it.
This has always been one of the elements of the legislation that most resembled the back of a fag packet. The only figures ever published on how forced sales would work came in a Conservative party press release during the election campaign. This suggested that the most valuable third of council homes would be sold as they fall vacant, with values assessed against regional thresholds by bedroom size.
That raised many problems but two that stood out in particular. First, setting the values like that would mean local authorities in areas with high house prices would lose virtually all of their stock.
Second, it didn’t stack up: receipts would simply not be enough to cover right to buy discounts, the promised replacement homes and a proposed brownfield regeneration fund. That was clear right at the start and the CIH estimated the shortfall at £2.2bn.
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Posted: March 22, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Housing associations, Pay to stay, Right to buy, Social housing | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally published on March 22 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
This concluding part of my blog on Pay to Stay follows up more clues on how the government wants the policy to work. Part 1 focuses on how the tapers will work plus issues about the assessment of incomes and market rents.
Just to confuse things even further, a statutory instrument on social housing rents published on Friday stipulates that the four-year 1% rent cut that applies from April 2016 does not apply to households with incomes of more than £60,000 (in the current or previous year). This is a reference to the existing voluntary Pay to Stay and I assumed at first it simply meant that the relatively few landlords who have implemented it would not reduce the rents of ‘high income’ tenants who are already paying higher rents. However, it seems that as drafted it means that landlords would have to exclude all tenants with an income of more than £60,000 from the cut – even though there is currently no obvious way for them to find them all. Appropriately enough the regulations come into force on April 1.
The Housing and Planning Bill makes Pay to Stay compulsory for local authorities but reduces the household income thresholds to £30,000 outside London and £40,000 in London. Any increased rental income has to be paid to the Treasury. It remains voluntary for housing associations. Here are five more issues raised in the Lords.
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Posted: March 18, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Housing benefit, Pay to stay, Social housing | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally posted on March 18 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
Thanks to the persistence of a group of peers, we now know a little bit more about how the government wants higher Pay to Stay rents to work for tenants.
The details emerged on the sixth day of the committee stage of the Housing and Planning Bill on Monday (see Hansard here).
That followed confirmation in a government consultation response last week that there will be a taper and that tenants on housing benefit claimants will be exempt. As I blogged the next day, this was presented as a climbdown. The government says tenants on incomes just above the thresholds ‘will see their rent rise by only a few pounds each week’. However, it also begged yet more questions. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: March 10, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Council housing, Pay to stay, Right to buy, Social housing | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill, National Audit Office |
Originally posted on March 10 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
Key elements of the Housing and Planning Bill have faced serious scrutiny in the last couple of days but we’re still not much nearer to knowing how or if they will work.
The frustration of MPs and peers is palpable as they repeatedly ask for more detail and are just as repeatedly told that it will be available shortly. It was all too much even for a Conservative MP on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday afternoon. ‘You’re treating the parliamentarians around this table with contempt,’ Stephen Phillips told two senior Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) civil servants. ‘You’re asking us to take this on faith. Why not do the work first and then bring the legislation forward?’
The answer is of course that it’s much easier for ministers if it works the other way around. Under current plans, the crucial detail will appear in secondary legislation only after the bill has Royal Assent.
The PAC was investigating the value-for-money aspects of the extension of the Right to Buy to housing associations and the levy on forced sales of council houses that is meant to fund it. But members didn’t get far asking for detail. ‘The timings have yet to be determined,’ ran one senior civil servant answer. ‘The amounts have yet to be determined. The formulae have yet to be determined.’
The National Audit Office (NAO) is not impressed either. Here’s its assessment of the government’s impact assessment of the bill:
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Posted: March 1, 2016 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Affordable housing, Council housing, Pay to stay, Right to buy, Starter homes, Tenants | Tags: Housing and Planning Bill |
Originally published on March 1 on Inside Edge 2, my blog for Inside Housing
For a piece of legislation that’s already faced hours of scrutiny from MPs and peers, there are still gaping holes at the heart of a Housing and Planning Bill that started life on the back of a fag packet and hasn’t moved much beyond it in several important respects.
Opposition demands for more detail about legislation are nothing new of course, but I’ve argued before that the lack of clarity here is deliberate in a bill that is designed to allow the government to do what it wants in future. To take one example, after stretching the definition of ‘affordable’ to breaking point to include £450,000 Starter Homes, the bill adds that the secretary of state ‘may by regulations amend this section so as to modify the definition of affordable housing’.
Many of the gaps were highlighted in the Commons late last year. The last two months have brought little further detail but now it’s crunch time: as peers debate a series of amendments, ministers are bound to come under increased pressures to say exactly what they mean.
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Jules Birch 