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Housing Corporation (Delegation) etc. Bill

The hon. Lady makes a good and valid point, but my experience in Hammersmith and Fulham does not bear out her argument about the number of people who complain about their RSL compared with the number who make an approach about a private landlord. The Bill should include measures to improve accountability, not just in the Housing Corporation but in local housing associations. Tenant participation is still low in many RSLs. Tenants associations are packed with placemen who agree with the political direction of the borough in question, or are filled with people deemed politically acceptable to the individuals in charge. We need to strengthen tenants’ rights and their participation in housing associations. Housing association tenants are the poor cousins when it comes to tenant power, and that must change. Another matter over which tenants lack control, and which may be affected by the Bill, is the speed of escalating rent rises, especially in London. It is shame that none of the measures in the Bill will do anything to control housing association rent rises under Labour or make them easier to challenge. The Minister may guffaw, but I am about to challenge him by citing one of his allies. The central Government formula introduced by Labour in 2001 allows housing associations to raise rents according to a formula of the retail price index plus 0.5 per cent plus £2 a week—we were told that that was ““rent restructuring””. In practice, most housing associations have levied the maximum allowable annual increase. The Minister does not have to take my word for it—I urge him to listen to the words of my Labour predecessor in Hammersmith and Fulham, who told the House on 5 December 2001 at column 134WH:"““In my borough, the Government proposals will lead to higher rent increases in the next 10 years than in the past decade—I remind my hon. Friend that the majority of that was spent under a Conservative Administration—despite the fact that we have proved that London rent increases have been well above average during that time. The average rent increase in Hammersmith and Fulham over the past 10 years was 23.2 per cent., compared with the projection based on the current proposals””—" those proposals were for rent restructuring—"““of 29.5 per cent. over the next decade.””" He went on to say:"““That will apply particularly to one and two-””—[Official Report, Westminster Hall, 5 December 2001; Vol. 376, c. 133–4 WH.]"