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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I agree that if one is going to incentivise existing tenants to move out, it should be accompanied by measures to increase supply in the private sector, otherwise one will simply drive up house prices. If one were to do the first, one would need to do the second in order to avoid house price inflation. On a related question about the balance of the budget, there is nothing in the Bill about private sector renewal, because the funds come from elsewhere. However, the emphasis on affordable housing, which has been brought forward from the Green Paper, has pre-empted a huge chunk of the overall housing budget. If, for example, one examines the small print of the comprehensive spending review 2007—the public service agreement 2007, as was—one sees that the target for decent homes has been deleted. The improvement of social rented homes to decent standards is now one of 198 optional indicators in local authority agreements. There are now no indicators relating to the improvement of private stock or to the specific delivery of adaptations. The housing pot will be under enormous pressure to deliver the targets for new affordable homes, and the initial indications are that there will be substantial reductions in other parts of the housing budget and particularly those parts of it that go to private sector renewal. I am the chairman of a small national charity, the Foundations Independent Living Trust, which helps elderly or disabled people on low incomes to stay in their homes, or to return to their homes after they have been in hospital, by working through home improvement agencies. More and more older people are home owners and want to live with dignity in their own homes for as long as possible. Home improvement agencies face enormous pressure on improvement grants, and there is a real risk that by putting so many eggs in the new build social housing basket, the Government will pay a price elsewhere on the housing front. My main concern about the Bill is the balance between the HCA on the one hand and local authorities and housing associations on the other so far as delivery is concerned. I believe in devolving down, so the job of building houses or communities is for local government or housing associations—it is not a job for a new national quango. The Housing Corporation did not build homes directly. If one examines the powers being given to the HCA and the language used by Ministers, it appears that the HCA will displace existing delivery agents and centralise decisions that are currently taken locally. The Chartered Institute of Housing got it right when it said that it saw the HCA as ““providing flexible tailored support””. The HCA should be an enabler—a sort of godfather. The notes on the Bill tell us that it will be able to establish new communities or work to regenerate or develop existing communities, buy land and provide employment and training opportunities. It even has powers to preserve trees, deal with antisocial behaviour and own houses. That poses the question: why are housing associations or local authorities not performing those functions? The Bill sits rather uneasily with what is stated in ““Homes for the Future””:"““We want to see local authorities step up to play a stronger role in addressing the housing needs of all residents. We want to see them develop their strategic housing role by using the full range of housing and land use planning powers””." Yet clauses 13 to 17 take those powers from local authorities and give them to someone else. If a new town is going to be built, then of course a new town corporation needs those powers, but rebuilding existing communities should be done by democratically elected and accountable local authorities working in partnership with housing associations that have their roots in those communities. On Oftenant, I hope that we will get light-touch regulation leaving housing associations to get on with the job, not go back to the old days of prescriptive regulation and interference. The Bill suggests that the regulator's functions go way beyond those relating to housing and intrude into other areas. Environmental and social and economic well-being functions also come under the regulator, whereas if they were carried out by anybody else, they would not. There is a risk of regulatory creep. Clause 173 gives the regulator powers on rents. We need to think through how his powers on housing association rents will impact on local authority rents, because there is still a gap in many parts of the country. On clause 54, I am surprised that we are still running down the new towns. I thought that I wound up the last of the new towns in the 1980s. It was argued then that we could not dump all the land in Milton Keynes on to the market. Yet here we are, 20 years later, still making provision for what the Commission for the New Towns owns. I welcome the provision regarding members of the armed forces, who tend to miss out when it comes to the allocation of housing. Does the relevant clause cover wives in circumstances where the marriage breaks up and the husband leaves the Army, leaving the wife and family behind in married quarters? There will be upheaval and turbulence, and there will be a cost, which risks diverting attention. I want a regime that decentralises, resources and empowers those in the front line, and guides and helps in delivering the new homes that the country needs; I do not want over-regulation, duplication or centralisation. The Government will have to be very careful if they are to get that balance right.