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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I rise to speak to new clause 1, amendment No. 5 and new clause 8. My hon. Friend the Minister told us that he would continue to listen to the debate, and I assure him that the council house group in whose serried ranks I sit is also continuing to listen. Our proposals in the new clauses and the amendment, and in other measures that will be considered later, are meant to help the Government to achieve their proclaimed purpose of launching a housing drive. That will be difficult because the fall in house prices as a result of the sub-prime crisis will discourage builders. It will also be difficult because, although the Bill greatly helps registered social landlords, they are not the most thrusting and dynamic force when it comes to launching building drives. Indeed, RSLs have not taken up the money already made available by the Housing Corporation; they show a laggard lethargy and do not want to take risks. They would rather build balances and surpluses than new houses. We want to help the Minister in his building drive and we want a better deal for council housing, which is also the Government's intention. We were told last year that they would relaunch council house building and councils would be allowed to build. We welcome that and we want to move those proposals on, because the Bill's impact assessment indicates that only 2,500 council houses a year will be built under the measure. That may be an increase on the current pathetic totals, but it does not match demand—1.6 million people are on council house waiting lists. The bad thing about the Bill is that it keeps up the pressure on councils to privatise their housing stock. Over the years, they have been bullied, bribed and bamboozled into getting rid of their stock and privatising it. It is unreasonable of the Government to keep up such pressure on councils that want to retain their housing stock, while at the same time trying to encourage councils to build. The Government should not bash councils by cutting funding while expecting them to contribute to the housing drive, which is necessary. Councils should contribute, because they know the needs of their area and can give a lead. New clause 1 and amendment No. 5 would restrict pressure to privatise. The ballots that are compulsory for RSLs that indulge in large-scale voluntary transfers are in many cases undemocratic and unreasonable, and in a few cases a travesty of democracy—President Mugabe, through his observers in the UK, has almost certainly learned lessons from how such ballots were conducted in the past. I instance the fate of my attempts to oppose a proposal for a large-scale voluntary transfer in Grimsby. I prepared a magnificent pamphlet with brilliant photographs, by me, of people who opposed the transfers. As soon as the council heard of the imminent publication of that great opus—my fantastic argument—it brought forward the ballot, so my pamphlet was issued five days after everybody had received their ballot papers. I wrote to the Electoral Reform Society to protest, as one does on such occasions, and received the reply that it had no control over the timing of the ballot, which was entirely up to the council, but that most people who vote in such ballots do so within four days of receiving the ballot paper. My pamphlet went out on day 5, so that information was extremely comforting. Housing officers were going around saying, ““Vote for privatisation because you love us and you want us to keep our jobs.”” The electors were deluged with videos made by rival television personalities, telling them that their bathrooms would be done up by Jacques Cousteau and their gardens developed by ““Ground Force””. They were told that their houses would have fantastic décor, with safety features, new doors and windows, and new kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms. They would be living in paradise. The situation was extremely unbalanced. I shall not go on, but such practices are found all over the country. In Sefton, for instance, the council lost the ballot for large-scale voluntary transfer and promptly issued lawyers' letters to the protestors, telling them that they must not interfere in the democratic process. Within a few weeks, the council held another ballot that, on a lower poll, reversed the verdict of the first. That is the kind of undemocratic practice that has been going on. I have a list of examples. I will be happy to supply my hon. Friend the Minister with it, because I know that he wants to address those problems. The Bill proposes that tenants have a right of appeal against a ballot, but appeals must be made within 28 days. These people are not tenants of the Inns of Court, but council housing tenants—28 days is not long enough for them to organise an appeal and make a case, so the time limit needs to be extended. To give another couple of examples, the City and County of Swansea resolved that"““notwithstanding expenditure in excess of £1.4 million by the cabinet, a fair and balanced case was not presented to tenants.””" In north-east Somerset and west Wiltshire, the district auditor found that the local authority had acted unlawfully in using public money to promote stock transfer. I have a long list of such examples, which show that there has been a travesty of democracy. We have held two conferences for tenants from all over the country, who expressed their concerns.