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Housing and Regeneration Bill

In introducing the debate and the programme motion, the Minister talked about the Public Bill Committee. The debate on Report is an opportunity for all Back Benchers—not only those, such as me, who had the privilege of serving on the Committee—to contribute to the Bill. I suspect that today's debate will be dominated by new clauses 1 and 8, to which the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) spoke. I support a lot of what he and the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher) said. However we look at it, council housing will be an important part of our housing stock for many years; it is clear that stock transfer is not going ahead at the rate that the Government would like. There will be authorities that maintain their council housing, and if we are to meet the decent homes standard by 2010 and to have decent housing generally, we must take a view about the many millions of people who live in council housing in our country. New clause 1 is a useful opportunity that allows us to argue a little about the principles on which housing policy should be based. It would be useful if, at the end of the debate, the Minister made a policy statement on where the Government stand on council housing, because we are not entirely sure of where that is. If there is an issue that the House has not debated enough, it is council housing. I remember one or two Westminster Hall debates on the subject, but it has not been broadly debated. I hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to set out where the Government stand. I particularly want to talk a little about new clause 8. I became aware of the housing revenue account subsidy system only recently, when I realised that 20 per cent. of all the rents paid by tenants in Poole were taken by the Government to use elsewhere. Taking money out of housing revenue accounts—in Poole, there is an arm's-length management organisation—essentially means taking money from tenants in one area to subsidise tenants in another. As we have heard in this debate, well in excess of £100 million is taken from some council tenants to subside others. I have always believed that need has to be the basis of housing policy. However, if it is to be that, it should be met by national taxation, not by using tenants in one area, who may be less well off, to subsidise tenants elsewhere. The figures have been mentioned today: well over £180 million comes from tenants' rents, and in the vast majority of districts and boroughs people make some contribution, predominantly to the larger cities and inner London. Nevertheless, the transfer of funds and money is very substantial. Nobody quite understands how the formula is worked out and I welcome the fact that the Government are having a review. However, I suspect that the review will be only modest and I know that some authorities that want to opt out of the subsidy system have been negotiating with the Department, which, as I understand it, wants them to buy themselves out of that system. At the end of the day, if the authorities have to buy themselves out of the system, it may not be worth their leaving it. I have another point to make about the benefits of council housing versus stock transfer and everything else. If there is a subsidy system in which a local area is losing millions in rents, there is an added incentive for stock transfer, even if the tenants are not pleased with that option because they feel that they are being penalised if they remain council tenants. The contributing authorities include not only relatively leafy Poole and the Surrey boroughs and districts, but authorities such as Bolsover, Chesterfield—I see the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) sitting in his place—Portsmouth and City of Durham. Many of the former mining areas have quite a lot of public sector stock. Money is coming out of the rents paid by tenants and being redistributed to the Camdens and other areas. We should be more transparent about what we are doing. If housing need is the basis of policy, it should be paid for out of general taxation, not by taking money from one set of tenants to subsidise another. In my own borough of Poole, we have very high house prices. That means that social housing takes more of the strain in relation to young couples. If Poole Housing Partnership was allowed the £3 million a year that is taken into new council housing or housing for the elderly, it could manage the housing stock for people generally. There is local demand that could be met if that money remained local. There must be a fundamental reform of the housing revenue subsidy system, which is not fair; I look forward to Government proposals on that. Liberal Democrat Members make an important point: unless there is reform soon, the consequences for many authorities, boroughs and districts that wish to retain council housing will become very severe. We need a statement from the Minister about council housing. As we have heard, 2.8 million people are still council tenants. Some very good housing authorities, run by local authorities of all political persuasions, provide good local housing. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby is right that some people would prefer to have their housing provided by a local authority than to opt out and be transferred into some new organisation that was subject, as we all know, to salaries going up, and that may not be as responsive to the demands of local people as the local council providing council housing and the local councillors whom people elect to protect their interests. It is a pity that the issue we are discussing was raised by a Back-Bench Member rather than a Minister. Nevertheless, the debate is a useful and timely opportunity to raise these important matters.