Government expected to table new legislation to help tenants move
Social housing bill tops list of new laws
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A scheme to help social housing tenants move to new homes elsewhere in the country could be one of the first pieces of legislation tabled by the new government.
A source close to the Conservative Party’s housing team said the party was considering a housing, planning and local government bill to be introduced in the Queen’s speech.
As part of the bill, it is considering making it a legal obligation for social landlords to keep a portion of their vacant homes empty for tenants who might wish to move into them from other parts of the country. It is also looking at proposals for regional development agencies to hand powers for economic regeneration to councils.
The party may also propose the abolition of several quangos, including the infrastructure planning commission which decides on planning applications for nationally important projects. Its members are also considering measures to allow more local control of the Homes and Communities Agency and the possible abolition of the Tenant Services Authority, although plans for a replacement regulator have not yet been drawn up.
Another bill, which would abolish Home Information Packs, has also been drafted and would allow the packs to be suspended within 100 days and abolished if the legislation came into force.
A spokesperson for the Conservatives said they could not comment on the plans and ministers would decide what legislation to take forward.
The bills are not complete and have not yet had input from the Conservatives’ coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats.
A source said: ‘The bill in the Queen’s speech would be fairly short, dealing with easy issues by abolition and change and then they would have a substantive bill later on dealing with more difficult things.’
The coalition agreement signed by the two parties said they would abolish HIPs, cut non-frontline public services by £6 billion in 2010/11, and set out an emergency budget within 50 days.
The news emerged as industry experts warned housing providers will need to fight hard to get anything near their current funding settlement from the new government.
As the new coalition government agreed on an accelerated programme of cuts totalling £6 billion this year, the sector braced itself for increased pressure on the amount of finance it receives from the government.
The National Housing Federation said it was seeking an urgent meeting with the new administration about the housing crisis.
Helen Williams, assistant director of the federation, said: ‘Given the scale of the crisis, the government must spare the housing budget from cuts which would see plans to build hundreds of thousands of low cost homes scrapped, send waiting lists soaring to unimaginable new highs and condemn millions of families to living in sub-standard housing for generations.’
At the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ affordable housing conference, consultant Andrew Heywood warned housing would fall very low on the government’s list of priorities and would come under greater pressure than other sectors whose budgets were protected.
‘I think we have to assume that there’s going to be real pressure on housing,’ he said, adding that housing would probably sustain greater cuts to make up for ring-fenced budgets.
Richard Capie, director of policy and practice at the Chartered Institute of Housing, said the sector would need to present strong arguments on the benefits of investing in affordable housing.
‘The difference a drop in funding would cause is that 100,000 homes won’t be built: you could say that’s half a million jobs lost,’ he said. ‘These are the kinds of arguments we’ll need to use.’
See more election 2010 coverage
Two heads
The key housing differences between the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives
Conservatives
- Could abolish the TSA
- Scrap regional planning and house building targets
- Favour community land trusts
- Haven’t committed to financial reform
- Propose equity stakes for good tenants
Liberal Democrats
- Would keep the TSA as regulator
- Would decide housing targets at a loclal level
- Propose community land auctions
- Review housing subsidy system
- Propose cuts to homebuy
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Readers' comments (19)
Christopher Webb | 14/05/2010 1:46 am
Mobility is important but with such ahousing shortage deliberately keeping homes empty would be verging on the criminal. In Tory flagship Borough Ealing for instance there are now more than two families for every home. The proposal is just not credible.
Innovation in creating new homes, and promoting the building of new housing stock are clear priorities.
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Bill Caddick | 14/05/2010 9:43 am
Mobility schemes have been around since the 1970's and have been successful. If I recall correctly in the 90's local authorities reserve up to 5% p.a. of their stock to enable mobility and it worked really well. Most residents want to stay in the area they are living / were brought up in but a percentage need to move for work and family reasons - and the quota system can work very well. Its a much better option that the idea of a LA or RSL having to sell a property and buy one elsewhere for a residnet who wants to move - that would be a nightmare because of price, price differentials, type, size , location, selling / buying costs, loan security held on stock, et al. % allocation to the scheme would be administrative simple and overall effective.
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sam | 14/05/2010 10:04 am
This is a personal comment.
Anybody thought of trying to get private landlords to work with social and council housing providers. NO??
No matter------- you very soon will, and quicker than you may imagine at the moment.
Sorry folks, the party is over; and, here`s the bill.
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ILAG | 14/05/2010 11:47 am
"Tory flagship Borough Ealing"? Not since May 6th. Labour got it back. Ealing was never a Tory flagship borough. Look to neighbouring H&F for that. H&F turned into a comfortable hold for the outstanding Stephen Greenhalgh with Labour actually loosing councillors, bucking the inner London trend. Needless to say, Mr. Greenhalgh is not a big fan of social housing and it looks like the H&F electorate concurred...
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HC21 | 14/05/2010 12:07 pm
Ok so those homes left empty in the south are likely to be filled but those in the more deprived areas will just stand there and rot.....
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London Manager | 14/05/2010 2:08 pm
This national mobility thing is a distraction and David Orr and the NHF have demonstrated (yet again)how out of touch they are by being involved in it. For authorities under pressure such as London Boroughs it will just be another impossible competing demand along with overcrowding, homelessness etc. In lower demand areas it wil be an irrelevance because it happens under current systems anyway.
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Harry Lime | 14/05/2010 3:12 pm
Absolutely right London, are they seriously expecting all LA's and particularly London boroughs to keep a certain % of their stock empty to meet demand from outside areas when they can't even satisfy local demand? - Beyond laughable.....
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Melvin Bone | 14/05/2010 3:34 pm
Most people do not live in London chaps...
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Harry Lime | 14/05/2010 3:53 pm
Melvin, irrespective of where or which LA you're talking about there is probably many thousand with a local connection already on the list, do you really think even 1% of properties should be retained for others to come from elsewhere? Imagine a 3 bed property held for someone wanting to move from elsewhere at the expense of an overcrowded local already on the list for many years? Can't see how it will work, or be popular, at least not with the locals who miss out further on local affordable housing...
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Fingers | 14/05/2010 4:08 pm
To me the lunatics have taken over the asylum, so LA's are expected to delay a place to a percentage of their own local applicants from their own waiting lists, this to enable applicants from other areas maybe with no local interest to request there names be placed on the list.
This risks requests from tenants that would like to move to Brighton,Torquay, Richmond, Kingston upon Thames or any popular community, but how are the rural demands to be met? There is already a distinct lack of capacity to meet the demands of these communities, and how will these LAs finance the extra demand for homes?
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