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NIFHA calls for UK government to pass reclassification bill ‘urgently’
Housing associations have called on the new Northern Ireland secretary to pass legislation to stop them being moved to the public sector “as soon as possible”.
In a letter to Julian Smith, Ben Collins, chief executive of the Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations (NIFHA), said the bill “urgently needs to be passed to enable housing associations to continue to draw down private finance”.
Mr Smith was appointed secretary of state for Northern Ireland by Boris Johnson last month, having previously been parliamentary secretary to the Treasury and chief whip.
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It is understood that a bill has been drafted by civil servants and is ready to be progressed but is still waiting to be tabled, despite verbal promises by Westminster’s Northern Ireland Office (NIO) that the legislation would be brought forward before the summer parliamentary recess.
A UK government source said the legislation will be taken forward “as soon as parliamentary time allows”.
In 2016, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced its intention to reclassify UK housing associations as public sector bodies.
Ministers in England, Scotland and Wales moved to pass legislation to deregulate housing associations enough for the ONS to reverse its decision – allowing them to remain as private bodies.
But no such action has been taken in Northern Ireland, where there has been no functioning government since January 2017, meaning the sector remains threatened with not being able to take on extra borrowing to build new social housing.
The UK Treasury has delayed reclassification of Northern Ireland’s housing associations until March 2020 to allow enough time for the necessary legislation to be passed.
Mr Collin’s letter also raised concerns about the end of welfare mitigation payments in Northern Ireland, which could see 34,000 households across the region hit by the bedroom tax in March.
And it said more funding was needed for Northern Ireland’s Supporting People programme, as well as multi-year budgets for the Social Housing Development Programme.
A spokesperson for the NIO said: “The secretary of state’s priority is to see democratic, locally accountable institutions restored so that decisions like these can be made by politicians in Stormont.”
