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Housing Bill passes through Commons
Measures to extend the Right to Buy and force councils to sell their expensive homes have been voted through in the House of Commons.
Yesterday, MPs voted in favour of the Housing and Planning Bill at its second reading, by 306 to 215 votes.
The bill will now go to the committee stage, where MPs will discuss amendments to the proposed legislation.
During the debate, London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith revealed he would seek an amendment to ensure two affordable homes are built for every high value council home that is sold off.
He said: “I believe it will gain the support of every single back-bench Conservative colleague representing a London constituency.”
Defending the Right to Buy proposals against criticism from Labour, communities secretary Greg Clark said: “The lazy assumption that there is a contradiction between supporting the dreams of homebuyers and ensuring new homes are built must end.”
He also accused the previous Labour government of introducing “clunking” legislation, leading to the reclassification of housing associations as public sector bodies by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
On Friday, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) said its reclassification was based on measures in Labour’s 2008 Housing and Regeneration Act and the coalition government’s 2011 Localism Act.
However, shadow housing minister John Healey said the government had acted in “bad faith” and accused Mr Clarke of knowing about the ONS’s decision before striking the ‘voluntary’ Right to Buy deal with housing associations.
Mr Healey also warned that measures in the bill to give housing associations “gung-ho freedom” would mean they have “a green light to become almost indistinguishable from private developers”.
AT-A-GLANCE: HOUSING AND PLANNING BILL
- A Homes and Communities Agency ‘homeownership criteria’ to ensure housing associations introduce the Right to Buy or provide ‘an equal or greater level of support’ to tenants to help them into homeownership
- The payment of ‘grant’ – with terms and conditions attached – to housing associations to fund the Right to Buy discount by the government or the Greater London Authority
- Provisions for councils to make a fixed payment to government each year, based on an estimate for the income from selling high-value vacant homes
- A duty on councils to consider selling vacant high-value housing
- Powers to reduce regulatory control over housing associations
- A general duty on councils to promote the supply of Starter Homes
- Duties on local authorities to keep, and have regard to, registers of people seeking land for self build and custom housebuilding
- Introduction of ‘banning orders’, which would stop bad landlords from letting properties for at least six months
- The introduction of a database of rogue landlords and letting agents and measures to make rogue landlords re-pay housing benefit to local authorities
- Measures to force ‘high-income social tenants’ to pay up to market rents
- Powers to allow HM Revenue and Customs to share information to help verify social tenants’ declarations on their incomes
- Powers for the government to ensure that all councils get Local Plans in place by 2017, or face intervention
- Automatic planning permission in principle on brownfield sites
- Additional powers for the London mayor to refuse planning applications that would have an impact on wharfs on the River Thames or key London ‘sightlines’.
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