§ Lords amendment: No. 50, insert the following new clause
§ ".—(1) Part III of the New Towns Act 1981 (transfer of new town housing to district councils) is amended as follows.
§ (2) After section 57 insert—
§ Savings for other powers of disposal
§
57A. The provisions of this Part as to the transfer of dwellings in a new town to a district council shall not be construed as restricting—
to dispose of such dwellings to any person.".
§
(3) The following provisions (which relate to the initiation of consultations with a view to the transfer of new town housing to a district council) are repealed—
§ Read a Second time.
752§ Mr. Simon HughesI beg to move, as an amendment to the Lords amendment, in line 5, after '57A', insert, `subject to the provisions of 57B below,'.
§ Mr. HughesThe amendments deal with the disposal of housing held by the new town corporations, the Housing Corporation or the Development Board for Rural Wales. At present, if there is a disposal of such housing from the new town to a local authority, consultation takes place. However, the proposed Lords amendment allows disposal to other than local councils. This is not a matter of principle but the Lords amendment allows disposal to a housing association or to a private owner. The disposal could be of a single property, a couple of properties or all the properties on an estate.
The amendments to the Lords amendment cover the same issue. We suggest that there must be consultation about the disposal of properties by new towns, as there is in relation to disposals of properties by other authorities. My amendment provides for consultation and for a majority vote by those whose properties are to be disposed of.
Some local authorities which cover the new towns—for example, Milton Keynes, Basildon and Telford—have planned their housing provision on the basis that they will receive housing transfers from a new town corporation. They believe that it is right and fair, both for them as prospective inheritors of the housing stock and for the tenants of the new town corporation, for a consultation procedure to be set out.
I hope that the Minister will recognise that the words in my amendment were drafted by his Department. The words fit the circumstances, but they come from amendments discussed in another place in relation to consultation elsewhere. I hope that the Minister will not, therefore, object in principle to the words or the drafting. I hope that he will not object to the principle involved. If people have been public sector tenants, although of a different type from those who have held local authority tenancies, they should be fully consulted about every scheme that might result in the disposal of their property's freehold.
The new town authorities which are to be wound up will want to dispose of estates, parts of them, or individual dwellings, to a range of different authorities, so different consultation procedures will be necessary. However, it cannot be beyond the wit of authorities to work out ways of ensuring that consultation works properly. I press upon the Minister the importance of consultation when it is proposed that tenants' landlords be changed. That consultation process should be the same as has been accepted in other contexts. The tenants should be consulted and the decision should be made by a majority. I hope that the amendments that I have tabled, or others to the same effect, will be accepted by the Minister in one form or another. Many people are affected, and are anxious to have a say in their future.
§ Mr. Warren Hawksley (The Wrekin)The Wrekin includes Telford, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). I support and welcome Lords amendment No. 50 as being 753 a move in the right direction. However, I am unable to support the Labour or Liberal amendments, which go further than is necessary.
My constituents will be greatly affected by what is decided. In my constituency there is a housing stock of 10,000 houses which are currently owned by Telford development corporation. If all those houses were to go to the Wrekin district council, its stock would be doubled, and it could not cope with the houses it would receive. I receive many complaints about how the district council maintains its houses and about the repair services that it offers to my constituents. I receive much more favourable comments from the tenants involved in the Telford development corporation.
It is undesirable that any large holding should be built up in one area. Wrekin district council's housing stock would be doubled if it received the extra houses. The greater the choice, the better. I and many of my constituents look forward to the Government giving tenants a choice of housing associations, housing cooperatives, housing trusts or the district council following the demise of the development corporation.
I agree with the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey that the tenants should be consulted. From my discussions with the Department I gained the impression that such consultation would take place. We may disagree about whether the results of that consultation should be binding on the Government, but I hope that consultation will take place, and that the Minister will listen. The Labour amendment suggests that there will be one solution. But I hope that there will be a variety of solutions. Some estates may decide to go to housing associations, housing co-operatives or trusts.
If consultation takes place and an estate decides that it wishes to remain with the council while another decides that it wants to go with a housing corporation or housing association, I hope that the Minister will look favourably upon those decisions. But until that consultation has taken place, it would be wrong of the Government to give any such commitment. That is not the only matter which must be taken into consideration when making a final decision.
Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with three questions of a local nature affecting the Telford area. When will consultation take place? I know that consultation with the corporation and the district council was planned. It was held, possibly to allow this amendment to be passed. But I hope that the Minister can give some idea of when Telford's consultative procedure with the tenants will take place. What safeguards are there—the local government legislation that has already been passed may come into this—to ensure that the Wrekin district council does not spend much taxpayers' or ratepayers' money in running a campaign to try to push the view that it wants as many houses as it can obtain? Discussion with tenants should be balanced. I am nervous, because only last week the district council had a half-page advertisement in the Shropshire Star about bussing and deregulation, suggesting that the Government were at fault. It can still get away with that. The district council seems to get away with using public money to advertise a political point. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can assure us that no public money will be used for a campaign by the Wrekin district council to try to grab the available housing stock.
754 Who will decide how the consultation should be worded? We all know that the way in which a public opinion poll is worded is very relevant.
§ Mr. Simon HughesThe hon. Gentleman clearly has an important constituency interest. The questions in my longer amendment are meant to allay just those anxieties. Are they the type of questions that should be answered? They come from the Department's draft elsewhere in the Bill, and I believe that they should be part of the consultation. Perhaps the formula could at least be adopted, even if the amendment is not.
§ Mr. HawksleyI hope that there will be a fair representation of the case. If a housing association, housing co-operative, a trust or the district council could be an option, the wording of the questions should be approved by the Secretary of State, and it should he in a brief form that gives the tenants all the information that they need. They must have certain information. I accept that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) may be right to be more specific about that, but I have confidence in my hon. Friend the Minister that the question will he asked correctly. I am asking my hon. Friend for an assurance that that will happen. I hope that it will happen, because it is important that it should.
I also hope that my hon. Friend the Minister can assure the tenants of Telford development corporation that they have the option of being kept out of the clutches—as they see it — of the rather Left-wing Wrekin district council. The majority of them do not want a relationship with the district council—
§ Mr. RookerLeft wing?
§ Mr. HawksleyI accept that it is all comparative but there are four members of the Militant Tendency on the Wrekin district council who were suspended by the local Labour party. They were kicked out of the Labour party. They appealed to the national executive committee, and were reinstated. They could be landlords for my constituents, who are at the moment tenants of Telford development corporation. They are worried about coming under such Left-wing control. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to reassure my constituents that they will get a fair deal from the legislation.
§ Mr. RookerI jest with the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley), but at least the people of The Wrekin will have the satisfaction of knowing that Bruce Grocott will be their Member of Parliament after the next election.
I heard the hon. Gentleman dismiss my amendments and those of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes), but I could not quite follow his argument. I do not understand how he could disagree with amendment (c), because all it does is to accept everything in the Government's amendment. It states:
chosen by a secret ballot of tenants, and such ballot to include the option of the local authority, if the authority so desires.Some authorities are not interested in receiving more houses. I am the last person in the world to force more housing on to local authorities. Consequently, I do not understand why the hon. Member for The Wrekin should dismiss the amendments, especially as the tenor of his speech seemed to support them.755 It is important for us to pause at this point, because we have new material which was not mooted when the Bill first went through the House. However, the Minister gave me notice on the last day of July that some changes in this direction would be made in the other place. Local authorities have three main anxieties about this legislation, in the sense that they feel that they have already made plans and are in the process of taking over the ownership of the stock.
I must make it clear at the outset that the Labour party believes that the tenants should decide, not the local authority or the development corporation. We do not disagree with the reversal of the proposals in the new towns legislation. The Labour party will give local authority tenants the right to take over the management of their housing. It naturally follows that where a development corporation is being wound down, it makes no sense to transfer without question to the local authority when we would then give the tenants the chance to transfer out. The object is to give the choice at the time of the transfer. The tenants must decide.
That said, Milton Keynes and The Wrekin are important, because at present the local authority is managing the new town development corporation housing, but it is doing so with seconded staff.
§ Mr. HawksleyThe Telford development corporation is still in existence, and we hope that the transfer of the housing stock to another owner will take place before the demise of the corporation.
§ Mr. RookerI am sorry, I did not say that. The management of the development corporation stock is carried out by the council on an agency basis. It does not own it and it has not been transferred. The same applies to Milton Keynes.
The case that I want to highlight—I have given the Minister notice of this—is Peterborough. Peterborough is in a different position from The Wrekin and Milton Keynes. The difficulty with Peterborough is that it is not only managing the housing stock on behalf of the new town corporation, but it is doing so with its own staff. It has an agreement, voluntarily entered into, with the housing corporation that it will be taking over. I understand that there is a date, probably towards the end of next year, when the transition will be completed.
I have had some brief discussions with the director of housing in Peterborough, and I have a note saying that its management agency arrangement is not simply to manage dwellings, but to integrate the management practices and procedures and to assimilate all housing staff into a new city council housing department. The staff are not seconded; they are city council employees. There is a single housing management account for both authorities. I did not originally take that point on board. Therefore, the Peterborough situation is different from the others.
I make it clear that I have never been to Peterborough, but I have looked at its policy statement of objectives. There are many of them, but they contain the sentence:
The council will not provide housing that councillors and officers would not happily live in themselves.It is the first time that I have seen such a statement, and I should like to see that enshrined in every local authority's policy objectives. I might add that I would also include the architects and builders. Looking at its statement of 756 objectives and the way that it operates, I do not think that Peterborough would give us cause for concern on this matter.Nevertheless, the tenants should decide, as I have told the director of housing at Peterborough. The tenants must be asked where they want to go at the time of the changeover. The fact is that Peterborough is different. I ask the Minister to address his mind to that, so that the new town development corporation there does not feel under any obligation, as a result of the changes in the Bill, to tear up its voluntary agreements and go to the private sector or somewhere else because it is not interested in the local authority. If ever there was a case for accepting amendment (c) to give the local authority a chance to put its case to the tenants, it has to be Peterborough simply because of its interaction with staff and the accounts.
I stand to be corrected on the matter of the Telford development corporation — its Member of Parliament will clearly know more than I do — but I have read somewhere that management practices are carried out on an agency basis. If that is wrong, I withdraw it completely. I confess straight away that I have not been briefed by The Wrekin.
However, what I do have—not from The Wrekin but from a bundle of papers that must have been sent from the other place—is the result of a MORI poll to which the hon. Member for The Wrekin did not refer. I am as sceptical as anybody else about opinion polls, but this relates specifically to the matter that we are discussing and to housing. Therefore, some points must be put on record.
Two polls were conducted by MORI in July and August 1986 using a random sample of 1,109 council tenants and a random sample of 309 development corporation tenants. They were asked what they felt about their housing. In an independent poll of the new town tenants of Telford, 65 per cent. said that they would prefer their homes to be taken over by the council as part of a planned wind-up of the new town corporation. The second most popular choice was a housing association, which was favoured by 10 per cent. If those 10 per cent. want a housing association, that should be an option. They do not have to be dealt with in one block, as the hon. Gentleman said. Fourteen per cent. were unable to give an answer.
If that is a proper poll, conducted by a professional polling organisation, one cannot ignore the fact that 65 per cent. is a substantial vote in favour of the local authority, although, in the final analysis, it should be put to the test by a vote of everybody.
MORI also commissioned a poll of existing Wrekin council tenants. That showed that 71 per cent. thought the council did its best with the money available — more than in other parts of the country where MORI surveys have been conducted—for example, Harlow 60 per cent. and Birmingham 47 per cent. The majority of tenants were satisfied with the council's repairs and maintenance services. That shows a relatively high degree of satisfaction. However, that does not mean that I would propose treating the tenants of the new town like chattels and dumping them on the local authority without giving them a say. That would be unacceptable and not consistent with Labour party policy. It is not what we are proposing here tonight. We are proposing that there should be genuine consultation and that the local authorities should not be squeezed out.
757 Central Lancashire is different. There the local authority did not want to know, and that is fine. That gave the Government another way of looking at disposals. They had to because the local authority did not want to know.
Local authorities may or may not be the best landlords for particular groups of new town tenants, but it should be for the tenants to decide. It would be wrong if, as a result of the amendments, the local authority was deliberately excluded from the choice. I have criticised large-scale public landlordism as much as anybody else, and I shall continue to do so because of the bureaucracy and remoteness that brings about. At the same time, as the tenants foot the bill through their rents, they should make the decision. The Government should bear in mind, because it is not clear from the amendments, first, today's debate—the hon. Member for The Wrekin has made similar points to my own and those of the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey — and, secondly, that perhaps the other place should have a chance to look at the matter again. This is a probing amendment but we wish to hear something positive from the Minister about the tenants having a choice and some say in the disposal and the ownership of their homes.
§ Mr. David Amess (Basildon)I shall be brief because I shall raise the matter tomorrow on the Adjournment.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) mentioned MORI opinion polls, and I note what he said about the position of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley). We have had the same sort of nonsense in Basildon. The hon. Gentleman failed to mention the sums that are spent on conducting these polls and all the brainwashing in the build-up before them. Until last Thursday what was happening in Basildon was disgraceful. Last Thursday, Basildon became a hung council, so the chairman now has a casting vote. Both the Minister and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State have visited Basildon during the past year, and they will note with interest that the present chairman was the chairman of the housing committee when they visited Basildon.
8.30 pm
We have 16,000 new town commission properties which are under discussion. It was disgraceful how, until last Thursday, the local authority tried to frighten elderly people, for example, by saying that if the properties were handed over to a housing association, the housing association would not be prepared to repair them.
None of us should be concerned about the political posturing of the local authority. As the Member of Parliament for Basildon, in view of our many problems, I am concerned about who will best manage our public sector property.
§ Mr. John PattenI entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Amess) and would add only that we must put the tenants' voice foremost. I entirely deplore the goings-on inside Basildon council and the attempts needlessly to frighten public sector housing tenants about their prospects. To say that X or Y would lead to repairs not being done is absurd, damaging and foolish. I condemn that utterly and hope that the council, under its new hung leadership — I do not approve of hung councils, but one changes one's mind from time to time — will have more common sense and that the people of Basildon will get what they want.
758 I greatly appreciated the welcome given by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Hawksley) to our amendment, and I thank him for it. He asked some specific questions and I shall try to answer them as best I can. Consultation will take place as soon as the responsible Minister has considered the form of the alternative solutions being worked out and has taken the decisions. I must reveal to the House that after recent ministerial changes the responsible Minister is me. I intend to write myself a short, sharp minute immediately I leave the Chamber, instructing myself to get on with the job of coming up with the alternatives as quickly as possible so that consultations can take place and uncertainty can be cleared up as quickly as possible.
How the questions are to be worded and who decides is something on which the Department is working. We shall work on the wording and agree the form before consultation takes place. I assure my hon. Friend that I take to heart his points about all sides of the case being made. It is critical that all sides have their voice heard, including the local authority. However, we hope that it will not exceed its normal activity in campaigning with the use of ratepayers' money. I have always thought of The Wrekin as rather a peaceful sort of place and the idea of its being stalked by Militants is a new and terrifying thought. I must tell Wrekin council that, where party politics are heavily subsidised by ratepayers, things go wrong. That happened in Thamesmead where political campaigning rebounded. People listened carefully to what was said on all sides, made up their minds and voted for the housing trust solution.
Amendment No. 50 introduces a new section into the New Towns Act 1981 and makes some repeals in that Act. It clarifies the position on the transfer of new town dwellings to bodies other than local authorities. On 25 March 1986 my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, in a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin, announced that the Government were prepared to consider proposals from the new town corporations for the transfer of that housing to bodies other than local authorities. We wish to ensure that there is a choice between a local authority and a non-local authority for the remaining new town housing and that that choice is not restricted by any provisions in the legislation concerning transfer to local authorities. The amendments prevent any such restriction and leave the new town bodies free to consider the disposal of new town dwellings to any person. That does not rule out the mixed solutions to which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) referred. When one is dealing with 10,000 homes in which more than 20,000 people may be living, it is absurd to suggest that one blanket solution is right.
Some play was made by the Opposition in another place over the use of the word "person". It is being used in the technical, legal sense to mean an individual or a body of persons. I stress that we have not ruled out any particular form of non-part III arrangements for new town housing, such as the transfer to a housing association, or further part III schemes.
The four amendments to amendment No. 50 are in the names of the hon. Members for Perry Barr, for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and for Norwood (Mr. Fraser). I cannot commend them to the House but not merely because they are technically imperfect, which is always the problem with drafting amendments. The main 759 objection is that they persist with a lopsided approach to the issue. Having heard hon. Members' speeches, I am sure that that was not the intent of the amendments.
The amendments as drafted impose a statutory requirement for consultation in general or ballots in particular in cases where the proposal is the transfer of new town houses to a non-council owner. They do not make a comparable provision for cases where the proposal is to transfer housing to the council — [Interruption.] I apologise if I am wrong, and I am sure that that is not the intention.
§ Mr. Simon HughesClearly the intention of my amendment and, I think, of the amendment of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) is that all options should be put by the present landlords to public sector and other tenants, unrestricted in number. Therefore, the conduct of the consultation is in the hands, not of the local authority or anybody in the private sector, but of the present landlords. That is both express and implicit.
§ Mr. PattenThere is all-party agreement, and I apologise if I have misunderstood the amendments.
§ Mr. RookerI am sorry if there has been a misunderstanding. Lords amendment No. 50 refers to the disposal of dwellings to "any person". "Any person" can mean the local authority. The amendment seeks to insert
subject to the agreement of a majority of the tenants being obtained.I would not be in favour of the matter going to the local authority unless the majority of tenants wanted that. That is clear. The amendment is not intended to be one sided.
§ Mr. PattenBecause of the use of the word "person", I may have misunderstood the purpose of both amendments and their drafting. The use of the word gave rise to much debate in the other place. I have already apologised for that, but none the less the amendments are technically imperfect and cannot be accepted. If we all agree that freedom of choice for tenants is to be our motif, then for the moment amendment No. 50, which introduces a new section into the New Towns Act 1981, does exactly that.
§ Mr. HawksleyThe confusion may arise because we do not know whether the Government take the view that the tenant's view should be binding. That is the question that arises.
§ Mr. PattenWe certainly take the view that we must consult fully with the tenants. Unless a situation arises in which there are a number of potential choices and tenants go off in relatively small groups in different directions, I cannot imagine that we will do anything other than accept the overall view.
I must refer again to the MORI opinion poll. I am sure it was properly taken because MORI is a reputable polling organisation. However, it was taken only on the basis of information that was available earlier this year when tenants did not have a proper set of alternatives in front of them. When the alternatives are properly put and the arguments properly advanced, I am willing to bet that we will find that tenants may well take a different view. On the other hand, they may not, because it may well be that 760 in a new town area people are fond of the local authority form of management and may wish to stay with it. That is a choice that they can make.
The hon. Member for Perry Barr kindly gave me notice yesterday of the issue he wished to raise about Peterborough. If the new town housing were to be transferred to owners other than the council, I recognise that that might cause problems, especially for the staff. Some council staff could be made redundant and that would be a serious prospect for them. However, there are likely to be other opportunities for such staff with the new owners of the housing. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment said in a written answer in March, the views of staff now managing new town housing will be taken into account before final decisions are reached on the future of the housing. That applies not just to Peterborough but to all other new towns.
The hon. Member for Perry Barr was right to raise the matter of agency agreements. It is an important issue and the terms of the agreement for the two councils which manage new towns housing, at Peterborough and Milton Keynes, will have to be reviewed most carefully.
§ Mr. Simon HughesThe Minister is quite right to say that amendment No. 50 commands widespread support in the House. I think he used the phrase that it leaves the choice to the tenants. I should like him to think about a future procedure which will allow him to use the authority that he has under the new towns legislation and elsewhere for a consultation process to include all the elements that have been voiced in the debate. I think that if it is correctly understood, that would have the consensus of the relative authorities. There might have been a misunderstanding because there was never any intention to create a lopsided bias. If tenants are to have a proper chance to exercise freedom of choice between future options for their landlords, they will benefit from a consultation process along the lines of the amendments proposed.
§ Question, That the amendment to the Lords amendment be made, put and negatived.
§ Lords amendment agreed to.
§ Lords amendments Nos. 51 and 52 agreed to.