Housing Bill [Money] (Hansard, 30 November 1987)

§ Mr. Bob Cryer (Bradford, South)

This resolution should not pass without some comment. First, it is a sloppy and wide-ranging resolution. Secondly, when dealing with money resolutions it is usual to turn to the Bill to look for an explanation. In the introduction to the Bill, there is a paragraph on its financial effects, but it does not say how much money will be spent.

I cannot believe that the Department of the Environment, with its myriad of civil servants in the ugly buildings in Marsham street, is devoid of any possibility of hazarding some sort of reasonably accurate guess about the expenditure that will be undertaken under the terms of the Bill. Of course, central Government Departments are generally much wider of spending targets than local authorities that are continually being attacked by the Government. None the less, the Government have many civil servants who could give some outline of the expenditure involved.

For example under the heading, "Financial effects of the Bill" we read: The proposals in Part I of the Bill will result in higher rents for new tenancies granted by private landlords and housing associations and this will in turn lead to some increase in housing benefit expenditure. That paragraph, allied to the money resolution, means that, by way of this Bill, we are giving authority to provide a subsidy to private landlords by an increase in private housing expenditure. The Department of the Environment must have made some calculation about the financial effect of that. If it has not, then it has been sloppy.

Therefore, I expect the Minister to tell the House how much money the Government will put in the pockets of private landlords. They are the friends of the Government and no doubt they contributed to Tory party finances. The House and the public deserve to know the extent to which this Tory Government propose to pour public cash into the pockets of the landlord sector that invariably supports the Government—and no wonder.

My second point is that the paragraph says: Additionally, there will be an increase in expenditure from manpower increases noted below. 733 That refers to the effects of the Bill on public service manpower, which involves finance and the motion that is before us.

We are told, under the heading "Effects of the Bill on Public Service Manpower", that additional manpower will be required for Housing Action Trusts, the number dependent on the number and size of the Trusts". Has the Department decided to take a few additional powers to set up a few quangos, which a Conservative Member spent many years damning in this place? Those who are appointed to quangos have no democratic accountability, it is said, and it is argued by Conservatives that the number of quangos should be reduced. Conservative Members have told us gleefully — this is, when they were in opposition—that they would abolish quangos, but they are introducing legislation that will lead to an increase in the number of quangos. Apparently, the Government have no idea how many more will be set up, and therefore, no idea of the finance that will be involved.

It is claimed that The creation of Housing Action Trusts … will result in additional spending which will partially be offset by reduced local authority spending". That is all very well, but we are not given any figures. It seems that the Government are not prepared to hazard a guess. We are in the world of pure conjecture. We have a Government who are supposed to be making careful calculations, and we know that they are spending a great deal of taxpayers' money in so doing. I suppose that we should not be too surprised at the careless approach of the Department of the Environment, bearing in mind that the Bill was produced and printed and then had to be scrapped because the Secretary of State could not proof-read his own work. There were so many mistakes that a completely new Bill had to be printed.

In debating the money resolution, we should say that that sort of carelessness is not good enough. The Department should present a calculation of the money that is involved. How many housing action trusts do the Government envisage establishing? Where are they to be located? How many local authorities do the Government intend to attack by spending more on manpower and womanpower for the trusts and reducing the moneys that are made available to local authorities? Will there be a quid pro quo or a net increase in expenditure? The Bill does not tell us what the outcome will be, and it should.

The trusts will be planning authorities, and under Tory legislation planning means that charges can be made for decisions. Will revenue be set against the cost of increased manpower for the trusts? As Private Eye often says, "we should be told" about the costs that will be incurred with the Bills implementation.

The trusts are designed to erode local accountability and democracy. Although the Government hate the democratic accountability of local authorities, it is a safeguard against excessive expenditure. Against this background, there is an even greater need for us to know the calculations that the Government have in mind when setting up the trusts, which will be quangos.

We know from experience what sort of people the Government will appoint to the quangos. They will be carefully vetted. They will appoint their Tory cronies. They will be those who have done so badly in the private housing sector so far, who have let down manufacturing 734 industry, who have exploited and fiddled in the City. These are the people who will be considered. These people will be accepted only when it is certain that they can present the full party card and full party record for the Secretary of State's approval.

Since they will be the puppets of the Government, it is even more important that we should have some measure to set against their expenditure. We should have some calculation now so that we know in the future whether the puppets of the Secretary of State are carrying out their work according to the standards laid down by the House or whether they are simply frittering away hard-earned taxpayers' money. The Government claim that they seek to safeguard that so carefully, yet they are handing it over to a group of Tories appointed by the Secretary of State.

The Bill says: Proposals to introduce new landlords for public sector tenants will lead, at least initially, to an increase in local authority staffing levels and also in central Government levels; the size of those increases will depend on the take-up of the policy. Do they have any idea about the take-up of the policy? They claim that it will be wildly popular. If their claims are to be substantiated, surely they have made calculations. I am sure they have ordered the desks for the civil servants, allocated the buildings and put the typewriters to one side, but how many? Is it two, three, 50 or even 1,000?

The Bill says that there will be an increase in local authority staffing levels because of the daft scheme in this wretched piece of legislation to give local authority tenants an alternative landlord. The Government always claim that they are cutting back the bureaucratic jungle but they have not made any calculations for the money resolution. They have not made calculations as to the number of civil servants or the cost of the office machinery. Those civil servants will not put brick on brick and mix mortar but build houses. They are part of a bureaucratic jungle that the Government are building up to give tenants an illusory choice and to shift the ownership of their homes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) explained, in some cases, tenants will be shifted whether they like it or not.

There is nothing in the explanatory and financial memoranda about the calculations the Government have made. They claim that their policies are so popular but it appears that they have no idea in their own planning of the extent of the popularity. The House will need to know what sort of increase there will be in local authority staffing and who is to pay. Will the increase in local authority staffing come under the money resolution? We should know.

The Government have been up to some pretty nasty tricks in the past. They produced housing benefit so that they could say that they had dismissed thousands of civil servants. The truth was that they transferred the benefit from central Government to local authorities, paying it from central Government so that they could say that they had got rid of the civil servants. In fact, the local authorities were having to employ more people to administer housing benefit.

Is provision being made to pass on a greater grant support to local authorities, which they need, particularly in view of the rate support grant statement today? Local authorities need every penny that they can get. It would be far more sensible not to have the Bill at all, even though it has received a Second Reading, and spend the money on 735 other things. I suspect that it amounts to several million pounds and that that is why the Government are so shy. If it was £20,000 or £30,000, they would stand up proudly at the Dispatch Box and say, "We have done our calculations. There is a bit of money going out there but there is some revenue coming in, so, we are talking about a modest sum." If the Government are so coy about the figures, it must be because those figures are higher. The public should know the figures.

Local authorities in Bradford are pressed for cash because the Government have reneged on a pledge. There is £6 million from council house sales that Bradford cannot use to build houses for the people in desperate need. There are thousands of people on the waiting lists—all genuine applicants. We should be going down that path, not squandering money on this mad bureaucratic shambles. This legislation has been produced because a tiny clique, called the Cabinet, with its adherrents in the Department of the Environment, have to convince the Prime Minister that they are going down a road of privatisation and choice. That is a total illusion. Neither the money resolution nor the Bill meets any of the needs of those who are desperate — the homeless who have nowhere to go and the people on the council waiting lists, who are looking to their democratically elected local authorities to build houses. They are denied that opportunity by that clique in the Department of the Environment and the rest of the Government.

We must ensure that there is an adequate explanation from the Minister. I look forward to it with interest to find out whether we are embarking on massive — or minuscule — expenditure and whether the Bill simply represents the many illusions perpetuated by the Secretary of State for the Environment.