§ Mr. SpearingI beg to move amendment No. 408, in page 56, line 26, leave out 'person' and insert `local authority or public body'.
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 409, in page 56, line 31, leave out `person' and insert
`local authority or public body'.
§ Mr. SpearingWe draw near to the conclusion of our consideration of amendments on housing action trusts with provisions relating to dissolution. Clause 81 states:
Where it appears to a trust that its objects have been substantially achieved, it shall"—and the things that it shall do include:the disposal to any person of any remaining property, rights or liabilities".The amendment seeks to delete the word "person" and to insertlocal authority or public body".The property in the hands of a HAT at the time of its dissolution will substantially consist of public property acquired from the public and from other persons by means of public money. It is only right, therefore, that when the HAT is dissolved it should bestow on the local community via a public body any property of which it has not already disposed. That is not merely just, but proper.The amendment will also prevent the transfer from one gauleiter to another of property already in the hands of one person. Under clause 80, a HAT may devolve responsibility to "another person". Under the Bill as drafted, therefore, a person acting under an agency agreement can presumably, on dissolution of the HAT, devolve property or benefit on any other person, so that it would pass from one individual to another under the devolved power. That seems an extraordinary power and I hope that the Secretary of State will explain it.
I believe that the amendment is right and proper and should be made.
§ Mrs. RoeClause 58 sets out clearly the objects of a HAT, which include:
to encourage diversity in the interests by virtue of which housing accommodation in the area is occupied and, in the case of accommodation which is occupied under tenancies, diversity in the identity of the landlords".If hon. Members study that clause more carefully. they will appreciate why we cannot accept the amendments and why we reject them in spirit as well as in letter. We want HATs to increase choice and to give tenants an opportunity to transfer to new landlords. We do not believe that any property for which a HAT has not found a new destination when the HAT reaches the end of its life should automatically return to a local authority or other public owner. We believe that the great expanses of monotonous local authority estates must be broken up for the benefit of those who live there. It follows that, so far as possible, we hope to see HATs offering an alternative to a return to the local authority.In the amendments that have just been made, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made it clear that HATs will offer all secure tenants the opportunity to return to the local authority, if the local authority is willing to take them back. But I shall nevertheless continue to oppose the notion that disposal of a HAT's residual property at the end of its life should be restricted to return to the local authority or other public body. Similarly, I see no reason why the transfer of functions—if that needs to happen at all—can be only to local authorities or public bodies.
It is quite possible that, for the few remaining pieces of property with which we should expect to see a HAT left 47 when it is ready to put forward dissolution proposals, a housing association or a tenants' co-operative may be the right recipient. If a housing association were to take on all remaining housing of a HAT, it might very well take on HAT staff—and it might need some of a HAT's functions in relation to those staff, such as making arrangements for pensions.
I have to emphasise that these are fail-safe provisions, necessary because we need to enable a HAT to be wound up when it has substantially completed its task. The provisions in the Bill do not rule out property, rights and liabilities, and indeed functions, being disposed of or transferred to local authorities and public bodies, but it would be foolish to impose the unnecessary restriction on disposals and transfers proposed in the amendments. therefore invite hon. Members to reject both amendments.
§ Mr. SpearingThe hon. Lady gave herself away by talking about greater choice. The establishment of a HAT and the force of putting people under the landlordship of a HAT will be by order of the House; it will not be through the choice of the tenant, as it may well be in other parts of the Bill.
The hon. Lady may be right about some of the worthwhile ways in which the power can be used if a HAT has to be wound up, but I remind her and the House that when HATs transfer property before or after dissolution, they will be able to do so with the Midas touch of planning permission. Therefore they are machines not only for making public property private property, but, by virtue of their planning powers, they are giving enhanced value to the private sector, having acquired property from the public sector at rock bottom prices and to local public disadvantage. That is a fitting note on which to end this group of Opposition amendments. HATs should never need to be wound up, because they should not have been started in the first place.
§ Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield)As the Minister said, under clause 58 the responsibilities of HATs are not confined to general powers of acquiring housing and developing housing stock to benefit the community. In addition, clause 58 provides that a HAT can
facilitate the provision of shops, advice centres and other facilities for the benefit of the community or communitiesto which the HAT is designated.At present, many local authorities which will have their assets transferred will include within the designated HAT areas precisely those facilities. My own authority, Wigan metropolitan borough council, has substantial holdings in shops, youth centres, neighbourhood centres, the development of derelict land and previously privately owned land for community and leisure facilities. Those developments have taken place, and will continue to take place, directly through subsidies from local ratepayers and local taxpayers and through inner-area programme money designated by the Department of the Environment.
At the end of the HAT, there should be some facility for the return of those assets to the community, given that community resources, directly through the local authority or in joint projects between the local authority and the Department of the Environment, provided the facilities in the first place. It is unreasonable of the Minister to suggest that a HAT can be set up in an area where provision is being made for the local community through the local 48 authority's investment policies. It is invidious that at the end of the HAT, those resources are not returned to the local authority or to those designated to run the area.
We discussed this matter last week, and the Minister still has not resolved it. I can envisage the asset-stripping of public resources while the HAT is in existence and at the end of the HAT previously public resources may be handed over not to the directly elected local authorities which provided them in the first place, but to other private sector bodies which were not involved in the initial investment.
Finally, what will happen to local authorities such as my own, which has the Leeds-Liverpool canal corridor project? Along the length of the Leeds-Liverpool canal, there is a whole series of local authority housing projects. Linked to that is a whole series of land investment policies involving derelict land and reconditioned land.
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Given the Secretary of State's intentions in clause 58, the creation of a HAT would not only take public authority housing into the HAT, but would include those areas of land which are coming to fruition or being prepared for fruition in terms of planning permission and the identification of resources for the development of leisure and other facilities. From what the Minister said, it appears that the HAT would have the objective of taking over and disposing of the assets next to the housing stock. In places such as Wigan, in the development and refurbishment of our housing estates, it is essential that those areas which are important for leisure and for community use are retained for public use by local residents.
Wigan local authority, and I am sure other local authorities, having invested in such projects, would not allow them to be transferred to the HAT and, at the end of the HAT, transferred to the private sector, to an individual or a company who had not been involved at any stage in the initial idea of creating the projects, and had not invested any capital resources, but would simply benefit from the work of the local authority and the local community.
§ Amendment negatived.
§
Amendment proposed No. 348, in page 59, line 27, at end insert—
`( ) In this Part of this Act "the Corporation" means the Housing Corporation or Housing for Wales but—
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 368 to 370 and 376.
§ Mr. MorganI wish to raise one point about amendment No. 348, which appears to be the subject of a certain amount of confusion, or interdepartmental cross-sterilisation, between the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Secretary of State for Wales. It purports to describe the qualification system of the powers of the Housing Corporation, and the degree to which they will apply in Wales. It requires a different name for the separate housing corporation for Wales, Housing for 49 Wales, which will apply simply to Wales, while the Housing Corporation will apply only in England. It attempts to describe the powers of Housing in Wales.
The amendment was tabled in the name of only the Secretary of State for the Environment, and not in the name of the Secretary of State for Wales as well, which has been applied to all the other amendments involving Wales. I am well aware that the Secretary of State for the Environment is one of the Cabinet Ministers who is alleged not to speak to the Secretary of State for Wales, but this seems to be taking the process rather too far.
If one represents a Welsh constituency, it leads one to ask whether the Secretary of State for the Environment is now legislating for Wales, or whether the Secretary of State for Wales is involved as well. I wonder exactly what are the qualifications of the Secretary of State for the Environment to legislate for Wales. I am told that he considers his qualifications to legislate for Wales are that from his dude ranch in the Cotswolds, on a clear day, and with a telescope, he cannot quite see Wales. I am told that from the Cotswolds, on a clear day, with a telescope, he cannot see to the end of the mental green belt that he has put around his great ranch.
Wales is being treated as a last-minute legislative doormat by the Secretary of State for the Environment and he is not consulting his Cabinet colleagues as he properly should; there is either a technical error or a state of non-communication between Government Departments.
That leaves us with a major question. Does the appearance of the Secretary of State's name above amendment No. 348 mean that we may have housing action trusts in Wales? We have assumed that housing action trusts are not likely to be set up in Wales because we do not have multi-storey, deck access balcony contraptions, rather like 20th-century versions of the Secretary of State's property in the Cotswolds. Perhaps that is another reason why he believes he is qualified to legislate in this way.
As I have said, we are left with the thought that there may be housing action trusts in Wales. We should have the answer to that. Amendment No. 348 implies that we could have HATs, whereas all the indications given to people involved in housing in Wales are that the Secretary of State and his colleagues in Wales do not think that HATs are needed in Wales because we do not have 1960s system-built, multi-storey deck access housing. That should be cleared up now. We need to know what the Government's intentions are for HATs in Wales—or is this simply another example of the sloppy drafting of the Bill?
§ Mr. WaldegraveThe hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) has not understood. It is perfectly clear that the HAT clauses apply to Wales, although the Secretary of State for Wales has said that he does not envisage any HATs being established in Wales. The amendments, about which there is no mistake or lack of clarity, have been approved by the two Departments concerned. They provide for the references to "The Corporation" in parts III and IV to mean "Housing for Wales" as well as the "Housing Corporation". They are purely technical.
§ Amendment agreed to.