'Fit For Human Habitation' Amendment May Be Reconsidered After London Fire

A proposed amendment to the government's Housing and Planning Bill which suggests landlords are required to make homes 'fit for human habitation' may be reconsidered following the fire at Grenfell Tower. The amendment was tabled by the Labour Party last year, but was defeated by MPs following a vote of 312 to 219. The proposal was also included in Labour's manifesto for the General Election. According to a report on The London Economic website, Parliament's register of interests shows that 72 of the Conservative MPs who voted against the amendment were themselves private landlords. Read more on the Letting Agent Today website.

More Bill Amendment Defeats For The Government

The government has suffered more defeats in the Lords during the report stage of the housing and planning bill.  The requirement to instigate pay to stay will now be voluntary for councils as it is for Housing Associations. The government was also defeated over its taper proposals. It wanted a 20 per cent taper but peers opted for a 10 per cent taper.  Another successful amendment resisted by ministers means the pay to stay income threshold will be increased to £50,000 a year in London and £40,000 outside London. The government wanted to have the thresholds set at £31,000 outside London and £40,000 in London. In another move the government has now accepted that the regulation on council house sales to fund the right to buy extension will now be decided by parliament instead of ministers alone. Read more on the Planning Portal.

Government Faces U-Turn Over ‘Pay To Stay’

“Pay to stay”, if implemented, would see tenants charged market rates once they earn over £30,000. Critics say this would result in sharp increases in rent that would force working families out of council homes. Peers voted by 240 to 176 in support of a Labour-led amendment to give local councils the discretion over whether to implement the charge, rather than making it mandatory. They then voted 281-179 to back an amendment to lower the “taper rate” from 20p to 10p in every pound, so lower-paid families would not be hit as hard. The hat-trick of defeats was completed when the Lords voted 266 to 175 to increase the “pay to stay” threshold by £10,000. Read more on the Huffington Post website.

Government Extends Fixed-Term Tenancies For Disabled

Councils will be able to grant longer tenancies of up to 10 years to people with disabilities, a peer speaking on behalf of the government has announced.The Housing and Planning Bill will phase out lifetime council tenancies and replace them with tenancies of up to five years.Under the proposals, councils would have to grant tenancies to new tenants of between two and five years. However, Baroness Natalie Evans, government whip, told the House of Lords that the government would bring forward amendments to extend the maximum tenancy period to 10 years in “certain circumstances”. Baroness Evans said that the government would ensure this includes people with disabilities. More detail is expected in further readings of the bill. Read more on Inside Housing.

Peers Overturn 20 Per Cent Starter Home Requirement

The government’s starter homes policy suffered serious setbacks in the Lords as peers voted through amendments to the housing and planning bill designed to safeguard affordable housing. One amendment would allow councils discretion over how many starter homes are required in new residential developments. The government had wanted the legislation to require that at least 20 per cent of new housing on larger sites would be starter homes. As a result of this change, planning authorities will be able to “grant planning permission for a residential development having had regard to the provision of starter homes based on its own assessment of local housing need and viability”. Read more on the Planning Portal website.

Government Has “Lost All Credibility” On Housing

The Government is coming under increased pressure to change tack on housing policies, after it suffered a further defeat in the Lords and offered new concessions on the Housing & Planning Bill. Under the provisions of the Bill, councils are expected to sell their high value stock and a proportion of the proceeds surrendered to the Treasury to pay for the scheme’s extension to housing associations. Peers took issue with this, the concern being that the Bill opened the way for ministers to change the payment regime at will. Consequently, they backed an amendment that forces the Government to seek parliamentary approval if they wish to change the rules on right-to-buy proceeds. Read more on the Housing Excellence website.

Lords Starter Homes Amendments Give Government Headache

The report stage in the House of Lords saw peers strike several blows to government policy on Starter Homes. Two amendments, one and eight, were passed by the Lords as they looked to safeguard affordable housing against starter homes. Amendment one, passed with a 275-181 vote, was regarding the starter homes discount taper being 20 years instead of the government proposed eight. The second, amendment eight led by Lord Kerslake, seeks to allow local authorities to have discretion on starter homes numbers. Read more on 24dash.

Tory Local Government Leader Asks Lords To Block Housing Reforms

The Conservative leader in local government is urging peers to vote against the government on a number of key amendments to the housing bill amid fears it could force more people into homelessness. Cllr David Hodge – leader of the Tories at the Local Government Association (LGA) – warns that elements of the bill being debated in the Lords could have the “unintended consequence of increasing homelessness and pushing more families into the more expensive private rented sector”. Hodge has teamed up with his Labour and Liberal Democrat counterparts to ask members of the House of Lords to try to block legislation that would force councils to sell their most expensive properties in order to fund the government’s Right to Buy policy. Read more on the Guardian website.

Policy Targeting Homeless Families Is 'Tantamount To Social Cleansing’

Charities and politicians are demanding urgent changes to housing policy across Britain and warning that thousands of homeless children's lives may be at risk because they are disappearing from support services after being rehoused. The calls come after an investigation by The Independent uncovered cases of homeless children dying from neglect and abuse after families were moved out of their local authority boundaries. Other evidence in the report suggested that the transfer of homeless families to other parts of the country could have resulted in suicides and miscarriages. Figures obtained exclusively by The Independent show that at least 64,704 homeless families were moved out by London boroughs between July 2011 and June 2015, with more recent data yet to be collated. Read more on the Independent website.

Labour Claims Government Facing Housing Bill Defeat

Labour is predicting between “eight and 12 defeats” for the government next month as peers round on its “disastrous” Housing and Planning Bill in the Lords. The House of Lords is likely to reach report stage on the bill after Easter, with four days scheduled in for peers to debate and vote on the bill between 11 and 20 April. Labour, the largest opposition party in the Lords, has now produced a list of 18 amendments which it will prioritise for these sessions – including a substantial watering down of Starter Homes plans, Pay to Stay and the end of secure tenancies. It believes there is “disquiet” among Tory peers about some aspects of the bill, and is also confident of support from crossbenchers and the Liberal Democrats’ 100 peers. Read more on Inside Housing.

Kerslake To Table Right To Buy Loans Amendment

The government will be pressed to offer loans for the extended Right to Buy instead of discounts, in a proposed change to legislation. Lord Bob Kerslake said he would table an amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill so that association tenants are offered equity loans, as opposed to discounts.  A report published by the Communities and Local Government committee earlier this month said the discounts should not be paid through local authority property sales, calling the funding model “extremely questionable”. Read more on Inside Housing.

Lib Dems Fight For An Open Register Of Rogue Landlords

Liberal Democrats are fighting to ensure potential renters have access to lists of rogue landlords. An amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill, which would make it possible for tenants to check whether their landlord was on lists held by local authorities, was rejected by the government in the Lords. Liberal Democrat Peers will continue to push an amendment to the Bill at a later stage on this vital Freedom of Information issue.  Read more on 24dash.

Lords Propose Sweeping Housing Bill Changes

Peers have unveiled plans to block the controversial imposition of Starter Homes, Pay to Stay, the extended Right to Buy and the end to lifetime tenancies. More than 100 amendments to the Housing and Planning Bill from Labour, Liberal Democrat and crossbench peers targeting all the key reforms in the bill were published. Both Labour and Liberal Democrat peers have tabled amendments to entirely strike out provisions which would end lifetime tenancies in council housing, and force councils to sell high value properties. The Liberal Democrats have also moved to strike out Pay to Stay, while Labour has put forward amendments to substantially water down the policy. Read more on Inside Housing.

Call On Lords To Stop 'Reverse Of Council Housebuilding'

The National Federation of ALMOs (NFA) and Association of Retained Council Housing (ARCH) have combined forces to call upon Peers to support amendments to the Bill that will ensure that the recent renaissance in council house building is not reversed.  Since government introduced its new regime of self-financing for council housing in 2012 there has been a surge in local authority house building with over 6,000 new council homes having been built in England. Council house-building is now at a 23 year high.  Yet, despite the welcome contribution this has made towards the Governments own targets on housebuilding, the Housing and Planning Bill (in its current form) threatens to not only halt but reverse, this progress. Download the document from the NFA website.

Housing And Planning Bill Reveals How Little Tory MPs Think Of The Public

While the nation’s eyes have been fixed firmly on the Junior Doctors Strike, the Tories have managed to pull-off a seismic coup de grâce under the radar – the “Housing and Planning Bill” has been passed, by 309 to 216. The whole passage of this bill has been nothing short of disgraceful. The first part of the Reading Stage was originally scheduled for a 3.30pm start. Proceedings didn't kick off until nearly 9pm and wound-up at an eye-watering 2am. 65 pages of new clauses and amendments had been cunningly added at the last minute - with no discussion at committee level, which is standard procedure. Some of the more worrying points included the Secretary of State being awarded carte blanche to interfere in the market and set the definition of what is an “affordable” home and privatisation of the planning process. Read more on the Independent website.

MPs Reject Move To Help First Time Buyers

MPs have rejected an attempt to restrict a proportion of newly built homes to first time buyers in the Housing and Planning Bill. The Labour amendment, which would have allowed councils to impose planning obligations requiring a proportion of new housing for sale to be marketed to first time buyers, was rejected by 277 to 72. Another Labour amendment, which would have required the 20% Starter Home discount to remain permanently, instead of people being able to sell the property for the full market value after five years, also fell – by 301 to 194. The Labour amendments were rejected in the House of Commons, as the Housing and Planning Bill was debated at report stage. Read more on Inside Housing.

Cameron Pledges To Protect London’s Affordable Homes

David Cameron has announced he will amend the Housing Bill in an effort to meet concerns that it would cause a major loss of social housing in London. The Prime Minister says the Government is accepting an amendment put down by Tory  mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith to guarantee two “affordable homes” are built in London for each council house sold off under a new policy. Mr Goldsmith’s campaign team estimated the change would deliver an extra 10,000 affordable homes in London. However, Downing Street said full details would become available only after talks with London local authorities. It was not clear, for example, whether the new homes would be built in the same boroughs which had to sell properties. Read more on the Evening Standard website.

Starter Home Discounts 'Should Be Permanent'

Starter Homes would remain discounted at 20% below market value in perpetuity, under a Labour amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill. The amendment, tabled by shadow housing minister John Healey, is part of a group of changes to the bill put forward by the party, which voted against the bill at second reading on 2 November. The Housing and Planning Bill encourages the supply of Starter Homes – properties sold at a 20% discount to first-time buyers under 40 years old. Under government plans, people who buy the homes will be able to sell the properties for their full market value over five years. However, Labour’s amendment would require the reduction of 20% below market value for Starter Homes to remain in perpetuity. Read more on Inside Housing.

HAs To Set Their Own Rents By 2020

Speaking at the Commons CLG select committee inquiry into the extension of Right to Buy, NHF chief David Orr revealed plans to table an amendment to the welfare bill which would allow housing associations to set their own rents. Orr said that HAs should be independent to set their own rents, and the NHF will lobby for an end to government-set rents by 2020. He said the government “should not be in the area of setting rents” and Whitehall’s involvement in this area for 17 years had been “an abject shambles”. I’m not convinced that it should be right for government to decide the income of charities in this way,” Orr said. Read more on the Parliament website.

Amendment to Charities Bill As Right to Buy Threat Looms

The Quaker movement is backing a House of Lords amendment to the Charities Bill that will protect homes under threat from government plans to extend the right to buy to housing associations. The amendment was moved by Baroness Hayter and Bishop James Langstaff, who is also Chair of Housing Justice, and passed by the House of Lords on 20 July. The amendment inserts a new clause that reads: “Conduct of charities: disposal of assets: The Charity Commission shall ensure that independent charities are not compelled to use or dispose of their assets in a way which is inconsistent with their charitable purposes.” Read more on 24dash.