Housing Bill Is Being Demolished In The House Of Lords

Climbdowns being forced on the Housing Bill include:

1.       The Treasury has been blocked from keeping the proceeds of the forced sale of high-value council houses without parliamentary approval.

2.       The Government will consider a proposal to ensure a one-for-one - and like-for-like - replacement of council homes sold under the forced sale.

3.       Ministers have accepted a proposal to make it harder for landlords to evict vulnerable people that have abandoned their homes.

4.       A flagship scheme to hand well-off first-time buyers a taxpayer-funded 20% discount on a starter home has been moderated.

5.       Another defeat means English councils can decide how many starter homes are built in their area.

Read more on the Huffington Post.

Council Sell-Off Rules To Face Parliamentary Scrutiny

Rules on council home sales to fund the Right to Buy extension will be decided by parliament instead of ministers alone after a government climbdown in the House of Lords. Regulations setting out the definition of high- value homes will now be subject to “affirmative approval”, meaning both Houses of Parliament will be able to vote on them, the government has agreed. Despite this concession, the government then lost a vote in the Lords on an opposition amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill, which sought to force all the rules on high-value sales – not just the high-value definition – to be made through regulations and subject to parliamentary approval. Read more on Inside Housing.

Tory Climbdown Over Pay-To-Stay Plan To Raise Social Housing Rents

Ministers are preparing a climbdown over controversial plans to force hundreds of thousands of social housing tenants to pay market rents once they earn more than £30,000 a year – as they “clear the decks” of controversial policies ahead of the EU referendum. George Osborne has abandoned a package of radical pension reforms, including cuts to tax relief for higher earners, for fear of upsetting voters and causing a political distraction. The Observer now understands that ministers are also planning to modify hugely contentious elements of the housing reforms the chancellor announced last summer. A retreat on the “pay to stay” policy – which is under attack from a cross-party group in the House of Lords – will be seen as part of an attempt to avoid issues that could create negative headlines before the 23 June vote. Read more on the Observer website.

Tax Credit Cuts To Hit 800,000 Workers

About 800,000 people will still be hit by tax credit cuts from April because of a little-noticed change that survived the government’s controversial U-turn on the policy last year. Labour said the scale of those affected by the cut would come as a surprise to those who thought the chancellor had abandoned attempts to reduce tax credits under pressure from the opposition and some Tory MPs.

Osborne was forced into the humiliating climbdown over tax credits in his autumn statement in November following a defeat for the proposed measures in the House of Lords. The defeat prompted a clash between the government and the upper chamber over whether the Lords could block a measure with such large implications for the government’s finances. Read more on the Welfare Weekly website.