Housing Association sector and the Right to Buy

UKParliament

The House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee will be taking evidence on the Housing Association Sector and the Right to Buy.

The session will take place from 4pm on Monday 14 December.

The Committee will consider what lessons can be learned from elsewhere in the UK with witnesses from Scotland and Northern Ireland giving evidence. The Committee will also examine the role of the social housing regulator as well as the impact of the Government's proposals on the availability of finance in the housing sector.

Witnesses

At 4.00pm

• Nicola McCrudden, Director, Chartered Institute of Housing Northern Ireland
• Eileen Patterson, Board Member, Chartered Institute of Housing Northern Ireland and Director, Housing Services, Fold Housing Association
• Dr Mary Taylor, Chief Executive, Scottish Federation of Housing Associations

At 4.30pm

• Fiona MacGregor, Director, Regulation, Homes and Communities Agency
• Jonathan Walters, Deputy Director, Strategy and Performance, Homes and Communities Agency
• Piers Williamson, Chief Executive, The Housing Finance Corporation

At 5.00pm

• Anna Clarke, Senior Research Associate, Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research
• Lord Bob Kerslake, Chairman, Peabody Housing Association

Background

The Conservative Party's Manifesto and the subsequent Queen's Speech made commitments to extend the Right to Buy (which previously applied to council-owned properties) to all tenants of housing associations.

The National Housing Federation announced that it had reached an agreement with the Government to deliver the extended Right to Buy on a voluntary, non-legislative basis. The Housing and Planning Bill published on 13 October 2015 makes provision for this voluntary agreement.

Further information

The House of Commons Library produces research briefings which provide in-depth and impartial analysis of all major pieces of legislation, as well as many areas of policy, or cover frequently asked questions and topical issues.

These papers are published to the Parliament website and are available to MPs and to members of the public.

• House of Commons Library Briefing Paper: Extending the Right to Buy (England)
• House of Commons Library Briefing Paper: Housing and Planning Bill 2015-16

Watch the session in full on Parliament TV.

UKParliament

The House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee will also hear evidence from Brandon Lewis MP, Minister of State for Housing and Planning.

This session will take place from 9:45am on Tuesday 15 December.

The Committee will discuss with Mr Lewis a number of issues that have arisen during the course of its inquiry and what he sees the role of housing associations being in the future.

Watch the session on Parliament TV.

mrginge

I had read that this 'voluntary' agreement had been reached by simply giving the HA the choice of
1. Agree
2. Don't agree but will legislate for it anyway.

Of course that may not be true....

skater_kat

when will HA right to buy start then?

Giddypip

Right to buy should be withdrawn. Whether council owned or housing association, they are meant for those in need and should not be sold off.

UKParliament

The Communities & Local Government (CLG) Committee has published their report on 'Housing associations and the Right to Buy'.

Read the report: Housing associations and the Right to Buy

The Communities & Local Government Committee comes to the following view:

"The Government proposes to fund the Right to Buy discounts for housing association tenants with the proceeds from the sale of high value council homes. However we believe that public policy should usually be funded by central Government, rather than through a levy on local authorities."

The Committee also finds the robustness of the funding model for the RTB discounts is extremely questionable, calling on the Government to set out the fully costed evidence for the proposals.

Chair's comments
Clive Betts MP, Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, said:

"The fundamental success of this policy will depends not just on whether more tenants come to own their home but on whether more homes are built. As a Committee, we are concerned that there are a number of unresolved issues with the Government’s policy which could have a detrimental effect on the provision of accessible and affordable housing, particularly affordable rented property.

The Governments needs to set out in more detail on how it will meet its target of at least one-for-one replacement of the sold homes, particularly given issues such as the availability of land, the capacity of the building industry and the uncertainty of income from council home sales."

Findings
The Committee also calls on the Government to protect rural communities by maintaining and protecting the provision of affordable housing in rural areas. The terms of the housing associations’ voluntary agreement with the Government allow for portable discounts to be offered in place of certain properties. The Committee considers that while the portable discount might mitigate the impact of extending the RTB to rural properties, it still remains unclear how it will operate.

The Committee is concerned that the Government’s imposition of a 1% rent cut for four years will lead to a significant reduction in housing associations’ income. This rent reduction threatens to damage the ability of housing associations to build new homes and could also have a negative impact on pastoral services, such as helping people get back into work, currently on offer to tenants.

The Committee finds that large numbers of homes sold through the statutory right to buy for council tenants have quickly become private sector rental properties. The Committee believes the potential for selling social housing assets at a discount, only for them to become both more expensive and possibly lower quality housing in the private rented sector, is a significant concern. The Committee recommends measures to restrict homes sold through the right to buy ending up in the private rented sector need to be explored.

Proposals for the future
The Committee calls on the Government, before the 2016 Autumn Statement, to provide some certainty over rent levels post 2020 which would help long-term business planning and increase investor confidence. In the long term, the Committee recommends housing associations be given the freedom to set their own rents. The Government is committed to deregulating the housing association sector: freedom for housing associations to set the rents for their tenants should be the next step, since housing associations understand their tenants and the local market and are best placed to set fair rent levels.

The Committee considered the proposed ‘pay to stay’ policy, where differential rents would be charged according to tenant income, and welcomes the Government’s announcement that this will be voluntary for housing associations. The Committee believes the suggested thresholds should be reviewed and support housing associations being given local discretion, should they choose to adopt the policy.

The Committee recognise the scale of the Government’s policies regarding Starter Homes and the new legal duty on councils to ensure provision of 200,000 new Starter Homes across all reasonably sized sites. However, Starter Homes should not be built at the expense of other forms of tenure if there is a local need for affordable rented accommodation. It is important that homes for affordable rent are built where the need exists, particularly as Starter Homes can now count towards satisfying the affordable housing allocation in section 106 agreements.