MPs vote down security of tenure

Despite the social housing elements of the Localism Bill provoking some fierce accusations and heated debate yesterday, the legislation cleared the Commons with a comfortable majority of 84 MPs in its favour.

The Localism Bill is now set to go forward to the House of Lords after 300 MPs voted in favour against 216 against. There were some colourful exchanges in the course of the debate around the social housing elements, with one MP accusing Andrew Stunnell of a great impression of Pontius Pilate, while the Housing Minister Grant Shapps was criticised for his “extraordinary absence” from the proceedings.

When it comes to social housing reform, the provisions include:
•Giving back to local authorities the freedom to determine who should qualify for waiting lists
•New flexible tenancies
•Flexibility to meet the homelessness duty by offering places in the private rented sector
•Replacing the HRA with a new “devolved system of self financing”

“Taken together they strengthen localism, giving greater flexibility to local authorities and to social landlords to make better use of resources, allocating existing homes more sensibly, making sure that support is better focused and providing the right basic safeguard for tenants,” said Stunnell, Parliamentary under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

However, the measures stirred some deep scepticism and prompted some heated arguments to unfold.

Jeremy Corbyn MP considered it a strange contrast that Parliament was to vote on taking away a council tenants’ home; something it would never consider doing to home owners. This prompted Clive Betts MP to tell the House that the measures were “changing the status of council tenants, downgrading them almost to second class citizens”, while John McDonnell MP warned his fellow Parliamentarians to be aware of what they were voting for. “The reality is that tonight is the end of council housing as we know it,” he added.

Shadow Housing Minister Alison Seabeck said: “The Government’s proposals on housing and homelessness are deeply damaging, and none more so than the proposal to end security of tenure in social housing. That will create two classes of tenant in social housing. There will be great uncertainty, because there will be different lengths of tenure and different levels of rent, with little rational relationship between the two.

There will be a divide between those who have been fortunate enough to get security of tenure in their social housing, and those who have been made to wait for too long and will be granted a tenancy for as little as two years. Tenants whose financial circumstances improve above an arbitrary level will potentially be told to pack up and move on.”

She added a little later in the debate that the reforms effectively mean “that social housing is for the poor. It is to segregate people from other sections of society that are seen as doing better”.

Stunnell, and evidently many of the MPs within the Commons – certainly enough to gain the Localism Bill that comfortable 84 majority of the ayes – was left unmoved by the strident Opposition performance and repudiated the claims, saying – in essence – trust the providers.

“The housing measures in the Bill will provide greater discretion for social housing landlords and their professional staff,” said Stunnell. “They will relax the rigid rules set by central Government in the past, and together they will allow landlords to exercise greater discretion, adapt the services they offer to local needs, and manage a valuable public resource more effectively in the best interests of local people.”