Power to Give Financial Assistance

Part of Clause 50 – in the House of Commons at 4:30 pm on 14 June 1988.

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Photo of Mr Nigel Spearing Mr Nigel Spearing , Newham South 4:30, 14 June 1988

I beg to move amendment No. 313, in page 47, line 45, leave out 'person' and insert 'statutory authority or registered charity'. The amendment relates to the grant-making powers of a HAT. Clause 66(1) says: For the purpose of achieving its objects a housing action trust may, with the consent of the Secretary of State, give financial assistance to any person. It sets out the forms in which such assistance may be given.

Amendment No. 313 is a probing one, but I believe that it has probity. Being able to give assistance to any person—admittedly with the consent of the Secretary of State —is a wide power. My hon. Friends will confirm that such power is not given to local authorities. They are subject to strict auditing by the local auditor, despite the fact that they share with a HAT the objective of improving living conditions in an area. The objectives of a HAT go much wider than that. A HAT can do almost anything, as was shown in earlier debates.

Under clause 58(3)(d), a HAT can carry on any business or undertaking". I am not suggesting that the Secretary of State or Ministers will agree to allow a HAT to pay money to anyone for doing anything. I should not be quite so naive as to believe that. Nevertheless, the consent of the Secretary of State is obtained not by an open, glasnost process but by writing letters. A local authority, using its more limited powers, must obtain consent from the Secretary of State—a letter is sent, the local authority committee receives an answer and there may be something in a council's minutes to say that the Secretary of State has given consent.

No such conditions apply to a housing action trust. We have heard nothing much about the meetings that the housing action trust will have and we have heard only vaguely about an annual report. Nominated persons in the HAT will have the power to give any person grants—albeit with the consent of the Secretary of State—for very wide purposes. That is an enormous privilege, and I use that word advisedly. Privilege is something that we prize greatly in this House, but privilege has another side to it, which is responsibility. I suggest that the clause as drafted contains a temptation to irresponsibility.

I speak with some experience because, as everyone knows by now, we have a sort of housing action trust in the London area. We have a quango called the London Docklands development corporation. We are now being asked to form heaven knows how many other, smaller quangos in different parts of the country. From what we heard in the last debate, it appears that even Broxbourne may be a candidate for a HAT, surprising though it may be to hear that that part of Hertfordshire has a problem of homelessness.

The Government are usually very worried about public expenditure. They were worried to the tune of £4 billion, which they doled out to well-off people. As we know from the Prime Minister's rather nasty replies last week, when it comes to people on social security and to pensioners, the Government are as tight as tight can be. The clause allows housing action trusts to give away money to more or less anybody for anything, subject to the consent of the Secretary of State. We must ask for what purpose they will give it away.

Unfortunately—I was not present for the debate—I understand that, since I tabled the amendment, or around the same time, the Government have tabled their own amendments to the effect that a list of persons to whom money has been given will be published at the end of the year. Perhaps the amendment appears in another group. That amendment has been tabled and discussed since I tabled mine, but that does not detract from the probing nature of my amendment.

There is a risk that a dependent society may arise. The Government are all against a dependent society. They tell us that they are against dependency, whatever that is, when it is municipally funded or when it is funded by the Department of Health and Social Security. They will have to shell out an awful lot more on the homeless as they increasingly fall out of the bottom of the housing market, and on those who get into debt. There is not an hon. Member who does not receive almost daily through his letter box inducements to get into debt, from banks and many others.

Let us consider the powers available to the HATs. As we know, they have the power to dispose of property and

I believe that the HATs will promote a dependent attitude because of the example of the London Docklands development corporation in east London, where little money is available from local authorities.

Sports organisations, youth organisations, old people's organisations and advice organisations are all having their grants cut and cut again, sometimes to the extent that they cease to operate. Then the LDDC comes along and hands out money here, there and everywhere—for a sports kit for a primary school, a presentation to an old persons' club or for the increased architectural merit of a new school. In each case, "by courtesy of the LDDC" will be posted up. It is well known that if one wants money in east London one tries the LDDC.

5.15 pm

It is all public money, but it is not being disbursed by an accountable elected authority. We know the LDDC's record. It has repeatedly been pointed out how much a housing action trust will resemble an urban development corporation. HATs will be seen as bodies to which to apply for money, because they will have a lot of it. That will give them power—the power of patronage and to be the squirearchy of the area.

I am not suggesting that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would be called upon to be a member of a housing action trust, because you are in this House. But imagine being invited to be the chairman or chief executive of a housing action trust. I know how such people operate, because I have seen them. Everywhere they go, people doff their caps almost because these functionaries, nominees of the Secretary of State, can hand out £10,000 here and £100,000 there in east London. They do so all the time. That is a reversion to another age, although the genuine squirearchy used their own money. The characters in the HATs will hand out our money.

I do not impugn their integrity. I am merely saying that the Government have set up in law a thoroughly 19th-century arrangement. We know how Victorian the Prime Minister can be when she chooses, although it is all Victorian vice and very little Victorian virtue. The Labour party is a Victorian organisation, but a virtuous one.