New Clause 18 - New form of short term tenure for councils (short social tenancy)
Homes Bill
4:33 pm
Mr David Curry (Skipton and Ripon, Conservative)
I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Bath back in the Room. because it would have been soul-destroying for him if, after his heroic sacrifice of time, he had not been able to hear what I have to say. Knowing what an ecumenical chap he is, I am sure that he would have found that difficult to bear. I am grateful to him for not moving his new clause, as that enabled us to reach this point.
The purpose of new clause 18 is simply to create a short-term tenancy to allow property to be used temporarily when it would otherwise remain empty. That is the top and bottom of it. It builds on the Green Paper and on the exclusion unit's concerns about undesirable property. It attempts to find a use for property and in doing so to help to sustain neighbourhoods that might otherwise degenerate as the number of empty properties increases.
The housing Green Paper foreshadows the provision. The problem with current legislation is that it makes it difficult for councils to offer short-term and unlicensed property and practically impossible to offer self-contained property—there are limited conditions in the Housing Act 1985—without creating a secure tenancy after 12 months. Once a secure tenancy has been created, various rights are established, including the right to buy, as well as liabilities. Local authorities may find themselves with serviceable stock that they cannot use. I want to provide a way to enable them to use it.
There may be large-scale regeneration projects and local authorities throughout the country, especially in some northern cities, are in the process of demolishing surplus stock. The demographic trend of tenants is such that councils find themselves with more empty stock and part of the answer is to demolish it. That applies in Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle and other great metropolitan authorities, but London and some other areas are entirely different. The problem exists across a wide swathe of large metropolitan councils. Many projects take five or 10 years and demolition will gradually reduce the level of stock in the long term.
If vacancies arises in those properties because regeneration is planned and people have been decanted, the council cannot afford to let them on secure tenancies because they might incur considerable financial liabilities in doing so—it is barmy to repair property that is due to be knocked down—or be unable to secure the premises when they want to demolish the properties. A short-term tenancy would enable councils to use such property a number of times for long-term temporary accommodation for statutory or non-statutory homeless or potentially homeless households until the property is needed for redevelopment. It would certainly provide better accommodation than bed and breakfast or just dossing down, which is often the alternative.
Another potential benefit is the creation of sustainable communities. I do not wish to invoke Lord Rogers too frequently, but current wisdom is for mixed communities and mixed tenures. We know that vital groups of workers find it difficult to find accommodation and the measure might bring the two together. People who do not qualify for support under the homelessness legislation could be given short-term tenancies. They could occupy accommodation and generate an income, which would help the local neighbourhood in terms of a market for services, shops, hairdressing, bus routes, schools and so on, before entering the housing marketplace if that is what they want to do. That would contribute to the sustainability of the community.
Finally, the measure would generate income for the local authority, which would have a rent stream rather than a boarded-up, empty property. We all know that an empty property, as with an empty shop in a town centre, is a debilitating feature of the landscape and damages the whole viability of the community, whether a business or social community. The provision would help to deal with that problem.
I would expect the short social tenancy to be used in well-defined circumstances. It is not intended as a replacement for normal secure tenancies and it is not the same as a single secure tenancy for social housing, to which the Minister is attached and which was one of the main outcomes of the consultation on the Green Paper. However, it would give councils the equivalent of the assured shorthold tenancy and could be regulated in much the same way.
I do not expect the Minister to declare that the new clause is technically perfect in all aspects—he has parliamentary counsel to do the job for him—but I hope that he will agree that the spirit of the amendment is consistent with the Bill and what is, in many respects, a consensual policy on homelessness, inner cities and regeneration. It flows from the 1996 Act for which I was responsible and from actions for which the hon. Gentleman is responsible as Minister for Housing and Planning.