Peter Black and South Wales West Liberal Democrats

Affordable Housing Legislative Competence Order

Peter Black: The Welsh Liberal Democrats support the principle of this draft Order and are happy to support the general principle of suspending the right to buy in areas of high demand. That does not mean that we are going to vote for this draft Order, because we have a huge issue with the veto that has been built into it for the Secretary of State for Wales.

I support what Leanne has just outlined with regard to the cumbersomeness and the inefficiency of the whole LCO system and the way in which it has been operated to date. It seems to me that it can only get worse. What has happened with this draft LCO and others makes a huge case for not having this system and for going straight to the referendum that we have been promised so that we can have a parliament for Wales. However, that is for another debate.

The Conservatives tabled an amendment that:

'regrets that the draft Order fails to address the housing crisis in Wales.'.

We will support that, because it is true. However, the draft Order was never meant to address the housing crisis in Wales. The draft Order is just one small part of an overall strategy that the Government has put in place to deal with affordable housing.

Mark Isherwood says that this will not provide additional houses, and he is right in one respect, but you also have to accept that one of the things that this will do is to help in areas of high demand and areas where there are huge problems in finding affordable houses for the people who need them. It will help to preserve existing stock while it is topped up with additional affordable housing. It is important that we think about the housing stock in terms of what is affordable to rent and buy-a pool of housing that people can access. If you start diminishing the pool of affordable housing by taking housing out of it, those who need to rent and buy houses at affordable rates will not be able to do so, as those houses will not be available to them. That is why we believe that it is important to suspend the right to buy in areas of high demand. It is important to get some sort of level on which to build, instead of, effectively, trying to fill a bath with the plug out, with the water going in one end and coming out of the other.

Mark Isherwood: How, therefore, do you address the fact that this would allow local authorities to apply to suspend the right to buy temporarily-it is a short-term measure-when the evidence that we received from the leading authority on this in the UK states that that would not release another property for, on average, 15 years?

Peter Black: I was going to come onto the so-called leading authority in the UK. Whether or not it is a short-term measure is dependent on the housing plan that the local authority submits. I would argue that you could make use of this in some areas-Cardiff for example-to say that new houses for rent should not be subject to the right to buy scheme for five or 10 years, so that they have time to settle in and to ensure that those houses are available as part of the stock. The action plan that a local authority comes up with is crucial to how this is used.

Mark quoted Steve Wilcox and the evidence that he gave to the committee. In my view, that evidence was flawed, because it depended on changes to housing finance rules, which are outside the competence of the Assembly. His evidence also made assumptions about capital receipts that are not sustainable. He told us that the capital receipts system should work in a particular way when it does not work in that way, and when local authorities and the Welsh Assembly Government do not have the power to make it work that way. His argument that for every three houses sold you would be able to build two more does not hold up given the way in which local government finance works-housing revenue finance in particular, where there is a huge debt burden that needs to be repaid out of any capital receipts. Although Steve Wilcox is an academic, Mark, he does not run a housing department, as others do, and he has not tried to operate the system that he would like to see put in place.

On the principle of the draft LCO, we regret the fact that a veto has been built into this Order for the Secretary of State for Wales. One of the reasons why that has happened is because the Deputy Minister and the Welsh Assembly Government have not been ambitious enough in asking for the wider powers that are needed in the area of affordable housing. In other words, the Deputy Minister went to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, gave her evidence and the committee said, 'Okay. That's all you want to do. Therefore, we're going to limit your LCO to that issue'. Had we asked for a wider Order-

Jeff Cuthbert rose-

Peter Black: I do not have time to take an intervention, Jeff.

Had we widened the Order, and made it clear that we wanted to have the widest possible powers to give us the greatest amount of flexibility, the Welsh Affairs Select Committee would not have had the hook to build its report around, and the Secretary of State for Wales would not have been able to insist on the veto. For that reason, we will abstain on this Order. We do not want to obstruct more powers coming to the Assembly, but we feel that there is little point in having additional powers if the development of those powers could lead to a veto in the future.