ODPM may lose two sections of Housing Bill in Lords vote

As Housing Today went to press, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were predicting their joint amendment – which would make home information packs voluntary not compulsory – would be passed.

If this happens, the government has pledged to overturn the amendment when the bill returns to the Commons on 8 November.

The ODPM has said the packs are “the foundation of the bill” and it will “not proceed without them”.

A second amendment proposed for Wednesday’s vote would hit the plan to allow the Housing Corporation to pay social housing grant to private developers.

The cross-bench peer Lord Richard Best has proposed an amendment that would see this power tempered with the requirement that non-registered social landlords would have to be subject to the same regulatory requirements as associations (HT 29 October, page 9).

If the home information pack amendment is passed, key changes in other areas – such as tightening the restrictions on the right to buy and licensing private sector landlords – would be lost.

A Conservative spokesman said: “Support on this is looking absolutely solid from the Lib Dems and we have got a good response from a number of cross-bench peers.

“Both sides will look to come up with a deal that is acceptable. The ball will be firmly back in the ODPM’s court and it is likely this will go down to the wire.”

He said that although the Conservatives were not running a three-line whip on the vote, it was the “second-strongest” whip. This will also apply to the Best amendment, he added.

Baroness Maddock, the Lib Dem housing spokeswoman in the Lords, said her party also had a strong whip to ensure their members voted on both issues.

An ODPM spokesman said: “We have not compromised on any of these issues yet and are confident that we are going to get the bill through as we want it.”

The vote is likely to be tight as the House of Lords is quite evenly split between Labour (201), Conservatives (205) and Liberal Democrats (70).