Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

To conclude, I have two points. I ask the Minister for a reasoned justification for Clause 98, because I have not seen one. But I cannot entirely leave the matter there without noting that this is not the only instance in the Bill where the overriding of private property rights in the public interest, without proper safeguards, suggests an infringement of human rights legislation. I further understand that the Joint Committee on Human Rights has not commented on the Bill, which is why I have drawn some of the other instances, but not this particular one, to its attention. It does, however, cause me to further ask the Minister, in the light of my explanations, by what metric his noble colleague felt able to certify HR compliance of the Bill, which appears on its title page. I beg to move.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, this is an important group of amendments, and I have great pleasure in supporting them all. I have two amendments in my name, which reflect a particular interest that the Victorian Society has in the demolition of non-listed buildings. I am very grateful to the Victorian Society for marshalling support for these amendments. I would also say that these are amendments that sit the heart of the Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill, and they follow present practice, to which I will draw attention. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Carrington, for their stamina in being here to support these amendments. I will try to be brief.

My amendments address a serial, long-standing failure to protect the historic built environment that gives the ordinary places we live character, memory and beauty through familiar structures. Nationally protected buildings are, as we know, protected if they are listed. They are secured by law, but the demolition of most buildings is permitted without planning permission if they are not listed or in a conservation area, even if they are in good condition and have potential new uses. This has been happening, as recorded by the Victorian Society, across the country, and the problem is that because of the historic underlisting of important buildings that Historic England identifies through the Saunders report. Buildings that are potentially listable and not on the list can be demolished.

Permitted development is exactly what it says: the ability to demolish or change a structure with none of the protections or local involvement that the planning system provides. It has been an unwelcome flood that has been extended in recent years, which brings unpredictability and perverse consequences. It is well overdue for a review, and I ask the Minister to consider very seriously whether he and his colleagues can put that into practice now.

The changes that PDR promotes, together with what the noble Lord previously implied—the hollowing out of planning departments and the loss of conservation specialists—means that our villages, small towns and cities are at greater risk than they have been for some time. The risk is from cumulative change as well as casual change, and it is irreversible. Locally listed buildings—a very small number in relation to the whole—are now particularly vulnerable. My two amendments focus on these groups.

Amendment 312G would remove permitted development rights for all demolition. It would allow for public consultation and would protect all non-designated heritage assets. Amendment 312H focuses on the local listing of buildings. It removes permitted demolition rights for locally listed assets and protects non-designated heritage assets that are on a local planning authority’s local list. This is long overdue. We also suggest that the Secretary of State could provide further clarity by setting out a definition of what qualifies as a local list following consultation.

These amendments are timely and would re-engage local communities. They would be extremely welcome, and I offer them as a gift to the Government, who are now in an election year. They are timely. Is it not better to save our historic assets that are still safe, habitable and useful than to pull them down? Increasingly, this is how people feel. In recent years, when so much in the country has shifted around us, we have come increasingly to value the quality and resonance of our local environment. This intensified during the pandemic.

When I was heavily involved with the Heritage Lottery Fund, we funded a great deal of locally inspired small projects within 15 minutes of the places where people live. We had a tremendous response. It drew out of local communities the things that they felt were really important to them. It is clear that keeping and repurposing historic buildings—schools, surgeries, churches, cinemas, factories, mills—is seen as an infinitely better alternative and one within reach. They retain character and diversity and inspire unique pride across the generations. We have lost so much, and we will lose more unless we stop and pause.

Once something is gone, whether it is the Euston Arch or a local cinema, we cannot recover it. At a time of so much instability in the high street and excessive office building, surely the time has come to rethink and repurpose for what people need today, whether that is childcare centres or marketplaces.

Democracy Denied (DPRRC Report)

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to take part in this debate. It gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to the outstanding leadership of the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, in bringing forward these reports. I also pay tribute to the clerks who deal with the scrutiny committees and have done tremendous service over the years, and I mention Christine Salmon Percival in this context. I am very much looking forward to hearing the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Prentis of Leeds.

I should say that, although I do not know where I fit into the 500 years’ scope, I have had the privilege of serving twice on the DPRRC and the SLSC. It has been a privilege, and a grim experience of watching the erosion of parliamentary control over a number of years. It is not as if this House has been colluding in this process. We had the Strathclyde report and the way the House and the committees responded to it. We have had the work of the Constitution Committee on delegated legislation, and now the Hansard Society has taken up the cudgels on behalf of rebalancing the power of Parliament. I declare an interest as a member of that advisory committee, as is my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton, who cannot be with us.

These reports strike a very different note. They take the long view in both directions. They look at the evidence and recommend a profound shift in the always precarious relationship between Ministers and Parliament which we have witnessed. They make demands for change from the Government that go far beyond the usual admonitions that they should know better and act differently. The DPRRC has been adamant that there must be no less than a return to the first principle that legislation must be explicitly founded on and reflective of the principles of parliamentary democracy, not political expediency.

These reports are fluent in the language of the barricades. We have never heard before the language of diktat, of denial of democracy, or such a stark warning to Parliament itself of what we are facing. That presents us as parliamentarians with a real challenge. A reset is long overdue. As it is, our role in this House is largely to pull the Government back from the brink, but it has become increasingly difficult to do that. There are skeleton Bills, where no analysis or interrogation of impact is possible; policy-making is banished from the face of the primary legislation; outcomes are buried in delegated legislation; and Henry VIII powers are a routine convenience defended on spurious grounds with frivolous explanations. Added to that, as my noble friend—and I will call him my noble friend—has explained, disguised regulation has emerged, with ingenious devices, ingeniously defended. Directions and guidance are used as a proxy for legislation, and Parliament is an exasperated but essentially impotent onlooker. If Parliament cannot understand, interrogate or challenge perverse consequences, how can we protect people and communities from bad laws?

It is therefore all the more disappointing that the Government have accepted the easy stuff—14 recommendations, but none that change the culture or challenge Ministers. This attitude of “take it or leave it” has been well explained by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. Guidance is not going to enable or empower the junior civil servant to stand up to a Minister who wants to do something quickly and does not want the bother of parliamentary interference. Since that response a year ago, not only has nothing changed but things have got worse this year. We have had the chaos of the Schools Bill; the summary powers set out in the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill; the extraordinary powers under the Health and Social Care Bill; the landgrab of the levelling up Bill; and the extraordinary powers in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, to which we have already had reference, and all that that implies.

What is to be done if Parliament is to retain credit and purpose? I do not think Government will choose to do anything, other than perhaps to be aware of the danger of precedence. We have to take the initiative in this House as parliamentarians, and we are assisted in that in two ways. First, this is not a party-political issue; it affects both Houses, and it has arrested the attention of people outside this House who are concerned about the growing impotence of Parliament. The Hansard Society has made an excellent start in exploring how explicit principles for delegated legislation could be established, possibly by a new statutory instrument Act, for better processes to be created. We heard some of that—and that would inevitably, in my view, involve new procedures or avenues to involve the Government in thinking again. These might include stronger safeguards around legitimate claims of urgency and new joint processes for both Houses.

Parliament is in trouble. We need to be courageous and recognise the urgency of the situation we face.

Restoration and Renewal

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate, and I am surprised to hear myself saying that. What pleasure there is comes from having more transparency in the past hour about what has been going on and what is likely to happen than we have had in any document or debate to date. It has been exceptionally helpful to hear the devastating speech from the noble Lord, Lord Best, and to hear from my noble friend Lord Carter and the noble Lord, Lord Colgrain. There are so many questions being lined up for the Leader of the House. I am sorry she will have such a limited time to reply, and so we look forward to her letter.

In deciding on the future of this building, we will be judged to have been derelict in our duty. What we have heard this afternoon is that vested interests seem to mean that we are incapable of acknowledging the consistent evidence that it is more expensive, more dangerous and will take far longer if we insist on staying in this building, for whatever period, than if we faced up to the realities of a full decant. That is what the evidence has been telling us for four years. That is what we voted on in 2019. That is what the work of the sponsor board, as we have heard, was geared to when collecting evidence as an expert, independent body. That is what we thought we would stick to. We thought we had a plan, but we have had a handbrake turn instead. Far from planning for certainty, we seem to have created even greater, indefinite uncertainty.

As the noble Lord, Lord Best, and others have said, in February this year the sponsor board came forward with figures. Those figures were unacceptable and took the commission by surprise: parameters of £7 billion and £13 billion, and a decant period of 12 to 20 years. The sponsor board also produced two other scenarios. First, that the Commons stay put in the building—probably in this part of the building, while we would be evicted indefinitely—at a cost of between £9 billion and £18 billion. Secondly, that we all stay put in the building site, at a cost of £11 billion to £22 billion, and facing the ludicrous prospect of work taking 76 years. That would be daunting to even the youngest of the hereditary Peers. There would be significant parliamentary disruption, with longer recesses and no parliamentary recall.

In response to this unwelcome evidence, the commission shot the messenger—what else could it do?—losing all the skills and the knowledge that had been accumulated. Now we have a situation where politicians and parliamentarians will be firmly in charge, but at least, as has been said, the commissions of both Houses will work together. That is a definite improvement. This is a scenario that Barry and Pugin recognised in extraordinary detail immediately in having to deal with what Bagehot called the interference of politicians—it came close to killing one and really did kill the other. They were trying to design the Palace; we are trying to concentrate on saving the Palace, and the future and functions of Parliament.

The current—although possibly very temporary—Leader of the House of Commons seems to think that the answer lies in some sort of Shavian superhero; what he calls a star architect, who will be brought in to reconcile the irreconcilable. Parliamentarians would work in a dangerous building site for decades, rather than budge.

The building is dangerous: we have had 13 instances of falling masonry in recent years—the most recent being the north face of Westminster Hall. We all know that it is dangerous, and not least because it suspends the Commons. Yesterday, with masterly timing, a leak suspended the Commons. Removing asbestos has already proved to be dangerous to our staff. Experts outside this House tell me it would take at least two years just to remove the asbestos. Does the Leader of the House agree with the trade unions that

“the ongoing viability of the Palace of Westminster as a safe workplace is at stake and … anything less than the full decant envisaged under the Act would put that at risk”?

I would appreciate a clear answer to that at the end of the debate.

The temporary sprinklers in the basement may hold the worst fires at bay but they cannot prevent them all, and they will cause further damage. They have cost £140 million to install and will be ripped out when something permanent is put in. That is only one of the eye-watering examples of waste revealed by the PAC report a few weeks ago—the latest in a long line of devastating audits on lack of transparency, failure of accountability and waste.

I will put some specific questions to the Leader of the House; the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Carter, have answered many of them, but I still think I ought to put them to her. Why precisely did the commission propose dissolving the sponsor board? What did not work? Does she accept the sponsor board’s evidence that not decanting the House fully will be more expensive and dangerous and take longer? Are the two alternative scenarios set out and costed by the sponsor board still on the table? Does she agree with the noble Lord, Lord Best, that what is proposed now will not work? Can she explain why she thinks it will? Can she expand on the Leader of the House of Commons saying yesterday that, notwithstanding the need for an agreed end view, there should be “opportunities for periodic review” to

“allow the programme to adapt to changing fiscal, societal and political contexts”?—[Official Report, Commons, 12/7/22; col. 275.]

Does that not mean a licence for political interference?

Put that together with the evidence that the House administration has a poor track record of project management and I have little confidence that we know what we are doing. However, I believe we have to support this, for the reasons that have been explained, because there is no alternative and we can see some improvement.

The commission now has the great challenge of showing real leadership and reconciling what is desirable with what is necessary. If we are going to be stuck in this limbo indefinitely, we face the risks of catastrophic failure, as people always do when custodians of heritage buildings fail to act in time. We will be accountable to not just this country but the world. UNESCO is looking at us extremely closely; it wants a plan to secure the building and protect its heritage, on a realistic timetable. At the moment it does not have that; if it does not get one, we will face the shame of being blacklisted as a world heritage site.

Sue Gray Report

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I think I have made it clear that none of us is proud of what happened and what has been outlined in the report, and that is why the Prime Minister has made a full and unreserved apology.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the reasons I regret that the House is empty this evening is that noble Lords were not able to hear the speeches of my noble friend on the Front Bench and the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, because they were both forensic and demonstrated the values we would expect in public service. One of the questions my noble friend asked was about what the Prime Minister understands by “full responsibility”. Does he accept that it means taking responsibility for the culture and behaviour of the entire management of what he is responsible for in the Cabinet Office?

What I heard this afternoon was not a full apology or the taking of full responsibility but a series of excuses. One of the most egregious was that, at the time, it was legitimate for Downing Street as a whole to have those parties to say goodbye to civil servants—when nurses, doctors and people throughout the health and care service simply would never have contemplated doing that, no matter how many of their colleagues left, as people became ill or were threatened by Covid. Can the noble Baroness explain to this House what she understands the nature of “full responsibility” for a Prime Minister, as leader of the Government, to mean?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

As I have said, the Prime Minister has taken responsibility. He has apologised and committed to making changes to address many of the issues raised and, as I mentioned in response to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, a number of those have been set out in the Statement. I reiterate again that Sue Gray recognises that and has said she is pleased that progress is being made in addressing the issues. That is not to say that there is not further work to do, but action has been taken, and it has been taken speedily.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I have already answered that question.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

I am going to ask the noble Baroness something else my noble friend asked her, about the fact that the cleaners and security staff at No. 10 seemed to know the rules governing behaviour over Covid. As she said, one of the most impressive things about Sue Gray’s excellent, measured and professional report is that, before she describes each of the events, she sets out, quoting verbatim, what the rules actually were at the time of each of the different stages of Covid. The Prime Minister was on television practically every week reading out those regulations, telling people what they involved and what they could and could not do. Yet he has systematically said that he did not quite understand them himself in terms of what his own staff were doing and what he and they were allowed to do. But the cleaners and the security staff seemed to understand. What was it that the Prime Minister did not understand?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I can only repeat what was said in the Statement. The Prime Minister said that he understood that the rules and guidance had been followed at all times. That is what he believed was true, but he accepts now, in the light of the report, that his understanding of the situations that were happening, some of which carried on and happened without his knowledge, was wrong. He has corrected the record in that regard and once again apologised.

Health and Care Bill

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 18th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it is a huge pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege. I have signed and strongly support all the amendments tabled by the noble Lord to ensure that integrated care boards are closely connected to local communities. We have riches yet to come: the noble Lord’s later amendments ensure that local solutions are prioritised, and that procurement is firmly rooted in local communities, but I will speak only to Amendment 41A.

I will give an example of when the noble Lord and I have been involved in another project, beyond the very important Bromley-by-Bow project that the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, talked about; namely, the St Paul’s Way Transformation Project, the health, education, jobs and skills, and community campus which started in 2006. It is a great example of a response to the local challenges faced in an east London neighbourhood very close to Bromley-by-Bow, with failing health and education services and community relationships. This transformation project was focused on integration from day one and has been a huge success.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, talked about the extraordinary track record of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, as a social entrepreneur. He launched this project in partnership with the NHS and Tower Hamlets Council, and brought together the local authority, the local school, the GP network, the local housing association, Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association, and the diocese of London, to bring about transformational change in and around St Paul’s Way, a main street running through Poplar. Together they built a new secondary school, new primary school, new health centre, new mosque, new community centre and restaurant, new park, new street scene and 595 new homes. In parallel with this, the quality of the local leadership, and hence of local service provision, was transformed. The failing secondary school moved to Ofsted outstanding, the failed GP practice was replaced and its successor became CQC outstanding, and the independently monitored residents’ satisfaction level is currently 85%.

The St Paul’s Way project has been a great success story of local partnership with other local actors. For example, near neighbour Queen Mary University of London, the governing body of which I chair, with two campuses in Tower Hamlets, and which is intimately involved in the governance of St Paul’s Way Trust School, helped design and develop the school’s new science labs. They are in the health building, which the school uses and where we have taken space for our school of dentistry and DNA research.

Partners in the local schools, the GP practice and the housing association have played an important role in recent years, as they have shared their work and experience with communities in towns and cities across the north of England and now beyond. However, the project faces major challenges, as outdated NHS procurement systems are now in danger of undermining the good work that it has been doing for over a decade. Amid this project being put together, the PCT procured a primary healthcare provider with no London experience, let alone any local experience. After two years, it surrendered the contract because it had not understood that primary healthcare is very different and costs a lot more to deliver in Poplar than in affluent suburbs. This experience is an illustration of the importance of there being a neighbourhood voice in the making of decisions by the NHS, which, if they are got wrong, can damage the ability of local integrated partnerships to function and develop effectively at the neighbourhood level. There is an opportunity to address this in legislation.

In this light, how can the Government make integration a reality? This is a clear example of disconnects that will be replicated on other streets across the country, and a demonstration of what happens when the NHS procurement systems and policy do not take place and neighbourhood seriously. Health is about bringing people and communities together, not undermining them. The solutions are often local and not in large outdated systems and processes. This local approach must be embraced. It is at the 50,000-person neighbourhood level, not an enormous eight-borough ICS where integration aimed at innovation in prevention and recovery can be most effective. Neighbourhood must be understood, valued, and given leverage in the system and flexible use of budgets. It is at this level that the actual practical interventions can happen. It is here that schools, housing, job opportunities and community action can happen. Neighbourhoods can act with speed and agility.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, suggested that the Ministers visit Bromley-by-Bow; equally, I suggest a visit to the St Paul’s Way transformation project. This amendment is as much about creating the right culture as the right representative structure. I hope that the Government accept this important amendment and the other amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, on this subject.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, I too was very happy to sign this amendment. I will speak only to it. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, on her very moving speech, and the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, on a very comprehensive speech. I will be brief. In view of the logic of everything that I have heard in debates on previous amendments this afternoon, this amendment is even more important than I thought. When the Committee is discussing how to make the ICBs as effective, powerful, salient and comprehensive as possible for the people that they are bound to serve, all these factors must be taken into consideration, but the power of place itself and the opportunity that the ICB creates to make this manifest, just as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, has made manifest in Bow, is a unique and highly innovative opportunity, and one which may not come again.

What the noble Lord proposes is extremely modest. It is to give just one person from the partnership voting power. However, it is essential, and it is in the spirit and the logic of what place-based partnerships are intended to do. It means that on the ICB there will be people who can bring nearsight, access and reach into the community to the decisions of the ICBs. They can help to inform those decisions, to bring that knowledge and sensitivity of the lives that people live, what they are faced with, and their specific choices. They are one of the most optimistic partnerships and ideas that we have had in this House for some years.

I have spoken many times in this House on the power of place, what it can achieve and how it affects people’s lives, particularly their health. The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and I published quite a useful report on building better places when we were on the same committee a few years ago. We diagnosed the relationship between good design, good buildings, good environments and good health. Maybe it is time to get that back off the shelf.

What is also useful is that the partnership principle is alive and well and is generating good practice. There is increasing evidence that it works and that there is an increasing exchange of ideas and skills, and we are learning all the time about what is possible. There is nothing to be said against this.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Thursday 13th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. He is right that research is currently ongoing; it has been backed by £7 million of government funding. We are expecting the first set of results soon; that will be the first outcome of this research.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I ask the Leader of the House first to answer the question put to her by the Leader of the Opposition about whether she can give a guarantee that this inquiry will finish before the next general election. My second question is: since the Prime Minister has made such a feature of the decision that this inquiry should involve all the devolved Administrations across the UK, can she tell me whether the leaders of those countries were consulted on the timetable for the inquiry, and did they agree that it should be delayed until next year?

Covid-19

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con) [V]]

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right. While we are putting in support to help now, we recognise that the long-term damage caused by this extensive period in which young people and children have not been able to go to school is clear and significant. We have set out that we will work with parents, teachers, schools and colleges, and, I am sure, wider community representatives, to develop a longer-term plan to make sure that pupils have a chance to make up their learning over the course of the Parliament. While we of course have short-term schemes to attempt to address issues now—for instance, partnering with the UK’s leading mobile network operators to guarantee internet access and providing free data to key educational websites for disadvantaged families—there is a much longer-term issue that we want to address, and we will be doing that in partnership.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the Prime Minister’s claim that the Government have done everything they could to minimise death and suffering during the pandemic has, tragically, been contradicted by the shameful figure of 100,000 deaths. The BAME community has suffered disproportionately. I have two questions for the noble Baroness. First, can she tell me what the take-up of the vaccine is among BAME communities? Secondly, what are the Government doing, with whom and to what effect, to maximise take-up? We are one of the richest countries in the world and we have one of the best health services; we should not have failed our poorest communities in the way we have.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con) [V]]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. We are still in the early days of collecting vaccination data, but the early data we have confirms that we need to work hard to make sure we get the vaccine take-up that we need. We will be looking to improve the data that we publish, although we are doing a lot already, to make sure we are aware of the issues she raises. I reassure her that we are cognisant of the need to encourage BAME communities. That is why, for instance, patient leaflets have been published in around 20 languages, as well in easy read and British Sign Language, and as audio advice. We are doing targeted advertising in 13 languages and holding regular meetings with local authorities and local faith leaders to encourage take-up. I do not know whether noble Lords have seen it, but there is an excellent video on social media with BAME MPs from across the House of Commons, highlighting the importance of taking the vaccine. These cross-party, cross-community initiatives are what we need to ensure that all our communities take up the vaccine.

Covid-19 Update

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that these new measures came into effect only today, and we believe that they will have an impact. As I said in my initial answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, we have taken this approach because the disease is appearing at the moment more strongly in some areas and regions than others, which is a different situation from that we were in in March. That is why we have introduced this regional, tiered approach.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Baroness in her responses has not addressed the fact that, as SAGE put it so starkly, the centralised track and trace system is bringing only marginal benefit in stemming the pandemic in the regions. Despite all the statistics she has offered, is it not absolutely clear that local leaders are still therefore not getting what they have been asking for for months: full access, full support and all the resources they need to put them in the driving seat? When will that happen?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I am afraid that I do not agree with that assessment from the noble Baroness. As I said, local and national government are working together with resources and expertise, and 95 local authority contact tracing teams are now live, with more to come, and we will continue to increase that capacity. However, we are working together, because the only way we can combat this is by national and local government and local leaders working together.

Business and Planning Bill

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 6th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, for the most part, I certainly welcome the Bill. It is very much a just-in-time Bill and will help deal with immediate pressures but in no way does it offer permanent solutions; these are temporary changes for good reasons. One general point I want to reinforce is that this Bill throws into sharp relief the need for creative, long-term strategic planning for better and safer communities.

The business section of the Bill will certainly help the hospitality sector get back on its feet; it is very welcome. However, as has been alluded to, there is the very real risk of the virus picking up again if social distancing breaks down. It is a very fine balance and there is a great deal at stake, which is why these changes—an avalanche of new and extended applications, which will have to be processed at speed, monitored and, literally, policed—must be got right. They involve costs and demand vigilance but, as we all know, local authorities are barely in a position to take on new burdens. Whatever the Minister says about new funding, it goes nowhere near addressing the huge deficits and even near-bankruptcy that local authorities now face. The Minister quoted the LGA very approvingly, but only partially. It went on to say that this cannot be a job for authorities alone and that

“it is crucial that councils are supported financially”.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, will say in response to the remarks of my noble friend Lord Stevenson. I also want to reinforce the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra: when there is such a need for consistency as well as speed, why does the Bill provide for statutory guidance but, unusually, no parliamentary process to support and guarantee this?

Regarding the Bill’s clauses on planning, I welcome the extension of planning permission and listed buildings consent, but again, this is just in time. Small construction firms, which have such a big contribution to make, have been the worst hit; almost a quarter of those which employ fewer than 250 people have temporarily paused or ceased trading. I am sorry that the Government failed to listen sooner to the RTPI, which has been calling for extensions since the beginning of the pandemic, and that they have failed until now to heed the warnings of the losses of over 400 residential permissions with a building commitment of 24,000 homes by the end of June. I welcome the additional flexibility being offered to the Planning Inspectorate to decide on different procedures.

Finally, I will make a more general and contextual point. For many small businesses on the high street, struggling to survive against the odds of online shopping and exorbitant business rates, Covid-19 has been the last straw. Despite great spirit and real ingenuity, as I have seen in my own town of Lewes, many shops and enterprises will fail to make it. The noble Lord, Lord Best, spoke powerfully about the need for social housing. This Bill is about the recovery of the high street and town centres. In his recent “new deal” speech, the Prime Minister talked about converting shops and offices in our high streets into housing. Change of use proposals mean that this is already happening. The evidence has been that it results in shoddy, inadequate and expensive housing, exempt from normal standards —in short, building the slums of the future while the high street is dying on its feet. This is no way to rebuild or recover.

Put simply, if we cannot save the vitality and diversity of the high street, we cannot save our towns, and that sits within a wider failure. The Prime Minister derides the whole profession and purpose of planning—newt gathering, as he puts it—but the real villains are the landholders and speculators. Covid-19 has proved beyond doubt that people need space to live safely. We should be using our planners and our local authorities as creatively as possible to build safely and beautifully for the future. We have learned to value community more; now, let us invest in it.

Covid-19: Strategy

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Tuesday 12th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, further to the question asked of the Leader of the House by my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition, can she confirm now that the Prime Minister did not actually consult the devolved nations about his change of message, from “Stay at Home” to “Stay Alert”, and the policy that followed? Will she therefore now explain why the Prime Minister thinks that it is safe for people in England to go back to work, while in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, it is seen as too risky and premature?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The Prime Minister has regular conversations with the devolved Administrations. As I said, the leaders of those Administrations are involved in all COBRA meetings and discussions. There is close dialogue. As Nicola Sturgeon said, it is

“perhaps reflecting the fact that our first cases came later than England’s … so we may be at a different—and slightly later—stage of the infection”.

As we move out of lockdown, while we want the four nations to move together, if there are slight differences, we will need to take that into account. However, I do not think that the divergence in approach between the four nations is as great as has been made out. We continue to work closely together because we all want the best for all of our citizens.