Queen’s Speech

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the words of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford, who will bring a fresh dynamic to our discussions. I understand that he wrote a setting of George Herbert’s “Love Bade Me Welcome” that was sung at his consecration. The poem was read by me at my father’s funeral, so I hope that we will agree on many matters.

I refer to my business and property interests in the register.

We face the most difficult economic prospects for nearly a century. Let us spend a second or two letting that sink in. The immediate outlook is sombre at best. This needs to be explained honestly and openly to people. Economic problems mean reductions in real incomes for many, if not most, people for a period, and we will get nowhere if we pretend otherwise. Of course, we want to and must escape to the broad sunny economic uplands as soon as possible, but let us be clear and frank about the place from whence we are starting.

There is no time to dwell on how all this has come about. Suffice to say that among the many elements have been: one, the remnants of the 2008 financial crisis; two, the adjustments necessary following Brexit; three, Covid; and, four, Ukraine. Rarely have so many major problems emerged at once, and it is no wonder that we have a serious problem.

I now turn to significant, though lesser, issues in which I take a particular interest. I chair your Lordships’ Committee on the Built Environment. I believe strongly that building more houses of decent quality, providing homes that people can afford to buy and rent and improving our crumbling transport system is essential for social cohesion. The Government’s proposals for growth, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and the transport Bill are therefore welcome in principle. However, as always, the devil will be in the detail.

I am sorry to see nothing substantive on business rate reform. Revaluation is important, but that does not begin to tackle the crisis on our high streets, with empty shops even in more prosperous towns such as Salisbury, where I come from, or Leeds or Brecon, where I was last week. Successive Governments have also failed to recognise the role that supermarkets play in bringing affordable food and fresh veg and fruit to struggling families and pensioners, yet their rates bills have gone up and up as the online revolution has played havoc with our shops and markets.

I have three further points. First, on housing, in January my committee produced a compelling report, Meeting Housing Demand, indicating a number of actions which, if taken, could contribute to meeting our housing demand better. I was glad to see some of our ideas on the role of SMEs—small and medium-sized enterprises—in housebuilding taken on board. There is a big adverse trend here to reverse. SME building represents just 10% of new homes compared with 39% in Mrs Thatcher’s time, although I have to say that for SMEs speed of approval in planning is even more important than the Government’s proposal to abolish the planning fees. We have to reduce planning risk, make more small sites available and increase access to finance for SMEs.

I hope the committee’s ideas on increasing housing for the exploding number of the elderly will also be taken up by the Government and their new task force on new housing for the elderly and vulnerable. We will keep a close eye on this work.

The committee also made important recommendations on skills shortages, which are worse in the construction sector and in our planning departments than elsewhere. Progress here is essential if our aspirations for renewal and growth are to be met.

Of course, we need to celebrate success where we can, such as the 1.65 million homes that have been built all over the country since 2010 as the UK’s population has expanded from 63 million to 67 million. However, I fear that government plans are not adequately tackling the chilling effect we found that the planning system is having on housebuilding and infrastructure. Today’s idea of giving local communities a referendum on individual local design codes or votes on developments in their streets has aspects of a gimmick about it. I fear it will slow the system down yet further, making it even more difficult for young people to get on the housing ladder. Taking powers over people’s second homes is certainly a gimmick and one curiously incompatible with Conservative principles of property rights. Do the Government want to lose a battle with their strongest supporters? That appears to be the course they are embarking on.

Secondly, on transport, my committee is now looking at public transport in cities and towns, especially in urban areas outside London. We are concerned about how public transport best meets users’ preferences and represents value for money. We are particularly interested in innovation and connectivity and investigating transport hubs—for example, where buses, which have rightly been mentioned several times today, meet trams or trains—and digital ticketing. These all need to be fit for purpose, simple and speedy. I see that the transport Bill provides opportunities for innovation in ticket retailing. I ask my noble friend the Minister whether her Bill will implement the recommendations on ticketing that our committee made last year.

Thirdly, I want to take this opportunity to reiterate my personal concerns about e-scooters and the Government’s reluctance to tackle the wild west—a term already used for pedicabs by my noble friend Lady Stowell—that exists on our streets and our pavements. I hope I do not have to end up in A&E for this to sink in. Available figures date back to the year ending June 2021—even then, and that was before the current craze for e-scooters really took off, there were 931 casualties in e-scooter accidents, three of them fatal.

As I have said before, I would ban e-scooters; I think e-bikes are much less dangerous and almost as convenient. However, if the Government wish to regulate instead, they need to get on with it immediately and not take too long over legislation. We need a speed limit, we need riders to wear helmets, and we need to make it a criminal offence to ride scooters on pavements, with a power to confiscate and perhaps destroy the offending items. We also need to provide a budget, perhaps financed by the e-scooter companies, for the police to enforce the law on pavements, which otherwise will become no-go areas not only for us but for the vulnerable and disabled who stand to be injured—that would really improve our towns and cities and push people into their cars.

In conclusion, I welcome the Queen’s Speech and look forward to working across the House to scrutinise the Bills in the programme. Our economy is in trouble. However, better, less siloed policy on housing, planning and transport could contribute to productivity, to growth and, above all, to the happiness of those for whom a comfortable home, preferably owned by them, is an enduring aspiration.