Housing Delivery Test

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the housing delivery target is based primarily on the housing needs assessment in the local plan. Where the plan is over five years old, we look at the housing needs formula. Only eight councils are below the 45% delivery rate, where a presumption of sustainable development is enforced.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, on a more positive note, how can we better incentivise and help small builders and those building their own homes, as my sister did in Vermont with the help of her local school? Many small schemes could go ahead during the Covid period, providing new homes and giving a welcome boost to struggling local economies.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for raising the importance of getting small builders to build us out of this problem. Our reforms in Planning for the Future will make it much easier for people and communities to build and design their own homes, with a streamlined, clear and accessible planning system without delays and the associated costs, permission in principle to expedite the route to development, and local authorities identifying suitable sites for self and custom-built housing.

Housing: New Homes

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of (1) how many new homes will be needed by 2025, and (2) how quickly they will reach their target of building 300,000 new homes per year.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to meeting the country’s housing need, delivering 240,000 new homes last year—the highest number in over 30 years. The Covid-19 pandemic presents a real economic challenge to the housing market, and our top priority will remain a safe, sustainable recovery. That is why we will continue to take appropriate measures to support housing supply, such as the recent Planning for the Future consultation.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, there is a dire shortage of housing in this country, especially in areas which have shown a lot of growth, such as the south-east. While I very much welcome the consultation on Planning for the Future, it does not stress the early action that we need. The proposed zoning system, about which I have some concerns, will, in practice, take an age to establish. Why do we not instead put a Macmillan-type in charge to focus on nothing else—it might even be my noble friend the Minister himself? He could make use of the planning guidance; release plots of land to help small builders, including on government-owned land; encourage builders to use planning permissions; and give rapid approval for building in local materials and styles, applying the spirit of the late Roger Scruton.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for putting me forward for a new role. There is an unprecedented amount of initiatives to boost housing delivery, including grant funding, a substantial amount of which is through the affordable homes programme; guaranteed funding to enable access to finance at lower cost; loans to enable short-term funding; and ensuring that we can accelerate the release of land and invest in the infrastructure required for housing delivery.

Business and Planning Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his announcement of the concession that the Government will bring forward an amendment to address the issues which I raised on Amendment 73. We had a very productive meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe. We made some points, the Government listened and I am very grateful.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, particularly when he is in grateful mode. I will speak only to Amendment 80, which is a probing amendment and links to the other amendments in this group only to the extent that the Bill contains temporary measures suitable for the medical and economic emergency imposed upon us by Covid-19.

As I said at Second Reading, I want to understand the sunsetting provisions in the Bill on which, in principle, I congratulate the Minister. Will all the provisions in the Bill lapse, and when? If not, why not? Why is there a disturbing provision in Clause 25 to,

“make transitional, transitory or saving provision in connection with the expiry of any provision of this Act”?

This seems extremely open-ended for an emergency Bill. How do we ensure that the various measures in the Bill are not extended when they have been subject to a relatively low degree of scrutiny?

[Lord Hain (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I too welcome the eloquence of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, in speaking to her amendments. Like my noble friend Lord Kennedy, I welcome the concession that the Minister gave. I will speak briefly to Amendment 61, which intends to ensure that developers do not delay implementing planning consents.

Clause 17 is another example of lack of ambition in the Bill. It proposes extending the time limits for planning permissions where development has not yet started. There is a horrendous shortage of homes for people, the worst since World War II. Yet there are over 400,000 houses waiting to be built in England and Wales where planning consent has been given but not yet implemented. Developers are dragging their feet to manipulate local property markets. They build up land banks—stocks of sites on which planning consent has been given—but go slow when it comes to completing development, expecting land values and property prices to rise in the meantime.

The Government could have explored applying council tax to sites where planning consent has been given but development has not gone ahead. They could even have considered rendering planning consent liable to forfeit if development is not complete within a reasonable time, perhaps five years as this amendment provides. Instead, the Bill sidesteps the scandal of developers with planning consent leaving construction sites idle for years. This amendment seeks to address that and get the millions of affordable houses we desperately need built after this Government’s terrible record of promising great numbers and delivering pathetically low ones. I therefore hope that the Minister will respond positively.

Business and Planning Bill

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]]

I will speak to Amendment 44 on digital age verification and thank my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones for his support. I raised this at Second Reading and thank my noble friend the Deputy Leader for his courteous and timely letter. I am especially grateful to him and the Minister for Crime and Policing at the Home Office for publishing on GOV.UK the government response to the call for evidence on violence and abuse toward shop staff. That certainly helps to put discussions today into perspective. I am glad to hear that the Minister for Crime will work with business, the police and other partners to tackle this serious issue, including underreporting. I know the British Retail Consortium is disappointed about some aspects of the government response, but that is for another day.

Today is about emergency measures to deal with life under Covid-19, and they are all most welcome. As my noble friend Lord Holmes said, we need to get the economy motoring again. That includes measures that encourage business to revive and grow, as his amendments have proposed. In that context, I remain concerned about the absence of digital age estimation and verification for sale of alcohol. Our amendment enables the use of such verification, provided that the licensed seller in a shop or pub takes reasonable precautions and applies due diligence to ensure the purchaser is over 18.

The obvious example is the Yoti app used in a number of European countries, such as Estonia— a real digital leader—and some parts of the UK. It means there is no need to show paper ID and wash your hands or resanitise—or perhaps not—or to remove a mask to engage in a physical conversation and a physical check of the customer’s ID. It works brilliantly at automatic checkouts, as their videos show, and would help to speed up queues in pubs and elsewhere. Other apps will no doubt be developed, making the technology more widely available. Interestingly, I see from the Yoti website that NHS England and NHS Improvement have begun deploying a secure digital ID card from Yoti to put employees’ NHS ID cards on to their phones. The killer argument for this Business and Planning Bill is that this system is already in use in shops to verify sales of knives—arguably much more dangerous than drink—and other age-restricted products such as tobacco, lottery tickets and fireworks.

It has been argued that we cannot introduce a digital system for alcohol outside the Proof of Age Standards Scheme—PASS—which is being developed for card issuers. However, that has got bogged down and delayed by Covid and is not producing the solution required when it is so desperately needed. It is of great significance that the British Retail Consortium, which set up PASS, no longer has faith in it. It rightly believes that no scheme should be skewed to a particular interest group.

Ours is an open amendment that overnight would improve things hugely and allow more enforcement of the drinking rules than I believe is taking place at present. A sunset clause can be included allowing the opportunity to simply trial these new app-based methods, at the same time avoiding the need for young people to carry passes—and lose them, as they often do. I hope my noble friend the Minister will look favourably at this amendment and be open to agreeing a simple enabling provision before Report.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 36, 39, 40 and 43, to which I have added my name. I fully support what the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said in his introduction and will not preface what my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark may say when he introduces his amendment later. While supporting and fully agreeing with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that we should all get back to work in the Chamber, I do not really agree that the increased number of outlets will improve the environment of Cambridge. You could then argue that we had better get back to prohibition days, and I do not think anybody wants that.

My amendments are intended to increase the choice of products and balance the smaller number that can be inside a pub or restaurant with more space outside. I commend the Government on allowing many outlets to put more space on the pavements or even roads and increase the space for cycling at the expense of polluting cars. The amendments would also allow a greater choice of suppliers, which I think is important.

My interest is encouraging small brewers and limiting the bullying tactics we have seen over the years from the pubcos, which are very much to the detriment of the small landlord. As the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, said, small brewers have lost a large proportion of their trade during the Covid lockdown, and 65% of breweries have apparently been mothballed because they could not sell their product direct to the public. Some of the smaller breweries do not have premises licensing and without these amendments cannot offer takeaways or deliver direct to the public. I believe that small breweries have really reinvigorated the hospitality sector in recent years. Allowing off-sales on a fair, proportionate and reasonable temporary basis, subject to the various conditions put in these amendments and the existing legislation, is surely a good thing.

I certainly believe that the amendment is not a licence for street raves. It is just a means of providing similar spaces outside due to the shortages inside because of the lack of social distancing space, combined with adding the possibility of much more competition within the brewing industry generally.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I wonder what she might have said had she mentioned the Government’s proposals on electric scooters in the context of the problems of disabled people, or of those with visual impairments. It seems to me that they are going to exacerbate some of the problems we are talking about.

The amendments in this group deal with the nature of public consultation. Amendment 6 in particular, to which I have added my name, tightens up the expectations on local authorities. As I understand the Bill as drafted, it would be sufficient for a local authority simply to put the details on a notice stuck in the window of the town hall. The amendment, however, would require that those details be in a form accessible to the residents affected. I would like to see local authorities expected to consult directly with the residents in the immediate vicinity of some of these proposed licence changes.

Amendment 6 would also properly allow seven days for residents to register their objections or raise concerns. That seems to me to be a minimum. Seven days is a very short time under any circumstances, but, unless these subsections are strengthened, most residents in the immediate vicinity of a premises for which these changes are intended will never hear about them until they have been agreed, and probably not until the extra pavement furniture appears; until the extra noise starts; until the extra singing starts; and until the yobs start urinating and defecating on their properties. I assume that the Minister does not wish to be regarded as the Minister responsible for people doing that in others’ front gardens—but that is the danger, unless there is a proper degree of consultation, and people have the opportunity to raise their concerns. Amendment 6 is very modest, and I trust the Minister will accept it.

Amendment 17 is also very modest. If the new pavement use turns out to make it difficult for people with disabilities, or others such as parents with pushchairs and young people, to navigate the pavement, the local authority must speedily visit and assess the situation. If there is a problem, the pavement licence should be revoked. Social distancing already requires people on many pavements to step into the road to get past each other. It is clearly more difficult if you are blind, in a wheelchair, or simply pushing a double buggy with another child in tow. If you have to navigate a group of inebriated and boisterous young men—and it will often be young men—on the pavement, it is far worse. Under such circumstances, not only is consultation needed but an inspection of how the arrangements work in practice. How far do the pavement tables extend? In practice, on whichever model the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, was talking about, how much leeway do the groups standing around leave for those passing by? Again, I trust that the Minister will accept this amendment.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, with his detailed knowledge of local rules. However, I wish to emphasise the importance of balance, and to remind noble Lords that these are temporary measures. We must not get bound up in regulatory amendments, however justified these might be for permanent laws. We have to get the economy and our high streets going again and allow vibrancy to return to our bars and pubs. Our hospitality sector has been decimated and it needs all the help it can get.

There are safeguards: there is scope for suspending licensing conditions for up to three months, or removing permission for sales of alcohol for consumption off the premises. There are quite onerous requirements for Covid-19 risk assessments prepared in consultation with employees and unions. There are also various forms of guidance which, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Blencathra, can contain anomalies. But the economy needs to open up. Bars and pubs must be part of the revival and regeneration, whether by young people, tourists or those of us at a more stately stage of life. The Local Government Association has, rightly, supported the Bill, including pavement licensing freedoms, and we need to get on with turning it into law.

Finally, I did not get a chance to say so, but I will be returning to digital verification on Report, as there is more to be done—and quickly.

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe. Like her, I absolutely recognise the economic imperatives behind the Bill, including this part of it. In your Lordships’ House we have excellent spokespeople for disabled people and real expertise, ranging from a colleague with enormous Olympic achievements to the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, who I congratulate on his admirable—if uncharacteristic—feat of pedantry in this debate, showing the absurdity of some of the rules. I support the notion that there should be the best possible uniform standard for enabling disabled people to negotiate our streets and built environment, even when economic imperatives lead to the opening up of those streets for eating, drinking and café society.

I will add a comment on Amendments 6, 7 and 8. There are good reasons for planning restrictions, and we do not want to see our built environment damaged significantly as a result of the economic imperatives that we are following. In particular, we need to protect the peace of places where people live and not see them turned into drinking streets because they happen to have a couple of pubs in the vicinity. I therefore support the requirement set out in Amendments 6, 7 and 8 for a proper consultation period.

Because of the internet, everybody knows that it is necessary at the current time to curtail some of the more officious parts of planning law, I would regard 14 days, rather than a week, as a reasonable period. However, it is important for such applications to be screened on the internet by local authorities, which can do it very easily, and for people to be given a meaningful number of days in which to make their representation. That would enable local authorities to make a quick assessment of the level of objections, if there were any, and to make an empirical judgment, rather than reacting only to the economic imperatives. I will keep back some of the things I want to say on similar issues to the debate on the next group of amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe [V]]

My Lords, I rise to express my doubts about this amendment, because the Bill contains temporary measures. We should put liberalisation to the fore, as argued by my noble friend Lady Noakes on an earlier amendment, and should not be using this Bill to make major policy changes.

My grandmother was a smoker and died of lung cancer shortly before I was born—a great sadness, as she was a founder of the CPRE and a great cook. However, this has made me very aware of the right way to encourage the reduction in smoking. I do not believe in total bans, which drive smoking underground. The truth is that smokers are still able to smoke in the open outside some pubs and bars, so they come, sit outside well away from others and support the hospitality sector—as I saw on Saturday outside the coffee shops in Salisbury marketplace. A proper study and assessment of what this measure would mean cannot be done for a temporary Bill. It would certainly affect pubs and other outlets, but we do not know what the possible impact would be, given that we are talking about people gathering together in the open air.

More generally, I feel that noble Lords have not grasped the gravity and immediacy of the economic disaster enveloping this country as a result of Covid. The various measures and amendments before us could make things worse—for example, by hitting pub numbers and, indeed, driving smokers away from the open air that is better for their health. I believe that this should be a matter for local authorities and that we should not be embarking on a major change in this temporary Bill.

[Lord Clement-Jones [V]]

My Lords, I am speaking very strongly in favour of Amendment 18, so cogently introduced by my noble friend Lady Northover. This debate takes me back almost 20 years to the passage of my Private Member’s Bill, which became the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002. It had cross-party support and the very effective backing of Action on Smoking and Health, as does today’s amendment.

My noble friend Lady Northover was extremely helpful then, as were the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, and the late Lord Peston, who we all remember so fondly. The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, was a lot less constructive. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, was on patrol. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, kicked the tyres on the Bill very hard but was persuaded of its merits—as I hope he and his ministerial colleagues will be by this amendment today.

Our culture and, in particular, the balance between smokers and non-smokers, has changed dramatically since those days. I remember visiting Ireland with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, shortly after the passage of the Bill. The scales fell from our eyes about the possibility of smoke-free pubs and restaurants—and now, as a result, our health benefits hugely.

Clause 5 already sets out that conditions can be put on pavement licences by local authorities or the Secretary of State. As the LGA says, this amendment

“sets a level playing field for hospitality venues across the country”.

It wants national action. This is crucial, as my noble friend Lady Northover explained, to ensure consistency and clarity of regulation across the country for the hospitality trade. It also has the public health benefit of protecting people from unwanted second-hand smoke.

As ASH says, Covid-19 has changed the context completely. Access to indoor smoke-free areas in hospitality venues is limited and riskier as a result. Prohibition of smoking in enclosed areas has displaced it outdoors, particularly to areas around the entrances and exits to public buildings. If smoking is not prohibited, pavement areas will not be family-friendly spaces. They will exclude non-smokers from enjoying the benefit of eating and drinking outside. Neighbouring premises, particularly in cramped, inner city areas, will also be exposed to second-hand smoke.

This is a chance to ensure that the health gains of the 2002 Act and the Health Act 2006—which has had great public support, as my noble friend said, with smoking declining significantly among young people in particular—are not squandered and that the Government can realise their stated ambition for England to be smoke-free by 2030.

Social Housing

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

It is fair to say that the record of this Government is quite impressive when compared with the previous decade under Labour. Some 450,000 affordable homes is considerably more than the 399,000 built during the years 2000 to 2010. Of course, the Chancellor has already set out a considerable sum of money—an unprecedented sum of £12 billion—for the affordable homes programme and, by lifting the housing revenue account borrowing cap, many local authorities are now building council homes again. Although we are waiting on the social housing White Paper, a lot has been done to ensure the continued supply of affordable housing and social rented housing.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con) [V]]

With more and more demand for accessible homes for the elderly and the disabled—a need that has been highlighted by Covid—has the Minister seen Habinteg’s analysis of local plans? It shows that, of the 2.4 million homes already planned for by 2030, only 20% are expected to meet the Part M4(2) accessible and adaptable standards and that a mere 2% will meet the needs of wheelchair users in Part M4(3). What steps will my noble friend the Minister be taking to remedy this, either in the White Paper or perhaps more broadly?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

My noble friend makes an important point about the accessibility of social housing, and I will write to her about the specific measures we will be taking. I can say that, as well as accessibility, it is of course important that we continue to build supported housing for the elderly, and the supply of that should feature as a very important part of local plans.

Covid-19: Housing

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

The noble Lord is right that the local plan process is extremely important. As the Building Safety Minister, ensuring that we build homes of high quality is paramount to me. We will shortly be introducing into legislation the biggest shake up of the regulatory system to ensure that we have buildings of the highest possible quality.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

As the Secretary of State said so eloquently in his Statement:

“A home is more than four walls and a roof. It is a sanctuary, a form of protection and the link to your community.”—[Official Report, Commons, 13/5/20; col. 258.]


Does my noble friend agree that the overwhelming need now is to move as quickly as possible to normality in the housing market and that, in ensuring the safety of everyone, as we must, we should apply the common sense that the Prime Minister has sensibly advocated?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

The noble Baroness is right. It is time to return to normality as quickly as we can but we need to ensure that it is safe to do so. We need to recognise, as the Secretary of State said in his Written Ministerial Statement, that over 450 sales have been stuck in the system, unable to be addressed, and a substantial number of rentals have not gone ahead. Every month some 300,000 tenancies come up for renewal. At the same time, we know the contribution that the construction sector makes to our economy and the need to get new homes built. That needs to happen safely but it needs to happen as soon as possible.

Housing and Construction Sector

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will lift all of the restrictions in place on the housing and construction sectors as a result of COVID-19.

The Question was considered in a Virtual Proceeding via video call.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

My Lords, reopening the housing market and starting construction are mission-critical for our economy. Yesterday, the Government announced a plan to enable people to move home safely and to restart the housing market. This included new guidance to allow extended working hours on construction sites and help for the planning system to operate remotely, alongside the launch of a joint safe-working charter with the Home Builders Federation, supporting homebuilders to return to work safely; 100 separate organisations have signed up to this charter.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, this is a lucky day for me and for my noble friend the new Minister on the occasion of his first Oral Question. My Question, tabled a month ago, has been magically answered by some very welcome easing of Covid-related restrictions on homes and construction. I congratulate the Government on both. With so many people staying at home, and light traffic nationwide, does the Minister agree that now is the time to accelerate work on major construction projects and digital networks, and to push for the completion of 300,000 new homes a year?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

I thank my noble friend for my first Oral Question. I agree with her sentiments. Obviously, this has to be done safely. We know that building 100,000 new homes contributes 1% of GDP. We also know that the construction sector employs 3.2 million people. We want to push ahead as safely as possible within Public Health England guidance.