Green Spaces

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to increase the number of locally available and easily accessible green spaces.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

Our environmental improvement plan includes a commitment that everyone should live within a 15-minute walk of a green or blue space and includes measures to reduce barriers which prevent people accessing them. Progress on this commitment is well under way through the levelling up parks fund, the green infrastructure framework, the urban trees challenge fund, the Access for All programme and the woodland access implementation plan.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords—

[Earl Russell (LD)]

I thank the Minister for the response. I warmly welcome this commitment; it is extremely important. However, 38% of people do not have access to green or blue space. Those who are economically marginalised have the least access of all. Access to green space is vital for our physical, mental and general well-being. Can the Minister confirm what proposals the Government have to deliver the target and when they expect to make progress?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, one of the programmes I mentioned in my initial Answer, the levelling up parks fund, is focused specifically on grants given to and administered by local authorities to deliver new or improved green spaces in more than 100 of the neighbourhoods most deprived of green spaces across the UK. Some 92% of recipients of that funding have reported increases in access to green spaces in deprived urban areas. That is one example of how we are delivering on that commitment. I also reassure the noble Earl that we are working across government to ensure that there is a robust baseline for measuring that commitment, so that we can report on progress in future.

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, I give my sincere apologies to the House for jumping in prematurely; as a Deputy Speaker, I ought to know better. Is my noble friend aware of the value of private gardens as green spaces, particularly in urban areas? Will she try to discourage householders from concreting over their front gardens?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the Government absolutely acknowledge the role that private gardens have to play as part of our overall green space and open space. The importance of our green spaces is of course reflected in the NPPF and other government guidance for planning.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, when I was chair of the London Food Board, we created 2,012 new growing spaces in London in the years leading up to the Olympics. There are still 2,500 of them—200 acres of London—producing an extraordinary amount of food, mostly in areas of most deprivation. The key to getting these places going was a thing called a “meanwhile lease”, which is different from an allotment because no council or building company will give anyone space in perpetuity. I have been trying to get the Government to adopt an amendment saying that meanwhile leases should be encouraged and made mandatory for all councils. Will the Government agree to look at that now? It is a very easy and effective way to give people of all denominations access to green space and their own healthy food.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I am happy to look in more detail at the proposal put forward by the noble Baroness and to write to her on what the Government can do in this area.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister talks about open green space, but many urban areas do not have any, as we have heard. Is there a case for allowing some development in the green belt if the developer agrees to have green space in urban areas for people to access?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I do not believe it should be an either/or. The green belt is rightly protected, and the Government’s approach to that is set out clearly. For urban green space, that is also reflected in the National Planning Policy Framework. It is clear that access to high-quality open spaces and opportunities for sport and physical activity are important to the health and well-being of communities. Planning policies and decisions should enable the retention and development of accessible open spaces. That is what local plans should seek to do.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the environmental improvement plan is an example of this rubbish Government actually coming up with some good ideas. But, despite the fact that this plan is good particularly for deprived communities, children and biodiversity, there is a problem. Is it perhaps the fact that this Government have slashed funding to councils that has made progress so slow?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I have set out a number of different ways that we are supporting this commitment. On local government funding, the provisional local government finance settlement for next year announced a substantial funding package for councils, worth more than £64.1 billion—£4 billion more than last year. But, having listened to councils, a further £600 million was announced at the end of January. So we are providing the funding to councils to help support their important role in delivering this.

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, many homes have only small gardens, or none at all. Grass playgrounds with trees give children open and safe places to play and run around. Will the Minister tell the House whether local authorities are responsible for maintaining the environment and safety of these local playgrounds? Can she confirm which government department is responsible for their safety?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

It will depend on the particular arrangements for each park or playground, but local authorities are responsible for around 85% of urban parks in England. On which department is responsible, it is my department, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, why are the Government intent on wrecking the only available green space near Parliament, Victoria Tower Gardens, which serves an underprivileged population? They are doing it contrary to the 1900 Act, which preserved it as an open space, in order to build an ugly memorial and an inadequate learning centre that is too small and not wanted by Holocaust survivors.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, on the legal point, I believe the department is bringing forward legislation to address that. I am sure there will be further discussion of the points the noble Baroness makes when we discuss that Bill.

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, it was welcome to see the introduction of funding for opening new permissive access in the latest update to the agricultural transition plan, released in January. According to the Ramblers, access to public rights of way and the time in nature that they provide is deeply unequal. Can the Minister explain how this funding will be steered towards routes that are most needed, and how she will ensure that these new routes are of sufficiently high quality to be accessible to as many people as possible?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I will need to write to the right reverend Prelate on the specific details that she asked for. But I reassure her that making our green spaces more accessible is a key focus of government funding and programmes. For example, the Access for All programme and the woodland access implementation plan look at how we can make our green spaces, urban and rural, more accessible to all sorts of people. The Access for All programme, for example, is £14.5 million worth of accessibility improvements in our protected landscapes, national trails, forests and wider countryside.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned the worrying figure that 38% of people in this country live more than 15 minutes from a green or blue space. Our new town, Stevenage, has green space accessible to all and five Green Flag parks, including the wonderful Fairlands Valley. Does the Minister agree with me that a new generation of new towns would enable planners to start tackling the housing crisis, as well as delivering homes with access to green space that families need?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I agree with the noble Baroness that, in any new development, it is important that access to green and open space is properly taken into account. That is why it is reflected in the NPPF; it is also recognised in programmes such as the Green Flag Award scheme that the noble Baroness mentioned. We also have the green infrastructure framework, which was launched by Natural England in January last year, to help local authorities and developers incorporate green infrastructure into development plans to improve access to nature on our doorsteps and build resilience to climate change.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, further to the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, does my noble friend agree that Victoria Tower Gardens is indeed a locally available and easily accessible green space, hugely popular with local residents and tourists? Every statutory body that has been consulted, including the local authority, is opposed to any unnecessary development of Victoria Tower Gardens.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I hope my noble friend will forgive me if I am not drawn any further on this question. There are two separate matters that need to be dealt with here. One is the legislation that is being brought forward to address the legal issues regarding that land, and the other is a separate planning decision that will be taken. All of these facts will be properly taken into account in both those processes.

Teesworks Joint Venture

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Tuesday 30th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement. What a sad state of affairs it is that a vital and very large regeneration project in the north-east of England has to be the subject of an independent government review because of justified public criticism and concern.

The Financial Times and the Yorkshire Post have both, independently, been investigating the decisions made by the mayor and the development corporation. Senior investigative journalists with considerable experience have been seeking answers to basic questions of openness and probity in relation to the mayor, the development corporation, the joint venture and the local councils. They were absolutely right to do so. What is more, this report confirms their claims.

Unfortunately, this Statement seeks to draw a veil over the very serious conclusions drawn by the independent panel. The starting point is that the Tees Valley project is funded by hundreds of millions of pounds of public money, either from government grant or local prudential borrowing. The investment of public money rightly brings with it higher levels of transparency, challenge and probity.

There are 28 recommendations in the report, and they reveal a damning indictment of the process and procedures adopted by the mayor and the STDC with the joint venture company. The report states that the panel is not confident that

“we have been given access to all relevant materials”,

and that

“we have not been able to pursue all lines of evidence or examine all transactions”.

Anyone reading that will know that the panel is greatly concerned that there is much more to be investigated. My first question to the Minister is whether the panel will be given more time to examine those areas that have yet to be covered, or, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, suggested, whether the NAO will be asked to investigate.

In its own words, the panel focused on just six areas, the main one being the establishment of the joint venture. Initially, this was a 50:50 deal between the public and private sectors, and that is a common arrangement for such schemes. However, the arrangement morphed into a 90:10 split, with the private sector taking the 90%. The report states that

“there is no formal partnership agreement that sets out the obligations of the JV partners, although it is clear that the JV Partners are heavily influential within the operations of the Teesworks site”.

My second question is whether the Minister concurs that there is no such formal agreement. If so, will the Government demand that there is one, and that that agreement will be open to public scrutiny?

One of the curious decisions made by the Teesside mayor and the combined authority is the appointment of two individuals as partners in the joint venture. In my experience, this is highly unusual in publicly funded projects. My third question is therefore whether a joint venture with individuals is in the best interests of transparency.

I turn to my fourth question. Following the report’s statement that the panel were “surprised” that, when the joint venture was set up in 2020, the report doing so

“contains so little detailed explanation and implies that there aren’t any material implications directly arising from this change in approach”,

even though the result of the joint venture was that

“two or three privately owned companies would likely receive significant financial returns”.

This was indeed the outcome. Can the Minister tell the House whether the balance of reward and liability detailed in the report is a fair one, and one which gives best value to public money?

There are myriad questions that require an answer from the Government. My next question concerns the liabilities apparently unknowingly acquired by the local councils and the Tees Valley Combined Authority. The first two recommendations of the report focus on the issue of who makes the gains and who holds the losses. My fifth question is this: does the Minister agree that passing on liabilities to local authorities while local government is in such a parlous financial state is, at the least, poor management, and, at worst, a deliberate ploy to shoulder local authorities with liabilities that are not rightly theirs?

I turn to my sixth and final question. Will the Minister agree to return to the House with a progress report on the implementation of all 28 recommendations, as I note the mayor has accepted these recommendations only “in principle”? Those of us who care deeply about good governance, probity in the use of public money and transparent decision-making want to see these recommendations implemented in full.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their questions. Before I turn to the specific points, it is worth reminding the House of the context of both the review and the work being done in Tees Valley by the development corporation.

Remediating and regenerating the former Redcar steelworks is a highly complex brownfield regeneration opportunity. The alternative is a massive liability to taxpayers in clean-up costs and an annual multimillion pound bill just to maintain a highly contaminated site. Most importantly, as my noble friend Lord Heseltine said in his 2016 report on the Tees Valley, the site is also part of a much bigger picture, which provides an opportunity for regeneration that is unrivalled in size and scale and also in potential opportunity, as we are seeing with development of the freeport in the area.

In June last year, at the request of the Tees Valley mayor, my noble friend Lord Houchen, an extraordinary independent review was launched by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. That review was commissioned in response to and to consider the serious allegations of corruption and illegality made by a Labour Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. The findings of the review are clear on this point: those allegations are not true. The panel found no evidence of corruption or illegality. In addition, the panel also made a series of recommendations aiming to strengthen governance and increase transparency. We welcome this oversight, as does the mayor, who has confirmed that he intends in principle to accept all the recommendations relevant to him and his authority. There were two recommendations relevant to central government. We will carefully consider how to support the continued success of mayoral development corporations and the recommendation regarding the landfill tax.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked a series of specific questions about the report’s recommendations. It is right that the panel has considered a number of specific issues in the development of its conclusions and recommendations. The next steps are that the Secretary of State has written to the Tees Valley mayor, asking him to respond to the panel’s recommendations within six weeks, and it would not be right at this time for me to comment any further on specific examples quoted. It is important that the combined authority shows progress, and we will wait to see its proposals before deciding on further action. However, I am confident that the mayor will take these recommendations seriously and I look forward to receiving that update. It is only right that we give the mayor, working with partners, time to reflect on the panel’s report. We will review his reflections and response to the Secretary of State before setting out any further action that may be needed.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked whether the NAO would now be asked to come in and do a further report in this area. The Secretary of State considered at the time of the review the suggestion that the NAO should undertake this review. However, it is not its role to audit or examine individual local authorities, and its powers would not normally be used for that purpose. Instead, the Secretary of State appointed a panel of three independent local government experts. It would therefore be duplicative and wasteful to commission a second review. The NAO said it would use our review to understand the implications for its other work programmes.

While the origination of the review is unique in that it was a request from the mayor, the form of the review is similar to others commissioned by the department, including in Croydon, Nottingham, Slough and Woking. We are taking a similar approach to other cases in relation to the next steps following the review by asking the mayor to respond to the Secretary of State about how he intends to respond to the review’s recommendations.

The noble Baroness also asked whether people were free to give evidence to the review, and in particular about the use of non-disclosure agreements. The panel chair has confirmed that she is not aware of any party who could not speak to the review or provide information due to a non-disclosure agreement. She is right that in the review it is stated that one former monitoring officer was invited to interview but declined because they felt their professional duties barred them from participating in the review, but that was not the subject of an NDA. Indeed, Tees Valley combined authority confirmed to the panel that it had informed the individual that it had no objection to them participating in the review.

It is also important in that context and in the context of the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about whether the panel had sufficient information to draw conclusions from the review and sufficient time to conduct it, to give the full quote:

“We have however secured sufficient consistent evidence to support our conclusions. We have found no evidence of corruption or illegality. We have identified a need to strengthen governance and increase transparency which can be done with limited impact on pace of delivery”.


The noble Baroness was right that the panel could not follow every lead; none the less, it stated that it had confidence in its findings based on the evidence that it had.

In terms of the timing of the review, I understand that it was totally independent of government; the panel was given sufficient time to conduct the review in the way that it wanted and gather the evidence it felt it needed to draw its conclusions. There was no constraint on the panel in that respect.

Finally, I turn to the questions of private involvement in the redevelopment of the Tees Valley, which is essential, as well as value for money and the public benefit that will come from the regeneration project. It is important to acknowledge that, after SSI’s collapse, the Government took on the responsibility for the site via the receivership process. They spent around £18 million annually just to keep the site secure and manage the worst hazards, including explosion and pollution risks for local populations. The site has required investment to clean up and an important principle of devolution is that decisions are taken locally to benefit local people.

While regeneration is still in its early stages and it is too early to make such an assessment on value for money, the report has identified that a number of benefits have already been achieved, including: 17% of the land already under contract, with a further 40% at heads of terms; 940 construction jobs, plus a further 1,950 recently announced; 2,295 direct and 3,890 indirect jobs created once the sites are operational; 450 acres of land remediated or in remediation; £1.3 billion of business rate income potential over the next 40 years, with a further £1.4 billion at heads of terms; and a new £450 million quay.

So both noble Baronesses are right to say that at the heart of this issue are the people of Teesside and the potential value of that site. The figures I quoted show some of the benefits that we are beginning to derive from this major project. We welcome the scrutiny of the panel, and I place on record our great thanks to the three-strong panel for their thorough work: Angie Ridgwell, the chief executive of Lancashire county council, Richard Paver, previously the first treasurer of the Greater Manchester combined authority, and Quentin Baker, the director of law and governance at Hertfordshire county council.

Tees Valley has a proud industrial history, and the Government are committed to giving it the proudest possible future, putting it front and centre of our mission to level up the country.

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

The Minister said it was not the National Audit Office’s role to investigate individual authorities—or something like that—but the report has revealed at least massive financial mismanagement of this project. It seems that, since the report was published, further calls to the National Audit Office to investigate this have been made. Why will the Government not accept them?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My answer is the same as before: the Secretary of State, at the time of the review, considered the suggestion that the NAO undertake the review. But it is not its role to audit or examine individual local authorities, and its powers would not normally be used for that purpose. The process that has been followed for this review has been followed for other reviews of local authorities when looking at such issues. We followed the normal process in this instance.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Minister’s Statement and the robust and comprehensive report of the panel. Does she agree that, particularly in the other place, elected representatives have a special responsibility to judiciously use parliamentary privilege? I think I can say that as a former Member of the other place, and now a Member of your Lordships’ House. In future we need to learn lessons from this situation. Aspersions were cast and accusations were made of illegality against a Member of your Lordships’ House. More importantly, it did real damage to inward investment and future business in the Tees Valley. That is obviously to be regretted.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that it is a matter of regret that those allegations were made, in the terms that they were made. It is incredibly serious to allege corruption and illegality. The findings of the review are absolutely clear on this; the review found no evidence of corruption or illegality.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I am afraid that allegations of illegality and corruption were not the only allegations that led to this review. There were also allegations of a lack of transparency and—as a taxpayer in Tees Valley myself; my family have lived there for generations—there is a great deal of concern about a lack of value for money for taxpayers. Those complaints have been upheld by this report. On various occasions in the run-up to this review, the Mayor of Tees Valley asserted that there could not have been any wrongdoing because an official from the Government was involved in the decisions that were found so lacking by this review. Would the Minister like to comment on that?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

As I said in my original response, the Government welcome the recommendations on strengthening governance and transparency. We welcome the oversight that this review has provided in those terms. I think the noble Baroness might be referring to the fact that the government official is a member of the board of the development authority. When a government official is a member on a board, in examples such as this, their role is as an observer. In this case, however, the panel noted examples of questions being raised by that government member as part of that review.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I would like to directly quote from the report because the devil is always in the detail:

“The JV partners are clearly astute, commercial businessmen. They have a clear business model whereby they support distressed businesses and do not accept liabilities until they are satisfied they can hedge investment against secure income streams … At this juncture, the JV partners have put no direct cash into the project and have received nearly £45m in dividends and payments, and hold £63m of cash … in TWL accounts”.


This is on the back of £500 million-worth of public sector investment, which made those strips of land ready for the private sector operators to make these profits. Does this kind of approach show the principles of good and ethical public sector procurement that gives value to the taxpayer? If not, what will the Government do to ensure that this kind of deal does not happen again—not just in Teesside, but in any mayoral authority?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, as I have set out, there have already been clear public benefits to the redevelopment in Teesside. On the question of involving private partners in this work, the report sets out very clearly that the business case was clear: public sector funding would not be sufficient to complete remediation of the site and a private sector partner would be required. There are lessons to be learned from this report; the Government have been clear on that. That is why we have given the Mayor of Tees Valley time to consider the recommendations in the report, as the vast majority are for the mayor and combined authority. We will then look at those responses and consider the recommendations for the Government alongside that and take forward a process for improving accountability and transparency in this instance.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on the investment they have made and for the review panel they held. I will ask a slightly different question. Those of us in North Yorkshire feel a little like the poor relations, because a lot of investment has gone into Tees Valley. We are about to have elections for a North Yorkshire and York mayor. If my reading of the orders setting up the mayor are correct, we will not be in receipt of any government funds; we will have to raise our own money to pay for infrastructure, transport and other services. Is my understanding correct, and does it not seem a little unfair that we could not have even a small proportion of the money that has gone into Tees Valley?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the decision to set up the North Yorkshire and York Mayoral Combined Authority was taken in combination with the elected representatives and local councils in that area, which all agreed to it. Part of those discussions was around funding, and it is right that we take forward what was agreed as part of that package. Of course, a vast range of different funds are available to combined authorities and local authorities to benefit from, including our levelling-up funding, and those opportunities will continue in future.

[Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that the Oral Statement is all but a total whitewash? None of the issues raised in questions to the Minister was covered in it. Can she specifically explain what the issues were that resulted in the Secretary of State requesting the panel to make recommendations on strengthening governance and increasing transparency? From that, we must assume that very real concerns were held by the Secretary of State that were not covered in the Oral Statement.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, my understanding of the genesis of the report is that it was requested by the Tees Valley Mayor himself to allow a response to the very serious allegations made by a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons about corruption and illegality. Those allegations have been found to be untrue.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

My Lords, I know that the Minister takes seriously the importance of this project for Teesside, but I do not recognise anything that she said about those parts of the report that are excoriating in their description of how public and private money has been handled. It states that

“most decisions are vested in a small number of individuals. This together with the limited reporting means that there is not a robustness within the system. Inappropriate decisions and a lack of transparency which fail to guard against allegations of wrongdoing are occurring, and the principles of spending public money are not being consistently observed”.

That is pretty serious, and I am sure that she must recognise that.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I absolutely recognise the issues raised by the independent panel. It has clearly considered a number of specific issues, and the Secretary of State has written to the Tees Valley Mayor asking him to respond to the panel’s recommendations within six weeks. It is not right for me at this time to comment further on specific examples, but it is important that the combined authority shows progress. We will wait to see its own proposals before deciding on any further action. It is worth making sure that the report is taken in its full context and that we look at the full picture. Another quote from the report that may be useful is:

“There are many voices which articulate a positive view of the project, highlighting the work that has been done and the clear evidence of the achievements which have been made in regenerating an historic part of the UK’s industrial heritage, the final demise of which, in 2015/16 had devastating results for a community that had been badly affected by the changing global patterns of industrial production. A significant amount of regeneration of the area has occurred and new businesses are moving in bringing jobs and other collateral benefits for the local area”.

[Lord Udny-Lister (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the report also clearly shows that the site was costing the Government £20 million? I went to the site in my former role as chairman of the Homes and Communities Agency many years ago. The report shows that there are now 9,000 jobs on the site and nearly £1.5 billion-worth of business rates being created, yet there is an awful lot being said here in criticism of something that is actually showing real levelling up taking place.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that the cost of not going ahead would not have been not nothing but an annual cost to the taxpayer with no benefit whatever—it was just keeping the site safe. I have just quoted the report’s recognition of the regeneration that has started at that site. Benefits to the area have begun to accrue in terms of jobs, potential business rates and wealth generation that we would not have seen if action had not been taken to reinvigorate the largest site, in Europe at least, in terms of the need for regeneration.

[Baroness Ford (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that the hollowing out of local government audits since the abolition of the Audit Commission has led to serious deficiencies in financial control in the audit of complex joint ventures such as this? It is simply not acceptable that we leave a situation where we have no capacity to understand the obligations and accountabilities of joint venture partners. What are the Government proposing to do about that as a result of this review?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The Government do not agree with that position. The Audit Commission was bureaucratic; it tied up local government with tick-box exercises rather than having real value. That is why it was abolished. It is right that we have the proper processes in place to ensure proper accountability, transparency and value for money. We believe that can be done through local processes. We will obviously look at the recommendations in the report, including those for central government, and take those into account as we continue to take our work forward.

[Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, would it be reasonable for this House to expect the mayor, who, as the Minister said, is a Member of this House, to perhaps attend this debate and answer some of the questions?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, this Statement repeat is by the Government to respond on their position on this report. As I have set out, the Secretary of State has written to the mayor and asked for his response to its recommendations within six weeks. We will then consider any further steps that need to be taken and make sure that the House is updated appropriately.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, there are many areas of concern that are yet to be covered by any investigation. Indeed, the report notes that many issues raised by third parties were outside the scope of its review, such as those raised regarding wildlife die-off and health and safety. There were, of course, many grave concerns and a tragedy of two men dying on the site. There were subsequent accidents where an excavator fell into the river with the driver inside, and dangerous exposure to benzine. There must be concern about whether the remediation of the site has been carried out properly. What further plans do the Government have to look into all those other issues raised locally, which remain concerns and which the report has not covered?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I do not believe that there are any further plans to cover any further reviews.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, the report says clearly that the measures in place

“do not meet the standards expected when managing public funds”.

I have read the recommendations and I look forward to the mayor’s response to them. Does the Minister think that, outside of the mayor’s response, the Government have a duty to ensure that this kind of practice does not continue and that there is training or perhaps some intervention from the Government? The Government have to take some of the responsibility here, because they have allowed a situation to evolve where the standards that we would expect for managing public funds have not been met. For all we know, because of the lack of transparency, this situation could be replicated in other areas.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I say to the noble Baroness that we have considered the panel’s findings against the draft best value guidance, which was published in July 2023, and concluded that they do not meet the test for urgent intervention. The panel makes a number of recommendations for the combined authority, the development corporation and other partners, and some for government. We are now giving the mayor and partners time to reflect on the panel’s report. We have asked him to write to us and set out his action plan for responding to the recommendations within six weeks. One of the recommendations for government was around the clarity of legislation in this area and oversight arrangements. We will take that away and look at it carefully, because that is an area, for example, that could have read- across to other development corporations or combined authorities.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

The Minister has mentioned a number of benefits—and no one disputes that regeneration benefits are required—but does she accept that those benefits have come totally on the back of public sector investment and that, as the report says, no private sector investment has gone towards them, yet still the liabilities for the land, if not used, lie with the public sector? That is the correct position, is it not?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The reality is that a project of this size will require significant public sector investment, which has taken place, but the review is also clear that remediation of this size and scale would not be able to take place without private partners also participating. We are making sure that we look at the lessons that we can learn from this review, but it is also important to consider both the option of doing nothing, which would have come at a multibillion-pound cost to the public purse, and the benefits that people in the local area are already reaping from the investment that has come in to date.

[Lord Lennie (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, asked about the lack of the audit function in local authorities. The Minister said that the Government had put “processes in place” to replace the Audit Commission. Can she explain what those processes are, and whether they will now be involved in investigating financial management in this Tees Valley development corporation?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the Audit Commission regulated, micro-managed and inspected local councils, forcing them to spend time ticking boxes and filling in forms rather than getting on with the business of local government. It hindered transparency and scrutiny. Local government can put in its own systems of local authority financial reporting and audit to ensure that it is accountable for spending public money effectively.

With regard to transparency functions, there is Oflog—the new data-driven organisation that will provide transparent and authoritative sources of information for the performance of local government. This will, however, be vastly different to how the Audit Commission operated, which imposed compliance requirements on local authorities and conducted routine inspections.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have not heard anyone advocating for the Audit Commission; what we have been saying is that, since the Audit Commission went, the private sector auditors who have been appointed have struggled to deal with the complexities of joint venture auditing. That is the issue. With that in mind, will the Minister reflect on the quite exceptional circumstances of this case and whether it might justify a more detailed audit review by the National Audit Office? Has she had a response to the request from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, that we hear back once the mayor has had a chance to consider his response to the 28 recommendations in the review?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I am afraid that I will have to disappoint the noble Baroness on her first question. We will not be referring this matter to the NAO. However, as I said in my initial response, the NAO has said that it will reflect on the findings of the review for its own programme of work. Of course, when the Government receive their response from the mayor and partners, we will reflect on what that means for next steps and will make sure that the House is kept up to date on what they are.

Representation of the People (Postal and Proxy Voting etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Penn]

That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 11 December 2023 be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 23 January.

Motion agreed.

Representation of the People (Postal and Proxy Voting etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Penn]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Representation of the People (Postal and Proxy Voting etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2024.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, this instrument makes changes to correct minor errors in the Representation of the People (Postal and Proxy Voting etc) (Amendment) Regulations 2023—or the 2023 regulations, as I will refer to them—in relation to how the transitional arrangements for the new rules concerning proxy voting are displayed on poll cards.

The Elections Act 2022 set out a wide range of changes to numerous aspects of the electoral system. This included changes to the rules surrounding the number of people for whom an individual can act as a proxy when voting. The changes were implemented by the 2023 regulations that I have just referred to and are supported by new offences. They came into force on 31 October 2023.

The new arrangements limit the number of electors for whom a person may act as a proxy to four, of which no more than two can be domestic electors—that is, an elector who is not registered as an overseas or service voter. The 2023 regulations also updated all relevant prescribed forms, for example poll cards, to make sure that the new limits are clearly explained to electors.

To ensure a smooth change of rules, the 2023 regulations set out a transition period, which would allow proxy arrangements that had been set up prior to the new rules coming into force to continue until 31 January 2024, and longer if a poll were already under way on that date. This was to avoid a cliff edge where all pre-existing proxy arrangements were cancelled simultaneously, which could create administrative issues and could leave insufficient time for electors to reapply for new proxy arrangements.

The change in proxy rules also needed to be reflected in the information provided on elections forms, such as poll cards, and these needed to be updated for polls held during the transition period as well as for polls held after it. The 2023 regulations provided the necessary updates for the forms used for any polls for which notice was given prior to 31 January 2024—that is, until the end of the transition period. The forms for postal poll cards and proxy postal poll cards for any polls held after the transition period are set out in a different set of regulations: the Representation of the People (Postal Vote Handling and Secrecy) (Amendment) Regulations 2023. However, these forms do not come into force for any polls where the day of the poll is prior to 1 May 2024. There is therefore a gap in the transitional provisions for any polls for which notice is given on or after 31 January 2024 and the day of poll is on or before 1 May 2024 where no transitional provision has been given. Any polls taking place during this time would have to use the postal poll cards and proxy postal poll cards used prior to the 2023 regulations coming into force, which would provide incorrect information on the rules and offences surrounding proxy voting.

The same gap applies in respect of postal signing petition notices and proxy postal signing petition notices for any recall petition for which the Speaker’s notice is given on or after 31 January 2024 and for which the beginning of the petition signing period is on or before 1 May 2024.

This instrument will correct the error in the 2023 regulations by adding updated information about the new voting offences for persons voting by proxy to postal poll cards and proxy postal poll cards for polls that are commenced and held during this gap. This will ensure that the proxy voting changes are clearly explained to electors and so avoid any confusion.

The instrument also amends two minor typographical errors in the 2023 regulations. I beg to move.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister need not fear that I will ask any particularly difficult, tricky or awkward questions on this legislation. There is a simple explanation for that: I could not think of any. I looked at the proceedings in Committee in the other place, and nor could anyone there, so I will confine my remarks simply to a question and an observation. The observation is that we seem to have had a lot of changes to election law in the year before a general election. Does the Minister accept that there may be a greater risk of an error in the conduct of our elections as a result of the large number of changes to election law being made in the year before a general election, and with local elections in May? Could she tell us—perhaps she will write to us in due course—how many pages of legislation are in the secondary legislation instruments brought before us in the last 12 months? It seems a lot of pages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their succinct contributions to the debate. As noted, this statutory instrument makes minor changes to correct an error in previous ones. However, both noble Lords noted the changes that we have made through the Elections Act and those we are bringing forward through secondary legislation. When it comes to this statutory instrument, electoral law is complex and highly detailed as a result of the need to ensure that all processes are carried out in a specific fashion consistently across the country. When drafting legislation in a complex area of law such as this, small errors can occasionally occur. Through the regulations we are debating today, we are able to correct that error before it has any impact.

We are conscious of the changes that we have brought forward through the Elections Act, but we have worked carefully to sequence their implementation. Both noble Lords asked about the number of changes being made and the support and engagement we are giving to those implementing them. We are engaged carefully with those implementing the changes; we receive constant feedback from them. As I said, we have carefully sequenced the changes that we are seeking to make, conscious that we may be coming up to an election year. Of course, there is an outside chance that 2025 could be the election year, and recent experience tells us that elections can be called earlier than we may anticipate, so there is not necessarily a good time to make these changes. We also have to take into account the regular drum beat of local and mayoral elections.

On the question of resources, we have done a new burdens assessment and assigned additional resources to local authorities to make some of the changes, and they are able to apply for further funding where needed.

On the question of whether there will be any more regulations stemming from the Elections Act before the elections in May, my understanding is that there will be no further statutory instruments. As to whether we have looked at related changes that may need to be made in other statutory instruments, my understanding is that some of these provisions in relation to local elections and others were made through negative SIs, and we have already reviewed and amended them where necessary to reflect the changes that we have had to make through this correction.

Finally, I do not know whether anyone has counted the number of pages of secondary legislation, but I will go to find out, and if I can provide an answer for the noble Lord, I will certainly write to both noble Lords with that figure. With that, I commend these regulations to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Intergovernmental Relations Within the United Kingdom

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, for securing this important debate. I also thank all noble Lords for their contributions. As the noble Earl and others have said, this is a timely debate and many noble Lords have said that that is because of the publication today of the report by the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales. I hope noble Lords will forgive me if I do not comment on that report. Not only is it hot off the press but, as it was commissioned by the Welsh Government, it is for them to respond in the first instance.

However, I of course acknowledge that many of the issues that we are discussing today and have heard about in this debate cross over with the issues discussed in that report, which is relevant and significant to our debate today. Our debate is also timely because this year we celebrate 25 years since the four Governments of the United Kingdom started to work together under the umbrella known as “intergovernmental relations” and we are two years into the new arrangements for those arrangements, so it is a good opportunity to take stock.

Every week, we see Ministers and officials across the United Kingdom and its Government work together, formally and informally, to tackle shared challenges. That might be through the forums established through the 2022 intergovernmental relations review or through new initiatives that the UK Government have brought forward, such as the Islands Forum, where Governments are able to discuss directly the range of issues that are important to island communities, or, as referenced by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, as part of our commitments across these islands—for example, through the British-Irish Council, which brings together the Governments of the UK and the devolved Governments with those of Ireland, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey, which recently held its 40th summit. That focused on the theme of transforming children’s lives and celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement.

There is good ongoing policy co-operation and exchange taking place between the Administrations as part of that council, including on housing, energy security, renewables, the environment and the early years. That continues to be an important part of intergovernmental relations and the different ways in which we continue to engage across the UK and beyond.

Indeed, between January and September 2023, as regards intergovernmental relations, there were over 150 ministerial meetings between the UK Government and the devolved Governments, covering topics including the economy, energy, net zero, the environment, health and trade, to name but a few, and taking place in, among other places, the 16 ministerial groups that we have set up. As we have heard from noble Lords across the Chamber today, that is what the people of this country rightly want and expect: for their Governments to work together on the issues that matter to them, their families and their communities.

We have heard on occasion from the Front Benches opposite about how rosy things were in the early years of the devolution settlement in terms of relations between the different Governments before a period of decline. It will not surprise noble Lords to hear that the analysis is not one that is shared by this Government, but I fully acknowledge some of the challenges brought by some of the big constitutional questions we have faced, such as Brexit, which we have had to navigate across our nations in recent years.

The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, illustrated quite well why relations were so rosy in those early years when there was a Labour Government as the UK Government, in Scotland and in Wales and how things shifted, even with a Labour Government in Westminster, with an SNP Government in Scotland. It is important to acknowledge, as my noble friend Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie did so well, that, when you have Governments with fundamentally different or opposing views of our constitutional arrangements and the operation of devolution or its existence, and who may have an incentive to pursue differences, relations between those Governments can be more challenging.

I will emphasise two things in that context. First, the test for intergovernmental relations, and whether they are effective or not, is whether they can help navigate those differences, not just operate when everyone is of the same view or political persuasion. We have sought to build that in the new arrangements in place today. I think they are a good basis for that. Secondly, I do not want to overestimate or overemphasise the points of difference or difficulty we have in intergovernmental relations; we in this Chamber and elsewhere focus on where they are tested and challenged most acutely, but we should not overlook the day-to-day work and co-ordination done by civil servants and Ministers on a range of shared interests across our nations. We should look at the challenges and how we can improve our operation across those, but we have heard about the importance of, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, said, the good will that is brought to these discussions. I think that remains true in the vast majority of intergovernmental relations today. We should not lose sight of that, even where you have Administrations of different political persuasions.

I turn to the question from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on how the Department for Levelling Up tries to ensure full engagement by all Whitehall departments in this process and what constitutes an IGR meeting. We have a network of senior responsible owners across government, and he referred to our commitment to transparency reporting, which equips DLUHC to hold other departments to account. He pointed to the difference in the frequency of formal engagement; that is partly guided by the nature of the relevant department’s work—for example, the extent to which it works in areas which are largely reserved or devolved. It is also important not to lose sight of the fact that much engagement also happens at an official level. In terms of what constitutes an intergovernmental meeting, it is where Ministers from among the four Governments, but not necessarily every Government, meet. Our transparency dashboard allows you to see the number of different IGR meetings per quarter, whether it is through the structure of the IMG or a bilateral, trilateral or quadrilateral meeting. The 28 meetings that DLUHC held covered the breadth of the department’s responsibilities, which, as we have heard, are significant.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, made some good points about the need for co-ordination across education —even where it is a devolved area, to respond to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, about the importance of not devolving and forgetting but continuing to work with each other. She is absolutely right that the last meeting of the UK Education Ministers Council was in June 2023. I understand that the Department for Education is liaising with its devolved counterparts on the next IMG meeting; this is to be chaired by the Scottish Government and arranged by them in line with the rotating chair arrangements that they have in place. But the points she made about co-ordination in this space were well made.

The noble Earl also asked about the secretariat that we have in place and whether it has full-time, dedicated staff, which indeed it does. At this point, it is comprised of officials from the UK Government and the Scottish Government. We look forward to the Welsh Government assigning a member of staff in due course. Decisions on the Northern Ireland Executive assigning a member of staff will be taken once the Executive are restored.

Of course, we measure the success of our approach not by the number of meetings held but by the outcomes they deliver. Through the renewed structures of our joint approach to intergovernmental relations, we have supported tangible benefits across our union. We have supported the economy by unlocking two green freeports in Scotland and two freeports in Wales, which between them will attract £15 billion of investment and create around 95,000 new high-skilled jobs. It is how we are delivering two investment zones in Wales—Cardiff and Newport, and Wrexham and Flintshire—with each zone set to attract £80 million over five years.

It is also how we have supported some of the landmark events in our country’s recent history, from the Platinum Jubilee to the state funeral of the late Queen and last year’s Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III. Governments have necessarily worked closely together to keep people safe and ensure that everyone can come together to mark these significant national events. They build on successes that we have had over a number of years in sporting collaborations, from hosting the UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow in August to plans jointly to host the UK and Ireland Euro 2028 tournament.

We have shown through collaboration our support to some of the world’s biggest challenges. For example—I believe the Scottish Government also cite this—following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK Government, working with the devolved Governments, created the ground-breaking Homes for Ukraine scheme, which ensured that Ukrainians could find a safe home and refuge in the UK. We were able to deliver COP 26 in Glasgow only through a joint determination to create a safe and secure environment for the world to come together. More recently, we have worked closely with the devolved Governments to improve the health of future generations through a joint UK-wide consultation on creating a smoke-free generation and tackling youth vaping and the harm that it can cause.

However, as I acknowledged earlier, that is not to say there have not been significant challenges in working across governmental and administrative boundaries where Governments have varying priorities. Taking note of intergovernmental relations within the UK demands that we recognise this, and making the system work requires not just one Government or Administration but all four working together maturely, as citizens of the United Kingdom rightly expect.

The noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Khan, asked about the dispute resolution mechanism. The devolved Governments and the UK Government continue to work to resolve issues at the lowest possible level. The noble Lord, Lord Khan, is correct that the dispute resolution mechanism has been engaged once to date between the UK Government and the Northern Ireland Executive, in relation to a scheme setting out the payment of pensions to persons who sustained injuries because of Troubles-related incidents. That dispute is currently on pause due to the Executive’s absence.

The noble Earl asked whether a dispute was raised in relation to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. No dispute was raised but ministerial discussions took place between Administrations, as the noble Earl acknowledged, on the UK Government’s concern about how the proposed legislation would interact with reserved powers. The Secretary of State for Scotland’s decision to use the power in Section 35 was about the legislation’s consequences for the operation of Great Britain-wide equalities protections and other reserved matters. The courts were clear that the order was lawful and appropriate. However, the noble Earl is right that we will always seek to reflect when we have these moments of disagreement and see where we can learn lessons to make sure that we can handle them in the best possible way in future.

The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, raised the work on common frameworks. I take this opportunity to thank her for her crucial work in chairing the Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee and to pay tribute to the work of that committee and the contribution it has made to the effective delivery of that programme.

I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, will not mind me quoting her slightly more positive assessment of these frameworks in her letter to the Secretary of State, where she said:

“the Frameworks have proven to be robust, innovative, and unique sources of collaboration between the UK Government and the devolved governments”.

I of course acknowledge that it was immediately followed by the point which she made in this debate: the committee’s view is that

“Common Frameworks remain an ‘unfulfilled opportunity’”.

While I acknowledge to her that the programme has evolved since its conception, as has the political environment in which the frameworks operate, it is also true that the framework outline agreement necessarily focuses on ways of working and governance processes required to enable the productive discussions about policy. In many areas, though, those processes are beginning to bear fruit and be used to develop UK-wide approaches. For example, the resources and waste framework was used to agree the joint consultation on banning wet wipes containing plastic across the UK, as published in October, so the programme has evolved since its conception. More time may have been spent on setting up the processes than we originally envisaged, but those processes are also beginning to bear fruit.

The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and others including the noble Baronesses, Lady Humphreys and Lady Drake, also raised the impact of the United Kingdom Internal Market Act. While the frameworks were, prior to the Act, the primary means of managing the internal market, the fact that they now share this space with the Act does not undermine the common frameworks. The Act works in tandem with the common frameworks, with at least three-quarters of the frameworks covering policy areas with regulation in scope of UKIM principles. Where a common framework is used to agree a common regulatory approach, UKIM principles do not apply, incentivising joint working.

The Government do not view UKIM as altering the devolved settlements. Individual legislatures retain the ability to make regulations in areas where they have competence and the devolved Administrations are able to make and enforce regulations within their own jurisdiction. Yes, the Act establishes the market access principles, which ensure that regulations made in one nation do not affect intra-UK trade by creating internal trade barriers, but should the UK Government and a devolved Administration agree that a specific regulation should be excluded from the application of those principles, there exists a process by which to do so. It is worth remembering the importance of the UK internal market. For example, in Scotland, 60% of outgoing trade is with the rest of the UK—more than its trade with the rest of the world combined.

Many noble Lords also raised the Sewel convention. We remain absolutely committed to the Sewel convention and to working with devolved Governments on all Bills that engage the legislative consent process. It has been necessary to legislate without the consent of the devolved legislatures in only a small number of cases. As noble Lords have referenced, these largely related to legislation on EU exit and the implementation of new trade deals. In the vast majority of cases, we have legislated with consent. The noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, referred to the efforts made by previous Governments to secure legislative consent. I say to her and others that, in the Bills I have worked on which have engaged legislative consent Motions, similar efforts have been made to secure that legislative consent. I hope that reassures noble Lords.

I share the praise of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, for my colleague, my noble friend Lady Bloomfield and the energy she brought to advocating for Wales’s interests. She has of course been replaced in that role by my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower, who will continue in his work; we also have our colleagues my noble friends Lord Caine and Lord Offord, in their respective Northern Ireland and Scottish roles. It is the role of all Ministers across government to ensure that we consider properly the role of devolution and the devolved Administrations when it comes to policy-making. We have had a bit of a discussion about where responsibly for this lies in government. I urge noble Lords not to focus too much on the name of a particular department, but I have seen first-hand the energy and commitment that the Secretary of State in DLUHC brings to his role as Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs, not just in the work of DLUHC but in encouraging and galvanising action across government.

I am conscious that I am slightly short of time. The noble Earl called for an annual debate in both Houses. That would of course be for the leadership of both Houses, but I will make representations and refer to the debate that we have had today. He also referred to the Canadian model and other models. The Government did look at international comparisons as part of the IGR review, including speaking to officials in Canada, and we will continue to focus on how we can make these arrangements most effective, including learning from other nations.

As for the Northern Ireland elections, the restoration of the Executive is of course a top priority, and the noble Lord, Lord Khan, is right that the deadline is the end of today. I do not have a further update to give to the House at this stage.

I will draw my remarks to a close so that we can hear from the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull.

Long-term Plan for Housing

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interests as a councillor in Kirklees—where we have an up-to-date local plan—and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, just said, there are 1.2 million households on the social housing waiting lists and the Government’s own assessment is that 300,000 new homes need to be built every year. Having somewhere to live is a basic human right and a basic requirement that all Governments should fulfil. We have a housing crisis, and the response as set out in this Statement and the newly published National Planning Policy Framework fails to address that crisis. The policies are incoherent and fail on many levels. For example, the newly published NPPF refers to social housing only once and in a single sentence. There is a desperate need for social housing to rent. Can the Minister tell the House how long the 1.2 million households on the waiting list will have to wait for a safe, affordable home at a rent that is within their means?

I could tell the Minister of a family in my ward that contacted me this week. There is the wife, husband and a four year-old boy living with the grandmother, who has serious dementia, and a baby is on the way, in a two-bed Victorian terraced house with a front door that opens on to an A-road and the back door on to a ginnel, as we call it. It is an alley, I guess; we call them ginnels in Yorkshire. There is nowhere, literally no space, for that four year-old to play, or to put the baby. They rang me to ask what chance they had for a council house or a housing association home, and I had to tell them the awful truth: that virtually all the family homes have been sold under right to buy, very few replaced, and their chances are virtually nil within the next five years. How are the Government going to address that example and many, many more like it?

Debate on this vital national policy should have taken place when we debated the levelling-up Bill in this House. Many Members across the House, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said, asked for the information on the revised NPPF at that time, and it is now clear to me why the Government held back, because the National Planning Policy Framework as published fails to tackle this housing crisis by enabling local authorities to plan with confidence and with the goal of meeting their local housing need.

Housing need is defined not just by numbers of housing units required but also by type and tenure. The Government’s own figures show that 62% of the rise in households is of people over 65 living alone. Perhaps the Minister can say how the Government intend to ensure that this particular need is to be met, given the policies that they have now published. Is it possible, for instance, for local authorities to allocate a site for building with specific requirements to meet such locally determined need?

Next, the Government are relaxing housing targets by describing these as an “advisory starting point”. Can the Minister flesh out “advisory” in this context? How advisory is advisory? What advice will the Government be giving to the Planning Inspectorate on the definition of that word and what they expect it to mean?

Given that housing targets are to be determined more locally, can the Minister explain the rationale behind the requirement for 20 of the largest towns and cities to have 35% more homes than are determined by their local housing assessment? Why is it 35%, not 20% or 40%? Where does the figure come from, and what will it actually mean for those towns and cities?

One of the major holes in the Government’s planning and housing policies is that there are no penalties for developers who, having obtained planning consent, fail to start building or start a site and then delay building out. This is one of the major reasons for the crisis in housebuilding numbers: more than 1 million properties have planning consent but have not been built. Yet local authorities are to be penalised for failing to provide sites while, in those same local authorities, developers are failing to develop sites that have permission. What will the Government do about this dreadful state of affairs? What pressures will they put on developers to ensure that, once planning consent is given, the developer gets on and builds out the site?

Many residents oppose new homes because of the impact on local infrastructure, such as traffic, school places and access to health services. Many are justified in their complaints. For example, in my area of Kirklees, GP patient numbers are at 1,900 per doctor, as compared to the national average of 1,600. When residents raise the issue of more houses meaning greater numbers of patients for their local GP, where I live it is genuinely the case. There are already 20% more patients per GP where I live than the national average. What will the Government do to address the genuine complaints from residents about local infrastructure? That is just one example.

Providing the housing that we need is dependent on local authorities having up-to-date local plans, yet the majority of them do not have one. What action will the Government take to ensure that local authorities have up-to-date local plans? A local plan is the initial building block that unlocks sites for housing of a type and tenure that is so desperately needed. This Statement absolutely fails to address this. I look forward to the Minister’s replies to all the questions that have been raised; if she cannot answer them, I hope that she can give us written responses.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, I will endeavour to answer the questions from both noble Baronesses as fully as I can, but it is first worth reflecting on what this update to the NPPF sought to do. Both noble Baronesses rightly situated it in the context of the broader changes in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act to bring forward a reformed planning system that allows more homes to be built in the right places, more quickly, more beautifully and more sustainably.

The right way to do this is through a reformed planning system. In December last year, we laid out our plan to do that. We made it abundantly clear that the only way to do so is through up-to-date local plans, which local authorities can deliver for communities to protect the land and assets that matter most and lay the foundation for economic growth. Part of that plan for reform was the update to the National Planning Policy Framework. In December 2022, we consulted on a series of proposals that received more than 26,000 responses, which we have worked through in detail. The updates that we made, which were announced at the end of last year, strike a careful balance between delivering homes that our communities need and protecting the things that we care most about, such as our natural environment, heritage assets, high streets and town centres—matters referenced by both noble Baronesses. The NPPF update acknowledges that different areas and different parts of the country must be approached in different ways and that local authorities and communities are best placed to ensure that the right homes are in the right places, where they are both needed and wanted.

Both noble Baronesses asked about the change to the NPPF which clarified that the standard method of assessing housing need is the starting point for local authorities. The NPPF expects local planning authorities to evidence and provide for their housing needs. The Government are clear that the standard method should still be used to inform the process. Local authorities can put forward their own approach to assessing housing needs, but this should be used only in exceptional circumstances. Authorities can expect their method to be scrutinised closely at examination. The standard method remains the starting point for this process and only in exceptional circumstances would we expect local planning authorities to move away from that. However, it is right that we allow for those exceptional circumstances. In the updated framework, the demographics of a particular area are pointed to as the factor which might mean that an alternative method would be appropriate for that planning authority to use.

Part of delivering homes in a way that meets community needs is about having a more diversified housing market. Therefore, the framework also strengthens support for SME builders and the wider diversity of the housing market by emphasising the importance of community-led housing development, ensuring that local authorities seek opportunities to support small sites to come forward and removing barriers to smaller and medium builders in the planning system. In the long run, that will also ensure that we make progress in delivering the housing that we need and keep us on track to deliver 1 million new homes during this Parliament.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about social housing. Her points were well made. These updates to the NPPF did not have that as a particular focus but the Government are absolutely committed to increasing the supply of affordable and social housing. That is why our latest affordable housing programme is backed by more than £11 billion. We have increased the delivery of affordable housing under this Government. I would be very happy to sit down with the noble Baroness and discuss specific planning barriers to affordable housing further.

The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, referred to the resources needed to unlock the planning system. She is absolutely right. That is why we have increased the resources going into local planning services. The new planning rules that came into force on 6 December increase fees for major applications by 35% and minor ones by 25%. The indexing arrangements now in place also ensure that they rise in line with inflation. Beyond that, the planning skills delivery fund was boosted by £5 million to £29 million. In the first round of funding, 180 local planning authorities are receiving collectively over £14 million. We recognise that the changes we have made to the planning system in the levelling-up Act and through the changes to the NPPF need to be matched by additional resources, which we have put in.

I turn to housing standards and a range of other issues that were debated at length during the passage of the levelling-up Bill. The Government have committed to bring forward further changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, bringing in a national development management framework. We are committed to consulting on those changes this year but, for the development of local plans, we believe that the combination of the measures in the Act and those announced and changed in the NPPF at the end of last year provide clarity and certainty for local areas to be able to make their plans and deliver on them.

Where that is not proving possible for local authorities, the Secretary of State has been clear that the Government are prepared to intervene. That is why the Secretary of State issued a direction about plan-making to seven of the worst authorities. The best outcome from those directions is that the local authorities themselves bring forward plans within 12 weeks and set out a clear timetable to do so. Should they fail, we will consider further intervention, but it would be based on the particular circumstances of those local authorities and reflect their points. I do not want to pre-empt that, as the best outcome for those areas is for the local authorities to take forward those plans themselves.

We are also taking action in London, because the homes needed in the capital are simply not being built. Opportunities for urban brownfield regeneration are being left untaken, as a result of the mayor’s anti-housing policy and approach. His plan does not contain sufficient ambition for housing, and he is underdelivering against it. That is why we are undertaking an urgent review of it.

There are a number of areas from both noble Baronesses that I may not have addressed. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned infrastructure and of course we have the housing infrastructure fund, which provides the funding needed to ensure that development can take place, is supported locally and comes with the schools, hospitals and GP places needed to support it. I undertake to write to both noble Baronesses in detail on any further points on which I need to follow up.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, there is much to welcome in the Statement—namely, the increase in planning resources—but it represents a major change in government housing policy, which was not there when the levelling-up Bill was introduced. As the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, said, this was introduced to head off a rebellion in the other place. As a result, the targets are advisory, not mandatory, and we are already seeing a result—not just in plans being withdrawn but in South Oxfordshire doing something unheard of in planning by deleting from its plan for development sites that had already been included. We may end up with more up-to-date plans eventually, but they will have fewer homes in them than the country needs. How will a democratically elected Government, committed to building 300,000 new homes a year, deliver that if they are totally dependent on the good will of local authorities that do not share that commitment?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, we announced a number of different changes at the end of last year. However, as I said to both the noble Baronesses, the standard method for assessing housing need remains the starting point for local authorities. It is only in exceptional circumstances that we would expect them to move away from that, and that must be well evidenced. In such circumstances, where it is not appropriate for that area, there is a way and method for those local authorities to put forward a well-considered and well-thought-out local plan, which would have a much better chance of being delivered than something that does not command local support and does not suit the needs of the local area.

We have made other changes that may result in the changes that my noble friend talked about—for example, by removing the buffers needed on land supply set out in local plans. They go over and above the amount of land needed to deliver against the assessed housing need for an area. Where local authorities have done the right thing, put a plan in place and identified the land they need to deliver against the local housing need in their area, it is not the right way forward to require those local authorities to hold a 5% or 10% buffer on top.

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I pick up on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. If we could see the production of decent, accessible, energy-efficient, companionable, new retirement housing for older people needing and wanting to rightsize, we could free up tens of thousands of family homes, which are so badly needed. The planning system can allocate sites, not least urban sites that regenerate town centres, and those absolutely essential local plans can stipulate requirements for a proportion of such housing in all major developments. I add that at the same time removing stamp duty for purchases by those over pension age would stimulate the market, increasing revenue to HM Treasury through the chain that follows, and that housing for older people saves massive sums for the NHS and adult care services. Will the Minister get behind all those trying to boost the output of well-designed homes for the estimated 3 million older people who are interested in downsizing and rightsizing?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I absolutely support the remarks by the noble Lord on needing the right housing to meet the needs of people at all stages in their lives. There are changes within this update to the NPPF that will encourage the delivery of older people’s housing, including retirement housing, housing with care and care homes. In addition, the Government have the Older People’s Housing Taskforce, which is exploring broader changes that we might wish to see to encourage housing for older people to be built in the areas where it is most suitable and most needed. Also, there is the point that the noble Lord made: ensuring that we have the right solution for older people has a knock-on effect throughout our housing supply on the availability for those who may be trying to get on the housing ladder in the first place.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing, Church and Community recommended that the Government adopt a long-term plan to address the scale of the housing crisis in the UK. I am glad to see that they have adopted the language of long-termism, as the UK’s housing has been held back by short-term planning and decision-making for far too long. However, I believe that such a plan must be holistic, taking into account all elements that make up a good housing strategy, with consideration of both new builds and existing buildings. What plans do the Government have to improve the quality of the homes that we already have, for example by undertaking a programme to upgrade EPC ratings, or by equalising the rate of VAT on repairs for existing houses with that for constructing new homes?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right that, when we consider the quality of people’s homes, we absolutely need to think about existing stock, not just new homes. When it comes to new homes, we have just launched the consultation on the future homes standard, which will have in place regulations that mean that all new homes built from 2025 onwards will need to be net-zero ready and have much higher levels of energy efficiency. They would most likely have heat pumps installed as a way to deliver those net-zero targets. When it comes to existing homes, we have a huge range of government support in place to support increased energy efficiency. A lot of that has focused initially on those on low incomes: for example, looking at social housing, there is the social housing decarbonisation fund. We are broadening that out to support other people too. We have the boiler upgrade grant, which allows people to replace their old boilers with heat pumps, with a significant proportion of those costs met by government. We have debated VAT a number of times in this House, but I will say that we have introduced a reduced rate of VAT for energy-efficiency measures, and we extended the scope of the measures that that covers in the most recent Autumn Statement.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

My Lords, as the National Planning Policy Framework’s primary purpose is more homes, is it not strange that His Majesty’s Government have yet to make any statement about a new concept of the new town movement? You can see on the ground the wonderful work that was done as long ago as the 30s with the garden city just alongside the A1—I drove past it yesterday. Then there are the new towns. My former constituency was Northampton, and there is the new city of Milton Keynes, which was only a village before. That concept surely has to have a role, modernised to meet today’s requirements in the future.

Secondly, my noble friend quite rightly says: “Yes, more new homes”. But is not the problem at the moment that the developers do not have the confidence that she clearly has? The figures for 2023 are very low. Are they not going to be only marginally better in 2024? Against that background, will His Majesty’s Government bring in new incentives for young couples to be able to provide some of that demand, so that developers can have some confidence to move forward?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend makes two very good points. England has a proud history of new town development, and well-planned, beautifully designed, locally led garden communities are playing a vital role in helping to meet our housing need, through providing a stable pipeline of new homes. The Garden Communities programme supports local authorities to build places that people are happy to call their home. That programme was launched in 2014, and has awarded over £58 million of capacity funding to assist places to deliver their proposals for housing. A further £12 million has also been invested to deliver the infrastructure critical to unblock the delivery of homes. The 47 locally led garden communities have the capacity to deliver over 300,000 new homes by 2050. That is something that the Government absolutely continue to support.

The number of planning consents being down was referenced by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor. When it comes to the wider conditions in the housing market, we recognise that this is a challenging time. The broader economic conditions we face due to very high levels of inflation, and the high interest rates that are in place to bring that down, make it harder for people to get on the housing ladder. That is why this Government have been focused, laser-like, on tackling inflation. We met our commitment last year to halve the level of inflation, and are back on the road to the Bank of England’s 2% target. That is the most effective way in which we can make sure that people are able to afford their mortgages and access the housing market in the way they wish to. But there are also important things that we can do—for example, ensuring that our affordable housing programme continues throughout this period to provide more stability and certainty in terms of the pipeline of new homes while it is a difficult market out there for housebuilders.

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, may I ask the Minister, following on from the question from the right reverend Prelate, about the certificates—the EPCs? We have had a problem and a review on EPC measurement. Could she let us know where we are on that review?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, my understanding is that the Government launched an EPC action plan to take forward a number of changes to EPCs. We are well on track for delivering against the majority of actions within that, but we continue to look at it. We recognise that there is potentially the need for wider reform to energy performance certificates; we are looking at that very closely and doing further work on it.

[Lord Berkeley (Lab)]

My Lords, I have the honour of serving on the Built Environment Committee in your Lordships’ House, along with one or two other colleagues here. We have been listening to evidence in the last few months from builders, planners and Ministers about why the 300,000 target has not been reached. I think the low point for me was evidence from an Environment Minister and the Housing Minister, who sat next to each other trying to explain why it was all very difficult. At the end of the evidence session, I thought, “When did they ever talk to each other? It is as if they are in completely different silos”. We have heard answers from the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, this afternoon about the importance of the environment. She mentioned affordable housing once or twice. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned that it is only in the NPPF once, I think; I may have that wrong.

When I looked at the Housing Minister’s Statement on 19 December when he launched this, I was astonished to read one paragraph which used several phrases which to me indicate what is really important for this Government. One phrase was “gentle density”—I do not know what that means, but perhaps some experts can tell me—on the design of mansard roof development. Does that really go in a Statement? There was “well-designed places”—we know what that is—and then,

“‘visual clarity’ on the design requirements”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/12/23; col. 1266.]

Also, the word “beauty” comes into it, as the noble Baroness said. These are all very good things, especially if you want a lovely new house in the countryside, miles from anywhere, but are they the priorities for affordable housing? This is the problem. We have lost sight of what is important. I live in Cornwall and the lack of affordable housing there is just terrible. If we are to say that everything has to be a “gentle density” with “visual clarity” of place, I do not think we are going to get there—until we concentrate on what is important, which is affordable housing.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I do not think that the delivery of more affordable housing and the delivery of more beautiful housing need to be in tension with each other. In fact, the right housing in the right place allows more support for development to go ahead, which is one of the big barriers we see to delivering more housing in local areas, and affordable housing should be beautiful housing too. Noble Lords have had a lot of debates in this House about the standards within our homes, particularly within our social housing. We should be no less ambitious for the standards that people enjoy in their housing, whether it is social housing, affordable housing or private housing. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about space for children to play, for example. Taking into account that kind of amenity is important for the right development to go ahead. We should recognise that we have made significant progress in recent years in building more houses. We have had some of the highest housing delivery in the past four years that we have had in the past 20 years, and we seek to continue that, but without those measures necessarily needing to be in tension. The noble Lord spoke about Ministers talking to each other in different departments. I reassure him that, particularly on these areas that cut across different interests and on something like net zero or environmental impact, we bring together the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, my department and Defra to work together to provide solutions on these issues.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I shall follow the theme of social housing. I declare my position as a vice-president of the LGA and the NALC. Responding to the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, the Minister said that the Government are committed to social housing. We have just heard that again, and it is great, but the Minister may be aware of a document from the National Housing Federation, Let’s Fix the Housing Crisis: Delivering a Long-Term Plan for Housing. This crosses over with her former departmental responsibilities. It asserts:

“The wider fiscal, societal and economic benefits of social housing are poorly captured in current cost benefit analysis”,


and, particularly, in the Government’s Green Book. The NHF stresses that we need housing

“in the right location, with the right support for those who need it”,

which sounds very much like the Green Party’s Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price. Does the Minister agree that planning needs to think about this social element as well as the purely spatial element? We have been relying on the market for decades now. It has not worked out very well and has given the crisis we have now, plus the terrible privatisation of right to buy. I will pick up a point from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp: one of the things that the NHF report highlights is the increase in the long-term cost of housing benefit as a result of the increase in the number of retired people who are in private rental housing now. Do we not have to join up far more planning and financial considerations and pure human considerations to secure an affordable place for everybody to live?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, a number of the changes that we are making to the NPPF address some of the noble Baroness’s concerns. They are all about allowing a local area, using the evidence of local need, to produce a plan that works for that area. The noble Baroness touched on the Green Book and how we value social housing but also wider social benefits when we look at value for money in government projects. The Government have done work on reforming the Green Book over a number of years to ensure that we better take that into account. There is also better assessment of national well-being as a factor when we look at policies. We are looking, for example, at valuing our green space more clearly in our policy assessments, so that we can take a more well-rounded look. That is at the heart of my department’s mission. When looking at levelling up across the whole of the United Kingdom, one point that often gets made is that the old ways of doing things incentivises you to invest only in London and the south-east. While that is incredibly important, we know that investing in communities across our country is how we will actually deliver for people, and that is what my department has been created to do.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has said that it is not the purpose of this long-term plan for housing to address the need for more homes for social rent. She has also said that the Government are absolutely committed to increasing the supply of affordable and social housing. In the face of the 14% increase in the past year of people in temporary accommodation in our country—a trend which is likely to continue rising—what is the Government’s short to medium-term plan for getting more long-term homes for those being forced to live in temporary accommodation?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

As I have previously said to noble Lords, we have over £11 billion for the affordable homes programme, but a number of other measures were announced, most recently in the Autumn Statement. For example, the local housing allowance uplift will help with the affordability of the private rented sector, reducing the chances that people might move into temporary accommodation. We also have the Homelessness Reduction Act, which is matched by funding to try to prevent people moving into temporary accommodation altogether. At the Autumn Statement, we also announced additional money for local authorities to increase the supply and quality of their temporary housing to bring down the costs of putting that provision in place so that we can invest in the longer-term solution, which is more affordable housing available to more people.

York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority Order 2023

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Penn]

That the draft Order laid before the House on 7 November be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 13 December.

Motion agreed.

Homelessness

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, the latest available statistics are for April to June 2023; data for December 2023 will be available in the spring. We are providing significant investment to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping—more than £2 billion over three years. This includes more than £1 billion to support local authorities to prevent homelessness, with a further £120 million secured at the Autumn Statement for next year to relieve homelessness pressures.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her reply. She will be aware that at least 300,000 people will spend this Christmas without a home, including 140,000 children, which is a 14% increase in one year. Is the Minister aware that the number of households trapped in temporary accommodation reached a record high last year, yet only 9,500 social rent homes were delivered? What work are the Government doing to increase the supply of social rent homes to reach the 90,000 required each year to end homelessness?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I acknowledge that those figures are too high. Our focus as a Government has been on preventing people falling into homelessness. That is what a large part of our budget has focused on. The noble Lord is also right that we need to increase forms of affordable housing. We need social rent, yes, but also all forms of affordable housing. That is what we are doing through our affordable housing programme, which is delivering large numbers of additional affordable housing into the system each year.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Does my noble friend—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Are the Government aware that for every person who falls homeless—they are not all out on the streets—the cost of running that homeless family or individual is two or three times higher than if you keep them in their homes? Has the Treasury done any serious work looking at how to keep the costs of homelessness down by keeping people in their homes?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. That is why we passed the Homelessness Reduction Act and why more than half the support we have put directly into tackling homelessness is around prevention. That is funding to local authorities to work with landlords to prevent evictions, for example, before people find themselves in the position of needing to seek out temporary accommodation.

[Lord Naseby (Con)]

Does my noble friend realise that it is just over 50 years since the last new town was designated: Milton Keynes? Part of the concept of new towns was to relieve inner-city homelessness and to provide decent homes for young and old couples who did not find them in the city. Will my noble friend look again at bringing back a new, modern—possibly garden—city concept so that this major problem can begin to be addressed?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, this Government embrace the building of the right homes in the right places; that includes new towns. It also includes greater densification in parts of our cities that are well connected to transport opportunities and jobs. We need more homes across the board, and that is what we are committed to delivering.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I did not expect to hear the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, promoting Labour Party policy, but well done. On current trends, almost 6,000 households could be threatened with homelessness in the final quarter of 2023, covering this Christmas and New Year period. This is driven by a chronic shortage of decent, secure and affordable housing and accelerated by a storm of rising rents, the cost of living crisis and a refusal to ban no-fault evictions. I urge the Minister to bring forward amendments to the Renters (Reform) Bill to end no-fault evictions so that fewer families will be at risk next year.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the Renters (Reform) Bill contains proposals to do exactly that; it will end no-fault Section 21 evictions. It is part of a suite of housing reforms that this Government have brought in to drive up standards in both the private rented and social rented sectors. We look forward to discussing that Bill when it reaches this House next year.

[The Lord Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham]

My Lords, like many places, Nottingham is suffering from the cost of living crisis, fuel and food poverty, a decline of social housing and a growing shortage of private rented sector properties, which is compounded by the shortfall between the local housing allowance and rents. Framework Housing Association and Emmanuel House do exceptional work, together with the city council, in seeking to help the 10,000 people on the waiting list with an unmet housing need, alongside the street homeless. But the rising demand for social care and increased homelessness have contributed to the council issuing a Section 114 notice. If His Majesty’s Government agree that the charitable and voluntary sector is such a key partner in addressing these needs, can the Minister offer more direct funding to help the homeless in cities such as Nottingham?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate mentioned many different factors that go into this problem. One was the affordability of private rented sector accommodation, so I am sure he will welcome the fact that in the Autumn Statement we committed to increasing local housing allowance rates. Charities and other organisations do great work in this sector, and we will also continue to support them in their work.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, more than 300,000 people, including 140,000 children, are homeless in England, one of the wealthiest countries on this planet. Can the Minister tell the House why the Government’s policies continue to fail to reduce the number of homeless people in England?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, this problem requires many different responses. I have talked about the work we are doing to prevent homelessness, for example through working with landlords, and what we are doing to increase local housing allowance rates to make the private rented sector more affordable. Ultimately, we also need to increase the supply of housing. We are doing that through building more houses. We have delivered larger numbers of houses in recent years than in many years before and are delivering the right mix of houses built for rent, for social rent and for affordable ownership, as well as houses in the private sector.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the scheme that Westminster City Council has run for the last few years whereby there is a 24-hour helpline? Anyone who sees a rough sleeper can call that line and an experienced outreach worker will go out, contact that rough sleeper and try to persuade them to come into a hostel and help rebuild their life. Should not this sort of scheme be replicated throughout the country if the Government are to hit their target of ending rough sleeping by the end of next year?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I am aware of the scheme. In fact, I have been out with some of the charities that respond to those reports and go and seek out people the next day and offer them further help and support. I think it is a very effective scheme, and I am sure we would want to look at what can be done to see it spread further if it is not available in different forms across the country.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, the District Councils’ Network is reporting that some councils are now spending between 20% and 50% of their total budgets on meeting their statutory obligations to provide temporary accommodation but that the subsidy given to them to do so has not increased since 2011. Is this something the Government will look at?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, there are currently no plans to change that amount but we are looking to help local authorities with these pressures in a number of different ways. I have mentioned the change to the local housing allowance rate. Something else that the Government have invested substantially in is the local authority housing fund, which allows local authorities to increase their supply of good-quality temporary accommodation to relieve some of the pressures on them. We announced in the Autumn Statement that there would be an extra £450 million going into that fund over the next two years.

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is participating remotely.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

Does this Question not take us right back to the price of land for affordable housing? In Nijmegen in Holland, the Waalsprong urban extension of 11,000 homes is being built on 3,000 acres of land acquired at agricultural prices. Similar is happening at Hammarby, near Stockholm in Sweden. Why do we insist on paying landowners inflated land compensation prices when the country needs to house our growing population? We need new thinking on land for affordable housing—it is quite simple.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the issue of land ownership and transparency is one that we have debated before. One measure that the Government have taken forward in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act is greater transparency over not just land ownership but the contractual controls over land that allow councils, developers and other people seeking to build more affordable housing to have a better idea of what land is available and in whose control it is, so that they can take forward their plans and be more effective.

Levelling Up: North-east England

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Quin]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what are their levelling-up priorities for the North East of England.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, we are giving people in the north-east the tools needed to shape a better future. Next year the north-east will become the first region fully covered by mayoral combined authorities. These mayors will have direct control over long-term investment funds totalling £1.85 billion. Other regeneration priorities are also being delivered by locally led town boards, with £765 million of funding allocated to projects across the north-east.

[Baroness Quin (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer and I welcome the creation of an elected mayor to represent most of the area of the north-east, which is a big step forward for devolution. But the Government’s levelling-up policies have been rightly criticised by the Commons Select Committee and others for simply giving out bits and pieces of money, often as a result of competitive bids, and sometimes seemingly favouring areas where the Government have political friends, rather than addressing the areas of real need. Why can there not be—and why has there not been—an overall programme for the north-east, involving all relevant government departments, to deal with the transport needs, business and investment needs, health inequalities, the woeful shortfall in local government funding, and many other areas? An overall approach is what has been needed.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I believe that the north-east devolution deal will help deliver that overall approach but put its delivery in the hands of local leaders and an elected mayor. When it comes to competitive bids, we have heard feedback from many local areas and that is why the third round of the levelling up fund was not allocated using competitive bids. We have also set out principles, going forward, in our local government funding simplification plan. Finally, on which areas have benefited from funding from this Government, under the levelling up funds the north-east has received the highest allocation per capita—quite rightly, as it reflects the need in the north-east.

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Is the Minister aware that, in spite of all the Government’s levelling-up efforts, over Christmas there will be 140,000 children and 300,000 people in temporary accommodation? This has gone up by 14% in the last year, according to Shelter and the Big Issue. What can the Minister say about that?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I am aware of the figures that the noble Lord cites, and I think it is a tragedy. The Government are committed to doing all we can to address it. We have seen a real increase in pressure on the private rented sector over the past year, which leads to increases in people in temporary accommodation. At the Autumn Statement, we announced further funding towards tackling homelessness to help address this. We also announced that the local housing allowance will be increased to the 30th percentile, which will help address those cost pressures in the private rented sector, so we are doing a lot to try to address this issue.

[Lord Beith (LD)]

When the Prime Minister announced the cancellation of HS2, he made promises that there would be transport improvements for the north-east, affecting both rail capacity on the east coast main line and the dualling of the A1 north of Newcastle. Given the number of broken promises we have had over the last 50 years on these subjects, will they happen?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that the decision not to press ahead with the final leg of HS2 has released a huge amount of money for people’s priorities across the north of England when it comes to investing in transport. Where that investment will be made will be influenced and led by local leaders and their priorities, working closely with government. It is in their hands as to where we should best allocate this funding.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, a recent report by the Centre for Ageing Better said that the north-east has the largest proportion of older people in poor health, with three in 10 people aged 50 to 64 in poor health, compared with one in five in the south-east. Since 2010 the Government have cut £15 billion from local authority budgets. What is the progress in levelling up regional equalities to ensure that the quality of someone’s later life will not remain a postcode lottery? Is it not the case that the Government embarked on creating a northern powerhouse but instead have delivered a northern poorhouse?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the levelling-up missions encompass a wide range of outcomes that we are seeking to address, including reducing health inequalities. That is why we are investing further money both in our health service and in social care, including additional grant money made available to local councils this year and next. It is a long-term transformation fund but we will be held accountable, reporting against those missions annually until 2030.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have been extremely generous to Tees Valley with the infrastructure and other funding. Will my noble friend look equally generously on North Yorkshire, 75% of whose budget is going towards the elderly, and even more towards childcare? We need to restore the balance between Tees Valley and other rural areas, such as North Yorkshire, in the available funding.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I was pleased to be able to take forward yesterday the statutory instrument that will create the combined authority and mayoral authority for York and North Yorkshire. It represents a huge opportunity for the area in terms of investment and local leaders taking forward their priorities. My noble friend is absolutely right that it is a different area with a more rural constituency, and I think it has the opportunity to show how devolution and levelling up can work across the country, whether you are in a rural or an urban area.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Beith, and the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, both made a point about the centrality of regenerating transport links in the north of England in order to help the growth of the economy and therefore levelling up. Is the Minister aware that it can take up to four and a half hours to travel by train from Newcastle to Liverpool? Is she aware that over the summer the Transport Minister, Huw Merriman, kindly came on a site visit to look at the so-called Hellifield link, which would create a new cross-Pennine east-west link—a track that is already there but needs to be revitalised? Given what the Prime Minister said in Manchester about the importance of regenerating the economy in the north based on its transport links, can the Minister find out from Mr Merriman what progress has been made on that?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I am very happy to undertake to write to my honourable friend and find out about progress on that. It brings us back to the broader point from the difficult decision not to proceed with the last leg of HS2. That has freed up billions of pounds for investment that will make a difference to more people’s lives, and faster, across the whole north of England.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

I refer the Minister to the recently published report by PwC, its Green Jobs Barometer, which says that the number of green jobs advertised has fallen sharply in the last year in the north-east, and that London and the south-east continue to dominate the total number of green jobs advertised. If the Government are to narrow the gap through levelling up, what action will they take to promote green jobs in parts of the country outside London and the south-east?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that the north-east has huge potential when it comes to green jobs and industries, and that has been a real focus of government investment in the north-east, along with leaders there. We announced the investment zone for the north-east last month. That is all focused on advanced manufacturing, green industries and the creation of jobs there. It is backed by a huge amount of government funding, and we have already seen great results from it. I think we will see an increase in green jobs in the north-east, as well as across the rest of the country.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the best things about the north-east of England is that you are almost in Scotland? However, as the noble Lord, Lord Beith, said, when you get to the A1 in the north-east of England, it narrows down almost to a country lane—to a single-file road. Will the Minister answer the noble Lord’s question? When is it going to be dualled? That will be a symbol of Scotland and England remaining part of the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I am going to have to disappoint the noble Lord. I do not have a date for him on when that project will be completed. Essential for improvements to transport across the north of England and in the north-east is the extra funding that will be made available for it through the cancellation of the final leg of HS2.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I say to my noble friend the Minister not to lose sight of the importance of culture in levelling up. The north has been extraordinarily successful. I declare an interest as a trustee of Tate; Tate Liverpool is undergoing a huge regeneration. There is also the refurbishment of Manchester Museum and the transformation of Newcastle and Gateshead through culture. Will the Minister assure me that in her new brief she puts culture at the centre when she is thinking about levelling up?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. When we talk about levelling up, we talk about pride of place, for example. Culture can be an incredibly important part of that. In recent levelling-up funding, we have taken steps to ensure that culture specifically is considered in the allocation of those funds.

Building Repairs: VAT

Baroness Penn Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the sustainability and quality of existing buildings, including by cutting value added tax to incentivise building repairs and maintenance.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to improving the sustainability of existing buildings. The Autumn Statement expanded the current zero rating of VAT on the installation of qualifying energy-saving materials in homes until March 2027. This relief, worth more than £1 billion, now also includes additional technologies and extends to buildings used for charitable purposes. Additionally, the Government are investing £12 billion in Help to Heat schemes to ensure that homes are warmer and cheaper to heat.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

I declare my interest as the Church of England’s lead bishop for housing. I thank the Minister for her Answer. Would she not agree that, as a point of principle, it is preferable to incentivise restoring and renewing buildings which already exist, rather than purely incentivising new building? The present system encourages new build over reuse. While it is clear that we need more housing in particular, this does not encourage a culture of sustainability. The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme has been a great help for certain kinds of buildings, but it is only for places of worship, it is due to expire in 2025 and it requires considerable administration. Now that the UK has left the EU, the rate of VAT on repairs is in the gift of His Majesty’s Government. Will they commit to the principle of sustainability by undertaking a review of the potential benefits of a lower rate of VAT on repairs?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The reality is that we need both to restore and repair existing buildings and to encourage new build to address our housing supply issues. We have a reduced 5% rate of VAT for renovation works on residential properties, including the conversion of buildings from one residential use to another; on conversions from commercial to residential; and on the renovation of properties which have been empty for two years or more prior to renovation work. We are looking carefully at this issue. Since we left the EU, we have had requests for relief totalling about £50 billion across different forms of VAT. This request needs to be seen in the context of that bigger figure.

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[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the National Churches Trust and of the Lincolnshire Churches Trust, and one who has been a churchwarden for 36 years. It really is crucial that the Government recognise that the most important group of historic buildings in our country are our parish churches and give them some assistance. The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme is coming to an end, as my friend the right reverend Prelate said, and we do not wish to see the parish churches of England crumbling into decay.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I absolutely recognise the points that my noble friend is making, but the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme is making a real difference to churches, as recognised by the right reverend Prelate. It gives grants covering the VAT on repairs of over £1,000 to listed buildings used as places of worship. It is not coming to an end; it runs until the end of March 2025. Of course, any decisions for the spending review period after that will come in due course.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, have the Government undertaken a cost assessment of the number of schools that have asbestos in them and that are also affected by RAAC? They need replacing, because the children in these schools are currently at risk of exposure to asbestos fibres, and the same applies to many hospital buildings. Has there been a comparison of the costs of renovation versus replacement for these public buildings?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

Both the Department of Health and the Department for Education are taking forward very careful programmes to address the issue of RAAC. As part of that, I am sure they will consider the most cost-effective way of addressing those issues. My noble friend Lady Barran is working very closely on the schools issue, to ensure that all schools affected by RAAC have it removed or remediated as soon as possible.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister spare a thought for the small but significant number of people who live very modestly in listed buildings? I have to declare an interest, being one of those people. I live in a very small house which happens to be listed, in a conservation area. The business of repairing and maintaining it is extremely expensive and very difficult to achieve, partly because the planning system does not co-operate on very small interventions which could make a significant difference—for instance, insulation. What are the Government doing to help this situation?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I acknowledge the point that the noble Baroness has made. We are doing two things in this area. We have updated the National Planning Policy Framework so that, in determining planning applications, local planning authorities should give significant weight to the need to support energy efficiency and low-carbon heating improvements to existing buildings. Specifically on the practical planning barriers that households can face when they are in conservation areas or listed buildings, in our energy security strategy, published last year, we committed to reviewing the barriers that people in such buildings face. That review is under way and I believe that the outcome will be published shortly.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have relevant interests recorded in the register. I want to turn our attention to people’s homes. Some 20 years ago, Kirklees Council offered free loft and cavity wall insulation to every home, regardless of tenure. It was largely funded by energy companies, and 100,000 homes benefited from that scheme. Will the Government learn from that pioneering scheme and consider its introduction across the country in order to achieve the COP 28 agreement?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, we learn from all successful schemes in this area, and you will see similar provisions in our current schemes, including the contribution of energy companies to the cost of improving insulation for households. We have a number of different schemes. They tend to focus, at the initial stage, on those on lower incomes who will most benefit from the reduced bills that improved energy efficiency will bring, but as we move towards achieving our net-zero targets, we will need to have the whole country covered. The expansion of our schemes takes it further—for example, the extended discount on heat pumps that we announced earlier this year.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, with all homes to be highly energy efficient by 2025, with low-carbon heating and zero carbon, what estimate have the Government made of the cost of this for social housing, which is likely to run into hundreds of thousands of pounds for each local authority and registered providers, at a time when the cost of living crisis means rent increases are unlikely to be able to meet these costs?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I do not have a figure for the overall cost, but the noble Baroness is absolutely right that it will be important for social housing to help make the transition. A lot of our early support has focused on this housing stock—for example, through the social housing decarbonisation fund—because local authorities will need support to take these measures and because the benefits of greater energy efficiency and lower bills need to be targeted at lower income households first.

[Lord Swire (Con)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Swire (Con)]

They tried to silence me.

The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right to raise this issue again, and we should continue to raise it. The Government hid for years behind the fig leaf of the EU, saying they were unable to vary the rate of VAT. We are now out of the EU and this is the time to look at that. If the Government are serious about reusing and refurbishing our stock of older properties, they should look again. We are not asking for any kind of VAT reduction; we are looking for parity. I do not understand the intellectual argument for two rates of VAT—one which clearly discriminates against the built heritage sector. On that subject, I just say to my noble friend that, if she talks to anybody in the heritage sector, as I am sure she does, she will find that the backlog of repairs because of this pernicious rate of VAT is now extremely concerning.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I say to my noble friend that we are taking advantage of the flexibilities we have since leaving the EU in reducing rates of VAT. We have announced that the installation of qualifying energy-saving materials in residential accommodation has a zero rate of VAT until March 2027. This support is worth over £1 billion and will help households and charities improve their energy efficiency in buildings and reduce carbon emissions. As I said earlier, we get requests to reduce the rate of VAT across a number of different areas, and we consider them very carefully, but they have to be considered in the context of how much revenue VAT raises. As I said, the total cost of requests across different areas has totalled some £50 billion since we have left the EU.