Leasehold: Property Management Companies
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Pinnock(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Bill aims to grant freehold homeowners on private or mixed-tenure estates the same rights of redress as leaseholders in this area—equivalent rights to transparency on estate charges and the ability to challenge those charges at tribunal. I believe the CMA is also looking into this matter, and we look forward to receiving its final report.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, some freeholders, although not all, treat their leaseholders as a cash cow. I have two examples for the Minister. First, there was a ground rent increase—and there is no value at all to the leaseholder in a ground rent—of 113% this year, which was backdated three years, and the sum was demanded to be paid in full in four weeks. Secondly, there was a 23% increase in service charges this year. There is no accountability. Transparency there is, and challenge there can be, but nothing comes of it—and it seems that nothing in the Bill will change that. Can the Minister tell me that it will?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I can. The Government have consulted on a range of options to reform existing ground rents, having legislated in 2022 to set all new ground rents at a peppercorn rate. Following the outcome of that consultation, we aim to legislate in the current Bill before Parliament. As I say, not only will we give leaseholders greater rights to transparency on what service charges are charged for, to ensure that they are reasonable, but we are changing the cost regime in the courts so they can challenge those charges where they think they are unreasonable.
Local Planning Authorities: Staffing
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Pinnock(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, one of the things we have done in our recent changes is make provision for the indexing of planning fees going forward. That will ensure not only that local authorities will benefit from the substantial increase in fees that were put in place in December this year but that, on an annual basis, the value of those fees will be retained in future.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, the Minister mentioned the increase in planning fees, and she is quite right, but when the Government made that increase they knew that it would not cover the costs of planning applications. Can the Minister justify why hard-pressed councils have to take funding from other public services to pay for planning applications?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, we want to proceed in a measured way, providing additional resourcing without disproportionately impacting businesses and householders. Full cost recovery now could result in a substantial rise in some fees, which would adversely impact some developments. Of course, further to the fee increases and the additional specific funding through the planning skills delivery fund, we have made provision for an increase in the settlement to local authorities overall this year.
Teesworks Joint Venture
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Pinnock(3 months ago)
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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.
Long-term Plan for Housing
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Pinnock(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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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.
Building Repairs: VAT
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Pinnock(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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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.
York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority Order 2023
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Pinnock(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Pinnock (LD)
I am sorry to interrupt, but government Ministers continually say that above-inflation grants have been provided to local authorities in the last year or so. However, for those local authorities that have social care responsibilities, the social care precept is an additional burden on council tax payers. It is not exactly the case that more money has been provided; it has, but the Minister should give the addendum that part of it is provided by an additional burden on council tax payers. In my local authority, it costs council tax payers £200 extra a year to provide for the social care precept.
Baroness Penn (Con)
I absolutely acknowledge the point made by the noble Baroness. I think I referred to an increase in core spending power, and my understanding of that metric is that it reflects the government grant, the council tax and the additional social care precept. I did not refer only to the government grant. I am sure she will be well aware that additional grant funding has also gone into social care over the last two years to reflect additional pressures in that sector.
I was simply making the point that, since 2019, I believe, above-inflation increases to the core spending power of councils have been made available. The terms of the devolution deal and the money attached to it are as set out. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked about further funding. I will not speculate on that, but I point out to all noble Lords that the Government have made significant amounts of funding available for levelling up through the levelling up fund, the towns fund and the future high streets fund. We are working to simplify that funding landscape, but there is an ongoing commitment from this Government to make funding available for local economic development and regeneration. We have seen that in the significant amounts made available in recent years and the ongoing commitment from the Government in that area.
I am conscious that I have not addressed a couple of the questions, in particular on transport, which the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, asked. If both noble Baronesses will forgive me, I will write to them with further details.
Local Authorities: Budgets
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Pinnock(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, as we speak, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Levelling Up is giving a Statement to the House of Commons on action to be taken on Birmingham City Council. It is the Government’s intention to appoint commissioners in that instance, but there will be a period of consultation, I believe, before that is brought forth.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, the Minister said that the Government have finally recognised that councils are facing financial difficulties. However, the Government have been defunding councils over a number of years, so even with the relatively small increase this year, they are still 25% down on the levels they had in 2010. How does that fit with the levelling-up agenda?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I do not recognise the figures that the noble Baroness has put forward. She will know, having been part of the coalition Government in 2010, that the situation this Government inherited from the Benches opposite required difficult decisions to be taken at the time.
Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency
Debate between Baroness Penn and Baroness Pinnock
Baroness Penn (Con)
There is work under way in the NHS and the Department for Health and Social Care to deliver on that pledge.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, it is recognised that the difficulty with the handover to social care is one of the reasons for the problems faced by the ambulance service. The Local Government Association, of which I am a vice-president, estimated that there would be a £2.2 billion shortfall in funding for social care within local authorities. What are the Government going to do to address that challenging problem?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, as I said, the Government have put additional funding into social care. We have also allowed local authorities flexibility in how they approach council tax and their own local precept to support that funding. Funding is an essential part of the picture, as is better co-ordination. We can learn from those areas that are more effective at smooth discharge and ensure that best practice is shared across the country. There are some pilot sites both within the NHS and in social care to try to spread that best practice.