Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, while planning and infrastructure may not get everyone in this House excited, they are fundamental to everything that we do in this country, and we need to get this right—for our communities and to start delivering across the country. Chapter 3 of Part 1 of the Bill, regarding transport infrastructure, has not had the focus that it deserves.

We recognise the urgent need to modernise and expand our networks, from rail upgrades to new bus corridors and active travel routes. Major projects must be delivered efficiently. However, we must not move to a position where we bulldoze through projects with no consideration for local communities and their needs or environmental concerns. It is getting that balance right.

If we travel to the continent, we experience the fantastic high-speed rail networks that have grown at pace. In 1981, France became the first nation in Europe to implement a high-speed rail link, from Paris to Lyon, which was 450 kilometres long. Since then, the network has grown, with over 2,800 kilometres. Spain started constructing its high-speed rail network in 1992. Thirty years later, it has roughly 4,000 kilometres of high-speed rail. Then we look at the UK. High Speed 1 opened in 2007, from London to the Channel Tunnel, a mere 108 kilometres. High Speed 2 we discussed last week.

Although I welcome and understand the Government’s ambition to streamline infrastructure delivery, we must ensure that the Bill does not sacrifice local accountability, local engagement, local heritage or environmental integrity in the name of speed or, indeed, progress. We can learn from our European neighbours about how best to deliver such projects at pace but bringing communities with us.

I welcome some of the progress in the Bill on EV charging. It is a huge issue as we clean up our transport network, and for too long there have been barriers. Clause 47 relates to public charge points. It is crucial that the legislation effectively addresses this issue and is future-proofed to support the continued growth of electric vehicle adoption.

My colleague, Helen Maguire MP, championed amendments to the Bill in the other House that would have enabled cross-pavement charging solutions, such as covered cable gullies, by extending the permitted development rights for on-street charging set-ups. The amendments would have broadened and clarified permitted development rights to facilitate the installation of EV charging infrastructure. Such changes are essential if we are to support the 40% of households without off-street parking and ensure that the benefits of EV adoption are shared fairly. The current bureaucratic process, which includes a street works licence and planning permission, feels too much. I hope the Minister will look favourably at similar amendments when they are tabled in this House. We also need to look at how we can establish charging infrastructure for HGVs and other supply vehicles, which will be vital for net zero. Too often companies find it difficult to secure the necessary permission, let alone the grid access, for such important infrastructure.

We must think creatively about how we power this transition. One of the most underutilised opportunities lies in our existing transport infrastructure. Across the country, vast expanses of roof space exposed to sunlight sit idle. Installing solar panels on car parks, bus garages and railway stations could generate clean energy, reduce grid pressure and power local EV chargers directly. France has already mandated solar panels on large car parks. We are playing catch-up with the recent government announcement. I hope the Government will consider provisions in the Bill to require solar installations on all suitable transport infrastructure. It is a simple, visible step towards a greener future. We have some good examples of it here in the capital, such as the stations at Blackfriars and Denmark Hill.

Let us use the Bill not just to build faster but to build better, smarter and fairer, to achieve a transport network that is clean, connected and accessible for all.

Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, the RAC has said that private parking operators are on track to hand out a record 14.5 million fines this year. In addition to the long-awaited code of practice, will the Government go further and introduce a regulator with appropriate powers to protect motorists and ensure transparency across the system?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We want to make sure that we do as much as possible to protect motorists, but this is an industry that helps to regulate parking. Having been a councillor for many years, I know the distress that wrong and illegal parking can cause people, so we have to get the balance right. We will look at all these issues, including the regulator, as we go through the process of drawing up the new code. The important thing is that we get something in place as quickly as possible to put everyone out of the parking misery they have been suffering.

Car Parking Companies

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not been in this ministerial post since 2022. I will now take action on this as quickly as I can. I thank the noble Lord for his work on this and agree that it is very important that we get it resolved as quickly as possible. The industry did step up and produce its own code of practice, covering the whole private parking industry. That was a step forward, but we need to do what it says in the Act and introduce a government code of practice. We will get on with that as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, the code of conduct has been discussed today. It was withdrawn after only four months. In the policy document and consultation that the Government plan, will they be looking at the issue of motorists who have been charged nearly £2,000 for taking more than five minutes to pay for their parking?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

That was some of the worst practice that we have seen, and there has been a lot of media interest in this. I see, as probably we all do, people wrestling to download apps when there is no wifi, so that they can pay their parking charges. Both private parking trade associations have recognised this as an issue. They have worked collaboratively to take immediate steps to ensure that motorists no longer receive parking charges in that kind of scenario. This came into effect at the start of February. We welcome those steps taken by the industry, but there is still more to do.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

Thursday 19th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a councillor on Central Bedfordshire Council. I thank the Minister for bringing this Statement to the House of Lords. While I welcome the additional funding announced in the spending review, it is unfortunately not keeping pace with the increases in costs and demands seen by councils, and it is dependent on an above-inflation 5% increase in council tax. Is this not yet another tax on hard-working people?

The Government are also imposing additional costs on local government, and while they are funding the £550 million of national insurance increases for directly employed staff, they are not funding the LGA’s estimated £1.25 billion impact due to costs imposed on our suppliers. I might add that this ignores the impact on many of those local charities that do so much for our communities. This will lead to cuts in local government services and a reduction in the support that those local charities provide. Will the Minister commit the Government to look again at this matter?

I remind the House that, in the Autumn Budget, the Chancellor pledged to raise the national living wage. It is set to increase by a further 6.7% in April 2025, with minimum wage rates for younger employees and apprentices set to increase by between 16% and 18%. This is welcome for those on some of the lowest wages. However, it will have a cost impact for local councils, where many social care services are provided by suppliers that pay close to the living wage. This is another cost that local authorities will have to absorb, unless the Government agree to fully fund the increase. Will the Government fully fund the impact of increases in the living wage?

As the Minister is well aware, the rapidly increasing costs of SEND services is crippling councils, and this desperately needs to be reformed, as we have often debated in this House. Continuing the statutory override for dedicated schools grant deficits will delay a number of councils going bust, but with the deficit set to increase by a further £3.2 billion in the coming year, this is just kicking the can down the road—again, this needs to be fixed.

The Government propose to look at the funding formula and, if I have interpreted them correctly, to focus on deprivation. While this may superficially seem appropriate, in practice the major cost driver of local government is social care, including SEND services, which represents around 70% of cost. This means that the focus should be on population demographics and where there will be the greatest need. Analysis by the County Councils Network and PwC demonstrates that rural areas will see the greatest increase in demand compared to metropolitan areas. We have just finished a debate in this House on rural areas. Can the Minister commit that the Government will look at and consult on the underlying cost drivers before any changes to funding formulae are made?

Furthermore, the Government are imposing a number of additional burdens on councils, including through their children’s Bill, renters’ reform Bill and planning measures Bill. Can the Minister confirm that these additional costs will be fully funded through the new burdens doctrine?

I turn now to the Government’s changes to the funding formula, with the repurposing of the rural services delivery grant and the new recovery grant. The latter is heavily focused on metropolitan authorities, with only three county and rural unitary authorities receiving the grant. I reiterate that 70% of the cost of upper-tier authorities is for social care, which is largely driven by demography. Along with the pernicious impact of national insurance increases on social care providers and charities, this will inevitably lead to further cuts to services.

Finally, I turn to growth and fiscal incentives. There have been few fiscal incentives for growth, but the new homes bonus and the business rates retention scheme were genuine incentives for growth and gave some compensation to communities for the impact of this growth. I add that growth imposes significant additional capital costs on councils, and these incentives were helpful there. The proposals to stop the new homes bonus and to reset business rates are deeply concerning, as they will have significant deleterious impacts on the councils that have done the right thing and supported growth, while benefiting those that have not taken the tough decisions to support growth. Given that the Prime Minister has said that growth is his number one mission, milestone, step and so forth, can the Minister assure the House that the councils and communities that have supported growth will not lose out?

I thank the Minister for sharing this Statement from the other place. I wish her, and the rest of the House, a very merry Christmas and a peaceful new year.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

I thank the Minister for the opportunity to discuss the provisional local government finance settlement. It is always an early Christmas present for finance departments in councils up and down the country.

Local government was brought to its knees under the last Government, with funding cuts happening at the same time as further responsibilities were given to our hard-working local government workforce. From the Liberal Democrat Benches, we welcome the move set out in the Statement for multiyear settlements—something my party has long called for.

The Statement suggests that funding previously allocated to rural local authorities under the rural services delivery grant will be repurposed under a need and demand basis. This is despite the grant providing rural local authorities with £100 million for the rollout of essential public services, including emergency services and the provision of social care in the last year.

From these Benches, we are concerned that this new system of allocation will not recognise—as has just been discussed—that the sparse and isolated nature of rural areas drives higher costs for the delivery of essential services, creates challenges in the recruitment of staff for key services, and of course requires local authorities to provide a greater public subsidy for the provision of services such as public transport.

Deprivation in rural areas would also likely be hidden through the use of this measure because it occurs over a wider geographical area. Using deprivation as an indicator of demand for services also does not consider local authorities with a higher number of elderly or vulnerable residents and the additional demands these residents place on services, as the noble Lord just outlined in his response.

I urge the Government to provide rural councils with a funding settlement which reflects the impact of the rurality and sparsity of the areas they serve, through the application of the fair funding formula. With additional pressure on councils to deliver further scrutiny in planning decisions, deliver further housebuilding and accept additional NICs changes, it is essential that they are funded robustly to achieve these aims. Can the Minister say what plans the Government have to ensure that local authorities in rural areas have the support that they need? These authorities face unique challenges and their funding settlement needs to reflect this.

We are also concerned about the funding of certain services such as special educational needs and indeed special educational needs transport. What assurances can the Minister give that the new funding settlement will allow local authorities to deliver special educational needs services at the level needed, as well as child and adult social care?

From these Benches we welcome the consultation on wider local authority funding reform, but we urge the Government to move as fast as possible with this, as 2026-27 feels a long time away and, the more time passes, the more the contents of this Statement will feel rather like a sticking plaster. Can the Minister say anything more today about the timescale of the consultation and whether genuine fiscal devolution will be considered, so we are not looking just at how the government funding is divided up but at powers to enable local authorities to raise funding to invest in services and infrastructure for their local communities, rather than always being reliant on the Government of the day?

Finally, given that we are on the final sitting day before the Christmas break, I take this opportunity to wish the entire local government workforce a very happy Christmas, and of course I extend that to all noble Lords as well.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, for their questions and comments, and I really welcome this opportunity to update the House on our plans to get local government finances on to a surer footing, both next year and beyond.

Our Labour Government were elected to deliver real change, and this must include change for local government. Local government delivers over 800 services to local people every day. Councils are the front line of public services, from waste collection to adult care provision, economic growth and housing. Yet we know that they are facing challenges as demand increases for critical services such as homelessness, social care and SEND, as mentioned by the noble Baroness. The Government cannot deliver our priorities alone. We have to reset and rebuild the relationship with an empowered local government—we spoke about that earlier today.

Yesterday, Minister McMahon set out the Government’s plans to get local Government back on track, both in 2025-26 and longer term, as the noble Baroness mentioned, to lay the foundations for long-overdue funding reform. We must move away from expensive acute crisis response and invest in the key longer-term preventive services, and the Government are committed to ensuring that taxpayers’ money goes where it is needed most.

Taken together, the additional funding made available at the settlement and the Budget delivers over £5 billion of new funding for local services over and above the local council tax, and in the provisional local government finance settlement we have an additional £2 billion in grant funding—a £700-million increase from the £1.3 billion announced at the policy statement.

This £700 million increase includes over £200 million extra funding for social care. It also includes £515 million which will be made available at the final settlement to support councils with the increase in employer national insurance contributions. I will come back to that in a moment.

Financial year 2025-26 will also see a new one-off and highly targeted recovery grant, already mentioned by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness. That is for those authorities with high deprivation but a low council tax base. This will be funded in part through repurposing the rural services delivery grant and the services grant and laying the groundwork for broader reform in the future. I will come back to rural authorities. We will provide funding certainty. No authority will see a reduction in core spending power after accounting for council tax flexibilities.

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, spoke about funding not keeping pace with the demands in local government. We are very well aware of the difficulties in funding that local government has experienced. This Government have done more to help with that than any of the work that the party opposite did in the last few years; I know that from personal experience. If he wants to criticise the 5% increase in council tax, I point out that it is exactly in line with what his Government had in place before us. We know council tax is a burden for people—we properly understand that—but we have to help local government with funding, and not allowing it to increase council tax would not help at all.

In terms of national insurance charges and the Government’s funding to help with them, we have chosen to make that £515 million of additional funding not ring-fenced, so the Government are enabling councils to choose how to distribute it, including how to meet the increased cost of externally commissioned services. We hope that the additional £3.7 billion funding available in the settlement for social care authorities will help with that. It will be clear to local authorities that specific funding for national insurance contributions being provided will not meet the overall cost to local government of the change to employer NICs, particularly given the expected increase in the cost of commissioned services, but that is why we have left that money un-ring-fenced: to try and help with the issue of funding. The overall increase in funding should help local authorities to meet the cost as they go forward.

The decision around national insurance contributions is a Treasury decision; it is not made in MHCLG, so I am afraid I cannot help the noble Lord on the responsibility for that. The national minimum wage increase is all part of the picture of making sure that no local authority has a reduction in cost funding, but it is really important that people who work in local government, as everywhere else, and particularly the brilliant teams that work in social care and across social care employment, have the right wages for the very valuable and important work that they do. The national minimum wage is the basic element of that. We welcome the opportunity to give them that increase, which they so much deserve.

The noble Lord mentioned kicking the can down the road on SEND. We have been in government for five months, so it is probably not us who have been doing that; it might have been somebody else. As part of the 30 October Budget, the Government announced an additional £2.3 billion for mainstream schools and young people with high needs for 2025-26, compared to 2024-25. That means that overall core school funding will total almost £63.9 billion next year, after accounting for technical adjustments.

The children with special educational needs and disabilities have been failed, with poor outcomes and parents struggling to get their children the support they need and deserve. I mentioned this morning the absolute outrage of parents having to take their own councils to court to get services that those children were legally entitled to. That happened in my own county of Hertfordshire, which is why it had such a disastrous Ofsted report on SEND. This Government’s ambition is that all children and young people with SEND or in alternative provision receive the right support to succeed in their education as they move into adult life. Any gap in SEND provision for children leaves a lasting effect on their life opportunities. The Government will strengthen accountability on mainstream settings to be inclusive, including through Ofsted, support the mainstream workforce to increase their SEND expertise and encourage schools to set up resourced provision or SEND units to increase capacity in mainstream schools. We are getting a grip on this, but it had been left—kicked as a can down the road—for a very long time, and it is going to take a while to get it back.

The noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, and the noble Baroness mentioned the issue of rural services. The Government really recognise the importance of our rural communities, and we want to support them. The funding reforms that we have announced are very much part of a comprehensive reform, and the Government are absolutely committed to tackling the issues that matter so much to those rural communities. Places with a significant rural population will, on average, receive around a 5% increase in their core spending power next year, which is a real-terms increase, and we are proposing to continue to apply area cost adjustment to account for relative cost differences between local authorities, including differences between rural and urban areas. The Government propose continuing to assess the same factors as the 2024 area cost adjustment, which seeks, for example, to account for increased costs as a result of travel times, and we will ensure the approach is informed by the latest data and evidence. We are inviting views from local government and the public on this approach and whether we should account for any other factors which could affect cost, as well as any evidence for including those. There will be an extensive consultation for this as we go into the spending review in in the new year.

Part of the doctrine of new burdens is that they are funded. On the new homes bonus, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, there will be a new round of payments in 2025-26. In line with recent years, these will not attract legacy payments. New homes bonus allocations will continue to be made in the usual way, applying the same calculation process.

I hope I covered all the noble Baroness’s issues on rural and sparse populations. On the funding reform timescale that she mentioned, we have to do some consultation on this, but it is the intention to do that work in advance of the spending review in spring. Having waited several years now for fairer funding reform in local government, I am very pleased that we are able to bring that forward as quickly as we have. We must reform the way that councils are funded to ensure that local government can deliver for all people in the long term, including the most vulnerable. Fixing local government is a long-term challenge, and I hope that I have set out as clearly as possible the steps we have already taken to get local government back on its feet through this year’s settlement and in the future.

On the announcement issue, it used to drive me mad when I was a council leader that this announcement comes out on 18 or 19 December, and your poor officers are struggling to get the work ready. We could not do much about it this year, but I hope we will do better next year. I thank noble Lords very much.

Older People’s Housing Taskforce

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, we consulted on reforms to the National Planning Policy Framework and published our response on 12 December. We are determined to create a more diverse housing market that delivers homes to meet a range of needs. On the noble Lord’s particular point, we will respond to all 44 recommendations of the task force. However, my honourable friend in the other House, Matthew Pennycook, will look at this in the wider housing strategy.

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, the report of the task force mentions the LGBTQ+ communities only once, yet there is a growing need and desire for inclusive LGBT+ affirming retirement accommodation, as provided by organisations such as Tonic Housing. What plans do the Government have to address these specific needs?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness makes an important point. As I said, the task force report was published two weeks ago, and we are looking at each of its 44 recommendations to make sure that our housing needs are diverse for the country. It is in the national interest that the Government ensure that we have housing that reflects the country and that we take into account the needs of people of all backgrounds and all ages.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry Report

Baroness Pidgeon Excerpts

Friday 22nd November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pidgeon (LD)]

My Lords, it is rather difficult to follow such a speech and its insight into the industry and what has gone on.

I have no doubt that everyone in this Chamber can remember the horror at waking to the tragic news of the Grenfell Tower fire and the haunting images on TV. It is one of those significant moments in history: such a horror in our capital city, where 72 people tragically lost their lives. Our thoughts continue to be with the families and the community who lost loved ones and continue to grieve to this day.

The inquiry has rightly looked, in painstaking detail, at the facts leading up to the night of 14 June 2017: the underlying causes of the fire, where mistakes were made, the condition of the tower and the responses of the public and emergency services. While some specific recommendations are about Grenfell, there are lessons for every authority in the land. Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the inquiry, bluntly said that

“the simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable and that those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants”.

The inquiry is absolutely damning about the construction industry, building management, inspection regimes and the public authorities involved, including the local council, the London Fire Brigade and the Government. As one reads the report, the perfect storm of dishonesty in the sector around the suitability of products to insulate high-rise buildings, alongside the failure of the inspection regime around the certification of such products, is truly shocking.

There are many recommendations for the Government on the regulation of the construction industry, fire risk assessors and the statutory guidance. I hope the Minister will be able to update the House on progress in these areas. The huge issue that remains is the number of buildings with dangerous cladding and other fire risks that remain across the country, particularly in our big cities. I remember the worried emails I used to receive as a London Assembly member at City Hall from people who were scared to live in their own homes, facing crippling bills for waking watches and remedial works and unable to sell their home. They had increased insurance premiums, mortgages and service charges, alongside the impact that this has had on their mental health and their lives. While the previous Government provided funding, which is gradually being allocated, for remedial works, many homes remain left in limbo. How can anyone live their life when they do not yet know when their building—their home—will be made safe?

I have spoken over the years to many housing association officers who have been unable to access previous government funding, as to do so meant that they had to show that their organisation was bankrupt. That cannot be right. As we have heard in today’s debate, our social housing sector needs support to ensure that housing is made safe quickly for tenants and leaseholders. The Budget last month saw over £1 billion allocated in 2025-26 to help with the remediation of unsafe housing. I understand that this figure also includes money to spend on the remediation of social housing, which is obviously welcome. Can the Minister provide more details of this in his response?

The Minister quoted some new departmental figures, but I have been looking at the recent National Audit Office report, which stated that

“remediation works on most tower blocks over 18 metres with the most dangerous form of cladding are now complete or nearing completion”.

However, it also estimated that 9,000 to 12,000 residential buildings over 11 metres need remediating, and as of August—this may differ from the Minister’s figures—just 4,771 buildings were in a remediation programme, leaving up to 60% of buildings still to be identified. Of all the buildings that may be in scope, work has been completed on only around 12% to 16%. This is just not good enough. We need a step change to make sure that people’s homes are safe. I think it is clear to us all that the scale of the cladding and wider fire safety crisis is far greater than we first thought.

I praise the work of the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign group, and I fully support its calls for the inquiry’s recommendations to be implemented in full and without delay. It is clear to me that leaseholders need to be protected from fixing all fire risks, not just cladding, and that the remediation fund process needs to be streamlined and faster.

If we are to consider how we prevent this happening again, we need to look at the regulatory regime. I was pleased to hear the Minister mention his commitment to regulatory reform, but there are multiple regulatory routes to remediation; several regulatory regimes can be used to compel a building manager to act. For example, the fire service can serve a notice under the fire safety order; the local council can enforce via the housing, health and safety rating system in the Housing Act 2004; and central government itself can apply to the First-tier Tribunal for a remediation order under the Building Safety Act 2022. These all produce the same thing: a legally enforceable order to remediate the premises so that it is safe, on pain of criminal sanction, including fines and even prison. However, there is no clarity over which agency, be it fire, council or government, should lead on any particular premises. Indeed, I understand that all three have been done successively.

Regulators would really like some clear guidance from the Government on which organisation should lead, especially as each case is potentially expensive and could involve litigating against an unwilling building manager. Without that guidance, it could be all too easy for agencies to assume that another will lead, and a dangerous building could fall through the cracks.

Another area where issues remain is the freeholder who could fund the remediation works but who does not accept that they are at fault or culpable, saying that the builder, the materials supplier or some previous freeholder is to blame. Such freeholders might ultimately receive government funding or be able to recover the costs from whoever was at fault, but they will not begin the remedial works without some assurance of this. I would welcome a clear statement from government that this is not acceptable and that regulators should be able to mandate that freeholders with the resources to fund remediation should do so straight away.

This is a sobering debate and a serious moment, as we look at what needs to be done to ensure that everyone can live in a safe home. I look forward to the Minister’s responses to these points.