Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

1: Clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out “levelling-up”
Member's explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment to explore the meaning of the phrase “levelling-up” and whether this part is sufficient to support the aims of “levelling-up”.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we have a lot of scrutiny of this Bill before us. Before we start, I want to explore what is meant by levelling up, and whether there is a broad agreement as to its definition and purpose. My amendment proposes to remove the words “levelling up”, as the content of the Bill fails to live up to the aspiration as described in the levelling-up White Paper.

Here is one definition. The purpose of levelling up is,

“to break that link between geography and destiny so that it makes good business sense for the private sector to invest in areas that have, for too long, felt left behind ... A vision for the future that will see public spending on R&D increased in every part of the country; transport connectivity reaching London-like levels within and between all our towns and cities; faster broadband in every community; life expectancies rising; violent crime falling; schools improving; and private sector investment unleashed.”

That is the former Prime Minister’s explanation, set out in the foreword to the levelling-up White Paper.

Does levelling up refer to this? The White Paper says:

“There are stark geographical inequalities between and within our cities, towns and villages … It is about unleashing opportunity, prosperity and pride in places where, for too long, it has been held back.”


These words were those of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and Andy Haldane, formerly of the Bank of England, in a further foreword to the White Paper.

The executive summary of the White Paper spells out the purpose very clearly:

“This requires us to end the geographical inequality which is such a striking feature of the UK … This programme has to be broad, deep and long-term. It has to be rooted in evidence demonstrating that a mix of factors is needed to transform places and boost local growth: strong innovation and a climate conducive to private sector investment, better skills, improved transport systems, greater access to culture, stronger pride in place, deeper trust, greater safety and more resilient institutions.”


Therefore, throughout the White Paper, on which presumably the Bill is based, there is a clear focus on geographical disparities and inequalities. These inequalities, it is argued, harm the whole of the country, not only for the lost opportunities of lower incomes and skills but because the consequence is lower growth, which has a negative pull on the country as a whole.

The levelling-up fund is, I assume, a precursor to a wider strategy. If so, it is instructive to analyse which areas have been granted funds in the first two rounds. If levelling up was to be laser-like in addressing the worst of the geographic inequalities, levelling-up grants would be targeted at those parts of the country deemed to be suffering the greatest inequalities as defined by the White Paper. Yet, as the House of Commons Library has shown, those areas categorised by the Government as priority 1 for grant funding had just 59% of the total funding available. Over £1 billion from the levelling-up fund was allocated to areas not deemed in greatest need; those were in priority 2 and even priority 3 areas.

That is not levelling up as defined by the White Paper; it is spreading the government funding jam way too thinly. Of course there will be, within every area, pockets of deprivation. Empowering and enabling local councils to tackle smaller areas of deprivation is probably the most effective way to do so. The levelling-up White Paper, however, is setting out a strategy, not for tackling individual poverty or small areas of deprivation but for finding solutions to economically underperforming places. Will the Minister clarify whether levelling up is to tackle individual poverty or to narrow the gaps as proposed by the metrics in the annexe to the White Paper?

The White Paper—it is a good read—also states:

“The UK has larger geographical differences than many other developed countries on multiple measures, including productivity, pay, educational attainment and health … While London and much of the South East have benefited economically, former industrial centres and many coastal communities have suffered. This has left deep and lasting scars in many of these places, damaging skills, jobs, innovation, pride in place, health and wellbeing.”


In chapter 1 of the White Paper the analysis is most clearly stated:

“The UK’s spatial disparities are also among the largest across advanced economies on a number of measures, including productivity and income per head … When assessed across 28 different measures—using different spatial units of analysis, different measures of prosperity and different indices of inequality—the UK has been found to be one of the most spatially unequal countries among the OECD.”


The Bill offers an opportunity to fulfil the aspirations set out in the White Paper. Currently, it fails to do so. The missions and capitals described in the White Paper must be part of this Bill. The Bill should then establish the legislation to enable those missions to be enacted. It fails to do so.

This is a complex Bill addressing, in part, one element of the White Paper missions, that of wider local devolution. It also has a detailed section on planning reform which may—or may not—add to a mission to narrow spatial gaps. Yet measures to enable the big strategy of levelling up are simply not there. Levelling up is a slogan seeking some substance. For the sake of millions of people, the substance and the financial commitment are desperately needed. I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for tabling this amendment because it gives us the opportunity to pinpoint the tension at the heart of the levelling-up agenda. As the impact assessment reminds us, the problem it claims to address concerns unequal shares and opportunities, and levelling up

“is a mission to challenge, and change, that unfairness.”

It means

“giving everyone the opportunity to flourish”

and to have

“longer and more fulfilling lives”,

together with

“sustained rises in living standards and well-being”

for people everywhere. In fact, this is a statement about people, not places, as reflected in some of the missions. Yet the impact assessment states that achieving the aims of levelling up

“requires us to end the geographical inequality which is such a striking feature of the UK.”

The Minister’s levelling-up letter explains that the missions are necessarily spatial—but why are they purely spatial and geographical when inequalities of income and wealth between individuals are also striking features of the UK? A report published by the Social Market Foundation, called Beyond Levelling Up and written by a former senior adviser to recent Conservative Chancellors, argues that this approach to levelling up

“avoids the question of whether we think the gap between rich and poor is acceptable, and whether we are comfortable with the current levels of income and wealth accruing to the richest in society.”

I will leave those in poverty until a later amendment. To make matters worse, ONS data shows that inequality has worsened since he wrote the report, and it is worse still if we use alternative measures on inequality.

I ask the Minister if she thinks the gap between rich and poor is acceptable. How does she think that the levelling-up agenda’s ambitions can be achieved without addressing that gap between rich and poor?

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Through the Bill we are placing an obligation on future Governments to state publicly and before Parliament whether they will proceed with existing missions or establish revised missions, and to report annually on their progress in delivering against those missions. As I said, Parliament will do the scrutiny and agree to the changes in any missions. That is the important place for it to be—not on the face of the Bill where, because it is in legislation, it cannot be changed very easily. I hope that I have given enough reassurances to the Committee, and I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her response to the question I posed, which was to try to establish greater clarity on what we mean by levelling up before we start debating the 500-plus amendments to this Bill. Unfortunately, I do not think any of us are much the wiser.

On the one hand, the Minister was quite rightly able to agree what is in her Government’s White Paper, but equally she then talked about spreading the benefits or investment of levelling up away from those areas which the White Paper defined as spatial disparities or geographical inequalities. We ought to have a laser-like focus on dealing with those places, be they coastal towns, rural areas, or areas where old industries have gone and new industries have not replaced them. That is what I wanted to achieve from this short debate. Unfortunately, I really do not think that we are any nearer to knowing what the Government’s intentions are.

What I do know, from long experience and involvement in local government—I should mention, and apologise for not having done so, my interests in the register as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as a councillor in Kirklees in West Yorkshire—is that, if we just have relatively short-term funding and investment packages, that will not work. The City Challenge; Single Regeneration Budget 1; Single Regeneration Budget 2; the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund; the whole panoply of those investment packages came and went and some of those places are still identified by the Government’s own White Paper as being priority one, in need of—in their terms—levelling up. The Government say in the levelling up White Paper that levelling up should be “broad, deep and long-term.” The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill in front of us does none of those things, and although I beg to withdraw the amendment, I will be pursuing the aspirations and intentions of the Government in this levelling-up Bill throughout its proceeding.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Valentine (CB)]

I have added my name to Amendments 32 and 38, both of which deal with the independent evaluation of progress against the levelling-up missions. I begin by apologising that I was unable to be present for Second Reading. Levelling up is a subject I care deeply about and, with Business in the Community, I spend much of my time working in or for the sorts of places the Bill seeks to address. Before commenting on the amendments, I congratulate the Government on their levelling-up missions. While one can argue about whether these are exactly the right ones, I personally value the clarity and long-term commitment that these missions convey.

It is in this vein that I support the independent evaluation of progress. The missions need to work across government departments, across political parties and across Parliaments. I would value a statutory board being created to provide independent insight in exactly the way we have the Independent Commission on Climate. It seems to me that the long-term and challenging aspiration to level up socially has a strong parallel to tackling our environmental challenges and is at least as important.

I will finish by quoting two lessons from the LSE’s report on the effectiveness of the UK’s Committee on Climate Change, where the parallels are, I think, obvious. The first is this:

“An independent expert body can strengthen climate governance by introducing a long-term perspective, enhancing the credibility of climate targets and ensuring more evidence-based policymaking.”


Secondly:

“To be effective, independent advisory bodies must have an appropriate status. This means having a clear statutory mandate, strong leadership, adequate resources, and sufficient powers to hold Government to account.”

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is an important group of amendments to tease out the Government’s intentions as to the scrutiny of the success or otherwise of their actions in levelling up. While I speak to Amendments 24, 26, 32 and 49, to which I have added my name, I also wish to speak to the other amendments in this group.

The key question is how Parliament will know that progress has genuinely been made in reducing geographical disparities. That, after all, is the question at the heart of the White Paper. The only way to judge whether progress has genuinely been made is by using evidence and independence. All the amendments in this group refer to producing independent accountability of the statement that the Government will be making towards the end of a period of time—what that period is is still to be debated.

What is really positive about the White Paper is that it is absolutely full of evidence. There are around 80 different graphs and datasets to establish the evidence base for the purpose of the White Paper: how it is going to change different parts of the country and narrow the gaps. This set of amendments attempts to say that not only do we need the evidence but we need it to be independently assessed. I agree, obviously, with my noble friend and with the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, in talking about an independent commission or board—as we have done with climate change—to assess what is going on, and whether change has been made and, if so, how much and in what areas.

I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the missions not being in the Bill, because otherwise, the levelling-up Bill is whatever the Executive define it to be. The Government have set out in a lengthy White Paper what the Bill attempts to do: narrow the gaps, reduce geographical inequalities and disparities, and make a big difference not only to the people who live in certain areas but to the country as a whole. If we do not change the country as it is at the moment, the people who live in those areas will be the ones who are low paid, have poor health and low skills—as a generality, of course. If we can change that, we will change their lives and change the country as well; there would not be such a call on the health service and the benefits system if we had people with better paid jobs, higher skills and better health outcomes. It is in the interests of us all, not just those of some areas of the country.

I fundamentally disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about research and development. I draw his attention to what the White Paper says—and it is a government White Paper, not mine. It says that the Government need to ensure that there is government investment of a significant degree in these geographical areas of disparity—the spatial disparities it talks about—in order to attract matching private sector investment and create better paid jobs, and deal with all the concomitant issues related to low pay, poor health, poor skills and all the rest of it. That is what it says in the White Paper.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Devon, and to echo his concern about the lack of environmental ambitions expressed in the Bill, which I think we will also discuss in the next group. In my first contribution in Committee, I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association, to cover my other contributions in Committee.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for his powerful and expert introduction to this group. I will speak briefly to offer Green group support for the general direction of all these amendments. I will focus in particular on Amendment 5, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which was ably introduced by the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose, and talks about looking at

“the disparities between rural and urban areas”.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, talked about the different needs of different areas, but it is really important that, when we think about levelling up, we actually see ambitions for equal services for people all across these islands.

I will reflect on some of the experiences I have had in some small communities. Clun is a tiny, picture-perfect postcard village in south-west Shropshire near the Wales border. When I visited a decade ago, the locals believed that it was the smallest place in the UK with a food bank, which was operating out of the church. One of the volunteers working at that food bank told me that, until he got involved in that food bank, he never believed that anyone would need a food bank in Clun. He was absolutely and deeply shocked by the level of need and the experiences he encountered. There is a desperate need for essential support services. While I do not think that we should rest until the last food bank closes because of a lack of demand, we need to put other services in place to help the people who are now reliant on those food banks.

Another issue for so many of these areas is the fact that policies designed for cities and urban areas get imposed on rural areas. This makes me think about the time I visited a school in north Norfolk. The schools in that area had had imposed on them the idea of specialist schools: “Isn’t it great if pupils can choose to go to a sports academy or a language-specialising school?” However, as each village only had one bus service, pupils had no choice about which school they went to; they went only to the school that the bus went to. If you were really good at and fancied sports, but you ended up in the language school, that was just tough luck. That was because of policies imposed on rural areas which are just inappropriate.

I return to the issue of buses, because it is very close to the heart of the Green Party, having announced this week our policy for a fare that would be available to everyone in the country on local buses, “A One Pound Fare to Take You There”. When I talk about local buses in rural areas, I often get reactions such as, “Well, you can’t expect a bus in a rural area; it just won’t work.” However, I have been to Finland, where I caught a bus that went right into the middle of a national park. I went for a walk, I came back and stood at the bus stop, and I waited for the next bus service, which came every half an hour, all day, in the middle of that national park. So, when thinking about levelling up in an absolute and real sense, we should not be saying, “Oh, it’s a rural area; they can’t expect this or that.” In particular, we should not say that they cannot expect the foundation of a bus service so that people can get around. For that reason, I think that Amendment 3, about reducing disparities, is crucial.

My final point is about the little bit of discussion we have had on the Government’s vision for rural areas. Over the decades, the direction of travel in rural areas has been that landholdings and farms will have to get bigger and bigger, with fewer and fewer people working on them. However, I suggest that levelling up for rural areas means restoring small businesses and small farms which employ quite a lot of people. That then means that there are children to go to the local school, that there are people to get on the bus, and that the bus is there for the older people who need it, perhaps because they cannot drive any more. Restoring communities is about a lot more than asking, “Oh, what’s there and what can we support?”; it is about a vision.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath for raising this very important issue and for providing an evidence base and powerful argument in support of rural communities in particular. This short but important debate has cast a focus on the confusion at the heart of levelling up, which the debate on Amendment 1 was trying to resolve: what do we mean by levelling up and spatial disparities? What do we mean by improving the lives of people who live in different parts of the country, where for some there is low pay, low skills and poor health and for others there is a lack of connectivity or a lack of opportunities? Because we have not resolved that confusion, we will, throughout the passage of the Bill, get arguments of different natures in support of communities which need levelling up, whatever we mean by it. I hope that levelling up will not mean, or be defined by the Government as, either “rural levelling up” or “urban levelling up”, or that we will level up coastal, rural or urban areas separately. The levelling-up agenda must have a clear definition—which is in the White Paper, as I keep pointing out, but is not in the Bill—about the geographical disparities across this country, be they rural, coastal or urban, that result in people’s lives and the country being poorer. The levelling-up Bill ought to address that, but it unfortunately fails to do so.

I was struck by a really good phrase used by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, about levelling up: we do not want levelling-up ambitions to “blow in the political wind”. That is one of the reasons why I support having both the broad mission statements and the broad metrics for those mission statements in the Bill, so that we can say to whatever Government we have, “This is what we have agreed to, and this is what we are going to demand that you address.” Otherwise, we will come back again to the debate about the difficulties for people who live in rural areas. While noble Lords might think that West Yorkshire, where I live, is a big urban area, surprisingly, the upper Colne Valley could not be more rural; there are scattered farm settlements across the hillsides going up to the top of the Pennines. Its residents understand what it means to not have access to public transport, mobile networks or broadband connectivity.

Let us not go down the route of it being one or the other. I hope the Government will, even if I have to encourage them again, eventually closely define what they mean by “geographical disparities” and then address them through the missions and metrics that I hope we will put on the face of the Bill.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for introducing his amendment—this is a really important amendment going forward. I also thank him for mentioning the work of the Rural Services Network; its report is incredibly important in informing the approach that the Government need to take and the work they need to do to reduce the disparities faced by rural areas. The Government would do well to take notice and account of what the Rural Service Network does as they continue to move forward with their levelling-up missions.

I have one amendment in this group, Amendment 488, and my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage has Amendment 53 in this group. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Devon, for his support for my noble friend’s amendment. I very much agree with him that the environmental emissions targets need to be included in this, if we are to have any chance of meeting what is laid out in the Environment Act.

The noble Earl also very clearly laid out many of the concerns that face both our rural and coastal communities, including that they constantly feel missed out and left behind. They will be concerned that this is what will happen to them again. It is really important that we consider this properly. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, rural poverty is so often missed and underestimated; often it is not as in your face as urban poverty, and we need to ensure we take full account of it.

My noble friend’s Amendment 53

“is to probe whether the metrics are suitable for rural and coastal communities, and whether alternative metrics should be considered.”

Here is an example from the document that was published on the mission and metrics—the technical annexe. I remind noble Lords of the metric that accompanies mission 3:

“By 2030, local public transport connectivity across the country will be significantly closer to the standards of London, with improved services, simpler fares and integrated ticketing.”


The metrics that will be used to assess progress in achieving that mission are

“method of travel to work by region of workplace … The other headline metric is the average journey time to centres of employment, with the data broken down by modes of transport and at lower tier local authority level in England.”

What they do not do is tell us how much public transport exists in the first place.

I live in an area where we have one bus a week—that is not one bus that comes and goes during that day, but one bus that goes to one place on one day of the week—and it gives us a couple of hours in the place it arrives before we have to come home again. I genuinely do not understand how, in the area where I live, these metrics will deliver transport connectivity that is “significantly closer” to the standards of London. I genuinely have no concept of how these metrics will achieve that.

My other concern is that the principal objective is “growing the private sector”. Again, I cannot see how growing the private sector in the area I live, or in the areas that surround it, will suddenly bring me a really good bus service. The one thing that might help is if the Government reintroduced the rural bus grant fund that they took away. That led to dozens and dozens in my area losing their services—I know this because I was a county councillor at the time—because they were simply no longer profitable. Looking at the metrics from a rural perspective is incredibly important, if we are genuinely going to drive change in this area.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. I share the disappointment of the noble Lord, Lord Young, that we will not hear from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. As someone who also knows that problem of running between the Chamber and the Moses Room all too well, I sympathise.

I do not feel that I need to add anything to the child poverty point made in the three powerful initial speeches. All one can say is that we hope that the Government in both Chambers were listening to those three speeches or will at least read them, because, really, how could they not act on the basis of them?

I want to focus on three amendments: Amendment 8, adding climate emergency as a mission, Amendment 18 on net zero, and Amendment 19, on the Environment Act. I broadly support what the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said, but I slightly disagree with him because he said that he could not imagine a Government who did not have a net-zero-by-2050 target. I can imagine it: I know that we need a Government who have a target for net zero long before 2050, and indeed, who need to explore very closely that phrase “net zero” and what exactly it means. Perhaps I should add that that is a friendly disagreement,.

I am not quite sure that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that net zero should not be sitting there as a target on its own. As he was speaking, I could not help but think about the often-repeated phrase that what is not measured is not prioritised. If it is across all the targets—I very much agree that it applies across all the targets—is there a risk that it just disappears into the “Yes, we’ll put a few nice words in without really putting the counting in there”? We are seeing from local councils, so many of which have declared a climate emergency or, indeed, a nature crisis, that they are desperate to do that—to be able to show their own contribution.

A lot of our discussion about the climate emergency has focused on mitigation and the possibilities of mitigation. It is important to put that in the current global context, where we see both the United States and the European Union—particularly the US leading, with the EU trying to follow—putting massive sums of investment into what is loosely called the green economy. If we think about the Government and their often-expressed desire to be world-leading, there has been a real change in the global context just in the last few months. In that light, I want to pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. Most of the talk has been on climate mitigation. When we are particularly talking about what are commonly described as “left-behind communities”, such as the rural and coastal communities which we were talking about in the last group, the issues of adaptation and resilience to the climate emergency really need to be highlighted.

Here, we speak in the week when the UN Security Council had its first ever debate on the impacts of sea-level rise, and in just the last day or so we have seen some truly terrifying research coming out about the weakness of ice sheets that have the potential to cause a massive sea-level rise. As I was sitting here thinking about this, I thought about a visit I made to a small rural village called Hemsby in 2014 after it had been hit by a storm and a number of homes had been swept away. I just looked up Hemsby and realised that this year, Hemsby has been hit by serious storms three times again, and the lifeboat has lost its ramp again and again. If we think about places that desperately need support in the climate emergency, communities such as Hemsby have to be at the forefront. We have not really heard much discussion about that in this debate. I am not sure whether this needs to be a separate mission. The issue of resilience needs to be across all of the missions, making sure that everything we are aiming to invest in and build can stand up to climate and other shocks when we live in this age of shocks.

A number of noble Lords made the point about the interaction of human health and well-being and the environment. I do not know whether the Minister is aware—I point this out to her as a constructive suggestion—of a UN project called the Healthy Urban Microbiome Initiative, known as HUMI. It focuses on how human well-being benefits from a healthy environment even in the most concentrated urban settings. A more biodiverse setting, even on the busiest urban street, is better for human well-being. That has to underpin everything the Government are doing and thinking about here.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an important and interesting debate about new missions to be added to the levelling-up agenda. Quite rightly, the Government have been thrown a challenge in four different ways. First, there was an absolutely vital challenge from the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about reducing child poverty being absolutely at the heart of any levelling-up agenda. As she and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester said, currently 3.9 million children in our own country—nearly 4 million children—are living in poverty. If we do not use the Bill to address that scar on our country and our communities, we will not level up the lives of those communities in those localities.

The fundamentals that we have raised in this debate of child poverty, net zero, access to green spaces and protecting and enhancing our natural environment, are, for the reasons given, at the very heart of what the levelling-up ambitions ought to be achieving. As all the contributions have indicated, if we reduce those inequalities in those areas of spatial disparities, because we are focusing on those we will focus as a country on all child poverty. If we say that in the north-east people need access to green spaces, we focus on everybody’s access to green spaces. If we focus on reducing child poverty in some of the worst parts of our country, we improve the lives of every child because we are putting a spotlight on reducing those dreadful inequalities.

I thank the speakers, particularly my noble friends Lord Stunell and Lady Parminter, who drew the attention of the Minister and the House to the advantages of putting net zero and the environment at the very heart of all that we do. If we do not, we are missing a trick, as someone said. We have to will the means, said my noble friend Lady Parminter, not just express them. That is why on these Benches we will wholeheartedly support the amendment. If the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, wishes to bring this back on Report, she will have our support, as will those who raised the other issues with regard to the environment.

Capital Projects: Spending Decisions

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

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

No, we do not expect local authorities to fill the funding gap. There has been an issue—that of inflation—across many of the programmes. There is no additional funding, but we are working with local authorities to ensure that local priorities can still be delivered. Where requests for rescoping are submitted, we are looking to deal with those flexibly, provided that the changes are still likely to represent good value for money. We are also providing £6.5 million of support for local authorities. We will be evaluating, and those evaluations will be made public.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my relevant interests. The highly respected and independent Institute for Government wrote last month that the levelling-up fund

“is another ineffective competitive funding pot that is neither large enough nor targeted enough to make a dent in regional inequalities.”

Does the Minister agree? If not, what is wrong with that statement?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No, I do not agree. I think that a £9.9 billion investment into levelling up shows a Government who are putting their money where their mouth is. They are delivering levelling up across the country and will do so in future. They have already done so with the future high streets fund, the towns fund, the UK shared prosperity fund—which is about to come out—and even small funds such as the community renewal fund. These are all delivering things for people in this country.

Levelling Up Fund

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I agree with some of my noble friend’s views. If I remember rightly, I answered a similar question yesterday from my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and said that the Government are committed to reducing the complexities of local government funding, as set out in the levelling up White Paper.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, in response to a question earlier, the Minister said that the assessment was made by excluding those councils that had already received funding. Were those councils told before they spent huge sums of money to make bids that they would be excluded at the first step? Secondly, how many of the Government’s 139 council priority areas have not yet received any money?

Local Government (Structural Changes) (Supplementary Provision and Amendment) Order 2023

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I start by reminding the Committee of my interests in the register: I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a serving councillor on Kirklees Council. I thank the Minister for her opening remarks explaining this statutory instrument. As she explained, these are consequential changes from the creation of the new unitary local authorities of Somerset, North Yorkshire, Cumberland, and Westmorland and Furness.

The key issues that I want to ask a few questions about relate to pension funds and housing capital finance. Of course, the changes proposed have to be made to ensure an equitable division of liabilities for pension funds and capital finance debt. My questions relate to the way in which these decisions are being made. Will they be transparent? Are the external auditors of the existing local authorities involved and, if not, why not? External auditors can often make independent assessments, particularly of pension liabilities, and are able to advise councils. I think that their advice would be helpful.

I have a further question on the creation of the two local authorities in Cumbria and the manner in which the transfer of their pension funds will be agreed. The Minister explained that it has been agreed that Westmorland and Furness council will administer pension funds on behalf of the two new councils. According to the Explanatory Memorandum, this council will determine the proportions of transferred pension fund assets and liabilities. My understanding is that Westmorland and Furness must take advice from the other new unitary council, Cumberland, but I would like more information about that, because nothing creates more of an argument between councils than questions of who has to take on liabilities.

The two councils may be able to make an amicable agreement, but what if they are not able to do so? The Explanatory Memorandum says,

“In coming to a fair determination on these matters, the Order provides that Westmorland and Furness must take advice from an actuary”—


that is good—

“and consult Cumberland Council.”

If I were a member of Cumberland council, I would want a bit more than being consulted. I would want to be sure that there was proper agreement between the two councils and not just consultation.

Can the Minister say whether there is an opportunity in this process for, in this instance, Cumberland council to appeal to the Government if there is no agreement on the way in which pension fund liabilities are divided between the two authorities? As the Minister is aware, pension fund values can fluctuate significantly across even a few years, and liabilities can suddenly become very large if there is a new actuarial assessment, so budgetary provision for pension funds can make a significant call on a councils’ funding arrangements. This is why I am raising these points, and I hope the Minister can give me reassurance on them.

There is a similar argument in relation to how the debt finance from housing capital funds is to be passed on from, in this case, the existing district councils to the new unitary council and across all four of these new councils. The Explanatory Memorandum is not clear that debt allocations will be in relation to previous activity, rather than there being a simple pro rata division, which would not be fair on some of the council tax payers. For example, there will be councils—I know of one in Somerset—that no longer have any housing capital finance debt. Will they be asked to pick up a share of other district councils’ debt? If so, is that fair? Those are my questions. I am sure that the civil servants will have looked into this and will be able to give me an answer, but I would like it on record.

With those comments and questions, I look forward to the noble Baroness giving me an answer. If she cannot, I am quite happy to have a written response.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a serving councillor in one of the finest counties in the country, Lancashire, contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, might think. I apologise: I have a cough, so bear with me. I blame all of the departmental SIs that they keep bringing out; they affect my throat pretty badly.

The Minister spoke in depth about this technical legislation, which takes minor steps to help to create new councils in Cumbria, North Yorkshire and Somerset. The instrument includes provision in relation to ceremonial matters, the transfer of pensions, exit payments, fisheries and conservation—technical and important areas. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, who has a wealth of experience. She asked many of the questions that I wanted to ask, but I have a few more. Although we will not oppose this, we on these Benches want to see what happens in the Commons—I am trying to work it out, but I think it has not been there yet. When does the Minister foresee this happening?

This has been debated at some length, as the Minister mentioned, so I will not go through the arguments again, but I will add some probing questions of my own to those of the noble Baroness. Will the Government bring forward any further legislation to enable the establishment of these new councils? Have the Government consulted trade unions on the provisions relating to pensions and exit payments? On the noble Baroness’s point about the independent auditors, what is the specific nature of the consultation that the Minister had with them? Did they speak about any concerns or pitfalls?

Have the Government done further research on previous experience of this anywhere in the country, or is this the first of a set of new councils? These councils are very different, geographically and culturally. Councillors in local district councils will tell you that we all have our own identities, ways of working and cultures, so I want to see the feedback that we received from those councils.

Lastly, what will happen in terms of reviews and monitoring to keep an eye on this? In the current economic climate, the markets are all over the show, given the famous Budget a few months ago. What is the plan B, particularly for pension funds, which were mentioned, if things deteriorate?

Levelling Up: Funding Allocation

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, competitive funding can be a very effective tool for protecting value for taxpayers’ money. Competitions such as the levelling-up fund can also support fair and transparent awards of funds and drive innovation, but I understand my noble friend’s concerns and the Government have committed, within the levelling-up White Paper, to reducing the complexities of local government funding.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

The Minister has just said that competitive funding is an effective way of accessing this funding pot. There were 525 bids in this latest round; only 111 were successful; that means 80% were not successful. Each bid is estimated to cost £30,000 to make; that is £12 million of hard-pressed council funding basically wasted on bids. Can the Minister not find a more effective way, such as devolving the money to local authorities, so that this money is not wasted when it is desperately needed?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, this is capital funding. There were 111 successful bids this time; before, there were 105 successful bids; and there will be a third round. If we added all this money and gave it to local authorities, I do not think there would be enough for the large infrastructure projects—projects that people are very happy to be delivering and projects that local authorities have put forward because they are important to their people. I think this is the way to do it.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Follow that.

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate on levelling up. What is good for the Minister is that everyone agrees that we need to be levelled up. Not such good news for her is that we are not all really sure which bits we will level up. We all agree on transport; on housing, definitely; on health, which is absolutely critical; on skills, yes; and on devolution, definitely. There is a huge range of issues that Members of this House feel very passionately about, and they are all under the umbrella of levelling up. I wish the Minister good luck.

Since one book was already shown this afternoon, I will show another: the White Paper, Levelling Up the United Kingdom. There is loads in there that a lot of us will agree with. One of the things it says is that levelling up is

“a mission to challenge, and change … unfairness”,

and that there is a need to

“end the geographical inequality which is such a striking feature of the UK.”

It has loads of measurements and metrics in it, including that, if the north of England were able to produce at the same level as the south-east, the country would be better off by £180 billion. So what are we waiting for?

We on these Benches were anticipating a levelling up Bill that attempted to fulfil some of the fine words in the White Paper. Unfortunately, none of the words, especially those on the mission, is in the Bill—we just get mention of “the mission”, whatever that will be. There is a growing sense of disappointment and of an opportunity lost, which I have heard shared to a greater or lesser degree across the House during this debate.

I ought at this point to say that I have registered interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as a councillor in Kirklees, in West Yorkshire.

About four hours ago, my noble friend Lord Stunell described the Bill as an “empty box of dreams” Bill, because the White Paper was very ambitious but the Bill does not live up to that ambition. Over the course of this debate four big themes have come out: social housing for rent, which has been mentioned many times across this House; the environment; remembering rural areas; and genuine devolution, as described so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. What we are left with is a Bill basically about planning and local government devolution to the counties, which is a long cry from the expectation that a Government were finally going to erase years of inequality and paucity of opportunity.

Part 1 claims to set out the levelling-up missions, but it is a series of clauses entirely devoid of content, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, pointed out. It would be good to hear from the Minister about the content of the levelling-up missions and what metrics are going to be used for their measurement. I have to say that the civil servants are to be congratulated on being able to produce six pages of legislation which are wholly dependent on the whim of the Government as to what is published. Clause 2(4) is a masterpiece of a get-out-of-jail clause. It states that if the Government consider that one of the levelling-up missions they agreed is no longer achievable, the report

“may state that His Majesty’s Government no longer intends to pursue that mission”.

We need a commitment from the Government to fulfil what was said in the White Paper.

Part 2 focuses on local democracy and devolution and, as my noble friends Lord Shipley, Lord Stunell and Lady Thornhill have set out, the headline of this part feels distinctly Orwellian. There is little about local democracy, and devolution is, as they and many other noble Lords have described, the delegation of powers and not genuine devolution. If county councils wish to combine to create new authorities, then all well and good, but the issue for us on these Benches and for many other noble Lords is the leaching away of local democratic accountability in these provisions. I will give just one example: combined county authorities can appoint associate members who are individuals, not representative of any institution or local organisation. It seems to me that being able to appoint associate members is a recipe for challenge around lack of transparency and lack of accountability—or worse.

I agree with many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market, that parish and town councils are vital elements in providing local involvement and making decisions about improving their areas. So I turn to Part 3, about changes to the planning system, which has inevitably attracted a huge amount of comment and criticism. The best planning system creates a proper balance between developers and existing communities. Fairness and consistency in planning outcomes are important for its credibility.

Unfortunately, the Bill fails to adhere to these principles in some of the changes proposed. For example, Clause 87, which contains the proposal about the national development management policy, gives unspecified and draconian powers to the Secretary of State. Currently, local plans have to

“have regard to the National Planning Policy Framework”,

which is currently being rewritten. Can the Minister in her response set out reasons for significantly changing this approach? What is the purpose of the national development management policy?

Developers loudly condemn the existing planning regime for failing to enable house building, but I remind the Minister that over 1 million homes waiting to be built have planning permission. “Social housing” was the cry from nearly every Member of this House. I could mention many noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, spoke of its importance initially, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, the noble Lord, Lord Birt, and my noble friend Lord Shipley. I hope the Government are listening.

Somebody had a good idea, which I wrote down, about redefining “affordable”. I hate that word. Affordable housing, as defined by the Government, costs 80% of average rents. That is not affordable to the vast majority of people. Redefining it as social housing could be a way forward; let us think about that.

There are six pages on street votes to enable planning in the streets; all I say on this is that it will be a postcode lottery.

Part 4 is about the infrastructure levy. I totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on that. How can it fulfil the three different functions that he laid out? I am very concerned that, when a big development of 500 or more homes is built, a lot of facilities and amenities are needed as well as infrastructure. Perhaps the Minister will be able to spell this out rather more clearly than we can see in the Bill.

My noble friends Lady Parminter, Lord Teverson and Lady Sheehan, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and others, have spoken eloquently about the need for environmental improvements in the Bill. The environmental outcome reports and other green issues will need to be dealt with in Committee; a levelling up Bill with no reference to climate change seems totally lacking in using that opportunity.

I end on town centres, noting the vague references that have been made to improving their vitality and viability without mention that one of the reasons for the decline of our town centres is online retail. Retail warehouses have a very large tax advantage, especially in business rates. Reform of the business rates could have played a real part in the Bill, making online retailers pay their fair share as compared with town-centre retailers, to redress that imbalance. I hope the Government will look at that; it is certainly one of the things that we will raise in Committee.

To conclude, the levelling up White Paper is sadly to be consigned to the archives. Ambitious levelling up is no more. Those—I am one of them—who live in areas of geographic inequality understand how desperately change is needed. Sadly, the Bill in its current form will not achieve that change but we on these Benches will do our very best to put that right during its passage.

Residential Leaseholders

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

That is an interesting remark that I will take back to officials to discuss further. I will come back to my noble friend.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I want to pursue what the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, called rip-off charges, which the Government could take urgent action to address. I shall give the Minister an example. Fire doors are now to be inspected—rightly. Leaseholders are unable to make the arrangements for that inspection but freeholders or their agents do. One leaseholder contacted me to say that they are being charged £80 for their front door to be inspected each time—£320 a year. That is a rip-off service charge. What on earth are the Government going to do to address these rip-off service charges?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I cannot comment on the individual case, but the law is already clear that service charges must be reasonable. That is set out in Section 19 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. If leaseholders feel they are being ripped off, they can apply in First-tier Tribunals for determination on this. However, I agree that there is more to do. The Government are committed to ensuring that charges, particularly service charges and these extra charges, are transparent. There should be a clear route to challenge or redress if things go wrong.

Housing: Cost of Living

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend brings up a very interesting point. I have looked at that in the past from a local authority point of view. I will certainly take that point back and would like to talk to her more about it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, leaseholders living in blocks that are under 11 metres are also at risk of losing their homes. They were excluded by the Building Safety Act from any grants for remediation for cladding and building safety works. The Minister has received from me a lot of emails from desperate leaseholders looking to the Government for support and help, to ensure that they do not have to fund the developers’ problems that were caused. They are at risk of losing their homes because of the high costs of cladding removal. Can the Minister now tell us what she and the Government intend to do to help these desperate leaseholders?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am fully aware of the noble Baroness’s concerns about this issue. I have a large group of documents from her and am working my way through those with officials. I will come back to her to discuss it fully, as soon as I possibly can in the new year.

Voter Identification Regulations 2022

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Pinnock]

Leave out from “that” to the end and insert “this House declines to approve the draft Voter Identification Regulations 2022 as they will prevent legitimate electors from voting in elections and disproportionately affect disadvantaged groups”.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to this statutory instrument but point out to her that this fatal amendment in my name is not an attempt to subvert the decisions made during the passage of the Elections Bill, where the principle of photo ID for electors was approved. Furthermore, I have been advised that, in 1994, the principle of moving fatal amendments in this House was debated and agreed, and the principle was accepted on such legislation.

The amendment in my name is to demonstrate to the Government that their implementation plan is fatally flawed, for reasons on which I will elaborate. I have a direct interest, in that I am still a councillor and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I have practical knowledge of the election process, having been involved in elections for the last 30 years.

This is a very major change to the way we vote. Its implementation must reflect that complexity, and currently it is being unduly rushed, which will put in jeopardy the integrity of the ballot. The first major flaw in the regulations is that the start date is the May elections next year, as the Minister has reminded us. The Electoral Commission states that six months are needed for the introduction of changes in voting practice. That is the accepted convention as well for local authorities. There will not be anything like six months before the first week in May. Time is needed to make sure that every voter knows about the change. That should mean direct communication to every elector. That is not the Government’s intention. The Electoral Commission is responsible for the communications and has an inadequate budget, and time, to make sure all voters know about this change.

Then there are the practical demands of election administrators. More polling clerks are needed to check ID. The Government are providing funding for an additional polling clerk in every polling station. This is not just to help to reduce queuing but for the security of staff, who may refuse to provide an elector with a ballot paper if they do not comply. There may well be angry and disillusioned voters as a result.

The information I have received from across the country is that regular polling clerks appear unwilling to continue, due to the additional pressures put on them. Experienced polling clerks are a huge asset. We need them, especially when there is such a major change.

There are further basic problems associated with these regulations. Some cultures and faiths require women to be very discreet and wear a face or head covering. Further, some will not enter a polling station unless a female clerk is present and will definitely not remove their face covering unless they are in a private place. Special privacy booths have to be bought, along with mirrors, to ensure that such voters feel able to vote in person.

Funding, or lack of it, is also an issue. There is some direct funding, as the Minister has pointed out, but for some essentials it is subject to a bidding process. Cash-strapped councils cannot be expected to fund government requirements.

The key issue, of course, is the list of acceptable photo ID. It is extremely restrictive. Voters who do not have a passport or driving licence will have difficulty. About 2 million voters are thought not to have access to any of the prescribed ID. The right to vote in a democracy is our birthright. The focus should be on encouraging voting, not deterring it as these measures do. Why does the list of acceptable photo ID in the regulations not include ID that young people can use, such as a railcard or an Oyster pass, both of which have photographic identification?

Electors from minority communities find it more difficult to have ID that is on the list. The Government’s own analysis shows that 13% of people who are poorer, who are often on council housing estates, will not have any of the ID on the list. Older people in care may also not have access to that sort of ID. It makes me wonder whether the list is devised to restrict rather than enable voting.

Voters, of course, can apply for a certificate from their election office. They need a national insurance number and a photo to do so, and not everyone has an NI number. One council estimates that it will have 14,000 such applications to process, and most of those will come towards the end of the period before May. It cannot guarantee to process them in time, so some of those voters would not be able to vote.

The Minister argues that compulsory photo ID will make elections more secure. Yet overseas voters do not have any checks to verify their authenticity. Further, why then is obtaining a postal vote so easy? All that is required is a date of birth and a signature. There is no check as to whether the two identifiers are from the same person. Yet postal vote fraud cases have been well documented. I know where I would look for security in the ballot.

The integrity of the ballot is important and that is precisely the reason for my opposing the regulations set out in this SI. It is about whether the inalienable right to vote can be refused because of the failure to produce an acceptable form of photo ID, especially when many voters will go the polls in May and not know about the changes, or will simply have forgotten about them.

In conclusion, this is an ill-thought set of regulations. There is insufficient time for a fair implementation, it is expensive, it will undoubtedly result in some voters being refused a ballot at polling stations, it may affect the result of an election, and it is unnecessary and divisive.

--- Later in debate ---

More broadly, the policy has a critical role to play in maintaining public confidence in our electoral system and reassuring people that their vote is theirs and theirs alone. It is also a natural and considered way of modernising our voting structures, and one that protects us all against the threat of impersonation. I hope that noble Lords will therefore join me in supporting the regulations.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank everyone for the very constructive debate we have had. I start by reminding noble Lords of my opening remarks: the fatal amendment to the Motion in my name is not about subverting or undermining photo ID; that decision, rightly or wrongly, has been made. The argument I am putting to the House today is about the implementation of those regulations.

There are 240 pages of regulations in this statutory instrument. They must have plenty of time to be introduced and understood so that, when it comes to elections, they can be done fairly. This is not just about communications to electors. It is about the training of the staff: how do you determine whether the likeness of a photo is acceptable? Those are decisions that polling staff will have to make, and they need to be trained properly so that there is consistency across the country. There is a lot more to it than communications.

I remind the House that those who do the practical delivery of elections are very anxious and concerned, and some of them are opposed to the implementation of these regulations for the May elections. The Electoral Commission has grave concerns: it wants six months and will get under four. The Association of Electoral Administrators—the returning officers and elections officers—is very anxious that it will not have time to properly prepare for delivery in May. From local councils, as we have heard, the Conservative chair of the Local Government Association gave a very strongly worded statement, unusually so, expressing grave concerns about the delivery of this measure fairly and equitably across the piece.

Other options were open to the Government for the introduction of photo ID. They could have chosen to introduce it in a by-election to test it out and see whether it works, or asked local authorities to be pilots, instead of trying to introduce it across a whole set of elections.

The example and argument that we have had from Northern Ireland is instructive. However, we perhaps ought to remind ourselves that the years following the initial introduction showed a fall in the number of voters. This was because they lacked the appropriate identification documents. It took a number of years before that number rose back to the same level. That underlines the argument that I am making.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, spoke about having a close election review. That is already in the regulations. My concern is about the election itself. Yes, I am totally in favour of reviews and learning from experience, but I and many Members across the House are concerned that no elector should be turned away and denied the ability to vote—that is their birth- right —because of the implementation of these regulations in a rushed manner. That is the point.

Unfortunately, I have not heard anything from the Minister today to assure me that every voter will be able to vote in a fair way in the May elections. I will therefore test the opinion of the House.

Domestic Abuse Victims: Housing Benefit

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is bringing up two issues. First, on mould and damp, the Secretary of State has made it very clear to social housing providers that this is not acceptable and he is keeping a very close eye on what they are doing and the outcomes of that. Secondly, regarding very vulnerable people, I urge anybody who needs help and support to go to their local authority. What worries me is that they are looking online for housing, and that is where they are being very badly exploited.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, following the Minister’s response about urging women who are suffering domestic abuse to go their local authorities, perhaps it would help if she looked at last September’s report from the Public Interest Law Centre, which outlined eight ways in which local authorities are not providing the support that they should under the legislation. For example, they are making offers of unsuitable temporary or long-term accommodation, and survivors are being refused support until a threat of legal action is made. Has the Minister seen that report? If not, will she do so and refer it to her department so that they can make some changes in the legislation?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I have not seen that report, but I will certainly look at it. Under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, local authorities must commission enough of the right support to meet the needs of all of those victims and their children, and they must monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of that provision. Therefore, if they are not doing that, I will certainly take that back to the department and we will look into it further.