Water Bills

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Thursday 21st November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, all water companies have social tariffs to help reduce water poverty. I have relevant interests on the register. It would be extremely helpful in expanding the help to people who find it really difficult to pay their water bills if the Government could put pressure on Ofwat to ensure that water companies focus a greater proportion of their budget on helping people pay their water bills. Will the Minister do that?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness says, there are measures in place for people who struggle to pay for their water and waste services. As a Government we are working closely with the water companies to encourage them to work with vulnerable customers and people who cannot pay their bills. It is very much the water industry’s responsibility to ensure that people can pay their bills, and as a Government we need to work with it to make sure that customers who need support actually apply for it. There are many ways in which water companies can do that, and we would work with them and with Ofwat to make sure that vulnerable customers are properly supported.

Independent Water Commission

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Tuesday 29th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness said, Sir Jon Cunliffe is an excellent choice as chair, and we are very pleased to have him. He is already looking at who could be part of the advisory group—that is taking place—and who the broader advisers will be. We want to have it open to the public and consumers, because it is important that they too have their say. Now that we have the chair appointed, we are, as a matter of urgency, getting the other members of the advisory group in place and getting the other people involved who need to be involved, including the public, as quickly as possible.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister will agree that the pollution through sewage overflows into our waterways is abhorrent and needs to be dealt with urgently. Here is the problem: the water companies have their price review—their five-year plan, if you like—to be agreed at the end of this year for the next five years. So, unless the Government are able to influence the scope and size of the agreement of investment in our wastewater pipes and treatment works, nothing will happen—well, not enough will happen —in the next five years. The danger is that the Government are putting this off until 2030. That is not acceptable. Can the Minister reassure me and many others that this will not be the case?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness is aware, the commission will not do anything that will impact on PR24—the price review that is due to report at the end of this year. I point out that this price review is £88 billion, as Ofwat has proposed. That is the largest investment that we have ever seen going into infrastructure. The Government were very keen that we had a really good infrastructure deal for PR24 so that we can start putting right some of the things that so badly need attention at this very early stage.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for his comment. What we did discover, and I have the papers with me, was that there would still be a subsidy for major applications—that was in the papers—and that there would be a subsidy for householder applications. But the case I make is this: if householders wish to add an extension to their house or improve it in some other way, then there is a cost to that, of which the planning application fee is a minor part. Why should their next-door neighbour subsidise it? I do not think it is a just or fair way of spending taxpayers’ money. If we told them that this was happening, I think they would be as cross as I am.

We need to recover costs because the principle that I have just outlined, but also because without local planning authorities being fully resourced, they will not turn around the situation that is well recorded by professional bodies, by the Local Government Association and by the Government in the papers that we had for the statutory instrument last week—that there is a significant shortfall in planning officers in local government because of the lack of resources. If we are going to reverse that, local planning authorities need to be properly resourced, so that in a plan-led system we have experienced and well-qualified planners who have the responsibility of ensuring that local and national plans are respected.

The only other point I want to make on this issue is this: many councils across the country are under severe financial pressure—let us put it like that. Some, as we heard from Birmingham, which was the latest council, are on the brink of having insufficient resources to fulfil their statutory obligations. Particularly in those circumstances, it seems quite wrong to expect councils to use council tax payer funding to subsidise planning applications, hence my continuing pursuit of a fair and just planning application fee process.

I suppose my final point on this is to totally agree with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, when he asks why on earth in a local democracy cannot local government have the right, responsibility and duty to set its own fees? It does on everything else, so why not on that? I will push this to a vote if the noble Earl fails to agree with me and others’ powerful speeches on this.

On the other amendments, I endorse the “healthy homes” Motion that the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, has pushed again today. He is absolutely right: why do we continue building places that produce problems, when we could solve it from the outset? If the noble Lord wishes to press his Motion, he will get our full support, as will the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for his Motion on climate change. He is absolutely right; it is an existential threat to our country. We must take it seriously, and here is one area of policy where we can be seen to be doing that.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be very brief. This has been quite a long debate, and we have a number of votes at the end of it.

First, on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, regarding NDMPs, we agree with her that the Government’s amendment is not sufficient to answer the concerns that were raised in Committee and on Report. If the noble Baroness wishes to divide the House, she will have our full support.

Secondly, on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, on planning and climate change, we consider this an extremely important issue, as other noble Lords have mentioned. If he wishes to divide the House, he will have our full support.

On the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, on healthy homes, which he spoke to so eloquently—as did the noble Lord, Lord Young—we also believe that health needs to be at the centre of planning when making decisions about housing. If the noble Lord wishes to press this to a vote, he will have our full support.

We welcome the fact that there have been concessions on ancient woodland and offshore wind, and some concession for the noble Lord, Lord Best, on his amendment. We would have preferred to see mention of social housing, as well as affordable housing, in the Government’s Amendment 329A.

On the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, on floods, it is very important and the Government need to get a grip on whether people can get insurance—ideally through Flood Re—because we cannot have insurance with excess that is so huge that it makes the insurance pointless. We have a debate tomorrow on Storm Babet; I am sure these issues will be raised again then.

Finally, on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on planning fees, we believe that this is an important point that we need to continue to discuss. Therefore, if the noble Baroness wishes to test the opinion of the House, she will have our strong support.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to thank the Minister for his introduction regarding the two amendments that were moved by the Front Bench here. The first was in my name, relating to childcare. We thank him for listening to and recognising our concerns, and thank the Government for tabling an amendment that does exactly what we asked for; we very much appreciate that. My noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage had an amendment down on vagrancy, and again, we are very pleased that the Government have tabled an amendment in lieu on the Vagrancy Act. I will say only that this was promised two years ago, so in our opinion the sooner that action is taken on this, the better.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has an amendment in lieu on RAAC. The Minister is aware, as are other noble Lords, of increasing concerns about the number of schools, hospitals and in fact other buildings that have been affected by this. It is important that there is proper information regarding the extent of the problem, and that schools and hospitals, and other organisations which have buildings that are affected have the support that they need, because this is extremely concerning.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the detailed arguments he has put towards Motion ZB1 in my name, which I recognise have substance. However, the levelling-up Bill, which includes missions relating to education and health, means that we need to think about the quality of the public buildings provided, because they have a substantial impact on the quality of the services that are then received by those in both schools and hospitals. To have higher-quality buildings inevitably leads to better outcomes for patients, students and children.

Given that, there are two issues. One is that these are public buildings that are publicly funded, and there ought to be greater transparency for users and employees in those buildings of the state that they are in. The Minister has carefully explained the vast data collection that goes on regarding the buildings, both in the school and NHS estates. He is right—there is a vast collection of data. However, there is not transparent, easily accessible data for people who use those buildings and work in them. If, as he said, safety is paramount—I totally agree—the public need to see that there is transparency around the data on the state of those buildings.

I am asking the Minister and the Government to accede to easily accessible data concerning these public buildings because of safety concerns. That has been highlighted by the recent RAAC issue, and more and more buildings have been discovered with RAAC as a safety issue. I do not intend to press the amendment to a vote today, but I hope that the Government will consider greater publicity and accessibility of the data that they collect already so that people can see what state their buildings are in.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, here we are on day seven of Report, and up pops yet another amendment on a completely new topic. It is so out of scope that, to debate it, the Long Title of the Bill has also to be amended.

The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, has chosen to discuss, via the theme of ULEZ, the London devolution deal. How much better if he had done so during the very long section of debate on the Bill devoted to devolution. The amendments that he has proposed have only a tenuous link with the prime purpose of this Bill: levelling up. If he wanted to truly level up in the areas of the country identified in the Government’s own White Paper, the amendments would focus on transport issues elsewhere in the country.

Those of us who live in the north, especially in west Yorkshire, can only dream of the quality of public transport available in London. For instance, the government commitment, repeated many times, simply to electrify the trans-Pennine route, has been dropped. The new trans-Pennine route, nationalised because of its previous failure, has the highest number of train cancellations of all train companies. Added to this appalling level of service comes the decision that the 13 new trainsets for the route are to be taken out of service for want of trained drivers. In addition to this very large dent in already creaking connectivity in the north is the increasingly poor service provided by bus companies, which results in growing numbers having to rely on private transport, thus increasing the already poor air quality in many northern urban areas.

How much more beneficial to promoting levelling up—the purpose of this Bill—if the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, had used his talent to direct government attention to levelling up connectivity, which is absolutely essential if areas defined in the levelling up White Paper are to enjoy growing investment and prosperity.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for introducing this group and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, as well as for drawing our attention to the importance of standards. Clearly, most of the debate has been around the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. As we are on Report, I shall be brief and make just two points in response to the noble Lord’s amendments.

First, I point out that Sadiq Khan has explicitly ruled out the introduction of pay-per-mile charging while he is Mayor of London. Secondly, on Amendment 282N, which seems to be the core amendment within the four amendments introduced, our concern is that this includes a loophole for councils to opt out of such schemes. Introducing that loophole undermines the national objective of improving air quality. We think that it risks increasing public confusion and is not in the interests of preventive health and improving air quality.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is a good day. I thank all noble Lords who have worked hard with the Government to get to a place where there is landscape protection for those areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks. I am fortunate to live in a place where I can easily get to three great national parks—the Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors and the Peak District—so I particularly welcome, from a selfish point of view, what has been achieved here.

Turning to government Amendment 230A, I am pleased that the Government have closed a loophole here in the way that biodiversity net gain is measured. That is very positive. I applaud the whole biodiversity net gain approach.

I will make one comment about an issue which constantly concerns me when dealing with local planning applications: applicants trying to wriggle out of their responsibilities in biodiversity net gain. As the Minister will know, there is a hierarchy of how applicants can achieve biodiversity net gain—on site, close to, by, or as near as possible. If you live in a built-up area like me, “as near as possible” can be a big distance away. The town where I live—I guess this happens to small towns all across the place—will often see its biodiversity further depleted because the hierarchy allows applicants to put their biodiversity net gain at some distance away. I wonder whether the Minister could perhaps address that and enhance what I believe is a very positive approach adopted by the Government.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s amendments that have been tabled in recognition of previous concerns expressed by your Lordships. As a member of Friends of the Lake District, I am pleased to see that the Government have pretty much accepted the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Randall. It is important. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Randall, my noble friend Lady Jones and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, for their comments and support for that.

Those of us who live in areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks know that there is so much that we can do to enhance nature, increase natural beauty, support our cultural heritage, and work to support climate change and the local people who live there. The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, brings this about by implementing much of what was in the Glover review. Again, I thank the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Randall, for all their work on this. These are important amendments, and they will improve our countryside.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I stand to introduce my Amendment 240, and also to speak briefly in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering.

My Amendment 240 is on flood prevention, mitigation certification and accreditation schemes. The reason I have tabled this amendment is that it does concern me that, when we have areas that have suffered major flooding, with both residential and business properties damaged, often the incentives to “build back better”—to put in flood mitigation and systems such as, in a residential building, a different sort of kitchen, different flooring, flood doors and so on—have not always been the eventual outcome when repairs have been done. It is also about the actual standard when they are put in: what kind of standard are the building repairs, which are being paid for by insurance companies? Whenever there is a major flooding event, insurance companies have an enormous amount of work to do, and we should thank them for that. Most insurance companies work very hard to provide a good service. But we have to be careful to make sure that all the equipment and facilities that are available are of the right standard and that appropriate mitigation is being put in place, which is why I have brought my amendment forward.

On the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, I just wanted to make a few comments. Her Amendment 231 is about sustainable water management and sustainable drainage; I know this is a topic that is very close to the noble Baroness’s heart, and I completely support her on what she is trying to achieve through this. We know that sustainable drainage systems—SUDS—can play a pivotal role in ensuring that new properties are built in a way that manages surface water flood risk at a local level. We also know that the Government have a really good policy on SUDS under the Flood and Water Management Act, which the noble Baroness referred to. I think the frustration is that we now need the Government urgently to implement this, so that we can benefit from the announcements. The Government announced in January that it was going to be mandatory in all new developments, so we need to crack on with the implementation of this. We would very much support the noble Baroness’s amendment on that.

On the noble Baroness’s Amendment 232, on basically not building any more on flood plains, we again strongly support the noble Baroness in her efforts to achieve this. We know that the insurance industry, through the ABI, has been calling for the Government to ensure that there is no inappropriate development on flood plains and flood risk areas, and also that we need a more transparent planning application system in regard to this. One of their asks is that the Government link future residential and commercial developments to the building regulations approved documents. Again, it will be interesting to hear the Minister’s thoughts on that.

This Bill is also reviewing the National Planning Policy Framework, so we think that brings forward an opportunity to really set how this should happen, to ensure that we do not get inappropriate building. I remember there was one case when there was a large flood—I live in an area that floods—and there was a new development called “Water Meadows”. After the flooding had gone away, it was called the “Meadows”. That was very disingenuous of developers, and I think we need to get to grips with this. If the noble Baroness wishes to put her Amendment 232 to a vote, we would be very happy to support it.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the important amendments that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, has tabled to the Bill demonstrate how wide-ranging the Bill is. These amendments themselves could benefit from an individual Bill, because they are so critical to the future both of development and of environment preservation in our country. To be able to spend only 30 to 40 minutes debating them is a great shame, because the noble Baroness raises very significant issues.

The reason that these issues are so important was not stated, but I will state it because it is fundamental. We know that climate change will inevitably lead to higher rainfall and, therefore, to higher potential flood risks. All water companies, I know, have to take that into account in their 25-year plans when developing their own infrastructure, to make sure that it is flood resilient. If they are doing that, then surely the Government and Parliament itself have a responsibility to help developers build in such a way that housing, in particular, is either not built on flood plains or is built to be totally resilient to increasing water levels and flood risk as a result of climate change.

The Environment Agency has a hierarchy of flood zones: 1, 2 and 3. Flood zone 3, the high-risk one, is separated into two parts: 3a and 3b. Flood zone 3b is what we would describe as a functional flood plain: where water goes when there is heavy rainfall. There should not be any development on flood zone 3b, and on 3a only after very clear advice that it should not be there during a planning application or consultation. That is the essence of Amendment 232, of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.

Too many homes are currently being built on areas at risk of flooding. The consequence is that in a few years’ time, as rainfall increases as a result of climate change, those same houses will be at greater risk of being flooded. That cannot be right; we ought to be dealing with that at the planning and construction stages.

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[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I ought to start by saying that I am a member of the Woodland Trust and therefore protection of woodland is very important to me, so I wholly support the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, in her amendment.

Ancient woodland is ancient. The definition of ancient woodland is that it has been around since the 1600s or even longer. The combined effect of a copse or even a small woodland area in biodiversity terms is enormous. The Woodland Trust and others define these areas as being our equivalent of the rainforests in the tropics in the extent of the diversity of nature that is encouraged to live among the trees. So, it is not simply a question of cutting down a tree; it is destroying a habitat. I think that is what we ought to be thinking of and it is exactly what the noble Baroness, Lady Young, thought about.

Some of these ancient woodland areas are homes to threatened or at-risk species, so again it is not just about, “Let’s cut down the old oak tree”; it is about protecting a whole habitat for a huge number of species. The National Planning Policy Framework, which was published last week, has a tiny paragraph saying that

“development resulting in the loss or deterioration of irreplaceable habitats … such as ancient woodland … should be refused, unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a suitable compensation strategy exists”.

If only it had ended at “should be refused”. Because if we are, as a country, intent on protecting and enhancing our environment, those bodies of ancient woodland are exactly the sites that we should be protecting in full. What the noble Baroness, Lady Young, is asking, which we on these Benches wholly support, is that we strengthen that protection of ancient woodland, which is a key element of any Government’s environmental protection. So, I thank the noble Baroness for tabling the amendment and if she presses it to a vote, as she has indicated, we will be with her.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief, because my noble friend Lady Young has set out extremely clearly why her amendment is so important, as have other noble Lords who have spoken. Part of the problem is that we have never really properly appreciated the huge contribution that ancient woodland makes. We have talked about it, but have we actually properly acted on it to protect it in the way that is needed? We know the huge contribution it makes to our environment, through carbon capture for example, but also, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, pointed out, it takes absolutely centuries to replace once it has gone.

There is so much talk about offsetting on the environment, but offsetting cannot always provide what is lost. We just need to consider that more. Offsetting is not the easy way to manage these things every time, so we completely support what my noble friend is trying to achieve. To be honest, she is the expert on this and if she is concerned, we should all be concerned, so if she wishes to test the opinion of the House, she will have our strong support.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for raising what is often a bone of contention among residents of new properties where those properties have been built adjacent to businesses, often hospitality businesses. They are the latecomers. but they suddenly expect the business to comply with their requirements and not the other way round.

I will give one example that may illustrate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. Near where I live, there is a long-standing working men’s club with space. Some new properties were built on the land adjacent to the club’s outdoor area. The club decided that, in order to increase its income, it would use the outdoor space as a pub garden. This is in Yorkshire where pub gardens do not get used all year round. The use would have been intermittent, let us say.

However, the residents of the new properties raised such a fuss about it that the working men’s club was forced to remove the tables and chairs—it did not have planning consent or something. As a result, in the end, a couple of years later the working men’s club closed. So I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has said.

It is not just about places of hospitality but also existing business use and leisure facilities—particularly where flood-lights are used at night, on grass areas for football or whatever—that the complaints come. It would be good to hear what the Minister has to say in response to what is a very practical amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting if short discussion which picks up on much of the debate that we had during Committee. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, for bringing this back to us again today.

One thing that came across very clearly when we debated this in Committee was that it really is time to review the status and look at the situation. It is important that we return to this. As the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has said, now and previously, we have got the change of use from office to residential space in town centres, we have the problem of many empty town centre premises, and there have been a lot of changes on our high streets and in our towns in ways that we have not seen before. These challenges are particularly acute for the night-time economy.

The agent of change principle has been with us for some years. This is why it is important that we use this Bill to ensure that it is fit for purpose and doing what we need it to do. As we have heard, it is in the National Planning Policy Framework, but does the licensing guidance, as the noble Baroness said, reflect the principles of the NPPF itself? The NPPF needs to be fit for purpose, as well as the agent of change principle that sits within it.

I asked at Committee and would like to ask again: is the NPPF, when we get to see it, going to reflect the likely focus of future planning decisions on this? How is that all going to be taken into account? This is genuinely an opportunity to enshrine this principle in legislation and get it right. It needs to be fit for purpose and it needs to do what it is supposed to do: to protect both sides of the discussion and debate when you have change of use coming forward. As the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh and Lady Pinnock, said, we need to get this right and it has to have teeth—I think that was the expression that the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, used. We completely support her request for clarification on the legislative change referred to by the Minister in Committee and hope that we can move forward on this issue.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Young and Lord Lansley, for throwing some much-needed light on the practicalities of community land auctions. During the debate in Committee, a number of us expressed scepticism about the value of having this in the Bill and how it will work. Nevertheless, it is a pilot scheme; there are plenty of reservations in the Bill itself that may make it more difficult for the blue-sky thinking of the think tanks, this having been brought forward at a late stage of the Bill.

There are some voices in the housing sector that support the proposal of community land auctions. Their argument is that this is the best way of extracting a fair portion of the enhanced land value that allocation for development ensures. That is what they say. Others argue, as did the noble Lords, that it will have the perverse effect of buying planning permissions—I think that was the phrase the noble Lord, Lord Young, used in Committee. For me, time will tell. The noble Lords have said they will not push this amendment, so time will tell whether the scheme is attractive to councils and whether it will then deliver what its proponents claim.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be very brief. I listened with great interest to what the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said. The issue is that, on paper, this looks quite sensible, but when we start to dig into it and look at it, that peters away. That is one of the problems.

There is an assumption that the option value will be significantly less than the market value for housing development, which we have mentioned. That is not necessarily going to work out in practice; it is a flawed idea when you look at how it works practically. The circumstances for which the theoretical arrangement is designed are really a collection of small, completely substitutable land parcels with a number of different owners. I do not know that that necessarily bears much resemblance, in reality, to the characteristics of land management and the market across the country. That is one of our concerns. Further, the idea that auctions are going to drive down land prices in the absence of any element of compulsion is, we think, pretty unlikely, to say the least. There is an example of that with Transport for London’s disappointing experience with the development rights auction model, which failed to deliver.

Thirdly, if the arrangements prove to be workable in practice, it will almost certainly be an attractive proposition only in areas where there is significant housing demand and high land values; so I do not necessarily see it as something that will be practical to roll out around the country.

On those key points, I think it has been a discussion worth having.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Thursday 13th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I make clear that this amendment, to which I have added my name, is about local authorities having the option to make some of their meetings virtual or hybrid. It is not about going back to having all meetings held virtually; it is about having the option to do so where that makes sense in local circumstances.

During the Covid pandemic, we learned that virtual meetings could be conducted and worked well, in accordance with local authority conduct of meetings. There is no problem with the legality of how they were conducted. I accept the noble Baroness’s point about how we need to be together in a democracy but that is difficult on some occasions, and some people will be excluded if we do not provide an option for local authorities to make meetings accessible by making them virtual.

For example, people with disabilities find it more difficult to travel to a meeting in person—and then there are those with caring responsibilities and those with demanding work schedules. In many parts of the country now, people have long commutes to work. That option of a virtual meeting means that they can fulfil the responsibilities of being a local elected councillor as well as being in work. We do not want to revert to a situation in which local councils attract only people who are retired, because they are the only ones who have time or are able to go to meetings. We want as broad a selection as we can of people from our communities to become councillors, including the young and old, people with disabilities and people with caring responsibilities. We need them on our councils so that those voices are heard. That is one reason why the option—and it is an option—of holding meetings virtually is important.

The second is the huge size of some of the councils that the Government have now created. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, used the example of North Yorkshire, which is now a unitary council. People know where Selby is now, so I will use the example of Selby, which is in the south of the southern tip of North Yorkshire. To travel to a meeting in Northallerton, where the county headquarters is, means covering a distance of about 53 miles, which would take probably an hour and a half—so it is a three-hour round trip to go to a council meeting. Think of how many people that will exclude: those who cannot drive would not be able to get there, as there are no buses and no trains, or very few. This is not like London. In the winter North Yorkshire has snow, which makes it even more difficult to get physically to meetings, which is when a virtual option makes really good sense. There is also the example of this House, which has managed perfectly well holding its Select Committees virtually. If we can do it here, surely local authorities should be allowed to do it.

My last point is that this amendment is to a part of the Bill on devolution. If devolution means anything, it means that local authorities and local councils should be able to make the decisions that matter to them—to have the flexibility to make decisions appropriate to their situation. We know that the Local Government Association, as the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, said, is fully supportive of this amendment and this approach. We will obviously listen very carefully to the response by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, but if the noble Baroness is not satisfied with the response and wishes to test the opinion of the House, we on these Benches, for the reasons I have given, will fully support her.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, one thing that we have heard in the debates in Committee and today is that councillors are a vital part of our local democracy; they represent the needs of their residents and they work to improve outcomes for their local communities. But it is also important that any good decision-making is done by people who reflect their local communities and bring a range of experience, backgrounds and insight. As we have heard, by law, councillors have to attend meetings in person at the moment. We have also heard how important Zoom and Teams were for councils to continue to meet and the public to continue to take part during lockdown and the pandemic. It also brought people together and involved more people than previously in many cases.

We debated at length in Committee the benefits of continuing to allow virtual attendance at council meetings. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, thoroughly introduced that when she spoke to her amendment, and I am very happy to support her in what she is trying to do. Unfortunately, the Government withdrew this ability. We know that it supports a large range of people, as the noble Baroness laid out: the parents of young children, carers, disabled people and people with long-term illnesses. It enables them to come forward and represent their communities and encourages wider public participation, which is surely a good thing.

When we think about access to participation, why would the Government not lower barriers to that participation? Why can we not have virtual participation in council meetings as an option? We think that councils should have the flexibility to decide for themselves whether this is a useful tool that they can use. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, also mentioned, as have others, the option that we have in this House for virtual participation by those with disabilities and health issues. As others have asked, why at the very least can we not have the same dispensation for local councils that we have here in this House? The Government need to look at this again. If the noble Baroness wishes to test the opinion of the House, we will support her.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, before we begin Report, I want to make some points to draw the House’s attention to our concerns about the Government’s approach to the proper and timely legislative scrutiny of this Bill.

First, when we received the Bill into this House and prepared for Second Reading back in January, I and others were surprised to see that it contained three chapters that had not been scrutinised in the other place but had been added in after it had moved on to here. Then, following our debate in Committee, ahead of Report and with no prior warning, the Government added in a whole new schedule—nine pages in length—along with further amendments on childminding provisions, and altered the Long Title to reflect this.

I know that the Minister understands my concerns, and I thank her for arranging a meeting at short notice last week to discuss this. Can she now confirm, as we agreed in that meeting, that Committee rules will be used for the debate on the childcare amendments and any amendments to them on Report, and that, if deemed necessary, amendments will be accepted at Third Reading on this part of the Bill alone?

Finally, on Friday evening I had an email from the department apologising for the late tabling of further amendments, apparently to allow substantive discussions with the devolved Administrations prior to tabling as they relate to the devolution settlement and securing legislative consent for the Bill. Late discussions with the devolved Administrations unfortunately seem to have become a regular occurrence, but it would have been helpful if we had been made aware and alerted to any impact on timings in advance.

To be quite clear, I hold the Minister in the highest regard, I am not complaining about her as a Minister and we very much appreciated her apology. However, it greatly concerns me that the department has shown a lack of respect for the need to have proper legislative scrutiny from both Houses if we are to secure legislation of the expected highest standards.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I fully endorse the sentiment expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. It is most unfortunate and not the responsibility of the Minister at all. She has been considerate and helpful with her time and that of her officials throughout our scrutiny of the Bill. Nevertheless, three chapters were added to an already very large Bill after it left the House of Commons, and then more than 150 amendments were tabled last week—some, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, late on Friday. Then we find that a whole new schedule on childminding has been added and is so out of scope that the Bill’s Long Title has had to be altered.

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which is very important legislation to be considered by this House, is already being brought into a bit of disrepute by the addition of chapters, a new section altogether and amendments. I am sure the Minister feels as uncomfortable as we do about the way that this has been dealt with, but I wish to express my concern, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock..

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a short group with just my Amendment 18 in it. I have laid this amendment to probe the reports that the department, DLUHC, now requires Treasury consent for its capital spending. In February this year, the Financial Times published an article stating that DLUHC had been “banned” by the Treasury

“from making spending decisions on new capital projects … after concerns were raised about the ministry’s ability to deliver value for money”.

Lee Rowley MP, a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for DLUHC, confirmed to the House of Commons that the department was now

“working within a new delegation approach”

that involved

“Treasury sign-off on capital spend.”—[Official Report, Commons, 9/2/23; col. 1028.]

Furthermore, in March it was reported that DLUHC had not managed to spend even 10% of the levelling-up fund since its launch in 2020. This media report closely followed news in the Financial Times that

“DLUHC intends to spend £2.42bn less on capital projects in 2022-23 than originally planned”.


This sum includes £1 billion in unspent money from the affordable homes programme, while two government officials the article quoted said that the level of underspend “was unusually high”. Can the Minister give an explanation as to what the ban on capital spend sign-off means for the future of levelling-up projects? It is apparent that the Treasury must have serious concerns regarding the department’s ability to monitor and deliver as it now has to work with the Treasury to seek all necessary approvals.

The department has also acknowledged that it lacks data of sufficient quality about government departments’ expenditure on the full range of levelling-up funds. It also lacks data on combined authority income and expenditure. Can the Minister say how DLUHC intends to measure the success or failure of its levelling-up policies, initiatives and objectives? DLUHC’s solution to the lack of data appears to be the creation of the spatial data unit, the SDU. Having said that, it is unclear exactly what data will be produced and by when. Perhaps the Minister can shed some light on this.

The delay and lack of information regarding what the SDU is working on, what the unit intends to produce and when these datasets will be available are clearly unsatisfactory. Does the Minister think that this is a good use of public resources? For levelling up to be a success, it requires a long-term strategy with a long-term funding plan backed by data, and this is currently not the case. For the Treasury to take the step of coming in and removing DLUHC’s ability to sign off on capital expenditure is extremely concerning.

My amendment seeks fundamentally to understand what impact this will have on the delivery of future DLUHC-funded projects, particularly future funding under the levelling-up policy. I await the Minister’s response with interest.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 18 is a new probing amendment, because we all assumed that, if the Government are committed to levelling up and understand, as they will, that it is dependent on long-term capital investment, that would therefore be available.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, quoted the Financial Times, and I too did a bit of research on what capital was around. The Financial Times raised this issue earlier this year, reporting that John Glen, who was then Chief Secretary to the Treasury—perhaps he still is—has

“now stepped in to prevent DLUHC from signing off spending on any new capital projects, because of concerns about whether the department is delivering value for money. Such interventions are typically reserved for departments about which the Treasury has particular financial concerns”.

The Financial Times report went on to say:

“The decision to rein in Gove’s expenditure, taken last week, means that any new capital spending decision ‘however small, must now be referred to HMT before approval and the department is not allowed to make any decisions itself’”.


It is a fairly damning indictment of the spending already undertaken by DLUHC if that is the Treasury’s view of its value for money. As I said at the start, levelling up depends on capital investment. It is difficult to interpret the Government’s—the Treasury’s—decision to have tight controls on capital spending as anything other than putting a big brake on levelling-up funding, to the detriment of communities that are desperate for investment.

A House of Commons Select Committee also reported on levelling-up funds, which we referred to in debates on earlier groups today. It made the salient point that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is apparently not able to demonstrate how the funding fulfils the aims of the White Paper for sustained investment to tackle long-standing inequality—these are the points that I have made today and throughout the debates on the Bill. That was a cross-party committee. The National Audit Office also published a report, making a similar, stark plea to the department to urgently increase the capacity to assess and manage levelling-up funds.

So here we are, with a significant Bill carrying one of the Government’s key objectives, set out in a detailed report, and before it has really got going the Treasury is saying, “Well, you can’t spend anything without us first checking and signing it off”. We also have researched reports from the House of Commons Select Committee and the National Audit Office, both pointing to funding not being spent in perhaps the best possible way.

So the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has posed an important question. We ought to hear from the Minister that the Government are prepared to continue to invest significant sums in levelling up because, without that, levelling up will not occur. You can tell that from the White Paper, which I keep pointing to—it has done its job. Unless there is investment, levelling up will not happen. If the Treasury is putting a big brake on it, how are we going to level up? Perhaps the Minister can give us some pointers.

Non-Domestic Rating Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 3rd July 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has raised an important group of issues regarding the penalties that could be imposed on ratepayers who do not provide accurate, timely information. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to that and explain how ratepayers seem to have more and more imposed on them. They must provide the information annually to the VOA—in the last group we debated the VOA’s transparency in relation to that—and the noble Earl has just raised the quite significant penalties imposed if the information is not accurate, even if, as he pointed out, there is a genuine error. It seems that, in the previous group and this one, we do not have the right balance of responsibilities between the VOA requiring information, what business rate payers are required to provide and where the final duty lies.

The VOA is serving two masters: the Treasury on one hand and business rate payers on the other. It seems that the VOA is responding to its Treasury master and is not giving sufficient cognisance to the customers—the business rate payers. The noble Earl raised some important points regarding that. We must get this balance right. The VOA needs to be more transparent and responsive to business rate payers. It also needs to be accountable to them—and the reverse is also true, as the noble Earl said. The VOA demands penalties if the ratepayer gets the information wrong but—hang on—the VOA makes errors all the time. Where is the accountability and compensation to business rate payers for those errors? The noble Earl raised that issue and I hope that the Minister will be able to get the balance right when she responds.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for bringing the amendments on penalties forward because a number of questions around compliance and the penalties regime have been drawn to our attention. One is how it aligns with the wider UK tax regime generally. Another is that a new criminal offence is being created here, but is that actually necessary? Is this not covered by existing legislation and existing criminal charges, for example? I am more broadly probing why we need a new offence here.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, amazingly, it has been eight months since this House last discussed the Bill. At that time, I welcomed it and many of the details it provided to improve the regulation of social housing. However, across the House, noble Lords challenged the Government to think again on some of the detail of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, have outlined some of the ways in which the Bill was challenged and subsequently improved.

I am pleased to say that some of the government amendments in the Commons have indeed built on the amendments made on Report in this House. I particularly support Commons Amendment 13, which sets new professional standards for senior social housing managers, as I do the power for the ombudsman to provide best practice guidance. Those are two great improvements made to the Bill since it first started in this House.

The Commons also introduced into the Bill “Awaab’s law” in memory of the tragic death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak, which was caused by appallingly damp and mouldy conditions in the flat where he and his family lived. The response of the social housing landlord was shockingly neglectful—and, as it turned out, fatally neglectful for poor young Awaab. I congratulate the Government on introducing that new clause to address those responsibilities and to ensure that social landlords properly address what is described in the amendment as “prescribed hazards”. Let us hope that this is sufficient to ensure that no family lives in such dreadful conditions again—albeit it applies currently to social housing only.

Finally, although I am pleased that on Report the Government accepted my amendment to include energy efficiency as a core responsibility of the regulator, I am disappointed that they have not been able to be as positive about the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, agreed by this House, which contained a comprehensive approach to energy efficiency that my simple amendment failed to do. We have a challenge as a country, and the Government have a responsibility to make changes so that homes are warmer and less expensive to heat. There was an opportunity to do so; unfortunately, the Government failed to accept it.

However, I am pleased that the Government and the Minister have agreed to consult—although, as always, the caveat is the question of what that will lead to, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, alluded to. I am sure that the noble Baroness and many of us in this House will scrutinise closely the outcome of such a consultation. This is an important matter. We need to get it right. People should not be living in cold homes because they cannot afford to heat them. If the Government have the power to make a change, we will press them to do so.

I want to end on a positive note. We on these Benches support the Bill and trust that social housing tenants will see the benefits that it should bring.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a really important Bill. I am pleased to see it reach this stage; we have supported it all the way through. It has been a pleasure to work on a Bill that I think is the kind of Bill we ought to be doing. It is short, it is focused and it has a Minister who listens. That has been extremely good to work with. I am really pleased to see the government amendments that have been put forward, in particular those around professionalisation. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Sanderson; her work during the passage of the Bill was exceptional and is, I am sure, one of the main reasons why we have these amendments before us today. On Awaab’s law, I join the Minister and other noble Lords in paying tribute to his family.

I am pleased that the Government have listened to the concerns raised by the arm’s-length management organisations and tenant management organisations, as well as the National Housing Federation, in bringing forward the amendments that dealt with the concerns there.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, welcomed the promised amendment on inspections that was so important to Grenfell United. We are absolutely delighted that the Minister has brought forward those amendments today. I want to thank Grenfell United, Shelter and the Ishak family for their work and support during the passage of this Bill; it has helped us to keep the important issues at the centre and as the focus of what we need to achieve.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for pushing the energy efficiency amendments, which are really important. It is good that we did not lose sight of them during the Bill’s passage and that we have made some progress. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for bringing forward her amendment on that.

I thank the Minister and her officials for their time and their constructive approach to working with us, the Opposition, and other noble Lords during the Bill’s progress through the House. It has enabled us to make what was a good Bill a much better Bill—one that is more fit for purpose.

Finally, I thank my noble friend Lady Wilcox for her invaluable help and support. I am sure that we are now both looking to see the Bill go on to the statute book, so that we can raise our eyes up and look forward to the Renters (Reform) Bill.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I concur with and support entirely the comments made by my noble friend Lord Stunell and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, about the amendments in this miscellany transferring the building safety regulator from the Health and Safety Executive. I hope the Minister will be able to give us a very clear reason why this change is being made in the Bill—indeed, why it is being made at all.

I want to focus my comments on Amendment 467F. It is a good job I am speaking after the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, because it was not at all clear to me that that is what it is about. That is the problem with this group of government amendments; as I said earlier, a miscellany of issues has been put together because this is a levelling-up Bill and we can throw anything in. My guess was that it came from the Schools Bill, but reading the amendment without any explanation, it was not clear at all, so I have a few questions to put to the Minister.

First, can she assure us that the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford are accurate and this is entirely about schools with religious foundations, because that is not clear? In fact, I have a series of questions so that I can understand what the Government are seeking to achieve. Having been a school governor for very many years, I know that it is important that land use for schools is clear—whether they are part of a trust or a local authority—because otherwise future changes are very difficult. I speak from the heart in that regard.

This amendment puts forward four conditions that must occur. The heading of the new paragraph is “Compulsory transfer to trustees”, which is what first made me think that this perhaps needs more questioning. The idea is that a local authority has some premises, and an academy or trust has some, and they can do a swap. As this is to be a compulsory swap, what local consultation will there be and will it be a democratic decision? The implication is that it will not be a democratic decision of the local authority; it will be a compulsory land—or premises—swap. That is one issue on which I would like an answer. The second is, what if the premises to be exchanged are in a different location? If a school becomes located in a different part of the borough, what will that mean for the provision of school places within that council area? Would planning consent be required for schools to be relocated? Who will pay local authorities’ costs for the transfer? What if one set of premises was of higher value than the one that a school is taking over? How does that work? There is a series of questions to be answered. The Government had directed local authorities to sell their assets to help fund local services. What if the set of premises had been earmarked for sale for the benefit of the local authority? How does that work?

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked similar questions to mine, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford explained that it is all about religious foundation schools. That is not clear in the Bill, and there is no Explanatory Memorandum. Apparently, there was one in respect of the Schools Bill; well, that is not very helpful to us.

Having just resigned as a governor of a voluntary controlled school which had a lot of land issues when it became an academy because of land ownerships and trusts, I really do want answers to this series of questions. As far as I am concerned, the building safety regulator and the compulsory transfer of land to trustees are two major issues that should not have been put in this Bill. They are nothing to do with levelling up.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by commenting on the amendments on building safety. I will not repeat the points that other noble Lords have made. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, went thoroughly into the reasons why there are concerns about these amendments, as did the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, so there is no need for me to repeat the detail; the concerns have been raised extremely clearly.

I want to ask just one thing. This provision seeks to transfer powers to the Health and Safety Executive, so that it will become the building safety regulator. When we left EU REACH, the chemicals regulation system, we raised a lot of concerns about the Government’s proposal that the HSE become the regulator for the UK REACH. The concerns were about the skills and resource levels of the HSE in taking on these new responsibilities. If the Government now intend to give the HSE yet another very large responsibility, how is the department being set up to manage all these increased responsibilities that the Government keep putting on its shoulders?

I was quite interested that the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said that one of the amendments extended the scope of the Bill to allow the others in. I congratulate the Government on finding anything that was out of scope of the Bill—it is quite an achievement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, I shall move this amendment on his behalf.

One particular problem that has dogged us for decades is the lack of funding, including sufficient credit facilities, to our critical SME community. We know that SMEs are considered to be the backbone of the economy, the largest private employer, the large companies of tomorrow and so on, but despite this, the funds have never really flowed through from our traditional financial services sector to support SME activity and rightful ambition. The British Business Bank put it perfectly in its March 2022 report:

“Historically, SMEs are underserved by the finance sector, and often don't have the same characteristics that banks and other lenders like about large corporations. This includes lengthy credit histories, detailed audits and financial accounts, and a large portfolio of assets for collateral on debts. For start-ups, whose business models are unproven and yet to be deemed creditworthy, these problems are even more pronounced”.


This is not a universal problem experienced by SMEs around the world. It is done differently elsewhere. In Germany, for example, in 2021 SME funding was more than €600 billion; in the UK in the same period, it was just £57 billion. Even when all the necessary adjustments are applied, it is not a great picture, nor a growth picture. It is hardly surprising then that we are seeing a post-Covid trend of SMEs moving away from the traditional financial services sector. Again, the British Business Bank has noted:

“After the end of the coronavirus loans facility in March 2021, an interesting trend to emerge was that SMEs began to move away from large banks for their finance needs. Instead, challenger and specialist banks made up 51% of lending in 2021, compared with 32% in 2020”.


When it comes to the regional dimension, it just gets worse for SMEs, with those in London receiving over 70% of equity investment, with just 30% for the rest of the UK. This is obviously not great news for the economy, but it also results in lower levels of community and differing levels of well-being. How can we level up this country if we do not urgently address this issue of the extreme and unacceptable regional funding differentials for our SMEs? Although a perennial problem, it is raised now because there are two important pieces of legislation that provide an opportunity to do something about it: the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which has been going through your Lordships’ House; and the levelling-up Bill which is before us. I think a critical need for regional mutual banks is an essential part of the solution.

The clear intention of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, is threefold: first, to dramatically increase financial inclusion for our SME businesses; secondly, to develop an effective patient capital ecosystem across the UK; thirdly, to reignite the positive reality of friendly societies and mutuals. The amendment would force the consideration of current capital adequacy requirements. Are they fit for what we want across all potential financial service models?

It is also essential that such potential sources of regional finance are seen very much against the backdrop of digital transformation. Such banks need a physical presence in all our communities, with business bankers ready to support customers at each growth stage. Benefits must also encompass full digital functionality, alongside the physical. If got right, such banks could bring to bear another element of the financial and digital inclusion story, with the financial inclusion potentially driving the digital.

None of this is about lowering thresholds for SME finance. If we support SMEs by increasing the range and number of regional mutual banks, then the banks will do what they do best and SMEs will thrive, as will the communities and the towns and cities in which they are based. Through this single intervention, one of the fundamental planks on which levelling up will come will have been effectively laid.

As we build our way out of Covid, there could barely be a better moment to consider the benefits of regional mutual banks, built in our great communities with close customer connections and, crucially, with an interest and a stake in all those future economic, social, individual and organisational stories of success. We need regional flows of finance to enable and empower more, and more regionally diverse, SMEs. Regional mutual banks can be an essential part of delivering this, and the Government should look very carefully at the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and consider including it within their levelling-up brief. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this country used to have many regional mutual banks. One still remains, in name anyway: the Yorkshire Bank. That is a testimony, I think, to its importance within the great county of Yorkshire. What has been a sad reflection of what has happened in the country in terms of banking is that it is now dominated by the five great big banking consortiums. That is partly why the presence of so-called high street banks in our towns and small towns across the country are disappearing, to the detriment of many people who live there and certainly many businesses there.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 24th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments support moves that will enable self and custom build, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, said. It is an important sector that is not especially helped by previous legislation, but these amendments may help. I have a question. I have an example where planning consent was given, with some concessions made, by the planning department to a small number of people who wanted to build out the site as a self-build project and then failed to do so. As the site had previous planning consent on it, a new developer was able to come in and gain consent for a non self-build project. I just wonder if there is a bit of a loophole there that the Minister may have come across and that perhaps needs to be closed.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for introducing these government amendments. We have no problem at all with them. They seem fairly straightforward in what they want to achieve, but I would like to make the point that this is going to help provide only a small number of homes. I wonder what estimate the Government have made of the number of homes this will provide and what the demand is for this sort of housing. It would be quite interesting.

We are concerned about the number of houses being built, full stop, particularly since the Government abandoned their mandatory housing target. We feel that this Bill should be used to help the Government to concentrate on providing sufficient quality housing that includes both affordable-to-buy and social housing. Perhaps the Government could then bring forward an amendment on properly defining “affordable housing”; that would be a very useful amendment to see going forward.

As I said, I have absolutely no problem with this; I am quite happy to support the government amendments. However, we feel that the Government need to balance their interest in progressing this with their progress in meeting their stated target of 300,000 new homes.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have a lot of sympathy with the views expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, about conservation areas and permitted development rights. For residents who are fortunate enough to live in a conservation area, it is both a privilege and a responsibility. When the noble Lord was trying balance homeowners wanting to make appropriate changes—and sometimes inappropriate changes—and local planning conservation officers seeming to rule the roost over what is and is not appropriate, I asked myself, “Where were the local councillors in this mix?”. Where I am a councillor, I have conservation areas in my ward, and where there is a disagreement about what is appropriate, I ask for it to go to the planning committee. Then, it has a public airing, which is precisely what should happen. The planning conservation officer states one view and residents another, and a decision is made. One of the great purposes of planning committees is to air views, balance them out and come to a conclusion.

I also have concerns about always expecting to maintain the standards of a building that was created 100 or 200 years ago in wood and glass, when the rest of us are trying very hard to increase insulation, particularly of windows and doors. A couple of years ago, I visited a window manufacturer not too far from here which makes heritage windows from plastic. I could not tell the difference, even though I have an interest in conservation and heritage. In our regulations, we need to enable that to happen so that buildings remain appropriate for the time, while conserving the best features and personality of a townscape, which I know the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, wants to retain for people to love and enjoy in the future.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for introducing the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook.

I just make a very brief comment about the issue of replacement windows. My concern comes from a property that I know; it is in a conservation area and the windows are basically falling to pieces. It is owned by a young couple who applied for planning permission to replace the windows with something very similar, but not like for like—they could not afford like for like. Of course, they were turned down because it did not fit under the planning regulations as they are currently set up. A couple of years on, the outcome is that the windows are falling to pieces and nothing is happening. The couple are stuck, and the windows look dreadful. That is not their fault; they cannot afford to do what the planning inspectors tell them that they have to do.

I am very pleased that these amendments have been brought forward, because they enable us to talk about these anomalies in the way that the planning legislation is currently set up. It tries to protect the look of a place, but if that means that something does not happen because the owners of the property do not have the resources or finances to be able to do it, the property starts to decline. We have the example of windows, but it can be so much more. These are quite specific planning issues, but this is something that needs to be looked at.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this group is made up of two of my amendments, Amendments 213A and 312L. The first is a probing amendment, designed to ensure that local planning authorities must consider what facilities are needed to provide the necessary health and social care facilities for their area, including for those with a terminal illness. My second amendment builds on this to ensure that local planning authorities must regularly survey the health and social care requirements for their area when considering any future development requirements.

We know that an ageing population is increasing the demand for specialist health and care services within local communities. We also know that demand for palliative and end-of-life care is rising rapidly as our population ages. In the next 25 years, the number of people aged 85 years and over in the UK will almost double. We heard some figures around the need for housing for the elderly in previous debates, so this issue covers various aspects of how we plan for the future. In areas such as mine, in Cumbria, where we have what is known as a super-ageing population, there are even more stresses on local authorities and services to provide.

Because of this ageing population, by 2045 there will be over 136,000 additional deaths per year in the UK, compared with projections for 2023. So the demand for palliative care and end-of-life services will increase, particularly due to the larger numbers of people living longer with multiple and complex health conditions. It is absolutely critical that every person at the end of their life receives the care and support they need so that they can live the end of their life in dignity.

Marie Curie has provided some very helpful information, and I thank it for its briefing on this matter. It has estimated that, if palliative care capacity does not increase in line with projected increases in mortality, as many as an additional 14,000 people may die each year without palliative care by 2030, and as many as 86,000 additional people may be in the same position by 2040. In contrast, if capacity in the palliative care system grows to reflect this ageing population, as many as 77,000 more people every year could receive the specialist palliative care they need at the end of their lives. It makes a huge difference to how people can get the support and dignity that they need, as well as support for families in that difficult time.

We know that access to medicines out of hours can be complicated and time-consuming. For example, when Marie Curie surveyed areas in its report on better out-of-hours care, it found that only 25% of areas had a pharmacy open throughout the night that was able to dispense palliative medicines, and 68% of areas had only partial availability of healthcare professionals who were able to administer palliative medicines at night. More facilities within local communities could also relive pressure on the acute sector. Reducing unplanned admissions would reduce pressure on NHS hospitals—and we know how incredibly important that is at the moment with the extra pressures that the NHS is feeling. We know that there are around 5.5 million bed days occupied by people in the last year of life, just in England. The total cost of those admissions to the NHS is more than £1.2 billion. There are huge opportunities to improve life for people and end-of-life care, as well as to support our NHS in the work that it does.

To look at the importance of reducing health disparities for end-of-life care, the introduction of the Health and Care Act 2022 created the first ever duty for the NHS to commission palliative care services in every part of England through integrated care boards. That is very welcome—we know how important they are to local communities and families. However, we need to ensure that local planning authorities identify and allocate land and sites to help health commissioners to deliver the joined-up health and care services that we need within local community settings. By 2030, one in five people in the UK will be aged over 65 and the number of people receiving palliative care services is projected to increase from 47% of all deaths to 66% over the next decade. That is almost a 20% increase.

At the same time, the nature of care need is also changing, with an increasing proportion of people dying at home or in a care home. This will again lead to growing pressure on primary care, social care and the local community. Too many people already miss out on the care and support they need towards the end of their life, particularly those from disadvantaged groups. The most recent estimate suggests that in England, up to 25%—a quarter—of those who need palliative care are not receiving it. Out-of-hours emergency department attendance increases in frequency as death approaches. It is between five and eight times higher in the month before death than at 12 months before death. It is also more common among people living in the most socioeconomically deprived areas.

Marie Curie and others have carried out research that indicates that certain groups face particular barriers in access to palliative care, including people who are living in poverty, living alone or living with dementia, as well as people with learning difficulties, those who are homeless, those who are in prison, those from minoritised ethnic groups and LGBTQ+ people. There is much to do in this area. I know it is quite a specific area to put into the Bill, but I hope that by putting these amendments forward we can have a proper debate on something that is very important to our society. I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, has raised a very important issue about end-of-life care and how the planning system can be encouraged to prepare for the needs that will arise in the not-too-distant future. It is an argument that we on these Benches absolutely support; I will just expand it ever so slightly by saying that whenever there is a big allocation for a housing site, local residents immediately say there will be a huge pressure on primary healthcare—GP services. Although the community infrastructure levy enables planning authorities to try to extract some funding from the levy for improvements to primary healthcare services, it is often not that possible when there are so many other big demands placed on the levy—highways infrastructure, education, outdoor play space and so on.

Often, certainly in my part of the country, where house prices and land values are lower, the levy is therefore also lower and is unable to support the development of essential provision for primary healthcare. It is an area that I guess we may want to explore when we get to discussion about the replacement of the community infrastructure levy. I thought I would raise it now, in this context, because whichever of the Front Bench team is responding may be able to give me an answer. With that, I clearly support the amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, as I just said when I asked for that clarification, this is a really interesting amendment. One reason I am particularly interested in it is that, not only before being elected to the other place was I a local councillor for some time, but my job was working on major infrastructure development—in my case, particularly in the energy and water industries. So I see this from both sides. There are a number of issues around investment intention and delivery, how developers work with local authorities, how they work with the regulator and how, often, it can be not as straightforward as you would expect to deliver a major infrastructure project in industries such as electricity and water, for example.

One of the reasons I asked about the role of the regulator and how that would work is that an issue we found when developing new projects—for the national grid, for example—was that if you are going to spend a lot of money on large investment projects, you need it to be signed off by the regulator, which needs to agree the need case for that particular investment. The problem is that the need case can change. A project that I was working on stopped and started over and over again for about 10 years because the national grid would apply to the regulator, Ofgem, which would say, “Yes, you need X amount of supply, go ahead and build that pipeline, get your substation sorted”, and so on. We would do all the community consultation and work with the local authority, then 12 months later the national grid would put its financials and the need case to the regulator, which would say, “Well, now this has happened, you don’t need it any more”, and everything would be put on ice.

One of the issues around planning for major infrastructure is how you stop the huge waste of money with all the stopping and starting of projects. I know that this amendment does not particularly look at that, and I know that we will come to NSIPs later in the discussion, but this amendment gives us an opportunity to start considering how we make the development of infrastructure much more efficient and how we make developers, local authorities and their investment intentions work together in a much more constructive fashion during the planning phase.

I welcome the fact that this amendment has been tabled, because these areas are not discussed enough unless you have been involved in this and seen the tripping points and how money is wasted. We talk a lot about how, if a utility provider has to spend money to do something, the money goes on bills, but if things were dealt with more efficiently in the first place, including by the regulator and in the relationship with local authorities, maybe we would save money instead.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this excellent amendment, probing how we link national planning, regional strategic planning and local planning by including planning by private companies whose role is regulated by government, poses a very interesting question. I will give a couple of practical examples.

In my area on the M62 corridor, National Highways —or Highways England, another of the forms it has taken over the years—has a plan to create a link road from the M62 to the M606. To my knowledge, that has been in the local plan for 25 years. It has prevented the development of a brownfield site because of the land that it would take and the consequences that followed from that.

It was in the latest five-year plan from National Highways for its infrastructure, and all of a sudden, having done some costings—I think that was at the heart of it—it suddenly withdrew its intention, within the five-year plan and no further, to create or even begin to plan for that important link road, which, I have to say, has very significant consequences for the whole area. That is because its purpose was to take traffic off what I think is the most congested motorway roundabout in the country, the Chain Bar roundabout at junction 26 of the M62 in West Yorkshire.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we have had some very powerful speeches in support of incorporating local nature recovery plans into the planning system. I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friends Lady Parminter and Lord Teverson, and others such as the noble Baronesses, Lady Willis of Summertown and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. They made powerful speeches, so I do not need to add to their arguments.

However, I want to make two points, the first of which is the importance of stitching together different strategies across different government departments. This, in essence, is what Amendment 184ZA is about—that what was agreed in the Environment Act must be incorporated where it matters: in local plans and national development management planning.

Secondly, the Environment Act currently requires local plans and local planning authorities to achieve a 10% biodiversity net gain in any planning application, but it is not that straightforward. If the applicant is unable to improve the site on which it is developing by a 10% net gain—and a recent application I had resulted in a minus 19% biodiversity figure—the next option in the cascade of biodiversity options is for the applicant to purchase a nearby greenfield site and improve the biodiversity there. If that does not work, you get to commuted sums, whereby the applicant has to provide a sum of money for the local authority to improve biodiversity somewhere else entirely. To me, that is not what biodiversity net gain should be about.

As I have declared on many occasions, I am a councillor in Kirklees. Recently, I had a major application in my ward, and the applicant was unable to pursue any of those options. The commuted sum was for somewhere else entirely, and biodiversity was depleted in the area applied for. That is why these local nature recovery strategies are so important: they put that at the heart of local planning policies and outcomes, so that applications cannot fob off a lack of biodiversity net gain into some other part of a council district.

This amendment has my wholehearted support, and I hope that my noble friend will bring it back on Report if the Government will not accede to it now.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been a very good debate, and there clearly is a lot of support for the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter. We also strongly support them.

As has been discussed, the Environment Act created the local nature recovery strategies and introduced the statement of biodiversity priorities for local areas, accompanied by the habitat map, which identifies where people can contribute to enhancing biodiversity. As the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, said, these are not just nice to have; they are essential if we are to not simply reverse the decline but improve the situation. We know that local nature recovery strategies have the potential to really drive forward the recovery that is so badly needed. Importantly, they bring local knowledge and expertise into play. Also, as we have heard, the duty to apply the local nature recovery strategies in decision-making such as planning is too weak and will have a negative impact on their effectiveness.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch pointed out that the Government chose not to accept amendments tabled during the passage of the Environment Bill that would have required local authorities to take close account of local nature recovery strategy land identifications when making planning decisions. She also referred to the pledges made by the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith. Some of us who spent a lot of time considering that Bill had expectations in this area, and I am pleased that the noble Baroness has tabled these amendments so that we can debate those expectations.

The noble Baroness made it clear that the guidance for authorities on the application of the strategies is just not strong enough. As a result, despite groups mapping sites that will be essential to nature recovery in a local area, local authorities will not necessarily have to take proper notice if they do not want to. That is the fundamental problem, and we do not want lots of time and effort on the part of local nature recovery strategy groups and supporting bodies such as Natural England to be wasted, and opportunities then completely missed.

These amendments, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, and supported by many noble Lords, would rightly prevent any wasted effort and enable the local nature recovery strategies to achieve their full potential. Incorporating them into local planning authorities’ development plans is surely an obvious way to go about this. We do not want them to be weak documents, sitting on a shelf somewhere and not informing proper strategic day-to-day planning decisions. We need them to make a real difference, not just a tangible one.

As we have heard, many people think that greater weight should be given in planning to local nature recovery strategies. The Environmental Audit Committee and the Office for Environmental Protection have supported this approach. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, talked about our commitments at COP 26, saying that there is a gap between what we say we will do and what we actually do, and that planning plays a very important role in nature recovery. As the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, asked, what are our priorities for the future? How will we meet the government targets? Surely, anything that helps deliver the local nature recovery strategies is to be welcomed. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, certainly thought this: he made it very clear that he thinks it important that this be included.

I hope that the Minister agrees with those who have spoken today and sees the absolute sense in accepting these amendments.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful. The problem has a wider resonance than the Malvern Hills Trust, although that is important. Coterminosity of local government and parliamentary boundaries is important, as is coterminosity of local government and National Health Service boundaries and, in this case, of the integrated care boards. If the Minister has any influence in other government departments, I ask her to impress on them the significance of residents who may be split between integrated care boards, like residents where I live in the Kirklees district of West Yorkshire, who are now being moved into a new Wakefield parliamentary constituency. This creates more problems than we sometimes recognise. Coterminosity and looking at the local implications of the lines we draw on a map are important and ought to be done only following detailed consultation with local people.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing this to our attention. As she knows, I know the Malvern Hills area very well; it is beautiful. It is important that the Boundary Commission respects local boundaries and allows organisations such as the Malvern Hills Trust to operate as they are intended.

Does the Minister agree that one problem we have at the moment is that the Boundary Commission cannot carry out interim or minor reviews, as it simply does not have the resources to do so? That means that any kind of review could take up to 20 years to look at a problem or something that is not ideal, which is clearly not an ideal situation. Perhaps the department could look into this.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 20th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I want briefly to point to what I regard as the principle behind all the discussion that we have had tonight; that is, the difference between the powers of the London mayor and the way they were established, as opposed to those of combined authority or metropolitan district council mayors being established by the Bill.

There are lessons to be learned. All through the debate on the devolution clauses in the Bill, some of us have been consistent in pointing out that mayors attracting more individual powers to themselves—by adding the roles of the police and crime commissioner and fire and rescue, for example—will end in tears, as will this. Our local democracy depends on hearing the voices of, in this case, other borough leaders—and, in the case of combined authority mayors, of leaders in those areas and others—and then coming to a decision based on what they have heard. The minute you get individuals who believe they can make a decision without reference to the views of others, trouble ensues. I urge the Minister to refrain from those aspects of the Bill that seek to accumulate power to a single person. It may look good on paper, but it will not work well in practice.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an interesting short debate. I will concentrate on Amendment 176 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan—and I thank him for clearly introducing both his amendments—because I want to focus on why traffic emissions are so problematic and on the issues around air quality, which basically underpin what we are talking about here.

As we have heard, the amendment proposes that a devolved authority—Transport for London, the Mayor of London or the mayor of a combined authority—could introduce a road-charging scheme only if all local authorities with roads in scope consented to the scheme. We also heard from the noble Lord, Lord Tope, about concerns regarding a potential veto on this, and I agree with him on that.

For road-charging schemes already in operation, however, it occurs to me that consent would need to be retrospectively sought, which is also a concern. If consent were not granted, the local authority would have three months to end the scheme. In considering whether to grant that consent, local authorities, as the noble Lord said, would need to have regard to their duties relating to air quality as defined under the Environment Act 1995.

Noble Lords have mentioned the Greater London Authority Act 1999, under which transport is a devolved matter—in London, primarily the responsibility of the mayor and Transport for London. They have the power to make decisions relating to road-charging schemes such as the one that would be affected by the amendment. The road network does not align with borough boundaries, of course, so it is not possible to implement road-charging schemes based on which boroughs support them. That is one of the reasons why Parliament granted the power to make decisions on London-wide road-charging schemes to the mayor. The Government have said that there are no plans to review the provisions within the GLA Act, and I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that today.

The ULEZ scheme has been mentioned, and that would clearly be affected by the amendment if it went through. It is worth noting that 85% of vehicles seen driving in outer London already meet the required emissions standards and therefore would not be liable for the new charge. As I said at the beginning, though, I want to look at air quality, particularly around related illness and death from air pollution.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, obviously, I completely support the argument of my noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond that Clause 32 and the other clauses in this group should not stand part of the Bill. She made a powerful argument, as did my noble friend Lord Stunell, about the regulations and the power that is going to be devolved to the Secretary of State through these clauses. Further, my noble friend Lady Harris amply demonstrated the shortfalls of such mergers. This is a pilot example of what happens when provision is made for a chief constable to take over the responsibilities of a fire service. According to the argument made by my noble friend and the evidence in the HMICFRS report, it is not going well. I am beginning to think that the Government despise local government and local democracy. My noble friend Lord Stunell has just suggested a retention of local government law Bill, and perhaps that is what we have to start considering.

Clause 32(2) states:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision … authorising … the chief constable … to exercise fire and rescue functions”.


I know the Government have wanted to merge these two emergency services for some time, but this is being proposed without reference to local informed discussion, debate and solution. Furthermore, Clause 33(2)—this was where I got really quite concerned—states that “A request” for such a merger

“must be accompanied by a report which contains … an assessment of why”.

That is fair enough. There are two criteria: that

“it is in the interests of economy, efficiency and effectiveness for the regulations to be made”;

“or” that

“it is in the interests of public safety”.

We are taking about emergency services, so surely you would want to consider a merger according to the first criterion: economy, efficiency and effectiveness. But you would then use the word “and” before the phrase

“in the interests of public safety”.

However, the Bill uses the word “or”, and it does so several times in these clauses. The message that sends to me is that economy, efficiency and effectiveness are far more important than public safety—even for an emergency service.

Clause 33(4) indicates that even if two-thirds—this is where the democracy bit concerns me—of the constituent members of the combined county authority oppose such a merger, the mayor could just ignore that and continue with the merger plan despite the considerable scale of opposition by involving the Secretary of State. Where is the case for merging two emergency services with very different skills? How is it going to improve public safety? As I have said, public safety seems to be a secondary requirement when considering a merger. Can the Minister let us know where to access any detailed examples, apart from the North Yorkshire model which has already been exposed as not successful, of how such mergers improve public safety? That must, after all, be key to any decision in principle that this Bill proposes.

I end with the words of my noble friend. The problems that she outlined have not been thought through properly. If the Government wish to merge two emergency services with very different backgrounds, pay structures and requirements, then we need a proper assessment prior to the Bill proposing, as it does in these clauses, that they can go ahead just by writ from the mayor and Secretary of State.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I completely understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has brought her concerns forward. This is clearly a really important issue in Yorkshire, where she lives. I also think it draws to your Lordships’ attention that much in the Bill is perhaps not as straightforward as it would appear at first glance, and that things affect different areas in different ways. Perhaps the Government should look again at some parts of the Bill where there will be different impacts from those perhaps originally envisaged. The noble Baroness, Lady Harris, has drawn attention to one of these areas.

The noble Baroness mentioned the National Fire Chiefs Council. This is an opportunity to put on record the National Fire Chiefs Council’s response to the Government’s recent review of police and crime commissioners, as that puts it in the context of these clauses and our discussions about how the Bill relates to fire services and PCCs. The Government’s review looked at fire services, policing, governance and voluntary and community organisations. There were certain specifics relating to fire. The Government said that they would further look at:

“Consulting on whether to mandate the transfer of fire and rescue functions to the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner model across England where boundaries are coterminous, unless there is an option to transfer fire governance directly to an elected Mayor … Legislating to create operational independence for Chief Fire Officers and to clearly separate and delineate strategic and operational planning for fire and rescue … Considering options to clarify the legal entities within the PFCC model.”


They stated that

“the Government is clear that further reform of fire and rescue is required in order to respond to the recommendations from Phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, the Kerslake Review and to build on the findings from Sir Thomas Winsor’s State of Fire and Rescue Report”.

Any reform would

“focus on three key areas: people; professionalism; and governance”.

In response, the National Fire Chiefs Council said

“if fire services are governed by a Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner (PFCC)”—

we already know that some already are—

“it is imperative CFOs roles are safeguarded and have the same standing as a Chief Constable. Currently, Chief Constables … act as the employer and have operational independence. The same operational positioning for CFOs is vital, together with”

a wider status sitting alongside police forces. We know that fire services are driven by risk and risk factors; they are not as demand-led as police forces, and a number of key operational, organisational and cultural differences sit between the two services. When working with them, we need different approaches; there are different functions, and a different kind of political understanding needs to come with that.

We only need to look back over the last couple of years to see the response to the pandemic and how fire services were able to adapt quickly to the frequent challenges which emerged. However, it also showed that there are some areas that need reform to ensure that the public continue to receive the outstanding response they expect. We know that the public have huge respect and support for our fire services.

We must not forget the role of the fire services to serve communities, putting them first while reducing risk and saving lives. We must not lose sight of that when making reforms, because any reform that happens will be a pretty major undertaking and will need to be resourced appropriately. If changes come from the Bill to the way fire services are managed, we must not lose resources, and they must be carried out in a consistent, joined-up manner.

There also has to be proper clarity around the political leadership. How will that operate? With appropriate political oversight, CFOs will be well placed to deliver the operational running of services, using strong data and the evidence they need. However, if we are moving in the direction that the Bill is suggesting, there must be a democratic mandate, good governance, accountability and robust political decision-making, otherwise there is a risk of undermining the community’s trust in those services, which is critical.

We also need clear lines of responsibility, and we should have national guidance and standards on this for all forces, PCCs and fire services to follow. Any strategic direction of budgets has to be properly evidence-based, with clearly defined roles for the people who are part of those services.

To conclude, one of the things we are concerned about, which came across in the earlier contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Harris, is the confusion presented by so many different models, both those which currently exist and those which will be expanded by the proposals in the Bill. So clarity going forward is critical.

I turn, very briefly, to Amendment 122A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. He is absolutely right to be concerned about the fact that the Secretary of State in this part of the Bill is basically being allowed to do whatever they like. The whole Bill has been pitched as devolving power, but this is centralising power, and it goes against the spirit of what we felt the Bill proposed to be. We need proper checks and balances on any powers given to PCCs and the Secretary of State, so we completely support the noble Lord’s amendment. Any Secretary of State should not be able to amend, revoke or repeal at a whim.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

This issue is part of a threesome that we have debated this evening: local democracy; fiscal and electoral decisions; and, now, how we hold meetings. How is it that Westminster can dictate how local councils should conduct themselves? That is the question I want to ask. I know that they deal with potholes; actually, I have a plan for potholes. Can we have migration of potholes? Do noble Lords think that would help? It seems to me that these amendments have a lot of merit; I will say why.

The first issue is travel. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, raised this but only in relation to going a short distance. In their wisdom, the Government have created two new unitary authorities, which start their life in April. North Yorkshire is one. If you live in Selby or are elected to represent Selby, in one part of North Yorkshire, you now have to travel 56 miles to get to a council meeting in Northallerton. That is a 112-mile round trip to get to a meeting. You have to ask yourself: is that an efficient use of anybody’s time, and does it contribute to our net-zero ambitions?

Then there is Somerset, which Members of the Committee may believe is a smaller county, but if you live at one end, in Frome, and the county hall is in Taunton, at the other end of the county, that too is 56 miles and a 112-mile round trip. That is not cost effective or efficient in anybody’s life. If you live in Yorkshire, especially North Yorkshire, and you have to go across the dales or the moors in winter to attend a meeting, you know that sometimes it is simply not possible. That is one reason.

I hope the Government will take up the suggestion by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, of bringing forward a government amendment, either shortly or at the next stage, to deal with this. As the noble Lord said, it is about efficiency. Virtual meetings lower costs and enable more people to get involved. If we are interested in local democracy, as I am, the more people who can get involved and engaged in decision-making, the better.

My final point, well made by my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market, is about the engagement and involvement of people who are otherwise excluded from being councillors because of either caring responsibilities or lack of transport. If you do not have a car in North Yorkshire, I do not know how you get to Northallerton. Maybe the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, can tell us, but I think it might take a couple of days.

For all those reasons, it is really important that if we want to reinvigorate our local democracy—which is essential if we are to narrow inequalities, which is at the heart of the levelling-up process—we need more people to be engaged. If we want more people to be engaged and involved, we have to enable it by letting councils decide for themselves whether they want virtual meetings. I fully support the principle behind all these amendments.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a really important debate. This is such an important issue, yet it could be so simply resolved. We have heard about the Government’s call for evidence, but so far we have not heard anything from them, so it will be extremely interesting to hear the Minister’s response to that, particularly following the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about the freedom of information request, which were a bit disappointing to hear.

The Local Government Association was, unsurprisingly, one of the organisations that made a fairly detailed submission to the Government. It noted an enormous number of benefits gained by local councils from being able to meet virtually. It said strongly that it hoped this ability would be retained, particularly when it is locally appropriate. We have heard a lot about how appropriate it is in Yorkshire, and it is the same with me in Cumbria.

We need to remember, as has been said, the huge benefits to the democratic process that were brought by enabling councils to meet virtually. It reduced reliance on delegating decisions to officers if there was a crisis, for example, because everyone could get together very quickly. There was much more flexibility, better councillor attendance and better engagement with local residents at council meetings. We have also heard of the difficulties that disabled people often have, or those of people in rural areas who do not have a car. This managed to completely change their ability to attend meetings and take part in local democracy. As was said earlier, if we can have people attending this House virtually, why on earth can we not have the same for people at local government level?

It is also really important that the Government are not so ridiculously prescriptive about how and when councils can meet. I genuinely do not understand why there has not been any movement following the call for evidence. I can see no reason why this is not a good thing to continue with. The LGA added in its response that councils would need considerable flexibility for local determination as to how and when to utilise virtual and hybrid meetings to ensure that they realise the benefits of all the different meeting options that suit the local context. Again, that flexibility is hugely important for democracy. As I said, I find it completely baffling that this was not just automatically extended once the benefits could be seen.

We know that councils provide many different services to their communities. Their decisions obviously affect the lives of residents, so to have a system where you actively enable high levels of civic representation and where citizens’ voices are heard and taken into account in policy-making, local decision-making and planning—as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, particularly referred to—is surely of benefit to the whole of our society. We need to address issues of underrepresentation, which we talked about during the passage of the Elections Bill. Encouraging participation in local democracy at every single level is more likely to encourage people to take part in elections when they come forward.

We have an amendment on this, because we think it is important. We strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, as hers is a really important amendment; I hope the Government will eventually come behind her. We support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, but if you allow virtual meetings only for planning meetings, I am not sure how much that helps parish councils, for example. I will wind up, because I know we want to break.

In our parish, virtual meetings and being able to meet remotely were an absolute godsend. I know that when we were told that was no longer possible, the parish council was not just deeply disappointed but pretty cross about it. It had enabled far more people to attend meetings, not just the councillors but the general public. Like Yorkshire, Cumbria is a very rural area. We have heard about the local authorities referred to by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady McIntosh, but even just our parish covers a pretty wide area. For people to find out what was going on in their parish was of huge benefit. People logged into the meetings who had never attended before. Again, it is such a shame to have lost that.

Along with other noble Lords who have spoken, I am honestly of the opinion that this is such a no-brainer for this Bill. I really hope that, following this debate and taking away the thoughts that have come from it, the Government will consider coming back with a similar amendment on Report so that we can just get on with this.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is a very important group of amendments, which probes and challenges the membership of the CCA, and even existing combined authorities. It seems to me that there are three major principles that the amendments in this group are exploring; the first concerns whether the Government are determined to continue with democratic local government. There are proposals in the Bill for non-constituent members, which may be groups of businesses, rotary or chambers of trade, or trade unions, that are not elected locally, to be able to influence the spending of substantial sums of public money in their areas.

For me, the whole purpose of democracy is that those elected are those who are going to be accountable for decisions made about public funds—that seems to me to be a fundamental principle of local government. Unfortunately, the proposals in the Bill seem to be moving away from that basic principle by giving combined county authorities the ability to appoint associate members, who represent nobody but themselves, and indeed non-constituent members, who may not be members of an elected body such as a district, town or parish council. I would like to hear from the Minister the Government’s view on this and why these proposals are in the Bill.

The second principle is that of local. It seems that the Government, as perhaps were previous Governments, are intent on taking the “local” out of local government. The move to dismantle two tiers of local government and make them into unitaries moves the elected representatives away from their local area, because their wards are much larger in size. That leads me to support very much the proposals in the amendment of my noble friend Lady Scott of Needham Market about the involvement of town and parish councils within this system of combined authorities. It also leads me to support, the Committee will not be surprised to hear, the voices that have been heard across the Chamber on the important role of district councils within this system. They are the ones which, along with town and parish councils, are at the local level and they understand the economies and cultures of their areas. Those voices must be expressed in a higher or more remote tier of government.

The third principle that has been expressed today is proportionality. What we cannot allow—because, again, it is undemocratic to do so—is to move away from the convention of proportionality. We cannot accept that voices from other political backgrounds will not be given a chance to express those views within a combined authority.

I look forward to what the Minister is going to say about membership, voting arrangements and proportionality, and about the role of district, town and parish councils, because for me this is absolutely fundamental to any proposal for devolution. Devolution is a nonsense if it just results in another remote body that bears no relationship to its local area. If people cannot express their concerns or propose ideas, it is just another way of doing things to people rather than involving them.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Does the noble Baroness agree that one of the other concerns is that such members cannot then be voted out if people do not agree with them being there?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

That is my fundamental principle. Anyone who makes decisions about public money has to be voted for; they have to be an elected member. The whole point is that they are then accountable for the decisions they make and can, quite rightly, be kicked out of office if local people do not agree with what they have done. That is the point and if you have non-elected members of these combined authorities who cannot be ejected from office for the decisions they have made, we are no longer a democratic country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is another really important group of amendments to do with the extent of devolution: what are the limits that the Government are putting on that? The only areas we have explored, very important though they are, are the National Health Service, policing, transport services—buses, in particular—and general functions. I have great sympathy with all the amendments in this group, particularly those introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, asking where the National Health Service fits in with the notion of devolution to local areas.

As the noble Lord explored, currently the NHS does not fit in. A move was made in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority for the mayor to take the provision of health and care services—which we have not referred to so far—under his powers. That was accepted but has not made much progress. One of the biggest challenges, as has been said time and again in this Chamber in debates relating to other Bills, is the absolute importance of connecting the National Health Service and the social care system. Enabling devolution of NHS services to a mayoral combined authority would enable social care and NHS services to be properly linked. The result of no progress being made in this area is before our eyes; we have too many older people staying in hospital for too long, which harms their health, and they are not discharged into the social care service because the two are not linked. The Government have failed to do this time and again. Well, okay, devolve it—pass it on to local mayoral authorities so that we can see what progress they can make. I repeat every sympathy, and support what has been said. I do hope it will be pursued at later stages of consideration of this Bill because it is so important for the health and well-being of the people we serve.

I will also wholeheartedly support the Clauses 58 and 59 stand part notices, for the reasons that have been said. I will give the example of West Yorkshire, where it was determined that the police and crime commissioner role would be combined with that of our elected mayor. Now we no longer have an elected police and crime commissioner because that role is unelected; they are appointed by the West Yorkshire mayor. That was her right; I am not saying she has done anything wrong. But who is now called to account for failings in policing in West Yorkshire? There have been a number of examples across the country where police and crime commissioners have, for various reasons, been found wanting and have been held accountable for their actions. How does that work in a combined mayoral authority where the mayor appoints the police and crime commissioner? Does the mayor have to be held accountable for the decisions and actions of their appointed deputy? That is the only way that accountability can take place. The attempt by the Government to undermine an elected process is undemocratic. How do the Government think that local people will feel about the very important role of holding policing in the West Midlands to account when an elected police and crime commissioner there is somehow unelected? Those two big issues are very important. It is about whether we are talking about devolution to local areas or still talking about centralised systems where there is delegation to combined authorities—which leads nicely to buses.

I cannot add to my noble friend Lady Randerson’s description of what has happened to the bus services and how important they are to any hope of levelling up for many parts of the country. As she said, if you cannot get a bus in order to access employment then, for many people, it is financially impossible to do other than stay at home. Mayoral authorities need to be given the powers to control bus services, as bus services should be encompassed in mayoral authorities. In giving another local example, I should point out that it was done before the mayoral authority was set up. Nevertheless, it comes from the centre of West Yorkshire where, in my own area, we have a number of small villages where the bus services were poor and people could not get about. Fortunately, there was not only one bus a week—like the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, has, I think—but services were poor throughout the day. We managed to get a subsidy for what I call a small hopper bus—a 15-seater—to go around the various parts of the Spen Valley area and pick up older people, take them into town to do their shopping, collect them and go back again. After a bit, because it was so popular, it has become a self-financing bus service. With local initiatives comes success because local areas know what would probably work for their patches. That is why enabling mayoral combined authorities to have control over bus services is so vital.

Any notion of levelling up will not work without the aspect of transport. There has been too much focus on rail services, which are very important but do not feature in a lot of people’s options for transport. I repeat that my noble friend Lady Randerson made a powerful case for ensuring that mayoral combined authorities can run bus services. Without that, many people—especially in rural areas, but not only in rural areas—will find that they cannot access the services and jobs they need to if levelling up is to be anything other than a slogan.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, as others have said, this has certainly been a mixed bag of amendments, but clearly they all look at the extent of devolution, the powers and the different functions involved. We have two probing amendments in this group. First, in Clause 19, my Amendment 91 probes

“whether the Government will cooperate with trade unions representing employees of CCAs.”

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for her support and for her excellent speech on this matter. At the moment, Clause 19—“Integrated Transport Authority and Passenger Transport Executive”—does not consider the people who work for the CCAs. We believe they should be able to be part of any decision-making process. This is also why we believe it is important for the Government to co-operate with trade union representatives.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[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.

Architects Act 1997 (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Monday 9th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I do not know much about architects, but what I do know is that it seems we are creating a problem that did not exist until we had the Brexit legislation. Two of the most prestigious buildings of recent years in France are the Millau bridge over the River Tarn, a fantastic and amazing piece of architecture designed by Norman Foster, and, earlier, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the work of another great British architect, Richard Rogers. Our global talent was already being exported and used by our nearest neighbours in the EU. With the Brexit legislation, we have contrived to say, “We can’t recognise these qualifications any more. Mutual recognition will go out the window, and we will have to start again and create new mutual recognition arrangements.”

The dilemma that the Government have created is set out well in the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report. It says:

“DLUHC says … that architects with EU qualifications who are already on the ARB register will not be affected”,


which is fine. It goes on:

“In addition, a briefing note by the ARB states that in the absence of”


a mutual recognition agreement

“with the EU, the ARB has decided unilaterally that, in practice, it will continue to recognise EU qualifications listed in the former Mutual Recognition of Professional Qualifications Directive until a new MRA is agreed”.

So, while we are going through all this, architects are saying, “Blow this. We want to continue to have mutual recognition agreements with the EU so that’s what we’re going to do.” The Government have created unnecessary dilemmas for us here. All I can say is good luck to the architects. There is global recognition that we have great architects in this country. To try in any way to restrict them using their talents in countries across the world, but particularly in our nearest neighbours, is a foolish restriction of their ability to work.

We also lose the concomitant advantages of that. An architect brings with them a design team, a construction team and all the rest of it. So good luck to the ARB in saying, “We’re not listening. We’re just going to continue recognising the professional qualifications that existed prior to the Brexit legislation.”

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her introduction to this statutory instrument. We have heard that it will form part of the new framework for the recognition of internationally qualified architects in the UK. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this specific but quite important change for mutual recognition agreements with counterpart regulators in other countries. We believe that the changes are needed and we will certainly not oppose these measures. However, I have a few questions for the Minister.

During debates on the Professional Qualifications Bill, these Benches asked for certain amendments around statutory consultation, particularly around regulations under Clauses 1, 3 and 4. Following that, the amendments introduced the statutory consultation requirements. It would be helpful if the Minister could inform the Committee how the department has met those requirements with regard to these regulations in front of us today.

The Explanatory Memorandum states that monitoring will be done by the Architects Registration Board. Can the Minister confirm whether this means that it will be doing it in its entirety, and that the department will therefore not be involved in monitoring the implementation of the regulations themselves?

Finally, on mutual recognition agreements, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee mentioned in its report—as did the Minister—the agreements that will come into force with countries such as Ireland, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. However, also in response to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report, DLUHC said that the UK is currently seeking a new MRA with the EU under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. I wondered if the Minister was able to provide your Lordships with any kind of update or progress on how that is going, or when we are likely to see an outcome from it.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

3rd reading
Monday 31st October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a really important Bill and I will briefly say some thank yous. I thank all noble Lords who took part to improve the Bill as it made its passage through this House. I thank, as the Minister did, Grenfell United, Shelter and the residents who suffered most from Grenfell and have worked so hard to bring this new legislation forward, alongside the Government. I thank my noble friend Lady Wilcox for her great support. I also support the Minister; this may have been her first Bill, but we have worked very constructively together and I thank her for her approach to the Bill, her approach to the House and for her time and that of her officials.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I had better remind the House of my relevant local government interests, as set out in the register. Throughout the Bill, we have supported its purpose. We have simply worked hard to try to make what we believed were essential improvements. Of course, in the area of energy efficiency, the amendment from my group was accepted by the Government and the Minister. I know that housing campaigns across the country were very pleased that it was accepted as a key priority for the regulator.

I thank the Minister for coming in at the deep end, taking on the Bill, and being so helpful in enabling pre-reading discussions on it and amendments that we wished to table. It always eases the path of a Bill if we can do that. I therefore look forward to the next time, when we might also be able to work together constructively for the benefit of people out there.

I record my thanks to the Grenfell Tower campaigners. Despite the terrible tragedy that they experienced, they have never faltered over the last five years in their determination to see action on improving social housing. Here we have a Bill that should make social housing safer and fairer for tenants. I look forward to it coming back unamended from the other end.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for putting right what was clearly an oversight in the Bill, whereby landlords were given 48-hours’ notice before entering a property while tenants got only 24 hours.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I reiterate what the noble Baroness has said. It is good that what was said in Committee was listened to. We support the amendments and thank the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Thornhill is not well and is unable to be here today. She put her name to the amendment to which the noble Lord, Lord Best, has just spoken, so I am speaking on her behalf as much as anything.

These amendments are really important, because at the heart of the debate is the safety of social housing tenants. It is a similar debate to the one we have just had about whether there should be more professional qualifications for housing managers. Like that one, it is based on the social housing White Paper, in which the Government have suggested introducing Ofsted-style inspections for social landlords. This is, in essence, what the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, proposes. In mandating inspections but leaving their frequency to the Secretary of State, and allowing them to exempt certain providers, Amendment 17 is robust but workable.

There was widespread support across the House for the same amendment in Committee, with organisations such as the National Housing Federation and the Chartered Institute of Housing welcoming stronger and more proactive regulation of the consumer standards. As the CIH stated in its briefing, it is vital that the regulator has the resources to undertake these inspections. Ultimately, these inspections will help not only to avoid the catastrophic lapses in safety that led to the Grenfell tragedy—among others, but obviously Grenfell is by far the worst—but to strengthen the ability of the social housing sector to provide warm, secure and affordable housing.

The Government have tabled Amendments 22 and 38, and the Minister has again shown that she is listening and seeking to respond to what was said in Committee. But in the opinion of these Benches, the government amendments do not appear as robust as the one tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best. Inspections are not mandated; rather, the plan must outline whether they “should” take place and at what frequency. The regulator

“must take appropriate steps to implement the plan.”

Perhaps the Minister can outline what the steps could be. What are these “appropriate steps”? What teeth does the regulator have to implement inspections? Will the Government review these provisions to determine whether they have been successful or whether further steps will need to be taken to make sure that inspections are happening? What timeframe will we see for the plan? When will it be published and how often should it be reviewed? There are lots of questions, and lots of answers are needed if we are to be able to judge whether the proposals from the Government are sufficiently robust.

Given that tenants, providers and the Government all seem to agree on the need for more proactive regulation, we on these Benches hope that the government amendments will be all that is necessary for inspections to be frequent and effective. We just hope that we will not look back and wish we had used this opportunity to further strengthen the law on this issue, as the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, would allow us to do.

I want to end the debate in this House on this very important Bill by recognising, as others have done, the powerful commitment that Grenfell United has made to making the Government and the rest of us understand the importance of social housing being of the highest quality and safe and secure, with managers who know what they are doing and with a regulator who has teeth. None of us ever again wants to be party to a terrible tragedy like that which occurred in June 2017.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief because much has been said that needs to be said, and we had quite a debate on this in Committee. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for the amendments he put down in Committee and again on Report, and for all the hard work and time he has put into moving this issue forward so that we have reached a stage where the Government have recognised that more needed to be done in this area. I thank the Minister for her amendments and for recognising that inspection is a critical part of making progress on standards in social housing.

We are now reaching the end of the debate at Report, so I would just like to say a couple of things. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked a number of questions; I will not add to them but will wait to hear the Minister’s response. I thank again the Minister and her officials, as I did at the beginning of today’s debate, for her personal commitment and time on this Bill, and for her efforts where she has been able to make progress—for example, on this issue and in some other areas. It is appreciated by all of us who want this Bill to be as good as it can possibly be.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, ended in the way that we ought to end this debate, which is to recognise why we are here today. It is because of those who suffered so much during the Grenfell tragedy not giving up and keeping going and pushing us politicians and others on what needed to change in the social housing sector. This Bill is a credit to them. On that note, I thank everybody for the debate and for their time today.

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Tuesday 6th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I will first of all speak to Amendment 29 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best. My noble friend Lady Thornhill was going to speak but unfortunately has had to leave; she is not feeling too well.

I will just say that it has been eloquently expressed why it is very important that this amendment is included in the substance of the Bill. It gets our wholehearted support and there is no need for me to say any more.

I will also speak to Clause 4 stand part. I added my name to that of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, after he raised the selfsame issue at Second Reading. It seemed that this was an area of confusion that we need to clarify before the Bill is passed.

The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, explained that the extension of the powers of the regulator will almost certainly lead to confusion about the power of the Housing Ombudsman. They both have responsibility for seeing that social housing landlords treat their tenants fairly, and the regulator has considerable new powers to ensure safe and secure housing, including the power to obtain a warrant to enter a property if a landlord fails to comply, as set out in Clause 24. The regulator has been given huge powers of enforcement. What can the ombudsman do? Similarly in housing as elsewhere, the tenant turns to the ombudsman if there is an unresolved issue, but it does not have those extensive powers, as the noble Lord explained in some detail. It cannot make any practical intervention. All the ombudsman can do is write a report, make recommendations and possibly award compensation, if that is appropriate—that is it.

It is not clear to me, and I do not think it is clear in the Bill, at what stage the tenant should appeal to the ombudsman. Is it as a last resort, where the regulator’s efforts have not provided a full solution—in which case, how will a complaint to the ombudsman help to resolve it? Is it envisaged that the ombudsman is the final arbiter where the regulator has not succeeded? If not, then whom? The section on appeals in the Bill is totally focused on an appeals system for registered providers; there is nothing in it about appeals for tenants. If the ombudsman is the final arbiter for tenants then more needs to be done to clarify the roles, responsibilities and powers of the ombudsman.

I am totally with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, in what he has said. There is confusion. I am looking at it from the side of the tenant. If there is an unresolved complaint—be it about rent, repairs or whatever the issue—where does the tenant go? They go first to their landlord and, if it is not resolved, they go to the regulator, because it will be a practical issue. The regulator has huge powers, so it ought to be resolvable, but if not, do they go to the ombudsman? What can the ombudsman do? From the tenants’ point of view, this is not as clearly worded as it should be.

I hope the Minister will be able to say that she will go back to the department to sort out how each of these roles will work so that there is no confusion from the tenants’ point of view, which is where I am looking at it from. I support the objection to Clause 4 standing part and look forward to what the Minister will say.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, my Amendment 33 is in this group. It would mean that the Secretary of State must bring forward an affirmative SI to make provisions for monitoring the compliance of social housing with the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act. I think we can all agree that there is not a lot of point in having a standard if it is not complied with. I hope that, by recognising that, the Minister will consider accepting my very simple amendment.

I have also added my name to Amendment 29, so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Best. As he said, it would impose a duty on the social housing regulator to carry out regular inspections of all registered providers to ensure compliance with the regulatory standards. This is incredibly important, which is why I was very pleased to add my name to his amendment. He introduced it in such a way that we are all very clear why it is needed and would be an important improvement to the Bill, if accepted.

As it currently stands, reactive investigations are an important aspect of the system, but, unfortunately, they often come too late and sometimes they are too heavily reliant on other parts of the system revealing issues. We know that self-reporting by landlords can mask the scale or severity of problems and that action is sometimes not taken until it is too late. We need properly designed routine inspections that can be done at short notice so that we can uncover issues in a more timely manner and, most importantly, act as a deterrent to poor service and ensure that good practice is an everyday responsibility for landlords and their staff.

As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Best, when the Government introduced the social housing White Paper, they promised routine, Ofsted-style inspections. In this way, we would deliver a truly proactive system of regulation of social housing. As the noble Lord said, if we are genuinely to deliver what the Government seem to want with the Bill, we must ensure that good standards, right across the board, are delivered within the system. Having such inspections would help to achieve that, which is why we fully support his amendment.

I move to Amendment 11, in the name of my noble friend Lord Whitty, which we also strongly support. His amendment to recognise the impact of unsafe or overcrowded conditions on mental health and well-being is incredibly important. A lot is talked about the impact of poor housing standards on physical health; not enough is talked about their impact on mental health, so we strongly support his amendment.

Finally, I come to the opposition to Clause 4 standing part from the noble Lord, Lord Young, who, as always, introduced it very clearly and effectively. He was absolutely right when he said in his introduction that we need clarification of the roles of and relationship between the regulator and the Housing Ombudsman. He talked about the overlapping of their responsibilities and the importance of avoiding confusion and duplication. If this is to be truly effective, everyone must know their role and each role must be effectively delivered. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response and to see whether the Bill could be amended by the Government to try to bring clarification so that we do not get confusion once this becomes law.

I finish by saying that we have had a number of excellent discussions today on the Bill and I look forward to working with the Minister to positively move forward the issues we have raised today.

North Yorkshire (Structural Changes) Order 2022

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, because, as we heard from my noble friend, it will be very important for there to be devolution to parish and town councils—if they have the capacity to do so, which is one of the key challenges of this arrangement.

What concerns me about this statutory instrument, the previous one and the next one is that they are all about creating a convenient administrative unit. There is no mention in the instrument of the extent of the area covered, its population, its representation, nor a word about people, and we are talking about local government. People are at the heart of any local government: people who can have their voice heard, engage in influencing decisions, know their elected representative and can readily contact them. That is what local government is about, and there is no mention of it in the instrument.

For me, this is about creating efficient local government —whether it will be is a different matter. Whether it will be effective is a moot point. I know from long experience in local government that there is always pressure to make decisions at the expense of listening to the local voice, because that takes time and commitment, and can be difficult. That will be a challenge for North Yorkshire.

I understand that North Yorkshire and the local districts have considered the importance of devolving some decisions to the town councils, and to the area constituency committees being set up. That has been really good, compared with other reorganisations, and they are also setting up local networks to engage local businesses and other partners who deliver public services. That part of what is being done is positive, and I am pleased that where there are no town councils—Harrogate and Scarborough—we will have the chartered trustees referred to in the instrument.

I shall just mention Councillor Les. I worked with him years ago on Yorkshire matters, so he and I know each other, but I totally disagree with him about having a mayor for North Yorkshire. I do not think that will work, and the Government must think of a different way to devolve funding for strategic priorities to the unitary authorities they create such as this one.

The local government map is being reshaped in England bit by bit. There is a strategy somewhere that somebody in the department knows, because it is being eaten away gradually: getting rid of the district councils and replacing them with unitaries, whether they like it or not. The local is gradually being extinguished from local government in the name of getting an efficient—convenient, maybe—local administrative unit. In this case, I think a lot of thought has gone into how North Yorkshire might work, which I applaud. It will face huge challenges. I am not convinced that it will make for local government that listens to local voices and provides an effective response to what local people want for their area, but I hope it works, for the sake of the people who live in North Yorkshire.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister again for his introduction to this draft statutory instrument and other noble Lords for giving me so much in-depth information about North Yorkshire. It has been very interesting to listen to the debate.

I shall be brief and shall not repeat the questions that I asked earlier. As with the previously instrument, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee marked this one as being of interest, particularly around the concerns about the implementation of criteria in decision-making. The Minister went into that in his previous answer about Cumbria, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has talked about it, so I shall not go into any more detail.

One thing that has been particularly interesting in the debate, which is important in Cumbria as well, is the issue around identity. People talked about Ripon, Scarborough and Harrogate, and how different parts of North Yorkshire are distinct areas. The thing that I am interested in is how we ensure that they continue to have a distinct ownership of place and locality, as well as services. How can they have a genuine say in what is happening going forward, to ensure that, as we move from one council set-up to the new unitary, there is no democratic deficit? The noble Lord, Lord Jopling, talked about constituency committees, but I imagine that those are quite large groups. Of course, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, drew our attention to the fact that there were 159 district wards. That is a lot—and I imagine that there are probably more parish councils within that. It is important that powers are not just devolved up to the new body but that there is strong interplay between local communities and the new council being set up. That is something that has come across very strongly to me in the debate—that this is important to local people. I am sure that the Minister will have taken it on board.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, also talked about the importance of resources, which will obviously be critical, but I would also be interested to know whether there are any investments that need to be transferred or budget surpluses or debt that need to be consolidated. We know that local government has had serious cuts over the past decade, so there may well be debts that need to be resolved. I would be interested to hear about that from the Minister, and whether it is likely to cause any difficulties.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, also raised concerns about what could happen if there was a metro mayor for the area, and her concerns around the pressures put on local authorities and people that this is the route that they have to go down to get the sufficient resources and funding that everyone has been talking about. Having lived in rural Cumbria, I totally appreciate that having a metro mayor for a large rural area is not the same as having one for an urban area, and that really needs to be taken into account. I would be very interested in the Minister’s reply on that as well.

Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, seemed to imply that North Yorkshire was bigger than Cumbria in every way. I would just like to say that we have some rather large mountains. I am sure that, if we took all the area of the mountains into account, we would probably have more than North Yorkshire.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for introducing these two amendments. When I read them, I thought, “You know, this isn’t possible. You cannot build on contaminated land.” Certainly, from all the planning committees on which I have sat over the years, I know that it is not possible. I live in an area where there is quite a lot of land contaminated by dyes from the woollen industry, which have cyanide in them. My experience of development on contaminated land, which is a bit different from the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has raised, is that such sites are raised by planning authorities as part of the National Planning Policy Framework, they have to be identified as part of strategic local plans, and the Environment Agency and the Environment Act all contribute towards ensuring that contaminated land is cleared—decontaminated, if you like—before it is developed.

That is a bit different from some of the issues raised by the noble Baroness, which were about building adjacent to such land. Again, I am surprised that the environment legislation which controls old landfill sites has enabled that to happen. It may be a failure of legislation, but I will wait to hear what the Minister has to say.

The only thing I would say is that the Government are very keen for development of brownfield sites, and there is a desperate need for those sites to be cleared and decontaminated before they can be redeveloped. Everybody wants the Government to continue providing grants to developers to do so. I have experience from my town, where a site has been left empty for at least 15 years. It has been allocated for housing, but no grants have been provided to decontaminate it from an old chemical works that was on the site. So former green-belt land has been developed first, because we are waiting for grants for decontamination of derelict sites.

My one plea to the Minister is to take that back to the department and to say that, if it is to be brownfield sites first, such sites nearly always have significant contamination. Sometimes it is asbestos in older buildings. Certainly, in the Midlands and the north where there have been industrial complexes, there can be quite serious chemical contamination, and decontamination is necessary before anybody can get near them. I look forward to what the Minister has to say.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall be brief, because there will probably be another vote soon in the House. We are very happy to support the two amendments tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for her comprehensive introduction.

We know that local authorities, as we heard, are responsible for determining whether their land is contaminated. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, talked about the grants that her authority has been waiting for to clean up land. It is really important that these grants are dealt with quickly, because it can be incredibly expensive to clean up contamination. If we are to use brownfield sites, local authorities need to be able to do so in a way that is cost effective for them. That was an important point.

We are also aware that availability of land is one of the biggest barriers to building at the moment. The government targets for housebuilding mean that, in particularly populated areas such as the south-east, any additional homes are more likely to be built on previously developed brownfield land. No one would want to build on contaminated land by choice, but “brownfield” does not necessarily mean that land is contaminated. We need to be clear about this.

However, there is a need to ensure that houses constructed on sites affected by contamination are built to the appropriate standards, including those next to an area of contamination. We need to know where the contaminated land is so that we can do these checks properly. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said, things such as flooding can bring contamination across a very wide area, with, as we have heard, sadly catastrophic consequences. As she said, on the surface of it, Zane’s law seems pretty simple and straightforward to implement. If we can identify the size and scale in every part of the country where contamination is, that would be a very logical starting point to prevent future risk to life and support local authorities in tackling the whole issue of contamination so that we understand it better as we move forward with more development and housing. I hope the Minister will listen to this, because it seems to me that Zane’s law ought to be supported.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Thursday 24th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Does the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, want to speak next?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I am happy to do so. I was assuming that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, wanted to speak to the amendment which is in her name. I do not know what the protocol is on all that.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Then I will speak to my amendment, as I stood up first. As noble Lords have said, this has been a really important group of amendments to debate. I will speak first to my Amendment 35 and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans for their support.

Clause 57 gives the Secretary of State powers to impose a new building safety levy in England that will contribute towards the Government’s costs for remediating historical building safety defects. This will apply to developers making an application to the building safety regulator for building control approval, which of course is the new gateway 2 process that we have debated throughout discussion on the Bill. The problem we have, which is why I tabled this amendment, is that it will also be imposed on councils—the social landlords. Councils of course already face additional financial pressures, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

We should not forget that the key role of local government is to serve communities—the Minister will completely understand this—and provide essential services. They are not the same as developers, so the purpose of this amendment is to make social housing providers exempt from the additional financial burden of the Government's proposed levy, to prevent council and social housing tenants subsiding the failures of private developers and paying the cost of remediating both council housing and private housing. We are concerned about what may be the unintended consequences of the Bill as it stands, because if the levy is imposed on local authorities, it will increase the cost of building or refurbishing social housing, or increase rents, as the right reverend Prelate said. Yet the benefits to funds will not be available to the tenants, who would otherwise have benefited from lower rents or better housing.

The money to fund remediation must come from somewhere. Inevitably, it will be at the expense of another critical service, either in housing or through increased rents. To ask for that does not seem the right way forward. Does the Minister recognise the potential impact of the levy on social housing supply? Again, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans talked about our desperate shortage of housing in this area. We do not want anything that will negatively impact that. It is important that we do not pit the objective of providing for those in housing need against the objective of making buildings safe, when both must be delivered.

I turn to the other amendments in this group, looking first at the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, which he introduced clearly and comprehensively. To us, they seem eminently sensible and practical, and the right way forward. As he said, Amendment 130 proposes that the Government establish a comprehensive prospective levy scheme on all developers, the money from which would go towards remediating the defective buildings. As I understand it, his Amendment 24 is consequential on the establishment in Amendment 130 of the building safety indemnity scheme. That means that the removal of building work that contravenes fire safety regulations could be carried out, if his Amendment 130 were accepted.

What came through in both the noble Lord’s introduction and how other noble Lords introduced their amendments is the fundamental principle that it is right that the person who is responsible for breaches and poor building work should be made to put it right. This is a simple, basic principle that I think we all agree with. It should not be that difficult for the Government to accept it; to me, the Bill already accepts it. Why not work with noble Lords who have put forward such important amendments today, take them forward and give us much more robust statutory protection for leaseholders, extending it to all work, as the noble Lord said, that contravenes regulations? We would strongly support any amendment that makes buildings safer and protects tenants properly.

I was also struck that the noble Lord, Lord Young, referenced freeholders. They have not been talked about enough in debate on the Bill, so I thought it was very important that that reference was made and that they are not forgotten.

The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has a number of amendments looking to make protections more robust. We strongly support his zeal in what he is trying to achieve. His objectives are really important; as he said, they are not exactly perfect in every way, but we are not about perfection here. This is about putting forward the issues that need to be considered to improve the Bill. He has done that very clearly. His aim to pull the “perpetrator pays” and protections for leaseholders together is important, because it makes the objectives and the direction we need to go in really clear.

The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, was right when he said that his amendment and those from the noble Lords, Lord Blencathra and Lord Young, come from the same point of principle—an important principle that we support. He is right that this is quite simply a matter of justice. As the amendment says,

“responsibility for serious defects in the original construction or refurbishment”

rests squarely

“with those who designed, specified, constructed, or supervised the works or made false claims”—

and that is not the leaseholders. It is important that leaseholders feel that their position on this is fully understood and that we are moving forward in this way.

The principle that the perpetrator pays is also really important, but I should like to ask the Minister something, because I am getting a bit confused. What is the difference between a perpetrator and a polluter paying? It has got a bit confusing to have these two phrases.

Building Safety

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, before I begin, I would like to pay tribute to my colleague Jack Dromey. Jack was a fearless campaigner for equality and justice, and always stood up for those without a voice. We will miss him.

Moving to the Statement, the Grenfell Tower fire was, as we all know, a dreadful and shocking tragedy which killed 72 men, women and children and ruined the lives of many others. One of the outcomes from this tragedy has been the knowledge that thousands of homes in hundreds of high and medium-rise blocks have deficiencies in their construction.

We are more than four years on from Grenfell, and hundreds of thousands of people are still living in dangerous blocks, while many flat owners have been left with spiralling costs for insurance and service charges. People have been facing huge bills and have endured enormous stress. The Government’s announcement of new statutory protection for leaseholders is therefore welcome confirmation that developers, not leaseholders, should pay to make homes safe. We should also recognise that this is only the start of the solution.

The Government’s plan currently seems to cover only the cost of cladding replacement, which makes up a small fraction of the building safety work required, because remediation work is not just about combustible cladding but about missing cavity barriers, firebreaks and fire doors, for example. A significant number of buildings have both cladding and non-cladding defects.

I understand from the Minister that the Government have withdrawn the consolidated advice note that left thousands of leaseholders in low-rise buildings unable to move home. This is significant progress, but there remains a gaping hole in the Government’s proposals. Leaseholders will still face ruinous costs to repair many non-cladding defects. I ask the Minister why the Government are not properly and completely supporting residents who have been hit with these huge costs, through no fault of their own.

We welcome the Government’s change in tone, so that leaseholders in buildings of between 11 metres and 18.5 metres will no longer be expected to take out personal loans to cover the cost of the work. Instead, the Government are focused on securing up to £4 billion towards the costs from developers. However, leaseholders are concerned about how the Government will force the developers to pay and experts have questioned whether £4 billion will be sufficient to cover cladding in buildings under 18.5 metres.

The Secretary of State said that he will begin negotiations with those responsible and resort to increased taxation if they fail, but reports have suggested that the Chancellor could block this. Documents from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to the Secretary of State, Michael Gove, say that no new Treasury funding will be available to pay for this extra work; that the cost of the extra cladding removal must not exceed £4 billion; and that, if Mr Gove is unsuccessful in persuading or compelling developers to pay for the costs, they must be paid from existing housing budgets and

“safety should be prioritised over supply”.

I ask the Minister if there has been an assessment of what this would mean for the Government’s housebuilding programme. If the Government are serious about making developers pay, they should also take steps to make sure this never happens again. In the past four years, at least 70 schools and 25 hospitals and care homes have been built using potentially dangerous material, yet the Government still have not responded to a consultation on a ban on combustible materials, which closed over a year ago. I ask the Minister when we can expect to see the response.

Leaseholders are the innocent victims of this scandal and they need the Government to act as quickly as possible to resolve the situation, but remediation has been painfully slow. The Government continue to publish monthly updates on the progress of ACM cladding remediation, which do not include non-ACM buildings. Does the Minister agree that being transparent about the progress to make homes safe is vital to restore leaseholders’ trust? According to Labour analysis, at the current rate, it will take until 2026 for cladding to be removed from all social housing blocks and until 2024 from private blocks. Will the Government put forward a timescale to complete the remediation of all dangerous buildings?

Yesterday, the Secretary of State confirmed that he will meet Labour’s call for new clauses in the Building Safety Bill, when it comes to this House, to protect leaseholders. I ask the Minister to work with the Opposition Benches and other interested parties, so that we get these amendments right. Can he confirm that time will be allowed for proper scrutiny? I assure the Minister that, when the Building Safety Bill comes to this House, we will welcome the opportunity to work with him to achieve the much-needed improvements in this area.

The Statement before us has new measures that the Opposition welcome and genuinely want to see succeed, but the Government also need a clear plan to make developers pay for the works or leaseholders will continue to be stuck in limbo—stuck in their unsafe homes, unable to sell up and move on. People expect to live safely in their homes and I look forward to the Minister’s response to the ongoing concerns.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I start by paying tribute to the cladding campaigners, whose extraordinary persistence in conducting a fact-based, solutions-offered campaign is largely responsible for the content of the Statement today. Their efforts on behalf of blameless leaseholders and tenants are a worthy memorial to the tragic victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The words of the Secretary of State are welcome. He says that the Government have to take a “share of responsibility”, that manufacturers have “shown insufficient contrition”, that those who profited will “pay the price” and that leaseholders are “blameless”. These are all quotations from the Statement and I welcome them.

On the face of it, the Government are responding to the fire safety and cladding crisis with bold proposals. However, the most important of these are more aspirational than concrete. The aim—to extract £4 billion from the companies that developed the buildings to pay for the removal of dangerous cladding from blocks of between 11 and 18.5 metres—is based on the polluter pays principle. Can the Minister explain how this will be achieved?

Special purpose vehicles and shell companies are devices that have been used to ring-fence the parent company from liability. Will the Government nevertheless expect the parent company to pay up? Then there are the distant freeholders, not based in this country. How do the Government anticipate extracting funding from them? Will action be taken to prevent construction and development companies ring-fencing their liabilities to prevent losses from parent companies?

Then there are the backstop arrangements to raise £4 billion, which seem rather confused to me. Will the Minister clarify whether further taxation of construction funds will follow if the requisite funding is not raised? The letter from the Treasury seems to suggest that, if all else fails, departmental funding will have to be used. Is that right? Will it be taken from the £12 billion set aside in the department’s funding to support affordable and social housing? If so, I am not sure I would be able to support it.

My next question is this: the £4 billion is to remove flammable cladding only. We know that a major element of the remediation costs is in the lack of firebreaks and compartmentation. Who do the Government expect will put these right? I appreciate that the Statement includes a commitment to create a 30-year period of limited liability, during which leaseholders could sue, although this would be a David and Goliath contest.

Then there is the question of timing, which is crucial. Leaseholders already have bills for remediation, many of which are in the tens of thousands of pounds. The date by which they must be paid is April this year. Time is running out. I understand that the Government rightly wish to protect leaseholders from forfeiture and eviction, but what about bankruptcy? Will that protection be in place by April? If not, I fear leaseholders may still find themselves at the mercy of the unscrupulous.

The whole area of social housing barely gets a mention. Those social housing providers that are raising capital to remedy defects are doing so at the expense of new homes being built or existing homes being improved. Can the Minister describe the plan for the social housing sector?

Finally, can the Minister assure us that sufficient funding will be made available if the costs rise above £4 billion? I appreciate that I have posed many questions. If the Minister is not able to provide full answers, will he please provide a written response?

Despite all the questions, I am pleased that the Secretary of State has been so forthright in this Statement and has taken a very large step forward in addressing the plight of the thousands of leaseholders and tenants who have lived for four years in fear and anxiety, and who must not pay a penny piece to put right the wrongs of others.