Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Stunell

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, before I start, I repeat my relevant interests as a councillor and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

This group of amendments concerns the Government’s proposal to introduce the infrastructure levy as a replacement for the existing community infrastructure levy—CIL—and Section 106. My Amendment 68 seeks to leave out Clause 129, which establishes the infrastructure levy, and Amendment 90 would delete the relevant Schedule 12.

My reasons for this dramatic action are these. The infrastructure levy as currently proposed is contrary to the purpose of the Bill, which is to enable the levelling up of areas that are defined in the White Paper. The IL fails to contribute to that levelling-up mission because the amount that it will be possible to set as an infrastructure levy rate will be dependent on land values. Land values are much lower in the very areas that are the focus in the White Paper of levelling up. Using the existing community infrastructure levy as an example, land is zoned according to land values. At the independent examination of CIL in Kirklees, where I am a councillor, the planning inspector reduced the CIL charge to nil pounds—nothing—per square metre for a zone which includes the allocated site for 2,000 houses. This is not levelling up.

One of the criticisms of the infrastructure levy is that it will not be site specific. That means that communities that have large housing developments will not necessarily benefit from improved facilities, such as open green space, play areas, and funding to support school places as well as affordable housing on site. Any infrastructure levy can be spent anywhere in the council district.

Another of the major criticisms is that the charge will be paid by the developer only towards the end of the construction period, which may be a number of years. Meanwhile, it is expected that local authorities will have to borrow to build the new facilities needed in the expectation of funding at a sometimes much later stage.

It has also been argued that developers avoid funding infrastructure because of claims about the financial viability of a development. My noble friend Lord Stunell’s Amendment 94 aims to shine a strong light of transparency on viability. I agree with him.

The main contention during the debate on the infrastructure levy was on the provision of so-called affordable housing. There are amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, and of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, that have the worthy aim of linking the income from the infrastructure levy to the building of houses for affordable sale or rent. We support those aims, but one of the downsides of this approach is that the infrastructure levy is designed to fund affordable housing and local facilities. There is a risk that, in some areas, it would all be spent on housing, which is positive but to the detriment of important local facilities.

Such is the level of concern about the infrastructure levy proposals that representations have been made by more than 30 organisations, including the County Councils Network, the Royal Town Planning Institute, Shelter, the Local Government Association and the National Housing Federation. The concerns expressed are about complexity, upheaval and uncertainty.

Finally, the Government have stated that the infra- structure levy will be in a test and learn state. This creates further uncertainty. Further, because the infrastructure levy is to be phased in, developers will be dealing with different charging regimes in different parts of the country for many years to come. That clearly adds to uncertainty and complexity for developers. Perhaps the Government have lost confidence in the scheme as proposed.

The difficulty with the infrastructure levy is that this is not the right time to change developer charging systems, nor will it provide sufficient funding at the appropriate time to fund affordable housing and local facilities for developments. It is time for a total rethink. I will listen very carefully and closely to the Minister’s response. If I am not entirely satisfied with the response she provides, I will be minded to test the opinion of the House. I beg to move.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 70 and 94 in my name in this group. I want to add my strong support to Amendment 68, moved by my noble friend Lady Pinnock, which aims to get rid of the IL altogether. She has spoken very powerfully to that point, saying not least that it is contrary to the central purpose of the levelling up White Paper and to the whole substance of the mission statements, which are set out—or rather, the skeletons of which have been laid—at the front end of the Bill.

The complexities and the unintended consequences of the infrastructure levy were explored in depth in Committee. The Government are now reduced to saying that it will be piloted first on a “test and learn” basis, and that it may be introduced piecemeal over the next decade rather than as a big bang, which I suppose is the beginning of some sort of reality check. The Government’s own amendments, which are in this group and which we shall hear about shortly, are an attempt to water it down a bit further. As my noble friend said, the Government seem to have rather lost confidence in the infrastructure levy providing the solutions that they originally imagined.

Well, we are a little bit ahead of the Government. We have completely lost confidence in the infrastructure levy as a vehicle for positive change on the delivery of affordable homes or indeed decent infrastructure associated with new development. The infrastructure levy is beyond repair. This duck is dead. I certainly hope that, if my noble friend Lady Pinnock does not get the assurances that she is looking for and a vote is called, noble Lords will go into the Content Lobby with her.

I wait to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, has to say about Amendment 69 and what the noble Lord, Lord Best, has to say about Amendment 71. I would say that what they are offering is palliative care rather than resuscitation of the levy. Either or both of those amendments would be definite improvements on anything the Government have tabled, so I will wait to see what is said about that.

The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has tabled Amendment 311, which is an admirable setting out of preconditions—preconditions which are so obvious and sensible that I fear the Government will reject them out of hand. Instead of seeing this for what it is—an attempt to introduce sound legislative principles into the Government’s Bill management, which I would have thought they would welcome—I suspect they will just see it as some kind of amendment to kick the whole project into the long grass. But in default of anything else, will the Minister please give the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, some help with getting those preconditions written into this model?

I turn to my Amendment 70. This returns to the vexed issue of what is affordable when we talk about affordable homes. Affordability is used in legislation at present based on the idea that, provided that there is a discount on the going market rate, a home in the private sector is thereby affordable. It is currently a standard discount, which takes no account at all of incomes in the locality, nor does it pay any attention to price differentials between similar homes. For instance, similar homes in an outer London borough such as Sutton, where I was born, are a factor of two more expensive than those in the metropolitan borough of Stockport, where I live. So for “affordability” to mean the same in the two boroughs, incomes in Sutton would need to be double those in Stockport to match the ratio of incomes to the discounted sale prices in the two boroughs.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Stunell

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, in this debate. My contribution is quite modest compared to their overarching and sweeping criticism of Clause 99 but, just by way of flanking fire, perhaps I can say that it covers eight pages of the Bill, which is more than the whole of Part 1, which sets up the mission statements. That seems to me to be a wholly disproportionate application of drafting time, when we consider the level of detail not present in Part 1 and the level of detail here. That is perhaps the only point at which I would wish to challenge the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, in her request for yet more detail. I honestly do not think this Bill needs any more detail on street votes.

Nevertheless, I have tabled Amendment 253A, which aims to ensure that where approved neighbourhood plans are in place, they cannot be overturned by a street vote. It is, to that extent, rather in the same vein as Amendment 248, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Young. He set out that there should be a clear hierarchy between street votes and development plans so that local development plans trump street votes. My amendment takes a different approach to neighbourhood plans. It simply adds to the list of places where street votes cannot be held—which exists in the Bill—those areas that have valid neighbourhood plans in force. In other words, within areas where there is an approved neighbourhood plan, street votes are not to be an available mechanism.

Like the two previous speakers, I do not really get what value there might be in street votes as a concept. I see some places where they may create or might enable some worthwhile flexibility at a micro level below the reach of borough-wide development plans. However, I admit that I am struggling to imagine what a good example of that might exactly be. It has been suggested, by the Minister, apart from anybody else, that it provides the opportunity for low-level densification of homes in a street. I think the noble Lord, Lord Young, commented to some extent on that, but I will just pick up a point made by the noble Baroness about biodiversity.

One of the things that recent planning changes have brought into view is that gardens should not be paved because of the need to maintain natural drainage. The more the footprint of buildings is increased, the bigger the run-off and the bigger the risk of local flooding at the least. Therefore, that connection will sometimes be a consideration which needs to be taken into account.

It is easy to imagine some less benign examples of street votes, such as perhaps a west London street agreeing that sub-basements with cinemas and car parks would be perfectly fine there. If that was done on the basis of a referendum, the result of which—just to pick two figures out of the air—was 52% to 48%, there would not just be some discontented people living in neighbouring streets but perhaps substantial levels of discontentment in that street.

That brings me to ask a question about who gets to vote. Presumably they are people registered on the electoral roll. That is just as well, because in that west London street the big houses probably also have five or six servants—chauffeurs, cooks and chefs—and, of course, the let-out as far as the voting goes is that they are probably not UK subjects. The noble Baroness made a good point on behalf of renters: in a community, particularly an inner urban area where a transient population is normal, who votes, when they vote and what the qualification is to vote is important.

One of the many pluses of a neighbourhood plan, particularly the process leading up to its adoption, is that all those nook-and-cranny micro details can be considered and a consensus built as part of that plan. That is itself subject to a public endorsement and a referendum. It seems to me fundamentally wrong to have a situation in which such an endorsed, publicly recognised and approved plan, with a level of local public participation that far exceeds the adoption of a local development plan by a planning authority, could be overruled or subverted by random revocation of bits of it in the street votes.

My argument is straightforward. Essentially, where a valid neighbourhood plan is in force, all the work on microsites and flexibilities will have taken place already in drawing up that plan. Whatever the merits of the principle of street votes, they would be an unnecessary duplication of effort and expense within a neighbourhood plan area. My amendment avoids that overlap and the inevitable confusion it would cause in the local community if its democratically prepared neighbourhood plan was set aside, even if only in one part. I hope to hear that the Minister agrees with that and will accept my amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I think we can say that there has been a less than enthusiastic response to the proposals in Clause 99, and I endorse everything said by the three previous speakers. Rather than laying out any other reasons in great detail, which other noble Lords have done, my questions for the Minister are these. First, what is the problem to which this is the solution? Secondly, what is a street? I know there is a clause defining a street, but I should really like to know whether Manchester Road in Huddersfield, which stretches for seven miles, counts as a street, or Halifax Road, which goes from Halifax to Dewsbury. Is 10 miles a street? I need to understand what a street is.

That leads to my third question. We have discussed at length in the past few days the purpose of planning and what is required of our planning system to enable development, but also to enable communities that work and to protect our environment. Currently, any planning application for more than one house needs a construction management plan but there is no reference to that in Clause 99. In any development of the sort that I think is being considered—back gardens or whatever—there is also the question of linking to the existing utilities, particularly water and wastewater removal in some areas. We need to know how sustainable that will be or whether there will have to be sustainable urban drainage to achieve it. Where I am now, nearly all the developments must have attenuation tanks built into them to do what they say: hold back the water to reduce the risk of flooding. All that would need to be thought about, as well as the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, raised about biodiversity.

The Government, in their wisdom, changed permitted development rights of change of use from offices to residential areas. Because that could be done without proper process, one of the big issues that ensued concerned parking—or the lack of it—because there was no provision and no consideration had to be given to it, so none was applied for and there was a big problem.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Stunell

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, this is an extremely important debate with a large number of amendments of great importance. Having recently been recruited to the rapidly increasing cohort of the over-80s, I am entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Best, and his amendment. Certainly the Liberal Democrats support the case that has been made.

I was interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, had to say in relation to his amendment about making an assessment for student accommodation. As a resident of Greater Manchester, I understand the issue very clearly. I am sure that the Minister will want to tell us about how it is possible to have such a requirement applied in a proportionate way, bearing in mind that for a neighbouring planning authority such as High Peak it may be a very small consideration, whereas for an authority such as Manchester or Salford it is very significant.

I wonder if I might impersonate the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in respect of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and ask where the leasehold reform Bill is, of which the Government have spoken so much and delivered so little. I shall leave my remarks there. I think we need to hear from the Minister not simply that she does not particularly like the amendment that the noble Baroness has tabled but that there is actually a positive plan by the Government to tackle the issues the noble Baroness has identified.

I want to focus my remarks on Amendment 219 and Amendment 218, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. Amendment 219 would require local planning authorities to have a local plan that reaches or exceeds the requirement for housing prescribed by the Secretary of State. Amendment 218 would nail this down further by requiring strict conformity with the Secretary of State’s targets, using a method of calculation specified by the Secretary of State. We should be clear that, taken together, these amendments would mean that local land allocations for housing would essentially be taken away from local planning authorities and placed back in the hands of the Secretary of State. This would be a reversion to the statutory situation that obtained at some very distant time in the past—some 12 months and three Prime Ministers ago. It is a policy position that was denounced by the previous Prime Minister as Stalinist, and was this week repudiated by the current Prime Minister when speaking on the BBC. He said he saw an urgent need for change to the existing policy, assisted materially by conversations he had had last summer with Conservative councillors all over the country, who spelled out to him its consequences and the damaging impacts it was having locally.

A close reading of the two amendments suggests that, actually, they may seek to go slightly further back, to something that is even more Stalinist than the preceding Prime Minister was suggesting. The drafting of Amendment 218 appears to say not only that falling below the target would not be permitted but neither would exceeding it, because it has to be in strict conformity with the targets that have been set by the Secretary of State—not a house more, not a house less.

Noble Lords who are proposing this pair of amendments are certainly quite right to point out that the current situation suits nobody, least of all the tens of thousands of families on council waiting lists or the many others for whom a house purchase is hopelessly beyond their means and for whom renting can only ever be an inadequate, insecure and expensive option, given the current size and nature of the housing stock. They are also right to point out that the current policy uncertainty has paralysed local plan decision-making, slowed site allocations, and infuriated the development and housing industries.

We need more homes urgently. Specifically, we need many more social homes for rent. If money was switched from the Help to Buy programme to investing in those homes, as we on this side have often advocated, that would make a start, but the supporters of these two amendments need to explain in more detail how going back to the status quo ante will deliver the outcome that they desire. Not once did the system to which they are now encouraging us to go back deliver 300,000 net new homes a year, or even near it. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, drew that to our attention. The old system was not delivering, so reinstating it seems unlikely to work miracles. Indeed, I shall quote the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, in respect of another matter he spoke about: repeating something that you know does not work is verging on madness.

There are even more Stalinist options available, and maybe these two amendments point the Government in that way. There is no doubt that a centrally imposed national five-year plan for housing construction could deliver such numbers, but only provided there was state funding for anything over the 150,000 or so homes that would be funded by the private sector—and with the proviso that the party in government that put this policy in place was ready to forego its local democratic representation on the shrivelled local planning authorities that would be left.

There is an alternative—one that has proven to work in practice over the last 10 years, one that produces more land allocated for housing than the local plans have previously done for that area, and one that has popular consent, validated by a public vote locally. It is an alternative that meets local housing needs, has local popular consent and routinely exceeds government housing targets. You might think that that was a far better policy option than resurrecting a system of failed top-down targets that will not meet local housing needs anytime soon, raises huge opposition, and is constantly gamed and warped by developers, politicians and local interests, while Ministers in Whitehall can only stand around, flummoxed and frustrated at the failure of the plan to deliver. I am referring to neighbourhood plans, and here I need to redeclare my interest as a member of a neighbourhood planning forum. Now that neighbourhood plans are seen as a success—this was debated to some extent earlier in our proceedings—everybody claims to have invented them. I say only that it was quite lonely at the Dispatch Box in 2010, steering them through in the Localism Act.

There is a later group of amendments in which I shall have more to say about neighbourhood plans—I am sure noble Lords will be delighted by that news—and the impacts of some of the clumsy proposals in the Bill, which I think will damage and hinder their prospects. However, for this debate, I look forward to hearing the Minister set out what the Government’s plan for reaching 300,000 new homes will actually be. If it is not going to be Amendments 215 and 218 from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, or spending absolute shedloads of money on a massive state investment programme, or facilitating a much-expanded neighbourhood planning programme, what on earth is it going to be?

Leaving the Bill as it is, as the Government would obviously prefer, may well be seen as their best expedient short-term fix for the forthcoming local elections. They may even hope that it might be a middle-term fix for the general election next year. I do not think it will achieve either of those things, but one thing is certain: it will definitely not be a long-term fix for the homes that are vitally needed in this country. Leaving the Bill as it is will provide no help at all for those stuck on endless housing waiting lists, for those desperately saving for a deposit at a time of rising interest rates, or for those stuck in overpriced short-term lets with no hope of rescue. It really is time for the Government to set out their plans. I look forward very much to hearing a constructive reply from the Minister.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this group of amendments exposes the conundrum at the heart of planning for housing. At this point, I repeat my interests, as in the register, as being a councillor in Kirklees, with its up-to-date local plan, and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. My noble friend Lord Stunell is of course right to say that the simple statement of a number of new house builds per year has failed and will continue to fail: top-down diktats are the last resort of a failed policy. As the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, helpfully reminded us, there are more than 1 million unbuilt homes with current planning consents. That seems to me to indicate that a top-down planning policy is failing to produce the number of new home builds that the country needs and wants.

Amendment 207 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, points to a challenge in housing development that is considered far too rarely: housing and planning policy should have a focus on fulfilling need. There is ample evidence of which housing units are needed, such as those for older people. As my noble friend Lord Stunell has said, we know that there is a desperate need for housing at a social rent. There are current applications from over 1 million people for social housing. Their chances of success are very limited indeed, as successive Governments have continued with the right-to-buy policy while ignoring the need to build replacements. The challenge of supplying housing that meets expressed need is not being addressed by the changes to planning policy in this Bill.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Stunell

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I want to ask a question based on the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. He said that the crucial point of the Bill and these clauses is the role and primacy of the two documents—the development plan and the national development management plan—and where they stand in that relationship. Clause 86 makes it clear that the NDMPs take precedence over the development plans if there is a conflict. But where does a third document stand, which the noble Lord also mentioned, the NPPFs, which were introduced via the Localism Act 2011? The document replaced a two-foot-high pile of codes, practice notes and so on about planning. In the instant that it was introduced it was controversial because it reduced the amount of planning paperwork that people needed to have knowledge of and refer to, and it made access to the planning process much easier for lay people and for councils. It seems to have proved its worth and to be a useful document. Echoing the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, my question is: is this document now effectively a dead letter? If it is not, where does it stand in relation to the two documents which are given a mention in Clause 86 and in subsequent policy?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, this is probably one of the key groups of amendments on planning in the Bill, as it sets out the strategic framework under which local plans will be created and planning applications will be determined. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, started us on the right track by saying that we believe in a plan-led system; the question is, “Who leads the plans?” Which one is going to be most important —the national management development plan or the local plan? The local plan currently has primacy in planning legislation.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Stunell

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I support these amendments and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for bringing them in front of noble Lords today. I want to focus on just one aspect of this. It is about not just whether the Government agree to these amendments and facilitate all the action which noble Lords have already spoken about but whether they back away from the current position, which is putting a ceiling on the ambition of local planning authorities in achieving net zero, and indeed in trying to set a purpose that is in any way in alignment with the nationally set targets of getting to zero carbon by 2050.

Many local authorities are straining at the leash to make their communities zero carbon and to ensure that they take steps to protect the well-being of their residents from flooding and extreme weather events, and from the costs and harm that they can see happening now and foresee coming in the coming decade or two if they do not take vigorous action to tackle climate change and mitigate the worst consequences of it. Unfortunately, time and again, via the Planning Inspectorate or government pronouncements, local planning authorities are prevented from taking those actions by the imposition of a national framework which is not in alignment with the equally national statutory framework to reach zero carbon by 2050.

If the Minister feels that, somehow or other, the formulation of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, is not the right one, that is fine, but can she, in the first instance, say that she and her Government will not continue to deliberately suppress the ambition of local authorities to achieve that national target and come forward herself, or encourage her Government to come forward, with a way to facilitate progress along the lines the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, has so well set out today?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I totally agree with the amendments in this group and thank the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, for bringing our attention to this issue before we start addressing the clauses that concern national and local planning policy.

Strategic planning depends and rests on planning legislation such as this and on national and local planning policies. We need to provide the tools in planning legislation and at national planning policy level to produce the focus and levers that we require at local level to pursue net zero—which I have not heard a voice against in this debate so far. We all know how important it is, but we need the levers and tools at local level to achieve it.

That is not going to be as simple as it sounds. Planning is a forward-looking approach: it is for new development or change to old development and does not do as much for the existing built environment. I hope that when we discuss the national management development policies the Government will indicate where they will provide a strong policy in favour of achieving net zero through planning legislation and policy. Currently, the National Planning Policy Framework has the goal of

“presumption in favour of sustainable development”,

which is about 10 to 15 years old, and it was the start of the journey towards achieving a firm commitment to tackling climate change and achieving the Government’s aims of zero carbon by 2050. We need a step change in planning policy if we are to achieve that. Unfortunately for the Government, the tools they put in planning legislation and policies are cross-departmental if they are going to achieve anything.

For example, housing development requires highways infrastructure. Is such infrastructure going to enable more traffic? Even if we have transferred to electric-generated vehicles, that will still create considerable carbon emissions, both in the production of the vehicles and in the production of the electricity, for the foreseeable future. What is the policy going to be there?

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Stunell

Committee stage
Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it is late. I will try to be quick. I want to pick up what the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, referred to as “operation blank cheque”. The bit of the Bill that we are looking at here and that my amendment refers to is described in a sub-heading as “Functions of CCAs”. It consists of 15 clauses, 11 of which start with:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision”.


What is different about the other four? Well, in those, the same words appear but they are not the first words. The problem is that there is a concept, an idea, floating around, but with such a lack of precision that it is extremely difficult to pin down what we will get at the end of the day. My Amendment 116A amends Clause 30, which does indeed start with:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision”


and deletes subsection (4), which would suspend the operation of political proportionality.

I very strongly agree with all the other speakers in what has been said so far and support their amendments, but regarding this amendment, what is Clause 30(4) designed to achieve and why should it achieve it? The Local Government and Housing Act 1989 was not actually the original legislation. There was some preceding legislation introduced by Mrs Thatcher, who was fed up with Conservative councillors in opposition complaining to her about another large party, which shall be nameless, taking not just majority control but complete control of the committee system. That led, in their view, to serious injustice. Mrs Thatcher was persuaded of that point and the rules were introduced. Liberal Democrats at the time were strongly urging the same course of action. It was designed to stop an undemocratic abuse of majoritarian rule.

There would have to be a strong reason for suspending that in this arrangement. It will be a complex situation. We have enough experience here to know that getting a group of district councils and a county council together is not an afternoon’s walk in the park but a complex job, and the last thing that anybody needs to upset that applecart is the idea that there will be unfair or disproportionate representation, or “My council’s view is going to be squeezed out because of a distortion in the system.”

Others have spoken eloquently about that, but I just want to pick up the point about associate members. These are the individuals who can be appointed to join what are joint committees. This clause relates to the constitution of joint committees. It will have county councillors and district councillors. It may have associate members and they may have a vote in certain circumstances. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, pointed out that there is no limitation on who that could be.

We used to have an institution called aldermen. The majority party would appoint a sufficiently large number of its supporters to ensure that it never had any difficulty in the chamber in passing its budget or anything else. Quite rightly, the institution of aldermen has long since been consigned to the dustbin. However, we have got it back here, with associate members. It will be explosive if you mix that in with the complexity of getting district and county councillors around a table taking decisions.

My question to the Minister is: in what circumstances could doing that enhance the Government’s proposal for CCAs? It is one of the many occasions when Ministers decide the regulations, but there is no indication of what factors are to be considered which might justify having any confidence in this proposition. Should not the factors that the Secretary of State considers at least be in the Bill; for example, “The Secretary of State cannot exercise Clause 30(4) unless the following conditions are complied with”? The noble Earl might like to suggest those conditions, those limitations or constraints, because on Report, I would want to include them in an amendment.

Of course, this is not the only clause that I might have made this amendment to: Clause 28(5)(f) is another where proportionality is being suspended—or may be if, at his complete discretion, the Secretary of State decides to do so. I want to hear what the Minister has to say about why he thinks that it is necessary or even slightly advantageous. If he has a plausible reason for that, will he go on and accept that it has to be codified or constrained in some way? If he cannot do any of those things, will he please accept my Amendment 116A and delete subsection (4) from Clause 30?

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I will not speak for long. This has been a very important debate, and very positive: across the Chamber, Members are in agreement that we need clarity from the Government about what they are proposing regarding the constitution of the CCAs.

There is one element that has not yet been raised. Where the constituent members are not equal in size, is that to be reflected in the constitution of that particular CCA? I will give an example that was raised in earlier groups. I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about Devon. It has a county council; Plymouth is a unitary, as a city; so is Torbay, as a unitary district. Those three are very different in size, population and economic geography, which we talked about earlier. Are they equal members with a similar number of voting rights? As the Bill says, they can each nominate at least one, but will there be an expectation that they be proportionate to their size and responsibilities? That is not clear and needs to be clarified by the Government before we get any further.

Then there are the non-constituent members. I agree wholeheartedly with Amendment 71 from the noble Lord, Lord Foster: the easy way forward is to say that district councils are democratic bodies within the CCA and have a right to be full members. As I have said just now about constituent members, CCAs can and will have to decide proportionality, and they could do that with regard to the districts. It makes good sense.

Frankly, as somebody who has spent most of my life as an elected person, I find it insulting that a democratically elected body such as a district council is aligned with other non-constituent bodies and put in the same category as local business groups, chambers of trade or trade union bodies, which are not elected by the public. I can see why you would want other groups to be associated with the CCA, but, if they are not democratically elected and therefore democratically accountable, they should be in a different category.

This leads me to associate members. I personally think that they should not exist and I shall leave it at that. Why should they? Somebody tell me. Get individual, unaccountable to anybody—nobody needs to know who they are; perhaps they are somebody’s mate—on there to stuff the numbers the right way. It is just not acceptable.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Stunell

Committee stage
Thursday 24th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I know we have a fuel crisis, but it is bracing in here; I should be used to it, coming from Yorkshire.

We have come a long, positive way since we debated these issues on the Fire Safety Bill. Moving from one or two voices across the House pushing the concerns of leaseholders to reaching a place where there is agreement that there must be a government-led solution to their trials is hugely welcome. I pay tribute to the cladding campaigners, who have never given up and have pushed us all into the position where we are debating this today.

I have a couple of process points first, before I comment on some of the issues raised. First, I agree with the plea from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, that on Report we perhaps have a new part to the Bill that puts all these amendments relating to the remediation of defects in one place. That would be hugely helpful, now but definitely in future, as the industry has to respond to whatever is decided. It would create clarity.

The second point to make is that we have again had welcome but last-minute amendments from the Government without a written Explanatory Memorandum. It would be really good to have something we can all have a look at before Report. An impact assessment would help as well. In particular, a very brave amendment is proposed by the Government about blocking developers, even when they have planning consent, if they do not pay up. That is a really radical proposal, and I should welcome an explanation of how it might work and an impact assessment.

The final process question is that we have had before us today three key proposals to try to tackle the question of who pays for the 30 years of fire safety defects and building safety defects. The series of amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, tackle the same issue. There surely has to be a better way of trying to find a common, workable solution that we could agree to than debating it in a formal way. If we are all agreed that this is the direction of travel, let us work together to try to find it rather than have a formal debate. I leave it to others who know processes much better than I do to decide how that might be.

I want to make a few comments on what has been proposed. The noble Lord, Lord Young, reminded us that in January the Secretary of State finally made a dramatic change to the debate we have been having and said that leaseholders should not pay. I want to keep to that, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, was intent on doing. He pointed out that there are gaps in what is being proposed. As I have consistently said, the leaseholders are the wholly innocent victims of this debacle. On this side, we will back proposals that can guarantee that leaseholders do not have to contribute a penny piece to fire safety and building safety defect remediation.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, for their valiant attempts to seek a means of achieving the justice we are all looking for by providing alternative approaches. The very fact that the amendments have had to be tabled indicates that the Government’s attempt—though it is a huge step forward; I acknowledge that—does not succeed in achieving the aim that I espouse, which is that leaseholders pay nothing. That is going be my new phrase: leaseholders pay nothing. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, pointed out the gaps in the Government’s amendments, and we ought to listen very carefully to that because, as I say, we are all trying to get to the right place here.

The key question is: how do we extract the money from the people who have caused the problem? Unfortunately, we have no indication from the Government whether the levy system and the penalties for failing to pay will, first, raise sufficient funding to pay for it all. Secondly, we have no indication whether it will be watertight. We know that developers are already seeking legal advice as to how these levies and responsibilities can be circumvented, and material manufacturers are going down the same route, as will contractors and subcontractors. Litigation will ensue and the risk is that the work fails to be undertaken because no money is raised. That is unfortunately where this might lead if we are not careful.

I cannot remember if it was the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, or the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, who said that time is of the essence for these folk. Some of them have already got cladding off and sheeting up in this awful weather, and the building replacement work has stopped because the funding and who will pay is not clear. Leaseholders have already suffered five years of their lives being on hold and their property having no value while those who caused the problems could well be left to fight it out in the courts. I thought the amendment in the name of noble Lord, Lord Young, dealt quite well with that. Maybe that is something the Government can pick up.

I accept that this is a very complicated issue to resolve, which is why, with my zero technical expertise, I have not tried to resolve it through detailed amendments to this Bill. I am full of admiration for those who have spent time trying to find a way to make perpetrators pay. In the end, I fear that the Government may have to step in, fund the remediation so that we get something done and then use their might to extract the funding from those who caused the problem. I look forward to what the Minister is going to say in response to these critical amendments. I want to hear from him on how the Government will ensure that remediation work will be completed within a tight timescale, whatever that is. “Shortly” is a key word that the Government use, and I always worry about it. “In due course” is another.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

That is worse.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

Yes. “Drectly” is what they say in Cornwall, which means “This year, next year, some time never”. I should like a bit of clarity. Timing is key. I should like to hear what the Minister is going to do about trying to get it done. How will we stop the developers and all those who we are going to try to get the money from through a levy wriggling out of their obligations? That is one of my fears in all this. Then there is the rate of the levy. Can we be given assurances that the rate will be of a sufficient level to pay for the remediation? That is key. I know that the Minister cannot give us a figure, but a broad brush assurance that the levy is going to do it would be good.

Retrospective compensation for those leaseholders who have already paid out should be considered. Some folk have gone bankrupt because of this. That is because it took time to get everyone together to deal with the problem. I know that retrospective compensation is hard to do, but we are putting back the clock 30 years in looking at these defects. If we can do that, we can look at retrospective compensation.

Leaseholders should pay nothing—that is where I am. We on this side support an amendment that gets there. As I say, I am full of admiration for people who, with their expertise, have tried to bring the Government to the place where they need to be. If the Minister is going to say yes to all these things, we will all leave happy.

Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Baroness Pinnock and Lord Stunell

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 29th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD) [V]]

I am here. I apologise for not joining the Committee earlier but we had some kind of IT glitch.

I want to look at another important aspect of who the responsible person can or should be. The problem that I want to guard against is the absentee responsible person: the anonymous set of initials from a remote managing agency with a non-responding website and no phone lines, or the international property holder registered in the Cayman Islands or Bermuda. I want to press the Minister to commit to ensuring that every responsible person is a real person, not a company or a corporate body, and that that person has a functioning terrestrial address and a phone number based in the UK—in short, that they can always be held accountable, can be assessed and if necessary trained to deliver their statutory obligations, and has the skill and intention of communicating effectively with residents in the properties for which they take responsibility. We do not want to add absentee responsible persons to all the existing problems of absentee landlords. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the “responsible person” definition has a key duty in this legislation, which is why I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, which seeks to clarify it. I apologise to the Committee that a lack-of-sound issue has meant that I was not able to hear the contributions by the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley or Lord Whitty, or the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, so my remarks are going to be quite basic as a consequence.

I agree with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, that it is not just or practical to expect a tenant or leaseholder, unless they are owners or part-owners of the freehold, to fulfil the responsibility of being the so-called responsible person. I agree completely that it is important to have no room for uncertainty as to who is indeed the responsible person.

My noble friend Lord Stunell has just raised the very important issue that the responsible person has to actually be a person, not an entity—someone with an address and a telephone contact within the UK. I cannot imagine how awful it would be if the responsible person were some distant corporation based in the Cayman Islands, a fire arose and there was no obvious route to seeking a practical or legislative remedy for that disaster.

I have heard a little about the importance of water sprinklers and water misting in high-rise blocks, and of course I know that in 2009, Wales introduced a requirement for that. I look forward to learning what others have said about this important issue when I read Hansard, because I understand that it has been a priority of the fire and rescue services for a long time. I look forward to the Minister’s response.