Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

50: After Clause 5, insert the following new Clause—
“Levelling Up FundIf an allocation is made from the Levelling Up Fund, a Minister of the Crown must publish a statement explaining how the allocation supports the levelling-up missions.”Member’s explanatory statement
This means that the Government must explain how allocations from the levelling up fund support the levelling up missions.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for an interesting debate on robotics. It was an interesting answer from the noble Earl as well.

I am speaking to Amendment 50 in my name, the amendment tabled in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman and in support of Amendment 57, submitted by the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine. I am grateful for her engagement with me and with my noble friend Lady Hayman on this part of the Bill.

The levelling-up fund, well intentioned as I am sure it was, has generated more light than heat so far. The unfortunate Hunger Games-style bidding process pitted areas that all have legitimate needs against one another, wasted millions in the application process and has seen the bids eaten away by inflation. That has broken too much of the promise with which the fund set out. In fact, just today, SIGOMA—the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities—published its analysis, saying that there is no strong correlation between deprivation and allocation from either round 1 or 2 of the levelling-up fund. It seems that even the Treasury is concerned about the fact that there appears to be little to link the allocations with identified regional inequalities, or any strategy to show the contribution that the fund is making to the overall strategic aims of the missions.

As we heard earlier today, regional inequalities are going in the wrong direction and therefore increasing. I referred earlier to those issues. Transport is one example. There are many examples of bus services being lost up and down the country and an appalling situation relating to train cancellations, which are now at a record high.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, in an earlier group, set out the shocking fact that Leeds has spent a third of a million on the bidding process, which achieved absolutely no return whatever. We do not yet know what the total figure is for the UK but, in these desperate times for local government funding, it is a travesty that authorities are having to put that much money in without any idea as to whether they will get a return—something that you would never tolerate in business, I suspect.

In the amendments debated on day 1 of Committee, a strong case was made for including the missions in the Bill—we heard more about that today—to ensure that there is clarity of purpose and so that we can be sure that funding allocated for levelling up clearly demonstrates which mission or missions it is aimed at. Of course, we are very pleased for those areas that received levelling-up funding. I was with the leader of Broxbourne Council yesterday and he was delighted to have been successful in his bid. But, given that local government has lost £15 billion in funding since 2015, a funding round of £2.8 billion is crumbs from the table when there are communities that are desperate, really desperate, for investment.

It is of great concern that in the round 2 bids, there was rock-bottom allocation for Yorkshire and the Humber, and nothing for Birmingham, Nottingham, Stoke, or the Stonehouse community in Plymouth that is in the bottom 0.2% for economic activity. We really must do better than explaining the criteria for bidding after the submission of the bids has closed, which happened with round 2. It has also become apparent that the impact of inflation on round 1 bids has meant that some of them have had to be re-evaluated, some of them have not even had a spade in the ground so far, and there is no clear path for meeting the added costs. I am sure that the Minister, with her extensive experience in local government, knows that expecting local authorities to meet inflation costs from their hard-pressed budgets, on future bidding rounds or even on the existing ones, is unrealistic.

I am sure that what local government would really like to see is not these constant bidding rounds—it is not just the levelling-up fund, there are others as well—but a real long-term plan for a sustainable and fair funding system meaning that local areas can plan for their own futures and focus on delivering levelling up in their area, rather than competing for successive bidding rounds. I served on the fair funding task force for over five years. It does not seem to have got anywhere very far. It is about time we recognised that real localism means real funding for real local authorities to deliver what their areas need.

The amendments are designed to ensure that we have clarity around the link between the missions and the funding, and to make provision for review after a year to ensure that they are delivering against anticipated outcomes. I am sure that even the Treasury would agree with that. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I will be very happy to provide that information.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for the debate on the levelling-up fund. It is a key issue to discuss as we go into the Bill because, clearly, none of the levelling-up project will happen without proper funding, and most of us in local government certainly feel that the levelling-up fund has not been the way to do it.

I want to start with the issue of categories 1, 2 and 3. Those categories deterred some authorities from applying because people felt that, if they were in a higher-banded category, they would not have any chance of getting any funding. It was very disappointing when they did not bid because they thought they were not going to get any and then found that others in the same category, and some in higher categories, were allocated funding. So I support the request from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for some explanation of how that banding works.

My second point is about how the Treasury is feeling about round 3. I am not clear on what the Treasury has done in terms of the levelling-up fund: whether it has stopped round 3 for the time being, whether it has delayed it or what it is doing with it. It would be interesting to know how that is going to happen going forward.

The Minister mentioned match funding, and I am sure that she is as aware as I am that the various places that it used to come from are scarce and in very short supply these days. So match funding can also deter people from bidding for things. I know that it is not compulsory to have it, but, if you think you will not achieve your bid without it, it may deter people from bidding in the first place. It seems almost certain that the areas that need match funding the most are the least likely to have access to it, so it goes against the principles of levelling up.

I was pleased to hear the Minister talk about the recognition of the need to address the complexities in the funding landscape, which is vital. Moving forward, as the delivery of the missions gets more complex, we absolutely need to be clear about a straightforward mechanism for funding.

I was pleased to hear the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, which was helpful. I am grateful for the work that Business in the Community does across the country in helping to move the levelling-up agenda forward. I was impressed and pleased that she mentioned the issue around capital funding and having revenue funding to support it. Too often, funding pots are allocated and things are built and delivered—because that is what ticks the box for the department concerned—but the ongoing revenue for that project is not considered and ends up being a local burden that can, in some instances, result in the original project never being delivered properly, because there is not the revenue to deliver it. So I hope that future funding pots will take that into consideration.

I was shocked about the Blackpool project being funded but then going into a period in which it is not. You cannot stand these projects up and down at very short notice: they take a lot of planning, and the disappointment for young people engaged in something when the tap is turned off and that project stops is almost worse than doing nothing at all, because it adds to their feelings of having things taken away from them.

On the short timescales and short delivery times, if levelling up is going to work properly, it must work with a great spirit of co-operation and collaboration between those tasked with delivering it—there may be more than one public agency doing that. Having these very short bidding times and delivery times in some instances is not at all helpful, and I hope that that can be taken into consideration.

We heard information about the town deals and the towns fund. I have been quite close to one of them, and, although there is an equal lack of transparency in allocation, there was very serious scrutiny of what the outcomes would be before the bidding and allocation. That is something that we should look to for the future.

I was pleased to hear the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, about the serious lack of credibility in the scheme. I talk to my colleagues in local government all the time, and there is no doubt in my mind that there has been a great loss of credibility in the scheme. The Minister referred to a feedback process; it may be that that has got going fairly recently, because the second-round funding has only recently been announced. But those who were involved at the time certainly felt that they had not had an adequate opportunity to receive any feedback. Of course, they want to learn because, if there will be multiple rounds of this, people want to know what they did wrong and, equally, the ones who got it right want to know what they did right.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to the reason we have been pressing so hard on these definitions of geography, missions and metrics, and how they will be used: because of how they will be used to determine funding. Even if funding for levelling up were to be considered for a completely different model—such as one much more like the sort of model I would like to see, which is local government being given the funding and being allowed to get on with it—surely we must have a method which determines how funding follows need, rather than just whoever puts in the shiniest bid at the time.

Leasehold Charges

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure managing agents and freeholders (1) are more transparent with leaseholders on the makeup of the charges they levy, and (2) ring fence the money raised by such charges.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper and draw the attention of the House to his relevant interest as a leaseholder.

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

Service charges must be reasonable and where costs relate to work or services, they must be of a reasonable standard. Such moneys must be held in trust unless specifically exempt and used for their intended purposes. We are committed to ensuring that residents have more information on what their costs pay for, and this will help them more effectively to challenge their landlord if they consider their fees to be unreasonable. We will bring further reforms later in this Parliament.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, there seems to be some confusion regarding statements made in the other place and in the media by the Secretary of State, the Member for Surrey Heath. In the other place, he talks of the reform of leasehold as a tenure of housing, yet in the media he talks about the abolition of leasehold tenure. Can the Minister tell the House which it is: reform or abolition? It cannot be both. Leaseholders deserve absolute clarity on the intentions of government.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The Government would absolutely agree with that. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State set out in the Commons his intention to bring the outdated and feudal leasehold system to an end.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as a serving councillor on Stevenage Borough Council and Hertfordshire County Council, and as a vice-president of the District Councils’ Network.

At Second Reading, I said that to some extent the Bill fails to meet the aspirations of the White Paper, but even the White Paper has significant omissions in that some of the key challenges which impact on opportunity and aspiration in this country are missing. This cannot be a levelling-up Bill without them, and this group of amendments seeks to address that.

In his contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said that the missions were not in the Conservative manifesto, so we cannot absolve the Government from parliamentary scrutiny of those missions. However, neither can that proscribe Parliament from consideration of missions that were not there at all, or prevent those missions being added.

I thank my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett for her fantastic speech and amendment on child poverty, along with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham, and I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester for delivering another powerful speech on that issue. I also thank the noble Baronesses, Lady D’Souza and Lady Stroud, for supporting the amendment.

My noble friend Lady Lister referred to an issue raised at Second Reading—that it was the Government’s stated intent that the Bill address child poverty, and yet it is not explicit in the missions. The powerful intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, addressed, among other things, the contribution that social housing can make to tackling poverty. I completely agree, having grown up in a council house myself and seen how good-quality social housing benefited the people around me. That is very powerful. There is also no excuse for not including child poverty in the missions.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester spoke about the difficulties in education when you are facing poverty. When I was growing up, providing things as straightforward as school uniform, ingredients for cooking lessons and sports equipment were all great worries for children growing up in poverty.

The statistics are startling, and my noble friend Lady Lister quoted some of them. Some 27% of children—that is, eight in every classroom of 30—live in poverty, and of course the figure is far worse in some areas. In part of the county council division I represent in Hertfordshire—one of the wealthier areas of the UK, let us remember—one in three children lives in poverty. I have seen at first hand the impact on those children’s life opportunities in terms of educational attainment, health, mental health, economic capacity and every aspect of well-being: cultural, physical, social and academic. To imagine that levelling up can happen at all without a real focus on child poverty dooms the whole endeavour to failure.

For those of us who witnessed the huge impact of Sure Start and the comprehensive strategy of investment in children between 1998 and 2010, as a result of which, the number of children living in poverty fell by 600,000, it was dreadfully disappointing to see that project abandoned and the figures start to rise again. This situation has been exacerbated by the further inequalities that Covid inflicted on deprived communities. The Bill has the potential to start the serious work of tackling child poverty again. Let us not miss the opportunity, simply by not including child poverty as a serious and specific mission. My noble friend Lady Lister rightly asked why it was not in the White Paper or the Bill, and the noble Lord, Lord Young, proposed a solution. There may be other ways of doing it, and I hope that the Minister has taken account of what she has heard in the Chamber this afternoon.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, for his advocacy for our disability community—I am sorry he could not be in his place this afternoon. As he says, this should be considered through every policy aspect of the Bill. Despite successive Acts of Parliament attempting to drive equalities forward in this respect, one has to spend only a very short period in the company of anyone with a disability to see just how far we still have to go. Access to transport, public buildings, education and the workplace, and the ability to participate in the political process, simply must get better if we are to see real levelling up. These are spatial issues, planning issues, and I hope we will see some progress as a result of the Bill.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Hayman for tabling the amendment on increasing cultural infrastructure across the UK. Unfortunately, due to the vicious cuts in local government funding in recent years, we have seen local cultural assets closed or mothballed across the country just at a time when creativity, innovation and celebration of local heritage could be creating jobs, developing skills, supporting mental well-being, giving educational opportunities and underpinning social cohesion and collaboration. In an excellent report from the Local Government Association, Cornerstones of Culture, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, chair of the Commission on Culture and Local Government, sets out the incredible opportunities that supporting the development of cultural infrastructure can deliver in terms of levelling up. As a resident of Hertfordshire, which is rapidly becoming the Hollywood of Europe, with film, TV and creative studios driving our economy—there is always a commercial in my speeches—and creating huge opportunities for our county, in particular its young people, I can say that the benefits this cultural intervention could bring across the UK are clear to see.

We have amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, on meeting net zero, which are very welcome. There was a huge discussion on this on Second Reading, and it was notable just how many noble Lords said that without a specific mission to drive the target of reaching net zero across our nations and regions and across all policy areas, the Bill would be significantly deficient and miss a valuable opportunity. It is difficult to understand why amendments tabled the other place that attempted to strengthen the Bill in this respect were not adopted. As far as I am concerned, the situation is quite simple: either the Government mean what they say on net zero and climate change mitigation, in which case, make it the subject of a specific mission, or they do not. The consequences of the latter are enormous and unthinkable. It absolutely must be a target of devolution that every place in the UK fulfil its role in delivering net zero, and that progress be monitored.

The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, pointed out that achieving net zero is most challenging in the areas most in need of levelling up. The south-east is improving in this regard while the north-east is continuing to decline. At COP 27 the Prime Minister made a commitment to honouring promises on climate finance. That must apply equally across our nations and regions, as it does to external funding support. Yet, at the moment we do not even have a commitment to financing, for example, the decarbonisation of public housing. I urge the Minister to take seriously the strongly held concerns of noble Lords across this House about leaving out net zero as a specific mission of this levelling-up Bill. I will be particularly interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on how green jobs, new biodiversity targets and environmental planning challenges each relate to the levelling-up agenda, and how the Bill can be improved by incorporating these.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, for her powerful speech on a healthy environment and for pointing out that access to green space is definitely an equalities and levelling-up issue. The link to health and mental health outcomes is clear from all the evidence the noble Baroness cited and that we see elsewhere. Can the Minister say why this cannot be dealt with in the planning frameworks? I was lucky enough to grow up in a new town, where green space such as parks was planned from the very start. It comes under increasing pressure as the cramming of urban areas is seen as a way of solving the housing crisis. That cannot be right, and we need to have a careful look at this from a planning point of view.

We have a group of amendments here that are intended to address serious omissions from the Bill and include missions that will make a significant and important contribution to the levelling-up agenda. I hope that the powerful words of the noble Lords who have contributed to this debate will receive a receptive hearing from both the Minister and the Secretary of State.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments includes those related to new missions and metrics. The missions contained in the levelling-up White Paper are the products of extensive analysis and engagement; this analysis is set out in the White Paper. As I have made clear already, the Bill is designed to establish the framework for missions, not the content of missions themselves. The framework provides ample opportunity to scrutinise the substance of those missions against a range of government policies.

I start by addressing Amendments 4 and 9, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Hayman of Ullock, which would require the levelling-up missions to include a mission on child poverty. Let me say that everybody in this Government accepts that child poverty is an issue that needs continually to be kept an eye on, managed and acted upon. However, the way we deal with it is perhaps the issue that we need to discuss. We believe that the best and most sustainable way of tackling child poverty is to ensure parents have opportunities to move and progress in the workplace. Setting targets can drive action that focuses primarily on moving the incomes of those just in poverty to above a somewhat arbitrary poverty line, while doing nothing to help those on the very lowest incomes or to improve children’s future prospects. We therefore have no plans to reintroduce an approach to tackling child poverty that focuses primarily on income-based targets. Ministers and officials engage extensively across government to ensure a co-ordinated approach to tackling poverty, and we will continue to do so in the future.

Moving into work is the best way to improve lives. In 2019-2020, children in workless households were over six times more likely to be in absolute poverty than those in households where all adults were in work. Since 2010, there are nearly 1 million fewer workless households; under the Conservatives, 1.7 million more children are living in a home where at least one person is working. However, that is not to be complacent. The issue for me—the noble Lord, Lord Best, brought it up—is good housing, good education, good skills and good jobs. All these things are covered by the missions, and they do not need to be one separate mission.

While I am talking about living standards, my noble friend Lord Young asked about the definition of living standards. The Bill seeks to raise the living standards of people in work and people who are able to work, or whom we can get into work:

“By 2030, pay, employment and productivity will have risen in every area of the UK,”


getting those who are not already in work into work. That is the definition in the White Paper.

The levelling-up White Paper highlights the challenges faced by children from disadvantaged backgrounds, and how these vary between and within places. It takes a systematic approach, through the missions, to address a number of factors which we believe contribute to child poverty. The levelling-up mission on living standards commits to increasing pay and employment in every area of the UK, which would in turn help to reduce child poverty. We are also committed in the White Paper to investing an extra £200 million to expand the Supporting Families programme in England, which will help to improve the life outcomes and resilience of vulnerable children and their families. Additionally, over £300 million in funding for family hubs and Start for Life has been allocated to 55 high-deprivation local authorities, supporting a focus on perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships, infant feeding and parenting support. These are very important at the beginning of a child’s life, as we heard again from the noble Lord, Lord Bird.

Building Safety

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I know it is late, but I crave just one minute before I speak to the Statement specifically, given its topic. It was 18 years ago today that, in the only tower block fire we have ever had in Stevenage, two wonderful firefighters—Michael Miller and Jeff Wornham—were killed. I just wanted to remember them and send my thoughts and prayers to the families, friends and colleagues of those two heroes. I thank noble Lords for allowing me to do that.

I am sure that, across your Lordships’ House, we recognise that this Statement is a welcome, if belated, step in the right direction towards tackling the shocking failures in building safety standards that have led to the most appalling scandal, which has now dragged on for over five years. I pay tribute to the bravery and tenacity of the campaigning Grenfell survivors and the building safety campaign groups and individuals across the country that have worked tirelessly to bring the seriousness of the issues involved here to the attention of government and the public. I also pay tribute to Members of both Houses who have been their champions.

While it was refreshing, certainly in the light of current events, to hear the Secretary of State say categorically in the other place that

“I do believe this Government should have acted earlier to learn the lessons of the past”—[Official Report, Commons, 30/1/23; col. 52.]

even I can agree with him on that—the delays cannot have been helped by the revolving door which has seen no less than seven Secretaries of State responsible for local government in five years. He has even had two goes at it himself. The fact is that in five years we have seen people left in the most dreadful limbo on this issue. The stress, fear and harm that they have lived with on a daily basis is incalculable: not able to sleep for fear that their buildings are not safe; living in fear of the exorbitant costs of mediation measures; and not able to sell their properties or move away. For some, this has impacted on their physical and mental health. In the most serious cases, leaseholders have faced bankruptcy, their dreams of owning their home transformed into the stuff of nightmares.

When this Statement was given in the other place, it was notable just how many of those who spoke referred to specific examples in their own constituencies: so many stories of distress and despair, like that of Sophie in my home town. Sophie, having bought what was described as a luxury flat for £230,000, soon discovered that the remediation costs for her failing building were to cost her £210,000. This development, a refurbishment carried out under the permitted development regime, and after the deregulation and privatisation of the building control regime, did not meet basic fire safety standards. A waking watch had to be employed, at huge cost to Sophie and the other leaseholders.

Sophie set up a group called Herts Cladiators to campaign on this issue, and indeed presented her very clear evidence to the Select Committee in February last year. Her campaign has consumed years of her life; she powerfully describes the financial impact on those affected. She says that every penny they earn is spent on pre-mediation such as insurance premiums, waking watches and intrusive surveys. Sophie asked the Select Committee how the proposed measures would help in cases such as hers, where the developer has transferred assets and is now dissolved, parent companies have no assets and the building contractor has ceased trading. She was advised that litigation on the building control company would likely be unsuccessful, the structural warranty provider has gone bust and there is no way of tracing the manufacturer of insulation used because the developer ceased trading and the freehold has changed hands several times. Perhaps the Minister can answer Sophie’s questions, because it is difficult to see anything in the Statement which addresses them.

I am sure that so many of us will have heard stories like Sophie’s. I hope that the Statement that we are receiving today will give some comfort that she and other campaigners are at least being listened to. While it is a step in the right direction, it leaves so many more questions still to be answered. Perhaps the Minister can help.

There are questions of timing and accountability. If developers are to sign up for remediation costs, how quickly will the work be carried out? In spite of so many promises over the last five years, millions of people are still living in buildings with dangerous cladding, and only 7% of flats at risk of fire have been fixed. Will a date be set by which remediation works must be completed?

Is the contract with builders and developers sufficiently robust to ensure that it covers all the work necessary, and how do we ensure that it does not restrict the liability of housebuilders? How will the manufacturers of faulty products that have led to so many of these safety issues be held to account? When and how will the insurance sector be required to take its fair share of responsibility? Are those who knowingly built in ways that would endanger safety to be brought to justice? If the Secretary of State is recognising that permitted development and the deregulation of the building control regime played their part in this scandal, will a full and thorough review of those aspects be carried out?

The Statement refers to support for private leaseholders. Will the Secretary of State give consideration to social housing providers who have been affected by similar issues? This whole issue serves to highlight once again the absolute chaos in our housing market that has been caused by poor practice and dodgy dealing in the leasehold market—the subject of a long and powerful campaign by my noble friends Lady Kennedy of Cradley and Lord Kennedy of Southwark. I note that the Secretary of State pledged in the other place to remove this anachronistic form of tenure once and for all in the King’s Speech. If the Minister has further information on how and when this will be done, we would certainly welcome that on our side of the Chamber. Surely, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill could be used to get some reform of this sector on the statute book now, rather than waiting until the next King’s Speech. After all, there can be no levelling up with the housing market in the crisis it currently endures.

We are five and a half years on from the tragedy of Grenfell. That the resolution of these issues has taken so long and left so many trapped in dangerous buildings is an absolute scandal. It is time for the warm words to stop and the action to start.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, rightly reminded us of the 18th anniversary of the Stevenage tower block fire and the tragic deaths of two firefighters. From these Benches we too send our condolences to their families and co-workers. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the All-Party Group on Fire Safety and Rescue.

There is much to be positive about and to welcome in this Statement, but it has taken far too long. It is nearly six years since the terrible tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire that cost 72 lives, among whom 40% of the disabled residents lost their lives. In that time, many thousands of leaseholders in high-rise blocks have had their lives completely on hold. Their insurance and service charges are skyrocketing, they are not able to move or sell and they are for ever living in fear of fire. So we welcome the elements of the Statement that are a step forward, in forcing the costs of remediation on to developers and building companies, with serious penalties for failure to do so—by removing the right to build. However, there are still big gaps in ensuring that all those blameless leaseholders and tenants are protected from the undue risk of fire and being penalised by freeholders and property agents.

Blocks that are under 11 metres tall are specifically excluded in the Building Safety Act. It was wrong to do so then, and it is wrong to do so now. The argument that the risk is smaller as the blocks are lower is valid except when you factor in the speed at which combustible cladding fires spread. I urge the Minister to continue talking to such leaseholders, to listen to their stories and then to help them. There is a further problem with blocks under 11 metres if there is only one staircase for people to escape down. That is a significant problem and will always impact on safe egress.

It is good to see some action being taken on skyrocketing service charges and insurance. More transparency on invoices is positive, but that fails to stop the charges being excessive. What do the Government plan to do about other egregious behaviour by letting agents? I know of one case in my area in which a tenant who has been without a shower for a year has been told that if she pushes it any further, she will receive an eviction notice. That behaviour is also absolutely unacceptable —it is from the letting agent and she cannot get hold of her landlord, even though she is entitled to under the law.

Some blocks are still paying for waking watch services, when there is a very high charge for a very limited and ineffective service. In fact, there was a fire before Christmas in a block of flats where there was a waking watch, but of course the waking watch was in the wrong place when the fire was discovered. There has been inadequate public funding to support social housing providers unwillingly caught up in this disaster whose ability to spend capital moneys is very curtailed. Where is the funding to help pay for the remediation that is needed?

My final issue relates to disabled residents. During the debate on the Statement in the other place on Monday, two MPs, Florence Eshalomi and Mike Amesbury, asked about PEEPs. I declare my interest as a disabled person. I have been caught in a hotel above floor 5 when a fire alarm went off. It is pretty scary if you are not quite sure what the arrangements are. Even if there is a PEEP, will people turn up? The Secretary of State said in reply to Florence Eshalomi:

“Critically, one recommendation from the inquiry—the need for personal emergency evacuation plans—is one that the Government have not yet met. I have been working with my colleagues in the Home Office to make sure that we do”.


In reply to Mike Amesbury, he said that the Home Office was

“working hard and I hope to update the House shortly”.—[Official Report, Commons, 30/1/23; cols. 56-57.]

On Wednesday, the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group heard from Lee Rowley, who explained that the Government are thinking of giving the Home Office the lead on this. The APPG is very clear that these issues and those about fire safety in education are cross-department. At the moment, it feels to us in the all-party group that every time there is an issue it is passed from one department to the other and then to the other. We urge the Government to have one Minister in overall charge of fire safety, who will undertake to work with any other Ministers who also have responsibility for fire safety.

I know that the Home Office is currently consulting on PEEPs, but the consultation is on an extremely watered-down version presented after we had finished on the Building Safety Bill. That means that it has not been as well discussed, and it was certainly not discussed with me and the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. We had both tabled amendments for a stronger version of PEEPs to be introduced. Can the Minister say whether only the watered-down version is being considered, or will the responses from disabled groups about the dangers of a watered-down version be listened to?

Local Councils: 2023-24 Budgets

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, given the impact of current levels of inflation on budget planning for local councils for 2023–24, what support they are providing to councils in setting balanced budgets and ensuring that local services are delivered.

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

We recognise that councils are facing pressures, which is why, taking 2023 and 2024 together, we have increased the funding available to local government in England in real terms. The provisional local government finance settlement for 2023-24 makes available up to £59.5 billion for local government in England—an increase of up to £5 billion, or 9%, in cash terms on 2022-23—and includes a £2 billion additional grant fund for social care. We consulted on these proposals until 16 January, and will consider the responses prior to publishing the final settlement in early February.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer. Those standing as councillors do not do so to cut services for their residents. The Local Government Association estimates a gap in funding of £3.2 billion this year, rising to £5.2 billion next year. Across the country, local councillors are taking awful decisions on closing libraries, swimming pools, children’s centres, domestic abuse services, nurseries, transport services for disabled children and more. Even Tory Hertfordshire says that it has exhausted all options for service cuts. Do His Majesty’s Government recognise that cutting local services puts pressure on other public services? Why has the fair funding review for local government ground to a halt?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, as I said, we recognise that councils are facing pressures but the 9% announced in the Autumn Statement is, in real terms, an increase in funding. Local government is having to meet pressures in the same way as every resident in this country is under pressure. As I said in answer to a question yesterday, we will look further at funding issues for local government in future—probably not in this Parliament but in the next.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for the meeting she kindly arranged last week to enable questions on the Bill in advance of it coming before this House.

When I was growing up in the Sixties, we would occasionally speculate with our pocket money on something called a Jamboree Bag, I am sure that noble Lords are far too young to remember this piece of sweet shop nostalgia, but I say “speculate” because these bags offered far more in hope than they did in expectation. They generally contained about six sweets. Two would be sweets you really liked, two would be sweets you absolutely did not like, and the other two would be too stale to eat. They would also have a novelty or toy, which was inevitably disappointing—unless you got the fortune-telling fish we all longed for.

As I started the marathon read of this Bill, I had that same feeling of expectation. I am passionate about local government and the power of localism— I have spent half my life engaging in it—because I genuinely believe that only local solutions will work to solve some of the endemic inequalities our communities face. At the last general election this Government were elected on a promise to address geographical inequalities and regenerate and level up the UK. This Bill has the very noble aim of delivering that, but I am afraid to say that it lacks the ambition needed to address this mammoth challenge.

It is not just that the missions are not detailed in the Bill; it is difficult even to trace the link between them in some of the provisions, so the Bill is in danger of falling far short of expectations. This is exacerbated by weak reporting mechanisms, allowing for a bizarre pick-and-mix system whereby Government departments can choose which missions they will follow. The Bill as proposed allows Ministers to mark their own homework, so it should be accompanied by some sort of independent oversight and a clear role for Parliament to judge whether each department is adhering to its statutory responsibilities. If Ministers are able to revise, amend and delete missions at will, they absolutely must work with local leaders and representatives from across the UK on that.

On the issue of local voices, I want to turn next to the local government and devolution provisions in the Bill. The House will know that the UK today is the most centralised state in Europe. Stevenage, which I proudly call home, has twin towns in both Germany and France, and things are very different there. Ingelheim, on the west bank of the Rhine, is home to a global drugs company and keeps every euro of business rate that it raises. Autun, meanwhile, in the Morvan Forest, an area as protected as our Lake District, was able to build an agricultural conference complex from concept to first event within 18 months. My point is not that these exact policies are necessarily the right ones for the UK, but that we should be far more ambitious and open to ideas when looking to address the imbalance of power in our country. So I welcome the Minister’s accepting that national challenges require place-based solutions, but I feel strongly that Part 2 would better deliver this if accompanied by greater powers and fairer funding, so that leaders can support local recoveries according to the needs of their own areas.

I do want to welcome the implicit recognition that devolution can drive economic, social and environmental development in local areas, but questions remain over whether the specific model of county combined authorities is the right one for every area. Local residents and leaders will always know their own area best and the powers they need to deliver their ambitions, so we will be seeking amendments to allow greater flexibility for our towns, cities and counties to determine their own future.

Despite its omission, I also want to address the barriers to levelling up presented by the Government’s approach to local government finance. As a local government leader for 17 years, I can say from first-hand experience that the drastic savings imposed on local authorities since 2010 mean that their achievements during this time are all the more impressive.

All major projects coming before any council are always subject to detailed analysis of how the outcomes will be measured and monitored, including the environmental, legal and equalities impacts, and especially the financial impact. At a time when even the Conservative Hertfordshire County Council is announcing that it has “exhausted all options” in meeting its budget deficit, I hope the Minister will reflect on how the Government can better enable local councils to level up their areas.

Turning next to the planning provisions, I am sure I am not the first to suggest that the Bill might better be described as a planning and regeneration Bill. Despite the Government recognising the need for planning reform, Part 3 misses many of the proposals in the White Paper and lacks the ambition needed to address the housing emergency. Local communities deserve a greater say in the housing needs of their area, but I am concerned by clauses which seek to override local voices, particularly those involved in the creation of the national development management policies, and that these may take precedence over local development plans and diminish the local voice in favour of the mysterious “office for place”. That is potentially a retrograde step, making planning something done to, not with, a community. We will examine the clauses on street votes too, including seeking clarification on voting systems, consultation and the registration of interests.

I also encourage the Minister to consider new provisions on how housing and planning can deliver on levelling-up missions. In particular, I hope the Minister will consider amendments from this House urgently to tackle the provision of social housing and ensure the right financial instruments exist to empower local authorities and social landlords to deliver. We will seek further amendments to ensure that local businesses benefit from housebuilding and construction in their area by addressing questions over local procurement. As I will discuss in further detail later, we should also consider opportunities to incorporate our net-zero ambitions into planning policy and benefit from the economic opportunities that this can bring.

Serious concerns were raised in the Commons about the infrastructure levy proposals in Part 4—that the levy as proposed will fail to secure as much, let alone more, public gain from developers as the present Section 106 and community infrastructure levy system. I am sure there will be significant scrutiny of this part, and we will seek particular clarification of how the Government’s plans will address developers’ claims that the levy makes schemes unviable. I hope the Minister can also give greater detail on how the levy can contribute to social housing and schemes of mixed tenure.

Parts 6 and 7 broadly relate to the environment. Whether intentional or not, it is regrettable that the Bill does not take further steps to use the planning system to tackle climate change and its impact on the most deprived communities. I will be particularly interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on how green jobs, new biodiversity targets and environmental planning challenges each relate to the levelling-up agenda. Unfortunately, the Bill does none of this, and we will explore amendments on these points.

I will be taking a particular interest in development corporations and Part 8, given my experience of growing up in a new town under the governance of a development corporation. I welcome the Minister’s commitment to work with the House to ensure that we benefit from lessons learned and are able to strengthen the Bill in this respect.

Determining ownership of land and property can be fraught with difficulty. I am sure the House would agree that local authorities and developers should be able to make better use of brownfield sites for development. However, decontaminating brownfield land too often requires considerable expenditure. Those costs can mean that developing the land is unviable, which then disincentivises developers. Does the Minister believe that Part 9 could help to address this?

The Bill was an ideal opportunity to set out a framework for the regeneration of high streets. While I am pleased that the Government recognise the issue, I am unconvinced that the minimal provision in the Bill for rental auctions and the letting of vacant premises anywhere near tackles the major issues of town centre regeneration set out clearly in the two reviews undertaken by Bill Grimsey. These include looking at the disparity in costs between online and high street retail; creating more workspaces and homes in town centres to drive footfall; ensuring a sound leisure, culture, sport and tourism offer alongside retail to add to dwell time; and incentives for independent businesses. Without looking at these factors, we will never see our high streets thrive.

The Bill before us had enormous potential to genuinely address the structural inequalities of our country. I am greatly encouraged by the interest from this House in ensuring that it meets the challenges facing our towns, cities, counties and villages. We must not let that potential be squandered. Levelling up should be more than a slogan; it must be a cross-governmental strategy. That is why it is essential that the mission statements are embedded in what is proposed in the Bill. The provisions on devolution are a step in the right direction, yet, as the Bill currently stands, they are undermined by the retention and creation of other powers. The emphasis on the future of high streets is welcome, but must be paired with more ambitious action.

Unfortunately, as it stands, the Bill is a wasted opportunity. However, given the interest from all sides of the House in improving it, I have every confidence that, as amended, it will provide much more. I look forward to the debate, particularly the maiden speeches from my noble friend Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough.

Housing: Private Rented Sector

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The Government have made it clear that, within this Session, they will bring forward the private renters Bill, which will look at the issues that my noble friend raises, as well as many others. The Government have allocated £654 million in funding this year and next year on homelessness and people in temporary accommodation. Recently, because of those issues that we know are happening, we have topped that up in December by another £50 million. We are doing everything that we can in this difficult time to support these vulnerable people.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, as a serving councillor, I deal with cases of homelessness every day. The number is increasing every day because of eviction from private tenancies and/or the affordability of those tenancies, and fewer landlords coming forward. With social housing waiting lists now at over 1 million due to decades of underinvestment in social housing and an annual loss of 24,000 social homes a year due to demolition and sales under the right to buy, what are the Government going to do to address the housing emergency?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are doing many things. When the renters reform Bill comes through—it was a Conservative Party manifesto commitment—it will look at these issues, particularly in the private rented sector. However, this is a much bigger issue across all sectors, as the noble Baroness said. We are doing an enormous amount, as I have said and am not repeating, and will continue to do so. Just to say, I think that an important thing that will come out in the renters reform Bill is that we will remove Section 21 evictions.

Housing Market

Baroness Taylor of Stevenage Excerpts

Thursday 17th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and I thank her very much for her kind comments.

It was with the greatest humility, gratitude and anticipation that I received the news that I was to be nominated by Sir Keir Starmer to join this House—something that would never have come into my wildest dreams, for reasons your Lordships will learn of when I introduce myself. I start by thanking Keir for my nomination, and my two great friends and supporters who got me through the unique experience of being introduced to this House, my noble friends Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lady Wilcox of Newport. I thank sincerely my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, our Leader in this House, who has shown me the greatest kindness and encouragement, and noble friends on these Benches who have given me such a warm welcome, as have noble Lords from across the House.

The noble Lord, Lord Soames, and I were introduced to this House on the same day, and indeed had our appointment with Black Rod together. It struck me then how extraordinary it is that he and I, coming from almost polar opposite ends of British society, could be entering your Lordships’ House together—such is the strength of our country and our Parliament. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Soames, for his courtesy and kindness.

On my second day here, I approached the Peers’ Entrance with some trepidation, impostor syndrome on full throttle. The day before, at my introduction, I had been accompanied by my family, friends and supporters, but this felt very different. I did not need to worry. As I showed my pass, the doorkeeper greeted me with the kind words, “Do come in, my Lady, and welcome back home.” That, I have come to learn, is the culture and warmth of this place. From my very first appointments with Garter, Black Rod and the Clerk of the Parliaments to my day-to-day interactions with the doorkeepers, staff and catering teams, everyone has been welcoming, helpful, knowledgeable and highly professional. Thank you so much to all of you; it is a truly exceptional team.

I thank my noble friend Lady Warwick of Undercliffe for securing this important debate today and introducing it. It gives me the opportunity to make my first speech in this House on a topic so close to my heart and so interwoven into my life and career that it has literally shaped who I am and what I have done. That is because my hometown, the place where I was born, brought up and still live, is Stevenage, Britain’s first post-war new town; a town that was built to house people, to provide the homes for heroes that had sadly not been delivered after the First World War, and to keep that promise after the ravages that London and other major cities had suffered during the Second World War. Our new towns were born from the inspirational vision of the same post-war Labour Government that created our NHS and the welfare state, including the National Assistance Act 1946 and the Transport Act 1947. Stevenage was designated to be the first of this new generation of new towns, almost exactly 76 years ago, on 11 November 1946.

My parents, both Londoners, married in 1954. They had searched endlessly for a home in London that they could afford, but with mum a trainee pharmacist and dad recently demobbed from national service in the Royal Air Force and embarking on his engineering career, there was little that they could afford. Then dad was offered a job with English Electric, soon to relocate to Stevenage, and they were offered a three-bedroom house along with the job. My parents, like so many others, became new town pioneers. This has given me the extraordinary privilege of growing up not only in my hometown but with my hometown, which is just 10 years older than I am.

The vision for new towns was set out in the New Towns Act 1946 and championed by one of our local heroes, a late Member of this House, Lord Lewis Silkin. He did not always have an easy ride during the passage of the Bill. It seems that planning was just as controversial in 1946 as it is now. When he arrived in old Stevenage for a public meeting relating to the new town, the railway station sign had been removed and replaced by angry residents with one saying “Silkingrad”. Lord Silkin held his nerve. His vision was to enact the Abercrombie plan for a town that was planned thoroughly in advance of being built, with segregated residential, commercial and industrial areas, and good connectivity by road and rail; a town planned to have connected but self-contained communities, each with their own health, education, leisure and shopping facilities, and with plentiful green spaces and access for all to parks and countryside. Importantly for today’s debate, it was to be a town with a variety of housing to meet the needs of working families of all income levels.

No one, especially me, will pretend that our new towns developed without their own challenges and issues. But my pioneering parents gave me and my sisters the opportunity to grow up in a strong, cohesive community. That is why, following a career where I worked in the defence industry, for John Lewis Partnership and, latterly, spent the most incredible 13 years as staff officer to the chief constable of Hertfordshire, my lifelong support for the Labour Party drew me to stand as a Stevenage councillor, to give something back to the town and community that I love.

My first election was on 1 May 1997, a date emblazoned on the memories of most of us on this side of the House. I have been a councillor since then; I have led my council since 2006, and have been fortunate to contribute to the leadership of local government nationally through the Local Government Association since 2009. My specialism has been the labyrinthine world of local government finance, which is partly the key to unlocking the housing challenge that we face. That is why I want to focus on social housing today.

Between 1945 and 1980, local authorities and housing associations built 4.4 million social homes—more than 126,000 a year—but by 1983, that supply had halved to just over 44,000 a year. This followed a major shift in social housing policy, particularly, but not exclusively, the right-to-buy scheme of Margaret Thatcher’s Government. Failure to replace the stock bought under right to buy means that, in Stevenage, our stock has fallen from 32,000 to less than 8,000 homes. The promise to our pioneers that their children, grandchildren and parents would be housed has been broken.

The retained right-to-buy funding regime permits only 40% of the cost of constructing a replacement dwelling to come from right-to-buy receipts. Failing to take account of rising property, land and commodity prices in the construction industry, the shortfall on a new-build property in my area is currently £186,000, forcing us to use additional borrowing, with a trade-off between repairs and management of existing stock or building private homes for sale simply to fund any replacement homes at all.

Over 2 million sales of social homes have taken place, but research shows that over 40% of these are now rented privately. Affordable social housing turned into unaffordable private rented housing, with a consequent catastrophic effect on family budgets. It is also economically illiterate, as housing benefit spending has risen by 50%, peaking at £24.3 billion in the last year of recorded statistics. The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom privately rented property in my town is now £312 a week, against the local housing allowance of £195. No wonder there is a cost of living crisis.

Against a target of 300,000 homes a year, we are currently building a little over 100,000. This problem will not get better unless we turbo-charge the number of homes of all tenures, particularly social housing, that we build in this country. Let us get back to those first principles of our new towns—of building communities and homes, not just places and houses. Let us take the design and detail of our development seriously and, to meet the challenge we have that Lord Silkin did not, let us build sustainably, so that we do not exacerbate the backlog of £204 million that I will need to decarbonise 8,000 social homes in Stevenage.

We all know that a safe, warm, secure home is the foundation stone for every individual, family and community. My passion for housing is undimmed, as is my pride in Stevenage, the town I grew up with. I finish by quoting Lord Silkin:

“The new towns can be experiments in design as well as in living … This combination of town and country is vital … I believe that if all these conditions are satisfied, we may well produce in the new towns a new type of citizen, a healthy, self-respecting, dignified person with a sense of beauty, culture and civic pride. Cicero said: ‘A man’s dignity is enhanced by the home he lives in’.”—[Official Report, Commons, 8/5/1946; col. 1091.]


Let us renew our vision, our focus and our inspiration so that everyone in our country, and indeed future generations, will have the opportunity of a home that enhances their dignity. Thank you.