Homelessness

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Monday 18th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time. Can we have the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and then my noble friend Lord Naseby?

[Lord Bird (CB)]

Are the Government aware that for every person who falls homeless—they are not all out on the streets—the cost of running that homeless family or individual is two or three times higher than if you keep them in their homes? Has the Treasury done any serious work looking at how to keep the costs of homelessness down by keeping people in their homes?

Building Repairs: VAT

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, there is plenty of time. It is the turn of the Liberal Democrat Benches.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I have relevant interests recorded in the register. I want to turn our attention to people’s homes. Some 20 years ago, Kirklees Council offered free loft and cavity wall insulation to every home, regardless of tenure. It was largely funded by energy companies, and 100,000 homes benefited from that scheme. Will the Government learn from that pioneering scheme and consider its introduction across the country in order to achieve the COP 28 agreement?

Holocaust Memorial

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, could we hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and then the noble Lord, Lord Pickles?

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as honorary president of the National Jewish Assembly. I support the noble Lord, Lord Lee, in drawing attention to the almost total lack of consultation on the memorial. All efforts to open dialogue and to have discussions and round tables have been met with silence, and sometimes abuse. Victoria Tower Gardens is a green enclave, and the dangers of digging down two storeys with piledrivers, which could cause unimaginable damage, have not been taken on board when there are decent alternative sites with as much dignity and more space. I speak for a number of Holocaust survivors in this.

Housing: Conditions in Rented Sector

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, I think it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, during the passage of the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill, your Lordships’ House voted for an amendment that would have reduced energy costs in social housing. In the other place recently, without any explanation or debate, that amendment was removed. Is that not a gross discourtesy to this House? Can the Minister now explain why that amendment was removed?

Building Safety Bill

Earl of Courtown Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I want briefly, having just had a signal on those lines, to offer Green support for all the amendments. I will speak only to Amendment 261 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath. I commend him on his long work in this area.

I am perhaps a little less charitable to the Government than him about where things are now. Just this afternoon, while we were debating the second group of amendments, the Green Alliance put out a new report, Cutting the Cost of Living with a Green Economy. It has some figures that are interesting and helpful for this debate. It points out that the cuts to energy efficiency subsidies and the scrapping of the zero-carbon homes policy over the past decade saw the installation rate of home insulation and energy measures go from 2.3 million in 2012 to 230,000 in 2013—a rate that has continued since.

This addresses the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, just asked about what we can do and whether it is possible to step up again. We have done this in the past; we can do this in future. The noble Baroness expressed concern about a lack of costing for that. The Green Alliance report points out that, if we followed Amendment 261, through insulating 15.3 million homes, it would save them all £511 a year after the April price cap rise. For the country, that is £7.8 billion a year, mostly in fossil fuel.

Looking again at the costing, the Great Homes Upgrade plan, put together by the New Economics Foundation along with 28 organisations, shows that spending £11.7 billion over this Parliament could raise 7 million homes up to this standard by 2025. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, said, this is very much a health and safety issue. We have set the standard of zero carbon by 2050. That is a target for the environment; this is a target for people’s health. Surely we can have both health and environment targets that so crucially fit together.

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, taking the time into consideration, I beg to move that we adjourn the debate on this amendment and that consideration on Report be adjourned until after the Urgent Question.

Debate on Amendment 15 adjourned.