Social Disorder

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

Government policy plays a key role in supporting thriving and resilient communities. Under the Conservative Government, however, we saw a lack of investment in local authorities and public services. That has left our communities more vulnerable to cohesion challenges and wider economic and social deprivation challenges. The recent Khan review into social cohesion and resilience highlighted that communities with lower levels of cohesion were less resilient to the threats of extremism. The review called for a more institutionalised and coherent approach to social cohesion to address these issues. I reassure my noble friend that work is under way in my department to develop a stronger approach to support our communities and build resilience against challenges.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, the riots were deplorable and their perpetrators and instigators are criminals. Those criminals feed on a real fear, however, and a dangerous sense of dislocation among those who consider themselves our traditional indigenous English population. At a time of such social dislocation, is it wise for His Majesty’s Government to be assaulting the traditional fabric of this Parliament and our constitution by reforming this House?

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am not prepared to give any ballpark figures from the Dispatch Box, but I will look into it and let the noble Baroness know. I apologise that I do not have that figure with me today.

Before I finish on this group, I have government Amendment 8, which makes minor clarificatory changes to the definition of shared ownership leases permitted under the leasehold house ban to clarify its intent. The amendment adds a further condition to permitted shared ownership leases, confirming that where a shared ownership leaseholder has acquired 100% of the equity in the house, they will then be transferred the freehold of the house at no extra cost. This brings the definition into line with government funding programmes and definitions elsewhere in the Bill. I look forward to hearing—

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

Just to return to the National Trust exemption, are the Government satisfied that there are no other institutions similar to the National Trust that have similar obligations of heritage maintenance, will be impacted by these provisions and should also possibly be exempted? If there are, how would they be able to grant long leases on property that needs to be maintained for heritage purposes?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

We have been working with the stakeholders for many months, if not years, on this. If the noble Earl looks in the schedule of exemptions, I think he will find everybody that wanted to be there. We have agreed to put them there, but if he has any particular group in mind, I would like to hear about it, please.

Government Amendment 8 is also relevant to the following group of amendments, so perhaps we could take that into consideration on the next group. In the meantime, I look forward to hearing from noble Lords about how they think these measures can be improved as we move through the Bill. I ask that the clause stand part and that the amendments are not moved.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a brief intervention to support the thinking behind Amendment 14, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. We all understand the disappointment that it has not been possible to make progress with commonhold in this Parliament. We all understand that it would be impossible to try to retrofit commonhold into the existing legislation. One thing we have learned over the last two parliamentary Sessions is that the capacity of the department to produce legislation that does not need wholesale amendment as it goes through is limited. We all bear the scars of the levelling-up Bill.

We have also seen the number of government amendments that have already been tabled to this Bill. What ought to happen, and I wonder whether my noble friend would smile on this, is that at the beginning of the next Session, a draft Bill should be published on commonhold. That would enable us to iron out all the wrinkles and expedite the passage of an eventual commonhold Bill when it came forward. There is all-party agreement that we need to make progress with commonhold, so urgent work now on producing a draft Bill is time that would not be wasted. It would mean that early in the next Session of Parliament we could produce a draft Bill—we have the Law Commission’s work, which we could build on—and iron out all the wrinkles. Then, when the actual Bill came forward, we would be spared, I hope, the raft of government amendments. I exempt my noble friend on the Front Bench from responsibility for this; it would be a faster destination.

By way of comment, what has happened to draft Bills? When did we last see a draft Bill? If you look at the Cabinet Office’s recommendation, I think in 2022 it said that they should be part of a normal legislative programme; there should be a number of Bills produced in draft, which we can get our teeth into. All my experience as chairman of the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Committee is that when you have a draft Bill, the actual Bill goes through much more quickly. Again, my noble friend has no responsibility for the legislative programme, but I think we need to spend more time as a Parliament looking at draft Bills rather than at Bills that have been drafted in haste, and then having to cope with a whole range of government amendments.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I too was unable to speak at Second Reading, and I apologise for that. However, I was able to attend much of the debate and to listen to a number of your Lordships’ speeches. I noted the numerous times in which leasehold tenure was described as “feudal”; we have heard this many times today. It is used as a pejorative term, which I do not strictly agree with, being a feudal Member of your Lordships’ feudal House, serving our feudal sovereign. It seems a somewhat discriminatory term to use. I also note that not all feudal rights are bad; we laud the Magna Carta, the right to trial by jury, and the rights of habeas corpus, all of which are essential feudal rights. I would hazard that leasehold tenure is similarly a feudal right that we should be particularly proud of, like your Lordships’ feudal House.

That said, I realise that the days of leasehold are numbered, but we should not remove such an important element of our residential housing market without ensuring that there are at least adequate alternatives that are fit for purpose. There currently are not. I believe it a mistake to dismantle leasehold tenure without ensuring that the commonhold alternative is fit for purpose.

Here I note my interests: in 2003, as a junior property barrister, I was a contributing author to a handbook on the exciting new tenure of commonhold. Since then, and despite our best hopes, the book has sold barely a copy, and I understand that commonhold has been adopted by hardly anyone. In 2015, and again more recently, the Law Commission has explored the shortcomings of commonhold, and has, as we have heard, identified numerous ways in which the law could be amended to make it better. I believe the Government are therefore wrong not to have grasped the nettle and made commonhold fit for purpose at the same time as, if not before, introducing this piece of legislation.

For this reason, I support the probing amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, with respect to the publication of a commonhold strategy. Without that viable alternative, I am particularly concerned that the leasehold reforms will have the unfortunate effect of decreasing the available housing stock, and will drive up the price of housing, which will decrease the number of homes that are affordable. I note my interests as a member of the Devon Housing Commission, ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Best, which is exploring why there is so little housing available in the county for people who actually live there.

I have a question for the Minister: have the Government sought to measure the likely impact of the Bill on the availability of new housing, and the willingness of freeholders to make land available for development?

New Homes

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Tuesday 12th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, for some weeks we have heard scare stories that 100,000 new homes are blocked by the rules on nutrient neutrality. I am therefore glad that the Government have debunked that myth with their recent explainer, which states that only 16,500 homes are currently impacted. By comparison, Savills estimates that 150,000 homes are land-banked in 2021, and Homes England sits on 250,000 more new homes. Given those numbers, is there any real justification for the Government’s assault on the habitat regulations, the health of our rivers and their own good environmental reputation?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Yes, there is, my Lords. The 16,500 figure is annual, while the 100,000 figure is between now and 2030. The Government have put in place a package of mitigation that will allow us to deal with nutrient neutrality not as a sticking plaster, stopping housing being built, but by dealing with the issues at source. If the noble Earl reads the mitigation circumstances, he will see what we are doing and how much we are investing in that.

Leasehold Enfranchisement

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. I am afraid I cannot tell him whether the few cottages on the Isles of Scilly that he refers to will be covered, but I am sure he will ask further questions during the passage of that Bill.

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, over 20 years ago we introduced the law of commonhold, and I think I contributed to a textbook on the subject as a junior barrister. In the years since, I think only about 20 commonholds have been established. I know the Law Commission looked at this a couple of years ago, and commonhold is designed to be a better alternative to leasehold without the complications. Can the Minister explain what is happening to update commonhold and to encourage the adoption of it?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Earl brings up a very interesting point. Commonhold, as he knows, allows home owners to own the freehold of a unit, such as a flat, within buildings and it is commonplace in places such as Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada. Unlike leasehold, commonhold does not run out, there is no third-party landlord and owners are in control of the costs and decisions affecting the management of their buildings. Commonhold was introduced in this country in 2002, but for some reason it has not taken off and, as the noble Earl says, there are currently fewer than 20 commonhold developments. In 2020, the Law Commission recommended reforms to reinvigorate commonhold as an alternative to leasehold ownership, and the Government are looking at this and will respond in due course.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Carrington (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a farmer and landowner as set out in the register. I would like to apologise at the outset for not speaking at Second Reading, but I was unable to attend the whole debate. However, I spoke at length on this issue during the debate on the Queen’s Speech.

Like others, I was deeply involved in the inquiry undertaken by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Rural Business and the Rural Powerhouse, Levelling up the rural economy: an inquiry into rural productivity. At the time, this was warmly welcomed by the Government. I have therefore taken this opportunity to table Amendment 33, which would include the principal recommendations of this inquiry in the Bill. I am also most grateful for the support of my noble friend Lord Devon, and I heartily agree with everything that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, and the noble Duke, the Duke of Montrose.

The conclusion of the APPG inquiry was that no Government have had a programme to unlock the economic and social potential of the countryside:

“The need to ‘level up’ the countryside is as urgent as it is obvious … Rural homes are less affordable than urban homes. Poverty is more dispersed … making it harder to combat, while the depth of rural fuel poverty is more extreme than those facing similar circumstances in towns and cities. Only 46% of rural areas have good 4G coverage, and skills training and public services are harder to access.”


As we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Foster, the result is that the rural economy is 18% less productive. Closing this gap in England alone would produce a gain to the economy of £43 billion. The inquiry concluded that many matters affecting the rural economy

“fell between the cracks of Whitehall”,

as it is commonly assumed that Defra alone is responsible for the rural economy.

I therefore welcome the opportunity this Bill gives to ensure that all Government levelling-up policies take into account rural-proofing principles. To argue that the statement of levelling-up missions covers the main disparities experienced by rural areas is not sufficient, as many of the identified challenges are much greater for rural businesses and communities. Poor transport, restrictive planning, geographic isolation, lack of access to skills training, lack of digital connectivity and lack of affordable housing demonstrate this.

These challenges would be easier to overcome if the Bill recognised the importance of rural economic development. Some 23% of all businesses are based in the countryside, and 85% of these are not in farming or forestry. The amendment would ensure that the Bill makes explicit reference to the rural-proofing of government policy across all departments, so that the impact of decisions on the rural economy is assessed and there is a mechanism to tackle the disparities inherent in rural areas.

For too long, those living in rural communities have been considered an afterthought in policy-making. Rural-proofing is a reactive measure to policy. If the Government retain the view that rural-proofing can be an effective tool in assisting levelling up, then the Bill must provide a legally binding obligation on all government departments to meet their respective rural-proofing obligations and ensure compliance. Can the Minister assure us that the Government will adopt this important amendment, as they have already welcomed the APPG inquiry’s conclusions?

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, it is an honour to speak to this important group of amendments focused on the rural and coastal implications of the levelling-up strategy. I particularly speak to Amendments 3 and 33, to which I have added my name, and also Amendment 53 from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, which I support. I apologise for not being present at Second Reading, and note for the purposes of this and future contributions my interests in the register, particularly my interest as a rural business operator near deprived coastal communities; my role at Michelmores with clients in both rural and urban development; the work that I do with Exeter City Council, offering a rural voice to support the city’s sustainability and well-being aspirations; and my self-appointed role as a champion of Devon, which has significant rural and coastal populations.

The opening of the Bill reminds me of the opening provisions of the Agriculture Bill, which listed the public goods that the environmental land management scheme was to deliver. Those public goods were in the Bill, and we spent many happy hours debating what should or should not be included. It was described as a Christmas tree with a bauble for just about everyone. This Bill does not have missions on its face, but the missions listed in the White Paper are a similar set of baubles: shiny objectives intended to offer something to everyone. As just debated, I too am concerned that the Government will be able to change and/or abandon those missions without adequate scrutiny. Also, as I think we will hear in the next group, I am surprised, given this Government’s environmental ambitions, that environmental targets are excluded. Given that the Treasury-commissioned Dasgupta report highlighted the crucial economic importance of ecosystem services and biodiversity—largely delivered through our rural economy—it is remarkable that the environmental mission is absent. Without appropriate focus on the rural and coastal economy, we will not achieve those environmental ambitions.

However, the amendments in this group are aimed not at expanding or amending the levelling-up missions but at making explicit where geographically those levelling-up missions are to be targeted. There is a real fear among residents of deprived rural and coastal communities that the Government’s focus will be upon urban regeneration, particularly in the north of England, and that, the Government having secured their Commons majority by promising levelling up to such communities, the deprived rural and coastal communities in the east, south and west of the country, whose votes did not swing the election, will miss out once more, entrenching deep-rooted disparities.

Your Lordships’ Select Committees provide compelling evidence to support these amendments. As we heard in his excellent speech opening the debate, the noble Lord, Lord Foster, chaired the Select Committee on the Rural Economy, which found that

“successive governments have underrated the contribution rural economies can make to the nation’s prosperity and wellbeing.”

In the years since that report, the rural disparities that the committee identified have only increased, with the pandemic and the cost of living crisis wreaking havoc, alongside insecurities over farming.

The pandemic entrenched the deprivation caused by inadequate digital connectivity. The collapse in local government funding has seen public transport slashed in rural areas. Planning challenges and an influx of wealthy home workers have inflated house prices beyond all reasonable measure, and there is little or no new affordable housing being built. Increased energy prices, as we have just heard, have fallen particularly hard upon the rural economy, given the escalating cost of gas and oil to heat isolated homes and businesses. Government support for farming businesses has been dramatically cut, with the new ELM scheme yet to be delivered. At the same time, the public are demanding ever more access to our rural spaces, which is causing a spike in crime, litter, trespass and tensions. Amendments 3 and 33, along with a number of others in this group, would ensure that rural communities are not missed out once more, and that the principle of rural-proofing is enshrined in the levelling-up agenda.

As to coastal communities, the story is no better. The Select Committee on Regenerating Seaside Towns and Communities reported in 2019 that

“for too long our seaside towns have felt isolated, unsupported and left behind.”

I could not agree more, and therefore strongly support Amendment 53 from the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor.

If the Bill is not specific as to where we need to focus the levelling-up missions and does not provide for an analysis of its impact upon our forgotten and ignored communities, those communities may fall further and further behind. The levelling-up agenda will simply blow in the political wind, allowing successive Governments to offer baubles to the regions they favour, rather than those in most objective need.

South-west of England: Levelling up

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Thursday 7th April 2022 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Devon (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter for securing this important and timely debate. It is a pleasure to welcome—somewhat tardily—Bishop Robert to this House. He is a friend and a passionate champion of our region. I note my interests as a resident of the south-west and as the Earl of Devon.

Chronicles of medieval Exeter record that the Bishop of Exeter and the Earl of Devon fell out over the supply of River Exe salmon for their respective households during the Middle Ages. The argument reputedly led to a schism between the cathedral city and its rural and coastal surrounds that lasted for centuries. This division between urban society and the rural and coastal communities was repeated and replicated nationwide, and is one of the key reasons why the levelling-up agenda is far older and more complex than oft-debated post-industrial issues.

This rift is also the cause of our greatest national shame—the environmental degradation and rural deprivation that has caused ecological Armageddon across our countryside. Nowadays, there are next to no salmon in the River Exe, a river whose Latin name Isca means an abundance of fish—how tragically ironic. This environmental catastrophe occurred as urban populations lost all connection with the rural hinterland and the natural capital on which they depend for food, fresh air, energy and clean water. It is therefore a pleasure to join the right reverend Prelate in an effort to heal that schism and to invite the Government to bring urban and rural communities back together for the common purpose of restoring our environment and raising living standards for all. By focusing resources on the south-west, as our nation’s natural powerhouse, we can do that.

We have already heard the grim statistics, which make depressing reading for anyone who cares about the south-west. The prevalence of second homes and wealthy retirees among dispersed, rural and coastal communities masks huge underlying challenges, as do the seasonality and low pay of employment in the region. In education and skills, the south-west struggles. Soon-to-be-published research by Dr Anne-Marie Sim and Professor Lee Elliot Major of Exeter University shows that the south-west has the worst educational outcomes for disadvantaged young people in the country, and particularly low social mobility compared with other regions. School attainment gaps between poorer pupils and others are the largest for all English regions, and only 17% of disadvantaged children go to university, compared with 45% in London. Those who succeed often move away, up the M4 and M3 corridors to London and the south-east, leaving behind an older population for whom health and social care present many challenges for local government and the NHS.

As we have heard, connectivity is one of the key disadvantages, with road, rail and air travel all challenged and digital connectivity falling behind targets, leaving some rural communities in the digital Dark Ages, particularly during recent lockdowns. Utilities are also below acceptable standards, with the uptake of renewable energy hamstrung by capacity limits in the national grid, and sewage and water-treatment plants, as we have just heard, regularly poisoning our rivers due to lack of capacity.

These shortcomings are hardly a surprise, as there has been a track record of underinvestment in the region. There is a lack of access to finance that means that companies and entrepreneurs simply do not get the support they would elsewhere. For example, the local growth fund investment is at £134.40 per head for the region, which is considerably less than the national average at £150.90 per head and far below the investment in the northern powerhouse, which stands at £210.80 per head. There is similarly low investment from Innovate UK, at only £40.30 per head, compared with £172.50 per head nationally. Investment in transport stands at £308 per head against a national average of £474. These are stark differences, which show that the south-west is simply not being given the same opportunities as other regions.

Is there a solution to these issues? Of course there is. It is not simply the spending of more money; rather it is the directing of investment into the areas in which the south-west leads the country and indeed the world. The south-west is our nation’s natural powerhouse. Not only do we bear the brunt of the weather—and therefore of climate change—with more sunshine, wind and rain than anywhere else, but the peninsula is unmatched in its natural capital, with an abundance of coastline, landscape and habitat, along with a green and blue economy which knows best how to manage and live in harmony with them. We boast a massive amount of renewable energy, as well as the specialist resources needed to harness it. This ranges from offshore and onshore wind and geothermal, lithium and tin extraction in Cornwall, to marine technology in Plymouth and Europe’s pre-eminent cluster of climate scientists at the University of Exeter and the Met Office.

Kwasi Kwarteng MP, the Secretary of State for BEIS, accepts that the south-west is at the forefront of both the fight against climate change and the green industrial revolution. If the Government are serious about levelling up and about climate change and biodiversity, they can achieve multiple goals through a specific and dedicated focus on the south-west of England by supporting the Great South West’s natural powerhouse campaign. Will the Government do this and, if not, why not?

Queen’s Speech

Earl of Devon Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Devon (CB) [V]]

My Lords, as we have heard from many erudite speeches, including two excellent maidens, this is a time like no other. It is an unprecedented year for environmental policy; for the sake of the natural world, I can only wish the Government and the Minister success and offer my support. With the G7, COP 26 and COP 15, there are many global stages on which to parade. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, noted, if we cannot get our own house in order, we cannot lead that parade. There is much to do.

As if to emphasise the vagaries of our climate, a tornado ripped down our valley in Devon last week, littering trees and timber buildings for over a mile. I currently join your Lordships from my in-laws’, having been evacuated from home due to wildfires in May—I am not in Devon.

Of course, ecological catastrophe is not new. Alexander von Humboldt, the father of modern environmentalism, visited Latin America in 1800 to witness the devastation wreaked by empire and resource-hungry capitalism. His words could describe Bolsonaro’s Brazil today:

“When forests are destroyed, as they are everywhere … The beds of the rivers … are converted into torrents, whenever great rains fall … The sward and moss disappearing from the brush-wood on the sides of the mountains, the waters falling in rain are no longer impeded … and instead of slowly augmenting the level of the rivers by progressive filtrations, they furrow during heavy showers the sides of the hills, bear down the loose soil, and form those sudden inundations that devastate the country”.


This was written over 200 years ago, and yet still we rape the Amazon of its natural capital with ever more mechanised efficiency—then for coffee and sugar, now for soya too. Our problem is not awareness—von Humboldt was the star of Napoleonic Europe, feted across the continent—but simply that the drive for profit has always overcome the fear of environmental Armageddon, which impacts those in hotter, poorer countries before us. This must change.

Her Majesty’s Treasury took a bold step commissioning the Dasgupta Review into the economics of biodiversity. His conclusions, which we debated recently, could not have been clearer, yet the Government have yet to publish their response. Can we expect that before we see the Environment Bill? Principal among the Dasgupta recommendations is that natural capital must be priced. What steps are the Government taking to price ecosystem services? Similarly, Professor Dasgupta extolled increased access to nature and mandatory nature studies. While ELMS addresses access, it is an optional scheme, and farmers’ fear of unregulated access will discourage its adoption unless the policy is sympathetic. As for mandatory nature studies, the Government have simply ignored this recommendation. I am in agreement with the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin: please think again, or else another generation will move yet further away from our mother Earth.

Is it right that the Government expect to pass the Environment Bill by November’s COP 26? If so, will the Minister assure us that sufficient time will be made available? Rushing to meet a false deadline is not to the environment’s benefit. Noting my interests as a Devon farmer and a lawyer active in the space, the costs of well-intentioned environmental regulation must not fall unduly on those managing land so as to drive them out of business just as BPS is withdrawn. Abandoned farmland will not help the environment or our production of locally produced food.

On food, I join the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in championing the national food strategy, but we must do more for our health and environment. Noting my interest as a board member of the South West Food Hub, I ask that the Government support efforts for public procurement to be locally sourced, building a direct link for healthy food to flow from farm to fork.

There is a massive hole in the Environment Bill where heritage sits. Given that our island’s natural environment reflects millennia of human interaction, it is a mockery to think that we can manage our natural capital without a mind to its heritage. We will replace environmental degradation with cultural degradation and wipe out the wisdom of ages. As an example of this, we see planning and EPC rules that render 400 year-old cob cottages built of local mud and straw dismissed as carbon non-compliant. This cannot be right.

I look forward to more detail on our national tree strategy and to understanding how we will plant the millions of broadleaf trees desired despite the current unchecked assault of pests and diseases. Also, as a former property barrister who contributed to Lexis’ Commonhold: Law and Practice in 2002, I look forward to debating leasehold reform—not only might someone finally buy the book, but we might ensure an increased supply of affordable homes.

Finally, as chair of a forthcoming APPG inquiry into the role of social enterprise during the pandemic, I hope that the Government will acknowledge and support the vital role of social enterprise within our communities.