Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest, as I have nine water butts all collecting rainwater when it rains. However, further to what the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, said, there are some issues. For instance, what falls on roofs does not necessarily arrive in a clean form; particularly in some urban areas and in others, it may be contaminated by things such as bird droppings, which would be quite a serious issue.

The noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, refers rightly to the problem of having dual plumbing systems in houses. There is a serious issue to do with potential cross-contamination and, therefore, who is responsible. But on the generality of what the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson of Abinger, has put forward, supported by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Parminter, it is right that we need to conserve water, so we do not use expensively treated water from the mains supply. It is absolutely daft to be using that for washing the car or watering the roses. The roses do not care how much bacteriological contamination there is in it—they love it. From that point of view, the more the merrier. The vehicle does not mind what you wash it with either, most of the time.

I learned a great deal from my late sister, the elder of my two sisters, who died earlier this year, that I did not learn from being a chartered surveyor. She was a very senior hydrogeologist, and her point about rainwater harvesting is that you have to be careful about the infiltration that is necessary and naturally occurring. When rainwater falls on a hard surface, it runs off to a drain. What then? Does it disappear off down through some massive Thames pipeline to somewhere beyond Barking, or does it go into the soil and replenish an aquifer? If it has all been put into the loo and is going off as foul water, you lose that to the infiltration process. The more that we build, the more hard surfaces that we have and the more we pipe it away, the more we have to be concerned about infiltration.

Previously in Committee, noble Baronesses raised the point about flooding. Of course, infiltration is part and parcel of that. If you have all the run-off arriving at the same point down a modern piping system that conveys water away very quickly, you will end up with trouble. If you can detain water in some way by storage and infiltration, you stand a better chance, little by little, of dealing with some of those problems. But it is a fine balance as to what is happening, and it certainly requires a lot of further investigation.

The other amendment that attracted my attention was the one on ground source heat pump installation. I absolutely take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson. All I would say is that, if a heat pump requires three-fifths of what you might call the energy demand to provide heating, that means that three-fifths of whatever the alternative will be—oil or gas—is put on to the grid.

The chief problem with the grid is that it does not have the distribution capacity—I am not sure that it has the generation capacity in total, but other noble Lords are much more knowledgeable about that than I am. This raises a particular problem with housing development. I recall not so long ago going to visit a small housing development in north Dorset. The developer there had to provide energy for cooking and heating via an LPG bulk storage tank, which noble Lords will know is a very expensive way of funding your energy. That was done because the tank was provided free of charge, provided that the LPG was purchased from the particular supplier, and the reason for that was because there was not sufficient capacity in the local grid to power these things from an electrical standpoint.

That ties in, to some extent, with the other point that the noble Baroness raised, about solar power. Yes, I agree that that ought to be part and parcel of it, but maybe there is a link to be made between solar power and the efficiency thereof and the ground source heat pump. Now, I know nothing about the wattage that is needed for a ground heat source pump, but again I say that there is a trade-off, a balance between that 60% of what would otherwise be the carbon load being transferred on to either the grid or a solar panel system.

I know that in places such as Austria, there are now things that they refer to as balcony panels or balcony sheets. These are flexible sheets of material composed entirely of solar PV material. People put them up and they can power small appliances. Other people tell me that solar panels in certain configurations have become so cheap that they can now be used as a fencing panel, because it is a cheaper way of doing it. Now, I do not know what the rate of deterioration and attrition is of these panels, and that is obviously a fairly important consideration, because they contain things which are not readily recyclable and therefore there is that problem of end-of-life disposal, but I think that perhaps the noble Baroness could encourage the Minister to think about and work on getting this balance right, so that at least we cut some of the consumption—maybe not all of it, but some of it—of these expensively produced and increasingly scarce resources. To that extent, I very much support these amendments.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

I ask the noble Earl, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, perhaps rhetorically, whether they are aware of the One Million Cisterns project in Brazil, which aimed to deliver what it said on the tin and indeed has done so and was expanded subsequently. This is in the semi-arid area of Brazil, home to 18 million people. Brazil, of course, has a lot less infrastructure and is much economically poorer than the UK, yet it has been able to deliver a programme that has won United Nations awards and had all sorts of impacts. I hope the noble Lords will acknowledge that since other countries have achieved this, maybe it is not an unreasonable expectation for us to achieve it too.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, the greatest example of the gathering of rainwater that we can learn from is in Bermuda. They have stepped roofs made of limestone, so when the water lands on them the possibility of purifying the water is high—the sunlight also works as a purifier. The water then goes through the tunnels into cisterns under each house, and that is how they get their water. It is clean and pure, so if you want to capture more water to be used for drinking, it is not by mixing it with what comes out of the taps, but by recreating the miracle of Bermuda and its water. It is an island, there are no rivers—there is nothing. The only thing they have is rain. When it comes, everybody is very glad, and all their tanks are filled with beautiful water. If you want to capture more rainwater, why not learn from Bermuda?

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, invited me to acknowledge that other jurisdictions do this better. I entirely agree, but they do not always have the same regulatory baggage that we in this country seem to have; perhaps there is something that can be unpicked and dissolved there.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, before I turn to the substance of the amendments in this group, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Khan. Although he sat on the Opposition Benches, he always approached his shadow ministerial duties in your Lordships’ House with courtesy, commitment and friendship. He was diligent, engaged and unfailingly respectful in his dealings with me and my team. While we did not always agree, I greatly valued the constructive spirit he brought to our debates, and I wish him well in whatever lies ahead; I will miss working with him.

I thank my noble friend Lady Hodgson of Abinger for tabling these probing amendments, which raise important issues about the way we prepare our housing stock for the future. Amendment 115, on rainwater harvesting, Amendment 116, on communal ground source heat pumps, and Amendment 117, on solar panels, speak to the wider challenge of how new homes can be made more resilient in the face of climate change. The principle of future-proofing is one most of us would support, but the question for government is how far and at what cost such measures should be mandated, and the practicality of doing so. Can the Minister clarify whether, in the Government’s view, current building regulations, as mentioned by my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, already provide the right framework to encourage technologies such as rainwater capture, ground source heat pumps and solar panels, or is further regulation envisaged? Has the department carried out an assessment of the costs and benefits of making such systems compulsory, including the potential impact on house prices and affordability, and how these costs might be lowered in the future? Has it also considered the capacity of local electrical grids to support these systems and other potential loads such as EV charging?

There is also a question of consistency. To what extent are local authorities currently able to set higher environmental standards for new developments, and do the Government believe this local flexibility is the right approach, or should it be centralised?

Finally, how are the Government weighing the balance between affordability for first-time buyers on the one hand and, on the other, the need to reduce the long-term costs to households and infrastructure of failing to invest in resilience? These are the issues I hope the Minister will address, because it is that balance between ambition, practicality and cost which must guide policy in this area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I want to add a few points to what I think has been a good and interesting debate. I remind the Committee of my registered interests as chair of development forums in Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire. Much as I enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, I will not follow his track. I will revert to places where there is a very high demand for housing and a serious problem of affordability for housing. I want to follow the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Best, in particular, and to ask him a question, if he has a moment to respond. It seems to me that he is looking to target the social rent sector by reference to the definition that he includes—not the definition for social housing in the Bill. He effectively said: social rent under Section 69 of the Housing and Regeneration Act but not Section 70 of that Act, which relates to low-cost home ownership. The targets he refers to would have the effect of squeezing the availability of support for low-cost home ownership. I wonder if that is his intention, because it is not one that I would be wholly supportive of.

However, I do support the delivery of affordable housing. He mentioned the National Audit Office report from June this year and I want to follow up on two or three points. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and I have both asked questions about the take-up of contracts for affordable housing under Section 106 obligations entered into by developers. In addition to what he asked, the National Audit Office said that it felt that the Homes England clearing scheme should become permanent. Since it published its report in June, the Government have provided a substantial and welcome increase in the affordable homes programme. The question is: to what extent is Homes England, through the affordable homes programme, going to be empowered to use those resources to take up those contracts, even if it does not go on to own the homes itself but rather acts as a clearing house by taking up those contracts and then making them available to registered providers who can access the affordable homes programme?

In addition, I will mention two things. The National Audit Office said that it wished the Government would proceed with issuing financial viability guidance. We are going to talk later in the Bill about further issues relating to viability guidance. I know my Front Bench colleagues share my view on this. In order to deliver more housing, there are powers available to the Government that need to be used quickly. Part of that is the issuance of guidance that will allow procedures like Section 106 to make progress. The Government have powers to reform Section 106 and the community infrastructure levy and they have not done so. They also have the power to issue new guidance relating to financial viability and they have not done so. So can the Minister, who remembers our debates on these things in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, tell us when progress will be made?

The final point is about Section 106 funding. The noble Lord, Lord Best, said that developers provided less last year by way of Section 106. I think that is principally because they provided less housing, so it is a simple consequence. If we can deliver more market housing, we should be able to deliver more by way of resources for the delivery of affordable housing. I think the noble Lord and the Committee will not criticise developers who feel somewhat unhappy. The National Audit Office reported that last year there was £8 billion in unspent Section 106 contributions. This is overwhelmingly for infrastructure that has not been delivered, but quite rightly the National Audit Office thinks it not helpful for local authorities to be placing obligations on developers—taking substantial resources, which sometimes can imperil the viability of a project—and then not delivering the infrastructure that is committed. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, quite accurately said, it is a contract, in effect, between developers and local authorities. Sometimes developers let down local authorities, but sometimes local authorities let down developers.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

After such an expert series of speeches on this, I hesitate to rise, but I feel compelled to support the noble Lord, Lord Best, and others who have introduced a critical series of amendments and raised a challenge to current practice. As somebody who has had a long-standing association with Exmoor National Park, I fully understand and recognise what my noble friend Lord Inglewood has said, but I suspect that we are dealing with the process and proceeds of bulk housing rather than the situation that he refers to, important though that is.

I have in the past had to wrestle with development appraisals and I recognise the points that noble Lords have made about that. The system is rather opaque. You can variously tweak the process to decide on the profitability, on your relationship with your subcontractors, on what you are prepared to concede by way of Section 106 obligations, and on what you are prepared to pay for the land—and all of these in one model. So the model is complex and, unless one is familiar with the algorithms that stand behind it, it is very difficult for local authorities to find their way through that.

We have heard that affordable housing is funded out of the development of market housing. The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, made the point. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, the question arises as to what we mean by “affordable”, since 80% of the market price in the south and south-east of the country, for instance, is still totally unaffordable to anybody with limited means, particularly if it is pegged to the selling price of market housing, which of itself often carries a premium as a result of marketing processes. That premium is instantly lost as soon as the house is second hand and on the resale market. Often, market prices do not catch up with that premium on the second-hand market for some years. Sometimes it is quite a long time. For somebody of limited means in need of a home, this is a matter not of voluntary choice but of what is economically possible and of their own priority as a candidate for an affordable home, based on the housing need and the length of the waiting list. For many people, this is something of a lottery.

The affordable housing component of a residential development scheme is subject to this viability, the core financial ingredients of which are largely owned by and the intellectual property of the developer. Bearing in mind what I have said about the general complexity of the whole process, that adds to the problems that we are dealing with. Developers are a breed on which the noble Lord, Lord Best, has previously expressed some quite trenchant views, and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has rather spectacularly reinforced those this evening. I have no remit to necessarily speak up for housebuilders. Some of them are clearly thoroughly exploitative, but I do not think that all of them are. I feel certain that there are some who are decent, honest and disposed to be transparent as far as they are able, but my professional work certainly has revealed that there is a great deal of opacity to the whole process.

The nature of the affordability offering ranges from what in developer terms might be regarded as the optimal—namely, a shared ownership, because of course it releases a sum of money for the development through affordable rent—and what might be regarded as the least profitable bit, social rent, which is often driven by accountancy processes and profit motives. Social rent components thus inevitably get seriously squeezed. The whole process of affordable housing may get further eroded by being fitted out to a lower standard than market housing. I will leave that to one side, but it gives a bit of an insight into how much cheeseparing goes on in the whole process and how many adjustments might be made before the final product comes out.

I acknowledge that part of the problem may go back to the rolled-up costs of land acquisition and the expectations of the parties under the original sale of land, although I venture to suggest that some of the developer’s profit, taken in the round, in many cases substantially exceeds the sum paid to the original landowner, and part of that is rolled-up cost, risk, finance and all sorts of other things that are going on at the same time. It is also a fact that satisfying this housing need depends on the perceived profit from the development at any given time. The ability of developers to defer starts or go slow on a site, depending on market conditions, adds to the problem of congestion in terms of providing affordability, and those in critical need of something genuinely affordable in rent are effectively seriously compromised.

Mention has been made by other noble Lords of shared ownership; I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who a week or so ago mentioned shared-ownership problems. My mailbag is often punctuated with people who are unable to get round the resale of their properties because there may be a pre-emption problem or they have to get consent from their registered provider, for example—and then circumstances change, the whole thing goes back into the melting pot and they have to start all over again. For owners who are trapped in such difficult-to-shift situations—even without fire safety remediation problems, which is another thing—if that is what ownership looks like, we should be prepared for people to start switching off, because it is not good enough if you are offering that as a home-ownership approach.

As another aside, I have recently heard it said that house prices are driven by the availability of credit, not the inherent value of the product. If so, there just has to be a better way of dealing with that without choking off land supply, and I think it starts with shortening timescales, derisking the current protracted processes, making planning more cost efficient, less contentious and less uncertain—and probably with a not-for-profit construction model. Protracted timescales allow for far too much wriggle room and reconfiguring of the offering that is made, and they give too much space for poor practices to take root.

I have tried to work out how such a model would be achieved—possibly through community interest structures in which local need and desire would come a long way in front of imposed bulk market housing—but I am not there yet. It raises questions too about clustering of social housing versus pepperpotting, and about building the sort of inspirational developments that deliver best quality rather than having some sort of stigma attached to them because of the nature of what is produced. We in this country have in the past succeeded spectacularly with schemes; some of the great industrialists produced wonderful developments for their workforce that were really well thought out. We ought to be able to do the same sort of thing for those in critical need of social housing.

My view on this is that, if one is concerned about the attitude of landowners, maybe it is time to start asking whether getting maximum price at some uncertain point in the future would not be offset by having a greater certainty of outcomes and transparency, and being able to plan for that over a timescale might be appropriate. With that, I will sit down, but that may warrant looking at further.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

I will see what I can do.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

This group of amendments raises several interesting areas about which I, as a chartered surveyor and an occupier and co-owner of listed buildings, feel strongly. I welcome the opportunity to discuss these and the question of proportionality referred to by several noble Lords and by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. It relates to how the costs are built up and into what particular categories, pigeonholes or whatever one wishes to put them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to this question of the preponderance of very large developments in terms of their cost, and how the same metric applies to smaller SMEs and indeed, one could say, to individual householders with really quite small-scale things. She could perhaps have referred to the fact that the way in which large developments end up setting the tone and the content that goes into planning applications therefore raises the expectation. Whether deliberately or inadvertently, it creates that rather awkward but historically well-known feature of a barrier to entry by the very nature of where you have to get to, what boxes you have to tick and what expense you have to underwrite to get there. This principle is as old as economics, but it is one of the things that is particularly germane to this discussion.

Of course, if we are getting into the situation referred to by other noble Lords of some sort of cross-subsidy from the application fee to issues of enforcement or covering other things, for instance the general costs of the legal department dealing with gruesomely complicated Section 106 agreements—I have seen some gruesomely complicated ones and am very glad to say that I have never had to draft one myself—that rather raises the question: is that right, or should we be subdividing, for instance, the costs of enforcement as a separate charging entity and the costs of dealing with a particular Section 106 agreement dealt with as part of that process? We have to worry about the degree to which there is this cross-subsidy approach, because without a set of rules for that, almost any sort of charging process can be set in place. That might be manifestly unsatisfactory for all sorts of reasons.

I very much welcome Amendment 97, spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay. I can relate to it as an owner, and in the past a professional adviser on heritage properties, although I would not really claim to be a heritage expert. We have heard that listed building applications are an addition to the need for development consent generally. Because they may revolve around matters that involve the historic character of the asset in question, it then becomes a matter of what is the character and what is the effect. These are often largely subjective considerations. That inevitably results in a sort of precautionary reaction in the eyes of local authorities. Inevitably, if that precautionary reaction takes root, all sorts of assessments and justifications may then be demanded of the applicant. Whether in fact they are reasonable is often in question. Given that, for owners who happen to live in or own listed buildings—putting aside badges of honour, in my case, several have been listed during my lifetime and ownership gratuitously imposed without consultation—I think it fair that the listed building element should not attract an additional fee.

It is important that we get this in context, and I observe that many local planning authorities do not have their own trained heritage officer. Many used to but no longer have one. In my experience, it is often outsourced to a private firm for so many days a month. Again in my experience, even where the external contractor so appointed makes a sensible recommendation, further conditions quite often get added by the local planning authority itself, in some instances displaying quite woeful failure to understand the practicalities of carrying out the work proposed. I will not go into further details on that, but I have several examples. It is therefore a matter of concern that defensively preventive or precautionary permitting practices and a lack of in-house officer competence—and, indeed, confidence—lie behind the added costs. Added to this, of course, is the citation relating to listing of buildings. In many cases, it is so cursory as to prevent a clear understanding of what features are actually important in terms of its character.

I agree with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, that something needs sorting out on a much wider scale here. I certainly would commend the Minister to take this away and see if we cannot, in the context of the Bill, produce something more cohesive going forward.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Banner (Con)]

My Lords, I add my support to Amendment 162, which would put chief planning officers on a statutory basis. I agree with the case made for it by my noble friend Lord Lansley and the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Best. I can add little to what they said, but I want to emphasise one point in particular. It is not uncommon in some—not all—local planning authorities for officers to come under considerable pressure from members in relation to matters that are within officers’ remit, whether it is preparing an officer report or an application to committee, or a delegated decision or work in relation to an emerging plan. It is entirely right and proper for members to reach their own views on matters within their remit, but matters within officers’ delegated remit should be exercised in accordance with their independent professional judgment. Putting the role of the chief planner on a statutory basis would buttress their independence and that of those working underneath them, all the more so were it to be combined with a statutory purpose of planning, which the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, proposes in another amendment. This is an issue already; it will be all the more of an issue in the event that the proposed national scheme of delegation becomes effective pursuant to the Bill. Amendment 162 would help give greater effect to that national scheme of delegation and ensure that it would not be undermined by officers who have additional delegated powers going forward being unduly lent on by their members in the context of exercising those delegated powers.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, the issue of training was behind my comments in the previous group about planning and proceeding on the basis of competence and confidence, so I support all the amendments in this group as well, and particularly Amendments 102, 103, and 162, which are absolutely pivotal.

In my profession, it is incumbent on practitioners not to undertake tasks for which they have inadequate technical knowledge or practical experience. Unfortunately, there is nothing which currently mandates the use and input of such professionals. So, when resources are tight and finance is limited, the inevitable result seems to be that it is passed down to the lowest-cost element of the process. This is, as other noble Lords have commented, to the increasing dismay of local communities, many of whose members have high levels of relevant knowledge and are therefore particularly concerned about what they see as self-evident flaws in what is presented. It erodes confidence, and we should really be concerned about that.

I remember that some years ago a senior political figure rubbished the idea of quality in development. It was a numbers game, and not quality. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington of Fulham, referred to the critical nature of satisfaction. That is satisfaction not just in the physical environment but in the working environments that we present to the people who have to administer this. Once trained, the knowledge is, of course, portable with the individual. I remember not so long ago an instance of a planning officer who left his authority, tempted no doubt by better terms from a developer, who then returned as a private sector consultant only for the purpose of undermining the very policies that he had formulated and was defending in his previous authority.

As other noble Lords have said, this goes to the heart of the satisfaction of the job, the longevity of it and whether it is properly paid, respected and nurtured, both from outside in terms of the standing of the individual and inside among committee members—I think the noble Lord, Lord Banner, referred to that. It is a false economy not to make these positions worth while, durable and of standing. I remember in my early profession how important certain local government officials were. The planner, the estates director or whatever his title was, and people in other walks of life, such as the district valuer for whom I worked for several years down in Brighton, had standing and status, but not so today. They are regarded as just another, if I may put it like this, petty official. That is to the great detriment of good delivery.

I wholeheartedly support the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, in support of Amendment 102. I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Lansley, Lord Shipley and Lord Best, in particular, that we need to address an awful lot of these things if we are to achieve a fraction of what this Bill is capable of delivering.

I turn to Amendment 103, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Fuller. In the central government sector, I recently spoke to a professional body which had laboured long and hard to get a particular departmental official to understand a very complex series of issues, all of which had critical outcomes for the way in which policy would be delivered. I am not going to embarrass anybody by saying which department it was. However, with their having reached this elevated stage and got this person to really understand what was involved, that official was promptly moved to another, completely unrelated function—I am not even sure that it was within the same department. That was a loss of human resource and a waste of knowledge and experience, and it was to the considerable dismay of this body which had been trying to deal with it. If the idea is that as soon as somebody understands something, they have gone too native, or something like that, that is the wrong sentiment. We are losing people, and we are losing the force and direction of policy. While I support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, I fear that a much wider organisational change in terms of holding on to those core skills in appropriate locations is necessary.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, referred to the scope of training. I would add groundwater and geology to her list of basic skills and understanding. Like her, I do not suggest that people have an in-depth knowledge of this as a trained geologist or ecologist, but they must have a minimum understanding to do the job, to know when they need further, more detailed technical advice and to understand what the advice is when it is being given. On all those counts, we are falling down. Therefore, I very much support what she says about getting this right.

This is a very large issue. I fear that much of it may, in terms of policy and implementation, stray outside the strict terms of this Bill. However, unless we address these issues and unless that forms part of the consciousness of how we move this forward, we will have another large body of Explanatory Notes, impact assessments and all the rest of it, which will ultimately be on somebody’s cutting-room floor. That is a terrible waste of the resources of this House, of the other place and of all the people who have engaged with us to give us their views on how aspects of this should be brought forward. There is a common golden thread here that I hope will be picked up by the Government. It is at the core of getting delivery on this Bill.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

The very point that the noble Lord raises is that I do not think it would be sufficient. Indeed, when I spoke on this issue in Committee, I suggested that the council tax register, because whole-student households do not pay council tax, would potentially be sufficient; I just do not think that is the case. It is not just about university accommodation. it is about students more generally. Indeed, there is an amendment coming up on the Marshalled List to define who is a university student. So I think it is a great deal more complicated than the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, has indicated to us.

I have concluded that those students who are in smaller units of accommodation will be protected anyway, as tenants under the Act. I have concluded that, on this matter, the Government should be given the benefit of the doubt, but I hope very much that the Minister will be able to meet the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, which is that they have to keep this matter under review.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I have addressed the House at this stage of the Bill, I will just remind your Lordships that I am a chartered surveyor. I think that is probably the only interest I need to declare, other than being the father of three children. They are now long out of university, but I witnessed the process of them living in halls and subsequently in the private rented sector, two of them within the city of Bristol, and I got to know one or two of the people who let to students as a business model. The properties are not necessarily large—some of them are very small; it depends on what model they are using. I am worried about what seems to be an acceptance of what the Minister said will be a process of review.

Review done by government is an incredibly blunt and ponderous instrument. I predict that if there was a review looking at a particular problem, a lot of serious damage would have occurred by the time it had been completed or the matter actioned and put into regulation, or whatever other form it was going to take.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I must remind your Lordships of my professional involvement in aspects of this sector as a fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, an honorary fellow of the Chartered Association of Building Engineers, a vice-president of the National Association of Local Councils and joint president of the East Sussex Association of Local Councils. I am also a CLA member and a small-scale landowner.

There is much to welcome in this Bill, especially on the need to speed up the pace of delivery. Inordinate delays involve substantial cost and risk. However—and I apologise for concentrating on some of the bits that concern me—cutting out consultees and some local deliberations, which seems to be part of the proposal, strikes me as an unlikely saving. I feel that a more systematic approach to a rather labyrinthine planning system is in fact needed. The main focus of the Bill is infrastructure rollout, but delivery seems to remain via a rather poorly regulated private sector and still risks putting commercial imperatives in front of national policy and public interest, both as to rollout and cost to the taxpayer. Look where we are with utilities and telecoms right now.

As to electrical power, for instance, the rate of transfer of carbon-based road fuel and heating loads on to a greener electricity grid remains fettered by excessive cost per unit, while generation capacity and distribution lag years behind need, arguably requiring significant redesign beyond ever more pylons—which, of course, is a challenge in itself.

Water quality and quantity affect several key regions. Limiting consumption of a finite resource by the rest of us is a necessary offset as part of new housing and water neutrality, but that is happening only at the margins. Simply adopting an aspirational cut of 40% in per capita consumption is nonsense, if my information is correct; there is a good trade in removing water flow restrictors and upgrading showers. Nobody seems to have any incentive to monitor or enforce neutrality offsets effectively.

The same could easily happen with environment and nature. Will there be eco-deserts of some sort where development takes place, but for commercial convenience ecology has been traded away to another location? Or will the immediate locality have priority, as it rightly should? Will nature offsets still be adequately managed in 100 years’ time—as mentioned by other noble Lords—and will Natural England remain the objective government conservation adviser, or become the agent for a developer-led offsetting activity based on viability? Will it continue to command respect, especially if environmental NGOs start being excluded as consultees—they are, after all, the source of one’s information.

We have a system that involves democracy and rights of public audience; that has been mentioned by other noble Lords, and needs to be fostered. Councillor training has been referred to more than adequately by others.

I am unclear what Part 3 means for urban density or long-promised reforms to tenure, for individual autonomy and exclusivity—the sort of things that go into building a concept of one’s home, whether it be by ownership or otherwise—for communities that are stable, engaged and self-sustaining, and for making the best use of urban infrastructure as a means of preventing endless development on the fringes and urban sprawl.

I am concerned about the commercial risks to urban redevelopment, in particular those caused by the expanded compulsory purchase powers in the Bill. All of these issues are interlinked and need to be dealt with together, unless coherence is to be lost.

I turn specifically to the compulsory purchase step-in powers under Part 5 of the Bill and the removal of hope value from compensation. The Bill does not actually say that it will use existing use value as the basis for land value, but the Explanatory Notes do say that. However, there is no national or international definition of this term, without which the measures are flawed, uncertain of outcomes and, arguably, expropriatory and open to challenge. Many desirable sites are under option, so I simply ask: whose existing use are we addressing? Others, including society at large, make large profits from developers on greenfield sites, whereas the landowner often gets quite a small proportion of the overall profit after it has been totted up.

I will make one point that I was not going to make. For too long, emphasis on housing development has been a proxy for growth in the economy. There is evidence that this is reaching an endpoint. Whether we are going to continue to have year-on-year increases in values, including in the value of the housing inventory, is in doubt; if that is correct, it will have profound implications, socially and economically. I therefore agree with the noble Lord, Lord Best—but for other reasons—that a different delivery model is in fact needed.

Unless these critical factors are addressed, many of the measures in this Bill risk substantial failure. I look forward to pursuing these as the Bill moves forward.

Cladding: High-rise Buildings

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord speaks with great expertise and makes a very important point. This Government have been taking decisive action to address the building safety crisis so that residents do not need to wait a day longer than necessary to feel safe in their homes. We continue to work closely with industry, local authorities and residents to accelerate remediation efforts while ensuring that those responsible for unsafe buildings cover the costs. On the important point of insurance, work has been ongoing to reduce building insurance premiums for leaseholders. On lending, we have seen improvements for leaseholders who previously found themselves unable to sell or remortgage their homes, but we will remain vigilant and continue to hold the 10 major lenders to account following their commitment to lend on properties even if remediation is not yet complete.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the divergent opinions of fire safety remediation standards under what is known as PAS 9980, and in particular the undefined metrics of proportionality and tolerable risk which still leave residential blocks such as Meath Crescent, Bethnal Green, and Royal Artillery Quays in Greenwich, and thousands of others, with combustible elements which should never have been included under the building regulations applicable at the time of construction. What is his department doing to address the resultant long-term degradation referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, but also the basic failure to meet construction standards in regulation at the time of construction? What is happening about that?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, as part of the work set out in our remediation acceleration plan, we intend that by the end of 2029, all 18 metre-plus high-rise buildings with unsafe cladding in a government funded scheme will have been remediated. Our intention is that every building of 11 metres-plus with unsafe cladding will have been remediated or have a completion date, or the landlord will be liable for severe penalties. On 26 February, the Government published the Construction Products Reform Green Paper, which sets out comprehensive proposals for system-wide reforms of the construction products regime. The Green Paper is a significant step towards a construction products regime that has safety at its heart. We welcome the extensive engagement from across the sector.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I apologise for not being present during Second Reading or the preceding Committee sittings due to a health issue. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA.

I fully support this group of amendments and wish to speak in particular to Amendment 275A, to which I would have added my name if I had been more alert to the changes at the time. I am delighted to see Amendments 206A, 262 and 271, which cover the conditions of those living in boats. The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, has laid out the arguments for these amendments extremely eloquently.

Over the years, I have had several meetings with the National Bargee Travellers Association. These are a group of people within our community who have had a difficult time, as they have no permanent moorings. Some find they are constantly moving in order to comply with mooring conditions. This can be extremely disruptive, especially for those who have school-aged children or health appointments to keep. As my noble friend Lady Miller has said, this issue has been running for a very long time. It really is time that equality was brought to the issue for all those living on a boat as their home. There should be no difference between the way different houseboat dwellers are treated. Boat dwellers should have the same protection as those living on dry land: a safe and secure home.

The noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, has set out the case for Amendments 206B and 275A extremely well. It is essential that all the facilities on site, including amenity blocks, are in a good state of repair and fit for use. Residents living on Gypsy and Traveller sites often experience poor living conditions, with inadequate mechanisms in place to hold landlords to account, especially on the maintenance of essential living facilities. The Renters’ Rights Bill presents a vital opportunity to address this, and we should grasp it.

Most significantly, the RRB abolishes assured shorthold tenancies and fixed-term tenancies. It also introduces an extensive range of further measures designed to enhance the rights of tenants, including applying the decent homes standard to the private rented sector and extending Awaab’s law to private rented sector tenancies. The Office for National Statistics conducted research in 2022 with residents living on private and local authority sites, who reported issues such as fly-tipping, vermin infestation, proximity to environmental hazards, dampness and leaks, and the general need for repair. This could be the environment which some children would consider their playground.

The current changes will not apply to buildings comprising essential living facilities, nor the caravans and mobile homes situated on a pitch on a Gypsy or Traveller caravan site. Together with the housing health and safety rating system contained in Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004, these measures are important means of policing housing standards. There is no justification for not applying these regimes to the buildings that Gypsy and Traveller households use as part of their home or mobile home when it is rented from a landlord.

The previous speakers have supported this group of amendments and I agree wholeheartedly with their comments. The protections afforded to tenants in bricks- and-mortar buildings must be extended to those whose homes are in caravans and mobile homes, as well as to the amenity buildings on the sites of these homes. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome this group of amendments as a point of discussion and commend the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, on his introduction of it. As somebody who has spent 50 years in the property business, I am absolutely unsurprised that the noble Lord may have received a less than enthusiastic welcome from members of the Bill team, because his amendment raises a fundamental principle around what we are actually looking at: that is, whether we are looking at the use of land or the use of a water body, which we used to refer to as “land covered by water”.

It seems to me that the principles relating to those two are rather different. A fixed pitch for a caravan is fundamentally different in qualitative and quantitative terms from a mooring, which is, in essence, a connection to the shore but with the vessel fundamentally sitting over water. It is not just houseboats that are involved here. This is also about moorings in marinas, where the water body may be a tidal area, which one would assume might be in the possession of the Crown.

A fundamental difference here is that, where you have a house as a piece of real estate—in other words, land with bricks and mortar—it is fundamentally fixed and has a degree of permanence in law, unlike something that can be sailed away. To take another analogy, if somebody wishes to have a motor home and park it permanently at one location, does the same apply? Because that could be driven away; it is not in the nature of a permanent feature.

I do not have any particular problems with the provisions of this Bill applying more widely, if that policy decision is made here, but I do see a problem in terms of its application. This gets a little more complicated when you consider that the item occupied for this particular purpose may be something that somebody rents as an entirety—in other words, a boat and a piece of mooring and the water in which it floats—or may be something quite different, in terms of its nature, because the person who occupies the thing may actually own the boat and bring it there.

On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, Awaab’s law might apply to the former instance, where the boat and the pitch are a complete package, rented as one element. However, it would not apply to an occupier of their own houseboat. However leaky the bucket may be, it is their responsibility and not the responsibility of the person from whom they are renting the mooring.

So I can see that there are a number of different ways in which this rather difficult cake gets cut, and I rise to clarify some of the points as a matter of land law rather than to pass judgment on whether, as a matter of policy, there should be the protections afforded under this Bill in whole or in part.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

I have the greatest respect for the noble Earl’s expertise in this area. However, I suggest that the key aspect which the Renters’ Rights Bill deals with is not essentially the physical structure of the home but the fact that it is somebody’s permanent home and they are the residents and rent it. Even if it were a balloon in the sky, if it were a permanent rented home, that is the criterion that should apply equal rights to the residential person. I will probably defer to the noble Earl’s expertise, but it does seem to me that renting your home is what matters, not what the home consists of.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

I am grateful to noble Baroness, who has great wisdom in this area. I am a humble technician on these matters.

There is an issue of permanence: whether the item is in some way permanently fixed or adhering to the surface—or, if it was a house on stilts, glued to the bottom of whatever water body there is—or whether it is actually capable of being removed. Permanence is a bit of a problem, I agree. I dare say that the average static caravan might have a life expectancy of perhaps 20 years before it is effectively scrap. I do not know how long a houseboat lasts, because I have never asked anybody. I do know that, every now and again, they have to be hauled out of the water and taken away to some yard to have plates welded on the bottom, anti-fouling paint added and all sorts of other things done to make them fit for purpose. Therefore, they do not have that permanence of being permanently affixed to a site from which they cannot be removed without total demolition.

I see that as rather different from something that can be sailed away, driven away or lifted out of the water. It is a different nature of animal from what we understand as real estate. The real estate here would be the land covered by water or, in the case of a mooring in a marina, that bit of tidal water. For something that might be on wheels, the permanent bit is the pitch and not the device or box in which the living takes place. That is the break point that we are dealing with here. As I say, I make no policy judgment on this. I just say that there is a technical difficulty in real estate terms in trying to pin it down, which is why the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, got the reception that he described earlier.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Thornhill (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 220 and 225, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Best, and my Amendments 243 and 243A, all of which seek to strengthen and clarify the role of the new private rented sector database.

I also support Amendment 219, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking. In so much of this Bill we lack a timeframe. Between us, we have tabled several amendments asking for clarification on timeframes. It is not just us seeking these timings but everyone who is impacted by the Bill.

This is an area of great potential. I confess to getting quite excited about it when I first realised that it was a real tool in the Bill. A well-designed database could be genuinely transformative, supporting better enforcement, empowering tenants and giving responsible landlords the tools that they need to navigate the system more effectively. The noble Lord and I have very similar thoughts on that. However, to achieve that, it must be more than just a repository of basic information, which is where I fear we are going. It must be useful, accessible and enforceable.

Amendment 220 seeks to make it clear that the database is a tool not just for local authorities but for public good. It should serve the interests of tenants, responsible landlords and good letting agents alike. In its current form, the Bill seems to emphasise enforcement utility but underplays the wider potential of the database as a source of transparency and information for all parties in the rental market. If we want this database to help drive up standards and support informed decision-making, we must set out that intention clearly.

Amendment 225 introduces two further practical improvements. First, it allows letting agents to upload information on behalf of landlords, a sensible provision given the role that many agents already play in managing compliance. Secondly, it proposes that the database should offer a portal to help landlords determine whether their properties require licensing under the local authority schemes and to apply for those licences where necessary. Too often, licensing rules can vary from one area to another and be hard to navigate, particularly for smaller landlords. A centralised, user-friendly tool would significantly improve compliance.

My Amendment 243 probes a critical issue: enforcement. The Bill states that landlords must be registered on the database along with each of their dwellings, but it is currently unclear what consequences there are for non-compliance. This amendment proposes that failure to register should be an offence, and we seek clarity from the Government on how these provisions will be enforced in practice. Without credible enforcement mechanisms, even the best-designed database risks being ignored by the very landlords it is intended to regulate.

Finally, Amendment 243A would give the Secretary of State the power to include links to useful resources on the database, such as the “My Housing Issue” gateway. Such signposts may seem minor, but they can make a real difference, especially for tenants who need guidance on their rights or for landlords seeking to meet their obligations. The database should not exist in a vacuum; it should connect users to help, advice and relevant legal frameworks.

These amendments may differ in focus, but they are united by a common aim: to ensure that the private rented sector database lives up to its promise and potential. It must be more than a tick-box exercise; it must be practical, enforceable and truly useful to the people it is meant to serve. I hope the Minister will give these proposals careful consideration, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

I will make just a couple of comments on the two amendments tabled by my noble colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Best. I start with Amendment 220 and the point made in support of it by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, because what is proposed here is clearly, in effect, a public register. I was not absolutely sure that I understood whether that was delimited in certain ways by the reference to “other interested stakeholders”, whoever or whatever they might be in any given circumstance, but a public register is what we are dealing with.

If I may, I link this across to the next group of amendments, because it is appropriate to mention here that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, has Amendment 222, which has an extensive list of requirements. I simply say that some of what she sets out there might need a rethink as to whether it is appropriate for that degree of detailed information to be on a public register, bearing in mind who else may have access to it and for what purposes.

I have a question on Amendment 225. I absolutely agree with the functionality point, and I add to that by saying that there must absolutely be an email communications option in any database of this sort. Given the state of the normal, regular postal service, having an email option and being able to flag up an alert system of some sort would be absolutely essential for any landlord, their agent or, for that matter, any renter using the database.

My question is to do with the way the database is applicable to local authority schemes. The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, confirmed what I believed to be the case: namely, that local authority schemes might vary considerably. If we have a national database, I simply ask how that deals with strictly local things on a per local authority basis. The rules of the game must obviously apply nationally, but the property concerned, the landlord and the renter in particular may be local. I simply flag up how that will function or whether there will be a subsidiary local authority subset on a per local authority basis.

If we have approach, and given the amount of data that the noble Baroness’s later amendment suggests, then, in terms of the amendments previously spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Hacking, I suggest that we are looking at quite a considerable lead-in period in practical terms to get this database in place. If it is to be of use, it needs to start off as some sort of cut-down version in order to enable the essential information to be there, even if it is then expanded. I therefore see this being achievable by some sort of rollout over time. Trying to put it in place from day one would be a recipe for something approaching chaos.

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

My Lords, I will briefly comment on two amendments in this group: Amendment 233 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, and Amendment 243 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, about databases. I feel that we are overlooking the need to ensure that the rogues in the system are identified and banned or punished for bad behaviour. They riddle the rented sector, I am afraid.

The database is a great attempt to give transparency and clarity to mortgagees, as in one of these amendments, to tenants and to potential tenants to check on their potential landlords. It is not responsible landlords who are the problem; it is the rogues. Rogues like to be invisible. They do not want to be detectable. They certainly do not want enforcement proceedings served against them. Enforcement must have teeth. Without real teeth, there is little point in trying to catch the rogues. The database would go a long way towards achieving that, but I fear that there is not enough determination in the Government to really punish those who are determined to cheat.

Rogues can hide their properties under the names of shelf companies. They can be registered abroad. They can have a tangled web of subsidiaries and further subsidiaries. They will make themselves as invisible and undetectable as possible. I close by simply saying that these are good amendments, but I would love to see sharper teeth in the enforceability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Freeman of Steventon (CB)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 222, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. This Bill is very big and has wide-ranging impacts. Some are certainly planned, and others are possibly unplanned. It is vital that those impacts are evaluated. It is unfortunate that, at this stage, the evaluation plan is slightly unformed, but the impact assessment makes it clear that it is going to rely on some of the data collected in this database. Given that it is going to rely on that data, I think it has to be specified in the Bill.

For example, one of the prime aims of the Bill is to increase security of tenure, thereby reducing evictions and unplanned moves. The current source of that data is from the English Housing Survey, which suffers from the vagaries of any survey at the moment and questions about its validity. More importantly, it also does not have the necessary granularity, given that the local authority level is going to be the level at which this Bill is enforced. So we need the data that is going to be collected in this database in order to be able to tell whether the Bill is at all effective, and what other effects it might have.

That is true also of things such as rental increases, which it is trying to keep a lid on. If we do not have a record of those rental increases, we will not know whether it is effective. So I am concerned to hear tonight that the database may not even be fully in action within the first year of the Act being passed. How will we know what the effects are if the Act has already been in place for over a year before we measure some of these impacts? I would love to hear more from the Minister about what is going to be in the database and when those different aspects of the database are going to be active.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I have already mentioned Amendment 222 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, so I need say no more about it at this stage. I turn, then, to the one other amendment in this group that interests me: the one introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Grender. The information that she proposes should be disclosed in the database is quite extensive. I have three points to make.

First, is the noble Baroness satisfied—and would the Minister consider herself satisfied—that, if there were an ongoing dispute, putting that data raw, on an incomplete process, would be free from creating a prejudice around the outcome? That might be in either direction; I am thinking only that this might be a quasi- judicial process of one sort or another. I just wish to flag that up.

Secondly, in any event, obviously, the database would identify both parties: the renter and the landlord. I assume that, when the noble Baroness says that her amendment would create a greater egalitarian thing, she is also happy with renters and landlords being mentioned, because the identity of the parties will be known. However, depending on the detail that goes in, there might be the disclosure of what might be described as more sensitive information related to the nature of the dispute; I wished to flag that up in case it had been overlooked. Bear in mind that, if we are talking about an open register, this goes to everybody, anywhere, who can tap into the information.

Thirdly, there is a whole issue here around the performance characteristics that sit behind this group of amendments, in terms of what is going on around the efficiency of the process through which information might be derived from this database. There must be a difference, I think, between the metadata from the processing of things, such as the speed at which things are dealt with and so on, the data on the types of disputes that might typically arise, including their frequency and distribution, and the individual data on the register. There will certainly be derivative information that does not necessarily require the total disclosure of all sorts of intricate and possibly personal details.

I would be very happy for the database to be used for the purpose of the further processing of non-personalised data of one sort or another for statistical and performance calculating processes. I am less clear, though, that that necessarily sits as a direct part of the database; that is, as a derivative of it. One must be careful about what one is expecting the raw data on a database to consist of; and about how it is going to be used as a derivative thereafter.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Lords Chamber

With that in mind, I ask the Minister to meet those who have put forward such mechanisms between now and Report to see whether it is possible to add something like this, which, in turn, would relieve the pressure described in the debate on the previous group on any appeal or tribunal process—which, for many tenants, is a very intimidating prospect. With that in mind, I strongly support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Janke and the noble Lord, Lord Best.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken at this stage of the Bill, I ought to declare an interest. I am a landlord of private rented residential property, but I think that all—both—the renters concerned would agree that I am not somebody who sets out to extract the last penny from them; in fact, quite the opposite. More particularly, I stand here with some 50 years’ professional experience of property, not least of the private rented sector.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, is the cause of me getting to my feet—I give her that credit. She referred to rent affordability as security. Although I get that particular line of argument, the two things differ somewhat. All the amendments in this group relate in some way to control of rent, something the Government have always said they would not do. I listened very carefully to my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Best, but say to him that a deferral or reduction in the receipts on a like-for-like basis is, none the less, a form of rent control. I do not think I can make any concession on that point. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best, was less bad than what might be in the Bill. I am not sure that that particular line of argument commends the broader principle to me in general.

A recurring theme is this business of the affordability of rent to renters, but that actually is not the purpose of the private rented sector; that is the purpose of the social rented sector. If we are somehow transferring something which occurs in and is a feature of the social rented sector to the private rented sector, then a much bigger debate needs to take place—apart from this Bill—on precisely what that means. I do not believe that that debate has been entered into, nor do I believe that there is any substantial investigation or research into what that might mean in practice.

If we are in fact faced with that change, I predict the same outcome as occurred after 1965. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, referred to the rent control of the 1960s and his role in undoing that. I mentioned at Second Reading that the combined effects of security of tenure and rent control in the 1960s caused a fall from 30% of housing being in the private rented sector in 1961 to about 10% some 30 years later. Even after that freeing-up process which the noble Lord referred to, it was still under 10% in the year 2000. That is how durable the process is. It is very difficult to get confidence back once it has been severely damaged.

We must also bear in mind the progressive changes in the tax treatment of private rented sector landlords and what that has meant. It may be different when it is being dealt with at corporate level, when all sorts of things can be offset against a larger pool of property. For the 80% of private rented sector landlords who have five or fewer residential units, that does not look like the same thing at all. Ultimately, the test will be whether we generate competition in the market through an increase in supply. However, everything I have heard this afternoon, particularly from those who tabled the amendments in this group, has been about guarding against precisely that outcome that would be a failure of the intentions that sit behind this Bill. So we have to be very careful.

I do not take a moral stance of any sort on this. I stand before your Lordships as a technician, not a politician. I come with an economic view. However, if we are making a transfer of liabilities from one sector that has a considerable amount of government, financial and in many cases registered provider charitable support, to the private rented sector, which does not have that support, I predict a very significant failure in the outcomes of this Bill.

That would be a tragedy, because this Bill contains an awful lot of stuff that is very good indeed, I would like to see a successful private rented sector. I would like to see renters treated with humanity and civility and not exploited endlessly in the way that they have been. However, if we end up with reduced supply, and with those who show no civility or common decency towards their renters somehow still there, operating in some subculture or other, we will not have succeeded in dealing with this matter at all.

I wrote to the Minister recently. She has not had a moment to reply. I cast no aspersions at all, because she is extremely busy with this Bill. However, there is a need to look closely at the probable outcomes. If we do not, we will walk blindly into something that we would rather had not happened.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

I speak on this Bill from the rural perspective, which is very different from the urban perspective. The rural perspective is much more concerned with communities. In the fixing of rents, this is very much taken into account by most rural landlords. Affordability is one method: the 30%. Some return on capital is needed to keep the show on the road. However, taking account of individual circumstances is crucial.

Where there is talk about tying rents to inflation, it is very sensible that all leases make clear that, when rents are assessed annually—which seems to me a reasonable level—that should be on the basis of taking account of inflation. When the inflation is very high, it would be quite wrong to impose a full level of inflation on a tenant. We have had double-digit inflation in the last three years and those of us who were alive then will never forget 1975-76, when we had inflation of 25% per year, for goodness’ sake. Inflation is a dangerous animal. You should use it as a guide, but over a period. Also, you take account of individuals and their contribution to the community in which they live. After all, a rural community is about people in a much greater way than an urban community can be. I do not know whether the Minister has thought about this, but I would hope that she would make reference to what might work better in a rural community than in an urban community.

I very much agreed with my noble friend Lord Young, one of the liberators from a system which had almost destroyed the private rented sector. The other person who I have huge respect for is the noble Lord, Lord Best, who I have known for a very long time and whose judgment, knowledge and experience provide a very useful guide. I recommend that the Minister should have quiet, private discussions with people like that on the practicalities, because this Bill is getting knotted up in practicalities. It is easy to write it all down in clauses and subsections, but how it works will depend on human beings. Governments have a role. As a Burkean Conservative, I believe that the role of a Government is to hold the ring, to prevent people from being ill-treated in the community. It is people who matter.

Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister and his civil servants in the Bill team for the very helpful discussions to aid detailed understanding of the Bill. The one issue that still irks me is that it was debated without an impact assessment. The convention now seems to be that this is the case, but I find it unacceptable that we have debated and agreed a Bill of this nature and with the implications that it has on many businesses. I believe it is unacceptable to do so without an impact assessment.

However, we on these Benches are delighted that the 290 hospitals which were destined to have the higher-rate multiplier applied will be excluded from that penalty. We hope that the other place will agree with the sanity of this proposal. The Minister said that the aim of the Bill was to protect the high street. It is not clear that that will be achieved by the Bill, and only time will tell, but I am sure the Minister will be pleased to know that I will be keeping a watchful brief on this issue and questioning him at regular intervals if the high street is not benefiting from these elements of the Bill.

Given that, I thank my noble friend Lord Fox, who did much of the work on the implications for business, and the ever knowledgeable and wise Elizabeth Plummer in our Whips’ Office, who was able to give me sound advice on the course of the Bill. With that, I thank the Minister and look forward to the consequences of the Bill.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

For my part, I too add my thanks to the Minister for his willingness to engage at all times. As he now knows, business rates is a rather niche area of activity for your Lordships. I started my professional career just over 50 years ago in the Inland Revenue Valuation Office, so I have been tied to this problem for a long time. If I have come across as a bit of a business rates nerd, I apologise to the House.

The Minister mentioned Mr Nick Cooper, whom I have known a long time through several Administrations, and I think it was he who was astute enough to observe that this might, given that my time here may be limited as a retained hereditary Peer, this might be the last occasion on which I would have to bore your Lordships on a matter to do with business rates. So there is something positive for your Lordships to look forward to.

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott of Bybrook and Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, and my colleague and noble friend Lord Thurlow, for their willingness to discuss matters of crucial importance.

I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, that the manifesto said one thing and this is not what we were led to expect. However, for all the talk and all the policy-making, and for all the manifestos, you do not get to alter economic reality, nor do you get to alter markets very much. Therefore, I suspect that the process of partial attrition which has gone on in the business sector, particularly over issues to do with high streets, will continue, so long as the root and branch reform that is so badly needed and which successive Administrations have promised is not delivered. It is tough when you are dealing with something that is cheap to collect, but we must understand the consequences of lack of fairness and lack of balance, and what this means for business decisions made here and where moving an operation abroad is an alternative.

Finally, I thank Jerry Schurder and Simon Green of Newmark surveyors, who have been an unfailing source of useful information on the background to current business rates. I am not a current practitioner, so I pay tribute to them and to others from the Rating Surveyors’ Association and the RICS, both of which I am a member of.

With that, I wish this Bill well. I am certain that it will reappear. I am not complacent that this is the last word on the matter, but we have given it our best shot in what is a rather difficult and complicated area. I wish it well and share the views of other noble Lords in hoping that the other place has regard to the rationale behind our efforts.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions.

Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Earl of Lytton]

2: Clause 3, page 3, line 26, after “hereditament” insert “other than a qualifying retail, hospitality or leisure hereditament”
Member's explanatory statement
This, together with another amendment in the name of the Earl of Lytton, would have the effect of leaving large RHL properties paying the standard multiplier rather than the supplement, consistent with previously stated policy intentions.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, as this is the first time I have spoken at this stage of the Bill, I declare an interest as a chartered surveyor, a member of the Rating Surveyors’ Association, and a member of the Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation. In fact, these are the three bodies referred to in Amendment 32, which is in this group, under the name of the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow.

I thank the Minister for his willingness to engage and for yesterday’s meeting—I appreciate that very much. If it is any comfort to him, that is at least part of the reason why I felt that I should not press these amendments today, most principally because they go to the heart of the philosophy of how the financial backcloth of rating is dealt with. That would be a very diffuse target at which to try to aim at this stage in the Bill.

Before dealing with Amendment 2 and speaking to Amendment 11, which is also in my name in this group, I remind your Lordships how we got here. During our deliberations in Grand Committee, the Minister referred to the 2024 Budget, in which the Chancellor set out a Budget to “fix the foundations” and to take

“difficult but necessary decisions on tax, spending and welfare to repair public finances, to increase investment in public services and the economy … Part of that agenda included transformation of the non-domestic rating or business rates system, including delivering on the Government’s manifesto pledge to support the high street”.

The Government’s manifesto pledge did a good deal more than just support the high street: it talked about dealing with the online giants. That is why Amendment 1, which we just voted on, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, causes me to remind your Lordships of what I reminded them of at an earlier stage of the Bill: the very large number of non-target species that are swept up by this particular Bill. I enumerated a significant number of them—not all, I might add—of which hospitals were one.

The Minister went on to say that the Government intended to provide

“a permanent tax cut for qualifying retail hospitality and leisure properties and, in doing so, better ensure the ongoing vibrancy of high streets up and down the country”.

He then referred to this whole

“challenging fiscal position that the Government inherited”.

We can fairly say that business ratepayers have been subject to an unsatisfactory means of levying this particular tax for a very long time. I have been on my feet on innumerable cases during the two periods that I have been in this House challenging that perception and showing how this is very negative in its effects on business confidence.

The Minister said that the system

“should work in a sustainable way”.

There are two bits of sustainability: whether the Treasury can balance the books and find the most convenient shortcut through in dealing with its affairs, and what you might call the politically most expedient way. The other way is the one that looks at how businesses make decisions and how the prospect of a surcharge impacts on what businesses do. I have said many times in this House that it is a poor tax that itself starts shifting the dial for people trying to get away from its effects.

The Minister said that

“the Government are asking those with the most valuable 1% of properties to pay more to support the viability of high streets”.

I find it difficult to relate the benefit to the high street by the means shown in this particular Bill. The Minister also said that the process that the Government has alighted on would be equitable and would

“capture the majority of large distribution warehouses, including those used by online giants”.—[Official Report, 24/2/25; cols. GC 444-45.]

Fair enough, but it catches an awful lot else besides, so it is very poorly targeted.

On 17 March, in the other place, in a Written Answer to a Written Question from the shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, the Exchequer Secretary commented first on the Valuation Office Agency publishing its official statistics detailing the number of non-domestic properties in England with a rateable value of £500,000 and over, broken down by sector. He then went on to say:

“There is no special category code for ‘internet retail warehouses’. You may find the data for ‘retail warehouses and food stores’, and ‘large distribution warehouses’ helpful”.


I do not find that in the least bit helpful. These are charging people who are not part of the target species. It appears that the Government have no idea how many large warehouses are occupied by the online giants that they claim to be targeting in the first place.

There are lots of questions here, some of which have already been put on previous occasions by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. Why was this threshold set at £500,000? What is the metric? How are the Government able to justify this figure? The manifesto said that the reforms would

“raise the same revenue … in a fairer way”.

When the Government are planning to raise an additional £2.65 billion by making businesses pay for the retail, hospitality and leisure relief and discounts, which up to now have been funded centrally, that makes me wonder precisely what the business of raising the same revenue in a fairer way amounts to.

If the intention was really to charge more to online giants, one would have to ask why the 90% of hereditaments to which the supplement might apply—the £500,000 rateable value and above—are dealing also with warehousing and other things that are clearly outside that. Some 90% of what they propose to charge does not fall within the category of online giants. It goes on from there. I have already raised the question as to why we cannot get to a more comprehensive reform of business rates—already referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—because this is starting to be an active disincentive to businesses.

That question is not answered by saying that other variable cost elements for businesses are better in this country than elsewhere. This is a direct, in-your-face fixed cost that businesses have to deal with. I cannot see that this is consistent with a growth agenda that intends to attract inward investment.

My interrelated Amendments 2 and 11 are aimed at not worsening the situation for the large retail, hospitality and leisure properties, the inclusion of which in the supplement cannot be justified on property terms. I would prefer the discounts to be applied to all such RHL properties, but this would be even less acceptable to the Government. However, it involves the removal of less than 25% of the total rateable value to which the Bill proposes to apply the supplement. When one looks at the mathematics of this, it really does not stack up. Even at the maximum level of potential supplement, it is substantially less than the extra revenue that the Government will raise from shifting the costs of the RHL relief from the Exchequer to the business rate payer—so it is not very large beer.

I said yesterday in a meeting with the Minister, and I say again, that I and a lot of rating practitioners, and certainly business rate payers, would be a great deal happier if we could have an assurance that the Government will move at reasonable pace to remedy the deficiencies of the current business rate system by whatever means. There needs to be comprehensive thought about this whole process so that we do not simply drift on and create more and more division and less and less confidence. Even at this late stage in the process, can the Minister give a reassurance that this is forthcoming within the current Government, for the better achievement of their aims on investment and growth? I beg to move.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I have great sympathy with the contribution of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and agree with the conclusions that he has so carefully reached. I know that these Benches would support his amendments.

Amendment 32, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Thurlow, concerns an important issue. The Government promised in their manifesto to make the payment of business rates fairer and more balanced between retail distribution warehouses and high street shops. Indeed, the Chancellor said in the last Budget that she wanted to shift the burden. Yet all the signs are that nothing will happen until next year at the earliest. I hope that the Minister can give us an update on the timing for the outcome of the review that the Government apparently are undertaking. I say that because this is, as the noble Earl made clear, an urgent matter. Business rates are a major burden on retail high street shops. Sainsbury’s said a few months ago that half of its total tax bill is for business rates.

The system needs urgent reform. One step would be to accept the proposals in this group of amendments. In particular, Amendment 32 sets deadlines for when the Government must have acted. I hope that, if there is an opportunity, we on these Benches can support the amendments in this group.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, yes, I can explain that, because we are talking in particular about the retail, hospitality and leisure sector. The point is very clear. We cannot have a system where every year businesses do not know what their business rates bill is going to be. Over the years—I accept that there has been Covid—we have not had a long-term approach to this. This is part of a wider reform of the whole business rates system. I am sure that the noble Baroness will understand that having a multiyear approach to this will provide more certainty and stability for businesses, which will know what their bills will be. The higher £500,000 threshold properties, which amount to 1%, are supporting the retail, hospitality and leisure sector, in particular, across the country.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken to this group—and in particular my colleague on these Benches, my noble friend Lord Thurlow, for introducing his amendment.

I appreciate that the Minister has effectively gone as far as his brief permits, but I hope he realises that there is a serious job of work that needs to be done. A reforming Government who come in with a manifesto commitment need to do something better than shuffle the chairs on the deck of a ship that appears to have a very large hole in it, as far as I am concerned.

Before I conclude, I will make three or four comments. If the full 10% supplement is applied on top of—I paraphrase —a 55p in the pound multiplier, that is getting on for 20%. Maybe it is 18%—I have not done the maths—but it is a very substantial proportionate increase. On the Minister’s own admission, it serves to disadvantage what he regards as a “very few”, for the uncertain and, indeed, undetermined benefit of what we take to be numerous smaller fry.

We do not know how that is going to work out, as we have explored in previous stages of this his Bill. It does not target the high street; it does not target it with that benefit, at least not obviously so. For all the hospitals, police stations, theme parks, offices and manufacturing units, along with the distribution network of large warehouses serving conventional retail, it will just result in higher costs to consumers, including, indirectly, via local authorities owning leisure centres and installations of that sort.

So the problem does not go away just because the Government have found the least painful strategy for dealing with these things. I think we will be seeing the ill-effects of this for some time to come, not least in the attrition of confidence of which I spoke earlier. However, with that said, I do appreciate what the Minister has done and his willingness to engage and again thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 2.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 30 in the name of my noble friend Lady Barran and the noble Lord, Lord Storey. In doing so, I should explain that leaving Clause 5 out of the Bill is the only way to protect all pupils with SEND who attend independent schools, like those I attended, where the proportion of children with SEND is much lower than 50%. I understand the Government argue that protecting only schools where a majority of pupils have education, health and care plans, or EHCPs, is adequate—as if they can ignore the inconvenient truth that almost 100,000 pupils receive SEND support in independent schools without an EHCP.

I wonder whether the Government have joined the dots and thought of the impression that this gives. The sad fact is that, in the Government’s eyes, the damage to many of these children’s life chances seems to be a price worth paying. They are expendable, immaterial, inconsequential, collateral damage, caught in the crossfire of what appears to be an ideological obsession with punishing anyone they perceive as rich. Yet many of these children’s families, as we have already heard from across the House, are not rich and the Government know it, but they seem not to care. They seem not to care that this is a deeply damaging and wholly disproportionate measure which, as we have already heard, will not raise significant revenue but will harm schools and particularly pupils with SEND who, as I did, come from modest backgrounds. Their life chances will be badly affected by its implementation. They seem not to care, but schools could close because of it. They seem not to care about the incomprehensible incompatibility of putting, as we have already heard, even more pressure on an already overstretched state sector, which the Government know and the National Audit Office has shown, is already failing to meet demand. They seem not to care, incredibly, about the mental health of pupils with SEND, which will undoubtedly be hurt by the impact of this measure unless Clause 5 is left out of the Bill. I say again to the Minister that I refuse to believe that this is the Government’s intention, but it is definitely the impression given.

So I fear that we have lost sight of the people who matter most: the almost 100,000 children with SEND who receive SEND support in independent schools without an EHCP. This amendment gives us the opportunity to send a clear message as a House that we stand with them in solidarity and with their families. That is why I urge noble Lords on all sides of the House to support it and to remove Clause 5 from the Bill.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I had not originally intended to intervene on this amendment, but I cannot help but see a wider point of principle that is involved with Clause 5 of the Bill.

I should explain that rating law serves to exempt premises used by charities and occupied for their charitable purposes, with 80% mandatory relief and 20% discretionary relief given by the billing authority. There is also some discretion for billing authorities to give similar treatment to local not for profit or community enterprises. I hope I have got that right.

What disturbs me is that, clearly, the Government think that some charities are more deserving than others. This throws up a wider issue of an arguably discriminatory policy on which a wider debate across the country is warranted. What might be more or less meritorious when considering organisations concerned with human disease, animals, wildlife or conservation, building preservation and so on? But education is the very basis of what we leave and pass on to future generations in knowledge, citizenship and values. I fail to comprehend what this clause in the Bill is, and that is why I feel compelled to support these two amendments. If we do not secure its complete removal, we should certainly have the review advocated by the noble Lord, Lord Black.

I will illustrate some of the consequences of this. I recently visited my old school as part of the Learn with the Lords programme. I ascertained that this Bill, along with other measures introduced by the Government, will cost it an additional £1 million per year and that this is likely to be reflected principally in staff reductions. I happen to know that this school has a very firm commitment to its staff, as it does to its pupils.

So Clause 5 is more than unfortunate; it is retrograde and, I feel, discriminatory. The Government ought to think again about the purpose and formulation of this particular clause of the Bill.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister has heard three very strong arguments from across the House. The first is that the principle of not taxing education should be respected and upheld. Secondly, there is the principle that charities should not be subject to any kind of political overreach. Thirdly, the Government should not introduce a two-tier system, punishing charities that do not conform to their views. I think we have heard across the House that this sets a very unfortunate precedent.

Finally, there is the point that this policy will not deliver but rather will impact children, particularly vulnerable children, who attend some of the small schools that serve them and their communities all around the country. I would like to test the opinion of the House.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 2 Report

Earl of Lytton Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as always, makes a very important point. We are working on the response to Sir Martin’s report. We accept the inquiry’s findings and will address all the recommendations. I will take that suggestion away and we will have conversations to ensure that we deal with the recommendations and work through all of them. We will explore the opportunity for noble Lords, if not here then in another setting, to have an opportunity to listen to Sir Martin’s recommendations and how the Government are doing.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the report from Sir Martin Moore-Bick and the Government’s Statement, but there is a legacy issue from what was put in place by the previous Government in terms of support measures for a defined range of properties considered most at risk following the tragedy. In light of the measures put in place concerning remediation under PAS 9980, which is the relevant standard, can the Minister explain what steps are now proposed to prevent that proportionate approach—bearing in mind there is an issue between critical life safety on the one hand and the safety of the building on the other hand? Those are two different risks. What does he propose to prevent that proportionate standard? There is also the issue of the lack of the Building Safety Regulator powers in relation to avoiding full remediation responsibilities where building regulation standards at the time of construction had not been met. The problem is continuing to impede remediation and to trap innocent homeowners with high insurance costs. I wonder if he could comment on that. He may need to write to me.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I kindly accept the invitation to write to the noble Earl, due to the specific nature of the very important question he raised.