Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Earl of Lytton and Lord Ravensdale

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Motion B. I declare my interests as set out in the register. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, the noble Lords, Lord Lansley, Lord Teverson and Lord Hunt, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, all of whom supported the amendment at earlier stages.

I particularly thank the Minister for coming back with the government amendment. Although it does not give us everything that we asked for, it constitutes great progress in this area. It ensures that climate mitigation and adaptation will be considered in the national development management policies, and, looking at the wider context of plans in the Bill, will ensure that it is included and will then be a compulsory part of decision-making. Therefore, it goes some way towards giving us what we were after, and I am grateful to the Minister for coming back with that substantive amendment.

I have one small point. In the absence of a definition of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the amendment, perhaps the Minister might consider including the targets, with reference to the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act, in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill.

I welcome the comments made by the Minister in the other place that the Government intend to do a fuller review of the NPPF, to ensure that it contributes to climate change mitigation and adaptation as fully as possible, following Royal Assent. I hope the Government seize the opportunity here to strengthen chapter 14 of the NPPF to specify that, in determining planning applications, decision-makers must take account of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The government amendment embedding climate and the environment in planning decision-making will have a great effect on getting clean infrastructure and sustainable homes built right across the country. Importantly, it will also do much to empower local authorities and regions to play their part in the net-zero transition, which they all want to do. We still see a need for further legislative work in this area—particularly on a move towards a statutory duty, as we propose—but, again, I am grateful for the progress that has been made.

Lastly, I thank all noble Lords who voted for my amendment and helped to get it over the line in a very close vote on Monday.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I shall comment on each of the amendments. First, I commiserate with the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. I do so as a past president of the National Association of Local Councils, the parent of parish and town councils in this country, which would dearly have loved to have had the facility to vary the way in which it deals with meetings. I am sorry that the Government have not seen fit to acquiesce to any of this. The Minister suggested that the measure went too far and that it would open the floodgates to local government holding virtual meetings as a matter of course. Were that his fear, the Government’s fear or that of the other place, it seems to me that it would have been perfectly possible to come back with a proviso that the Secretary of State would make regulation.

One matter that has never been explained to my satisfaction is the juxtaposition—the fact that, by definition, accountability is somehow measured by physical presence. I do not get that, and I do not think there will be many Members of this House present today who will get it. This issue will come back through sheer force of practicality and necessity. We have to move into the modern age, in that sense. I will leave my comments on that there.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, on his success in getting what I can only describe as the obvious provision into this Bill, namely that we have to take climate change seriously and that it underpins everything that we do. To that extent, it was inevitable—if not in this Bill then in very short order—that something would have to be included somewhere in primary legislation, but I congratulate him on his persistence in getting this far. Even if it is not the whole bun, it is certainly more than a currant in the bun and he is to be congratulated.

In that context, there are other things in the Bill that have been left on the cutting- room floor. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, is not here at the moment. His amendment on healthy homes is about something that is inevitably going to come back. It is not going to disappear; this is going to have to be the benchmark whereby society expects homes to be created.

The series of amendments which I have been trying to get through unsuccessfully was to do with building safety remediation. The fact is that so many leasehold homes are unprotected yet are faced with remediation costs and liabilities, without which they will not get insurance at any sensible cost. These homes are not excluded from the necessity of remediation by virtue of their height, whether it be 11 metres and below or above 11 metres, because the Building Safety Act 2022 says that it will cover all these other buildings.

It is simply not correct that somehow these homes escape the inevitable consequences of that. That is going to come home to roost because there is an entire market sector—an entire financial sector—that is dependent upon that being resolved. If it is not resolved now in this Bill, as it clearly will not be, then it will come back in short order because this is a matter of an existential threat to leasehold tenure, or indeed whatever tenure there might be instead of leasehold. If you have a building in multiple occupation, where different parts are apartments, this problem is going to come home to roost so long as there are defects caused in the original construction and the constructor and developer are able to walk away from that liability.

In congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, on getting his motherhood and apple pie amendment passed, let me remind your Lordships that other bits that have been left behind are also going to come back and haunt us as things go forward.

Non-Domestic Rating Bill

Debate between Earl of Lytton and Lord Ravensdale

Committee stage
Monday 3rd July 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 1, 3 and 4. I apologise to noble Lords for not being present for the opening speeches of Second Reading and therefore being unable to make my points then. However, I was present for the rest of the debate and wrote to the Minister with the points I would have made, so I hope that I may be forgiven. I declare my interests as a project director for Atkins and as a director of Peers for the Planet. I certainly support the aims of the Bill and the measures contained within it, which will support businesses and high streets across our country and the economy.

My amendments in this group are very straightforward. They relate to the application of improvement relief. I listened with great interest at Second Reading to the remarks on this topic from noble Lords and the Minister, who said:

“The Government consider that a 12-month relief will allow time for the benefits of the property investments to flow through into businesses. We will keep this under review”.—[Official Report, 19/6/23; cols. 83-84.]


Although the 12-month relief is very welcome, there is a strong case for the Government to remove such constraints from a specific class of improvement—energy-efficiency improvements. I will explain why.

The Government have already made the great move of exempting renewable energy generation and storage from rateable value through regulations introduced in 2022. However, energy efficiency does not receive a matching exemption, despite the efficacy of energy- efficiency measures in increasing the energy security of the UK and reducing carbon emissions, not to mention in reducing costs for businesses and supporting economic growth. Energy efficiency has been raised many times recently in your Lordships’ House, so I will not bore the Minister and other noble Lords with an extended analysis of why we need to do more in this area.

As to the effect of the Bill as written, we know that all but the simplest energy-efficiency measures have longer payback periods, so it is likely that a 12-month exemption will continue to disincentivise improvements. To be adopted by business, energy-efficiency measures must make clear financial sense and have a low net cost. As a simple illustration, it is unlikely that a household would contemplate insulating their home if there was a risk that the savings would be outweighed by the introduction of a higher council tax band after only a year of relief.

My amendments seek simply to align energy-efficiency measures more closely with the existing reliefs for renewable energy generation and storage so that we have a coherent approach in this area. They represent a great opportunity for the Government to help increase investment in energy-efficiency improvements across business and to contribute to critical national goals in energy security and net zero, as well as lowering bills for businesses at a time when this is needed more than ever. Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency warned recently that we may see another surge in gas prices this winter. The amendments would extend improvement rate relief for energy efficiency to 1 April 2029; the Government could then decide whether to extend any reliefs beyond then. I beg to move Amendment 1.

[The Earl of Lytton (CB)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group, to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Etherton, who cannot be with us because he is arguing his case across the way in the Chamber, has added his name. I declare that I am a member of the Rating Surveyors’ Association, which, together with Luke Wilcox, barrister of Landmark Chambers, has been helping me formulate my views on these amendments.

The purpose of the two amendments in my name in this group, Amendments 2 and 6, is to extend the application of improvement relief, so, to some extent, they follow the lead of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. Without discussing it with him, I opted for extending the application to works carried out within a five-year period. The amendments follow up on the comments made at Second Reading.

The expected lifespan of the many types of improvement may extend to decades. If, as one supposes, the relief is intended to incentivise improvements—not just mandatory compliance works but those which add materially to utility, convenience and annual value—it needs to be an altogether bigger quantum; otherwise, as matters stand at the moment, we will be in a situation where, maybe 13 months after the work is carried out, the rateable value will increase by some 50% of the additional annual value of the works. This may not be so much for the purposes of adding value as of preserving value in the face of decline, so this dynamic needs to be whittled down.

We have issues with the definition of “relief” and whether it will count for anything at all in practice, and of “improvement”, of which other noble Lords may seek to define certain aspects more clearly—I agree with that. Unfortunately, the Government’s protestations about the sums they claim to have earmarked for this relief do not disguise the fact that the design of these things is often such that none of it is ever called on in practice. I will leave that bit of cynicism to one side, but if this relief is to mean anything beyond a fig leaf, it has to be large enough in quantum and long enough in duration to be commercially noticeable and relevant. Some types of improvement may take a considerable time to translate into a business benefit.

Although I understand, for instance, not including developers in the benefits of this measure, I maintain that the net effect of excluding any otherwise qualifying works carried out by landlords for the tenant, for which there may be a higher rent payable, is based mainly on groupthink rather than objective balance. That is the reason behind Amendments 2 and 6.