Deaths of Homeless People

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

The hon. Lady started by stating that every death of a homeless person is preventable, and I absolutely agree. There is so much more that we can do. She talked specifically about the importance of cross-departmental working, both with the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care, and I completely agree. We are continuing to work with colleagues in those Departments on the forthcoming independent review of drugs policy, led by the hugely respected Dame Carol Black. We will study her findings extremely carefully. The hon. Lady also talked about universal credit. It is important to put on the record that housing benefit will remain outside universal credit for all supported housing, including homeless shelters, until 2023. She raised a number of extremely important issues, and of course I am happy to work with her colleagues in the Scottish Government and to meet her to discuss how we can take these issues forward.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Fundamentally, we will deal with this only by providing many more truly affordable homes of secure tenure. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should consider changing the rules that currently require us to get the best price for public land, and that really we should make that land available to provide many more ultra low-cost homes?

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He is an expert in the field and I take what he says extremely seriously, along with all the recommendations of the Communities and Local Government Committee, of which he is a member. I look forward to meeting him to discuss his proposal in more detail.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

Any loss of life is to be pitied, and we all apologise for that. It should not happen on our streets, particularly when rough sleepers are being looked after but drug dependency is involved. If an issue happens, it is tragic. We have put in £1.2 billion up to 2020 to solve these issues, and we are not shying away from them. We now give specific support to more than 240 councils, and that is a huge jump.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

First, may I declare my interest? There are real fears that the proposed abolition of section 21 in the private rented sector will lead to rent controls and a significant reduction in investment and supply, which may well exacerbate homelessness. Will my hon. Friend consider these fears before pressing ahead with the proposals?

[Mrs Wheeler]

I hope my hon. Friend will excuse my back; as we all know, we talk to each other through the Speaker.

This is a very difficult issue, and one that we want to get right. People from all sides are asking questions about it, which is why the consultation is so important, and I encourage my hon. Friend and other people to take part in it. A very interesting report from 2010 suggested that rent control would make matters an awful lot worse, but the consultation is important.

Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. As I say, I am looking forwards.

On adult social care, the Liberal Democrats are proposing—I would be curious to know whether Labour is planning the same—a penny in the pound on income tax to add to the social care budget, in order to sort out the short-term funding issues. That has to be just a short-term solution. The longer-term solution is not this tit-for-tat political to-ing and fro-ing; it has to be a cross-party effort to find a long-term settlement that will last for decades, not years.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady on this. The Select Committees on Health and Social Care and on Housing, Communities and Local Government issued a joint report on the future funding of social care. One of its recommendations was a social care premium—an insurance based model like the German model. Would her party engage with that, on a cross-party basis, involving Conservative Members and Members on those Benches?

[Layla Moran]

I absolutely agree with that. Those calls were led by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has been working on this issue on a cross-party basis. We have to do this together or we are not going to do it at all.

I now come to children’s services, an issue that, as a former teacher, is very close to my heart. Councils are overspending on these services, too—they did so by £872 million in 2017-18. The Public Accounts Committee has reported that 91% of authorities overspent. We are talking about young vulnerable children here. Something odd is happening, because although the number of children in the population has gone up, increasing by 7% since 2010, the number of child protection assessments has increased by 77%, on average, across the country. Worryingly, however, the figures are really different depending on the area of the country, suggesting that best practice is not being spread. For example, Camden Council has decreased the number of children that it has in looked-after care but other parts of the country have increased this by more than 90%. What are the Government doing to ensure that what some councils are clearly doing right is being spread? Meanwhile 42% of all local councils are rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted—but that means 58% are not. That is atrocious. We need to make sure that councils are held to account. My understanding is that Ofsted is so overstretched that it has for the moment suspended the rating of local councils. Will the Minister clarify whether that is true?

The final thing I wish to talk about is prevention. I serve on the Public Accounts Committee, and my colleagues and I are interested in value for money for the taxpayer. I am deeply concerned that the changes to children’s centres and youth services are not delivering value for money. In fact, worse than that, they are failing the young people of our country. The decrease in the number of Sure Start centres in Oxfordshire has meant that we cannot reach the same number of families as we did previously.

Meanwhile, the head of Ofsted said in her annual report:

“The evidence suggests that these cuts to youth and other services are a false economy, simply leading to greater pressures elsewhere.”

The Minister will know that in 2015 the Government axed the Audit Commission. Who is looking after the money? When something is cut in one Department, what effect is it going to have elsewhere? I am told that the responsibility is now in the purview of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but it is not transparent. In the reports that the Public Accounts Committee has seen, it was not obvious that everyone knows what is going on. That is a key ask of the Minister: who is looking after the money? From what we have seen, not enough people are.

The lack of someone looking after the money has an effect on things such as the schools system. Schools have now become a repository for every other issue that has happened in local government, and we see the same with our police. I am sure many Members know of similar issues to those that I see in respect of special educational needs and disability funding: there just is not enough money adequately to support the children who need education, health and care plans. Why, when schools are already under funding pressure, are they being asked to provide the first £6,000 towards any plan? Surely it would make more sense that if a child has a need, that need is fulfilled.

Similarly, when are we going to see the Government address inequalities in the system, such as those relating to young carers? They are required in statutory legislation to undergo an assessment of what they need, but there is no legislation that follows through on that and says that they have to be provided with the things they have been assessed as needing. Who is dealing with those kinds of inequalities?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), and it has been a pleasure to serve on the Select Committee under his guidance for the last four years. I agree with many of the points he made, particularly the last stuff on cladding. We know that is a much bigger issue than is currently accepted, and we need to deal with it. It is interesting that he talks about local authorities not having rents capped when it is Labour party policy to cap rents in the private sector. I am not sure that is a very balanced approach.

I agree with many of the points the hon. Gentleman made about the spending challenges for local authorities. Clearly, there are huge spending challenges for local authorities and also for the national Government. It is my belief that we will have to address this stuff in a very different way. This is not a party political point, but Governments of all persuasions have balanced the books in this country only seven times—they have done so in only seven years—over the past 53 years. We cannot simply keep spending more than we are getting in, otherwise we end up with the £2 trillion debt, which is where we are.

I regret some of the spending pledges in our leadership contest at the moment, because we have got to run this country much more prudently. We have to be able to balance the books on an ongoing basis, and certainly to do so within a cycle. We have some massive challenges ahead that we will all have to accept: the cost of healthcare that we are going to provide; the cost of pensions that we are going to have to provide; and the costs of social care. As things are at the moment, all this is going to land on the taxpayer. It does not seem feasible that that situation can continue, particularly in the area of social care. We know there is a funding gap for local authorities of about £3 billion, which will rise to about £8 billion within five years, according to the LGA.

The Minister is doing a brilliant job in trying to get extra funds, and also in making sure that the funds are spread fairly across the country. The current funding formula is certainly not fair. My local authority has about 50% less spending power compared with some London authorities, for example. We need a fair settlement—one that is fair to everybody—but this has to be a rising tide that lifts all boats. If we do not put extra money into the system, we cannot provide a fairer funding system, as my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) said about school funding, and we cannot have some people losing out when everybody’s budgets are tight. We are going to have to find some more money for local authorities from somewhere if we are properly to address the fairer funding issue.

The biggest issues for my local authority, North Yorkshire County Council, are those involving children’s services and social care, which is what I primarily want to talk about. The difficulty with social care is that it has virtually zero correlation with the method of funding local authorities today or in the future. Moving to a system of business retention—the Minister knows I have reservations about such a system—means a finite amount of money for local authorities at a time when there is huge and rising demand for social care. There is no correlation between those two things. Local authority funding will be unsustainable. Either we find a new way of doing this, or local authorities will provide many fewer services in future.

The Select Committee considered social care twice. The first time, we went to Germany to look at the system there and then we conducted a joint inquiry with the Health and Social Care Committee. We settled on several recommendations, one of which constitutes the right solution, which is sustainable, scaleable and simple. It is the German system that was adopted in 1995. Before then, the German system was funded by local authorities. I am sure that they recognised that that was not sustainable, so they moved to a system of social insurance.

Everybody pays a small amount—just over 1% of people’s salaries, and the employer pays 1% of earnings—into a private insurance system. The insurance companies are not for profit—nobody makes any money out of the system. The levies are settled nationally, and the system also covers people with learning difficulties and disabilities. The system is simple and sustainable. Everybody pays a small amount so that nobody has to pay everything. That is the fairest part.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am glad that my hon. Friend is talking about social insurance. I and many others have been arguing that the continental system of social insurance, particularly for funding health services, is probably the way forward. As our population ages, getting public support to pay for those services through general taxation becomes increasingly unsustainable. Personalising social insurance creates more support.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. However, I believe that healthcare is different. Social care should be funded differently because everybody has a personal responsibility to provide for themselves in the future. Of course, people do not put money aside for many reasons. The system must be mandatory—that is the key—so that everybody puts some money aside even when times are tough. There is a threshold for people on low incomes, but the system means that people properly prepare for the future.

One of the biggest benefits comes when people are assessed as needing care. They can take the services of a charitable provider or the local authority, or decide to take the money. People who decide to take the money on a monthly basis can pay it to a relative or loved one to look after them. Another big benefit is therefore social cohesion. The system is about family looking after family, just as we used to do. We do not do that as much now. The system is good for society and for community. We saw that huge benefit when we went to Germany.

We have cross-party support for the idea. Both Select Committees—20-odd of us—reached that conclusion. It was one of the recommendations of our report, so we should work cross-party on it. There have been commissions on social care in the past, but when they report, the question is whether the recommendations are possible politically. If we put together our own parliamentary commission and reach cross-party consensus, I believe that we could deliver the recommendation.

The system has to be mandatory because there will not be an insurance market for it otherwise. That was the problem with the Dilnot recommendation. The scheme was not mandatory and therefore no insurance market developed on the back of it, so there was nothing available for social insurance. It is a great opportunity, which will cut the link between a potential huge future cost for local authorities, and our ageing population and the increased number of people with learning disabilities. Obviously, local authorities will have a huge part to play in directing services, but they will also be able to provide the other services that are critical for local people.

I am keen to work cross-party on the matter. I know that the Local Government Minister has regarded the proposal positively in the past and I am keen for the Department to give it a positive recommendation in the forthcoming Green Paper.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

I will absolutely take your steer on this, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The key point that I was coming to, without getting too generic about it, is that we do not yet know the outcome of the consultation that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government ran last year on loosening the planning rules around permitted development and the national significant infrastructure project. I would be very keen to see that outcome. We can discuss my wider concerns about fracking at another time, but I really hope that we can determine that this will not go ahead, because in communities such as mine, it is not wanted.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I do not want to upset Mr Deputy Speaker, but this is a very relevant issue, because fracking is part of local planning policy. Can I invite both my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Can I help by saying that I still make the decisions? I do not want this to descend into a debate purely about fracking. It can be referred to in passing, of course, and I recognise the planning implications, but I do not want to get into a full-blown debate on fracking. I will still make the decisions.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I certainly do not want to debate the matter with you, Mr Deputy Speaker, because you are obviously in the right, but I would just like to invite my hon. Friends to my constituency. I do not believe that fracking will industrialise the countryside. Some 90% of my constituency is covered by petroleum exploration and development licences, and fracking is perfectly compatible with current gas exploration in my constituency. Please come and see it.

[Lee Rowley]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I will move on from this subject quickly, having made my points. I hope that those on the Treasury Bench will consider my points about fracking, decommissioning costs and the NPPF.

There is an awful lot of discussion about the distribution of money, and I recognise that Derbyshire County Council, which is ably led by Barry Lewis, and North East Derbyshire District Council, which is now Conservative-led for the first time in 40 years, are now having to grapple with many of the issues talked about in this debate. I accept that there is a real debate about distribution, but there is also a debate about the overall funding envelope for local government.

As a member of the Public Accounts Committee—there are many esteemed colleagues in the Chamber who are or have been members of the Committee—I know that it is charged with looking at value for money in the public sector, and we regularly see millions or billions of pounds not being spent effectively or efficiently or not securing the correct outcomes. If we lose that from the debates around topics such as this, we lose a key part of what we should be doing as Members of Parliament. We should be discussing not only how much we spend, but what we spend, where we spend it and what the outcomes are. That focus on outcomes has been lost in political discourse since at least 2017, if not before, and I hope it returns not just to this debate, but to wider British politics as a whole.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

We have had a thorough and full debate, and I think quite a thoughtful debate from those on both sides of the House. I add my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for choosing the topic of Housing, Communities and Local Government for this estimates day debate.

I thank the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for the way in which she opened the debate. She set out a very real concern that is felt across all parties in this House about the impact of a decade of constraints on local government and the effect that that is now having on our public services. However, it would be remiss of me not to say that she and the Liberal Democrats displayed a little bit of collective amnesia, because they were in government between 2010 and 2015. It does seem that “Sorry” is the hardest word. In her defence, she said that she campaigned against these cuts as a candidate, but her Ministers slashed and burned many of the services she referred to. The crisis in local government today, the crisis in adult social care today and the crisis in children’s services today have their roots in the coalition years, and the Minister for local government was a Liberal Democrat—he is now Lord Stunell of Hazel Grove—although he occasionally got locked in the Opposition Lobby in votes, which is perhaps why he was very quickly moved.

I want to pay tribute to the other contributions: from my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who is the Chair of the Select Committee and brings so much knowledge to these debates; from my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) and my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western); and from the Conservatives, the hon. Members for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and the hon. Members for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), for Redditch (Rachel Maclean) and for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes).

I want to echo the right hon. Member for Witham, who mentioned that she is married to a councillor. It would be really remiss of me not to mention that I, too, am married to a councillor—Councillor Allison Gwynne—on Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council. I am incredibly proud that both my councils have, since May, had a female leader. The councils are very ably led by two incredible Labour women. Councillor Brenda Warrington, the leader of Tameside, has been joined by Councillor Elise Wilson, the new leader of Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council. They are both doing great work. I also want to thank all our dedicated council staff and councillors of all political persuasions and none for the incredible work that they do in making sure our communities are looked after. While they have continued to work hard and to lobby for the resources they need to do their job, they know—and we know actually—just how hard that job has become over the last few years. The debate has put out the message in various ways, but it is the same on both sides of the House: increasing concern about the growing crisis in local government funding and the huge cost pressures, particularly in children and adult services.

The consequence of the cost pressures in those people-based services is that the place-based services—the neighbourhood services—are squeezed. The conundrum for local councillors is that most people think that their council is there to deliver the place-based services. They are the things that they see: bins being emptied, streets being swept, parks being maintained, libraries being open and youth centres existing. Those services are squeezed to pay for the pressures in children and adult services.

I will rattle off a few figures: 763 youth centres and more than 700 libraries have closed, and Sure Start has been cut in half, since 2010. Yet local government is the beating heart of our communities. Our councils keep our streets cleaner and safer, protect the most vulnerable in society and maintain our green spaces. When we inevitably grow older, we hope that our councils will be there to provide the services to give us dignity in old age.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central said, we should work towards Total Place. The previous Labour Government were keen on developing the notion that all public bodies, across the public sector, should work towards the same strategy and outcomes, and ensure that there are proper joined-up, people-based services. Our councils are the lynchpin of providing cohesive, joined-up public services, whether housing, police and crime prevention, leisure services, youth services or public health, which widens into the national health service.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I understand that the hon. Gentleman’s preference was not for making cuts to local authorities over the past few years, and he makes a good case for that. However, faced with the challenge in 2010 of balancing the books against a backdrop of £153 billion annual deficit, where would he have made the cuts?

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Gentleman should realise that we are almost a decade into austerity and local government has taken the biggest hit of any Department. There is a reason for that. It is easy to pass the blame from Whitehall to town and county halls throughout the country. The Conservative Government have hung the hon. Gentleman’s councillors as much as Labour councillors out to dry.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

rose—

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will not give way just now.

In the past decade, local government in England has lost 60p out of every pound that the previous Labour Government invested in our communities, in local services, in the glue that binds our communities together. The estimates debated today will sadly offer no relief to local government. The only major change from last year in the funds for local government is for business rates relief. Although it is welcome that the Government are compensating local government for that policy, it is necessary only because the Government have refused to undertake a fundamental review of business rates for which many have called. I am proud to say that the next Labour Government will conduct such a review.

Although the Minister can speak today about increases in local authorities’ spending power in this year’s settlement, it is all smoke and mirrors. Any increases are possible only if all councils increase their council tax by the maximum possible, which would mean eye-watering, inflation-busting tax increases for ordinary households. Council tax now equates to 7% of the income of a low-income family, compared to just 1% for a high-income family. That is not only unfair, but economically incoherent. The poorest areas, those that need the most resources to cope with the growing demands on children’s services and adult services, will never be able to raise the money they need. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham made the point that far less is possible in those areas than in the more well-off areas of the country.

I do not make that point to argue that we should be robbing some areas to fund others, but the fact is that all councils are now struggling and I would guess that that is not lost on the Minister. I hope that he will now be interested in solutions to the problem, because there is a growing chorus of concern from those on the Government Benches behind him. We are seeing a reverse redistribution of funding: a shift away from spending on local services that is based on need and deprivation.

Let me just remind the Minister that, while the Tories have in some cases actually seen spending increases, nine out of the 10 areas that have seen the largest cuts are Labour controlled: Hackney, £1,406 less per household in spending power between 2010-11 and 2019-20; Newham, £1,301; Tower Hamlets, £1,264; Knowsley, £1,057; and Southwark £1,014. Those are eye-watering numbers. Then we look at the other end of the scale: Maidstone, a £678 drop; Tewkesbury, £5.31; Vale of White Horse, £4.12; Tonbridge and Malling, a £4.18 increase; Stratford-on-Avon, a £7.45 per household increase; Uttlesford, a £7.66 increase; Horsham, a £15.68 increase; Wokingham, a £39.31 increase; and the Isles of Scilly, a £336.78 increase. That just is not fair. Not one council that has seen an increase in spending power from 2010-11 to 2019-20 is a Labour council.

What was in this year’s funding settlement? Unfortunately, I am not able to speak today about what the funding situation will look like next year because nobody knows—no one on the Opposition Benches, no one in local government, not even the Minister. Councils would normally have started their budget setting planning process, but they remain completely in the dark about how much funding they will have next year. The Government’s intention was to implement a fair funding review and to increase the percentage of business rates retained locally from April 2020, but the Tory leadership contest has thrown that plan up in the air. As the Chief Secretary to the Treasury told the Lords Economic Affairs Committee earlier this month:

“The plan was to launch the spending review just before the summer recess…I would suggest that’s unlikely given the current timetable of the Conservative leadership election.”

If that is not the case, I recommend that the Minister use this opportunity to set the record straight. I know that everyone in local government would welcome clarity. We need that certainty. Is there going to be a spending review? Is it going to be for four years? Is it going to be for one year? The Minister needs to give clarity.

What we do know from a survey published today by the Local Government Association is that one in three councils is worried that it will be unable to provide the statutory services by the end of this Parliament. That would include services such as: preventing homelessness; ensuring that vulnerable children are safe; ensuring quality of life for all adults; and dignity in old age. We know from the same survey that year-on-year cuts and an unprecedented rise in demand for these services have resulted in one in five councils being concerned that it will not be able to balance the books this year.

In closing, I would like to repeat the words of the Conservative Lord Porter, who said earlier this month:

“If the Government think the policy going forward is to spend all your reserves, and then we will find some new money…after you have spent all your reserves,”

the Secretary of State is going to have to

“explain to the public why those people died because the money was not available… It is always about understanding the cost of everything and the value of nothing.”

Never has a truer word been said. That is the reality, and I genuinely hope that the Minister, whom I respect greatly, will get a grip on his two leadership want-to-bes and insist that they start to fix the decade of neglect and cuts that our communities and local government have endured.

Buildings with ACM Cladding

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

The right hon. Gentleman will have heard me say previously where I think moral responsibility lies. It should not be leaseholders who pick up the cost, which is why I am making the statement today in relation to the capital costs and making progress so that waking watches and other interim measures are minimised and foreshortened. On the question of freeholders, in essence the scheme is available to all private sector buildings that fall within its remit, potentially including those where commitments have already been made, but, as I have said, a number of those developers and building owners have said that, notwithstanding that, they maintain their commitment and we are trying to keep this simple and make sure we meet all legal requirements so that there is swift progress.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and his work and that of the Minister for Housing in securing this fund. This was a tough decision, but it is the right decision, and it seems to have gone even further than the Select Committee recommendation of a low-interest loan. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that this is a grant rather than a loan and in no circumstances is it repayable by the long leaseholders?

[James Brokenshire]

I can give my hon. Friend that confirmation, and I pay tribute to him for his steadfast work on the Select Committee and outside in championing these issues. I also join him in paying tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing who has also been steadfast in advancing the issues of concern. We looked at questions such as whether a loan arrangement could work but ultimately, given the complexity, the time that would have been involved and the need for all sorts of different consents, and given that my priority is providing a sense of assurance for leaseholders and getting on with this, we decided to adopt this structure.

Private Tower Blocks: Removal of Cladding

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Monday 29th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

I commend the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for securing this important debate. She has written to me on several occasions about this issue, and I congratulate her on her assiduous service to her constituents, as I do other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate.

I want to start by reassuring the House that I am well aware of the anxiety, fear and insecurity, as the hon. Lady put it, felt by many people living in blocks affected by this issue. Having met the UK Cladding Action Group, individuals and organisations from the Grenfell community and others, it is very clear to me that this event and its consequences have caused enormous distress—and there are also the practical issues that she rightly raised in relation to particular properties. I reassure her that much of my time, effort and commitment is spent trying to rectify this awful situation. Further to what the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) alleged about a possibly partial response, I gently point out that Grenfell Tower was in my London Assembly constituency. I served that community and the wider community for eight years. The idea that there would be any lack of commitment from my point of view is, frankly, for the birds.

Before addressing funding, I want to update the House on the wider remediation work under way. In the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, we established the building safety programme. A key objective of the programme has been to identify and remediate buildings with unsafe ACM cladding. We have collected data on over 6,000 private sector high-rise buildings, and we have identified 267 with unsafe cladding systems. There are plans and commitments in place to remediate 82% of those buildings. That includes buildings on which remediation has started or been completed. That progress is the result of action we have taken to put pressure on building owners and developers to reach a resolution.

In the private sector, we have been very clear that freeholders should do all they can to protect leaseholders from additional costs, by either funding remediation themselves or looking at alternative routes, such as insurance claims, warranties or legal action. The Secretary of State has written to all relevant building owners, setting out our strong expectation that leaseholders will be protected. He has asked them to find an acceptable solution urgently.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The Minister is doing much good work on this issue. He is always very responsive; he exchanged text messages with me on this issue early on Saturday morning. He says he takes nothing off the table, in terms of getting freeholders or developers to pay for this work. He also says that long leaseholders should not be responsible either. Where we cannot find a freeholder or a developer to hold accountable for this work, long leaseholders will be left in limbo; their apartments will be unsellable, and they will live under unacceptable stress. Is it not right for the Government to step in with a central fund to carry out the remediation work, and worry about whether they can find the freeholder or developer afterwards?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. If he will bear with me, I will come on to some of those issues in my speech. If I have not addressed them by the end, he can by all means intervene on me again.

Owing to our continued pressure, following the Secretary of State writing to all building owners, there is a growing list of owners and developers who are agreeing to fund remediation. Leaseholders are currently protected from remediation costs in 83 out of 176 residential buildings. The growing list of owners and developers who have stepped in includes Barratt Developments, Mace Group, Legal & General, Peabody, Aberdeen Asset Management and Frasers Property. I am pleased to say that following regular engagement from the Secretary of State, me and senior officials, the building owners at Green Quarter in Manchester have now written to leaseholders to confirm that a fund has been established. This will ensure that leaseholders will not have to pay for the cost of remediating the ACM. We are very pleased at this outcome. I know residents feel strong relief that the uncertainty and anxiety over costs has come to an end.

We remain concerned, however, that some leaseholders are not yet protected from costs. They have found themselves in this difficult and stressful situation through no fault of their own, having bought their properties in good faith. I would like to assure Members that the Secretary of State and I, as well as senior officials, continue to press owners and developers of all high-rise buildings with unsafe ACM cladding to protect leaseholders from paying for this essential remedial work. Further to that, we have been engaged across Government to consider additional interventions, so that progress can be made more swiftly.

We also want to make sure that leaseholders can access independent initial advice. We have provided funding to the Leasehold Advisory Service, which provides a free, initial service to affected leaseholders. Its dedicated advice line and outreach helps leaseholders to understand their rights and the terms of their leases. The Leasehold Advisory Service has supported a number of affected leaseholders to understand the terms of their leases and the legal process for challenging a building owner if they attempt to pass costs on.

On the subject of pace, we are working with all relevant parties, including local authorities and building owners, to ensure remediation happens without unnecessary delay. Remediation does take time and it is important to get it right. The time to complete work varies considerably depending on factors such as structure, extent of cladding and existing fire safety systems. For many buildings, this is a complex job involving major construction work. I am aware that the removal of cladding in a number of buildings has revealed other defects and issues that have complicated matters and needed rectification.

Housing

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

I am glad that so many Members are keen to speak in the debate, which has been delayed for too long and is unfortunately too short. It has been almost a year since we had a housing debate in Government time. The Secretary of State told us in December:

“Housing remains the Government’s top priority”.—[Official Report, 10 December 2018; Vol. 651, c. 18.]

It is a pity that he has not made it the top priority in his diary today.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Healey]

No.

It is good to see the Housing Minister speaking for the Government today. He not only told the House that housing was the Government’s chief domestic priority, but told an industry conference in February that

“once we get beyond Brexit, housing will be the Government’s priority.”

Given the mess that the Government have made of Brexit for more than two years, and given that the Prime Minister is in Europe today begging for an extension just so that we can move on to the next stage of the negotiations, that bodes badly for the Government’s future focus on housing. I have to say to the Minister that Brexit is a very feeble alibi for a totally non-Brexit Department with six Ministers and 2,000 civil servants.

I enjoyed the Minister’s speech, but the story that he tries to tell is so at odds with the experience of millions of people up and down the country that he and his colleagues risk sounding complacent. They risk sounding as if they just do not get it. They do not get the public’s anger and frustrated hopes of a housing market that they feel is rigged against them. They do not get the despair at being one in a million on council housing waiting lists when the number of new homes for social rent built last year was just 6,453. They do not get the lives blighted by bad housing—children growing up in temporary accommodation hostels, renters too scared to ask landlords to do repairs, young couples stripped of the hope of home ownership and prevented from starting a family or putting down roots—and they do not get the fact that a systematically broken housing market demands wholesale change and cannot be fixed without big action from Government.

[John Healey]

Unfortunately, although there are good landlords and many tenants are satisfied with the homes that they rent, my hon. Friend has described the experience that too many of the country’s now 11 million renters face from day to day. After nine years in office, the Government just cannot carry on talking about what they are going to do. What they are doing at the moment simply is not working.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned nine years, and what we are going to do. Does he not accept that the number of housing starts is roughly 100% higher than it was at the lowest point under a Labour Government in 2009? If he is not sure about that, he need only speak to any brickie, chippy or sparky. They will tell him that they are a lot busier than they were back then.

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman has a very short memory. In 2009 we were in the direct aftermath of a global financial crisis and recession. It was the action that the Government took then that kept house building going and helped to pull the country out of the crisis. More than a decade on, under this Government, the level of house building has still not reached the pre-crisis peak. We have seen a pitiful performance over the past nine years. The public have lost patience with a Government who, nine years on, try to blame their Labour predecessors.

The Government’s record is now very clear. The rate of home ownership is lower, with almost 900,000 fewer under-45s owning a home now than in 2010. The level of homelessness is higher: the number of people sleeping rough on our streets has more than doubled since 2010. Private rents are higher, with the average tenant paying £1,900 more than in 2010. The rate of social house building is lower, and in the last two years it has been the lowest since the second world war. Let me say this to the Minister. If the Government had only continued to build homes for social rent at the same rate as Labour did in 2009, there would be 180,000 more of those homes—more than enough to house every family in temporary accommodation, every person sleeping rough on our streets, and every resident in every hostel for the homeless.

The Minister said, in response to an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), “We are very close to completing the rehousing of everybody who was involved in the Grenfell Tower fire”. I have to say that, nearly two years on from that shocking national tragedy, the Government’s action is still on go-slow. He would not give the House the figures, but one in 10 of the residents from the tower and one in three of the residents from the wider estate who were involved in the fire still do not have a permanent new home. Eight in 10 residents of other high-rise blocks across the country that are covered in Grenfell-style cladding have still not had it removed and replaced. Those are residents in 354 high-rise blocks across the country, nearly two years on from the fire.

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[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker; it is a wee bit sooner than I had expected to be called, but I am glad to speak for the SNP in this debate. Our record on housing in Scotland is excellent and far outstrips the record of the Conservatives in England. I am sure there is much the UK Government could learn from what Scotland has done.

Part of the problem with the Conservatives’ approach is its ideological underpinning. They insist on the dream of everyone owning their own home, totally undermining the fact that many people can live long, happy and productive lives in social rented housing. For many of my constituents, a social rented house is an aspiration, and they are perfectly happy to live in one. Indeed, my gran lived in social rented housing her entire life and never owned her home.

The Tories’ record on housing is one of their failed promises. The UK Government talk big but deliver very little, with flagship manifesto pledges disappearing almost as soon as they are made. House building in England has fallen to its lowest level since the 1920s, while evictions are at a record level, the lead cause of people becoming homeless is the end of a tenancy, and a mere one in five council homes is replaced when it is sold.

Contrast that with Scotland, where we have ended the right to buy for social rented housing, securing social rented housing stock for the future. No longer do houses disappear from the social rented sector and reappear almost instantly in the private rented sector at inflated rents that people cannot afford to pay. We have secured that investment, which has meant a huge amount to many of my constituents and to people right across Scotland.

In England in particular, hundreds of thousands of people are stuck on social housing waiting lists because new stock just is not being built and houses that are sold off are not replaced. All the while, homelessness is up by 50% and rough sleeping has risen for seven consecutive years. I note that the Minister said rough sleeping has fallen recently, but that is on the back of huge spikes.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Lady talks about the great things happening with housing in Scotland, but what does she make of the fact that the target of delivering 35,000 homes between 2007 and 2016 was missed by 50%? Only 16,000 of the planned 35,000 were delivered.

[Alison Thewliss]

The Scottish Government’s house building record has been excellent. We have a target to build 50,000 new homes during this term of the Scottish Parliament, and houses are being built right across the country. The hon. Gentleman will remember from our time together on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee how well the Scottish housing sector was spoken about by those who came to give evidence to us. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) should pay no attention to his colleague the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), who, as he often does, has his own axe to grind on all this.

It is widely recognised that the Scottish Government are leading on housing policy. Our legislation on secure tenancies and in other areas has given renters in the private rented sector huge security. Ensuring that everyone has a safe, warm and affordable home is central to the Scottish Government’s vision of a fairer and more prosperous Scotland. People cannot get on in life if they do not have a secure tenancy, a warm home and a roof over their head.

The SNP remains on track to deliver on our target of building 50,000 affordable homes during the lifetime of this Scottish Parliament, which is backed by more than £3 billion of investment in the sector. There were 18,750 new build homes completed across all sectors in the year ending September 2018, an increase of 4%, or 635 homes, on the previous year. The latest statistics show that the Scottish Government have delivered nearly 82,100 affordable homes since 2007, which is significant. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire chunters from a sedentary position, but things are not going nearly as well in England. We are building proportionately more homes, more quickly, and he would do well to listen to us about this.

That is all in the face of the challenges of austerity. Housing associations tell me they are deeply concerned about the Government’s social security policies. For example, the roll-out of universal credit has negatively affected both tenants and landlords due to the major increase in rent arrears. I hear that from housing associations in my constituency and across Scotland, and my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry) could tell the House how housing debt has soared astronomically and how the Government have not learned the lessons.

A report this month from the Scottish Government shows that in East Lothian, for example, 72% of social housing tenants claiming universal credit are in arrears, compared with 30% of tenants overall—that is happening across England, too—and with a trebling of evictions for non-payment of rent over the year since universal credit was rolled out.

Some 88% of local authorities expect an increase in homelessness as a result of welfare reform over the next two years, and 75% expect that the roll-out of universal credit will increase homelessness. We are doing what we can in Scotland, and we have introduced a full mitigation of the bedroom tax, which people in England still have to pay. Without that, 70,000 individuals would lose, on average, around £650 a year. We also provide additional funding for direct mitigation of welfare reforms, direct support for those on low incomes and advice and other services.

Further, concerns remain on the UK Government’s right-to-rent scheme. There is a lack of clarity on what will happen with the scheme, and the Scottish Housing Minister, Kevin Stewart, has been in touch in light of the recent High Court ruling. What is actually going to happen with the right to rent? We need to know for the security and safety of our tenants in Scotland.

We are still waiting on the courts to see whether Serco’s lock change policy in Glasgow of August 2018 is unlawful. The policy has led to huge distress among those in the city of Glasgow with insecure immigration status, and we need to know the answer so that those affected have some certainty.

In Scotland, we are also taking a range of actions to bring empty homes back into use. There are many empty homes that could provide people with good housing and a secure future. Since 2010, the Scottish empty homes partnership has been instrumental in bringing more than 2,800 empty homes back into use, each and every one of them hugely valued both by communities that do not want empty homes and by those now living in them—the homes are no longer going to waste. Empty homes partnership funding is to double from £212,500 in 2018 to over £400,000 in 2021 to bring those empty homes back into productive use and to make homes for people who need them very much.

We have also created an ending homelessness together fund of £50 million over the five years from 2018-19 to support the prevention of homelessness and to drive sustainable change. Scotland has some of the world’s strongest rights for homeless people, but we are not resting on our laurels.

We are doing much more to tackle rough sleeping. We have a national objective to eradicate rough sleeping, and we have established a homelessness and rough sleeping action group chaired by Jon Sparkes, the chief executive of Crisis. The group has developed 70 recommendations on the actions required to end rough sleeping and transform the use of temporary accommodation. The Scottish Government accepted those recommendations and are now taking them forward. Jon Sparkes has said he is

“very pleased the Scottish Government has given in principle support to all of the recommendations on ending rough sleeping from the Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Action Group. The members of the action group have gone above and beyond to dedicate themselves to bringing forward the right recommendations that will have the biggest impact on the way people sleeping rough can access and receive services.”

In that light, we have been piloting Housing First. This is hugely important, and it will have a huge impact on reducing homelessness.

The Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mrs Wheeler), has been to Scotland to hear about what is happening, and she has noted that she is pleased with what Scotland is doing—she said so at Question Time, so I assume she still is.

A recent documentary visited various cities, and the connectedness of services in Scotland—different services speaking to one another and taking action—was well commended, but we do not rest on our laurels. When there are still people sleeping on the streets of Glasgow, we must do more to ensure rough sleeping is ended, and ended soon. The Scottish Government’s strong direction of travel is key. We need to prioritise that, but it takes a lot more than warm words and things said in statements and manifesto pledges to make that happen.

Before coming here, I was reflecting on the number of housing developments in my constituency in the past few years. Off the top of my head, new houses have been built for social rent in the Gorbals, Pollokshields, Govanhill, the Toryglen transformational regeneration area, Oatlands, Calton, Bridgeton, Dalmarnock, the city centre, Anderston, Kinning Park and the Laurieston transformational regeneration area. None of them happened by accident. They happened because of the work of community-based housing associations, which strive to develop, build more and house their local communities. That comes on the back of the Scottish Government supporting them in everything they do and ending the right to buy to ensure that their investment is sound and can continue. The UK Government would do well to learn from what has happened on housing in Scotland, because our record is a good one.

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[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak after my Select Committee Chair; we agree on much, although I am not sure about selective licensing, which is too often a licence to print money for some local authorities. It is also a pleasure to speak with the Housing Minister on the Treasury Bench. I feel, from my short time in Parliament, that he has got at least as good a handle on these issues as anyone I have seen.

We need to build more truly affordable housing, both to rent and to buy. We cannot simply do what Labour would do—put more pressure on an overburdened taxpayer. We must do it in different ways. The best way to do it is to cut out the middlemen or middlewomen; I speak as a middleman who has been involved in the property market for 30 years. There are a couple of simple ways we could do that that are simply too good to miss. The Housing Minister is familiar with some of my ideas on this, particularly on delivering more affordable homes to purchase through the section 106 system.

Every year, we deliver around 25,000 affordable homes through section 106 requirements. They are typically sold to housing associations at 50% of market value. The housing association then rents them out at 80% of market value and puts them on their balance sheet at 100% of market value; nice work if you can get it. Why, instead of doing that, do we not simply sell those properties—or half those properties—to first-time buyers on low incomes, at 50% of market value? That would be in perpetuity and those first-time buyers could pass the properties on to the next person. There is no cost to the taxpayer whatsoever. It is good for them. It is good for the developers, who are dealing direct with their customers. The only people who probably will not be too keen on it are the housing associations, but that is not who we are here for; we are here for real people.

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend has raised this issue with me a number of times. I am keen to promote it with him. Will he meet me to discuss how we might promote it to councils?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I certainly will.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I will just say to the Minister, you took 27 minutes or more, and every time you intervene puts another minute on. In fairness, I want to try to get everyone in.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

This proposal is also good for the community because people are buying those houses rather than renting them, which is very popular locally. To give a local example, in the town of Easingwold where I was born and brought up, 656 homes are being delivered, 279 homes affordable, all for renting, and only eight are two-bedroomed properties for young first-time buyers. That dynamic could be changed, and tens of thousands of homes delivered for first-time buyers on low incomes.

The second way to cut out the middlemen is through the pension system. Currently, residential property cannot be put in a pension. If we change that rule, lots of empty or unconverted space above shops could be changed overnight. We should allow those properties to be put in a pension, as long as—this would be the catch, but it is a fair one—those properties were made available at a social rent. We would widen the pension system to allow people to buy property to put it into a pension, as long as they let it out at a social rent. That would be good for the owner as a tax break and great for the tenant, and great for the taxpayer because the burden of housing benefit is reduced. Everyone wins, apart from the middleman.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

I recently visited Bexhill and Battle for a brief jaunt to the seaside with my family, so I know my hon. Friend’s constituency well. We have recently confirmed that we will invest an additional £650 million in support and care in communities such as Bexhill and Battle, and I hope he will also look at the Government’s new stronger towns fund, which may be able to support his area.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

7. What steps his Department is taking to support the building of social housing.

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

On top of our £9 billion affordable homes programme, we have reintroduced social rent, removed the housing revenue account borrowing cap and announced £2 billion of long-term funding, and we are setting a long-term rent deal for councils and housing associations.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

There is currently a prohibition on the inclusion of residential properties in personal pensions such as self-invested personal pensions, which leaves potential accommodation over shops empty or unconverted. Will my hon. Friend work with his colleagues in the Treasury to reform these rules, provided that the properties are let out at a social rent?

[Kit Malthouse]

No one, but no one, works as hard as my hon. Friend on housing policy. There is not a time when I appear at the Dispatch Box that he does not badger me with some new idea. He obviously takes his moral duty to the next generation to build the housing they need very seriously, and I would be more than happy to walk arm in arm with him down Downing Street to No. 11 to propose exactly that idea.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Berry]

No, and if the hon. Gentleman writes and gives me details I will look into that.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Citizens Advice reports that local authority debt collection practices are a growing factor in those approaching it seeking help on problem debt. What can the Minister do to roll out best practice to local authorities?

Permitted Development and Shale Gas Exploration

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Wera Hobhouse]

I could not agree more. We have such a long way to go before we become carbon zero and it is so important. What are the Government doing promoting fracked fossil fuel over renewables? We are living through a global climate crisis.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. She said that fracking is a new fossil fuel sector, but is it not right that shale gas would simply displace imports, rather than create additional demand on gas-fired power generation?

[Wera Hobhouse]

I have been involved in the fracking debate for a long time—since 2014—and just to say that it is a bit less of a fossil fuel than the gas we are importing is the wrong argument. It is a fossil fuel and it contributes to global warming; we should not explore these old-fashioned ideas about how to produce our energy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My point earlier was about displacement: we use gas anyway, so this is not about more gas, but about whether we import it or produce it. There are 23 million homes in the UK connected to the mains gas network. Is the hon. Lady’s home one of them?

[Wera Hobhouse]

My home is heated through a community energy centre. That said, I am talking about how the gas is produced. I am saying that fracked gas is a fossil fuel but that there are renewable gas alternatives that we need to explore and invest in, and which the Government should be prioritising.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

My comments centre on the need for gas, and I am on a slightly different page from the other people that I have heard speaking in the debate. I think that we will need gas, and it is a question of whether we import it or produce it. In my view, it is much better to produce it than to import it for many reasons, including the environmental benefits of producing rather than importing. However, as the Minister knows, I am against permitted development rights and nationally significant infrastructure project status for shale gas exploration.

The need is clear: we import half our gas today, and that will go up to 70% by 2030. Increasingly, it comes from all over the world—principally from Norway, but it includes Russia—and is used for 23 million homes. Gas might have a long-term future. Carbon capture and storage and the H21 programme in Leeds, where we are going to convert methane into hydrogen, mean that even in a zero-carbon future by 2050—which I am supporting, and I wrote to the Prime Minister on that basis—gas can still play a part.

I am concerned, of course, about how this issue affects my constituency. That is why I went on a self-funded trip to Pennsylvania to look at the infrastructure there. I met protesters, producers and regulators. I saw from Pennsylvania that fracking can be done well or badly. It is compatible with the landscape if it is planned properly. That is why I helped North Yorkshire County Council to produce a minerals and waste plan that had clear guidelines about surface protection in protected areas, no fracking surface activity in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and restrictions on proliferation. There should be a maximum of 10 well pads per 100 square kilometres. Some people think that that is a lot, some think it is not very much. In my constituency, I have conventional gas extraction. There are three well pads there that operate on that density, and most people in my constituency do not know even know that the well pads are there. In the short term, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) said, there is industrial activity, but that goes away. People who come to Kirby Misperton to see it would see a clump of trees—that is all they would see of a fracked well pad.

People should at least be cognisant of the reality of shale gas exploration. There are some problems that need to be solved. We need a proper, Government-backed remediation plan. It is not fair for landowners to pick up the tab if this goes wrong in the longer term, which is a likely event. We also need to do more to enable local communities to benefit directly from the disturbance and the nuisance that will doubtless be experienced: that benefit should go directly into householders’ pockets.

I am against both NSIP and PDR. This is the wrong thing to do. The Select Committee said that quite clearly, and the Government should withdraw their plans to push ahead with exploration of this kind.

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[Kit Malthouse]

I will come to those exact issues, if the esteemed Chair of the Select Committee will give me a moment.

In summer 2018, we consulted on whether permitted development rights should be expanded to include shale gas exploration development, including the circumstances in which this might be appropriate. I would like to make it clear that any potential permitted development right granted for shale gas exploration would not apply to hydraulic-fracturing operations or the production stage of shale gas extraction.

I should also emphasise that any permitted development right would cover only the planning aspects of the development and would not remove requirements under other regulatory regimes from the three regulators: the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and the Oil and Gas Authority. It is important to note that all permitted development rights contain specific exemptions, conditions and restrictions to control and mitigate the impact of the development and to protect local amenity, and any potential permitted development right for shale gas exploration would be no exception.

A right could include things such as limits on the height of any structure, areas where a permitted development right would not apply and noise and operation controls. The consultation sought views on this.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Would permitted development rights allow a producer to construct a well pad pretty much wherever they wanted to put it?

[Kit Malthouse]

The consultation asked exactly that question of whether there should be a restriction. I know my hon. Friend suggested—in the last debate and in this one—having density restrictions on well pads in particular areas. We will answer that question when we respond to the consultation.

The permitted development consultation and the NSIP consultation mentioned by my hon. Friend and the shadow Minister ran for 14 weeks and closed on 25 October. The Government are currently analysing the representations to the consultations and will publish a response in due course.

All hon. Members have highlighted the importance of community engagement in the planning process. I reassure the House that we remain profoundly committed to ensuring that local communities are fully involved in the planning decisions that affect them and to making planning decisions faster and fairer. These are long-standing principles that I am adamant we will stick to. However, we understand that communities feel that they are often not consulted closely enough before planning applications are submitted by developers to the local planning authority. That can lead to opposition to developments and a longer application process.

Engagement with communities at the pre-application stage gives local people an earlier say in the planning process and makes developers aware of issues of importance to the community that may need to be resolved. The planning system in the UK already provides an extensive legislative framework for community involvement. However, there is scope to do more. That is why we published a separate consultation—sadly, unmentioned this afternoon —on whether applicants should be required to conduct a pre-application consultation with the local community prior to submitting a planning application for shale gas development, which could further strengthen the role that local people play in the planning process. The consultation closed on 7 January. We are currently analysing the representations that we have received and will publish a response in due course.

We also welcome the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s report of its inquiry on planning guidance relating to hydraulic fracturing and shale exploration. The report was published on 5 July 2018. We are considering its conclusions and recommendations, and will respond—to use a well-utilised word in this House—shortly.

I thank all hon. Members who have participated in this interesting and fascinating debate. Domestic onshore gas production, including shale gas, has the potential to play a major role in further securing our energy supplies. The UK must have safe, secure and affordable supplies of energy with carbon emission levels that are consistent with the carbon budgets defined in the Climate Change Act 2008 and our international obligations. The written ministerial statements on energy and planning policy made by the Secretaries of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and for Housing, Communities and Local Government on 17 May 2018 reiterated the Government’s view that there could be substantial benefits from the safe and sustainable exploration and development of our onshore shale gas resources.

We remain expressly committed to ensuring that local communities are fully involved in planning decisions that affect them and to making planning decisions faster and fairer at the same time. We have now delivered on our promise to consult on how best to develop our planning processes for both the exploration and production of shale gas development, while ensuring that communities remain fully involved. We are currently considering the responses from those consultations and will respond in due course.

Fire Safety and Sprinkler Systems

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)]

As always, Mr Gray, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I declare an interest as a former firefighter, a former member of the FBU—I think technically I might still be one—and a former fire Minister when responsibility for fire was first brought into the Home Office.

Not all of what we ask today is in the Minister’s gift. Personally, I think that the fire Minister should have much more control over building regulations. When the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) and I were firemen many years ago, most fire prevention work was done in-house in the fire service; I remember quite junior officers going away for up to two years to become fire prevention officers. Long before the terrible Grenfell disaster, we spent years and years, under numerous Governments, discussing whether we should have sprinklers in the home. As the hon. Gentleman says, the people who die in fires tend to be the most vulnerable. That is a national catastrophe.

Sprinklers have changed enormously over the years, from the drenching sprinklers that swamped everything to get the fire out and destroyed nearly everything apart from people’s lives, to the very fine particulate sprinklers that we have now, which create more of a mist. The need to protect environments as well as lives is much more obvious now, and the new sprinklers do that.

I support all the calls being made. I do not think that we need to wait for this or that report, because it is blatantly obvious, as old-fashioned common sense tells us, that there is a strong correlation between sprinklers and lives saved. As we have heard, where sprinklers have been installed, no lives have been lost. I do not want to say too much about Grenfell, but there is a strong possibility that the fire started inside the building and then spread to the outside and the cladding. A sprinkler system is inside, not outside. Quite simply, if the fire had never got to the cladding in the first place, the situation would almost certainly have been very different.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Mike Penning]

May I make a tiny bit of progress first, because of the time constraints that we are quite rightly under? It is fantastic to see so many colleagues here.

It is obvious common sense to have sprinklers in all new housing. Interestingly enough, they not only save lives but make insurance premiums go down. As with other types of insurance, such as telematics in car insurance, we have driven the industry to say, “If you install this, things could be better and your premiums could be lower.” Sprinklers also matter to developers choosing to buy properties in a certain area. Surely they must be the way forward. I will come on to social housing in a second, but let me first give way to my hon. Friend.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I support the point made by my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) about the need for sprinklers. My right hon. Friend mentions the spread of fire. Does he recognise that the Grenfell tragedy could have been averted if the spread of fire by combustible cladding outside the building had been prevented? At current rates of progress, it will take five years to remediate all the private sector buildings in the UK. [Interruption.] The Minister shakes his head, but that is the current rate of progress. Where ownership or responsibility is unclear, does my right hon. Friend agree that the Government should step in and provide a fund to allow remediation work to take place more quickly?

[Sir Mike Penning]

I am sure that the Minister will respond to my hon. Friend’s point. Obviously we would like to see people sleeping in homes that are safe, and the faster that happens, the better. I am sure that the Minister feels exactly the same.

If the Government do not take action on sprinklers, they are really saying that property is more important than people’s lives. They may say that the costs are high or that the developers do not want sprinkler systems, but actually we have found that installing them in all new builds and major refurbishments would cost less than 1% of the build cost—not the retail value, the build cost. I cannot understand anyone in the 21st century arguing against installing sprinklers in all new properties. The insurers insist on it in most commercial and retail properties, and surely lives are more important.

As an ex-fireman and ex-Minister, I know the advice that the Minister has been getting, but he needs to turn round and say, “I am afraid that some of that advice is tosh.” The cost implications are there. New build could start tomorrow and refurbishment costs can be met. Now that we are building more social housing than ever—in my constituency we are building like wildfire, because we need more council houses—surely the Local Government Association could bring councils together to say that sprinklers should be installed.

I will not go into carbon monoxide and smoke detectors, but the successes in that area have caused a sudden drop in fatalities. We need to do more work on carbon monoxide, but this debate is about sprinklers. Sprinklers need to be in everybody’s homes as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Hollinrake Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

There is obviously a concerted attack taking place against permitted development rights, which I find distressing, given the sheer number of homes that they have produced for people who are desperate for those homes. As I have said, all homes, whether under permitted development rights or normal planning permission, have to comply with building regulations, and it is down to local authorities to ensure that that is the case.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we should deliver more affordable homes to purchase in the form of discount market sale, which remain affordable in perpetuity?

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is indefatigable and has raised that issue at every opportunity when I have been at the Dispatch Box. He is right that, as part of our affordable homes programme, we would like to see more discount market sales, particularly to younger people across the country. I urge local authorities, which we hope are bringing forward authoritative and forward-looking plans, to embrace that type of tenure.