Extremism Definition and Community Engagement

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. and learned Lady for her point. Again, I stress that this is about Government engagement. Although she or I might agree or disagree with an individual or group, we respect their right to free speech and free association. The points she makes about the LGB Alliance are well made. It is right that there should be debate on gender and sex questions, and I commend the Government for the steps they have taken to ban puberty blockers. Therefore, in this debate, it is right to have a degree of respect and concern for the different and heartfelt positions held by everyone. Her consistent championing of a particular position, though sometimes unpopular with others, is commendable and brave, and she represents the very best of her party.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I share, along with many other Members, some alarm at the emergence of this new definition, and I have two questions for the Secretary of State. The first is further to the point made by the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms): is there really to be no appeal process in this branding of particular groups as unacceptable? I ask that not least because, as I am sure the Secretary of State will intend, putting them on a Government blacklist will have a chilling impact more widely on their place in society; from financial services to the media, who is likely to engage with them? At what stage in the process will those groups that he decides are worthy of examination be able to present evidence in their defence?

My second question is: if a Member of this House disagrees with the view of the Secretary of State or the Government, and decides to invite that group into the House or to be a member of that group, will the Government refuse to engage with the Member of Parliament?

[Michael Gove]

Again, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and commend him on the work he did in the Home Office during his time there. He will have known that there was an already existing definition, with which there was an obligation on Government not to engage with certain groups. He will also know that while he was there Sir William Shawcross pointed out that that definition needed to be updated and those engagement principles reinforced. We are simply continuing the work that my right hon. Friend did so diligently and effectively while at the Home Office. Organisations such as the British National Socialist Movement and Patriotic Alternative, which I mentioned, are ones that I hope no Member of this House would want to deal with. Obviously, however, each individual must look to their own conscience about the organisations with which they engage. This is purely about Government; Parliament is, quite rightly, sovereign.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Again, as I said on Second Reading and on Report, I speak with a heavy heart and in some dismay, but I tell those on my Front Bench that I will be voting against the Bill this evening.

This Bill obviously comes at a dreadful time, as we mourn the deaths of so many Israelis in heinous circumstances on 7 October and the deaths of so many Palestinians subsequently, many of whom still lie under the rubble. The fact that we in this House would seek to legislate against non-violent protest in such an illiberal and draconian way seems to me tragic at this particular point in time.

As the Secretary of State knows, there are broadly three areas in which I and other colleagues attempted to amend the Bill and have concerns. The first area is, as the shadow Secretary of State pointed out, the separate identification in the Bill of Israel, and its conflation with the occupied territories and the Golan Heights. We believe that contravenes our undertakings at the United Nations and, indeed, in international law, which of course means that the Bill will spend a lot of time in the courts, if it eventually sees the light of day. At the same time, that is a cause of great dismay to our allies in the Arab world, who of course we need at the moment more than ever to join us in seeking peace in the dreadful conflict taking place in the middle east. That we should undermine our own status as fair dealers, as it were, in that part of the world seems to me an unforced error.

The second area of serious concern is obviously the impact on free speech. Again as the shadow Secretary of State pointed out, it seems to me incredible that we are putting elected officials and others in a position where if they just stand up in certain circumstances and say they disagree with the law, they will be committing a criminal act. It seems to me an incredibly illiberal and backward step that we would strike a blow against pluralism in that way. The Bill could stand without those restrictions on free speech, and as the Secretary of State will know, we attempted to amend it to remove them, but that attempt was rebuffed.

The third area is the sheer scale of the Bill’s impact and the number of organisations that will be drawn into it. It is not just the local government pension fund, of which I am a member, but also every university in the land and private sector companies that perform a public service of some kind and are contractors to the Government that will be drawn in. That is important because, as the Secretary of State will know, this subject is very litigious. There are lawyers sympathetic to Israel and those sympathetic to Palestine. From the Secretary of State’s speech, it seems that the Bill is aimed squarely at that particular conflict in this world. Lawyers on both sides will gear up, and an industry will arise to attack, defend, analyse and scrutinise every decision, and all these bodies will have to take significant internal legal advice to deal with it as well. Subjecting them all to this enormous burden seems to me disproportionate to the problem that the Government are trying to address.

Finally, my greatest concern is for the impact on British Jewry. As the Secretary of State has said, he is trying to bring this Bill in to deal with the growth in antisemitism in the United Kingdom, but my view is that the Bill will play entirely into the hands of the antisemites. I imagine that this Bill will be manna to those rotten social media groups and WhatsApp groups that espouse conspiracy theories about Israel and the Jewish community. They will see this, as Jonathan Freedland—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I call the SNP spokesperson, with no time limit.

Housing Associations: Charges

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) not only for raising this important issue but for the way in which she did so. I described her as my right hon. Friend; she is also a friend and near constituency neighbour in a neighbouring county, so it is a real delight for me to make my Dispatch Box debut responding to her debate this evening. I, too, congratulate her colleague Councillor Nick Adams-King for the work that he has been doing on this issue, along with my county neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax).

The first question that my right hon. Friend asked was how we can help. She was right to point out in her concluding remarks that such issues can often get passed from pillar to post—different names with different acronyms, with everybody trying to, Pontius-Pilate-like, wash their hands of it. My Department will not do that. Of course, her constituents are perfectly entitled to seek legal advice. That would come at a cost, and it may well be that the conveyancing at the time of purchase is worth a re-exploration.

Pausing there, my right hon. Friend presented to the House some pretty horrible and frightening figures. We are all conscious, particularly those of us who represent predominantly rural constituencies, of the fierce hit that the cost of living has had on many families, so we can only begin to wonder at the fear generated in the homes of the families and individuals who are being presented with these body-blow bills. The idea of their having to incur legal costs to try to seek a remedy, which is likely to be a long time coming, would not be a particularly welcome solution.

I have an invitation for my right hon. Friend to take up, together with her councillor colleague should she wish to. This is a rhetorical invitation; I think that she will bite my hand off. My noble friend Baroness Scott, to whom I have spoken, as it is her portfolio that would look at this, will convene a meeting in the Department to be attended by Aster and my right hon. Friend, picking up on the point that she alluded to in the letter of 4 September this year from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which he addressed to the chief executive of the Aster Group.

Again just pausing there, I am not entirely sure this is still the situation, but I know that at the time when I introduced my Adjournment debate, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North referenced, the chief executive of the Aster Group was the highest paid chief executive in the housing association sector. It is not just our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who is taking a personal interest in how the organisation continues to deliver its responsibilities; so too is my noble Friend Baroness Scott and so am I, because what the constituents of my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North have been presented with is indefensible and, frankly, bizarre.

From what my right hon. Friend has told the House in her powerful and persuasive speech, it seems that the housing association has spent little if any money investing in these local sewage plants, has understood the need now for investment—in some sort of a Damascene conversion to the need for housing providers to invest in maintenance and other repairs—realises that the costs are eye-wateringly high, and decides to reduce them for tenants and to pile on the costs to those who have merely, through the sweat of their brow and hard work, striven successfully to exercise their right to buy their former council house. And they are now being clobbered with above-inflation costs, subsidising those—one can see the argument for this, potentially—in the social rented market, and the housing association is then having the magnanimity, in this almost-upon-us season of good will, of defraying the costs until death. That seems to me not exactly in the spirit that we would expect people to be operating in.

My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—no Adjournment debate would be complete without his presence—hit on an important point that occasionally this House has overlooked: the general transition over time of housing associations. When housing stock was transferred from local authorities, most if not all of the housing department went into that organisation, often a new organisation, and they took with them the mindset of supporting some of our most vulnerable constituents and the mindset of our public sector housing. Over time those people have retired and over time housing associations have grown very big; that does give them resilience in a fluctuating market, but it also means quite a lot of that local knowledge and empathy and understanding has been lost, and they are now operating in exactly the same sphere as our major private house builders. That is producing a change of ethos; my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North has brought this situation to the House, and I have to say that that is not a change for the better.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

It is great to see my hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box for the first time and I congratulate him. I am grateful to my constituency neighbour my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for raising this issue and I have the same issue in the village of Hatherden in my constituency and want to make two points about what my hon. Friend the Minister was saying.

What was of course lost in the transfer he was talking about was councillors and the sensitivity that local councils would have to their residents in the way we are trying to give effect to this evening; that has been the biggest disconnection in housing. Also, one of the arguments that is put—I have had this with other issues of maintenance of stock in my constituency, where Aster is a large landlord—is a purely mathematical one: the housing association says, “You’re right, we haven’t really maintained this for 20 years, but we also haven’t charged you for it for 20 years so all we are doing is catching up on the charges,” and it fails to reflect on the economic hit to residents when an accumulation of charges is levied in one big blow.

[Simon Hoare]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Whether Aster and others presuppose that merely the fact that a family or an individual has recognised that right to purchase their home suddenly makes them as rich as Croesus, I am not entirely sure. However, we can only imagine the very real anxiety that seeing these sorts of bills creates—particularly when this issue has come as a bolt from the blue, as I understood my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North to say. People were being told that everything was fine, that those local sewage works were absolutely up to scratch and that one could sell ones home in perfect confidence that there would be no extraordinary item for potential new purchasers to pick up.

Maybe it is a lack of investment, coupled with misleading those former tenants, that Aster will be questioned about at the departmental meeting—and they will attend; of that I am absolutely certain. We will make them attend to talk to Ministers and to make clear what they are going to do, because their current suggested modus operandi is neither sufficient nor acceptable.

Although it is in the future, I also point my right hon. Friend and her constituents to the leasehold and freehold Bill, which will be published later this month. That Bill is intended to drive up transparency of the estate management charges that homeowners have to pay, as well as giving homeowners the right to challenge the reasonableness—that is the key word, because after the Wednesbury case, reasonableness has a status in law—of those charges in the appropriate tribunal, which of course in England is the first-tier tribunal. The Bill will also include measures to help leaseholders to challenge service charges, including improved transparency requirements and scrapping the presumption that leaseholders should pay their landlord’s legal costs when challenging poor practice.

This Government are committed to providing the framework, but it is vital that potential homeowners have access to the right information before they buy. That information should, of course, be set out as part of the conveyancing process. I mentioned at the top of my remarks that, if a current homeowner such as those identified by my right hon. Friend is unhappy with the service they have received from the conveyancer or their solicitor, and the internal complaints process cannot resolve the issue, the legal ombudsman may be able to help.

In conclusion, I thank my right hon. Friend again for raising this issue in her inimitable style. The House always listens to her, because when she speaks she has something to say. She has spoken on behalf of her constituents very clearly and the Secretary of State, the Department and I share her concerns. She was right to quote directly from the Secretary of State’s letter to Aster of just a few months ago. My Department stands ready to work with her to ensure that her constituents, as well as those of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset, are not—and here I will close by using the word my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North used in her speech—rinsed.

Question put and agreed to.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana]

I am going to continue.

While the Government supported the apartheid regime, local councils across the country rallied around the anti-apartheid movement, with 39 councils across the country having divested from companies operating in South Africa by 1985. If this Bill had been put in place then, that action would have been illegal. That is why a huge coalition of more than 70 organisations have come together to oppose it. Those organisations include trade unions such as ASLEF, the Fire Brigades Union, Unison and Unite, and campaign groups such as Greenpeace and Liberty.

Amendment 17, in my name, and amendment 13 seek to address this grave mistake by protecting the right of public bodies to make ethical decisions, not leaving them at the whim of the deeply unethical decisions of national Governments such as ours. I urge Members from across the House to support the amendments.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Some years ago, an elderly Jewish constituent came to see me in my surgery concerned about her own safety following a rise in violence in Israel and Palestine, and the resulting antisemitism here in the UK. I said to her then that, if the mob ever came for her, before they got to her they would find me standing in her driveway with my baseball bat in hand. I have stood with the Jewish community across the UK, particularly in London, over the last nearly 25 years of my political career.

When I am told that in seeking to improve this legislation, or in expressing doubts about its impact, I am somehow picking a side, with the implication that I am not standing with that community, I find it both insulting and offensive, particularly coming from Members of this House who, while accepting unquestioningly this legislation, have not done so with other legislation coming from the Government. We all have a duty at this point in time, as the Prime Minister and others have said, to choose our words carefully. On Monday, he said it was a time for “care and caution”, and he was exactly right.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Like me, he has spent a lot of time in local government. Does he agree with the point I raised on Second Reading that a key issue is that our local elected brethren—for example, those specifically elected on a foreign policy platform, such as the 17 councillors who served at one stage on Birmingham City Council on behalf of the “Justice for Kashmir” party—may have a specific democratic reason for being there to express that foreign policy view? There will be circumstances in which councillors, including those who sit in the House of Lords and who sit as part of international bodies, such as the congress of the Council of Europe, benefit from parliamentary privilege in expressing their views. There is therefore a risk that this gagging order is not simply gagging what people should expect as freedom of speech, but is also ineffective in the objective it sets out to achieve.

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend speaks with experience, and he puts it extremely well. To assume that councillors are merely elected on the basis of their attitude towards potholes and refuse collection is completely erroneous; they are elected for all sorts of reasons. Many councillors and Members of the devolved Administrations who campaign on social, moral, ethical and, indeed, foreign policy issues would say that they have a mandate, and not even to be able to express opposition to the law while still complying with it seems very un-British, extremely illiberal and unnecessarily draconian. We have lots of laws in this country to which councillors and, indeed, other elected officials of opposing political persuasions can express opposition. To have an exception on this basis seems faintly ridiculous.

On amendment 4, I declare my interest as a member of the local government pension fund, which I understand is the only pension fund affected by the Bill. As I said on Second Reading, it is unfortunate that, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, my accumulated savings are being put under the control of the Secretary of State. If, in pursuit of this control, my pension diminishes in value because I am forced to follow the decisions made by the Secretary of State, what will be my compensation in retirement?

Amendment 5 is about exempting universities as public bodies. There is a technical reason, as well as a principled reason, for this amendment. I outlined my objection on Second Reading, not least because we had just appointed a free speech tsar and legislated for free speech on university campuses, but here we are busily curtailing free speech through this Bill.

The technical issue is about universities being classified as public bodies. As the Secretary of State will know, there has been a flurry of activity in the Treasury because further education colleges have been classified as public bodies, which means all their debt comes on to the public balance sheet. This is another step towards universities, with their even greater levels of debt, coming on to the balance sheet, about which the Treasury ought to have a say. I hope and believe that, when the Bill goes to the House of Lords, the Treasury will want to have a look.

Finally, amendment 6 is about international law. I know that the Secretary of State, like every member of the Government, is extremely keen on international law and wants to ensure it is followed in all circumstances, and particularly in this current horrific conflict in Israel and Gaza. One of the great benefits of our more flexible system is that, as the Government called for boycotts of Russian businesses and Russian individuals following the invasion of Ukraine, other parts of civic society were able to move extremely quickly to comply, whereas under this legislation they would have to wait for the Government to issue some kind of regulation, which would have to go through this House and be debated. That could possibly take weeks, if not longer, particularly if the House is in recess. Amendment 6 proposes that if the Government declare that a country or situation is in breach of international law, other organisations can immediately respond by issuing their own sanctions or disinvestments.

I honestly believe that the amendments I have tabled—I understand that only amendment 7, which is probably the most important, will go to a Division this evening—represent an attempt to improve the legislation, rather than necessarily picking a side. Although this debate has, I am afraid, been positioned as a pro-Israel or pro-Palestine debate, I am primarily pro-Britain. I want to get the legislation right for this country, for the Jewish community and for every community in this country so that we can live with the consequences for years to come.

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

Human rights groups have rightly condemned the Bill as an outrageous and unwarranted interference in the ability of councils, universities and other public bodies to use their purchasing power to pursue ethical procurement and investment policies in order to help defend human rights and tackle issues such as climate change. Everyone who cares about issues such as the illegal arms trade, activities of arms manufacturers and traders whose weapons fuel conflicts around the globe, or climate justice, correctly will be horrified by this blatant attack on the basic democratic rights of elected public bodies to act on behalf of the residents who elected them.

The Bill specifically protects the state of Israel, Israeli companies and their human rights abuses from local authority sanctions, no matter what human rights abuses they might commit or are committing now. It is self-evident that councils and other public bodies must be free—and, indeed, have a duty—to act to prevent or discourage breaches of international humanitarian law. It is clear that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, and no local authority or Government should offer support to such activity. The Government’s anti-BDS Bill contradicts the guiding principles on business and human rights published by the United Nations. It penalises public bodies that comply with the UK’s responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. It takes away the democratic right of public bodies to make ethical financial decisions.

The Bill uniquely shields human rights abuses by Israel, allowing it to act with impunity. Indeed, the Bill exempts specific countries—namely Israel, despite its human rights abuses and war crimes—even though we do not know what future actions such countries may take. That is a show of complete contempt for the people of Palestine and the daily inhumanity, abuse and discrimination they face. The Bill is a textbook case of divide and rule politics.

It is profoundly disappointing that the Government are pursuing the anti-boycott Bill at this moment, when tensions are extremely high in our communities. In the past few weeks, almost 7,000 Palestinians have been killed—almost half of them children—and 1,400 Israelis have been killed, and the civilians of Gaza have been massacred by Israeli airstrikes. War crimes are happening in real time. An immediate ceasefire is required, and the Prime Minister, the Government, the Leader of the Opposition and all political leaders in this House should be calling for it.

Boycott, divestment and sanctions are an effective means of peaceful resistance. The Bill is no less toxic than at its previous stage. If it passes, it will close off a vital democratic avenue for the closest representatives of ordinary people at local level to demand accountability and change. It will show how little this Government care about the lives of civilians and the plight of persecuted and exploited communities around the world.

New Housing: Swift Bricks

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Matt Vickers]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point: swift bricks cost little and have a huge impact. That is our ask to the Government, but regardless of whether we manage to pull it off today, I hope we will all go back to our constituencies and local authorities and drive for a bit more change.

When swifts return from their perilous nine-month flight and find that their nesting site has been blocked off or destroyed, they try to break entry. They are, unsurprisingly, not strong enough to break through several layers of insulation, and many injure themselves in their attempt to get back into their old nesting spots. If they are unable to fly, they will likely die. If they do not succeed but survive, they face a tough task of finding a new spot to nest in time to breed. That leads to many missing the mark, with the consequence that the population fails to grow again.

Old nesting spots are being lost, and new developments do not provide an alternative. Modern developments have no purpose-built nesting habitat for these birds and lack natural alcoves for birds to shelter. The swift brick is an answer to that problem. It is an intended nesting spot, providing permanence. It is a bespoke option that can host a wide range of nature. It has been designed to fit the dimensions of a standard UK brick, and is highly suitable for developments, since the overwhelming majority of modern houses are built from bricks or blocks. The bricks sit inside the wall and do not compromise its strength or insulation. They are fully enclosed, with a small, outward-facing hole for the swifts to enter. They are not offensive to look at and can be adapted to comply with the strict aesthetic requirements that developers need to meet.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

As the planning Minister at the time, I had a hand in the changes to the national planning policy framework that encouraged the uptake of swift bricks, so I am pleased that this debate is taking place. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are two further advantages to the brick over the box? First, although the brick is primarily aimed at swifts, it can also offer a home to another species that is in decline, and which was the music of my childhood—the house sparrow. We do not see them as much as we used to in urban areas.

Secondly, particularly in the south-east of England, the brick protects swifts from being evicted by the parakeet. The six swift boxes on my house have been overtaken by parakeets, which are able to widen the opening because it is wooden, rather than brick. Using bricks would give other species opportunities and would protect swifts from being evicted by more aggressive species.

[Matt Vickers]

I bow to the experience and knowledge of my right hon. Friend, who is the proud owner of six swift boxes—hopefully he will use bricks. He makes a very good point. I used to listen to the house martins when I was younger; I have not heard much from them recently, and I would like to hear more from them in the near future. I thank my right hon. Friend for everything he did to get things to this juncture, and I agree that we need to go a bit further to ensure that these bricks reach houses across the UK.

In addition to permanence, the swift brick offers weather resistance and climate control. That is the most convincing argument for choosing swift bricks over an external bird box—other than the parakeets.

The first concern that some raise is the fear of noise or mess. People are concerned about what the bricks mean for their sleep, their patios and their clean washing, but those concerns are misplaced. Swifts are incredibly clean birds, which go about their business far from their homes, and they make minimal noise inside their nests. Surprisingly even to me, 85% of respondents to a recent survey said they would not be dissuaded from buying a house because of a swift brick, and the remaining 15% believed it would increase their likelihood of buying the house. What is not to like? Swift bricks are clean and noise-free, the public like them, and they could help to protect four endangered species.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Vickers]

I would very much agree; in fact, I will come on to that. When we look at the costs—actually, we will come back to the costs too; we will come back to it all. I think the RSPB makes a very valid point. It is a no-brainer in many ways, and there is little to be lost by putting swift bricks into homes.

[Kit Malthouse]

There is another reason to commend swifts, which is that they are not actually here for very long. As my hon. Friend may know, they broadly arrive in the first week of May and certainly leave, like clockwork, in the first week or so of August. They are not here for terribly long, which is why we should give them a nice home to live in.

[Matt Vickers]

I very much agree.

So what is not to like? Swift bricks are clean and noise-free, the public like them and they could help to protect four endangered species. But what about the cost, and what do the developers say? Swift bricks are incredibly low-cost. They are already produced by multiple manufacturers, and home builders have the opportunity to shop around. Prices online start from as little as £25—although I do not know how much my right hon. Friend paid for his—which is pennies to large housing developers. Swift bricks represent one of the most cost-effective conservation measures and help developers to comply with their responsibilities in the Environment Act 2021, creating biodiversity gain.

After speaking to developers, and representatives from the Home Builders Federation, it is clear that they take their responsibilities for the environment seriously. They welcome the proposals and see them as giving clarity and direction and as a meaningful way of complying with the Environment Act. In fact, there are many examples of house builders being proactive and putting swift bricks in place without being compelled to do so.

In their response to the petition, the Government said they would not be legislating for a nationwide approach, because in

“some high density schemes the provision of ‘swift bricks’, for instance, might be inappropriate”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy]

As has already been said, only a small number of local authorities—Exeter, Hackney, Islington and Brighton and Hove—have taken the step of requiring bricks. I am working on Bristol, and I hope we will do that in the next iteration of its local plan. That is tiny compared with the potential of what we can do. It would be so easy to have swift bricks in all new developments—not just new housing, although the petition is about housing, but other buildings too. We need to do something to turn this from a nice little local initiative into something that is far more widespread.

It is important to say that developers are not opposed to this proposal. Barratt Homes has actively worked with the RSPB to develop a swift brick and has pledged to install swift bricks in all new houses built in Bristol as well as in several other cities. I actually went up on the roof of one of its new houses in Blackberry Hill—one of those classic “MP in a hard hat”-type pictures—to do that. Another sister of mine is working with a housing developer in Milton Keynes that is also putting swift bricks into all of its new houses. This work can be done and there is no opposition to it, so there is no reason for the Government to be cautious about it.

[Kit Malthouse]

I just wanted to be clear about what hopefully we are collectively asking for. We are asking the Government to mandate the use of swift bricks—and the plural is important. As anybody will know, swifts are gregarious birds that like to nest in colonies, so putting in the odd brick here and there is unlikely to be fruitful. What we actually need is groups of four to six bricks, possibly more. As the hon. Lady said, in Bristol houses have got seriously more than that number. However, just putting in a brick—singular—is not much use to anybody, least of all the swifts themselves.

[Kerry McCarthy]

That is certainly the case, which is why we want to see this done at scale. As I think has already been said, the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management has highlighted surveys that show that buyers would not be put off by a swift brick.

It has been asked whether this would be a nuisance. I live by the harbour in Bristol and every time I open my balcony doors, pigeons and seagulls come in. Indeed, a particularly resolute pair of birds are determined to build a nest on my balcony, so I cannot turn my back without them coming in. However, having swifts in a house is not the same as having pigeons or seagulls in a house. Indeed, they are excellent lodgers and most people would not even have any idea that they were there.

It is reasonable to ask why swifts merit a specific planning requirement, as opposed to any other creature that is under threat. I say in response that, first, this is a known problem with an identifiable cause and a practical, straightforward and cost-effective solution. I am sure that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs would be delighted if we could say the same for all environmental challenges and all red-listed species.

Secondly, other species are already protected by planning policy in a way that swifts are not. The Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994 require a developer’s ecology report to cover protected species, such as bats, which are officially designated under those regulations. Mitigating steps are required if these species are present on site.

The problem is that the Birds of Conservation Concern red list, which was developed with funding from Natural England, is not covered by any similar legal requirement, and nor are swifts included in the list of habitats and species of principal importance in England, so there is no obligation on local authorities to consider swifts as part of their biodiversity duty.

The Government’s response to the petition emphasised local planning decisions and

“the specific circumstances of each site.”

Will the Minister tell us in what circumstances exemptions might be required? The benefits of including these bricks seem to outweigh the costs and, as has been said, even if the bricks are not ultimately used by swifts, they may benefit other species.

There is already a British standard on integral nest boxes to guide developers on selection and installation. There are also a variety of brick designs to suit different types of construction; an RSPB factsheet lists at least 20. The RSPB has said that

“there are no reasons why swift bricks should not be appropriate for high-density schemes”,

And, contrary to the Government’s response, the RSPB advises that

“connectivity to wildlife is largely irrelevant for swifts".

As I think has been said, swifts are birds that are either in the air or in their little swift bricks, rather than being out and about in nature.

Finally, I turn to the issue of biodiversity net gain, which the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) mentioned briefly. If, as the Government suggest, swift bricks are not appropriate for all developments, amending the biodiversity net gain rules would allow developers to consider whether swift bricks are an efficient way for them to meet their biodiversity targets.

Three years ago, I wrote to the then Minister for Housing —the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher)—calling for the building regulations to be revised to make swift bricks compulsory in all new homes. I received a disappointing reply then, and the Government’s response to the petition suggests that their position has not changed. However, the regulatory framework has changed, with the introduction of the biodiversity net gain requirement.

The Government’s own planning practice guidance emphasises the value of swift bricks to biodiversity net gain, but that is undermined by the habitat-based biodiversity net gain metric, under which the loss of a swift nest and the addition of swift bricks are irrelevant; they just do not count in the way that, say, hedgerows, trees or other sites for swifts’ nests would count. Can the Minister tell us what incentive developers will have to install swift bricks when they will not count towards their 10% biodiversity net gain?

The biodiversity net gain approach is not perfect because the loss of a swift habitat will not necessarily be captured in the baseline assessment—I suspect the Minister might say that in response. If a survey is not conducted at the right time during nesting season—as we have heard, it is only a 12-week season—the nest is likely to be missed. But including swifts in the metric as a starting point would mean there is an incentive to look for nests and check the RSPB swift survey or the Swift Mapper app. I am sure all the local groups would be delighted to assist the Department in telling people exactly where swifts are likely to turn up. Even if no nest is detected, it means developers have one easy way to secure some biodiversity net gain credits.

Milton Keynes Swifts this weekend was checking the nest boxes for a developer who had agreed to incorporate nest sites. It told me the development did not install swift bricks because the architect was not aware of those at a sufficiently early stage in the process. If swift bricks were included in the biodiversity net gain metric, it seems they would be more likely to be considered during the design process.

The biodiversity net gain metric already includes design features such as green roofs, so it is not a big ask to include swift bricks as an option. In fact, it is a lot easier to put swift bricks in than it is to make sure that a green roof is installed and thrives for years to come. Relying on biodiversity net gain has the added benefit of considering all developments, not just housing, with larger public buildings and commercial premises potentially able to accommodate more bricks.

Swift bricks also give more options for biodiversity net gain in urban environments—something that was sadly neglected in the Government’s environmental improvement plan 2023. We have to ensure that we green our urban environments. We cannot have everyone’s gardens concreted over and green spaces built on, and that offset somewhere way outside the cities. We must improve urban environments, and swift bricks are an ideal thing to do.

Does the Minister agree that the biodiversity net gain metric has adversely changed the regulatory landscape for swifts? I hope she will tell us that she thinks a revised BNG metric could be a useful tool. I know that that is a matter for DEFRA rather than the Minister’s Department. DEFRA has already committed to reviewing species inclusion in future major updates to the biodiversity metric. I urge the Minister to discuss that with DEFRA colleagues.

On a final note, as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) said, we are talking about this in the context of a massive biodiversity loss and ecological emergency. Swift bricks are one easy step towards addressing that, so I hope the Minister looks favourably on what we have said today.

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[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. Many hon. Members have talked about the constituents who urged them to attend this debate, and in my case the group Devon Swifts recommended my attendance. It has over 1,000 followers on Facebook and is pledging to turn up at shows and events in Devon under a gazebo to encourage other people who live in Devon to take a greater interest in swifts.

Two years ago, in 2021, swifts were added to the red list in the UK’s conservation status report, and the RSPB reports that the number of swifts has halved in 20 years and that fewer than 90,000 arrived last year. The same is true of other species that can use similar nesting sites: the house martin has declined by 50% since 1960. It should be said that species that are on the list, which are retreating or falling in number, are being threatened on a global level. It is not just in the UK that numbers are falling. This is very much an international issue, and it is made worse by climate change. Environmental degradation around the world is affecting bird populations.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) hoped that some hon. Members present might also take a greater interest in wider environmental issues around nature degradation and turn up to the relevant debates, and I agree with her. While we think about compulsion and how the Government might make some things mandatory of developers, we should also think about the insulation of homes. Some 2.3 million homes were insulated in 2012, whereas fewer than 100,000 homes are insulated per year now.

Swifts prefer to build their permanent homes by squeezing through tiny gaps in roofs, and as older buildings are changed, modified or taken down, some of those nest sites become unavailable to them. Swift bricks can be embedded in walls in the upper section just below the roof, and they offer a safe space for swifts to establish themselves. The hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers), to whom I pay tribute for securing the debate, referred to concerns around noise and mess, before he allayed the worries that people might have. I would add to that: he is right, but developers can choose where to put these swift bricks, and they could not be so selective if we did not have swift bricks. I have heard concerns about mess and noise from these bricks being used by other bird species—for example the starling—but the swift brick can be placed away from people, in a home where the mess will not bother people underneath. That is great: we can choose to put these bricks in a particular location. They help dozens of other species—not just starlings and swifts, but blue tits, wrens, house sparrows, house martins and many others on the red list for endangered British birds.

I was looking earlier at the RSPB’s swift mapper. In my part of Devon, we have 114 pairs reported south of Honiton and 133 pairs west of Cullompton. It seems that the Government are opposed to making these new bricks a mandatory part of future planning developments, arguing that local authorities can choose to make this a condition on their own account. Typically, I would welcome that sort of devolution. Many areas that Westminster legislates on would be better put within the purview of local government, but in this instance I am not quite so sure: given that there has been so little take-up—only eight local authorities have chosen to use swift bricks—there needs to be a degree of compulsion. I pay tribute to Exeter City Council for being among those eight local authorities, but clearly, if we are to avoid losing further swifts in the future, we need to require developers to use swift bricks.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman would recognise that the Government mandate an awful lot on housing, not least to do with human occupation—whether we should have a front doorstep, the dimensions of windows and, in London, even the height of ceilings. It seems odd that the Government would not mandate on something as simple as this.

[Richard Foord]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for that point, and I agree with him. It is an area where a small action by the Government could deliver a real benefit for our natural environment. I urge the Minister to listen to the strength of feeling, not just from right hon. and hon. Members in this Chamber, but from activists and campaigners here and in our constituencies. This small action could make a big difference, and I would be grateful to see this change made.

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[Dehenna Davison]

I hope that some points further on in my speech will address the hon. Lady’s point.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am pleased to hear the Minister’s enthusiasm. The point is this: when the last revision of the NPPF came in, introduced this guidance towards biodiversity net gain and indicated things like swift bricks and hedgehog highways, there was a hope that developers would take it up. They have had several years to do so, and they have not.

In many developments, the box is ticked by putting up some wooden boxes here and there that will deteriorate over three or four years and then be gone. The point about the swift brick is that it is permanent. It cannot go. It does not weather or deteriorate. After seven or eight years, my wooden boxes are already looking a bit ropey after the predations of the parakeets and will need to be replaced. A brick would not. That is why we are all so keen to see them mandated.

[Dehenna Davison]

I am incredibly grateful to my right hon. Friend. He has incredible wisdom in this field, having served in the Department and focused on planning during his time in government. He will know that we have recently consulted on the new national planning policy framework. I will come to that later on in my speech, which I hope will address some of his concerns.

It is fair to say that more research is needed on how best we monitor and improve swift populations, as outlined by the shadow Minister. I have received assurances from DEFRA and its agencies that they will monitor swift populations and assess any positive effect.

I pass on my thanks to organisations such as Swift Conservation and to local groups such as Hampshire Swifts and Save Wolverton’s Swifts and Martins—I have to do that, as the sister of the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) is in the Public Gallery. It would not be right not to pay tribute to those groups for their work.

The Government do not at present intend to make swift bricks compulsory in new housing, but I assure Members here today and the House that measures are being introduced across Government to protect and enhance our natural and local environment, and I will outline those now.

Hon. Members may be surprised to learn that other familiar birds, such as sparrows and starlings, which were added to the UK red list 21 years ago, have remained on that list since. To tackle that, we are placing greater emphasis on implementing a range of policies that intersect with planning to achieve better outcomes for habitats and species in England, and we have already made great progress. Just last month, the Government announced funding of £14 million to support 48 authorities in England responsible for developing local nature recovery strategies. Those identify and outline ways to enhance or recover the existing or potential species in the respective areas. Their importance cannot be overstated.

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[Dehenna Davison]

I have heard my right hon. Friend loud and clear, but I hope she will recognise my wider point about not wanting to add unnecessary additional complexity to a service that already faces a great deal of it.

Consultations such as the one on the national planning policy framework in December 2022 are invaluable sources of information, as mentioned by the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan). We are currently analysing the responses to the consultation, which included answers about how national policy could be strengthened through small-scale nature interventions—for example, swift bricks—and a Government response will be provided in due course.

We also used the consultation as an opportunity to outline our commitment to a wider national planning policy review, which will align with the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill receiving Royal Assent, and will ensure that the planning system capitalises on all opportunities to support the environment, address climate change and, of course, level up the economy. In the review, we have already committed to exploring how we can incorporate nature into development through better planning for green infrastructure and nature-friendly buildings. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will appreciate that we cannot pre-empt the findings of the review, so we would not want to introduce a national compulsory planning policy until it has been concluded, but we remain conscious of the plight of our swift population and the potential benefits that mandatory swift bricks could have.

Before I close, I reiterate that the Government are committed to protecting and enhancing our natural and local environment. Through our planning changes and cross-Government working, we are pursuing a fair and balanced approach to achieve better outcomes for biodiversity. Our policy interventions will empower local areas to adopt a targeted approach in reversing the decline of swifts, based on local opportunities. Local planning authorities have the power to adopt policies locally that protect species, and it is important that that is done in a holistic way.

[Kit Malthouse]

Before the Minister finishes, could she confirm to us that she is not saying no to introducing mandatory swift bricks? I understand that she is a Minister in a Department and that collective decision making has to be gone through, but will she go away and have a think about it? In doing so, will she consider two things? First, she should have a look at the wooden boxes that developers may have put up three or four years ago, get a sense of whether they are all still there and consider their permanence. Secondly, I understand that she has given notice that she will not be standing at the next general election but, in a small way, she may be able to leave her mark for the future. If she said yes, we would all be happy to call it the Davison brick, and she would be able to gaze at the swifts with some joy in the future and see the part that she had played in their success.

[Dehenna Davison]

I am incredibly grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention but, just to confirm, it is not something that is being considered by Government at the moment. As I said, in the review of the national planning policy framework there are opportunities to feed in, and I would encourage all Members here and all interested campaigners to feed into that consultation.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

South Africa is obviously a different case, but the point my hon. Friend makes remains and is well founded, because this Bill concentrates the decision making and judgment of hundreds of public bodies in the hands of just one person.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady talked about pensions, and there is an additional point. Whatever people may think of BDS or of an investment strategy that is ethical or otherwise, the money that sits in the local government pension scheme—and I am a member of the local government pension scheme—is the members’ money, my money. It is not the Government’s money to direct in one way or another; it belongs to the pension holders, and it is surely for them and those to whom they delegate its management to decide how it should be deployed. As she rightly says, if the Government are getting into the business of managing my pension money and I lose money because of decisions made by the Government, presumably I should be compensated.

[Lisa Nandy]

This is precisely the question that the Government have yet to answer, but we hope that will be forthcoming during this debate. I would add to what the right hon. Gentleman said that the local government pension service is already under a fiduciary duty to take prudent investment decisions based on an assessment of the financial consequence of a number of matters, including environmental and social governance, and when it divests on the basis of non-financial factors, it should follow the Law Commission direction that any financial impact should not be significant and that the decision would likely be supported by scheme members. I am not sure what happens when a local government pension fund is taking decisions that would not be supported by scheme members. We are talking about the pensions of 6 million people in this country, and I think these are important questions that the Government must answer.

I want to turn to one of our chief concerns about this Bill, which is the concentration of the decision making and judgment of hundreds of public bodies in the hands of just one person and the implications of that for some of the most persecuted people in the world. There will be significant effects on the Uyghur in Xinjiang, who are suffering such serious crimes against humanity that the Biden Administration have recognised it as genocide. The Secretary of State will have read the impassioned letter from those groups in The Times about the effects of this Bill. Surely we cannot abandon them to their fate. For the Rohingya in Myanmar, for the Tamils in Sri Lanka and for countless others, the concern is that this bad law prevents not just economic action to uphold human rights everywhere, but solidarity with some of the most persecuted people in the world.

As was said earlier, the Bill goes further and clause 7 grants to the Secretary of State or other relevant body the power to issue notices requiring all information to be handed over, if they suspect that a prohibited statement expressing a moral or political view about foreign conduct is in the process of or about to be made, including information in subsection (8) that would normally be protected by legal privilege. Let me clear about the effect of that: this hands over to the Office for Students, the Secretary of State, and the Treasury, greater powers than those available to the security services. I know there are Members on both sides of the House who are deeply troubled by that, and those who are not should consider for a moment how they might feel about this Bill if their party was not in power.

We should not be here. We have long fought for legislation to tackle what is a real problem, and we are determined to give the Government the opportunity to do the right thing. That is why today we are proposing an alternative that allows the Government and this House to keep our promise to tackle a long-standing issue of deep concern to the Jewish community, but avoids tearing up our commitment to human rights, local democracy and free speech, in a Bill that does not even appear to tackle the very problem it seeks to solve.

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[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I rise with a heavy heart to agree with many comments from across the House on the nature of this defective Bill. I agree with Richard Hermer KC, who in a very compelling interview published in today’s Jewish News talks about the problems that this Bill presents not just for the UK as a whole but for British Jewry in general.

Taking things in order, my primary concern is the safety of that community. As somebody who has worked very closely with the Jewish community, particularly in the capital over the years, and who has a strong affection for the Haredi community in north London, whom I know well both in policing and crime terms and having dealt with their housing issues as Housing Minister, I am afraid that I agree with the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) that this Bill, should it go through in its current form, is likely to damage and worsen their safety rather than improve it. In that I am with Jonathan Freedland, who wrote in the Jewish Chronicle just last week:

“What is the favourite refrain of the antisemites? That Israel is the one country you’re not ‘allowed’ to criticise. This bill takes a canard and, in the case of boycotts, turns it into the law of the land.”

The inclusions of clause 3(7) and, indeed, parts of clause 4 send a chill through that sense of debate, and will feed some of the disgusting conspiracy theories about the status of Israel and the influence that that country has around the globe. I have to say that I fear for the safety of the Jewish community should the measures be passed in that form. There are those who would do its members harm—we all know that in this House, and I have seen it for myself—and we cannot give them succour by falling into that trap.

My second concern is the practical impact of the Bill on many organisations across the country. As we heard from the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott), this is a lawyers’ charter. There will be challenges to and fro, involving universities, pension funds and councils. Every decision that is taken will be scrutinised, and, moreover, councillors who have strong convictions in either direction will seek to find ways that are oblique to fulfil their own sense of moral or ethical obligation. There are groups out there who represent other countries, such as China and Myanmar, who will seek constantly to push councils in their direction, and not just in terms of Israel or Palestine. As a result, a huge amount of money and effort, and KCs at dawn, will be expended in pursuit of this legislation, and the impact will be enormous.

Thirdly, two key fundamental issues that are intrinsic to the way we live in the United Kingdom are challenged by the Bill. The first is, obviously, the free-speech challenge to which a number of Members have already referred, and which is represented in clause 4(2). It appears that I cannot even criticise this law, whether I am a council leader, a university vice-chancellor, or the chief executive of a company that is performing public services. I have never before seen legislation that outlaws disagreement with the law, and I think that breaching that right to free speech is a very problematic step.

The second of these issues was mentioned by the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). A law granting powers greater than those granted to the police to the investigatory or enforcement authorities identified in the Bill—the Secretary of State, the Office for Students, and one or two others—and allowing them, in particular, to breach legal privilege so that organisations can effectively go on a fishing trip looking at the legal advice that individuals have taken as they contemplate investment decisions is a Rubicon that I believe it would be wrong to cross.

The fourth area that concerns me relates to our tradition of pluralism in this country. There is no doubt that the Bill will send a chill through debate about a series of conflicts across the world. Whether we are talking about the Uyghur Muslims in China, the fate of Hong Kong Chinese or, indeed, those in Israel and Palestine, the fact is that everyone who is engaged in democracy, locally or on a devolved-nation basis, will have to be extremely careful about what they say. They will have to think twice and three times before they discuss these issues, lest that should prejudice, or be seen to prejudice, an investment or other decision that they may make in the future.

This is especially problematic in the context of academic freedom. As we heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), we have just passed a law to guarantee academic freedom: freedom on campus. For that freedom now to be restricted. particularly for those in leadership positions in universities, strikes me as perverse. It should come as no surprise that the Union of Jewish Students is flatly opposed to the Bill, which is apposite given that its members are often the people most exposed to antisemitism in this form.

Finally, I want to raise the issue of timing. The right hon. Member for Barking said that this was the worst Bill at the worst time; I think that it is a defective Bill at a dreadful time. Given what is unfolding in Israel and Palestine today, given the toll of deaths that we have seen so far this year on all sides and given the international concern about the escalating violence in that part of the world, the introduction of this Bill at a time when many countries in that region are extremely concerned about what is going on will be seen by Arab countries in particular—although Members may not feel this themselves—as being partial, and as privileging one country over the others. I think that that will be detrimental not just to our interests in the United Kingdom, which are a primary concern. but to the interests of Israel, Palestine and the wider region.

New Housing Supply

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I will do my best, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, tangential though it may be. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) on his speech, much of the contents of which I agreed with.

Some four years ago, when I was Housing Minister, I decided to hold a housing summit in my largely rural constituency—220 square miles of beautiful rolling Hampshire downland, much of it an area of outstanding natural beauty. About 150, shall we say, more senior members of society showed up for the event in a village hall, and it was obvious from the outset that I was heading for a beating. I began my remarks by posing two questions to the assembled group. I asked them first to put their hands up if they had a child or grandchild over 25 still living at home, and about half of them did so. I then asked them to put their hands up if they had bought their first home in their 20s, and about two thirds of them did so.

Having thus posited the problem, we went on to have quite a civilised conversation about where houses should be going in my constituency and, indeed, in much of the south-east—for these people had come from far and wide. In truth, the message to people who are resistant to or nervous about housing development—even to the small number of verifiable nimbys among us—is that whether they like it or not, the houses are coming. A generation that has been denied access to housing will eventually come of age and be able to vote for councils and councillors, Members of Parliament and Governments, who will deliver what that generation has been denied and put those houses in place.

[Mark Pawsey]

How many sites have been allocated following that meeting?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am pleased to say that my constituency overall is forecast to take something like 30,000 homes over the next 10 years or so. There are some questions to be asked about where the houses are going and what they are going to look like, but those are fundamentally the only two questions that we have to ask. We are building a lot. Indeed, I hope that over the next 10 years, Andover, the main town in my constituency, will get close to double the size that it has been in the past.

This is not just a problem for those individuals who are denied housing; it is a problem for the nation as a whole. We can see the impact of restrictions on housing and the inability to access housing elsewhere. In the United States, for example, a brain drain is taking place from major coastal cities such as San Francisco, New York and Washington DC as young, highly productive people who cannot access housing are leaving in large numbers. In this country, we might see that spreading to other parts, but because we are a smaller country geographically, we will see other impacts. We have seen lower household formations over the last 20 years than we have before, along with a declining birth rate, and more and more young people are choosing to live and work overseas. The history of human economic achievement has shown us that the closer we gather and crowd together, the more productive and innovative we are, so there is going to be a long-term impact for us overall, economically as well as individually.

Now, how do we deliver those houses? I do not think that anybody believes that we should not be delivering 300,000 houses today. When I was Housing Minister, I had a church totaliser on my whiteboard showing me where those houses were going to come from and how we were going to get there. For me, there are broadly three things that we need to do. The first involves the planning system. It has long been an obsession of wonkery that the planning system needs to be swept away because it is not working, yet local authorities tell us that 92% of applications are approved and that it is functioning. They do, however, express a frustration with it, which is that the system as it is currently configured has become a huge game of poker. Developers, councillors and local people are gambling on what is going to happen, and somebody in a suit, male or female, from Bristol—the planning inspector—will be the final croupier who decides who wins the game of poker. That is just not good enough. As the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said, certainty is what produces results.

So for me, the first step is the abolition of the Planning Inspectorate, alongside setting hard targets for local authorities but giving them an absolute right democratically to choose where those houses should go in their area. Hopefully that will be brownfield, and some of it may indeed be garden villages. It is a great sadness to me that the Oxford-Cambridge arc seems to have been abandoned by the Government; I had huge ambitions for that part of the world. If we can create certainty by putting local authorities in charge, with those hard targets, they will know that they have their fate in their own hands and we can just get on and build.

The second element of the planning system that needs to be removed is the viability test. Many developers over-densify and hide behind the viability test. They do the local community out of its rightful contribution from the uplift in value because they show a spreadsheet of whether a development is going to make money or not and they justify adjustments here and there. That is particularly the case in London, where it is simply impossible to overpay for land. The viability test says that anyone who has overpaid for land can just build a 44-storey skyscraper that will pay for their effective overpayment and largesse. If we get rid of the viability test, we would get an actual market for land and it would be possible to overpay. We would then see realistic values and get more land coming through.

Finally, one of the key elements for the acceptance of housing in local areas, alongside the need for the restoration and strengthening of neighbourhood planning, is a strong sense of aesthetics. I certainly see this in my constituency. I have joked in the past that if they would only build thatched cottages in my constituency, we could build thousands of the damned things. Aesthetics matter. When we look at some of our historic towns and cities, we see that they have been scarred by previous generations building rubbish stuff. The houses that were built in the 1960s and ’70s have largely been—or will largely be—bulldozed and replaced. Hardly anything from that era will be deemed to be a conservation area, unlike so much of the mass development created by the Victorians. If we get the aesthetics right, along with providing local people with the certainty that they are in charge of their destiny on housing, acceptability will rise.

Let me give the House an example. Anyone who has the joy of going to Stamford in Lincolnshire—I did not mention to my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies) that I was going to mention his constituency—can see a game of two halves. They will find developments in the classic tradition that look like Stamford, and people queue round the block to buy those houses. On the other side of town, they will see developments that look like the same old rubbish that is built anywhere else in the UK, and they will scar that beautiful town for many generations to come.

We need a rigid aesthetic code looking at vernacular architecture. We need to put local authorities in charge, rather than having arbitrary decision making by the Planning Inspectorate. We need to get rid of artificially inflated land values through the abolition of the viability test. We also need some hard numbers that will add up to 300,000, or possibly more, as the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston said. Then I think we would stand a chance of answering the question that we have to answer for the next generation: will their life be better than ours? If we can do all that, the answer may well be yes.

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[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for securing this debate on such a pressing and important topic, which I have been involved with, in one way or another, for 20 years in elected office. I was pleased to lead a Westminster Hall debate on the related topic of the future for SME house builders just the other week, and today’s debate provides a welcome opportunity to hammer home some of the points I made then.

As a Conservative, the idea of the UK as a property-owning democracy is one about which I feel very strongly, and it worries me deeply that, for many younger people, home ownership is increasingly out of reach. Unsurprisingly, given my chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for SME house builders, I have a strongly held view that the sector can play an important role in helping to address the dual problems of housing accessibility and affordability across the UK.

The Home Builders Federation reports that, in 2020, the SME house building sector delivered about 22,000 homes. To put that in context, according to the Federation of Master Builders, SME builders could deliver 65,000 homes by 2025, compared with 12,000 in 2021, given the right conditions.

For those who are not aware of how vital the SME sector is to housing delivery, let me explain. SME developers typically carry out smaller developments built on trickier sites, and the SME sector tends to go where volume house builders cannot. As well as this, they often face less vocal opposition, as they deliver brownfield housing up and down the country, instead of the large-scale developments that often do not have the infrastructure to go along with them and which are responsible for so much so-called nimbyism. The sector delivered 39% of all homes built in England in the late 1980s yet, 40 years later, it barely manages 10% of our annual housing completions.

The rising cost of materials is causing difficulties for developers across the board, which is why I welcome initiatives such as the one developed by Travis Perkins, based in my Northampton South constituency, that enables SME house builders to access building supplies and materials directly without facing lengthy pre-approval checks. Another issue for SME house builders is access to finance, on which my APPG is soon to deliver a report. That includes difficulties in the Land Registry process for recording changes of property ownership. Labour shortages are another issue, as labour is crucial to the whole process.

[Kit Malthouse]

It is extremely important to recognise that small house builders, which were largely wiped out in the 2007-08 crash, have not re-emerged. Does my hon. Friend think the Government should look at the generation of new house builders—in the ’70s we had Lawrie Barratt and the chap behind Redrow, these big house builders—in the same way that they are looking at the generation of new scientists and new companies that promote science and technology? They have a strategy and funding all of their own, but I have yet to see anything that would stimulate new house building companies for the future. Does he agree that is something the Government should look at?

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[Ben Everitt]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. I think he might be zeroing in on a particular aspect of the picture that I have painted of the broken market. The behaviour—or perceived behaviour, in some cases—of developers and builders is not necessarily the cause of issues that I have been discussing; it is more a symptom.

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. On the numbers given by my county colleague, my hon. Friend from the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), at the current rate of building, which is 200,000-odd homes a year, outstanding permissions would account for four or five years’ supply. That is in an uncertain planning environment, where seeking planning permission, as I illustrated earlier, is a huge gamble. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) agree that it is more likely that land prices are driven by the existence of the viability test, which means that you cannot overpay for land, rather than land prices being driven by the value of the property—that is, downwards? That means that land is at an unrealistic value.

[Ben Everitt]

Absolutely. I could not agree more. In any regulated environment, the market players require, and are incredibly hungry for, clarity, consistency and certainty. The system is so complex, and subject to so many historical and, to be frank, future changes; there is not the clarity, consistency and certainty needed by the market players—the people who will provide the houses. They do not have the confidence to put bricks and mortar on the ground. We are calling for massive reform, but we need certainty, which we will put to good use. It should be massive reform first, and then some certainty. I am grateful for the interventions.

The market is broken. Land prices follow economic activity. This is the critical point: what was once a symptom of the need to level up is now a cause. When we have gone through all the pain of getting through the planning process and getting houses built, very often we end up with identikit estates of massive, four-bedroom houses that look exactly like the suite ofb estates in our existing stock. That does nothing for mobility between our existing sector, which is of course about 99% of our stock, and the new build sector. It does not make moving out a viable option for people who are under-occupying former family homes in the existing sector. New build homes are not genuinely affordable and attainable for young, local, first-time buyers, and they are not appropriate for elderly people who are looking to downsize and live in retirement living. There are multiple issues, but fundamentally we are building the wrong kind of houses in the wrong places.

My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) touched on the subject of small and medium-sized enterprise builders, labour and material shortages, build cost, inflation, and access to finance, so I will not go on about those, but one of the key barriers to mobility between existing stock and new build stock is stamp duty. Stamp duty is a tax on social mobility. It is crippling mobility in the sectors that we need to drive economic activity. We need to set people free in terms of their labour mobility as well.

I will skip the bits of my speech about the planning system and resourcing planning departments, for reasons of time. I want to end with a reason to be optimistic and hopeful. We have a huge opportunity. We are pouring billions of pounds into left-behind communities through the levelling-up fund, the high streets fund, the shared prosperity fund and the towns fund. All of that is based on the concept of levelling being about opportunities for people who need somewhere to live. So we need to revisit the algorithm and recast the targets. We need to put much more emphasis on where we create and stimulate demand through the billions of pounds the Government are investing through levelling up and make it sustainable, so that communities can benefit from the economic growth from the levelling-up agenda but be sustainable, because people are living and building families and communities in the places near where they work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I will not at this point, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, because I have a lot to get on the record.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden has passionately advocated for new towns. We agree that an ambitious pipeline of housing and regeneration opportunities is crucial. I am a representative of a new town, Redditch, which currently houses about 70,000 people, so I know how successful and how important those developments can be. That is one of the reasons why we are already supporting delivery at scale along the lines he suggested through several funds, including the garden communities programme, which will support the delivery of more 3,000 homes by 2050, most of them in the north, the midlands and the south-west.

To pick out a couple of examples, Halsnead garden village in Knowsley will deliver more than 1,600 new homes in Merseyside, along with new businesses. Another, West Carclaze garden village, will support up to 1,500 new homes in an innovative and sustainable new community that promotes the health and wellbeing of its residents. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford noted the fantastic development in her local area, and I look forward to continued active discussions with her about the proposals in her Affordable Housing (Conversion of Commercial Property) Bill.

We must also work to unlock large complex sites through initiatives such as our housing infrastructure fund, which my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle has welcomed in his area. The fund delivers the infrastructure needed to ensure that new communities are well connected and supported by local amenities.

New towns, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden rightly asserted, can deliver high-quality, sustainable urban development and make an important contribution to housing supply. However, they require considerable resources and co-ordination, a long-term vision or masterplan, strong local support, enabling infrastructure and a significant capacity and capability commitment that is often beyond the abilities of local authorities.

For all those reasons, the Government believe that new towns can be part of the solution, but not the whole solution, to alleviate housing demand. They should be considered alongside regeneration opportunities to make the most efficient use of brownfield land and maximise the benefits of existing transport infrastructure. All our reforms are based on the principle that we will deliver housing only with the consent of communities and elected representatives at all levels. We know that wherever development takes place, local people will express the same concerns, so we have to get it right.

[Kit Malthouse]

Would the Minister at this point like to address the issue that a number of us have raised about the removal of hard targets and the uncertainty that that creates, particularly for the industry? For example, as she will know, gearing up to deliver 300,000 homes a year is a huge logistical exercise that requires massive capital investment to produce bricks, building machines and all sorts of stuff. That requires a very long horizon of certainty of delivery. If there are no targets, how is she going to give that certainty to industry?

[Rachel Maclean]

My right hon. Friend will, I hope, hear the remarks about that later in my speech.

Unfortunately, I cannot do justice to all the questions that are being asked, but I will touch on the importance of a healthy and diverse housing market, including the SME builders that were rightly mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South. We have launched the levelling up home building fund, which provides £1.5 billion in development finance to SMEs and modern methods of construction builders. Our Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill makes changes to the planning system to make it much easier for SMEs to operate.

Every Member has spoken about the importance of a modern, responsive and transparent planning system. I think it vital that our reformed planning system helps to bring certainty to communities and developers. That will enable them to take those positive steps towards building more housing, regenerating their local areas and supporting economic growth.

To address the point on which my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire challenged me, he will know that we have just concluded a consultation on the NPPF. A number of those policy questions are live and the Government will respond as quickly as possible to provide that certainty to the market and to local authorities. However, it is a huge consultation and it is important that we get it right.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

It was a good Budget, a fine Budget, filled with lots of delights, with something in there for everybody. In deference to the Opposition Front Bench, it had Osbornian overtones, filled with smart, clever tactical manoeuvres to fan the flicker of growth that there is in the economy, hopefully into a flame.

There are three areas that I want to raise with the Minister in my five minutes. While we have made some progress, we need to go further and do some thinking before the autumn, and indeed the Budget next year.

First, on childcare, in my brief time at the Department for Education, I was pleased to put together some options that were going to form what we were calling “a childcare big bang”. I was happy to see a number of those appear in the Budget, not least the expansion of the provision of free hours of care for under twos. However, I am sure the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), recognises that the system is still very complicated and still has a number of anomalies in it, not least the £100,000 threshold, which keeps a lot of highly productive women out of the workforce who are punished for going back by having their free hours withdrawn.

In addition, there are seven different ways for childminders to receive payment for the care they give. Given that the Government are putting lots of money in at the front-end of the equation, they need to think carefully about supply. I urge my right hon. Friend to look at what more we can do to expand childminder agencies in particular across the country as they are the only proactive tool we have for recruiting childminders. I also urge him to think more flexibly about what we can do to allow families to choose for themselves what kind of care they want to give.

I urge my right hon. Friend to consider conflating the childminding budget, which now rises to about £9 billion, with the child benefit budget, which is now £12 billion although that is falling, and other ancillary budgets, into one huge budget that would allow us to think carefully about what reform we could put in place to support families, not just in looking after children but encouraging them to have more children. As my right hon. Friend will know, we are not replacing ourselves in this country. We have a demographic problem and we have to encourage those who want to have children to do so. More thinking in that area would be great.

The second area that I wish to raise is corporation tax. I concur with my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) in wanting corporation tax to be lower, not least because I believe in the Laffer curve; I do not believe that we will necessarily raise that much more by raising corporation tax rates. It raises a question in my mind about how we tax companies and why we continue to chase them for corporation tax when we know that the international and online nature of business makes it very difficult to tax such organisations.

When he was the Chancellor, the Prime Minister put us into an international cabal of minimum corporation tax chargers across the world in an attempt to track all these companies down and tax all their profits, but if we went for a sales tax—if we focused on consumption and on those businesses’ sales—their domicile would be irrelevant, because the tax would relate to where their transactions had taken place. The huge international businesses that operate online and that we are currently chasing around the world would come into our taxation envelope, and we would find it easier to collect tax from them.

The third big area is, in many ways, the missed strategic move in the Budget. It did not address one of the fundamental problems with the operation of our economy, which is the nature, spread and dynamism of capital within it. Happily, the Government have talked expansively about science, technology and innovation; they obviously recognise that we are on the threshold of the fourth great advance in human understanding and ingenuity. Our country caught the first two advances—the industrial revolution and the industrialisation at the turn of the 20th century—but we broadly missed the advance that took place in the 1960s and ’70s. That was largely because our economy was sclerotic, but, critically, it was also because we had forgotten a basic tenet of capitalism: if we want the private sector to weigh in behind science, technology and advancement, we have to let capital rip. We have to deregulate it. We have to make sure that profit can be made from taking risk.

Critically, we also have to allow capital to spread into as many hands as possible. We talk a lot about housing in this country, and about putting houses in the hands of young people, but we never talk about putting shares in the hands of young people and encouraging them to own shares in the businesses for which they work and to participate in a capitalist economy.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dehenna Davison]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for his pitch. I was in Barnsley a few months ago—an area very close to where I grew up—and I did have some local people making their own representations on the importance of this particular fund. At this stage I cannot comment on the merits of individual bids, but I heard loud and clear his pitch, and we will be announcing the result in due course.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Will the Minister please confirm as she moves towards the award of these moneys, that she has sharply in her mind the fact that hidden among the averages of the otherwise prosperous south-east, there are some serious pockets of deprivation, not least in those London overspill towns that still ring the capital? Those include Andover in my constituency, which as well as importing an unfortunate number of Arsenal supporters, also brought with it a number of social and demographic problems with which the town still struggles, and towards which the grant award could significantly assist.

[Dehenna Davison]

I had best keep my comments about Arsenal to myself in this House, but my right hon. Friend is right: levelling up is not something that can be simplified purely by region or by north and south, and there are pockets all over the country that need to benefit from funds such as the levelling-up fund. I know how much of a passionate advocate he is for the Andover bid, and we will be announcing the result in due course.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) and I completely agreed with much of what he said. We must learn what mistakes were made and then make improvements across the board so that others never suffer the same terrible tragedy that happened at Grenfell.

I want to express both sympathy for the Grenfell victims and admiration for their demeanour. I have met many of them. If such a thing happened to most of us, I do not think we would be able to cope. I express my admiration for the way they have conducted themselves since this terrible tragedy and sympathy for the people who lost their lives and their families. It must be the most horrendous experience possible to die in such circumstances, and we must always remember that that is what happened.

I served on the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority between 2004 and 2007. The Minister served on the same board subsequently.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service (Kit Malthouse)]

indicated dissent.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire Service (Kit Malthouse)]

No one in this House will ever forget the tragic events that unfolded in the early hours of 14 June 2017 or the 72 people who lost their lives in the most appalling circumstances. This city and country have had too many dark days, but the night of the Grenfell disaster must rank among the darkest. In a debate in this House on 30 October, the Prime Minister said that no words, written or spoken, can undo the pain caused to so many by this tragedy, and I am sure we all echo that sentiment. However, we can and must learn from it, so I want to thank personally Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his team for their work in producing this first report. Many questions about that night remain unanswered, but given the forensic and unflinching nature of part 1 of his report, I am confident that Sir Martin and his team will leave no stone unturned in getting to the truth.

I would also like to join every speaker in the Chamber this afternoon in acknowledging the survivors and the bereaved for their dignity and their resolution to see lessons learned following this devastating event. Their determination and resilience helps us to remember the scale of this tragedy and keep those who lost their lives firmly in our minds while we work to make the changes needed. For their sake, we must ensure that a disaster on this scale can never happen again.

I also want to express my own thanks to the firefighters who braved the unprecedented conditions they faced that night. As my hon. Friends the Members for Watford (Dean Russell) and for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) pointed out, many disregarded their own safety, returning time and again to the flames to try to rescue those who were trapped. Such individual acts of heroism cannot, however, undo the systemic failures that the inquiry has found in the London Fire Brigade response. They must be addressed, and work is already well under way.

The report makes a number of significant findings and recommendations. As highlighted in this House, in the Government’s published response to the report and in the opening of this debate, we are committed to driving forward the work needed to effect real change. The Government have accepted in full the principle of all the recommendations addressed to them. On legislation, it is clear that urgent action is needed from all corners of the fire sector and the construction industry to secure the future safety of residents. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and others have pointed out, the pace of this change concerns us all. So the Government will bring forward the fire safety Bill, as outlined today by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which will help our remediation efforts immediately. The foundation set by this Bill lays the groundwork for further regulations to meet a number of recommendations in the report, which we will consult on in the spring.

On “stay put”, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Home Office’s expert stay put steering group met on 18 December to discuss the parameters of its stay put and evacuation research. The Home Office will begin the tendering process in February for the first package of research required. The outcomes of that will inform operational research later in the year. It is also relevant to stay put that the inquiry recommended that all high rise buildings be equipped with facilities for evacuation signals and have way-finding signage. The Government ran a consultation on building-wide alarms, signage and sprinklers, which closed on 28 November. The consultation led to more than 180 responses, which the Government are currently analysing. But we urge all developers and building owners to act now on the inquiry’s recommendations and not wait for legislation or other changes to take effect.

Turning to the criticisms of the LFB and the recommendations for it, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services completed its first tranche of inspections of all fire and rescue services in December 2019 and produced its first “State of Fire and Rescue” report last week. The inspectorate and the inquiry reports both show that there is much work to be done. The inspector found that the LFB had learned the lessons of Grenfell but that change has been slow. In November, the Home Secretary wrote to the previous commissioner asking that the LFB provide regular updates on its improvement actions. We have now received an action plan from the LFB setting out the work it will do to take forward the recommendations over the coming weeks and months. We will look for ongoing assurance from the commissioner and the Mayor of London, as well as from the inspectorate, that plans are robust and that progress is being made. I note that today the Mayor has today published his first update report on the work he is taking responsibility for in this regard. I have written to the Mayor and met the new commissioner, Andy Roe, and I welcome his commitment to work with the Mayor to ensure that performance improves and to ensure his acceptance of all the report’s recommendations.

Beyond London, the report and its recommendations have implications for all fire and rescue services. The Government are working with the sector leaders and the National Fire Chiefs Council to identify the improvements needed and to ensure co-ordination across the sector. The Home Secretary wrote to the chief fire officers after the inquiry published its report, asking that they work together and through the National Fire Chiefs Council. Her letter also announced that the Government would bring fire leaders together to discuss the report, and we will do so before the end of March.

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That this House has considered the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 1 Report.

[Kit Malthouse]

A national improvement plan is being created for the sector by the National Fire Chiefs Council and will build on the work of its central programme office, the fire standards board, the protection board and the inspectorate.

Several Members, not least my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), raised the issue of interoperability, and concerns have rightly been raised about co-ordination and communication errors between the emergency services at Grenfell. We take this issue very seriously, and the Government are committed to working with all emergency services to improve interoperability. The joint emergency services interoperability principles, or JESIP—their joint doctrine—set out a standard approach to multi-agency working. It will be reviewed and republished by September this year to incorporate learnings from the Grenfell disaster. Following the inquiry’s report, the interoperability board has written to all emergency services to reinforce what is required when a major incident occurs. The report made recommendations in relation to the images and data sent from the National Police Air Service helicopters, and I can confirm that that work has been completed.

Let me turn to some specific issues that Members have raised during the debate. If I miss any out, I am more than happy to write to Members afterwards. Several Members raised the issue of members of the Grenfell community—survivors and families—still remaining in temporary accommodation. As Housing Minister for 12 months, I met individuals regularly and reviewed individual cases. As I have explained, particularly to the Opposition housing spokesman, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), these are complex and difficult cases. Our concern at the repeated raising of this issue is not necessarily for our own political advantage, but that raising it increases the pressure on individuals who are living in temporary accommodation, who are leading complex and difficult lives. We are attempting to be sensitive to them and to accommodate them. We should not assume that those individuals have been continuously in temporary accommodation: a number have been in and out as they have struggled with the circumstances they face. We are keeping up pressure on the council—the Secretary of State and the Housing Minister meet the council regularly—but as we deal with these particular individuals, it behoves us all to remain sensitive to their plight.

Several Members, not least the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), raised the wider issue of the ability of those who are living in buildings with cladding either to sell or to secure finance against their properties. Work did start last year, and I understand from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that it has now concluded. A working party at the MHCLG, including the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and UK Finance, was formed to try to resolve the issue. That has now produced a new simplified process by which surveyors can reassure themselves that a property is mortgageable and insurable, and therefore financeable, so that sales can be effected.

[David Linden]

We will of course wait and see the outcome of that process and how it works in practice, but can the Minister give an undertaking that, in the months to come, his Ministry will have a watching brief over it to see whether it is indeed working for our constituents who have been raising some of the concerns expressed by myself and by the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)?

[Kit Malthouse]

Yes—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State reassures me that we will absolutely keep a watching brief. The early signs are that the new protocol is having a beneficial effect.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) raised a query about what will happen to the site. He should be aware that a commission has now been constituted. I gather that it has met a number of times, and it is very much being led by the bereaved, the survivors and the community themselves so that they are in the driving seat about what should happen on the site and what kind of memorial they wish to have. I am sure we can provide the hon. Gentleman with more information on that if he wishes.

Some Members raised issues around electrical safety compliance. Obviously progress has been made as far on the duty of landlords, in both the private and the social sector, to ensure compliance, particularly where small electrical goods are concerned. I am informed that the Consumers Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Rochester and Strood (Kelly Tolhurst)—has commissioned the Office for Product Safety and Standards to develop options for increasing the rate of product registrations, including potential mandatory registration. A number of workstreams are under way looking to understand the barriers to registration and consumers’ attitudes to that registration, which will inform this work in the future.

The hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken)—I know her area well from my time as a councillor and as a London Assembly member—raised the issue of sprinklers and the complexity of tenure that may stand in the way of the retrofitting of sprinklers in older blocks across the city. That is obviously a difficult and complex area of legality, not least because one would have to cross the barrier of possibly fitting sprinklers against the will of a property owner where they are in a collective block and therefore have collective safety, but I know colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will be dealing with the issue.

Finally, in her excellent speech, following on from her equally brilliant maiden speech in which she raised this subject, my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) mentioned a couple of issues. First, she said that she had met the new commissioner of the LFB, whom I have also met recently. He impressed me with his ambition and his willingness to embrace the issues for the London Fire Brigade that have been raised both by the inspectorate and by the inquiry. He does seem committed to real change in that organisation, which was very encouraging to see.

Along with the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), my hon. Friend raised the issue of a member of the inquiry panel. The Home Office is obviously a core participant in the inquiry, so it would not be right for me to comment either way, but I can reassure both of them that the Cabinet Office is aware of this issue and is giving it some thought.

There is nothing that we can do to turn back the clock on this tragedy, and there are no words of condolence or sympathy that will bring back those who lost their lives or offer comfort to those whose lives have been irrevocably changed by this tragedy. All we can do is learn the lessons of this terrible event and work tirelessly to ensure that a disaster on this scale can never happen again.

It is incumbent on all of us—the Government, the emergency services, those responsible for managing high rise residential buildings and the construction industry—to work together to bring real change. I am confident that the inquiry’s detailed analysis of the evidence seen in phase 1 will continue to phase 2, and that the panel will uncover the full truth of what happened on that terrible, dark night.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 1 Report.