Refugees: Community Sponsorship

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of refugees that will be settled annually through community sponsorship; and what steps they are taking to provide adequate resources and support to sponsors.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, I am grateful to have secured this debate, and to those who will speak. Community sponsorship offers a distinctive approach to refugee settlement. It enables people not simply to welcome refugees in principle but to stand alongside them in practice in securing a home, navigating unfamiliar systems and building relationships and new lives. It is a considerable commitment and an expression of the best of our civic life—or, as the Prime Minister might choose to see it, a courageous example of hope, where families are welcomed by their neighbours. It has been a privilege to witness the scheme’s extraordinary capacity to transform the lives of displaced people and enrich communities in my own diocese of Chelmsford, and across the UK, since its launch at Lambeth Palace in 2016. People want to help provide refugee protection.

The Government’s role is to create a safe, managed and sustainable framework that turns that willingness into action; I am grateful for their commitment in wanting to make that work. My understanding is that the Government will open applications to the scheme today. If I am correct, that will be an important milestone. I hope that this debate offers an opportunity for the Minister to share more about the Government’s ambitions for partnership working with communities and sponsors to make this pathway a joint success. Communities need to know what is expected of them, how many refugees the programme hopes to support, and what resources are available. These are questions of ambition, capacity and responsibility, which I hope we can explore a little today.

The Government want to restore public confidence in the migration system. We all see the human tragedy of people risking their lives in small boats and we hear concerns about pressures on services, housing and cohesion, yet these concerns are too often presented as a choice between compassion and control. The model of community sponsorship demonstrates that this is a false choice. It offers a safe, regular and well-managed route for refugees to rebuild their lives while strengthening communities.

In this scheme, communities choose to participate. Numbers are known and arrivals prepared for. Accommodation and support are planned and secured beforehand. This contrasts starkly with disorderly arrivals, emergency hotels and last-minute dispersals, which undermine trust and fuel anxiety. Sponsorship instead encourages cohesion, establishes relationships from the start and leads to faster integration. Evidence shows that sponsored refugees learn English more quickly, find work sooner and rely less on public services, because support helps their independence, reducing the long-term costs associated with homelessness, unemployment and poor health.

It is right that the scale of sponsorship is driven by the willingness and capacity of communities rather than by an arbitrary cap, but how will the Government assess that capacity, and the potential for growth, as infrastructure develops through new pathways for education and employment? How will faith groups, refugee-led organisations, voluntary sector organisations and local authorities be consulted before numbers are determined?

Sponsorship should also be a flexible national asset that can be mobilised rapidly in response to emerging humanitarian disasters. A mature system could provide a durable framework for future crises without requiring entirely new programmes. Homes for Ukraine demonstrated the public’s willingness to respond, with over 175,000 arrivals. The Government have said that arrivals through the resettlement scheme and sponsorship routes will initially number in the hundreds rising to the low thousands. However, they must ensure they do not constrain the ambition of willing sponsors. In time, I hope the scheme will become fully accessible to other parts of the world, not just those currently named. The existing scheme has supported more than 1,200 refugees through over 200 sponsors. Canada’s comparable programme has resettled over 440,000 refugees since 1979.

In preparing for this debate, I contacted organisations supporting refugees, as well as the Church of England, to gauge their interest in participating. I heard from the Salvation Army, Welcome Churches, the Pickwell Foundation, Refugee Education UK, Citizens UK, REST, Rohingya Association UK, the Welsh Refugee Council and Micro Rainbow. That is an impressive and diverse group of potential partners. It is important that government and this House welcome the welcomers. Community sponsorship is emotionally and practically demanding, particularly in divisive times. Those giving their time and resources should be recognised and protected. Civil society and government must work closely together so the welcomers feel confident to provide support effectively. I hope that today is a helpful opportunity for the Minister to place on record the Government’s thanks to these thousands of volunteers who have supported refugees through sponsorship schemes over the past decade and will be integral in the future.

My Question also concerns the support available to sponsors. It would be easy to focus on funding without acknowledging the Government’s considerable investment in the processing requirements, including overseas vetting and logistical arrangements. What plans do the Government have to build societal infrastructure so that community sponsorship becomes a self-sustaining, resilient and community-owned model? Generosity cannot replace professional support, so how will the Government help lead sponsors to offer specialist assistance, including training, safeguarding and administrative support? How will they ensure that sponsorship remains accessible to less affluent groups that wish to participate, including local churches and faith groups?

The Question before us today is not simply how many refugees the Government intend to welcome through sponsorship; it is whether they are ready to build a programme that communities can participate in confidently and on which refugees can rely. Community sponsorship can be a powerful expression of shared responsibility. It is a safe and controlled model and, importantly, it is rooted in the best of who we are as a society. With proper planning, sustained support and a clear commitment from government, it can offer refugees not only safety but the opportunity to belong, to flourish and to contribute.

Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Grand Committee

I apologise that I have gone on at some length, but I wanted to do justice to the concerns raised by the SLSC and by Freedom From Torture and other organisations. This may be a small change in the eyes of the Home Office, but it is one with potentially significant implications for people in vulnerable circumstances and it deserves our scrutiny. I beg to move.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, I begin by acknowledging the support that I have received from RAMP as one of its principals. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, for creating this important opportunity to take note of and discuss the Government’s new single protection interview process, introduced through the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules. I acknowledge that procedural changes will often need to be facilitated through secondary legislation, but the nature of the changes before us raises substantial questions, which I am pleased can now be explored with Ministers in this House.

Organisations such as the Helen Bamber Foundation and Freedom from Torture have argued that the changes represent a “substantial shift” in procedure, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee highlighted. It therefore seems appropriate that time is allocated for proper parliamentary scrutiny. This is particularly pertinent if the Government wish at a future date to expand the use of a single protection interview. Can the Minister provide reassurance that, if that were to happen, there will be a further opportunity to discuss the merits of such an approach and consider the necessary safeguards that might be required?

The Government’s objective to improve the effectiveness and timeliness of our asylum system is entirely legitimate and welcome, but we must distinguish carefully between administrative efficiency and justice. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, has said, speed must not come at the expense of fairness. Are the Government confident that the new process will be able reliably to distinguish an unfounded claim from a genuine one that has not yet been fully understood and where additional information might be required?

The purpose of an asylum system is of course not simply to process claims but to identify people who genuinely need protection. The scrutiny committee’s key concern is pertinent here. If I am right in my understanding that the Government have confirmed that applicants will retain the right to submit further information, why then remove the Immigration Rules’ explicit guarantee of that right?

The SPI relies on the Home Office identifying appropriate cases before vulnerability, trafficking indicators, trauma, sexual orientation or safeguarding concerns have been fully explored. But as the Government know, evidence consistently shows that many survivors of torture, trafficking and other forms of serious harm do not disclose these experiences at the earliest stage of the asylum process. Even if these characteristics are identified, there will presumably need to be an assessment of whether the safeguarding or vulnerability indicator meets a threshold to qualify for rerouting out of the single process and back into the standard asylum process. Can the Minister provide further information on how suitability decisions will be made and how applicants can challenge inclusion in the process?

The Home Office recognises that survivors of torture, trafficking and those from the LGBTQI+ community often disclose relevant experiences only after trust has been built up. Trauma, shame, fear, exhaustion, unfamiliarity with the asylum process and language barriers can make it difficult to disclose experiences coherently at the first interview, and the most vulnerable may need specialist support to fully disclose evidence. An incomplete first account should not automatically be mistaken for a dishonest or unfounded claim. Can the Government offer reassurance that the new process will not lead to decision-makers reaching premature conclusions before the relevant evidence has been assembled? Does the Minister envisage that identified survivors of torture, trafficking and other serious trauma will be excluded from the SPI process?

The Home Office acknowledges that interviews are often the most important evidence-gathering opportunity. Curtailing that process for this vulnerable cohort risks unfair outcomes. It is also important to remember that, even if a country is generally safe, an individual may face persecution because of their particular circumstances. The assessment must therefore remain individual, not presumptive.

I expect that not every asylum case will require two interviews, but it is important to remember that an unjust refusal, made potentially more likely through the loss of a substantive interview, is not merely an administrative error—it might expose someone to persecution or serious harm. It could also lead to costly litigation and further delays, undermining the very efficiency that the policy is seeking. The risk of refoulement is a serious potential consequence. I want to be clear that I am not suggesting that every SPI decision may be unlawful, but I urge the Government to commit to further parliamentary scrutiny and to consultation with expert stakeholders and publication of evaluation data ahead of removing the procedural safeguard of an additional interview from other groups and for other purposes.

The Government are right to want to resolve clearly unfounded claims quickly to reduce delays and to avoid keeping people in prolonged uncertainty. The policy guidance allows for further investigation and interviews where necessary, which is of course welcome. The issue is whether, in practice, those safeguards will work consistently. I therefore ask the Minister: will interviewers be trained to recognise trauma, vulnerabilities and inconsistencies that may have legitimate explanations? Also, will there be a clearly applied process for transferring a case to the usual process? I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to answer all the questions that I have asked today, but I would be grateful if he could commit to write.

The measure of an asylum system is not simply how quickly it can refuse a claim but how reliably it can recognise a person who genuinely needs protection. A fair system must be capable of refusing unfounded claims but also capable of recognising when a person’s right to asylum is evidence-based, even when they struggle to explain it at first or to provide corroborating information. The questions I have asked are in an effort to understand whether the new process has sufficient safeguards to distinguish effectively between the two. Where the consequences of error may be persecution, torture or even the loss of life, the burden of getting that distinction right is profound. I therefore hope that the Government will take seriously the concerns raised by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, explain the removal of the express safeguard for further evidence, and commit to transparent monitoring of the new process.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow two such powerful and caring speeches focused on the justice of our asylum system—which, after all, in many cases addresses issues of life and death. I agree with virtually everything that both noble Baronesses said, so, rather than repeat what has been said, I will seek to add a couple of points to it.

We are focusing on the fact that we are talking about people whose lives have all too often been marked by torture, trauma, abuse and other suffering. The reality is that it is difficult for them to just sit down and talk about that. Although I almost always agree with her, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, described a lot of the language and process here as rather Orwellian. I will take away that “rather” because our own Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee reflected, in paragraph 4 of its report, on the term “merged registration”. That is where one interview covers the registration, the screening of the individual and the establishment and assessment of the basis of the claim. The scrutiny committee says of that term that

“‘merged registration’ does not accurately describe what the process will encompass”.

We should think about those people, very often with English as a second language, being in a really confusing situation. I have a direct question to the Minister: could we not at least call it something that would be immediately understandable if it was to be translated? I note that the committee also said:

“The Home Office may wish to consider using a more helpful, descriptive and easier to understand name”.


Are the Government taking that on board?

The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, referred to a really important report in the context of what we are debating: the June 2026 report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. It is worth revisiting its conclusion, which said that the quality of decision-making in the asylum system

“had declined … and was at an unacceptable level”.

It focused particularly on the problems of hiring staff—the appropriateness of the way in which staff are hired and who is hired—and the retention challenges. Four in 10 decision-makers left between April 2024 and May 2025, and those decision-makers had typically been in position for only 11 months. Again, I ask the Minister directly: will this simply be a cab rank system? Will the people using this process just be whoever is next in the queue or, if this system is to be used, will it be applied by more experienced and, I hope, more skilled and knowledgeable staff, who will have had the chance to experience seeing claims previously?

I also express concern about the Government’s intention to focus on a small number of countries. I will anonymise this quite heavily because I do not know the situation now of the individual concerned but, some years ago, I met a woman in Bristol who told me—I have no doubt that the fear that she was expressing was absolutely genuine—that she was the divorced wife of someone from a very powerful family on the Indian subcontinent and that she feared for her life if she was forced to go back to her home country. That is not a country issue but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, individuals may indeed be in a position of genuine fear of persecution in those kinds of circumstances. To know and understand that and be able to read a person’s explanation is a complex thing.

Private Rented Sector: Affordable Rents

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

That is a key question, and I am afraid it is not possible for me to give a specific answer because we have just set aside social housing in local plans. We will be asking local authorities to determine their local need for social housing.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, one consequence of sustained high rents in the private sector is the conversion of family homes into HMOs. Are the Government monitoring this trend, and what action are they taking on the loss of family homes in this way?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand the point the right reverend Prelate makes about the conversion of family homes into HMOs. I do not have those figures here, so I will write to her with a response.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 15th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Best, from whose wisdom and experience I have personally gained such a lot. I am grateful for his contribution today. I declare my interest as the Church of England’s lead bishop for housing. Also, as I am in clergy-tied housing myself, my retirement house is currently let to a long-term tenant.

My starting place is that good homes are the building blocks of strong communities. Bad homes threaten mental and physical well-being, hinder personal and economic development, and compromise safety. Everyone needs a good home so that we have a good society where people can flourish. As others have said, there is much to welcome in the Bill. Private renting is the most insecure and expensive tenure, and it requires significant reform. I am pleased that the decent homes standard will be applied to the private rented sector for the first time. I am also pleased that the Government have tabled amendments to prohibit landlords and letting agencies from discriminating against families with children and people in receipt of benefits. I will seek more details on how this will work in practice.

I have three children, all of whom are young adults. Without a significant shake-up of the entire housing market, it is likely that they will struggle ever to buy their own property. With more than 11 million people renting privately, they are not alone, and young people face particular difficulties in switching to home ownership or social rent. With some notable exceptions, young people are not particularly well represented in either House, which might be one reason the Bill has taken so long to reach us. I am determined to speak up for them as the Bill progresses. Those 11 million, including my three children, know how important it is to improve the private rented sector. The old phrase that we are a “nation of home owners” is now outdated. We are a nation in which many people are in the private rented sector for long periods, if not permanently.

So there is much to commend in the Bill. However, I am concerned that it has lost some of its most important measures during its passage through Parliament so far. As drafted, the Bill will not provide a significantly better private rented sector. The most well-publicised reversal is the delay in abolishing Section 21 evictions, and I add my voice to the calls of other Peers for the Government to set out a series of tests for the courts, or a timeline, for abolition. Without this, I fear that this reform will be delayed indefinitely.

This Bill provides us with an opportunity to make significant reforms to one tenure, but the private rented sector houses only around 20% of the population. We need to think bigger to fix our housing crisis. Nothing short of a long-term strategy which considers all tenures as interconnected parts of a whole system will do. A few weeks ago, I was pleased to launch a report from Homes For All, which set out a vision for England’s housing system and the need for a long-term strategy—and I am grateful to the Minister for being there. I commend the report and its ambitious proposals to all noble Lords who have an interest in fixing the UK’s housing crisis. I am grateful to those noble Lords who have supported it, including the late and much mourned Lord Stunell.

A vision for better housing which delivers for everyone requires a set of values that we can all support. The Archbishops’ Commission on Housing, Church and Community set out five values that should underpin good housing. It said that housing should always be safe, secure, sociable, sustainable and satisfying. As it stands, the private rented sector is often unsafe, insecure, unsociable, unsustainable and unsatisfying—and it is frequently the most expensive tenure for tenants. I shall be assessing the quality of this Bill against the five values outlined by the commission.

Achieving these five goals may require a certain amount of sacrifice. To reverse pervasive issues of low quality and high costs, a new balance must be struck between the needs of landlords and renters. This might involve some sacrifices if we are to reform the tenure meaningfully. The needs of landlords and renters are often presented as being in opposition but, in reality, the vast majority of landlords demonstrate a duty of care in line with legal obligations, and the vast majority of tenants treat their homes with respect. We need both groups to come together to make this tenure work.

To turn to specifics, a sense of security is vital for renters. I would like to see the notice period for tenants extended from two to four months, which would provide more time for them to find a new home or for local authorities to offer homelessness prevention support. At the other end of the tenancy, there are questions to ask about the newly introduced six-month tenancy commitment for renters. If the Government will not commit to removing it altogether, will they set out the extenuating circumstances that would allow tenants to serve notice earlier, such as the death of a resident or a serious hazard in the property.

Judges should have more discretion to consider extenuating circumstances when assessing Section 8 evictions. Repeated non-payment of rent can be for a huge number of reasons, some of which will not persist beyond just a few months. Judges should be able to use their discretion about whether they issue an eviction notice on those grounds. We also know, and have heard already, that domestic abuse is often misreported as anti-social behaviour. Given those sensitivities, why has the threshold for a Section 8 eviction been lowered to

“capable of causing a nuisance”?

That framing is extremely broad and will inevitably capture behaviours that should not count as anti-social behaviour.

One other issue that I would like to raise affects providers of retirement housing for clergy, including the Church of England’s pensions board. I should declare I am part of the Church of England’s pension scheme, but I am unlikely to turn to it for housing in retirement. However, many members of the clergy enter retirement without owning a home. It is then that pensions boards or similar schemes are able to step in to provide affordable and assured housing for them in later life. Some changes will be needed to this Bill to ensure that the Church’s model of provision is still financially viable. I have set these out in a little more detail in a letter to the Minister, and I look forward to corresponding further on the matter.

Finally, the Bill presents us with the first opportunity in a generation to make our most expensive and insecure housing tenure fit for purpose. Will we take the opportunity or will we squander it? I hope that this House and the other place will work constructively to pass legislation that protects renters, reassures landlords and ensures that everyone has access to good housing that is safe, secure, sociable, sustainable and satisfying.

Long-term Plan for Housing

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

I absolutely support the remarks by the noble Lord on needing the right housing to meet the needs of people at all stages in their lives. There are changes within this update to the NPPF that will encourage the delivery of older people’s housing, including retirement housing, housing with care and care homes. In addition, the Government have the Older People’s Housing Taskforce, which is exploring broader changes that we might wish to see to encourage housing for older people to be built in the areas where it is most suitable and most needed. Also, there is the point that the noble Lord made: ensuring that we have the right solution for older people has a knock-on effect throughout our housing supply on the availability for those who may be trying to get on the housing ladder in the first place.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing, Church and Community recommended that the Government adopt a long-term plan to address the scale of the housing crisis in the UK. I am glad to see that they have adopted the language of long-termism, as the UK’s housing has been held back by short-term planning and decision-making for far too long. However, I believe that such a plan must be holistic, taking into account all elements that make up a good housing strategy, with consideration of both new builds and existing buildings. What plans do the Government have to improve the quality of the homes that we already have, for example by undertaking a programme to upgrade EPC ratings, or by equalising the rate of VAT on repairs for existing houses with that for constructing new homes?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right that, when we consider the quality of people’s homes, we absolutely need to think about existing stock, not just new homes. When it comes to new homes, we have just launched the consultation on the future homes standard, which will have in place regulations that mean that all new homes built from 2025 onwards will need to be net-zero ready and have much higher levels of energy efficiency. They would most likely have heat pumps installed as a way to deliver those net-zero targets. When it comes to existing homes, we have a huge range of government support in place to support increased energy efficiency. A lot of that has focused initially on those on low incomes: for example, looking at social housing, there is the social housing decarbonisation fund. We are broadening that out to support other people too. We have the boiler upgrade grant, which allows people to replace their old boilers with heat pumps, with a significant proportion of those costs met by government. We have debated VAT a number of times in this House, but I will say that we have introduced a reduced rate of VAT for energy-efficiency measures, and we extended the scope of the measures that that covers in the most recent Autumn Statement.

Social Housing: Mould

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No. Through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act, which, sadly, I did not see the end of, we intend to deliver more social housing. That came out strongly throughout proceedings on that legislation. The noble Lord is right; there are a lot of challenges for the sector in upgrading its stock, after many years of not putting money into it. We will all be working on that. This year we gave £30 million to Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. We wanted to look at how such investment would help them make improvements, and we are looking at that intervention quite closely for the future.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

May I say on behalf of these Benches, too, how pleased we are to see the noble Baroness back in her place. We know that cots are extremely important for the health and well-being of babies and young children. What is the Government’s policy on the provision of cots to those in social housing? The charity Justlife states that around 25% of temporary accommodation falls under the purview of the social housing regulator. With nearly 140,000 children living in temporary accommodation in England alone, what steps are being taken to ensure that cots are provided for families in temporary accommodation under the purview of the social housing regulator?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for that question. I do not know the answer to it, but I will certainly find out. I know that this is an important issue. Housing associations providing temporary accommodation have to provide the correct furniture and fittings for such families, and I will check that cots are included. I also know that such charities—which I have been involved with many times, and which do a wonderful job—are providing not just cots but all the other things that babies and young people need, particularly if they are being moved around a lot. I will get a Written Answer to the right reverend Prelate regarding cots.

Building Repairs: VAT

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to improve the sustainability and quality of existing buildings, including by cutting value added tax to incentivise building repairs and maintenance.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Penn) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to improving the sustainability of existing buildings. The Autumn Statement expanded the current zero rating of VAT on the installation of qualifying energy-saving materials in homes until March 2027. This relief, worth more than £1 billion, now also includes additional technologies and extends to buildings used for charitable purposes. Additionally, the Government are investing £12 billion in Help to Heat schemes to ensure that homes are warmer and cheaper to heat.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

I declare my interest as the Church of England’s lead bishop for housing. I thank the Minister for her Answer. Would she not agree that, as a point of principle, it is preferable to incentivise restoring and renewing buildings which already exist, rather than purely incentivising new building? The present system encourages new build over reuse. While it is clear that we need more housing in particular, this does not encourage a culture of sustainability. The Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme has been a great help for certain kinds of buildings, but it is only for places of worship, it is due to expire in 2025 and it requires considerable administration. Now that the UK has left the EU, the rate of VAT on repairs is in the gift of His Majesty’s Government. Will they commit to the principle of sustainability by undertaking a review of the potential benefits of a lower rate of VAT on repairs?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The reality is that we need both to restore and repair existing buildings and to encourage new build to address our housing supply issues. We have a reduced 5% rate of VAT for renovation works on residential properties, including the conversion of buildings from one residential use to another; on conversions from commercial to residential; and on the renovation of properties which have been empty for two years or more prior to renovation work. We are looking carefully at this issue. Since we left the EU, we have had requests for relief totalling about £50 billion across different forms of VAT. This request needs to be seen in the context of that bigger figure.

Windrush Generation: 75th Anniversary

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

Wednesday 24th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

First, yes, the monument is beautiful; if anybody has not seen it, they should do so. It is very moving and beautiful. The Home Office is making the compensation payments as quickly as possible, but each person’s claim is deeply personal and deserves to be processed with the utmost care and sensitivity, so that the maximum payment can be made to them. That is the way we are going to deal with these claims.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, the way that this country welcomes a stranger has never been more important, as we will be reminded later today when we debate the Illegal Migration Bill. Why are His Majesty’s Government, but more specifically the Home Secretary, rowing back on the commitments they made following the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, especially on the establishment of a new migrants’ commissioner?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate is referring to the Wendy Williams recommendations. Home Office officials looked at them and recommended to the Home Secretary that three of them are not needed. Extensive consideration has been given to how we deliver all the recommendations in an appropriate and meaningful way, ensuring that individuals have the opportunities to tell all their stories, amplifying the voices of individuals, engaging with the immigration system and driving scrutiny of the department. We think that those recommendations are unnecessary at the moment.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 22nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow what I have to say are two very important speeches. They were from two expert contributors and I have nothing to add except to say that they have certainly convinced me that there is grave cause for concern here.

I want to speak about another government amendment, Amendment 467F, about requiring local authorities to transfer land to academy trusts. We have to look at this in the context of the huge privatisation of public land—2 million hectares, 10% of the entire British land mass—over the past few decades. In 2018 prices, that was estimated to be worth £400 billion. It is also in the context of the Government in the past month having apparently won—certainly in the High Court anyway—a legal tussle with Annington Homes, owned by the private equity firm Terra Firma, over the privatisation of the Ministry of Defence housing portfolio, which the National Audit Office estimated had left the Government between £2 billion and £4 billion worse off.

The amendment is quite long and quite technical and I have done my best to grind my way through to make some sense of it. What we are seeing here is a swap. What is the Government’s assessment of the risk of this swap and of the lack of clarity that might occur in terms of local democracy and local understanding?

I have a couple of other things to ask about this amendment. Proposed new paragraph 9A(7) talks about the local authority bearing the costs of this swap. Why? There is also the underlying concern of many local residents around the country and many local authorities that potentially an essential resource disappears from public space for the interests of private profit. One of the case studies for this was the Durand Academy, a particularly infamous case in Lambeth where the Department for Education terminated an academy’s funding agreement and it maintained that it still owned the land on the school site, and accommodation and a leisure centre had been built there.

Speaking as a former school governor, I am well aware of the complications that have arisen from school buildings that are also mixed with private accommodation, private accommodation that is leasehold and private accommodation owned by the council. Very complex situations are being created so I am really seeking reassurance from the Minister that this amendment is not going to add further risks in terms of the transfer of lands to academy trusts.

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, following the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I rise to speak in favour of government Amendment 467F and at the outset say that my right reverend friend the Bishop of Durham, who leads for the Church of England on education, very much regrets that he cannot be in his place.

We are grateful to the Department for Education and the department for levelling up for working together and with us in the Church to fulfil the Government’s commitment to bringing forward legislation to safeguard statutory protections relating to issues arising from the occupation of land by Church academies. The decision not to progress the Schools Bill might have meant that this uncontroversial but important change to legislation would have been lost, so it is very good to have the amendment in this Bill, which will maintain the important legacy of educational endowments that provide land for the purposes of a school with a religious character. This is important for all schools with a religious character, not just Church of England schools, and it will remove a significant barrier on the journey to academisation for Church schools, which is vital in the Government’s policy aims, as such schools make up one-third of the entire school sector and seek to serve local communities up and down the country.

As boards of education implement their strategies for the development of the family of Church schools in each diocese, they need to have confidence to do so in a way that ensures the security of that provision for the future. That still requires further work on governance arrangements which we are developing in partnership with the DfE through the use of the Church model articles, but it also requires legislation with regard to the way land is held on separate charitable trusts for use by academy companies. This amendment provides that legislation and captures clearly the issue as described in the fact sheet that accompanied the now withdrawn Schools Bill.

We therefore welcome this amendment to preserve trustees’ existing land interests once schools whose sites are held on educational endowments become academies. This amendment is a vital step towards ensuring that school sites continue to be used for original charitable purposes, enabling schools with a religious character to engage with the changing educational landscape. It will give greater certainty to the sector, the Catholic Education Service, the Church of England Education Office and our dioceses that together serve nearly 2 million children today and are at the heart of communities across our villages, towns and cities. It ensures that the distinctive Christian ethos of Church schools will be protected in the long term by reassuring the sector that on conversion to an academy, the nature and purpose of the trust deed of the school site will continue to be preserved if the academy needs to relocate. We therefore wholeheartedly support this amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I concur with and support entirely the comments made by my noble friend Lord Stunell and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, about the amendments in this miscellany transferring the building safety regulator from the Health and Safety Executive. I hope the Minister will be able to give us a very clear reason why this change is being made in the Bill—indeed, why it is being made at all.

I want to focus my comments on Amendment 467F. It is a good job I am speaking after the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, because it was not at all clear to me that that is what it is about. That is the problem with this group of government amendments; as I said earlier, a miscellany of issues has been put together because this is a levelling-up Bill and we can throw anything in. My guess was that it came from the Schools Bill, but reading the amendment without any explanation, it was not clear at all, so I have a few questions to put to the Minister.

First, can she assure us that the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford are accurate and this is entirely about schools with religious foundations, because that is not clear? In fact, I have a series of questions so that I can understand what the Government are seeking to achieve. Having been a school governor for very many years, I know that it is important that land use for schools is clear—whether they are part of a trust or a local authority—because otherwise future changes are very difficult. I speak from the heart in that regard.

This amendment puts forward four conditions that must occur. The heading of the new paragraph is “Compulsory transfer to trustees”, which is what first made me think that this perhaps needs more questioning. The idea is that a local authority has some premises, and an academy or trust has some, and they can do a swap. As this is to be a compulsory swap, what local consultation will there be and will it be a democratic decision? The implication is that it will not be a democratic decision of the local authority; it will be a compulsory land—or premises—swap. That is one issue on which I would like an answer. The second is, what if the premises to be exchanged are in a different location? If a school becomes located in a different part of the borough, what will that mean for the provision of school places within that council area? Would planning consent be required for schools to be relocated? Who will pay local authorities’ costs for the transfer? What if one set of premises was of higher value than the one that a school is taking over? How does that work? There is a series of questions to be answered. The Government had directed local authorities to sell their assets to help fund local services. What if the set of premises had been earmarked for sale for the benefit of the local authority? How does that work?

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, asked similar questions to mine, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford explained that it is all about religious foundation schools. That is not clear in the Bill, and there is no Explanatory Memorandum. Apparently, there was one in respect of the Schools Bill; well, that is not very helpful to us.

Having just resigned as a governor of a voluntary controlled school which had a lot of land issues when it became an academy because of land ownerships and trusts, I really do want answers to this series of questions. As far as I am concerned, the building safety regulator and the compulsory transfer of land to trustees are two major issues that should not have been put in this Bill. They are nothing to do with levelling up.

Residential Leaseholders

Lord Bishop of Chelmsford Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Lord Bishop of Chelmsford]

My Lords, in light of the commitment made by the big six lenders to accept mortgage applications for flats with building safety issues from Monday 9 January, will the Minister confirm that the Government will monitor their lending decisions to ensure that this time their commitments will be fulfilled, so that this part of the housing market can be unfrozen?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate brings up an interesting point. I do not know exactly what the Government will do, as the announcement was made only this week. However, I will find out exactly how we will monitor them and the process, and come back to her.