Housing Strategy

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I congratulate the most reverend Primate on securing this debate and, above all, on the powerful and heartfelt way in which he has presented what I think is an unanswerable case. I echo his words about the tragedy of the death of Lord Greaves. I shall miss his interjections and his dulcet north-western tones greatly.

This is a very appropriate moment for this report and the commitment of the Church of England to be presented to us. I am a Methodist, so I hope your Lordships will forgive me for intruding on the debate in terms of the stewards taking forward this report. I put on record my thanks to Charlie Arbuthnot for the conversations I have had with him and congratulate all those who have taken part in putting this excellent report together.

In a moment I will talk a little more about social value, to which the most reverend Primate quite rightly referred, but first I will talk about housing. When I was leader of Sheffield City Council, I discovered that all of us—because, thankfully, all of us had a home—thought we were experts in housing. I am not. I am quite clear that there are others contributing this afternoon who have much greater expertise, both in the economics of the housing market and in the critical issues that the most reverend Primate referred to in terms of the balance, the importance of affordable housing and the setting aside of the ideology that we are in favour of either renting or buying.

Actually, we are in favour of building houses for people to live in as a basis for them to be able to grow a family and to be active and committed members of a community—to secure, as described in those five pillars, a safe and environmentally acceptable way of living their lives. It is an absolute basic in terms of everything else that we stand for, all we talk about in terms of the security of the family, the safety of the neighbourhood, the commitment to building social capital and the capacity of communities, such as at the moment, to be able to deal with major catastrophes such as the pandemic.

It is fundamentally about the building blocks of a civilised society. It is also a major contribution not only to the well-being and lives of young people and their ability to build a future but to how we care for our older generation. It is about the importance of creative ways in which we can develop social care so it is neither isolation without support nor encapsulation in often very committed social care, which, by its very nature, removes independence and presents real difficulty in terms of uniting, and keeping united, couples in old age where the wife or the husband has fallen ill or become severely disabled.

I hope that all parties will be able to commit to the clarion call from the Church of England. I have a close friend, the Reverend Dr Alan Billings, who is now the police and crime commissioner in South Yorkshire. I have spoken to him at great length over the years about his time serving on Faith in the City back in 1983-84—another era of great division. He assures me as a Methodist that it was a commitment underpinned by radical and sustainable theology. I cannot speak to that, but I know that carrying forward reports such as the one we are debating today will happen only if there is political commitment. The most reverend Primate referred to the welcome that this has received from right across the housing market, from housing associations to local government. I hope that will continue to be the case in the months ahead.

I want to say a word or two about what the most reverend Primate referred to towards the end of his excellent contribution: the need to change the legal framework—obviously, this includes the Church—for selling church assets and to amend the law so that we can include social and environmental values. The report talks about church land and buildings being used for social and environmental, as well as economic, benefit. To be able to do that, it is really important that the Church continues to join others in ensuring that there is a redefinition of the maximisation of value.

I know that the practice note that has been agreed with the Charity Commission will help the Church do this. But my point this afternoon is that, if this is to be a combined effort, I hope that, despite the agreement it has reached on the use of its own land and property, which is very welcome, the Church will continue to work with others to make any change requirements that are necessary to the wider interpretation by the Charity Commission of how land and property can be disposed of.

The most reverend Primate will know that a very old friend of mine is Geraldine Peacock, who now has the major challenge of severe Parkinson’s disease, who was head of the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and then the Charity Commission itself. Nobody can ever forget being approached by Geraldine because her tenacity and terrier-like focus on what needs to be done can never be overlooked. I very much welcome that. I hope we will be able to find a way forward, following the excellent appointment of the Bishop of Chelmsford, and find solutions to problems that have arisen in North Yorkshire and in Wells, where Geraldine has been attempting to develop a community asset. I make no bones about mentioning that this afternoon, because it is an important example of a community asset, following the sale of the deanery in Wells, being used for the benefit of the wider community.

If we can pull together and understand the critical importance of housing as a centrepiece of the community, and if we can overcome barriers—easily done through a statutory instrument—to ensure that the social value Act 2013 is carried into practice right across our country, so much the better. Critically, we must back the Church of England as being in the vanguard of ensuring that we take forward what is necessary now to provide housing solutions for the future.

North of England: Investment

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right that we need to see not only economic development and growth in the economy but social regeneration and the upskilling of people in the north. That is why one part of the agenda is the devolution of decision-making, including adult education and skills budgets, to the mayors responsible for driving that agenda, as well as the economic agenda.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

I draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests. On 19 February, the Government made a welcome, if modest, announcement on the establishment of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency. Do the Government acknowledge, as they surely must, that unless the agency is able to deploy money directly to the north of England, as opposed to the golden triangle of Imperial, Oxford and Cambridge, we will not have the inventions or attract the inward investment that the report so graphically laid out?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, there should be no barrier to investing in the research and innovation that the noble Lord outlines. I am sure that the Government will take his point on board.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority (Election of Mayor and Functions) Order 2021

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, in three minutes, I can touch on only one or two key issues. I welcome the order and the elevation of the leader of Leeds City Council, Judith Blake, to this House. I know that she will make a great contribution.

In winding up, could the Minister touch on when we might have the long-promised White Paper on devolution? How might it deal with the inconsistencies and incoherence of having different powers for different city regions and their mayors; the creation of powers for mayors to have the police and crime commissioner function in some areas but not in others; and the way in which the resources he referred to, combined as they were in the Autumn Statement, have been cut and the structural funds originally available from the European Union have disappeared? They now look more like the towns fund, which became a slush fund for individual Members of Parliament. How might that be avoided in these circumstances?

I want to touch particularly on the importance of Yorkshire getting its act together to collaborate, have its voice heard and ensure that it is not discriminated against as it has been so blatantly in recent years. If the Sheffield City Region—I hope that it will stop arguing about the name—and the newly created West Yorkshire mayoral authority, together with the leaders in the remainder of Yorkshire, can combine as they have done in the last few days with those in the East Midlands to make their voices heard on the HS2 scandal, some good will certainly have come out of this. Others will mention HS2; it is interesting that the briefing from HS2 always refers to the Crewe and Manchester leg as connecting to the north, as though the north were just the north-west. It is time that Yorkshire got its act together and collaborated.

That will involve the Government supporting the universities in Yorkshire to combine to counterweight the golden triangle of Imperial, Oxford and Cambridge. It will involve the local authorities, as well as the city mayors, being able to see where their voice can be heard, for instance in the present maldistribution of vaccines—parts of Yorkshire have done so well in distribution that they are now being rationed—to ensure above all that the work done at the local level can be properly supported and a coherent policy developed from central government.

Given what is happening with Scotland and in Ireland, and given the failure to have any coherent policy for the English regions, confirmation of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority is way overdue. Since, uniquely, the region has two major cities—because Bradford is the size of Bristol—this will be a step forward in ensuring that the voice of the great, historic county of Yorkshire can at last be heard just as loudly as the voice of the north-west of England.

Construction Products (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, when two or three are gathered together you can guarantee there will be consensus. The atmosphere today is very different from that of yesterday when this House again considered the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill. I commend the Minister on reading beautifully the brief—and it was brief, and I shall be even briefer.

I decided that I would speak briefly this afternoon because I was intrigued. I thought to myself, “Not many noble Lords will seek to speak on these regulations; they are somewhat obscure and do not appear to have any great relevance to the wider debates we’ve been having”, but then I thought to myself, “I’ll go along and just test the water a bit regarding enforcement”. The Minister referred to enforcement; he said there will be no change in enforcement. He also referred to the importance of harmonisation. He reflected on the fact that this would have no impact on Great Britain even though EU regulations will continue to apply in Northern Ireland because of that harmonisation. I began to think to myself, “I might just turn up on Tuesday afternoon and test the water a bit with the Minister about what is all this fuss about? If we can do this on the CPR and recognise that harmonisation makes sense, if the enforcement regime remains the same, if we can have something that is operable through the EU regulation in Northern Ireland and its relationship to the border, and if we can still have the same transport and regulatory framework in terms of the relationship of Northern Ireland to the new Great Britain regulatory framework, which remains the same as the old, then what is the fuss about?” So I have just three questions, really.

First, why cannot we do this more broadly? Secondly, did the Prime Minister spot this one when he signed the protocol, given that he clearly did not spot one or two others? Thirdly, what about this enforcement regime? I genuinely would like to know a little bit more about it. Thank you very much.

Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield Combined Authority (Functions and Amendment) Order 2020

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Friday 24th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab) [V]]

I declare a non-remunerated interest as chair of the Sheffield City Partnership board. I very strongly welcome this order. As the Minister has spelled out, it has been a very long and winding road over the last five years. I am sorry that my video is not enabled on Zoom, but one of the challenges for South Yorkshire is to ensure that we have sustained and sustainable internet connection.

This order is crucial, not just in terms of the devolved powers that the Minister spelled out, nor even the limited resource that immediately goes with them, but rather because it is the beginning of an entirely new era for South Yorkshire and beyond. I congratulate Dan Jarvis, the elected mayor, on his patience and his skill in bringing people together, and the local authority leaders and councils for at last coming together and being prepared to see a way forward which is beneficial to our local residents. Combined, as it will be in the future, with the development of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority mayor, it is possible that we can build incrementally to real co-operation across the historic county of Yorkshire, with a population somewhat greater than that of Scotland.

We must be able not only to draw on the resources that the Minister has outlined, but also to see this as part of a broader regeneration programme and the fulfilment of promises made by the Conservatives in the December general election, when, in the area around Sheffield, Conservative MPs were elected for the first time. Holding the Government’s feet to the fire is not just about devolution, it is about regeneration and the recovery programme from the Covid-19 hit. It is also about collaboration across the north.

Yesterday, the Northern Transport Acceleration Council was launched—launched, it has to be said, in Greater Manchester. It is time for those east of the Pennines to be able to match not just the collaboration that has been built over years in Greater Manchester, but to build the picture of the north of England combining the east and west of the Pennines together. We need Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, Hull and beyond to punch their weight—to be able to come together in an action plan that will allow us to use the tremendous resource and research capacity of our universities for knowledge transfer into that regeneration programme. We must link, yes, Sheffield and Manchester, ensuring that the voice of the north can be heard clearly, but also the north as a whole, east and not just west of the Pennines. Together, building from the bottom, we can do it.

Business and Planning Bill

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s statement and the Government’s decision to table an amendment on Report. I have one question to ask the Minister: would it be possible for any premises that wanted to introduce an earlier finish time for off-sales to do so? It is very hard to see from reading the Bill whether there is any flexibility in that regard.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I touched on this very briefly in the limited time available at Second Reading, so I will not keep the House long tonight, but I will try to put this into some sort of perspective. I cannot for the life of me see what this has to do with recovery and regeneration. I do not get at all what this proposal is supposed to achieve. I get what it will do. I understand entirely, as all those who spoke this evening and at Second Reading did, that whatever the cut-off time for every outlet to be an off-licence—I welcome the proposal of restricting it to 11 pm—the drinking will continue afterwards with drink that has been purchased and therefore is to be consumed. No one should get the idea that this will be fine after 11 pm, because it will not be. That is why, if I was in favour of the measure at all, I would err on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack.

I rest my principal case on the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, at the beginning of this brief debate. Frankly, until the December general election the police did not at all have the capacity to deal with this. They are still trying to recruit. Local authorities’ environmental health functions have been totally decimated over the past 10 years because of the deep cuts and austerity measures, which local authorities have suffered from most. But there is also the absurdity of not leaving this to local discretion, where people know exactly what would and would not work, even if this measure had any justification in terms of deregulation on the grounds of stimulus and recovery.

Are we really saying that, to provide local stimulus and recovery and to help those in the sector who have been devastated, people should have the ability to buy from any licensed outlet, treat it as an off-licence and go on drinking? I am the first to enjoy a drink, but I know from bitter experience, including having been a local authority leader for seven years, just what devastation this can cause. It is not possible for it to be policed, in the widest sense, and age authentication will be more difficult.

However, I rest my case on a very simple fact. When we are faced, as we are now, with withdrawing from the third-largest trading bloc in the world, about to accelerate a trade and economic war against the second-largest trading bloc in the world, and at the mercy, for the time being, of the President of the United States and his attitudes as the leading trade bloc in the world, is deregulating off-licence drinking late into the night anything whatever to do with the recovery of our economy?

[Lord Shipley [V]]

My Lords, I want to speak to Amendment 45. I referred to the same issues raised by this amendment on the late night levy at Second Reading. On 8 June, I noticed an article in my local newspaper, the Journal, headed: “Campaigners Say Levy Should Be Cut To Save Pubs”. It said that fee levels, having been set by the Government, could be changed only by the Government and that the council was having to seek their permission. It was pointed out by CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, that even though pubs registered to trade after midnight in Newcastle had been closed for 10 weeks, they were still being charged the late-night levy. The council claimed it had no power to change that situation but had asked the Government for additional powers to reduce or waive the fees. In Newcastle, some 240 premises pay the levy, which helps to fund extra policing, street cleaning, taxi marshals and the Street Pastors; I should declare that I am patron of Newcastle Street Pastors. There needs to be local flexibility. I hope that the Minister will look very carefully at this issue and recognise that fee-setting should be a devolved area of policy.

I suspect the problem may have arisen unintentionally at the time that the Bill was passed. This is not about the level of alcohol consumption, nor about how alcohol is served. It is about a charge being levied for a service that is not being provided. Maybe there has been some movement on this matter between government and local authorities. There are three principles at stake: we need clarity on the level of fees levied when pubs are required to close, and the rules for remission of those fees ought to be clear to them; we need clarity on the powers that local authorities have, and will have, on this levy; and we need a full review of licensing legislation to re-examine which powers should be held centrally and which locally. I hope very much that the Minister will understand this problem and will agree with my suggestions.

Housing for the Homeless

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I too commend the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and the initiative of the Government, which has been impressive. As a patron of the Cathedral Archer Project in Sheffield, I know that it is struggling now to raise the resources to be able to continue its work and to be able to link it to what has been described by other contributors as the holistic approach. Many rough sleepers have multiple problems and need multiagency work with them, including on alcohol and drug misuse. If we can get this right now, we could avoid what is a crisis at Christmas, which then ends up with people back on the streets.