Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, but am also attracted to others in this group. I note what the noble Baroness said about the synergy of the amendments in this group, which relate to health, housing and energy efficiency, and I think that is quite true. I declare my interests as set out in the register and note that I am also a member of Peers for the Planet.

The amendment in my name and in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Foster of Bath and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is not overly prescriptive. It simply requires the Government to set out details of how buildings can be decarbonised and become more energy efficient. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has set out, this can be achieved in a variety of ways. It is for the Government to set out the precise trajectory, but it is important that that trajectory is set.

Your Lordships have debated similar amendments to other Bills, as the noble Baroness has said. There might be an element of Groundhog Day, certainly for the Minister; but I think there is an element of Groundhog Day for the rest of us as well, because it is normally met with the cry of either “It is already being done”—which I think is open to question—or “It does not need to be done”, which is certainly open to question. I hope, therefore, that we can, ahead of Report, agree some constructive moves on how we can improve some of the oldest housing stock in Europe; the need to update and enhance that housing stock is very clear.

The benefits of fixing the old and leaking properties are not limited to simply helping people with their bills, although it will of course do that. It is not simply a question of creating more jobs in the green economy, although it would do that too. It is also, in an increasingly unstable world, with geopolitical complexities that we see every day, important that we modify our buildings, that they become more energy efficient and that we are able to be more energy self-sufficient. Also, as has been noted by the noble Baroness, we are looking at this in terms of pressure on public resources. This will enable the Government and the country to spend less on subsidising people’s energy bills if those bills come down. So it is a win-win in just about every situation.

Homes with good insulation, a heat pump and solar panels will pay 60% of the average UK energy bill. That is a considerable achievement and something that we should be looking to do. We need progress in the area. The Government should demonstrate leadership in this area at a time when we have seen leadership fail elsewhere, notably in the United States when President Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate change agreement. That now has been rectified by the current President, but there is every need for action internationally on climate change. There is a pressing imperative for us to do more. So I hope the Government will accept this amendment—certainly the spirit of this amendment—and sit down and discuss how we can achieve things, not just on this amendment but on others in this group. I lend my support to the noble Baroness’s amendment.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I support all the amendments in this group. I particularly want to speak to Amendments 241 and 504GF, which essentially seek to embrace the planning system within wider health and well-being and health-inequality policies. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to be positive in his response.

I must say that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, rather took me back when he mentioned Herbert Manzoni, who was city engineer in Birmingham from 1935 to 1963.When I became a councillor in Birmingham in 1980, I was reliably informed in the induction programme that the Manzoni plans were kept in the safe in the city engineer’s office, and that policy on roads in the city continued to be dictated not by the political control of the city council but by what Manzoni had drawn in his plans.

I have seen academic arguments that suggest that, by the late 1970s, the city had started to change; but I think it was actually in the 1990s when the proposals to bypass Kings Heath/Moseley with a huge dual carriageway, along the lines of the Aston Expressway, were defeated by a group of people, including my wife Selina Stewart, called Birmingham United Against the Motorway Plans. When the noble Lord described the kind of neighbourhood that he thought we would all want to live in, he was, of course, describing Kings Heath as is, as a result of that campaign. Later in the year, of course, we will see the reopening of Kings Heath railway station, which will be the pièce de resistance of the wonderful community that I live in, in the most beautiful city in this country.

I want to make three points just to echo what the noble Lord, Lord Young, said. We know that the scale of health inequalities in this country is frighteningly large. The work produced by Oxford University and the London School of Tropical Medicine last week showed that, in 1952, the UK had one of the best life-expectancy records of any country. We have now slipped down to the low 20s, and the widening gap between the poorest and the richest people is really quite frightening and extraordinary. In the context of a levelling-up Bill, surely we have to focus on it.

Secondly, we know that local authorities have long had a tradition of seeking to improve public health. Prior to 1974, they were the principal public health bodies; from 2012, they resumed that position. During Covid, the directors of public health in particular showed their mettle when they had to take some very tough decisions at the local level.

Various mechanisms enable local authorities to influence health: health and well-being boards and, under the new arrangements of the integrated care system, integrated care partnerships. Those are all designed to give local government more say in the direction of health and, by definition, in dealing with health inequalities. The issue is whether they have enough beef: do they have the levers to make their potential influence felt? We obviously know their role in planning, air quality, the environment, leisure and various other facets. We know that they can have a really important role for health, but so far that influence has been patchy. We are seeking here to put some levers in place to use the planning system to enhance the promotion of good public health and tackling health inequalities.

There will be discussions between now and Report because it is clear that warmer homes comes within that wider context. In the end, I hope the House can assert itself to ensure that, within the planning system and guidance, a reflection on the need for planning to contribute to overall health will be part of local authorities’ responsibilities in the future.