Combined Authorities (Borrowing) Regulations 2018

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Jones

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the debate on these important borrowing powers. I welcome their participation; it is most helpful and reflects the general support we have had for the Government’s approach and the flowering of these combined authorities and mayoralties—particularly in the north and the Midlands—to seek to redress the great growth of the economy in the south and, to some extent, East Anglia. It reflects the importance that we attach to ensuring that there is strong economic development elsewhere.

First, I turn to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Jones. I thank him for his kind words and reflect on his distinguished service over a considerable period of time in Wales and, more broadly, in the Government in Westminster. He is right that these provisions are England-only, because the department is England-only, but he is also right that exciting and important things are happening in Wales and across the border between Wales and England, around the River Dee and Chester. Also, the North Wales Growth Deal looks to links with the northern powerhouse and the Borderlands Growth Deal encompasses southern Scotland as well as Northumberland and Cumbria. Working with the devolved Administrations in Edinburgh and Cardiff is very much on our agenda. I can reassure the noble Lord that I was in Wales just last Thursday, speaking to the Labour Economy Minister, Ken Skates, to discuss the Mid-Wales Growth Deal and possible links with the LEP in the Marches.

[Lord Jones]

Does the Minister agree that Mr Skates has made considerable advances in aiming for a better relationship between Whitehall and Cardiff?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I certainly do. I do not want to damage his future political career at this very sensitive juncture in Wales, but that would certainly be my reflection on things. My apologies to Ken if that does not help.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for what she expressed as her fundamental support for what we are doing here. I accentuate that the borrowing caps have been agreed with the constituent authorities, as well as the combined authorities. I note that she raised some issues, quite rightly, about the additional borrowing and asked for reassurance about the checks that exist. First, the cap has been agreed; as she will know, the Treasury is not generally profligate in these matters. Additionally, local authorities are already subject to a prudential borrowing code and regime, which will remain the case. The monitoring officer will be watching that like a hawk to make sure that it complies with the overriding requirement that the authority is able to pay back the debt that is concluded.

The noble Baroness is right that this varies from area to area; indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, also made that point. These are bespoke deals. For example, there is a world of difference between Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and Liverpool City Region, so it is not surprising that there are differences between the areas in what is being devolved. The nature of devolution includes these electoral checks, done locally, and one has to trust that people will look after their area. It is the Government’s belief—widely shared in the House, I think—that these things should be dealt with at a level close to people’s jobs, homes and experience. That is precisely what is happening here. I note that the noble Baroness went on to talk about her positive welcome; I very much thank her for that.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, also generally welcomed the borrowing powers. He noted, and I agree, that sometimes these consultations result in very few people responding. The same is true, sadly, of the number of people voting in local elections, which the noble Lord and I have discussed in other environments. I know that the average turnout is always higher in the noble Lord’s elections in Lewisham, for reasons we can only speculate on, but his point was fair. We often include a health warning and say that we are disappointed by the number of people who responded. Nevertheless, it is important that we go through that consultation exercise. I suggest that if we were doing something that was entirely off beam, the number of people responding would be greater. That is the experience. Nevertheless, it is a point well made.

I thank noble Lords for their general welcome for what are important powers for these combined authorities. I am not making a party-political point here, but I note the combined authorities’ success across the board. They are working well and are generally welcomed by the people in their areas.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked me to address future developments. We will be watching Sheffield. She is right that there are challenges there and, as noble Lords have seen, there is a challenge about the position of Yorkshire generally. We are looking at proposals that have been made relating to that. They have landed with us and we are looking at them. Obviously that is something we would want to discuss with the incoming mayor of the Sheffield City Region. It is not quite universal in Yorkshire. As the noble Baroness will know, Sheffield and Rotherham are not as warm about this as other authorities, let us say. That is what is happening there. We are aware that Leeds, for example, is the largest city without a mayoralty combined authority badge. It is important that that is put right.

We are looking more broadly at devolution now that we have, or will have shortly, eight combined authorities with the biggest cities, although not exclusively large cities, because Cambridge and Peterborough are somewhat different and we have a particular arrangement with Cornwall, where there is no mayoralty but there is a devolution deal. We are looking at that. In the fullness of time I expect to bring that back to the House for discussion. With that, I beg to move.

Homelessness

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Jones

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, first, this is not a problem unique to the United Kingdom.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

Secondly, there is only one country in the EU that does not face mounting numbers of rough sleepers and homelessness, and that is Finland. We have been careful to ensure that we have Finnish assistance on the advisory committee we are using. We are looking at this issue in a broad sense. It has not suddenly happened but it has increased over a period of time. Yes, it is a serious problem, as I have said on many occasions. We are committing resources to it and the noble Lord will be aware of our target of halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it by 2027.

Self-build and Custom Housebuilding (Time for Compliance and Fees) Regulations 2016

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Jones

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I will start my brief remarks by making my usual declarations that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I fully support the regulations before us today. They are a welcome boost to increasing the amount of self-build and custom-built homes in the UK. We have a number of self-build plots in Lewisham and I support them. I like the idea of new homes and innovation and it is very good if people are able to build properties themselves if they want to. Being able to double the number of plots and houses available would be very positive.

A week or two ago, we had a very interesting debate on housing. More generally, I hope we now all accept the need to increase the number of houses built for various tenures. It irritates me when people sometimes suggest that it is councils that hold back planning permission for property generally. In fact, we often agree permission for housing and then nothing happens. I hope that, in agreeing these regulations today, and looking for more plots, the Minister will also take a wider look at the whole question of planning and what we can do about plots of land with multiple permissions but on which nothing ever happens. Perhaps we can make some of those plots available for someone else to build more self-build houses. The real problem we need to look at is building more houses of different types. However, these regulations are very good and I am happy to support them.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, for the clear and resonant tones in which he spoke to the instrument. These were, no doubt, honed in the Wales Assembly—where he had a distinguished role and no little success—and a Welsh university.

My first brief question, with which, perhaps, his officials can help, is: how much self-building has occurred in previous years in England? Is there a record of self-builds for England in a recent year? Secondly, what sort of fees are paid individually on a self-build in England in a reasonably modest location? Is it possible for him to respond to those two questions? My third question, which I suspect he will not be able to advance on, is regarding any details concerning Wales.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for participating in this debate and for the support that they have given to these regulations. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his support and that of the Official Opposition in the House of Lords. I recognise that his borough of Lewisham is doing some innovative work in this area, as are other London boroughs and other areas in England. I will respond to the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble Lord, Lord Jones. I thank the latter very much for his kind remarks about my honing of skills in the National Assembly for Wales, of which I have very fond memories. I met with the First Minister in the House of Lords yesterday. We were in danger of being in our anecdotage discussing the National Assembly last night, but that is another issue.

Self-builds in England are currently running at about 10,000 a year. They have been somewhat higher than that—it varies from year to year. As I have indicated, our aim is to double that figure by 2020. In the whole of the United Kingdom, they are running at about 12,000 a year. On continental Europe, the figures are much higher. About 7% to 10% of our housing completions are self-build. At the other end of the scale, about 80% of housing completions in Austria are self-build. In Sweden, it is around 63%; in Germany and France, about 60%; in the Netherlands it is also high. We are very different from continental Europe. There is a desire on the part of people in this country to design and build their own home, partly no doubt engendered by television programmes such as “Grand Designs” with Kevin McCloud. One of the side effects of this is it will improve the design of the houses that we have. If people are designing their own homes, they will be keen for that design to contribute to the general ambience and be of a high standard. I do not have an average cost for self-build—that will vary enormously from area to area and from house to house—but it is competitive with normal build, which is obviously in response to the desire people have to build their own home.

On a more general point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, he will know that we are bringing forward a housing White Paper this autumn that will address some of the issues we need to address to build more houses in this country. He will know that the Prime Minister is making this a high priority for the Government, which has already been indicated by the commitment of resources and the recent announcement by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, Sajid Javid, of £3 billion for housebuilding, £1 billion of which could be directed in this area. Therefore we have committed resources to this and we regard it as important.

Once again, I thank noble Lords for their support and I commend these draft regulations to the Committee.