Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 22nd October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the two noble Baronesses who have just spoken, demonstrating the breadth of support for this set of amendments around the House. As the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, said, to paraphrase, this is a common-sense set of measures which are not big-P “political” at all—it just something that obviously needs to be done.

I am speaking to Amendments 70 and 81, to which I attached my name, and for my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, who tabled Amendments 86, 120, 121A and 121B. Briefly, on the first two, we have to set the context. A week ago, the Committee on Climate Change told the Government that we have to be preparing for 2 degrees of warming by 2050. Even more critically perhaps, in the context of this Bill, the Government and the country have not yet adapted to the levels of warming that we already have.

As in so many other areas—not just flooding but heat and cold—we are building homes that immediately need to be retrofitted, or homes that are setting people up for months, if not years, of misery. If a home was flooded and we had the kind of measures proposed by Amendment 70, it would be possible to clean the home up and, potentially, for people to move back in quite quickly. Without those measures, there are issues around the cost of insurance and months or even years of misery before there is any way that the home is occupiable again. We should not be building homes in that condition, and where homes are being retrofitted it should be to prepare them for that.

Those are my views on Amendments 70 and 81. I spoke extensively in Committee on Amendment 81, so I shall just repeat: the flood plain is not beside the river; the flood plain is part of the river.

My noble friend’s amendments are about the other side of this issue. They do not deal with the flood-water rushing down the river, the surface water that is rushing off the hard surfaces that is so typical of many areas, or the impounded soils that reflect so much of our land management now. This is saying that we should catch that water and use it in the right kind of way. It is talking about having infrastructure systems that have sustainable harvesting—we talked a lot about water butts in Committee—in order to distribute fit-for-purpose water among residents. It makes no sense at all that we still use massive quantities of expensive—in both financial and energy terms—treated drinking water for purposes where we do not need anything like that quality.

These amendments are also about reducing costs. We have a cost of living crisis, so if we can use free water rather than water that we have to pay for, that would be a win-win all round. Similarly, Amendment 120 is about water efficiency and making sure that the design minimises the amount of water use. These are all practical things and it is hard to see any reason why anyone could argue that they should not be in the Bill.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interests, particularly that I chair a company that advises people on sustainability, and water is central to that.

I want to encourage the Government to move on this subject. I hope that they will allow me to do so by pointing out that the previous Government still have to explain how they managed to get rid of the regulations that would have meant that, instead of building 1.5 million homes that are not fit for the future and that have to be retrofitted, we reduced the opportunities to make our building code insist that, when people sell a house, it is fit for the future. This is a wonderful opportunity for the present Government to show that they have changed that way of looking at things and I am very surprised that they have not done so on this central issue of water.

We know what will happen. There are not many things in life that are certain, but one is that we will have too little water at some times of the year and far too much water at other times of the year. Therefore, I wonder why the Government have not jumped up to say how good these amendments are and that this is exactly what we should have. I do not always agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but I agree with her comment that this is obvious: this is what we should be doing and there should not be any argument about it. So why are we not doing it?

When I was chairman of the Climate Change Committee, one of the problems we faced was that the adaptation side did not have the same statutory role that the mitigation part had. There is no doubt that, historically, we have not adapted fast enough, so we need to adapt very much faster.

I say to the Minister: if we do not start putting right the new houses, when we have such a long history of old houses that will have to be done, all we will do is build a greater problem for ourselves and our children, and that is unacceptable. It is much more unacceptable for the Government to say that designers “may” use the best advice. The problem is that, if they do not use the best advice, people will sell houses to others who will have to pay the cost of retrofitting. The housebuilders are therefore making profits by taking the money and not building houses that are suitable. It is the duty of the Government to insist that the standards are such that, when you buy a house, you can rely—at least for some reasonable time—on it being proper and fit for the future.

I hope that the Minister will be extremely generous in her acceptance of these amendments and, if not, that she will promise to come back with amendments that will do what—as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said—everybody needs and knows needs to be done.

[Baroness Grender (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh, Lady Willis, Lady Bennett and Lady Jones, for resuming this all-important discussion we held in Committee. Indeed, many of the amendments aim to define whether the Bill meets the climate reality of what is happening today or continues to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Amendment 70 strengthens the requirement that planning decisions consider cumulative flood risk. Too many developments are still approved on already saturated land, leaving new residents vulnerable and the taxpayer to pick up the cost of recurring floods. As our colleague in the Commons, Gideon Amos, argued:

“Nobody should have to deal with that raw sewage coming into their home and garden”,—[Official Report, Commons, 12/3/25; col. 416WH.]


when flood-waters surge. However, this remains a lived experience for thousands today, because sustainable drainage rules have not been made mandatory. Amendment 70 ensures that flood plain development decisions properly account for these realities.

Amendment 81 would require local plans to align with catchment-wide flood mitigation strategies. That is long overdue. After all, flooding has no respect for, or understanding of, council boundaries, so planning policies must be equally joined up to match that. The amendment would prevent the patchwork approach that critics have warned has left entire communities at risk.

Amendment 86 focuses on sustainable drainage systems —SUDS—echoing the unfulfilled recommendations, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, of the Pitt Review from 2008; and on our own Benches there is a long-standing call to commence Schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010. These systems manage rainfall where it lands, reduce sewage overload and help alleviate combined sewer overflows, reducing the unacceptable discharge of sewage which has been witnessed so often in flood events.

Amendments 120 and 120A shift focus from drainage to water efficiency and the long-term supply. They would require the Secretary of State to issue national guidance promoting water reuse, rainwater harvesting, greywater systems and distributed storage at development scale. These are pragmatic, tried and tested approaches to reducing both flooding and water scarcity—two sides of the same crisis which increasingly confronts so many of our UK communities.

Taken together, all these amendments turn abstract sustainability pledges into enforceable planning duties, at a time when the Government’s own reviews have concluded that the current policy is simply not working. We on these Benches believe that these fixes are essential, not optional. Our planning system must no longer treat flooding as an afterthought but as a central test of responsible design. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to these very useful amendments.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 20th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 20A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. We welcome this amendment; it is a well-judged and timely proposal which will give practical effect to the commitments Parliament has already made in law to achieve net zero, protect biodiversity and promote sustainable development within the planning system and nationally significant infrastructure projects.

In essence, this amendment is about coherence—ensuring that the way we plan consents and deliver low-carbon infrastructure genuinely aligns with the environmental and climate obligations this country has already bound itself by. At present, there remains a troubling gap between our statutory climate targets and the machinery through which we approve major energy projects. The Planning Act 2008, however good it is, pre-dates our key climate primary legislation. This amendment would help bring the planning regime for major projects into line with a more modern legislative landscape. It would create a new Section 35E, placing a duty on the relevant authorities—conservation bodies, the Environment Agency and others—to have specific regard to four key objectives when they make representations on nationally significant projects.

I will not detain the House any longer, but we support this sensible amendment.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I support this amendment. It seems that all the experience we have is that there is not coherence where there ought to be. I thank the Minister for her earlier willingness to react to the House and show that she was able to make the changes the House asked for. I hope she will say to her colleagues how much it helps the Government if we feel that they listen on things which are not party political but about how best to organise ourselves.

With the range of regulators we have, it is crucial to get coherence. I believe that we all know we have not got it at the moment. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, may not be ideal—I do not think he sees it in those terms—but it seeks to get from the Government a coherent programme for coherence. We all know that every day the urgency that climate change forces upon us gets more and more obvious. I have just come back from Northern Ireland, where businesses right across the board were saying how important that was and—I have to say to my noble friend—pointing out how unacceptable it is to try to change the architecture we have to try to deal with this. That architecture will work much better if we get a greater coherence across the board.

Therefore, I hope the Minister will be kind enough at least to give us some understanding of the way in which the Government hope to bring about that coherence and, in that, give us something about dates and times. I was a Minister for rather a long time and I know perfectly well that it is very easy to promise in general about the future almost any nice thing but what really matters is when and how it is going to be done.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 20A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, was considered in Committee. A number of questions were asked, and I think a number of questions remain unanswered. While we fully recognise the importance of sustainable development, we are not persuaded that this amendment is necessary. It appears to us that the Government already have—or should have—the tools they need to guide public bodies in their engagement with the development consent order process, and I think we are satisfied that these powers are sufficient.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 15th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to support Amendment 214. My noble friend nearly said that we are no more than three meals away from societal breakdown, but we are—and, in the hierarchy of needs, food in the belly is the number one requirement. Land is the principal resource that provides bread, beer, biscuits, as well as broccoli, and they are not making land anymore.

I am concerned, because the land use framework that has been proposed by the Government contemplates that fully 9% of our farmland will be used for non-growing purposes. Your Lordships will have heard me say before, in respect of solar panels particularly, that it is beyond careless to allow the best land to be consumed for non-farmland purposes before the worst land is exhausted. Last year, the national wheat yield was down 20% on account of wet weather. This year, there is an impairment in many areas on account of the dry weather. The weather changes, but we cannot be careless about our food supply.

The better news is that we have recently heard encouraging noises from former Defra Ministers who belatedly realise that the risks of food security are greater than they have ever been. It is noteworthy that, while we no longer have a Minister for Agriculture, we have a Minister for Food Security, and I think we should all welcome that, provided that the title of food security flows through into recognising the importance to national security, ensuring that the greatest proportion of the food in this country can meet our needs.

I had a commercial meeting this morning with one of the UK’s largest participants in the agricultural supply chain in this country. Its agricultural director gave me what I felt was a stunning statistic, and I will relay it to noble Lords. He said that, over the last 30 years, the amount of arable farmland in this country has diminished by 30%. I questioned him: “You mean 1% per year, each year, for the last 30 years?”, and he said, “Yes, we used to count on a 15 million tonne a year wheat harvest, now we’re lucky to get 12”. These are big reductions with large consequences, so I enthusiastically endorse Amendment 214. If we are going to have a Minister for Food Security, doing this arithmetic is going to be an essential part of her task—how else can she benchmark her success? I think the amendment is fully in tune with the direction this Government are going in.

Had it been my amendment, I would have probably asked for the data to be embellished by an assessment of the underlying agricultural land quality—the ALC, or agricultural land classification—so that we could work out not just the number of hectares that are lost but how they apportioned between the best and most versatile land versus the lower ranks. I wonder whether the noble Lord might consider enhancing the amendment with agricultural land classification, if he sustains it on Report. Otherwise, I give it my full support in Committee.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I very much want to support this amendment, because it is asking for information, and one of the problems we have in this country is that when we do not like the answers, we do not ask the question. That seems to me to be the fundamental issue here.

I am rather in favour of properly placed solar farms, but I use the wording “properly placed”. I also think that, in many ways, at least you can get rid of them. The problem with building houses is that you cannot, and I am very concerned about the way in which we constantly use greenfield sites instead of insisting on the development of already used land. I have to say that this Government have really not faced up to the reality, which is that the housebuilding industry does not like anything but a greenfield site and will take those long before it will try to develop inside our already used towns and the like.

This is not only bad for food security but bad for the environment, because it means that people, instead of living relatively hugger-mugger, able to live and move within the same area, have in fact to use transport to get anywhere. In Suffolk, where I come from, I see this all the time: more and more people are commuting from villages which have never had the jobs, and will not have the jobs, to towns increasingly far away. So, the issue of housebuilding is crucial, and we have not thought it through. Merely saying “1.5 million new homes over five years” does not actually face the real issue.

I declare an interest as a small organic farmer. I am very concerned about the failure of the Government to face food security. I am not sure that I myself would have chosen Angela Eagle for that job. The fact of the matter is that it is a very important job, but it is not one that is being faced up to. When I was Minister of Agriculture, I was interviewed by Peter Jay, the cleverest man in Europe, and he said to me, “I don’t know why we have a Minister of Agriculture, because we can always buy food elsewhere in the world”. That is the ignorant position, which I am afraid has been carried on either publicly or privately, and not only by this Government, but I fear by previous Governments too.

It is a serious matter that no member of this Cabinet has real agricultural connections of any kind. No member represents a fully agricultural seat, although I am pleased to see that the new Secretary of State for Defra—who is an extremely intelligent and useful addition to the Cabinet—has the most agricultural seat of any Cabinet Minister: Wycombe. Anyone who knows where Wycombe is knows that the agricultural bit is ancillary rather than central.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, this amendment, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, seeks to require the Secretary of State to produce an annual report

“detailing the total area … of any land that has been taken out of food production as a result of the provisions of this Act”,

as well as an assessment of any increase in risk to the water and food security of the UK.

As noble Lords know, the measures in this Bill provide changes to the existing planning process to speed up housebuilding and infrastructure delivery. In other words, they are levers within an existing planning system. It is therefore impossible to measure whether any land use change from development is as a result of specific measures in the Bill. Furthermore, the Government already publish regular reports on land use change and food security. These include: statistics on land use change from agricultural land to residential use every three years; a report by Natural England on agricultural land take to development over the period 2013 to 2022, following previous reviews undertaken by Defra; annual analysis on agricultural land use change through the annual June survey of agriculture and horticulture; statutory annual analysis of agricultural statistics through Agriculture in the United Kingdom; and statutory analysis of statistical data relating to food security in the UK at least every three years. The Government therefore already have legal requirements to report regularly on matters relevant to food security in the UK.

To address the concern driving this amendment, I reassure noble Lords once again that the Government are clear that food security is national security. We absolutely understand that point, made powerfully by noble Lords during this debate. In July, Defra published the good food cycle as part of the UK food strategy. It outlined the development of work on sustainable, resilient domestic production of food. There are planning policy measures in place to ensure that non-agricultural land is encouraged over agricultural land.

As I have mentioned a couple of times already today, the National Planning Policy Framework also safeguards the best and most versatile land, which is land in grades 1, 2 and 3a of the agricultural land classification system. Where significant development of agricultural land is demonstrated to be necessary, areas of poorer-quality land should be preferred to those of a higher quality.

Furthermore, on the point made by my noble friend Lady Young, the Government consulted on land use in England from January to April this year. The responses are informing the preparation of the land use framework, which will be published later this year. It will set out the evidence, data and tools needed to help safeguard our most productive agricultural land.

The Government do not believe that new water resources infrastructure, such as new strategic reservoirs or local catchment solutions, will threaten food security. Of course, a successful agricultural sector depends on access to secure water supplies, and the National Farmers’ Union and farmers are working with the Environment Agency and water companies to help us develop water resources.

The Government also do not believe that the accelerated rollout of solar generation poses a threat to food security. As of the end of September 2024, ground-mount solar PV panels covered only around 0.1% of the total land area of the UK. The Solar Roadmap also sets out how much land we estimate could be taken up by solar farms as part of our clean power 2030 commitment. Even in the most ambitious—

[Lord Deben (Con)]

The Minister has said “the Government do not believe” three times now. Would it not be a good idea to check whether or not their belief was true? She also said something really frightening. She said, “Because this Act is in addition to other things, it is impossible to see what its effect would be”. What kind of legislation can it be to put before the House when the Government cannot tell what its effect is, nor are prepared to measure what its effect is when it takes place? I find this very difficult to understand.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I set out for the noble Lord all the measurements already taken, in respect of the take of agricultural land. That is an important part of the system. As regards solar generation, the Solar Roadmap sets out how much land we estimate could be taken by solar farms as part of our clean power 2030 commitment. Even in ambitious scenarios, we expect only up to 0.4% of total UK land to be occupied. Solar farms can operate alongside farming activities but, to answer noble Lords’ points about the provision of solar on non-domestic buildings, we will be setting that out shortly, as we have done already for domestic buildings. For these reasons, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baronesses, Lady Parminter and Lady Young, and to thank the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, for supporting this amendment. It is something of the usual crew, and “Green Member gets up to support climate and biodiversity action” is, I know, not terribly original, but I just want to make a couple of specific points. One is that there was a climate reporting duty on local authorities until 2010, brought in by a previous Labour Government. This amendment is seeking to reinstate something that Labour Governments brought in.

Repeated calls have come from the Climate Change Committee, businesses and the independent net zero review for a statutory local duty on climate, which is what this amendment aims to introduce. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, referred memorably to the “NERC Act”, a phrase I had not heard before; I think I will call it the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act, because it is perhaps a bit clearer. It links with the Environment Act 2021, and research on the implementation of it is clear—it exists but it is all terribly obscure, and people are not catching up with it. This amendment introduces something very clear and simple.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, this is a debate that we keep having, so let us bring in a climate duty. Your Lordships’ House has had some real success over the years in having impact on Bills. I can go back to the pensions dashboards Bill, which will predate quite a number of people sitting in this Chamber. It was the first Committee stage I ever worked on, and we were trying to get climate measurements into the pensions dashboard. We really need to get to the point where your Lordships’ House does not have to keep doing this Bill after Bill. I know the noble Lord is concerned about the rate of progress, but if the Government put this in at the start, we would save a lot of time in your Lordships’ House.

I want to make one other crucial point. Local authorities have clear statutory duties, including a growth duty under the Deregulation Act 2015. There is a real imbalance between the fact that they have this growth duty but not a duty to look after the environment, climate and nature. Whatever I may think about growth, if you do not have a healthy environment, if communities are being battered by heatwaves, floods and droughts and you are not doing the climate mitigation you need to do, then you are not going to get the growth. These two things have to fit together.

We are all well aware that different parties with different views are coming into local authorities now, but this is a communal responsibility. Loss of biodiversity does not stop at county or district boundaries; climate change does not stop there either. All local authorities must have the duty, so that everyone is looked after. We cannot allow some people a free ride.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, this is a crucial amendment, not least for the reasons the noble Baroness, Lady Young, put forward. We are going to go on about this until we have an overall demand that this is how we think about matters. We have to recognise that unless we make all our decisions in the context of recovering our biodiversity and protecting our nation and the world against climate change, we are going to make a mess of the decisions we make. That is absolutely central.

I know the Government will be inclined to say it is already there—it is in the guidance, and it is all very proper—but I am afraid that there are many in local authorities who do not see this as the priority it ought to be. I really must ask the Minister to think seriously about the fact that every local authority at least must know that it has to think about things through this lens, because it is the most important lens for all of us.

I live in, and used to represent, a very agricultural constituency, and anyone who has seen the effect of the drought on all our farms at the moment will realise just how desperate the effect of climate change is, particularly for farmers who, only 18 months ago, could not get their crops out because of the water and could not plant because it was still too wet to do so.

People do not understand the impact of climate change today—it is amazing. I am upset and concerned that the good common view of all major political parties is beginning to be eroded. Only by working together are we going to solve these problems. It is no good just saying, “Oh well, we can put it off. We can’t do it by this or that time”. I congratulate the Government on sticking to the fact that we have to do this very quickly indeed. The trouble is that the timetable is not in our hands. We have allowed the timetable to be led by the fact that nature is now reacting to what we have done, and doing so in an increasingly extreme way.

I hope that the Government will take these amendments seriously and consider an overall view of this in a whole lot of other areas, so that we do not have to have this discussion on a permanent basis. Frankly, it ought to be the given for everything we do that we look at in the light of the fact of climate change. If there are Members of the Committee who have still not seen this, I remind them that it is necessary for growth. If we do not do this, we will not be a country in which people will invest, and we will not have new jobs or the kind of society, nature and climate that will be suitable not only for our children and grandchildren but for us. At my age, I can still say that we have to do this, otherwise the climate in which I will go on living will be increasingly unhappy for me, and for my children and grandchildren. Please accept this amendment.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

Amendment 187A, tabled in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook, seeks to probe the practical meaning of the new definitions, particularly the “achievement of sustainable development” and “mitigation” of climate change. Repetition signals importance; the fact that the same definition appears three times in such a short clause suggests it would carry significant legal and practical weight. That makes it vital that Parliament understands precisely what is meant. These terms, though laudable, are broad and open to interpretation. Without clear parameters, they risk being applied inconsistently by different authorities. If undefined, in unmeasurable or unenforceable terms, they could slip into the realm of aspiration rather than action, undermining their purpose as guiding principles for planning and infrastructure decisions. Ambiguity would not only weaken decision-making but could result in delays, disputes and costly appeals.

I appreciate that the Government’s Amendment 187 is not grouped here, but it is relevant. That amendment creates a new clause clarifying the relationship between different types of development corporation, ensuring that any overlap is resolved in favour of the higher tier authority. Will the Government consider committing to something similar in relation to these definitions, so that we secure the same kind of clarity and consistency?

--- Later in debate ---

A comprehensive legal framework requiring local authorities to take action on air quality already exists. Specifically, local authorities already have statutory duties relating to air quality in their local area, and under national planning policy air quality is a material consideration in planning decisions. The Government are committed to reducing the harmful health and environmental impacts of air pollution and will continue working with local authorities to achieve this. Given that local government statutory duties relating to air quality already exist, and the fact that many local authorities are already taking great strides in tackling the combined issues of environmental decline and climate change impacts, we do not think a statutory duty on local authorities to deliver environmental and air quality targets, climate adaptation and net zero is needed.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

The noble Lord mentions the local authorities that are doing the job but he does not mention the local authorities that are not. It would not do any harm to increase the pressure on them—it would do a great deal of good. I was a Minister for 16 years and I know the case he is putting forward. It is a very interesting case, normally pressed by civil servants, who say to the Minister that we really do not need this as we already have this, that and the other. I say to the noble Lord that it would not do any harm, and it may well do some good and might remind certain local authorities, such as Kent and Lancashire, that they ought to be doing this instead of doing exactly the opposite and saying that they are doing the opposite. This is the moment to remind them.

[Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)]

I very much appreciate what the noble Lord said, As I said, these requirements are a duty on all public authorities, and I am sure we will keep revising this. We know how important it is that we get this right. We will continue to press it with local authorities and all public organisations to achieve that end.

Amendment 187A, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, seeks to probe the need to make additional climate change provision in respect of the new towns development corporation. This model is currently the only one that has any climate change objectives built into its legislation. Through the Bill, we are going further by including climate change mitigation and adaptation in the already existing aim to contribute to sustainable development and have regard to the desirability of good design. The same objectives will be replicated for all the other development corporation models which currently have no specific objectives in relation to climate change written into their legislative framework. Where development corporations are conferred the role of local planning authority for local plans, they will automatically fall under the planning legislation duties which place specific obligations in relation to sustainable development and climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, not all development corporations will take on the local planning role.

With this in mind, regardless of whether the development corporation takes on planning functions, they will all be required to meet this objective. The UK’s climate is getting hotter and wetter, with more extreme weather events. The effects of extreme weather and nature loss are already here and have impacted all our lives. But there are small wins which can have a big impact. By updating the current framework and making it consistent across the development corporation models and the National Planning Policy Framework, our message is clear that we will place sustainable development and climate change at the heart of all development corporations and guide the use of their powers.

I hope my explanation has reassured the noble Baronesses sufficiently, and I kindly ask them not to press their amendments.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2025 Lords Chamber

A similar amendment to Amendment 52 was discussed in Committee. I explained that I do not believe that this is the right approach, as it may actively serve to discourage insurers from offering insurance products, rather than encourage them. However, as noble Lords are aware, the Government’s position on insurance has now changed. The Government are firm in the view that tenants are not second-class citizens and deserve to be able to keep pets when this is reasonable.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister just said that the situation has changed. I have listened very carefully to the debate. The Government thought it was necessary to have insurance; they now say it is not necessary. Therefore, the Government have already admitted that there needs to be something additional to protect the landlord in the case of somebody having a pet. Frankly, the argument does not stand up to say that that is not so. I hope that the Minister will accept that she really has to go back and say that if there is no insurance, there has to be a greater degree of protection for the landlord.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I hear what the noble Lord says, and I have listened to other noble Lords, but the evidence in the study that I cited is that three-quarters of landlords of those tenants who have pets do not report any damage. Where there is damage, the cost is around £300, which is perfectly within the scope of the normal deposit. We are content that landlords would be suitably protected against the cost of pet damage through existing tenancy deposits.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 53. As I stated in Committee, “premium” is already commonly understood to include any insurance premium tax, so this amendment is not strictly required, in our view. However, following the Government’s amendments, which remove the ability of landlords to require tenants to obtain insurance to cover the risk of property damage caused by a pet, the noble Lord will, I am sure, recognise that this amendment is no longer required. I therefore request that these amendments not be pressed.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bird (CB)]

I declare my interests in the register in and around housing and things in that area. I will speak to Amendment 278 and the other amendments in my name—Amendments 282, 286 and 291—as they all work together. My amendments would bring the majority of the Bill and the new tenancy regime into force on the day that it passes, with the exception of some areas where regulations or consultation are needed. The purpose of this is to end Section 21 evictions at the earliest possible moment.

I have some interesting research, which I would like to give. No-fault evictions are currently at an eight-year high. Since the previous Government pledged to end no-fault evictions in 2019, 1 million renters have been served a Section 21 eviction notice. Over 100,000 households have been threatened with homelessness due to one of these evictions. Any delays in ending Section 21 will lead to more renters facing an unwanted move, potentially causing hardship and, in some cases, homelessness. Section 21 has meant that privately renting is considered to provide instability. A quarter of all renters have lived in three or more homes in the last five years. I could go on reading like this, but it is not my style, so I will end there.

It was 2,222 days ago when then Prime Minister May said that we were going to get rid of Section 21. The reason that I have brought forward these amendments is that they would not allow ending Section 21 to be kicked into the long grass, as it has been over the last six years. Michael Gove and everybody in the last Government whom I spoke to said, “Yes, yes—we ought to do something about it”. I am very concerned that what will happen is that we will say that Section 21 needs to go through some more debates and that we need to wait for the legal process, but then even more people will end up being thrown out of their homes.

I raise another question, which I find very frightening. I am the product of a slum house and slum landlords. I was born in 1946; when in 1951 we did not pay the rent, we were thrown out in the streets, and all our goods were put out there. This would really upset people in the Labour Government at the time, but they did not do an awful lot about it. The Conservatives came in, and they did not do an awful lot about it—the fact that a family could be laid out on the streets without the law becoming in any way involved.

When the Conservatives came in, they passed a rent Act—I think it was in 1955—which changed things; when Labour came in, in 1965 it was changed again. You could look at it as the goodies and the baddies: for a Conservative Administration, the goodies are the landlords and the baddies are the tenants; for the Labour Party or a Labour Government, the landlords are the baddies and the tenants are the goodies. I have watched this and been involved in this process for decade after decade. From my experience, I feel that we need to arrive at a situation, but we are not going to unless we really rethink how we deal with tenancies, landlords and tenants. The important thing to me is that we stop this coming and going, this balancing—this seeking of who is in the wrong and who is in the right. Both sides of the argument must get together, and this is where I want the work to be done, where tenants and landlords are advantaged by the stability that comes, and it is not engined by the fact that it depends on which Government are in as to who are the goodies and who are the baddies.

This has been a major problem for me over many years. In 1965, when the Labour Government under Harold Wilson brought in the Rent Act, it meant in fact that you had this peculiar situation where all the support went to the tenant, and for hundreds of thousands of people who were landlords and had property, it was removed, and enormous pressure was put on social housing. So for social housing, the local authorities—it was not housing associations—had to keep raising the bar. My brothers, who were on the council housing list in Hammersmith and Fulham in 1965 and were number 101 and I think 105, were scratched because the pressure on social housing was so enormous. Social housing ended up largely with people who were incredibly troubled, not ordinary working-class people, often single mothers with a number of children, and you had this development of the creation of almost ghettos of people who were living in social housing rather than the social mix of the social housing I moved into at the age of 10.

I use this opportunity to say that I want to get rid of Section 21 because it legalises insecurity. But overall, I also want us to be looking carefully at how we can begin a process of balance and equilibrium between tenant and landlord, because they both need each other. How many tenants are paying for people to buy houses? How many tenants are helping landlords put money aside for their pension? How many tenants are putting the children through university, because it is one of the few places where you can get prosperity? Unless we get to a situation where we get the equilibrium, then over the next 10, 20 or 30 years, as politics change and as Governments change, we are going to be having this kind of arsy-versy sort of world of one being the bully and the other being the hero or victim. I beg to move.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

There is a point here which I hope the Minister will listen to carefully: the speed with which legislation is put into operation. I make this point only because it has been true over a whole range of issues. It is true on new housebuilding: we change the building regulations, and it is five years before they actually come into operation, because of the way in which we deal with our legislation.

Let us take the disgraceful situation of successive Governments, of both parties, on Dalits. We passed the change so that Dalits could claim compensation for the way they were treated because of their caste. We changed the law in this House. It still has not come into operation—it has been put off and put off because of the way the legislation works.

I hope the Minister will recognise that what has been so ably introduced is two things. First, I entirely agree that we want a proper balance and a way forward. Tenants need landlords and landlords need tenants; that is obviously so. But I hope she will also take on board the fundamental issue of how quickly changes in legislation go through, and how often you are left with continuing delay. It is not just in this Bill—and she is not responsible for other Bills—but I hope she will take back the genuine concern of many of us about the length of time it takes for decisions that we make to affect ordinary people, which is, after all, why we make them.

Future Homes Standard

Lord Deben Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

Let us hear from the Lib Dem Benches first—then we will hear from the noble Lord.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

There were two clear points there. One is about the training, apprenticeships and skills that we need to deliver in order to meet the retrofitting programme. We are working with colleagues in the Department for Education on that. We know there is a big challenge across the construction sector, first, to deliver 1.5 million new homes but also, secondly, in the retrofitting area. We are determined to meet that challenge and offer the new jobs that I spoke about earlier.

The noble Lord spoke about the private rented sector. Next week we will be introducing the renters’ rights Bill. There are significant new powers in that Bill for tenants to challenge their landlords when they feel that the improvements their homes need are not being dealt with as quickly as they should be. We continue to monitor that situation, because it is important that people can have homes that are fit for purpose and are warm, decent and comfortable.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, when we finally get the new homes standard, will the Minister ensure that it comes into operation immediately and does not take about five years to roll out, as the previous ones have? Will she also take up with the companies which build houses that, since 2017, they have built 1.5 million houses that are not fit for the future, taken the profits and left the people who have bought those houses to meet the costs of retrofitting? Is it not a scandal? Should there not be a fund which they give to that can repay the people who have bought these houses, so that they can do what needs to be done to them?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes some very important points. I have a lot of sympathy with what he says about how we take this forward. I think I was very clear in what I said: the intention of our Government is to make sure that there will be no further retrofitting needed when new homes are built. They will be built to the standard we set as soon as that standard comes into being. The discussions I have had with the construction industry lead me to believe that it is waiting for that standard and will be ready for it as soon as we are able to set it. I hope that will be the case. I will take the other ideas the noble Lord put forward back to my department.

European Union

Lord Deben Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

We need to recognise that the public were clear that they voted for Brexit, which is why this Government are not seeking to relitigate or renegotiate the entirety of the Brexit deal—but we do want to make Brexit work.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

Is it not true that we are culturally part of Europe and that the culture connections are very important, but that at the moment they are held up because of the “Wrecksiteers” and their attitudes to all this? Can we please get on with this and not fuss about?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I hope the noble Lord does not think that we are fussing about. Culturally and geographically, this country is clearly part of Europe. I think the Question specified the EU, which is why my responses have related to that.

Lease Extension Policies for Residential Properties

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord will not be surprised to learn that I do not have particular information about scallop dredging. However, a Crown Estate Bill will come forward as part of the King’s Speech legislation. This will modernise the Crown Estate by removing some of the outdated restrictions on its activities. The measures that will come forward will widen investment powers and give the Crown Estate powers to borrow to invest at a faster pace. Those reforms will ensure the successful future of Crown Estate business and help meet the clean energy superpower mission. I will come back to the noble Lord with a Written Answer on the issue of scallop dredging.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, it would not be reasonable to ask the Minister to talk in detail about scallop dredging, but I think it would be reasonable to ask her to make sure that the regulations, when changed under the new law, enable the Crown Estate to stop the terrible destruction on the seabed, which is very damaging in respect of climate change. All sorts of bottom trawling ought to be banned. The Crown Estate ought to have the power, as it owns the seabed, to say, “No more of that kind of behaviour”.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for those comments. The Government want to do everything they can to protect the environment and tackle climate change. As we go through the process of the Crown Estate Bill, I am sure noble Lords will want to get involved in the consultation and submit amendments. I encourage the noble Lord to do so.