Devolution: English Cities

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, like other speakers I begin by congratulating my noble friend on his report, not only for what he concludes but for the way in which he has described the journey he made in getting to those conclusions.

Before going on, I should declare an interest. I am chairman of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership; I have represented the area I live in in the European Parliament and have chaired a number of businesses there. This is relevant to what I am going to say, because I am sympathetic towards and a supporter of my noble friend’s concerns, but I will focus for a moment on places such as Cumbria, which are not in a city or its direct economic and social hinterland. This is because I do not want them to fall between the gaps which the project, as described by the noble Lord, might lead to.

First, I go back to cities. I spent 10 years in the European Parliament about 20 years ago. I was struck then by the vigour and profile of the great European cities when set in contrast to our cities. They seemed to have an identity and confidence which went beyond that of the country in which they were situated. What struck me at the same time was that when the European political institutions made overtures to the great cities of this country such as Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool, they appeared to be rebuffed by the United Kingdom Government in London. I think the reason for that was a fear of some kind of independent supranational attribute that might be generated by participating in all this.

This is a matter that does not really concern the younger generation, given that they are so much less worried by matters of nationality and jurisdiction. For them, Berlin, Lisbon, Munich, Madrid and Milan are simply places to go to and places where football is played. I do not know whether any of your Lordships noticed but, during the recent UEFA Champions League final in Madrid, everybody went to Madrid, not to Spain.

In some ways, perhaps the most prominent of all cities in Europe is London; it is, after all, one of the great global cities. For many people from abroad, it is almost a detail that London is in this country. The point of London is that it is a global city and one of the financial capitals of the world. As an aside, we ought to be aware that in this age of telecommunications, the financial centre can move from London just as the centre of European finance moved to this country from the Low Countries in the late 17th and early 18th centuries; indeed, it moved there from southern Germany and northern Italy. We should not take for granted any of the characteristics which are successful in this country. We should remember that the vanished pomps of yesterday are,

“one with Nineveh and Tyre!”

It seems to me that during the 20th century our great cities lost the domestic, commercial and political provincial dynamism—and I use the word “provincial” in an approving and not disparaging sense—that created Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Glasgow. We can see this elsewhere in the world, including in China, which, whatever its other problems, displays dynamism. Where there is such dynamism, there is civic pride, energy and commitment. That is what made these cities great in the past, as can be seen by looking at what remains. The noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, is quite right to want to re-instil this into our country, but it has to be recreated; it cannot happen by itself. It is no good to declare ourselves optimists and assume that that will lead to a better tomorrow. There has to be substance, vision and detail to enable us to get there.

As I said in my opening remarks, this is not for everywhere. In particular, there are two areas we need to consider in this context. First, in this country there are a number of large but nevertheless smaller cities, relatively speaking. I am thinking of places such as Preston and Bolton, which are in the solar system of great metropolitan cities but tend to be overshadowed by their bigger neighbours. They are proud places and they offer a lot of potential.

Secondly, there are areas such as my own, Cumbria, which is sometimes described as the north of the north. It has half the land mass of north-west England, is at the centre of Britain and has a population of about half a million. It is not part of the economic system of any of the great metropolitan cities but is nevertheless affected by them, and by Scotland. I would like to put on record that the development of the Borderlands growth deal is an important initiative because, while we are all in the United Kingdom, England and Scotland are different countries. This initiative transcends the border, and there are not very many that do. In Cumbria, we look to the north of England, London and Europe, which is, at least for now, very important for our domestic market. Independent analysis carried out by the LEP shows that the impact of no-deal Brexit will be very serious indeed, as was corroborated by a separate piece of work carried out by the CBI.

One aspect of the report that I found most interesting was the chapter written by Tony Travers, outlining the history of local government. Things change as the world changes and, as a number of speakers have said, we are in the middle of a revolution and so things are going to have to change. The question is how. The experience we have had in this country appears to suggest that we tend to start with structures but that that will not necessarily lead to a successful result. I sense that we are seeing the beginning of a change of approach: we are starting with function. If we can change the place in the system of governance where decisions are made—and make sure that changing it does not merely mean decentralisation by moving Whitehall somewhere else but moves decision-making nearer to those who will be affected—that will encourage participation and civic pride in the communities that are going to benefit. If we can do that, it will in turn generate dynamism, regrowth and prosperity and will encourage able people from all walks of life to become engaged.

In the north, we see that the Government are now trying to re-engage through their Northern Powerhouse 11, as opposed to the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, to which Cumbria LEP is fully committed as a full partner. The very different members of the group have very different contributions and have a different emphasis on what they do. Nevertheless, it is an important initiative in which I hope that all those engaged, from the smallest to the largest, will be treated equally, in the same way that Austria and Germany sit on the European Council as equals.

Changes appear to be happening, and they are happening incrementally. It may well turn out that change of this sort will be more successful than the imposition of structures from outside, from Whitehall. Form follows function, and if functions change then I believe that the appropriate form will follow and change with it. I hope the report by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, is an important milestone on the road to rebalancing the ways in which things are done in England.

Borderlands

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right to draw attention to our many successful regional deals involving metro mayors, many of whom are operating very effectively across political parties, and to say that those are working well. The Government, as always, are focused on the future rather than the past. We are developing a very successful policy and I am glad that it has the noble Lord’s backing.

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a Cumbrian. Can my noble friend confirm that the money being talked about is new and not simply money that the local authorities in the area have anyway, and it is a question of robbing Peter to pay Paul?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, we do not know what the new money will be; it depends on the proposals made to the Chancellor, but in all likelihood there will be new money, just as there has been in other growth deals. Not all the money is from the public sector by any means; much of it will be driven by very successful businesses in the private sector.

National Policy for the Built Environment

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Inglewood (Con)]

My Lords, I declare the interests I have in the register. In particular, I own Hutton-in-the-Forest in Cumbria, which is a grade 1 listed building, and around it some houses and land. I am also a trustee of a number of similar estates, a chartered surveyor, a board member of the Historic Houses Association, president of the Ancient Monuments Society and president of the Lakeland Housing Trust.

I am not quite sure whether it is my noble friend Lady O’Cathain or the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, whose comments I join about the Government’s response to the report. Let us be clear: they have taken a very long time and the response is very flimsy. We have waited for the gestation period of an elephant and the Government have given birth to a mouse. It is all a bit disappointing.

I want to focus the main thrust of my comments on two things: first, some aspects of what is going on in the north of England; and secondly on historic buildings. I start with some general points. Like the noble Baroness, I think there is great value in an overview of some of the problems to be considered in more detail in your Lordships’ House and elsewhere regarding the built environment, and associated topics and political problems. I entirely concur with the thrust of the report that a decent built environment—and rural environment, for that matter—is a huge contributor to people’s health, general well-being, sense of well-being and quality of life, and as such, should be encouraged and promoted as part of the country’s infrastructure, using that word in its widest sense.

It is not simply a matter of money, although money has to be spent properly and judiciously. Caring, taking trouble, expertise, design, skills and thought are all essential to making the difference between the good and the bad. Having said that money is not the only consideration, we have to recognise that land and buildings are wasting assets and they have to be refreshed regularly to remain in good heart. Over the years this country has wasted an awful lot of investment in the environment—indeed, wasted it on a heroic scale—by failing to look after things. After all, look at the amount of slum clearance we have had over the years and the amount of urban redevelopment and so on. I sometimes flippantly say that I think neglect destroyed more of Britain’s cities during the previous century than the Luftwaffe ever did.

There are two root causes of this, which we did not touch on all that much in our report. The first is rent—using the word in its strict economic sense—and the second is taxation. Rent is important because buildings have to generate a certain amount of money year in, year out, to cover the cost of the maintenance. If that is not happening, you are storing up trouble for yourself. Secondly, our personal taxation in this country is based on 19th century income tax legislation, which was designed for a completely different world, where people’s lives in many cases were very different. It seems that the effect of the rules in various parts of the taxation system is actually to discourage maintenance of the built environment. There are remarkably few incentives to do that. It does not seem that difficult to imagine ways of gathering tax from people to the same levels as they are currently taxed now, in a way that does not chill looking after the fabric of the nation. This applies to both owner-occupied property and let property, be that housing or other. They both have a place in contemporary society and neither should be given priority over the other. Here again, it is maintenance and looking after things that are so important.

Of course, clearly there is a need for new housing and other development but, equally, it is important that what we have should play its full part in the life of the country, and that cannot happen if things are not looked after properly. If no stitch is being put in, there is nothing to prevent having to spend nine later.

If one looks at some high-profile conservation and historic restoration projects and the impact of tax—whether it is income tax, corporation tax, VAT or the impact of gift aid on charitable giving—it is clear that the state is footing a very substantial part of the bill. This bill has been vastly inflated by the failure to get to grips sooner with the problems; for example, the restoration of Wentworth Woodhouse or Apethorpe are welcome and very much in the national interest, but they probably cost the taxpayer several orders of magnitude more than was necessary. Some of your Lordships may have seen the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane, in today’s Times about the problems that this Building we are now sitting in is causing the country and how by doing nothing the cost of the work that needs to be done has hugely escalated.

The systemic response to this should be to devise a system where things are done quicker, which means in real terms you are spending less money. If owners do nothing—whoever those owners might be—the displacement theory so beloved of the Treasury does not automatically mean in some magic way that just because it looks roughly the same the following year, somebody else has picked up the bill; rather, trouble is being stored up, with damp and dry rot, which get worse on a geometric, even logarithmic, scale. I do not think that the arrangements we have surrounding the built environment are at all conducive to that built environment being properly looked after. It goes without saying that a decent planning system is a necessary precondition of a decent urban environment, but by itself it is not sufficient.

I should like to remark briefly on the north of England, where I live. A number of aspects thrown up by the current debate across society about the built environment are different in the south compared with the north, and particularly so when comparing the north with the south-east. Of course, it is the south-east that dominates most of the discussion at present.

Some parts of the north are very prosperous and some are the opposite. In Cumbria, where I live, housing in the Lake District is very expensive, while the west coast of that country is absolutely at the opposite end of the spectrum. In the Lake District there has quite properly for many years been a “house for locals” policy. I chaired the planning committee of the Lake District planning board for four years in the 1980s. The nature of the housing market there is such that demand is effectively limitless. That drives up prices way beyond the ability of many people to conceive of buying houses, despite living and working there, which means that housing for local people has to be provided principally through leasehold.

On the other hand, I hardly exaggerate when I say that in west Cumbria you can scarcely give houses away, even though it is only 20-odd miles from the Lake District. Here, there is much greater scope both for owner occupation and development but the problem is that there is no money. One reason is that there is not much going on, which means that there are not the jobs and so on to support housing, although it is a place where it might be in everybody’s best interests if it were promoted.

An important point is that you cannot completely decouple work and home. Jobs cannot simply be created out of the ether by building industrial buildings—it is much more complicated than that. It is important that a way is found of applying the right economic conditions. If we want to move people out of the south-east, it is a matter of providing not only housing but work. Of course, there have been initiatives for promoting industrial and other activity in the north of England, many of them associated with the northern powerhouse project, but in the eyes of the political commentariat they have been more or less overshadowed by the problems here in the south-east.

If we go back to the central matter of the built environment in the most general terms, I think that everyone is looking for the same thing, albeit perhaps nuanced a bit differently. Quite understandably, ways to achieve it, be it decent housing or the City Beautiful movement, can be contradictory and, in turn, conflict with another important matter—preserving the environment. At the end of the day, this is where judgment and the political process have to step in to resolve the difficulties.

However, my plea is that we must not be dazzled by the big scheme and the flashy—and there are going to be plenty of those about—so that we lose sight of the dull detail that is the necessary counterpoint to all this. I refer to cleaning gutters, repairing roofs and painting windows, which all mean that over a period less and less of our environment will be rotten. If these slightly dull things are ignored, the rest quickly becomes futile. In short, it is good to be boring.

Privacy Injunctions

Lord Inglewood Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

As I indicated, it is a draft Bill, so there will be opportunity to consider issues on parliamentary privilege that go wider than the important issues raised here. The terms of reference of the Joint Committee are not yet established, and it would be wrong of me to pre-empt that, but I will certainly draw to the attention of my right honourable friends the comments made in the Chamber today on the importance of parliamentary privilege as it pertains to this particular issue, and it may well be that in these circumstances the committee may want to reflect on that and have its own input into any future draft Bill.

[Lord Inglewood]

In his opening remarks, my noble and learned friend referred to consultation with the other place about the Joint Committee. Will he confirm that there will be consultation with this place, the other part of Parliament?

I echo the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, about the relevance of what is going on on the internet. Cyberspace, which is outside the jurisdiction, is very close to the jurisdiction and most citizens can gain access to it. It has a huge bearing on the law, bearing in mind that this has arisen in the past 20 or so years.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I endorse those last comments about the importance of the internet and electronic media. That issue will have to be considered. Regarding the establishment of the committee, the indication was that the Justice Secretary and the Culture Secretary would be liaising with the chairs of the Liaison Committee and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. As Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice, my noble friend Lord McNally, is present, and I am sure that that will ensure that the views of the terms of reference reflected in our exchanges here will be fed into that. I think that it was clear that the committee is intended to use the representation of both Houses and the expertise that exists in both Houses.