Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville. I will be following along with her arguments but will speak to my Amendment 94. I start by thanking the Minister for the helpful meeting I had yesterday with her officials.

Amendment 94 does not require local authorities to house ex-prisoners but aims to improve their rehabilitation by prisons and local authorities working better together to prevent post-release homelessness. This is the point of the amendment. About 10 years ago, I started working with the Ministry of Justice on prison reform, specifically conducting two reviews on how prisoners could maintain family and other key relational ties to prevent their reoffending. I am still involved in the implementation of the recommendations of those reviews, but I am beginning to feel a little like an IPP prisoner with no set date for release.

My amendment would contribute to a collective refocus on offender rehabilitation, which is much needed if we are to have any hope of reducing our prison population and the criminal justice budget. Reoffending costs this country £18 billion a year. Releasing prisoners into homelessness, and especially rough sleeping, single-handedly undermines any rehabilitation activity they have ever undertaken. Their proven reoffending rate, 76%, is more than twice that for those released from custody into settled accommodation, at 36.4%.

I have been told that existing legislation to prevent homelessness is adequate. However, there appears to be very little accountability regarding local housing authorities’ compliance with that law, which I will touch on briefly. Some are far more effective than others at finding accommodation for ex-prisoners. This is not simply about available housing stock, but the processes they follow and how well they work in partnership with prison and probation. The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman reports, for example, that several London boroughs are frequently problematic, while others with very pressured housing markets are not. Similarly, in 2025, the London Assembly Housing Committee reported inconsistent practice across London boroughs with weak co-ordination between prisons, probation and borough housing teams.

My amendment seeks to tighten up the rather loose legal framework, which is not delivering as it should. Ministry of Justice data says that almost 13,000 people left prison homeless or as rough sleepers in the year to April 2025—a 39% rise from the previous year. My amendment’s reporting requirements would reveal how local authorities compare with their statistical neighbours. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 introduced a duty on public authorities, including prison and probation, to refer those at threat of homelessness to local authority housing teams, because they would be released within about two months and have nowhere to go. Looking briefly at how that should work, statutory guidance says, rather weakly, that

“Housing authorities are encouraged to … acknowledge receipt of any referral”,


which

“may be in the form of an automatic email reply”.

If that is all the prison is getting and there is no feedback loop, the referral may have simply entered a bureaucratic Bermuda Triangle. Non-statutory guidance says:

“The duty to refer will help to ensure that services are working together effectively to prevent homelessness … It is also anticipated”—


which, again, sounds a little weak—

“that it will encourage local housing authorities and other public authorities to build strong partnerships which enable them to work together to intervene earlier to prevent homelessness through increasingly integrated services”.

However, the local housing authority is merely required to contact the prisoner being referred. The guidance also states merely:

“It is good practice for local housing authorities to go beyond referral procedures and work with other public authorities to prepare a comprehensive assessment of need”


for the prisoner. Where is the grip on local authorities? They are paid from the public purse to obey the law. They are, or should be, accountable for spending and saving public money. Reducing reoffending by just 1% would save £180 million.

My amendment would enable regulations to specify how local housing authorities must respond to referrals. Regulations would specify response times they would need to work to, including when they would need to notify a final decision, and require them to inform the prison or the Probation Service as well as the prisoner. Prisons have a strong legal duty of care towards prisoners and are responsible for pre-release planning. They also need this information and cannot rely on prisoners passing it on to them. The London Assembly Housing Committee found that prisons are not consistently complying with the duty to refer, with late referrals from prison contributing greatly to uncertainty; hence, the regulations are tightening the process at their end as well.

To conclude, currently there are many gaps in the system that we need to close so that soon-to-be-released individuals no longer fall through them. Without accommodation, as we have heard from other noble Lords, they cannot seek work, restructure their lives or take ownership of their rehabilitation. It can be a matter of life or death. Just last month, a Guardian investigation reported record numbers of deaths within two weeks of release in 2025, a 28% rise since 2021. The primary driver, according to experts, is a rise in prisoners being released into homelessness and falling through “trapdoors to crisis”. The duty to refer was designed to prevent this wherever possible. Almost 10 years on from the Act that introduced it, we must acknowledge that it is not working as it should be for ex-prisoners. The Bill provides the perfect opportunity to fix it.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak to these amendments, and it is always a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Farmer: he is one of the most indefatigable and persistent champions of the family and of the education and rehabilitation of prisoners, and I commend the work he has done over many years.

As a constituency MP, I had a prison in my constituency. I was once critical of what I thought was the cushy lifestyle of the women’s wing of the prison—it was a coterminous prison, men and women—because it provided aromatherapy in the gym. I criticised this, as the local MP, and of course the Sun put it on the front page, with the immortal headline, “In for a stretch”, which was quite amusing. The serious point is that we can spend very significant amounts of money to make sure that prisoners can read and write, understand civic engagement and have meaningful work, but that is all completely wasted if, when they leave prison, they go back into the clutches of the nefarious and criminal classes, particularly drug dealers.

I commend both noble Baronesses on the Liberal Democrat Benches. The noble Baroness, Lady Teather, will not remember, but we worked together, many moons ago when she was Children’s Minister in the other place, on the rather niche subject of children with Tourette’s syndrome—she did a great job in that role in the coalition Government. Both noble Baronesses are absolutely right that we need to focus. These are permissive amendments to focus on collecting and collating as much data as possible on both ex-offenders and Armed Forces personnel. That is all that these amendments ask for and I heartily concur with all the later amendments in this group.

Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2026

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I concur 100% with the comments from my noble friend Lord Hayward. I am going to take this statutory instrument at face value and discuss the issues that it raises on the alternative vote and first past the post. As noble Lords will know, when proportional representation was tested with the electorate in 2011—in this case, the alternative vote referendum—it was lost by a margin of 68% to 32%.

Noteworthy in the statutory instrument is the paucity of intellectual rationale for why the changes are happening. I agree with my noble friend: it looks like a cynical stitch-up to avoid embarrassment in the combined boroughs of Greater Manchester. But it also potentially looks like a strategy for a progressive alliance being rolled out in the run-up to a general election—for instance, with the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats —with the stated or probably unstated aim of locking out the Conservatives and Reform UK from power.

First past the post is simple and fair, and Conservatives have always supported it. It ensures proper representation and broad campaigning by parties, rather than policies targeted on a subset of voters. It is simple and transparent. Even in a disaggregated, fragmented political landscape, it is still stable and effective at delivering governance. One person secures the plurality of votes and that is transparent. As it happens, almost 100 Labour MPs have been elected in the other place with less than 35% of the votes. So if it is good enough for this Government’s majority in the other place, it is good enough for our elections generally.

In 2016, the Home Affairs Select Committee recommended that first past the post was best to replace the supplementary vote in police and crime commissioner elections. SV causes confusion and leads to a lot of spoiled and rejected ballots. The Electoral Commission, in its September 2021 report on the 2021 elections, noted:

“A quarter of people who had difficulties filling in their ballot paper in areas holding both local government and PCC elections said it was confusing that the elections used different voting systems. A third of people voting in London said that they found the two voting systems confusing”.


In fact, the rejection rate in the London mayoralty election in 2021 was 114,201 ballots, of which 87,000 were because voters cast a vote for more than one candidate in the first-preference column; 265,353 votes were invalidated because the second preference was cast for the same candidate as the first; and 319,978 second preferences were unmarked. These void rates exceeded the votes validly transferred to the two leading candidates: Mr Khan got 192,000 votes, and Mr Shaun Bailey—now the noble Lord, Lord Bailey of Paddington —got 85,000 transfers.

First past the post focuses on clear accountability. Electors know the one individual who is responsible for the failings or the successes of public policy. SV gives a recycled second vote the same democratic credibility as voters’ first choice. Each vote should count equally. One person, one vote. In fact, a supplementary vote is used almost nowhere else across the globe. The late, much-renowned and much-missed elections expert and academic, David Butler, described SV as a silly answer, based on the need to compromise between rival factions.

First past the post is quicker to count and cheaper to administer, as my noble friend Lord Hayward said, and better understood by voters. Some very eminent people in your Lordships’ House agree with this. In fact, one of them said that “SV is one of the worst systems. We had a referendum in 2011 on changing the voting system for elections to the House of Commons. This was wholly rejected, and I have seen nothing following on from that result, or anything that has happened subsequently, which leads me to believe that the country wants to change the voting system for any elections. We have managed to heap on voters a whole plethora of voting systems. That is not a good thing to do. I thought that one of the worst systems was the SV system. I have observed many counts where people have put a cross in the second column, which means that their votes are discounted.” Brilliantly said by the current Labour Government Chief Whip—quite, my Lords. Indeed, in 2021 the UCL Constitution Unit described the supplementary vote as “an anomaly” and out of step with other elections in England.

At least AV, which is an alternative system, allows a more pluralistic preference voting. I ask the Minister directly: will she confirm that these changes will take effect in respect of a putative Greater Manchester mayoral by-election, which may or may not happen later this year? This is about raw politics. It fails to make a coherent fact-based intellectual case for reverting to an SV regime. It is about locking out Reform UK and the Conservatives from power, and therefore it fails on merit and is a retrograde step, which my party and I oppose.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I will have a look at whether it is possible to get that figure; I thank the noble Lord for that question.

The noble Lords, Lord Hayward and Lord Jamieson, asked me why we are changing the voting system only for two types of mayoral elections. First, to reiterate— as I think was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—these changes revert to the 2017 voting system, which was brought in by the Conservatives, and it was the Conservatives who changed it back in 2022. We are reverting to the system that the Conservatives had introduced for these single-office posts.

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 received Royal Assent in April this year and the Government’s stated aim has always been that we will work at pace to deliver secondary legislation needed to implement the new law at the earliest appropriate opportunity. Of course, the Government are conscious that there is now a possible scenario in which a mayoral by-election may need to be held in Greater Manchester in the coming months, subject to the outcome of a parliamentary by-election in the Makerfield constituency on Thursday this week.

To fulfil both Parliament’s will and this Government’s stated commitment to reimplement SV, we have drafted this order at pace to ensure that the necessary legislation will be in place for this system to be utilised if that mayoral by-election takes place. To meet this deadline, the order had to be kept concise and could not include measures to amend all other types of mayoral elections. Amending all the relevant mayoral and PCC election conduct rules would also require a range of statutory instruments, as they use different parliamentary procedures. We intend to implement SV for other mayoralties and PCCs in due course through separate instruments.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

If the noble Lord will bear with me for a moment, I am going to answer some of his other points. If I do not cover it, he is welcome to step in.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, raised issues about the voting system. I am sure he will make his comments on voting in London when we make the instrument for London mayoral elections. To be clear, this particular instrument does not cover London mayoral elections. SV was the voting system implemented on the introduction of both mayoral and police and crime commissioner elections. As I said, we think it is much more appropriate for selecting single-person executive positions such as mayors or police and crime commissioners.

However—and the noble Lord Jamieson asked about this—we believe that the first past the post system is a clear way of electing representatives which is well understood by voters and which, although not perfect, provides for a direct relationship between a member of a legislature and the local constituency. The first past the post voting system is therefore a more suitable system where there are a number of seats to be filled, such as for a council or a Parliament, and the likelihood is that people representing a range of views and parties will be elected. Therefore, the Government have no plans to change the electoral system for UK parliamentary or local council elections in England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I thank the Minister. On a point of fact, as a result of the 2022 legislation which reverted back to first past the post, the Greater London returning officer estimated that, because it was not necessary to use the e-voting infrastructure for counting, there was an indicative saving of £4 million. That is the difference between the SV system and first past the post, so surely the Minister will concede that there is a significant greater cost of this new system that we do not yet know.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As I said, this instrument does not cover London, and there is no price to put on democracy. We should always be aiming for democracy first. However, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, I will do my best to find out if there is any financial impact of this instrument.

The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, asked me about the sector being able to cope with the late change. SV has been used in the past extensively and recently and will be deeply familiar to returning officers and their teams. My department has been working closely with the sector as it prepares for the changes arising from the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, and we will continue to support it in managing any changes once this instrument is made. As I said, we consulted with the Electoral Commission, which did not have any concerns about this, so we are confident that the change is straightforward and the sector will have no issues in implementing it.

The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—for very different reasons, I think—asked how the public will be informed of these changes, and the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, had some concerns in that area too. Electors will receive information on the voting system used via a number of methods, including guidance on postal voting statements and in polling stations that they will read prior to voting. More importantly, where there are three or more candidates at an election, the ballot paper itself will be clear that electors have the option to select a second preference. I am confident that electors will be informed of the change and understand their options when casting their vote, especially given that this is a voting system that has been used extensively in the past and will be well understood, and indeed familiar, to many voters. Greater Manchester used SV for almost all its elections, with the exception of one in 2024, reflecting its status as an established voting system.

The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock—again, I expect, for very different reasons —asked me why we were using SV, not a different system. The Government have no plans at present to introduce the single transferable vote to mayoral and PCC elections. The Government acknowledge that different voting systems can be better suited to different types of polls and elections, and we take the view that SV is the right system to use for selecting single-person executive positions. It requires the winning candidate to receive the majority of votes counted, and that ensures that they have broad support across the area and a broader mandate from the people they are representing. A key advantage of the SV system over other preferential voting systems is that, as I said, it was widely used before for mayors and PCCs, so people are familiar with it.

The other question from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, was about how the supplementary vote is counted. With a supplementary vote, if no candidate gets over 50% of the vote, the top two candidates continue to a run-off and all other candidates are eliminated. When casting their ballot, voters can put a second choice of who they would vote for in a run-off on the original ballot paper. If your favourite candidate gets through then your vote is counted for them in the run-off, but if they did not and your second choice did, then your vote goes to them. The run-off candidate with the most votes is declared the winner.

Social Housing Bill [HL]

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend on the Front Bench: it is quite right to debate the effective allocation of scarce public resources. That needs to be said.

The Government have brought forward the Bill ostensibly with the desire to protect social housing and facilitate the building of new supply. This is an admirable goal. We need more houses. The UK is building only 200 homes a year per 10,000 people added to the population over the past 20 years. However, there is an aspect of this discussion which does not receive the attention it deserves and which I will highlight later in my remarks: population and housing tenure.

I welcome in particular Clause 12 and Schedule 1 on victims of domestic abuse. However, the tenor of the Bill is generally hostile to right to buy and seeks, particularly in Part 1, to circumscribe and curtail the rights of those seeking to exercise their rights under the scheme. I know that, for many people in the Labour Party, right to buy is a totemic scheme to which they have been opposed by habit and tradition with tribal hostility. But for many of us, it represented and still represents the greatest and most profound transfer of capital via property rights, in our country’s history, to working people away from state oligopoly and, sometimes, municipal slum landlords. It gave a pathway to prosperity, self-reliance and family stability and success to thousands of British citizens of modest means from 1980 onwards and boosted home ownership to almost 70% by the early 2000s. I accept that it was by no means perfect and that more emphasis should have been placed not merely on paying off local authority debt but on building good-quality homes for working families—not merely substandard properties for those on welfare, which exacerbated multigenerational welfarism.

It is important to dispel the myths about right to buy. Your Lordships’ House will no doubt be aware of research published by the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. Human Capital from Childhood Exposure to Homeownership: Evidence from Right-to-Buy demonstrates strong empirical evidence not just of increased prosperity and financial stability but of real demonstrable improvements in educational attainment. It generated detectable, sizable school performance gains among young people exposed to home ownership, showing an increase in the number of good grades in high-stakes exams as well as a reduction in crime.

Despite all that, I want to leave the ideological debate for Committee. Instead, I ask a fundamental question about housing and particularly social housing: what sort of housing do we want? What sort of homes would best serve the needs of the British people? What do we want our housing to do?

The ONS has argued that, from about now—mid-2026 onwards—deaths in the UK are projected to exceed births. The BBC reported two weeks ago that births have fallen to the lowest level in 50 years. The UK is facing an unprecedented situation that will have a significant impact on the strength and viability of our economy. Between mid-2024 and mid-2034, there are projected to be 450,000 more deaths than births. We all want economic growth, but low birth rates create an ageing population increasingly dependent on the state, leading to a vicious circle of higher government spending and a weaker economy.

How do we address that? Families are the building blocks on which a society is built. A 2026 poll commissioned by the New Statesman found that 81% of men and 82% of women between the ages of 18 and 30 said that they would like to be married or in a civil partnership one day. It also found that 75% of young women and 80% of young men wanted to have children at some point in their life. Analysis of the 2025 UK multifamily housing survey and historic surveys indicated that the perceived ideal family size has mostly stayed similar since 1945. British men and women in the 2025 survey said, on average, that they would be happiest with 2.1 or 2.2 children.

However, one significant issue that is often not factored in is housing tenure. The analysis of the UK multifamily housing survey found that housing was a significant factor in how British people approach having families. Some 81% believe that the cost and availability of family homes is making it harder for people to marry and start families; only 9% disagreed. Some 74% said that the type and size of housing available has a major impact on people’s decisions about having children. Some 65% of the public agreed that too many new homes are small flats, and that they are unsuitable for raising families. More than half personally know young people or couples who are delaying having children because they cannot afford a suitable home.

The public also have views on how to address the problem. A majority wanted new housing developments to include a higher proportion of family-sized homes, and 65% wanted three-bedroom homes to be prioritised in the planning rules for new development, so that families can put down roots and become part of a stable local community. A survey of people’s preferences from the Institute for Family Studies found that those who wanted to have children saw having a two-bedroom property, instead of a one-bedroom property, as having the same impact on their confidence in having children as a £1,900 to £2,600 reduction in their monthly housing costs.

Policy should not and cannot tell people whether they should have children, but it can make it easier for those who want to. In 2023, flats rose to almost 22% of housing stock, while detached homes and bungalows fell to between 25% and 26%. Our policies, under both parties, have focused on the number of houses and not on those that are compatible with the family. As we think about housing, and social stock in particular, including the aesthetics of new housing developments, we should look to support the family. Local plans and housing needs assessments should track and plan for the number of bedrooms and family-sized properties. Local and national policies should plan for the building of family-sized homes. Our planning policy should focus on schemes that are viable and conducive to families.

Finally, as I have exceeded my time, Britain is facing a crisis of the family and significant housing challenges. The policies we discuss in this House should attempt to deal with both those problems. For no other reason, I welcome the Bill and hope it gives rise to opportunities for the Government to begin to solve these pressing, significant societal issues.

Ballot Secrecy Act: Breaches

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to discuss alleged breaches of the Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 in relation to the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election with (1) Manchester City Council, and (2) the Greater Manchester Police.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, I understand that the allegations have been reported to Greater Manchester Police, which is considering the matter. The Electoral Commission is in close contact with Greater Manchester Police and the returning officer. If coercion at the polling stations had occurred, it would have been a breach of the law under the Ballot Secrecy Act 2023. It is essential that electors can cast their vote in secret and without the risk of coercion. Your vote should be yours alone. If anyone believes they have witnessed family voting occurring at this by-election or at any time, they should contact the police.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I thank the Minister. She will know that the previous Government introduced a power in the Elections Act 2022 for the Electoral Commission to draw up a strategy and policy document containing measures to tackle electoral fraud and corrupt and illegal practices, including family voting. However, Ministers have now U-turned on this by indicating that they will repeal the legislation and dump their own 2025 elections strategy. Given the substantial concerns after Gorton and Denton, why are the Government removing safeguards introduced because of the endemic fraud in Tower Hamlets, deleting guidance for local authorities on how to stop family voting and introducing secret election pilots for their own partisan advantage? Are the Government going soft on electoral fraud, or is it worse than that?

NHS Industrial Action

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

The noble Baroness and I have discussed this in another forum in this House. It is critical that we work with those doctors to find out what their priorities are and how we can work with them to give them more security and to make sure that the training posts are available. I am pleased to say that consultation is on offer around all these points. We have to move forward; the door is open, and we want to discuss how we can make improvements to the contracts.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, obviously, it goes without saying that the industrial action just before Christmas is completely unacceptable, but I would be remiss not to observe that at the time that the 28.9% pay award was made, the Health Secretary attributed problems of industrial relations with resident doctors to the former Government, rather than recognising that it is an ongoing problem. That is a matter of record. I ask the Minister: what estimate is the department making of the impact on other aspects of the NHS, particularly elective operations and primary care, of this completely unreasonable and uncalled-for industrial action?

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

As I said earlier, we have done some analysis of the strikes that took place in July, and we are working on the data for November. Obviously, we will take the learning from that through to how we deal with the strikes. I repeat that everyone in the health service has stepped up to the plate to make sure that the impact on patients is as low as possible. We will not shy away from the fact that we think strikes in the week running up to Christmas are completely unacceptable, and I am pleased to say that we have the leadership in the Department of Health from the Secretary of State, who has made his views on this exceptionally plain.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster. I am appalled by the statement read to the House by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Noble Lords have to understand that it is very embarrassing for me to be on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but I have to say that what she just read out shows what a disgraceful industry this is and how much money is being made out of the poorest and most deprived places.

I have lived with this problem for many years. My father was a clergyman in one of the worst slum areas of Britain. He always said that gambling was much more damaging than drink or any of the other things to which referred. It was particularly damaging in his parish, which contained a large number of military personnel, both retired and present.

I hope that the Minister will not make the speech that I suspect I might have had written for me as a Minister. It goes like this: “This is a planning Bill, and this amendment refers to the licensing duties of a local authority. I know that we already said that it was more appropriate for licensing authorities than the Planning Bill but, because this is a planning Bill, we really believe that it should be left for a different piece of legislation”. Yet the Government have said that they will make these changes immediately when there is some opportunity in Parliament to do it.

This amendment is an opportunity. What is more, it has been shown to be within the long title of the Bill, so, if the Minister says that it cannot be done because it is not appropriate, I will have to say to her that I do not believe the House should accept that. The House should simply say that it is clearly appropriate and that this is a clear opportunity. If the Government do not support that, I say something very tough to them: this is about the very people whom this Government are always banging on about and are supposed to be supporting. These are the people who are most at risk from the bloodsuckers who run the gambling industry and know what they are doing. They are applying to the very people who are most vulnerable and from whom they get most of their money.

I say this to the Minister: there is a growing anger around the country at what is happening and at the vast sums of money that some of the people who own these companies make. The biggest payer of income tax in Britain runs a betting company. That says something deeply offensive about our society; I do not believe that any of us should stop the battle to change this.

I wish also to say one thing about my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s amendment. I hope that the Government will not say that it is not necessary to make the point about small businesses. My noble friend has concentrated on the construction industry but, very recently—in the past three years—I applied to the local authority to change a residential building back to what it had originally been since 1463: a public house.

That piece of planning change for a very small business —I do not know what I was doing starting a small business at my age, but there we were—for the benefit of the community, took a year. It was the year in which construction prices rose faster than they had for generations. At the end of that year, the cost of what one was trying to do for the community was significantly greater than at the beginning. The reasons for holding it up included the conservation officer complaining that we were going to use second-hand pamments and bricks; we were obviously going to do so because that is my attitude to these things. My architect said, “My client is strongly concerned about climate change and wishes, therefore, to use second-hand materials”. He got back from the conservation officer a note that said, “I don’t care about climate change; I’m interested only in conservation”.

Even if you know something about these things, it is very difficult to put up with a year of that kind of conversation. I merely say to the Minister that it is essential that we have in this Bill a clear statement that small businesses must be treated with the consideration that they do not have the means to do things that big businesses have. I really hope that we can resurrect small construction businesses, but we will not do that unless they have special understanding as far as planning is concerned.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I will be brief; I had not intended to speak but I want to say a few words.

First, I completely agree with my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s excellent amendment; I pay tribute to her persistence and indefatigability in defending small and medium-sized enterprises. However, I find myself agreeing with my noble friend Lord Deben—not always a common phenomenon—and with his excellent, passionate remarks in support of Amendment 117 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster. I say this only because my own experience leads me to believe that we have a responsibility to ensure that there is balance and fairness in the planning system between betting companies, which have significant resources at their disposal—in particular, legal resources—and planning departments, which are often in small local authorities and do not have the capacity to push back against some of the planning policies that allow betting companies to put fixed-odds betting terminals in very deprived areas, for instance.

I raised this issue when I had the privilege of serving in the other place with, among others, my right honourable friend Iain Duncan Smith, the Member of Parliament for Chingford and Woodford Green. As a communitarian, not a libertarian, I believe that civic society is about protecting those people who are most likely to be the victims of market dysfunction. This is another example of market dysfunction. It is zeroing in on people who have very little money; advantage is being taken of them. This is not a draconian proposal to close down betting shops, gaming arcades and other facilities; it is about redressing the balance to allow there to be a cumulative impact assessment on issues around adult social care and on the depression, illness and penury, frankly, with which many people suffer; I saw this in my constituency of Peterborough a number of times.

You do not have to be liberal, anti-capitalist or anti-free market to support this amendment. It is about fairness and equity, treating people equally giving planning officers, in our local councils and on planning committees, the weapons to make a reasoned, fact-based case for preventing development that would be undesirable and damaging to their local communities. It is on that basis that I support the noble Lord’s excellent amendment. I hope that the Minister will give it a fair hearing, because it is well thought through and considered. I know that my Front Bench will do a similar job in analysing the amendment. I think there is consensus that fair play should be at the heart of this and that planners need weapons to deal with potentially very unsuitable developments.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 11th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, possibly it is suitable for me to go next, because I shall speak also to Amendment 184, just to conclude the debate on that.

Amendment 184 is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who has presented it in such an engaging way that I hardly feel it worth any of the rest of us saying anything. She was nobly supported by my noble friend Lord St John and the noble Lord, Lord Banner. Centrepoint, the promoter of the amendment, is a highly respected homelessness charity, and its ideas for creating stepping-stone accommodation are innovative and imaginative.

When asked to support the amendment, I raised three queries and received some helpful responses that I will share with your Lordships, as others may have had similar thoughts to mine. First, I noted that the scheme depended on the young renters moving on to permanent homes in due course to make way for the next young person. But what if the acute shortages of affordable homes made this move-on impossible? The clogging up of short-term supported housing has been the undoing of many earlier such projects. In response, I was assured that these tenants would be supported by a visiting tenancy sustainment worker, who would not only help the young people to pay their rent and maintain their home but would help with move-on options.

Secondly, I pointed out that living in 24 square metres would not normally be regarded as tolerable. The national minimum space standard for a flat is 37 square metres, which is over 50% bigger. Was there a danger that this might be the thin end of the wedge, leading to more exemptions from the norm over time? Experience of the abuse of permitted development rights for property conversions into tiny slums shows us where this might lead. In response, it was pointed out that the circumstances in which the amendment would permit the much-reduced space standards exclusively for otherwise homeless young people were very tightly circumscribed, defined and limited—and I note that they get the seal of approval from the noble Lord, Lord Banner.

Finally, I wondered whether it would be more companionable for the young renters to be in a shared flat with three or four others with their own room but sharing a bathroom and kitchen diner. The reply was very convincing: Centrepoint had consulted widely with young people and those who had spent their time in local authority supported housing with communal areas and shared facilities, and they wanted space that was entirely their own responsibility. Small developments of 12 to 36 studio flats would mean young people living alongside each other while learning to live independently.

It would be up to local planning authorities as to whether any stepping-stone schemes emerged, but this amendment would make them a possibility. Centrepoint and maybe other charities should be enabled to take their model forward to its next stage, no doubt with further pilot schemes to test the concept. With these comments, I support the amendment and look forward to the response from the Minister.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to the Committee’s deliberations. I say at the outset that Amendment 184 from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and my noble friend Lord Banner is eminently sensible, and there appears to be a strong consensus in its favour. I therefore that my Front Bench but also the Minister will give it a fair hearing and possibly support it, because it seems to be a great compromise.

I was fortunate when serving in the other place to support a very good charity called Hope into Action, with local churches banding together to buy residential properties for those in the most acute need, sometimes ex-offenders or people who were just generally down on their luck economically. However, I understand that that is very much a niche activity and it is not possible to buy freeholds outright, so you need this intermediate accommodation in order to give people a chance to get back on the employment or education ladder. So I strongly commend that amendment.

Principally, I want to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Gascoigne. I am old enough to remember when the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 got Royal Assent. I declare from the outset—practically everyone declares this in this Committee—that I am another former vice-president of the Local Government Association, although quite some time ago. I was also a London borough councillor, and I had the good fortune to serve on the planning committee.

It should be remembered that the purpose of Section 106 was very much benign and supported by the community. It was essentially about whether expenditure was necessary, directly relevant to the planning application, and proportionate. It was absolutely the right thing to seek to ameliorate some of the impacts of residential development by providing community facilities such as schools, GP surgeries, community centres and transport infrastructure. Obviously, there was a distinction between the community infrastructure levy and Section 106. Of course, when I was a Member of Parliament and member of the borough council, those financial contributions made in support of affordable housing were very important. They obviously made a big contribution to the provision of decent housing in our borough and in my constituency.

The reason why I think this is an excellent amendment is that not all local authorities are the same. One of the frustrations is that, unless you are focused every day on trying to find the audit trail of funding from Section 106, when you have multiple stakeholders, landowners, local councillors and council officers—who often change over time—it is very difficult to follow the money in terms of what was actually delivered.

You often found in my experience that residential developments ended up with groups of homeowners or local residents who were very unhappy at, for instance, being members of a limited company and responsible for the management of their community areas. They did not want to do that; they just wanted a children’s playground, a bus shelter or a bus route, or a post office, for instance. Therefore, the openness and transparency that this very laudable amendment would give rise to would allow the distinction between good authorities which are putting much-needed money into local communities in a timely way, and those local authorities which are dragging their feet.

I accept that there is a distinction between preparing a local development plan and a county structure plan, et cetera. That is much more of a legalistic exercise, which has to be undertaken under various pieces of legislation. This is about keeping the faith and the trust of the local people you are interested in providing with very good local services, using what is effectively a tax—public money. Having the imperative of publishing that information on a regular basis would allow you in real time to account for why you have not spent that money, what priorities have changed and what the needs of the community as they evolve might be.

I cannot really see why there would be a reason not to do this. Irrespective of party in local government, whether it is independent, Liberal Democrat, Reform, Conservative or Labour—I think that is everyone; unless you are in Epsom and Ewell, and then it is ratepayers, bizarrely—everyone has an opportunity to make sure that that money is spent effectively and in a timely way.

For that reason, I support the amendment. I hope that, if the Minister rejects the amendment, she explains clearly why it is not possible to support it and incorporate it into the Bill. It is long overdue; it is what transparency campaigners in local government want, what local councillors want and probably even what planning officers want, providing clarity on expenditure. It would be a very good development, and I hope the Minister will support it.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 170 in the name of my noble friend Lord Gascoigne. As I indicated in the previous group, I sat on the CIL review 10 years ago with Liz Peace, whom some noble Lords may know from the restoration and renewal programme, as well as Andrew Whitaker from the Home Builders Federation, which is probably where my noble friend gets his figure of £8 billion from.

When I was a council leader, we had three councils that came together in the Greater Norwich area, and we were early adopters on CIL. We were only the 12th area to do it, and we pooled our CIL, blind to the administrative boundaries between us, to try to make a step change in the amount of infrastructure delivered. Sadly, following the CIL review in 2017, few other areas joined the bandwagon, and now many areas are not in scope—they have Section 106. But in principle the community infrastructure levy has much to commend it, as it is quick, simple, clear and a lot more straightforward than Section 106. However, there are some problems, one of them being sufficiency.

What we discovered on the CIL review was that the amount of money generated by the CIL was probably some 15% of the total infrastructure requirement, aggravated in many cases by a large number of exemptions—self-built homes, offices converted under permitted development to residence, and so forth. There was a further aggravating factor, in that local authorities are not permitted to borrow against future CIL receipts as they are against Section 106. That made it significantly harder to get the big, chunky infrastructure done.

As a group of local authorities, we created the Section 123 list, where we listed all the things we expected CIL to fund—and there were sections on green infrastructure, social infrastructure, education, highways and community facilities, including libraries. More than 400 lines populated that Section 123 list, which was published annually as a big report, so that everybody could see what we planned to spend the money on. Of course, I support completely the principle of Amendment 170, but it does not go far enough. It is not enough just to say, “Well, this much money is being raised on this job, and that is it”. You have to balance it—not just with the money coming in but with what you plan to spend out on, and the cash flow. It is a simple truth that after you raise the money, and it is only 15%, the next work and the hardest work is leveraging that 15% in with other sources of money, possibly joint ventures and so forth.

CIL is about financing infrastructure, not just funding it. Financing is putting that deal together, whereas funding is just writing the cheque. It is really important that we help the public to understand and see that essential difficulty. Time does not permit describing all the ways in which we have tried to do that, but this amendment does not go far enough. We need to ensure the money coming in and the Section 123 list of the infrastructure going out, as well as the financing. The most important thing that this amendment falls short on is that it does not set the cash flowing—where do you see the money going in 2026, 2027, 2028 and so forth, in a 10-year rolling period? Unless you do that, just by publishing the amount of money that you have raised, there is pressure to get the money out of the door on less important projects with lower impact, which is where we found a difficulty.

By having a more thoughtful, five or 10-year rolling programme, which contains the income, expenditure and cashflow, you would also give clarity to the development community. If you wish, and if it is sensible to do so, you could make a substitution—take an investment in kind, if you will—instead of making an upfront cash payment. That can be very useful. If a new school, for example, is on the Section 123 list, and the developer is interested in it, the new school can help him sell his houses in a large development, but if the money is not quite there yet, being open, honest and transparent, in this more complete way, makes it clear how schools can be financed in kind by the developer, and sometimes you can leverage more in that case.

I support the principle, although I do not believe it goes far enough; we need a five or 10-year programme. In my area, we publish a comprehensive annual report, which includes all the lines—the income and the outcome. However, while posting the balance is useful, it does not tell the whole story. That is what we need to do to get the infrastructure built but also the public onside.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As the noble Lord predicts, I do not have the figure in front of me, but I will write to noble Lords and confirm what it is.

Amendment 185L seeks to deal with instances in which community infrastructure secured through Section 106 cannot be delivered as originally intended. In our view, this amendment risks unintended consequences which could hinder, rather than facilitate, sustainable development. I emphasise that local planning authorities can already take enforcement action if a developer fails to deliver on the obligations they have committed to in a Section 106 agreement, including failure to deliver community infrastructure where relevant. This may include a local planning authority entering the land to complete the works and then seeking to recover the costs or applying to the court for an injunction to prevent further construction or occupation of dwellings. This amendment would prevent the modification of planning obligations even where a change of circumstances means that the community infrastructure in question can no longer be delivered by the developer.

As I have set out, the Government are committed to strengthening the system of developer contributions, including Section 106 planning obligations. To deliver on this commitment, we are taking a number of steps, including reviewing planning practice guidance on viability. However, we must have flexibility where necessary to ensure that development, where there are genuine changes in circumstance, can continue to come forward. We must also think carefully about the demands we are placing on local planning authorities, which may not have the capacity or resources to take on responsibility for delivery in the way this amendment proposes.

Amendments 185K and 220 focus on the development consent order process and strategic development schemes and seek to achieve the same outcome. The clauses proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, would place a legal requirement on developers to deliver on commitments made to provide specified local infrastructure as part of their projects.

First, I want to express my sympathy with the spirit behind this proposal. We all agree that communities must be able to secure the infrastructure they need, especially when new development brings added pressure on local services and existing infrastructure, including schools, nurseries and GP surgeries. In particular, I acknowledge that the concerns that may be driving the amendment relate to the impact of temporary workers or additional traffic on local communities caused by large-scale infrastructure projects, which can remain under construction for significant periods of time.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the problem with the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is that the viability of affordable housing changes all the time? Because there is a link between the viability of residential housing and community facilities, that amendment could lock in the development in a restrictive way—for instance, it might not allow off-site commutation of funding to fund other projects.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand the noble Lord’s point, and it is of course important that we get the balance right between the delivery of the infrastructure as set out and having flexibility, so that when circumstances change, this can change too.

The amendments seek to focus on the issue by ensuring that commitments to delivering local infrastructure need to reduce the impact of a large-scale scheme. In responding, I have assumed that the reference to strategic development schemes is intended to relate to spatial development strategies, which are introduced through this Bill. These strategies, along with local development plans, set out infrastructure needs but are not applications and do not have developments attached to them. I agree strongly with the noble Baroness, and when it comes to large-scale new developments, the Government agree that delivering local infrastructure is crucial. If a project approved through a development consent order creates a need for local infrastructure such as roads, schools or drainage works, those needs can be addressed in two ways.

First, development consent order requirements, which are similar to planning conditions on planning permissions issued under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, control how and when the development is carried out, and may require the approval of subsequent details by the local planning authority. These can be used in cases where changes to local infrastructure are needed to make development acceptable in planning terms. For example, if a developer is providing a relief road to mitigate an identified impact on local infrastructure as a result of constructing a large-scale infrastructure project, the necessary works can be detailed in the requirements. Relevant requirements may mandate subsequent plans—which outline proposed design, works phasing and traffic management—to be submitted to the highways authority, and these plans would then need to be approved and adhered to when implementing the development consent order.

Secondly, local infrastructure can be secured through development consent order obligations. These legal agreements can be used to require the payment of money as contributions towards the provision of local infrastructure, or to secure commitments to delivering that infrastructure. An obligation can be used to ensure that impacts on local infrastructure are properly taken into account and to mitigate identified adverse effects. The Secretary of State may take into account development consent obligations that meet the relevant legal and policy tests when deciding whether to grant development consent for the project. Once an obligation is enforced, it becomes legally binding and runs with the land, even if the land changes hands. A local planning authority has a range of enforcement options available to it if developers or the owners of the land, subject to the development consent obligation, do not fulfil their legal commitments.

While we fully support the goal of ensuring communities get the infrastructure they need, we believe the existing system already provides the right tools through legal requirements where appropriate, and these clauses would not add clarity or effectiveness to that process. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, for his series of questions. I will check in Hansard which ones I answered. If there are any I did not answer, I will reply to him in writing. However, for all the reasons I have set out, I kindly ask the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, to withdraw her amendment.

Amendment 218 would require the Secretary of State to conduct a review of land value capture, including consideration of the merits of alternative methods of land value capture, within six months of Royal Assent to the Bill, and to report on the findings to Parliament.

I thank the noble Baronesses for raising this amendment. It is critically important that local planning authorities can capture a proportion of the land value uplift that often occurs when planning permission is granted in order to deliver affordable housing and the infrastructure needed to mitigate the impacts of new development. Local planning authorities currently use the well-established and effective mechanisms of Section 106 planning obligations and the community infrastructure levy. That is why the Government are committed to strengthening this system, and we have chosen not to implement alternative proposals for land value capture provided for in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, such as the infrastructure levy.

The Government have already made important progress in delivering against this commitment. For example, through the revised National Planning Policy Framework, published on 12 December last year, the Government introduced new “golden rules” for major development involving the provision of housing on land within or released from the green belt. Our “golden rules” aim to deliver higher levels of affordable housing alongside necessary infrastructure and accessible green space.

Through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, currently in the other place, we are also legislating to give mayors of strategic authorities the power to raise a mayoral CIL alongside the requirement to have a spatial development strategy in place, enabling them to raise revenue for strategic growth-supporting infrastructure where this is balanced with viability. The department has provided evidence to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee inquiry into land value capture, and we very much look forward to engaging with the findings and recommendations of that inquiry in due course.

Amendment 184, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, seeks to exempt local planning authorities from applying the nationally described space standards on planning applications concerning the delivery of “stepping stone” accommodation. I also thank Centrepoint for its continuing and proactive support regarding the housing crisis among young people, and for its work on the Bill.

As helpfully set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, in her explanatory note, the thrust of this amendment is to promote accommodation for young people who are leaving supported housing or who are at risk of homelessness. I have delivered similar schemes to the ones she described through our housing first scheme in Stevenage, including some for young people with learning disabilities, which was a remarkable experience. It was a small development, but it was life-changing for those young people. The community they formed in that housing development was wonderful to see, so I do not need any convincing of the reasons for delivering schemes such as these.

I give my support to the principle of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, and agree that regulation should not unnecessarily get in the way of providing safe and secure housing for our most vulnerable, particularly vulnerable young people. However, I hope I can reassure her that the amendment is not needed.

The purpose of the space standards is to provide guidance on the minimum area of new dwellings across all types of tenures, based on the number of bedrooms and bedspaces. The nationally described space standards are not set out in legislation, and they are not mandatory. It is at the discretion of local planning authorities to choose to adopt the space standards through their local planning policies where there is an identified need for additional technical requirements. As set out in planning practice guidance, when establishing a clear need for adopting the space standards locally, they must assess the impact on local viability and housing supply.

By law, planning applications are determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Each application is judged on its own individual merit, and the weight given to these considerations is a matter for the local planning authority as the usual decision-taker in the first instance.

What constitutes a material consideration is very widely defined and it is for the planning decision-maker to determine what is a relevant consideration, based on the circumstances of a particular case. We feel this is best for local areas to determine on a case-by-case basis, rather than being dictated by central government. For example, if the local planning authority considers that the need for a particular housing tenure—such as “stepping stone” housing—would, when considering all relevant material considerations, outweigh the policy requirement to have that housing meet the optional space standards adopted in its local plan, it may grant planning permission. In short, the current planning framework—

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I am sorry, but the past does matter. It is incredible to me that the party in opposition filled up 400 hotels with asylum seekers, did not think ahead about these issues and then complains about it once the horse has bolted. That is pretty shameful and I think the culpability is on my right rather than opposite.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I contribute briefly to this debate to strongly support my noble friend on the Front Bench in her excellent amendments, both in respect of houses in multiple occupation and of hotels being converted to hostels.

I mention the specific case, in my own former constituency of Peterborough, of the Dragonfly Hotel in the west of Peterborough, which is a very pleasant residential area. Last November, without any consultation, the Home Office moved in 146—disproportionately male—asylum seekers. I raised the issue with the Home Office Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, earlier this year and he gave an undertaking that, henceforth, there would be better communication. Even the Labour Members of Parliament for the Peterborough area had cause to criticise the process of moving—decanting—those asylum seekers into the Dragonfly Hotel. The two Labour MPs, Sam Carling of North West Cambridgeshire and Andrew Pakes of Peterborough, said that

“the Dragonfly is the wrong hotel, in the wrong location and bad for Peterborough and nearby residents”.

There has been no indication of when it will cease to be used. They went on:

“We are a welcoming city but are playing more than our part already”.


The context of that is that there had been no attempt to speak to the Labour-led city council, adult social services, children’s services, the police or NHS primary care.

The context that we need to think about is that, hitherto, the planning process has been well recognised as a form of governance that works in this country. We have local development plans, we have county structure plans and—for those who really have nothing better to do with their time—we have mineral plans. I know that this is all meat and drink to my noble friend Lord Banner. The point is that it is a well-established idea that, where there is significant change in planning and development, particularly in urban development, there is a process of proper consultation between stakeholders and those affected. It might be informal discussions between planning officers and local residents or it might be a formal committee, but there is a process where people are invited to comment.

With any decision to significantly change and impact the residential amenity of a local area and people’s quality of life in that area, particularly where—as in the case of the Bell Hotel—there are a significant number of schools and young people in the area, there will be some legitimate concerns. No one is saying that all asylum seekers are criminals or are likely to be criminals but, when you bring forward very significant local change, you will cause concern.

I think a form of governance, a piece of primary legislation that obliges that information to be put in the public domain, is sensible and would prevent people listening to extreme points of view in pursuit of their particular political agenda. That is why I think that this amendment is sensible.

The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, can criticise as much as he likes. Let us hear the Liberal Democrats’ view on this and what they would do. It is very easy to criticise and put it on a focus leaflet in the opportunistic way that the Liberal Democrats do; it is much tougher, as this Government are finding and the previous Government found, to be in government, because politics is to choose and to make tough decisions—something that the Liberal Democrats are unfortunately not very used to.

My noble friend Lady Scott makes a very sensible point about accountability, transparency and clarity in the local community. If in future we are to avoid the social dislocation, violence and anger that we have seen in Epping Forest in the last few months, transparency will do that. It will allow people to have their say. It will allow their elected representatives to have an opportunity to properly represent them and ventilate their concerns, and I think that will be all to the good. The Government would be wise to do it, because they are now looking at some policies that we would have pursued. I think they are trying to tackle this issue in a sincere way. We on this side are offering these amendments as a way to ameliorate the issues because we know it is necessary so to do.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, if I may return briefly to the main subject of bats, I do not at all agree with my noble friend Lord Howard of Rising that bats are unimportant. They are absolutely part of nature. Nature in this country is hugely depleted and we need a lot more bats, but the lesson I draw from his story is that for all his huge expenditure, no bats benefited whatever. Nothing that he was made to do benefited bats in any way whatever. It is an entirely wrong-headed way of going about things. What we want is a lot more bats. If we had made my noble friend pay a few thousand pounds to make spaces for bats elsewhere in his estate, I am sure he would have done so with pleasure.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I shall contribute very briefly to the debate on this important amendment. I say at the beginning that I defer to no one in my admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and his heroic battle over many years to raise the issue of homelessness and those less fortunate people who do not have access to good housing. Sometimes, you come upon an amendment and you have to make a decision between your heart and your head. Your heart is very much taken with the sincerity of the noble Lord’s argument about the need to be fair—principally to tenants, but also to landlords—in the way you put legislation together.

I absolutely and fully take that view, but the noble Lord will understand that one of the reasons I do not support his amendment is that the Government, rightly or wrongly, have brought the Bill to this stage. I believe that Section 21 will have unintended consequences. It will reduce the amount of rental stock, and mean that people who own capital will sell it to other people who own capital—landlords—and they will not put that property back on the market for those in the most desperate need, mainly young working families, but also others in the market. The noble Lord will know—it is a wider issue, I accept—that rent controls very rarely work, whether it is in Barcelona, New York, Scotland or other places in the world. So that is the head part. On the heart part, I absolutely agree with what he is saying.

My point is that the Government have reached this juncture, and we are about to go into Report, the Bill is going to happen and there is a consensus, whether I like it or not. Given that we have some enduring concerns about court capacity and the ability of the court system to deal with any concomitant legislation which might arise from the Bill—which will become an Act in the not-too-distant future—I feel that his amendment, while extremely well-meaning and very sincere, will not help deliver what we want, which is fairness and equity for tenants and landlords. It is only on that basis that I respectfully say that I do not support the amendment, and I suspect that the Government will take a similar view. I applaud the noble Lord for everything that he has done in raising these very important issues over many years.

[Lord Hacking (Lab)]

My Amendment 281 has not been formally called, but if it is the wish of the House, I will address it. The other amendments, Amendments 279 and 280, have already been debated.

I was rather surprised to be asked again to declare my interests, because I have done so on several occasions already during the passage of the Bill. Oh, I am now being released. Anyway, my interests are disclosed in the register.

I therefore move on to a very responsible role that the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and I have, and that is of moving the last group of amendments in this Committee. It has been a long journey to get to this point, involving a lot of hard work by many Members of the House, but none more so than my noble friend the Minister, who has worked extremely hard throughout all the Committee sittings.

As usual, the noble Lord, Lord Bird, gave a very spirited speech. He spoke with great passion. It is always delightful to hear him, and I welcome him back. He was not here last night but he has given the spirited speech today. I am afraid that I do not agree with his rather simplistic description of the Conservative Party as running their policies based on baddie tenants, or that my party is running policies on baddie landlords. I know from debates in the House and discussions with the Minister that there has been a great effort by my party to produce a Bill which is fair and balanced. I am looking at the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, but she is not quite coming with me on this proposition. However, I believe that my noble friend the Minister largely has achieved that.

We have heard the noble Lord’s reasons for different commencement dates under the Bill. All my amendments go to Clause 145, on commencement. I have tabled Amendments 281, 287, 288 and 289. They all seek to give more time for the commencement of certain parts of the Bill. I draw attention to Amendment 288, which seeks to give more time, and different times for new tenancies, suggesting increasing the times to six months and, for existing tenancies, 12 months.

This is a problem that has been presented to me by estate agents. We all should understand how impactful this Bill is. Clause 1 of the Bill states that it applies to all tenancies—existing tenancies and new tenancies. In so far as it applies to existing tenancies, it applies to a great number of tenancies that are fixed term, many of which are shorthold. My wife and I use a 12-month fixed-term tenancy.

Estate agents have now got a very different role. Concerning new tenancies, that is okay. A new tenancy will be set up as a periodic tenancy with, ab initio, a new tenant. However, the existing tenancies produce different work for the estate agent. Under the present system of shorthold tenancies, the agent contacts the tenant and the landlord about three months before the expiration of the tenancy and checks whether the tenant wants to go for another period of tenancy and whether the landlord is agreeable to that. He also checks the position on the amount of rent. I do not know, and neither do many estate agents, what the new requirements will be. Is it proper for the estate agent to contact the tenant and ask, “How much longer do you want?” It is a periodic tenancy; there is no end date. Would it be proper for the estate agent to then engage the tenancy on the amount of rent? These are difficult decisions that have to be made.

In this modern age, these things have to be set up with software and the like, which is why I am asking my noble friend the Minister to give more time. All that has been asked of me, which I am now asking of noble Lords and, more directly, the Minister, is this: can we have more time, so that all the right procedures are set up and it does not end up being a scrambled egg?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bird, and my noble friend Lord Hacking for their amendments relating to the commencement of measures in the Bill. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Cromwell, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Grender and Lady Scott, for participating in this group.

I turn to Amendments 278, 282, 286, and 291 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bird. I add my tribute for all the work he does to tackle homelessness. He is a great hero of mine, and it is a great privilege to work with him. The noble Lord rightly notes the importance of ending Section 21, which is a major contributor to homelessness levels in England and a major cost to councils, which now spend more than £2 billion a year on temporary accommodation. That was the last full year’s figure. I heard that £4 million a day is currently spent on homelessness in London. Much of that is driven by Section 21 evictions. As well as the misery created for individuals and families, these evictions put pressure on the public purse and costs that would be much better spent on other public services.

These amendments seek to bring most of the measures in the Renters’ Rights Bill forward to Royal Assent. The Government agree with the noble Lord that the measures in this Bill are urgently needed, which is why we moved swiftly to introduce it early in our first legislative programme for government. To end the scourge of Section 21 evictions as quickly as possible, we will introduce the new tenancy for the private rented sector in one stage. On that date, the new tenancy system will apply to all private tenancies. Existing tenancies will convert to the new system, and any new tenancies signed on or after that date will be governed by the new rules. There will be no dither or delay, and the abolition of Section 21, fixed-term contracts, and other vital measures in the Bill will happen as quickly as possible.

However, we must do this in a responsible manner, as noble Lords have mentioned. We are therefore also committed to making sure that implementation takes place smoothly. As such, it is essential that wider work around the Bill is allowed to conclude before implementation takes place. That includes the production of guidance, updating court forms and making secondary legislation. For example, the information that landlords are required to give tenants in the written statement of terms will be set out in secondary legislation. Work is already under way on these matters. We need to get it right. We will appoint the date of implementation via secondary legislation, which is typical when commencing complex primary legislation. This will allow us to give the sector certainty about when the system will come into force. Relying on Royal Assent would create significant uncertainty around the specific date, and it is important that we do not do that.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Bird, that I was lucky enough to benefit from the post-war Labour Government’s drive to build social housing so, although I could have done, I did not grow up in the kind of housing that he described. Our social housing was built in new towns, and that was the last time that social housing was built at any scale in this country. We have promised that again, and have committed £2 billion to social and affordable housing. So the noble Lord has my personal commitment that we will move this forward as quickly as possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, talked about the speed of legislation. I have been a Minister for only a few months but I am already learning the frustration of time lags. I thought that councils move a bit too slowly at times, but we certainly need to move things forward more quickly. Of course, this is not just about legislation; we are trying to move on housing at some speed. We have already provided funding to improve construction skills, funding for planning officers, a new National Planning Policy Framework, over £500 million for homelessness and the social housing funding that I have already mentioned. We understand that this needs to be moved forward quickly. We will work as quickly as we can on that. As such, I ask the noble Lord not to press his amendments.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I concur with the comments across the Chamber about what a professional job the Minister has done in piloting the Bill and engaging with Members. At Second Reading, she made specific reference to working closely with the Ministry of Justice on court digitalisation and extra funding for court costs. Is she in a position to update the Committee on what progress has been made on that? There are still people across the Committee who are concerned about the likely ramifications of the abolition of Section 21, whenever it happens.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand the noble Lord’s concern. There is ongoing dialogue with the Ministry of Justice, and I hope to be able to update Members before Report on where that has got to as soon as we are able to. I do not think it would be helpful to have a running commentary on it but my honourable friend the Minister for Housing is in dialogue at the moment with the MoJ. I will update noble Lords as soon as we get to the end of those discussions.

I turn to the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Hacking. Amendment 281 seeks to delay a number of provisions coming into force. The Bill currently provides that these provisions commence two months after Royal Assent. Two months is a well-established precedent, and I see no reason why commencement of these provisions should be delayed. For example, the provisions include important protections for tenants and provide local authorities with better powers to enforce housing standards.

Amendment 287 would set a time limit of 12 months between Royal Assent and the implementation of the Bill’s tenancy reforms in the private rented sector. Amendment 288 would change the approach to tenancy reform implementation in the Bill. It would require that the measures were applied to new tenancies no earlier than six months after Royal Assent and to existing tenancies no earlier than 12 months after Royal Assent. Amendment 289 would require that the conversion of existing tenancies to assured tenancies under the new tenancy reform system took place no earlier than 12 months after Royal Assent. As I have set out previously, we will end the scourge of Section 21 evictions as quickly as possible, and we will introduce the new tenancy for the private rented sector in one stage.

I assure my noble friend that this Government will ensure that the sector has adequate notice of the system taking effect but, in order to support tenants, landlords and agents to adjust, we will allow time for a smooth transition to the new system while making sure that tenants can benefit from the new system that they have waited so long for as soon as is realistically possible. We are planning a wide-ranging campaign to raise awareness of our reforms, supported by clear, straightforward and easy-to-read guidance to help landlords to prepare for change and to help tenants to be ready for it. On that basis, I ask my noble friend not to press his amendments.

Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend very strongly. I declare my interest, as I have done before, as a Suffolk farmer who has converted redundant agricultural buildings into dwellings. It is all still part of the farming operation.

I have already warned the Government that they are in danger of relying on statutory instruments, Henry VIII clauses and subsidiary legislation for what will be primary legislation. The purpose of the Parliament is to legislate, in the first instance, primary legislation. The House of Lords, with its careful scrutiny of statutory instruments, has a particular role and record in doing this. So, this particular Bill is going, in any case, to have a lot of unanswered questions. We are going to try to ask most of those questions and get the Government to face up and give us the answers because it is a very bad principle of legislation for a Government to say, “Oh, we’ll leave that to the courts”, or something like that. That is not what legislating is about. It is important that we do not unnecessarily add into potential secondary legislation what should be primary legislation.

The Government have got to take this very seriously because this is a long and difficult Bill which has many dangers in it and ahead of it, not least—and I shall probably say this again—because the private rented sector plays an important part in the provision of housing. The provision of housing was one of the objectives of the previous Government and of this Government. It is also part of generating economic growth, which the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have repeatedly told us is their priority. I beg the Government to be more rigid and dissective in their thinking before rushing ahead with this legislation.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Scott on the Front Bench and reiterate her very strong arguments and those from my noble friend Lord Marlesford just now.

We have seen a quite significant trend since the general election of the Government seeking to award themselves very wide-ranging, permissive powers in primary legislation with very little detail. That is a significant concern. Certainly, if the boot was on the other foot and a Conservative Government had brought forward a clause such as Clause 64, where we are being invited to take on trust the expeditious post-dated production of a statutory instrument and regulations, the party now in government would, quite rightly, have complained about that.

If we look at the detail, this is an extremely wide-ranging amendment. Clause 64(4)(b) talks about “relevant tenancy” and the adding or removal of any particular kind of relevant tenancy. On “dwelling”, paragraph (c) states,

“in addition to a building or part of a building, it includes any other structure, vehicle or vessel”,

and

“includes a building or part of a building, and anything for the time being included in the meaning of ‘dwelling’”.

That is a very wide definition to be in a Bill when we have an open-ended commitment to produce regulations without any date.

I think, and have said before, that the idea of retrospective legislation is poor. In a different context at the beginning of Committee in your Lordships’ House I mentioned this issue. It is very worrying that there is no opportunity for a period of amelioration and getting used to the regulations.

Finally, given all that, the chance of significant instances of litigation arising from this clause are pretty high, I would think. For those reasons, is the Minister able to write to noble Lords before Report at least to give an indication of when those regulations are likely to be published to reassure your Lordships’ House that this a one-off in terms of how wide and permissive these powers are? Frankly, it is not good enough. It does not allow us to analyse properly the efficacy of the policy and the likely impact it will have on any litigation for both landlords and tenants. I hope the Minister is able to take those issues on board.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for her amendment regarding the definition of a landlord and thank the noble Lords, Lord Marlesford and Lord Jackson, for participating. Amendment 206C seeks to remove subsection (4) of Clause 64. This would mean that amendments to the definitions of “relevant tenancy”, “residential landlord” and “dwelling” set out in the Bill could not be made by regulations. This would affect Part 2, which includes the redress and database provisions.

I fully agree that any changes to the definition of those who bear responsibilities and benefit from rights under this legislation should be made with proper consideration. The definition of “residential landlord” under Clause 64 of this Bill has been drafted with care to capture the majority of typical private tenancies in England. However, the private rented sector has proven itself to be dynamic. I am sorry to say that the unscrupulous use of complicated arrangements, such as certain types of rent-to-rent schemes, has demonstrated the need for flexibility in how we define who is, or is not, in scope of private landlord redress or the database. We are also aware that other forms of occupation, such as occupation under licence, may benefit from the Part 2 protections in the future. A strong case may be made for expanding who is protected if certain arrangements proliferate following the implementation of the Bill.

Our focus at this time, however, must be on getting our reforms right for the millions living in typical private tenancies, rather than extending the redress and database provisions to other kinds of residential occupier whose needs and circumstances may be quite different from the majority. We have included a power to change the scope of Part 2 by regulations in the future if it is considered appropriate. The reason is that the introduction of mandatory landlord redress for the first time is a significant undertaking. The definition of “residential landlord” has been drafted, as I said, to capture the majority of tenancies. We have retained the flexibility to change the scope of rental agreements covered by the database and ombudsman in the future, should that be deemed necessary.