Housing

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 3rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port on securing this debate today. I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register of interests; I declare that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Many of us agree that housing and the supply of housing which is truly affordable across a range of tenures—as my noble friend Lady Dean referred to—is crucial to ensuring that our communities flourish, and that it is so important for young people to be able to stay and be part of the communities where they were born, raised and educated, as my noble friend Lord Griffiths states in his Motion.

A number of factors come into play in the housing market, all sorts of statistics, plans and pledges. What is needed—and what the Housing Minister, Mr Gavin Barwell, says that he wants—is to build housing across a range of tenures. If he does this, he will have our full support. No debate on housing should fail to note and comment on the fact that home ownership is falling and is at its lowest level for 30 years here in the UK. The UK now has the fourth-lowest home-ownership rate in the European Union, after years of soaring house prices and soaring rents, which make it difficult for people, especially the young, to save enough money for deposits. According to the most recent comparable figures published by the European Union, only Denmark, Austria and Germany have lower home-ownership rates, which is shocking. If we want to help people to own their own home then we are going to have to do something about it—and the answer is not starter homes—otherwise we are on a path with an increasing private rented sector which does not work for everyone and a declining percentage of people who own their own homes.

A number of factors impact on young people’s ability to live in the community they grew up in, if that is what they want to do. In some cases, people want to move away, or work and other circumstances take them away, and if that is what they want then that is fine. But there needs to be a range of affordable housing that meets the need of the community. If we look at the statistics for population growth and the expected growth in the number of households, particularly the increase in the number of one-person households, we have a huge challenge to meet the projected demand for housing over the next few decades. The pressure on housing in all tenures affects young people particularly hard, as my noble friend Lord Whitty referred to. Some of the factors they have to cope with include the level of wages they earn, the level of rents in the private sector, the lack of social housing available to the young, the amount of income they spend on rent, and the ability to be able to save for a deposit if they want to buy. Looking at these points in turn we find that, on average, young people’s wage levels have fallen.

The level of rent that people have to pay in the private sector as a percentage of their income is a serious issue. We have all heard of Generation Rent, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill—young people who continue to face serious housing affordability problems. I have told the House before that I live in Lewisham; I often look in the window of my local estate agent and there are houses both for sale and for rent. It is very easy to find properties with rents considerably in excess of the median figure of £1,452 a month for a modest property in a part of south London. This is the problem. If you are a young person, your wages are lower than young people in similar circumstances were earning, say, 10 or so years ago, but rental costs are increasing and taking a larger part of your income, which makes your ability to save for a deposit to buy a home even more difficult, which can then force you out of the area you were born and grew up in because you just cannot afford the rent there.

I grew up on the Aylesbury estate in Southwark, and I am always grateful for the opportunities that living in social housing gave us. My parents were some of the first tenants on the estate. Although there were problems in later years with the design of the buildings, these homes took families out of some truly appalling, cramped, damp, dreadful accommodation. Both my parents worked, the rent was at a level that was truly affordable, the property was warm, safe and dry and we were very happy there. Thinking back to those days, I just do not see how my parents would have been able to cope if we were living in the private rented sector today, paying the sorts of rents that are commanded, while trying to bring up a young family, so council housing was very good for us. It was a step up and me and my three siblings are home owners today. Council housing helped us. Therefore, it is important to build social housing in large quantities to enable people and families to flourish, grow and better themselves. I feel ever more concerned that the Government see council housing as housing for the poor, people who are never going to be able to move on up, and that it is restricted to the smallest number possible. I hope that I am wrong on that, but unless we see real growth in the number of council homes and other social housing at rents that are truly affordable, we will stack up problems for ourselves and reap a terrible reward.

My noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port was right to say that we can all trade statistics about who did what, who built this and who did that. However, as he said, we need to build more affordable homes. Why cannot we commit ourselves to the national plan for getting homes built that my noble friend called for? I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that we need to build more council housing. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, called for private tenants to be able to find out whether their landlord was a rogue landlord. We discussed this many times during the passage of the then Housing and Planning Bill. She is absolutely right. Why cannot those tenants do that? I supported that call and the call for action on letting agents’ fees.

In conclusion, I again thank my noble friend for tabling this Motion and enabling us to again discuss the important issue of housing, and how we provide enough good homes to enable people to live in the communities in which they grew up.

Directly Elected Mayors

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I bow to the noble Lord’s knowledge—I know he is very well aware of the local situation—but it is for the people of the locality to come forward with the plans and then, of course, it will be looked at by the department. However, I take his point on the specific example.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an elected councillor of the London Borough of Lewisham and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Will the Minister explain to the House why these ambitious deals must have a directly elected mayor? Why cannot the local people decide?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, with respect to the noble Lord, I think I have already answered that question.

Short-Term Letting: Deregulation

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I will have to write the noble Baroness on that rather technical issue. It is an important issue but I have no knowledge of that and would not want to mislead her, so I will reply to her in writing and ensure that a copy is placed in the Library.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, at the very least, the Government should take action to ensure that holiday letting company websites are checking that houses on their sites are genuine lets of less than 90 days. Otherwise, there is a risk that statutory regulation, safety requirements and insurance provisions are not being complied with.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, that was an exhortation to the Government. As I said, the power lies with local authorities. There are things that the Government should be doing—I would be the first to admit that—but this rests with local authorities and I encourage them to do that. That is the position under the Deregulation Act. It is also a responsibility of landlords to ensure that the terms of the lease are adhered to. This is not a direct responsibility of the Government. We ensure that councils have the proper powers and landlords have the facility to go to court, but the responsibility rests with local authorities and landlords.

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

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Self-build and Custom Housebuilding (Time for Compliance and Fees) Regulations 2016, which were laid before the House on 14 July, be approved and come into force on 31 October. If approved, the regulations will, first, set out the time provided for local authorities to comply with the duty to grant sufficient planning permission to match demand on their self-build and custom housebuilding registers; and, secondly, provide for local authorities to charge fees for those to enter or remain on their self-build and custom housebuilding registers on a cost recovery basis.

This Government are committed to driving up housing supply, and promoting and supporting self-build and custom housebuilding are integral to delivering on that commitment. Doubling the number of self-build and custom build houses by 2020 will not only create much needed new homes but enable more people to live in homes designed by them to meet their specific needs. It will also provide welcome new business opportunities for smaller housebuilders, support and create new jobs, and drive innovation in alternative building techniques.

To take forward this commitment, we passed the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act, introduced in another place last year by the honourable Richard Bacon, and Sections 9 to 12 of the Housing and Planning Act earlier this year. The Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015, which the noble Lord, Lord Best, took through this House, came into force on 1 April this year. As a result, for the first time all local planning authorities have been required to keep a register of those who wish to build or commission their own home in their area and to have regard to that register when carrying out their housing, planning, land disposal and regeneration functions.

A fundamental barrier to more people building or commissioning their own homes is the lack of suitable available plots for self-build and custom housebuilding. These regulations, together with the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Regulations 2016 that were laid in Parliament last week, are the final component of our legislative framework to support the doubling in size of the self-build and custom housebuilding sector. If approved, they will be critical to increasing the availability of land for self-build and custom housebuilding in England. They will require local authorities to grant enough planning permissions to match demand on their registers within three years of the year in which those entries are made in the register, ensuring that land for self-build and custom housebuilding is made available in a timely manner. This strikes the right balance between ensuring that authorities have sufficient time to identify suitable land and satisfying the need of those seeking land to build or commission their own home quickly.

The regulations also allow local authorities to charge a fee to those to be entered on their register and, where the number of entrants on the register count towards the number of plots for which an authority must grant planning permission, for them to charge an annual fee in subsequent years while the person remains on the register. It is important that authorities are able to charge fees only on a cost recovery basis. This will ensure that any fees charged are reasonable and reflect the costs incurred by the authorities.

Self-build and custom housebuilding have the potential to play a significant role in securing greater diversity in the housing market, as in other parts of Europe. We are fully committed to doubling the size of the self-build and custom housebuilding sector and we want it to become a mainstream form of housing, enabling more people to design their own homes to meet their specific needs. These regulations will increase opportunities for aspiring self-build and custom housebuilders to realise their ambitions of designing and building their own homes. I therefore commend the draft regulations to the Committee.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

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

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

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

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

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

Homelessness

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment have they made of the level of hidden homelessness in England.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I beg to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I refer Members to my entry in the register of interests. I am a councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, measuring hidden homelessness is inherently difficult, as there is no agreed definition or reliable method of data collection. Therefore, the Government have made no assessment of hidden homelessness.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, we live in one of the richest countries in the world. Does the noble Lord agree that the increase in homelessness over recent years is nothing short of a national disgrace? What assessment have the Government made of the Homelessness Reduction Bill introduced by Bob Blackman MP in the Commons, which seems very welcome and deserves cross-party support?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I share the noble Lord’s feeling that homelessness is something that we need to take action about. He will know that it is a very high priority for the Prime Minister and the Government. I agree with him that the Bob Blackman Bill is worth serious consideration. He will know that it has gone through pre-legislative scrutiny by the Communities and Local Government Select Committee, and the Government are considering it closely.

Housing

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I refer noble Lords to my declaration of interests and declare that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, on securing this important debate today.

In my brief remarks, I say that housing and the various issues surrounding this whole subject is something to which we will return again and again in this House, and that is to be welcomed. The underlying issue is that we need to build more good-quality homes of a variety of tenures at much greater speed. We can all trade a variety of statistics about who built what and when, but the underlying issue is that we have a serious housing crisis and current levels of housebuilding are nowhere near enough.

I was pleased when I read the comments by the new Housing Minister, Mr Gavin Barwell MP, when he talked about the importance of building homes of every type of tenure, not focusing on one. I vividly recall our debates in this House during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act in the previous Session and never being able to get a straight answer from the Government when they talked about this cohort of people who had to be helped with the starter homes project at the expense of all other tenures. Any move to a more realistic, balanced policy in respect of addressing the housing needs of the country is very much to be welcomed. To make our communities work in both urban and rural areas, we need a mixture of housing types that a variety of people and families can afford to rent or buy, to make where they live sustainable.

For most of my life, with the exception of 15 years in the Midlands, I have lived in south London. I grew up in council housing, first on the Aylesbury Estate in Southwark. When moving to the Midlands on being promoted at work, I lived in the private rented sector, and then I bought my own home. I suspect that that is the sort of journey that many people take when starting out, moving from renting into home ownership; a lot of people aspire to own their own home. Government policy must be to support and create the conditions for communities, families and people to flourish, with good-quality housing in a variety of tenures.

I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, about the average housing cost ratio to household incomes. I am alarmed when I look in estate agent windows where I live in south London to see that, often, rent for properties in my street and neighbouring streets is far in excess of what people pay on their mortgages—£2,000 and £2,500 a month in the private rented sector to rent an ordinary three-bedroom Victorian terraced house. That is a huge sum of money for struggling families to pay.

As I said, I serve as a councillor, and I am a member of the planning committee. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, raised some important points, but as councillors or officers there is often little we can do, because powers to scale things back have been stripped away from planning committees and councillors. He made some very important points about the quality of development we see now.

My noble friend Lord Sawyer spoke about the space standards of properties, and I agree very much with his comments. It is regrettable that the Parker Morris standards for social housing were removed, to which my noble friend Lord Beecham referred.

The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham of Droxford, was right when he spoke about the need for retirement housing. I serve as a trustee of the United St Saviours Charity in Southwark, founded in 1541. We are building a new almshouse—an almshouse for the 21st century—in Bermondsey and hope to provide good-quality, supported housing to help free up much-needed family accommodation in the borough.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, raised the problem of developers effectively banking land with planning permissions for development and seeking to hold that back and benefit from increased values rather than get on and build the properties we need. I am a councillor in Crofton Park and we have an unsightly plot of land that we can never get developed. We have had numerous planning permissions that are never agreed. A sign goes up saying, “With full planning permission for various developments”, but it never actually gets developed. We need to look at how we can get these sites developed. It is not councils holding them up, but they just sit there with nothing happening, so we need some action from the Government.

My noble friend Lord Beecham pointed out the unaffordability of many of the so-called affordable rents. That is a huge problem in London and in other parts of the country. The noble Lord, Lord Farmer, made some important points regarding family break-ups and pressures on families. I certainly think that the unaffordability of housing is a huge pressure on families, as was the destruction of the Sure Start programme on young families. It is regrettable what the Government did there. These are all very important points that we need to look at.

This has been an excellent debate and I look forward to the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, responding to the points raised. We shall come back to this issue again and again.

Home Ownership

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to reverse the decline in home ownership.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have halted the decline in home ownership and are committed to going further. We are supporting first-time buyers who wish to get on the housing ladder through our Help to Buy, shared ownership and starter homes policies.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the register of interests: I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. When does the noble Lord think we will next see the levels of home ownership that peaked around 2005? Does he agree with the comments of the Housing Minister, Mr Gavin Barwell, when he spoke about the need to build homes of all tenures and not focus on one single tenure? What are the implications of those comments for the starter homes programme?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, as I indicated, the decline in home ownership has been halted. In fact, there has in the last year been a slight increase in home ownership, though not statistically significant. I agree with my friend in the other place, Gavin Barwell, about the need for homes of all tenures. We are also focusing on helping to rent, as well as helping to buy. Certainly, one thing we are very much focused on is council house building, where our record stands comparison with the Labour Party’s.

Homelessness

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to deal with homelessness.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who are going to speak in this short debate. At the start, I declare my interests as an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and I generally refer Members to my declaration of interests. I also thank the staff of the House Library for their useful briefing and I thank the many organisations that have provided briefing material to help this debate, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Local Government Association, the Children’s Society, Alcohol Concern, St Mungo’s and the Big Issue.

We live in one of the richest countries on the planet. We are in a palace debating homelessness in one of the richest cities in the world, yet homelessness is right on our doorstep. If you come into the Palace through the entrance in Westminster Tube station you are most likely to be greeted by people sleeping on cardboard near the entrance door. If you arrive by train at any of the mainline stations within a few minutes’ walk, such as Charing Cross, Victoria or Waterloo, you are likely to be greeted on your route to the Palace by homeless people sitting on the floor and sleeping in doorways. It is truly shameful that people in this city do not have a roof over their head where they can be warm and safe. I put this Question for Short Debate down because we have to keep raising this issue and pressing the Government to take effective action to end this scandal. I am sure that noble Lords from all sides of the House will, in future, raise this most pressing cause again and again.

In 2015, the Government estimated that 3,569 people were sleeping rough on any one night in England, a rise of 30% on the previous year and double the number who were on our streets in 2010. In 2011, the Government launched the No Second Night Out service, but despite that, why have homelessness numbers continued to rise? Why do people become homeless? There are a variety of reasons, which can include relationship breakdowns, people fleeing domestic violence, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, mental health problems, loss of employment and the unaffordability of housing. However, not all these people will end up sleeping on the street: some will end up sleeping on the sofas of friends and family members, and then become part of a hidden class of homelessness.

We need an array of strategies to deal with this problem. There is no quick, easy answer, but with national and local government working together along with civil society, this problem can be dealt with. Look at alcohol abuse: it is well established as a cause and a consequence of homelessness. It is almost impossible for someone to address their alcohol addiction problems while they do not have a roof over their head. It is likely that excessive alcohol consumption is a coping mechanism in some cases, with the result of making everything worse.

I do not need all the answers tonight, and I am very happy for him to write to me afterwards, but I have a series of questions for the noble Lord, Lord Bourne. First, how do the Government see the development of strategies for dealing with alcohol abuse among people who are sleeping on the streets, and consuming super-strength lager and super-strength cider among other things, so that dealing with the addiction is central to sorting out their lack of stable housing? Young people, especially those in care, can be particularly vulnerable. Targeted support is needed so that they can develop the confidence to be able to live safely and securely. One possibility is of course to look at what support young people receive and where that support can be improved.

I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, will be aware that the Children’s Society has been campaigning for young people coming out of care to be able to claim the single bedroom rate housing allowance until the age of 25—an increase of three years from the present cut-off point at 22. At present, these young people transfer to the shared accommodation allowance, which has particular risks for vulnerable young people. The proposals from the Children’s Society seem a very good idea. Have the Government given any consideration to these proposals and, if not, why not?

The correlation between mental health and rough sleeping is well established, with four out of 10 people sleeping rough on the streets having a mental health problem. They are likely to spend longer on the street, and getting these people properly assessed and receiving treatment is an important part of getting people back into accommodation that is safe and warm. Can the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, tell the House what work is being done with the NHS to ensure proper treatment is available as part of a plan to get people off the streets? What assessment has he made of the Welsh Assembly’s Housing (Wales) Act 2014, as this appears to have had a positive effect, with more focus on prevention and a drop in the number of statutory homeless decisions?

The lack of genuinely affordable housing is a real problem. Affordable rent, which often appears to be seen by the Government as the solution to all housing problems, is in many parts of the country completely unaffordable. Where I live, in Lewisham, rents of £2,000-plus a month are fairly common and do nothing to deal with the need for housing at social rents or to enable people to have a reasonable quality of life. The obsession with this affordable rent policy and the failure to build social housing are things that urgently need to be addressed. Local government has a key role to play but it must be said that it is unable to deliver on a wider range of demands, of which tackling homelessness is a key concern along with other increasing pressures, while having to deal with ever-reducing budgets. It just does not add up; you cannot square the circle.

Can the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, tell me what plans the Government have to review the question of housing incomes and rising rent levels, and the contribution that these worsening figures make to the homelessness crisis? It would also be useful if he could tell the House what mechanisms are used to review the impact of government policy on homelessness and about the prevailing trends. The Mayor of London has made tackling homelessness one of his housing priorities for the capital. In addition to the longer-term plans to boost the supply of genuinely affordable housing, he is setting up a No Nights Sleeping Rough task force. Can the noble Lord tell us how his department is working with the Mayor of London to deal with homelessness in the capital?

The Homelessness Reduction Bill is a Private Member’s Bill put forward by the Conservative MP Mr Bob Blackman, which seeks to modernise homelessness legislation. There are some very positive aspects to the Bill and it has cross-party support in the other place and elsewhere, but with new duties, new responsibilities and new requirements come new costs and new funding requirements. The duty in the Bill to provide emergency interim accommodation for people with nowhere safe to stay would have a positive effect in helping homelessness to be addressed at the earliest opportunity, and avoid the danger of people sleeping rough while a longer-term solution is found. The Bill does not have its Second Reading until the end of next month, but I hope the Government will look at it carefully.

I close by saying that I am delighted at the range of speakers we have for this short debate, including: my noble friend Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, who served as a government Minister over many years; the Mayor of Watford, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill; the chief executive of the Centre for Social Justice, the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud; and of course the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who has done so much work with the Big Issue. I thank them all for taking part in this debate tonight and I look forward to their contributions.

Neighbourhood Planning (Referendums) (Amendment) Regulations 2016

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, and congratulate him on his new appointment and responsibilities. I know that he has been in the job for some time but this is the first time I can formally congratulate him and wish him well in his new position. We will not agree on everything but I assure noble Lords that I will engage constructively with him on all matters in his brief that come before your Lordships’ House. Where we believe that the Government have got it right I will happily say so, and when we offer alternatives from this Dispatch Box it will be because we believe that there are better solutions to the problems being considered. I also declare that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and in general refer the House to my declaration of interests.

I am a supporter of neighbourhood planning and allowing maximum community involvement in decisions that affect local communities. As I have told the House before, in the ward I represent on Lewisham Council, Crofton Park, we are developing a neighbourhood plan. We hope to be able to submit it to the council early next year and then proceed quickly to a referendum. It is right that a referendum is held as soon as possible and in most cases 56 days, as the order allows for, gives enough time to undertake and prepare for the vote but also means that it is still a fresh and live issue locally and is not allowed to drift. There are a few alterations to that when situations are a bit more complicated, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, outlined, and allowing a group and the council to agree sensible variations to enable the poll to coincide with a local event or an election that is taking place in three months in the same area is sensible and has my full support.

I agree with the points made by my noble friend Lord Beecham in his contribution to this debate, in particular on the funding proposals that will be made available. I hope that the Minister will respond to those.

That brings me to the assertion, which we heard many times from noble Lords opposite during the passage of the Housing and Planning Act, that somehow all these councils are dragging their feet and holding up all these planning applications and all this development. That assertion was made many times and I remember putting a few Questions down, which showed, as my noble friend highlighted, that literally hundreds of thousands of applications have been passed by local authorities but nothing has happened. I know of one in my own ward: an application went in to put some new shops and houses on a big site, but all that has happened is that a sign has gone up which says, “Full planning permission given”. Nothing else has happened —it just sits there. So local planning authorities are not the problem; there are thousands of sites that we need to deal with and get on with. I hope that the Minister will be able to bring some solutions to the House in the future.

I could go on but I am supportive of what is in the proposals here and I am happy for them to be approved.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I shall try to pick up the various points—there are some interesting ones—in the order in which they were made, so I will first address those made by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham. He raised questions about how many plans have been abandoned. Communities are beginning the process on a daily basis. Some 450 draft plans have been published and we are supporting communities through this process. I will give the noble Lord some indication of the financial assistance in a minute. He also asked about turnout of voters and kindly said that I probably did not have the precise figures for all areas at my fingertips, which was an accurate summary of the position. However, so far, the average turnout of voters across referendum areas has been 32%, which I think he will acknowledge is in line with local authority elections generally. Obviously there is some variation; I will get a letter to him giving a more detailed breakdown and I will put it in the Library as well, so that noble Lords have access to the information.

The noble Lord quite validly asked about the funding available, I think for neighbourhood planning in general and perhaps for the referendum process in particular. We are funding neighbourhood planning with a £22.5 million support programme from 2015 to 2018. On referendums, money is available for every planning authority—£5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood areas they designate and £5,000 for each of the first five neighbourhood forums; that is, where there are businesses that they designate. In addition, they will receive £20,000 when they set a date for a referendum following a successful examination of a neighbourhood plan. So money is available for this process because there is a cost associated with it.

The noble Lord will correct me if I am wrong but I think he is supportive of neighbourhood planning. He is indicating that he is so, gladly, we can get that on the record. He made a more general—somewhat off-piste—point about the regulations for planning applications. I hope he will accept that that is perhaps the subject of a debate for another day. I recognise that it is an issue to look at and perhaps we can do so in a QSD or during debate on the forthcoming Bill. I acknowledge that there is an issue there but I do not think it should detract from this very specific matter, which I believe he supports. Certainly the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, indicated support for it from the Front Bench.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for the general support he offered. I know he has a good history on this issue in the Commons. We will be looking at the website in the light of his comments on the general position and the specifics, and we will obviously update it in the light of the new regulations—as I hope they will be at the end of this debate. However, I thank him for his general support for the concept of neighbourhood planning and for these regulations.

My noble friend Lady Oppenheim-Barnes made a point about a possible legal challenge on the costs. There are costs associated with referendums. I suppose it is rather like the cost of democracy in holding elections in general, where there will always be a cost. The planning officer cannot override neighbourhood plans or, under these regulations, hold them up unless there is a valid legal challenge, which will have to go through the courts. I readily acknowledge that hold-ups occur across local authorities under different political control—there is no partisan point here. I could name the authorities in question and am almost tempted to do so. However, the longest hold-up is 400 days, which is too long. Frankly, that is why we are bringing these regulations forward. We want to ensure that neighbourhood planning is given the boost that it needs.

Finally, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his typical graciousness and generosity from the Front Bench. I also thank him very much for the constructive approach that he always brings to bear in looking at government proposals, and I look forward to our exchanges across the Dispatch Box. I am sure his contributions will be well thought-out and helpful, as they always are. I come back to the general point from the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on planning, which he supported. Yes, let us have a look at that, although it is perhaps something to be dealt with on another day because it is a bit off-piste in relation to these regulations.

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

53: Clause 3, page 2, line 26, leave out “17th” and insert “21st”

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, my amendment is very straightforward. It allows for four extra working days from the Dissolution of Parliament to the general election. Why is that important? My amendment allows a few extra days to get everything right. People have quite rightly expressed serious concern when things have gone wrong in the electoral process. Seventeen working days is a very short period in which to deal with all the matters that need to be dealt with in the time from Dissolution to polling day.

Many noble Lords will have contested elections in the past or been involved in elections and be aware that you have to get your nomination papers completed and submitted, and in some cases pay a deposit—certainly for all parliamentary elections. Printed materials can be prepared to some extent in advance, but often the cut and thrust of the campaign will determine how your campaign goes. Having a few extra days is of great benefit to candidates and parties. I also contend that it is of benefit to the public to have a slightly longer look at who they are being asked to vote for locally, as often the campaigns as reported by the broadcast media and national newspapers focus on the bigger picture and the leadership of the respective parties.

We should also place particular emphasis on the administration of the election. Running any sort of election places a big responsibility on returning officers and their staff. Giving them a few extra days to prepare and ensure that everything is correct is most desirable. The printing of ballot papers, the sending out of postal votes and getting everything ready for polling day can be done only when an election is under way. I can see no reason why this amendment should not have wide support across the Committee.

If the Government are not going to support the amendment today, I hope that the Minister can give a detailed reason why. My only motivation in moving it is to have well run and well managed elections where citizens can exercise their rights to participate in elections and choose their representatives. I hope the Government will see my amendment in that light and accept it. I beg to move.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, briefly, I support the broad principle of extending the election timetable, largely for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark. In particular, I feel strongly that we have too short a timetable for elections, which denies many service voters the opportunity to vote because of problems with issuing postal votes, getting them back and so on. However, it seems to me that the length of election timetables should be dealt with for all elections—council, European et cetera—not just Westminster general elections. However, while the problems that he suggests are very real, they will be addressed for general elections if we establish the principle of fixed-term Parliaments, which is the primary purpose of the Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, for his amendment. Clearly, it seeks to dissolve Parliament 21 working days ahead of polling day rather than 17 working days. It is fair to point out that a 21-day timetable would be novel. It is not currently used in local or parliamentary elections; that in itself raises issues. I understand that the Electoral Commission, with which I know the noble Lord has an association, has previously suggested that the electoral timetable might be extended to 25 days. That would, not least, support participation by service voters. The commission has highlighted problems caused by the current election timetable and its associated deadlines for electors, candidates, political parties and electoral administrators. Those were reflected in the experiences that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, mentioned. My noble friend Lord Rennard also has experience of them.

The Electoral Commission notes that this change should not be made without a review of further changes that might then be required to the electoral timetable. I assure the Committee that the Government agree that this is an important issue. My right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister indicated during Second Reading in the other place that we believe there is merit in exploring an extension to the timetable. I note that, at present, there are different timetables for the elections to the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and, I think, the Northern Ireland Assembly. Therefore, there is merit in looking at this not just in relation to this Bill and future elections to the House of Commons but in looking generally at the election timetable.

The Electoral Commission has pointed out that the matter requires a thorough review to ensure that any change is coherent across the piece. There are practical issues and consequential complexities that have to be considered. It is not as simple as omitting “17” and replacing it with “21”. There are issues about the judgment on where particular milestones would best fall within an extended election timetable. For example, there may be competing views as to when they should fall with regard to nominations. We are anxious that, if we are to extend the timetable, we should find the most effective solution. The deadline for registering to vote is another important issue, as are the current deadlines for postal and proxy votes.

As I have indicated, we do not have experience of a 21-day timetable but the Government agree that this is an important issue and we want to set out our proposals on how we might address it in the future. In asking the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment, I hope he will accept that the Government recognise that there are much wider issues to deal with here, and that 21 days is perhaps not the appropriate length of time. We should look at the totality of a longer electoral timetable, but it would not be appropriate to amend it in this Bill.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I thank the noble and learned Lord for his response. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and my noble friend Lord Bach for their comments. I am happy to beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 53 withdrawn.