Levelling-up Report
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
Of course, the expenditure is governed by the expenditure review, and I note that this is a nationwide pledge to level up. Record amounts of money are being spent through the devolved nations.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
We have a virtual contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
Housebuilding: Target
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(4 years ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I recognise the important role that registered providers have played in building affordable housing but also note that, increasingly, councils are building council homes again, which is a good thing. We will look at whatever it takes to remove those barriers to enable people who are building affordable housing to access institutional investment.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, we have a virtual contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, research by Habinteg has shown that the lifetime homes standard—that is, part M4 category 2—costs only £1,000 extra on new build, reducing the need for expensive adaptations later in life and keeping people independent. The LGA says that, at the current rate of housebuilding, it will take 2,000 years to achieve this standard. Worse, under 2% of new housing is required to be built to category 3, for wheelchair users, when a minimum of 10% is needed. How many units that meet category 2 and 3 have been built in the past five years?
Leaseholders: Costs
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, unsurprisingly, I completely agree with the Secretary of State on those principles, and I add a third: first, we need to protect leaseholders as far as we can; secondly, we must ensure that the polluter pays, and that goes beyond the developers to every single person who has contributed to this crisis; and thirdly, we need a degree of proportionality, so we do not create an industry that profiteers off the back of the poor leaseholders affected.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
Lord Haselhurst? Is he not present? Then I call the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate.
Noble Lords
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Young. Apologies.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for what I know he was doing behind the scenes to sort this. Can he confirm that when his Secretary of State was given his new job, he was instructed by the Prime Minister to resolve the cladding crisis? This clearly involves measures beyond those that my noble friend has already referred to. If innocent leaseholders are to avoid financial distress, bankruptcy and eviction, either the Treasury or those responsible for building these defective flats will have to dig deeper into their pockets. Does he agree?
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
I call the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst. Oh, apologies—I call the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I remind the House of my relevant interests as in the register. If the Government are to avoid a torrent of bankruptcies by April next year, as has been predicted by Inside Housing, action must be swift. In particular, I ask the Minister about shared ownership. Somebody with shared equity of 25% is being asked to pay 100% of the remediation costs. That might be right in law, but it cannot be right in fact. What on earth are the Government going to do to safeguard shared owners?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I feel the burden, particularly on shared owners, who have a fraction of the equity in their home but face intolerable bills. I am surprised when I hear that social landlords, who should be caring for the people who live in those homes—the nurses and other people who support our NHS—are considering massive remediation schemes, very often for buildings that really require only mitigation at far lower cost instead. An MP raised a case with me yesterday of a nine-metre building where shared owners are facing bills of £20,000. That is because there is no sense of proportion. Let us get a sense of proportion, protect leaseholders and shared owners, and make sure that the polluter pays.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My apologies to Members. My list was the list for the fourth Question, not the third Question. I think we are on the right track again if I call the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, faced with repeated variations on this question from my tenacious noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark, I have heard the always affable Minister talk about this injustice in terms of complexity, sometimes referring leaseholders to their contracts. I am delighted that the new Secretary of State takes a more bullish approach, suggesting that leaseholders should pay nothing and acknowledging that we collectively—the department, some in local government and others in the private sector—failed people at Grenfell. That is a wonderful acknowledgement of principle. Why did it take four and a half years, and when will we move from principle to practice?
Gypsies and Travellers
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I answered that question in my answer to a previous supplementary: there are no plans to bring in statutory provision, because the previous introduction of a statutory duty simply did not work. We will continue to encourage local authorities to fulfil their duties under their local plans.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
The noble Baroness, Lady Blower, is not present, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Mann.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
Would it not be helpful to have a national website that identifies temporary sites? Indeed, would it not be quite possible for local authorities to be able to live-time the number of vacancies on those sites so that everyone can see what is available and where?
Net Zero: Social Market Foundation Report
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, it is right that it is easier for London to hit the target of net zero by 2050, given its starting point. But levelling up is about improving living standards and unleashing enterprise and growth across all parts of the UK, and spreading opportunity. It is important to see how the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund is allocated to deal with the noble Lord’s point, but we also need to leverage private sector funding. Our estimates are that the fund will leverage substantial private sector income to achieve the green revolution that we all want.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we now move to the next Question.
Buildings: Cladding
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his colourful question. Of course we want to do all we can to support leaseholders. That is why we are taking the measures that I have already outlined.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, is not present. That concludes Oral Questions for today.
Public Services
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
As the Fire Minister, I certainly recognise the importance of the delivery of the vast majority of our fire and rescue services through people who are currently employed by local government. As a former council leader, I know there is a whole host of statutory areas where you would seek to deliver services through people who are directly employed. But increasingly there are areas where you can drive down costs through competitive tendering. That also gives in-house services the opportunity to compete with the market to see whether they can deliver those services more effectively. Competition does drive down costs and increases the quality of the services provided.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
The noble Lord, Lord Flight, is not present, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Blake of Leeds.
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, a significant amount of the councils’ budget is already ring-fenced, including adult social care. It is for local councils to determine how they spend their resources to ensure that they meet local needs. The core spending power in the most recent local government settlement increased from £49 billion to £51.3 billion in this financial year. The ring-fencing of budgets can have the deleterious effect of forcing councils to do something that is not necessarily in the immediate interests of their local residents.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked, and we now move to the next Question.
Prime Minister: Meeting with First Ministers
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
There is a clear political point there, but also a practical point. We must spend money for its intended purposes, which is why we have bodies such as the National Audit Office to ensure that taxpayers’ money is properly spent. We need to look into how we can have a similar regime for devolved Governments.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have now been asked.
Regulation of Property Agents Working Group
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work undertaken by the noble Lord on the wide-ranging recommendations contained in the final report from his working group. I am grateful to him and to all those who contributed. However, he will appreciate that this is a complex area with many interdependencies. Having paused work on it at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, we continue to consider the recommendations in the noble Lord’s report.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the advisory board of the Property Redress Scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Best, put it very clearly: this report was two years ago, and still nothing concrete has happened. Some things can be done quite simply. The first recommendation is the appointment of a new independent regulator to lead matters in this instance. May I specifically ask the Minister when he expects such a regulator to be appointed?
Building Safety Defects: Costs
Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
It is quite clear that the building owner and freeholder have responsibility for keeping the building safe. Whether the costs are passed on to leaseholders is a matter for the individual lease, but we are doing all we can to step in to help recoup the money that should rightly be paid by the developers and have also put forward taxpayer funding to the tune of over £5 billion at this point.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we now move to the next Question.