Renters’ Rights Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 1st July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have not personally discussed the issue with Defra, but I am sure that officials in MHCLG will have done so, and—

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

If my noble friend the Minister does discuss it with Defra, she will find that Defra has nothing like the numbers of people with experience of farming that it had 10 years ago. It has been completely denuded and she would not find the answer to the question asked by the noble Baroness opposite.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I was about to say, before the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, intervened, that I am always happy to discuss these important issues further with noble Lords and to refer back to colleagues in Defra and elsewhere. Nevertheless, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to withdraw his amendment.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Lord Rooker Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, this is a Bill I strongly support, I want it to work, but I think it will be a waste of time. That sounds harsh, but it need not be. As I said in the King’s Speech debate last year, on 18 July, I have been involved in planning reform before as a Minister, more than once. My radical suggestion of a 30-month period of no regulation other than building control has clearly not been taken up—far too bold. But unless Ministers can remove the walls around departmental silos, the Bill will be waste of time.

New Labour was not perfect. But I was involved under new Labour, more than once, in clear major work across departments, outside the silos. It can be made to happen. Currently it is not happening. I have been at meetings with developers, industrial builders, and energy providers in the last months. The issue was getting action across departments: no give and take, examples of “all or nothing” from departments, and in some cases it has been nothing; jobs lost and companies lost—no one seems in overall control. No. 10 is the issue. We have a good Government, but they are a clumsy Government.

The Bill will not work if at the top it is awkward, all thumbs, butter-fingered, lumbering and stiff. Believe it or not, I think the Prime Minister should take a leaf out of the Arnold Weinstock management playbook, when he took GEC from a tiny company of £100 million to a manufacturing company of £11 billion, selling power plants to China and locomotives to the USA. He did not allow silos to exist in the subsidiaries. He cut out the chaff. He did not get sidetracked by consultants or third parties. It can work.

I support the Bill. I have read the briefs from at least 10 organisations: the National Trust, the Royal Town Planning Institute, Association of British Insurers, the Town and Country Planning Association, the National Association of Local Councils, the LGA, the County Councils Network, CPRE, the CLA and the NFU. All claim to support the Bill, “but”—there is always a “but”. Some of them contain good people I am happy to work with—tomorrow morning will be a good example—but, collectively, as third parties, aided by the two regulators, Natural England and the Environment Agency, they are the reason so little progress has been made over the years. That sums it up. Collectively, they have been the problem. They sidetrack the clumsy Government we have.

The Government need to embrace boldness as their friend, not their enemy. Once No. 10 is clearly in charge with a plan to stop and get rid of the silos, Ministers should be made to work across departments and just get on with it.

Cladding: High-rise Buildings

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 17th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress has been made on removing cladding from high-rise buildings.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)]

My Lords, over half—57%—of all 18 metre-plus buildings identified with unsafe cladding have started or completed remediation. For 18 metre-plus buildings with aluminium composite material—ACM cladding—like that in Grenfell, 96% of identified buildings have started or completed remediation. We have been clear that those responsible must make swift progress or face action. We will update on the remediation acceleration plan this summer.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer. Many blocks still to be done contain the same panels as Grenfell. Can we be assured that the companies identified in the Grenfell report as using dishonest strategies and making false claims, such as Kingspan, Celotex and Arconic, are not involved in any replacement work? The companies are reported to have manipulated test data and manipulated the market. The Minister and other noble Lords will have read the exposure of the crooks running Arconic in a devastating article in the Sunday Times two days ago. Why are these people not behind bars?

Local Government: Electoral Quotas

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is very important that people do not lose their sense of place as this devolution programme goes forward, and they will not. The places will still exist. I have been talking to the associations that reflect the views of local councils—town and parish councils. We will support them in local areas, so they will definitely have a voice in this new system. The electorate will of course be able to decide at election times whether they are being properly represented.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Does my noble friend recall the point about not having national equality for local government? Whereas the average ward in London had 6,000 electors, the average ward in Leeds had 15,000 electors and the average ward in Birmingham had 20,000 electors. You cannot run a national system when you have such a variety of issues. Surely it must suit the locality.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The boundary commission is focused on making sure that the structure of the electoral wards and divisions meets the needs of the council concerned; that is, in respect of the types of decisions being taken, the need for strategic leadership in those areas to enable the appropriate scrutiny of decisions and making sure that councillors can meet their community responsibilities. It has been doing this for decades, and I am sure it will continue to do so.

Council Tax

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rooker]

To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to make council tax more progressive.

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

My Lords, there are currently no plans to reform council tax. I suppose I should sit down now. It is a widely understood tax with a high collection rate and contains a range of discounts and exemptions to reflect personal circumstances. Local authorities are also required to run local council tax support schemes to provide reductions to those on low incomes.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend, but how is it that a £12 million penthouse in Islington pays £1,000 less in council tax than a £1.5 million manor house in Hartlepool? It is eight times the value, yet it pays £1,000 less. This is why council tax is so regressive, and no tough decisions have been taken for 34 years. When people no longer know what a tax is for or how it is fixed, and they see this unfairness, that risks bringing the whole system into disrepute. It is a major political and social risk. Why are we taking it?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, we all know that there are problems caused by outdated valuations and the regressive nature of council tax. However, a widescale reform of the system would be time-consuming and complex, and we are committed to keeping tax on working people as low as possible. The Government will carefully consider the impact on councils and taxpayers before taking any further decisions on council tax.

Cladding Remediation

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising that point. I will have another look at it, but that guidance is very clear. They are industry-accepted standards, so they should be adhered to.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

Why do the Government not arrange for the blocks of flats that still have dangerous cladding to be fitted with equipment to prevent neutral current diversions causing a fire in the first place? The fear of fire has got to be a serious issue. Given that the most expensive three blocks of flats in London are fitted with such equipment, I do not see why it should not be fitted to all those flats where people are living in fear and still with dangerous cladding.

Housing: Modern Methods of Construction

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, I support modern construction methods. In February 2003, Lord Prescott published a seminal document, Sustainable Communities: Building for the Future. Ministers would be well advised to look at this, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. We then in ODPM promoted off-site construction and committed to encouraging the private sector to invest in factories and new techniques.

In an Oral Question I asked on 8 June 2023, I made the point that you cannot switch factories on and off, and a stable demand is a prerequisite. What stops a big uplift? Both off-site and onsite require new skills and techniques; they are not separate.

I once visited a factory in Birmingham and three weeks later visited a site in Stratford-upon-Avon to see the construction of what I had seen in a factory. It was made clear to me that techniques on both the site and the factory are linked. The Government need to ensure that the new skills are developed, and they need to create demand. Perhaps a density directive, which Lord Prescott used, to stop wasting land could help.

My final point concerns the Building Research Establishment. Lord Prescott and I visited it in its early years of being a Tory privatised body to see examples of modern methods. I had visited one in opposition, when it was government-owned. Given the Grenfell report, the BRE should no be longer be involved in certifying modern methods of off-site construction techniques or products. Such work should be seen to be fully independent and professional.