Social Housebuilding

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an important point. I will not comment on leaks, to the Sunday Times or anywhere else, but I have been talking extensively with the development industry about skills in that area, not just for traditional methods of construction but to deal with modern methods of construction and the whole range of new skills that we will need to fit properties to make sure that they are net zero. We are looking right across the board at that and working with the construction industry to see what needs to be done to help it develop the level of skills that we know we are going to need.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, last week, the Government allocated £68 million for 54 councils to build social housing on brownfield sites. Will there be further funding for other councils for similar projects to build houses on brownfield sites?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for drawing attention to the brownfield land release fund. The Government’s preference is to use brownfield first; we want to turn neglected sites into new homes. This funding will help clear empty buildings, former car parks and industrial land to make way for homes. We think that the first tranche of funding will enable around 5,200 homes. Further announcements on this will be made at the time of the spending review.

Children: Impact of International Conflict

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, our modern weapons of war do not discriminate between the young and the old when they are used, such is their destructive power. Children in conflict zones are always the first victims of war, and those who survive are left traumatised. Witnessing extreme violence, losing a family member or being separated from loved ones can cause anxiety and other mental disorders. The psychological impact on them can be enormous and can last a lifetime.

Childhood is the happiest time of our lives, and we often wish we could return to it. Those who live in a refugee camp or a conflict zone never experience their childhood. They cannot regularly attend school and do not have a proper social structure or grow up with the necessary skills and knowledge to contribute to their society.

They often live in poverty and sometimes suffer from malnutrition, chronic stresses and diseases. In some cases, they are forced to fight in regular armies and killed. Some children become victims of sexual exploitation and are faced with stigmatisation and exclusion from their communities.

It is no good just talking about these problems—there are lots more than I have highlighted here—we must also find solutions. We must implement some sort of joint international programme to improve the lot of these children. For instance, there must be counselling for traumatised children to cope with the psychological effects of war. We must set up a programme to trace children and reunite them with their families and, in cases of child soldiers, a programme to reinstate them into society by incorporating peace into their curriculum to promote conflict resolution, tolerance and social cohesion.

To do all these things we need international co-operation on a large scale. The international community must adopt a comprehensive, co-ordinated approach to mitigate the damage done to children. We need some form of long-term humanitarian initiative, with legal protection for the well-being of children in conflict, along with a diplomatic effort to prevent conflicts and resolve existing ones, with an early warning system to detect potential conflict and take preventive action to reduce the risk to children. We should involve youths in such peacebuilding activities, empowering them to be the agents for change. We must create platforms for children to share their stories and participate in the decision-making process. We must advocate for a global movement of children’s rights and for the specific needs of children in conflict in international agreements.

Spending Commitments to Local Councils

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, there has to be a short pause while we seek clarity on existing funding commitments, as I said earlier. The Government are fully considering those funding arrangements and I know that a great deal of work has been put in. Many of those projects are aligned with the growth that we want, and we hope to be able to give all local authorities the answers in very short order.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, the LGA estimates that one in 10 local authorities are on the brink of bankruptcy due to the lack of proper funding by the previous Government. What is the new Government’s policy to avert this disaster?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

Under the previous Government, 19 councils needed to seek additional support from the Government to balance their budgets for this year. This Government are committed to ensuring councils have the resources needed to provide those public services. We are already working closely with local government and other departments to understand the specific demand and cost pressures facing them. We urge any council experiencing financial difficulties to approach the department as early as possible so we can help work through a plan to resolve them.

Hate Crimes Against Muslim Women

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I totally agree with the noble Baroness. The Department for Education, the Home Office and all sorts of other departments are involved in this programme. It is really important that we make sure that everyone has the necessary skills to deal with this appropriately.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, I recently read a report saying that more and more Sikh women are wearing turbans and are often the victims of hate crime as well. Are the Government engaged with any programmes or funding for Sikh women who are the victims of these hate crimes?

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I will check for the noble Lord what specific engagement there has been. I am aware that there is cross-faith group engagement—particularly by my noble friend, the Minister sitting alongside me—for all religions and all groups, including women from those faith groups.

Local Authorities: Financial Difficulties

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Wednesday 14th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right to say that the current household support fund runs out on 31 March. However, the Government continue to keep all existing programmes under review in the usual way.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, council tax banding for our 25 million homes in England is based on their estimated market value in 1991. So, a two-bedroom flat in London, where property values have gone through the roof, falls in the same band as its equivalent in the north of England; a £1 million home is charged 0.2% of its value; and on average, one worth £250,000 is charged 0.6%. This year, 46% of households in England will receive a bigger council tax bill than Buckingham Palace. Does the Minister think that our council tax formula is regressive and needs reforming?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

As I said, in the next Government we will look at all these local government financing issues. We agree that that is long overdue, but the sector itself did not want that to happen in 2022.

Local Authority Finances

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, the levelling-up White Paper set out our ambition for every part of the country that wanted a devolution deal in place to have one. As I referred to earlier, we are seeing trail-blazers of greater devolution in mayoral combined authorities, where we can put power back into the hands of local communities.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, I recently read an article in the Financial Times on the state of our local authorities. It states that, due to all the budget cuts over the last 14 years, to make ends meet they are resorting to

“Asset stripping the public realm”.


The symbols of our civic identities are being sold off, which is diminishing our towns and cities and undermining our civil cohesion. Does the Minister agree with that assessment?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

No, I do not agree with that assessment at all. We have put in additional funding to local government—not just this year, but in many recent years. In addition, we have put in significant funding, for example through the levelling up funds, to invest in local community assets that will build pride of place and develop local economies.

Levelling Up: Project Delivery

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, we deliver funding to local authorities in all sorts of ways. We are looking to deliver more funding to local authorities. That is why we are taking forward an approach of a single departmental settlement to those mayoral combined authorities in Birmingham and Manchester. We have a commitment to roll that out further to those areas that have directly elected representatives.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, as the Minister knows, councils up and down the country spent millions of pounds preparing for their application to bid for the levelling-up funds. I am glad that the Government have changed the system now. Do the Government have any idea how many millions these cash-strapped councils have spent on preparing their applications—or maybe the Government did not ask that question because they did not want to know the answer?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, after announcing round 2 of the levelling-up funding, we recognised how many high-quality bids we had from councils that we were not able to meet during that round. That is why we took a different approach in round 3, looked at those existing bids and were able to make the allocations that were announced earlier this week. All in all, over 200 places have benefited from funding from the levelling-up funds. We recognise that there is a cost involved in bidding in these processes. That is why we provided those local authorities that were assessed as most in need in rounds 1 and 2 with additional funding to support the development of the bids in the first place.

Local Government Finance

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that there are a number of different actions that we need to take to address homelessness. We have the action on homelessness prevention strategy and the rough sleeping strategy; that is backed by more than £2 billion over three years, in addition to the increase in councils’ core budgets that I mentioned at the beginning. But we also need to look at the underlying supply of affordable and social homes, which is why we have the affordable homes programme in place. We are committed that that will continue to deliver large increases in the number of affordable homes available in this country.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, last year, local authorities spent £1.5 billion on temporary accommodation, which is up by 9% from the previous years. This is just one of the reasons that so many councils are on the brink of bankruptcy. When will this nightmare come to an end? It is cut after cut, since 2010. When will it end, and when will local government get some help?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The noble Lord talks about cut after cut. Since 2019, local authorities have had a real-terms increase in their core spending power, taking into account higher levels of inflation than anticipated at the time. In addition to that, we have provided money for the homelessness prevention grant and the rough sleeping strategy, and in addition to that we have provided the £750 million that I referred to in answer to the right reverend Prelate to begin to address some of the longer-term solutions to how we address housing supply in our country.

Housing: Overcrowding

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. If you have anything to do with local housing, you will realise that there seem to be many more one-bedroom and two-bedroom properties than there are family homes. We recognise the challenge faced by the sector, and that is why we encourage local authorities to continue to consider innovative ways in which they can best use their stock. For example, supporting underoccupiers to transfer to other, smaller properties is one way that they can then relet family homes. Landlords are focused on providing high-quality services to all their tenants. Introducing a new requirement for local authorities to lease larger homes in the open market may also be considered a new burden, for which funding would be unlikely to be provided.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, as has already been mentioned, the report firmly states that ethnic-minority households are three times more likely to be overcrowded than white households. Have the Government taken note of that? What do they intend to do to specifically rectify the problem for ethnic minorities?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, interestingly, in December 2022, we published our report Overcrowding in South Asian Households, to provide a deeper understanding of the issues faced by those from South Asian backgrounds. The study puts Bangladeshi and Pakistani households at the centre of a piece of research, including their perceptions of their living situations and cultural drivers. This is the first time that overcrowding has been studied in that way, and our findings are used to develop culturally sensitive policies on overcrowding and housing more generally. This came from an English Housing Survey that indicated that British Bangladeshis and Pakistanis were particularly affected by overcrowding.

UK Citizens Resident Overseas: Verification

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. I will go back and check even further, when I have time to do so, but I am not sure whether this is Liberal policy at all.

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, what about the non-doms—people who live in the UK but do not pay any taxes here? Do the Government carry out any verification of them, so that they do not interfere in our electoral system?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, if they are registered as citizens of this country, they can then vote, but if they are not, they cannot.