Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

There is a lot of good in this group of amendments, and I am very glad that we have been able to discuss them this evening.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has made a very important point about Amendment 204A, which I will speak to, as well as Amendment 204B tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews. I spoke on those amendments in Committee, and wish to do so again. The point that the noble Earl made is important because Amendment 204A calls for a public consultation. I think there would need to be one, given the potential scale and scope. I think that point has been taken; there have been discussions as to whether you might take 1948 as the date. It could be that you take a much earlier one, in the Victorian or pre-Edwardian period; you might wish to consider that. There needs to be a debate about that very issue, so I take the noble Earl’s point.

Nevertheless, I strongly support the principle behind Amendment 204A and the detail of Amendment 204B, as I did in Committee. It is particularly important now because of the huge public interest in the way that demolition is permitted development, enabling buildings of local historical value to be knocked down. The example of the Crooked House pub has really energised public opinion, and I very much hope that we hear something from the Minister that would be helpful in preventing that sort of situation arising. That would lie in Amendment 204B, because it would

“remove permitted development rights relating to the demolition of a heritage asset which has been placed on a local planning authority’s local list of assets which have special local heritage interest”.

It is clear to me that, in the case of the Crooked House, that would apply, but of course it would have to be placed on the local list.

I am grateful to the Minister for the meeting we had just before we went into recess, when we discovered that quite a lot of local planning authorities do not have local lists. Of course, you need to have a local list if you are to use it. One of my motives now in supporting Amendment 204B is that it may encourage many more to have local lists because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, said, not everything that you want to protect will be nationally listed. It is not like that, and yet many buildings have strong local support.

This is a way forward that would not be a bureaucratic scheme but would give local control. It could be led by civic society; it would not have to be done by the planning departments. The authorisations and so on with committee approval would have to be done by them, but you could use voluntary organisations to do a lot of the work in identifying the buildings that should be protected.

The point here is that we have a dysfunctional system. The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, said that we have a gap in the law. We do. The current system is dysfunctional, and I think the general public have now acknowledged that fact. I hope the Minister is going to take advantage of the huge opportunity that he has now been given and that, when he replies to the House, we will hear something hopeful.

[Lord Carrington of Fulham (Con)]

My Lords, I add my support, as I did in Committee, to Amendment 204A by the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and, with a little more reluctance, to Amendment 204B, which is a compromise that is better than nothing but not as good as the original amendment.

We discussed this amendment considerably in Committee. I spoke on it then and do not intend to repeat what I said. However, it is important to remember that what we are talking about are not buildings and structures that are listed or currently protected but those that fall outside the normal protection system, though they nevertheless have streetscape value and are important, given their location and interaction with the buildings that surround them. They are also buildings that people feel emotionally attached to and which have a historic significance in the local community.

Why are those buildings under threat? Because if you are a developer and you buy a property that is going to be more valuable if you can rebuild it, the first thing you will do is to knock it down. You then have a vacant site—ideally, from the developer’s point of view, in an eyesore location—and you can then go to the planning department of a local authority and say, “I want to build this building that you do not like but which would replace an eyesore that I have created. Give me my planning permission, please”. Sadly, that happens all too often.

The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, mentioned the Crooked House pub in the Black Country. Curiously enough, I know the Black Country rather well. That type of building is very common in the Black Country—there are a lot of them that look like that. A lot of those have been destroyed, but they have a local community value for the very closely structured communities in the Black Country that have been there for several hundred years.

As I understand it, the Crooked House pub was up for listing. It is quite clear that, if you are a developer and you buy a building that is up for listing, you are likely to get it cheaper than if it were not up for listing, because other potential purchasers will look at it and say, “I won’t be able to do what I want to do to maximise its economic value if it’s listed”. So you as a rogue developer buy the property; then, under permitted development, you knock it down so it cannot be listed. You have bought it cheap so, when you redevelop it, your profits are that much bigger. The current system actually encourages you to behave in an outrageous manner. That is the problem.

Arts and Creative Industries Strategy

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, for initiating this important debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss a range of issues. I say at the outset that I want to be very positive about the Arts Council, given the progress it is making in trying to address levelling up.

The last 20 years or so have seen a cultural renaissance of Tyneside. It was an exciting time for me personally, as a council leader and a board member of a development agency, working with so many talented people in delivering a vision, for it was levelling up in action. Today, the buildings, programmes and outreach work are in place for the long term, although generating enough money is always a problem. All of this is evidence that delivering a strategy requires buildings, funding and enterprising people with vision who can make things happen for the long term. Cultural investment in places can have a profound impact. In our case, it has attracted inward investment from new industries and many more international students to our universities, and we have many more tourists and have become a thriving short break destination.

I mentioned the Arts Council and levelling up. As an example of what can be achieved, let me talk briefly about Sage Gateshead, which is so good at skills development, access and inclusion, though its resources are also very tight. It has one of the largest creative learning programmes in the UK, with very large numbers of adults attending music classes. There have been over 70,000 attendances at classes or workshops in the last year by participants aged four to 19. There is, for example, In Harmony Newcastle Gateshead, an immersive orchestral music programme based in two primary schools in the west end of Newcastle, working with local partners; and the Young Musicians Programme, offering introductory sessions up to advanced training, which served 300 children and young people each weekend through term time in 2021-22. We should note that 75% of Centre for Advanced Training students receive a bursary. This is important—as my noble friend Lady Hamwee would have said, had she been able to take part in the debate—to meet their travel costs, which can often be substantial.

The national plan for music education, which was debated recently in this Chamber, is to be strongly welcomed. As its title says, music has the power to change lives. It says that music education is

“an essential part of a broad and ambitious curriculum for all pupils”,

and it draws attention to the vital importance of every child having access to a musical instrument and personal support on digital music platforms.

This is all excellent, but it takes me to last year’s report by the Youth Unemployment Committee, which I had the privilege of chairing. A number of references have been made in this debate to that report, so I hope noble Lords will forgive me for expanding on them. The committee said that

“young people, school leaders and employers agree”—

this is from the evidence they gave us—

“that young people do not have the essential skills needed for work by the time they leave the school gates.”

As Youth Employment UK told us, there are not enough options for digital, computing, design and technology and creative subjects within the core curriculum, despite these being growth and in-demand areas. The Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre and the Centre for Cultural Value said that arts education should be a statutory part of curricula to meet the challenge of skills and training shortages in that sector. We have heard a lot of evidence in the Chamber today about the importance of this.

Other figures have been used, but let me cite some more. At GCSE level, entries in the performing arts were down by 41% from 2017 to 2021, while entries in music fell by 9%. Between 2010 and 2020, there was a 70% decline in GCSE entries in design and technology and a 40% decline in GCSE entries in creative subjects, yet we were told that design and technology was “thriving” in the private sector, with parents seeing it as an “essential subject”—as they did, in fact, with all creative subjects.

We concluded that the national curriculum

“is too narrowly focused to ensure that it prepares all young people for the modern labour market and the essential, technical and creative skills it requires, in particular for the creative, green and digital sectors. These views were shared by employers and young people alike.”

I submit to the Minister that it is time they were shared by His Majesty’s Government.

BBC Funding

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, in her Statement, the Secretary of State said that she

“had to be realistic about the economic situation facing households up and down the country.”—[Official Report, Commons, 17/1/22; col. 39.]

What consideration might the Government give to introducing a rebate scheme for those on lower incomes, as applies with council tax, so that the licence fee might better reflect the ability to pay?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I will take the noble Lord’s interesting point back to the department and discuss it with my colleagues there.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 25th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley (Lab)]

My Lords, as noble Lords have said, Birmingham 2022 will make us all proud. It will be a huge fillip for the city and for investing in it, alongside all the wonderful things that the Games themselves will bring. Briefly, I support my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath on the idea of a tourism tax. I know that you should never ask a government Minister a question that you do not know the answer to yourself, but I will take a risk. Have the Government done any modelling at all on a tourism tax? Have they had any preliminary conversations with the local authority about it? If the Minister would like to tell us, we promise that we will keep it to ourselves.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I was not able to speak at Second Reading but I have listened carefully to the debate on this group of amendments. I hope that, when the Minister replies, a number of points that have been raised will be clarified. I support the amendments in this group. In particular Amendments 11 and 3, which broadly cover the same issue of how to raise more income at a local level, should be supported by the Government. The questions that have been asked about a tourist tax, a hotel bedroom tax or a lottery are all about the same thing: how to get more local income raised. My concern is whether the council taxpayers of Birmingham could be faced with a big bill—or else, big cuts in services—if there are difficulties for Birmingham in raising its 25% contribution. I hope the Minister will be able to clarify this; she needs to explain it to the Committee.

I also seek the Minister’s confirmation that the 25% contribution will include all costs that fall to the city council, or other public bodies, outside the formal structure of the governance of the Games—things such as extra street-cleaning, refuse disposal, information services, policing and emergency planning. There is a long list of them; I assume the Government have discussed it with Birmingham and that these matters have been agreed. It is important that the Minister clarifies what is included in the 25% contribution and what lies outside it.

I am sure we all accept that financial and other long-term benefits will accrue to Birmingham, so a local contribution to the cost of the Games is clearly appropriate. However, I have not really understood why 25% is the right figure or what discussion there has been about that. If it is not the right figure, what is the Government’s contingency plan to make up the deficit? As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, in her reply at Second Reading the Minister said that the Government had agreed to underwrite the organisation and delivery of the Games. The critical word is underwrite, but it requires clarification. Does that underwriting include any shortfall on Birmingham’s 25% contribution if the income streams do not deliver the expected sums?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I start by sharing the positive sentiments that many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Addington, and others made about the excitement that we all feel about the potential for the Games and the message that we can send to cities which might wish to host games in future. The Government absolutely share that view.

I turn to the amendments. Amendment 3 calls for the preparation of a report, a key aspect of which includes an assessment of the case for implementing a temporary hotel occupancy levy throughout the Games, the proceeds of which, after costs of administration, would be made available to Birmingham City Council. I understand that Amendment 1, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, is to seek clarity on Birmingham City Council’s financial position. As the Committee knows, Birmingham and the West Midlands region will benefit from a £778 million public investment to stage the 2022 Commonwealth Games. The city council is responsible for funding 25% of the Games budget—£184 million—which the council has publicly committed to meet.

The Government have supported the council by agreeing that we will provide the majority of the contributions in capital and profiling its revenue for the final year 2022-23, as the council requested. A number of noble Lords raised concerns about the ability of the council to meet this. The Cabinet approved the council’s financial plan for 2020-24 at its most recent meeting on 11 February, with the funding requirement to be met from partner contributions, prudential borrowing and council-generated funding, such as capital receipts. The council recently submitted a proposal to my department requesting to pilot a statutory hotel occupancy tax, such as that outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. The tax is not necessary for the council to meet its share of the costs and the council’s own figures show that it would provide only a small contribution towards its revenue requirement. In any case, as I said at Second Reading, if the council wants to raise proposals for a new tax, the Bill is not the appropriate vehicle, as it is not a money Bill.

The Government will continue to work closely with Birmingham City Council to ensure that it can deliver on its financial contributions. It might be helpful if I set out some of the processes and assurances in place to ensure that the Games remain on budget. I also gather that that is the thrust of Amendment 5, tabled by my noble friend Lord Moynihan, and I hope it also addresses Amendment 11, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Addington.

The Birmingham 2022 Organising Committee has been established to deliver the Games, with the UK Government as the primary funder. There is robust financial governance and the budget has been subject to significant scrutiny. Contingency is held by the strategic board, including the Minister, the Mayor of the West Midlands and the leader of Birmingham City Council.

I will cover a couple of additional details, given the number of questions there were on this issue. To reiterate, the budget has a significant but realistic level of contingency within it. As joint funders, it is in both the Government’s and the city council’s interest to keep within the cost envelope. Importantly, it should be remembered that, when Birmingham bid to host the Games, 95% of the venues were already in place, reducing some of the risk around the Games. The Government have also committed to providing Parliament with updates on expenditure during the project.

I note that the intention behind Amendment 5 is to better understand any link between the Games budget and the proposed shooting and archery championships in India. To be clear, shooting and archery are not part of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, but rather a Commonwealth event that will be held in India in 2022, at no cost to the UK Exchequer or Birmingham taxpayers.

On the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on local authority funding for future sporting events, the Government and UK Sport regularly engage with local and regional authorities when it comes to bidding for and staging major sports events. This is clearly successful. Most recently, the UK hosted the 2017 World Athletics Championships, the 2019 Netball and Cricket World Cups, and the UCI Road World Cycling Championships, to name but a few, with a strong pipeline of events in coming years. Local authorities have a range of revenue-raising and fundraising powers to support them meeting the financial contributions associated with such events; for example, through local taxes, such as precepts and business rates. Local or regional authorities may have particular views on how best they can raise funds for such events; I know that the Chancellor keeps the tax system under review and would always welcome representations for improving it. The Government will of course continue to work closely with local authorities to support them in bidding for and successfully staging major sporting events, building on our fantastic track record in hosting such events.

Amendments 19 and 20 seek to bring forward the first period on which the organising committee is required to report, and for these reports to be produced every six months rather than annually. I absolutely understand the desire of the House to be given adequate and timely opportunities, as the noble Lord, Lord Foster, explained, to scrutinise the organising committee’s preparations and delivery of the Games. To allay such concerns, I want to be clear that the end of the first reporting period in the Bill, regardless of the date, will certainly not be the first opportunity this House will have to scrutinise the organising committee’s delivery of the Games.

Battle of Passchendaele

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Monks. I have made a note of his words: “Never take peace for granted”. How important that is when we consider commemorating the centenary of Passchendaele. I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, for enabling us to have this exceptional debate, in which we have remembered and commemorated all those who were present at Passchendaele.

Last weekend I visited the Paul Nash exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle. Before I go any further, I publicly thank the Tate gallery for enabling the exhibition to go out of London, the Tyne and Wear museums service for its work in securing the exhibition, and the Arts Council and other funders for ensuring that it could be financed.

Paul Nash was an official war artist by the autumn of 1917. He began the war in the Artists Rifles and subsequently joined the Hampshire Regiment, but he took sketches and painted in the autumn of 1917 in the Ypres Salient and at Passchendaele. His paintings are legendary and are an outstanding contribution to our knowledge of the realities of war. The sights he saw on the front line at Passchendaele traumatised him. He described it in a letter to his wife in November 1917 as,

“one huge grave, and cast up on it the poor dead”.

He went on to say to her:

“It is unspeakable, godless, hopeless. I am no longer an artist interested and curious. I am a messenger who will bring back word from men fighting to those who want the war to last forever. Feeble, inarticulate will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth and may it burn their lousy souls”.


You can see the message in all his paintings of Passchendaele and the Ypres salient. As we have heard, Passchendaele was described by Lloyd George as one of the great disasters of the war. There were 550,000 casualties on both sides, and the land gained was ceded just four months later.

It is very hard for us today to grasp the scale of what was happening. There were 300 British guns, firing over 4 million shells, which failed to destroy the heavily fortified German positions, particularly around Tyne Cot. The ground became the quagmire we have heard about, and so many soldiers drowned in the mud. There was an average of some 2,000 casualties a day on both sides.

I am particularly glad that this debate has recognised the contribution of Commonwealth troops in working in unity with British troops to capture Passchendaele; a number of speakers referred to that. My noble friend Lady Brinton talked about the permanent scars—the psychological trauma—of those who fought, and about her grandfather, who wrote home about how he endured suffering. She also talked about the problems that individual troops have had throughout history and in particular in the last 100 years—how they have had to manage suffering and how important support is for those who suffer from stress. Medical knowledge has advanced a great deal since 1917, when shell shock was officially recognised in Britain and a small number of war hospitals were asked to look after its victims.

My noble friend Lord Addington talked about veterans. He reminded us of the images of time and changes through time, and of how Passchendaele represented almost total war in which men become statistics. He also reminded us how important it was for people to come together in the face of war and in remembering war.

A number of contributors to the debate have thanked the organisations involved in commemorating the First World War, and I add my own tribute to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. It maintains 2,500 cemeteries and plots, and the quality of its work is simply outstanding. The maintenance of very high standards demonstrates its care, and the design and quietness of the cemeteries are exemplary.

I was very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, talked about the Heritage Lottery Fund. It has made a huge difference. She referred to the number of community projects that have helped communities to understand better what happened. The scale and role of the fund have been truly excellent.

We heard of the contribution of the War Memorials Trust, which is rescuing many memorials in a poor condition. There are up to 100,000 war memorials in the UK. I also thank the Imperial War Museum and the BBC for their work and resources, which are outstanding. I want to commend the Government too for their sensitive planning and for the appropriateness of events. They have been organised each year since 1914 and an excellent job has been done.

I was very pleased to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, about “The Last Post” being sounded at the Menin Gate by buglers from the fire brigade at Ypres every evening at eight o’clock since 1928—with a slight hiatus during World War Two. When I first went there, I wondered for how many years this would continue. Each time I have gone in recent years, there are simply more and more people. It is now quite hard to get a good vantage point because of the number of people, but I welcome that because it means that people are remembering and commemorating.

I understand that next year, 2018, there will be a national concert at Birmingham to bring an end to the four-year programme to remember those who fought and died in the conflict. It may bring an end to the programme but it will not end our need for remembrance. The noble Lord, Lord Black of Brentwood, said that we should take time to remember. He is right: it is important for our sense of who we are that we take time to remember the courage, endurance and sacrifice of all those involved at Passchendaele.