Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2019
Lord Shipley Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, in moving this order I shall also speak to the draft Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2019.
The order and regulations make changes to the rules governing the conduct of elections of combined authority mayors and local mayors in England. The instruments also make important changes to the electoral framework in relation to candidates standing at these polls. They remove the existing requirement that each candidate’s home address must be published during the election process and be included on the ballot paper at elections of combined authority mayors and local mayors. These changes are designed to enhance the security of candidates standing at these polls and of their families, and to deliver commitments made by the Government in response to recommendations from the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
I should explain that these are two of four instruments that we have brought forward on this issue. In December 2018, we made two statutory instruments that implement the recommendation made by the CSPL in relation to candidates at local government and parish council elections. Electoral law provides that these statutory instruments are made under the negative resolution procedure, and they are therefore not required to be debated in Parliament before being made. This reflects the requirement that the rules for local government and parish council elections are to follow those for UK parliamentary elections. These orders are laid under the affirmative procedure.
Since 2010, candidates at UK parliamentary elections have been able to choose for their home address not to be made public at these polls. The changes we are making in the four instruments that relate to local and parish council elections and to combined authority and local mayoral elections will bring the procedure at these polls into line with that at UK parliamentary elections.
By way of background, in December 2017, the CSPL published its report, Intimidation in Public Life: A Review by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. It made a package of recommendations on ways to enhance the security of those wanting to take part in public life and to reduce the risk of intimidation. This included the recommendation that:
“The Government should bring forward legislation to remove the requirement for candidates standing as local councillors to have their home addresses published on the ballot paper”.
In responding to the CSPL report, the Government accepted this recommendation in relation to local councillors. Indeed, they went further in their response and stated that the practice of removing the requirement for home addresses to be published on the ballot paper should be applied equally to all those standing for election to public office, and should apply to those standing at any level of local authority elections, including for mayoral positions. We are therefore going beyond the CSPL’s report in taking action on this important issue.
As I indicated, in December last year, we made two statutory instruments that implement the recommendation made by the CSPL in relation to candidates at local government and parish council elections. The two instruments we are considering today will apply the changes to the elections of combined authority mayors and local mayors.
The CSPL heard from a number of individuals that the requirement for candidates standing for election as local councillors to publish their home address on the ballot paper has been a significant factor in enabling intimidatory behaviour, and would put people off standing as a council candidate due to that risk of intimidation. A number of former local election candidates stated that the disclosure of their home address enabled intimidatory behaviour to escalate when they subsequently stood as a parliamentary candidate. These personal accounts reinforce the need to take action to address this issue.
I turn briefly to the detail of the proposed changes. Currently, candidates standing at combined authority and local mayoral elections are required to give their home address, which will appear on certain election documents and the ballot paper. The only exception to these existing requirements is for persons standing at combined authority mayoral elections where the mayor will have police and crime commissioner functions. These candidates may already require that their home address is not made public. Under the proposed changes, candidates at any combined authority mayoral election and at all local mayoral elections will not be required to provide their home address on the nomination form or consent to nomination form. In future, candidates at these polls will be required to complete a home address form and to include their home address on it. Candidates will be able to choose that their home address is not made public and so not included on the ballot paper or other electoral documents.
We recognise that we need to strike a balance between transparency of the electoral process and the safety of candidates running for public office. We think it is important for electors to know whether a candidate lives locally and whether they have a link to the area in which they are standing for election. For this reason, under the proposed changes, if a candidate chooses not to make their home address public, they must state the name of the local authority area within which they live; this will appear on the ballot paper, the statement of persons nominated and the notice of poll for the election, instead of the candidate’s home address. Again, we are mindful of the need to ensure that there is openness in the electoral process. We are therefore providing that the home address forms will be available for inspection by certain authorised people, including other candidates standing at the poll.
We have consulted on the two mayoral instruments with the Electoral Commission, the Association of Electoral Administrators and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives. We have also kept the Parliamentary Parties Panel—which is made up of representatives of the main political parties—informed of the position of the two instruments. There is broad support among stakeholders for the proposed changes.
On a final point, I highlight that it is important that the instruments are in place as soon as possible so that they can apply at the local government elections in England on 2 May. These instruments will therefore come into force on the day after they are made. The instruments presented before the House today make sensible and fair changes to the electoral framework. I commend them to the House.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of these orders. I am supportive of them. They bring the regulations into line with the election of police and crime commissioners and of Members of Parliament. They also respond to the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. It will of course be a voluntary matter and, where an individual candidate makes a decision not to show their home address on the ballot paper, it is right that the local authority area they live in is shown on the ballot paper to assist voters.
It is a finely balanced issue but a decision to allow candidates for the mayoral election not to publish their home address seems justified by the evidence, as long as a candidate whose home address is not shown has their local authority area published on the ballot paper, the statement of persons nominated and the notice of poll. I emphasise to the Minister that my comments relate to mayoral elections, which cover large geographical areas. We will need to look more closely at the precise regulations for local councillors, who have a much more local focus, but that is for another occasion.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, it is unfortunate that we are having to move progressively to electoral arrangements in the United Kingdom where candidates’ more personal details, such as their address, are not made available publicly. It seems that we are pursuing the need for security at a cost to transparency, and that has wider implications in all sorts of other areas.
I want to flag up two associated issues. I am surprised that the Liberal Democrats did not come in on one of them: the supplementary vote, which I will now move on to. Why can we not extend the supplementary vote to parish councils? It has been successfully deployed in mayoral elections; any analysis of results under the supplementary vote over recent years shows how successful it has been. Perhaps Ministers might still consider it for the future.
Then there is the question of candidate declarations. We are removing the need for candidates to indicate where they live—albeit not altogether, in that they may publish the area where they live rather than their individual address—but there is an argument for financial declarations by candidates prior to election. It has always struck me that there is far more opportunity for abuse in local government than in Parliament. We often hear of cases at a local level where people have sailed close to the line but within the rules. It may be that pre-election financial declarations are a way of dealing with this problem. I have flagged it up before and got nowhere, but I shall no doubt persist well into the future.
Representation of the People (Election Expenses Exclusion) (Amendment) Order 2019
Lord Shipley Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, the election expenses exclusion order brought forward today aims to make significant improvements to the electoral framework. The order proposes that expenses that are reasonably attributable to a candidate’s disability, and which are reasonably incurred, are excluded from a candidate’s electoral spending limits.
Examples of such expenses include, but are not limited to, British Sign Language interpretation for hearing-impaired candidates, the transcription of campaign material into Braille for visually impaired candidates and specialist equipment. This order will also exclude expenses funded from grants provided through the Government’s interim EnAble Fund for Elected Office from electoral spending limits. This £250,000 interim fund will support disabled candidates and help cover disability-related expenses that people might face when seeking elected office, such as those I have listed.
The Government are committed to ensuring that the diversity of the United Kingdom is sufficiently represented in public office. Around one in five of the UK population has a disability, but disabled people remain insufficiently represented in our Parliaments, Assemblies and councils. The proposed changes will help to create a level playing field between candidates with disabilities and candidates without disabilities, enhancing equality of opportunity.
Alongside the proposals put forward today, I will remind the House of the other work being taken on to increase the number of disabled people in public office. This includes the review by my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond into opening public appointments to disabled people. We welcome his report’s recommendations, which suggest improvements across each of the key points of the appointment process, from the data the Government hold to attracting applicants, the application process and interviews and assessments. We are confident that the recommendations will enable the Government to understand better the issue, improve the disability data we hold for public appointees and pinpoint effective approaches to increasing the proportion of disabled public appointees. We are currently assessing how these recommendations might be implemented.
The order brought before the House today has a wide remit of application. It will apply UK-wide to all UK parliamentary elections, including by-elections. In England, the order will also apply to local government elections, Mayor of London elections, London Assembly elections, mayoral elections and combined authority mayoral elections. In Northern Ireland, it will apply to Northern Ireland Assembly elections. I can tell noble Lords that the Government plan to lay a second statutory instrument this year to widen the application of this provision to police and crime commissioner elections across England and Wales.
I will turn briefly to the detail of the proposed changes. The election expenses exclusion order excludes expenses that are reasonably attributable to a candidate’s disability and which are reasonably incurred, by substituting a new paragraph 7(a) in Part 2 of Schedule 4A to the Representation of the People Act 1983. Part 2 of Schedule 4A to that Act sets out a list of matters that are “excluded” from being “election expenses” and therefore are not taken into account when calculating a candidate’s electoral spending limits. This ensures parity with electoral spending limits for non-party campaigners. Schedule 8A to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 excludes reasonable expenses incurred that are reasonably attributable to an individual’s disability from electoral spending limits of non-party campaigners.
I would like to allay concerns about whether the change will require candidates to disclose any disability. It will not. There will be no legal obligation for candidates to report their disability-related expenses. Candidates can declare these expenses if they wish so to do. I would also like to allay concerns that this exclusion could be misused by individuals who want to manipulate their electoral spending limits. The provisions are clear: this exclusion can be used only for expenses that are reasonably incurred and reasonably attributable to a candidate’s disability. Any breach of the spending rules for candidates can be referred to the police and prosecutors for investigation. The order will not give candidates with a disability an advantage. Its purpose is to create a level playing field in respect of electoral spending limits, so that candidates with a disability are not disadvantaged by that disability in standing for election.
We have consulted on the elections expenses exclusion order with the Electoral Commission, the Welsh Government, the Scottish Government and the Northern Ireland Office. There has been cross-government collaboration between the Cabinet Office and the Government Equalities Office. All the consulted stakeholders have been supportive of the proposals. We have also kept the Parliamentary Parties Panel informed of the position with the order.
On a final point, I would like to highlight that it is important that the order is in place as soon as possible so that it can apply at the local government elections in England on 2 May. This order will therefore come into force on the day after the day on which it is made. I commend this order to the House.
Lord Shipley (LD)
I thank the Minister for explaining this order and I want to record that I agree with it. It is entirely appropriate that any disability-related expenses in elections should be exempt from spending limits, on principle. That is because it helps disabled candidates to stand for election on equal terms with others. I noted the Minister’s comments about some objections that may have been raised on some of the details—but none is more important than the overall principle of equality of opportunity.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I am very happy to give the order my full support. I was glad that the noble Lord mentioned the political parties panel, because I was going to ask him about it. There is no mention of political parties at all in the consultation referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum. I know that the noble Lord mentioned it in his contribution, because I was going to ask him about it. The bodies listed in the Explanatory Memorandum do not pay election expenses and do not fill out election returns. I am glad that he covered that point. It is important that we keep the political parties informed on all these matters. They can often inform the Government’s thinking in a positive and helpful way. Since the noble Lord answered my question, that is fine. I am very happy to support the order.
Social Housing
Lord Shipley Excerpts(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. First, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Osamor, on her excellent maiden speech, which was rooted in a strong sense of public service and community. It is a delight to see her take her place in your Lordships’ House. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, for enabling us to have this debate. As my noble friend Lord Greaves said, there was nothing to disagree with in what he said. He drew attention to the excellent report from Shelter and he called for drastic and strategic action in his detailed analysis of the reasons why we need many more homes for social rent over the long term—two very important words.
As my noble friend Lady Grender said, all parties have failed over the past 30 years and we must start to work together. I entirely agreed when she said that the Treasury needs to be held to account in the spending review for investing in revenue subsidy through housing benefit at the cost of investing in social housing as part of our capital infrastructure.
The evidence given in support of the Motion has been there for all to hear in today’s debate. Despite a stream of government announcements over the past two to three years that they would act to solve the housing crisis, in practice, very little has been done to achieve it. The long-awaited Green Paper on social housing remains just a Green Paper.
The result is that today we have 320,000 people sleeping rough or living in temporary accommodation, which is a rise of 13,000 on the previous year. Local councils have to meet a bill of just under £1 billion to pay each year for temporary accommodation, and the social housing waiting list amounts to more than 1 million households. We have a private rented sector which now accommodates one household in five across the United Kingdom, up 50% in the past 10 years. As we have heard, we have a housing benefit bill that has risen to £21 billion today and, as I said, about which the Treasury seems to show little concern, when it could turn that current expenditure into capital infrastructure spending. Crucially, three times as many social homes have been sold in recent years as have been built.
In October, I led a debate in this House on affordable housing—that is, housing that is genuinely affordable. As I said then, the cost of home ownership can never be met by very large numbers of people. Average home prices are eight times annual workplace earnings; 20 years ago, the figure was just three and a half times. Private renters are now on average spending 41% of their income on housing, so saving becomes very difficult for them. Those figures come from the latest English Housing Survey.
The Government’s White Paper published in February 2017, called Fixing Our Broken Housing Market, stated:
“The starting point is to build more homes”.
Perhaps the Minister will note those words: it is about building more homes, not simply converting other dwellings outside the usual planning system, without the appropriate number of affordable homes being included, let alone social homes.
My noble friend Lady Thornhill pointed out the imbalance between government subsidy for owner occupation and for rent. As she said, the removal of the housing cap will help, but we cannot just leave it to local authorities. They need considerable subsidy and a real plan of action. They need the right to limit the right to buy, including the right to keep 100% of receipts from sales. There must be a debate about that issue because, as has been said, there is a real danger that local councils are simply being set up to fail.
The Chartered Institute of Housing, in a report in November 2018, said that £8 billion of government support is going into the private housing sector up to 2021, with half going into private owner occupation over that period, when social housing support is less than £2 billion a year. Two billion pounds is the sum of money that London-listed housebuilders declared as dividends in 2018. It is broadly the same sum as was spent by the Government to support social homes. I hope that noble Lords on all sides of the House will find themselves very concerned by those figures.
Help to Buy has finally been changed to assist only first-time buyers. As reports have shown, Help to Buy has encouraged higher house prices. A 2017 report from JP Morgan showed that it has led to higher profits, higher share prices, higher dividends and higher bonuses for builders. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Corriegarth, asked who would pay for this. I think that the answer lies in the debate we need to have about the balance between government subsidy of private housing and owner occupation and the cost of public housing and social housing. We should recognise that, in recent years, public money has been spent on subsidising owner occupation at the expense of building social homes for rent. Surely the time has come to redress that balance.
My noble friend Lord Greaves reminded us that council housing is one of the great success stories of the past century: locally provided for local people. He also reminded us of the originations of housing associations, which were similarly local. I agree with him: we must go back to greater local accountability in the provision of affordable housing. Mention has been made in the debate of the uplift in land value caused by planning permissions. Across all parties, there is huge concern about this matter; I hope that the Minister will be in a position to say something further on that. I am convinced that the Land Compensation Act 1961 must be amended, as the noble Lord, Lord Best, reminded us.
Now that the Shelter report is out, many other reports are out, all saying the same thing. We need a debate about the kind of social housing we want to build. It needs to be accessible. We need lifetime homes and decent space standards. We need to know where the social housing will go because different numbers are required in different parts of the country. Above all, we need an action plan for delivering solutions to the problem that has been identified so clearly. We need to think about key workers. We need to work out ways to reduce the high housing costs faced by so many people. We need a means to get young people on to the housing ladder. In saying that, I believe that we need a new generation of homes for social rent for those who need help with housing, such as key workers and those on low incomes, and for those for whom renting is a step on the ladder and who aspire to own their own home. I was very struck by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Bird, who said that this should be about not just social housing but sociable housing. I concur.
In October, I said that our current housing crisis represents the biggest failure of public policy in the past 20 years. Today’s debate has shown that to be true. We have built more than 2 million too few homes across the UK, resulting in high prices, high rents, fewer social homes and serious difficulties for younger people wanting to buy their own home. One in five households is now in the private rented sector, where conditions can be very poor and tenure insecure. We have an imbalance and a major problem to solve. It is the duty of any Government to solve that problem.
Tenant Fees Bill
Lord Shipley ExcerptsTuesday 20th November 2018
(6 years ago)
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Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, in these two amendments, which would help to tighten up the Bill. As he said, paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 is very open-ended, and he referred to a loophole potentially lying within it as it is worded. I think his amendment will tighten it and will do so partly because it is in the interests of the tenant, who may secure a cash saving in the amount they pay for a utility even though they may have to pay a fee to achieve it. I therefore hope the Minister might be willing to look at that carefully. As paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 is currently drafted, it simply refers to the fact that the tenancy agreement may require the payment to be made, but it does not define why it would have to be made. That is why the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, is so helpful.
The Earl of Lytton
My Lords, I have great sympathy with this amendment but I would have more were it possible to ensure that utility providers themselves acted reasonably. While I will not name any names, one particular well-known supplier of electricity, with what is generally regarded as an extremely cheap and competitive tariff, has gained for itself an extremely poor reputation because of what happens when one wants to change to another supplier. Indeed, so tortuous are its processes—of which I have had direct experience—that many landlords specify in their agreements that the tenant may not change to that supplier, and with good reason.
I had a situation myself concerning the commercial supply of electricity to an agricultural building. My wife and I were faced with a demand from this company for over £30,000 for a period of some 15 months, when the only thing that happens in this shed is that for a period of about three weeks a series of low-wattage lights are used to assist with lambing, and for a period of about 10 days in another part of the year they are used for a sheep-shearing operation. By no stretch of the imagination could the fee have totalled that amount. When, finally, the company rang up my wife and said, “We’re going to take you to court”, her answer was, “Make my day”. It was not until the matter was referred to its lawyers that it became apparent that there had been a complete muck-up. It had simply not got an initial reading and was trying to steamroller that payment through in the hope that we would crack and pay it. I know that other landlords in the private rented sector are sometimes faced with the same situation.
These people run up the most appalling costs. While I have great sympathy that this should not be laid solely at the door of tenants, it is none the less an occupational hazard that afflicts both parties to this arrangement. That is the only reason why I have a reservation about the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy—because there is another dimension to this, where certain suppliers are acting utterly unreasonably and unconscionably.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Best. It is important that we are able to discuss this matter through the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, but there is an issue of principle here, which is that it should be a charge not on the tenant but on the landlord and the letting agent, who is not mentioned in the amendment.
The principle is that, if a service is contracted for formally between a tenant and a landlord, a payment can be required. However, that should not be required for either reference checks or identity checks, where the responsibility lies with the landlord or the letting agent. The basic problem here is that the Bill attempts to eliminate up-front tenants’ fees but the amendment might reinstate some tenants’ fees that would not be justified as a charge on the tenant.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)
I thank noble Lords very much and particularly my noble friend Lady Gardner for bringing forward this amendment. She does much work in this area.
I cannot accept the amendment because, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has just indicated, it would fundamentally undermine the policy intention of the Bill, which is to ban letting fees paid by tenants and to ensure that the party that contracts a service pays for that service.
This issue was dealt with under Section 22 of the Immigration Act 2014. It was very clear then that this was to be a liability for the landlord, not the tenant, to discharge. Therefore, the amendment would effectively drive a coach and horses through the intention of that legislation. I am not sure what the collective term for a coach and horses would be. It would probably be a stampede or possibly a cavalcade of coaches and horses, but it is clearly not the intention.
Despite the very good arguments put forward by my noble friend and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, on this point, I very much agree with the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Shipley. A landlord should be responsible for the costs associated with these checks. As I have indicated, they are required under the Immigration Act to undertake these checks to verify that a tenant has the legal right to reside in the United Kingdom before progressing with any tenancy agreement.
The Home Office produces detailed guidance for landlords and agents carrying out these checks, and I will certainly ensure that it is circulated to my noble friend and the noble Earl, and indeed to everybody who has participated in the debate.
Although the onus is on the landlord to verify a tenant’s right to rent, we have made provision in the Bill that, where a holding deposit is sought and a tenant fails a right-to-rent check, landlords and agents will not be unfairly penalised if the tenant is at fault. I hope that that gives some comfort to my noble friend and the noble Earl. With those assurances, I respectfully ask my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (Business Rate Supplements Functions) Order 2018
Lord Shipley Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I again remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I welcome these orders. I am a firm believer in voluntary taxation, and the system used in this case with the business rate supplement is similar to that used for business improvement districts. In that respect, it is a procedure that can command public support: if the business rate payers involved do not want to pay the money they have the right to reject it in a ballot. There is therefore a democratic process, which is very helpful.
On average, around 90% of business rate payers under any of these four orders will not be paying any additional money. Around 10% in Cambridge and 14% in Peterborough will have to pay a bit more. The Minister kindly read out the total sums of money that could be raised with a 2p in the pound levy. Clearly, rateable values vary. Could the Minister, either now or in writing, tell us the highest amount that might have to be paid by a business rate payer in each of these four areas, given that the threshold is to be a £50,000 valuation but some clearly have a higher valuation than that? Of the £35 million in the West Midlands, say, what is the highest single amount that might have to be paid by a business rate payer?
Overall, I do not think that these orders relate to the overall structure of combined authorities. There have been debates about mayors’ powers and the fact that the scrutiny systems need to be made stronger in combined authorities. Of course, in London an assembly lies behind the mayoral structure, which does not exist for the combined authorities elsewhere in England. All that having been said, the specific process relating to a business rate supplement stands on its own. It seems appropriate and should be supported.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I also draw the attention of the House to the fact that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am generally happy to support the orders before the House, but there is a point to be made about business rates. I accept that this is a supplement and in that sense it could be subject to a referendum, a plan and stuff, but there is the point about business rates in general and what business has to pay in an area. We have many questions here about the cost to business of further taxation. In the West Midlands, for example, if a further £35 million is raised, what does that do to the economy? Is that the best use of that money?
That then comes back to the whole issue of combined authorities. Where they are established, the funding provided by government is relatively small. I am sure the noble Lord will not agree, but I have made the point before to his noble friend Lord Bourne that we have this rather confusing patchwork of local government emerging in England. We need a clear structure that we will get to. I am all in favour of devolution, but I would like to understand what the plan is. Certain places will potentially have four, five or maybe six authorities, whereas in another place there will be just one. That does not seem to be very good government at all. I am all in favour of devolution, but I am not convinced that the combined authority model is the best way forward.
I am happy to support the orders, as I said. I welcome the fact that the supplementary rates will have to be subject to a ballot. That is good news, but generally there is the whole issue of business rates and the effect on businesses, particularly on the high street.
New Towns Act 1981 (Local Authority Oversight) Regulations 2018
Lord Shipley Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD)
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register. This is an area I work broadly in—much of it is unpaid but some of it is paid. I was also the original mover of this amendment, and I did so with not only the Government’s support but support from across the House. As the Minister said, this measure is not to establish specific new town corporations but to allow that where they are established—and I hope they will be established—they will be locally led. This is an extraordinarily important moment in the delivery of the homes this country needs and of the services and infrastructure to support vibrant communities. I believe that that is what the new garden village and town programme is capable of doing.
I ask the indulgence of the House for a moment as I give some perspective on this. It was Harold Macmillan in the 1950s, in the middle of the baby boom and during the period of post-war reconstruction, who committed to deliver 300,000 homes—the same number that we need to deliver today. Having delivered only half of that for a couple of decades, we have become short of millions of homes. Many of us experienced that shortage through our constituents in the other place, across all incomes and backgrounds and in many parts of the country. I suspect that many in this House have realised that suddenly, their children or grandchildren are unable to afford a home. Those who do not already own a home or have big capital have increasingly found themselves unable to do it.
In the post-war period, as we introduced planning controls, we sought to create three ways to deliver the homes that were needed. One was through the regeneration of the great cities and towns, which had been emptied out post industrialisation and by the Luftwaffe, and which needed a certain amount of emptying out to deal with the slums. Therefore, we needed to rebuild. The second focus was on some growth around historic towns and cities. There was an awareness, however, that that aroused a lot of opposition from the people who lived there and could have detrimental impacts on the quality of historic communities and the services provided within them. The third leg to deliver those 300,000 homes a year—which were delivered by the Government at the time—was through new communities: new towns that built on the pre-war ideas of Ebenezer Howard and others. Those new towns delivered 2.8 million homes and we would not have delivered the homes that people needed in this country without them. They were extraordinarily successful.
Of course, the new towns were designed in an era when we used a particular approach. Material shortages affected the quality of some of the build; the car was seen as a solution and not necessarily a problem; and it was an era of big government, when not just homes and people but businesses, such as steel works and car factories, were moved in the direction of central government. The nature of their design is often criticised, but those new towns successfully provided fantastic homes for many people. Some of the more successful new towns are no longer even thought of as new towns and have just become places where people live.
New towns were, however, no more than products of their era, and it was an era in which central government took the decisions. Naturally, therefore, the New Towns Act gave powers to the Secretary of State effectively to control the corporations delivering homes for local people in a way that simply does not apply now. The amendments that these regulations will put into effect bring the process up to date with the modern era of localism and a belief in communities themselves taking decisions, owning and controlling the assets, and ensuring that they provide exactly the legacy of great places that the Minister referred to. They will have the opportunity in capturing land value to invest in place and community, to create 21st-century towns and villages fit for the needs of those growing up now in a generation that is so badly short of homes. One of those needs is for the people and the communities around them to have that control, not the Secretary of State.
These regulations should not only be uncontroversial to this House but welcomed by it as a step in delivering the quality new homes and, more importantly, the new communities that people need in the 21st century, in which they can afford to live and thrive. It is also a step into the 21st century in terms of localism and local accountability. It is, as I said, an historic moment when we finally return to a place where we deliver homes of the quality that people expect and deserve, with all the facilities that they need to live and thrive.
I look forward to these regulations being used in cases where the best way to deliver the new supplement is through a new town corporation. As the Government have indicated, that would usually be for a larger scale supplement because it is doubtful that such a corporation would need to be established for a smaller one—although it might be established for a multiple of new supplements. The key is flexibility and that it is brought forward by local communities to meet their needs. I look forward to that happening. However, it will be only a part of a range of opportunities because many will be brought forward without the need for new town corporations.
Let us be clear: the very fact that landowners and investors know that this opportunity is there will probably encourage them to raise their game in the quality of what is delivered, because they know that otherwise, these powers will enable communities to step in and deliver what needs to be delivered themselves.
I welcome the regulations. I am obliged to the Ministers and their officials who have collaborated and spoken openly to me about this process. On the one key change that was made from the draft regulations, £100 million is a lot of money but, within the context of creating a new supplement, it is barely a start. For the Government to have required these corporations to keep coming back to the Treasury to ask for money to do what needed to be done when the principle was accepted seemed a nonsense, and I am glad that Ministers have responded to the concern that was widely articulated on that front.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association, and I recognise the contribution of my noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor in getting us to this stage.
As the Minister said, these regulations relate to both the new town development corporation model and to the oversight of them being transferred from the Secretary of State to local government where local government requests it—and, rightly, any designation will be subject to consultation and parliamentary scrutiny. As he also said, it is important that this process is locally led.
Our country has a proud history of the creation of new towns, mostly through the development corporation model. However, local government has a strong history of delivery—Northumberland County Council with Cramlington new town is an excellent example of local government leadership.
My noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor referred to changing the regulations so as not to have an imposed borrowing limit of £100 million. That is the right thing to do. However, it means that strong financial controls will need to be in place and, in that respect, it will be necessary for the boundaries of the local authority oversight powers and the new town development corporation’s powers to be clarified in some detail in guidance as to exactly where the dividing line between the two is.
I am also pleased that the membership will be made up of a majority of independent members, who will have to demonstrate the required expertise and skills to make a success of the development corporation. However, what steps might the Government introduce in guidance to make sure that the appointment of independent members is a full and open process in which it can be demonstrated why they have been appointed?
My noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor talked about the quality of development and the number of homes of quality that are required. He was absolutely right in what he has said. From my perspective, in order for this process to work, we need more highly professional planners who understand how to build communities rather than dormitory developments in the form of new housing estates. In my view, over recent years planning has become more about gatekeeping developers than strategic planning, so I hope that these regulations will be seen as a major opportunity to reverse that trend.
In conclusion, as the Minister said, this is about local ownership. Moreover, as my noble friend Lord Taylor of Goss Moor said, this should not be controversial because it is a major and welcome step forward.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I am happy to support the regulations before the House and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, on securing this change to the legislation when the Bill was going through the House. I am very happy that we will provide local authorities with the option of being able to lead on new town developments. That is a good thing and, as other noble Lords said, will allow a level of independence so that they can go forward. Given that, I am happy to support the regulations as they are.
I was pleased that the Government listened to the responses to the consultation on the financial limits; that is very good news. However, the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee talks about the length of the consultation. I have mentioned a number of times the question of consultations from the department. This appears to be truncated down to four weeks, whereas ideally it should be six weeks and perhaps even longer. There is also a general point to be made about the consultation itself, in that, whether it produces negative or positive responses, the level of those responses is actually very low. The Government should look at ways of trying to get more people to engage with what they are doing.
I agree strongly with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, about the construction of new towns and bringing the process up to date. Indeed, it is a good intention on the part of the Government to deliver on this. A number of noble Lords observed that new homes must be of sufficient quality, which is extremely important. They must be properly energy efficient, built using the best techniques and set within the right infrastructure. In that way we will have homes in new towns and elsewhere that will be there for many years. If we do not get this right, we will simply create housing problems for future generations. I am conscious that in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, while Governments of all persuasions built a lot of housing, in the end a good deal of it turned out to be of very poor quality. For all the promises, those houses failed the families who had to live in them. Of course, some of the properties are still here today. So it is important that, whatever is built, be it in new towns or elsewhere, quality should underpin it. Hopefully, having a local element in new towns, with local people being fully involved, will help with that. Again, I am happy to support the regulations.
Legislative Reform (Regulator of Social Housing) (England) Order 2018
Lord Shipley Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the Minister for his explanation and the noble Lord, Lord Best, for reminding us of the history of this matter. We support the order to create a stand-alone regulatory authority. It seems a logical and necessary step, given the changed nature of the Homes and Communities Agency, now Homes England, and the potential conflict of interest that could arise if a housing association was in financial difficulty. It should not be a secured creditor of organisations that it regulates, and the regulatory framework should be robust and seen to be robust by third parties and private investors. There is strong public support for the proposals and, as a consequence, these proposals should command our support, too.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I remind the House of my registered interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The order before the House is one I support. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Best, for reminding us of the history of this and of the bonfire of the quangos—I remember the debates we had in the House about that. Clearly, the phoenix has now risen from the fire and we are back where we started. I am very happy with that and with the explanation that the noble Lord has given us. I am happy to support the order.
Building Regulations and Fire Safety: Government Response
Lord Shipley Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
The noble Lord is quite right: what Dame Judith is basically saying is that we should rely less on looking in isolation at individual elements within the construction industry, which she argues leads to fragmentation, silo thinking and gaming the system, and move towards an outcome-based approach, which means standing back and making sure that the system as a whole has integrity. She is worried that at the moment what she describes as a prescriptive approach means relying on people meeting minimum standards and not taking a broader view of what is going on. In a quote that makes the point, Dame Judith says:
“This is most definitely not just a question of the specification of cladding systems but of an industry that has not reflected and learned for itself, nor looked to other sectors”.
She wants to promote what she calls a proactive and holistic view of the system as a whole. So not only should we look at the oil and gas industries, we should look at what is happening overseas where other countries are also moving towards an outcome-based system. I shall certainly take on board his point about a dialogue with other industries which have moved in this direction.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, perhaps I may remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I will raise two issues which I do not think have come out fully in our discussions so far. One relates to the fact that in the future, and depending on the consultation, it might be possible for combustible materials to be used on buildings. The Government’s Statement says that people living in buildings such as Grenfell Tower should be safe and should feel safe. But no one who knows that their accommodation is made of combustible materials is going to feel safe, and I suspect that they will also face substantial increases in their insurance premiums. So I hope that we will pay close attention to what the ABI and RIBA are saying about the need to make the use of combustible materials illegal.
My second question concerns the £400 million, because this issue has not yet been made clear. Is this a fixed sum of money which local authorities are to bid into or is it a flexible sum that may actually be higher than £400 million when all the costs of replacing the cladding are known? Further, does it include payment to local housing authorities for the fire watching that is currently being undertaken in a large number of high-rise blocks? It goes on for 24 hours a day, seven days a week and the costs are likely to have substantial implications for the rents paid by those who are in that accommodation. I hope very much that the £400 million is a flexible sum that will include the amount that might be loaded on to people’s rents.
Lord Young of Cookham
I take the noble Lord’s point about the views of the ABI. Under the recommendations made by Dame Judith, those living in blocks of flats will have much more information about how safe their building is. She talks about a “golden thread”, which is a database relating to the building. It would be kept up to date and would be accessible to residents.
On the £400 million, we want to allocate this funding for remediation as soon as possible and we will announce more details shortly, including how we will encourage landlords to continue to pursue other parties for costs where they are responsible or at fault. He asked whether it is a flexible sum. As someone who was once a Minister in that department and had negotiations with the Treasury, I suspect that it is not a flexible sum: it is £400 million that is available for local authorities to bid for to help them with the costs that they have faced. We are trying to do all we can to ensure that in the social housing sector, the costs of implementing the recommendations do not fall on tenants’ rents. We have made that position clear.
Housing Associations
Lord Shipley Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Shipley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of reports of the loss of 93,820 housing association homes for social rent between 2012 and 2017.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I remind the House of my entry in the register of interests and beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, the coalition Government secured more social housing by prioritising homes for affordable rent over homes for social rent. This enabled more than 357,000 new affordable homes to be built since 2010. We are providing more than £9 billion of funding for the affordable homes programme to March 2021 and £1 billion housing revenue account borrowing freedom for local authorities. This will support social landlords to build more affordable homes including homes for social rent.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. He will be aware that the loss of housing association homes for social rent reported at the end of last week reflects in part a move from social rented homes to affordable rents but also the sale of some housing association homes. We have been waiting for the Government’s Green Paper on social housing for many months. When is that Green Paper due? Do the Government actually believe in social housing?
Lord Young of Cookham
Of course the Government believe in social housing, which is why, as I said in my reply, more than £9 billion has been allocated to it. In the last seven years, more affordable homes have been built than in the last seven years of the last Labour Government. We are committed to more social housing. The Green Paper on social housing is expected in the spring.
European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
Lord Shipley Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, and to have listened to her important observations on equalities and employment rights, and the potential for them to be weakened in this and other Bills. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, on his excellent demolition of a hard Brexit. As he said, a hard Brexit is a minority interest. Indeed it is.
In an earlier contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, said that there is political paralysis caused by Brexit and that the Government need to reduce uncertainty. I agree with him, and I agree with all those business leaders who are urging the Government to start showing some leadership, given that we are half way through the period allowed by the triggering of Article 50. It is staggering that so little has been done and equally staggering that the Cabinet seems incapable of even proposing what it wants from our future trading relationship with the European Union.
Much has been said about the need for frictionless trade with the EU, and I think we are all in favour of that. However, I am prepared to acknowledge that frictionless trade means that we must stay in the single market and the customs union and that, if there are substantial changes to those structures, we will need a transition or implementation period of several years. Two years or less from March 2019 is simply not long enough, given the enormity of the changes that would be required. Anything other than staying in the single market and the customs union will hit investment, jobs and growth. There is already evidence that growth is lower than it could be and that it will go on being so, caused entirely by the uncertainties over investment that Brexit is causing.
That point was made recently by the Governor of the Bank of England, who estimated that Brexit is costing the UK about £200 million a week in lost growth. This is compounded by the fact that there now seems to be some evidence that all the uncertainties are causing the banks to get increasingly nervous about company borrowing levels post Brexit, and they will be looking closely at companies seeking to borrow without having developed a secure post-Brexit business plan. A failure of companies to invest is in no-one’s interest because it will cost growth and jobs.
Exit from the customs union will lead to soaring red tape, with new customs rules and paperwork, as the CBI has pointed out. It will hardly be frictionless. VAT will have to be paid up front. All the major changes will come as a huge shock for tens of thousands of companies that export only to the European Union that currently have frictionless, borderless trade and that have no experience of the paperwork required to export to places other than the European Union. How will those companies understand the required documentation and the rules?
I have heard it said recently that the Government are yet to train the people who will train the staff in the relevant companies. What checks are being made by Ministers on who is doing the necessary preparatory work and what resources are going into it? How many businesses might lose business because they do not know what they should be doing and fall foul of the rules? We should note that the French announced recently that they expect to spend three years training their customs staff.
In a recent report, the National Audit Office said that the Department for International Trade is struggling to develop specialist trade skills among staff and has therefore slowed down its work. Apparently, one of the problems is that staff have moved too often in Whitehall. The failure to deliver trade deals will lead to less growth and fewer jobs, yet the Department for International Trade has had an extra £25 million in the current financial year to prepare for Brexit. What has that been spent on?
I conclude that there is so much uncertainty that the British people have the right to be consulted again on the terms of Brexit, as negotiated. There are two reasons for that. The decision to leave the EU was made in a referendum. Constitutionally, I find it difficult to see why the people should be denied the right to a final say on the exact terms of Brexit once Parliament has debated those proposed terms. I draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that, in recent polls, the majority of the public want a referendum on the final terms. The last one I saw, a few days ago, showed 58% support for a confirmatory referendum. However, importantly, 85% of 18 to 24 year-olds and 74% of 25 to 34 year-olds wanted the right to vote on the final terms. I do not think we can disregard the views of young people, who will have to live with the consequences of Brexit. I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, who a few moments ago talked about this issue. As I recall, he said that we have to bear in mind how history will judge harshly those who disregard the views of the young.