Non-Domestic Rating Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Tuesday 19th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, is unable to join your Lordships’ House today due to work commitments, so he has asked me to introduce his amendments in the first group as I have added my name to them. Amendments 1, 2 and 3 in this group all relate to rate relief for energy efficiency improvements. Specifically, they allow qualifying energy efficiency improvements improvement rate relief until at least 1 April 2029. That contrasts with the current position of the Government, who have previously made it clear that they intend to offer improvement relief for only one year.

I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, that he has had constructive meetings with the Minister, but that during those meetings she raised two particular concerns about the implementation of his amendments, if the Government were to accept them. First, she raised the issue of the reduction in rates revenue that would come if the amendments were passed. The noble Lord asked me to draw attention to the fact that that would be offset by the increased investment in energy efficiency that would therefore result, including a reduction in the cost of bills, as well as the ensuing energy security and sustainability benefits that would come from the introduction of his amendments.

The second concern the Minister raised was about the classification of energy efficiency measures for valuation purposes when compared with renewables and energy storage. The argument here is that this would mean that almost any building works could potentially qualify: for example, replacement windows and anything to do with the fabric of the building itself. We understand what the Minister is saying about this and why she raised that point, but we would add that, while an insulated extension might have an incidental efficiency benefit, we believe—as does the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale—that it should be possible to distinguish between changes that are mainly or wholly for the purpose of improving energy efficiency and those where the improvement is incidental. We should be able to differentiate between the two. The suggestion the noble Lord made is that the Government could look at tweaking the draft regulations on which they have recently consulted. It would be very constructive for the Government to discuss this further with the noble Lord to see whether this is an option going forward and whether it could actually be achieved.

We support the steps that the noble Lord is suggesting to encourage businesses to carry out energy-efficiency improvements. They are important because that would not only align with the UK’s climate and emissions targets but lead to long-term savings for ratepayers and bring about efficiencies all round. The recent increases in energy bills have created enormous uncertainties —very much so for high street retailers, who have been in a volatile market for some time since Covid—and the Government should explore incentives such as this. I beg to move.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, said in support of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. Looking at those amendments and their context, I think they present a viable option for the Minister to examine and respond to. It is important to consider where the benefit is likely to fall should these amendments be accepted. As I see it, it will primarily benefit SMEs above the small business rate relief threshold. That is not a guaranteed threshold, by the way; it is at the discretion of the Government of the day, from time to time.

For many of those smaller SMEs above that threshold, business rate costs easily exceed energy costs, even in this day and age. Therefore, for many of those businesses, their focus is on getting their rates down and getting the Government to do that, perhaps overlooking the need to make energy improvements, which they perhaps do not see as central to their business operation, nor producing a dividend that they can cash in good time. This amendment skilfully joins those two things. It offers, to those who find the rates burden excessive—and perhaps we could add “Who doesn’t?”—a mechanism for reducing them by investing in energy performance measures. I certainly agree with what the noble Baroness said about the shape of the guidelines, which would obviously be produced if these amendments were passed, and what those energy improvement measures should be and how they might be properly measured.

There is a clear incentive mechanism here, which is clearly needed because there is no doubt that businesses in that sector in particular are lagging behind on energy efficiency—for the reasons I have outlined: they have other business pressures on them and it is certainly not at the top of their to-do list. Also, they probably do not have an ESG policy or a policy statement committing their enterprise to getting to zero carbon by 2050. These are a band of enterprises which are core to the British economy, but they are not exactly headline-making businesses when it comes to developing their social and environmental policies. They need a nudge. To give them a nudge which reduces their rates bill seems a mechanism which merits careful exploration.

The measures in these amendments would be helpful in that hard-to-reach SME sector, often occupying hard-to-improve premises. To join those two things up would be very worth while. We cannot rely on reaching our 2050 targets for the built environment purely on the good will and common sense of hard-pressed SMEs, which have so much else to do.

There is a greater public good to be achieved. If the Government feel that there is any element of giving money away that they do not need to do, I would simply argue that this is, or could be, an important step in delivering that public good, which is reaching zero carbon by 2050—reducing our carbon emissions and avoiding climate extinction. I very much look forward to what the Minister has to say by way of response on behalf of the Government.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

As I was saying, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for their support for my Amendment 201. My amendment inserts a new clause for the definition of affordable housing. It asks that, within 90 days of when the

“Act is passed, a Minister … must publish the report of a consultation on the definition of affordable housing”.

Following the publication of that report, within 30 days, the definition must be updated in the National Planning Policy Framework. The reason we have put this forward is because we feel that the current definition in the National Planning Policy Framework is simply not fit for purpose.

Earlier today, we passed the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Best, on social housing. He is not in his place, but I point out that getting that sorted out is part of managing our problem with affordable housing. So, in many ways, although they are not in the same group, these amendments in fact work together. The noble Lord is also the chair of the Affordable Housing Commission, and although he is not here, I pay tribute to the important work that he has done with that. The Affordable Housing Commission has produced an important report on this issue, Making Housing Affordable Again, which I urge all noble Lords with an interest to study.

When we consider affordable housing, we need to look at a number of issues, the first of which is to ask who has a problem with it. What the commission did was to divide the overall picture into four different groups: struggling renters; low-income older households; struggling home owners; and frustrated first-time buyers. So this issue affects a very large proportion of our population, including people who are trying to find themselves a decent, secure home. The way that housing affordability is currently defined and measured is as rents or purchase costs that are lower than in the open marketplace; we believe that that definition is both misleading and confusing. It is a crude definition, which is not helping to solve the problem. It brings “affordable housing” to a level that is way beyond the means of many who need a home.

The commission offers a new definition of affordability, which views the issue from the perspective of the household and not from the marketplace—as the current definition does. What can people pay for their housing without risking financial and personal problems? Who is facing these problems of unaffordability, and exactly what is the scale of the problem?

The NPPF definition of affordable housing is made with reference to various housing products, from social rent to low-cost home ownership. Even if eligibility is bounded by local incomes, except for social rent, of course, affordable housing remains market-led, rather than being defined by personal income. This has led to a number of local authorities being extremely sceptical about their ability to deliver the affordable housing their areas need.

A cursory glance at the affordable rent level shows that in many areas a three-bedroom, affordable-rent property cost £400 per week. This is clearly way out of the pocket of many people in this country. I suggest that the Government look at what the Affordable Housing Commission is calling on them to do. We believe it provides a good starting point for solving the housing crisis we are in.

First, it suggests a rebalancing of the housing system so that there will be affordable housing opportunities for all by 2045. Affordable housing should be made a national priority and placed at the centre of a national housing strategy. The safety net for struggling renters and home owners should be improved. A new definition and alternative measures of housing affordability should be adopted which relate to people’s actual income and circumstances, rather than just to the market.

We agree with the Affordable Housing Commission. Will the Minister accept that the current definition is not fit for purpose? In order to help the very many people who are struggling either to buy or rent a home, will the Government put into the Bill a commitment to act to change the definition so that affordable housing actually means what it says?

I have spoken on this issue a number of times. Others are saying what we are saying. The Affordable Housing Commission is saying it. People who understand the system and have identified how it can be changed for the better are offering concrete, constructive ways in which things can be improved. I hope that the Minister can accept my amendment as a starting point on this journey to improve the current situation. If I do not have her assurance that this will be the case, I will test the opinion of the House on this matter.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 201 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. As she clearly set out, there is a complete absence of focus on what is and is not affordable when it comes to government policy-making. That policy is in desperate need of overhaul and a recalibration. This amendment puts that overhaul firmly on the agenda. It is a fitting addition to the Bill. I hope that the Minister will accept it. If not, I and my colleagues will strongly support the noble Baroness in pressing it to a vote.

In Committee, I made the case as strongly as I could that the highly desirable objective of the provision of affordable housing, which is shared on all sides of this Chamber, is not being achieved in real life. It has failed by a wide margin, as the noble Baroness has just set out. At present, about half of affordable homes—the ones which are given capital letters by policy-makers—are supposedly delivered through planning obligations placed on developers. The reality is that in many parts of England this is being completely undermined by basing the calculation of affordability on a figure of 80% of the open-market price of that property on that site or, for renters, of 80% of the market rent. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, gave one practical example of the consequence of this for renters.

Amendment 201 calls for a review. The Minister may reply that all government policies are under constant review, but when she replied in Committee, I got the impression that any such review of this policy has not been particularly diligent. It certainly has not been timely or purposeful. This amendment would put that right and task the Government with producing a review and publishing it, with recommendations for a change, on a short, fixed timescale.

In Committee, I drew noble Lords’ attention to the experience of my noble friend Lord Foster, who unfortunately cannot be with us today, in his local area of Southwold in east Suffolk. A so-called affordable estate, built with £1 million of government subsidy, is so out of the price range of people on median incomes there that its homes have proved unsaleable and the developer has been released from the planning obligation. The homes are now going on the open market. This is not in inner London; it is 100 miles away. In Southwold, the price/median earnings ratio of the affordable homes, at 80% of full price, is still 13:1, reduced from 17:1 for full-price homes. Obviously, that is completely out of the reach of those seeking an affordable home.

I am sure that the Minister will know of similar circumstances in many other places. It is certainly true in Cheshire and Derbyshire, for instance—they are known to me—and is quite possibly so in Wiltshire as well. Far too often, affordable homes as delivered by planning obligations are nothing of the sort. I sometimes think that saying this out loud is seen as swearing in church. Nobody seems to confront this obvious truth. This Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill is exactly the place to begin putting that right. It must be the case that when median incomes in a locality are not sufficient to buy such homes, it is misleading to describe them as affordable, wrong to put them on the credit sides of the affordable homes balance sheet and deceitful to boast that their provision makes a worthwhile contribution to fulfilling an election promise.

Amendment 201 would kick off that process of reform, but my Amendment 201A and its consequential amendment, Amendment 285A—they are also in this group—would go further by setting out the principles that should underlie that review. Those principles have been set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. They include the principle that affordability must be defined by reference to the income of the purchaser or renter, not solely by the inflated price on the open market. My amendment does not specify the mechanics or precise formula for that. The Affordable Housing Commission certainly provides a professionally generated one, while two others were quoted in Committee. We all know how it can be achieved, but the vital point of any government review must be to take into account the obvious truth that the current measuring stick is not solving the problem of affordability but is instead costing the Treasury a hatful of cash, which is being wasted and at the same time leaves many families stuck in wretched housing conditions.

There is a second part to my Amendment 201A, which I believe would help to close the yawning gap between open market prices and affordable home prices. It would disapply the current exemption in the Freedom of Information Act for the disclosure of viability calculations used by developers when haggling with local planning authorities over their planning obligations. At present, commercial confidentiality can be exploited to leverage cuts in affordable home provision, and it often is. Transparency would ensure that there was no temptation to inflate falsely the figures of costs that are deployed in those negotiations. It would also be likely to lead, over time, to less profligate bidding and purchasing of land by developers. Simply by removing that commercial exemption in this specific situation, at nil cost to the public purse, more affordable homes will be provided by developers. It is a no-brainer and one that I hope the Minister will find irresistible.

If levelling-up is to proceed from an election slogan to real delivery, it has a long road to travel. On that road, an essential milestone will be a proper affordable homes policy. Amendments 201 and 201A would provide the Government with that milestone. I hope that they pass today.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Report stage
Monday 4th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise because every one of these amendments merits serious consideration by the Government. I hope very much that the Minister, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, will be able to stretch his brief somewhat in responding to them.

It is a particular pleasure to support the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, in his advocacy for healthy homes in Amendment 191A. He has rightly argued that having healthy homes in this country is a vital step in promoting and enhancing well-being. Well-being was at the heart of 19th-century reforms of housing. It was also at the heart of 20th-century reforms of housing, where the underlying and clearly expressed purpose was to make sure that people’s homes enabled them to live lives which were productive, meaningful and, for them, a success. As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, argued cogently, a healthy home is a gateway to life; it is a prerequisite of educational attainment as well as gainful employment. It has to be at the core of any genuine attempt to level up.

I want to take the noble Earl, Lord Howe, back a little way to what is almost a historic document now. A White Paper was produced on levelling up, and in it were missions which the Government committed to and set targets to achieve. Mission 10 said that, by 2030, which is now just six years away,

“the government’s ambition is for the number of non-decent rented homes to have fallen by 50%”.

That is a long way to go in a short period of time, but it shows that the Government understood that a healthy home was a prerequisite for a healthy society.

Mission 5 was about education. Again, by 2030, in six years’ time,

“the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the worst performing areas will have increased by over a third”.

Those children in the worst performing areas, funnily enough, all live in the worst housing and accommodation.

Mission 7 talks about healthy life expectancy, something on which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, spoke very eloquently. Again, by 2030, the gap between the highest and lowest areas is to have narrowed and, by 2035, the healthy life expectancy of the whole country is to rise by five years.

The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, as well as the other amendments in this group, are all keystone decisions on policy that the Government need to take if they are to close the gap as set out in those mission statements—and as they are supposed, and claim, to be doing through this Bill.

The reality is that nothing else in this Bill will or could move the dial on any of those mission objectives, yet they are supposedly central to all the time and effort that noble Lords in this House and Members at the other end of the building have put into this so far. I hope that the Minister will be able to engage with all these amendments and, specifically, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and not simply read the brief as he did in Committee.

All the other amendments are worthy of merit, but I want particularly to mention in this group Amendment 282L, which I have put my name to, relating to low-carbon heat, energy-efficient homes and so on. That has been a lifelong goal—half a lifetime of my political and professional activity has been in trying to make sure that these things happened.

I recall—as, I am sure, does the Minister—that we would have proceeded to have zero-carbon new homes at least in 2016 had the proposed plan not been discontinued by the incoming Conservatives. I hope that at the very least he can reassure us that in 2025 the new homes standard will really come in and move things in the right direction. In the meantime, giving his assent to Amendment 282H would be a clear signal to the industry and developers that that is the direction in which we are to go.

Also in this group is Amendment 198 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis of Summertown, which was introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and signed by my noble friend Lord Foster of Bath, who unfortunately is unable to be here today. It is on the same track exactly, asserting the importance of good quality and affordable housing to our health and welfare. I am indebted to the Better Planning Coalition for its briefing on this.

We are still building housing that fails to meet basic standards for health and safety. Our existing housing stock is poor. The Resolution Foundation reports that there are 6.5 million people living in poor-quality housing, including homes that are cold, damp and in poor repair—that is one in 10 people. Once again, the Government’s mission 10 sets out an aim to halve the number of non-decent homes in the private rented sector by 2023. Living in poor-quality homes makes people twice as likely to have poor general health as those who do not, and they face increased stress and anxiety. The links between health and housing go beyond quality. Professor Sir Michael Marmot found that affordability as well as quality affects health, and living in overcrowded and unaffordable housing is linked with depression and anxiety. We shall return to that in the debate on a further group later tonight.

If we want to enable people to live healthier lives, we also need to examine how our homes and environment can be adapted as our life stories alter, whether through illness, injury or ageing. I hope that I can persuade the Minister to restate the Government’s commitment to ensuring that new homes are built to higher accessibility standards, as well as to better insulation and efficiency standards, from 2025. The statutory duty in Amendment 198 would provide local authorities with the flexibility to meet local health needs while giving them the mandate to take action that has been sorely lacking when we have had to rely purely on the vague language within the National Planning Policy Framework.

The amendments from both the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, would make sure that the planning space paid special regard to creating local places where homes are affordable to local residents, where they are developed to good conditions and adaptable standards, and where they are connected to facilities and services that maximise the opportunity to be active in a safe and pleasant environment.

There is a dreadful alternative—in fact, it is the alternative world that we actually live in—of increasing health inequalities, with additional problems for individuals and families and increasing demands on public health and care services. I hope the Minister agrees that the moment has come to move from this alternative world that we are in to one that could be delivered with these amendments. I and my colleagues look forward to supporting those that are taken to a vote if the Minister does not agree.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, for speaking to his amendment, introducing the debate on this group and bringing forward clear arguments for why the Government should consider accepting his amendments. For two years or so the noble Lord, supported by the Town and Country Planning Association, has led a campaign to put people’s health and housing at the centre of how we regulate our built environment. I pay tribute to him, and I am pleased to offer our support for his amendment.

During the time that he has been pushing on this, medical evidence surrounding the relationship between the condition of someone’s home and their life chances has become even stronger. We have heard evidence of the shockingly poor standards even of some new homes that are being created through our deregulated planning system. The amendments could prevent the development of poor-quality housing, which continues to undermine people’s health and well-being. While the Government have acknowledged that housing and health are key to the levelling-up agenda, the Bill currently contains no clear provisions for how we are to achieve that objective. So we support the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, in his efforts to put new obligations on the Secretary of State.

We hope that the Government will change their approach and accept these amendments as a sensible starting point on a journey to transform the quality of people’s homes, with benefits to them and to the national health and social care budgets. But if this does not happen and the noble Lord is not satisfied by the Minister’s response, we will be happy to support him in a vote.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, apart from the Government, I have the bulk of the other amendments in this group so I thought I would go through them now. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Willis; she is very knowledgeable and it is interesting to hear what she has to say. She brings an extra dimension to our debates on this issue, and I hope the Minister will agree with that.

Part 7 provides an opportunity to address nutrient pollution, particularly from development. There is a duty on water companies to upgrade their sewage disposal works; that is welcome, but some of our amendments are to do with the wording, because we are a bit concerned that the wording about how water companies are to deliver the required upgrades is unnecessarily prescriptive. For example, Amendments 391 and 393 look at how the Government have come to the wording of the exemptions. Amendment 391 is to new Section 96D in Clause 153, which says:

“A plant is exempt … if … it has a capacity of less than a population equivalent of 2000”,


while further down it says,

“the plant has a capacity of less than a population equivalent of 250”.

The amendments probe where those figures have come from and why they are there.

My Amendment 400 probes whether broken sewage monitoring stations are contributing to sewage discharge. We are aware that Ofwat has recently announced that water and sewerage companies will face increased penalties from 2025 for using faulty or broken equipment to measure pollution from storm overflow pipes. Obviously we welcome that announcement, but the Government and the regulators need to enforce existing legislation. My amendment would place a duty on the Secretary of State to monitor the situation so we would ensure that what is legislated for actually happens. The narrow focus on sewage disposal works locations also means that the upgrades will be delivered onsite, usually through the traditional engineering methodology, which the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, talked about—using concrete, steel and chemicals has a high carbon cost.

My Amendment 401 probes the implementation of the environmental action plan. It asks the Minister for an explanation of how that is related to Part 7 and how it all ties together.

My Amendment 402 probes the potential for rebuilding sewage works with new concrete and steel rather than creating woodlands, reed beds and wetlands. The noble Baroness went into a lot of detailed explanation about why we need both options. A prescriptive site-specific approach closes down that environmentally beneficial alternative for upgrades. Habitat restoration can be done from wetlands and riparian woodlands and you can enhance farmland through hedges—the Minister knows all this. It would be good if that were also included as an option.

We know there have been pioneering partnerships between water companies and nature organisations, including locally where I am in Cumbria, and they have demonstrated how effective habitat restoration can reduce nutrient pollution levels and achieve nutrient neutrality. Again, why not use those pioneering partnerships to drive forward best practice? Other countries have done so, such as Belgium, so there is proper evidence and information as to why that is a good way forward.

I shall be brief because we still have quite a bit to get through. I finish by reiterating our strong support for everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, has said and her amendment, and I urge the Minister to consider accepting it. We also support the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, Amendment 393ZA is in my name and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, for her support in advance. I want to offer my support for all that the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, said. It was extremely knowledgeable and powerful, and I hope very much that the Minister will be able to give her a positive response.

My amendment responds to the specific ambiguities in the text of the clause in front of us. Clause 153 amends the Water Industry Act 1991, and in its new Section 96D(5) it provides that:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations specify”


which sewage treatment plants are exempt from control of nutrient discharge. That subsection (5) follows a couple of preceding subsections which detail, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, pointed out, that plants of a particular size are exempt in any case. As I understood it from reading the legislation, very small-scale plants might be exempted. On top of that, we have subsection (5), which says that the Secretary of State may by regulations specify any sewage treatment plant that they decide is exempt. It is exactly the same area of concern that I expressed previously: it would appear that the Secretary of State is being given a free card to decide on exemptions, additional to those written into the earlier part of the new section.

A less scrupulous water company—we all know that they have suddenly become extremely scrupulous, which is very good to hear; of course, I absolutely take what they are saying in good faith—might think it worth while pursuing an exemption for a plant to avoid the costs. The noble Baroness, Lady Willis, has alluded to the substantial costs for them if they are required to comply. That is reflected pretty fully in the concept in the same clause: that if an exemption is ever withdrawn—in other words, if you thought that you had an exempt plant but the Secretary of State decides that the exemption is withdrawn—there is a seven-year period in which to become compliant. Once the exemption is withdrawn, you have seven years to get back into compliance. That indicates the cost and difficulty somebody would face if they found themselves with a plant which they had to make compliant.

The point I am trying to make, not very articulately, is that there is a real benefit to an operator in avoiding having to put in the necessary measures which this clause prescribes. There will be voices raised and pressures brought to bear on the Secretary of State to be very relaxed, and to operate subsection (5) in addition to the statutory exemptions in the preceding subsections. One could imagine that the greatest pressure would come from somebody operating a sewage plant which had had persistent breaches in standards that they regarded as being too onerous or expensive to comply with. They would make some special pleading to the Secretary of State that they should be exempted. That is exactly the situation that ought to be strongly resisted, and which this legislation should prevent happening.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, there are two amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage: Amendment 259, which probes subsection (7), which is inserted by Clause 102; and Amendment 260, which probes the involvement of the Mayor of London under the new section. We consider Clause 102 to be relatively straightforward, in that it simply makes provisions concerning minor variations to planning permission, allowing for greater flexibility to make non-substantial changes that would not be possible at present without the submission of multiple applications by various different routes.

On that basis, we broadly welcome this change, because it will give effect to something that is long overdue, simplifying arrangements currently in place that were only ever intended as a short-term holding position. However, we have tabled Amendments 259 and 260 because there are a couple of areas of concern that we would like the Government to look at. First, current arrangements ensure that, if a variation to planning permission is sought, whether before or after completion, the circumstances of the day are considered when determining the Section 73 application. That, of course, includes the policies in place at the time and any other material considerations. However, as drafted, Clause 101(7) suggests to us—and the Minister may be able to clarify this—that the circumstances at the time of the original grant of permission would be the framework for determining applications in future. We are concerned that this would mean, for example, that if a new local plan had been adopted since the original permission, that plan—which might, for example, include more challenging environmental standards—could not be applied in deciding whether or not to grant the Section 73 application. It may well be that the Minister can clarify that for us.

Similarly, many Section 73 applications relate to the number of residential units or to floor space. Again, as drafted, we are concerned that the decision-maker would not be able to, for example, revisit the amount of affordable housing provided by the scheme, potentially creating a significant loophole. We think that local planning authorities should be able to consider up-to-date planning policy and/or guidance when determining such applications, to guard against such adverse consequences as I have just been talking about. We therefore propose that subsection (7) be removed from the clause.

Our second issue of concern relates to the powers that are devolved to the Mayor of London on strategic planning applications. As the Minister well knows, the Mayor has powers to become the decision-maker for strategic planning applications, subject to certain provisions. However, we are concerned that the Bill as drafted provides only for the Secretary of State’s call-in powers; we believe that leaves a vacuum in relation to the mayoral powers. We propose Amendment 260 to follow Clause 102(13) to ensure that the powers of the Mayor of London to call in applications in accordance with the terms of the Town and Country Planning (Mayor of London) Order are still taken into account.

I shall say a very few words on the other amendments that have been discussed. First, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, for introducing Amendment 268 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. It is a very interesting amendment, and I am glad that she spoke to it. I absolutely agree with her that we should have a rural strategy. I should draw attention in my interest, in that I have recently been working with the Co-operative Party on its rural policy reviews: it is something that is very close to my heart at the moment. The Government should look closely at how they can give a bit of a leg-up to rural economic development. The Minister will know the particular challenges: there needs to be consideration and support and, as this is a levelling-up Bill, it is an opportunity to take that into account for our rural communities.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, very much for his very thorough introduction. It was very interesting, because I had read the amendment and thought, “Okay, it could be about this; this is what I am thinking”, but his clarification was extremely helpful. I think that he has drawn attention to a really important anomaly in the way the current legislation works. In many ways, that brings us back to something that we have said over and over again—that it would have been better had we had a very specific planning Bill, then we could have got into the nitty-gritty of the current legislation, looked at how it could have been improved and streamlined, and any anomalies such as the noble Lord has drawn our attention to, and any contradictions, could have been properly resolved. So I say to him that we support him in what he is looking to do with his amendment and it would be a very sensible and practical thing for the Government to bring forth such an amendment on Report.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

I just want to briefly say that I very strongly support the plea put in by my noble friend in relation to a rural strategy. I am also interested to understand the Minister’s response to the queries that the noble Baroness on the Labour Front Bench has raised about subsection (7); it requires some further explanation. I wait to see what the Government’s amendments look like. With that, I am happy to sit down and let proceedings continue.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I am certainly ready to respond on behalf of my Front-Bench colleague on this group, but I notice that there are two further items that it might be appropriate for me to allow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, to address before I speak.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

We have one amendment and a stand part notice in this group. One is on whether Clause 92 should stand part of the Bill, and the other is an amendment as to whether the Crown should publish a review on whether the provisions of the Act should be extended.

Clause 92 is on the neighbourhood development plans and orders, and the basic conditions that are referred to. We have put this down because we wanted to draw attention to what we considered to be a fundamental issue with neighbourhood plans. As things stand at the moment, it is not entirely clear to us what role they play in national planning policy. We know that they are explicitly addressed in the National Planning Policy Framework, but this is only in terms of process. The way it is done is not particularly clear. On the one hand, the stated rationale of neighbourhood plans is that they give communities the power to develop a shared vision for their area, and they are legally part of development plans. On the other hand, they have to conform to local planning housing allocations, if they are still going to exist, and have regard to national planning policy, but can also be overturned when they are in conflict with either of these things. That brings about a tension and, ultimately, the question of who makes decisions here. Is it communities or is it Ministers? This is not really resolved or clear at all. It would be helpful for the Minister to bring some clarity around that. We need clarity about the precise remit of neighbourhood plans.

More fundamentally, we also need a better sense of the function of neighbourhood planning within the wider planning system. It is critical that there is a balance between local and national planning, because we do not want to see communities disempowered and more control at the centre. I know that the Government have talked a lot about how the Bill is devolving power from the centre locally, but we feel that in many areas this is not actually what the Bill is achieving. We need to make sure that we do not lose the ability of communities to have a say in their own destinies and what their communities are going to look like. If you think about the last 10 years of Conservative Administrations, the Government have been tinkering away with the planning systems; we believe that has, to a certain extent, undermined the scope for effective local and neighbourhood planning. The Bill is an opportunity to put that right. As it stands at the moment, we think that in certain areas it does the opposite. It is about making sure that the Bill does level up, does give more power to communities and does not snatch any more back to the centre.

I give just one example of why we are particularly worried about this. The new national development management policies that the Bill provides for will take precedence over both local and neighbourhood plans where there is any kind of conflict. When the Minister responds, it would be good to hear that she appreciates the concerns I have just expressed and for her to give us confidence that the Bill will not undermine any kind of localism in the planning system. On the clauses that we are concerned about, such as Clause 92 and later when we get to the NDMPs, it would be good to hear that there will be more consideration of the impact on local decision-making.

Amendment 506 in the name of my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage concerns

“whether the provisions of this act should be extended in relation to parish councils and town councils in England, and community councils in Wales and Scotland.”

We have had a pretty big debate about parish and town councils so I will not go into any detail on them now; I think the Minister has a fairly clear idea of why we are saying this. I do not think the Bill goes far enough to empower and involve communities in the devolution proposals that we have been debating.

I will speak briefly on some of the other amendments introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market. Again, many of them are really important. I particularly want to say how much we support Amendment 160—as the noble Baroness said, this feeds back to our previous debate—on the dependant carers’ allowance for parish councillors. This is important. I do not understand why parish councils could not have been added to the list of local authorities in England that can have a scheme to provide for the payment to members if they have caring responsibilities. It could help with the expense of arranging childcare, for example, or of having someone come in to sit with an elderly relative while the carer attends a meeting. It seems a sensible, practical way of supporting councillors who have caring duties to take a greater role and encouraging people with caring responsibilities to take part in their local communities.

I also think that the noble Baroness’s Amendment 161, on neighbourhood governance, is something that we need to look at. It makes absolute sense for the Secretary of State to have to

“undertake a review of neighbourhood governance in England.”

Again, in looking at levelling up, that is about empowering communities; it is all part of the same picture, as far as I can see. The noble Baroness referred to the 2017 Taylor review. As she said, it confirmed that there is considerable confusion about what Section 8 of the 1894 Act actually means; again, we will come on to churches and what it means for them. Whether you agree with it or not, this is about updating legislation so that everybody better understands what it means. At the moment, better clarification is needed. One of the points that has been made on this by the National Association of Local Councils is that there is no current case law to resolve the question of whether that Act in fact overrides these provisions. To me, it just makes sense to have a review as it is a very old piece of legislation.

We very much support the noble Baroness’s Amendment 164 on the general power of competence. Communities need power and influence to tackle the issues that matter most to local people, allowing them to shape the delivery of public services in their area and, ultimately, to deliver the kind of community in which they want to live and be part of. Again, we think that it is an important amendment.

My noble friend Lord Blunkett said, quite rightly, that this group of amendments is important for how local democracy is supported and developed as we go forward. I hope that the Minister and the Government will look kindly on the amendments, the spirit of what they are trying to achieve and the support they are trying to give local communities and parish councils. If you are genuine about levelling up, these sorts of amendments can actually make quite a big difference in their own way. I hope that she will have time to take this back to her department to look at in more detail.

Finally, it was very good to learn that my noble friend Lord Blunkett has recognised the error of his ways in making things more centralised, and I hope that the Government will learn from his approach.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to the community of the saved. The amendments on parish councils find favour with our Front Bench. I will not go into great detail on them. I hope that, if we are quick on this group of amendments, the Government will give us a break afterwards.

On the standards proposed by Amendment 159, I say that I was a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life when we carried out our inquiry on the state of the health of democracy in local councils. There was a quite clear gap, and our recommendations were very clear about what should be done. It is disappointing that the Government, initially at least, responded that they were not going to take any action. I hope that they will now take some action, not least because of the high-profile cases which came to light during the pandemic lockdown.

We support Amendments 160 and 161; the review of parishes is certainly well overdue. The capacity of parishes to do things was much tested during Covid. Most parishes proved up to the task, but the government system of emergency funding was denied to them; had it been available, it would have been helpful to their communities. I would have thought that the Government might want to have this reserve power in their pocket for a future occasion, even if they are convinced that they do not need to apply it immediately.

I did not know how controversial grants by parish councils would prove to be in the debate. I just add that the Church of England is not the only religious body in England, and certainly not the only religious body which supplies and helps its community and which parishes might well want to support and enable. I am quite sure that we need to get past this particular roadblock and just make parishes able to take their own decision about whether a particular body and a particular cause does or does not justify the use of taxpayers’ and parish money to carry out duties of one sort or another. The power of general competence is of course part of capacity raising, all of which is about levelling up by making parish councils effective voices in their community and enabling them to do things; it is empowerment.

The Government have focused on things which some of us think are completely misplaced or very trivial—the subject of street names springs to my mind. However, on things which are much more important and significant, they seem to have been a little blind, so I hope that they will respond to the debate in a very positive way.

On the question of Clause 92 standing part of the Bill, I hope that I do not understand the clause properly, because it seems to say that neighbourhood plans will be fine from now on, but only as long as they reach a minimum standard set by the Government in terms of housing supply.

I said in an earlier debate that neighbourhood plans had been remarkably successful in allocating more land for housing than the local plans that they superseded, on average. Obviously, of the roughly 3,000 that have been approved, not every one has provided more housing—some have provided less—but, on average, they have provided more. They are a vehicle for overcoming the terrible tension in a planning system in which the developer develops and the community opposes. They were designed to turn it around, so that the community proposes and the developer develops. That is how you get more homes; if you try to bulldoze it through the community, at whatever level, you will slow the process down. Neighbourhood planning has shown that you can speed it up and get more homes.

Building Safety Update

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the Statement, which we welcome. I am sure that all noble Lords would want every possible step taken to support leaseholders and to speed up the remediation of unsafe buildings.

We have worked constructively with the Government throughout the drafting of legislation to improve building and fire safety and will continue to do so. The issue now, seven months after the original deadline of 10 August 2022, is for all major housebuilders to sign up to the building safety contract and bring an end to the limbo in which too many leaseholders still find themselves trapped. The fact that 39 developers have now signed a remediation contract is a significant step forward.

Can the Minister assure us that the terms of the contract will be properly enforced and that leaseholders affected by this will be kept informed and updated on progress? Remediation to date has been far too slow. Considering that the contract stipulates that repairs and remediation must be carried out only as soon as is practically possible, can the Minister explain what action is to be taken to ensure that leaseholders do not face any additional delays? I ask this particularly in the light of reports that have suggested that some signatories to the contract are planning to carry out new fire risk assessments to determine what defects will now need to be fixed and whether any will not. Surely leaseholders need clear assurances that all defects will be sorted. What are the implications for leaseholders in buildings out of the scope of the contract? Do the Government have a solution for them?

As the Statement rightly says, those who are responsible must pay. It is extremely disappointing that some builders have refused to sign. I commend the Statement for naming and shaming them. I am aware that the Secretary of State has been pretty robust in his language in trying to bring builders who have not yet signed the contracts into line with those that have. I hope that his approach is successful. If not, the Secretary of State has clearly stated that such developers will be prohibited from further development. It would be helpful to understand how such a ban would be enforced.

The Secretary of State referred to the responsible actors scheme in the Statement and in his response to questions asked in the other place. We need clarity on when this will come into force.

We also have a particular concern regarding the number of buildings covered by the contract. As the Statement says, the commitment is to fix at least 1,500 buildings. Comparing that with the department’s estimate of between 6,220 and 8,890 unsafe buildings in the 11 to 18-metre height range, it is tackling only a small part of the challenge faced. How does the Minister envisage this being resolved, and what are the timescales? How many of the outstanding buildings above the 1,500 are the responsibility of those developers who have refused to sign the contracts?

Leaseholders living in buildings with defects that do not come within the scope of the contract are also going to fall by the wayside unless the Government have a plan for these buildings to be remediated as well. Can the Minister provide any assurances on this? During the passage of the Building Safety Act, we said that all leaseholders in unsafe buildings below 11 metres must be protected from costs. The Government said that they would provide support on a case-by-case basis. Does the Minister have a progress update on this? Leasehold is clearly not a good system. I am sure that the Minister agrees with me that we really need to bring it to an end. Is there any action coming from Government any time soon?

To reiterate, we welcome the Statement and encourage the Secretary of State to be as robust as the Statement lays out in dealing with those who are not looking to do the right thing and live up to their responsibilities.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement that she has repeated. On this side, we welcome it and the determination shown by the Secretary of State to deliver the outcomes that he has reported.

We welcome the decision of the leading housebuilders to put their shoulders to the wheel, to make things happen at long last and to relieve the anxiety and stress of many innocent householders. Surely the Home Builders Federation—an organisation that I do not always see eye to eye with—and Stewart Baseley should get a mention for facilitating the process in a very difficult climate.

There are some big buts, however. The firms named in the Statement are failing to deliver their fair share of the massive costs of remediation. That is disgraceful. We endorse the action that the Secretary of State proposes to take to limit their capacity to cause more damage and heartbreak in the future. I appeal to those firms, even if they do not recognise their duty to society or to the families that they have traumatised, to at least now recognise their duty to their shareholders, and to get their pens out and get some signatures on paper PDQ. I note that, in the Statement, the Secretary of State is very much of the same opinion. I assure him that there will be a unanimous view across this House, urging him to get on and achieve that.

We should also recognise that, even after five years, this horrific saga is not over. This settlement is welcome but only partial. There remain, and will still remain, many families traumatised by the terrible failures right across the country which were exposed by the Grenfell inquiry.

Those terrible failures are now for the building industry to rectify. The industry has built homes that should have been places of security but were in fact death traps and that should have been places of warmth and comfort but instead have been left uninhabitable and unsaleable.

When can we expect to see the defaulting contractors finally accepting their liability and playing their proper part in helping desperate families to rebuild their lives? Will the Minister give noble Lords a timescale for further action and some hope for those families left stranded now for five years and growing?

The Statement says this programme will fund repairs for 1,100 buildings. How many homes are in those buildings? What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the gap between this programme of restitution and the enormous further cost of repairs still outstanding on building after building across the country which are not covered by it? How do the Government plan to close that gap? How many homes will remain unrepaired after this scheme comes to its end?

Finally, I will ask the question I know my noble friend Lady Pinnock would ask if she had been able to be here. Do Ministers still stick to their promise that not a penny of the costs of restitution will fall on the families who live in these homes—the completely innocent victims of this tragic episode? If Ministers do still stick by their word, when will we be told how that promise is to be delivered?

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 13th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

Has the noble Baroness given any consideration to one of the provisions here about the statement that the mayor must make on consent by the constituent councils? I think she said that it would be only if they gave their unanimous consent but, on page 51 of the Bill, subsection (4)(b) says that,

“if the mayor is unable to make that statement, the reasons why the mayor considers the order should be made even though not all of the constituent councils agree to it being made”.

So it is not even the case that all constituent councils are engaged; indeed, it does not even say that it should be a majority. It would appear that the mayor has absolute discretion to make a statement, regardless of constituent councils’ support.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Absolutely; the noble Lord is completely correct. I was trying to get across that there should be unanimous consent for anything as serious as that matter; I thank the noble Lord for drawing attention to it.

Building etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, five years on from the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, the 72 people who lost their lives and the dozens more who were injured must always be at the front of our minds. I have brought this Motion forward because I am concerned that the buildings regulations regarding combustible material will not apply to a significant number of buildings. I am also concerned that it has taken five years since the Grenfell tragedy for the regulations to be laid.

Although we may differ on exactly how to deliver justice following one of the worst disasters of modern times, can we all recognise that there has been consensus for change across this House to raise safety standards? For this reason, I am pleased that the Government eventually brought forward further legislative changes, but we feel that, unfortunately, this still falls short for buildings already built using combustible material.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee expressed disappointment with a number of aspects of the amended regulation. It highlighted the delay in bringing forward the instrument, which I mentioned earlier. Although the review of the combustible materials ban was undertaken in 2019, the committee noted with concern that it took “several years” to bring forward the instrument, and the changes do not come into force until 1 December this year.

The committee also drew attention to the fact that there was limited explanatory material and that the changes will apply only to new buildings and existing buildings that are being renovated. Of course, this means that a significant number of buildings will be outside the scope of the ban. An Explanatory Memorandum and impact assessment were provided by DLUHC when the instrument was laid, but it was disappointing to note that neither document provides an indication of how long it will take to make safe the existing stock of hotels, hostels and boarding homes that are higher than 18 metres and that, under the current law, are outside the scope of the instrument.

The banning of combustible materials is vital; I am sure that the Minister recognises this. Yet in the past four years, at least 70 schools and 25 hospitals and care homes have been built using potentially dangerous material. While we can all hope that the regulations will prevent further buildings from being constructed with these materials, the fact that it took the Government over a year to even respond to the consultation on a ban on combustible materials is inexcusably slow. Because changes to building regulations and guidance are not retrospective, the situation is that the combustible materials ban applies, as I said, only to new buildings and to existing buildings when they are undergoing work. Our concern is that, as a result, significant numbers of existing buildings will not be covered by the ban.

In its response to the consultation two years ago, the Construction Industry Council recommended that the Government extend the ban on the use of combustible materials to a wider range of buildings than was proposed. It wanted the ban to include care homes, halls of residence and, potentially, schools. Its response said:

“There is also a case to extend the ban to buildings where there is a reduced capacity for escape such as care homes and hospitals and where young people assemble, (e.g. schools and nurseries) and public assembly buildings (e.g. theatres, libraries and community centres).”


We need to do as much as we can to protect the safety of the most vulnerable in our society. If we are to truly deliver justice, we must make all buildings safe, not just those which are new or undergoing construction or refurbishment. That means that not only should we raise safety standards, but we must put power back into people’s hands to ensure that such an appalling disaster can never happen again.

Another area of concern raised by the committee was that of enforcement. It noted that when the changes come into force in December this year, for effective safety improvements to occur, they will need to be enforced by the building control bodies which are also responsible for checking compliance and monitoring the operation of the combustible materials ban. I ask the Minister: is she confident that the legislation will be properly enforced? How will the Government monitor the situation and what resources are being provided? Does she acknowledge the concerns of this Chamber and the committee, and does she acknowledge that the widespread existence of cladding defects is a result of regulatory and industry failure? Do the Government have any plans to address and resolve this issue for those buildings that are not covered?

Ultimately, housing is not simply an asset to be traded, but is the fundamental cornerstone of a secure and happy life. My amendment recognises the outstanding deficits and risks in the legislation as it stands and the lack of government action on this. I beg to move.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, has brought this to the House, because it is very important that we think of the terrible deaths, and the catastrophe surrounding those deaths, of the Grenfell Tower fire, and that we all commit ourselves at every stage to seeing that it never happens again. She has raised a number of issues which are very much in the same area of concern as those I wish to raise.

First, it is worth saying that we welcome the inclusion of hotels, boarding houses and hostels, which were not formerly covered. We also welcome the sensible updates and practical exemptions which have been introduced—for instance, for shop blinds and floor coverings on balconies —which are all very sensible.

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to say that we need to point out what this SI does not do, and to point out the very prolonged delays there have been in bringing it forward. That is a period when residents have had to live with that uncertainty. Designers, building owners and contractors have been left in doubt about what is safe and proper for them to specify, pay for and replace. At the moment, that uncertainty will not be settled until December next year.

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Wednesday 6th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

I want to support what the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, has said, and perhaps try to pre-empt the Minister in her reply. In Committee, two reasons were given. One was a mitigation that HMRC in fact informs those who receive new national insurance numbers of their right to vote, which started in September last year. That is excellent and if HMRC can inform them, I am sure they could send the form to go with it. The noble Baroness also said:

“Automatic registration would threaten the accuracy of the register and … enable voting and political donations by those who are ineligible”.—[Official Report, 23/3/22; col. 1058.]


There is a measure of disconnect between the Government’s approach to this issue and their approach to overseas voters. Will the Minister consider whether it would not be sensible to go one more step with HMRC and to link their policies for overseas voters with the domestic voting system?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, for tabling this amendment, to which I have added my name, and for his introduction. I also thank noble Lords for their brief comments.

I want to refer back to Committee. The Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, said that the amendments proposed on automatic voter registration

“contradict the principle that underpins individual electoral registration: that individuals should have ownership of, and responsibility for, their own registration … Automatic registration would threaten the accuracy of the register and, in doing so, enable voting and political donations by those who are ineligible.”—[Official Report, 23/3/22; col. 1058.]

However, does she agree with me that there are underlying problems with the status quo, such as millions of eligible citizens being incorrectly registered or missing from the registers entirely, major strains on the system during a last-minute registration rush ahead of election days, and resource problems for electoral officials? A founding principle of democracy is political equality. We therefore need to ensure a level playing field on election day. AVR could boost voter registration rates among under-registered groups to create this more level playing field.

It is already current law that every citizen is registered. People often get letters saying that they will be fined £60 if they do not register. Voter registration is not an opt-in process. AVR is a solution that would help administratively to best realise what appears to be the current goal of full, compulsory registration. AVR is also the norm, not the exception, in countries around the world. Many countries that have historically not had AVR because of the absence of a population register are now increasingly introducing either direct enrolment for specific groups or assisted voter enrolment through other public agencies. Where they have been designed well, these innovations have proven to be able to deliver cost savings and boost voter registration for specific groups.

As the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, said, we can give millions of people not on the electoral register a voice. If he chooses to divide the House on this amendment, we will support him.

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 6th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it has been a very wide-ranging debate, considering it is Report. I wonder if the House would accept me just focusing as far as possible on the business in hand and the amendments that we have in front of us.

First of all, I fully understand and accept the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, has put forward: that if everything else fails, we must pull this out. That would be my starting and finishing point. My noble friend Lord Rennard and I have tabled Amendment 7, which has found some favour among those who have spoken. We have made it clear that that would be something which fits very well alongside the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts. It is just an addition to his list, but a very important addition, because people are familiar with the poll card. Those of us who, on election days, very often spend time trying to persuade people to put their coats on, always hear things like, “Oh, I have lost my poll card.” People already assume that the poll card is a significant thing that they need to take with them, so when it comes to acceptance, we understand it to be very much there.

To the noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Desai—who feel that, somehow, to point to the fact that having voter ID might deter some people from voting is to pick out, talk down to or single out people in a patronising way—I say that we are responding to the evidence of the trials which were conducted by the Government and which are fully certified facts. The facts are that in those places, fewer people finished voting because of the ID system: it is not a huge number fewer but, as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, pointed out, if we were to read across the data from those experiments, it would be 2 million voters who failed to vote as a result of having such a system in place.

The Government understand that there could be a problem, which is why they are prepared to spend somewhere between £120 million and £180 million getting those 2 million voters to come and vote—if only they would spend that amount on the 8 million not registered, it would be a very good thing. If we acknowledge that there is a problem whereby introducing voter ID reduces participation, let us look at the most straightforward ways of rectifying and lowering that barrier.

I believe that all these amendments are, in their different ways, making the same point. Obviously I want to make the case for Amendment 7 in particular, but I certainly do not exclude the others. It is important to get participation; it is important to consider the issues that have already been raised in the excellent speech by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, where he prayed in aid the Pickles report. As I have said to the House before, I served with the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, in the department for a couple of years and I never heard him in favour of red tape. I cannot imagine that he seriously thinks that spending £120 million or £180 million on this scheme makes any sense when he has said himself that a utility bill would do.

I say to this House that, from every side, the argument is made that there will be a reduction in participation with an ID scheme. It will be lower if we can manage to make it without photo ID. The pilots showed exactly that: the schemes where no voter ID was needed had fewer voters refused and losing their vote. It is a very straightforward issue; there are bigger issues floating around, which we have heard already, but surely this House must understand and accept the case that, if we want to keep participation up, we need barriers to people going to vote to be at the lowest practical level consistent with a secure system.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will not go over the ground that we have already covered—and there has been a lot—and will just speak to my amendments. Like a number of others in this group, they extend the acceptable forms of voter identification to broaden them out to include non-photographic identity documents. As has been said, the manifesto commitment for voter ID was not for photographic ID, but we respect the fact that the Government had a manifesto commitment to voter ID. My Amendment 6, in particular, would allow a polling card to be an accepted form of identification and would allow for the vouching system currently used in Canada, for example.

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, mentioned that polling cards were used as the primary method of identification in some of the pilot schemes that were held and that some used a QR code on the card, which was then scanned at the polling station. It was felt that this was more secure but more expensive. However, the evaluation of the pilots also noted that:

“It is also not clear … that additional IT in polling stations … is absolutely necessary to support the use of the poll card as a form of identification.”


We believe on these Benches that the Government need to look at this again.

The Government could learn a lot from Canada on this subject. Its vouching system allows a citizen who has ID and appears on the electoral roll to sign an affidavit to confirm the identity of another voter who does not have identification. That provides a clear paper trail linked to registered voters so that any suspicions of irregularities can be investigated. It also ensures that many citizens without identification, or those who feel uncomfortable providing it, can still cast their vote.

In Canada, it is possible to present identification in up to 50 different formats. We have heard that even the Pickles report, on which the Government are leaning heavily in this part of the Bill, suggests that utility bills could be included as a possibility. The noble Lord, Lord True, has stated that photographic ID is the most “secure and appropriate” model of voter ID. However, the Government have consistently failed, as we have heard today from other noble Lords, to provide any evidence of personation fraud that would require this tightening of security around voters’ identity. As the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, said, the case for fraud has not been made.

In Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, said that the issue is

“about making sure that as many people as possible take up their democratic right to vote”.—[Official Report, 17/3/22; col. 550.]

I could not agree more. However, if that is the Government’s intention, I genuinely do not understand why amendments to expand the acceptable documentation are not being accepted. We debated this long in Committee. We have heard again today that the availability of identification is lower among a certain number of groups and would likely drive down participation. There is clear evidence to support this. As my noble friend Lord Grocott said, this is a new hurdle. Enabling non-photographic identification and the adoption of a vouching system, as in my amendment, would help to mitigate against the serious concerns about the impact of photographic voter identification on turnout.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, the case is there. We rehearsed it extensively in Committee. At the time, we heard some very interesting arguments put forward by the Minister. I hope that he has had chance to revise his views and that we shall hear shortly that he will accept the amendment. I do not want to prolong this, so I shall leave it there.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

He has had a Covid revelation.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, first, we very much welcome the way the Government have moved on this. We appreciate that the Minister has aimed to build consensus for the changes and amendments that he has now brought forward. Several points have been made by noble Lords, in particular my noble friend Lady Brinton, about gaps that remain and uncertainties about implementation. We look forward to hearing how the Government feel they can respond to those, if not by accepting specific amendments then at least by setting out a clear way of engaging with those who have legitimate concerns to find out how they can be best resolved.

On my own behalf, I thank the Government for government Amendments 10 and 11, which safeguard the building safety regulator’s committees from interference by the Secretary of State unless a request is made by the regulator to change the internal structures of the body. That is a necessary and very welcome change. Our overall view is that these government amendments earn our support—we certainly support their rapid implementation—but the loose ends that have been discussed by noble Lords and drawn to the Minister’s attention need attention. We very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to them.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by thanking the Minister for his introduction to a large number of government amendments. Like other noble Lords, I think it is really important that the Government listened to a lot of our debate in Committee and have brought forward these amendments, as well as others that we will discuss later, in response. It is good that we are making such excellent progress in some areas. I also thank the officials in the department, who have been incredibly supportive and helpful in spending time with me to help me understand the huge number of amendments we had to consider at quite short notice; I very much appreciate that work.

However, as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said, there are still a few areas where people feel there is a bit more to be done; they are addressed by the amendments we have been looking at. I start with the three amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I was pleased to add my name to them, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. There was a lot of discussion in Committee about the need for disabled people to be more supported. I am pleased that the Government brought in amendments to strengthen the voice of disabled residents; that is extremely important.

Starting with Amendment 13, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned that 41% of the disabled people at Grenfell Tower were killed in the disaster, which is an appalling figure. Anything that can be done to ensure that something like that does not happen again in a fire is terribly important.

The noble Baroness also talked about the Equality Act on her Amendment 20. It is really important that we consider how building safety can affect different groups listed with protected characteristics under that Act. This could also include pregnant people, who may need more support in getting out of a building. As a protected characteristic, it is important that that is taken into account, as someone who is very elderly and vulnerable should be.

I am pleased that the Minister has offered the noble Baroness a meeting on her Amendment 35, on personal emergency evacuation plans, because this is really important. I was quite concerned that none of the Grenfell Tower residents had been offered a personal emergency evacuation plan. Again, we need to ensure that in future these things are better managed, so I thank the noble Lord for his time on that.

I turn to the amendments in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, for introducing these amendments and look forward to his first sermon in the not-too-distant future, we hope. Again, these two important amendments draw attention to areas that need to be looked at further. Government Amendments 37, 38 and 41 to 45 look specifically at tenants’ associations and principal accountable persons. This was also much discussed in Committee, where it needed further work. I would like to talk a bit about the resident tenants’ associations because, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, they need to be more widely promoted. This is a really important part of managing safety going forward.

Recognised tenants’ associations give owners of leasehold flats important rights. To become recognised, an association must have agreement from more than 50% of qualifying leaseholders. They then have the right to request information from the freeholder of their block, such as about the service charge account, which again was discussed a great deal in Committee. It is really important that resident tenants’ associations are properly recognised and more widely promoted. Again, when looking at consultation, they are a vital part of understanding better what residents’ needs and concerns are.

I turn briefly to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. Her Amendment 36 raises the important issue that leaseholders need value for money. On her other amendments regarding entering buildings, it is important that tenants are properly protected in this way. Only when something essential is happening safety-wise can flats be entered, and it is really important to say that. I also welcome the fact that the government amendments remove the building safety manager. As the noble Baroness said, it was important that the Government listened to her clearly laid out concerns in Committee.

Along with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, we very much welcome the amendments to the building safety charge, and the fact that the Government have accepted the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Best, which will make a very sensible and practical change going forward, as he said. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I support both these amendments. Does the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, wish to speak to her amendment first?

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

Carry on—I will not be saying anything very different.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

First, it is important to establish that there is a problem. I quote from the briefing supplied by the Electoral Commission to your Lordships on these amendments:

“There is more that could and should be done to modernise electoral registration processes in Great Britain, to ensure that as many people as possible are correctly registered.”


I believe I heard the Minister make the same point—that he believes it good public policy to get people registered. The Electoral Commission’s most recent estimate is that

“between 8.3 and 9.4 million people in Great Britain who were eligible to be on the local government registers were not correctly registered”.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, those figures were collected in December 2018. It says there are another 360,000 or more people in Northern Ireland not correctly registered. It also made the same point as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett:

“Our research found that young people, students and those who have recently moved are the groups that are least likely to be correctly registered.”


Courtesy of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, I would say that Travellers are very much in that group of under-registered people.

The Electoral Commission has published feasibility studies which identified that there is potential to evolve the current system. Those studies are reflected in the amendments before your Lordships today. Amendment 141 is one route to it—the two are not exclusive but it is one route—and Amendment 144B is another, to which we have added our names as well. It provides simply that, when a person is issued with a national insurance number, they receive their application for the electoral register.

The Electoral Commission makes two more points in its briefing:

“the education sector … could help EROs identify attainers and other young people. Also, data from the Department for Work and Pensions could potentially be used by EROs to register young people to vote automatically when they are allocated their national insurance number ahead of their 16^th birthday.”

I do not want to frighten the Minister; the Electoral Commission is not suggesting that they would vote from their 16th birthday but simply that, as attainers, that would be an appropriate time for them to apply to be put on as an attaining voter.

At least in theory, I think we are all in favour of all qualified UK citizens being on the electoral roll and we would all say that we would like them to exercise their vote. This legislation increases the number of people eligible to go on that register by virtue of what the Bill proposes to do in relation to overseas electors. We will debate that shortly.

Clearly, the Government do not have a problem with having a larger voting roll. They share the Committee’s view that it is desirable, in principle, that all eligible people should be on the roll, and yet, so far, they have been extremely resistant to doing that, as far as attainers in particular are concerned. In the light of the evidence that the Electoral Commission has produced, that it is a significant number and that there are solutions, and in a situation where the Minister has in front of him two amendments proposing practical ways to solve that problem, I hope that in winding up he will be able to say that he will take this back, give it further consideration and perhaps produce an appropriate government amendment on Report.

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, the merits of the amendment are secondary to the replies that the Minister gave on the previous group of amendments. I thought that he might like a second go when responding to this group. I sum up the Minister’s defence of the strategy statement as standing on two legs. The first leg is that it is vital to the proper conduct of future elections that the Electoral Commission has a government-sponsored strategy statement in its toolbox. The second is that any strategy statement which this Government could devise would be so bland, inoffensive and harmless that it would make no practical difference to the way in which elections are conducted. That was a phrase the Minister used in his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, in the previous group. Would the Minister like to have a go at seeing which of those two legs he wants to stand on when replying to this group?

Perhaps he could also scoop up the third argument he deployed: that flexibility is essential and speed may sometimes be needed, and this would justify missing out any consultation. He further said that every Government would want to see consultation take place. I can think of quite a few Governments who very much did not want consultation to take place. It is very commonly the job of Oppositions to remind Governments that consultation is a necessary preliminary to getting good legislation. I am delighted if, somehow, he has been taken in by the idea that every Government would want to see consultation. However, I would remind him that even during the coalition’s time—when I saw behind the scenery slightly more than I was expecting—it was a constant fight within departments for my colleagues and I to persuade his colleagues that consulting properly before legislating would be a good step forward. I hope he will be able to reconcile his two conflicting arguments about why we need it, while tackling and giving a response to the circumstances in which avoiding consultation might be—at least in some way—justified, rather than simply for the convenience of a Government at the time.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, just on that point on consultation, I suggest that the Minister, when he responds, thinks of the expression “more haste, less speed”. Rushing things through without proper consultation can lead only to difficulties and the issue being revisited at a later date.

Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 10th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly to this amendment. I seem to have used my time allocation earlier—I apologise to the Minister for wasting his time. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and my noble friend just pointed out—the Minister probably cannot hear me with my mask on, so I am sorry about that as well—it is six seconds per amendment against 13 per amendment on my part. I apologise for that.

I will pick up on a couple of things. The Minister expressed regret that Scotland and Wales had opted out of the application of Clause 14 in those two nations. He will understand that I think they have shown the utmost common sense in doing so, and I do not think it is a cause for regret at all. I certainly support what my noble friend Lady Humphreys had to say about that.

I will bring the Minister back to the fig leaf of consultation in new Section 4A in Clause 14. I said before that of the five bodies, four were completely hostile and one other was captured by the Cabinet. There is now a proposal here which means that one of those—PACAC—is captured by the Select Committee for the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities, and that Secretary of State will be making the strategy statement: that is something else that has got worse as a consequence of that.

I put back into play the point I made before, that if Scotland and Wales are not going to be part of new Section 4A and if PACAC is going to be neutered and transformed, it might be time to add the CSPL as one of those bodies which should be statutorily consulted as the creator and, up till now, the recommender of progress and developments on that Electoral Commission body. I would have thought that some voice for local government in that consultation should be statutory there, of course only for England, because Scotland and Wales have sensibly opted out.

We shall not oppose these amendments but we believe that the direction of travel on this suggests even more reasons for reforming the application of Clause 14 when we get to that debate.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction. Clearly, these amendments are technical and we agree with noble Lords that they are required.

I agree with my noble friends Lord Lipsey and Lord Foulkes that this enormous number of amendments was chucked at us in one go, with very little time to look at the detail, not just of what they say but of what the implications are. Noble Lords made an extremely important point about that. That has happened with other Bills as well. In debates on the Building Safety Bill, which I have also been working on, an enormous number—38 pages—of amendments were given to us with a very short time to assess them. Can the Minister take that away and think about it for future legislation? It is difficult for noble Lords to assess such amendments in a reasonable fashion.

We need to look at why the amendments are necessary. Clearly, as noble Lords have explained, it is to do with the devolved Administrations. When the Bill was originally proposed, it was for legislating on a UK-wide basis, and that included some areas where the devolved Parliaments in Scotland and Wales could legislate in respect of their own local and devolved elections. Clearly, the Government had to seek legislative consent Motions from the devolved Parliaments. Unfortunately for the UK Government, the Governments of Scotland and Wales both declined to lay consent Motions and requested that all aspects which relate to devolved matters be removed from the Bill, hence the large number of amendments.

I will just draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that, out of more than 350 legislative consent Motions, consent has been denied just 13 times, according to the Institute for Government. UK Bills have been redrafted previously when devolved Administration consent has been withheld under the Sewel convention. Can the Minister say why that option was not considered? Perhaps it was considered and we do not know about that, but it was rejected.

The Government have said that they were disappointed by the move—the Minister used the word “regrettable”—but said that they would respect this request by preparing the necessary amendments to the Bill, which is why we have so many before us in this group. I thank the Minister for apologising for this to the Committee—I appreciate that, as I am sure other noble Lords do.

I want to look at why the Welsh and Scottish Governments did not agree with the Bill. As the Government did not redraft it following the concerns raised but instead decided to plough on regardless, it is important to draw this to the attention of the Committee to fully understand the implications of many of its proposals.

In the Welsh Government, the Elections Bill was scrutinised by two Senedd committees: the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, and the Local Government and Housing Committee. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, on her excellent speech about disappointment in Wales over the Government’s behaviour around the Bill, particularly because they completely refused to listen to the findings of the Llywydd’s Committee.

The Local Government and Housing Committee report agreed with the Welsh Government’s memorandum that consent should not be granted, saying:

“The majority of the Committee believe any proposals to legislate on these devolved matters should be brought forward by the Welsh Government and subject to full scrutiny by the Senedd.”


The Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee also expressed concern at the lack of engagement between the UK Government and the Welsh Government. Can the Minister say why there was a lack of engagement —what went wrong with that process?

In addition, the committee agreed with the Welsh Government that some of the reserved measures would have a considerable impact on electoral administrators in Wales, particularly around voter ID. The same will happen in England. It highlighted the potential for voter and candidate confusion and complexity for electoral administrators if devolved elections happen close together or on the same day as a reserved election, as happened in May 2021. This could lead to a situation where postal and proxy voting rules were different and voter ID requirements in polling stations were different for polls happening together. My noble friend Lord Foulkes talked about the importance of consistency. Diversion will only cause confusion.

On voter ID, the committee also cited Electoral Reform Society Cymru concerns about poll clerks becoming

“bouncers at the ballot box”

and being required to turn away

“potentially thousands of would-be voters each election.”

Concerns have also been raised by Jess Blair, director of the Electoral Reform Society Cymru, who said that the Elections Bill makes

“sweeping changes to our democracy.”

She said that

“it looks like UK ministers have barely engaged with Wales or Scotland so far. This bill is being swiftly rammed through with little consultation”.

That echoes the concerns expressed already in your Lordships’ House. She continued:

“Moreover, the changes to the Electoral Commission represent a UK government power grab, with ministers given new controls over our elections watchdog. This is a dangerous and unprecedented move that the Welsh Government is right to oppose. This Elections Bill could lead to a ‘two tier franchise’ in Wales, with some elections banning those without ID, and others remaining open and free. Both the Welsh Parliament and Holyrood should use their powers to pause this power-grab bill, and secure changes to protect the right to vote.”


So they have done.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Thursday 24th February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it has been a very interesting debate so far. I do not intend to prolong it at all but, in relation to the technical amendments, I notice that the Bill is 244 pages long and the Government have published 37 pages of amendments. The Explanatory Notes for the Bill were 250 pages long, but there are none for those 37 pages. The explanation we had today, as I understand it, forms the explanatory notes for these provisions, so I appreciate the Minister jamming in all the information in his speech. It was short in time though obviously heavy in content. I just make the plea that we are doing some really hard stuff here, which has implications, but we have no impact assessment which covers the very substantial matters covered by the Government’s new clauses.

In later groups, I will want to raise some points about what seem consequential circumstances arising from the proposed changes to the legislation in the government amendments. I am just logging the fact that we are quite short of what the Government’s assessment is of the impact of the various changes, both technical and more substantial, which will come before us in our consideration of the remainder of the Bill.

I will comment briefly on the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Best, which I strongly support. In fact, I would have put a longer limit than six years. I had a case in my last year as an MP of a terrace of three low-rise houses which burned down, and the fire brigade quickly determined that it was because there were no cavity barriers in those properties. That fire took place 10 years and one month after they had been handed over to the owners, so the company was actually out of its warranty period—never mind whether it could be appealed to any ombudsman or whoever. The Minister is looking at his watch; I agree that it should be longer than 10 years, but I am not proposing to speak for longer than 10 years.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this debate has been really interesting and slightly longer than I was expecting, so it is great to have had so many contributions. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock: we have a lot of sympathy with the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, and his introductory comments were excellent. As we know, non-compliance with building regulations has been a criminal offence under the Building Act for nearly 40 years now. The Bill heavily extends the scope of available power to enforce compliance and/or impose penalties for contraventions, placing much of that power in the hands of the Health and Safety Executive as it establishes the building safety regulator.

We would hope that the building safety regulator takes a more proactive stance to the broad scope of enforcement measures available to it under the Bill, as Dame Judith Hackitt’s public statements have suggested that it will. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that that will be the case. But it also has to have the resources and funding to be able to do so; otherwise, the new and extended measures may have a lot of bark but little actual bite. Again, that is why the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, are so important. Furthermore, the key to ensuring building safety going forward will not rest just on sanctions and enforcement; as has been said in the previous debates and at Second Reading, we need a change of culture and attitude.

So, I think the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has brought about a really important discussion with his amendment on enforcement. I was particularly struck by his comments on the differentiation of fines for big corporations—I think he mentioned a fine of £140,000 for a breach—compared to that of millions for the National Grid on a breach that would not likely have had the impact on life that the breaches of the building corporations could have. To me, that really strikes at the heart of this. It is an extraordinary anomaly, and I hope the Minister will look at that, because we have a very different reaction to different kinds of breaches of law.

Again, the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Best, have had a lot of support in the debate today. I add our support too, because these are really important things to speak about, and he did so very eloquently at Second Reading when he talked about the need to confront housebuilders’ defective workmanship and the dreadful consumer or customer service we too often see when they are responding to entirely justified complaints by home buyers. So, along with him and others, we think it is good news that, with this Bill, the Government are bringing in an ombudsman to whom the home purchaser will be able to turn. That is long overdue.

However, the noble Lord, Lord Best, drew attention in his introduction and his amendments to the fact that there is no point having an ombudsman unless it is genuinely going to make a real difference. As he said in his introduction, customers and purchasers need an accessible means of redress. Too often it is too difficult to jump through all the different hoops you need to go through in order to get any kind of response or result from ombudsmen. We also agree with his concerns that the new ombudsman may not have enough teeth. I am particularly interested in what the Minister has to say on this area; it would be extremely helpful if he could give us reassurance on this, because we need to make sure that the ombudsman’s jurisdictions are going to make a proper difference to this.

I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, who referred to when he was a Member of Parliament. When I was a Member of Parliament, this kind of issue used to come up pretty regularly, unfortunately—and pretty regularly with certain developers, who I will not name in Committee today. For them to have had this kind of redress would have been hugely helpful.

Moving on to the government amendments, I first thank the Minister for agreeing to slow down, because an enormous number of government amendments landed in our laps after 10 February while we were in Recess. It is a lot to take in and get your head around in quite a short amount of time. I wanted to listen carefully to the Minister’s introduction on this because of that point, so I thank him for slowing down and taking that time.

I just wanted to make a few small points. We very much welcome the amendments around information sharing. It is really good news that it will be easier for people to share information about those who commit serious breaches in building safety. That is important.

Another matter relates to the different amendments on the devolved Administrations. To reiterate what the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, it is important that we respect and work closely with those Administrations when we bring forward legislation. It is therefore good to see those amendments and that the Government are doing so. It would be good for that to continue as we deal with other new amendments during the passage of the Bill. It was also interesting to get clarification on what is happening with the Crown Estate and to know that this building and all the repairs will be part of this new system.

However, as the Minister said in his introduction, these amendments are mainly technical and I appreciate his time in introducing them. I hope that he will be sympathetic to the points made regarding the amendments of the noble Lords, Lord Best and Blencathra.

Building Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Committee stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow on from what the noble Baroness has outlined. I strongly support what she has been saying. I will speak on a couple of other points that have been raised so far, particularly on Amendment 4 and what the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said, and on what my noble friend Lord Foster proposes in his amendment.

However, I will first deal with the point just raised. It is not about a theoretical code; there are absolute, actual conflicts between the requirements which fire officers, for instance, dictate in relation to fire doors—how soon they should shut, and so on—and the requirements of what someone with mobility problems needs to pass through that doorway. These issues are not resolved at the moment; they are not just the subject for soft words but for reconciling the tensions and devising ways to find solutions to those problems. I could make the same point about railings and barriers, where what is required for fire safety is often in conflict with what disabled people need.

Apart from the generality of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, I say to the Minister that there are really specific regulatory pitfalls; things which, if you implement them very mechanically, have internal conflicts which need to be resolved. I very much hope the Minister can, at least during the passage of this Bill if not today, undertake to consult both fire officers and the disabled community on rational ways of solving or at least ameliorating those difficulties.

Amendment 4 was very ably proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. He has made the central point, which is that there is an important difference between having a set of regulations which are really a complicated algorithm or tick-box—where if you have got everything right you have simply passed, and that is it—and having legislation which sets out the overall purpose of having any regulations or rules at all in the first place. That is where this amendment comes fully into play. It says that safety has a wider import than simply what we mean by making a building fire safe; it is about what we mean by making it safe to live in in the long term.

When I looked at page 82, I was interested to see that Clause 60(8) says that regulations can be made under this provision where there is a significant risk of deaths or

“serious injury to a significant number of people.”

It is clear that, if you think about buildings as things which kill people, far more people are killed by buildings which are damp, leaky and dangerous than by buildings which catch fire. Asthma and bronchitis deaths caused by poor housing form a significant fraction of the health service’s burden during the winter months. That broader outlook or vision of what we actually mean by making a building safe—creating a safe home for people—lies at the heart of this amendment. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to respond to it with a very generous spirit.

I would perhaps urge the Minister on a more practical point: later in the Bill, we shall consider the establishment of residents’ engagement strategies for buildings. I am not sure quite how he envisages those will work, but at some point a large group of residents in a particular building will meet and tell its owners what they believe needs to be done to make their building safe. The Minister has led a council and been to residents’ meetings, so he knows the kinds of things which are raised at them. I would bet that, by 10 complaints to one, they will be about damp, draughts and leaks as against fire doors that do not close properly. Those residents’ engagement groups are going to give a lot of grief to those who run the system in the future. Including this overall vision of what safety and well-being mean within the compass of the Bill and the scope of the new regulatory environment would be one very good way to show that there will be a route for residents to have their complaints, whatever their nature, about their lack of well-being or safety in their home addressed by the legislation.

Having spoken on Amendment 4, of course I strongly support what my noble friend Lord Foster said about the property situation. My support may be irrelevant but I notice that the National Fire Chiefs Council strongly supports this provision, as do the Institution of Fire Engineers and the Association of British Insurers. They all support the inclusion of property risk alongside life safety risk in the regulatory structure that we erect for the Bill. I very much hope that, as with Amendment 4, the Minister will be able to give us a very satisfactory outcome on Amendment 1 from my noble friend Lord Foster.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for his clear introduction to his amendments.

Noble Lords may remember that the Minister said at Second Reading that

“Dame Judith called for a complete overhaul of the system, and her recommendations underpin the Bill, with a golden thread that will ensure that, henceforth, people remain safe in the homes that we build for them. The Bill is unapologetically ambitious, creating a world-class building safety regulatory regime that holds all to the same high standard.”—[Official Report, 2/2/22; col. 916.]


We certainly applaud this ambition, but making high-rise residential buildings safe requires much more than action to stop fire spreading. There is also an urgent need to prevent those fires from starting in the first place and to look more broadly at what building safety means. We therefore support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foster, which are designed to make buildings safer and to increase resilience. As the noble Lord said, it is important to improve protections and safety for firefighters and for residents, to give people more time to evacuate the building and to make it less likely that the building itself will be completely destroyed.

Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Stunell and Baroness Hayman of Ullock

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 7th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak on Amendment 6. I should start by saying that I am the joint owner of a leasehold property, but we got our lease extension some seven or eight years ago—outside the scope of the Bill. Also, both now and earlier the Minister has been very generous with his time in discussing the progress of the Bill. I very much thank him for that and for the great courtesy and good humour he has always shown in doing so.

Clause 8 is a duty to inform the tenant. I was very disappointed to find that the Commons, led by the Government, thought that that was an appropriate safeguard to take out of the Bill. I have listened carefully to what the Minister said by way of a substitution and I will cover that in my further remarks.

First, the Minister has accepted the evidence that the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, among others, brought forward in Committee: that there really is a loophole and it needs to be tackled. The loophole is one that may be exploited by unscrupulous landlords—a minority of landlords, certainly, but ones who are well practised in being unscrupulous. It is a real-world issue. Of course, they are often aided and abetted by their in-house or tame lawyers who are helpfully acting for both parties and do not necessarily spend too long explaining what the hapless leaseholder is being invited to sign.

We hope very much that the Bill will outlaw that practice, but it will not do so immediately. The purpose of the original amendment that your Lordships sent back to the other place was to effectively freeze the imposition of any such unfair terms meanwhile. The Minister has understandably exaggerated the difficulties of Clause 8, but it actually requires that, when a tenant and landlord are about to commence negotiations, the landlord has a duty to inform the tenant of the existence of this Act and the fact that, in a short period of time, they would essentially be able to carry out their transaction for free, whereas in the intermediate period they would do so under the existing regulations, where it is commonplace for escalation clauses and so on to be built into a lease, which would then be an enduring one. There is clearly a temptation for the unscrupulous to do that. You can see the marketing pitch: “New lamps for old”—or rather “New leases for old”—an offer of a VIP lane to leasehold extension, with legal fees waived if you do it by 31 July. Unwary leaseholders could well fall for that, perhaps prompted to go for it by the knowledge that they have only, say, 20 more years on their lease, and perhaps overlooking the fact that it would essentially be free if they waited until 31 July.

I have chosen that date purely for illustration, because the fact is that the Minister has not told us when the new provisions will become operational; I hope he will be able to enlighten us on that point shortly. The window of opportunity for this unscrupulous behaviour to carry on is between now and the moment when this provision comes into force. I want to hear exactly what the Government intend to do to shut that window at the earliest possible opportunity.

What is being offered instead? Superficially, it certainly sounds very plausible, and I hope that it will turn out to be as robust as the Minister hopes it will be. I hope that it will reach every leaseholder, because what is being substituted is an intention in Clause 8 that is a transactional one that would come into play only if a particular lease was going to be extended or was thought likely to be extended, for a general one—so we have a popgun firing at every leaseholder rather than simply providing a provision for landlords to act on at a time of leasehold extension.

I am very pleased to hear about what the Minister had to say about getting in touch with legal firms and those who represent leaseholders and others. I find that a very satisfactory part of his reply.

I would say that a couple of press releases in the ordinary course of business are unlikely to be very effective. The Minister might perhaps like to emphasise how this communications plan will take place. Is there a budget for it? Is it a real-life thing or just a piece of ministerial gloss? I know that the Minister does not go in for ministerial gloss, but I would like an assurance that we will see a real effort made to make sure that this is closed.

When exactly will it be closed? Clause 26(2) says that this will come into force

“on such day as the Secretary of State”

determines. Is that soon, shortly, in the summer, this year, next year, sometime or never? The longer the window stays open—the longer the gap between now and when the Bill’s provisions come into force—the more the risk and the more difficulty there is.

So I would like to hear an assurance from the Minister. Can he give us a date on which this provision will come into force so that we can hold him accountable? Perhaps he could also comment on whether we will get the second leasehold Bill, which he spoke of frequently, in the forthcoming Queen’s Speech? I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say in respect of this and will listen carefully. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I have not previously spoken in the debates on this Bill, but I will be brief. I start by thanking noble Lords who have done a lot of work to improve this much-needed legislation. The amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, is a welcome reminder that the Bill lacks any obligation for landlords to alert leaseholders in advance of changes relating to ground rents and leasehold extensions. We fully support the noble Lord’s amendment, which seems to be an entirely proportionate measure and in no way presents an obstacle to the core provisions of the Bill.

The Government have been unable to bring forward any safeguards to address this specific power imbalance at the expense of leaseholders. Without it, we believe that the legislation remains flawed. The relationship between leaseholders and landlords should be defined by the principle of transparency and accountability—as, in fact, the Minister agreed in his opening remarks—but this is simply not possible without provisions such as these. So I ask the Minister, even at this late stage, to provide further assurances that have not previously been forthcoming to allay the concerns from across the House.