Sustainable Drainage Systems

Lord Watts Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I know I did so yesterday, but I welcome the noble Baroness to her place. She has great experience in local government and I look forward to working with her. She is quite right that it is important that local authorities take the maintenance seriously. Planning practice guidance already sets out that local authorities should be satisfied that all SUDS have clear maintenance and adoption arrangements in place for the lifetime of developments. In June we published new national standards on SUDS that introduce the need to consider the multiple benefits of SUDS—reuse, run-off quantity, water quality, amenity and biodiversity—and those standards should be used by developers to provide the best possible SUDS and by local planning authorities to assess the quality of proposals, with the aim that they will be consistently provided and, importantly, consistently maintained.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, large storage tanks can be used to store water at a time of flooding and then can be used in a dry period to pump off into the system. Are there any plans to extend the use of those tanks so that we can both deal with the flooding and provide water when we need it?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I cannot give my noble friend an answer to the specific question he asks, but the storage of water when it is available is critical. It was shocking to realise that we had not built a reservoir in the country for 30 years; we are now planning new reservoirs to store water. Also, during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act we talked about on-farm storage, for example; it is perfectly possible for farmers to develop storage on their own land so that they can keep water when it is plentiful for the times when it is not.

Donations to Political Parties

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As the noble Baroness will probably be more aware than I am, donations from Ireland are permitted in some circumstances. I will take back the issue she raised. It is important that all donations to all political parties are subject to the same legal requirements, and that is what the Representation of the People Bill is seeking to achieve.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the present system has some controls during an election period but then, in a non-election period, there seems to be very little control, with one right-wing individual donating £10 million to one political party. Will the review deal with this issue?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We are still assessing the Rycroft review, which comments extensively on the evolving threat posed by political interference to British democracy. We will publish a full response to the Rycroft review in due course, but we have taken immediate steps in the Bill to implement the recommendation for a cap on donations made by overseas electors.

Birmingham City Council and Unite: Refuse Workers’ Pay

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am pleased to tell the noble Lord that this year, very recently, the council passed a balanced revenue budget without the need for exceptional financial support for the first time in recent years. This is possible because the Government delivered fairer funding, meaning that Birmingham will receive an increase in core spending power of 45% to help restore its services and the recovery of the local economy. That is very positive progress for delivering financial sustainability for the residents of Birmingham. I commend the hard work of the council leader, members and officers, and the commissioners, in getting to this point.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, would it not be a good idea for ACAS to get involved again to see whether progress can be made with this dispute? At the moment it does not seem to be going anywhere, and both the people of Birmingham and the workers are suffering.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

We would certainly encourage all parties that can help with this dispute to get around the table and make sure that this is resolved. It is not in the interests of the people of Birmingham for this to carry on a day longer than it needs to.

Renters’ Rights Act: Implementation

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

If the noble Lord is referring to the minimum energy efficiency standards implementation, we have published our response to the consultation on those standards in the private rented sector. We have listened to the voices from across that sector. The response confirmed our decision to set new regulations in the private rented sector for landlords to meet EPC C or equivalent by 1 October 2030 for all tenancies unless a valid exemption applies. The consultation also confirmed that landlords will not be required to spend more than £10,000 per property. Exemptions will last for 10 years.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the housing crisis has been caused—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

It is nice to see that my fan club is still here. Has not the present crisis been caused by the Tory Government selling off social housing? This has led to a shortage of housing and also pushed up benefits, costing billions of pounds to the taxpayer.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend puts his finger on one cause of the housing crisis: there are many. Not building enough homes was a fundamental cause as well. We have taken steps already to address some of the issues around right to buy and to make sure that councils get the funding back for houses that they sell under right to buy. We are consulting on the other steps and will bring something forward later in the year. The Renters’ Rights Act was the biggest package of reforms to the private rented sector in nearly 40 years. It will improve the sector for 11 million private renters and 2.3 million landlords in England.

NHS Industrial Action

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

As I said earlier, we have done some analysis of the strikes that took place in July, and we are working on the data for November. Obviously, we will take the learning from that through to how we deal with the strikes. I repeat that everyone in the health service has stepped up to the plate to make sure that the impact on patients is as low as possible. We will not shy away from the fact that we think strikes in the week running up to Christmas are completely unacceptable, and I am pleased to say that we have the leadership in the Department of Health from the Secretary of State, who has made his views on this exceptionally plain.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not the case that under the last Government, the health service was wrecked, and doctors’ salaries were controlled to such a level that they fell behind previous years? We have made a substantial increase in pay; should that not mean that doctors think we are committed to the NHS and that they should help us to deliver our aims and objectives?

Fair Funding Review

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not the case that government funding and support should be based on need and should take into account the ability of the local authority to raise its own resources locally? During the last 13 years, this was moved away from. Are we going back to a similar system to that which operated for many years?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I agree with my noble friend that we need to make sure we realign funding with need and deprivation so that local authorities can deliver for their communities—as I said, the services that are needed and the economic growth that they need. The vast majority of councils with social care responsibilities will see their core spending power increase in real terms over the multi-year settlement. We will publish our response to the fair funding review and the policy statement and set out our plans for the first multi-year local government finance settlement. That is really important because it gives councils the certainty they need to plan over the medium to long term.

Local Authorities: Temporary Accommodation Costs

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes a key point: it is very important that temporary accommodation is suitable for the needs of the household, and councils should keep the suitability of accommodation under review. Through the Renters’ Rights Bill, the Government will introduce powers to apply the decent homes standard to the private rented sector. Included in that provision is the power to bring temporary accommodation into the scope of the decent homes standard, as it is the Government’s intention that the decent homes standard should apply to temporary accommodation.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the party across from the Government Benches introduced a policy to sell council houses without replacing them? Does she agree that it was a disaster and has cost billions of pounds to the taxpayer?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

As the leader of a council that lost thousands of our homes to right to buy, I believe that the scheme needed reform. We are reforming it to deliver a fairer and more sustainable scheme, reducing the maximum right to buy cash discounts to pre-2012 levels. This will allow councils to keep 100% of the receipts generated by right to buy sales. If we had that right from the start, we would not have had the significant loss we have had. We are also increasing protections for newly built social homes by raising the cost floor period, during which discounts can be reduced, from 15 to 30 years. I hope that will make a big difference.

Car Parking Companies

Lord Watts Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am not sure why the full impact assessment was not published. The accredited trade association’s voluntary cap on private parking charges is £100, as the noble Lord will be aware. I will look into the issue around local authority caps on parking charges and get back to him.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, is it the case that many government departments use consultations as a reason not to do something? Is it not about time that we put timescales on these things and make sure that departments act on behalf of the public?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I understand my noble friend’s frustration, but the previous code of practice failed because things had been put into it that were not subject to consultation. It is very important that the consultation does take place this time, otherwise the next code of practice will fail as well.

Council Tax

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

It is not only Labour-run councils that apply for exceptional financial support. My honourable friend the Minister will be making a Statement later today about which councils have been successful in gaining that exceptional financial support. There are any number of reasons why councils need to apply for that. It is not necessarily poor financial management: it can be the circumstances they find themselves in, particularly those areas that have low funding because the fair funding was not looked after.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, many local authorities are able to raise millions of pounds from their council tax payers from things such as car park charges. Does the Minister intend to take into account the massive amounts of money that some local authorities can raise?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, fees and charges form an important part of councils’ income. Whether that is fair or not is for the council tax payers of the area in question to make their minds up about locally. The three strands of council tax funding very much include those fees and charges, and the voters will decide whether they are reasonable or not.

Local Government: Funding

Lord Watts Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I have to say that it is very difficult to take lessons from the Benches opposite about local government funding, particularly in relation to council house building. The noble Lord will be well aware of the steps we have already taken to increase overall funding for local government but also that we have taken big steps to alter right to buy so that local authorities can keep 100% of the receipts they get from right-to-buy properties. We are changing the position on new properties built by local councils so they do not have to sell them at less than they built them for. We are fixing the foundations of a very broken system that we inherited from 14 years of the noble Lord’s Government.

[Lord Watts (Lab)]

My Lords, the last Tory Government spent 14 years taking money from the poorest local authorities and giving it to the richest ones. Will the Minister guarantee that the system that comes forward will be fair and be based on the need to spend?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. The review that we are undertaking as part of the spending review in the spring will do just that. We made some steps forward in this year’s settlement; we need to take further steps in that regard, and the local government funding formula will be reset to take account of need.