Inequalities of Region and Place

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome this debate, so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. Like him, I look forward to the maiden speech from the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. This debate is timely because it comes just before the imminent publication of the White Paper on levelling up. This is in fact the delayed White Paper on devolution, promised for September last year, which has now morphed into a White Paper on levelling up. I very much hope that this rebranding will not diminish the previous commitment to greater local autonomy. Devolution has clear centrifugal overtones: pushing powers out. Levelling up has connotations of a more centralised approach: how else can you make things level?

While we are all pretty clear what devolution means, there is no such clarity about levelling up. Like others in this debate, I have spent many hours on the doorstep listening to voters’ priorities: safer streets, better schools, more houses and shorter waiting lists. Nobody has ever said, “George, please level me up.” This is not to discount it as an objective, but just to say that it means different things to different people.

In the context of this debate, in his levelling-up speech on 15 July, the Prime Minister uttered two sentences which I hope will inspire the levelling-up White Paper. First, he said that

“for many decades, we have relentlessly crushed local leadership”.

The second sentence was:

“Come to us with a plan for strong, accountable leadership and we will give you the tools to change your area for the better”.


This afternoon, we should respond to that challenge and then hold him to those words.

I took further encouragement from the recent appointment of Neil O’Brien to the rebranded Department for Levelling Up. In his speech last Wednesday, which was overshadowed by another speech on the same day, he said:

“Boris Johnson put levelling up at the heart of his conference speech ... But what is it? The objectives of levelling up are clear. To empower local leaders and communities.”


That objective was reinforced by Bridget Rosewell, a member of the National Infrastructure Commission, who commented on a report that it issued last month. She said:

“Levelling up cannot be done from Whitehall. Every English town faces a different set of challenges and opportunities, and local leaders are best placed to develop strategies to address these.”


But we live in a highly centralised country. In a recent report on tax and devolution, the IfG said:

“The UK is an outlier by international standards. In 2014, every other G7 nation collected more taxes at either a local or regional level according to estimates by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.”


Our figure is about 5%, roughly half that of most other countries.

So, while other countries have national and local government, we have national government and local administration, and it is not working. The helpful Library brief for this debate shows that the UK has the highest regional inequalities of the 27 nations measured. I believe that part of the answer to the question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, in this debate about regional inequalities is to set regions free from central control and allow them to take greater responsibility for key decisions. Others will talk about devolution of power; I shall talk about devolution of money because, without freedom to raise and spend, and being accountable for those decisions, devolution of power is meaningless.

Let me give two examples of how the system is weighted against raising money locally. The Government have just increased national insurance contributions from 12% to 13.25%—an increase of more than 10%. Local government would not have been able to do that without holding a referendum first. There has been no such inhibition on the Government. Then take national taxation. Government income is buoyant. Without touching tax rates, economic growth and inflation swell the Government’s coffers year by year. Income tax, national insurance, inheritance tax and capital gains tax all rise without the Chancellor lifting a finger or incurring a single hostile headline. The OBR estimates that just freezing personal allowances—so-called “fiscal drag”—will be worth £8 billion a year to the Government by 2025-26.

Local government has no such advantage. The council tax base is fixed at 1990 levels, and if local government wants to raise more money, even to stay still in real terms, it has to raise tax rates, with all the aggravation that that entails. And, unlike income tax, council tax is regressive and the tax base is 30 years out of date. Would the Government raise income tax on the incomes of 1990?

I will irritate my noble friend the Minister once more by suggesting that tax bands should be revalued and that there should be two additional bands. However, my final suggestion is that, when we move from taxing fuel to road pricing, the revenue from road pricing—a buoyant source of revenue—should go to local, not central, government, which would give councils the independence and financial help that they need to deliver the autonomy that we all want to see.

Leasehold: Building and Fire Safety

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 16th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we recognise that if you buy a defective dwelling you expect the person responsible for the building of it to do something about it. That is precisely why the Government, as part of the Building Safety Bill, are proposing to increase the Defective Premises Act redress period from six years to 15 years retrospectively, which will bring in a great number of buildings to be able to seek redress from developers. That is why we continue to work on measures that will ensure that the polluter does pay wherever possible, and we are looking very closely at proposals from Steve Day and his team around the polluter pays amendments.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have provided substantial support to deal with the cladding crisis, which I welcome, but that support, together with the new tax on high-rise development the Minister mentioned, will be inadequate to avoid hardship and inequity for many innocent leaseholders. Further to what the right reverend Prelate just said, would it not be fair to bridge the gap by a levy on developers that built and sold these substandard homes?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My noble friend is right, which is why we are looking at a new levy and a developer tax to ensure that the industry contributes. At this stage we are in consultation. We need to ensure that it is set at a level that raises substantial funds precisely for that purpose.

Supported Housing: Funding

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 14th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right: we are concerned about quality issues, and that is why we carried out some pilots in Birmingham, Blackburn, Darwen, Hull, Bristol and Blackpool. We do not have the results from those pilots, but that is why we invested £5.4 million—to ensure that there is no drop in quality.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, following the success of the Everyone In campaign, which protected rough sleepers from Covid, Housing First is the most cost-effective supported housing solution, to stop those most at risk from returning to the streets. It is estimated that 16,000 places are required, but so far the Government have pledged funding for only 2,000. Can my noble friend hold out any prospect of a more generous response?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My noble friend knows that we are committed, in our latest manifesto, to expanding Housing First. The findings of our evaluation, together with our experiences from the pilots, will help to inform next steps.

Grenfell Tower: Demolition

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, in addition to the consultation by the site team of my department, MHCLG, the local authority is engaging reactively. I heard from the leader of the council this week that it has another meeting to look at mental health and other well-being issues, and it has asked my officials to join that meeting. The Government at every level have a duty to do their best to make sure that we learn from this tragedy and that we continue to engage with the residents, bereaved and survivors.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that the Kensington Aldridge Academy is located at the base of the Grenfell Tower. It had to move out following the fire and move back in 2018. What consideration has been given to the future of that school in the discussions referred to by my noble friend?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, despite the reporting, I can assure my noble friend that the school does not require any move or decant in the future. The tower is safe; there are no immediate safety issues. As I said, the programme of safety maintenance continues until the spring of next year.

Council Tax

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Cookham]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to introduce higher rate bands for Council Tax.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

I recognise my noble friend’s interest in this issue, but the Government do not have any plans to introduce higher bands for council tax. Many people living in high-value properties are on low incomes and may have lived in their homes for a long time. Higher bands risk penalising such people, including pensioners, who have seen their homes increase in value. They could face a substantial tax rise without having the income to pay the higher bill.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that it would be odd to calculate today’s income tax on what people earned 30 years ago, but this is the basis on which we fund local government? The council tax is out of date, arbitrary and regressive. While the right policy would be revaluation, ducked for too long by successive Governments, would it not be right in the meantime to take the higher band and, without breaking any manifesto commitments, introduce two extra bands to bring in extra revenue from those with more valuable assets?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My noble friend’s suggestion has some merit. Even a limited revaluation would be costly and would yield significant extra revenue only in those parts of the country where house prices are the highest, given that council tax income is not redistributed. It would also leave council tax payers in a rather odd, and arguably less fair, situation where some were paying their tax based on 1991 values while others were doing so based on prices in the present day.

Business and Planning Act 2020 (Pavement Licences) (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, it will come as no surprise to my noble friend the Minister, who may remember our debate on pavement licences a year ago, that I have every sympathy with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner. As he said, I supported the amendment then moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, saying that pavement licences should be given only if smoking were prohibited, and I will not repeat the arguments I made then. That amendment was withdrawn, but on Report the Government tabled their own concessionary amendment requiring proper provision for non-smokers and, although it was not what the movers wanted—nor, indeed, what the majority of the speakers in the debate had asked for—the concession was accepted. My noble friend then said that joint guidance would be issued by his department and DHSC.

That joint guidance was non-contentious. I want to focus this afternoon on paragraph 11.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which refers to updated guidance from the department to help local authorities implement the provisions of this order. I do this because, on 8 August last year, after the guidance I referred to was published, the Secretary of State emailed Manchester City Council, stating that its proposal to set a local smoke- free condition on the issue of pavement licences was

“against the spirit of the emergency legislation passed by Parliament”.

It was not: the legislation expressly said that local authorities could set a local condition such as Manchester proposed. Indeed, in Committee on the Bill my noble friend said:

“Therefore, local authorities can exercise their condition-making powers to impose no-smoking conditions”.—[Official Report, 13/7/20; col. 1482.]


Worse, the letter went on to assert that if smoking were banned outside pubs and cafes:

“It could lead to significant closures across the country.”


In spite of repeated challenges, not one shred of evidence was ever produced by the department to substantiate that assertion, frequently made by the smoking pressure group FOREST. Such evidence as we have from the introduction of the smoking ban in 2007 showed that more people said that they went to the pub more often than said that they went less often. The simple assurance which I seek from the Minister, whom I acquit from being in any way complicit in this misinformation, is that if further guidance is given to accompany this order, it does not contain any more inaccurate or misleading statements such as those that I have referred to.

Mortgages: EWS1 Form

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we have had repeated engagement with both UK Finance and also the Building Societies Association on this matter. We are seeing a picture that is troublesome but is continuing to improve, bit by bit. We have taken a number of measures to ensure that we encourage lenders to take a more proportionate approach.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Has my noble friend read Inside Housing for April? It reports that buildings are being issued with a succession of different EWS ratings after a sale has taken place. How can inspectors sign off forms, expressed to be valid for five years, but change them later to the disadvantage of the purchaser?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My noble friend raises an important issue about the inconsistency of the application of EWS1 forms by professionals. I point out that we are working with the British Standards Institution to produce a publicly available specification, known as PAS 9980, which is a code of practice designed to ensure greater consistency in these assessments.

Homeowners: Cladding-related Costs

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, those are not official figures. There are a lot of estimates, and there is a great range in those estimates. We are carrying out some detailed research so that we can properly understand the incidents, particularly in lower-rise and medium-rise buildings, where remediation would be required. Then we will be in a position to know the burden that will potentially fall either on the taxpayer or on leaseholders.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the substantial support that the Government have provided to deal with the cladding crisis but, on its own, it is clearly not enough to deal with the problem and with hardship. In February, the Government announced a new tax on future high-rise development, but would it not be fair to complement that with a levy on those developers who built these substandard homes?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

Of course it is right that the polluter pays. That is why we have announced not only a building safety levy on future high-rise developments as part of the building safety Bill, but a tax on developers that is aiming to raise some £2 billion over 10 years.

Housing: New Developments

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we have already looked at the approach to assessing local housing need to ensure that we see greater focus on the renewal of our cities and towns rather than urban sprawl. So we have already taken that point on board.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that the public would be more supportive of the proposals to build the hundreds of thousands of new homes that the country needs if more of these homes were clearly being targeted at families on average incomes, with children, already living in the area and at key workers such as nurses and teachers, with perhaps less emphasis on unaffordable homes for newcomers?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that we need homes of all types and tenures. Our reforms will give communities a greater voice from the start of the planning process. The reforms will make planning more straightforward and accessible and make it easier for people to influence local plans and have a say on locations, standards and types of development. The Government are of course committed to home ownership; the First Homes scheme allows a discount of up to 30% of full market value and, of course, there is the £11.5 billion affordable homes programme that will allow for the decent family homes that my noble friend sees as so critical.

Private Landlords: Tenants with Pets

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we have set out a model tenancy agreement that encourages wider pet ownership. It also ensures that the landlord must give a clear reason why they will not accept a pet. This agreement strikes a balance between making it easier for responsible tenants to keep pets and ensuring that landlords are not forced to accept them.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, last week the Public Services Committee took evidence from a rough sleeper in Birmingham who was full of praise for the Everyone In campaign, which helped him and other rough sleepers into safe accommodation last year. However, he told us that rough sleepers with dogs were now at risk because hostels would not accept them. Is my noble friend aware of this problem and does he have a solution?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I am aware of the issue that my noble friend raises. We know how important pets are to many people, particularly rough sleepers. That is why we have supported a number of local schemes enabling people to find accommodation that will also accept pets. Housing authorities need to be sensitive to the importance of pets to some applicants, particularly rough sleepers, and I thank my noble friend for raising this.