Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

We cannot wait for primary legislation; we have to get on with it now. In particular, there are lots of things in the Letwin review that can work with the grain and the weave of current planning policy. For example, we will shortly be issuing guidance on housing diversification, which is one of the key suggestions in the review. We are encouraging local authorities to introduce local plans, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) urged us to do, so that landowners can realise the obligations placed upon them and so that the value of community contributions and affordable housing can be factored into the land price.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Permitted development rights have damaged the economic and social fabric of Harlow, increased crime and placed intolerable burdens on our education and social services. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said he would review them. What has happened to that review and what is the outcome?

[Mrs Wheeler]

I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s question, having recently visited Harlow to discuss this matter with him. In the round, 42,000 homes were delivered in the three years to March 2018 under permitted development rights with a change of use from office to residential. Earlier this year we announced a review of the quality standard of homes provided through permitted development rights for the conversion of buildings to residential use. The review is expected to conclude later this year. Today, I have written to all local authorities to remind them of their responsibilities regarding out-of-borough placements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I will look and am looking carefully at the submissions that have been made. I want to see greater devolution across Yorkshire. I recognise Yorkshire’s ambition to have those powers transferred down and I look forward to continuing discussions with the hon. Gentleman and others on how best that can be advanced.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

T3. I thank my right hon. Friend for meeting me to discuss permitted development rights, but does he not agree that the policy has not worked? It has allowed landlords to build ghettos and London councillors to socially cleanse their most vulnerable families to places such as Harlow, yet we have not been given the resources to deal with the extra burden. Will he look at that and change the rules?

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for highlighting this issue, which he and I met and discussed directly. He knows that we made a commitment in the recent spring statement to examine permitted development rights in relation to the conversion of office to residential property, but I am content to look more broadly at where the burden lies with some of these transfers, because it is important that we get this right.

Stronger Towns Fund

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

As I have indicated already, in response to earlier questions, we will confirm the additional funding we will provide to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to reflect this new funding for England.

The hon. Lady asks about the UK shared prosperity fund, which is separate from this; I want to stress that. We are committed to creating the new fund to reduce inequalities between communities across our four nations by raising productivity once we have left the EU. We will operate that across the United Kingdom. We have made a commitment that we will respect the devolution settlements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and we will engage with the devolved Administrations to ensure that the fund works for all places across our United Kingdom.

We will consult widely on the design of the UK shared prosperity fund. I recognise the importance of reassuring local areas on the future of local growth and we will also be consulting firmly with the devolved Administrations. We have repeated our commitment to respect the devolution settlement and we intend to commence discussions between Ministers of the UK Government and the Governments of the nations in advance of the consultation. The hon. Lady can have my assurance of that in relation to the UK shared prosperity fund. We are committed to do that.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I strongly welcome this post-Brexit dividend, which I am sure is the beginning of more dividend to come. My right hon. Friend kindly mentioned my constituency of Harlow, which, despite being a wonderful place to live, has significant deprivation and disadvantage. Will he confirm the timing and the mechanisms for applying for this grant, so that we can apply for regeneration and for our new hospital? Although the east of England gets £25 million, will he confirm the mechanism for applying for money from the extra £600 million fund that he has announced?

[James Brokenshire]

My right hon. Friend rightly makes the distinction between the two elements of the fund and the town deals that we want to see emerging from both of them. On the first element, we have allocated this on the basis of a number of different factors, but I will be publishing a prospectus—that is the next stage—to set out the application process and the basis for the applications we want to see coming through from the towns that can apply under the £600 million fund. We will be setting that out in detail so that towns such as Harlow, which I know he is so passionate about, are able to apply.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We engage with the Home Office regularly to deal with the funds for unaccompanied asylum seekers and other such people. I am happy to realise that issue in the next of my regular meetings with the Immigration Minister.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Permitted development rights have been a disaster for my consistency of Harlow, as London councils have socially cleansed their residents and sent 400 troubled families to our constituency. We do not have the resources to look after them in the way they should be. Will my hon. Friend look at permitted development rights, undertake a review and ensure Harlow Council has the resources it needs to look after those 400 extra troubled families?

[Rishi Sunak]

I will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that issue. Of course, vulnerable children must be housed appropriately and looked after, but we should ensure that that is done as closely as possible to where it makes sense for their communities.

Budget Resolutions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)]

This week’s Budget was a Budget for our proud public services, jobs, housing, opportunity and enterprise, and a brighter future for every part of our country. Above all, it was a Budget dedicated to the British people and their tireless efforts to rebuild the economy and to bring it back from the brink and the chaos under the last Labour Government. Let us not forget what a mountain we have had to climb.

Thanks to the Labour party, we are running the highest budget deficit in peacetime, with the Government having to borrow £1 for every £4 they spent. It has been difficult to turn that around, but the families and communities that make up this great country can be confident that their hard work and the Government’s balanced, long-term approach have paid off.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the measures in the Budget, particularly those to help small shops on our high streets—they will transform our high streets. Will my right hon. Friend set out what the Budget and the Government are doing to ensure that we have more affordable and social housing?

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his early intervention. I intend to cover several housing announcements, but he rightly underlines the Government’s commitment to build the homes that our country needs. We want councils, housing associations and the private sector to build, thereby meeting the challenges and problems that the broken housing market has presented. The Government are determined to fix that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We probably will not reach the end of the Order Paper and it would be sad to be deprived of the intellect and eloquence of the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), so if he wishes to come in now, he can.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

20. My hon. Friend the Minister will be aware of the excellent homeless shelter in Harlow called Streets2Homes. What measures is she taking to support local homeless shelters?

[Mrs Wheeler]

Homeless shelters will form part of the rough sleeping strategy we are bringing out at the end of June or the beginning of July. We expect there to be a sea change in how all the different parts of the social sector, the charitable sector and local government deal with rough sleeping and homelessness. I think my right hon. Friend will enjoy reading the rough sleeping strategy.

Windrush

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Yes.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Just as my right hon. Friend did in his previous Department in fighting anti-Semitism, looking after the victims of Grenfell and championing affordable housing, will he make social justice a defining part of his mission in his new role, so that something like the Windrush saga can never happen again?

[Sajid Javid]

I can make that commitment. Every part of this Government is committed to furthering social justice, and that will be at the heart of my Department.

Anti-Semitism

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Last year, I was in Harlow town centre at a street stall, as I usually am on Saturdays, to speak to constituents. Completely unexpectedly, a man who I know to be from the left came at me screaming, “Go back to Israel.” It happened so quickly that I was unable to take a photo. However, I know that anti-Semitic acts like this, unthinkable a few years ago, are becoming increasingly commonplace. Demonstrations outside Parliament and Labour party headquarters would not have been well-attended if anti-Semitism was not seen by most as a dangerous and growing problem. That is why I am glad that this very timely debate is going ahead.

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend is from the Jewish community and I am not. Does he agree, though, that we all have a duty to fight anti-Semitism, not because it is the right thing to do and the decent thing to do but because it is essential for the wellbeing of our wider society, as history shows us that anti-Semitism is always the thin end of a very nasty and very wide potentially racist wedge?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend puts it exactly right and sums up, in essence, much of what will be debated today.

I have been amazed to see guards outside synagogues. The shadow Minister mentioned schools. I remember being at a synagogue where the rabbi said to the Jewish people inside, “Please do not congregate outside when we finish the service because you might get abuse or something even worse.” I thought, “How can it be, in the 21st century, when we thought we had escaped the horrors of Nazi Germany, that Jews are told that by a rabbi in a synagogue?”

There appears to be in some sections of the left an accepted belief that all Jews are either Israeli settlers, very rich, or part of the capitalist establishment, and these claims are then linked to even more sinister conspiracy theories.

At best, it used to be acceptable to use the fig leaf of “Zionist” or “Israelite” as a cloak for anti-Semitism. Now, anti-Semitism has got so bad that the people who hate the Jews do not even use those terms any more. Anti-Semitism is out in its naked viciousness for everyone to see. The air has grown tighter; you feel very hot, you undo a button on your shirt and your mouth goes dry. This is still a great country and a wonderful place for Jewish people, but things have changed. I always thought that this was the greatest country in the world. My father was an immigrant here, having escaped from pogroms in Libya, and I never imagined that one would feel the air tightening in this country.

I would like to give special appreciation for the enormous work of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann)—what a great man he is—and the APPG against anti-Semitism, as well as other Labour MPs, such as the hon. Members for Dudley North (Ian Austin) and for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who is a good friend of the state of Israel, and many others.

However, I genuinely believe that the current Labour leadership is, at best, turning a blind eye to the problem and, at worst, condoning anti-Semitism. I say that with a heavy heart. I see the membership of dubious Facebook groups, the defence of anti-Semitic murals and the phoney reports produced by the now Baroness Chakrabarti, and they indicate three unwise monkeys: see no anti-Semitism, hear no anti-Semitism and do not speak out against anti-Semitism. That is the first problem.

The second problem is social media. As Front Benchers and shadow Front Benchers have highlighted, the internet has become a sewer for anti-Semitism. We spend so much time worrying about Facebook collecting our data for advertisements, but Facebook and Twitter have become social networks acting as a septic tank in which a disgusting and non-stop stream of anti-Semitic sewage collects. What is even worse is that when someone is a victim of anti-Semitism on social media sites, the duty is on them to get it corrected and not the other way round. Why are books and newspapers rightly punished for the publication of any kind of anti-Semitic content, but social media platforms act with impunity? They should be subject to the same laws as everybody else.

We have to ensure that community leaders and political leaders do everything possible to condemn anti-Semitism in every form it takes without hesitation or equivocation. Leadership has to set an example. We have to do more to support the Holocaust Educational Trust—I have been to Auschwitz with it—and to train teachers. We need to ensure that university campuses are welcoming environments for students of all backgrounds. The Office for Students should play a role, as the APPG against anti-Semitism recommends. The Government must go further in stamping out all extremist terror groups, including proscribing Hezbollah’s political arm. People should not be allowed to march down Trafalgar Square and Whitehall waving Hezbollah flags.

This debate is a vital opportunity to bring to the fore the widespread and escalating problem of anti-Semitism. It is also an opportunity to be constructive. Let us go forward, and let the leaders of all political parties unite to condemn anti-Semitic content, deal with the social media companies and do more to educate our people about anti-Semitism.

Housing, Planning and Infrastructure: Essex

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham are absolutely right to raise their constituents’ concerns that the additional housing must be supported by the right infrastructure and public services, at the right time. The Government and I wholeheartedly agree with that, which is why in the autumn Budget the Government more than doubled the housing infrastructure fund, dedicating an additional £2.7 billion to bring the total fund to £5 billion.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who is also my constituency neighbour, being an Essex champion and initiating this debate. The loss to the Government is certainly a win for Essex. Given what my hon. Friend the Minister has said, does he agree that new housing and infrastructure in Essex should be accompanied by support for substantial regeneration in towns that have real problems, such as Harlow, where the town centre is decaying because everything was built almost at the same time? Many good things are happening, but we need desperate help with the regeneration of our town centre, for example.

[Rishi Sunak]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Economic regeneration and, indeed, the boundless economic optimism that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham talked about are something the Government are keen to see and should actively support through these proposals and through the infrastructure investment in places, like Harlow, where it can make a difference.

The housing infrastructure fund is designed to provide exactly the kinds of projects that both my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex talked about—key infrastructure that unlocks housing growth. Just today, the Government announced 133 successful HIF projects, which will help to unlock a potential 200,000 new homes. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham mentioned, that includes £7.3 million for a flood relief scheme next to her constituency in Maldon and £5.5 million of funding to unlock more than 500 homes in Colchester by accelerating the delivery of 22 acres for housing development—I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester will welcome that investment.

A forward fund element of the HIF will also be available to the uppermost tier of local authorities in England for a small number of strategic and high-impact infrastructure projects for bids of up to £250 million. Expressions of interest for that funding are being assessed, and I am delighted to tell the House and my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham that the county of Essex has applied to the fund, including for infrastructure specifically to support the North Essex garden communities. The best proposals from across the country will be shortlisted to go through to co-development in the coming weeks. Local authorities will then submit final business cases, with successful bids being announced as early as this autumn.

More generally, my right hon. Friend is right to highlight that garden settlement community proposals are still subject to examination as part of the local plan process. The hearings with respect to the examination of the local plans were concluded last month, as she will know, but I can reassure her that any formal responses made by her constituents either to the Planning Inspectorate or to the council as part of the draft plan consultation will be considered by the inspector in his determination. Further, I understand that the Planning Inspectorate has sought reassurance that all matters raised by consultees on the draft plan have been provided and will hold further hearings if procedurally necessary.

My right hon. Friend spoke in detail about local plans. New homes need to be provided through up-to-date local plans, which are produced in consultation with local people. I welcome the progress that Braintree, Tendring and Colchester Councils have made on their local plan preparations. Up-to-date plans that are produced in consultation with local communities are a vital element of the planning system. They are the starting point for planning decisions by local planning authorities and planning inspectors.

As my right hon. Friend mentioned, local authorities are required to identify a five-year land supply of deliverable housing sites. Identifying a five-year supply of housing sites provides clarity to local communities and developers on where homes should be built so that development is planned, rather than a result of speculative application. Where there is insufficient available land on which housing can realistically be delivered, however, there are measures in place that help to identify suitable sites.

As my right hon. Friend acknowledged, Government guidance states that local authorities should aim to deal with undersupply within five years, where possible. However, decision makers have the flexibility to consider each case on its merits, and it is for local authorities to present their particular case to the relevant decision makers.

Our housing White Paper acknowledges that the current policy on five-year land supply has been effective in delivering homes, but has had some negative effects, including an increased number of appeals. Through our White Paper, the Government proposed reforms to how land supply is calculated to give more certainty. The proposal offers local authorities the opportunity to have their five-year housing land supply agreed on an annual basis and fixed for a one-year period. It is intended that this ability to fix will reduce the number and complexity of appeals by providing greater certainty to all parties.

The White Paper also indicated that clearer, more transparent guidance will set out how the five-year land supply should be calculated. The responses to this consultation are currently being considered, and I can tell my right hon. Friend that revised national planning guidance will be published for comment alongside the consultation on the national planning policy framework, before Easter this year.

My right hon. Friend next referred to the production of neighbourhood plans and the role that they play in empowering local communities. I note with delight that neighbourhood planning is being embraced in her constituency, with at least 10 neighbourhood planning groups being active and, as she said, doing their best to support the Government’s localism agenda. The Government want to support such groups, and we have made £23 million available from 2018 to 2022 through a neighbourhood planning support programme. She highlighted her concerns about whether neighbourhood plans in development get the status they deserve in the planning process, especially if communities are, to use her words, “bombarded” with applications. The NPPF is clear that weight may be given to emerging neighbourhood plans. We have also laid out guidance to set out where circumstances may justify the refusal of planning permission on grounds that an application would be premature in relation to an emerging neighbourhood plan.

On the points that my right hon. Friend made about pre-application consultation, the Government believe effective consultation is an important part of the planning process. We have clear and detailed expectations, both statutory and in guidance, regarding the consultation of parties affected by planning applications. It is for the local planning authority to ensure that this consultation takes place properly and in accordance with these guidelines. If there are points of concern, they should be raised with the authority as soon as possible.

In conclusion, we have covered an extensive range of topics in this short debate this evening. It seems to me that the Business Secretary and Chancellor should take note: my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham is single-handedly doing her bit to drive up Britain’s productivity. In seriousness, this is a testament to the energy and passion with which she cares about her constituents, and wants their concerned aired and listened to by Government. I commend her for achieving exactly that this evening.

Question put and agreed to.