High Streets

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) on securing the debate.

Our high streets, the beating hearts of our neighbourhoods, are in danger, threatened by low footfall, an outdated model for business rates, the impact out out-of-town and online shopping and a Government who have failed to tackle the growing crisis. Against that challenging backdrop, I have a small kernel of hope to share, thanks to the visionary work of our Labour-led Stockton council and the odd handout from the Government as well.

To quote my good friend, Councillor Nigel Cooke:

“This is an existential threat we are facing. If people are not coming into town to shop at Debenhams because there is no Debenhams, there is no Marks & Spencer and so on, what are they going to come in to do?...You have to be proactive and have some ambition.”

Fortunately, Stockton council has ambition in bucketloads. It has bought the old Castlegate shopping centre so that it can be torn down, opening up space in the town centre to build a vast urban park, a library and a leisure centre, linking Stockton town centre with the beautiful waterfront of the River Tees.

[Matt Vickers]

I agree and I am sure the hon. Gentleman is about to tell us that it is a great thing that the Globe is reopening and coming back to the old high street, but would it not have been better if it had opened in 2012 and cost £4 million rather than opening this year and costing the best part of £30 million? Public money needs to be well spent.

[Alex Cunningham]

Public money does need to be well spent, and it was not exactly all public money that went to it, but that is another matter. I will not have anyone talking down my town and the ambition of our local council. The Globe is one of the finest art deco theatres in the country, and it has hosted everyone from the Beatles to Stevie Wonder—I know that appeals to my generation, rather than to some of the younger Members here. It has been refurbished and reopened, and it is the biggest venue between Newcastle and Leeds, so all the big acts are now following us into town.

Just a couple of weeks ago I visited Drake the bookshop to support Bookshop Day. Thanks to Stockton’s ambition, the bookshop has been able to expand. The council’s vision puts the wellbeing of our constituents at its heart, with the focus on supporting events, green space and independent shops more than paying off. Other local authorities are now knocking on Stockton’s door for the blueprints. Even Tory Ministers come to Stockton to see how it is done.

However, councils cannot be left to do it on their own. They should not have to spend so much time bidding to centralised funding pots. The administration of the £3.6 billion towns fund, for instance, still causes me serious concern. I can understand why Billingham in my constituency was deemed to be in greater need than Tory MPs’ towns, but I cannot understand why it has missed out.

[Sara Britcliffe]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

I will not, if the hon. Member does not mind.

A town in the previous Secretary of State’s constituency, which was 270th on the list, was successful. Yet Billingham was not, despite being much higher up on the list.

[Matt Vickers]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

No, I will not give way.

Many of the people who actually make our high streets great are crying out for urgent business reform, which is something the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) and I very much agree on. Again, here Labour has the necessary vision that the Government lack. Labour would scrap business rates altogether, and in the meantime we would freeze them and extend the threshold for small business rates relief next year. Labour would pay for these measures by increasing the UK digital services tax to 12%, making a more level playing field between online and bricks-and-mortar shops. There are solutions out there to make radical change, and I would be very pleased to show the Minister around my home town of Stockton so that he can see how it is done.

Levelling Up

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the £37.5 million that he has already secured for his constituency. He demonstrates that an active and able constituency MP can bring funding to their area. It is important that everybody looks for bids they can support and submit in their constituency. Regardless of the prioritisation category, those bids will be assessed, based on deliverability and value for money, as well as strategic fit, which is the bit to which an MP will be able to contribute.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab) [V]]

May I also welcome the Minister to Stockton, to visit Billingham, which was told not even to bother to bid for town centre funds? We have lost 12,500 jobs across the Tees Valley in the past 11 months, yet Stockton local authority has to bid for levelling-up funds to carry out relatively minor road projects that should have been covered by the other road funds that were stripped away by the Government. Surely the Minister will agree that the £4 billion fund for the entire north of England—incidentally, it is a small fraction of the cash spent on Crossrail in London—needs to be increased considerably so that our areas can have a starter, a main course and a pudding, as well as big structural and support projects, rather than just a bit of tarmac here and there.

[Eddie Hughes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but this is quite a significant pie—if we are going to continue to use the food analogy—that we are talking about splitting up. As I mentioned in my statement, £600 billion will be invested over the coming years. I completely understand that when you have a successful Government providing funding across all regions, people see that and want more. That is no surprise. I am glad that hon. Members are ambitious for their region. Stockton-on-Tees is a category 1 in the levelling-up fund, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will support a bid for his area.

Towns Fund

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab) [V]]

The towns fund might be a good idea, but the lack of transparency in decision making has led to understandable concerns about the impartiality of the process, and from what I have seen of it in the Tees valley, those concerns are well founded.

In December, I wrote to the Secretary of State about Billingham, soon to be the home of Novavax vaccine manufacture. The town is home to 35,000 proud Teessiders as well as the Billingham Forum, which is a huge sports and theatre venue including pools, gyms and an ice rink. The town is a cultural hub, but it desperately needs help to further develop. As the singer of Maxïmo Park, Billingham-born Paul Smith, sings, it is

“where industrial tunnels were our fairytale castles”.

In short, it is a town bursting with potential.

Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council approached the Government to request that Billingham be included in the cohort of towns eligible to bid for funds, but it was refused. Back in October, Billingham councillors wrote to the Secretary of State asking why other Tees towns such as Thornaby in Stockton South, with a Tory MP, were fortunate enough to have been included in the selection of the first 100 towns for the fund when Billingham was not, even though it clearly fits the criteria every bit as well, if not more so, than Thornaby—although rest assured that we celebrate with the people of Thornaby that they do have the investment that they need. The decision led to confusion and concern locally that could have easily been put to bed if Ministers had responded to the request from the Billingham councillors to explain why their town had been passed over. Instead, the Minister fobbed off the councillors’ request for information and did not even engage with their concerns.

I followed up with my own letter, which was responded to, but with only slightly more information. It said that Billingham will get the chance to apply to the £300 million levelling-up fund, which has been designated for a towns fund competition. I personally find this quite astonishing. If the Government had sufficient information to select the first 100 towns that were eligible for a deal, why do we have to have more wasteful bidding processes that pit deprived communities against each other for scraps from the Government’s table? Why can the Government not use existing data and provide investment now—and cut out the middleman, saving our councils time and money in doing so?

It does not matter what money is being dished out these days by the Government: whether it is to the NHS, to councils or for town centres—Ministers are quite happy, and not even embarrassed, to pass over some areas and favour their own. It is time for fairness in the system; time for real, true levelling up and proper resources; and time for towns like Billingham to get the support that they need.

Levelling-up Agenda: Tees Valley

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Government’s levelling up agenda and Tees Valley. 

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship—for the first time, I believe, Mrs Cummins. It is good to see so many people interested in our debate this afternoon, particularly my neighbouring MPs, my hon. Friends the Members for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), and for Hartlepool (Mike Hill).

We have all grown weary of hearing about how unprecedented these times are, so I hope Members will indulge me in a short trip down memory lane. Nearly 10 years ago, I spoke in a near-identical Westminster Hall debate on the topic of regional development in the north-east. I said:

“We wait to see whether there will be a Budget for real growth, backed by substantial resources when the Chancellor stands up tomorrow. Resources must be the key. A jobless recovery would be a disaster for our region, and without growth there will not be enough new jobs… I hope that they have finally realised that without a genuine plan for growth and real resources, the economy will continue to be sluggish.”—[Official Report, 22 March 2011; Vol. 525, c. 223-224WH.]

Well, the Government’s buzzwords may have changed, but after a decade, what strikes me is just how precedented and familiar this situation is. A scene of long-term under- funding of the Tees Valley has meant that unemployment there is still far higher than the national average. Health inequalities have widened, and the number of families in poverty has increased. Unless the Government take serious action soon, we will once again be in the dire situation where our communities are made to pay the price of a Tory Government’s failings. 

The toxic combination of Brexit, the pandemic, and Tory incompetence has been catastrophic for our area. Last month it was announced that the UK unemployment rate has surged to its highest level in over three years, now at 4.5%. In the north-east, the unemployment rate has soared to 6.6%—the worst in the UK. The region now has the highest unemployment rate, the lowest employment rate and the lowest average hours worked of all British regions. The Chancellor said this afternoon that an economic emergency had “only just begun”. Well, tell that to our constituents, whose economy has been neglected for the last decade. The numbers have been getting worse for years in our region, since long before the pandemic, as a result of Tory neglect.

At the end of his announcement, the Chancellor dangled a new twinkling pot of money in front of our noses: a levelling-up fund. But we do not need more wasteful bidding processes that pit deprived communities against each other for scraps. Now more than ever, we need a serious and concerted effort to bring the Tees Valley in line with the rest of the UK. You do not have to take just my word for it, Mrs Cummins. WPI Strategy has created the levelling-up index, and in its analysis, six of the seven Tees constituencies are marked as priorities. Middlesbrough is the constituency second most in need of levelling up in the whole of the UK, with Hartlepool sixth. My constituency of Stockton North comes in 14th. In six out of seven of the Tees constituencies, deprivation soars above the national average, climbing to 50% above the UK average in Redcar, 52% in Stockton North, and a startling 110% in Middlesbrough.

For the Tees Valley, levelling up means job creation, and I welcome today’s news of a new power plant to be built at the port. However, while the unemployment benefit claimant rate across the UK is 6.3%, across the Tees Valley it is 8%, and it rises as high as 12% in Middlesbrough. There have been 12,565 extra jobs lost since March across the Tees Valley, and we are haemorrhaging more each day. Last week OSB, a major monopile supplier in my constituency that has been active in offshore wind since 2015, announced that it is closing down at the end of the month because it has not got enough orders. This is happening while the biggest wind farm in the world, Dogger Bank, is being constructed in British territorial waters. What benefit is that bringing to the Tees Valley? Just last week, on the eve of the Prime Minister’s green economy announcement, news came that all—yes, all—the monopiles and transition pieces for Dogger Bank wind farm will be manufactured in Holland and Belgium.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, but is he aware that the Government have said that with future subsidy regimes around offshore wind, there will be a requirement for a higher percentage of the wind turbine parts to be made by UK manufacturers?

[Alex Cunningham]

That is great news, but that is jam tomorrow. We definitely need jam today.

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that public procurement rules can change only after Brexit? This is a very good example of why the decision that he described moments ago as toxic, and which his own constituents overwhelmingly supported, was of course the right one.

[Alex Cunningham]

Again, we get jam tomorrow. It is all about jam tomorrow—something that is going to happen in three or five years’ time.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Can we just nail this business about state aid? It was pleaded for in Redcar. We can do that. This is a critically important point: the Tory Government decided that they would sit on their hands and let 9,000 jobs go down the pan. Do not kid me that suddenly there will be this conversion to intervention in our economy—that is absolute nonsense. The French did it; the Germans did it; the Italians did it; and the British Government sat on their hands, and we lost jobs.

[Alex Cunningham]

My hon. Friend does not need an answer from me on that point. Why has our area lost out? Where was the Tees Tory Mayor when the orders were being handed out? He was nowhere to be seen.

No doubt some will claim that jobs have been boosted in the area, but it is going to take a few more media pictures of the Mayor in a hard hat to convince me of that. The cost per job created in the Tees Valley Combined Authority area is calculated at £96,093. That means that for every job created in the last three years, the Mayor has spent nearly a hundred grand. How on earth is an approach like that going to deliver the sustainable job growth our region so desperately needs? The figures are astronomical. We urgently need a fully independent audit of exactly where the millions of pounds of taxpayer money have gone.

[Mr Simon Clarke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

I will not at the moment. Even if we put aside the costs, the number of jobs that have been announced barely scrape the sides of the black hole of unemployment in the Tees Valley. For every job announced in the last three years, five have been lost in the last seven months. Sadly, we cannot even get the Mayor to tell us whether those jobs are being filled, or even where they are.

The Tees Valley’s gross value added per hour worked, an indicator of productivity, continues to lag 9.1% behind the UK average. On top of that, research by iwoca has shown that businesses in the north-east have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. As a result, the region is forecast to lose 11.7% gross value added in 2020. That will wipe out all the economic growth in the north-east since 2004. We will be back to where we were 16 years ago.

Opportunities presented by the possibilities of carbon capture and storage, a freeport and civil service relocation may be part of the answer, but they are simply not enough. I welcome incentivising businesses to come to the Tees Valley, but it will not be much comfort to local businesses that fall outside the free port area and are anxious about the potential loss of EU trade and new tariffs.

This is not just about jobs. While I am all for planning for the Tees Valley’s future, the impact of Brexit and the pandemic is felt by our communities now. A 10-year plan is no good to my constituents, who contact me worried about how they are going to pay their bills this month. Last month, statistics released by the End Child Poverty coalition showed that the north-east has seen the biggest rise in child poverty in the UK. In my constituency, the proportion of children living in poverty has risen to 34%; in others in the Tees Valley, the figure is higher still. It is a tragedy and a scandal.

In Stockton North, 3,109 families with children received universal credit in May 2020, and 1,700 families with children received working tax credit. Behind those numbers, there are thousands of living, breathing children, plunged below the breadline as a result of having poorly paid jobs—or no jobs at all in their family. I am deeply disappointed that today the Chancellor has not listened to calls to retain the increases in universal credit and working tax credit, so that families with children could keep that small but vital economic support. Across the Tees Valley, 79,000 families are affected. This is a Government who would rather spend millions on the festival of Brexit than bring children out of poverty by retaining even small benefit increases, or than feed them during all school holidays. This is not levelling up; it is grinding down.

We all know that where economic inequality thrives, so do health inequalities. Stockton-on-Tees is often used as a case study to highlight health inequalities in the UK. Men who live in the town centre are expected to live 18 years fewer than their peers just a couple of miles down the road. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard Tory Ministers promise to tackle these worrying inequalities, but nothing has happened. The people of Stockton were promised a new hospital building, but 10 years later, it is yet to materialise. We just get occasional scraps that do nothing to plug the gap.

The Health Secretary visited the University Hospital of North Tees recently. I prayed he was going to announce its replacement, as I knew a statement was coming up within a few days. The statement came, but North Tees was not on the Health Secretary’s list. Surely any commitment to levelling up the Tees Valley must have addressing health inequalities at the core of its mission, and a new hospital has a major role to play in that.

A proper levelling-up agenda would be such a boon for Teessiders, but while the Tories claim that that agenda is already under way in the Tees Valley, there are serious obstacles that will prevent its delivery. Just last week, the think-tank Demos published a new report, “Achieving Levelling-Up: The Structures and Processes Needed”. It concludes that while levelling up is possible,

“there is zero chance of achieving it without…changes to the current system”

of devolved politics. One barrier it identifies is that the work of local enterprise partnerships and combined authorities is largely invisible, making real accountability to the public impossible.

The situation in the Tees Valley Combined Authority area is much more concerning than that, because the Tory Administration are not just invisible in terms of accountability, but are actively obstructing proper scrutiny. The Mayor has created a web of different companies and organisations through which he spends public money, but is shielded from vital public scrutiny. There are even reports that donors to his campaign have been appointed to significant positions in those companies and organisations. Decisions are often made outside formal meetings, through a complex network of political and business relationships and friendships, informed by advice from expensive consultants.

[Mr Clarke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

I will not at the moment. This is a chumocracy on a local scale that mirrors the widespread and despicable cronyism we have seen play out on the national stage in the Government’s constant privatisation of the response to the pandemic. It is shameful cronyism that I am worried will bear more fruit in the administration of any Tory levelling-up fund. If the management of the £3.6 billion towns fund is anything to go by, we have serious reason for concern. Billingham, in my constituency, was deemed more in need of support than towns in Tory MPs’ patches, including a town in the Secretary of State’s constituency, which was 270th on the list, but Billingham missed out and the Secretary of State’s constituency did not.

It is clear from the Chancellor’s announcement today that the Government are not going to invest the money that the Tees Valley needs to overcome the destabilising impact of Brexit and the pandemic on our communities and industries. While he splurges on whizzy defence gadgets and Brexit festival guff, public sector pay and benefits are largely frozen. These freezes will actively discourage the growth that we need in the Tees Valley, and they will level down, not up.

Locally, the Tory combined authority is the one public body in the Tees Valley with money to spend, but despite that, there is no comprehensive support package for our constituents. Instead, there is the £1 million Houchen gate—£1 million of taxpayers’ money that could have done so much good, wasted on a gate. The Mayor bought the loss-making airport for about £80 million, but he has secured a few flights; some people will be grateful for that. I heard one person say today, “What use is it being able to get on a flight to Alicante when local people still can’t get a bus home after 7pm?”.

[Mr Clarke]

Clearly, the Labour party opposed the rescue of Teesside international airport; it is probably the only example I can recall of the Labour party opposing taking something into public ownership. Is the hon. Gentleman still saying today that it was the wrong decision? I think people across Teesside would be amazed by that.

[Alex Cunningham]

Personally, I am still a little surprised that it ever happened. Labour-led authorities at that time supported the purchase of the airport. The Mayor was elected on the promise that he would buy the airport; it was in his manifesto and others facilitated his doing it. He is the person who will have to bear the brunt of the problems that we will face in the future, including the many millions of pounds that we are going to lose, year on year.

[Andy McDonald]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it might assist us if the various companies that have fallen under the umbrella of this organisation voluntarily agreed to be subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000? What we have here is a raft of public money, and a public body, put beyond the gaze of the public. Does he agree that that does not help scrutiny and transparency?

[Alex Cunningham]

Most certainly. I cannot understand why anybody wants to hide where the public money has been spent. I know that there are different people involved in all these different companies. I would like to know what their agenda is. Is it the agenda of the people of the Tees Valley?

The failure of the Government, both nationally and locally, angers and saddens me. The Tees Valley is fit to burst with potential. We are ripe and ready to be levelled up; we are calling out for it. We have the potential to exploit the amazing opportunities for green industry, including carbon capture and storage. We have a high skill base, tight-knit communities and local authorities that, despite political changes, have a track record of working together, and achieving great things when they do. Sometimes, local Tories try to claim that Labour politicians are talking down Teesside.

[Mr Simon Clarke]

That is exactly what is happening today.

[Alex Cunningham]

I almost have to laugh. Talking down Teesside? It is the greatest honour of my life to represent the amazing and diverse citizens of Stockton North, and to champion the vibrant history and culture of the Tees Valley. The real problem is that for the past 10 years, the Tories have been booting down Teesside. Their mind-boggling incompetence in handling the covid crisis is yet another catastrophic kick to the region. Pointing out the heartbreaking inequalities that affect our constituents is not talking down our area. It is standing up for our area in the face of a national Conservative Government who have neglected the north-east for years. The Tees economy is on the cliff edge of a hard Brexit, and the lack of investment and post-pandemic rebuilding will push it into the abyss.

The North East England chamber of commerce policy director, Jonathan Walker, got it exactly right when he said:

“The human, social and economic cost of this is appalling. Levelling up has to mean more than just shiny projects. It must mean giving young people in our region the same life chances as they’d get in other parts of the country.”

He came out with another statement today; he said that the Chancellor’s announcement today was a missed opportunity:

“On the face of it a levelling-up fund sounds good but it is far too small in scale and ambition to be effective.”

I want our young people to get the benefits, but sadly I see no prospect of them getting the support they need. There are plenty of these shiny projects, but the absence of substance breaks my heart, because they could have so much more. Our constituents deserve better than this. They need better than this.

I appeal to the Minister to stress to his colleagues the need for true levelling up; for help sustaining jobs and creating new ones; to be open, honest and transparent when dealing with public money; to end the health inequalities that continue to blight our communities; and, perhaps above all, to give our young people real hope that they can have the careers they want and a future they can look forward to. Let us make the expression “levelling up” more than a cliché. Let us make it a demonstration of action.

[Judith Cummins (in the Chair)]

I ask Back Benchers to keep within five minutes to start with. I am planning to call Front Benchers at around 5.15 pm. Simon Clarke.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clarke]

We do, actually, and we have defended the lowest paid in today’s statement, but it is very important to note that in the end we need to have sustainable private sector-led growth in the Tees Valley and that was not what was delivered under the last Labour Government. What we need to see is growth, and how will that growth be delivered? There are five key aspects to that.

The first is the regeneration of the former SSI steelworks site at Redcar, supported by £233 million from the Government. It is the largest redevelopment project in the United Kingdom. What will go there? In February, I had the pleasure of speaking at the launch of Net Zero Teesside at the Riverside stadium. As we heard last week, carbon capture, usage and storage will be at the heart of the Government’s green industrial revolution. It is backed by £1 billion of Government investment, and the Tees and the Humber CCS clusters—

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I will not, because of lack of time.

This is an important part of that piece. CCS will sit alongside other clean energy projects, including the national hydrogen transport hub and the offshore wind industry. The hon. Gentleman said that there is no good coming to the area from it. An application is being made for the new £90 million quay at South Bank, which will create hundreds of jobs. It is all set to be built next year.

The second feature of our vision for Teesside is, of course, a freeport. Despite Labour doing everything it could to stop Brexit—which is the reason why Teesside is now represented by more Government than Labour MPs—we will leave the transition period and regain full national independence on 1 January. Freeports are one of the best examples of how we can drive growth and jobs. [Interruption.] Some of my colleagues are having to self-isolate, but if Members look at the electoral geography of Teesside, they may notice that it has changed.

The third aspect of our plan is, of course, an infrastructure revolution. It cannot be overstated how important it is that the Mayor saved our airport in the teeth of the hon. Gentleman’s opposition and that of his colleagues. We have had the announcement today of the new flights to Alicante and Majorca—something that both his constituents and mine will enjoy next summer. That is on top of the new service to London Heathrow, the UK’s global transport hub, and the multimillion-pound regeneration of Middlesbrough station and Darlington station.

Of course, the fourth strand of levelling up comes in the form of skills. The Government have already committed £450 million to the Tees Valley Combined Authority’s plans to give young people access to skills training, introduce high-quality broadband and overcome barriers to work. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s kickstart scheme, part of the emergency response to coronavirus, has already surpassed 500 jobs for local 16 to 24-year-olds, with applications still open.

The fifth and final element of levelling up is, of course, direct investment through the £3.6 billion towns fund. Middlesbrough, Redcar, Thornaby and Hartlepool are all awaiting the outcome of their bids. Darlington has already had £22.7 million from the fund. And that comes on top of bids to the future high streets fund, which I hope will benefit both Middlesbrough and Loftus.

We all know that levelling up is the task of at least a decade. None of this will be achieved easily. None of it comes simply. But it is happening precisely because we have confidence in Teesside, in the people of Teesside and in the future of Teesside. Rather than talking it down, we talk it up, and that is being rewarded for the people of the area, who see hope, growth, jobs and optimism. They see that from the Government side of the House, from the Conservatives, and long may it continue.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to everyone who has taken part in this robust debate. I am pleased that the Minister at least recognises that we are here because we believe in our areas; we are not talking them down. We believe in them, and we are speaking up for them. I appreciate the fact that he is now nodding.

I have 20 seconds left, so as for the Minister’s answers: no new hospitals, and no reference to health at all. I have one final point to repeat: five jobs have been lost in the past seven months for every job created in the past three years. We need to do much, much better for the Tees Valley.

Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) (No. 2) Bill

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 11th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I remember that the first time I had a Back-Bench Bill, it took three and a half years for the Government to adopt the measures that I wanted, to ban smoking in cars with children present, but we got there in the end, and I hope that we will get there much sooner with this Bill. The world in which we now live has changed significantly since this Bill was first postponed from 27 March last year. We have lived through difficult times in the past few months. Everybody had to change their way of life to ensure that we took on covid-19 and protected the most vulnerable from this deadly coronavirus. That has highlighted just how fragile and complex many of our systems and procedures are. I was personally inundated with inquiries from all corners of my constituency of Stockton North, from small business owners to zero-hours contract workers, from furloughed workers to those who have recently been made unemployed. It has been tough navigating this, and I commend everyone involved in the effort to respond to covid-19.

Enhancing workplace rights and how we value work now could not be more important. Young people in particular have faced difficulties and problems that they should not have had to face. On top of the world feeling upside down, the experiences of the young person during the coronavirus crisis have been significant: prevented from seeing their friends and family for months on end; half a school year missed, which is a huge part of their development; and fewer job and training opportunities due to the challenges that covid-19 is giving employers and providers.

Research conducted by the Sutton Trust found that almost half of current undergraduates believe that the pandemic has had a negative effect on their chances of finding a job. The pandemic has also led to 61% of employers offering work experience placements having to cancel those at short notice. Unfortunately, that is likely to push some people into undertaking unpaid work to try to get ahead and getting into debt before they receive their first wage.

This is not how we should envisage young people getting on to the employment ladder, yet 39% of graduate employers say that they expect to hire fewer graduates or none at all in the next 12 months. What a dire job market young people are entering into right now. This is even more reason why we should remove the ability for employers to exploit eager and desperate young people who feel that they have to work for free in order to secure a properly paid job.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing forward this incredibly important Bill. Is it not simply the case that many middle-class families, or those with money, can afford for their kids to do unpaid work experience? It is completely unfair when we consider that many families across Barnsley and across the UK just do not have that opportunity. If the Government are serious about their levelling-up agenda, they should support his Bill today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

Indeed, that is very much the case. I shall develop my argument as I go and I will cover many of the points that my hon. Friend has actually mentioned. She might be interested to know that I had an email overnight from a father who told me that, during Fashion Week, young people actually pay the fashion houses to get the experience of working with them at that time—so we are talking about not unpaid work, but paying for the privilege to have that experience.

Perhaps the Government should consider what additional action they need to take to encourage businesses to continue to offer more properly paid roles for those entering the job market, otherwise it will be the already wealthy and well-connected who continue to have that elite access to jobs and experience while their less affluent counterparts struggle with a lack of those connections. In any event, as my hon. Friend said, they cannot afford to do the work for nothing.

[Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman and those on the Conservative Benches will welcome the Government’s intervention on the kickstart scheme, which offers paid placements—paid jobs—for people right across our country to try to stop young people from going into long-term unemployment. I hope he will welcome that.

[Alex Cunningham]

I most certainly do welcome it, but, sadly, it has got off to such a chaotic start that I really worry about how those job creations will actually happen. Yes, let us make it happen, but the Government need to look very carefully at the very poor start that we have made with that particular programme.,

I am pleased to put forward this Bill to tackle one area of employment that can be exploitative and unjust. This Bill seeks to ban unpaid work experience that lasts more than four weeks. Before I continue, let me thank those who have helped me get this far with the Bill: the Sutton Trust for its insight and support in providing me with the guidance and information that I needed to confidently bring this Bill forward; the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) for having brought an almost identical Bill to the Commons during an earlier Session: and, finally, the Conservative Lord Holmes, who currently has a parallel version of this Bill laid in the other place. Much work has been done on this issue in the past, and I am grateful for the support and perseverance of those who have been long-term campaigners for this cause.

We often hear today, from young people in particular, of those applying for jobs being told that they do not have enough experience, yet the opportunities to get that experience are often closed off. Jobs are either unadvertised, given to friends of the organisation, or somebody who knows somebody else’s dad, or advertised as unpaid roles, which means that only those with existing wealth to pay for the cost of living can apply.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is outlining some circumstances that he is right to address, but there is another side of the coin. In our business, we have often advertised a job and had a number of applicants, some of whom, despite being unsuccessful, have then contacted us—not through their father or another contact—to ask whether they can do some work experience to understand more what the job is about. We have done that, and those people have ended up getting jobs in our organisation. Are not some types of work experience a route into work?

[Alex Cunningham]

The hon. Member is totally correct, but people do not need to work for six months, 12 months or longer to get work experience. Four weeks will be sufficient in the organisation that he once ran to get that experience and build towards a new job.

Every party in this House claims to be the party of social mobility. Today Members have an opportunity to stand up and prove that theirs is the one that believes in that area of activity. If they are advocates for social mobility, I hope they will stand up to organisations that exclude those from poorer backgrounds from opportunities because they cannot afford to live without pay.

But this is not just about exclusive opportunities for those who can afford to take unpaid roles. Having people work for months on end without pay is exploitative, even when they are prepared to work for nothing. I am aware that some Members have argued that banning unpaid work experience would simply mean that organisations would stop offering opportunities altogether. First, for me, organisations not offering unpaid roles at all is preferable to them offering them exclusively to a distinct group of people. Secondly, if there is a real job to be done, organisations will find the money to pay someone to do it. Just because there are plenty of young and eager people, that does not mean that organisations should choose to save money by bringing in someone to do a job unpaid under the guise of work experience. Surely a young person does not need to work for six months or a year to get experience of a workplace or to learn a little of how a particular field operates.

But what does the employer or the organisation get out of it? It is quite clear: they get free labour, expecting a full day’s work without a full day’s pay. They save themselves a salary. They also save themselves national insurance and pension contributions. Surely it would be fairer for everyone if we limited such work experience placements to a month. Even the Exchequer could benefit. Such a move would ensure that living costs do not stack up, putting people further in debt, and would enable those opportunities to be offered to more people. A six-month unpaid placement could instead be offered to six people instead of one.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman recognises the value of short work experience placements, but does he also recognise that sometimes such placements are better structured for both sides, perhaps on a part-time basis or even for one day a week? That means that, although they are probably still rather less than 20 days in total, they can last for significantly longer than four weeks. Is there not a danger of their being caught by his Bill?

[Alex Cunningham]

Maybe my Bill should limit the length to 20 days with one employer—it all amounts to the same thing—but the hon. Member is right: a young person could gain experience over a period of time. If he supports my Bill, perhaps we can amend it to take on exactly that point.

The only way that we will crack down on this practice is by limiting the amount of time that someone can do unpaid work experience for one organisation.

Of course, there are already rules around the definition of a worker, but the Sutton Trust carried out some excellent research that found those rules are not as clear to organisations and those carrying out their work experience placements as we would hope. For example, it found that half of young graduates are unaware that unpaid internships are illegal—yes, they are already illegal—in most circumstances. This is a significant problem as the current system relies on young people to self-report any unpaid internships that they suspect are illegally not paying the minimum wage. That puts those young people in an incredibly difficult position.

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

No, we are running out of time.

Information received through a parliamentary question in June shows that since 2007, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs investigations have led to just 15 successful prosecutions of employers for national minimum wage-related offences, but there have been no prosecutions relating to internship cases despite more than 150 complaints received by HMRC from workers undertaking unpaid internships. And that is before we consider the large number of people who do not know they are illegal and are working for months on end under the illusion of it being work experience.

The Bill clarifies and tightens current legislation and ensures that those on unpaid work experience placements are not being exploited. One of the best ways to do that is to limit the length of time of a placement in law. A six-month unpaid internship will cost a single person living in London a minimum of £6,300, and in Manchester £5,300, just to fund their own placement. Not only are they not being paid, but their living expenses can put them into serious debt before they even get their first proper job. That is not a system that we should be advocating. One we could advocate is Mr Speaker’s own intern scheme, which ensures that the young person taken on is paid the London minimum wage, or the local minimum wage. We should encourage organisations to replicate Mr Speaker’s scheme. I would like to make it clear that the Bill does not apply to placements where a university course requires it. These are often unique circumstances in which the student is funded through other means, so it is not affected by my Bill.

Moving towards a conclusion, we in this place must first look to ourselves and recognise that Parliament needs to take a lead. It is a significant statistic that 31% of Westminster staffers have worked for an MP without being paid. How are we supposed to set the example when many MPs in this House think that having people work for us for months on end with no pay is even the slightest bit satisfactory? Out there, thousands of employers are offering such placements under the guise of work experience and most of them do not even know they are breaking the law.

The Sutton Trust found that up to 50% of employers thought most unpaid internships were perfectly legal. Many others were not so sure. We need to take the ambiguity out of this. We must make sure that the rules are not open to misinterpretation. We need to be firm and make it clear that long-term unpaid internships are not permitted. We need to ensure that those who can afford to work for free are not given a step on the ladder ahead of their less affluent peers. We need to make sure that young people are not being exploited by organisations that should be paying them a wage. We need to make sure that social mobility is a reality in this country. Passing the Bill will help in all those areas. It is simple, it is straightforward, and it provides the clarity needed by both young people and employers.

I would like to end by reminding the Government about their prior commitments. The response of the Government to the Taylor review of modern working practices was that they would introduce new guidance and increase targeted enforcement activity to help to stamp out illegal and exploitative unpaid internships, but they have not. When he served as Mayor of London, the Prime Minister said that he wanted to tackle unpaid internships. The Prime Minister also said on 25 July last year that he backed this exact Bill in the name of the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell. Now, however, it seems that instead of backing it, he has backed out.

Government Members have a choice today: back the Bill and work to thrash out the minor details, if necessary, in Committee. Take a stand today and acknowledge that we have not done enough to eradicate exploitative working practices and that the Bill makes the move to right the wrongs. All colleagues here should be aware and think of the teenager in their constituency who works hard but, because of a low socioeconomic background, cannot work for free. Help that teenager get on the ladder for a change. Many young people from poorer backgrounds face challenges that many of us in this House could not even imagine. Let us take down one more barrier in their way. Let us take one step further to improving access to the workplace. Let us end exploitative, unpaid work experience or internships once and for all. I commend the Bill to the House.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) on his success in the private Members’ Bill ballot. Clearly, there is not a lot of time to respond to the detail, but I want to cover a couple of areas to show this issue the respect it deserves. I will mention one or two specific issues before I get on to the substance.

The hon. Gentleman talked about Members of this place taking on people and, as he rightly pointed out, the distinction that gets blurred between volunteers, interns and those on work experience. It is an uncomfortable truth, which we need to sort out ourselves. The W4MP—Working for an MP—website, from which some colleagues on both sides recruit their staff, states that, as a response to such campaigns in recent years, it does

“not generally accept adverts for work that does not pay at least the current rate of national minimum wage/national living wage”.

The exceptions include adverts for volunteers for political parties, including voluntary work for MPs, and any ad accepted for an unpaid role will include reference to its being voluntary. When we did a search for interns on that website, it showed 11 jobs that were all paid. A search using the term “unpaid” found no results and, similarly, “voluntary” and “expenses only” found zero results. We cannot be complacent and we must make sure that we are leading from the front, as he said.

The hon. Gentleman talked about national minimum wage prosecutions, and I think he was specifically talking about this aspect. However, in general terms of prosecutions—to update the House—there are currently seven cases at various stages of the criminal investigation process involving not paying the national wage across the board, although not necessarily in the field that we are talking about. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which tackles this, has issued seven labour market enforcement undertakings this year. Since 2007, 15 employers have been successfully prosecuted for underpaying the national minimum wage. Prosecution tends to be reserved for the most egregious breaches of national minimum wage law. In most cases, it is not necessarily the best approach to help workers. Criminal sanctions against companies can mean that workers, the ultimate beneficiaries of enforcement, end up waiting considerably longer for their lost earnings to be paid back.

I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. Gentleman that it is wrong to exploit workers through unpaid work experience, including internships. The rights of workers to be paid at least the minimum wage must always be upheld. An individual’s entitlement to the minimum wage depends on whether they are deemed to be a worker for minimum wage purposes. If someone is deemed to be a worker, their employer must pay at least the relevant minimum wage rate from their first day of employment. I will come back to this if I have time, but I should like to provide reassurance that most internships or work experience placements are likely to constitute work, and therefore individuals are likely to be deemed to be workers who are entitled to be paid at least the minimum wage.

[Alex Cunningham]

I know we are short of time, but I would ask the Minister two things. First, will he work to raise awareness among employers that a lot of their activities are actually illegal through not paying the national minimum wage? Secondly, will he look at the fact that many complaints have been made but no prosecutions or action taken when students have objected to work experience being unpaid?

[Paul Scully]

Indeed, we do work on both enforcement and awareness, but it is right that we continue to look at how much more we can do, including in making sure that employees and workers themselves are aware of what they are entitled to. Each year, as we address and set the minimum wage, we always have a campaign about that. It is important that we contact, yes, employers to remind them of their legal duties, but also workers to make sure they are aware of their own rights. That is absolutely key.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mr Simon Clarke)]

Our engagement with councils has enabled us to understand pressures at a national and local level across England. To date, we have announced £4.3 billion-worth of additional resource to councils, including £3.7 billion of unring-fenced funding. We have also announced the sales fees and charges co-payment scheme to compensate for irrecoverable income loss that is designed to flex according to the extent of the losses as they crystallise. We will also extend the period over which councils must manage shortfalls in local tax income relating to this financial year from one year to three years. All those measures are intended to prevent councils from having to make difficult in-year decisions. I reiterate the message that I have now sent out countless times to individual authorities: any authority facing an unmanageable situation should make contact with my officials.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the role of local authorities in helping to prevent local outbreaks of covid-19.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mr Simon Clarke)]

My Department has been working closely with the Joint Biosecurity Centre and the Department of Health and Social Care to develop a framework for the local management of further outbreaks of coronavirus, and councils will play a crucial role in this process. All upper-tier local authorities have published their local outbreak control plans. I am in regular contact with my counterparts at DHSC. We gave new powers to councils to control local outbreaks of covid-19 that came into effect only this Saturday.

[Alex Cunningham]

Eighteen of 55 patients who tested positive for coronavirus were transferred from North Tees University Hospital into local care homes between 1 March and 15 April. That was directly in line with the Government advice that a negative test was not required before discharge. A further 266 were transferred without a test. The policy changed on 16 April, but does the Minister accept that many deaths on Teesside, and perhaps thousands across the country, could have been prevented if the Government had got it right in the first place?

[Mr Clarke]

I pay enormous tribute to the care workers on Teesside and of course to our local NHS, which we share as Teesside MPs. This has been a constantly evolving and very complex situation, as Governments around the world, including our own, have obviously learned as matters have progressed. We have acted consistently and in good faith throughout. We have worked very hard with the care sector to protect patients. The £600 million infection control fund that we have instigated is designed to ensure that the care sector is safe, with a strong measure of containment against the disease for patients going forward.

Housing and Planning

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien) on securing this debate. His speech was comprehensive and full of good ideas, some he may have read in our policies. I have no doubt the Minister, however excellent or fabulous he is, will have benefitted greatly from listening. I would go as far as to suggest that the hon. Member seeks membership of the upcoming Bill Committee where there will be lots of scope to legislate on the matters that he has raised today. The same could be said for other hon. Members who have contributed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) spoke of land reform—that £5 million piece of land eventually being auctioned from £25 million; I don’t know what the final figure was. What an illustration of our failing system and our struggle to get the affordable homes we need. She linked housing and climate change, as well.

The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) also recognised the crisis in housing and spoke of MPs being nimbys, opposing housing development in their constituencies—something for us all to think about. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) spoke of the shortage of professionals to manage planning. I know there is a crisis in that across the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) spoke of the leasehold scandal, with homebuyers misled and landed with huge ongoing bills. He said people have more rights if their kettle goes wrong.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) spoke about her concerns about the first homes scheme. I have heard her speak several times about how new developers are being let off the hook on providing new affordable and social homes. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) talked about high-rises—they are 55 storeys high in her constituency, and there are more tower blocks across the piece. We need houses for our ageing population on the ground floor. My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) spoke about greenfield sites that are not very green, the million homes that could be built around railway stations and the wrong status for so-called green-belt land in her area.

Labour’s plans for housing at the general election were bold and ambitious, but they were necessary. We said on day one that we would start the changes within Government to set up a department for housing, which I hope will happen soon. That would bring together the powers to plan and build new homes and regenerate existing housing across the country.

Despite the election result, Labour was right on housing and we will continue to make our case. We said that within the first year, we would take action to take profiteering out of the land market, which has a severe impact on planning and housing. We said we would revise planning rules and guidance to support the delivery of more genuinely affordable homes through the planning system and we said we would publish plans to make the country’s homes greener and warmer with a new zero-carbon homes standard and retrofit programme.

Our ambition was bold, and we encourage the Government to look at our manifesto closely and recognise the good ideas—some of which we share with Conservative Members, judging from some of the speeches we have heard this afternoon—for what they are. More importantly, we know that we must act. It is easy to talk about house building without recognising the obstacles in the way of doing so. Housing and planning go hand in hand. In order to plan, we must have the resources to do it, such as land. The broken land market is at the heart of our housing crisis. Land ownership, as we have heard, is often opaque, with little transparency on who owns what.

Public land has been sold off for a short-term profit as funding from central Government has dried up. As we have also heard, current planning rules and legislation give windfall gains to landowners and traders at the expense of local communities. We must do better, and work together to look at how we can ensure that our housing and planning system is genuinely fit for purpose.

I was interested to read the article written by the hon. Member for Harborough on what needs to happen to resolve the housing crisis. It was refreshing that he accepted in his article that after 10 years of his Government, we still have a housing crisis. I was pleased to see him outline that there are genuine problems and barriers with regard to housing, and he made a clear case for how these matters can be addressed.

I have spoken before about my 27-year-old researcher, who earns a good salary and has a second income from being a local councillor, but still cannot afford to buy a house in the area where she lives, far out in London’s zone 6. She has been saving for many years and will save for many more to get a deposit, but then she will be ruled out due to her income not being high enough to get a mortgage. Her generation and the generations to come are doomed to fail unless we remove those barriers and make home ownership a reality rather than a dream. But for that to happen, we need to build more homes—not just homes but genuinely affordable homes that people with a range of incomes can afford. However, if local councils and housing associations cannot afford the land on which to build those affordable homes, they will be halted before they can even get going.

Large spaces of land are too expensive for councils and housing associations, so instead—as the hon. Gentleman outlined it in quite some detail—smaller developments are often the only option. That means we are not hitting the capacity that we need to. It is all well and good for private developers to buy land and build housing, yet more often than not such property is tiny flats in prime central London locations that ordinary people cannot afford to live in. The flats around Battersea power station area are an example—they probably call them “apartments” around there, mind. That area is a prime location, but the properties are bought up by people who can afford to buy them yet do not live in them. If anyone goes past those properties in the evening, they will see that most of the lights inside are off. Such developments add to the total number of dwellings that are built, but they are not being occupied by the people who most need a home: those who cannot afford to buy a home in any part of London, let alone a central part where, they may be living already in sub-par accommodation with several other people; and those who grew up in these areas, and are now priced out of staying there.

It is not good enough just to view building homes as the answer. There need to be those genuinely affordable homes, which is what the planning system must account for. Labour’s plan would have meant that at least 150,000 new council and housing association homes a year would have been built within five years—decent homes that people can actually afford to live in. I do not expect this Government or any Conservative Government to match our pledge on the issue or even to come close to it, but the system has to change.

[David Linden]

I am listening to what the hon. Gentleman is saying about making sure that we invest in council housing and housing association properties. However, one of the things that I am very struck by when looking at the system here is this obsession with the right to buy, which so often means that housing associations and councils are building these properties only to flog them off. Is it Labour’s proposal to abolish the right to buy, which is what we have seen in Scotland?

[Alex Cunningham]

There is no doubt about it; there is this bias towards owning a home, and time and again we hear MPs, particularly on the Government side, talking about that ambition. These days, however, many people, even well-paid researchers in Parliament with a second income, cannot afford to do that, so we have to address homes for rent as well.

Currently, it feels that we have piecemeal development, with half a dozen flats built here and a few houses built there. That will never address what we need, and so we have longer and longer housing waiting lists, and people are being priced out of the private sector, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) has just mentioned.

One way in which we can show we are taking housing and planning seriously is by empowering local authorities to strengthen their planning departments. They really need more planning officers. I think that most planning officers now work in the private sector, popping up at all these appeals that are held across the country, and of course it is the developers who win out at the end of the day. However, councils do not just need resources; they also need the confidence and the guidance from Government in order to crack on with things.

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech. Does he agree that conservation officers also seem to have been cut from every council, as well as design review panels, and that beauty is being sacrificed in this transactional way?

[Alex Cunningham]

It is not just happening in the planning sector; it is happening across local authorities. My own local authority in Stockton has lost more than half its budget since 2010, so there is a shortage of expertise across the piece in local government to hold developers and other organisations to account.

I back what the Royal Town Planning Institute has argued for, which is championing civic planning, and building strong and responsive local planning authorities. The RTPI has also recommended that central Government do more by providing grants for social housing, by providing stronger direction on suitable land for housing, and by sharing more of any land value uplift with the public and using that uplift in value to fund affordable housing. The ideas are there and the hon. Member for Harborough has helped the Minister immensely.

That said, I also value the hon. Gentleman’s contribution to the ongoing debate in Parliament about how we can move forward on housing in the best way possible, and I look forward to hearing more of what he has to say in the future. However, the bottom line, which is where I have just got to in my speech, is that it is up to the Government to be prepared to take the steps to make change happen.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

Minister, will you leave just two minutes at the end for Mr O’Brien to wrap up, please?

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I would say that we need to build more homes in London. That is a conversation that we are having with the Mayor and with local authorities, because if we are to get those people into homes that they desire, we need to ensure that we are building them.

We have also cut the red tape—a perennial bête noire—making it quicker to plan and build homes that people want to live in. However, there is far more that we need to do to address the housing challenge. We are implementing planning reforms to ensure that our planning system creates and supports thriving communities, and to improve the quality, quantity and speed of home building. As I said, we will introduce the planning White Paper shortly, setting out our proposals to make the planning process clearer, more accessible and more certain for all users, including homeowners and small businesses, and I look forward to responses from colleagues across the House. The White Paper will also address resourcing and performance in planning departments, which various colleagues mentioned, and ensure that timely decisions are made.

The Government set national planning policy, but it is important that decisions and policies are made locally. We are clear that councils and their communities are best placed to take decisions on planning issues affecting their local area within the context of national planning policy. Local plans play an important role in outlining the homes that an area needs, and I believe that such plans can deliver local decisions that will remain at the heart of the planning system. Local plans provide clarity to communities and developers about where new homes should be built and how they should look, and such plans identify what developments are needed in an area, supported by the right infrastructure.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman briefly; I am conscious that time is pressing.

[Alex Cunningham]

The developer Persimmon applied for planning permission for a large site on Junction Road in my constituency. It was told, “No, you can’t have planning permission.” The Government inspectorate overturned that decision. How are we going to strengthen the powers of local authorities, so that when they make a decision, having consulted the local community, that decision stands? Now Persimmon wants to build even more homes on the same site.

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I do not know the specific case, but we need to ensure that the codes that we use, and those that the Planning Inspectorate uses, are fit for purpose, to ensure that when a good plan is introduced, for a site that has appropriate permissions, those developments are built.

Plans that are needed in an area, supported by the right infrastructure, help to ensure that what is planned for is sustainable rather than the result of speculative applications. That also ensures that we build in greater community support. So far, 90% of councils have an adopted local plan compared with just 17% in 2010. Some are a little long in the tooth, but I am pleased that the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough adopted local plans for both his authorities in 2019, so those plans are nearly brand new.

I assure the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) that the Government are committed to reviewing permitted development rights for the conversion of buildings to residential use, particularly respecting the quality and standards of those buildings. The review will report, and I will ensure that the report is available to her in due course.

It is also crucial that local authorities plan for the right number of homes. That is why, in July 2018, we introduced a new standard method to assess the minimum number of homes that an area needs. It does not set a target; it is simply a starting point from which authorities consider any constraints, and see whether need is more appropriately met in neighbouring areas. Following the latest household projections, the standard method was changed to ensure that it was consistent with delivering the homes that the country needs. We are reviewing the method and will consult on longer-term options in due course, because we recognise that we need to diversify the products on the market in order to drive up supply.

I will say a few words on small and medium-sized enterprises before I let my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough wind up. We are supporting SME housebuilders with a package of measures to help the sector to grow and develop, including the home building fund, the housing growth and housing delivery fund, the ENABLE Build guarantee scheme, and our ongoing reforms to the planning system, more of which he will hear about in due course. We believe that SMEs have a key part to play by increasing their output, as the biggest home builders in our country will not meet the Government’s housing building target alone. SMEs are well placed to help to deliver new homes, welcomed in their communities rather than resisted, and those homes will be built to last. Not only do we need to supply more homes, we need to make the dream of home ownership, as the hon. Member for Stockton North called it, a reality.

I hope that Members can see that the Government are truly committed to addressing the problems raised in the debate. We know that we need to build more of the right homes, of the right quality and in the right places, so that the housing market works for all parts of our community. We are determined to do that, and I invite all hon. and right hon. Members to step up to the plate and help us to tackle that challenge.

Draft Client Money Protection Schemes for Property Agents (Approval and Designation of Schemes) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 General Committees

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. You will be pleased to learn that I do not intend to detain the Committee for long. The Labour party does not intend to vote against the measures, but the Minister has some questions to answer.

We are told by the Government that a private trade body, the joint money laundering steering group, is updating its guidance to help banks understand better the low risk that letting agents actually present. The Department told us, as the Minister said, that it had expected the final guidance to be published before 1 April 2020, but, due to unforeseen complexity, it will not be, so the Government are having to extend the grace period for another year, to 2021. Why is it taking so long? How on earth can people handing over thousands of pounds, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds, have confidence that their money is safe while the Government allow agents a grace period when they can, in effect, do what they like with their tenants’ cash?

According to data given to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, as of 31 December 2019 some 9,978 letting agents holding just under £3.4 billion in funds had obtained membership of an approved client money protection scheme, of which all had an appropriate client account or were making every reasonable attempt to obtain one. Does the Minister know how many such memberships there are and how many letting agents are still making a supposedly reasonable attempt to get one?

Some 251 letting agents reported difficulties in obtaining an account during the period of October to December 2019. If nearly 10,000 letting agents have managed to obtain the necessary account, why have those others failed? Are they simply not getting their finger out because no one is cracking the whip? Is it not their responsibility in any shape or form? If everyone else managed to do it, why did they not? What estimate has the Minister made of the total number of letting agents who handle client money but do not have a separate client account, including those not part of a client money protection scheme? What estimate has his Department made of the amount of landlords’ and tenants’ money held by letting agents not in a separate client account? Does he have the answers to those questions? If not, will he find out and publish that information?

Let us not forget that mandatory client money protection is crucial to give landlords and tenants confidence that their money is safe when it is being handled by an agent, and they do not currently have that. A failure by Ministers at the Department to get a grip of the process means that there will be a further delay in many landlords and tenants getting that protection and reassurance. What chance do Ministers have of fixing the broken market for private renters if they cannot get even a simple money protection scheme in place?

Why did Ministers outsource the job of providing reassurance to banks that providing client money accounts would not fall foul of money laundering regulations to the private joint money laundering steering group? What is the unforeseen complexity we are told has been experienced in producing the guidance, according to the Department’s guidance to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee? How long has the group had to produce the guidance? What deadline has the Minister set for that guidance to be provided? That failure lets down tenants and landlords. I hope that the Minister may be able to publish some guidance for the protection of landlords and tenants who end up having to hand over their hard-earned cash to agents who have yet to provide the protection that their money needs. Will he do that?

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

The right hon. Gentleman makes his point. Pooled accounts exist already, and are managed by regulated organisations and groups. We are trying to ensure that the unregulated bodies—the smaller organisations that we do not believe present a significant risk—can do their business as well. That is why the joint committee is doing its work.

The hon. Member for Stockton North asked why the joint committee is doing that work, rather than some other body. It is because the joint committee combines the United Kingdom trade organisations and representatives of the financial services industry. We believe that it is best placed to ensure that the right level of regulation can be put in place—the right method of ensuring that banks can feel that the systems that they operate are sensible, compliant and deliver safeguards against money laundering.

[Alex Cunningham]

I am interested to understand—I have lost my point. I beg the Minister’s pardon. I will come back to it.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful. In the course of his remarks, the hon. Gentleman asked how many agents are in difficulty. The figures that I have suggest that the number of agents who reported difficulties in obtaining a client account as of 30 June 2019 were 488. More recently, as of 31 December 2019, that number had fallen to 251—about 2.5% of the total membership.

The hon. Gentleman also asked why that small number of agents are unable to get an account, and why they are not, as he put it, “pulling their finger out”. The regulation states that letting agents must make all reasonable efforts to secure a client money account. We would therefore expect them to demonstrate that they have gone to a bank to open a relevant account, but were refused and have the documentation to demonstrate it. We would then expect them to work with the approved scheme of which they are a part to find an alternative bank offering pooled client accounts to letting agents, and open an account with them. Mechanisms are in place to ensure that those people who are as yet unable to open an account are doing the right thing and “pulling their finger out”.

[Alex Cunningham]

The shadow Minister has now managed to get his finger out as well. I asked how long the relevant body has had to produce the guidance so far, and whether he had placed any deadline on it—or could we be back here in 12 months’ time because of further complexities?

[Christopher Pincher]

We expect the committee to conclude its work this spring—so in short order. As I have made clear to the hon. Gentleman and to you, Mr Davies—and as our words are recorded in Hansard the industry will hear this too—we shall not be extending the statutory instrument beyond April 2021. We expect it to report shortly, but clearly it has to do so, and conclude its business, within the year.

I think that I have answered most of the questions. If I have not, I am happy to write to Members with further particulars. However, I hope we can now give this fairly straightforward SI a smooth and quick passage.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The right hon. Gentleman is behind the curve on this one; he is behind the action we are taking as a Government. We have already said that we are going to bring forward the fire safety Bill, which was in the Queen’s Speech and which will give fire and rescue services the powers that he wishes—I hope that means he will be supporting that Bill when it comes forward in the coming months. We have said that we will follow that quickly with the building safety Bill, which will be the biggest change to fire safety and building standards in this country in my lifetime.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

When?

[Robert Jenrick]

We will be doing that, as we have already said, before the summer recess.

Homelessness

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Homelessness is a crisis and it has been a growing crisis under successive Tory-Lib Dem and Tory Governments in the past 10 years. Members from across the House have articulated well the causes of and potential solutions to that crisis, none more so than my hon. Friends the Members for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) and for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare), who made their maiden speeches this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead was right to praise the feminist socialist Teresa Pearce, who once honoured me by calling me “sister”. My hon. Friend spoke of her Ghanaian heritage and the fact that she was told that she would never make it in politics. Clearly the message bearer did not have quite the measure of the lady who is sitting behind me today. My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead is representing the place he calls home, where he was born. It had been 40 years since somebody from Birkenhead had made a first speech in this place, and he was right to praise Frank Field and his work in tackling poverty. No one can speak with authority better than people who work with homeless people. I am sure that my hon. Friend will bring great knowledge to future housing debates.

The hon. Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway) said that homelessness was a health problem and that people should not give to beggars as the vast majority of them buy drugs with the money. I disagree. He is right that the failure of all manner of services is to blame, but it is under his Government that they have collapsed.

[Adam Holloway]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alex Cunningham]

I will not, no.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) lost his own dad to alcoholism. We heard a longer speech from him on this subject in Westminster Hall just a few months ago. He spoke of a homeless person in his area dying every 10 days, which he said was a moral disgrace. No wonder he was angry.

The hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) highlighted the crisis created by high rents and the need for a greater housing supply. He is right. As the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), said in his opening remarks, if social housing building had been maintained at Labour’s 2009 levels, the hon. Gentleman would have that supply.

The hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) agree that the Vagrancy Act should be scrapped, so instead of a review why does the Secretary of State not just get on and do it? He should scrap it, and while he is at it he should deal with section 21 as well.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) used his usual concise approach in a targeted speech that offered solutions to the Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) focused on directly funded services, the short-term approach to which is failing so many rough sleepers.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) spoke about a third of her constituents working for less than the London living wage, with many people earning less than the total cost of their rent. What a disgraceful set of circumstances.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) talked about homelessness being one of the most important issues facing the country, and today’s speeches have illustrated that. He went on to say that we need to recognise more and more of the impact of welfare policy on homelessness, yet it appears that Government Members are in denial as far as that is concerned.

[Adam Holloway]

We are not going to get anywhere in helping these people in dire need if we continue to conflate street homelessness with some of the other things the hon. Gentleman is talking about. Street homelessness is primarily a health problem, and unless we accept and understand that we will get nowhere. We are no use to those people if we talk like that.

[Alex Cunningham]

Health is of course an element, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that the most recent Labour Government, which left government in 2010, had almost eradicated homelessness, but we now see increase upon increase upon increase. Members have talked about the number of people who are dying homeless. Yes, we need to tackle all these things, and it is not all to do with drugs.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield also talked about how the reduction in benefits has affected homelessness, along with the reduction in funding for hostels and, of course, the lack of new social housing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) talked about rough sleeping being the most visible form of homelessness—and don’t we know it? Every day that I walk into this place and every night that I leave, I see them in Westminster station, and if I walk along the way I see them there, too. I do not see any of them shooting up, to be perfectly honest.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) talked about no properties being affordable when people depend on the local housing allowance. There is just insufficient income for them to pay their rent. He talked about the need for a robust measure of homelessness, and said that such measures appear to be a state secret, because the Government will not tell us how they measure homelessness. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) agreed with that, and went on to name young people who are dying on our streets—on the streets of his constituency.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) talked about the collapse of social care and mental health services, which has meant that people are not getting the support they need. Like others, he praised the charities and other organisations that work with homeless people. We could list 20, 30, 40 or 50 of them, as they were probably named in this debate and in previous debates, but, of course, they all need one very important thing, which is resources.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) talked about the hidden homelessness of families in temporary accommodation, highlighting the fact that 700 people in her area live in temporary accommodation, but they do not have that specific accommodation in the area where they should have it, which is in their home town. She also talked about the stress caused to children who actually end up living well away from their schools, and have to struggle to get there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) talked about homelessness being a direct result of the decision-making of the Conservative Government and also that lack of support to help private renters. I just hope that, tonight, we have a Government prepared to listen to my hon. Friends and to those on the Conservative Benches who share our concerns over failure and inaction. Knowing that there are thousands of children out there without a home to call their own should keep us awake at night. It is easy to play the blame game, which successive Governments have done, particularly over the past decade, but it is time that the Government took some responsibility for their failure.

In 1997, Labour took action to tackle homelessness, and we achieved what organisations such as Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have called an “unprecedented” decline in homelessness. I can only conclude that, after nearly 10 years of Conservative-Lib Dem and Conservative Governments, this has never been, and still is not, a priority of this Government. Homelessness has dramatically increased since 2010 on every measure. No matter how the Minister tries to spin it, the Government have failed and they will continue to fail until they start taking tough action to tackle what is a tough issue. They will spout chosen statistics such as rough sleeping falling last year by 2%—2%! Can Members believe that we almost had the Secretary of State boasting that that was some form of success? It is a small drop that can be accounted for by a range of reasons that have nothing to do with Government action. The number of rough sleepers on the streets has more than doubled since 2010, but that is not a slight change. It can therefore be directly attributed to Government inaction on tackling homelessness and the devastating cuts to local authority services.

Despite the funding the Government have thrown at homelessness, it is not enough to fill the funding hole that they have created. We know all too well that it is not simply about getting people off the streets, incredibly important as that is. It is about all the other things that can lead to people becoming homeless: income; private renting; tenants’ rights; social care; local authority funding and resource; and mental health. They are all areas with fundamental problems that the Government have simply not done enough to address.

The Secretary of State spoke about a death being a sobering reminder of what we face today, but there have been an increasing number of deaths over the past 10 years under his Government, and we have still not had the action that is necessary. If they do not take action, the problems will not get fewer, they will grow and then they will take even more resources to address.

I met representatives of AKT—formerly known as the Albert Kennedy Trust—last year. I also met some young LGBT people who had difficulties with housing. House sharing can be more difficult for a young LGBT person. They may have experienced a family breakdown, which forces them to leave their family home, yet support from cash-strapped local authorities is limited for such people—if it exists at all. None the less, we cannot let it just be a case of handing out some cash in the hope that the homelessness crisis can get better.

We need strategic and concentrated efforts to ensure that housing works for everyone in this country: for young adults who currently spend two thirds of their income on rent; LGBT people who may have experienced family breakdown and need secure housing; veterans coming out of the armed forces, who may have little support in getting back into daily life, including getting a roof over their head; older people who need housing suited to reduced mobility, particularly some help to make it easier for them to downsize if they want to; survivors of domestic violence who feel that they have nowhere safe to live if they leave an abusive partner; children who should not be living in B&Bs or temporary accommodation after temporary accommodation; and lower-income families who need the grounding of a family home, so that they can get on in life. Right now, I do not really know what the Government are doing for these groups. You have to up your game, Secretary of State. We need solutions to this crisis, and we look forward to you finding them.