Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

We will look closely at anybody who is frustrating people’s dream and desire to own their own home. We will continue with the right to buy. We will look at how those receipts are being used, so that we can maximise the new homes being built. Under Labour, 170 right-to-buy receipts bought one new home. Now, we are getting more homes built through the right to buy, and having sold 119,000 homes, we have built 140,000 more.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

The Conservatives’ deep cuts to new council and social housing are part of the reason why homelessness has risen so rapidly over the last 10 years. Every day, hundreds of us see the increasing number of homeless people and their belongings in Westminster station and outside this building, but their plight is the same as that of thousands of others across the country who find themselves trying to find somewhere dry and safe to sleep. Does the Minister accept that, if the Tories had simply continued building social rented homes at the level left by Labour, there would now be 200,000 more social rented homes for those who need them, including those who are homeless on Parliament’s doorstep?

[Esther McVey]

What we all know is that, for a long period, demand has outstripped supply. That is why this Government are building more homes, with more homes built in the last year than in the last 30 years. We have delivered 1.5 million more homes since 2010, and we will continue to do that. Of course, we have also brought in initiatives for rough sleeping and homeless people. We have to be fully aware of that, and this Conservative Government are doing a lot more to help those people.

Building Out Extant Planning Permissions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Anne Milton (Guildford) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered building out extant planning permissions.

It is a pleasure, albeit a surprise, to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes.

I am here to talk about planning, which is often a contentious issue for our local councillors, and particularly for local authorities that are developing local plans, especially in constituencies with significant areas of green-belt and other protected land. Some 89% of Guildford borough and 60% of Waverley borough is in the green belt; and 36% of Guildford and 53% of Waverley is in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

In Guildford, we are very short of homes. We have around 3,000 people on Guildford Borough Council’s waiting list, with thousands more unable to buy a home due to excessively high prices, and we have correspondingly high rents. However, in Guildford and Cranleigh we need to build more homes in the right areas, with good transport links and all the necessary infrastructure, without increasing the risk of flooding, while protecting our green belt. To do that, we need investment from Government and developers.

I am sure that many Members of this House and I could spend several hours discussing the need for more homes, including more social housing and more homes that people can afford, and where those homes should be built, but I asked for this debate on a narrower area. Once local authorities have had the arguments about local plans and planning permissions—and they do have torrid arguments about them—and permission has been given, what powers do local authorities have to get the homes built? How can they get the much-needed infrastructure?

In Guildford in 2018-19, the number of homes built was 284. There is a requirement for 518 this year and 928 in 2021-22. In simple terms, that will only cover the backlog of unmet need. There is also a need, year on year, for 570 so-called affordable homes—although what is called “affordable” in Guildford is not affordable in many other parts of the country, or even in Guildford itself, so the word is open to some debate. However, taking into account that development will provide 40% of the overall housing figure, year on year, Guildford will be short of affordable homes until we reach more than 1,000 new dwellings a year.

Schemes such as Weyside urban village are subject to a housing infrastructure fund or HIF bid, which we are still waiting to hear about. We were told by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government that this was an oven-ready scheme, but still we have not heard back on that, and the Government have recently put up interest rates on local authority loans from the Public Works Loan Board from 0.8% to 1.8%.

Despite my having had numerous meetings with Ministers from the Department for Transport and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Guildford’s infrastructure, both road and rail, is under extreme pressure, as is the two-lane stretch of the A3. That affects many more constituencies than just mine; it affects everybody south of Guildford. Developers will build only where there is a commitment to the delivery of infrastructure. Builders simply will not build without it; they go elsewhere, where it is easier to build.

In Cranleigh, in Waverley borough, a total of 7,640 permissions have been given since 2013, but only 1,906 homes have been built. Cranleigh is required to build 1,700 new homes over the local plan period, which is from 2013 to 2032. Of those, 1,600 have been granted permission. The largest sites in Cranleigh account for 1,348 of those dwellings, of which only 168, or 12%, had been built as of 4 September.

The figures are pretty shocking. A permission for 425 dwellings was granted in 2016, but only eight of those plots are complete; 136 dwellings were given permission in 2014, and only 69 of those plots are complete; 75 dwellings were granted permission in 2017, and 38 of those plots have been developed; 265 dwellings were given permission in 2015—four years ago—and none of those is complete; an application for 54 dwellings got permission in 2017, and of those, we have only one show home; of 125 dwellings given permission in 2015, none is complete; and on one site, where 149 dwellings were given permission in 2016, and 119 in 2018, only 52 plots are complete. As I say, developers will build only where there is infrastructure, but these permissions are crippling Cranleigh.

Cranleigh is in the countryside, beyond the green belt, and although I do not want to see building on the green belt—none of us does—we end up with development pushed on to the countryside beyond the green belt, with no account taken of sustainability, environmental protections or feasibility. Cranleigh is a wonderful village, but it has precious little transport infrastructure and no realistic means of achieving it. That has an impact on housing delivery, and developers want to keep prices high, well beyond the reach of many. Build-out is slow. I could talk about the inappropriateness of the development in Cranleigh, but that would take me into another Westminster Hall debate.

Local authorities simply do not possess enough tools to force the hand of developers. The housing delivery test is based on the completion of new dwellings, rather than planning permissions granted. In granting planning permission, local authorities can set shorter time periods in which the development must be begun, but as starting a development can mean as little as commencing an access road, or creating a hard-standing for the parking of vehicles, those time periods mean precious little. Local authorities have no carrots and no sticks at their disposal.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing this debate. I am trying to give her a break to maybe take a mouthful of water, but I am interested in what she thinks those carrots and sticks could be.

[Anne Milton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will come on to exactly that; I have a few ideas.

There are numerous options available to Government to make a real difference in getting the homes that we need built. We need houses that people can afford in areas such as Guildford and Cranleigh, where prices are eye-wateringly high—the average house price in Guildford is more than £550,000—and socially rented homes. However, it sometimes feels as if successive Governments are simply unwilling to do anything that will upset the developers’ apple cart.

The options that could be available to Government include requiring developers of strategic sites in local plans to come forward with a full permission application. They already have the benefit of being in the local plan—a factor that carries significant weight when it comes to granting permission. They should have to come forward with a full application. The pretty development pictures that we see at the outline stage, which are generally in watercolours and made to look a bit like something out of a storybook, are rarely carried through into reserved matters.

Phased development on larger sites should be agreed in advance between the developer and the local planning authority and written into the section 106 agreements, so that the LPA has a more realistic idea of what will be delivered. Currently, provision of affordable housing is written into any agreement, but if all housing is viewed as a social benefit—I think all housing is a social benefit—we could include phased development targets, particularly on strategic sites, in local plans.

Starting a development should involve completing a dwelling, not just putting a bit of concrete on the land. Once the developer has committed money to laying on services and so on, they are more likely to continue. Council tax could become due on every dwelling, whether completed or not, based on agreed delivery rates. There could be compulsory purchase by Government of sites that had not delivered over, say, 10 years. There could be a higher rate of tax on land banking by non-building companies that push up the value of land. We could apply heavier taxes on developers’ land banks that contain more than five years-worth of house building, based on their current build rate. Developers can make money selling on plots rather than building houses; we need to capture more of the uplift value of the land, so that house building becomes the better option. We could decide not to sell public land to developers. Land capture value should be captured for the benefit of the public, not for plugging funding gaps.

Local authorities face significant sanctions for not building homes in housing development targets; developers that do not build have none whatever on them. The only cost that they bear is the cost of interest on loans that they acquire to buy the land. In fact, it is not uncommon for developers to build out just short of their targets but not up to the trigger points. For instance, I recently heard a story of a developer from whom significant amounts of money were due when it reached the 300th house—money that was critical for the infrastructure for a large site. But the developer stopped at 299. None of the other developers building on that strategic site was prepared to go ahead without that infrastructure.

I cannot see, despite protestations from many people, any real action from Government. You, Ms Nokes, raised with me an interesting point about Romsey brewery. This is a long-running case in Test Valley. The last brew was on your 11th birthday on 26 June 1983. Every time it looks like development is about to make progress, it stalls. There are residents on a site that has been partially developed for years and years. There is a similar site in Guildford; it was demolished in, I think, the 1980s. It stands right in the town centre—minutes’ walk from the station—but nothing is being built on the site. In an area such as Guildford, where, as I said, 89% of the borough is green belt, it is criminal that people who need homes—socially rented homes, homes to rent, and homes to buy at prices that they can afford—see that site sitting empty.

If we want more homes, at the very least Government need to help local authorities to deliver the infrastructure and penalise the developers, or give them significant incentives to get on and build the houses that are needed. We need the Government to take action so that we get truly sustainable development—not just development anywhere, but development that allows rewilding of our countryside, for example, and enables building on brownfield land. I am thinking of sites such as the Romsey brewery and the Plaza site in Guildford.

Guildford will remain unbuilt on for years and years unless Government do something. I know that this Government have, and previous Governments had, the best intentions. What I would like to hear from the Minister and perhaps the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) is some ideas about how we get things to happen in the foreseeable future, not five years down the line.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is also an unexpected pleasure for me to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. I thank the right hon. Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) for securing the debate. There is no doubt in my mind that the failure of developers to get on with the job and build the homes for which they have permission is a major factor contributing to our failure to meet the needs of people in this country.

The right hon. Lady talked about high demand for property in Guildford and real shortages. That is reflected across the country and even in the north of England, where land prices are of course less expensive. She made a comprehensive speech, and my speech will reflect much of what she said. There were interesting comments particularly on affordability. Of course, we have very different markets across the UK. I do not know what it costs to buy a three or four-bedroom house in Guildford, but if someone comes to Stockton-on-Tees, they can buy a brand-new four-bedroom house for under £200,000.

[Anne Milton]

In Guildford it varies slightly, but I think the average house price is about £580,000.

[Alex Cunningham]

There we have it—the absolute difference between different marketplaces. If someone wanted to buy a small, two-bedroom apartment in my constituency, they could buy one brand-new for under £90,000.

[Geraint Davies in the Chair]

My point is that if we had investment in the north of England similar to what there has been in the south—investment in infrastructure and in business development —perhaps people would find tremendous advantages in heading north and living there, where the standard of living can be much higher and people have so much more disposable income even after they have paid their mortgage.

The problem is that this country is facing a housing crisis. There are 126,000 children without a home to call their own. Rough sleeping has more than doubled since 2010. Home ownership among the under-45s has fallen by 900,000 since 2010. More than 1 million people are on council waiting lists.

Labour has made many commitments on how we will address the housing crisis. We will launch the biggest council building programme for a generation. We will build for those who need it, including the very poorest and the most vulnerable, with a big boost to new social rented homes. We will stop the sell-off of social rented homes by suspending the right to buy. We will look closely at how local authorities deal with land—how they sell land if they need to sell land. The right hon. Lady talked about that, and we will look closely at how we contain the value and the price of land. We will transform the planning system with a new duty to deliver affordable homes.

We also want to encourage greater use of brownfield sites. I mentioned the site in Stockton where someone can buy a four-bedroom house for £200,000. I visited that just last week. It was a brownfield site—a big joinery company used to be on the site. People are starting to build there, so I hope that the centre of Guildford might see a similar development in the near future.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Ind)]

I think that you might be a little indulgent, Mr Davies, if this is quite a long intervention. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) has spoken about brownfield sites, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) mentioned, on my behalf, Romsey brewery. Our big challenge there is that that is the only remaining brownfield site in the centre of Romsey, yet because the developers have started the build, there are no additional powers to force them to build it out. Would the hon. Gentleman like to expand a little on how he sees a future in which levers can be applied to developers where they have the permission and have started the build and where compulsory purchase is not possible, for a wide variety of reasons, including the fact that every time the council comes close to compulsory purchase, the developer simply starts building one more unit? Does the Labour party have any great suggestions on how we might resolve such situations?

[Alex Cunningham]

I will develop that point later in my speech, but we believe that we could impose penalties in that situation. If developers were failing to develop the land, we could tax the land in a particular way so that they could decide either to pay the tax or to get on with the development.

A Government can take many actions to alleviate the housing crisis, but of course the real answer is to build more genuinely affordable homes. To truly address homelessness of all kinds, we need those affordable homes for people to live in. To enable more young people to buy a house, there needs to be the stock available at a price that they can afford. My researcher, Kerri Prince, lives in Greater London and is saving desperately to buy a house, but she needs £40,000 or £50,000 to put a deposit on a house, so it is almost an impossible task for her.

[Anne Milton]

Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that the problem when Government put money into the housing market—to take his example—is that they simply push the price up?

[Alex Cunningham]

The answer to high prices is to provide more homes and drive the prices down, and our ambition is to do that, and not just for younger people. We need to ensure that older people have adequate housing; it should be designed specifically for them so that it is suitable. We need to build more for the elderly as well.

Unfortunately, it is not as simple as giving developers planning permission, as the right hon. Member for Guildford outlined. We have situations where planning permission has been given and building has begun, but residents in the locality are left with an eyesore of a building site for many months, or even years, due to the project being suspended or halted. There is no requirement for developers to finish the building and bring the project to completion, and there are no deadlines for the building to be completed. She gave lots of examples of developers failing the people they are meant to be providing for.

[Caroline Nokes]

Does the hon. Gentleman concur that the imperative, therefore, is to have deadlines by which development must not only begin, but be completed? It affects not only residents in the locality but, in many instances, residents who are already living on the site.

[Alex Cunningham]

I concur with that. We see this tremendous race by developers to acquire potentially lucrative land, yet they might not be equipped or ready to develop it. They might not have the resources or labour to get on with the job. They have complied with the planning permission by starting to build. As the right hon. Member for Guildford said, that could just be an access road. They know that they can simply pause the project indefinitely. This is not how our processes should work. We desperately need that housing for people to live in.

Some developers get their hands on the land and then fail to build even one house within a reasonable timescale. The developers always get what they want but, for many reasons—probably related to their projected sales, income and profit generation—they chose to go at a pace that suits them, not the need for new homes. We believe that councils should be given “use it or lose it” planning powers. They should be able to levy the tax that I mentioned on sites where planning permission has been granted but it has not been built out in a reasonable timeframe, or where the building has begun but been halted for the long term, so the homes do not get built because it is not convenient for the developer to do so.

At the planning permission stage, we could place more stringent timetables on when parts of the development should be delivered. That would result in a minimum number of homes being developed within fixed timescales and would not leave the early inhabitants living on a building site for years on end. I know that major developments can face uncertainty and setbacks, but I am under no illusion: some developers enter the process in the full knowledge that they will abandon the land for a time, depending on their own needs and processes. For me, that is not on.

Local authorities grant planning permission in good faith, to provide homes for their residents. Some developers may hold up the delivery of the houses for the sake of profit, as prices may have dropped, or they have been unable to increase them as much as they claim they need to. For too long we have tolerated profits for developers being put ahead of housing for the many. We should be much stronger on regulations and the planning system for delivering new affordable homes.

Last week, during a visit to Sheffield, the Minister spoke about a corridor of prefab house building factories across the north of England—a bold and welcome vision—yet it was a shame to hear that most of the £38 million to boost construction went to councils in the south. That seems to be the story with this Government: investment for the south while the north continues to be disregarded and discounted. I hope that the Minister will have tough new measures to announce.

[Anne Milton]

The hon. Gentleman lives in a very different part of the country from the constituency I live in and serve. He may be interested to hear that we in the south-east, particularly in Guildford, feel that all the money goes to the north of England, particularly the infrastructure money.

[Alex Cunningham]

That is a fascinating comment. Just look at Crossrail, investment in the Underground or investment in HS2, which is supposed to go to the north—we do not know when it will reach Leeds, never mind the real north, which is Teesside, Durham, Newcastle, Berwick-upon-Tweed and then my homeland of Scotland. When we see Crossrail-type investment in infrastructure in the north, perhaps I will be able to come around to the right hon. Lady’s way of thinking.

I hope that the Minister will announce tough new measures that outline how she thinks we can bring these housing developments to completion within a reasonable timescale. That must include measures to support councils in getting the required level of affordable housing to ease their waiting lists; measures to be firm with developers who are sitting on developments with no completion date in sight; and measures to be tougher during the planning permission process, to give councils the assurances they need to grant the green light.

Our housing and planning systems are long overdue an overhaul. Over the past decade, this Government have failed on housing on all fronts, so it will fall to the next Labour Government, in a few weeks’ time, to deliver the change that is needed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms McVey]

The right hon. Lady is spot on; people do want to be given the opportunity to buy their home. She is also correct that we need to build more homes, to continue that cycle—to enable people to get on the housing ladder at whatever stage in life it is plausible for them to do so. I say that as someone who has been in every type of tenure.

I remember only too well the opportunity afforded to people who bought their own home in the 1980s and earlier. It worked as well for local councils and the Government as it did for the individual because at that time, when council homes were not necessarily being kept in the condition that they should have been, a person living in a council home could take over the property to maintain it, and bought it at a price that worked for them and for Government; and they then had a home.

As the right hon. Lady said, we need to keep that cycle going so that there are more homes coming forward, and that is what we must continue to do. So many people have said, and continue to say, that the opportunity afford through the right to buy fundamentally changed not only their lives, but those of their children.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister will be as aware as I am of the vast number of homes sold under the right to buy that have ended up in the private rented sector because people have sold them and moved on. Many of those people have ended up back in the rental sector, so vast numbers have not really benefited from the right to buy. The important thing is to have more homes, but the Government have failed over many years to provide new homes for each one that they have sold.

[Ms McVey]

There are many life stories, and the hon. Gentleman may well be right that sometimes, for whatever reason, people might not have stayed in the home that they bought. People do not know what will happen in their life’s journey. However, for the vast bulk of people who took the opportunity, buying their home was transformational: it meant the security of having the home that they wanted and of being on the housing ladder. Opportunities are what the Government can give people, and we will continue to offer them to others because our party believes in social mobility as well as self-empowerment. That is key.

[Ms McVey]

The right hon. Lady is quite right. So many people have said what a support the right to buy was. That is key for the Conservative party: how do we help people to achieve what they aim for in life, whether that is a home or a business?

When we talk about the number of homes coming forward, we all agree that there have been many decades of not building enough; demand has outstripped supply for many years. In the past year, however, more than 220,000 homes have been built—more than in all but one of the past 31 years. We need to do more, and more is being done—but a significant amount has been done already. We are going in the right direction. The Government are putting another £44 billion into home building.

[Alex Cunningham]

It is good that more homes are being built, but does the Minister acknowledge that the Government have failed to meet their own targets almost every year?

[Ms McVey]

What I will say is that we are still on the way to our target of building up to 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s. We have been building more; as I said clearly, we built more homes this year than in all but one of the last 31 years. That is key.

We have helped people in various ways. Some 560,000 people have benefited from our Help to Buy scheme, and we are helping 310,000 first-time buyers. We have the highest number of first-time buyers in a decade, and there was an increase of 84% between 2010 and 2018, so we are helping people to get on the housing ladder. Local authority waiting lists went down by about 40% in that time. We are helping people across the board, whether they are on housing waiting lists or whether they want to buy homes, but I agree that there is more to do.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister’s statistics may sound impressive, but does she share my concerns? I live at Chelsea Bridge Wharf when I am in London, and each night I pass all the huge new developments and properties that have been built. Although they have been there for several years, most of the lights are off all night. The properties that the Government boast have been built are not occupied, but owned by overseas developers and others who just want them for their value. That does nothing to put people into properties.

[Ms McVey]

I cannot agree. I am giving the hon. Gentleman figures that show that waiting lists have come down by 40%, that we have the highest number of first-time buyers in a decade, and that we are supporting people into homes, so I cannot agree with what he says.

We all want sustainable development. We want homes that are fit for the future and future-proof. The hon. Gentleman mentioned that in Sheffield I talked about the fact that the Government are setting up a centre of excellence across the north. Our vision is that the north will be the centre for engineering and modern methods of construction. We will be building homes for people to live in, so the UK can be a global leader in modern methods of construction and in safe homes, technological homes, green homes, modern homes and beautiful homes. That is our goal and ambition; if we achieve it, a mature market will be worth £40 billion a year to this country. That industry will be led from the north, as it needs to be. We selected the north because of the vision that it already has. We need to capitalise on the arc that stretches from Liverpool right across to Sheffield. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman shares my vision and view of the opportunities.

On sustainable developments and homes for the future, the Government are paving the way for a green revolution with eco-friendly and affordable homes. We are looking in the round at how to have homes with considerably reduced heating costs, so that they are affordable in every way, but also good for the environment. We need homes that give the people in them value for money, that are good for the environment and that reduce carbon emissions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms McVey]

That is exactly what we have to do: open up the whole building sector and industry. We continue to have traditionally made homes—the latest figures from 2015 show that 90% are built in that way—but a new market is emerging. The modern methods of construction and different materials that the right hon. Lady refers to are being used in 10% of homes, or about 15,000. How do we develop and expand that industry to give people a choice of where to live?

Some of these homes can be built off-site, using modern methods, in a couple of weeks, and can then be put on-site in a couple of days. That stops the disruption for everyone living close by, which stops some of the opposition to planning permissions and building out, because it is very considerate to everybody living close by. That is key, and it is exactly what we are doing.

The companies coming forward in this area include Urban Splash, up in Manchester, which is engaging in a joint venture with a Japanese company, Sekisui, that is coming over to England. In Speke in Liverpool, there is a new, emerging company called Ideal Modular Homes, and in Yorkshire there is Ilke Homes. This new development is happening, and these new products are coming forward. The Government are getting behind that, and supporting these new and emerging industries, because that is the future of housing in this country. However, housing is all about choice, and that is what we will always push; we will not only back industry, business and creativity but ensure that houses are built and delivered to local neighbourhoods in a considerate way.

[Alex Cunningham]

It is great that we agree on so much across Parliament as far as housing development is concerned, particularly on the greenhousing issue. I have met developers recently, and I keep pressing them on ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps, solar and everything else, asking them why on earth are they not starting to adopt these new technologies. They tell me that it is because the market is immature, and they cannot get the quality of product that they require, and even if the quality of product was there, they could not get it in the quantity that they require. The Minister talks about encouraging the development of these industries, but what will the Government do to encourage that development, so that these industries have the supply chains that they require?

[Ms McVey]

There is an element of the developments having to be done at a scale that then brings down cost and adds to affordability. That is what we are addressing through schemes such as the home building fund, through which we are putting £2.5 billion into the sector and providing innovative ways for small and medium-sized enterprises to come forward. We are backing up what we are talking about with significant support from Government.

The right hon. Member for Guildford and the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North talked about brownfield sites. They are key, especially when we consider that possibly 1 million homes could be built on them across the country. Once again, through the home building fund, the Government are putting more than £2 billion into supporting work on brownfield land that is coming forward, which is key.

I go on visits around the country, looking at what is happening with housing. I went to Northstowe, the biggest complete new town since the 1950s. It was built on public brownfield land. We have to make sure that there is a steady supply of brownfield land coming forward, and we must provide support to make sure that people do the remediation work on that land and build on it. They must not only start building on that land, but continue that building until completion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms McVey]

That is where the accelerated planning Green Paper will come in, because it will provide the blueprint to overhaul the planning system to create a simpler, fairer system that works for everyone, from homeowners to small and medium-sized businesses, local communities and housing developers. It will also ensure that people who want to build for themselves have the right to do so.

[Alex Cunningham]

Does the Minister see an opportunity for retrospective powers to be granted to local authorities to tackle the specific problems outlined by the right hon. Member for Guildford?

[Ms McVey]

I am not sure about retrospective powers. We would have to look at their impact, but we could certainly go forward with what we see we need to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms McVey]

I will take that away and look into the scheme to see where it is and I will write to the right hon. Lady with an answer. The HIF is all about unlocking developments and finding the extra funds needed for the infrastructure for a site. As she says, it will unlock 1,000 homes in her area. That is why the money was put aside. It is 1,000 homes in her area, but 650,000 across the country. So far we have not delivered on that, but we have to make sure that we get value for money and that homes are built out in a speedy and safe way. I will write to her on that matter and see where her HIF bid is.

[Alex Cunningham]

It looks as though the Minister is moving towards the idea that we should have retrospective powers for local authorities to ensure that the sites are actually built out. Perhaps we could find a way to compel them to work in partnership with other organisations, such as housing associations, in order to allow them to develop a site if the developers are not prepared to get on with it.

[Ms McVey]

We are supporting housing in all different ways in order to get the homes we need. As I said, we have done a considerable job so far. How do we work with people? We are not statist like the Labour party, which might tell people what to do. We understand that we have to work with the local community, local councils and developers to get the best outcomes for the local area. We do it through consensus, understanding what is needed and providing support. The Government set up the housing infrastructure fund to do just that. We ask where the pinch points are, where the difficulties in developing something out are, and then we ensure that it works successfully. But how do we build on that and analyse what works to take it further?

[Alex Cunningham]

We have heard examples this morning of sites sitting totally empty for donkeys’ years with nothing happening. People have tried to work with developers in the examples that we have given, but nothing has happened. Surely, eventually, you have to remove the carrot and apply the stick.

[Ms McVey]

This Government have helped support the building of more homes in the past year than all but one of the past 30 years, so I do not want the hon. Gentleman to paint an untrue picture of what is happening across the country. If we drive across the country, we see significant home building. When I talk about the biggest ever complete new town in Northstowe, with 10,000 homes being built on brownfield public land, we can see it happening. Sites are being built out, working with the local community, and that is what we need to do. Do we need to do more? Yes, and I think we can all agree on that.

How do we make sure that brownfield sites or sites that have planning permission come to fruition and get built? We have been doing that all across the country. I have travelled to Gosport to look at a new significant size building there, partnering with Homes England. I have looked at what is happening in Cambridgeshire and Northstowe. I am looking at a new development in Manchester and bringing back into play what I call unloved land, or we are renovating old buildings. That is exactly what we are doing, but each part of the country wants, and requires, a different type and style of home. We must have solutions for all of them, to ensure that we keep to the character of different areas.

The Government also want to bring back many small and medium-sized businesses. A third were lost in the financial crash of 2007-08. How do we stimulate the marketplace and ensure that we bring those builders back into it, so that the big builders do not dominate? That is key, because we are the party of small businesses, and of innovation and aspiration. We can bring those elements back in by working with our strategic partner, Homes England, which has increased in size considerably and is stretching out across the country. We are looking at how we can subdivide land to bring in new developers, so that they too can get building. Equally, if those developers are from the local area, the local area benefits too, in terms of jobs, the survival of businesses, and understanding the character of an area.

Another key point is how to get the skills and the labour force. That involves working through the industrial strategy, and working with the Department for Education to ensure that we will have a workforce that can build the homes that are needed. We are doing significant work and putting significant funding behind that too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms McVey]

The right hon. Lady is correct. I have meetings all the time to discuss that, as I did when I was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, when I was constantly working on how to support various sectors. She will be pleased to know that the Government have got 3.5 million more people into work—a thousand more people every day since 2010. There are also millions more in apprenticeships, so we have looked at the full flow-through of how we support people.

European citizens who are here, working with us, will remain here. We support them and thank them for the work they have done. Looking forward, how can we ensure that our workforce is homegrown as well as including those we need for the time being? The right hon. Lady is correct to mention those issues, but I have not just thought about them today; I have been working on them for nine years. That is why our country has such robust employment figures. However, she is right to mention those concerns.

[Alex Cunningham]

Unemployment in the north-east is up by 15,000 in the last year, which just shows the imbalance in Government investment. The Minister managed to answer a previous intervention that I had planned before I could make it, but I am interested in what she said about how much we can agree on regarding bringing small builders back into the industry. We have heard about other sites this morning. There are sites across the country that are not being built out, so surely there is an opportunity for small builders to work in partnership with larger companies. Alternatively, larger companies could release the parts of those sites that they are not prepared to develop, in order to let small builders enter the market, build homes and satisfy the housing crisis.

[Ms McVey]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I will not let an unfair representation of what is happening in employment go unchecked. We are at record low unemployment in this country, and at record high employment. The Government have brought down youth unemployment by 50%—under the previous Labour Government it sky-rocketed. We are the ones who ensure that people are in employment and have the careers they want, as well as opportunities for their future, and we will continue to do so.

It has been hard work for the Government to turn around the economy and get people into employment. That is the truth, and it has to be on record. I am particularly pleased that the Government have reduced youth unemployment by 50%. When we started in 2010, meeting young people who thought that they might never get a job was shameful, yet we have turned that around, ensuring that there are opportunities for everyone in this country.

With regard to ensuring that people work together, including big companies giving work to smaller companies, people do that on site anyway, ensuring that small, local companies work on site. That needs to be pushed even further. We are working with our strategic partner, Homes England, to ensure not just that there is a single big developer, but that the land is subdivided so that small and medium-sized enterprises can come forward. I am also working closely with Homes England on ensuring that smaller sites are given to SMEs to build on first.

We agree that it is key that local people benefit from the house building that is needed, not only through places to live, but through jobs. Some 300,000 homes will have to be built every year from the mid-2020s. Look at the size of the opportunities, and at the workforce that needs to be created. They will be very good jobs with very good career prospects. That needs to be planned for, which goes back to the question the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North asked about the workforce. Significant planning needs to go into that, which has been done and continues to be done. Again, that is why we are looking at modern methods, so that we can cater for a highly skilled workforce.

I think that we are coming to the end of the debate. We have covered an array of issues. I will take various matters back and will write to the right hon. Member for Guildford, particularly on the HIF fund that she is working for. However, I want people to be reassured that we are building more homes, and we will continue to do so. We have incentives and support to ensure that people are building on brownfield sites, and where they are not, we will look at what levers we can pull to make sure that people build out those sites, whether using carrots or sticks. I will take that question back and consider it. We are also talking about how we make the planning process easier, making sure that we are working with local communities.

I will give the final word to the right hon. Member for Guildford.

British House Building Industry

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for securing the debate through the Backbench Business Committee. She is right to highlight these issues. Surely, in this world of inequality, individuals should not be lining their own pockets with millions of pounds in bonuses taken from taxpayers’ money. Our focus needs to be on all our people, not just the few. Other Members raised the issue of leasehold. I invite the Minister to solve the crisis by adopting our approach to leasehold.

A home is at the heart of our lives. It is the foundation on which we grow up and raise our own families—the bedrock for our dreams and aspirations. It helps us to belong and shapes who we are and what we do. Yet, as others have said, we have a housing crisis in our country. We all know it, but successive Ministers seem to have had little motivation to do anything about it. There has been a steady rise in homelessness, in rough sleeping and in hidden homelessness—people or families who are considered homeless but whose situation is not visible—either on the streets or in official statistics, with those forced into the world of sofa surfing, living in make- shift rooms in overcrowded dwellings, or maybe even in a car. That was also highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). It is not a situation fit for 21st-century Britain.

When Labour left office, housing was at the heart of our decision making: we had just pulled the country back from the cliff edge of the global recession; we had just switched funding from other Departments to deliver the biggest investment in social housing in a generation; and we had just protected people’s homes with Labour’s mortgage rescue scheme, which, along with other actions, meant that repossessions were over a third lower than in 1991, when Tory inaction led to 75,000 homes being repossessed. Over the whole 13 years that Labour spent in power, home ownership soared. Since then the number of home-owning households has fallen under the Tories. Under Labour, the number rose by over 1 million. House building grew. We built almost 2 million homes. After years of high homelessness under the Tories, Labour cut it by 62%. We brought over 1 million homes up to standard as part of our decent homes programme.

Since 2010, however, the number of new social rented homes has fallen by over 95%, and we are now building 30,000 fewer social rented homes each year; house building still has not recovered to the level it was at before the global financial crisis; the overall level of home ownership has fallen since 2010, from 67% to 64% last year; average private rents have risen by £1,900 a year; and—something that should shame us all—in the sixth biggest economy in the world, we have seen rough sleeping more than double over the past nine years.

After nearly a decade of failure, it is clear that the Conservatives have no credible plan to build the number of homes we need. Labour will draw a line under the failure of the past and put building new homes at the heart of government. For the first time ever, a Labour Government will establish a fully-fledged department for housing. Ministers will be challenged at each step by a new Office for Budget Responsibility-style office for housing delivery, which will be an independent auditor of house building projections, delivery plans and progress against Government targets. We will set the new department a target of building at least 1 million new, genuinely affordable homes in England over 10 years, including a major council house building programme. We will bring forward more land for development at a lower price, by setting a new role for the Homes and Communities Agency as the Government’s main housing delivery body, and we will protect the green belt.

We will introduce a revolutionary new type of housing, “first buy homes”, with housing costs for new build homes benchmarked at a third of local average incomes so that homes are priced at what local people can afford, not what makes developers the most money. We will also introduce a tough “first dibs” rule on new housing developments to give local people confidence that homes built in their area can be for them and their families. Developers will be forced to market new homes to local first-time buyers first, not to overseas buyers or those with no connection to the area. We will act on those 750,000 empty plots that are sitting doing nothing and bring them into use.

Some may question what exactly we can do to tackle homelessness. Last week, I visited St Mungo’s and learned about its initiatives to help reduce the impact of homelessness, including “no second night out”. I also visited AKT—formerly the Albert Kennedy Trust—and heard directly from some young LGBT people who had experienced homelessness and who told me what housing support they needed. Organisations such as St Mungo’s and AKT do excellent work in supporting people who need help, and they truly set an example of what can be achieved with vision and passion. Any Government could learn much from both those organisations.

Ultimately, this comes back to the availability of housing stock. We cannot provide people with decent, affordable homes if we simply do not have the stock. We need to build, and build fast. However, we cannot compromise on quality or affordability. It means very little for thousands of new homes to spring up in an area if the people who live in that area cannot afford them.

Rental costs should not account for two thirds of tenants’ incomes, and it is on social housing that we must focus to address the housing crisis. Labour has already made a commitment to stop the sell-off of 50,000 social rented homes a year by suspending the right to buy and to transform the planning system with a new duty to deliver affordable homes to make more land available more cheaply. Councils are not adequately staffed to oversee planning applications, and the industry does not have the skills and innovation to deliver what we need. Labour will ensure that both councils and the industry have what they require.

Everyone should have a safe place that they can call home, but that is so often not the case. A young person may not be able to return to the family home because he or she is at risk of harm. An older person may not be able to go upstairs safely and may therefore need a different type of accommodation. A survivor of domestic violence may need somewhere safe to rebuild his or her life. A family may be sleeping in a car because it is cleaner, and perhaps safer, than temporary accommodation. I am thinking of some of the destroyed families referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms).

Successive Tory Governments have failed all those people. It is time that we had a Labour Government putting housing front and centre, putting right the failures and sorting out the crisis that so many face today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden said, we have done it before and we will do it again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms McVey]

We are and will be building more affordable homes. We have put in a significant amount—billions of pounds—for affordable homes and have also removed the cap so councils are able to build homes, too. That is what we have to do. We are a party that believes in choice. I come from a council house. I believed in the right to buy in the 1980s to make sure people could be in charge of their own homes. Homes were not being repaired properly. People bought them and looked after them. Now we have to make sure we build more homes, so there is a virtuous cycle and there are more homes. We are a nation that believes in home ownership. We need to enable people to have their own homes. We know that 80% of people want their own homes. What are we doing? We want to offer an array of choice and support. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk said, this is also about the ability of individuals to build their own homes.

[Alex Cunningham]

Home ownership under the Tories in the past nine years has dropped from 67% to 64%. How is the Minister going to put that right?

[Ms McVey]

Through an array of support. Obviously, I have been heartened by the fact that first-time ownership has increased for the first time in 11 years. People are getting on the housing ladder. We have helped more than 500,000 people through Help to Buy and the right to buy, and we intend to continue to do that.

EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I say, we have heard nothing yet to suggest that the economy in Cornwall and on Scilly could not thrive. It is really important to MPs in Cornwall that we are part of the solution, not the problem. In July last year I set up a group that works with local business, Cornwall Council and people who already work with the most deprived and left behind in our communities. The group looks at the skills that a shared prosperity fund should deliver to enable people to get the well-paid, skilled jobs they want. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), attended the first meeting and set out a Government commitment and invitation for us to engage in the process and help them to understand what was needed.

Outside this building today there are thousands of people demanding that we take urgent action on climate change, clean up our air and make our society healthier and fairer. Through the shared prosperity fund we can achieve exactly that, particularly in places such as Cornwall. The Committee on Climate Change recommendations set out the need for massive upskilling to give people the skills needed for research and innovation, so that we can decarbonise our environment and our economy and ensure that people are healthier, live in healthier homes and have better opportunities. Now is the right time to have this debate and create a vibrant, low-carbon economy with better health, better skills and better pay.

In our jobs and growth group we have looked at skills. Even with European funding, the real problem in Cornwall is that many communities and young people never feel they have the opportunity or the learning that they need.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman has talked about young people, and I am sure he will share my anxiety about the future of the youth employment initiative, which is EU-funded. It helps to provide opportunities to young people who are not in employment, education or training. The Tees valley is one area that benefits from it at the moment. Does he share my anxiety about the fact that there is no clarity from the Government about the future of that funding?

[Derek Thomas]

I welcome that intervention, but I will continue with my point about the real problem for us in west Cornwall. Quite often, there are two options in Cornwall. One is to go away to university, which is much easier now because we have a university in Cornwall, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton). However, the vast majority of our young people leave Cornwall, in what we describe as a brain drain. The opportunities for those who are left behind are very limited. There is a real need to look at apprenticeships and how further education can be properly funded for the skills and jobs that we need for the future. I believe that Cornwall has a real opportunity to share in that, exploit it and thrive, and I believe that shared prosperity is the solution.

Our group has looked at the role of high streets, and Cornwall Council is running an inquiry into how to make high streets work. They are no longer just about shops; they are about an experience, and where people live. They are places to get support and advice, and they even include workplaces other than shops. Lots of work is being done in communities in all our constituencies in Cornwall on understanding high streets. That is not just so that we can say, “Government, give us money so we can spend it,” but because we want support to make local economies low carbon. We have great talent; now, we need great opportunity.

[Anna Turley (Redcar) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this important and timely debate on the future of regional development spending.

I speak on behalf of my region, the Tees valley, which has been a net beneficiary of Britain’s EU membership. In fact, it has often been the case that EU regional development funding has better supported my region than our own Governments have done. In the current spending period, 2014 to 2020, the Tees Valley has been allocated £198.1 million of EU regional funding. Those funds have provided vital investment, including in research and development and innovation, boosting small and medium-sized businesses, helping to retrain and upskill the local workforce, and supporting our area’s transition to a low-carbon economy.

There has been funding for the youth employment initiative to help to tackle our youth unemployment, which is two and a half times the national average. However, that investment has simply not been enough to offset the damage wrought by the UK Government’s austerity agenda. According to analysis by Institute for Public Policy Research, £6.3 billion of public spending has been taken from the north under austerity, while the south has gained £3.2 billion. That austerity has caused the public sector workforce in the north-east to fall by almost a quarter, with a huge knock-on effect to local economies.

We still have pacer trains running on yet-to-be electrified lines, despite the promise of better upgrades, while billions of pounds are poured into London’s Crossrail. Many communities are no longer served by bus routes, as subsidies have been slashed. Meanwhile, the crisis at British Steel threatens to put another great British industry, deeply rooted in the north, out of action because Whitehall has failed to create the level playing field that the steel industry so desperately needs.

Our region would now be classed as a lesser developed region. The Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions estimates that the region of Tees valley and Durham would be classified as a less developed region by the EU post 2020, putting us among the poorest regions in Europe and therefore entitling us to more money. That is absolutely shocking and demonstrates how regional inequality has skyrocketed under this Government.

At this crucial time when we need a greater share of regional development funding to give our area a boost, we do not yet know how the Government intend to allocate regional funding when EU policy no longer applies. The UK Government’s proposed UK shared prosperity fund is very light on detail. If their record is anything to go by—allocating money to the areas with the highest economic return, which typically are the areas that are already the wealthiest—my area could massively lose out again. If we were to remain EU members, the CPMR estimates that, based on current population numbers, the Tees valley would be entitled to more than £270 million between 2021 and 2027. That is money that we desperately need. That share of the pot reflects the huge regional inequalities across our country, and it would make a massive difference to growth in my region.

[Alex Cunningham]

The SSI site in my hon. Friend’s constituency is yet to see any real progress in development. That is all the more reason why we need a commitment to greater funding if we are to create jobs for people there and in my constituency, which is just across the Tees valley.

[Anna Turley]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for that important intervention. He is right; there has still not been a single new job created at the SSI site in my constituency, which lost 3,000 jobs overnight in 2015. We have a plan for 20,000 jobs, but we need every bit of support and encouragement we can get to achieve that. It is not going to happen without looking more widely afield. My concern is that it will be local people that end up paying the cost of cleaning up that site.

Our share of the pot reflects the huge regional inequalities across our country and would make a massive difference to growth in my region. Ministers have indicated that regions should not lose out from the decision to leave the EU but, if current policy is anything to go by, yet again the Tees valley will be deprived of vital support

Recently we saw the launch of the Power Up The North campaign, led by our regional media and supported by politicians, businesses and people across our communities. I congratulate them on this great campaign. It is extremely powerful and is pushing back against the old idea that success in London and the City will automatically lead to a wave of wealth, spreading out across the country, and lift up areas like Teesside on a rising tide. We know that is not the case.

We have just had the fifth anniversary of the northern powerhouse, which was launched to great fanfare. I hoped it might be a turning point in relations and inequality in this country, but five years on it is clear that the concept has been a damp squib, achieving more as a political campaign rather than delivering real power to our region.

On Teesside we have proved that when we are given power and control we can do great things, such as supporting our people to retrain after the SSI closure through our local taskforce, and developing a local industrial masterplan for the South Tees Development Corporation. We have big ambitions for carbon capture, hydrogen power, and other clean industries, but the reality is that too often we are reliant on going cap in hand to the Government for funding. Now we are at risk of being in an even worse situation. Without better investment in the EU, the northern powerhouse will only ever be a soundbite that failed to deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Very well done. I think that we will put that down as a win.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Crisis and the all-party group on ending homelessness recently appealed to Ministers to prioritise for housing survivors of domestic abuse, but is not it the truth that it is difficult to prioritise anyone because of the social housing crisis—a crisis acknowledged just a few minutes ago by the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry)? Housing associations and local councils in particular have insufficient stock and limited capacity to build new ones to meet demand, and there are more than 1 million households on council waiting lists. Last year, just 6,500 social rented homes were built. That means that it will take 172 years for everyone on the current waiting lists to get a social rented home. Will the Minister please spell out exactly how she plans to sort out this crisis and offer our people some hope that they can also have a home of their own?

[Mrs Wheeler]

Again, I am absolutely delighted that the hon. Gentleman has asked that question, because we have actually put aside £9 billion for our affordable homes programme to deliver a quarter of a million affordable homes by 2022, including 12,500 for social rent. Let me repeat: we have given councils the ability to borrow against their housing revenue cap. We have taken the cap off. Please will councils get on with it? [Interruption.] As the hon. Gentleman is chuntering from the Front Bench, may I tell him that wonderful councils such as the ever present Conservative South Derbyshire District Council are doing exactly that?

Domestic Abuse and Homelessness

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) on securing the debate so soon after the launch of the report by Crisis and the all-party parliamentary group on ending homelessness. I join the tributes to him for the work he has done as chair of the group.

That important report is founded on the real-life experiences of the survivors of domestic abuse, and their struggle for a home and other support. At the launch event last week we heard from the APPG’s vice-chair, the hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis), who gave the story of one woman survivor who was told by her local authority to return home and get a letter from the perpetrator of the violence; only then would it consider finding accommodation for her. Another was told that domestic violence is not a primary case for rehousing.

Today we have heard so many examples of people really suffering, and yet that seems to count for nothing. We are told that being abused by a partner is not a good enough reason for being rehomed in some parts of our country. The risk of a person being killed by someone they live with is also supposedly not a good enough reason. Someone may even find that having children, with all those additional vulnerabilities, counts for nothing.

Last week my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) spoke of the need for any action to include all women who find themselves homeless after surviving domestic abuse and violence. That includes migrant women, who are much more isolated and less likely to get the support they need. The Minister spoke of her determination to make that change, and I hope she will confirm that today.

More importantly, last week we also heard from the survivors—women fleeing their homes because of mental and physical violence. A mother of four told us how she had suffered two periods of homelessness and thought that she had nowhere to turn, and only because of Crisis was she able to get a home of her own. The third sector stepped in where Government and local authorities had failed. We all know that there is no easy fix. Finding someone a home is one measure to help those fleeing domestic violence to rebuild their lives, but many other areas need to be fully funded to support victims in the way they deserve. Instead, however, funding has been cut, local authorities are unable to sustain services, and the health service is under real pressure.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about the heartbreak caused by domestic violence, and he praised support services for their work. We must recognise the tremendous work done by such organisations across the country. He emphasised the need for more capacity in the system, and said that the Northern Ireland Housing Executive could do much more.

Women are fleeing their homes because of mental and physical abuse. The third sector is acting. We know we must provide that support, yet such services are wide and varied. A briefing from the Royal College of Psychiatrists stated that victims of domestic abuse are three times more likely than other women to develop mental illness—indeed, those who shared their stories last week all spoke of that. Addressing this issue only begins with housing, and we must fight for the health support that survivors need, and do whatever it takes to get them back on their feet. That could be help in pursuing further training or education, if that is what they want, or support in getting into employment. We must give people control over their own lives.

I can only imagine what it must be like for those who have experienced domestic violence and abuse to fear going home to the place where they are supposed to feel safest, to be frightened of the person who is supposed to care for them, or to cover physical marks and pass them off being caused by an accident. As we know, domestic violence is not always physical, but it can torture and abuse one’s mind in ways that some simply will not understand.

My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) said that it was not unusual for her to hear about three domestic abuses cases in each of her surgeries. Is that not a terrible condemnation of our society? She spoke of the coercive financial control that had left her constituent with huge debts, and yet that constituent was told that she should just default on her mortgage payments and lose her home, and then she might escape. That is not good enough. My hon. Friend called for changes to the Domestic Abuse Bill, and for the various agencies to recognise the specific needs of people who have been abandoned in a similar financial situation. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

Some might say that stopping domestic abuse is an impossible task, but we must ensure that there is support to make leaving as easy as possible. My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark outlined the tremendous barriers that survivors face. Work to put things right starts with putting those who have experienced domestic violence at the top of the housing list, but there are other considerations, and the wishes of the victim must always come first. We cannot have people being moved, without a say, away from their families and friends or their support network. Those networks are essential parts of helping a victim of domestic abuse to get on in life, and we cannot allow politicians and council officers to decide what happens to a person in such circumstances. Let me be clear: Labour’s position is that survivors of domestic abuse must be put in the highest possible category when it comes to housing, and I invite the Minister to match that this morning.

We will not get anywhere without an adequate housing supply. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby spoke of local authorities and housing associations, and of the shortage of homes. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) smiled when she stated that obvious fact, as if it is a no-brainer. We need more homes in this country, and we cannot meet the need if we do not build them. There are already countless people in the highest category for housing support—older people, young people and people with families who, at best, are living with friends or family. Waiting lists for homes are incredibly long, and to address the problem we must build more housing stock. It is of little use including victims of domestic violence in the top priority band if they simply have to compete with others in the top bands and wait years for an adequate home. Unless we have the housing stock, I fear that changing the law could be just a formality and not help those who need it.

Many excellent organisations have come together to back a change to the Housing Act 1996, and other legislation, and to support the Domestic Abuse Bill and introduce that automatic qualification for survivors of abuse to have priority need for settled housing. It would be good to hear the Minister say that that will happen. Those organisations include Refuge, Women’s Aid, St Mungo’s, Shelter, Crisis—I could go on, but my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark already gave a considerable list in his opening remarks. Those organisations are the experts in tackling domestic violence and homelessness, and the Government must listen to them.

The Government must recognise that there is a gap, and that vulnerable people are being let down. We can address that with a change to the legislation. In 2017, nearly 7,000 people cited the breakdown of a relationship with an abusive partner as the primary reason for their homelessness, and that did not include the number of people who opted not to leave an abusive partner because they feared being made homeless. We can change the law to give victims more support to leave if they wish, and we could provide the resource for their lives to change for the better. It must be a priority for those people to be rehoused by the local authority.

We must build more houses if we are to address waiting lists in this country but—I say this with experience of serving as a former councillor and cabinet member in a local authority—the homes that we provide must be of a decent standard. Many of us will have heard of the poor housing conditions in which our constituents have found themselves—with mould, with heating that does not work, and with unsuitable or unhygienic furnishings. That is supposed to be a place that they consider home. Local authorities must ensure that those homes, whether they are in the private sector, the local authority or a housing association, are fit for use. We know that some landlords are indifferent to the quality of the home they provide, as long as they get their rent. Local authorities must step in and ensure that those homes are fit for people to live in.

Vulnerable people will often not complain about poor conditions because they fear being turfed out and losing their sanctuary. They should never be put in conditions that we would complain about, and they should not fear making such complaints. This weekend I heard the case of a woman in my constituency who is fleeing domestic violence and has been given a house. She said:

“I realise I am extremely lucky to be given a house given the shortage of housing”,

but the house she has been given is in awful condition. She was offered the property in early March, but because of errors there have been long delays. She received the keys last week, and she sent me the pictures of what she was confronted with—severe black mould in the bedrooms that would be her children’s accommodation. She has gone through extreme difficulty, but she has been given a house that is unsuitable for her and her family. The £125 decorating grant was no consolation at all, and she is distraught. My caseworkers are working to try to get her a better deal.

This is not just about putting domestic abuse survivors in the top priority category; we must also ensure that the home they are given is of a good standard and quality. That is not just about cleanliness, but about the safety and security of the property—that point was raised by other Members this morning. Some domestic abusers will try to find their victims, particularly if their victims are housed in the same locality. Many victims choose to stay in the locality, because it is their community and it is where they have family connections. They should not be fearing for their safety and the safety of their family once they have left the abuser. Damaged windows and doors must be dealt with before new tenants move in.

The last thing that those who are fleeing domestic violence need is a requirement to prove their abuse before they can be rehoused; others have spoken in more detail and better than I can on that topic. Tell me Minister, how does a person prove emotional and mental abuse? I certainly do not have a clue. There are no bruises or scars that the eye can see, but that does not make the injuries less horrific or the victim in any less need of a home. Putting the burden of proof on to the person who has made the move to leave their abuser is inhumane and cruel.

Those who are fleeing domestic violence are quite literally running for their lives; let us give them priority, but let us build the housing they need. We must make sure that we can put a roof over their heads, but also provide the support services that they desperately need.

Local Government Funding

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Thelma Walker]

It is a pity that we do not have better representation on the Conservative Benches.

I was talking about Labour’s vision for how things can be. We will properly fund public health services, establish a new national target to narrow health inequalities, and prioritise the health and wellbeing of every child, which is very dear to my heart. We will give councils £1.5 billion extra for general council services, too. Although that additional funding is important, we have made a commitment to place local government at the heart of our work, giving local councillors a direct voice in central decision making through our local government commission.

To fix our broken political system, where people are left feeling disconnected and disillusioned by politics, we need to put local people and communities at the heart of decision making. Showing local people that Whitehall works for them is the first step in addressing this problem. I want this to be what local government does and is seen to be doing by the public: building inclusive and cohesive communities, providing accessible care for all who need it, and supporting vulnerable people to promote their life chances.

I applied for the debate to request that the Government rethink the approach to local government funding and make urgent changes to address the crisis facing our councils.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

As you pointed out, Mrs Main, there is an absence of people on the Government Benches this afternoon, apart from the Minister. Does my hon. Friend agree that that might be because there has been a shift of funding from Labour high-need authorities to Tory authorities with less need?

[Thelma Walker]

Absolutely; I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It speaks for itself that we do not have representation on the Government Benches.

I hope the Minister is able to take note of the contributions made in today’s debate and take meaningful action, instead of recycling tired lines. I will conclude with a quote from Nye Bevan:

“Discontent arises from a knowledge of the possible, as contrasted with the actual.”

We know that it does not have to be like this. The public want to see change, and Labour is prepared to deliver it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) on securing this debate. In a former life, I was a local councillor and cabinet member so, believe me, I know at first hand about local authorities’ opportunities and challenges, which she outlined.

Stockton Council has been ambitious and forward-thinking, and has delivered projects that some said were not possible. It partnered with Hilton and built a hotel in the town, which will complement the reopening of the 2,500-seat Globe theatre, just a short walk away, next year. Our high street won the rising star at the Great British High Street awards in 2016, which is a testament to the effort put in by councillors and staff to make our corner of the world a better place to live. The area has been a beacon for Ministers, a Select Committee and countless others, who came to see those successes for themselves.

My council has been required to deliver savings of about £45 million by the end of this financial year. Like other authorities, it faces an unprecedented growth in demand, particularly in children’s social care services. The total spend for all children’s social care services rose from £23 million in 2010-11 to £38 million—nearly double—in 2018-19, despite the reductions in grant funding. I have been told that that is the greatest cost pressure facing local authorities around the country.

Another key problem that has been highlighted to me is the inability of some councils to think ahead due to the uncertainty of local government funding. The spending review is supposed to sort that out, and we have the fair funding review, but sadly I do not feel terribly optimistic about it. Local authorities will retain a greater proportion of business rates, but there is a severe lack of clarity or agreement about how that will work. Large tower blocks in Westminster or Chelsea will raise millions of pounds for their respective councils, but local authorities such as Stockton can expect very little in comparison.

Austerity affects not just the funding that local councils get—the lack of jobs and prospects that go hand in hand with it put additional pressure on families. There is a desperate need for more public health funding to address the inequalities in our society. It is estimated that there are still 19,000 smokers in my Stockton North constituency. Smoking costs my area £37.4 million every year. Some 31% of households with a smoker are below the poverty line. If those people were to give up smoking, 1,991 households would be lifted out of poverty, including 1,342 children. However, public health budgets are being diminished, rather than increased so that we can develop programmes to help people quit, and address obesity, drug misuse and dangerous choices. That is Government failure. It is the result of a reckless Government slashing the vital support services that people depend on and systematically reducing job opportunities not just through austerity but through business and industry uncertainty caused by the threat of a no-deal Brexit.

Ministers love to trumpet the rise in employment and fall in unemployment across the country, but that is not happening in areas such as mine. Unemployment has risen month on month in my area for some considerable time, and local authorities have limited, if any, resources to sort it out. There has been a devolution deal of some Government budgets to the Tees Mayor and the combined authority, but despite the plethora of news releases and ministerial statements about Tees Valley, few new jobs are being created in reality. The Minister must take full responsibility and tell us what the Government will do—he is too busy looking at his phone. The Government are too busy to tell us what people are doing for constituencies such as mine.

I agree with organisations including Action for Children, Barnardo’s, the National Children’s Bureau and the Children’s Society that the spending review must provide additional funding for children and young people’s services, and address the estimated £3 billion funding gap that local authorities face by 2025. I agree that there must be a clear link between the likely need and the funding available in each local area. There cannot be a postcode lottery benefiting councils that are aligned with the Government of the day. The children and service users who are in desperate need of social care should and must come first. Importantly, early intervention is key to ensuring that the demand on services does not get out of hand. We must prevent family breakdown, not just deal with it when it happens, as that costs more money and can severely damage people’s lives and future relationships.

This is about political choices and priorities. We simply cannot afford not to spend money. We cannot scrimp and save on children’s social care and family support services until there is nothing left but the skeleton.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I congratulate the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) on securing this debate. I join her in paying tribute to all those working in local government up and down the country, including her husband, for the terrific work they do to make our communities better places to live.

It may surprise hon. Members to hear that I agree with much of what has been said. First, the sheer range of things we have heard illustrates the importance of what local government does and the impact on all our residents’ and constituents’ lives. I also agree that local government has been dealing with a very difficult financial climate these past few years, for reasons we do not need to rehash in the short time we have. This Government took the right decision—the moral decision—to get our public finances back in order, and local government has played a very important role in making that happen. It deserves enormous credit for the way it has done that—for finding better, cheaper ways to do things while maintaining high resident satisfaction—but I appreciate that that journey is closer to its end than its beginning.

One thing we may disagree on, though, is the talk of cuts. We heard a lot about cuts and a lot of selective quoting of statistics. The simple truth is that the resources available to local government to spend on core services will be £1 billion higher this financial year than last financial year. That represents almost a 3% rise in the cash available to local authorities up and down the country.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister says there will be £1 billion more to spend this financial year, but how many billions have been cut since 2010?

[Rishi Sunak]

I acknowledged right at the beginning of my speech the difficult financial climate that local government has suffered over the last few years. I am not trying to pretend it has not—I acknowledge that. The point is that the Government are absolutely listening and responding. A billion pounds more is almost a 3% rise in funding. That is more than the economy is growing by, and it is more than inflation.

[Sir Christopher Chope in the Chair]

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

I am conscious of time, so I will make progress. If those peers do not act, then we will act unilaterally. The Government are addressing the point.

I agree with the hon. Member for York Central that high streets are important. That was also mentioned by the hon. Member for Stockton North, who talked about his high street, which I know as it is near my constituency. This Government understand the importance of high streets in creating living, breathing communities. That is why a £675 million high streets transformation fund was announced at the last Budget for all local authorities. I encourage Members to talk to their local authorities and bid for the fund. It is there to fund transformational projects that revitalise high streets and comes on top of the Treasury business rate reductions. The Government are agreeing with and backing local authorities to ensure that high streets remain the beating, vibrant hearts of communities. We are in agreement and there is financial support, through tax reductions and this fund, to support high streets. However, shopping habits are changing and retailers, high streets and planning authorities have to adapt. Business rates are only one part of the answer.

The last thing to touch on is building strong communities. We have talked about high streets and other points. Ultimately, local authorities are making people more proud of the places where they live, partly by building houses that people want to call home, whether through the new home bonus or through the lifting of the housing revenue account borrowing cap. Again, the Government are responding to what local government has asked for and delivering it for them.

[Alex Cunningham]

The Minister is talking about devolution and the responsibility of others. The Mayor of Tees Valley has just spent up to £90 million on a loss-making airport. Does the Minister agree that that money would have been better invested in transport infrastructure that encourages investment and creates real jobs? The airport has not created any new jobs or new flights.

[Rishi Sunak]

I think the Mayor of the Tees Valley, Ben Houchen, is doing a fantastic job of ensuring that the voice of Tees Valley is heard in this place. There has been considerable investment in developing the steelworks, the development zone and tax reliefs, which has been widely welcomed. I know that because my constituents are excited to see the rebirth of Durham Tees Valley airport. I know the airport well and I am delighted that it will now have a bright future under the stewardship of the Conservative Mayor of the Tees Valley.

We heard from the hon. Members for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for York Central about Government funding formulas. There is lots to say about that, but the question was raised about why homelessness is not included in the formula. The simple reason is that the amount of homelessness funding that goes through the local government finance settlement is a very small percentage of the total amount—from memory it is only £175 million. The remainder of the homelessness funding, which is several hundred million pounds, has a dedicated formula specific to it. Obviously, if that changed and a future decision was taken to roll that homelessness money into the overall local government settlement, it would demand a formula of its own. I am happy to give that reassurance.

Deprivation is in the formula and in all the areas where it makes a significant difference. Deprivation has little to do with the cost of maintaining a road or a flood defence, for example, and therefore it is not factored into those areas. Of course, it is factored into all the areas that we heard about, including adult social care and children’s social care. In answer to the hon. Member for York Central, we are working in conjunction with all those Departments to develop formulas that they are happy with.

In conclusion, we believe in local government. As we look forward to the spending review, I and the Department will be making a strong case that local government is funded properly, to do all the things it does today, as well as those it will do tomorrow. Beyond money, we will ensure local government has the power, the flexibilities and the devolution that we heard about from the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). Indeed, the Government are supporting that devolution with a considerable amount of money. That is the future for local government that central Government are backing. I will continue to listen to local government, learn from it and push its case in this Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She is passionate about the high streets in Millom and more widely across her constituency. The loss of the last bank is of concern. That is why we are supporting the Post Office banking framework, which will ensure that 99% of personal banking customers will be able to keep their face-to-face banking at their local post office.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T2. Last week, the children’s sector told us that funding for children’s services has fallen by 29% in less than a decade, and councils, including my own in Stockton, have been forced to cut spending on non-statutory early interventions by half. Will the Secretary of State commit to press the Chancellor to come up with the desperately needed cash for these vital services?

[Rishi Sunak]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of prevention and early intervention, which is why the Government have funded the troubled families programme by almost £1 billion over this Parliament. It is doing fantastic work, working with some of the most vulnerable children in our society, enabling them to stay out of care and out of harm’s way.

East Coast Main Line Investment

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

We are extremely proud of our railway heritage, particularly in Stockton, from where the first passenger train left on its journey to Darlington. Across the country, people are bringing heritage lines back into use, but we do not need that on Teesside, because our trains and lines are so decrepit, old and run-down that they ought to be confined to history. Does my hon. Friend agree that, although we desperately need more investment in the north-east line, we also need to cover the branch lines so that the people of Teesside and beyond have proper services to get to the main line?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I absolutely agree. I will make the case that investment is not only about the infrastructure of the vital east coast spine that runs up and down our country, but about the major impact that that would have on all the contributing branch lines and communities that rely on that infrastructure and the infrastructure that connects to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

I would go further than my hon. Friend and say that it is not only ironic but completely unacceptable. That is part of the case that I want to make to the Minister.

The east coast main line is a significant employer in its own right, as more than 3,000 people work for London North Eastern Railway. Trains that use the east coast main line operate as far north as Inverness and as far south as London, and one third of the UK’s population live within 20 minutes of the east coast main line, so the quality of the service and the capacity of the route has a real impact across the country.

The east coast main line is the fastest and most environmentally sustainable way to connect many of those locations, and enables cities in the north of England—or the northern powerhouse, to use the Government’s terminology—to do business elsewhere in the country and with one another. When the railway works, its key city centre to city centre journey times compare favourably with air travel, which allows slots at airports to be reserved for connectivity into international economies. The east coast main line should always win hands down against road travel as an attractive alternative to slow-moving traffic and motorway driving, with all the air quality issues that they bring.

The line does not just facilitate the famous Anglo-Scottish trains of past and present that travel to and from London, but a multiplicity of other journeys that utilise every part of the route, such as Edinburgh to Leeds, Newcastle to Birmingham, Darlington to Bristol, Middlesbrough to Manchester and Stansted airport to Leicester. The east coast main line and this debate are important not just to the grand cathedral stations of King’s Cross, Edinburgh, York and Newcastle, but to the other stations that serve commuter towns and larger villages across the route. When all those connecting lines are taken into account, that includes a far bigger swathe of the country than just those places immediately near the east coast main line.

For all those reasons, the east coast main line is a national asset to be prized and nurtured, not taken for granted. That is why I established the all-party parliamentary group to focus on the issue earlier this year, so hon. Members from both Houses could campaign together to secure investment in the route for an improved passenger experience, for capacity and reliability, and for shorter journey times.

The APPG is also looking at the economic growth that could be unlocked in the areas served by the east coast main line if those improvements are delivered, and at the future operation of the route, which has been beset by significant problems over the past decade. Given that the APPG’s vice chairs are the hon. Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), there is clearly strong cross-party and cross-country interest in this issue.

Of course, the Minister here today is well aware of the APPG’s existence, having attended one of our meetings back in June, for which we are grateful, and having corresponded with me since. I am quite sure that we will remain in contact in the months ahead.

I am acutely aware that the performance issues facing east coast main line passengers do not come close to the frankly catastrophic service issues faced by people who had the misfortune of having to use a number of other lines over the summer, including Arriva’s Northern Rail passengers and those on the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern routes.

However, there are also real problems on the east coast main line. The latest performance measures published by Network Rail indicate that in the year to 15 September, just 75.2% of trains on the east coast main line, under the former franchise and the current operator, arrived within 10 minutes of their scheduled time. That is well short of the national figure of 86% and even further adrift of the target figure, which is 88%.

Over the same period, almost 9% of east coast main line trains were cancelled or classed as being “significantly late”, against an England and Wales performance of 4.6%. Of course, this issue is most serious for those communities not directly served by the line—for them, reliability is absolutely crucial if connections to adjoining routes are actually going to work.

Although passenger satisfaction data for LNER is not yet available, the spring 2018 figures from the independent transport user watchdog, Transport Focus, found an “overall satisfaction with the journey” rating for Virgin Trains East Coast of 87%—the worst score on the east coast main line route for five years. It will be very interesting to see what happens to that figure when Transport Focus publishes its autumn 2018 results, which will incorporate LNER’s performance for the first time.

I am seriously concerned that the quality of the service currently being provided simply does not “sell” the line, or the local communities that it is supposed to serve. Why would anyone from overseas or from elsewhere in the UK want to come back to places they have visited on the route, or do business or invest there, if they have had a poor travel experience, as is far too often the case? Similarly, how can we possibly persuade more people to stop using their cars, to reduce congestion and improve poor air quality, if they simply cannot rely on the railway to get them from A to B on time and at a reasonable price, whether it is for business or leisure?

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to me again. She is championing people along the line. Across the line and the area, there is very poor access for disabled people—particularly at Billingham, where they cannot get on to a train at all. Will she join me in encouraging the Minister to back the application for a grant to give disabled people in the Billingham area proper access to rail services, from Teesside to Darlington and beyond?

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend makes a vital point very well. I absolutely support that call—indeed, I support the call for such improvements to be made right up and down the line. That is something we should all focus on.

I am sure that many hon. Members will want to raise such concerns directly with LNER at the drop-in briefing that I will host next month, and that they will wish to update colleagues on their plans. That briefing is also an opportunity to put to LNER the case for some of the improvements that we would like to work together to secure.

It would be wrong to lay all of the problems that I have outlined today at the door of LNER, or indeed that of Virgin, given that the latest performance figures published by Network Rail show that some 58% of the delays and cancellations on the route over the last year were caused by Network Rail itself. Those figures are a clear reflection of the east coast main line’s ageing and unreliable infrastructure. I suggest again to the Minister, as I have done at the APPG meeting that he attended and in writing, that that infrastructure is in urgent need of improvement or replacement, including of track, signalling and overhead power lines on the electrified sections. Also, far greater resilience is required in bad weather, which the rail networks of many other countries that have far more challenging climatic conditions than we do appear able to cope with.

Local Government Funding

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Many of us have first-hand experience of the responsibility on local authorities to provide services on a budget. The local authority of a Member who was, like me, elected to Parliament in 2010 will have less than half the Government grant now than it had then.

As councillors, we knew about the need for services such as adult social care for vulnerable people and services that families needed, such as children’s centres. There is a need for the bins to be emptied, the roads swept, the pavements repaired, the libraries and leisure centres kept open, planning applications processed, local businesses supported, child protection services sustained and many other things that local residents take for granted.

People are now noticing the differences—potholes, grass verges, graffiti, fly-tipping, antisocial behaviour and many other things basic to everyday life come to mind. Ministers may rightly say that my Labour Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council is a good council. Several times in recent years it has been shortlisted for, and even won, the council of the year award. Our social workers are winning national awards. We are getting gold awards for animal welfare. Our high street won the “rising star” award. We won “client of the year” for our partnership and building projects. We are winning engineering awards, fostering and adoption campaign awards and awards for protecting the most vulnerable.

Those are all being achieved in the face of adversity—in the knowledge that the day is beckoning when either funding is provided or councillors in Stockton will be delivering the most basic of services, stripped to the statutory minimum and rationed. Stockton Council has done the right thing—focused on protecting the areas and people most in need—but that does not negate the growing pressure on children’s and adults’ social care services, which now take up 57% of the council’s cash. It is no wonder. People are living longer and there is an increased dependency on services such as respite provision and community nursing. Demands for adult social care services are increasing, yet Stockton will see a £74 million a year cut by 2019-20 compared with 2010-11.

Given that local authorities have such a key role to play in people’s day-to-day lives, it is even more absurd that our model of funding is so unstable that it changes frequently and is then topped up with enforced council tax increases and the Tory Government’s social care precept. Do not try to kid me that the Tories are the party of low tax on hard-working families when they dump those central Government costs on council tax payers.

I am sure that what Stockton wants is reflected in many councils across the country. It wants a fair funding review that is just that—fair. I remember the £300 million of extra funding allocated by Government last year; the vast majority of it went to Tory southern authorities. It wants an end to the huge pressures in children’s services and a full recognition of the evidence linking deprivation and the numbers of looked-after children. That must be acknowledged and built into any new model, to ensure that children are kept safe and can receive services and support.

Councils want certainty over future budgets. They want a dose of honesty from the Government, who have reneged on their responsibility to fund councils properly and passed the buck to local councillors, who have to raise council taxes higher and higher in order to maintain statutory services. Northern councils want recognition that most of their properties are in the low council tax bands, which limits their ability to raise substantial sums through small increases. We do not have developers building blocks of 200 apartments costing £500,000 or even more, which can raise hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds for the likes of Westminster and Wandsworth. This is not just a case of the north whingeing. The National Audit Office has confirmed the perilous position in which most councils find themselves, which could mean unsustainability for many of them. After eight years in power, the Conservatives must take some responsibility—in fact, all the responsibility—for this. They must realise the impact of their decisions. They are culpable for the funding crisis in most of our local authorities: it is no one else’s fault.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

As the National Audit Office pointed out, this Government were alert to the requirements of adult social care building as a pressure. This Government responded by delivering extra money for adult social care.

In general, what this Government are doing is working. In adult social care, we have seen delayed transfers of care fall by 34% in the past year. In housing, we are seeing record levels of new home building and infrastructure investment, and from Teesside to the west country, we are seeing areas seize the opportunity to shape their own future. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) was absolutely right when he said that other people may paint a gloomy, downbeat picture, but there are examples of councils delivering for their constituents across the country, and as he pointed out, Kingston is doing a fantastic job.

Indeed, according to the LGA, over 80% of people are satisfied with their local area as a place to live, and satisfaction with local council services has remained entirely stable. To ensure that that continues, it is right that we update and modernise our current funding formulas. In the short term, I want to reassure the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) that the Government are not clawing back section 31 grants, as she suggested might be the case. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State confirmed that last week.

My hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and for North East Hampshire (Mr Jayawardena) rightly asked about negative RSG. The Government are aware of the strength of feeling on that issue. We are planning to look at fair and affordable options for addressing that problem and will consult on it shortly after the local elections.

My hon. Friends the Members for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) spoke passionately about the rural areas they represent. They highlighted the historical unfairness in funding that their councils have suffered and why they think that should be addressed. I can confirm to them that understanding the particular costs of delivering services in rural areas and analysing the relative resources they have will absolutely be considered as part of our fair funding review.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) spoke about the importance of getting population growth right. Areas such as his have seen increases in the number of those of a particular age, which puts costs on to certain service areas. He is right to highlight that the new funding formula should use up-to-date population information and that it should be dynamic and respond to what is happening on the ground.

We have heard about children’s services, and it is absolutely right that we focus attention on vulnerable young people who are denied the stability that many of us sitting in the Chamber have enjoyed. It is a privilege for me to be the Minister responsible for the troubled families programme. Delivered in partnership with local authorities, the programme will invest £1 billion to help the most vulnerable in our society. I spent a morning last week in Liverpool hearing at first hand from the families themselves about the difference that this programme is making to their lives. Conservatives like to measure success by the outcomes we achieve, not just the amount of other people’s money that we spend, and the results are hugely encouraging.

[Alex Cunningham]

Does the Minister recognise the very specific link between deprivation and the number of children taken into care by our local authorities, and what is he going to do about it?

[Rishi Sunak]

What the Government are already doing about exactly that is working with the Department for Education on the most thorough and extensive piece of work ever undertaken to understand precisely the drivers of the need for children’s services, which of course includes deprivation. The report will conclude later this year or early next year, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman is looking forward to reading the results.

Beyond that, the troubled families programme is driving innovation on the ground, changing the way that local authorities work and bringing previously disparate providers of care together to help those who need it most. Other people may like to talk of compassion, but we in the Government are delivering it.

We have heard a lot about spending, but curiously rather less from the Labour party about who is paying for it all. We in the Government know who ends up footing the bill—ordinary hard-working tax payers. Over the past few months, the Labour party’s plans have become abundantly clear. We have heard about a radical change to council tax, a new local income tax, the abolition of the referendum tax limit and, as if that was not enough, a garden tax. Under the previous Labour Government, council tax doubled, and we all know that history tends to repeat itself. I can tell the House that this Government will always be on the side of hard-working tax payers. My hon. Friend the Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) was absolutely right to say that we should be getting them value for money and keeping their bills low.