Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)]

5. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of the UK shared prosperity fund on local communities in Northern Ireland.

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

The UK shared prosperity fund supports people, businesses and communities across Northern Ireland, and is an important part of this Government’s local growth funding. The Department is committed to evaluating the impact of the fund, including in Northern Ireland. The UKSPF evaluation strategy is a publicly available document setting out our approach, and the Department is committed to publishing ongoing evaluation findings, as they become available.

[Robin Swann]

The voluntary and community sector in Northern Ireland has said that the reduction in shared prosperity funding available in the next financial year, coupled with the increase in employer national insurance contributions, presents a perfect storm at a time when even more is being asked of it. Will the Minister agree to meet me, members of the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action and representatives of the voluntary and community sector to discuss those issues?

[Alex Norris]

We inherited a situation in which the previous Government had not made any money available for that work. I have no doubt that the transition year creates significant challenges for local organisations. I have visited the hon. Gentleman in South Antrim before and met representatives of some organisations, and I would be delighted to do so again.

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Meur ras, Mr Speaker. Cornwall’s allocation from the shared prosperity fund is good news and well needed. The Government are reworking the outcomes for the shared prosperity grants, and councils such as Cornwall are awaiting the memorandum of understanding for the grant before they can make agreements with providers. Ongoing schemes need certainty, as employees with three-month notice periods are relying on the contracts, and the old SPF scheme expires on 31 March. Will the Secretary of State confirm—

[Alex Norris]

I know that local authorities from Northern Ireland to Cornwall are interested to know their allocations, information about which was made available to them in recent weeks, and that some have concerns about making spending commitments. The money is there and has been committed, but my officials are working—they have had conversations directly about Cornwall—to ensure that local authorities have the confidence to make those commitments, so that we do not see 90-day redundancy notices.

[Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)]

7. What steps she is taking to support local authorities on using high street rental auctions to help regenerate town centres.

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

I am very excited that high street rental auctions are capturing the imagination of local communities and colleagues in this place. A common view for all of us is that vacant shops are a blight and that high street rental auctions are a great tool with which to tackle them. We are working with some early adopters, but I encourage all local authorities to come forward and be active in this space. As of 15 January, we have made a £1.5 million fund available to support the delivery of those powers across the country.

[Connor Naismith]

Crewe town centre, in my constituency, is in desperate need of “new year, new me”. For too long, we simply have not had the tools at a local level to tackle the irresponsible, absent landlords presiding over empty shop units. For example, the old M&S unit is owned by an absent landlord who has left that crucial anchor unit in our town centre to go to rack and ruin. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can remove the obstacles to bringing that crucial unit back into use?

[Alex Norris]

I am sad to hear about Crewe’s experience, but I know it is shared up and down the country. Crewe has a proud record in the retail space and I believe it can have that again, but as my hon. Friend says, the right tools and powers must be assembled to make that happen. I would be very happy to meet him. He is slightly unkind, because he knows that Crewe town centre was the site of my biggest personal and professional embarrassment, some 17 years ago. Provided I am still allowed back in, I will very gladly meet my hon. Friend.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

Rickmansworth high street in my constituency is a thriving hub for the community, supported by its fantastic local businesses. Having spoken to many of those dedicated business owners, I know the challenges they face. What steps is the Minister taking to support local authorities in delivering initiatives, such as high street rental auctions, to help high streets like the one in Rickmansworth?

[Alex Norris]

We are aware that with new responsibilities for local authorities come new costs. Local authorities want to spend their money as effectively as possible, so we have made £1.5 million available, including to the hon. Gentleman’s local authority, to ensure that they have the capacity to make these powers a reality.

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[Elaine Stewart (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

22. What discussions she has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on using local growth funding to help increase economic growth.

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

Local growth funding is crucial to our growth mission and to tackling regional inequalities. The Government will set out a refreshed approach to local growth funding at the multiyear spending review in the spring. That will end the beauty parades and short-term decision making and put local communities in charge of their own destiny, just as we committed to at the general election.

[Jas Athwal]

Ilford is a hub of regeneration, offering opportunities to independent businesses in new spaces such as Mercato Metropolitano. Ilford has thousands of small and medium-sized businesses that make our high streets more vibrant and offer choice to locals. What are the Government doing to support those businesses so that they can thrive on our local high streets?

[Alex Norris]

As has been a theme of earlier questions, revitalising our high streets is a priority for this Government. We have announced a number of measures, including permanently lowering business rate multipliers for retail, hospitality and leisure properties from 2026-27, introducing high street rental auctions and providing additional funding to tackle retail crime, all of which will support businesses and our high streets.

[Elaine Stewart]

The Ayrshire growth deal, worth over a quarter of a billion pounds, has the potential to stimulate growth and create jobs across the region, yet local delivery of the ambition is slow and stagnant. What message would the Minister send to spark action from the three Conservative-SNP run administrations in the region so that Ayrshire can realise its potential as a world-class business region?

[Alex Norris]

I am sorry to hear that. For our part, the UK Government are working closely with local partners and the Scottish Government to deliver the Ayrshire growth deal, which, as my hon. Friend says, is worth over a quarter of a billion pounds. As part of that, we are supporting a programme review so that, if any strategic changes are needed to ensure that the originally envisaged benefits are realised, they are made. On the message that she asks for, we need to move at pace, exactly as the Government have committed to do, so that the people of Ayrshire get what was promised.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

The villages and towns of Mid Norfolk are reeling from the cost of living crisis and the Government’s taxes attack on jobs and small businesses. Rather than taxing rural areas and spending the money in the cities, may I suggest that Ministers allow rural councils to keep the proceeds of their growth and incentivise them to support businesses out in our rural communities, rather than allowing the Government to milk rural areas to spend the money in cities?

[Alex Norris]

I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation. This Government’s decisions—whether on the support going into rural communities and rural policing, or the different business rates reductions—show that we want to support businesses in those communities to thrive, and we will continue to do so.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister very much for his answers. He is a regular visitor to Northern Ireland, and that is because he loves Northern Ireland and wants to ensure that we play our part in the economic boost. Since coming into government, has he had an opportunity to speak to his Northern Ireland counterpart, to ensure that we can go forward together as we should?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind points. I have a strong personal enthusiasm for Northern Ireland—its potential is huge. I speak frequently to Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive and will continue to do so. As part of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister’s reset of our relationship with the devolved Administrations, we meet them regularly and plan together so that our investments and their investments get the best value. I will continue to do that, and I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman as well.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

We share the Government’s ambition on local growth, but Companies House is reporting the highest level of business closures in 20 years. Will the Government commit to publishing an assessment of the impact that their national insurance rises, business rates rises and changes to business property relief are having on local growth plans?

[Alex Norris]

I have no doubt that the Opposition will have all the information they need to scrutinise the Government of the day—we always provide that with full transparency. What I will not accept is that the sand our economy was built on after the past four years, under the Conservative Government of the shadow Minister and the shadow Secretary of State, is somehow this Government’s failure. In reality, the hon. Gentlemen knows, exactly as we do, that we are fixing the mess that they left. Of course, they will have the chance to oppose us along the way, but we will get on with delivering for the British people, and they will get on with carping from the sidelines. I know where I would rather be.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

14. If she will take steps to support social housing providers to fund houses made available under section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

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[Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)]

T4. Following the Grenfell tragedy, the residents of Northpoint in my constituency have had to pay charges of nearly £700,000 for a waking watch, fire wardens and alarms. Given the Government’s manifesto commitment to better protect leaseholders from costs, what steps can the Minister take to help my constituents with the reimbursement of those charges?

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

Sadly, I hear these stories across the country as well. The reality is that the best step that can be taken is for the developer to enter into the cladding safety scheme, to get the building remediated and to get the costs removed. In the meantime, we have made money available through the waking watch replacement fund, so that that particularly expensive way of keeping a building safe can be replaced. There are ways of tackling the pain in the short term, but the reality is that the only solution is the remediation of buildings, and that is why we are pushing on so hard through our remediation acceleration plan.

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[Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)]

My constituents, particularly in Great Glen, have just experienced devastating flooding. Under the last Government, we opened up the flood recovery framework so that they could get grants to protect themselves. When will they be able to access that money under this Government?

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman will know that these decisions are taken on a case-by-case basis, generally depending on the extent of damage from floods. We will look at that closely. I would be willing to talk to him to ensure that the accountability is there.

[Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)]

T9. Tomorrow, it will be 1,000 days since the repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824 was given Royal Assent, yet that outdated, vindictive and utterly ineffective Act is still driving people away from the support they need and into an already overloaded courts system. There is no need for a replacement as existing antisocial behaviour laws are sufficient. May I urge the Minister to please drop the peculiar and cautious civil service group-think? We are 201 years on. Will she advise when the commencement of the repeal will happen?

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[Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)]

For fire safety remediation works for buildings over 11 metres, there is a cap on non-cladding costs and leaseholders are given 10 years to pay remediation costs. However, my constituent in a building under 11 metres has been informed that he may have to pay costs within 12 months because the freeholder is a housing association and because of restrictions around credit and debt. Will the Minister meet me to resolve the issue and allow some flexibility?

[Alex Norris]

I would be very happy to take that meeting. We approach buildings under 11 metres on a case-by-case basis to seek a solution. I am happy to do so with my hon. Friend.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

Bathford village shop and café has become a lifeline for local people in my Bath community, but it is at risk of losing its premises. The £150 million community ownership fund was crucial to sustaining these local assets. Will the Minister comment on the future of the community ownership fund?

[Alex Norris]

The community ownership fund came to an end with its round in December; the previous Government, of course, left no future funding for it. The hon. Lady knows that we have made a significant commitment around the community right to buy and a significant commitment around local growth funding. Future ownership funds will be a matter for the multi-year spending review in the spring.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It was freezing over the weekend in York. Despite working with North Yorkshire emergency accommodation services, I was unable to find accommodation for a very vulnerable constituent of mine. Will the Minister ensure that in the homelessness review we hold local authorities to account and that no resident’s case is put in the “too difficult to manage” box?

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[Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)]

Are the Government considering compensation schemes for homeowners who have suffered financial losses due to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in their properties? If so, I am especially interested in the Barnett impact for the Scottish Government of any such scheme, as I have constituents from Tillicoultry whose lives have been seriously impacted.

[Alex Norris]

As my hon. Friend alluded to, RAAC is a devolved matter. The responsibility for ensuring that buildings are safe is, of course, that of the owner, but we keep RAAC under active consideration in case any support is needed.

[Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. At Teignbridge district council, I oversaw the commencement of council house building for the first time in 30 years. Will the Secretary of State meet me and others to discuss what can be done to make it easier for other councils to build more council homes?

Parking: Town Centres

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) for securing this important debate and for the powerful case that she made.

It is one of the great joys of being the Minister responsible for high streets and town centres that I get to attend these debates where people talk about their communities. It is always interesting to hear the commonalities, differences, and challenges they are facing, though I might say with a degree of mischief that it is not often that such debates inspire such coverage of all the nations and regions of the UK as we have today. That is a sign that my hon. Friend is in exactly the right space.

[Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)]

I wonder whether the Minister recognises that as our shopping habits have changed so has the need for parking in town centres. In my biggest town of Kirkcaldy, we are blessed to be right on the coast: we could have beautiful sea views, housing, workspaces, and facilities to attract tourists, but instead we have dilapidated, unused car parks which are a true blight on our town centre and on our seafront. Redevelopment funding is badly needed so that our town can fulfil its potential and meet the needs of its residents today.

[Alex Norris]

That is a really important challenge. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley finished by saying that the issue is not peripheral, and that we need to address broader matters in terms of parking, town centre vibrancy and having a more planned approach to what the future could look like. Doubtless, there would need to be support from the Government of the day, and that message was heard very clearly.

My hon. Friend made an important point, similar to the one that my hon. Friend the Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward) just made, about the reasons for the decline in our high streets and town centres—those obvious changing patterns of behaviour. Colleagues could easily order a book, probably several, in the time I am speaking—I am sure they would not—and that is different and is not going to go away.

Times have been hard for people. Austerity has been a really difficult period for our communities and people are still struggling with the money in their pockets. All that contributes to challenges, so it behoves us to try to drive footfall and to use any levers we have to do so. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley said, parking is an important one. In her contribution, the voices of her constituents, be they businesses, long-term residents, students or leisure centre users, came into this Chamber. I hope they see that their views are being echoed, expressed and taken seriously in this place.

I want to cover some of the points that my hon. Friend made, and I do not want to miss out the final contribution, from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle). Like others, I have seen the coverage of Dudley council’s decision to scrap two hours of free parking, and I recognise the pain, the impact on motorists and the disappointment for residents and visitors that that has caused. I have seen the rally and I was sad to hear from my hon. Friend that there is a sense that the consultation was not done properly because that is an important part of conducting a process properly, even if the results are disappointing.

Parking, together with effective public transport and decent active travel, is essential to the resilience of our towns and cities. However, as has been said, the provision of accessible and affordable parking is particularly important outside the major metropolitan cities and in rural communities. Where public transport is limited, people need their cars—as my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan) said.

[Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)]

In one of my major towns, Harpenden, I have had a lot of businesses, such as Threads and Oui, which have said that parking charges are changing and they are worried. The Minister mentioned services such as parking and transport. Is it not sad that after 14 years of Conservative Government, and cuts and cuts to local councils, local authorities have been forced to make some of these difficult decisions? It is now time for us to empower local authorities to support businesses and high streets and to invest in our communities to ensure that they thrive.

[Alex Norris]

I absolutely agree. It is at the heart of this Government’s approach to give communities tools to change places, and I will go through some of those at the end. There is a financial aspect to that, but there also a power aspect about shaping the things that shape the community. The debate gets to the heart of that, because parking is one of the major levers that a community has. The important point is that it is the community’s lever. Yes, it is held by the local authority, but it is the community’s lever.

Fundamentally, responsibility for parking provision in town centres rests with the relevant local authority under the Traffic Management Act 2004. The accompanying statutory guidance clearly sets out that parking policies have to be proportionate and have to support town centre prosperity, and that it is for local authorities to decide how parking should support that—whether it should be free, whether it should be tariffed and for how long. Local authorities are best placed to do that, through their local transport plans and their local insight. They have to find a balance between residents, local businesses, those who live and work in an amenity and of course access for emergency services. Under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, local authorities can set their own parking tariffs. I think almost everybody will at some point set tariffs, certainly in a busy area, but they must be proportionate and should not be set at unreasonable levels.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley emphasised that the point of local parking policies is not to be revenue raisers or indeed cash cows. How a surplus is spent is prescribed under section 55 of the 1984 Act, which requires any surplus raised from parking schemes to go back into local authority-funded transport or environmental schemes—back into communities, as my hon. Friend said. Colleagues need to keep a discerning eye on that to ensure that that is really taking place, and that, crucially, communities have a voice. I and other colleagues in the Chamber have been council members. I remember wrestling with the problem of how to create that convection in Nottingham. We do not want people to come to a town centre and park there all day for work and then go home again and not contribute to the local economy. We want a turnover, but we want incentivisation as well.

Colleagues have talked about the effectiveness of providing a free hour in pulling people through. There are very good examples of where that has worked. The challenge for me and for local authority colleagues who are listening to this debate is that, yes, this is a local authority function, but local authorities are their community. All our local authorities should ensure that their policies reflect the wishes and interests of the local community and that they are getting the public into the conversation—I was challenged to do this when I was a member of my local authority and I challenge mine to do so now.

Local authorities must also get business into that conversation. I was surprised to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley that local businesses clearly do not feel that that has happened.

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for visiting Rugby and having a walk around. One bit of the town that we did not reach was Elliott’s Field, which is an out-of-town shopping centre. Does he agree that those out-of-town shopping centres compete with town centres, not least because they can attract anchor clients, but also because they can offer free parking?

Rugby borough council—I must declare an interest as I am still a councillor—is thinking very carefully about innovative measures that it can take, whether that is free parking, which was offered in some car parks in December, or making rapid decisions on opening one particular council-owned car park when the theatre was showing a production. Is there anything else that central Government can do to help councils achieve this difficult balance?

[Alex Norris]

That is a really important intervention. I wonder whether, looking back on some of those decisions on out-of-town retail, communities would make the same decisions now as they did at the time. It is clear from my hon. Friend’s intervention that parking is a driving factor in success. To some degree the public are telling us what they want to see and we really ought to listen to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley talked about broader support, particularly around vacancy. I encourage colleagues to support their local authorities in promoting the new high street rental auctions to bring those vacant units back into use.

I also point to our work on safety in town centres. If we are driving footfall, people will only come, or come a second time, if they feel that they are safe. Footfall alone promotes community safety because energy and people being present deter crime and antisocial behaviour. Nevertheless, our commitment to 13,000 more police and police community support officers will have town centres at its heart, so there is that visible presence and our town centres are places where people feel safe to park their cars and shop.

I want to address the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East about parent and child parking bays. There is no current legislative requirement in this space. I am conscious that my hon. Friend has a ten-minute rule Bill designed to change this. In the interests, as she says, of challenging colleagues—particularly male colleagues—to come up with solutions, there is a possible workaround solution using the current legislative framework. Authorities can make parking provisions for specific road users, whether residents or blue badge users—we have many examples in our own communities. Under current rules, it would be feasible for a local authority to make specific on-street bays permit holder only, and to include a permanent identifier on that sign—again, we see those in our resident schemes and in our communities—but then issue those permits only to pregnant women or parents with children. Authorities would have to justify reserving those spaces—I think my hon. Friend probably did that for them—and find a decent way to publicise where those bays are located. I expect it would probably be about those being in the right place. That is something that colleagues can raise with local authorities. It is a bit of a workaround, but in the spirit of meeting her challenge to be being solutions focused, it would be one option. I thank her for her contribution.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley again for securing this important debate. She set out clearly some of the challenges that face our town centres. At the heart of it comes footfall, and at the heart of footfall is that lever of available and affordable parking facilities. Local authorities have leadership, responsibility and stewardship of local transport plans, but fundamentally that is for the community, and should be something that reflects the needs of local residents and local businesses. Clearly, that is not happening here, and that is why my hon. Friend had to take the significant step of bringing this from the high street in Dudley all the way to Parliament. She was right to do so. It is hugely important that the communities in Dudley, Kirkcaldy, Ilford, Bolton, Southend, and all the other places we have heard from today, are heard. The subject is clearly important throughout the country and I am grateful to colleagues for raising it.

Question put and agreed to.

Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. Christmas may be over, but I have been visited by the ghost of Christmas future, who has shown me what my life might look like in 2030. I have to say that I would be amazed if I am still a Minister in 2030, but it would be a privilege to have had a long career serving my country. I would love that.

I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this debate. I am in this Chamber a lot, as are a lot of other hon. Members here, and my favourite debates are not the ones in which individuals bring up very interesting issues that they are interested in— I have done that myself with things that I have a long, enduring interest in—but those that are really rooted in the lives of our constituents. This is one of those.

Colleagues of different political persuasions from different parts of the UK have the same challenge, and we get a lot of correspondence about it in our mailbags. More importantly, people in our communities deal with it every day. They do the decent thing—they go to work, work hard and bring their kids up—and they do not want much other than to be able to get on with a quiet life, but they have to go home to disturbance, noise, aggression, smell or whatever it is. It is so unfair and unjust that they have to live their lives that way. It is right that the Government and the Parliament of the day believe that this issue is important and that we have a role in changing it.

Antisocial behaviour is not merely a nuisance but has devastating personal consequences. It corrodes people’s freedom, makes them not want to leave the house, damages their mental health and ultimately undermines their sense of home. That is why tackling antisocial behaviour is an important priority for this Government through our safer streets mission. We have committed on the record to put thousands of neighbourhood police and police community support officers into local communities so that residents have a named officer to turn to when things go wrong.

Hon. Members have talked about the existing powers, which we think need to be augmented through respect orders. We need tough sanctions and proper penalties. Crucially—this is a significant gap at the moment—we need serious and growing penalties for those who persistently offend.

The hon. Member for Ashfield said that social housing is a gem, and I agree. The bedrock of my community is good, decent homes where people can grow up, go to work, thrive and live their lives. It makes it doubly painful when a small number of individuals who have this gem—this thing that many others on the waiting list would be desperate to secure—choose to perpetrate antisocial behaviour and make their neighbours’ lives a misery. It is a double insult. I will address his three strikes point a little later, but I will give a clear response on that.

The hon. Member also talked about the important relationship between central Government, local government, the providers and the police. This is an all-sector approach to try to tackle these individuals and to assemble the right powers, whether through tenancies, the effectiveness of the courts, or providers themselves doing their jobs. Those are points that I will cover.

Any debate that starts with Clement Attlee is a good debate. If we look around the country we can see the impact of his Labour Government and subsequent Labour Governments. Whether it is social housing, our national health service or the minimum wage, we built the basic standards that make people’s lives better and help them thrive. This Government will govern in that spirit, and I look forward to the support of the hon. Members for Ashfield and for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice).

[Lee Anderson]

The Minister makes a good point. He speaks passionately about Clement Attlee. What would Clement Attlee think of the state of our welfare state system and social housing today?

[Alex Norris]

I could talk all day about Clement Attlee. His policies and politics were rooted in organising in the east end of London. We often forget this, but—well, the hon. Gentleman is no stranger to internal Labour party dynamics. Clement Attlee was a man of exceptional privilege, but he chose to go to the places where life was hardest. He looked at the living conditions of individuals in the east end of London and non-judgmentally sought to change them. He understood that some people had substance abuse issues—they manifested perhaps a little differently compared with today, but it is the same principle—and others had mental health or physical health issues. There was domestic abuse. We are talking about the 1930s, but it is not so different nearly 100 years on. He sought to change those things, but he never sought to divide people into worthy and unworthy people. He would never write people off.

There is an important conversation at the nub of this debate: what is too much? Where is the line? What is tough love? What is an effective way of changing things? The hon. Gentleman talked about not caring where those who are evicted go. I do care, and I will address that point in a little while. There is a balance.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The Minister touched on the point about people being unworthy. Can I make the point that my mum would have made? It was not the person who was unworthy as an individual; it was just that they were unworthy of living in a social house, or in her hostel. We have to have tough love to create an incentive for people to behave properly.

[Alex Norris]

I totally accept that point. The challenge will be, as the hon. Gentleman will know from his leadership in his business career and his senior status in the previous Government, that every individual reacts differently to different circumstances. Like many colleagues, I like sport. No one needs to shout at me about the mistakes I have made. I know the mistakes. I carry them and think about them all the time. I need an arm around my shoulder. Other people need shouting at. It is about finding the model to make a change, if change is the thing we want, which I think it is for most of us. But people like me, who advocate change and perhaps take a longer lens on it than Conservative Members, cannot lose sight of the fact that in that moment, the people living next door are living in misery. That is why we have to have a line and I will talk about where that might fall.

The shadow Secretary of State should not be surprised by the quality of the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm); if he hears him speak on other issues, he will see that the quality is there. With both my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Ashfield here, I had to check whether this was 2024 or 2014—had we got the old band back together? There is a lot of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire here. We have all known each other for a very long time. I associate myself with the comments that my hon. Friend made about Nottinghamshire police and how important it is that we have good policing and we give the police the tools and resources to do that well in our community.

The thing that I took from both my hon. Friend’s contribution and that of the hon. Member for Ashfield is just how frustrating the process is. Having sat for 13 years on the local authority and in this place, I know about sitting there yet again saying, “Well, have you done any diary sheets?”, the burden of proof constantly being on those who are doing the decent thing, and the seemingly ever-higher mountain to climb to get some degree of justice. Again, that is something I will return to shortly.

I was pleased, as always, to hear the contribution from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). As he said, in Northern Ireland policing is a reserved matter, but the issues are similar. I suspect that people in Bulwell, in my constituency, and Newtownards, in his, are not that different. They want decent treatment, and the vast majority of people in both his community and mine are decent people who do the right thing. That is why it is all the more frustrating when individuals do not. I particularly took his point about reputation; people sometimes talk my community down, and that angers me, because my community is chock full of brilliant people who, whether by being great parents, by being great friends, or by contributing and volunteering, make the world a better place every day. That is why it angers me that a small number of people choose to cause a big amount of disruption.

The hon. Member mentioned legislation. Some colleagues have said that we need legislation; others have said we do not. I will set out the case for why we do. Given that the Renters’ Rights Bill is back next Tuesday for its Report stage, this is a good moment—an amendment window—for colleagues to bring forward ideas, and there are also the stages in the other place. Clearly there is a broad interest in this issue, and there could be a lot of very good contributions.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) set out, the rebirth of social housing is at the core of what this Government intend to do. We think that having a social house can be a foundation on which people build their lives. That makes it all the more important that we have appropriate checks and balances for those who do not behave properly in social housing. I will address his point about policing shortly, because without police, it does not matter what laws or rules we have; we simply will not be able to enforce them.

The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness talked about the broken windows theory, which is interesting and important, but I might challenge it slightly. It is not as simple as saying, “We don’t want any broken windows round here.” It is saying that when we have broken windows, we fix them: if there is one broken window, a second window is more likely to be broken, because people think, “Hey, you break windows round here.” It is about having the resourcing to do that.

The hon. Member also talked about a visible police presence, which is very important to this new Government. There is a trade-off here—as he says, these things need to be paid for. Balancing that is the challenge for the Government of the day, and it will be the challenge for Opposition parties.

[James McMurdock]

As I understand it, in my local area Essex police has the highest number of police officers in history. But if I speak to residents on the street, I often get exactly the same response: they never see their police officers, or they do not recognise those numbers as fact. Does the Minister agree that we should look at how we use our resources?

[Alex Norris]

I totally agree with that, and I have that conversation with my constituents. I was the shadow Policing Minister before the election, and I saw the Policing Minister and Home Secretary at the time, both of whom I hold in high regard, tearing their hair out over this question. As the hon. Gentleman says, we have employed more police officers than ever before; we have cut them and then we have added them back. Why are people not happier? The reality is that the funding mechanism squeezed out civilian staff, so that we now have 10,000 fewer police officers in frontline roles. There have never been more police officers—6,000 in this case—sat behind desks, doing things that they were not trained for and that their skills are wasted on. We have to change that, and getting 13,000 more police and police community support officers is part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I take the Minister back to the broken windows point. Broken window policing was not just about fixing the windows. He is right to say that that was part of it, because people not caring creates the opportunity for more crime, but it was also about arresting people for low-level crimes and antisocial behaviour. That is an effective and important part of that policy.

[Alex Norris]

I totally agree with that. To continue the New York example, I think of Red Hook and the courts there: the idea was that they would not just nick people for low-level crimes, but get them through court very quickly and ensure that there were sanctions, as a proper deterrent. Sadly, we are very long way from that. One of my biggest challenges with constituents is that they fear there is no point in staying in the game with the courts system, because they are already getting hearing dates for 2026. That is a real challenge at the root of justice in this country.

The issue starts with social housing providers. We would always want any issues to be nipped in the bud. If someone has done something that they should not have—had a loud party or left a bicycle in the way—then the necessary interaction should be quite an easy one, and there should be a resolution and no recurrence. That reduces antisocial behaviour. We want to see providers do that and they ought to do that.

Similarly, it is right that, when preventive measures fail, landlords can move decisively and quickly to tackle tenants who persistently abuse their tenancies. There are a range of powers already on the statute book, including eviction, but again, as we know from colleagues, that process does not feel like it always works. We have had conversations with social landlords. Of course, we would emphasise that they can apply to a court to remove tenants who carry out antisocial behaviour, but the process can be very difficult. I will talk shortly about how that might be made better.

It starts at allocation. There is a little bit of conversation about who gets access to social housing. Local authorities, including my own, can and do deprioritise tenants who have a history of bad behaviour. The majority—we believe it is about 75%—of local authorities undertake antisocial behaviour or other criminal behaviour-type tests ahead of allocating a social home. I suspect that colleagues may be interested in checking with their local authority whether they are in the three quarters or the quarter, because that is the front door to ensuring that those who have behaved badly in the past do not get access and the opportunity to do it again.

When it comes to eviction, there are powers at the moment—the Housing Act 1985 and the Housing Act 1988—but it is difficult. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness suggested that there should perhaps not be more legislation, but our plan is for more legislation in this space. Through the Renters Rights’ Bill, we will enable housing association landlords to make a claim to a court for repossession immediately in the most serious cases, rather than having to provide a notice period, with all the harm that can happen in those cases.

We will also amend the matters that judges must consider when deciding whether to award possession under the discretionary ground. This is very important—to give judges particular regard to whether tenants have engaged with efforts to resolve their behaviour and the impact on other tenants. Often, as we know from our casework, they simply do not answer letters or let the housing patch manager in. That will be a factor in the future, which is very welcome.

On the point about not being interested where people go, I am interested in that—not least because, as the crow flies, Kirkby to Bulwell is about eight or nine miles. One way or the other, either people being booted out of houses in my constituency end up in that of the hon. Member for Ashfield, or vice versa. That is why we should take an interest. If we can help people to resolve mental health issues, we should do that. If we can help people to address substance abuse issues, we should do that. We cannot pretend that, if we evict them from their housing, they suddenly will not be a problem elsewhere. I do not think that is the case, which is why we must take an interest and want to reduce reoffending and improve and promote rehabilitation.

My particular issue with the three strikes point is the rigidity. I would be very clear with my local authority that, if someone set their neighbour’s car on fire or attacked them, or was the organiser and perpetrator of a drugs network from their social house, one strike should be plenty. I would also say that, in a case where perhaps a lone parent is doing the best they can do, and they have a child who is clearly struggling and showing bad behaviours, I would try to solve that problem before thinking that shifting them out of their house would help rather than hinder.

The three strikes system is not flexible enough, and I fear it is at risk of being weaponised. We will have situations where we see both neighbours in the constituency surgery. If there is a hard and fast rule, and someone knows they only have to get three complaints found against their neighbour and they are out, it might promote that type of activity.

[Lee Anderson]

The Minister is being very generous with his time. He talked about a situation in which somebody might torch somebody’s car, where that is a serious enough offence to lose their tenancy. This has actually happened in Ashfield, all over my constituency. We even had a case where we had a house fire by a nuisance tenant, who still was not evicted. It does not work.

[Alex Norris]

That is why we are making changes within the Renters’ Rights Bill. In those cases, the neighbours must tear their hair out and wonder what has to happen for the right thing to be done.

I am conscious of the time remaining, but I wanted to mention our approach to antisocial behaviour and policing more generally, because we must have neighbourhood police back on the street. We have lost neighbourhood policing in this country. The shadow Minister talked about the importance of tackling low-level crime. We have essentially decriminalised retail crime in this country. We have seen an explosion in it, with all that misery. We must have the proper policing resource to get into that space.

That is why the Prime Minister announced on 5 December, through our plan for change, our zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour and, critically, our 13,000 more police and police community support officers. They are named contacts, working on antisocial behaviour action plans with local communities and using new tools, such as the respect orders, to ensure that individuals doing the wrong thing are tackled about their behaviour. There is a straight line across that.

After 13 years of talking to people about problems with their neighbours, my first question—I really cross my fingers behind my back—is whether their neighbour is a private or a social housing tenant. It is much easier with a social housing tenant, because there tend to be behaviour contracts and a legislative framework. If I have to chase a private landlord who might not live in Nottingham—I cannot believe anyone would not, but if not, or if they lived in Derby, for example—or even in Britain, that becomes really hard. We need broader tools that go beyond the ones with which we could work with social housing providers. That will be in our crime and policing Bill in this Session.

To conclude, I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield for securing this important debate and all hon. Members for their contributions to it. We are alive to the issue, and that is why we are acting through the Renters Rights’ Bill and have the policing and crime Bill to come. We are interested in hearing people’s ideas. We will always engage with them properly. I have given a sense today of the direction in which we are going, and I look forward to working with colleagues in the future.

Playgrounds

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair for the first time, Mrs Lewell-Buck. I know that you are always fair, but I know that you can be hard as well, if need be—hopefully I will not stretch the Chair’s patience today.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) for securing this debate and for the way in which he has led it. He took us on a beautiful tour of Bournemouth, but I most enjoyed the way that he brought the views of his constituents into the room and on to the record—to get 640 responses to anything is quite something. It shows the amount of energy and interest in Bournemouth, but clearly, judging from the contributions of colleagues, that energy and interest is replicated across the country.

Playgrounds are a vital part of our social infrastructure. As we have heard, they contribute to the health and development of our children and young people across the nation. Importantly for us as a Government, they also build on our mission of opportunities for all by ensuring that everyone has the best start in life.

I pay special tribute to the parents who my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East referred to, and I commend them for the insights that they gave to him and that he has been able to give to us. I also recognise Councillors Millie Earl, Sandra Moore and Andy Hadley, and Rebecca Whelan-Edmonds and Barbara Uphoff, for their work on a play strategy in Bournemouth —there is clearly something very special going on in the area—and Councillor Sharon Carr-Brown for her work to improve the quality of play in her ward and beyond.

I also thank Eugene Minogue and Play England for its work, including the support it has given to Bournemouth and to my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East. He asked me some specific questions, which I will come to later, but I will first pick up on a couple of the themes that were echoed by other hon. Members.

First, it is important to start with the principle that unstructured, free play is important in child development. Fun in general is important—it is not all about development; children have to be able to enjoy themselves and we need to make sure that the spaces are there. We have a strong, able and technically evolved competitor for our children’s education: screen time is part of this conversation. The answer in such circumstances is never to smash the machines; we cannot unlearn the technology, so we have to compete. If the alternative is compelling, our offer must be compelling. I will make a couple more points on that later. At a time when the cost of living challenges mean that parents are making difficult choices, those offers have to be there and they have to be accessible.

My hon. Friend and a number of other hon. Members said that this is also about social justice. For many in my community, the Bulwell Forest is their garden. They do not have the garden of their own, so that is their play area, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) said. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal) said, play and parks should be a great leveller and accessible to all—just walk up and pitch in. Too often, however, that is not the case for children with a disability, as my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jen Craft) said, nor is it for neurodiverse children, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) said. Whatever plans we bring forward, we have to weave in accessibility. We need to seek to tackle those inequalities.

I will make a few points on where we are as a Government and address the questions from my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East. The early years of childhood are crucial for the healthy development of our children, and physical activity is at the root of that, but as the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam) said, we face a real challenge around childhood obesity. Over 2 million children in this country do not do 60 minutes of physical activity each day—that problem is coming down the line for us. I will of course meet with the hon. Gentleman to talk about the adventure playgrounds in his community.

We know that this is a social justice issue, as I said, because the levels of activities are lowest among the poorest children, children from ethnic minority backgrounds and girls. Factors such as poverty, lack of access to safe green spaces and poor local natural resources contribute to this inequality. We also know that parents are increasingly concerned about the welfare of their children and about antisocial behaviour, which plays into the Government’s crime mission. We have to make sure that we have community policing to give reassurance.

The lack of physical activity among children needs to change, and active play is one of the key ways that we can make that change and get children exercising, stretching their minds and, as the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) said, building skills, problem solving and building resilience—all of those come through active play. Whether it is at adventure playgrounds, sports facilities or park playgrounds, or in the natural environment, all those things need to be present and accessible for our children.

We have a lot of parks and green spaces in this country —27,000 of them. They are much-loved local assets and can provide opportunities for free. As has been said, that reflects the cost of living. The great thing is that our children are telling us the answer. As so often in politics, if we stop talking for long enough, generally people will tell us the answer. The 2024 children’s people and nature survey for England tells us that the single most important factor for encouraging children to go outside is access to playgrounds. We tear our hair out about why our children are not out more often, which comes up in debates, as hon. Members have said, but the answer is there ready for us—access to playgrounds.

Local authorities are at the root of this. Five in every six of our urban parks are managed by local authorities. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) talked about community power. The local authority’s connection to local communities is about empowering them; I have no desire, as the Minister, to make granular decisions about play parks in Stoke, Stockport, Bournemouth, Thurrock, Ealing or wherever. I have very strong views about Nottingham, but my role as Minister is to get the powers and the resources to those communities to shape things for themselves.

The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell talked about some of the pressure that councils have been under in recent years. There is no doubt that playgrounds have been seen as a discretionary, non-statutory service. As a result, we have seen the decline that she talked about. I am very proud that the recent Budget had the best settlement for local government, with significant resources being made available. That will start to see some of those important services being built back.

I am passionate about, and could speak all day on, the Green Flag award scheme, and I thank super-judge Chris Worman for the work that he is doing. That is a really good way of ensuring that we have quality offerings, of which we have over 2,000 in the UK. In the Department we have novated the parks working group to build on that work, and Chris is playing a big part in that. I am going to ask that group to expand to ensure that play parks and playgrounds are part of that conversation, so that we are tackling some of the inequalities and the accessibility issues.

I will address the specific asks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East. First, I would be delighted to meet Eugene Minogue from Play England to discuss the issue. I am very keen to meet my hon. Friend’s constituents, and having had the aural tour of Bournemouth, I am keen to have the physical one. With regard to the 2008 play strategy, I am going to deftly sidestep any historical comparisons to individual politicians and say that as part of our opportunities Government mission, we are working with sector experts around play provision and will build on what has been done in the past. I steal liberally from what has been done before—often there is not much that is genuinely new—so we will building on that strategy and making significant reference to it in our work, while making it fit for the modern day.

We are going to take a similar approach with regard to play sufficiency legislation. I want to follow the evidence with the experts in communities, and I want to understand more about Scotland and Wales, because there is clearly a distinction and difference there, and about where the law could augment that. I would not want to run ahead of that work. My officials are working with those in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to look further into sports fields, and I will keep my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East updated.

On mapping play facilities, we want to get the burden on local authorities right so that we do not put too much on them. We are looking at other ways of doing it, however, because it is an important goal. One of the biggest driving factors beyond quality is distance. My community is a former mining community, so we have lots of country parks and people think that we are well provided for, but the gates are never on our side, which is a cause of great frustration. It is therefore about ensuring that we know what the distances are, as well as being about access. There is a significant correlation between mental health across the population and the distance to green and open spaces.

Rather than asking local authorities to map play facilities, last August the Office for National Statistics produced work on access to green space for the first time, and we are committed to further refining that work to ensure that it is doing the job. Similarly, the Green Flag award scheme provides a map of where the highest-quality facilities are. We are keen to get that mapping right, and to ensure that we understand that equity piece and which communities may need greater support.

I am conscious that my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East will need some time to wind up. I look forward to meeting him and his constituents, and I look forward to working with hon. Members in the spirit referred to by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), and by other hon. Members throughout the debate.

Town Centres

Alex Norris Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) for securing this important debate and for the spirit in which he has led it. Despite this being a half-hour debate—one of the shorter ones—the interest from colleagues, shown through interventions and through being here to listen, demonstrates the importance of town centres and their health to all our communities, wherever we are across the UK.

My hon. Friend’s diagnosis of the challenge was really well put, because although no two town centres are the same, all our town centres face the same problems: lower occupancy rates and footfall due to economic headwinds and changing consumer habits; the legacy of austerity on public amenities; and hollowed-out high streets becoming a breeding ground for crime and antisocial behaviour, which then feeds a vicious cycle that affects the confidence of consumers and investors alike. That is true in Basingstoke, it is true in Bulwell in my constituency and it is true in the constituencies of colleagues across the room. This is an important debate for us all—it is a significant debate for the Government of the day and for Parliament.

I was struck by what my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said about the entrepreneurial spirit in his community, which was echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger). As we see across the country, there are brilliant business owners who are taking risks, bringing their ideas forward and making them real under very difficult circumstances. Quite rightly, they are not looking for the Government to operate their enterprises, but they are looking for the Government to make their life easier, which is entirely reasonable.

Today I will cover the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and talk about some of the support that will be coming from the new Government. I will also reference that critical underpinning—that whatever we do, whatever support we give to business, and however good the trading environment, we have to have safe communities. If we do not have those, even if we have all the other pieces, people will still not feel safe and will not be able to visit their town centres, and businesses will not be able to thrive.

I will start with the high street itself. My hon. Friends the Members for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) and for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) referenced high street rental auctions, so I will start there. In December we brought forward new powers for local authorities to require landlords who have persistently vacant properties to bring those properties back into use. The new regulations will make the tenancies more accessible and affordable for tenants, and give local businesses and community enterprise a right to rent valuable space on their high street. We are calling time on those persistent vacancies, and this will be a significant development in reducing vacancies and improving footfall along the way.

We have heard about the work going on in Bournemouth. We are also working with Bassetlaw, Darlington and Mansfield as early adopters, and I want as many areas to come forward as possible. I encourage colleagues to talk to their local authorities about getting the best out of these powers. There is also a lot of insight that we can support them with centrally. If they lean into this, it could be a really good way of addressing vacancy rates and of giving business and local community enterprises their first steps.

We will continue to invest in the high street accelerator model and from that learn what else we can do to improve communities across the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke mentioned, that model is telling us a lot about partnership between local communities, businesses, and property owners, who want to see their communities thrive. We also heard about business improvement districts convening that family of interested parties to drive forward a shared vision for an area.

At the moment, the overheads are really challenging—the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood) put it very elegantly as the “cost of doing business crisis”. As the Government of the day, we want to help and to ameliorate that situation. Retail, hospitality and leisure form the backbones of our high streets, and support our local economies and communities, providing jobs and attracting visitors, but they cannot do that with a chokehold on them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said. He asked for more specifics on permanently lowering tax rates for such ventures. From 2026-2027, we intend to introduce permanent tax cuts for those with rateable values of less than £500,000. Those businesses will have certainty going forwards, not having to wait from Budget to Budget to see if cuts have been maintained; they will be baked in. Indeed, I believe that legislation has been making its way today. It means that businesses will have certainty around costs, so that they can plan and can operate their businesses in a profitable way.

There are other ways in which we can make life easier, including by tackling the scourge of late payments and long payment terms. That is a theme we hear constantly when we talk to small business and self-employed people. We are therefore introducing a new fair payment code, and we want people to engage with it to make sure that it works for real—for the way in which they do their business—and they are not caught in the ripple effects of bigger organisations that do not pay on time. That is an important point on support.

We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke about the importance of energy costs, which we know have been a problem domestically and for businesses. There are businesses now that were in a cycle of contracting when markets were at their most challenging and which are now locked into longer deals. We encourage businesses or non-domestic organisations to engage with suppliers about moving away from contracts agreed at higher prices and instead move towards approaches such as blend and extend contract to try to reduce costs. That would give short-term relief.

What we have to do in the medium and long term—as my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke said—is transition away from fossil fuels and towards home-grown, clean energy through the establishment of Great British Energy. In December, we took steps with our 2030 action plan, outlining our efforts in this regard. That will mean there will be access to clean, green energy, and that there will be domestic jobs and more money in people’s pockets—the single biggest problem affecting my town is that people simply do not have enough money in their pockets to shop. We will be winning each way: keeping bills down with better energy, and putting support and vitality back into our communities with jobs too.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke mentioned transport, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba). Reliable bus and public transport services are vital to the economic success of our high streets. At the back end of last year, we made announcements about the £5.7 billion long-term transport settlement to transform the local transport networks of our largest city regions, helping to drive growth and productivity, and perhaps bringing back into use those routes that have been lost. There is also a further £650 million for local transport outside city regions in the forthcoming year, to make sure that we can improve connections between our towns, villages and rural areas as well as our major cities. On 17 December, we introduced the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, which will put power over local bus services back into the hands of local leaders, so that those decisions reflect the nature of the local community and public transport gets to the right places.

On driving footfall and making sure that the high street has the amenities that our constituents want and need, we are also pushing hard on the roll-out of banking hubs. I know, having talked to colleagues, that that is of significant interest across the country. We have plans to roll out 350 such hubs, and there is plenty of work to do on that. Again, this is about having anchors on the high street that mean that people routinely come in and out of their town centre and, while they are there, perhaps go for a cup of tea or whatnot. We need those staples come what may, and that is an important way of making sure that we protect banking.

The hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) talked about some of the ways in which Government have funded projects previously. To be clear—I could speak for another hour on this—we want to move away from the competitive, beauty parade-style bidding process that has pitted communities against each other, created a lot of disappointment and, frankly, been less than the sum of its parts. Our approach to local growth funding will be more integrated settlements over the longer term, with less central direction and more local choice. We think that will get the money to the areas that need it. In the meantime, we have the UK shared prosperity fund and the transition year there. I know that that is important for Northern Ireland—I have had the chance to see some of the services it pays for there—and across the country. Colleagues can look for more information about that when we get to the multi-year spending review later this year.

In the time remaining, I will move on to a couple of points about safety in town centres, raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern). As the Chancellor’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, he is surely our man with a direct line on the spending review and other things. The point about safety is so important. My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke has, like me, raised the issue of car meets. This has, at times, really dogged my town, making me want to tear my hair out. In order to push these kinds of behaviours out of our town, we have had to chase them and really be on top of it. The issue has caused misery and anxiety, and people do not want to leave their houses because they do not think they are safe. That is also true for crime in town centres more generally.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke mentioned that terrible phrase, which I absolutely hate: “low-level crime”. The previous Government ceded ground around theft below £200, which has led to an explosion of stealing and other types of antisocial behaviour in our towns. That has made working in a retail environment a misery for people at times. We see staggering levels of violence, which we have to address. That is at the core of our safer streets mission, and we are committed to restoring neighbourhood policing through our neighbourhood policing guarantee—13,000 more police and police community support officers as a visible deterrent.

My hon. Friend also asked about timelines and where we are in the process. On 5 December, the Prime Minister announced our Plan for Change, which committed to a zero tolerance approach to ASB. That means a dedicated lead officer in every force, working with communities to work up a local antisocial behaviour plan. There are also our recently announced respect orders, which will give police and local council stronger enforcement powers, so that proper action is taken to change the behaviours of people who are persistently disruptive—others in our towns could name those people, and retail workers certainly could. This means banning them from the amenity they are disrupting, but also tackling the root cause of their behaviour through, for example, mandated alcohol and drug treatment. If people break respect orders, there are significant penalties, with offenders facing up to two years imprisonment—a real deterrent.

We want to tackle the root cause. For time out of mind, the behaviour of young people around town centres has been a challenge, whether they are on bicycles or causing shopkeepers challenges. Through our young futures programme, we want to give young people a positive thing to do, but it is also a chance to tackle and reduce offending where it happens. Together, all these things will make our communities safer for people to live, work and visit.

I am coming to the end of my speech, so I will probably leave it there. There are important points to be made about housing and our role in ensuring that, as more housing is created in town centres, it is done in a sensible and planned way with local communities. I think most people would accept the value of that—but if there is not proper planning and co-ordination, we end up with units in different places, as well as the weird and desperately sad situation where people move next door to a pub that may have been there for many years and then put in public order and nuisance complaints, leading to the pub closing down. We have to plan these things, so that residents can live alongside business in a way that promotes all of their interests.

To conclude, the interest that my colleagues have shown means that we could have gone on for a very long time. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke for securing the debate; it is a really brilliant way to start the new year. Our town centres are the beating hearts of our communities, and the Government are committed to giving that support. We will continue to engage with business to make sure the things we are doing are reaching the places they need to, and we will also work on that with our parliamentary colleagues. There is an awful lot to consider in terms of business support and public safety, so now is the time to grab this for our town centres—for my community, and for all of our communities. I think we can make a real difference.

Question put and agreed to.

Community Ownership Fund Round 4

Alex Norris Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Written Statements

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

The English devolution White Paper set out the Government’s commitment to work in partnership with communities, to transfer power out of Westminster and put local decisions back in the hands of the people affected by them. The loss in recent years of shared community forums, places and institutions—whether it be local news outlets, community cafés, youth clubs, pubs, historic buildings, libraries or sport facilities—has eroded a sense of local civic pride and contributed to a feeling of decline in neighbourhoods and high streets. The Government’s approach to community empowerment will focus on putting people in control of these important assets. We will create new opportunities for communities to have a say in the future of their area and play a part in improving it, while acknowledging that this means nothing if people are not supported to contribute to this decision-making.

We recognise that community groups play a crucial role in promoting social cohesion and providing services which improve health and wellbeing, reduce anti-social behaviour, protect nature and offer support to groups in need. That is why, despite the difficult financial circumstances that we have inherited from the previous Government, we have taken the decision to prioritise funding for community ownership. On 23 December 2024, during the Christmas recess, we announced the outcome of round 4 of the community ownership fund (COF), with 85 projects from across the UK receiving £36.2 million in funding. This represents the largest ever COF announcement to date.

Projects such as Elmfield Hall in Lancashire, St Dunstan’s House in Glastonbury, Caerphilly rugby football club in Wales and the Mourne mountain rescue base and education centre in Northern Ireland, have been awarded the crucial funding that will keep them in the hands of the communities they serve.

A total of £25.5 million has been awarded to 57 projects in England, £5 million has been awarded to 11 projects in Scotland, £2.1 million has been awarded to seven projects in Wales and £3.7 million has been awarded to 10 projects in Northern Ireland.

The community ownership fund is now closed. There will be no further application windows on the COF programme. We have taken this difficult decision due to the challenging inheritance left by the previous Government.

While we are closing the community ownership fund, this Government remain committed to the communities’ sector and community empowerment. We will deliver on the manifesto commitment to replace the community “right to bid” with a strengthened “right to buy” assets of community value, creating a more robust pathway to community asset ownership. And we will seek to support high streets by strengthening business improvement districts, which have helped to improve town and city centres across the United Kingdom for 20 years, while ensuring they operate to high standards and are accountable to their communities.

We have also implemented new high street rental auction regulations, providing local communities and businesses with a right to rent premises that have long sat vacant, casting a cloud over the local area. The power will help to provide new shops and community spaces, supporting businesses and communities to access the high street and create vibrant, bustling spaces they can be proud of.

We encourage any community groups seeking funding to preserve community assets, including those who may have submitted an expression of interest (EOI) in the community ownership fund but did not submit a full application, to continue to use the guidance and tools available through our development support provider on the MyCommunity site. These tools have been designed to help any organisation seeking to save an asset that is important to them and their local community and will remain available beyond the COF programme. The development support provider may also be able to help to suggest alternative sources of funding that organisations could look to secure.

Building on plans outlined in the English devolution White Paper, there will be further announcements relating to communities in the new year, including on the community ownership of assets.

[HCWS353]

Housing, Communities and Local Government

Alex Norris Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2024 Written Corrections

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

Non-qualifying leaseholder status gets slapped on a property in perpetuity long after the required safety works are completed. That status means that it is almost impossible to acquire a mortgage—solicitors advise very strongly that purchasers steer clear of such properties, which are very often flats—and the status is inherited by successive owners in perpetuity. Has the Minister considered what this status does for the housing crisis?

[Alex Norris]

I completely understand the challenge. Drawing a line between qualifying and non-qualifying leaseholders—between people who own a property and therefore suffer from things that have been beyond their control, and landlords that are businesses and therefore have multiple assets—will always be a difficult job. At the edge, where the boundary between qualifying and non-qualifying becomes blurred, there are some difficult cases. As a new Government, we are committed to working with people to understand better how we can go forward on that. As for the substantive point on where the liability should lie, it is about finding the right balance between those who built the building and those who live in it.

[Official Report, 2 December 2024; Vol. 758, c. 24.]

Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris):

[Alex Norris]

I completely understand the challenge. Drawing a line between qualifying and non-qualifying leaseholders—between people who own a property and therefore suffer from things that have been beyond their control, and landlords that are businesses and therefore have multiple assets—will always be a difficult job. At the edge, where the boundary between qualifying and non-qualifying becomes blurred, there are some difficult cases. As a new Government, we are committed to working with people to understand better how we can go forward on that. As for the substantive point on where the liability should lie, it is about finding the right balance between those who have financial interests in a building and those who live in it.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Alex Norris Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

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

This has been an important debate on the findings and recommendations of the Grenfell inquiry. As the inquiry’s phase 2 report and today’s debate have made clear, fundamental change is needed to make our homes secure and safe, both now and in the future.

I said in a building safety debate a few weeks ago that, like other colleagues, I reflect on where I was on that night seven and a half years ago. It was a poignant moment. Having sat on the other side of the Chamber, I think that if we had said then that we would be where we are now, we would have been exceptionally surprised and disappointed that not enough progress has been made. It now behoves the Government of the day to move at much greater pace, building on the inquiry’s recommendation to move at speed.

The inquiry’s findings on the causes of the tragedy tell us something about a building safety system that was fundamentally broken, that had baked-in deficiencies and that went unchallenged by authorities across the piece, and about the relentless dishonesty of individuals. But it also tells us about Britain and the country in which we live. The consequence was buildings with unsafe cladding and 72 people losing their lives, which was devastating for their families and for the community. As the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister have said, we apologise on behalf of the British state. We cannot say sorry enough.

As the Prime Minister has set out, the Government are considering our response to the report and have committed to come back within six months with our response to the recommendations, as well as to give Parliament the opportunity to debate it at that time and on an annual basis. I say from the bottom of my heart that this has been an important debate for shaping the Government’s response to the report. I have some points of my own to make, but I will major on the points made by colleagues, because there have been a lot of important questions and comments that need a reply at this stage.

I will start with my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), who shaped both the spirit and the content of the debate. He spoke with purpose, but I could detect quite a lot of anger as well. When I speak to bereaved people, the next of kin, survivors and the immediate community, it is clear how angry they are with how little progress has been made, how tired they are of telling people like me their story, how much pain it causes them to tell their story again and to hear it played out in our nation’s Parliament, and how angry it makes them that we cannot say that this tragedy will not happen again, which is shameful for our country. My hon. Friend talked about the merry-go-round of blame. Let me tell him that the report’s recommendations provide a chance for a single response, owned singularly by the Government of the day, to break that merry-go-round.

The Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), spoke with characteristic power. What I took from her contribution, and what I suspect will be the work of her Committee, is the need for more systematic action. We have said that we will address the recommendations within the timeline to which we have committed, but we understand that systematic challenges in the building safety industry have been highlighted by the inquiry report, the Morrell-Day report and the Hackitt review, all of which we will pick up as part of the process, because the whole system needs reform.

That takes me to what the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) said. He is coming to see me in the next few days to discuss his thoughtful ideas about safety investigations that have worked in other industries, and the Government are all ears.

My hon. Friends the Members for Kensington and Bayswater and for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green talked about manufacturers. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, the Prime Minister has committed that we will take action against culpable manufacturers. As the first step in that process, the Cabinet Office has written to organisations named in the inquiry who bear different responsibilities for these failings. For those found by the inquiry to have been part of these horrific failings, this is the first step in stopping them being awarded Government contracts. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the Government intend to publish guidance to support this first set of decisions early next year to stop the most egregious companies getting Government contracts.

A number of colleagues mentioned issues relating to leaseholders, and I shall start with leaseholder protections, which came into force on 28 June 2022. Qualifying leaseholders are protected from the costs of legal or other professional services relating to the liability or potential liability incurred as a result of a relevant defect. The Building Safety Act 2022 also provides for remediation contribution orders, which allow interested persons to apply to the first-tier tribunal for an order requiring building owners to pay to fix unsafe buildings, but I am struck, as a Minister, by how often colleagues tell me that these things are not happening. The hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam), who is no longer in his place, mentioned Abbey House, which I am keen to talk to him about. I will also meet my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran) to understand how this is manifesting itself for her constituents.

My hon. Friends the Members for Southampton Itchen (Darren Paffey), for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) and for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) talked about insurance for leaseholders, and it is impossible not to be struck by the financial and emotional impact that high insurance premiums are having on leaseholders. Affected leaseholders have been burdened with paying high premiums for too long, and as part of the remediation acceleration plan, we have announced that we will work with insurers to consider whether, for the duration of remediation programmes, the Government might support industry to reduce fire-related liabilities in order to reduce the high insurance bills that leaseholders are facing. We have also launched a public consultation today on our plans to prevent excessive buildings insurance commissions for landlords, for property managing agents or for freeholders being charged to leaseholders. Our intention is to replace those with a fair and transparent fee.

I have mentioned qualifying leaseholders, which takes me to the point about qualifying and non-qualifying leaseholders that the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) raised in this debate and earlier in oral questions. She invites me to set out a path of logic for the distinction between qualifying and non-qualifying leaseholders. I would maintain that, in principle, the difference between what we would consider an ordinary resident and what we would consider a business owning perhaps very many properties is a distinction that we would want to draw when providing public relief. At some point we have to draw a line. The hon. Lady spoke with great eloquence about how that has manifested itself for married couples, and I know from my conversations with many others that there are similar edge cases. We will look at those edge cases, and I am keen to meet her because she spoke with great power about one such case in her community.

With your forbearance, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to correct something that I said during oral questions earlier, because it is an important distinction. I talked about the need to find the balance between those who built a building and those who live in it, but in reality, the balance we need to find is between those who have financial interests in a building and those who live in it. That is slightly different. I will correct the record formally, but I did not want to miss this first public opportunity to do so, given the importance of the point that was raised.

The question of justice was raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter), for Warrington South (Sarah Hall) and for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman). Speaking to survivors, to the next of kin and to the immediate community, it is impossible not to be struck by their anger and their entirely natural need for justice. I have to say, as building safety Minister, that to some degree this is the element of the entire piece that I find most challenging because, quite rightly, the police and courts are independent of Government. We of course speak with the authorities, and I know that they hear very clearly from those affected about the need for pace. The Metropolitan police have said that it will take time, that it is one of the largest and most legally complex investigations they have ever conducted, and that they have 180 officers and staff dedicated to the investigation.

A question was asked about court capacity, which colleagues will know is of great importance to this Government. We are working very hard to relieve the pressure on Crown courts to ensure they are not the point at which justice is prevented.

An hon. Member whose name I have not noted asked about memorialisation, and it is important that I make it clear on the record that no decision has been made about the tower’s future. This matter is being led by the Deputy Prime Minister, who recognises the importance of listening to the community on this sensitive issue. She is actively doing so, and it is right that the bereaved, the survivors, the next of kin and the immediate community are at the heart of this conversation. It is part of a process, and there is unanimity across all involved, including in this place, on the need for a fitting and lasting memorial. We salute the important work of the independent Grenfell Tower Memorial Commission and will support it in any way we can.

Colleagues, including my hon. Friends the Members for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) and for Brent East (Dawn Butler) and the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry), mentioned the role of local authorities. As the shadow Minister said, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has admitted that it failed in some of its most basic duties: to keep residents safe; to listen to and act on their concerns; and to respond effectively when disaster struck. The Government will work very closely with the community to hold the council to its commitments to improve its services for residents. I will shortly meet the council leader to discuss a number of issues that residents have asked me to raise—we will work very closely.

The hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent East both spoke about the importance of transparency. Transparency is always important in local government, but it is crucial when rebuilding trust after a tragedy has laid bare such failings.

In that spirit, my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) spoke powerfully about Rod Wainwright, the brave firefighter on duty that night. The actions of the London Fire Brigade have been referred to the independent inspectorate, which is very important. However, with the Fire Minister sitting beside me, I assure the House that the Government are responsible for overall oversight of fire and rescue services, and for ensuring public safety more broadly. We will work with the inspectorate, the Mayor of London and the LFB to support the brigade’s continued progress.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch spoke about skills. Seven years on, it is clear that we have missed an opportunity. Young people should want to go into the house building industry, as this is skilled, well-paid and important work. The Government are working with the Industry Competence Committee to make sure that we have a competent house building workforce capable of delivering safe, high-quality homes, which is especially important in the light of our commitment to build 1.5 million homes during this Parliament.

In the autumn, the Government launched Skills England, which will work closely with employers and other key partners to identify and address priority skills gaps, including in construction. The Budget made more money—£300 million—available for further education, including in construction.

Today, I have had a conversation with mayoral combined authorities and elected mayors about how they can use their locus on skills to promote this industry. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch asked whether we would be willing to lean on the shortage occupation list, if needed. That would not be the Government’s preference, of course, but it is a commitment that has been made.

I will use my remaining time to talk about the remediation acceleration plan, because a number of colleagues have talked about the importance of quicker remediation. I am grateful to the Opposition and the Select Committee for their warm sentiments, but I am clear that success is never in a plan’s publication. As the shadow Minister said, we expect to be held to account for the commitments we have made today.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) talked about the need to be quicker and, again, 2029 is not when it will start but when it will be resolved. Our commitment is that by the end of 2029, all residential buildings 18 metres and over with unsafe cladding in a Government-funded scheme will have been remediated, and every residential building 11 metres and over with unsafe cladding will have either been remediated, have a date for completion or the landlord will be liable for severe penalties.

Our plan has three objectives. First, it will fix buildings faster. I am pleased that we, as a Government, have secured an important commitment from developers to accelerate their pace. Secondly and crucially, it will identify all buildings with unsafe cladding. If we talked to ourselves seven and a half years ago and said, “In seven and half years’ time will not even be able to say how many buildings there are with unsafe cladding, but the best range we will be able to give the House is somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000”, that speaks to the point made by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) that that clearly is not good enough. Finally, it will support residents.

On acceleration, our plan has set a clear timeline and we will actively pursue the landlords of buildings who refuse to act. We will ensure better co-operation between regulators. We are working hard with metro mayors to provide localised plans, because often the buildings are in combined authority areas, so we need to work in partnership.

On identification, we have set up a “tell us” tool through the cladding safety schemes, so residents can tell us directly. We are working very hard going through Ordnance Survey maps and doing all the line-by-line work needed to assess 175,000 building records by April—540,000 in total—to ensure we find all the buildings that have cladding defects, so remediation action can take place.

I know there is a lot of interest in protections for residents, which I have talked about a little. I hope what I have been able to say about insurance is welcome. We look forward to making good on that. If the market will not deliver, we will work closely with developers to change commissioning.

I will draw my remarks to a close. Today’s debate has been very important and has highlighted just how far we have to go, as the inquiry shows us. We still have thousands of buildings with unsafe cladding. We need a complete reversal if we are going to put people and safety first, ahead of profits, empower residents and hold those responsible for the safety crisis to account.

We have committed to building 1.5 million homes during this Parliament, which our country desperately needs, but they must be safe, secure and decent homes. The package of measures we have set out today through the remediation acceleration plan will help us with that. As has been mentioned, residential PEEPs will improve fire safety and evacuation of vulnerable people in high-rise and high-risk buildings. I have not had time to talk about the replacement of waking watch, but we are extending the waking watch replacement fund, so that leaseholders can access that and get an alarm in place.

All of our work takes place with those 72 lives held at its heart, and in our hearts. They were failed by the system at all points and failed by this country to all degrees. We are so sorry for what happened, but I know the people involved have heard those apologies and those words from people like me too often. We can do only one thing to make things better: deliver. The inquiry has helped us on our way and our plans are developing. I am grateful for the contributions colleagues are making, but now we must deliver.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Grenfell Tower Inquiry phase 2 report.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Naushabah Khan (Gillingham and Rainham) (Lab)]

14. What steps her Department is taking to support community ownership of local assets.

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

The community ownership fund has empowered community groups across the UK to take long-term, sustainable ownership of assets that benefit their local community, and I know that colleagues across the House are eagerly awaiting further news on round 4 of the community ownership fund, which will be with them in due course. Beyond this, through the English Devolution Bill, we will introduce a strong new right to buy for valued community assets, which will help local people to acquire valued community spaces when they come up for sale, keeping them in the hands of the local community.

[Naushabah Khan]

I recently met the friends of the Flying Saucer pub, a community group in my constituency who are working to bring this asset of community value back into local hands. Will the Minister assure my constituents that the Government are committed to supporting the retention of community assets such as this, and will he agree to meet me to discuss the Flying Saucer campaign and the broader challenges that communities face in reclaiming and retaining such assets?

[Alex Norris]

Now then, Mr Speaker, you know there is no greater enthusiast in this place for a local pub than me—[Interruption.] And indeed for flying saucers. These are exactly the types of assets of community value we are talking about, and exactly the sorts of assets that will be in the scope of the new community right to buy. Of course I would be keen to meet my hon. Friend and the campaigners on that issue.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

East Devon District Council has declared Seaton hospital an asset of community value and is awaiting news of round 4 of the community ownership fund to see whether we might get funding from that source. In the meantime, NHS Property Services might be seeking to remove part of that hospital. Can the Minister ask his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to prevent that?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question, although I am sad to hear it. The asset of community value status really ought to give a degree of protection, but I am happy to talk about that further. As I have said, round 4 of the community ownership fund will be coming forward very shortly.

[Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)]

15. What assessment she has made of the potential impact of service charges on residents in social housing.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)]

18. What steps her Department is taking to allocate local growth funding according to need.

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

We are intent on moving towards allocated, multi-year funding settlements targeted at need. We will set out this refreshed vision for local growth funding in the multi-year spending review, working with local leaders to drive growth in the areas that need it most, and ending the plethora of competitive pots.

[Rachel Taylor]

I am very pleased to hear the Minister’s reply. The last Government wasted local authorities’ time and money by making them bid for handouts from central Government. In North Warwickshire, so much time was spent preparing numerous bids for the new swimming pool and leisure centre that our community desperately needed, only for vital funds to go to places without such high levels of need. Under this Labour Government, will the Minister ensure that local authorities receive the fair funding they require to deliver the local services they know their communities need?

[Alex Norris]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the harm done by that “beauty parade” funding model, which was inefficient and created so much disappointment. What follows will be much better.

[Gill German]

Seaside towns such as Rhyl and Colwyn Bay in my constituency have much in common with our north-west neighbours. The 2019 “Future of Seaside Towns” report highlights the need to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach, while recognising common issues. How do the Government plan to use national funding streams while ensuring local delivery to deliver long-term growth in our seaside towns?

[Alex Norris]

That is another important argument for why we need longer-term, allocative settlements. It is my hon. Friend, her local authority, her local residents and her community who know Rhyl. They are the experts, and they should have the flexibility to break the one-size-fits-all model to make things work for themselves.

[Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)]

I declare an interest as a Stratford-on-Avon district councillor. Does the Minister agree that, in two-tier local government areas, district and borough councils are best placed as the most local form of government to allocate funds from the UK shared prosperity fund, given their proximity to communities and their deep understanding of local needs?

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Lady tempts me to discuss the shared prosperity funding, which communities will receive shortly. I have to say that my enthusiasm is for all tiers of government in local areas—whether that is metro mayors, upper-tier authorities, boroughs and districts or indeed parish and town councils—to come together in shared interest to improve their communities.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for his answers; it is always good to hear some positivity. We in Northern Ireland are still waiting on shared prosperity funding. There would be some benefits for my constituency; Strangford has coastal issues such as seaside improvement and coastal erosion. Has the Minister had an opportunity to talk to the relevant department in Northern Ireland to see how central Government could help us back home?

[Alex Norris]

I am always careful not to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, given that at the High Street Heroes awards for Retail NI last year, I awarded the winning high street to Ballymena rather than Newtownards, and I am not sure he is ever going to forgive me. I assure him that I am having conversations with ministerial counterparts in the Northern Ireland Executive. We are also talking to local authorities and some of the groups that have been delivering projects, such as Go Succeed. Those conversations are ongoing as we speak, and the full answer about the allocations will be coming shortly.

[Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

My constituent, Dom, purchased a high-rise building that, it now transpires, does not meet building regulations on combustible materials used in the early 2000s. His building is being remediated, but the materials are being allowed to remain, locking in the risk for the long term and sending insurance premiums sky high. Why are the Government not investigating historic non-compliance? What is being done to protect homeowners from unfair losses and sky-high insurance premiums?

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

We are clear that dangerous buildings need to be remediated. That is why the best thing that any building owner can do is get into a scheme today to unlock the funding and meet those duties they have as building owners. When they do that and when they are approved for the grant, they would have an inspection at that point, so I am surprised to hear that dangerous defects would be locked in, as the hon. Lady says, but I am interested in having a conversation with her to understand that further.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

T3. A block of 50 flats in my constituency was built by the public sector 60 years ago and has now been found to have a major structural fault that will cost over £1 million to fix. The flat owners are also shared freeholders of the block and cannot afford the cost of the repair or to sell their flats. As it is an unusual situation, will the Minister meet me and the resident owners to consider a way forward before the situation gets critical?

[Alex Norris]

Yes, of course. The issue of cladding defects is exceptionally important and, indeed, the subject of a debate later today, but so are non-cladding defects and protecting leaseholders from their impacts.

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

T5. Given that the Government are already doing another relaunch, would the Secretary of State reconsider the fairness of housing targets, whereby poor delivery by Labour in London is awarded with lower targets to the detriment of areas such as South West Hertfordshire?

--- Later in debate ---

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement of the deadlines. However, the National Audit Office report published last month shows that the majority of buildings affected by cladding have not been identified. Will the Secretary of State go further by delivering a more joined-up approach, so that we can identify and remediate those properties as soon as possible?

[Alex Norris]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for that question. It will probably not surprise her to hear that the first question I asked when I became Minister with responsibility for building safety was, “How many buildings need remediating?” I do not think that it will surprise her or colleagues to hear how astonished I was to find out that between 4,000 and 7,000 buildings were unidentified after seven years—which shows the previous Government’s intent. We are going to identify them, work out what their risks are and get them remediated.

[Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s commitments, in response to my written parliamentary questions, to a consultation on ending fleecehold. However, my constituents in Markhams Close and across Basildon and Billericay just want to know when that will take place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

Last week, my local council announced the proposed closure of the much-loved Prince of Wales theatre in Cannock. Despite the council’s financial pressures, local people do not want that theatre to become collateral damage. Will the Minister meet me to see what could be done to explore community ownership and give our theatre the bright future that thousands of my constituents want to see?

[Alex Norris]

As my hon. Friend knows, I am very keen on community ownership, and I am sad to hear about the situation in his community. I would definitely steer him towards the “asset of community value” process in the immediate term, and of course, I would be very happy to meet him and campaigners on this issue.

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

Non-qualifying leaseholder status gets slapped on a property in perpetuity long after the required safety works are completed. That status means that it is almost impossible to acquire a mortgage—solicitors advise very strongly that purchasers steer clear of such properties, which are very often flats—and the status is inherited by successive owners in perpetuity. Has the Minister considered what this status does for the housing crisis?

[Alex Norris]

I completely understand the challenge. Drawing a line between qualifying and non-qualifying leaseholders—between people who own a property and therefore suffer from things that have been beyond their control, and landlords that are businesses and therefore have multiple assets—will always be a difficult job. At the edge, where the boundary between qualifying and non-qualifying becomes blurred, there are some difficult cases. As a new Government, we are committed to working with people to understand better how we can go forward on that. As for the substantive point on where the liability should lie, it is about finding the right balance between those who built the building and those who live in it.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

Will the Minister commit to working with local authorities to use new powers to run high street rental auctions, so that we can end the affront of empty shops this Christmas?

[Alex Norris]

Yes. High street rental auctions, which were launched at the weekend, are a brilliant way—[Interruption.] Indeed; they were part of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, which I am sad to say the previous Government did not commence—as part of the war on woke, I believe. Nevertheless, we have commenced those auctions. They are a tool in the hands of local communities; if there are vacant properties, let us get them brought back into use.

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

I represent Tunbridge Wells, and just over the boundary in Wealden district, a large housing development is proposed. Wealden will get the houses, but the infrastructure burden will fall particularly on my constituents who live in Tunbridge Wells. Will the Secretary of State update me on the reforms to the NPPF? What is being done about this problem of cross-boundary infrastructure?

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Norris Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

15. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that every property has access to either gigabit broadband or a 4G or 5G mobile signal.

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

It is essential to keep pace with growing demand for internet bandwidth and mobile data from local businesses, residents and those who visit our communities. That is why the Government’s ambition is to reach national gigabit and national 5G coverage as soon as possible, by committing to support investment in high-quality, reliable digital connectivity, so that communities can benefit from faster economic growth and greater social inclusion. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology is leading that work and will provide an update in due course.

[Mr Amos]

In the parishes of Ruishton, West Hatch, Staple Fitzpaine and Castle Neroche, the term “Connecting Devon and Somerset” is clearly understood as exactly what is not happening in the two counties, rather than a description of the so-called delivery agency. Cabinets and trunk cables are in place, but there is still no sign of houses being connected. Will the Minister or the Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), meet MPs for the affected areas to understand how those houses can finally be connected?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for the question, although I was sorry to hear it. Those are contracts from the previous superfast broadband programme, which has been superseded by Project Gigabit. That means that Connecting Devon and Somerset is responsible for the management and oversight of the contracts, which are jointly funded by central Government and local authorities. The communities in discussion deserve a high-quality service, so I or the Minister for Telecoms will meet the hon. Member.

[Richard Foord]

The village of Gittisham in Devon is also subject to Connecting Devon and Somerset. Four different companies have attempted to enable broadband access, but the fibre often stops 100 metres short of the houses. Gittisham is also a 4G notspot, so residents are cut off and unable to contribute to the economic growth that the Government say they want to see. According to the Labour manifesto, the Government’s target for achieving broadband coverage is 2030, but can the Minister offer a percentage of broadband coverage that will be achieved in rural areas in this Parliament?

[Alex Norris]

The hon. Gentleman rightly refers to our manifesto commitment, and he has heard a commitment today that we want to see full gigabit and full national 5G roll-out as soon as possible. We are getting on with it, but I am sorry to hear that there are issues. As I am keen to meet the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Mr Amos), I may well meet him too, if he is similarly keen.

[Tessa Munt]

Third time lucky: it is Somerset here. I know that the Government want services—finding a home, looking for help, paying taxes, working, and even learning during covid—to be accessed online, but in my part of mid and north Somerset, people can only dream of gigabit broadband; they would be really happy if they had superfast. Can the Minister investigate how to inspire a national broadband roll-out programme that is realistic? Is it time for a new national plan, as access to superfast broadband has so many holes and still costs billions?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s question, and I think of the challenges in my own constituency, where my constituents ask me questions in a similar vein. To be very clear, the Government know that the market will be able to provide considerable coverage across the country, but that there will always be communities—including her own, I suspect—where that has traditionally been a challenge, and we are committed to making sure that that gap is filled. We have the same aspiration and, as I say, we intend to meet it as soon as we possibly can.

[Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)]

rose—

[Terry Jermy]

Many rural villages in my constituency have spent hours producing excellent neighbourhood plans, with some areas hoping to go to public referendum and adoption soon. Given that such plans help communities to shape growth, will the Minister confirm what prominence the Government will afford neighbourhood plans as part of planning reforms?

[Alex Norris]

Our commitment as a Government is to bring communities into that conversation and to make sure local leadership has that say in the service of a wider national goal.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

5. If she will take steps to regulate property management service providers.

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[Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 2022, Lubov Chernukhin opened an amusement centre in Hastings town centre known as Owens. The project received more than £400,000 of taxpayer money as part of the Conservatives’ levelling up towns fund plans. Ms Chernukhin has also donated more than £200,000 to the Conservative party. Shortly after opening, Owens closed, and earlier this month it was covered in boarding, which now dominates Hastings town centre. Can the Minister advise me how my constituents can get their money back, and how we can ensure that money is never wasted again like that?

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

I was very disappointed to hear about the closure of Owens and about any money wasted under the previous Government. My officials are working with my hon. Friend’s council to maximise the remaining funding available from its town deal. On the general point, we are calling time on the waste from the previous Government, and moving towards multi-year funding settlements and ending competitive bidding for pots of money.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)]

Labour made a big song and dance about tackling rogue landlords. No doubt Labour Members will have been made aware of revelations reported in The Londoner this morning about the hon. Member for Ilford South (Jas Athwal). Not only is he letting out mouldy homes with infestation, but he is the landlord of an unsafe private care home where children have gone missing and been left at risk of criminal exploitation. Do the Government have plans to tackle the rogue landlord on their own Benches?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her question. As I understand it, the Member for Ilford South says in his statement that there have been no conflicts of interest and that all interests have been declared in line with his council’s rules.

[Mr Speaker]

I presume the shadow Secretary of State let the hon. Member for Ilford South know that she was going to mention him on the Floor of the House.

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[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

T4. Southampton Itchen has the worst cases of unsafe cladding in Hampshire and fire safety works are taking years to get started, so residents are stuck in properties they cannot move out of or sell. Will the Secretary of State please update the House on what she is doing to ensure that developers and freeholders get on with urgent safety works and protect leaseholders from extortionate costs? Will she meet me and local councillors?

[Alex Norris]

As a Government, we have been clear that the pace of remediation has been far too slow. The Deputy Prime Minister and I will be meeting developers to review their progress and to agree a joint plan for accelerating remediation in the coming weeks. I am, of course, very happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these issues, and meet with constituents if that is helpful too.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

High streets are the beating hearts of our communities. Those in places such as Broadstone in my constituency are really bouncing back and reinventing themselves. The public assume that councils are able to flex business rates and that they own most properties, but we all know that that is not the case. Will the Minister provide a timeline for the reform of business rates, and assure pubs and shops that their existing reliefs will be maintained?

[Alex Norris]

I am afraid the hon. Lady puts me in quite the pickle. With less than 48 hours before a fiscal event she would not expect me to pre-empt the Chancellor, but we have heard the hon. Lady’s calls and those from business. Alongside any rates changes, we will seek to provide the tools, such as high street rental auctions or community right to buy, to give communities control of their high streets again.

[Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)]

T5. I recently met local businesses in my constituency to discuss what can be done to attract more people to visit our high streets. Will the Minister set out what action the Government are taking to help regenerate local high streets, and will he meet me to discuss this issue further?

[Alex Norris]

We all want to see our high streets thriving. It is the business of government, local councils and local communities to push back on some of the decline that has been seen as inevitable in recent years. As part of that, we will be giving local communities the tools to reshape their high streets, such as high street rental auctions and the community right to buy.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

T3. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has consistently called for the power to impose rent controls across Greater London. He cannot do that unless the Government change the law. Whenever it has been tried around the world it has failed, typically with rental property supply falling and rents perversely rising. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity now to rule out the possibility of imposing rent controls in Greater London?

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[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

T7. My constituency, like most others, is seeing a great deal of new housing being built, which means more infrastructure, more business and more opportunities for growth. Key to that, however, is access to reliable, high-speed broadband. Given the SNP Government’s previous failures to deliver gigabit broadband to every home as promised, can the Minister tell us what discussions are taking place and what consideration is being given to supporting its efficient delivery in Scotland?

[Alex Norris]

Through Project Gigabit we have a commitment to level up all communities in the United Kingdom, and through the welcome work of my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister we have a commitment to reset relationships with the devolved Administrations. Hopefully, by putting those two together, we will be able to make significant progress.

[Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Secretary of State for everything that she is doing to tackle Islamo-phobia. This anti-Muslim discourse is a scourge on our communities in Burnley, Padiham and Brierfield. Will she join me in celebrating the work of local volunteers, churches, mosques, Lancashire police and others who organised Burnley’s “Diversity Picnic—Bubbles in the Park”, and who worked so successfully in averting potential disturbances over the summer?

[James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)]

T8. Talland Parade is an abandoned and dilapidated row of shops in Seaford, in my constituency. It has stood empty for 12 years, despite having planning permission in place for much-needed flats. The council had to take the developer to the High Court just to get some scaffolding removed at the site. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the site, and will the Government consider expanding compulsory purchase powers for councils to allow them to acquire such key sites?

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful for the question. Of course, I would be very happy to have a meeting. I point the hon. Gentleman towards the very helpful innovation of high street rental auctions at the back end of this year, which will give local authorities the tools to bring into use vacant units and to make sure that developers know that they must use them or let somebody else do so.