Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jacob Young]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, but I completely disagree with her. Members need only look at the measures that we are introducing in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which will come to the House tomorrow, to see the huge changes that we intend to make to high streets to allow them to work better for local people.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

9. What steps he is taking to help increase the number of new homes.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)]

We have announced £10 billion of investment in housing supply since the start of this Parliament, and we are also investing £11.5 billion in the latest affordable homes programme to provide thousands of new homes across the country for people to rent or, of course, to buy. In July we set out our long-term plan for housing, with regeneration programmes in Cambridge, London and Leeds.

[Andrew Lewer]

When the Department tried to change the nutrient neutrality rules, the Labour party fell at the first hurdle, showing that it had changed since its claims to be the party of house building. It blocked that, so will Ministers commit themselves to pushing through these essential changes afresh?

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. We have just heard from the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) a crude nimbyist appeal to the voters of Mid Bedfordshire, a week after the leader of the Labour party said he was in favour of

“the builders, not the blockers”

—but who could be surprised, given that, as my hon. Friend has rightly pointed out, when we put forward legislation for 100,000 new homes, Labour blocked it? It is unbelievable that the crew of gangsters over there are peddling the same nonsense week in, week out.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s desire to do more to help people in the private rented sector but, as he will have heard, we wanted to make sure that we had a fit-for-purpose impact assessment so that the House could reflect on the changes that we are making and the benefits they will bring.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

T3. What assessment has the Department made of the use of cash retentions in the construction industry and of possible measures that could prevent the practice, which causes cash-flow issues and costly administrative burdens for subcontractors, including those involved in house building?

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

My hon. Friend will know that that policy area is led by the Department for Business and Trade. Nevertheless, it is important that we work closely with a wide range of stakeholders and businesses to achieve a consensus. It can sometimes be challenging, but we are clear that any solution must be a sustainable one that works for the industry and its clients, addressing the need for surety and fair payment.

New Housing Supply

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for securing this debate on such a pressing and important topic, which I have been involved with, in one way or another, for 20 years in elected office. I was pleased to lead a Westminster Hall debate on the related topic of the future for SME house builders just the other week, and today’s debate provides a welcome opportunity to hammer home some of the points I made then.

As a Conservative, the idea of the UK as a property-owning democracy is one about which I feel very strongly, and it worries me deeply that, for many younger people, home ownership is increasingly out of reach. Unsurprisingly, given my chairmanship of the all-party parliamentary group for SME house builders, I have a strongly held view that the sector can play an important role in helping to address the dual problems of housing accessibility and affordability across the UK.

The Home Builders Federation reports that, in 2020, the SME house building sector delivered about 22,000 homes. To put that in context, according to the Federation of Master Builders, SME builders could deliver 65,000 homes by 2025, compared with 12,000 in 2021, given the right conditions.

For those who are not aware of how vital the SME sector is to housing delivery, let me explain. SME developers typically carry out smaller developments built on trickier sites, and the SME sector tends to go where volume house builders cannot. As well as this, they often face less vocal opposition, as they deliver brownfield housing up and down the country, instead of the large-scale developments that often do not have the infrastructure to go along with them and which are responsible for so much so-called nimbyism. The sector delivered 39% of all homes built in England in the late 1980s yet, 40 years later, it barely manages 10% of our annual housing completions.

The rising cost of materials is causing difficulties for developers across the board, which is why I welcome initiatives such as the one developed by Travis Perkins, based in my Northampton South constituency, that enables SME house builders to access building supplies and materials directly without facing lengthy pre-approval checks. Another issue for SME house builders is access to finance, on which my APPG is soon to deliver a report. That includes difficulties in the Land Registry process for recording changes of property ownership. Labour shortages are another issue, as labour is crucial to the whole process.

[Kit Malthouse]

It is extremely important to recognise that small house builders, which were largely wiped out in the 2007-08 crash, have not re-emerged. Does my hon. Friend think the Government should look at the generation of new house builders—in the ’70s we had Lawrie Barratt and the chap behind Redrow, these big house builders—in the same way that they are looking at the generation of new scientists and new companies that promote science and technology? They have a strategy and funding all of their own, but I have yet to see anything that would stimulate new house building companies for the future. Does he agree that is something the Government should look at?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Lewer]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point, and the APPG produced a report in which we suggested a Homes England for SME house builders to try to address those points.

The planning system has already been touched on in this debate, and I say it again for the record that removing binding national housing targets from our house building system was a mistake. When the history of this Government is written, that mistake will loom larger than it already does. A different way was available and that was, if not a zonal planning system reset, some way towards that, as referenced by the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western). This Administration are probably out of time for anything so radical, but other options exist.

I have come to understand that the issue of planning also relates to planning officer case load. As one town planner said to me, although a 20-unit brownfield development built by an SME is likely to require less work than a 400-unit greenfield development built by a volume house builder, it will not require 20 times less work. SME house builders are therefore disadvantaged in the planning process. Indeed, the explosion of process is a speech in itself. We have an entire sector that can help, but it is blocked in so many ways.

In his opening speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden touched on migration in detail. Eight million—it is on us as national politicians, whether or not we supported that unsustainable level of migration. I did not, but it does not matter. A national solution of greatly increased house building is absolutely essential.

Ideas are flowing. My right hon. Friend made insightful and challenging points in favour of garden towns and cities. Then there are the ideas in the Bacon review, an impressive and important piece of work led by my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) and commissioned by the Government, and now in need of implementation. It is about self-commissioning, not just self-build. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) outlined ideas on building up, adding storeys, not high rises, about which I was recently interviewed on Times Radio. There is also the work of my hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) and for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) and our fellow members of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, as I wish it were still called.

It may be something of a cliché to say that many of our people will only truly believe in capitalism if they have a piece of capital of their own but, as Terry Pratchett once wrote:

“The reason that clichés become clichés is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.”

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. This Bill introduces national development management policies, or NDMPs, which will have primacy over local development plans, meaning that those plans could be easily and rapidly rendered out of date by changes to national policies. My constituents who are campaigning to protect the green belt will be concerned about that, and I pay tribute to them and support their campaign.

The Bill states:

“If to any extent the development plan conflicts with a national development management policy, the conflict must be resolved in favour of the national development management policy”,

so local democratic processes for determining planning decisions could be seriously undermined. New clause 73 in my name would ensure that the Government cannot use NDMPs to allow housing to be built on green-belt land. It is remarkable that, despite the Bill introducing NDMPs, the Government have not set out what will be in their scope. Surely the Government would want to be clear about that before legislating for their introduction.

It is clear that, under the Conservatives, there has not been sufficient protection for the green belt. According to the Campaign to Protect Rural England, more than 42% of planning applications submitted for green-belt land in the 10 years to 2020 were granted, and importantly, the report also points out that there is sufficient brownfield land for more than 1 million homes.

Part 5 of the Bill replaces the current system of environmental impact assessments and strategic environmental assessments with a new environmental outcomes report regime. New clause 72 would require EOR regulations made under part 5 to be subject to the super-affirmative procedure to ensure a high level of scrutiny. EIAs and SEAs have been vital to the protection of sites of local, national and international environmental importance for decades. They set out and assess the impacts that developments may have on the environment, and help local authorities to decide on planning applications. It is a matter of extreme concern that a huge amount of detail—including information on which plans and projects EORs will apply to—is deferred to secondary legislation. In effect, the Bill gives a blank cheque to Ministers to change environmental protections in the planning system. The super-affirmative procedure should be used to provide much-needed greater parliamentary oversight.

The Bill currently states that, before making any EOR regulations that contain provision for what the specified environmental outcomes are to be, the Secretary of State must have regard to the current environmental improvement plan. This omits crucial considerations such as the preservation of the green belt, the protection of heritage and climate obligations, which should be central to any environmental assessment process. Amendment 63 addresses that omission. It is vital for the Secretary of State, as well as having regard to considerations such as protecting the green belt and meeting our climate obligations, to have regard to the protection of heritage when setting EOR regulations, because heritage and the historical character of the places where we live are immensely important.

The green belt is not safe in the hands of the Conservatives, and the Bill should be strengthened to provide much greater protections for it. People will not forgive politicians who concrete over the rural landscapes that they value so much. Nor can we trust this Government to protect the environment and address the climate emergency: that was made abundantly clear last week by the Secretary of State’s decision to grant permission for a new coal mine in Cumbria, a shocking decision which has attracted the attention, and the concern, of John Kerry, the United States climate envoy.

In 2019, the UK Parliament declared a climate and environment emergency. I call on the Government to accept new clauses 72 and 73 and amendment 63, which I believe would strengthen the Bill.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak to new clause 12, which is tabled in my name and which would introduce new requirements to encourage the development of small brownfield sites. I thank colleagues on both sides of the House who have supported it. I do not propose to put it to a vote, because the Housing and Planning Minister—my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer)—has indicated her interest in it and given assurances that it will be part of the Government’s future thinking.

We should all know the scale of the crisis that we are facing. In 2003, 59% of households led by someone aged between 25 and 34 owned their homes; by 2020, the figure had fallen to 47%. At this rate, we are destined to see the majority of people under 50 doomed to a life of permanent renting.

Because of increasing wage-to-house-price ratios, we are witnessing a steady fall in home ownership. In 2019, 65% of households in England owned their homes, a fall from 71% in 2003. The decline in home ownership has been especially pronounced in younger age groups: the number of homeowners aged between 25 and 34 has fallen from 59% to 41%. That puts more and more pressure on the private rented sector. Rental demand is up 142% when compared with the five-year average, while supply is down by 46%. Rents are soaring as a result.

We are having this debate later than was intended, largely owing to the issue of housing targets. They are not the preserve of the left or liberals; Sir Keith Joseph was attacking Labour for not having them in the early 1960s. And I take issue with the phrase “housing target”. This is not a target, but a minimum need. It is a gaping, strategic deficit, and a clear and present danger to economic growth.

There is a need to make tough decisions. It is time to lead and not to follow. Abolishing housing targets is an example of failing by following, and opening ourselves up to the accusation of acting for perceived short- term political gain. The best time to build a house was 20 years ago; the second best time is now. As a Conservative, I believe that one of the Government’s best attributes is their ability to indicate and signal to the markets, and in this case we must do all we can to let the markets know that it is time to build—and yes, to build beautifully too.

The national Government of this country nationalised land use via the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which is still in force. Since 2001, the population of this country has increased by 8 million. That is on the national Government as well. The national Government cannot have nationalised land use and restrictions, and be responsible for such a massive population increase, and then turn round and say, “It’s localism, isn’t it?” It is not localism, and the dropping of targets is a very unfortunate step.

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The Minister referred to environmental concerns relating to the planning process. It is remarkable, then, that there is no requirement to do an ecological survey of local wildlife—flora and fauna—before planning consent is considered, so I have proposed some amendments to new clause 5 to achieve that.

Local Enterprise Partnerships

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I thank you for your chairmanship, Ms Rees, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) for securing this debate. The debate around LEPs is of particular interest to me because when I was leader of Derbyshire County Council from 2009 to 2013, I was there, in the thick of it, when the old regional development agencies were dissolved and the new concept of local enterprise partnerships was created. I helped to create D2N2 and sat on the board of that LEP for some years, so I had a ringside seat in terms of the strengths and weaknesses that the new organisation brought to the table.

One great weakness was that there was a lot of overlap: different areas were in all sorts of different LEPs, which caused all sorts of problems. There was, perhaps, a weakness of political will in the centre, with that sort of washing machine salesman theory of politics: someone creates something exciting, and for six months Ministers talk about it as the great solution to everything; then, something else comes along and interests fade or distractions happen.

I got a sense of that when I was the Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands, where I was the European Conservatives and Reformists group co-ordinator for the Committee on Regional Development. It was certainly clear there that regions were still where it was at, whatever we had decided to do in England. From 12 months after the creation of LEPs, the background of a lack of central focus and drive was sometimes quite apparent.

Since my election as Member of Parliament for Northampton South in 2017, I have worked closely with SEMLEP, the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership, on a range of issues such as local town regeneration, company growth funding pots and larger, more ambitious investment programmes—it is almost a sort of Voldemort moment—such as the Oxford to Cambridge arc. Over the past 12 to 13 years, I have seen what works well and what does not work so well, and I have some general observations to make from my experience, given the current time and context. Policy initiatives such as levelling up are hitting the ground just as the economically damaging covid emergency finally recedes and just in time for a whole new set of economic pressures. This fits in well with my time and role on the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee and as chairman of the devolution all-party parliamentary group.

First, LEPs are not perfect. There are issues around geography; not all LEPs fall very neatly within boundaries. There are some perceived overlaps, and in the case of the Oxford-Cambridge arc, we could see some perceived underlaps. It is worth noting that the Oxford-Cambridge arc LEPs tried to adapt and co-operate with other LEPs to meet the milestones. That has been encouraging, but the arc is not in the levelling-up White Paper, and now there is an explosion of question marks around it and its future.

The LEPs themselves are not perfect, but they are there. They have a pool of critical knowledge, expertise and relationships to draw from. The machine works pretty well, so I would like the Minister to speak about the changes and whether growth funding pots will go through LEPs henceforth. Now, at this critical juncture, might not be the time to mess around with organisational architecture, tempting though it may be. We should not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

There are always risks. When Northamptonshire Enterprise Partnership dissolved a couple of years ago, not only the senior leadership but almost the entire staff—with their deep wells of knowledge and, critically, their interpersonal relationships—disappeared overnight. It has taken time for those gaps to be filled, a phenomenon that my hon. Friends the Members for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and for Hastings and Rye have referred to. I have personally had a good relationship with SEMLEP, and I am loth to start all over again when my focus in this instance is not so much on the vehicle as the destinations, looking for progress, not perfection.

My constituency has many challenges, as do the greater geographies of counties and regions, but they also have great opportunities for improvements, which is what our focus should be on. LEPs have the economic expertise, relationships, knowledge and history of public-private partnerships that we can draw on heavily. As my noble Friend Lord Lilley said many years ago, I have a little list, but I will simply say that Northampton has seen some great achievements through the LEPs, including the Vulcan ironworks, MAHLE Powertrain, Northampton College’s advanced engineering centre and digital skills academy, and MK:5G. Of course, there is displacement theory in the economy—just because money has been spent here, it does not necessarily mean it would not have been spent better by companies themselves, or elsewhere. This is spending packaged as investment; it is still taxpayers’ money. Nevertheless, that is a list of positive projects.

The LEP investment independent evaluation said that the return on investment for the whole programme will be £9 for every £1, so there is some good stuff there. I am always slightly suspicious of ROI figures—it always seems slightly like the Del Boy theory of investments: “Next year, we will be millionaires”—but nevertheless there is some good ROI there that can be effectively demonstrated. LEPs often operate on a larger scale than a local authority, but are obviously smaller and nimbler than central Government. They therefore have an important part to play in the delivery of our local growth and investment plans, imperfect as they are—imperfect as we all are.

Oxford-Cambridge Arc

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con) [V]]

Thank you, Sir Edward. I thank my good and hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for proposing this timely and important debate on an issue that will have significant implications for Northampton, the town that I represent.

Northampton, and indeed Northamptonshire, are a key part of the Oxford-Cambridge arc. Although Northampton may not have the international kudos of Oxford or Cambridge, let alone High Wycombe, it is none the less a vital component of this overall ambitious investment plan.

The Oxford-Cambridge investment arc has, at least, the potential to boost recovering growth in my constituency. Covid-19 has underlined the UK’s position as a global leader in the life science industry, and the Ox-Cam arc could be the investment accelerator that will help to create the infrastructure to prevent it from being strangled by its own success. Northampton is the home of Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA. It is within a 75-minute drive of the great universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Cranfield, which I was privileged to visit just last week to meet the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership, another critical piece of the structural jigsaw.

Northampton is a prime location, at the hub of the British strategic supply-chain network, for life-science and engineering businesses. The arc programme provides an opportunity to further realise that and, critically, to address the levelling-up agenda that the Government are championing. Northampton has a rich industrial heritage with great past glories—of which, incidentally, shoes and footwear were just part—and we must now focus our attention on the future of the industries that we do so well here, such as life sciences and high-performance technology. We do not just want the houses therefore; we want the business and the infrastructure from the programme as well.

The all-party parliamentary group on devolution, which I chair, recently produced an inquiry report on levelling up and devolution. Although all that I have heard about the Ox-Cam arc programme—including from my right hon. Friend the Minister—marks it out as ambitious and far reaching, it can also be complex and difficult to navigate, with its plethora of overlapping decision-making bodies—councils, LEPs, the central area growth board and the arc. How, where and with what legitimacy the programme’s decisions are made will be critical to its success. I say that with particular feeling as the first elections for the new unitary authority of West Northamptonshire, under the leadership of Councillor Jonathan Nunn, have just taken place. In our APPG’s report, we concluded that the UK is:

“one of the most fiscally centralised countries in the world and we should look to learn lessons from our international partners, many of whom are governed successfully with a more decentralised model. The UK also has one of the most regionally unequal economies in the world. Greater devolution of responsibility for local economic growth has long been necessary, but it is now extremely urgent.”

There is an opportunity, therefore, to use the Ox-Cam arc not only to recalibrate our economic fortunes but to rewire and improve the way that we make those decisions. To me, that means powers from Whitehall and those formerly held at Brussels—as my years on the European Committee of the Regions followed by years on the Committee on Regional Development of the European Parliament as an MEP have informed me—coming down closer to the people of the area. If that is what this means, then it is generally welcome. However, if it also means powers taken away from local government upwards and outwards to new regional structures—again, informed by my past as a county council leader, regional assembly member and a founding director of a local enterprise partnership—I would be much less happy about that.

The formal consultation on the Ox-Cam arc is about to begin. Details of the levelling-up agenda are about to emerge, into which the promised devolution Bill has either been folded or—let us hope not—buried. So my challenge to Government is to bite the bullet and transfer some of those distant Whitehall decision-making powers into the hands of local leaders, and that way unleash the potential of the Ox-Cam arc into something far more wide-reaching that will truly power the pistons of the levelling-up and devolution agendas in our country.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

I call Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi. Sorry, I call Richard Fuller. I apologise. How could I miss you out?

Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con) [V]]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Housing is a central area of policy that must be a priority for the Government. On adult social care, I share the disappointment of many across the House and country that there is no detail about the future of adult social care in the Queen’s Speech. I still believe that the solution is the one that has been effectively argued for many times by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), which involves an insurance component and has long been in use in countries such as Germany. What is obvious to me and to others who have been involved for many years is that a—very much in quotes—“solution” for adult care that is in fact simply an addition to general or indeed even hypothecated taxation and a power grab into local government by the NHS is no solution at all. It would disempower not only local government, with its ability to tailor offers to those in need of care to local needs and circumstances, but local charity and private sector partners. Those partners include Anchor Hanover, which I met last week, with its innovative work in housing for the elderly, including an extraordinary number of centenarians, and with stepped-up levels of care according to need—a model very much like the one Derbyshire County Council was working on under my leadership and has been again more recently.

Housing is central to good adult care solutions in the future, but housing is not, to put it mildly, an NHS specialism. An example of this needed innovation is buyer shared ownership, a mechanism often regarded as being for young people, but something with a valuable application for older people too, in their being able to trade down, retain equity and fund their care in both the housing and nursing sense. I look forward to the Government bringing forward their vision of the future sustainability framework for adult social care in this country, and I hope the MHCLG stays involved.

One of the main themes of this Government is levelling up the country, but I do have some concerns about the introduction of a levelling-up Bill rather than, instead of as well as, a devolution Bill. Local government needs to be just that—not just local administration for central diktats or a vehicle for the bidding-in culture for Whitehall funding pots. As a board member of Northampton Forward, I see how much time, effort and resources go into bid proposals from central Government funding pots, with plans changed to fit the criteria for each. Of course, as MPs we welcome the award of funding for our areas from these bidding rounds—I certainly do for mine—but it does not stop us simultaneously suggesting that there may be an even better way.

As a Conservative, I have always believed that increased home ownership is something that should be within the reach of an ever larger number of British people. It is one of the reasons I founded and chair the all-party parliamentary group on SME house builders. As a result, I know at first hand the willingness to build more houses that sits at the core of the SME sector, so I am encouraged to see the planning Bill brought forward in the Queen’s Speech and the emphasis on SMEs within it.

Time prevents my discussing the need for more details on a renters reform Bill, particularly for a housing court, and concerns about the affordability of the environmental measures, such as ending gas boilers, especially for the elderly, not to say my welcome for the Bacon review—another time—but I do hope that the Government will listen to those with expertise in these areas as the details of their plans are worked on.

Towns Fund

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con) [V]]

I have long believed in local government, and I hope that we can come to understand devolution as not merely meaning local administration—being given permission by the centre—and instead move towards local politicians being accountable to the electorate for the decisions they take locally, rather than to Whitehall to the current extent.

People often reference Lord Heseltine when it comes to localism, but I was always concerned that that vision had too much in it of local leaders coming down to London and essentially pleading with Ministers for funding. Ministers and civil servants cannot know the situation as well as those elected to represent their town. The devolution all-party parliamentary group, which I chair, has carried out a detailed inquiry into the importance of devolution, to be published fairly soon. Regeneration policy is a key part of it, and the report suggests a way forward for devolution and highlights some areas of blockage in the process that central Government may have inadvertently caused over many Administrations. However, those are thoughts for the future, and they do not mean for a split second within our current way of working that towns fund announcements by the Government are not welcome. It is the absolute opposite.

Having been the founder of an LEP, a county councillor, and even an MEP focused on regional development, I commend the vision and determination of those supporting regeneration in Northampton, both nationally and locally. We stand on the shoulders of some forceful advocates, like my friend and predecessor the late Brian Binley, but even so Northampton has suffered from a lack of investment in recent years. That is why the announcement of Northampton Forward’s successful bid for over £8 million from the future high streets fund and the proposed towns fund bid, which is currently under review, are so vital.

Being on the board throughout the process, I know how hard the team has endeavoured to create innovative proposals, and I am particularly looking forward to seeing the regeneration of the former M&S building into a multi-use facility and the creation of a cultural hub and arts facilities to be used by NN Contemporary Art on Guildhall Road. I cannot sum up Northampton’s case for regeneration funding better than Martin Mason, managing director of Tricker’s, who recently said:

“As the largest town in England, and the home of Tricker’s shoes, Northampton comes not only with its wealth of footwear history, but falls within the Oxford-Cambridge arc—an area linking the two cities together—a key focus of investment and regeneration by the UK government. The recently published Town Investment plan shows exactly why Northampton has the potential to be a vibrant and welcoming town centre for business, residents and visitors alike.”

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con) [V]]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding my role as vice-president of the Local Government Association.

For 12 years I served as a member of planning committees on councils, and on my election to this House I founded the all-party parliamentary group for SME house builders. Last year, the APPG produced a report on the future of planning, which made it clear that building regulations are planning regulations’ most important partner. Building regulations maybe did not receive as much attention until 2017, and since have—for the most tragic of reasons. We need a resolution to this that protects public safety and means that we have an efficiently functioning property market regardless of property type.

Cladding has blighted the housing sector, and the concern has been illustrated by many, including the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform, the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group, and the all-party parliamentary group for the private rented sector, which I chair. We are well aware of the impact that this crisis is having on the sector, including on buy-to-let landlords, who have been left trapped, as a result of EWS1 forms, with properties that are not safe, not sellable and not remortgageable. Cladding will remain a standing item on the agenda of the APPG for the private rented sector and we will draw on the expertise of those groups.

As a National Residential Landlords Association quarter 4 survey outlined last year, of those respondents who were required to carry out an EWS check on their property, 42% were unable to secure an EWS report, stagnating movement on their property. Although I recognise the good intentions of these checks, a lack of availability is a problem, as Ministers are aware. Despite the Government’s hard work to rectify the outstanding issues, these forms continue to hamper the movement of property, squeezing a market already facing an uphill battle.

As the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s report outlined, every property agreement differs in who it allocates responsibility to and for what issues. Solutions are hard, but they are needed. Requesting that the Government front up the money first and then determine liability places a heavy burden on the taxpayer. Suggesting that leaseholders take out loans means that millions would be paying for a problem that they did not create and often cannot afford to fix. Northampton only has one 18 metre-plus tower, and Northamptonshire Partnership Homes was quick to check that everything was safe. Northampton does, however, have a number of 11 metre-plus properties, and the Government’s forthcoming measures on those will be hugely welcome and provide peace of mind. It is abundantly clear that that announcement is needed sooner rather than later for tenants, developers and the housing market as a whole.

Draft Northamptonshire (Structural Changes) Order 2019

Andrew Lewer Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 General Committees

[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton for his comments. I express my thanks to all members of the Committee and to you, Mr Gray, for chairing the debate.

In supporting the implementation of the proposal in Northamptonshire, we are helping the local authorities to serve their communities better and to deliver public services better for their residents. We are seeking to create a new start for local government in Northamptonshire by replacing the existing two-tier structure with two unitary councils. We are confident that the new councils will drive transformation in the delivery of local services and ensure the effectiveness of vital frontline services for the most vulnerable people through the establishment of the children’s trust.

[Andrew Lewer (Northampton South) (Con)]

I want to place on the record a perspective from a local Member. Although in some ways it was unfortunate that the order was not introduced before the recent general election, at least there was an opportunity to debate the proposal in the course of the election. It received the endorsement of the seven Conservative MPs who at the general election stood on a platform of achieving this change.

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point and for his support, and I thank the Northamptonshire MPs for their constructive working throughout this process. Their engagement has been hugely helpful. I place on the record my thanks to all the council leaders who have been involved in the process.

Should it be approved on Wednesday, the local government settlement for next year means that core spending power in Northamptonshire will rise by 7.7%, or £32.9 million. There is a clear and strong case for implementing this locally led proposal. It meets our publicly stated criteria for local government reorganisation. The implementation phase is well under way, and we have full confidence in the area’s ability to implement the unitarisation by April 2021. The extended period means that we can be confident of a safe and effective transition to all the new service delivery arrangements across the whole area. Throughout the extended period, our commissioners will be able to continue to support the county council. All the existing councils have made it clear that they share the aims and are committed to providing the best services for their communities. It is vital that local people and staff have certainty about the future of local government in the area. This order achieves that. I therefore once again commend the order to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.