Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I had looked forward to this Bill, so it is disappointing that the opportunity seems to have been missed. This feels like not a levelling-up Bill but an unambitious planning Bill. There are huge environmental, housing and planning control crises to be solved, but the Bill has not done so.

I will focus on some of the issues affecting rural communities such as mine in Cumbria and in Northumberland, Devon and Cornwall. These areas are under huge pressure. We have seen a housing crisis become a housing catastrophe over the last couple of years. I saw a story in last week’s Sunday Times about Langdale in my constituency, where 90% of houses are second homes. Up to 80% of houses that changed hands during the pandemic went into the second home market. We have seen the collapse of the private rented sector into the holiday let sector and Airbnb. And we have seen individuals forced out of their community because there is nowhere else to go. People with jobs, and with places at the local school for their children, are having to uproot and go to places where they have none of those things because they have been kicked out.

This is having an impact across the country. Fifty per cent. fewer rentals are available across the country, but there is a 6% increase in demand. Average rents outside London are going up by more than 10%. In the last generation, buying a home was a pipe dream for most people in rural communities and elsewhere. It now appears that even renting a property is a pipe dream for many. Such properties are not available, and they are certainly not affordable. Meanwhile, planning permission is being given for buildings that do not meet net zero and without a compulsion for them to be sustainable and to meet the climate emergency.

What could and should this Bill do? It should give new powers to local authorities, national parks and local councils to prevent family homes from becoming second homes and holiday lets. We could create a separate category of planning use for second home ownership and holiday lets, as distinct from full-time, permanent dwellings. Local communities would then have the power to control what happens to their housing stock.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. At the very least, the Bill should match what the European structural funds were doing. Those funds dwarf the paltry levelling-up fund. Some people would call this Bill a subsidy from less well off areas to better off areas.

[Tim Farron]

I agree. Rural communities such as mine are being completely overlooked, in terms of both funding and the powers we are demanding to tackle these huge problems.

In planning, enforcing affordability in perpetuity is crucial. In this country, we seem to give planning permission and to build for demand, not need. In places such as the lakes, the dales, Cumbria, Cornwall and Devon, any house that is built will sell, but will it meet local need? No, it will not. This Bill does not give us the powers to enforce affordability in perpetuity. It does so little to build in nature recovery, which is vital to our communities and to any new developments.

The Bill also does nothing to give planning authorities, national parks and local authorities the power to enforce planning conditions. If a developer starts work on a field for which it has been given planning permission to build houses—they may have been told to build 25% or 30% affordable housing, which is not enough in the first place—and finds a few more rocks than it says it expected, it can use a viability assessment to go back to the drawing board. The developer can then say, “We don’t need to provide you with any affordable homes at all, and the Government will back us up.” That has happened in Allithwaite in my constituency and elsewhere. Let us give communities real power.

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[Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)]

I am glad to speak to this Bill and also to follow my hon. Friends the Members for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and for North Devon (Selaine Saxby). My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon and I have worked extremely hard and we understand the challenges in our constituencies extremely well.

I am going to talk about housing and Cornwall. We have already heard from MPs who do not represent my area about the challenges that Cornwall faces. I am looking to the Bill to provide accessible housing, affordable housing and healthy housing. On accessible housing, we have heard a few ideas this afternoon about how to make sure that the houses that are built are made available to local people. Whether through this levelling up Bill or a county deal, we in Cornwall need our local authorities to be given the power to place a restriction on new homes so that they go to permanent residents. That would give local communities the confidence that any housing they are asked to accept will meet local need. It is a lot easier to win the argument in a community if it knows, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon said, that the houses built will help to secure the community and work for everybody.

Issues in Cornwall include nurses, doctors, police, planning officers, engineers, marine engineers—all sorts of people—being unable to get the homes they need, or even to get close to where the jobs that they can take on are located. There is a critical problem on the Isles of Scilly, because the people who need to work there to ensure the provision of basic services cannot get housing. It is important that new housing is prioritised and meets local needs and pressures.

On affordable housing, I was glad to hear the Secretary of State refer to mortgages, which have not been mentioned by others. The Bill does not necessarily have to mention them, but it would be helpful if it could reform our approach to affordable housing. At the moment, mortgage providers will often turn down affordable housing applications from people who have been paying a lot of rent for a long time. If someone has been paying high rents for five or six years, that should be taken into account by the mortgage sector when considering affordability. Many people pay more in rent than they would pay having purchased a property.

On healthy homes, if the Minister wants to make his life a little easier, he could look at the forthcoming Healthy Homes Bill in the other place, a private Member’s Bill that includes a lot of good principles. If homes are not healthy, they curtail education and cause problems for older people. We have heard examples of poor housing this afternoon. The healthy homes principles include houses having the necessary space and access to natural light, and that they should be located near good transport and walking links. It is vital that we build housing in areas where people can get to their jobs.

I commend the levelling up Bill and the Minister for engaging extremely well.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman makes some good points on housing, but I have just been given some figures by Calum Iain MacIver of the Western Isles Council. My part of Scotland in the Hebrides used to get £3 million a year from European structural funds. We will now be getting only £2.35 million from the levelling-up fund, and that is over three years, so it is about a quarter of what we used to get. Is Cornwall suffering similarly, and is it not more of a levelling-down fund than a levelling-up fund for people like us?

[Derek Thomas]

I am glad to answer that question, but just to finish what I was going to say earlier, I commend the Minister for the way in which he has engaged with all of us in trying to get this right.

Cornwall has received enormous sums through European funding, but not all the systems are very easy to navigate; I have had personal experience of trying to navigate them just to claw down funds already committed. What we see in the levelling-up fund, the shared prosperity fund, the high street fund—[Interruption.] The hon. Member is disagreeing with me, but the rough calculation in the Library’s figures is that we will receive £80 million a year, compared with the £50 million a year that we received in European funding, which will carry on until next year.

In Cornwall, we want to make sure that every penny that we receive genuinely leads to the transformation of every life and every opportunity for the people who live there.

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[Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)]

At the heart of this Bill, which I welcome on behalf of Southend West, is reversing geographical disparity and spreading opportunity. Coastal communities such as the new city of Southend are the unrecognised potential powerhouses of the UK economy.

I make no apologies for reminding the Minister that Southend alone welcomes more than 7 million visitors every year and contributes £3 billion to the Exchequer, yet coastal communities face their own unique challenges—housing being one that was powerfully addressed by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby). I therefore hope the Minister can confirm that coastal communities will be given the very highest priority in the Government’s levelling-up agenda.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I represent an entirely coastal constituency. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is an absolute travesty that, now we have left the EU, we will be given just a quarter of the sum from the levelling-up fund that we would have had from the European structural fund? And does she agree that the UK Government should make good the damage that Brexit is doing? I hope Southend does just as well. Money for Southend and money for Na h-Eileanan an Iar.

[Anna Firth]

No, I do not accept that at all. My understanding is that regions have had just as much money as they would have had. I particularly welcome the £27 million of levelling-up funding that Southend has already received, and the £20 million that has been given to the old port of Leigh to enable our famous cockle industry to provide employment well into the future.

Now Southend is a city, we need to go further and faster. A key part of this Bill is recognising that levelling up means restoring civic pride and spreading opportunity through investment in culture. For Southend that means becoming an international centre for culture and, of course, following Bradford as the UK’s next city of culture.

Levelling up must mean delivering a long overdue shot in the arm for a once ignored community. Southend has an international award-winning music and performance charity for people with learning disabilities. It is the first of its kind in the world, and I am grateful to Ministers for engaging with me on this project.

The Music Man Project was founded by the remarkable David Stanley BEM, and it oversees a global network of special needs music educators from Southend to South Africa. Students develop confidence and a clear sense of identity by giving hundreds of largescale public performances, including at the London Palladium and the Royal Albert Hall. Through the power of music, students with learning disabilities in Southend gain high-quality skills, becoming far better equipped for the workplace. Despite being an international beacon of disability potential, the Music Man Project does not yet have a specialist permanent facility of its own. It needs premises that would enable disabled people to access specialist music education in an equivalent way to someone who is not disabled. It needs premises that would enable us to host concerts to showcase disability talent, record disability music making and enable collaborations between non-disabled and disabled creative artists. There can be no more deserving project for levelling-up funding than to take this once ignored community from isolation to opportunity. I hope that the Minister will confirm in his winding-up speech that projects such as this will be prioritised for levelling-up funding.

Stronger Towns Fund

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

rose—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

I call Douglas Chapman.

[James Brokenshire]

As I have indicated, I do want towns in Scotland to be able to benefit from this. We are continuing our discussions on finalising the additional funding to go to Scotland and Wales to reflect the new funding for England, and, as I have also indicated, I will update the House.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

With Seaborne Freight, with the channel tunnel fiasco, with no idea for Scotland, with no idea for Wales—maybe Northern Ireland has had its cash, we don’t know—this is the UK at peak banana republic; it is make it up as you go along at the Dispatch Box thrown in with the expense of bidding and the patronage of doling out the money.

The Secretary of State has missed a trick: had he announced this over 14 years rather than seven, he could have said it was £3.2 billion rather than £1.6 billion. Either way, it works out at about £20 million a year for Scotland, and to make it worse we in the islands have been waiting a long time for our islands deal, and the UK Government do not know which Department is dealing with it—is it the Treasury, or the Scotland Office? The towns of Castlebay, Daliburgh, Lochboisdale, Balivanich, Lochmaddy, Tarbert and Stornoway could surely do with a good bit of this cash, and the crux here is that England is not bidding for this cash; England is getting this cash. And Scottish Tories, who have got the mushroom treatment, have to decide whether they are Unionists or submissionists who are doing what they are told. So the long and the short of this, is will this money be Barnettised? Will we see our fair share, or is this just peak, zenith banana republic coming from the Dispatch Box?

[James Brokenshire]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman does not, it seems, have that sense of ambition that we have for Scotland through Brexit and beyond. I know that Members on his party’s Benches have a different perspective on Brexit, but I say to him that I do want the towns in his constituency to be able to benefit from that, and therefore while there is new funding coming for England, we are seeing that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland benefit from that in the appropriate way. As I have indicated to him and other hon. Members, we will come back with the detail of that funding. I want Scotland to see the positive vision and sense that I have. Even if the hon. Gentleman is looking to extend this out for 14 years, we want to see the benefit sooner than that.

Budget Resolutions

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

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

[Kirstene Hair (Angus) (Con)]

This Budget is good news for our United Kingdom, good news for Scotland and good news for Angus, with an extra £950 million for Scotland.

Following tireless campaigning from me and my Scottish Conservative colleagues, I am pleased to see a freeze on spirits duty for the second year running, providing much support for our iconic Scotch whisky industry. It is fantastic news for distilleries around Angus, whether it is Gin Bothy in Glamis, Arbikie vodka or Glencadam distillery in Brechin.

In rural areas such as my constituency, ensuring that motoring is kept affordable is vital, because of the poor transport links. So I was pleased, as chair of the all-party group on fair fuel for UK motorists and UK hauliers, to see the Government recognise that and freeze fuel duty for the ninth consecutive year; we have saved our motorists £1,000 since 2010.

Not only have we saved people money at the petrol station, but we have saved taxpayers in their pay packet. By making changes to the personal allowance, we have ensured that basic rate taxpayers have an extra £130 in their pocket, and since 2010 they are £1,200 better off. This Government are working to ensure that those in society who need it the most are able to keep more of their hard-earned money, which, as Conservatives, we know is better in our pocket than spent by the state.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

What does the hon. Lady have to say about House of Commons Library figures showing that the Conservatives have cut the Scottish Government budget by 6.9%, when over similar years the Irish Government’s tax revenue rose by 32%?

[Kirstene Hair]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but it is as false as the SNP Twitter feed, because in fact if we look at the figures, we see a £552 million increase.

As I was saying, it must be noted that the change that the Government are making to the higher rate tax threshold, increasing it from £46,350 to £50,000, is not helping out those in Scotland, because of the SNP-led Government. In Scotland, those earning £50,000 will now pay at least £1,000 more in tax. We are talking here about people working in our health system, in our police and in our higher education system. SNP Members are quick to commend them but then they tax the back off them.

This Budget was welcome news also because of the £150 million ploughed into the Tay cities deal, which will benefit my constituency. It shows exactly what the Scottish people want to see: Scotland’s two Governments working together for the better of our country. I also welcome the funding going into our fishing industry. Only Scottish Conservatives are standing up for that industry; an extra £10 million is going into the technology and methodology fund. SNP Members want to drag our fishermen right back into the hated common fisheries policy.

There is nothing in this Budget that those SNP Members would have agreed to, and nothing that the Chancellor could have offered in this Budget would have allowed them to vote for it. I very much hope that when they troop through the Lobby they know that they are voting against a tax break for the hard-working, against a fuel duty freeze, against a spirit duty freeze, against £150 million going into the Tay cities region, against NHS funding and against extra funding for universal credit. They should put their constituents before their party.

Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I think I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I would describe his intervention as half-hearted at best. His heart was not really in it, I do not think. He is one of the great defenders of the tradition of an English Parliament and English rights. Is he really satisfied with these woeful arrangements for this House? I am all for English democracy and making sure that English Members get the opportunity to design and progress their own legislation, as is required by their constituents, but to describe what we are doing today—this embarrassing mess—as a solution is below the right hon. Gentleman.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I have just heard the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) invoke a fantastic principle: a member nation of the United Kingdom has the right to veto a measure of the Union Parliament. He said that English Members can veto what the Union Parliament chooses. Can Scottish Members have that right when it comes to Brexit? Can we veto the imposition on a country where 62% of people voted to remain in the European Union of being taken out of it?

[John Redwood]

indicated dissent.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head—one principle for England, and another for Scotland.

[Pete Wishart]

My hon. Friend hits the nail right on the head. In this wonderful institution—the quasi-English Parliament—it seems to be all right for English Members to demand that they get their way and that they determine their legislation. But I remember the Scotland Bill 2015, as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) will too. I remember something like 97% of all Scottish Members of Parliament tabling amendments to that Bill, only for them to be overwhelmingly and comprehensively rejected because of the Government majority. It seems to be all right for English Members to get their own Parliament when it comes to these things, but when we have our say on important reserved issues in this House, it is completely and utterly ignored.

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[Pete Wishart]

I take great exception to what the hon. Gentleman has said. This is an important Bill; he may not be interested in the words of Denning LJ, but my colleagues and I are. We want to make sure that this House is aware of the weighty views of Denning LJ, whoever he may be.

So there is a general rule. It had been the practice of the Valuation Office Agency that where units of property were contiguous—that means “touching”, I believe—and in the same occupation, they received one rates bill. I think the Government have been really generous in offering examples of how all this might work. That is why, when considering a Bill such as this, it is very important that we take everything into account.

The exceptions are important. The general rule, obviously, is as well—because a general rule is a guiding principle on how we approach these issues. But the exceptions are also important because they could lead to precedents. This is where we start to get into dangerous territory. In elegant legislation, the general rule applies nearly universally. When legislation has a number of exceptions, we start to get into certain territory—I know how difficult it is for the Clerks to design legislation with too many exceptions. We have to be careful when designing legislation. When the generalities of rules and what we want to achieve in legislation tend to be universal in concept, it is important to understand exceptions and all the other things that may influence future legislation by becoming precedent.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech that legislators across the world should pay attention to. Will he expand on not the generalities but the exceptions? The House could really do with fully understanding how exceptions lead to further complications. Will he enlighten me?

[Pete Wishart]

I always enjoy enlightening my hon. Friend, although it is usually not necessary. I feel obliged to try to offer further enlightenment on these particular issues. There are other examples. I gave the example of my house, but my hon. Friend is a crofter, and I am pretty certain that his is a single dwelling on the isle of Barra—in fact, I know it because I have seen his place on several occasions. I know how he utilises his land and I am pretty certain that, when it comes to him, the generality of the rule applies. His dwelling is generally designed for the purpose of crofting and habitation. I am pretty certain that his property is not contiguous and that there is no such issue with his land. I am looking at my hon. Friend and—

Local Government Funding

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has intervened, because I was expecting him to do so. I was a former group leader at COSLA, so I have been watching for a number of years the Scottish Government manage to put money into local authorities in a way that could not be done down here. In fact, in the last debate on local government that I took part in in this Chamber, Tory MPs were talking about their councils having to hand back the keys to Treasury Ministers such were the cuts. Actually, one of the biggest challenges in Scotland is dealing with the private finance initiative legacy left by Labour in terms of the additional interest costs on all these different items that continue to drain local authority resources.

I want to turn to Highland Council, because it is on my own patch and I speak from experience. Highland Council’s resource budget for our services such as schools, roads and housing rose to almost £450 million for the coming year—an increase of over 2% compared with last year. While the Scottish Government protect local authority budgets, the UK Government leave them paying the price for the austerity agenda.

Highland Council is a good example of the impact of universal credit on local authority budgets. As many Members will know, the constituency of Inverness was a pilot area. We went through the live service and then full service roll-out in June 2016. Local agencies, the council and I have been voicing concern about these issues since 2013, and the measures introduced do not even scratch the surface of the process failings of universal credit. Our local authorities are paying the price now, and right hon. and hon. Members in this Chamber who go through full service roll-out will see the effect on their own local authorities.

Let me reflect on the cost to Highland Council of the impact of rent arrears. Average rent arrears for somebody on universal credit are now £840. Average rent arrears for somebody not on universal credit are £250. The effect of that is that in July 2016 rent arrears were £1.6 million. In March 2017, that figure rose to £2.2 million, and then in December 2017, it rose to £2.7 million, racking up the costs for local authorities, which are having to implement and deal with the effects of universal credit. This will have an effect on services as it starts to drain their budgets.

The extra resources needed for administering the change to universal credit are running into hundreds of thousands of pounds—money that is coming out of the council budget. The welfare support team do amazing work, but they are flat out with demand. Housing officers are also flat out with demand, as more people face housing crises. Some 29% of landlords already say that they have evicted because of universal credit rent arrears. People are becoming homeless, so the local authority has a duty to house them. It is a vicious cycle of costs for the local authority. The increased demand then affects other agencies such as Citizens Advice.

The impact on poverty is also very harsh. One in four children in Scotland is growing up in poverty as a result of this Government’s austerity regime. As household incomes are pushed, people find themselves relying more and more on local authority services. Highland Council, especially its welfare support team, has done incredible work in the face of the most trying difficulties.

The SNP Government are committed to mitigating Tory austerity wherever they can. Since 2013, the Scottish Government have spent more than £100 million a year to protect people from the worst aspects of Tory welfare cuts. We are fully mitigating the bedroom tax in Scotland, and we have pledged to abolish the tax completely when we have the powers to do so.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making the SNP’s fundamental point, which is that it would be far better for us as an independent country to be making the right decisions in the first place than having to spend £100 million to correct the Tories’ errors.

[Drew Hendry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. As ever, he makes a telling point: choices would be different in Scotland. We would choose not to have to mitigate something as horrendous as the bedroom tax, which was so ill thought out that the Tories did not take into account the fact that there are virtually no houses in the highlands and islands that do not have more than one bedroom.

Since its establishment, the Scottish welfare fund has helped more than 275,700 households. The fund provides crisis grants when someone experiences a disaster or emergency and community care grants to enable independent living. We have also extended the Scottish welfare fund on an interim basis to mitigate the UK Government’s decision to remove housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds. In 2016-17, more than 17,500 applications for crisis grants were made because of delayed payment of benefits—that is around 10% of all applications. Between July and September 2017, that increased to 14%, clearly showing the impact of the Government’s harsh welfare cuts.

We have restored the council tax support cut in Westminster through the creation of council tax reductions, protecting the incomes of more than half a million people on low incomes. We have extended the child allowance in the council tax reduction scheme by 25%, benefiting 77,000 households by an average of £173 a year, or £15 a month. That boost for low-income families will help nearly 140,000 children across Scotland.

Following the UK Government’s decision to scrap the UK-wide scheme, we have safeguarded support for 2,600 disabled people through the Scottish independent living fund. We have now created an extra £5 million fund to support young disabled people to make the transition into adulthood.

To conclude, I urge the Minister to listen to hon. Members and to stop shifting the responsibility for his Government’s austerity agenda on to local authorities across the nations of the UK.