Oral Answers to Questions

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

12. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to support levelling-up policies across the UK.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

21. What steps he is taking to level up across the whole of the United Kingdom.

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

Levelling up is a UK-wide project. That is why we have delivered city and growth deals across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; why we have launched our investment zones programme, including zones in the north-east of Scotland and Glasgow; and why we are investing £4.8 billion through the levelling-up fund in projects ranging from the transformation of Burnley’s historic mills to the development of a cultural quarter in Peterhead.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and in particular, it is vital to make sure that we level up that community in Thurrock. Our plans to extend the economic development of Docklands east to make the Thames estuary a powerhouse for economic growth have been inspired by my hon. Friend’s work and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price).

[Antony Higginbotham]

It was a pleasure to welcome the Prime Minister to Burnley two weeks ago, when he announced that Burnley was one of the many towns getting money as part of the long-term plan for towns, on top of more than £32 million from the levelling-up fund. I was particularly pleased to see that a key part of the long-term plan for towns is community engagement. Will the Secretary of State set out what that community engagement will look like? In particular, will it be a one-off, or can communities expect to be consulted throughout the decade for which the £20 million is allocated?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is right to point out that this is a decade-long investment in 55 towns across the United Kingdom. We will work with people in Burnley, with its excellent Member of Parliament and with other representatives to ensure that we can tackle antisocial behaviour, revive high streets and make sure that the pride that people have in Burnley is reflected in investment from Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan]

Homelessness and rough sleeping is one of the biggest priorities of this Government. We are devoting £2 billion over three years to alleviate homelessness and rough sleeping. This is a major priority of ours. Every family and child deserve to live in decent, secure and safe housing. That is why we have helped half a million people since the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 came in to prevent homelessness. We have spent £366 million this year on the homelessness prevention grant and £654 million over the next two years. The Government are committed to getting people out of temporary accommodation and into long-term, stable accommodation.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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

Today, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister launched the cross-Government antisocial behaviour action plan. My Department plays a critical role in ensuring that the facilities are available to divert young people from antisocial behaviour and into productive youth work.

[Antony Higginbotham]

Regeneration is taking place across Burnley and Padiham thanks to this Government, but to realise the potential we have to crack down on antisocial behaviour in our town centres. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to crack down on ASB in town centres?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is right. Across the country, we need to have more uniformed officers in crime hotspots and faster justice, so that those who are responsible for damaging an area make reparation. Above all, we need to ensure that the moral relativism that those on the Opposition Front Bench have taken towards crime is at last countered by a robust, pro-law-and-order response from this Government.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

I warmly welcome this Bill, particularly the 12 missions that are being put on a statutory footing. I say that because my mission in this place is to make Burnley, Padiham and all of our villages the best places to live, work, study, relax and raise a family, and that is what those missions talk to for me, be it on income, employment and closing that gap with the rest of the country, or improving our public transport. Someone who lives in a village such as Worsthorne in my constituency has one bus an hour into Burnley town centre; that is the one public transport link they have into our economic centre, which then pushes them out to those employment zones. That is the kind of thing we need to fix.

We want to see our education and skills provision improved. We have brilliant provision in Burnley, with Burnley College, an expanding UCLan—University of Central Lancashire—campus, and the secondary schools and primary schools that I visit every week that are doing amazing things. That is what our levelling-up fund bid was all about; that is the thing that is allowing UCLan to expand and go from a couple of hundred students to a couple of thousand students, giving that opportunity to so many more people. We want those missions—those transport missions, health missions and employment missions—at the centre of every conversation we have, whether it is with Government, civil servants in Whitehall, Lancashire County Council, the NHS or anyone else.

I also wish to pay tribute to Lancashire County Council, which this week is debating its own levelling-up fund bid to the Department. That will see more money come in to Burnley and Padiham. It includes active travel zones, living neighbourhoods and getting money into places that need it more than anywhere else. I am talking about places such as Queensgate, Daneshouse, Padiham, Hapton and Worsthorne. That is exactly what we want to see.

I also want to comment on the planning aspects of the Bill, because they are really important. In Burnley, our local plan, adopted by the Labour-run council, is causing huge issues for local residents. It sees a huge amount of our green belt built over, despite opposition from local residents. So I am delighted that the Bill increases the status of neighbourhood plans, so that parish councils in places such as Worsthorne and Hapton get an equal weighting. I would be delighted if the Minister offered assurances to residents in those parishes that, through this legislation, their views will have far more weight than they have done so far. The street votes idea—the idea that residents can take things into their own hands and decide on the kind of houses they want to see—is really important.

In the 50 seconds I have left, I wish to comment on two other things. The first is compulsory purchase orders and the other is houses in multiple occupation. I hope we can get both of those things right. I know that HMOs are a difficult subject and are not covered in this Bill at the minute, but the issue vexes my constituents, causes immense anger and frustration and raises questions. They want the same level of say over the occupation of those houses as they have over the housing itself. We want a thriving university centre in Burnley with flats and student accommodation, and that includes HMOs, but in some of our villages that is not the right thing. I ask the Minister to work with me during the passage of this Bill to look at whether HMOs and CPOs are areas we can improve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to close this debate on behalf of the Opposition. When it comes to levelling up, we have had a few rounds of departmental questions, the White Paper, the Bill and, today, nearly six hours of very good debate. There is only one question left in front of us: when it comes to levelling up and the Government’s approach to levelling up, is this it? With our huge regional inequalities, is what is in the first third of this Bill really it? When it comes to the wasted potential of the nations and regions in our country, is this it? When it comes to the over-centralisation of this country, is this really it? The Minister for Housing seems to think that maybe it is, but I say gently to him: if this really was a comprehensive Bill aimed at tackling the regional inequalities that are holding us back, it would not have been necessary to bulk it out with a planning Bill as well. That is the reality: the first third of the Bill is levelling up, and two thirds are about planning. The reality, too, is that there are no answers in here either to the immediate cost of living challenges we face, or to the long-term structural questions that we as a country must address—more evidence that this Government are out of touch and out of ideas.

Hon. Members should not take my word for it: the Office for National Statistics report clearly shows that, far from levelling up, things are getting worse, and the excoriating report from the Public Accounts Committee shows that the approach so far has been a very poor one indeed. Is this really it?

This debate has been a good one. I know the Minister is a listener and will reflect on the contributions that have been made, but he will certainly have heard a lot that would improve the Bill. The Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), should have been drafted in to help to write it because his speech was about two fundamental things: first, more money, ending the beauty parades of small pots of funding, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) said, and properly funding our communities so they can build their futures; and secondly, new powers for existing Mayors and access to those powers for communities that do not currently have them. That was a really good starter for where we could go with the Bill.

Some reality was injected into the debate by my hon. Friends the Members for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who talked movingly about just how hard things are for people right now and the struggle people are facing just to make the bills work, finding that there is too much week or too much month left at the end for their paycheques to cover. There is not enough in the Bill to address that. Again we see the promise of jam tomorrow, but there is no value in jam tomorrow when there is not bread today.

My hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) and for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) also injected some reality around cuts to local authorities. We talk about this on the Labour Benches a lot, but we used to see Government Back Benchers standing up to say how much they had been winning out of levelling up so far. The reality, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) said in her opening speech, is that even those winners, through the levelling up fund, the towns fund or the future high streets fund, are losers because of the cuts to their local authorities. She made those points very well.

My hon. Friends the Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell), for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) also made moving points about decent housing. I hope that we can feature that in Committee, because it is impossible for people to build a life and to build communities, to have that solid foundation to reach their potential and to help their family to reach theirs, if they are worried about their housing, or if their housing is of poor quality or a detriment to their health. We must aspire to much better for our fellow citizens.

Finally on the Labour Benches, I must refer to the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), and the points she made about London. Hon. Members on the Government Benches also said this, but it is important to understand that across every community there are pockets of deprivation. Levelling up fails if it becomes a conversation of north versus south or the rest of the country versus London. That does not serve anybody, and my commitment to her is that she will never see us do that.

There were an awful lot of very good contributions from those on the Government Benches, particularly those that majored on planning—I counted 27, and I think I got them all—but there were also good contributions in interventions on the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State. For the moment, I think there was contentment that, broadly, the Secretary of State largely seemed to think that he could accommodate all those significant and strongly felt views about local decision making. We want to see that too. I think it will get harder. I say to the Minister, and I know this is his instinct, that he will have to bring people with him on this. There is inevitably a trade-off at some point between reaching the volumes we need to address our housing crisis and having respect for communities and local decision making. Nobody thinks that is easy, and that ought to be dealt with. We will have plenty of time in Committee to do that. If we are not going to do levelling up, we might as well do that in its stead.

To make a few points of my own, four months ago, the Secretary of State presented the levelling up White Paper to this House. After all the big promises and slogans, before elections and after, it offered little other than the usual: governing by press release, with the reality never quite matching up. The one thing in there was that levelling up, which, as the Prime Minister has reiterated, was defined as the core mission of this Government, would have 12 missions. The hon. Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham) made an excellent case for them, although I would gently say to him that they also served to highlight the failings of this Government over the past 12 years on education, housing and crime— 12 admissions of failure to cover 12 years of wasted time in Government.

[Antony Higginbotham]

One of those missions relates to healthcare. It was the Labour Government before 2010 who closed Burnley’s A&E. It was the same Labour Government who forced our schools to have new PFI buildings, which has seen money taken away from educating children and instead paying for expensive contracts. So the hon. Gentleman might just want to think about whether a Labour Government have all the answers.

[Alex Norris]

I will always think carefully about the contributions the hon. Gentleman makes, but I am afraid that he will struggle to win an argument with Labour on NHS investment. [Interruption.] Conservative Members are all back then—nice to see you. I will take you all on if you want. [Interruption.] Even the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) —but I shall save him for Committee.

On the 12 new levelling-up missions, which are the centrepiece of the White Paper, and so important to the Government that they want to place a statutory duty on Ministers to report on their progress—what a big and bold claim that is—we now see that they come with a rather crucial addendum, which is that, if the Government decide that they do not like them any more, or perhaps think that they will not meet them, they can just do away with them altogether: when they fail, they can move the goalposts. Measured by actions, I am afraid that that is how important those missions actually are to the Government, who cannot even commit themselves to them. In that sense, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan said, they are not worth the paper they are written on.

We are told today that those missions are a core part of, and a key moment in, levelling up this country. I find that hard to believe, for the reasons that I have stated. But if they are going to be so impactful that they will create the change on which there is, I think, a universally held view across those on all Benches, why is there no impact assessment? Why is there no impact assessment on regions either? I hope that the Minister will give a commitment that before we enter Committee we will have the chance to see that so that we can debate the facts of the matter.

Levelling up was supposed to be about getting all parts of the country firing on all cylinders, but yet again we do not see that. Another key example: where is the community power in this? If the levelling-up portion of the Bill is really about saying to people, “We want you to have greater control over the state of your community and its future”, why does that stop at a sub-regional level? That is still a very long distance away from communities. We will certainly seek to add to that in Committee, and I hope Ministers will be in listening mode on it, because there is a great deal of expectation beyond this place that we are going to see more devolution to communities. We want to see powers and funds devolved from Whitehall to town hall, and beyond, so that communities are empowered to make these decisions for themselves.

One of the things in the levelling-up section of the Bill that we are pleased to see is further devolution of power and all communities having the chance to access those highest levels of power. However, I cannot quite understand why that comes with the caveat that they must accept the Government’s preferred model, which is a Mayor. The message from the Government seems to be that they are willing to devolve power but only on their own terms. That does not feel like proper devolution. The hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) and I frequently talk about devolution of power to Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. I agreed with much of what he said but, in our access to tier 3 powers, which we both want and is wanted universally across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, I do not see why we should have to take a Mayor as well. I do not see how those two propositions are linked, and I have not heard anything in the debate that has moved me further on that.

The Minister will also, whether in closing or in Committee, need to address the important points made by the hon. Members for Gloucester (Richard Graham) and for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) about provisions in the Bill that allow powers currently held by district councils to be drawn up from them to combined authority level without their consent. That is a really challenging provision that will not hold for much longer.

As I say, this Bill is not enough, but it is what is now in front of us, and we will seek in Committee to make it better. We will also, I warn the Minister in advance, help the Government by adding back into the Bill some previous Government commitments that are missing from it. I hope greatly that they will want to take them on.

Let me turn to the planning side of the Bill. We welcome planning reform. We want to see the building of genuinely affordable housing. We want communities with good services and thriving town centres. We are glad to see the back of some of the worst excesses of previous policy. This is a much better version than what was publicly announced a year-plus ago. But the reforms could go further to change the system to provide greater support for planning authorities, and to deliver more say and power back to communities. Again, we will seek to do that in Committee. I hope that in his closing remarks, the Minister for Housing might do slightly better than the Secretary of State did on the infrastructure levy. It is an area of significant interest that has come up in a number of colleagues’ contributions, and when the Secretary of State was pressed on it, he was unable to say at what level he thought the levy would be set. That will not do. I understand that that is a complex calculation, but the Opposition ought at least to have heard an assurance that it would not be less than current section 106 moneys, because I do not think that anyone has argued for less money for infrastructure. This “We will tell you later” approach does not work. We do not want to have to get through the whole Bill process only to be told that the level will be set in regulation later.

Local Government Finance (England)

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. I want to start in the same way that many others have, in my case by thanking Lancashire County Council and Burnley Borough Council for all they have done to support our local residents to get through covid, from providing social care to our most vulnerable residents and working with businesses to get them covid-secure through to administering so many of the Government’s support schemes, which have proved essential to keeping our economy going. While not everything they do is in the public’s sight—lots of it is behind the scenes—it is essential none the less.

Unfortunately, some of the lines coming from the Labour party in this debate are simply untrue. Labour’s approach to funding seems to resemble that of Goldilocks —it does not matter what is done, how much is provided or what the scheme looks like; it is never quite right. I made a promise to the people of Burnley and Padiham that I would bring Government focus and Government investment, and this funding settlement and the broader actions that the Government are taking demonstrate that that is exactly what we are doing. This Government are laser-focused on levelling up and tackling covid-19.

In the last year alone, more than £11 billion has been provided to local authorities. That includes more than £50 million to Burnley Borough Council and £141 million to Lancashire County Council for nothing other than covid. Let me break that funding down, because it has helped residents, businesses and families. Just for Burnley, that is £34.27 million of total grant funding for businesses; £1.48 million of council tax hardship funding; £11.1 million of business rates relief; £95,000 for domestic abuse services; £114,000 of self-isolation grant funding; £100,000 funding for a community champion, announced just the other week; £350,000 for compensation for lost income from car parking charges and so on; £78,000 for reopening high streets—the list goes on.

Then there is an extra £2.11 million of funding for the council’s day-to-day services that have been impacted by covid-19—for example, refuse collection and green spaces. That is not to mention the extra £2 million that the Prime Minister announced for Pioneer Place in Burnley town centre as one of his shovel-ready schemes—something the local Labour council likes to avoid mentioning. Does that sound like a council that is seeing Government funding withheld? Does it sound like a Government who are going back on their promise to do whatever it takes? I do not think it does. That approach continues into next year, which is evident from the finance settlement that we are debating.

My Labour council leader likes to claim that it is never enough. He was in the press just the other day saying, “We’ve had an increase, but—”. Well, there is no “but”. If we add up all the funding that I just spoke about, it translates to £24 per capita in Burnley—£24 per person to deal with covid-19. That is in addition to the core grant that the Government give the council for its day-to-day services and the income it gets from council tax. In comparison, the national average is £15 for a typical district or borough council—£24 for Burnley and £15 on average.

I will never stop lobbying the Government and standing up in the House to ask for more support for Burnley, and those on the Government Front Bench know that. I will work with whatever administration we have in Burnley town hall, but we have to focus on the facts, and the facts show us that this Government are providing the support needed. Core spending power going into next year will be higher than it is this year. That is not a Government who are taking money away; it is a Government who are supporting residents across Burnley and Padiham. None of us should apologise for trying to ensure value for money in town halls. Every penny spent in a town hall is money raised through either council tax or general taxation, but it all comes from the same pot—it all comes from the same local residents and local businesses that work day in, day out to earn that money.

We need a bit more transparency. If local authorities are going to raise council tax, they need to be much clearer about why they are doing it, particularly if they are inserting that “but” at the end: “We have had more funding from Government, but—”. That “but” tells us that they want to increase council tax, so residents should feel free to write to their local councillors and say, “What is it that you need the extra money for that isn’t being provided for by Government?” The answer cannot always be more tax rises. We have to squeeze every penny and pound out of the money we give to our local authorities. That is what our residents deserve.

Towns Fund

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Government like to talk about levelling up the country, but sadly their record shows they have done the precise opposite. Since they were first elected in 2010, the Conservative Government have imposed £15 billion-worth of cuts on local authorities, and they did not share the pain equally either. The 10 poorest council areas have faced cuts 18 times bigger than the 10 richest, as the Government embedded inequality. Initially, the Conservatives’ failed ideological austerity stalled Britain’s economic recovery after the global financial crash. Last year, they left the country so woefully unprepared for the covid-19 pandemic that we are now suffering the highest death rate in Europe and the deepest recession of any major economy.

Right now, many of our towns and high streets are at breaking point. After a decade of Conservative cuts and now the recession, they are on their last legs. Councils cannot support high street businesses because the Government have left councils with a £2.5 billion funding black hole, after breaking their promise to compensate them fully for the costs of tackling covid-19.

Conservative changes to planning rules allow developers to convert shops into low-quality flats, so that they can never reopen as shops again, creating dead zones on our high streets. Now the Government plan to choke off spending on the hope of rapid economic recovery by forcing council tax rises on families already struggling to pay the bills in these unprecedented times.

The Government spent the past decade levelling the country down, stripping out jobs, assets and investments from parts of the country they chose to hold back. They have closed nearly 800 libraries, 750 youth centres, 1,300 Sure Start centres and more than 800 public toilets. That is political vandalism on our high streets, but it goes much further than that. They have deliberately pulled our country apart by deepening and entrenching inequality. Whole regions have been starved of investment, leaving them without the infrastructure, jobs or skills to attract good new employers. People should not have to leave the towns they live in to find a decent job because all that is available back home are the low-skill, low-paid, insecure jobs that are a hallmark of this Government’s economic neglect.

As my hon. Friends the Members for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) have said, opportunity should be open to everyone, wherever they live. Aspiration should not be capped because someone lives in a part of the country that the Conservatives chose to abandon. Social care should be an entitlement, not a lucky dip. Our high streets deserve a brighter future than the long stretches of graffiti-covered shutters that are the visible legacy of Conservative misrule.

As my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) and for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) point out, the towns fund is a wholly inadequate fix for how the lost Conservative decade has blighted our high streets. The Government stripped out £15 billion of funding, and now they expect gratitude for giving less than a quarter of that money back.

Some funding is better than no funding, and we support those areas lucky enough to get something, but what about everywhere else? The vast majority of towns and high streets are getting nothing at all, as we heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) and for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). Instead of the open and fair process that communities want to see, the Conservatives are stitching up backroom deals that carve most towns out of the funding they so desperately need.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

rose—

[Steve Reed]

I am sorry, there is not going to be time. How embarrassing, yet how typical of this Government that the Secretary of State and the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) stitch up a cosy deal to funnel public money into each other’s constituencies, taking it from towns and high streets with higher levels of deprivation. The Conservatives are pulling our country apart. Labour wants to see our country come back together again. People living in every town in the country deserve their fair share of investments.

The real yardstick of success would be if the towns fund put new opportunities on people’s doorsteps in every town and made every part of the country a good place to set up home and aspire to a better future, but that is not what we are seeing. The Public Accounts Committee says that the Government are unclear what they expect from the funding or how they will measure its success. That simply is not good enough.

Many new Conservative Members, as we have heard this afternoon, like to trumpet how towns in their constituencies were selected to benefit from funding, but they are remarkably quiet, are they not, about the much bigger sums of money the Conservative Government took away from those places in the first place. The Conservatives took £275 million away from Bishop Auckland’s local council. They took £165 million away from Blackpool. They raided £203 million from Crewe, £324 million from Penistone and Stocksbridge, and £197 million from Wakefield. The towns fund gives back only a tiny proportion of what the Conservatives have already stripped away. It is like a burglar breaking into a house in the dead of night, stripping it bare and then expecting thanks for handing back the TV set.

We will not secure the economic recovery by killing off our high streets, and we will not protect the NHS by starving older people of the social care they need. We will not rebuild our country by choking off spending with a Conservative council tax hike that is timed to hit hard-pressed family budgets just as the furlough scheme comes to an end. If the Conservatives really want to bring lasting prosperity to towns and regions that they have held back, they have to do better than the towns fund. This country needs a real plan to bring jobs and investment to every town and high street, not the short-term fixes and back-room deals cobbled together by the same Government who pushed our high streets to the brink of disaster in the first place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Hall]

I ask the hon. Lady to check the facts. The majority of these town deals are in Opposition-held council areas.

I was delighted to hear the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) open her speech by saying that no Labour MP will oppose more funding for local government, because she will have the opportunity shortly to vote for a local government finance settlement that will increase councils’ core spending power by 4.5%—a real-terms increase.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked about funding for Northern Ireland and how the Department for International Trade’s high potential opportunities programme is supporting investment across the UK. I can confirm that DIT announced in October the second round of successful bids, with 19 new projects selected, and it is currently working with Invest Northern Ireland to explore even more investment opportunities. I am sure that colleagues in the Department for International Trade will be happy to pick that up with him.

In the face of this relentless negativity from the Labour party, in October last year we announced the first seven towns to have gone through the assessment process and have their plans approved. Among them was Peterborough. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough worked closely with the town deal board and helped to develop the ambitious investment plan. I am delighted that it was offered £22.9 million in October. That funding will help to deliver a new enterprise hub to support entrepreneurs and inward investment. It will support healthy lifestyles by making it easier to walk and cycle, and it will further Peterborough’s ambitions for low-carbon living. I thank my hon. Friend and his town board for all their support and help in making this happen.

I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool South (Scott Benton) for his remarks this afternoon. It is in large part down to his hard work, alongside that of the town deal board, that Blackpool will receive £39.5 million. This substantial investment reflects the exceptional nature of Blackpool’s proposals and the national significance of what they are planning. We think investing in this iconic British seaside resort has benefits that will reach way beyond the boundaries of the town. The plans include making Blackpool’s famous illuminations even more impressive so that they can attract visitors right around the year and have a huge impact on tourism in the town.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) raised his ambitions for the Goole to Leeds rail link and asked whether we could retain some flexibility in delivering the fund to support places requesting revenue funding as part of the deal. I would say to him that the towns fund criteria are broadly drawn, and intentionally so, to ensure that we give towns as much flexibility as possible to determine their own priorities. It is right that the towns fund is principally about capital investments, but we recognise that in some towns there might be a particular need for an amount of revenue funding, perhaps to support the implementation of a capital project, so we absolutely agree with that.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) talked passionately about his town investment plan, which we received in late October last year. I can assure him that the assessment process is under way and my officials are looking at the details of the plan. I agree with him that it provides the opportunity for Harlow to determine its own future, and I will certainly join him in thanking the Harlow growth board, the chief executive of the council and all the officers who have worked on the bid.

Alongside town deals, we are also investing directly in the high streets that are at the heart of so many of our communities. Too many high streets have seen considerable decline in the past decades, and those challenges have been exacerbated over the last year by covid-19. That is why, on Boxing day, we announced the winners of our future high streets competition, committing up to £830 million to 72 places in England and giving a major boost to local high streets and the many jobs and livelihoods that depend on them.

That investment includes over £11 million for Blyth, which was raised in the debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Ian Levy). This will deliver important new cultural and educational facilities and bring vibrancy to the town centre. The investment also includes nearly £18 million for Worcester city centre, which will benefit from the renovation of the popular theatre and the Corn Exchange, and £25 million for Swindon to modernise its town centre. Some £107 million from the future high streets fund has also been allocated to support the regeneration of heritage high streets, and we are doing everything possible to help high streets to survive, adapt and thrive.

My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough also talked about the need to do more and go further, and he was right to do so, because there is of course more investment to come. At the spending review, we announced the levelling up fund, worth £4 billion, and that will bring infrastructure investment—

[Antony Higginbotham]

Burnley is looking forward not only to the levelling up fund but to the competitive round of the towns fund. May I ask my hon. Friend to look sympathetically at Burnley’s bid when that scheme opens, because we have such ambitious plans not only for Burnley town centre but for Padiham, too?

[Luke Hall]

My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for his constituency and I know he will champion any bids that come in, as he is absolutely right to do. I am of course always happy to speak to him about his representations.

The levelling-up fund will be open to all local areas and allocated competitively. We will prioritise bids that drive growth and regeneration in the places that need it most—those places that face particular local challenges in upgrading their infrastructure and those that have received less Government investment in recent years. We are also developing the UK shared prosperity fund, which will succeed EU structural funds and provide vital investment in local economies, free of the bureaucracy that thwarted European funding. The new fund will allow us to target funding better and support those who are most in need. The towns fund, the levelling-up fund and the UKSPF will be vital tools for levelling up in our country.

I thank all Members for their contributions to this debate. The Government are levelling up: we want everybody, wherever they live, to benefit from increased growth and prosperity, and the towns fund is helping us to achieve that. We are investing in the places that need it most and putting local communities in charge of the decisions that affect them. The towns fund marks just the start of that. There is, of course, much more investment to come and much more to do through the levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund. We want to see more towns such as Barrow, Torquay, Blackpool and Mansfield benefit so that everybody, wherever they live in our great country, can be part of a brighter and more prosperous future.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Towns Fund.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

It is a real privilege to take part in today’s debate. It might be 76 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, but it remains as important as ever that we remember what happened.

This year, the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day is to be the light in the darkness. Light is an incredible thing: it brings hope, it brings knowledge and it exposes. It is this light which showed us the scale of horror and devastation inflicted by the Nazi regime: 6 million Jewish people and millions more—Soviet citizens, Polish people, gay people, Gypsies and many, many more. The number of victims is almost incomprehensible to us and it is an evil brought about by our fellow man, showing us what can happen if we look the other way. It is a sobering reminder to all of us who sit in this place of the deep and humbling responsibility we have, and it is why I support a permanent holocaust memorial next to Parliament.

Earlier this week I spoke to the Jewish Leadership Council, the Antisemitism Policy Trust and the Community Security Trust, three organisations which do incredible work to protect Jewish people in this country and ensure we never lose sight of the work we still must do to end antisemitism. It is a sad reality that far from eradicating antisemitism, it appears to be on the rise. We know there are places on the internet where it thrives alongside other hate and extremism. Those are not dark, unknown corners of the internet, but the platforms many of us use: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, as well as the more obscure ones, including the ones explained in such great detail by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford).

Antisemitism is not just confined to the internet. Burnley does not have a large Jewish population, but last year one of my constituents, Ashley, who is just 18 years old, was attacked for no other reason than his Jewish faith. I want to recognise Ashley’s bravery in coming forward, and thank the CST for the support and help it provided to him. Ashley is a light in the darkness, showing the problems that still exist.

We have heard so many powerful speeches in this debate, including the one from my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). They show us why we should stand vigilantly. We must stand ready to protect those who need it; not to stand by, but to stand up.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Patricia, I understand that you are having difficulties seeing a timer, so I will gently ask you to finish after three minutes if you have not already done so.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

We discuss a range of issues with our colleagues in the Scottish Government—and officials discuss with officials—in the usual way, all the time. I am very happy to discuss with the hon. Gentleman any particular arrangements that he may wish to raise, and I will make sure that any such issues are raised with my noble Friend Lord Greenhalgh.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

While discussions take place with property developers and freeholders about who will fund the cost of this, we should never forget that there are leaseholders and tenants living in these buildings, so would the Minister set out what steps have been taken to keep those people safe, as they are living in fear?

[Christopher Pincher]

We have put a great deal of public money aside to make sure that buildings that need remediation—and where there is no other means of making them safe quickly—are made safe through the ACM fund and the building safety fund. We will continue to work closely with the industry to make sure that other buildings are remediated and made safe. I look forward to further contributions from my hon. Friend in that regard.

Towns Fund

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We have made a manifesto commitment that I have repeated many times in this place that we will be bringing forward a UK shared prosperity fund. Further details on that will be set out at the spending review. It will ensure that all the nations of the United Kingdom receive the same level of funding in this Parliament as they received from the EU structural funds that we are moving away from.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

I have spoken to businesses across Burnley and Padiham, and they are as excited as I am about the prospect of a towns deal. It will bring together the strength of the private sector with Government investment to level up and spur on our economy. I urge the Secretary of State to move at pace to release the next tranche of towns fund deals, so that we can get Burnley’s bid in.

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes a strong case for Burnley. As I say, we will bring forward that competitive phase early next year, and before the end of this year, I hope to be announcing the successful bidders for the future high streets fund, where we will be ensuring that up to £25 million of investment flows to dozens of communities across the country. It is another fund designed before covid, but it will be ever more important as we see the pressures wreaked on our high streets by the pandemic.

Covid-19 Lockdown: Homelessness and Rough Sleepers

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, but, as I have outlined, we have asked bailiffs to pause evictions over the Christmas period and that is something that we will monitor and keep under review. It is absolutely right that we have taken this action, and the Secretary of State took it quickly and swiftly. We are still committed to abolishing section 21, but legislation must be balanced and considered to achieve the right outcomes for the sector, and we will keep those under review. The Government will continue to take decisive action, as they have done at all stages of the pandemic, and as I have done today in outlining our Protect programme.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

Our veterans have given so much in the service of this country and it is vital that we ensure that not a single one ends up on the streets. Will the Minister therefore reassure me and my constituents who care deeply about this that veterans continue to have priority need to keep them off the streets and that the funding provided by this Government means that if someone finds themselves in hard times this winter, local authorities have not only the duty, but the resources to give them the home that they deserve?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight again the vital role that our veterans have played in keeping this country safe. I am sure that everyone across this House feels, as I do, a great sadness and deep concern for those veterans who face hard times and are in very difficult circumstances. They have priority when it comes to the reduction of homelessness and will continue to do so. We will continue to work with our colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to ensure that those veterans can get access to the support and services that they need to continue with their lives.

Oral Answers to Questions

Antony Higginbotham Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

As I said, we will reflect carefully on the feedback that we receive from the consultation on calculating local housing need. My right hon. Friend refers to the desire to protect quiet neighbourhoods and ensure that they are not overborne by tall tower blocks. I am keen to make sure that local authorities are at the heart of decision making, and we will make sure that that is a fundamental part of our response to the consultation. I reassure my right hon. Friend, who is a doughty campaigner for the fine borough of Barnet, which builds lots of homes, that we will bring forward proposals to achieve the sorts of ends that she is looking for.

[Antony Higginbotham (Burnley) (Con)]

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

Our town centres and high streets are the beating heart of our communities. Our landmark towns fund, through which we are investing £3.6 billion into more than 100 towns, is just one part of that commitment. We also want to give local communities the freedom to transform their areas for the better—to give boarded-up eyesores on the high street a new lease of life, to give shop owners the flexibility to change the use of their property, and to allow families the chance to increase the size of their home as their family grows. Each of these reforms will help small businesses and individuals to sustain jobs and invest in local communities. That is the mission of this Government.

[Antony Higginbotham]

This year marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. It vital that we remember what happened so that we can learn the lessons of the past, so will my right hon. Friend reassure me and the House that the Government remain committed to delivering a national holocaust memorial?