Town and Country Planning (Border Facilities and Infrastructure) (EU Exit) (England) Special Development Order 2020 (SI 2020/928)

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow those powerful remarks and to echo the concern about the state of the country and the poverty of the country. Whatever happened to the levelling-up agenda? I begin by declaring my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I find myself, for the second time today, backing a powerful—unarguable, really—regret Motion against the actions of the Government. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, for tabling it. I do not see how any reasonable person could not regret the situation of the communities that have had these inland border facilities dumped on them without notice or control, or any hope of having control over what happens in them—facilities that are going to transform their lives and environment. I do not see how anyone could possibly not regret the fact that we are running the country through emergency powers, without proper democratic oversight, as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, alluded to earlier.

There has been some discussion during the debate on this Motion about what is happening on our borders. I go to an independent source, Bloomberg’s Supply Lines, which quotes the logistics platform Transporeon saying that freight volumes from the UK to the EU were down 25% last week from the same period a year ago. I echo questions asked by other noble Lords about whether the Government are considering the level of change in these facilities and how they will manage it, and the fact that we might see large surges and drops in this potentially fast-changing domain.

I will focus on four sets of questions for the Minister. The first has been nagging away at me since the end of last year. We saw a Brexit deal agreed on 23 December. On 30 December, both Houses of Parliament met for a single day to debate this enormous, dense document of great complexity. The following day, we saw residents of the villages Whitfield and Guston receive letters telling them what is happening with these inland customs facilities. This is a question about timing: did the Government plan such timing to avoid democratic scrutiny and oversight, or was it simply mismanagement?

My next set of questions is about the people in those villages. I am thinking particularly of a report in the Guardian about a parent of a disabled child, who had just taken a five-year mortgage on a home because of the peace and quiet of the vicinity. Will the residents affected by all these facilities, right around the land, be fully compensated and given the option of being bought out, with all their financial and moving costs, given that this has been dumped on them by the national Government, without them having any control?

My final questions pick up from what the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, said when he asked who will run these sites. Will they be run by outsourced minimum-wage workers, working for contractors? There will obviously be great concerns about the impact of air pollution and litter. How will those issues be monitored? I hope that these questions can be answered today—or perhaps the noble Baroness can answer them later by letter.