Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been an excellent debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, on their excellent maiden speeches. We very much look forward to their future contributions.

At the beginning of the debate, the Minister admitted that the measures in the Bill could seem rather eclectic. I think that our debate has demonstrated that to be the case, but I was pleased that she promised to listen carefully to noble Lords’ contributions and concerns. Having worked with her on a number of Bills, I am certain that this will be the case, and I look forward to working with her and other noble Lords to improve the Bill as we go through a rather extensive Committee in the near future.

Listening to the debate, I think there is a general feeling that the Bill is not ambitious enough; that it is a missed opportunity. There is also the general concern that the missions, by not being on the face of the Bill, will not necessarily be properly considered as we go through it step by step, let alone be implemented when it finally becomes law. For example, the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, talked about the importance of having to join all this up. Without joining it up, what does it actually mean and what does it achieve?

Noble Lords have also raised concerns about investment. Where is the investment to back this up? Where is fiscal devolution being discussed? How can we ensure that any of these missions will actually be delivered? I do not think there is sufficient confidence in this House around any of those areas. I am sure that they will be debated at length in Committee.

In many ways, the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, hit the nail on the head when he said that this is a misnamed Bill. Ultimately, it seems to be a local government and planning Bill, with a bit of levelling up tacked on to the front.

I will explore some of the themes that have come forward from the debate. First, devolution is clearly a very important part of the Bill. We have heard comparisons with Germany and the importance of having not just sufficient finance but sufficient time and commitment if we are genuinely to deliver what is required.

We have heard that the Bill proposals could be described as delegations where devolution is concerned, rather than actual devolution. This is something that we will have to look at, because that section of the Bill is very complicated. If it is to achieve what the Government want, we need to consider how it can be amended to improve it significantly. My noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath mentioned the fact that some of measures in this section are also conditional. We have heard concerns raised about proposals around PCCs and mayors, which I am sure we will explore in further detail.

The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, also mentioned the fact that town and parish councils are missing in action in the Bill. I should declare an interest, as my husband is chair of our local parish council and I am sure I will be having my ear bent around that. On this issue, we really benefited from the long experience of the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine. I hope that he will continue to take part as we get to Committee, because his knowledge and passion around genuine partnerships if we are to deliver will be a very important contribution.

Housing has been mentioned a lot, especially the importance of tackling the housing crisis and the missed opportunity to do so in the Bill. The need for more social housing has come up time and again, mentioned by, for example, my noble friend Lady Warwick and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham—our last but certainly not least Back-Bench speaker—who talked about the importance of keeping the housing commitments. I hope the Government have listened to him.

The noble Lord, Lord Best, talked about the importance of the decent homes programme, because improving our existing housing stock is just as important as building new decent, high-standard homes. He also talked about the need to address fuel poverty. While we are on poverty, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Lister on asking why child poverty is not included in the missions.

There has been some discussion around transport, the loss of services and particular issues around rural areas and the lack of investment in the north compared to London. As someone who lives in the north in a rural area, I have had a bit of a double whammy. Transport can be incredibly challenging in those areas.

Education and skills have been talked about. Have the Government analysed the skills that we need? There is a huge skills deficit in some parts of the country. How are we going to deliver these ambitions if we do not have people with the skills to do the work that needs to be done? At the other end of the spectrum, my noble friend Lady Henig and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, talked about the importance of early years provision. Right across the board we need to consider how we support families, young people and people who need to retrain.

Health was brought up over and again—the increase in health inequalities that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Carlisle, who I call my noble friend, talked about and, as he said, the deep fractures that Covid exposed in our health inequalities. My noble friend Lord Hain talked about the impact of huge cuts on our public services. So it is not just about health; it is right across the board.

I was interested in what the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said about social prescribing in order to tackle health inequalities. We need to pick that up further.

Town centres were mentioned, along with the fact that we need incentives in areas with local shops to encourage people to go back to those areas. There are clearly issues when it is easier to open a chicken shop than a yoga studio. There will need to be changes of use, so how are we going to tackle that? The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, talked about that issue, and I look forward to working with him on it. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, talked about accessible streets, which was referenced by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson.

The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, gave some good examples regarding the fact that rural communities have issues. We are both Cumbrian, we live in Cumbria, and a county like that has specific needs that should be addressed.

The last issue that I will touch on is the environment. There has been an awful lot of discussion around the environment. It is missing from the Bill so we need to do a lot of work on that. It was particularly interesting when the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, talked about embodied carbon in buildings. That is a really important issue that we just do not talk about enough but which can make a huge difference.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch and the noble Lord, Lord Randall, talked about national parks and the Glover review. My noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone talked about the fact that disadvantaged people are further disadvantaged when they are in a poor environment. She talked about the importance of the green belt, which also needs addressing.

My noble friend Lord Whitty mentioned that the majority of green jobs have been created in London. That cannot be right if we are genuinely going to level up. The noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, talked about the need for the Bill to help in meeting our environmental targets. That should be fundamental and central to what we are trying to achieve here.

I shall end with a few thoughts. As my noble friend Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent said in her brilliant maiden speech, levelling up should be about people. If we are to achieve it with any degree of success, as noble Lords have said, we must have the long-term funding and the resources to be able to do it. The noble Lord, Lord Walney, talked about a sustained programme of action.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol said that she wants us to live in a country where the warm spaces that are having to be provided and the food banks are no longer needed. Surely that is the ambition of the Bill, and the Government need to listen to our concerns so that we can achieve it.