Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

All across Europe, the European Commission is fighting to increase the rate of new business formation and to add more small businesses. It is the starting point for the scaling up of businesses. Why are we not doing this in this country and in this mission? Why is there not a higher number of small and medium-sized enterprises in places such as the north-west? We know that the enterprise is there, but the data is telling us that it is not turning into the number of sustained businesses and the opportunity to scale up.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak first to Amendment 31 in my name. It aims to ensure that initiatives and funding to achieve the aims of the levelling-up mission will be measured by a systematic, statistically accepted and agreed set of metrics. It fully supports Amendment 7 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, which seeks also to have the missions put into the Bill. These metrics will be used to measure progress. If they are not in the Bill, I do not know how we will get the public to understand what is being achieved—or not.

Amendment 31 is unashamedly lifted from the technical and metrics annexe to the levelling-up White Paper. This seems to have been the will of the Government when it was written and published a year ago this month. Let us put this very acceptable set of measurements into the Bill and use them. This would give it some power and make it known that the Government are determined to put the missions into effect. It would make a difference in narrowing the gap in the spatial disparities.

The amendment sets out the key components of the metrics and references the main drivers of economic and social outcomes for places, which are named “capitals”. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, listed those capitals. We are using such strange terms—“missions” and “capitals”—but let us use them because that is what they are in the White Paper. To remind us all, the six capitals are physical, intangible, human, financial, social and institutional, so they cover a whole gamut of individual and community well-being. The missions are attached to them, and the metrics are then attached to the missions.

The basic assertion in the levelling-up White Paper is that in too many places those capitals are in poor shape. When they are, those places are the ones where spatial inequalities exist. The evidence in the annexe—the Government’s own document—demonstrates that

“economic decline in the former industrial heartlands and coastal towns exacerbated poor health outcomes, which in turn led to lower levels of human capital. The lower levels of human capital then reduced the incentives for business to invest in the region and skilled workers left to seek employment elsewhere, further reducing the incentives to invest. The result was a self-perpetuating loop in which lower human capital fed into lower levels of investment, thereby reducing productivity and earnings growth, depleting social capital and pride in place, and further exacerbating the migration of skilled workers and capital out of the region.”

That says it; let us put pressure on the Government to do it.

That is the argument for the metrics. All these need to be measured and reported to Parliament if spatial gaps are to be considerably narrowed and seen to have been so following independent scrutiny, as we discussed on Monday. For example, pay and productivity are rightly seen as key to improving the life chances of people living in areas where spatial disparities are greatest. Thus, pay levels for those in employment must rise to help break the cycle of decline. As the annexe to the White Paper states:

“This mission is directed at closing the significant and persistent spatial disparities in productivity, wages and employment”.


That might answer the plea from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, for a measure of business and investment, because if you get business and investment at the right level, wages, productivity and employment will rise. That is what the White Paper says. Maybe his Government are at fault.

This metric could be readily measured by gross value added and by ONS data on pay. These measures are used by the ONS and can be applied to check progress, so putting this metric in the Bill would ensure that progress on raising incomes in areas of special disparities, as compared with the country as a whole, will of itself be a driver for change.

Improving skills and encouraging inward investment that requires higher skills will lead to higher-paid employment. Currently, there is a tendency for low-skill jobs in warehousing and distribution for online retailers to be created in areas that already have low pay and low skills, thus re-emphasising problems that are already there. Measuring the changes to skill levels, as defined in the metrics for mission 6 in the annexe, will be a driver for change and raising skill levels. In 2012, nearly 2 million adults were in funded FE and skills training—that figure is in the annexe. By 2020, that figure had dropped to below 1 million. The simple requirement of having to report to Parliament on progress on improving skills will be a significant driver to encouraging more adults to train or retrain, and there is no doubt at all that one of the negative pulls on economic growth is the poor skill levels in some parts of the country.

Another of the metrics set out in the annexe to the White Paper is the numbers who travel to work by public transport. In London that is over 50%, according to the data in the annexe—I was not quite sure that I believed it, but that is what it says—and in most other places in the country the figure is around 10%. So, measuring the modal shift that will be needed is important, not just for narrowing gaps but in supporting the net zero aim.

Currently bus services outside of London are in crisis with services being slashed, making it more difficult for those who rely on public transport to get to jobs, take up jobs and go to better paid jobs. The public transport mission is to improve local public transport connectivity in order to be

“significantly closer to the standards of London”.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is smiling because she has just one bus per week, so if she had two, that might help.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

We are laughing but in the end, it is no joke. It means that people are isolated and unable to get to employment. It is not just rural areas such as the noble Baroness’s. In one of the villages in my area—an urban area of west Yorkshire—you cannot get a bus after 5 pm. Come on! If we are serious about narrowing these gaps, we have to be serious about public transport. Many of those of us who live outside London will applaud that measure, because once it is part of a regular public reporting process, it will force change both in funding and in governance models.

I will not go through all 12 missions, you will be very pleased to hear, but that gives noble Lords a thread of an idea of what needs to happen if we are serious about helping parts of the country that suffer from not just one area of poverty, but which are deprived in all of these “capitals”, resulting in a serious negative pull on their lives and the lives of their communities.

The question for the Government is: are they serious about levelling up? If they are, the missions will be in the Bill, as in Amendment 7. If they are, the metrics should be included—in headline form, because I take the point that you cannot put in the Bill every way in which you are going to measure. All I have put in the amendment is that we will measure healthy life expectancy —about which we have had a bit of debate—which can be measured in a variety of ways.

If we do not include missions and metrics, we are not being serious about this. I feel very strongly about it, as perhaps you can tell, because unless we do, we are not being serious about helping people who do not have the same advantages and lifestyles as others are able to enjoy. We have to something about it; it is not acceptable.

I know this puts the Minister under pressure, but I want the Government to just say that they are serious about this and want to put this in the Bill, because these spatial disparities scar our nation and affect it negatively, through unfulfilled talent, lost opportunities and the cost to the public purse in subsiding low wages.

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[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

The contributions we have heard in Committee this afternoon get to the heart of the question as to whether the Bill, in practice, will have real-world impact. The discussions we have just been having on healthy life expectancy and homes really illustrate that general question mark. I suggest to your Lordships that two ways in which the Bill potentially could have impact would be, first, if, as amended, it forced a focus on the means by which the stated missions would be achieved; and, secondly, if it forced a more horizontal view across public policy to show how different aims connected in a shared way.

I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on healthy life expectancy. He quoted the position that I think existed in 2000s, when health life expectancy in this country was growing by about five hours a day. That is an extraordinary fact when you think about it. It means that, since the House has been sitting this afternoon, your Lordships would have gained about half an hour extra of life expectancy. Sadly, that no longer obtains, and the slightly draining sensation noble Lords may have had this afternoon more correctly corresponds to our physiological prospects.

The question is: does this Bill, in any way, in setting missions for healthy life expectancy, force a debate within the country and in government about the means by which you would actually do anything about it? My concern is that even having a mission and metrics potentially on the face of the Bill does not get you to the skin of the onion, peeling away the chain of causation by which you would reverse the unfortunate position we now find ourselves in. Looking at the amendments in this group and throughout the Bill, the question for me is: do they drive a focus on what real-world implementation would need to be to get the result we all want?

In relation to this, I was with the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, on her point about 250,000 homes and the need to deal with the supply side. I thought “My goodness, this is a speech from the noble Baroness I can actually agree with”—until she spoiled it at the end with gratuitous remarks about how we do not need green planning for housing, when of course that is precisely what we need. That is not the impediment to housebuilding in this country. We would be committing a historic error if we embarked on the necessary scale of housing construction without designing in congenial neighbourhoods and healthy lifestyles. The fact is that, in many developments that have been built, we are designing in, for example, car dependency. Your Lordships may be astonished to be reminded that, according to one estimate a few years ago, on average in this country we spend more time each week on the toilet than we do exercising. We are not going to change that fact just by the recitation of that rather startling insight; we are going to change it by doing precisely the opposite of what the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, suggested.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

I want to know who measured that.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, as I have set out in earlier debates, it has always been the Government’s intention that the first statement of levelling-up missions would contain the missions from the levelling-up paper. I want to repeat what I said yesterday about why we are not putting the missions on the face of the Bill. The missions will be published in a policy document laid before, and debated in, Parliament. The first example of this document will be based on the levelling-up White Paper and future iterations will include the headline and supporting metrics used to define the missions and measure progress towards them.

If we put them in the Bill, it would make this part of what we want to do—and what we think it is right to do—very inflexible. This way, Parliament and the public will have the opportunity to scrutinise progress towards the missions, including annually when the report is published. This is comparable to other key government objectives documents such as the Charter for Budget Responsibility, which is laid before Parliament for scrutiny. That is why we are doing it this way, and I thank my noble friend Lord Lansley for supporting that way forward for the second day running.

I now move to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, which inserts the Government’s levelling-up missions into the Bill. As I have said, that is not what we are going to do, because we do not feel that there would be flexibility if anything changes—for example, economics, data, pressures and issues in particular areas of the country. We would not have the flexibility to change the missions and scrutinise them, as I have said.

The 12 levelling-up missions are the product of extensive analysis and engagement. They cover the areas that require improvement to achieve an increase in the six capitals in the White Paper—human, physical, intangible, institutional, social and financial—and are needed to reduce the geographic disparities that we discussed today and that are identified in the White Paper. They are designed to be ambitious but achievable. They are necessarily spatial in their nature and definition, and they are neither national nor aggregate.

The missions are supported by a range of clear metrics, used to measure them at an appropriate level of geography. These metrics take account of a wider range of inputs, outputs and outcomes needed to drive progress in the overall mission. The metrics cover a wide range of policy issues but are all clearly linked to the drivers of spatial disparities.

I reiterate that the Bill is designed to establish the framework for missions, not the content of the missions themselves. The framework provides ample opportunity to scrutinise the substance of the missions against a range of government policies.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, brought up the allocation of levelling-up funds being made according to government priorities, rather than local need. Places are invited to submit bids—under the themes of the regeneration of town centres, local transport and culture —that they feel best meet the levelling-up needs of their area. Part of our strategic fit assessment test is on how far a place’s bid locks into its wider levelling-up plans and how well it is supported by relevant local stakeholders and community groups.

My noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond is not here and will therefore not move Amendment 13, but a number of noble Lords brought it up and I felt I ought to respond to it quickly. The levelling-up White Paper highlights the importance of the educational attainment of primary schoolchildren and sets out a clear mission to significantly increase the number of primary school- children achieving the expected standards in reading, writing and mathematics. In England, this will mean that 90% of children will achieve the expected standard, and the percentage of children meeting the expected standard in the worst-performing areas will have increased by over a third. As we know, reaching the expected standards in these subjects is absolutely crucial for children to succeed at secondary school, which paves the way for success in later life. Ensuring that as many children as possible have these skills, regardless of their location or the current quality of their school, is an ambitious target, particularly as we work to recover lost learning from the pandemic.

We are already starting on that. The Education Endowment Foundation, which gives guidance and support to schools, has a £130 million grant. Importantly, we are supporting 55 education investment areas, including starting interventions in schools with successive “requires improvement” Ofsted ratings. We are also delivering a levelling-up premium—a tax-free additional payment to eligible teachers in priority subjects—which is very much weighted to those education investment areas. We have started already, with over 2 million tutoring courses, particularly for young people who were affected by the lack of education during the pandemic.

From Second Reading, I know that many noble Lords are interested in health inequalities in this country—we heard that again today. I am sorry that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London is not here, but her Amendment 15 was nobly spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Best. It puts forward that the missions must include reducing health disparities. I note Amendment 59 from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and Amendment 30, tabled my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, who is not here, although it was mentioned by noble Lords. All of these would mean that geographical disparities include health outcomes.

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[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, as this is my first time speaking in Committee, I lay out my interests as in the register as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Shipley and have listened carefully to this debate. Technically, it does not matter how small and granular the information is; it is how it is evaluated and reported against the aims of the mission that is important. That is why I want to speak in particular to Amendment 48 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock.

If you look at the Bill, you see that the only person who will evaluate the homework of whether the geographical disparities are actually narrowing against the missions in the Bill is the Minister. The Minister will not only set the way in which the task is set but will then be the person who marks his or her homework on that. That is why it is particularly important that Amendment 48, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is accepted by the Government, as it proposes an independent review of whether the geographical disparities are narrowing.

I ask the Minister a very simple question: why would you object to an independent body assessing whether the Government are meeting the requirements in the Bill which they say they are so eager to meet? That is why, as Amendment 48 proposes, regardless of how data is collected, at what level and what criteria are used, it has to be independently measured to ensure that the Government’s desired requirements and policies are working to achieve the levelling-up issue in a geographical area.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, three issues have been raised by this small group: defining geographies—we talked a lot about geographies and spatial disparities— and granularity; independent scrutiny, which is really important; and then funding allocation and how that happens. I am beginning to think that the Government and the Minister may regret the publication of the levelling-up White Paper because it is a fountain of really good information.

On geographies, we need to understand what we mean by “geographies”. The noble Baroness, Lady Young, talked about very small pockets of multiple deprivation, and largely we have been speaking in the previous debates, yesterday and today, about big, regional or county-wide differences across the country. We need to understand at what level—or is it at all levels?—levelling up will take place. The levelling-up White Paper is quite handy in that regard—the Minister is nodding, so that is a good start. It has not taken IMD—the index of multiple deprivation—but it has a great map; I love maps which are mapped out according to datasets of this sort. It is figure 1.13 in the book, if noble Lords want to know. It has mapped, across local authority areas, gross value added, weekly pay, healthy life expectancy and level 3+ equivalent skills in the adult population. It is very revealing.

The map shows where there are all four of those indices in the lowest quartile of the measures. Where are they? According to this map, it is not always where you suspect. One of the areas is north Norfolk— I would never have thought that. Another area is where we would expect: the north-east, shown as a great, dark blob where that is a problem. Then there is the area down the Yorkshire coast and then obviously on the Lancashire coast, where you would expect—and then central Devon. So this is a very important sort of dataset to use. That is on a big scale. However, when my noble friend Lord Shipley introduced this, he talked about being able to go below that level of dataset to understand where the highest levels of multiple indices are occurring on a regular basis and how that can be tackled.

So that is the first point: it is not defined in the Bill, and we need a definition of what we are tackling in terms of geographies. So I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Foster about the granularity and importance of the data, and I agree with my noble friend Lord Scriven on supporting the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hullock—I am so sorry, I always do that; I meant the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock—on the importance of independent scrutiny.

Finally, on the allocation of levelling-up funding to date, if this is a symptom of how it is going to occur in the future, we may as well abandon levelling up. The House of Commons Library has a report on the funding to date and where it has gone. The Government have put local authority areas into priorities 1, 2 and 3, with 1 being the most needy. I would expect that, unless there were exceptional circumstances, the money would go to priority 1. But no: 59%, only just above half the money, has gone so far, in the first two rounds of funding, to priority 1 areas. Some has even gone to priority 3 areas, which, by the Government’s own definition, are doing okay. So what is this about levelling up?

In response to the question about the cost of bids, I know, because I spoke to the chief executive of Leeds City Council, that it spent a third of a million pounds on drawing up bids for level 2 and got not a penny piece in return. When local government across the country, or certainly where I am, is cutting its budgets—£43 million has to be found in my own budget in Kirklees because of rising energy prices, inflation and all the rest of it—local government cannot afford to spend a third of a million pounds on making bids that then get turned down because the Government decide to hand the money to local authorities in priority 3 areas. It is not right, it is not levelling up and it needs to change.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments addresses the assessment of levelling up. Amendment 10 was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, with whom I am more than happy to have a teach-in on data for anybody who would like to come and learn more about the technicalities—please just let me know. The amendment would define criteria that could be used to evaluate levelling-up policies that aim to address geographical disparities.

As I set out in detail to noble Lords in our first day of Committee, the missions contained in the levelling-up White Paper are a product of extensive analysis and engagement. The missions are supported by a range of clear metrics, used to measure them at the appropriate level of geography, and these metrics take account of a wider range of inputs, outputs and outcomes needed to drive progress in the overall mission. These metrics cover a wide range of policy issues but all are clearly linked to the drivers of spatial disparities. This has been set out in the White Paper.

I turn to Amendment 48, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. This amendment would require an assessment by the independent evaluating body to be included in any review of statements of levelling-up missions. We have accepted in this Chamber that scrutiny and seeking expert advice will be important in ensuring that we deliver on our missions and level up the country. That is why we have established the Levelling Up Advisory Council to provide government with expert advice to inform the design and delivery of the missions. The council includes voices from different parts of the UK.

I know that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, might not have been here for the debate on a previous group but I should say that the advisory council is chaired by Andy Haldane and its membership was published in the White Paper. The council members are not tied to government views and the council is made up of renowned independent experts in their field, such as Sir Tim Besley, professor of economics and political science at the London School of Economics; Cathy Gormley-Heenan, a former deputy vice-chancellor of research and impact at Ulster University; Sacha Romanovitch, the CEO of Fair4All Finance; and Sir Nigel Wilson, chief executive at L&G. All are independent experts in their field. We welcome the challenge and expert advice that the council provides and have been clear that we want it to provide us with candid views and challenging recommendations for how the Government are delivering levelling-up policy.

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[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, I am assuming, optimistically, that local government will be a key partner in levelling up; I hope that is the case. It is therefore a bit disappointing that we had so little knowledge among us about the Spatial Data Unit, the deep dive team and the Levelling Up Advisory Council. I hope that we can put that right as we go through the Bill.

In speaking to these amendments, I hope that the wording of Amendment 39 has not caused consternation among my local government colleagues. If it has, they can blame my inexperience in your Lordships’ House for that. It was certainly not intended to represent a burdensome, bureaucratic reporting process; I have had plenty of those in my time as a council leader.

My point in tabling the amendment was to reflect our overall concern that it is currently difficult to determine from the Bill what mechanisms will be introduced to enable the effective monitoring and management of levelling up, either between government departments or by consolidating the actions of local government with what happens in government departments. I have suggested that guidance be published for the exact opposite reason than burdensome bureaucracy: to give local government clarity about how we would contribute to that monitoring mechanism. That is Amendment 39.

My second amendment in this group refers to the perceived gap between the planning framework and the levelling-up missions. If the two do not correlate, we will once again be in a position where what happens in the day-to-day business of local government is in danger of being disconnected from the overall aim of levelling up. For example, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, referred earlier to the critical role that housing delivery can play in levelling up and my noble friend Lady Young spoke about the importance of the environment. Planning can certainly help tackle poverty of environment. The last example refers to the earlier comments from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, about the ability of planning to provide the framework to drive local economies. These are vital issues for levelling up. My second amendment is a probing one designed to determine both how that will be done and how the link will be made between the National Planning Policy Framework and the levelling-up missions.

Amendment 55 reflects my experience in local government, where there are always additions—they are generally helpful but sometimes are not quite so helpful—at the end of reports on legal, financial and equalities issues, climate change et cetera. The wide-ranging nature of levelling up means that it stretches right across government, and the business of local government is not necessarily an easy fit with government departments. It has been interesting for me since I came to your Lordships’ House to see that adult social care, for example, which is very much part of everyday local government life, does not sit in the local government department in central government but sits with health and social care. I have a big domestic abuse unit in my council in Hertfordshire; that sits very much with the Home Office in central government. There is not always an easy link so part of the mechanism to ensure that the Bill is considered properly as legislation goes through should be that those impact assessments refer specifically to how legislation reflects the aims of the Bill. Of course, in this case, I am thinking specifically of local government legislation as it comes forward.

I beg to move.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, has raised some significant points in her amendments in this group. The first is to include in the Bill the engagement of local authorities in reporting on levelling up in their areas. My noble friend Lord Shipley said in our debate on the previous group how there has been an obsession in government, from Governments across the decades, with ruling England from Westminster and Whitehall down to minute areas of decision-making. Certainly on this side of the House, we believe that local people and their locally and democratically elected representatives are best placed in this context to determine what areas within their council boundaries would best benefit from the levelling-up missions and funding. They would also be able to report on them because they have a depth of understanding and data that would help to make clear what progress has or has not been made.

That is a point well made, as is the point that the National Planning Policy Framework, which is currently in review, will relate to many of the missions in the Bill. Are we going to build new homes that are car-reliant or will we ensure that they can access public transport? Are we going to make them safe places in a safe environment for housing? Is there going to be in the framework allocation of land so that businesses are in appropriate places and are accessible for people who want jobs? All of that means that that is a very important point well made. No doubt it will be pursued at later stages of the Bill.

[Earl Howe (Con)]

My Lords, this group of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, looks at the role of local government and the National Planning Policy Framework in delivering levelling up.

First, Amendment 39 would mean that county councils, unitary authorities and combined county authorities would publish annual reports on the delivery of levelling-up missions. I hardly need to re-emphasise that local authorities and local leaders have a crucial role to play in levelling up places across the UK. Empowering local leaders, including through agreeing devolution deals and simplifying the funding landscape, is a cornerstone of the levelling-up agenda.

This principle of empowerment is absolutely critical. Noble Lords have tended to criticise the Government for any suggestion of the centre telling local authorities what to do; writing this amendment into the Bill might appear to do just that. Having said that, many organisations outside central government, including All-Party Parliamentary Groups, academics, business bodies, think tanks and local organisations, have been debating and scrutinising the levelling-up agenda and how it could be taken forward in particular areas of the country; I have no doubt that they will continue to do so. The provisions on reporting in the Bill will further enable such independent assessment and thinking but requiring local authorities to report in this way, as I think the noble Baroness herself recognised, would surely be disproportionate and unnecessary.

Amendment 55 would mean that a Minister must publish a report on the impacts of this legislation on local government and a strategy to consider how this part of the Bill will impact local authorities through future legislation. The new burdens doctrine, established and maintained by successive Governments, requires all Whitehall departments to justify why new duties, powers, targets and other bureaucratic burdens should be placed on local authorities, as well as how much such policies and initiatives will cost and where the money will come from to pay for them. It is very clear that anything which issues a new expectation on the sector should be assessed for new burdens. As the Government develop new policies to deliver against their levelling-up missions, they will fully assess the impact on local authorities and properly fund the net additional cost of all new burdens placed on them. Therefore, this provision already ensures that the Government must properly consider the impact of their policies, legislation and programmes on local government and fully fund any new burdens arising.

Amendment 54 would mean that a Minister must publish draft legislation for ensuring that the National Planning Policy Framework has regard to the levelling-up missions. Although it would not be appropriate to legislate to embed the levelling-up missions in planning policy, the levelling-up missions are nevertheless government policy. Planning policy to achieve these will be a relevant consideration when developing local plans and determining planning applications.

The department is currently consulting on updating the National Planning Policy Framework. The consultation document was published in December 2022 and the consultation is due to close in March 2023. It sets out a number of areas where changes to national planning policy might be made to reflect the ambitious agenda set out in the levelling up White Paper, and invites ideas for planning policies which respondents think could be included in a new framework to help achieve the 12 levelling-up missions in the levelling up White Paper. The department will respond to this consultation by the spring of 2023 so that policy changes can take effect as soon as possible.

In summary, I suggest that these amendments, though well intended, are unnecessary. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her Amendment 39 and not move Amendments 54 and 55.

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[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

I accept entirely that when the noble Lord was a Minister, we got that first stage of ground rents through, and that was very good to do. The problem of course was that I could not persuade him on the next stage, but hopefully it is coming soon. But the noble Lord certainly got the first thing through, and I am very grateful for that.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, good debate. I agree.

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

My Lords, I was concerned that, after quite a sky-level discussion of missions and strategy and things, Amendment 42 was going to be very specific and granular. We have had some outstandingly worthwhile speeches in the last few minutes, and I congratulate all those who sponsored the Bill and who have spoken so far.

I was going to speak in a granular sense as well about insurance, proposed new subsection 3(e) in the nine small but specific letters of this amendment that we are forcing the Government to address, if it is adopted, in the event that a report says that this should be done in the interests of levelling up. We have had such a good exposition on insurance scams from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, that I am not going to say what I was going to, which would only repeat much of what the noble Baroness said—but I do hope that we can get into the granular level of these injustices for leaseholders as the Bill progresses.