Leaseholders and Cladding
Debate between Barry Gardiner and Christopher Pincher(4 years ago)
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Christopher Pincher
As I said earlier, I cannot commit that there will be no costs that a leaseholder will ever have to pay with respect to some historical defect. We want to make sure, through the building safety fund and the ACM fund, and through our work with developers and owners, that the costs of cladding issues that confront many people and which are the subject of great debate in the House are protected for leaseholders.
The hon. Gentleman asks me about affordability, which is a very subjective matter. I want to make sure, through the funds we have made available and the work Michael Wade is doing with the sector, that people are able to get on with their lives, restore value to their properties and live as normally as possible without the spectre of costs hanging over them.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government blames the building control inspectors. The building control inspectors blame the construction company. The construction company blames the developer. The developer blames the lack of proper regulation. What is clear is that no one blames the thousands of leaseholders in my constituency who are now trapped in their homes, paying for everyone else’s mistakes. So will the Minister accept that the buck stops with him to get those who are responsible to pay up, if necessary with a windfall tax on the industry, to sort out the regulation and to keep my constituents safe and solvent?
Christopher Pincher
The buck stops with those responsible for the development of these buildings, the owners and the warranty holders, and that—getting them to pay—is what we are working to make sure they do.
Rented Homes: End of Evictions Ban
Debate between Barry Gardiner and Christopher Pincher(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Christopher Pincher
I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. I have had several conversations with the NRLA, I have had conversations with the judiciary and I have also spoken to Baroness Kennedy of Generation Rent. I have made those points to them and I make them to the House.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
I dread the autumn. Even before covid, my borough of Brent had the second highest level of evictions in London; a third of households live in poverty and more than 30% of employees earn below the living wage, and many face redundancy. This will mean that after paying their rent, the average family with three children in my constituency will be left with just £38.46 a week to feed and clothe all five people, and pay all their utility bills. The Minister may say that local authorities have been given £50 million to help families in hardship, but that works out at less than £1 million per constituency, and this is not about one-off hardship; it is about structural inequality and poverty. So will he increase housing benefit to cover the real cost of average rents and will he introduce fair rent controls so that the taxpayer is not paying out to chase ever-escalating rents and ever-rising property prices, which are distorting our economy?
Christopher Pincher
The best way to help the hon. Gentleman’s constituents—and all our constituents—out of this crisis is to get the economy back on track and people into work so that they can pay their bills and enjoy their lives again. As for the specifics of his constituents’ cases, in fact, we have not given £50 million—we have given £500 million in council tax relief for the most egregious cases and £63 million for the non-shielded food vulnerable to help them. We have protected, as I have said, 8.6 million people as a result of the other changes that we have made. I am confident that we have done the right thing, and we continue to do the right thing—for example, by adding a further £40 million to discretionary housing payments, bringing the total to £180 million, to help the sort of people he talked about in his question.
Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation
Debate between Barry Gardiner and Christopher Pincher(14 years, 5 months ago)
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Barry Gardiner
The hon. Lady is new to the House and might not have had the opportunity to read earlier Red Books. The previous Government were also doing quite a bit on zero-carbon vehicles.
The Budget is a dreadful missed opportunity. It should have ensured that we can resolve the problems with our public finances and pull the country through the recession. It should have achieved that in a staged and phased way. The Government tried to paint a dichotomy between those who appreciated that this had to be done—that this was the inevitable Budget—and, as they put it, those on the other side who said, “No, no. Hold back.” However, it was never like that. Labour Members said that this must be done, but more progressively and slowly. We said that we must not jeopardise the recovery now by taking a macho posture that goes too far, that chokes off recovery and that will ultimately be self-defeating.