Nutrient Neutrality: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

My right hon. Friend is entirely correct and I thank him for his support. We need to wait for the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to achieve Royal Assent—it must, of course, undergo parliamentary scrutiny in both Houses—but we are working apace. We have already started that engagement with local authorities and partners, Natural England and others, to ensure that they have all the operational detail that they need. What we need to see are spades in the ground as soon as possible.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

It is clear from the Minister’s replies that her statutory adviser, Natural England, opposed this move, so will she please publish its advice? Instead of letting developers and water companies off the hook and pouring even more sewage into our waterways, why does she not take the advice of her right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke) and reverse the Prime Minister’s disastrous decision to scrap local housing targets, which has given nimby councils carte blanche to do nothing?

[Rachel Maclean]

What I take issue with in the right hon. Gentleman’s questions—plural—is his comment that we scrapped housing targets. We have done no such thing. We are committed to building 1 million homes during this Parliament, and we have the target of building 300,000 homes every year. That is a very important target that we stand by. What we are doing, unlike the Labour party, is taking account of local communities. What Labour would do is build all over the green belt, and I can tell the House that its own MPs are not in favour of that: they are blocking developments in their constituencies. What we have is a sensible, proportionate approach—to build the right houses in the right places.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to communicate clearly with the public about all the support and options that are available. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor is coming to the House later this afternoon precisely to give the kind of calm, clear messaging that we want so that we can reassure investors and the markets that there is a clear way forward on this vital question so that we can get interest rates as low as possible

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

One of the things that has helped my local authority to become the best in the south-west in providing affordable housing to buy and to rent is the power to require private developers to provide a proportion of housing that is affordable. Will the Secretary of State reassure me that worrying reports that the Government are considering raising the threshold for that requirement are not true?

[Mr Clarke]

We are looking at all the options that are open to us to try to accelerate house building across the country. We want to make sure that the right incentives are in place for developers to build—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) will let me answer the question, rather than shout at me. The reality is that we want to look at all those options. We have consulted on that particular option before, and we have decided not to do it. It is an issue that we keep under review, but the reasons that applied in our decision not to proceed then are very powerful.

Affordable Housing (Devon and Cornwall)

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) has admirably outlined the problems that many of our constituencies face. Mine are slightly different from hers, but they carry a lot of similarities. If anything, house prices in Exeter are further inflated by the presence of a very successful university that has grown considerably in recent years due to the fact that the city is an attractive place to live. It is two hours from London on the train, and it is possible to cycle or walk to schools, so Exeter has all sorts of quality-of-life benefits.

My local authority has a very good record at doing what it can to ensure the good provision of local social housing and affordable housing to rent, but it really is working against Government policy all the time, and I have to give the Minister a number of practical proposals from my local authority that would make people’s lives much easier. For example, we are one of the few local authorities in the region that always insists on the maximum legal requirement for social housing in private developments in Exeter. That has made a huge difference, but it is like pushing a boulder up a hill repeatedly—not least given the impact of the covid pandemic. In recent weeks I have been knocking on doors for the local elections—as I am sure we all have—and have been completely dumbstruck by how many people have arrived in Exeter in the last year or so. They have moved out of London and the south-east for a better quality of life and cheaper housing, as far as they are concerned—they can now all work from home—and that is making the problem more acute.

There is a useful thing that the Government could do, according to my local authority. Through the right-to-buy scheme we are losing 40 council homes a year in Exeter. We are building 100 a year, but obviously we would provide a lot more local council houses if the local council was allowed to keep some of its receipts a bit longer. I know that the Government extended the number of years that local councils could keep those receipts to invest in local housing provision. However, because of the current shortage of construction workers and labour, and the difficulty in getting stuff built—I am experiencing that myself as I am currently renovating a house—it would be really helpful for local authorities if the Government had another look and considered extending to 10 years the period in which local authorities can reinvest that money. I do not see what the argument against that would be, as it would make the lives of local authorities a lot easier.

I know that this is a controversial suggestion, but given the seriousness of the situation outlined by the hon. Member for North Devon—this is a serious crisis—will the Government consider suspending the right-to-buy scheme for a limited period? That would protect our stock and enable local authorities to add to it in net terms. Even if private sector rental accommodation is available, in many cases the rents are simply out of the reach of many people, given the incomes they can command in the south-west.

The Minister could also change the way in which “affordable” is calculated. At present, the term “affordable” is applied to a calculation of 80% of the local market value. In Exeter, as in most places in the south-west, that 20% reduction of already hugely inflated prices makes absolutely no difference to the majority of potential homebuyers. The cost price is still way out of the reach of most local people. A resetting of the calculation of “affordable”, using, for example, a percentage of the value above building costs, could really make a difference. It would go a long way towards making “affordable” actually affordable in reality—for most people, that is currently not the case.

The hon. Member for North Devon has touched on the issue of second homes and Airbnbs. That is also really serious and has got much worse in the last year or so. It is unlikely to get better given the continuing demand from people across the UK for domestic holidays. We need an area-based cap, based on the local housing need. A cap on the percentage of housing used for short-term holiday lets needs to be put in place, even if it is a temporary measure for a couple of years in order to redress the imbalance of permanent versus temporary housing.

Planning regulations and houses in multiple occupation regulations need to be changed. Local authorities need greater powers—this is a massive issue in Exeter—so that they can determine the percentage of housing that is permitted for short-term HMO lets based on the housing need in their area. Local authorities need to have the ability to refuse planning permission for flipping family homes into HMOs once that cap is reached. That would make a significant difference in Exeter and, I am sure, in some of the constituencies my colleagues represent.

The final thing that my local authority said would really help to address this crisis in the short term is a two-year freeze on private sector rents, and a fair rent endorsement backed by Government incentives, such as a deposit underwriting scheme, so that local people can afford private sector housing. Many of them cannot at the moment. Those are just five or six practical suggestions that I hope the Minister will take away. I am sure that colleagues present will make other suggestions.

This is the most serious housing crisis I have experienced in my 25 years as a Member of Parliament. The combination of the cost of living crisis, inflation and the extraordinary inflation in house prices, which is more acute in beautiful regions such as the south-west, is creating an unprecedentedly difficult situation for families. I worry that we will see a big increase in homelessness in the months to come unless the Government do something about it very quickly.

Local Government and Social Care Funding

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to speak in this debate, which I thank my Front-Bench colleagues for securing. This is our first Opposition day debate for goodness knows how long; it has been so long that I have lost track. It is important that we have this debate just about a week before hundreds of local councillors and council candidates from all parties go to the polls across the country.

The House recognises that we have been embroiled in the Brexit nightmare for the last few months, as have the Government, but the vital work of local government has continued in the meantime. That includes the vital work of hundreds, if not thousands, of local councillors to ensure that all our local communities are provided with the services and support on which they depend. We often forget that local councillors give an awful lot of time for not very much reward in order to keep the wheels of local democracy running, and they are currently doing so in unprecedentedly difficult circumstances.

Central Government funding for local councils such as mine in Exeter has been cut by a massive 60% since 2010, and that has put an intolerable strain on councils’ budgets and their ability to deliver local services. Let us not forget that this has come on top of the big cuts to the police service, the fire service, schools and other local services. There can be few of us, or our constituents, who have not experienced the impact of these cuts—whether through the loss of a teacher or classroom assistant from one of our schools, difficulty in obtaining the care we need for a vulnerable child or elderly relative, the absence of a local police officer from the streets in our area, or the unrepaired potholes in the streets outside our front doors.

At the same time that the Government have cut support to local councils such as mine in Exeter, they have expected them to raise more of their own funds that they spend locally through the local council tax. That is why my constituents and others around the country have now faced year upon year of above-inflation increases to their council tax. As we all recognise, council tax is a very unfair tax. Unlike income tax, which funds central Government, council tax does not accurately take into account people’s ability to pay. For example, this year Devon County Council, which levies the bulk of Exeter’s local council tax, has put up its charge by 3.99%—let’s call it 4%—and the Conservative police and crime commissioner has raised her council tax by a whopping 12.75%. That means that my constituents in Exeter now pay significantly more through their council tax for policing than for all of the local services provided by Exeter City Council.

Those cuts in Government support have inevitably meant that local councillors have had to make difficult and in some cases unpopular decisions. The Prime Minister announced at the Tory party conference last autumn that austerity, the era of cuts, was over, but that simply is not true. Exeter City Council has to find a further £3.9 million of savings this year and next. So far, its good financial management and our city’s relative economic success have enabled our council to do that without damaging cuts to vital local services while the Labour council maintains one of the lowest district council tax rates in England. Our council also has ambitious but essential plans to tackle transport congestion, provide more council housing and social housing, and to do much more in the years ahead, but the longer austerity and Government cuts go on, the more challenging delivering that vision becomes.

I congratulate the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), on his excellent speech on the subject of social care. We are all keenly aware of the crisis in our social care services and the devastating knock-on impact it is having on the health service and other services—indeed, the Health and Social Care Committee has written and published countless reports on and conducted countless inquiries into the matter.

I echo my hon. Friend in sincerely urging the Government and our own party’s Front Benchers to give serious consideration to the excellent recommendations we published following our Committees’ joint inquiry last year. It is often said that solving the problem of long-term sustainable funding for social care is impossible—it is simply too difficult to reconcile the different interests, and too controversial for politicians to agree. Well, we did in our joint inquiry. Politicians from across the political spectrum, from what one might call the hard right or the Thatcherite right to the socialist left, unanimously agreed a blueprint that gives any Government a sustainable and equitable solution to the challenges of long-term social care funding. Until we crack that problem, we will not be able to resolve many of the other problems and challenges that have been and will be raised in this debate. Will the Government use our report as the starting point for their Green Paper when it is at last published, whenever that may be?

As we face the elections in eight days’ time, I pay tribute to all local government bodies and local councillors of all parties, who have had a pretty thankless task in recent years but who have none the less achieved some amazing things. In particular, I thank and pay tribute to the leader of Exeter City Council, Pete Edwards, who is retiring next week. Pete is an old-style Labour leader, a local Extonian lad who became a bus driver and rose up through the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers to run our city for the past 10 years—and what a challenging 10 years it has been. His no-nonsense approach, which can at times come across as rather gruff, may not be to everyone’s taste, but those of us who know Pete well and who have worked with him closely over the years know that he has always had the interests of Exeter and its people at the very heart of everything he has done. It is no surprise that under Pete’s leadership Exeter has risen to become one of our most successful and thriving cities. That is in no small part down to him, so thank you, Pete.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ben Bradshaw Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend mentions two Streets; I agree with him on both. Catherine Street is absolutely right about the complex causes of homelessness, particularly rough sleeping. Andy Street, the Mayor of the west midlands, has really led the way on this, including with the Housing First project.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Exeter has suffered a terrible increase in homelessness and rough sleeping since 2010, although strenuous efforts by its Labour council have led to a reduction in rough sleeping over the past two years. Will the Secretary of State and Government colleagues revisit the decisions to cut supported living and public health grants to local authorities, which fund alcohol and drug treatment programmes, because that is hampering local authorities’ attempts to tackle this problem?

[Sajid Javid]

I am happy to join the right hon. Gentleman in commending the work done in Exeter. We should all try to learn from one another, and councils can learn from each other. It is important that we keep up funding wherever it is necessary to address the causes of addiction, whether that is drug or alcohol addiction. That is why we are providing a total of £1 billion in funding up to 2020, including for a number of projects that are specifically designed to help with addiction problems.