Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Peter Dowd

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

As the hon. Lady may have heard in the recent Opposition day debate, we have always been very clear that the most vulnerable in our society will be protected. We will also ensure a fair settlement for taxpayers.

[Peter Dowd]

Will the Minister acknowledge that, although his announcement to delay the 1% rent cut affecting supported housing is welcome, it does not go far enough and the substantive proposals should be jettisoned to inject much-needed stability back into the sector?

[Brandon Lewis]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, and as I said in the recent debate, we are working with the sector. The changes will come in in 2018, but we are very clear, and have always been very clear, that we will make sure that the most vulnerable in our society are protected.

Housing and Planning Bill (Seventeenth sitting)

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Peter Dowd

Thursday 10th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I suspect many of us in Committee today can find local housing associations doing excellent work with apprentices. I have certainly found that when I have met housing associations. There are good examples in the private sector as well. At Derby College recently I met Ian Hodgkinson and his team who encourage people particularly into brickwork. We all want to see more people going into bricklaying. Fantastic work is being done, and the more we can do to promote that, the better.

[Peter Dowd]

At the risk of breaking into the love-in, what role does the Minister feel that immigration may have in helping to sort out the skills shortage?

[Brandon Lewis]

Actually, I think the hon. Gentleman does not go too far in breaking into the love-in. People should bear in mind that a lot of the building work we are getting done at the moment is thanks to some very positive work migration. That free movement of labour has been very useful to the construction industry over the past few years.

We want to make sure that the public sector plays a full part. I am proud to be a member of the Government that want to deliver 3 million apprentices in this Parliament, building on the 2 million in the previous Parliament, and we have changed Government procurement rules. The hon. Member for Harrow West talked about what could be done directly. We have changed Government procurement rules so that all relevant bids for central Government contracts worth £10 million or more and lasting more than 12 months must demonstrate a clear commitment to apprenticeships.

Housing and Planning Bill (Fifteenth sitting)

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Peter Dowd

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Dowd]

I fully recognise those aims. Not far from where I live, the Criddle’s Estate was developed by a well-known socialist in our neck of the woods. It remains a beacon to the way developments can occur, if you get things right. The houses are solid, well sought after and an integral part of the community. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to make sure that, when we build garden cities, or developments that are not garden cities, we set out the principle clearly for everyone to see.

The amendment is perfectly reasonable. It sets out a framework for future development and I hope the Minister, even if he does not agree with it completely, understands and accepts the principle on which it is based.

[Brandon Lewis]

I wholeheartedly agree that, where statutory delivery vehicles such as urban development corporations or new town development corporations are created, high-quality, sustainable place making should be absolutely at the heart of what they do. As we are having a clause stand part debate, let me pick up on the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough, who made a very good point about the inflammatory nature of some of the remarks of the TCPA. They were not only inflammatory, but ill-advised, and they discredited that organisation. I do not intend to give it the credibility of commenting on the remarks any further.

The hon. Member for City of Durham and I worked together in the previous Parliament, cross party, to get the urban development corporations set up. I thanked her colleagues at the time—the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds)—for their work in taking that forward and for showing how we can work together. We all want Ebbsfleet to develop appropriately. The establishment of the Ebbsfleet development corporation highlighted that the process itself needed updating, especially in the light of the more familiar practice of consultation. At the time, I said to our friends in the other place that we would come forward with this legislation as soon as we could to rectify the situation. That is where we are coming from.

In a more general sense in response to some of the comments we have heard this afternoon, while agreeing with the ethos of wanting high-quality development and communities to be delivered, we can see the difference between where the Opposition and the Government stand. For example, because of the way in which the proposal is drafted, it could slow down development in and of itself, as well as not providing good-quality outcomes. That is because it so focused on a process of having to tick the boxes for A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H in order to qualify. We will find developers ticking those boxes rather than looking at what the right outcome is and working with the local community. I have some understanding of and sympathy with Opposition Members, who are very determined to ensure that they are planning well for people. The difference between us is that I believe that planning should be done by local people for local people and that it should not be done to them. We have to be very clear that we trust local people. I will comment on that in a moment.

Housing and Planning Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Brandon Lewis and Peter Dowd

Thursday 19th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Brandon Lewis]

I found the intervention from the hon. Member for Bootle interesting. I hope his authority will get on with using the £20 million to get those houses built, because that is the point I am making. The hon. Lady talked about her own council, and it is a valid point; it is important that local authorities look at how they use their reserves that are not ring-fenced. Councils say they are struggling for income but have increased their reserves from £13 billion to £22 billion, so it is reasonable for people to want to ensure that money is being used for good things. What councils do with their reserves is a matter for them to decide locally.

[Peter Dowd]

I appreciate the point that the Minister is making, but I think it is a blunt instrument, and I do not think it is helpful to make a political point out of it because, in my authority’s situation, that is a figure that, following an agreement made when decent home standards were transferred, we have to set aside in the event of legacy remediation or contamination. So it is a big figure that, in reality, we have very little freedom to use. We would love to, but we cannot.

[Brandon Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman’s authority might want to have a look at how much money it has got to set aside, that he says it wants to use but it cannot. Setting money aside for something you can never spend it on does not seem a very sensible thing to do. What the authority should be doing is looking at the reserves it has. Councils should have reserves that are appropriate, but the reserves that are ring-fenced to be spent on something, particularly if it is about providing ability and viability for new homes, I would encourage them to get on with that process.

As we all know, young people today are struggling to do something their parents and many of us took for granted: buy a home of their own. Since the early 1990s, the proportion of under-40s who are homeowners in England has declined by over a third. That is why the Government made a manifesto commitment to provide 200,000 starter homes by 2020. Meeting that commitment will require starter homes to be delivered on most conventional housing sites. We will set out the proportion of starter homes that we expect to be delivered on each site in regulations, and my Department will bring forward proposals in a technical consultation to be launched soon. A key part of that consultation will be seeking views on what sorts of exemption to the requirement should be allowed, and I do not want to prejudge the outcome of it.

I have sympathy with some of the points the hon. Lady made. I recognise that there will be some specialist housing where it would be inappropriate to require starter homes to be an integral part of the development, given design, property management and investment needs, so there will need to be exemptions to the requirement. Her amendment gives some examples that I sympathise with, such as purpose-built build to rent developments, which I have strongly encouraged—I will continue to encourage such institutional investment in our property market—where the financing model requires 100% rental, to provide certainty to investors. For those developments, we will have an issue not with the financial viability but the appropriateness on the particular site, so commuted off-site contributions may be more appropriate.

There are other forms of specialist housing—for example, accommodation for workers; the list goes on—that are not mentioned. That is why I want to consult on the detail and not rush into making a decision today. I do not think it is appropriate to take that decision before we have finished the consultation. With that in mind, I hope the hon. Lady will withdraw her amendment.