Westferry Printworks Development

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon Gentleman is completely incorrect in that respect. First, a lot of documents are already in the public domain, and I will come on to discuss that. The reasons for my decision are set out clearly in the decision letter. From the comments that we have heard from the hon. Member for Croydon North, I suspect he has not taken the trouble to read it. The inspector’s report is already in the public domain, with the representations made by the parties. Since my receipt of the letter from the Chair of the Select Committee, we have undertaken the process I have just described, which, as Members can imagine, is not one that one does in a day or two. It has taken us time. As Members will see when I publish the documents later today, and in the letter I have written to the Chair of the Select Committee, we have taken that process very seriously, because transparency matters, openness matters and settling this matter matters, because I certainly do not want to be the subject of the innuendo and false accusations that the Opposition are choosing to peddle.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for committing to publish that document and send it to the Select Committee, although it might have been helpful if we had had it before the debate today. The Committee will obviously want to look at it and may then want to enter into further communication or, indeed, even talk to the Secretary of State about it. I ask him one thing: will the documentation that he sends to the Select Committee include everything that he said to the Cabinet Secretary following his investigations into the matter?

[Robert Jenrick]

It will include most of that information, subject only to the benchmark of the Freedom of Information Act, which I have just described. I think that is the right approach, and it is on the advice of my Department that I do that. If this debate truly is—I suspect it is not, because I suspect this debate is mainly motivated by party political considerations—concerned with the probity of the planning system, I am sure that the Chair of the Select Committee, for whom I have the greatest respect, would agree that it is absolutely right that we release documentation in accordance with the rules, bearing in mind that this is a live planning matter.

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[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is obviously going to respond to the letter I sent to him from the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. We may well come back to some of the issues, depending on what he says to the Committee in that regard. I said previously in the House that these matters are dealt with best when we have the facts in front of us, rather than supposition and conjecture, because that leads us into very difficult territory. I have also said that I am not accusing the Secretary of State or anybody of wrongdoing. I want to see the facts and look at the situation, along with the Committee, and then come back to any further questions we may have.

In the absence of the documentation—even if it has been sent to the Committee by now, I have not had a chance to read it before the debate—I say to the Secretary of State that there will probably be some questions about the precise nature of conversations at the dinner. Whether someone sees a video or not, I would have thought, would have been fairly well stuck in the Secretary of State’s mind. However, when he had been to the dinner, did he immediately inform his officials that he had been present at the dinner, that he had sat next to Mr Desmond, that the matter of the application had been raised with him and that he had refused to discuss it? If so, when was that confirmed with officials? Did he put that in writing to officials, and, if so, did they then advise him whether it was appropriate for him to carry on considering the application and making a judgment about it? If so, was that put in writing to him? If officials had reservations, was that put in writing to him as well?

Did officials and the Secretary of State at any point, therefore, consider whether in the light of the conversations at the dinner and a pretty well documented and considered attempt by the applicant to influence the Secretary of State at the dinner, it might have been appropriate for him to withdraw from the decision made at that time? When the case was going to court and the Secretary of State decided to withdraw his decision, because of the appearance of bias with regard to the financial liability on the developer that would be removed, was any part of his decision to withdraw also based on the possibility of an appearance of bias in relation to the events at the dinner that he or officials concluded might be an issue that came up in court at the time?

In planning, perception can be just as important as the facts. Even if the Secretary of State refused to discuss the matter at the dinner—I completely accept his word on that—should not the fact that the developer with an interest had sat next to him at the dinner and raised the matter with him have alerted him to the possibility of an appearance of bias and of accusations following if he made the decision in favour of the developer? Again, appearances are really important.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

It was a pleasure to serve for four years on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee under the hon. Gentleman’s chairmanship. When he was interviewed recently by the BBC—it might have been Sky—did he not say that there was no information that the Secretary of State was guilty of any wrongdoing? Will he confirm that that was his position then, and is his position now?

[Mr Betts]

We talked about that yesterday. Yes, of course I said there was no evidence. I have not seen any evidence, and I repeated just now that I am not accusing anyone of wrongdoing, What I am saying is that perception and appearances in these matters are almost as important as the facts themselves.

Although the Secretary of State recognises that an informed and fair-minded person might come to the view that there was bias on his part in terms of the liability to the developer that was removed by his decision, did he at any point consider that an informed and fair-minded person might conclude that the events of the dinner could also lead to bias on his part? That seems crucial. If that is the case, when he reflects on the matter now, does he think that he might have done better had he decided not to take part in the decision-making process, once the developer had, quite wrongly—I repeat, the developer had, quite wrongly— tried to influence him at the dinner?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I am now delighted to call, to make his maiden speech, Mr Mark Eastwood.

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[Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this debate, but, alas, I fear the Opposition have misjudged the mood of this House and the country by using parliamentary time for their own political flare-up and indignation. Last December, the Labour party lost vast swathes of support across the country because it came across as completely disconnected from the people and communities that traditionally turned out en masse to support it. Far be it from me to offer political advice to the Opposition, but this debate’s very existence demonstrates that that disconnection is terminal. The Labour party has completely forgone the opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s economic plans to recover from coronavirus.

It is a pleasure to follow Opposition Members, but I fear that they all have a foggy memory and a worrying lack of understanding about the planning process. It is not unusual for Housing Secretaries to call in planning decisions, just as the last Labour Government regularly did, nor is it new or unusual to overrule the Planning Inspectorate on careful and balanced consideration. As for the decision under scrutiny today, the only reason why this issue required a ministerial decision at all was that Tower Hamlets Council repeatedly failed to make a determination in the first place, cancelling five meetings to ensure that they did not make a decision. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, the planning system has robust protections and safeguards in place to ensure the rule of law and the absence of bias.

[Mr Betts]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Jupp]

I am not going to give way.

Ministers involved in the planning process take advice from officials with full disclosure. The insistence from Opposition Members that a ministerial decision was taken after a circumstantial meeting is without basis and totally absurd. Above all, is not today’s debate a missed opportunity for the Opposition to discuss policy, not politics, and delivery in the housing system—something they failed to do time and time again? Should not the planning system be reformed to ensure that planned development for new homes, such as in Tower Hamlets, is encouraged rather than discouraged and not fudged around like it is by Opposition Members? Should we not modernise the planning system to make it easier for councils and developers to deliver more of the homes we need?

I am acutely aware that the Opposition have tried to hold this debate in a narrow political vacuum, but they would be wise to consider their own record when in power—although it was quite a while ago—and the real concerns of the country at large. The country expects us in this House to debate how to tackle the greatest economic and fiscal challenges of our lifetime, including how we are getting the economy going again, how we are safely relaxing restrictions and how we are protecting lives and livelihoods. Yet here the Opposition are trying to weaponise planning decisions to score petty political points—nul points.

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[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I think there is one thing in this debate upon which we can all agree: that my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mark Eastwood) made a fantastic, powerful and personal maiden speech. He is right to say that, when we are first elected to this place, we sit in the Tea Room and talk to each other about the relative merits of our constituencies. He will know that, regrettably, when we turn to talking about majorities, size really does matter.

I should also like to congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Henley (John Howell), for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith), for East Devon (Simon Jupp), for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards), for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for Guildford (Angela Richardson), for West Bromwich East (Nicola Richards), for West Bromwich West (Shaun Bailey), for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) and for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham) on their powerful contributions to the debate.

Let me be clear: we reject any allegations of impropriety either in relation to the appeal at Westferry Printworks or more widely. Today, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, our Department has published the documents on the record regarding the Westferry decision. They are now in the public domain for the full scrutiny of Members and the wider public. Those documents show what we knew from the outset: that no improper action was undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

As my right hon. Friend made clear in his remarks, it is far from uncommon for Ministers to disagree with a planning inspector’s recommendation. The involvement of Ministers in the planning system is clearly guided by both the ministerial code and the guidance set out by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. That guidance details the duty to behave fairly and to approach matters before us with an open mind. As my right hon. Friend has made clear abundantly again and again, the reason for granting planning permission for the proposed development at the Westferry Printworks are detailed in his letter of 14 January.

[Mr Betts]

The Minister is quite right: it is not unusual for the Secretary of State or another Minister to make a planning decision, even in contradiction of a planning inspector’s recommendations. Can he think of another example where a Secretary of State has made a planning decision and then ruled his own decision to be unlawful?

[Christopher Pincher]

There are such examples. Indeed, I remember that the former Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Prescott, overruled his own Planning Inspectorate in order to build a tower like the one proposed at Westferry. The reasons for the granting of permission are fully set out in the sealed order of 21 May. As my right hon. Friend has stated, and as I will reiterate, there was absolutely no impropriety in this case. It is a fundamental legal right that planning decisions may be challenged, and it is by no means unusual for that to happen.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

Again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend. She is absolutely right to highlight the pace of implementation as being important. Registrations for the new building safety fund, which opened on 1 June, have now reached 458. I am pleased to say that the draft building safety Bill will be published soon for scrutiny, and remediation continues across the estate where it is needed, despite the covid-19 crisis. We are determined to do all we can to support residents.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab) [V]]

In remembering all those who lost their lives at Grenfell and the families and friends who are left behind, it is shocking that three years after Grenfell there are still 2,000 high-rise residential blocks that have dangerous cladding on them. The £1 billion building safety fund is welcome, but it will only remediate 600 of those blocks; it will do nothing to touch lower-rise residential accommodation, dangerous insulation and other fire safety defects, leaving thousands of people worried about their safety and their financial circumstances. Will the Minister go back to the Chancellor and put it to him that we now need a great deal more cash—the Select Committee says probably up to £15 billion—to ensure that fire safety defects are removed from all residential buildings within the next two years, which means five years after the Grenfell disaster?

[Christopher Pincher]

As I said in answer to the previous question, pace is crucial in this regard, which is why the Chancellor has made available in this financial year £1 billion to remediate those buildings that suffer from non-ACM cladding. That is on top of the £600 million that we have made available for ACM-clad buildings. The hon. Gentleman is right that it is going to be necessary for a great many buildings to be remediated. We would expect some of that funding to come forward from the building owners so that those who let or are leaseholders in the buildings do not fall liable for the funds. We believe that £1 billion, now, to get on with the job, will go a great deal along the way to make sure that buildings are made safe for their residents.

Planning Process: Probity

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Let me just say that we are straying from what the urgent question is about, so, unfortunately, we will have to move on.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

In the interests of transparency, may I say that the Select Committee has not considered this matter? Last night I did receive a letter from the mayor of Tower Hamlets, but the Committee has not given consideration to that. Does the Minister agree that such matters as this are best dealt with when all the facts are in the public domain, otherwise judgments will be formed along the basis of supposition and conjecture, and, were the Committee to make a request to the Secretary of State, would he be willing to provide us with all relevant documentation so that the Committee could give proper, careful consideration to these matters, based on the facts that are available?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I remind him that the decision of the Secretary of State, as I have already said, is in the public domain. The application is a live one, and documentation will be published in the usual way. We always take seriously, and consider weightily, requests from the Committee, and I am sure that we will happily consider this one. However, my right hon. Friend has published his decision, it is a very clear decision, and all documents will be published in the usual way, as they are through live planning applications.

Covid-19: Housing Market

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 13th May 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We now go over to Sheffield to the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab) [V]]

I welcome much of what the Government have proposed, particularly the help for private tenants. However, we should recognise that many tenants’ rent arrears will grow over time, causing problems not merely for them, but for small private landlords. Will the Secretary of State consider a scheme like the Spanish Government’s, which offers low-interest loans to tenants to help them to pay the rent and the landlords to receive it? As for the market for new housing, if demand for new homes falls, will he consider increasing grants to housing associations and councils so that they can help the construction industry keep going by building more social homes for rent?

[Robert Jenrick]

With respect to supporting the industry, today is too soon to judge with confidence the state of the housing market because there have been so few transactions in recent weeks. However, we stand ready to work with the industry and to help to guide it through what will undoubtedly be an extremely challenging period. We have announced some measures today—for example, enabling councils to defer CIL and section 106 payments. That does not mean that there will be an impact on social infrastructure or affordable homes in the longer term, but it does mean that small and medium-sized enterprise builders in particular can have a bit of breathing space in the weeks and months ahead, which is a critical lesson learnt from the last downturn in the market.

We are thinking carefully about what more we can do to protect renters. Of course, there are other Government schemes, such as the furlough scheme, which is now paying a proportion of millions of working people’s wages and helping to support them through this difficult period. The moratorium on evictions prevents possession proceedings in court at the present time, but we will need to think carefully about what to do when that comes to an end in June.

Planning for the Future

Clive Betts Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I do support groups such as community housing organisations—I know my hon. Friend has an Adjournment debate later today to which the Minister for Housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher) will respond—and we want to ensure that they are properly resourced to take that forward. We want to help smaller communities, particularly in rural areas, to build small numbers of homes—five, 10, 15, whatever might be appropriate for their community—through rural exception sites and the other things he has championed over the years, such as self-building. We will bring forward more measures in the White Paper to help facilitate that.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

There are many things in the statement that I welcome and which I am sure the Select Committee will welcome and will want to look at. Shortly after Grenfell, the Select Committee recommended that all cladding not of limited combustibility be taken off existing high-rise buildings and banned from new buildings, and the £1 billion is a step in that direction, but we will want to analyse whether it is sufficient. On the planning review, in the past the Committee has suggested a comprehensive review of planning, particularly of the changes since 2010. Will the review look at what has worked and what has not worked with regards to the changes and also at the recommendation of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission that there be reform to the permitted development system to ensure minimum standards? Finally, will the Secretary of State have another look at reform of the Land Compensation Act 1961, which we suggested, so as to run down the cost of land, which is an obstacle to development? On the housing needs assessment reforms, which again I welcome, the first changes the Government made actually shifted development from the north to the south. Will he look at whether the system should not be going in reverse and trying to level up by putting more development into the north?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will pay close attention to all those points. Everything the hon. Member listed is within the scope of the planning White Paper, and I would welcome his views and those of the members of his Committee. In reviewing local housing need, we will take account of the need to level up and rebalance the economy, both geographically, from the south to the north, and between areas—for example, by trying to ensure that cities that have depopulated in our lifetime can have more homes built in them to get people and families back into and living in some of our great cities where sadly fewer people are living now than 20 or 30 years ago. I welcome the work he did on the building safety fund, and I hope this will now make a significant difference in helping leaseholders, particularly in private buildings, move forward. We have also opened it up to the social sector, because some housing associations, particularly small ones, and some smaller councils do not have the finances readily available or the ability to borrow to do the work now required. This fund will be open to them to do that, so money should not be a barrier to their moving forward with the remediation works required.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I am sure that the Secretary of State will agree that it is not just about the number of homes, but is also about the quality of those homes. Indeed, he has established the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, which recently produced its report, “Living with beauty.” One of its key recommendations was for substantial reforms to the permitted development right regime, so that in future all homes would have to have minimum space standards, would have to conform to the design guidelines laid down by the local authority and also pay a betterment levy, as laid down by the authority. Is the Secretary of State going to accept those recommendations?

[Robert Jenrick]

I was absolutely delighted by the findings of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. It is an important piece of work and, as I said at the launch of the report, we intend to accept the majority of the findings. I will be responding to that in due course. We must put the question of permitted development rights in context; PDRs have brought forward tens of thousands of homes that would not otherwise exist in this country, and that freedom is an important one that we intend to build on in the planning system. There have been a very small number of abuses where we have seen, frankly, unacceptable standards, including homes being built without any windows. I want to take action against those, because I want everybody to live in good-quality, safe accommodation.

Local Government Finance (England)

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

If the hon. Gentleman will give me a few minutes, I will come on to our ambitious plans for devolution. He will have seen in the Queen’s Speech that later this year we will bring forward a White Paper on English devolution, which we hope will build on the very good work done in recent years, including to establish Mayors across the country.

Today’s settlement is good news on many counts; it provides more money and more stability for councils, but above all, it is good news for local people. We are delivering the best settlement for a decade while keeping people’s council tax bills low. Under the Conservatives, council tax in England is 6% lower in real terms than in 2010. The average council tax bill increase in 2020-21 is projected to be below 4%. That compares to an average increase of 5.8% between 1997 and 2010. It was a Conservative-led Government who ultimately made sure that local people had the final say on their council tax bills, following years of tax rises under Labour.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State says that council tax bills are 6% lower than in 2010, but does he accept the figures produced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which show that in real terms, local government spending per head of the population has fallen by 20% since 2010?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am not familiar with those figures, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that through this settlement, we are providing a 4.4% real-terms increase in spending for councils, while keeping council tax as low as we can.

I am putting forward a controlled package of council tax referendum principles based around a core increase of 2%, with a flexibility of up to £5 for shire district councils. This strikes the right balance between giving local authorities flexibility to meet the needs of their local area and empowering local residents to veto excessive increases.

As we have heard in a number of interventions, we are also fundamentally changing how we allocate council funding, to deliver a fairer, more up-to-date, more transparent way of allocating taxpayers’ money. It must be right to explore how we can bring the increasingly convoluted and outdated funding formula into the 21st century, and how we can better link the funding of public services to the needs of individual local authorities. There is no question but that the fair funding review is a substantial piece of work. There are many different views on the way forward, which raise challenging questions that we will need to work through in the months ahead. We plan to consult widely on our proposals this spring, and to listen to the views that we receive. In that spirit, I hope that we in the House can work together to build consensus, and move forward to a better funding formula.

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[Mr Betts]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way again. I very much welcome the Sheffield city region deal, and I want to pay credit to the previous Northern Powerhouse Minister, the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), for the perseverance he showed in trying to get all the authorities in the city region together to do that deal. Does the Secretary of State agree that any powers that other mayors have must now be made available to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis), Mayor of the Sheffield city region?

[Robert Jenrick]

I happily join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen and others in this House, including the hon. Gentleman, who have persevered with that devolution deal, which at times seemed a forlorn cause but now appears finally on course to being fully implemented. We have made it clear that we will be offering all existing mayors the full suite of powers that are available to Andy Burnham as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, with the exception of the health powers that he exercises—I think there is widespread agreement that a degree of further thought is required before we roll out those powers in other parts of the country, but we are certainly not opposed to doing so once we have given that more time and consideration.

Our English devolution White Paper will look to spread the benefits of greater control to all parts of the country, and this is the right time to do it. At the start of a new Administration and at a moment of national renewal, we must seize the opportunity to reform local government and give more powers back to the public.

Levelling up means firing up our towns through our £3.6 billion towns fund, so that they can be engines of opportunity and growth. From St Ives to Stocksbridge, towns and their local councils are engaging actively in that, using the towns fund to attract private investment and invest in transport, skills, culture and technology.

It means pulling out all the stops to deliver 1 million homes over this Parliament and nurturing places that inspire pride and a strong sense of belonging. I firmly believe that we can build the houses that our country needs—houses of all types, including more affordable homes—while also building safer, greener, more beautiful homes in communities that foster neighbourliness and a true sense of identity. We will be asking a lot of councils. We will be asking them to deliver the housing need of their communities, and in some cases, to do so without encouraging needless urban sprawl or the ruination of the countryside and a loss of the green belt. That will mean that they will have to be ambitious and to develop brownfield land aggressively, as we are seeing in some of the best parts of the country. It will mean reimagining town centres and building upwards with gentle density.

No one can abdicate responsibility for meeting the acute housing needs of our country, and some councils are already leading the way in doing that. Last week, I wrote to councils that are exceeding the housing need of their communities to thank and praise them. I hope that more councils will follow their example, and we will support and incentivise councils in the years ahead to do so.

The investment that we make today is part of a wider picture of investment to renew communities and to address the priorities of the public, which we promised to do in the general election and for which we were lent the support of millions of people across the country, and we now need to repay the trust that they placed in us. We heard about some of that investment earlier today, with the recruitment of 20,000 extra police officers over the next three years.

It also means investing over £14 billion more in our schools between now and 2022—an extra £150 million a week and the largest cash boost in a generation. It means putting more money into our buses, with an extra £220 million in our national bus strategy and £5 billion for buses, cycling and walking, which will play an important part in the lives of all our constituents. It means upgrading our local roads, backed by £28 billion of investment, and more money for potholes. It means committing to fund the Leeds-to-Manchester route as the first stop on our journey to deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail. It means committing to High Speed 2—the spine of the country’s transport network—alongside radical improvements to local transport networks all across the country. It means investing £500 million in new youth clubs and services, and creating a £250 million cultural investment fund to support local libraries, museums and social and cultural capital in our communities.

Thanks to the almost £3 billion of extra investment that we are providing, this settlement will see constituencies in every corner of England getting more money next year, while protecting taxpayers. That means more money for the most vulnerable and the key public services on which we all depend, and a sound basis on which local government can build for the future with confidence. Let us get behind this settlement and allow that good work to begin today.

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[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is right that the spending review is better for local government and that it gives a spending power increase of just over 2% in real terms—I think that was the figure given—but that has to be put in context: it is actually a 5% reduction from 2015-16 and a 20% reduction per head of population in real-terms spending power since 2010. Those are the figures the IFS has produced. Local government has received bigger spending cuts than any other part of the public sector, and we have all experienced that in our constituencies up and down the country, whether they be urban, rural, large city or small town; they have all been hit disproportionately by those cuts.

At least we have some stability this year, as the financial officers in Sheffield have said. For the first time, they are not facing a package of cuts. They have welcomed the £10 million extra for social care, and the city has tried to maintain spending on social care for the elderly, looked-after children and people with disabilities, as have most councils up and down the country, but we know that this is really a one-year settlement, for obvious reasons, and that next time we will probably be looking at a multi-year settlement. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) talked about the fair funding review, but that is not about an increased budget in total; it is just about redistribution. Somebody will lose out, unless the Government put more money in so that everybody gains. That will be the challenge that comes out of the review.

There is also supposedly the retention of up to 75% of business rates, and maybe some impact from the business rates review itself—who knows? These all major changes. The question is: is this year the lull before storm for many authorities or the beginning of better things to come? That is the test for the Government. Another test is: is austerity really over? That was the question the IFS asked in its comments about the spending review and the figures I quoted from its report. Is austerity really over? What do we even mean by “an end to austerity”? That is an even bigger question. Does it simply mean that local authorities will not have to make any more cuts in overall terms, or does it mean they will have resources to undo some of the cuts they have had to make?

To my mind, the answer has to be the second one. An end to austerity has to mean going back and putting more money into the services that have been so badly cut over the years. As councils have tried to protect social care, other services—my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) very properly went through them—be they buses, leisure, libraries, street repairs or refuse collection, have been cut consistently by up to 50%. We cannot continue to see more cuts in those important services, and, moreover, we cannot continue without some restitution of the services that have already been cut.

I heard what the Secretary of State said about the review of social care and the need for cross-party debate and, hopefully, agreement. I am more than happy to join in with that, and I am sure that the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee will be as well. We dealt with the issue in the last Parliament, and I think that our joint report provided a good basis for progress. Realistically, however, any significant change in social care funding will probably not happen during the current Parliament. What we need is more money put into the current system, at least for the foreseeable future.

Let me identify two areas of concern—apart from social care—that are having a real impact on my constituency and nationally. Like many MPs, I regularly raise road safety issues on behalf of constituents. One concerns the need for yellow lines at the end of Moor Farm Avenue, a road that leads from a private estate to the very busy Mosborough Moor. Those yellow lines would ensure that the corners—the junctions—were kept free of obstruction, so that motorists leaving the estate would have a better sightline to vehicles coming in the opposite direction. What has happened? The council’s response is that after years of funding cuts, it cannot satisfy all requests. That scheme is one of 1,600 on a waiting list in the city of Sheffield.

Another issue is the lack of a crossing outside Halfway Nursery Infant School. I have been campaigning for that crossing for 10 years. At present, it is dangerous for children and their parents to cross the road, but the council can fund only a couple of schemes a year in the whole city.

I wonder where the Liberal Democrats are tonight. I do not know whether my eyesight is failing, but I cannot see anyone on the Liberal Democrat Benches. However, they campaign locally, and every scheme is a priority, although when they were in government we experienced the biggest ever year-on-year cuts in local authority spending. But never mind: the point is that these schemes are important, and council funding for them has been cut by more than 50%.

The other day I read an important article in the Daily Mail—I am sure that the Secretary of State reads nothing else at his breakfast table. According to that article, the Food Standards Agency has doubled its estimate of the number of intestinal illnesses caused by takeaway and restaurant food each year, and 2.4 million cases of such illnesses are linked to food contamination. That, it says, is connected with the reduced number of local authority environmental health officers who carry out food safety checks. Another important service provided by local authorities has been diminished and run down, and, again, not making cuts is not enough: we need money for authorities to be able to reinstate those services.

I welcomed the Secretary of State’s comments about devolution. I think he has a genuine commitment to and enthusiasm for it. The Select Committee began an inquiry into the issue before the election, and I hope that we will continue that inquiry, because I think that, along with social care, this is an issue on which we can work to secure cross-party agreement.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

First, may I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) on what I thought was a really thoughtful maiden speech? It is quite telling when councillors come into this place. The experience and insight they bring, regardless of party affiliation, means that we are actually at one when it comes to the need for reform of local government. I very much welcome her contribution on that point.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who is the Chair of the Select Committee, for the contribution he made and the insight he brings to this debate. He made it very clear, from information from the IFS, that we have now seen a 20% reduction in spending power since 2010. He asked the question that we all ask: if austerity is over, what does that mean in practice? Does it mean just that the funding cuts stop today, or does it mean that we will begin to rebuild what has been taken from many of our local communities since 2010?

My hon. Friend also laid out a statistic that was new to me—I was surprised by this, but perhaps I should not be so surprised—which is that 2.4 million cases have been linked to food contamination. No doubt a reduction in the number of our public health officials has played a part in that, but in England we are behind. In Wales, a takeaway has to display its food hygiene ratings on the door of the premises, as it does on online ordering platforms, in a way that a takeaway in England does not have to do. In addition to the need to rebuild our public health functions, we need to move forward and make sure we have mandatory food hygiene ratings so that people can make an informed choice about where they buy food.

As always, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) gave a real insight into the impact of cuts and austerity on her community. There are a staggering 848 looked-after children—almost doubling since 2010—with council services left at crisis point. There is a real tension: the Government have of course reduced the central grant and council tax is going up all the time, but the very councillors who are working to protect their community and their council often face the most criticism from local people for the very difficult decisions they have to make. That is a very difficult task for many.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), as always, gave a London insight, painting a picture that we are not always used to hearing about in this place. We very much hear the story that London is thriving and the rest of England is really struggling, but we see real pockets of deprivation in this great capital that should shame us all. We are seeing every local authority really struggling to make ends meet and demand for services really going through the roof.

My hon. Friend also made the case, and I absolutely support this, for saying that we cannot believe that devolution in London has finished. The problem with devolution in England is that we look to London, and we discount it for the rest of England, believing that the job here is done, and it absolutely is not. If we look at devolution in our major cities around the world—New York, Tokyo and other places—we see real fiscal devolution and real law-making powers devolved to a local level, in a way that leaves London in the shadows. When we talk about levelling up, there is a need not just to talk about redistributing finance and capital investment, but about the powers needed across all our major towns and cities in this country to make sure that every community has the right to determine their own future.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) was absolutely blunt in his assessment. It was interesting to hear the exchange across the Chamber on parts of that, but we can understand why tempers are so frayed on this fraught issue. How can it be right that 40% of a council’s budget—£232 million—has been taken away from local public services. In the midst of all that, when my right hon. Friend raises those issues and the impact on his community and reflects on the local authority’s difficulty in trying to balance the books, we have people who for reasons of cynical political game playing decide to make the local council the target, instead of laying the blame where it thoroughly deserves to be, which is of course with the Government who are pushing through those cuts.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), a councillor for 14 years, is also adding real quality to this place. We need more councillors coming here—maybe it should be a prerequisite of coming to this place, as perhaps then we would have a better quality of debate. The figure of £800 per person cut from that local authority is absolutely eye-watering. Although we bat around the numbers, as they are important, what this really means is that those essential services that make a place a decent place to live have been affected: the community centre is not open any longer; the library is now closed; the Sure Start centre that gave young kids the real start in life that they need is no longer there. A startling report today says that life expectancy is going backwards for women and is stalling for men. How can that be right? We are seeing a decrease that this country has not seen for 120 years. Why? It is because of the lost decade of Tory austerity. That cannot be right.

May I just place on record, as my boss my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) did, a tribute to the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) for the work he did as the Northern Powerhouse Minister? One thing that I enjoyed about the right hon. Gentleman was that he knew how to take a good rebuttal, and the exchanges that we had were fun and in good spirit and were a good challenge. He worked hard behind the scenes to try to make progress on devolution, and I hope that continues.

My final point is that we cannot afford to continue this pressure on council tax. We all know that council tax is out of date, and maybe next April, when council tax revaluations turn 30, we can have a big party and crack open the sausage rolls, the prawn cocktails could come out and maybe a bit of fizzy orange, or perhaps we should look back and recognise that there has been a collective failure on council tax revaluation and the need to modernise. Governments duck this because it is not popular, but we now have a system that is very unfair.

How can it be right that over the last five years we have seen council tax increase by a third in England? That is not right. What would happen if income tax was increased by a third in the same period? What would happen if national insurance was increased by a third in the same period? What would happen if VAT was increased by a third in the same period? What would happen if fuel duty was increased by a third in the same period? And, God forbid, what would happen if beer duty was increased by a third in the same period? There would be a riot in the Strangers’ Bar as we speak. But of course there is not a riot over the council tax increase. Why? Because we can defer blame down to local councils, but it is just not good enough. Today we see that low-income families have 8% of their household income taken for council tax while that figure is only 1% for higher earners. That cannot be right. It is hugely regressive and it is getting worse with every year that passes.

If the Government really want to address this, it requires maturity. It requires a forward view and it requires a clear strategy that has to be more progressive and up to date, and must reflect geographical variations. It must also recognise that council tax has its limitations. Of course property tax is very important, but it cannot take the burden of adult social care and children’s services, and it cannot be right that our ability to receive adult social care in older age is determined by a house value 29 years ago, any more than whether a child gets the care that they need to protect them from harm is determined by the same measure.

We need to grow up on this; we need to tackle it, and we need a solution that puts councils in the right place for the long term.

[Mr Betts]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We need a separate funding stream for adult social care, as the two Select Committees recommended in the last Parliament. Also, my Select Committee recommended a review of council tax very much along the lines that the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) recommended, but the Government just dismissed it in their response and said they were not minded to do a review of any kind. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is disappointing?

[Jim McMahon]

It is disappointing, but is inevitable in a way, because there would be winners and losers—and, let’s be honest, the winners would be the poorest who have less agency to mount a campaign and the losers would be the wealthiest, the people with agency who can mount a campaign in objection to it, and the major right-wing newspapers will also mount a campaign against it. It will be called the garden tax, the conservatory tax, the porch tax, or the driveway tax, but it will never be a tax that is actually deemed to be fair. But that is what this country needs; it cannot be right in England that we carry on with such an unfair tax system.

If the Government want to be mature—if they want to look long-term, if they genuinely want to take the politics out of this, which is probably what is needed—I am sure our side would be looking to contribute to that, but if they want to wilfully ignore the impact on low-income families and on many local authorities now not able to fund decent local services, I am afraid they can expect strong opposition on this side.

Homelessness

Clive Betts Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right and I do not understand the chatter from Opposition Members. The street homelessness challenge that this country faces is not simply a housing issue but an issue of addiction and mental health, and this Government intend to bring those together for the first time in a properly co-ordinated approach between our Departments.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State referred to the local housing allowance. About a year ago, the National Audit Office did a damning report for the Public Accounts Committee, stating that the Government had done no proper analysis of the connection between their welfare reform policies and homelessness. Will he rectify that with his colleagues in the DWP and produce such an analysis for the House?

[Robert Jenrick]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are working together very closely—I regularly meet my colleagues in the DWP, and in fact we will meet this week. All our proposals will be co-ordinated and done jointly because we understand that this issue needs to be joined up—not just with the DWP, as I said, but with the Health Secretary, so that we get the added links to addiction and mental health, and the Home Secretary, so that the law enforcement side of this works together. We will be taking forward a co-ordinated strategy across all Departments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liam Byrne]

I would add to the hon. Gentleman’s list, because not only does the YMCA do an amazing job, but so do St Basils, with the work of Jean Templeton; Tabor House; the Good Shepherd Ministry in Wolverhampton, which the Secretary of State mentioned; Homeless One; and the Ummah Care Foundation, where I used to work in a soup kitchen on a Sunday night. This coalition of kindness is basically the last bastion of civility in our country. Thank God for them.

What we now need in our region is the biggest council house building programme since the second world war. What we need is a private sector, region-wide licensing scheme to stamp out bad practice. What we need are street teams delivering 24/7 addiction and mental health support. We need to radically expand the shelter that is available from places such as Tabor House and the Good Shepherd Ministry—places that provide not only shelter, but sanctuary, not just a house, but a home. But we need a Government who help, too.

We need the Government to start by abolishing the Vagrancy Act 1824. I cannot be the only person in this House who thinks that homeless people do not need handcuffs—they need a helping hand. We should replace that with Kane’s law. We should bring together the Department for Work and Pensions, the Prison Service, the health system and local government, and create an obligation on them to collaborate not only to remedy homelessness, but to prevent homelessness. I have met too many people fresh out of prison at 4 o’clock in the morning in Birmingham. I have met too many people who have been sanctioned on to the streets by the DWP. Let us end this injustice once and for all.

[Mr Betts]

My right hon. Friend is making a valid point. I am sure he recognises that we tried to amend the Homelessness Reduction Bill in Committee to place a responsibility on other public agencies to address homelessness. What we got was a duty on them to refer people to housing departments, not to address it themselves.

[Liam Byrne]

What we need is what I have called Kane’s law, in memory of Kane Walker, who lost his life on the streets of Birmingham last year: a duty on public agencies to collaborate to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place. Let us put alongside that the restoration of housing benefit for young people, who do not pay lower rents than anybody else; let us make sure that we take off the caps on housing benefit, which cover only two thirds of the average rent in a city like Birmingham; and let us end the shame of “no recourse to public funds”, which means that those who come to our country to seek sanctuary are ending up on the streets.

The great tragedy of this debate is that if we summoned the will, we could, together, make homelessness history. We on the Opposition Benches are determined either to find a way or to make a way. We want to know whether the Secretary of State is with us or against us.

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[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) on their excellent maiden speeches. I am sure that the warm tributes they rightly paid to their predecessors were recognised by many Members across the House.

The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 is the only Act to have involved pre-legislative scrutiny of a private Member’s Bill by a Select Committee, and the benefits of that were shown by the involvement not only of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who introduced the Bill, but by that of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, the Government, Crisis and the Local Government Association. They produced an Act that is good in so many respects, as it concentrates on the prevention of homelessness, while also dealing with the issues faced by those who are not a priority for housing provision, but who still need appropriate advice and assistance.

I wish to consider how the Act might be made to work better. At the beginning of the process the Committee was concerned about a lack of funding, and the LGA still expresses those concerns. At Sheffield City Council, the Director of Housing and Neighbourhoods, Janet Sharpe, and cabinet member Paul Wood, told me that generally speaking they have had good working relationships with Government officials. Indeed, I think Sheffield is now regarded as something of a model for how the Act should be implemented, and I receive virtually no complaints from constituents about homelessness—a real change from where we used to be.

The Director of Housing and Neighbourhoods also told me that the council is having to take on more staff to deal with the 56-day extension to the prevention requirements in the Act, and to offer extra advice and assistance to people in non-priority categories. However, those staff are not covered by the extra money provided by the Government. She also said that, as opposed to previously when the supporting people programme provided all the money, the council now has to apply for a whole range of different funding streams to get the necessary resources to deliver on the Act. Those schemes must be applied for, monitored, and contracts drawn up. Indeed, the council is employing an officer just to do that applying and monitoring. Can we not change that and make it simpler?

Secondly, because of the extra demand, and the extra requirement for temporary accommodation with the 56-day rule, in order to avoid increasing the number of families in bed and breakfasts, the local authority wants to build two new projects for temporary accommodation. I support that good and positive move, but Homes England’s policies are not flexible enough to recognise the difference in funding needs and requirements for temporary accommodation, compared with ordinary residential accommodation. Will the Secretary of State look again at that?

Those are two proposals from Sheffield’s housing department for ways in which the Act, and its delivery, could be improved.

Flats and Shared Housing: Fire Risk

Clive Betts Excerpts

Tuesday 28th January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes an excellent point. I will address that very issue, which is of great concern to many of the residents I represent and to many people across the country. I heard a very moving report on BBC radio over the weekend discussing the concerns of a young couple in Leeds who were living in a block with ACM cladding and who were deeply traumatised not only by the fire safety issues, but by the lack of amelioration of these serious problems. That links to insurance, and to the situation that leaseholders in such blocks face.

I find it simply staggering that two and a half years after the Grenfell disaster, the Government are still only beginning to address this terribly important issue. Little ACM cladding has been removed in that period. In my borough of Reading, four blocks were identified by Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service as having ACM cladding on the exterior. I believe that only one of them is in the process of having that cladding removed, and that represents a very serious continuing fire risk.

I have been advised that that risk may be getting worse because of the continued possibility of human error. Although additional fire safety measures have been instituted—such as waking watches, where fire wardens are on site during the night—as time goes by, there is a greater possibility that a resident or another person will accidentally do something that induces a fire risk, or that some other problem will cause an accident or a terrible tragedy. I have been advised by fire service personnel that with the passage of time, the risk of human error increases, so the fact that nothing has happened to address the issue in the past two and a half years is significant. The problem is ongoing, and it may be getting worse because of the lack of response from central Government.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) rightly pointed out, local residents who live in blocks with ACM cladding face significant stress and concern. The issue affects many of us around the country, because many towns and cities have blocks containing that dreadful material and very few buildings have had it removed. Many of the people affected are private tenants or leaseholders, who have little recourse to take any substantial action on their own. They are often locked into a situation where the freeholder has the power to remove the material but is struggling to do so. Alternatively, they may need to come together with other leaseholders, and it may be difficult in practical terms to agree a way forward. I urge the Government to address that issue in particular. I hope and believe that the Minister is very much in listening mode and will consider how best to push that forward immediately.

I will also pick up on some related concerns. ACM cladding has been mentioned in the Grenfell inquiry, the second part of which opened only yesterday. Without going into significant details, it is worth pointing out that from the opening day of the second phase of the inquiry, it appears that some businesses involved may have known about the potential fire safety risk of ACM cladding some time before the Grenfell disaster. That relates to the problem of current ACM cladding. Cross-party support for much tougher action appears to be emerging. I listened with interest to the comments of Lord Porter, the Conservative chairman of the Local Government Association and a Member of the other place, who rightly picked up on the Government’s lack of action on this important matter.

There are many other forms of cladding, and I will mention some concerns that have been raised with me about the wide range of other materials. In Reading, two buildings have other types of cladding that have caused fire safety concerns. One is the Chatham Place development—it is a series of large multi-storey blocks near the town centre—which has wooden cladding. Wooden cladding is a serious issue, which we need to address as well as ACM; indeed, it played a part in the recent fire in Barking, which was very nearly a complete tragedy. Luckily, residents managed to escape.

Serious concerns have been raised regarding other forms of composite material. Crossway Point, another large block in my constituency that contains a lot of social housing, has other forms of cladding that also need to be addressed urgently. Indeed, there was another fire in Bolton, in the north of England, from which students had a very lucky escape; the Minister is nodding wisely. I appreciate that colleagues in central Government are aware of the problems, but I ask them to act as fast as they can to deal with the wide range of cladding issues.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I know that the Government are doing a review of those other materials. Are we not slightly uncomfortable about the fact that material that has now been banned from use on new buildings under Government regulations is still allowed on existing buildings? Materials that are not of limited combustibility cannot be put on new buildings, but such materials are still on existing buildings, and they pose a risk to residents.

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The issue is that the use of such materials has been allowed for many years, and we now face a national crisis—I do not use that word lightly—in building safety and standards, with a legacy of dangerous materials across the whole United Kingdom. We need to take urgent and determined action to address that. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I understand that the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government, which he chairs, has carried out some excellent work on that issue, and he is working on a cross-party basis to try to move the matter forward as fast as possible.

I am aware of the need to press on. I will address some specific issues beyond the exterior of buildings, because a number of important points have been made about internal fire safety, an area in which serious dangers could also be lurking for many existing buildings. I draw colleagues’ attention to the issue of fire safety doors, and I will give two examples from Reading residents I have spoken to who have serious concerns about this matter. Obviously, because of the number of buildings that are either tall or are flatted developments, fire safety doors should play a crucial part in stopping the spread of fire—rather like compartmentalisation, which I will come to later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) on an excellent opening contribution. It was serious, thoughtful and comprehensive. I am sure the Minister will respond accordingly, as my hon. Friend made some valid points.

I begin by thanking hon. Members for re-elected me as Chair of the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government. I say that because I want to refer to the Committee’s work on these matters in the previous Parliament. It looked many times at post-Grenfell issues. Dame Judith Hackitt and Ministers appeared before the Committee, to discuss her excellent report and the Government’s response.

I could not be in the House last Monday, but I read what the Secretary of State had to say on further Government proposals. Most are welcome and I think there is cross-party agreement about the direction of travel. The cross-party concern on the Select Committee has been that while the Government’s response has ultimately moved in the right direction, they have not moved as quickly as they should have done. Many of the proposals that the Government are now considering implementing were recommended by the Select Committee some time ago.

The cladding and aluminium composite material were a major factor in the Grenfell disaster. The Government moved very quickly to ban that material, and they were right to do so. The problem is that it has taken time to remove it from buildings. There are still far too many buildings with ACM material on them, partly because, even though the Government brought in the ban, it took an awful long time to persuade the Treasury to come up with the funding to remove the material from social housing, and then to offer a financial assistance scheme to the private sector.

There is a real issue that will affect any other Government action on leasehold properties. It is absolutely right that leaseholders are in no position to pay for cladding removal. In cases involving fairly recent developments, the property developer may still be the freeholder, so the ownership will not have changed and they might be in a financial position to pay for the cladding to be removed. If the freehold has been sold to a company whose only source of income is ground rent, that company is unlikely to be able to fund the removal. That is a Catch-22 situation. If neither leaseholder nor the freeholder can pay for it, we are back with Government responsibility.

That leads us to other forms of cladding. The Government have quite rightly banned the use of non-limited combustibility materials on new development. However, certain cladding that cannot be put on new buildings is allowed to remain on existing buildings. There is something fundamentally wrong with that situation. I hope it does not take another disaster before the Government recognise that some of that other material has to come off as well. I know that the review is taking place. Experts tell me that zinc composite material is just as dangerous and combustible as aluminium composite material. High-pressure laminate material has been reviewed and tested. It is not allowed on new buildings but it can stay on existing buildings. As my hon. Friend said, there is also wood cladding material. If, eventually, the Treasury were asked to fund a scheme for those materials that is similar to that used for ACM, the bill would potentially run up to £3 billion. I suspect that is why Ministers cannot move faster at present. There is a real challenge there.

My hon. Friend rightly mentioned that this is not just about height. The focus has been on buildings that are more than six or 10 storeys, but buildings do not necessarily have to be high in order to be at potential major risk. Such buildings include student accommodation, residential accommodation for the elderly, hotels, hospitals or nursing homes. The risk posed to each is different, and there must be specific regulations to deal with it. Any material of limited combustibility on those buildings, irrespective of their height, creates a greater risk. That is something else that the Government now have to address.

The Select Committee also focused on an issue that came out of Dame Judith’s report—namely conflicts of interest, which often mean that the wrong things are done. I will highlight just two examples. The first involves building inspectors appointed by the developer who then sign off the work of the company that appointed them. Dame Judith was caustic about this practice, and she made it very clear that this has to end. That does not mean that every building should be inspected by a local authority-employed inspector, but the local authority should do the appointing so that there are no conflicts of interest, and that has to be resolved quickly.

The Royal Riverside development in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) is horrible case. The resident students had to be moved out by the council and the university. The building had been signed off as fit to live in, but there were fire doors missing and it had not had a fire risk assessment. A whole catalogue of problems meant that the building was a real fire risk, but it had been signed off by the building inspector, who could not have been to the site to check those things. It was proved later that he had not been to the site. This is simply not acceptable.

Fire authorities also have conflicts of interest. They often set up their own trading arms and then mark their own homework. That has to stop as well, and the Committee was very clear on that.

[Kate Green]

May I draw my hon. Friend’s attention, and that of the Minister, to a third conflict of interest, in relation to warranties? Warranty providers appoint their own approved inspectors, which, again, leaves the resident with no independent redress.

[Mr Betts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that further conflict of interest. The National House Building Council refused to honour a warranty because the development had not been signed off by its own building inspector. That is in the small print of the warranty agreement. These fundamental problems need to be addressed.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East has said, people in private sector accommodation face fire risks. Houses in multiple occupation have real challenges and difficulties. My hon. Friend drew attention to licensing schemes, which are really valid. It is not the licence itself that matters, but managing the licence and ensuring that proper inspections are done. Local authority resources are key, but local authorities often do not have the resources to do it properly. I am disappointed that the Government did not accept the Select Committee’s recommendation that it should be down to the local authority to decide which areas should have licensing schemes. Why do the Government have to second-guess this? We said this should be a local authority decision. In the age of devolution and local democracy, let local authorities do it. As long as people can appeal to the Secretary of State if local authorities do not follow the proper process, the decision should be for the local authority and local community, and not something for Ministers to second-guess.

The Minister kindly wrote to me about the Government’s right decision to bring in inspections every five years of electrical installations in private rented accommodation. The Select Committee recommended that in 2015, which was five years ago—we got there in the end. She can probably give a very simple answer on this point. She said that the work will be signed off by a “competent inspector”, but what does that mean? One of the problems with part P of the building regulations is that, although there is a competent person scheme, that does not mean, ironically, that a competent person has to do the work. It simply means that the company has to be part of a competent person scheme and that it has someone with the necessary qualification, but that someone does not necessarily have to be the person who does the work. Will the inspectors have a certificate to say they are competent, or will they simply be employed by a company that is part of the competent persons scheme? That is a really fundamental point.

My hon. Friend has covered many points, and I will not go into all of them. He raised an important issue about not just how well buildings are built when it comes to fire safety, but about how they are managed and maintained afterwards. One of the strengths of Dame Judith’s report was that it looked at the whole life of buildings, including residents’ involvement in ensuring that they are properly informed about their buildings, and at how buildings are maintained and managed. It also looked at ensuring that a properly accountable person is in place to do that, so that the organisation has rules and procedures on whether doors should be changed to improve their fire resistance, whether they are being kept open, and whether they are being properly maintained. All of those issues are absolutely crucial to the safety of buildings.

There are an awful lot of issues to examine; the Minister is probably grappling with some of them in her new post. There are major challenges. I look forward to the Minister, along with Dame Judith, attending the Select Committee before long, to see what progress has been made. Our job is to challenge and scrutinise the Government, and hopefully to push them to move a little quicker than they have moved in the past.

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[The Minister for Housing (Esther McVey)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

I thank the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for securing this debate and for speaking so thoughtfully on fire safety last week in the Grenfell Tower public inquiry debate. I am also grateful to all Members who brought key issues before us today and made pertinent points. I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Select Committee. His job is to scrutinise, and he has been present to do exactly that. There is much—if not all—that we agree on, but the question is how we deliver safety to everyone so that when they go to bed of a night time, they know that they are in a safe home and can feel safe and secure.

I hope to get through the points that everyone has made as best I can, but I will also recap briefly some of the key things that we have already done, because people have asked what has been done. The Government have committed to bringing about the biggest changes in building safety regulation in almost 40 years. After the Grenfell Tower tragedy, we took decisive action on the safety risks exposed by that fire. We banned the use of combustible materials in cladding systems on high-rise tower blocks and committed to £600 million of funding to replace aluminium composite materials of the Grenfell style. In the autumn, we committed to adopting in full the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower inquiry phase 1 report and, on 21 January, we published our Government response to that report. However, as more issues arise, the Secretary of State says that we will widen up to address concerns as they are brought forward.

We have established the new regulator, and we are doing that at pace. We are ensuring that the regulator has the information it needs. We are reviewing fire safety guidance and the sprinkler and fire safety measures, going further on combustible materials, which the hon. Member for Sheffield South East spoke about. We are providing clear advice to building owners, setting clear expectations for all residential buildings, for remediation of fire doors—that was raised—ensuring that there is a more comprehensive assessment of building risk, speeding up the remediation of unsafe ACM cladding, reviewing all remediation timescales and ensuring sufficient action. Inaction will not be allowed. We will bring forward the fire safety Bill and the building safety Bill to ensure that the necessary remediation happens. We will also support those who were affected. I agree wholeheartedly that that must be done at pace. The hon. Member for Reading East talked about the enormous scale of the task. What we do has to be thorough and rigorous, but it has to go at pace.

The Government have also accepted the independent Dame Judith Hackitt review of building safety, and we will introduce that legislation. We expect all housing developers not only to deliver good-quality housing, but to deliver it on time and to treat house buyers fairly. We intend to legislate to introduce a requirement for developers of new home buildings to belong to a new homes ombudsman, to protect the interests of home buyers and to hold developers to account when things go wrong. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) raised that point. What are those developers doing, how are we bringing them to account and are they delivering the building—the homes—that people expect?

[Mr Betts]

The new homes ombudsman is an interesting idea, and we look forward to hearing from the Government about the timetable for that legislation. Will the ombudsman have teeth? If it finds one of those scandalous situations in which developers have built shoddy homes, will individuals be able to get compensation? Will the ombudsman be able to ensure that the compensation is paid?

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Gentleman is correct. The ombudsman must have teeth so that it can support homeowners and ensure that they get full recompense. It must have teeth so that they will not be needed, and so that people follow the rules, the guidelines and the regulations.

Members have talked about sprinkler system safety. Our consultation on sprinklers and other measures for new build flats is now closed, and we have carefully considered the responses. The Secretary of State has said that he is minded to lower the height threshold from 18 metres to 11 metres. We will set out detailed proposals on that and the plans for other aspects in the full technical review of the fire guidance in February.

In December 2018, the Government banned the use of combustible materials on the external walls of high-rise buildings, and my Department has concluded the review into the effectiveness of the ban. Last week, the Department launched a consultation on the ban, including on lowering the height threshold from 18 to 11 metres. As I said, when things come forward, we have to look afresh, and that is why there has been a wider consultation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Member makes a good point. I wonder whether we could have a meeting to talk about some of the things we think should be put in place, so that I can make representations to the Secretary of State and the Chancellor.

I would like to leave some time for the hon. Member for Reading East to make his closing remarks, but first I want to talk about the stringent rules that private landlords must follow. By law, privately rented properties must already be free from the most serious health and safety hazards, which include fire. Landlords must put up smoke detectors on every floor, and they must have gas boilers and installations checked every year. Earlier this month, we laid before the House regulations requiring landlords to carry out safety inspections at least every five years, and to prove that the electrics in their property meet the legal standard. If they do not, the landlord must get the work done to make them safe.

The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) mentioned electrical safety inspections and the safety of electrical goods that people buy and plug in at home. He asked whether we could work with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and other Departments to ensure that such goods are safe. That is a fair point. We do work across Departments, but we need to do that as well as we possibly can. Landlords must ensure that all fire escapes are clear—

[Mr Betts]

Will the Minister give way?

[Esther McVey]

I will, but I was just about to talk about households in multiple occupation—a point that the hon. Gentleman raised.

[Mr Betts]

Going back briefly to inspections, what is a competent inspector? The question of who will do the inspections is important.

[Esther McVey]

As time is running out, I will write to the hon. Gentleman to explain what is meant by a competent inspector.

Enforcement is key. We will hold landlords to account to ensure enforcement. At the end of the day, we must ensure that homes are safe and people can sleep safely at night, knowing that we are mindful of those points.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Betts Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

My hon. Friend, as a chartered surveyor, is an expert in this area and, like our parliamentary colleague, he has campaigned vigorously and continuously. In terms of the review, everything is going to be reviewed. It will be a joint review between my Department and the Treasury. All ideas, from all sides of the House, about how we improve the health of our high streets and our business community more generally, will certainly be taken on board.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I want to return to the question from the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), which I do not think the Minister really answered. In the previous Parliament, a unanimously agreed Select Committee report—I think it was generally well received, apart from the response from the Government which was a bit lukewarm—recommended that we address the fundamental imbalance whereby Amazon pays 0.7% of its turnover in business rates and high street shops pay between 2% and 6%. That unfairness needs to be addressed. Will the Government now commit, as part of their business rate review, to look at that unfairness and at how we can rebalance tax, so that digital sales pay more and high street sales pay less?

[Jake Berry]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will not complain if I just take the opportunity to wish him a happy birthday. What a great question to ask on his birthday. If he listened to the answers I gave, I was absolutely clear that this will be a fundamental and wide-ranging review of business rates. All arguments, including those set out in the report by the Select Committee he chaired in the previous Parliament, will be taken into account. Perhaps, if he gets a spare moment this evening in between blowing out candles, he can read the relevant passage of the Conservative manifesto, which is pretty clear on this point.