Building Safety Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I will give way to the Chairman of the Select Committee on Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and then I probably ought to make a little more progress, having thus far read out only one paragraph of my opening remarks.

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

It was very well read, though.

I re-emphasise the point raised by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). The Select Committee will have a very short but very thorough inquiry into the issues that the Secretary of State rightly raised in his statement to the House last week and the follow-up, but debating time in this place is an issue. The Minister’s answer is very helpful because the Lords will have lots of time, and then it is normal for us to have one hour to consider their amendments. The Bill needs a full-day debate because the amendments that the Government intend to make, following consultation with industry, are key to resolving the issue. I appreciate what the Minister said, and I hope the business managers are as supportive when they come to allocate time.

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Gentleman and others remind me of what is often said of politics: even though everything that can be said has been said, not everybody who could say it has said it. He has just spoken for the entire House, and it is of course for the usual channels to determine the time allocated for debating and disposing of business, but the point of view of both sides of the House has thus far, very early in the debate, been heard.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Developer contributions, provided by developers to local authorities in order to undertake important infrastructure works, can often be slow to arrive, if they arrive at all, and they are often not what was expected in the first place. We want to put more power in the hands of local authorities and local communities, and not developers. That is one of the reasons why our infrastructure levy, which is under development, will provide greater transparency and greater certainty for communities about the important infrastructure that they will get.

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

I think there is a desire across the House for a planning system that gets homes built but also recognises the democratic rights of local residents. Looking at the Minister’s planning reforms, may I suggest that he drops his zonal proposals, which are really quite bureaucratic and time consuming, and looks instead to simplify the local plan system, allows for more residents to contribute and be involved in it, and brings in his digital proposals, which have been generally accepted? Once a local plan is in place and an individual application comes in, should there not be a presumption that that application will be accepted where it is in agreement with the local plan, subject to any remaining concerns from residents being taken into account and listened to as part of the consideration of the application?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, who makes some important and powerful points. He is right that we need to have more people engaged in the planning system. He will know that presently, about 1% of the local community engages in local plan making; that is, as near as damn it, local planners and their blood relations. That rises to as much as 2% or 3% of the local community engaging in individual local planning applications. We want to make sure that we have an engaging process and that we use digitisation to help us with that, and we will consider his proposals as we move forward with our important planning reforms.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I am sure the Minister has had a busy weekend reading the Select Committee report on the planning system. In it, he will have seen that the Committee was supportive of the Government’s proposals to improve and enhance the local plan system, particularly through getting more public involvement by making the plans digital. That is to be welcomed. However, many people in our evidence-taking were concerned that once a local plan has been agreed, local people will lose their right to have any meaningful say in individual planning applications. That was a real concern that was expressed to us, so when the Government respond to the report and to its wider consultation, will they look again at how they can ensure that local people have a meaningful voice on individual applications, particularly those in the renewal areas, which are often very contentious?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Select Committee for his report. We will consider it carefully, as we always do, and I am pleased that he has, with some caveats, been so very supportive of our proposals. He asks about the way in which we can better democratise our planning system. The fact is that 3% of all planning applications are engaged with by the local community, yet 90% of planning applications go through, so only a small number of people are engaging with the planning process and the overwhelming number of plans go through anyway. I do not think that that is particularly engaged or democratic, and we are seeking to bring forward the democratic element of plan making so that local people can have a real and meaningful place and decision-making role in what happens in their communities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

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

What progress he has made on the design of the loan scheme to fund the removal of cladding on buildings under 18 metres in height.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

Hundreds of thousands of leaseholders will be protected from the cost of replacing unsafe cladding. Funding will be targeted at the highest-risk buildings in line with long-standing independent expert advice and evidence, while lower-rise buildings with a lower risk profile will gain new protection from the costs of cladding removal through the long-term, low-interest, Government-backed finance scheme through which leaseholders will pay no more than £50 per month. We will publish more details on how the scheme will work as soon as we are in a position to do so.

[Mr Betts [V]]

I thank the Minister for his answer; I look forward to more details. In the meantime, will he confirm that the loan will be a charge on the freeholder, that there will be no addition to the debt of any individual leaseholder, and that it will not affect the valuation of leasehold properties? On the money that is to be raised from the levy and financial contributions, will that be in addition to the £3.5 billion that the Government have announced, or will it go to offset the amount of the £3.5 billion that the Government will have to find?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the Chairman of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for his question. We certainly do not wish for any costs to follow the leaseholder through their life, so he is certainly right to assume that the charge will be applied to the building and not to the leaseholder and that, therefore, their credit rating will not be affected by it. He also asked about how the funding mechanism will work. The Chancellor will say more about that at the Budget, so I do not think I should say any more at this point, but we certainly want to ensure that leaseholders are appropriately and properly protected from unforeseen and unfair costs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker—happy new year to you. I am sure it would be remiss of me if I did not say that your local constituency football team have made rather a good start to this year.

In saying happy new year to the Minister as well, I am sure he would want it to be a happy new year for all leaseholders, but he did not really answer the question from the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). Even if a loan scheme were introduced to cover the costs of these defects, and even if it was a very low-interest scheme, that would still be a capital charge on properties—a capital charge that would be a considerable financial burden on leaseholders, would put many of them into negative equity, and would mean that their properties were unsaleable. Will the Minister accept that a loan scheme that puts an additional debt on leaseholders is not a fair way out of this problem and that he should instead look to the industry and to Government to cover the cost of putting these defects right?

[Christopher Pincher]

The Chair of the Select Committee is absolutely right—we should look to developers and to building owners to remedy the defects in their buildings. We have made available to owners who are not able to remedy those defects quickly and effectively £1.6 billion in order to remedy those defects. As I said in my earlier answer, we do not want and we do not expect hard-pressed leaseholders to bear unfair costs of defects for which they are not responsible. That is why we are working quickly to bring forward a long-term solution to ensure that costs are met, that defects are remedied, and that the position that leaseholders find themselves in is remedied too.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government if he will make a statement on whether leaseholders are expected to pay for the removal of dangerous cladding from their homes.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government, on securing the urgent question, which is of huge interest and concern to many of our constituents up and down the country.

The question of who pays for remediation works is key for the Government and many of our constituents. We have been clear that leaseholders should not have to worry about the cost of fixing historical safety defects in their buildings that they did not cause. Test have shown clearly that aluminium composite material—the kind of cladding found on Grenfell Tower—is the most dangerous form of cladding material. We continue to engage with building owners, regulators and the wider industry to ensure that it is removed from high-rise residential buildings as quickly as possible.

ACM remediation costs are being funded through several sources, including warranties, building owners and developers. We have provided £600 million to fund the removal of ACM where funding has been a key barrier to remediation and the Chancellor of the Exchequer has allocated a further £1 billion to be spent on removing other types of unsafe cladding over the current financial year.

It is important to remember that this is a multi-year problem. Remediation work cannot be done overnight and it must be done properly so that it makes buildings and residents safe. That forms part of the ongoing discussion that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has with other Departments.

However, I am clear, and I hope that the House is clear, that public funding does not absolve the industry from taking responsibility. We expect developers, investors and building owners who have the means to pay to cover remediation costs themselves without passing on costs to leaseholders, but we recognise that there are cases where that might not be possible, and cases where there may be wider costs relating to historical defects. The Government are determined to identify suitable financial solutions and remove barriers to remediation.

The Government have asked Michael Wade to accelerate his work with leaseholders and the financial sector to develop proposals to protect leaseholders from the costs of remediating historical defects wherever possible. However, we must also ensure that the bill does not fall wholly on taxpayers. We will update leaseholders on that work before the Building Safety Bill, which has just completed its prelegislative scrutiny, is introduced in Parliament.

[Mr Betts]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to ask my urgent question. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has just carried out prelegislative scrutiny of the draft Building Safety Bill. In general, the Bill is very welcome. It implements the recommendations of the Hackitt report, post Grenfell. However, clause 89 contains provisions for leaseholders to be charged a building safety charge. That could cover future costs, but it could also be used to recover the cost of historical defects, such as the removal of dangerous cladding. That is the concern.

I have a number of questions for the Minister. First, will he confirm very clearly and straightforwardly that leaseholders should not have to pay any of the costs of removing dangerous cladding from their homes, as has been the Government’s policy for some time? Those leaseholders bought their properties in good faith. They have not done anything wrong and they should not be financially distressed as a result.

If the Minister thinks that leaseholders should have to pay something—the Building Safety Minister said to the Select Committee that he thought an affordable amount was reasonable—how would he define an affordable amount? The Building Safety Minister said it was something that did not bankrupt an individual. However, if leaseholders are not going to pay—I hope the Minister will confirm that point—I accept that he should pursue developers, freeholders and others. In the meantime, if developers have gone out of business or are refusing to pay, does the Minister accept that, at least in the interim, the Government are going to have to step in and fund all the costs?

If the Minister accepts that point, does he also accept that the £1.6 billion so far made available to remove dangerous cladding will be totally inadequate? The Select Committee heard that to make all high-rise buildings totally safe and remove all defects, the total bill could be as high as £15 billion. Leaseholders should not have to pay that.

Finally, does the Minister accept that, without assurances on these points, many people are going to have a very miserable Christmas? They are trapped in properties they cannot sell, that they often cannot insure and where they are having to pay for waking watches, and wondering how on earth they are going to pay the bills that could arrive on their doormats at any time.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his urgent question and for welcoming the proposals that we have tabled in the draft Building Safety Bill. He asks a number of important questions.

First, the hon. Gentleman asks whether the building safety charge will be retrospective. We envisage that the building safety charge will cover ongoing costs that leaseholders may have to pay for legal costs, building safety inspections and the like. In our proposals, we have said that the Secretary of State will be able to prescribe costs to ensure that unfair building safety charge costs do not fall unreasonably on the leaseholder.

We will of course look very carefully at the 80-page report from the Select Committee. I think there are somewhere north of 40 recommendations in the report. We want to look at it carefully and considerately, because we recognise it forms an important part of our answer to the challenge of building safety. I hope that we can develop a cross-party approach to our further scrutiny of the Bill when it comes before Parliament.

The hon. Gentleman asked me whether leaseholders will pay any costs at all. The point of introducing £1.6 billion of public money is to make sure that in the buildings that are most at risk and where there is no means to pay, the state steps in and supports those leaseholders, but, fundamentally, we expect developers and owners to step up and execute their responsibility to pay where buildings have been defective.

I cannot say that there will not be some costs at some point related to some defect in historical building safety that will not fall upon the leaseholder, but we want to make sure, through the public money that we are spending and through the work of Michael Wade, that we find innovative solutions to make sure that such costs are as minimal as possible. We cannot write an open cheque on behalf of the taxpayer. That would send the wrong signal to developers and those who are responsible for these buildings that they do not have to pay because the taxpayer will.

The hon. Gentleman asks about my noble Friend the Building Safety Minister in the other place. I can tell him that Lord Greenhalgh is working round the clock to find solutions to the challenges that face leaseholders up and down the country. He is determined, with the work that he is doing with insurers, developers and the financial services sector, to ensure that we come up with those solutions, and I look forward to working with him closely as the Bill, which he will introduce to Parliament, works its way through both Houses.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Monday 16th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his question. He will know, with respect to ACM cladding, that we have made £600 million available to remediate the most dangerous buildings. Something like 97% of buildings with ACM cladding have either completed or started their remediation. As a result of the expert support we have provided to private building owners, we have supported something like 100 ACM projects to remediation. With respect to the £1 billion fund for non-ACM-clad buildings, I can tell him that we have had a very significant number of applications, which have worked through. A very significant number have now been asked to make further information available, so we can advance those applications. We will get the money out of the door as quickly as we can. We will also encourage builders and owners to remediate the buildings themselves, because that is what they are obliged to do. It should not fall on the taxpayer to pay for remediation. It is the responsibility in the first case of building owners, through their warrantee schemes or through the original builders.

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

Could the Housing Minister clarify the Government’s policy on what costs leaseholders should have to bear for the removal of cladding? On 20 July, the Secretary of State, in a written statement, very helpfully said:

“The Government are clear that it is unacceptable for leaseholders to have to worry about the cost of fixing historic safety defects”.—[Official Report, 20 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 89WS.]

However, by the time we got to 16 October, the Housing Minister himself said we should look for solutions

“that protect leaseholders from unaffordable costs”.

So, not any costs, but unaffordable costs. When the Minister with responsibility for building safety came to the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government, he could only define “affordable” as costs that did not make someone bankrupt. Does the Housing Minister understand the great concern and upset that the change of policy has caused for leaseholders, who thought they would bear no costs but could now be faced with substantial bills? Will he explain the change of policy or, better still, go back to the original policy the Secretary of State identified that the costs should not fall on leaseholders at all?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the Chairman of the Select Committee and I am grateful for the report that the Committee produced on cladding. There has been no change in policy. The Government are quite clear that we do not expect, and we do not want, leaseholders to bear the costs of remediation of unsafe buildings for which they were not responsible. That cost should fall on the owners, through the owners, the builders or any warrantee scheme the owners have.

End of Eviction Moratorium

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

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

I have two simple asks of the Minister. First, does he recognise that there will be people in dire financial hardship who struggle and cannot pay their rent? I heard what he said about help for discretionary housing payments. Will he continue to monitor that, and if local authorities say they do not have sufficient to help people in real need, will he look at expanding the amount of money?



Secondly, with regard to the issue of discretion, will the Minister confirm that, as long as landlords have talked to their tenants and presented their financial information to the courts, when applying for a section 21 notice or possession on ground 8, of rent arrears, the courts have no discretion at all to reject those applications? Will he further consider those points, do what the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has asked and strengthen the pre-action protocol to give the courts more discretion?

[Christopher Pincher]

We always listen with great care to the Chairman of the Select Committee. I can confirm that we will keep all our arrangements, including our financial provisions, under review as the situation develops; it probably has some time to go before things begin to get better. He mentions section 21. He knows that the Government are committed to repealing section 21 in our renters’ reform Bill, and we will do that at the appropriate time, when there is a sensible and stable economic and social terrain on which to do it.

The hon. Gentleman will know that the courts do have discretion to prioritise the cases before them. He will also know that, if landlords do not provide the right information to the courts in pursuit of their section 21 application, the courts have the discretion to adjourn the case and push it to the end of the queue. I am quite sure that Sir Terence Etherton and Mr Justice Knowles will look carefully at landlords who fail to comply with their duties. Our approach has always been to be fair—fair to those who have lost out as a result of the epidemic, and also fair to landlords, particularly smaller landlords, who need their incomes.

Rented Homes: End of Evictions Ban

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for his question. As I said, we will bring forward the renters’ reform Act, which will abolish section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, in due course, when we have stable terrain on which to do so. That will improve tenants’ rights. We will also ensure that there is provision for a lifetime deposit scheme in that Bill. As I have described from my discussions with the Master of the Rolls, the courts have set out strict procedures that landlords will have to follow if they want to claim repossession of their properties. That is the right and balanced course, and I commend it.

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

In the end, as I am sure the Minister will agree, we all want to get to a position where no tenant is evicted because of covid-related matters. I recognise that the Government have made efforts, through the statutory instrument and the guidance, to toughen up the pre-action protocol, but what happens if a landlord comes to the court with all the information about a tenant’s circumstances but still wants to go for a section 21 eviction—they do not have to give any reasons—or for a ground 8 eviction, where simply rent arrears will do? If all the information is given to the court, does the court have any discretion to refuse the eviction request?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the Chairman of the Select Committee for that. First, the landlord will have to bring all the information that is required before the court. The courts want to sit in order that a duty solicitor will be present, but other interlocutors may be present to mediate, even at that late stage, between the landlord and the tenant to ensure that the right outcome can be achieved. Under the section 21 rules of the 1988 Act, the courts do not have discretion in that particular circumstance, but I am sure that in those cases where egregious rent arrears predate the covid emergency, where there is domestic abuse or where there is antisocial behaviour, we want to see the landlord have their right to bring forward their repossession case. That is what they are allowed to do under the law.

Westferry Printworks Development

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[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

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

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

Debate between Clive Betts and Christopher Pincher

Thursday 11th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[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.