Private Rented Sector
Debate between Clive Betts and Kerry McCarthy(1 year, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr Betts
This is probably not the first occasion that I agree with the hon. Member. The portal is an extremely important step forward, and it will bring that information together. We talked about the importance of how it is delivered, which will involve a lot of discussions with landlords and councils to get it right, digitalising some of the information so that it is accurate and proper. It also ought to help with the problems that many councils have in finding out who owns a property, as bad landlords often move it from one family member to another and the council has the challenge of chasing it round. I hope the information held in the portal will enable councils to enforce more appropriately in future.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Chair of the Committee will know that the gap between market rents in Bristol and the local housing allowance is among the worst in the country. The vast majority of private rented homes are simply not available to people on benefits. I note that the Committee was told that that was a matter for the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions, but does he intend to carry on pursuing this issue of the failure of the local housing allowance to keep pace with market rents?
Mr Betts
Yes, because it is a recommendation in our report. Wherever the reply to our report comes from—I presume it will come from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, but no doubt it will come after consultation with other Ministers—the situation is one that the Committee will follow through. In the end, if there are so many properties in an area that are offered for a rent that someone who is working on a relatively low income cannot afford, and the housing allowance does not cover it, that is a problem that we simply must address. We cannot go on ignoring it, and that is what the Committee says. We ought to get back to the previous 30% decile position, and look at whether even that is satisfactory in some areas to make housing genuinely affordable.
Exempt Accommodation
Debate between Clive Betts and Kerry McCarthy(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Betts
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, my friend on the Select Committee, with whom I have worked on many issues; this is a unanimous report. That is why we have called for local authorities to be given those powers. The Government have laid down some guidelines on standards, but they are not enforceable. In such a situation, it is no use saying to providers who are making millions of pounds, “Oh please don’t do it.” The standards must be enforced. Local authorities need those powers and they need to control access to the accommodation so that people with particular needs are put into accommodation that can deal with those needs and has the right sort of support. That is why we are calling for local authorities to have powers over the support as well. It is a comprehensive approach, and local authorities are best placed to enact it.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
The Chair of the Select Committee will be aware of my interest in the issue, which arose from a particular property in my constituency where several residents died. It was clear that that was being run not for the benefit of the residents but for financial reasons. I welcome the report and I think it is spot on in its condemnation of the situation. The problem that we came up against in Bristol was that, although the council would no longer refer people to that property, we found it difficult to stop other councils outside referring people in. Did the Committee look at making sure that each local authority has a responsibility to provide this sort of accommodation in its area, rather than trying to pass the problem off to other places that do provide it?
Mr Betts
We did not specifically look at that issue, but we looked at giving councils the powers to ensure that standards are met. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that one of the problems is that there is no control over the referral process—anyone can refer themselves, which is why people use Facebook and Gumtree to self-refer. If we can give powers to the councils to control referrals, it would be appropriate for them to consider commissioning services themselves in some circumstances. Some services are already commissioned; many are not. We did not call for all services to be commissioned, because some very good voluntary local providers are doing work in this area and we do not want them to close down. It is about controlling the referral process and ensuring that housing benefit is paid out only for properties that meet these standards. Once the money loophole has been closed, the rest of the abuse will stop —in our view.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Clive Betts and Kerry McCarthy(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Alternative Fuelled Vehicles: Energy Provision
Debate between Clive Betts and Kerry McCarthy(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is always a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on an excellent and comprehensive speech. As he said, fuelling vehicles through alternative means will be vital if we are to meet net zero, and there are exciting developments in the field.
I confess that I was a sceptic about the role that alternative fuels would play in significantly reducing carbon emissions from aviation. It seemed that often they were put forward to deflect discussion of the demand for flights. However, since taking up my current role as shadow Minister for green transport I have spoken to a lot of firms in the sector, such as Velocys, which will be producing sustainable aviation fuel sourced from waste in the UK, and the Electric Aviation Group, which hopes to have hybrid electric planes operating in UK skies by the end of the decade. It is not the only answer to rising aviation emissions, but it is part of the mix. I have discussed alternative fuels with Maritime UK, and we are closely watching ongoing and planned trials of battery-fuelled and ammonia-fuelled shipping in Scandinavia.
Electric and waste biofuel buses are already on our roads, including the biogas buses in Bristol. However, they need additional support, particularly now that the bus industry is struggling with collapsing revenues because of the pandemic. The same is true for rail firms, which want to move away from dirty diesel rolling stock. However, they have been failed by the Government on electrification and need support to develop or purchase trains fuelled by renewable alternatives. We also need sectoral support for aviation, conditional on climate action. Many others have spoken about hydrogen, and I do not have time to go into that now.
On electric vehicles, recently, along with my colleagues from the shadow Business team, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead), who is replying to the debate today, and my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), I wrote to the Transport Secretary calling on the Government to bring forward the planned phase-out of petrol, diesel and hybrid cars and vans to 2030—at the moment, the manifesto commitment is 2040—and plans to make that transition smooth and feasible. That is important not just to meet our carbon objectives, but to support our car manufacturing sector. I do not quite agree with the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford) that we have missed the opportunity to develop electric vehicle production in the UK. We also need to think about electric bikes and electric cargo bikes. We used to be so good at producing bicycles in this country, and I think we need to do more of that.
We have only 5% of the charge points that we need if we are to stick to the 2040 target and have half of all new car sales represented by zero-emission vehicles by 2030. If we bring that date forward to between 2030 and 2032, we will have to accelerate installation of those charging points. I hope the Minister can reassure us on that point.
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
We now move on to the Front Bench Members, who I am sure will be equally co-operative. I am getting ahead of myself. Anthony Browne, you have sat there patiently.