Retail Crime Prevention

Debate between Clive Betts and Kit Malthouse

Tuesday 5th November 2019 Westminster Hall

[Kit Malthouse]

I always say the same thing when people tell me about under-reporting, which is that we must urge everybody to report every possible crime, because modern policing is all about data. The police respond to numbers. If they see numbers, feel the numbers and see the pattern of behaviour, they will respond. It is a bit like that old philosophical aphorism: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, did it actually happen? If a crime is committed, particularly in a large rural constituency such as mine, and it is not reported, as far as the police know, it never happened. Data is absolutely key. I urge all shop owners to report every crime.

The right hon. Member for Delyn raised the impact of serious and organised crime. He is quite right that high-profile thefts by serious and organised crime need to be addressed, not least the demolition and stealing of cash machines, which we see in quite a lot of rural constituencies, including my own. As I hope the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are undertaking a serious and organised crime review over the next few weeks, which I hope will give us some strategy and point us to the future.

I am grateful to hon. Members for what has been an important debate. I hope that I have outlined some of the work that the Government have done, and will hopefully do more of in future, to make sure that everybody—shop workers and shoppers alike—will have fun and will exchange money for presents and gifts in the run-up to Christmas, safely and happily, now and in the years to come.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I thank all Members for their co-operation in keeping to the time guidance. I call David Hanson to wind up.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Kit Malthouse

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend has been a persistent advocate for his constituents on this issue. As he knows, alongside the consultation on permitted development rights for exploration, we also consulted on pre-application consultation steps that may have to be taken should an application proceed. Both those matters are under consideration by colleagues, and I hope we will be able to issue a response to them shortly.

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

I remind the Minister that the consultation he refers to closed last October. Twelve months ago, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee did a report opposing permitted development rights and opposing transferring part of the fracking regime to the national infrastructure regime. Given the amount of opposition on his own side, as well as on this side of the House, and in local communities, is the Minister now considering withdrawing those proposals and instead giving greater powers to communities to decide whether they want fracking in their areas?

[Kit Malthouse]

The Chairman of the Select Committee is quite right to point out the timescale on which these measures have been under consideration, and I will certainly pass on his concerns to colleagues at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

Grenfell Tower Fire

Debate between Clive Betts and Kit Malthouse

Thursday 6th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

As I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands, fire safety policy does not fall within my remit and is effectively a Home Office issue. I did recently meet representatives of the fire service, who said that this policy is under constant review but remains valid. However, I am happy to write to him with details of what the Government are doing with regard to “stay put”. I understand the concern that that policy has produced in the light of the Grenfell disaster and it is important that we are transparent about it. As I have said, I am more than happy to write to him with some details.

On building safety, we are determined to bring forward meaningful legislative reform. Just today, we launched a consultation on the new building safety regulatory system. The written ministerial statement was not actually laid, as the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) said during the debate. It was raised at 10.30. I asked Doorkeepers to distribute it if they could, and it is now available for Members to read if they wish. In that review, we have accepted all 53 of Dame Judith Hackitt’s recommendations and in some areas we intend to go further. What we are proposing is a radically new building and fire safety system—a system that puts residents’ safety at its very heart. It will be a challenging but essential step to help drive the long-term culture change that we need and restore confidence in our country’s building safety system.

[Mr Betts]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I had not seen the details of the statement until I spoke earlier in the debate, but I welcome the Government laying it. I know that the Minister has made arrangements to speak to me later about it and to come to the Select Committee where I am sure we can ask further questions. May I just draw his attention to one interesting phrase where he says that we have proposed that the new regime should apply from the beginning to all new and existing multi-occupied residential buildings? Does that mean that the Government are having a careful think about whether the ban on materials not of limited combustibility should apply to existing buildings as well as new buildings? It says that the regime will apply to all buildings, including existing buildings.

[Kit Malthouse]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for raising this issue. The hon. Member for Croydon North also implied that we were not willing to look at other buildings retrospectively or indeed at buildings below 18 metres, or at hospital or schools or whatever it might be. What we are trying to do is fix a starting point, but then design a system that allows for flexibility in response to evidence and research in the future. One lesson is that, obviously, as building technology develops and new issues emerge, the system must have the ability to respond. That is what we are seeking to do in the consultation. Certainly, we are open to representations as part of the consultation about whether the scope should be widened. I hope that the Committee will respond.

[Mr Betts]

Was that a yes? I was trying to work out whether the Minister would be willing to look again at this matter.

[Kit Malthouse]

The issue of retrospection is obviously a difficult one from a regulatory point of view. One of the things that we have said is that all building owners have a duty to ensure that the buildings that they own are safe. If that means that they have to take remedial action retrospectively to comply, to make it safe, then they should do so. The question of liability, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is also a difficult one. Nevertheless, in the light of the reformed building regulations, it will be for building owners to review whether the buildings that they are maintaining and owning are safe and to take appropriate action.

As I said, we have accepted all 53 of Dame Judith Hackitt’s recommendations and we will be going further. Indeed, we may well go further in scope in the light of the issues that are brought forward.

The final matter raised by a number of Members, particularly the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck), was the issue of the residents’ voice, the social housing Green Paper and, indeed, the place of social housing in our society. One of the most important legacies of Grenfell must be the rebalancing of the relationship between residents in social housing and their landlords. After the tragedy, we spoke to almost 1,000 people, including the bereaved and survivors of Grenfell Tower. It came through in those conversations, time after time, that residents feel excluded from the discussion about their homes; they feel that their voices are not being heard. I reject the idea that people in social housing can expect only a second-class system. This has been and is fundamentally wrong. Last August, we published our Green Paper, “A new deal for social housing”, and our response and action plan will be published in due course. I have given commitments in the various meetings that I have had around the country that there will be change on that too.

Nothing can undo the pain and devastation caused by the fire at Grenfell Tower. We remain determined to do right by the victims and survivors of the tragedy, and to provide a legacy of real change for them—to deliver fundamental reform, to end the stigma attached to social housing and to honour the memories of those who lost their lives. I thank everybody who has participated in the debate, and share the determination across the House to ensure that nothing like Grenfell can ever happen again.

Housing

Debate between Clive Betts and Kit Malthouse

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My right hon. Friend, with his usual wisdom, has prefaced the part of my speech I am moving on to. He is quite right: we believe that modern methods of construction hold enormous potential not only to produce more homes but to produce them faster and better. I recently visited a factory in Walsall, in the west midlands, where Accord is building 1,000 homes a year using modern methods of construction. So good are the environmental standards that those homes for social rent have lower arrears, because people can afford to heat them.

That is something we are backing through our £4.5 billion home building fund, £2.5 billion of which is to champion small and medium-sized enterprises, custom builders and more diverse builders to get modern methods of construction and other cutting-edge tech into the mainstream. The fund has already allocated all of the original £1 billion of short-term funding. Over 94% of the funding contracted to date has gone to SME builders. We expect the fund to deliver more than 30,000 homes—around 5,000 more than the original target.

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

The Minister is quite right that we are going to need a whole variety of different types of houses and tenures to hit the 300,000 target. How many homes does he think will be built for social housing—not affordable housing—in the rest of this Parliament? What is his plan?

[Kit Malthouse]

I am constantly asked what targets might be for particular types of housing.

Permitted Development and Shale Gas Exploration

Debate between Clive Betts and Kit Malthouse

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing this debate, which I will call “shale 2”, as it is a repeat of the Westminster Hall debate promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley). It is clear from today’s debate that passions remain as high on this subject as on that heady afternoon.

I know the hon. Lady was not trying to position herself as the sole custodian of our precious countryside. My party overwhelmingly represents the British countryside and recognises the precious nature of our green and pleasant land. As an unapologetic environmentalist myself, I share that view. Being genetically from Yorkshire—although I was brought up in the north-west and educated in the north-east—I also have the interests of the northern half of this country at heart. I now happily represent a part of the same bulge of chalk as my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) —I also have oil production that goes on unnoticed and uncomplained about by my constituents—so this is a matter of extreme importance to me.

I emphasise that no final decision has been made on whether to bring these proposals forward. The consultations have now closed and the Government are currently considering the representations made and will issue a response in due course. These consultations are part of a range of measures to make planning decisions faster and fairer for all those affected by new shale gas development and to ensure that local communities are fully involved in the planning decisions that affect them.

As right hon. and hon. Members will know, my remit as Housing Minister in relation to shale gas development is focused on planning policy and delivering the related manifesto commitments. Given that hon. Members have raised matters beyond my remit, including energy policy and reported seismic events, I will refer those matters to the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), for a response.

[Mr Betts]

The Minister has talked about having faster applications. Can he explain how precisely that would be done in a way that allows communities to be fully consulted? Furthermore, as I understand it, the Government have done no impact assessment on their proposals. Does he intend to do one at any stage?

[Kit Malthouse]

I will come to those exact issues, if the esteemed Chair of the Select Committee will give me a moment.

In summer 2018, we consulted on whether permitted development rights should be expanded to include shale gas exploration development, including the circumstances in which this might be appropriate. I would like to make it clear that any potential permitted development right granted for shale gas exploration would not apply to hydraulic-fracturing operations or the production stage of shale gas extraction.

I should also emphasise that any permitted development right would cover only the planning aspects of the development and would not remove requirements under other regulatory regimes from the three regulators: the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and the Oil and Gas Authority. It is important to note that all permitted development rights contain specific exemptions, conditions and restrictions to control and mitigate the impact of the development and to protect local amenity, and any potential permitted development right for shale gas exploration would be no exception.

A right could include things such as limits on the height of any structure, areas where a permitted development right would not apply and noise and operation controls. The consultation sought views on this.

Tower Blocks: Dangerous Cladding

Debate between Clive Betts and Kit Malthouse

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend is a fierce advocate for his constituency, and we share his concern about the position of the Northpoint residents. We have been very clear that leaseholders should not bear the cost, and he will be pleased to learn that the Secretary of State has written to the building owner and other parties concerned to make it clear that he expects them to fund the work.

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

The Secretary of State has just written to the Select Committee about the role of local authorities, and local authorities clearly have powers under the Housing Act 2004. When building owners will not act and the local authority acts instead, it may incur costs that it can try to recover from building owners. Can we have an absolute guarantee from the Minister that when local authorities find it impossible to do so, the Government will find that money so that it will not have to be found from hard-pressed local authority budgets?

[Kit Malthouse]

The Chair of the Select Committee raises an important point. We have offered financial assistance to local authorities, and we will work in partnership with them to attempt to recover the money. Where that proves to be impossible, we will try to reach as convenient and financially efficacious an arrangement as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Clive Betts and Kit Malthouse

Monday 5th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

It is typical of my hon. Friend that she has the welfare of her most vulnerable constituents at the forefront of her mind. I can confirm that the current proposal on which we have just consulted is that the section 31 grant paid to local authorities for provision of refuges and other short-term supported housing will be ring-fenced.

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

The Government’s proposals are an improvement on their initial proposals, but one element has brought criticism from virtually all providers, and that is with regard to short-term supported housing. My Select Committee has recommended that for emergency very short-term accommodation of around 12 weeks, there should be a ring-fenced grant to local authorities. The Government have changed the definition of short term from 12 weeks to two years, which all providers have condemned. Will the Government think again and bring accommodation lasting two years into the welfare system?

[Kit Malthouse]

We are in receipt of a significant number of responses to the consultation, which only closed a couple of weeks ago, and we will consider those over the months to come. I would be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss those concerns with his constituents if they wish to do so.