Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and I shall come on to deal with that issue when discussing a later amendment.

Why do the Government not want to provide the information I referred to and to have this scrutiny? The lack of information on this policy is an issue that has been taken up by the Public Accounts Committee, too. The Minister will be aware that it said:

“It is not clear how this policy will be funded in practice, or what its financial impacts might be. The Department’s intention is for this policy to be fully funded by local authorities, but it was unable to provide any figures to demonstrate that this would be the case…More widely, an even bigger risk will fall on those local authorities required to sell housing stock to fund the policy, as those assets will in effect be transferred to central government. But the Department did not appear to have a good understanding of the size of these risks”.

The Committee went on to say:

“The commitment to replace homes sold under this policy on at least a one-for-one basis will not ensure that these will be like-for-like replacements as regards size, location or tenure. Experience of the reinvigorated Right to Buy for council tenants, introduced in 2012, shows that meeting such one-for-one replacement targets can be difficult…Moreover, replacement homes can be in different areas, be a different size, and cost more to rent. Neither do they need to be new homes”.

[Mr Betts]

The Minister has said on a number of occasions that the sale of the “higher-value council properties”, as this has now become, will pay for the replacement of the right-to-buy property sold by a housing association and this £1 billion remedial brownfield fund. The fact that he has said that with such assurance must imply that he has some figures and some workings out somewhere on which he has based those assertions. Would it not be helpful if he could produce those today?

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. If the Minister has those figures, we will give him an opportunity now to share them with us, as that would be extremely helpful in allowing us to know exactly what we are going to be voting on this evening.

Although more information is important, we need to remind ourselves that the whole policy of selling off higher value council housing to fund the right to buy is considered by almost everyone to be a very bad thing to do, and that replacement is absolutely essential.

Lords amendment 47, tabled by Lords Beecham, Kerslake and Kennedy, addresses the issue of replacement, and would require the Government to enter into an agreement with a local authority under clause 72 whereby a local authority could show the need for a type of social housing and the Secretary of State would then agree a hold-back sum, so that homes sold could be replaced by houses of the same tenure, type and rent. If the Government do not accept this one-for-one, like-for-like replacement, they need to explain why. The reason this amendment is so important is that few details are in the public domain about how the Government will meet their own commitment for one-for-one or two-for-one replacement in London.

It appears that Ministers could force the sale of a council house in Camden and count two other new homes built for open market sale in Croydon as meeting the so-called commitment to replace. Therefore, the like-for-like replacement in amendment 47 is vital to ensure that housing need is met across the range and that homes for social rent are not simply replaced by starter homes or homes at higher rents, which, as the Public Accounts Committee outlined in its statement, is a real risk.

Furthermore, figures from Shelter this morning outline a truly alarming picture of the impact of the sale of higher value council homes on local authority stock, and I will come on to that in a moment or two.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

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

Is not the concern that we should see this in the overall context of Government policy? Not only will these council homes be sold off, with the opportunity to replace them on a like-for-like basis almost certainly not being available, but it will be very difficult for most housing associations to replace their sold properties on a like-for-like basis. As was confirmed in the Select Committee yesterday, there is no new money at all in the comprehensive spending review for any new social rented housing. At the end of this Parliament, there will almost certainly be fewer council homes to rent than there are now.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and one that we want to emphasise this afternoon. Most commentators are now saying that there is no additional money to provide the replacement affordable housing and there are no provisions in the Bill to allow a like-for-like replacement in the same local authority for homes that are sold off.

This chapter of the Bill is not only damaging to social housing but will have a negative knock-on effect in the private sector that will mean there is simply no respite for low income families and no housing that they will be able to rent at a level that they can afford. The Government must reconsider this part of the Bill and must take this chapter out of it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

As we did our best to explain to the hon. Gentleman in Committee, such housing is often not subsidised. The point that we are making is that councils already have the discretion to set higher rents for people with higher incomes if they choose to do so. What we are querying this afternoon is why the Government are introducing an element of compulsion and why this will apply to council tenants only.

[Mr Betts]

We should kill the myth of subsidised council housing. Under the rules that this Government changed following the proposals from the previous Government, housing revenue accounts are self-funding. There is no subsidy. The only subsidies that I can see are right to buy discounts and starter home discounts that the Government are proposing.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

My hon. Friend has won that round of the debate.

So shocking is chapter 5 of part 4 that we have tabled amendments to remove all of it from the Bill. We have tabled amendments to leave out clauses 89 and 90 and the schedules relating to them. We saw no value in amending these elements of the Bill as the ending of security of tenure for council tenants would be one of the greatest travesties for the future of affordable housing in this country. The only position we can adopt is to ask for it to be removed from the Bill entirely.

Three decades from now, when our grandchildren look back on the decisions of our generation concerning housing, their social mobility will have declined compared with that of previous generations, despite what David Cameron may think, as a result of the instability that this Government’s policy creates. Having a stable home to grow up in is crucial for working families whose income barely affords them an adequate standard of living. Children should not be faced with the threat of having to change schools every two to five years when the council is forced to review the tenancy contracts of their parents. This could have disastrous effects on their education. Like a number of colleagues, I was brought up in a council house and thus was able to acquire better educational opportunities than my parents as a result of growing up in a stable home with security of tenure. We want to ensure that that option exists for families who need it today.

However, the Government are removing the most basic protection for tenants that has existed in our country for decades—that council housing would be provided by local authorities to secure rented homes for people on low incomes, and that those homes would be of good quality. The Government need to stop attacking council tenants. I thought that we had cross-party agreement not only that the council housing sector should be valued, but that measures should be put in place to enhance its attractiveness and availability, rather than it being attacked in the way that it is in this Bill.

In 1979, 42% of Britons lived in council houses. Now, that figure is less than 8%. Government investment in social rented housing was cut by two-thirds when the coalition Government came to power. While the Government pledged a one-to-one replacement for every home that was sold under the right to buy, the latest figures show that for every nine homes sold, only one is being replaced.

The Government are wrong in their assumption that council tenants with security of tenure can afford to buy a home or live elsewhere. A recent study found that 91% of homes in England and Wales were unaffordable to homebuyers even in some areas where they had the national average income of £26,500. Local authorities, under the Localism Act 2011, already have the ability to offer flexible tenancies if they so choose. Why are the Government introducing this degree of compulsion and why do they attack council housing tenants in this way?

Recently a woman living in a council house in London told The Guardian:

“In the long run, London needs us service workers more than we need London. Most of us will not be able to survive with the current rental prices. We are no longer children, to be able to share a flat with 10 other people. This is a shift of the goalposts and will leave people in desperate conditions.”

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Tuesday 5th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

That is true. I am pleased that the Government seem to want to increase the fine levels. I hope that eventually the banning orders will kick in, and a number of civil penalties will be imposed over a period. That is the intention of one of the amendments, and it, too, is welcome. I think that banning orders will have an impact if they are properly effective, along with other measures in the Bill that will help to deal with rogue landlords.

Before I say a few words about the ombudsman, I want to say something about new clause 5, which we heard about from the hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson). I think that it is an excellent measure, and the Government ought to think seriously about it. It is very simple, and would be very light on public sector resources. Indeed, it would probably save public money, because it would not be necessary to chase around finding out who owned properties when there was a problem with them. The information would be readily available, at little cost to the public purse. Local authorities would be able to do their jobs more effectively, as they would spend less time trying to find out who was the owner or the letting agent. Tenants often do not have that information, but by the time a problem occurs, authorities want to have it to hand so that they can take immediate action against those who are responsible.

The hon. Lady also put her finger on a very important point. In the case of the licensing scheme in Sheffield, I suddenly realised why landlords were so opposed to it. There was, of course, the possibility that local authorities would carry out more inspections of their properties, find faults and take action, but what most disturbed them, in my view, was that HMRC would know that a property was tenanted and rent was being paid to someone, and one or two further inquiries might follow. I think that is absolutely right: that should be done—the taxpayer ought to be paid their tax on rent that is collected. Very often in these properties there are not proper tenancy agreements, the rent is simply paid cash in hand and the taxpayer receives none of it. Having that information in the public domain that can be used for any proper purpose—I hope that would include being able to pass it on to the tax authorities—has another benefit to the public purse. That is a very sensible and simple measure, and I hope the Government will be prepared to support it.

Finally, I hope the Government will give further thought to the housing ombudsman covering the private rented sector. I know there may be the view that this is a private sector and therefore a public sector ombudsman should not be looking at these matters, but let us draw a comparison. The coalition Government extended the remit of the local authority ombudsman to cover social care homes even when the person in those homes was paying for themselves, so there was no direct public sector involvement. That remit was extended to social care homes because it was thought that it was somehow wrong that some people could not take an element of social care provision to the ombudsman for a decision while other people in the same care home could.

For example, if a local authority discharges its homelessness duty by allocating or placing someone in a private sector property and it all goes wrong, the local authority element of that, where it makes the placement, would presumably be under the jurisdiction of the local authority ombudsman. However, if it is the private landlord who does not deal with that tenancy properly, there would be no remit for the tenant to go to any ombudsman at all. Once the local authority discharges its duty and makes provision to have someone housed in the private sector, at some point in the transfer from someone being homeless to them receiving a private tenancy, there would be a switch from an individual having recourse to go to an ombudsman and their not having recourse to do so. There could be great dispute about whether the action of allocating someone a house in the private sector as part of a local authority’s homelessness responsibility was covered by an ombudsman or not. I therefore hope that the Government will reflect on the fact that this may be one of the gaps in the provision of the ombudsman’s service. I know that they are looking overall at reconfiguration of the service, and they might give some thought to this extension as a sensible way of covering one of the gaps.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I wish to make some comments about the Government new clauses on deregulation of housing associations and ask the Minister some questions.

In Committee we raised several probing amendments relating to clause 78, which covered reducing regulation but did not specify what measures the Government would be taking to deregulate the social housing sector. Of course, we understand that the Government are now seeking, under amendment 4, to leave out clause 78 and replace it with new clause 6 and new schedule 1. As the Minister said in Committee in response to probing amendments:

“I intend to introduce a package of measures on Report. The ONS announced the reclassification decision on 30 October, which has not yet given us the time to carefully work through a package in time for the Committee.”––[Official Report, Housing and Planning Public Bill Committee, 1 December 2015; c. 465.]

This is our first opportunity to see these new measures.

We welcome replacing the general with the specific. Removing clause 78 and replacing it with new clause 6 and new schedule 1 is primary legislation. Clause 78 gave Ministers a sweeping open power to repeal regulations affecting housing associations. At least new clause 6 and new schedule 1 have the merit of being precise—but they are very long. In total, the new clauses and schedules in this group amount to 34 pages of new legislation—almost a quarter as long as the Bill itself. They were tabled close to the deadline for debate on Report, and over the Christmas recess, so there is no way that this House, or the organisations and experts that have a direct interest in these provisions, can properly scrutinise or challenge the Government on the content of this newly introduced legislation. We can see that the new clauses and new schedule contain several elements that address some of the issues raised by the ONS as part of the reclassification of housing associations. They will address the issues through the removal of the Government’s consent power over how housing associations hold their assets.

communities and local government committee

Debate between Clive Betts and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Thursday 18th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Betts]

There is widespread support for the concept of neighbourhood plans, but there is some concern that poorer communities may not be able to adopt the process as easily as more affluent ones. That goes back to the issue of the relative status of neighbourhood and local plans if, for example, 14 neighbourhood plans are being developed but there is no local plan.

We think that the definition of sustainable development in the NPPF is a good one—it draws on Brundtland and on the five principles—and we do not want to change it. The problem is that the definition goes on to say that sustainable development is defined by everything in the NPPF, and we thought that that rather circular argument was unnecessary.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend and his Select Committee on producing this excellent report. It raises several issues about the national planning policy framework and how it operates in practice, and the Government will need to address those issues. I am particularly pleased that it echoes much of the Lyons report, commissioned by Labour, which deals with critical issues such as how to get local authorities to produce local plans and the need for more land to be made available to support housing and infrastructure development.

I particularly want to stress that I agree with my hon. Friend’s findings on town centres. Did his Committee receive evidence from local authorities that are finding that allowing a change of use from office to residential, under permitted development rights and without planning permission, is hurting local businesses and leading to a shortage of much needed office space in some areas?

[Mr Betts]

The specific regulations on permitted development rights were not about offices, but about shops and banks. However, we did receive some evidence on that. Concerns have been identified, particularly in London, about the loss of business and office space to residential use.

I want to make two points about town centres. First, local authorities—I am a great localist—did not get the message that retailing was changing fundamentally with online shopping, and did not change their local plans quickly enough to respond to that, which is a big issue. Secondly, the Committee strongly made the point that the response to such rapid changes has to be properly planned for by making changes to local plans. If, on a pepper-potted basis, we allow a change of use from shops and banks to residential, we might well end up with less ability to reconfigure town centres or to change areas wholesale from retail to other uses. That was one of our big concerns. There should be a plan-led approach to changes in retailing, not pepper-potting by permitted development.

Local Plans (Public Consent)

Debate between Clive Betts and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Wycombe (Steve Baker) on securing yet another important debate on planning.

The gist of the arguments that have been put forward today is that if we are to get the homes we need, we must have more involvement from the community in making local plans, as housing needs to be delivered in a way that secures consent. I totally agree with that.

I remind hon. Members of just how many homes we need. On current projections we know that we need to build upwards of 200,000 houses per year, but we are achieving a rate that is much lower, with just 112,000 homes completed in the year to March 2014. This year we know that there have been only 117,000 starts in the private sector and 22,000 in the social sector. That is simply not enough to keep up with demand. We have 1.8 million households on council waiting lists. This year the number of housing starts in the affordable rented sector fell to only 16,000, as contrasted with 54,000 in the last year of the Labour Government.

I hope all hon. Members would recognise that there is a significant housing shortage that needs to be addressed. Nevertheless, we all accept that we need more consent in the system. We have heard that from the Minister as well, who has said that he wants

“locally arrived at, co-operative solutions to difficult problems, rather than having top-down Government imposition of solutions… We all deserve to have our voices heard and we all deserve to be part of that solution.”—[Official Report, 13 May 2014; Vol. 580, c. 243WH.]

The problem for him is that that is not really happening in practice.

I want to take up a number of comments made by Government Members today. The hon. Member for Wycombe was very clear on the need to have public consent and a collaborative democracy. That means more community control over what happens and a more effective system of neighbourhood planning. I was a bit confused about whether he was suggesting that we get rid of local plan making all together. I do not think that would be a sensible way forward, but clearly something needs to be done to make the current system reflect local needs better.

The hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) has had a positive experience of neighbourhood planning, but noted her concern that land banking makes it difficult to secure consent and that local people do not feel that localism is delivering for them. The hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) reminded us of the importance of finding appropriate sites and funding associated infrastructure. That is important in securing consent. The hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) talked about the need to rebalance growth across the country. I could not agree more, given that my north-east constituency desperately needs economic growth.

The hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) said that we need to take on suggestions from local people about which sites are appropriate. I agree that that is necessary if we are going to get the long-term solutions to our housing need that we all want to see. He mentioned difficulties with the Planning Inspectorate, and was backed up on that point by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), who said that a number of decisions by the Planning Inspectorate have been inappropriate. I will leave it to the Minister to respond to the hon. Member for Tewkesbury about whether he will do anything to make the Planning Inspectorate change its mind. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) said we need ongoing reviews of local plans, which is an interesting suggestion.

The hon. Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris) was unusually positive about the current system—she must have given the Minister a moment of light relief in our debate. The right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) asked the key question: how will houses be delivered in a way that takes the public along with the development that is needed? He also stated the importance of putting neighbourhood planning at the heart of the system.

All those points have been backed up by the way in which some constituency issues are finding their way into the media. There have been a number of headlines recently—I am sure that the Minister is aware of them—saying things such as “Planning decisions cast doubt over government’s localism agenda”, “Government ignores local residents’ concerns” and “Ministers ignore concerns over out-of-town retail plans”. My favourite is “Government takes ‘nuclear option’ with new planning laws”—essentially, a criticism of the way that the current system is operating.

Something is going wrong if the Minister is espousing localist credentials but local communities feel that they are being let down and their opinions ignored. There are a couple of reasons for that and a couple of things he could do. We are relying on a plan-led system when so few plans have actually been adopted, and few of those adhere to the NPPF. That puts a huge problem at the heart of the system and means that many inappropriate sites are being put forward for development because local plans are not in place. Also, where neighbourhood plans exist they need to be strengthened, so that more attention is paid to them and local people feel they have a much greater say over which sites are appropriate. That is what we are trying to get at today.

Lastly, we agree that consent needs to be put at the heart of the planning system, which is why we have set up a commission under Sir Michael Lyons to see how that can be delivered. I hope the Minister pays attention to what that commission says when it reports in September.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I am sure that there is no truth in the rumour that local residents were putting down tacks in advance of the Minister’s car approaching.

Local Government Procurement

Debate between Clive Betts and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Bayley?

I find myself here again on a Thursday afternoon congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and his Select Committee on an excellent report. I want to take a few moments to explain why it is an excellent report, before going on to look at some of the issues it raised. As we can see from looking around the Chamber, few of our parliamentary colleagues think local government procurement is a really exciting issue or one they want to spend their Thursday debating, so I might be one of the few who are interested in it.

Given the cuts facing local councils, particularly those serving poor areas, and given the jobs that will be lost as a result, I decided, as the shadow Minister with responsibility for the issue, to see whether councils were using procurement to support local employment where possible. I sent out two rounds of freedom of information requests to 400 councils and got 367 responses, which is pretty good. The responses highlighted a number of the issues raised in the Committee’s report.

The responses to my first request demonstrated that a significant number of councils want to take on a more proactive role in deciding who to award contracts to. Everything else being equal, they want, where possible, to prioritise local service delivery, but many felt unable to do so because of EU legislation, and the issue was raised again and again. Some 67% of the responding councils said they did not prioritise local goods and services and that the main reason for that was the perceived restrictions in European legislation. I should say that that was before we saw the new directive on procurement.

Armed with that information, I did a second round of freedom of information requests, seeking more detail on what councils were doing locally, and it showed that there were differences, depending on the councils’ political make-up. On average, a Labour council will procure about 40% of its goods and services from the local authority area, while the average Conservative council procures about 31%, although that might have improved. What was striking, however, was the range of local procurement. The highest proportion of goods procured locally was 80%, while the lowest was 2.5%, so there is great variation in practice.

The second set of questions also asked about the use of social value clauses in contracts, and I discovered that about 56% of councils used them in their procurement strategy. Indeed, most councils—about 90%—had a written procurement strategy, which was also pretty good. I also asked councils whether they took into account whether suppliers gave employees non-statutory benefits such as the living wage, and about 40% said they did.

That was all very interesting, and as we have a few moments, I thought I would outline some of the good practice I discovered, because it reflects some of the issues in the report.

Newcastle city council supports a living wage and promotes it not only in the direct delivery of council services, but in its supply chain. The council also said that 53% of its spend was with local—north-east—suppliers, compared with a national average of 35.8%. In addition, the corporate procurement team seeks to obtain at least one north-east quote for all contracts not requiring a formal tender process.

The council also ensures that the lots within larger contracts are a proper size to encourage bids and competition, and it works with north-east procurement organisations to streamline procurement documentation, making procurement processes consistent across the region and easier to understand.

The council has participated in a regional supplier development pilot to educate, and improve competitiveness of, the region’s small and medium-sized enterprises. It has also ensured that SMEs have received training on procurement. The council’s “Quick Quotes” initiative was launched to streamline and speed up the process for small bids. The council is also committed to e-procurement and to making communication on all aspects of procurement much easier to understand.

Finally, through its targeted recruitment and training programme, the council focuses on job creation by including clauses on it in the procurement process, bringing new jobs to the area. Through their procurement strategies, a number of other councils have also tried to deliver jobs where possible.

There were equally good examples at Sheffield city council, which has adopted the national procurement concordat for SMEs to encourage trade between SMEs and the council. It looks at how to get more local businesses, particularly small businesses, competing for council contracts. It also monitors closely the proportion of the council spend that goes to local businesses, which is about 72%. There were similar processes in Birmingham, although there was much stronger focus there on delivering local jobs and local training opportunities.

That is all by way of preamble. Like my hon. Friend and his Committee, I thought there was really good practice out there in opening up procurement processes and ensuring, where possible, that SMEs got a chance to bid for contracts and that procurement could deliver for the local community. There were issues, but it was comforting—this is why I wanted to go through the preamble—to know that the Committee and I had discovered similar issues and concerns. Indeed, I was reflecting this morning on the fact that I could probably have sat back and let my hon. Friend’s Committee do the work I did through my freedom of information requests.

We need to ask a fundamental question: why are we here discussing procurement? The public sector spends about £220 billion a year on procurement, of which about £50 billion a year is for local government procurement. That is a huge amount of money, and we are asking whether it is being spent wisely. About 47% of what local government spends on procurement goes to small and medium-sized enterprises. The Federation of Small Businesses has shown that for every £1 spent in the local economy 83p goes back into it. Obviously, it makes a lot of sense for local governments that want to build their local economies to try to get as much local procurement as possible.

The way local authorities choose to spend their money can have significant impact on businesses and jobs, and on wider social value. What they do could include using more SMEs; ensuring that suppliers give staff non-statutory benefits, such as the living wage or extra training; and asking suppliers to provide apprenticeships or jobs for those who struggle to find work and to use local businesses if possible. There is growing evidence to suggest that SMEs provide better quality and more flexible services, and that they are more responsive when the procurer’s demands change, or there is a need to change a contract.

I was therefore interested in the excellent report that has been produced, and in the evidence that the Select Committee took on the need for local authorities to get better at procurement. Interestingly, the report reached the same conclusion as the shadow team. It is always tempting for people involved in central Government to think that centralising everything will get things done better, because of economies of scale and because there can be, for example, one pre-application questionnaire, simplifying the whole process, but I wonder about that. Many councils told us they could not do certain things because of EU legislation, which we were not sure was really the case. Some local authorities seemed to manage to do what others could not. However, I agree with my hon. Friend’s conclusion that it would be wrong to centralise the procurement system for local government, because that could mean services being unresponsive or inappropriate, which would be a major disbenefit. It could, indeed, lead ultimately to higher service delivery costs in the long term, particularly if contracts broke down and had to be retendered.

We thought that there was much good practice in local government. We saw that local authorities would come together voluntarily in an area that made sense to them, to deal with procurement. Often they would procure back office functions between several authorities, or they would look at working more effectively to improve value for money. Large contracts were another reason for them to come together. We hope that the Government will support local authorities in working together voluntarily, and perhaps in setting up, at regional, sub-regional or combined authority level, ways to make procurement easier, more consistent and easier to understand.

I also agree with the Select Committee’s conclusion that the difficult balancing act for local authorities is to get best value while supporting local businesses. In many cases, simply going by cost may not necessarily mean the best service, or the one that local people want, and it can mean employees from another area providing the service: local authorities thus cannot use procurement to benefit the people they represent. That is a difficult balancing act, but the people who are best able to chart a course through the difficulty are the local authorities, either alone or in co-operation.

I was pleased that the report showed that smart procurement can bring other benefits, such as a living wage, training and upskilling opportunities, and apprenticeships. It is right to suggest that the Local Government Association could and should do more to promote sharing good practice of that kind. We came across good examples, and felt that all local authorities need to understand how to use procurement more effectively.

In the responses we received, European rules that were never really outlined in detail were often used to justify a lack of imagination in the way councils procure services. Things were often very bureaucratic, and the reason we were given was, “We have to do this because of Europe.” However, some councils managed to avoid that. I was therefore pleased that the Select Committee paid attention to the issue, informing us that procurement takes longer and is more expensive in the UK than in other EU countries. I hope that that worries the Minister; it worries me. I thought that it showed that the Select Committee report is timely, and that its recommendations should be acted on.

The report states:

“Some 75% of all contracts tendered in the UK have a value below the thresholds at which the full EU requirements apply, but witnesses contended that councils applied the full rules to many of these lower value contracts”.

We came across that, and clearly it must cease. It is imperative that the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Local Government Association act on the relevant recommendation, at paragraph 59 of the report. Local authorities need to become more competent in applying EU rules. The first step is surely for the Government and sector leaders, including the LGA, to spell out what constitutes a sensible approach that complies with the regulations proportionately. The LGA should produce guidance on that aspect of the new EU directive on public procurement, and work with local authorities to disseminate best practice.

The report is right to highlight the need for a consistent, measured approach to the management of the procurement process. We, like the Select Committee, found huge variation in practice for pre-qualification questionnaires. We interviewed small businesses, and for some of them—with some councils—the PQQ experience was truly frightening. Often there is a lack of consistency between councils in dealing with PQQs, but sometimes the lack of consistency is between departments within a council. Our plea would be that if there is to be support to enable councils to get more streamlined systems, attention should be paid to PQQs. Indeed, there should be assistance from central Government or the LGA in developing a better system.

There was much good practice. We found, as did the Select Committee, good examples of streamlining to make the procurement and tendering process more straightforward, but there is a big role for the LGA to play in ensuring that all local authorities follow best practice. That is what the Select Committee report says, I think.

I was pleased that the Select Committee considered the quality of employment that is provided, through outsourcing in particular, and that it pressed the Government to monitor the quality of employment. As my hon. Friend said, that is particularly an issue for the care sector. I note that his Committee was not able to pay a huge amount of attention to that, but I hope that it will examine it in more detail later, because, again, we found real issues there.

The Minister can tell us later whether he is in favour of zero-hours contracts. We are not against them, but we want to see them only where they are appropriate and welcomed by staff. I feel strongly that they should not be imposed on people, as they often are, but there is a wider issue of outsourcing that can happen as a result of the local authority procurement process. We also want to reflect on the issues of accountability that the report produced by my hon. Friend’s Committee went into in some detail. It is all too easy for councils, once they have outsourced a particular service, to think that they no longer have any responsibility for the quality or delivery of that service, which would be quite wrong.

Elsewhere, the report talks about the need for councils to demonstrate probity, have good monitoring and complaints systems in place, and, critically, have a whistleblowing system, so that if there is fraud or bad practice, it is easy for people to highlight that, bring it into the open and make it transparent. We thought that there was some very good practice, which the report highlighted, but again, this is about the LGA and the Department encouraging the sharing of good practice.

The report was excellent, so I looked forward to reading the Government’s response, which I thought started well. It is good that, over the coming year, the Government will take a range of further actions to promote the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, and that they will review progress throughout the year and consider what actions to take as a result of that review. There is also a commitment to continue reviewing the impact of the community right to challenge. Will the Minister tell us when those reviews are likely to be completed and how they will be published and put into the public domain?

[Mr Betts]

My hon. Friend might like to know that the Committee will do an inquiry into the community right to challenge and how it is functioning. That is one of the inquiries we will do in the autumn.

Building Regulations (Electricity and Gas)

Debate between Clive Betts and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Thursday 6th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I, too, start by welcoming the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) to his new ministerial post. I am sure that we will joust cheerfully across the Chamber and this room on a number of occasions.

I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) for bringing in the regulations in the first place. He has done a lot to protect and enhance public safety. However, I have to say that by the time I had reached page 3 of the Select Committee report, I was beginning to wonder whether I was actually so pleased that we had part P, because this is not an area that is easy to grasp. I hope that hon. Members will bear with me when they understand that today I have had a range of planning matters to deal with. I am, nevertheless, pleased that we are having this very important debate.

I again thank the Select Committee Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe—

[Mr Betts]

Sheffield South East. It changed its name.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Apologies. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) for yet another excellent Select Committee report. I thank the Select Committee for undertaking the report. Given the Government’s wish to consult on changing part P and part J of the building regulations, an in-depth analysis was essential to look, in particular, at the extension of the range of simple jobs that could be carried out without notifying building control, and at possibly revoking, or at best watering down, part P. The Select Committee has done us all a great service with the report it produced.

I welcome recommendations 1, 4, 5, 11, 12 and 13, which all relate to raising public awareness of the potential dangers of gas and electrical works. As we heard from many Members, good public awareness of the potential dangers of such works and of the responsibilities on homeowners could ensure that such works are carried out responsibly and could contribute to an improvement in safety standards. It is important that the report emphasised raising public awareness and doing everything possible to ensure that homeowners are aware of their responsibilities. If we went on to the street outside and took a random sample of people, we would find that a number of them would not be aware of their responsibilities, so the task to be undertaken is huge. I am pleased that the all-party group on gas safety is setting up a forum to bring together organisations working to raise awareness of public safety. I hope that that happens quickly.

I also welcome recommendation 2, which proposes strengthening the enforcement powers. That would enable local authorities to bring prosecutions up to three years after the completion of work that is found to be sub-standard. It would serve as a greater deterrent to cowboy workmen, and I hope that it will come into operation swiftly.

Recommendation 3 deals with carbon monoxide alarms, and I know that the all-party group on gas safety has taken up that issue: the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) said earlier that he would set up a new forum to deal with it. All MPs are concerned about carbon monoxide poisoning, which is a problem in my constituency because of the many students in private lets. It is important that they are protected, and I would like the legislation on carbon monoxide strengthened, not weakened.