Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Clive Betts and Stephen Hammond

Tuesday 12th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate, given that I was a member of the Public Bill Committee. I note your strictures about keeping speeches short, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Had I listened to the debate without any knowledge, I might have been persuaded by Opposition amendment 142, which deals with security of tenure. However, all is not as it is being portrayed—in fact, far from it. It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who was a town planner for many years and served on the Bill Committee with me, but she should be reassuring the constituents whom she claims are frightened. The changes to security of tenure do not apply to anyone who currently has tenure, which has conveniently been forgotten in much of the scaremongering led by Opposition Front Benchers.

Equally, I cannot be alone in hearing a number of housing associations and councils saying that the balance in the housing stock, where need is not matched by current occupation, is not right. It is therefore only right that as future tenancies come up, we ensure that stock is used most appropriately across the affordable housing market. This has not been mentioned today, but tenancies will be expected to last for five years. They will not be automatically thrown out after five years. There will be a review and the landlord will need to prove why he is removing a tenant.

It is a surprise to hear the Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who is usually much more advanced on these matters than I am, clearly miss out the two important points that detract from his argument. First, the Government have already said to local authorities that there are exceptions when people move tenure. They can grant new life tenures, in particular for people moving jobs and for the elderly. Secondly, he clearly missed what the Government have said to housing associations about the elderly and those with disabilities because, in those cases, the presumption on the housing authority will be to provide life tenure. It is important to get those facts on record because they clearly negate the argument for amendment 142, which I strongly urge the Minister to reject.

[Mr Betts]

On the point about discretion, in schedule 4, proposed new section 81B(2)(b) of the Housing Act 1985 excludes the requirement to give a new secure tenancy except in cases when

“the tenant has not made an application to move”.

In other words, if the tenant has made an application to move to a smaller property, they cannot be guaranteed a new secure tenancy, according to the Bill.

Managed Motorway Scheme (South Yorkshire)

Debate between Clive Betts and Stephen Hammond

Wednesday 6th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

Thank you, Sir Alan. I will remember that for the future.

I thank the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) for initiating the debate. I hope to address a lot of what she said. If there is anything that she thinks I have not dealt with, I am happy to write to her.

I was quite disappointed by the hon. Lady’s remarks at the end of her speech and by the remarks made by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). This is not about cutting corners; it has never been about that or about downturn in money. It has always been about ensuring that we get the most efficient and safest motorways. I hope that they see, from my remarks, including my responses to points that they made, that that is exactly where we started from.

[Mr Betts]

I made my comments in light of a response that I received from the chief constable, in which he raised the possibility that budget constraints were causing the scheme to be produced in such a way that safety could be put at risk. I wrote to the Secretary of State about that, enclosing the chief constable’s letter, so perhaps the Minister will have an opportunity to respond to that point in due course.

[Stephen Hammond]

It might have been helpful if the chief constable had spoken to the Highways Agency before making that remark, because substantial work has been done with the agency and the South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership subsequent to some of the information that was mentioned. It would have helped if that had happened, rather than that remark being bandied around.

The managed motorway design and operation is well established and is already successful on the M42 in Birmingham, which we spoke about, on the M6 between junctions 4 and 5, and in other places on the M6. The latest refinement to the design is called managed motorways, with all-lane running, and it builds on our experience of operating similar schemes over the past seven years.

The infrastructure growth review in November 2011 supported the move to the revised design, recognising that the congestion and safety benefits from previous experience could be brought into other schemes. The latest design is being applied to all future managed motorway schemes, not just the project on the M1. It is the first scheme subject to some things that I will mention. Construction will start this year and the first section is scheduled for operation in 2014.

Managed motorways are about supporting safer motorways and the economy, providing much-needed capacity on our busiest motorways. They bring benefits to road users in terms of reduced congestion and improved reliability on journey time; they support the local economy and, by improving the key link, they help move people and goods around, and give people better access not only to the things they want to do in their lives, but to jobs. By providing that additional capacity, we reduce congestion and smooth the flow of traffic, which can reduce the cost of delays.

A cost saving of between 40% and 60% is associated with managed motorway schemes, which goes towards some of the motorway widening schemes. We can build more of those and benefit far more people, right across the country. The scheme makes best use of the existing infrastructure, providing maximum value for money for the taxpayer.

We know that managed motorways work. They reduce congestion and improve journey times by using variable speed limits, by giving more road space to road users and by making the hard shoulder available as a traffic lane. There is evidence that the hard shoulder can be used as a traffic lane without worsening the safety experience. Although the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley is right to say that the hard shoulder is not used exclusively on the M42, there is plenty of experience of the safety aspects of using the hard shoulder as a traffic lane and very few vehicles have experienced the issues she outlined. Moreover, there is an improvement because a number of drivers found it difficult to switch from hard shoulder running to non-hard shoulder running.