Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Angela Rayner

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

May I associate myself and the Liberal Democrats with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks on Ukraine?

Ahead of the Budget, I warned the Deputy Prime Minister that increasing national insurance contributions on social care providers would make the crisis in social care worse. Now, OBR figures suggest that the increase in NICs will cost more to social care providers than the money the Government have announced for that sector in the Budget, with that measure alone withdrawing £200 million from the sector. Will the Deputy Prime Minister speak with the Chancellor to ensure that, at the very least, health and care providers are protected from taking the hit?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Member for that question. The Chancellor is sat near me, and I know that, through our discussions, we wanted to ensure that social care was protected. That is why we confirmed £600 million of new grant funding for social care next year, an uplift to local government spending and an £86 million increase to the disabled facilities grant. Our Employment Rights Bill will help deliver the first ever fair pay agreement for the social care sector as well, and we will also ensure that the NHS is funded to help with the social care situation.

[Daisy Cooper]

It is clear that social care providers will be worse off, so I urge the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor to look again at that.

Somebody else who was worried about the Budget is Cathy, a farmer in my constituency, who told me yesterday that she thinks the Government changes simply do not make sense. They mean that her family may have to pay a bill that will force them to sell land, which makes food production unviable. At the same time, the Government have not closed the land-buying tax loophole that can be exploited by equity firms and the super-wealthy. Farmers told me yesterday that they feel as though they were betrayed by the Conservatives, and they now feel—[Interruption.]

[Daisy Cooper]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Farmers told me yesterday that they feel as though they have been betrayed by the Conservatives, but they now feel that they have also been lied to by Labour. Will the Deputy Prime Minister think again on this measure, so that our farmers can feed Britain?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Again, I am sorry to hear that Cathy is distressed by the scaremongering around what the Labour party is doing. The Budget delivered £5 billion for farming over the next two years—a record amount. The last Government failed to spend £300 million on farmers. Our plan is sensible, fair and proportionate, and protects the smaller estates while fixing public services that they rely on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Angela Rayner

Wednesday 23rd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

May I associate myself and the Liberal Democrats with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks about Chris Hoy, and about all those involved in the train crash?

Our NHS is bracing itself for a winter crisis. One of the causes of the winter crisis every year is that there are thousands of people in hospitals who are fit to go home, but who cannot be discharged because there are not the care workers in place to enable people to recover at home or in a care home. Will the Deputy Prime Minister consider the Liberal Democrats’ idea of an NHS winter taskforce to winter-proof our NHS, end the cycle of the winter crisis, and put to an end the scandal of hospital patients paying the price of the social care crisis left by the Conservatives?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, and I share her desire to ensure that care workers are given the respect and importance that they deserve. They are critical to solving the problems in our national health service. The Labour party will create a national care service, and we are launching our first ever fair pay agreement for care professionals to boost recruitment and retention. We must get the NHS back on its feet after the disaster of the Conservatives, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will have more to say on that in the Budget.

[Daisy Cooper]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for her answer. We stand ready, as a party of constructive opposition, to work with the Government to fix our social care system. However, a measure that could make it harder for us to keep the carers that we so desperately need would be an increase in employers’ national insurance contributions. Were that measure to go ahead, it would affect millions of small businesses, including 18,000 small care providers. Will the Deputy Prime Minister assure the House that nothing in the Budget will make it harder for vulnerable people to access the care workers and the care that they desperately need?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Again, I will not speculate on the Budget, not least with the Chancellor sat beside me. To reiterate what the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have said, this Budget will recognise that working people of this country and enterprise in this country have been hard-hit by 14 years of the Conservatives. We will rebuild Britain, and we will grow our economy to pay for our public services.

Building Homes

Debate between Daisy Cooper and Angela Rayner

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I can confirm that we are getting rid of the urban uplift. The new method of establishing housing targets is better than the previous one, which we believed was outdated. The urban uplift figures were plucked from thin air, but we believe that our new method will give councils the stability and certainty that will enable them to plan for the homes and local services that they need. As for land value capture, there is a little bit about it in the consultation document, but there will be more in the forthcoming planning and infrastructure Bill.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also thank the Deputy Prime Minister for giving me advance sight of her statement, and associate myself and my party with her remarks about the devastating and senseless attacks in Southport. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected.

For too long under the Conservatives, we had a planning system that put developer greed above community need—a system that did not deliver the homes that we needed to tackle the crisis, but did destroy swathes of our green belt. However, the statement raises a great many questions, so here we go.

Will local authorities that are at an advanced stage of their draft local plans need to start again with the new standard method, or will they be able to continue? Will authorities that have recently conducted a green belt assessment need to do it again under the new system, or will the current assessment stand? There seems to be a conspicuous absence of a specific target for social homes—not affordable homes, but social homes. Will the Deputy Prime Minister take up the Liberal Democrat target of building 150,000 social homes every single year? We welcome the Government’s proposal to review the compulsory purchase compensation, but will she take up the Liberal Democrat plan to put an end to land banking by reforming the Land Compensation Act 1961 so that local authorities can acquire land at fair values? We welcome the review of the right to buy, but will the Government allow local authorities to use that money to replace lost stock?

The Government indicated that they would be reviewing borrowing rules so that local authorities could borrow to invest. Will they allow authorities to borrow to invest on a scale that will allow them to put an end to homelessness, overcrowding and housing register waiting lists? What powers and resources will they give to planning authorities so that they can enforce the requirement to put infrastructure first? Will they scrap the cap on developer planning fees?

Finally, some local authorities in the London metropolitan green-belt area, even when they have accounted for all their brownfield sites and all their grey-belt sites, still have to build thousands of homes on the green belt, land which is supposed to have been designed specifically to stop urban sprawl. Will the Government put anything in the national planning policy framework that will give any protection at all to the concept of the green belt?

[Angela Rayner]

The answer to the hon. Lady’s direct question about local plans is that it depends on how far they have got. There will be a transition, as we explained in the consultation document, because we recognise that some areas are quite far on. As for where that is up to, it depends very much on what the difference is between what the local plan says and what we have asked. We have explained that in the consultation document as well. We have to be fair to those that have already done the work: when the work has been done, it is just a question of updating it and not disregarding those that already have local plans. A third of areas have up-to-date local plans, so I urge all Members to speak to their local authorities to ensure that they have their local plans, because that is how we ensure that people feel engaged and part of the process—which is critical—and how we protect green belt and other areas by ending the speculative developments that we have been seeing.

The hon. Lady asked about the number of social homes. I talked about the flexibility in the affordable homes grant. There is some stuff in the consultation document about the right to buy, which I recognise, and about how councils and housing associations can borrow to bring up their stock. I also recognise the problem we have faced as a result of the homelessness crisis, and I am particularly keen to tackle it. We have talked about compulsory purchase orders as well, and we are consulting on that because we think that it needs to be dealt with. We will deal with some of the other issues in the planning infrastructure Bill.

Planning will be strengthened—we have already announced 300 extra local planners—and we will strengthen section 106. There will be an accelerator taskforce to deal with stalled sites. When grey belt land is released, the golden rules that I outlined will apply, and we will expect a great deal from developers when they are using that land. We are consulting on fees as well. There is a lot in this consultation, which I believe will make a significant difference to engagement with local areas and ensuring that we meet the housing target that we need and the country desperately deserves.