Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank my hon. Friend for sharing that excellent example of the vital work of Derby City Mission. I am pleased that it received £272,000 of Government funding through the night shelter transformation fund, to help people off the streets and into their own accommodation. The Government’s investment of nearly a billion pounds will allow partners to develop vital services for those in need, and we will draw on those lessons.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

The hugely increased housing target for East Hampshire gets further skewed by the extent of its overlap with a national park. Will the Housing Minister meet me to discuss our unusual situation and the case for having two separately set housing targets?

Non-Domestic Rating (Multipliers and Private Schools) Bill

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 15th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Adam Thompson]

I refer to Hansard for the discussions we had in Committee, but that did not come through in the evidence we heard. However, I respect the fact that the hon. Member has made that point, and I thank her for doing so.

As we heard from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade), another sector to benefit significantly from these measures is our local pubs. The fine folk frequenting the Sawley Junction in Long Eaton or the Bulls Head in Breaston in my constituency can rest easy that their locals are in safe hands. More generally, the measures we are bringing forward will reduce the tax burden on the hospitality sector, which is considered by many to be overtaxed. I am very glad that the Government have been able to offer something positive to the sector, which has been broadly forgotten for many years.

Some of the Bill’s opponents have suggested that the removal of charitable relief from non-domestic rates for private schools will have a negative impact on the parents of privately educated children, so I was strongly heartened to hear from one of our experts during the scrutiny process in Committee. Professor Francis Greene, professor of work and education economics at the University College London institute of education, noted that this Bill will have a “marginal” effect on the education sector, and that the policy was fair and would generally not have a great deal of impact on the proportion of children in private schools, which has remained broadly constant over the past 20 years, despite a cash-terms doubling in fees.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Would the hon. Gentleman like to reflect on what he has just said, which is that the proportion of children going to private schools has stayed constant? Even the Government’s own analysis does not say that. It says that the number has stayed broadly constant, and in fact the proportion has come down.

[Adam Thompson]

If I am incorrect, I stand corrected. My understanding from speaking to the experts is that the proportion has remained broadly consistent, but my apologies if that is incorrect. I thank the right hon. Member for his intervention.

The Committee stage reaffirmed what many of us on the Government Benches already knew, which is that this Bill represents a common-sense modification of our tax policy that will support local small businesses. The Bill represents a core pillar of this Government’s goal to rebalance the scales away from large online giants in favour of local independents and towards the 94% of children educated in the state sector. I know that traders and families in Ilkeston, Long Eaton and the surrounding villages in my constituency will broadly benefit from these measures, and I am proud to support this Bill through its remaining stages unamended.

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[Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

I am pleased to speak in favour of the Bill, which is a significant piece of legislation that aims to reform the non-domestic rating system in England. I welcome the Bill’s primary objective of creating a fairer and more balanced approach to non-domestic rating. By increasing the multipliers for large businesses, we will ensure that those entities contribute their fair share to the local economy. That change is particularly important as it addresses the disparity between large corporations and smaller businesses, which often struggle to compete under the current system.

The introduction of lower multipliers for retail, hospitality and leisure properties is a much needed relief for those sectors, which have faced significant challenges, especially in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic. By reducing the tax burden, the Bill aims to support recovery and growth, ultimately benefiting local communities and economies such as the hospitality and retail sector in my constituency.

One of the most notable aspects of the Bill is the removal of charitable relief for private schools. Although private schools play a role in our education system, it is essential to recognise that they operate as businesses and should be taxed accordingly. This change will generate additional revenue that can be invested in public services, including state schools. The Bill represents a step towards a more equitable and balanced tax system. It addresses the needs of various sectors, supports local economies and ensures that all entities contribute fairly to the public good.

[Damian Hinds]

There are problems with all taxes, which is why we end up with a blend of taxes. For businesses, there is tax on payroll, sales, profits and property. However, business rates are a particularly difficult and unpopular tax because they represent a fixed cost on the business that does not vary when the economy goes up or down, or according to the particular company’s success or growth, or a contraction in its sales or profits.

Over the years, I have heard many times from businesses in Alton, Petersfield, Horndean, Clanfield, Liss and elsewhere in East Hampshire about a desire for business rates reform. I am sure that a lot of small business owners were very attracted to what they heard from the Labour party—that it would to scrap business rates altogether. The Labour Government do not say that any more, but they still want us to believe that they are undertaking some great reform and cutting rates for our high street businesses. I am afraid it is all smoke and mirrors, because for those businesses, including the ones name-checked by the hon. Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson), the big effect that they feel right now is the cut in the relief for retail and hospitality business—not a small one, but from 75% to 40%.

It would be bad enough if that was all businesses faced, but it is not. They have to cope with all sorts of difficulties the whole time. We have rising labour costs—we support the increase in the national living wage over time, but not a hike in employer national insurance contributions at the same time. Because of what is happening to the threshold, there will be a massive effect on part-time workers. That will be very difficult for retail and hospitality businesses to swallow.

In and of themselves, the cuts to the multiplier for high street businesses are welcome, but we must remember that they are balanced by increases elsewhere in the system. Sometimes, Government Members talk about big businesses and corporations as some unwelcome part of our economy, but they are the biggest employers in the country and are fundamental to our economy. In the Red Book, these changes involve increases of hundreds of millions of pounds in business rates. Who will the increased rates affect? They will affect large supermarkets—a sector that is one of the biggest employers in the country—and hotels, which are a really important employer, as well as being fundamental to travel and tourism. Will the Minister also say a word about the expected effect on the national health service?

The blurb on the Budget says, “We are going to attack distribution centres, including those used by online retailers.” The word “including” does a lot of work in that sentence, because high street retailers also have distribution centres, and the changes will add to their costs, fuelling inflation on food and everyday consumer goods.

[Dr Luke Evans]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent observation on the impact of these costs. We know from the surveys that 75% of businesses will pass on the costs to the very people who use them. They will have an inflationary impact on the public. Does he agree that it is imperative that we think about that?

[Damian Hinds]

As ever, my hon. Friend is spot on. In the end, there is no such thing as a tax on business—you cannot tax a business; you can only tax people. Any tax on business is ultimately a tax on its employees, its customers or its owners. Before somebody jumps up and starts talking about the owners, the owners are often pension funds who are then paying out the pensions for our mums and dads.

My point is that these business rate increases will mean higher costs for bricks-and-mortar companies as well, which come on top of all the other changes, in particular the hike in employer national insurance contributions. And this from a Government who yet again this week keep talking about their growth agenda. It makes me wonder what is actually written in that growth agenda.

Overall, the effect of all these changes—we need only look at the Budget Red Book—is that the revenue from business rates is projected to increase from £32 billion this financial year to almost £40 billion in five years’ time. It is a massive further tax raid on business, and a brake on employment and economic growth.

[Daisy Cooper]

The right hon. Gentleman is giving an impassioned speech about the case for an overhaul of the business rates system. Why did the previous Conservative Government never get around to doing that?

[Damian Hinds]

Well, I did refer at the start of my speech to the calls over the years for reform. I also said that there are problems with all taxes we levy on individuals or on business and that is why we end up with a blend. What I am talking about now is the fact that this Government are hiking up the total amount that will be taken in business rates, which will fall on major employers and then be felt in our unemployment rate. The Government are trying to do this thing of saying, “We are cutting stuff,” but they are not, because for all of the companies we have heard name-checked, reducing the relief will outweigh the effect of the multiplier. On top of that, we have a revaluation coming up in the near future. That is probably going to mean an increase in rateable values that will compound those higher multiples.

For all those reasons, new clause 2 is both important and a reasonable ask. It says that after a period of time, we should review the real-life effect of these changes and give the Government an opportunity to change course and get back to something that looks a bit like a growth agenda.

I turn briefly to the effect of these changes on independent schools. We have debated in the Chamber on a number of occasions the Government’s overall approach to independent schools. Let me say again that we object in principle to taxing education. It makes us almost unique in the world that we would do such a thing and it will be the first time in our national history that we have done so—it has never been done before by any Labour Government, or any other Government. The tax change we are debating today on rates is not the only tax change or transfer of money from independent schools to the Treasury. They were already facing a big increase—5%, I think—in employer contributions to the teachers’ pension scheme. Like all organisations—public sector, private sector, charitable and voluntary sector—they also have employer national insurance contributions to deal with. And then there is the enormous VAT change.

Specifically on this tax change, it is a fixed cost, as I mentioned at the start of my speech, at a time when there is all this uncertainty around the independent education sector and children will be moving. I will let Members into a secret: no one knows what the ultimate effect will be. We can line up as many experts as we like, but no one knows how many children will be moving, but we know it will be a non-trivial number greater than zero—there will be children moving out of that sector and there is a lot of uncertainty. It therefore seems to be a very unwise time to add, on top of all those other tax changes, a significant change to a fixed-cost tax. The amendments put forward by the official Opposition are therefore very well worth supporting; my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) made that case very strongly.

On faith schools, we know that whatever the impact assessment says, people of faith, and particularly of smaller faiths, will be disproportionately impacted by this Government’s changes to education. We also know that children with SEND feature particularly prominently in the independent sector. Many of those schools have an awful lot of children who have special needs, but not necessarily—or not yet—an education, health and care plan. Special consideration should be given to both those types of schools: faith schools—if we wanted to narrow it down further, we could say smaller faiths charging low fees to parents—and those catering to children with special educational needs and disabilities.

On amendment 10, with all else that is going on in the independent sector, it is at the very least an exceptionally reasonable ask of the Government that we delay these changes by a year to give the sector a chance to be able to cope and plan.

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[Mr Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

I am grateful for this opportunity to speak in favour of this Bill, having been involved in its scrutiny at most of its stages. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge) in thanking all the witnesses who came forward to give evidence to the Bill Committee. I thank them for the evidence they gave and for the useful insight from their respective sectors.

We on the Government Benches are clear that small businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors should pay lower business rates. The Bill establishes two new multipliers that are lower than the current standard business rates multiplier. In order to pay for these changes, we must ask larger businesses to contribute their fair share so that our smaller businesses can thrive. That is because we on this side of the House know that when we have tax cuts, we need to pay for them with revenue-raising measures—something the Opposition have not quite realised yet. This is a good mechanism that the Government are deploying to save our high streets, to incentivise local investment and to support entrepreneurship. As all Members will know, high streets are essential to local towns and should be given the support they need. I am pleased to say that the measures in the Bill will benefit smaller local businesses such as those on Queen Street, which sits in the centre of Leeds South West and Morley.

In Committee, we heard from Paul Gerrard, who is the board secretariat director at the Co-op. He told the Committee that these changes will help 92% of the Co-op’s retail properties, but he also estimates that they will help 98% of retail businesses because they will have a rateable value that allows them to benefit from these changes. That has to be welcomed. As for those that will pay more to make these changes possible, the higher multiplier will apply to properties with a value greater than or equal to £500,000, including large warehouses that are often used by online giants. They will pay their fair share, and we can start to level the playing field so that essential community high street businesses are on a level playing field with multinational corporations.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is a challenge in making sure that things are fair, and we all support a level playing field between the online world and bricks-and-mortar businesses, including in our town centres. There is a thing called the digital services tax, which was conceived while we were in government. Will he say a word about the relative advantages and disadvantages of trying to go after online retailers with business rates changes, which will also affect all manner of other organisations, including bricks-and-mortar retailers, and doing it a different way through a more direct type of tax?

[Mr Sewards]

I return to the point I made earlier. We know that we have to support these smaller businesses—these bricks-an-mortar businesses, as the right hon. Gentleman calls them—and the only way we are going to pay for this is by finding the money from elsewhere. We have chosen to cut business rates for smaller businesses, and we are choosing to raise the revenue from the larger businesses and corporations that have been getting away without paying their fair share for far too long.

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[Mr Sewards]

Yes, it would be helpful if the Minister could provide clarity. As someone who uses soft play—[Laughter.] Not personally, enjoyable though it is. I am sure that my sons Oscar and Arthur, who is six months old and not quite ready to take advantage of soft play, will also be keen to know, so perhaps the Minister could offer some clarity in his closing remarks.

Although amendments 1 to 6 are noble, this Bill is about the high street, and we know just how much our high streets have suffered. This does not mean, for one second, that we are backing down from the challenges facing manufacturing businesses, which amendments 1 to 6 aim to help with. The Budget announced over £3 billion to support the manufacturing sector, including £520 million for a life sciences innovative manufacturing fund, but the changes to business rates in this Bill are primarily about supporting our high streets.

As someone who was teaching on this date a year ago, I am particularly interested in clause 5, which removes the charitable relief enjoyed by some private schools. I welcome this, along with the Budget’s broader measures to remove tax breaks from private schools so that we can fund state education properly. A vote for amendment 10 would delay this funding for state schools by another year.

It is estimated that, of the 2,444 private schools in England, only 1,040 will be impacted by the change. The measure will raise around £70 million, which, when taken together with the other revenue-raising measures we have announced, will increase per pupil funding in real terms to benefit the 94% of students who attend state schools. We must give every child the chance to succeed in life, and that is exactly what this Bill and the other measures we have announced are doing.

[Damian Hinds]

It is worth reflecting that the education budget goes up every year. It does not go up because there has been a change to business rates, VAT or anything else, which is the logic we sometimes hear from Labour Members. If the revenue from those things is slightly smaller than expected, does that mean less money will go into education? Of course not.

We keep hearing about hiring 6,500 more teachers. Does the hon. Gentleman know how many more teachers were hired in the last Parliament?

[Mr Sewards]

I heard the right hon. Gentleman put that question to the Minister in last Monday’s Westminster Hall debate but, just to go back to his original point—I will come to the 6,500 new teachers—we are deliberately taking these decisions in order to increase the amount of money that state schools have to teach the 94% of students who enjoy state school education.

As a basic principle, all Members of this House can get behind the idea that it is a basic function of the state to provide a well-funded, excellent state school place for all students, whether or not parents choose to take advantage of it. That is exactly what we are doing with this Bill and the other measures we have announced.

Building Homes

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

The previous Government, as the hon. Gentleman may know—again, I commend them for it—appointed an older people’s housing taskforce

“to look at options for the provision of greater choice, quality and security of housing for older people.”

That taskforce recently published its report, with a series of recommendations that we are engaging with. However, we need to give serious consideration as to how the planning system evolves to take into account demographic changes that we know we need to adapt to.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

May I suggest to the Government that this subject really warrants a full-day debate and not just a statement with questions and answers? For now, however, may I ask about one straightforward matter? Will the Minister look carefully at the relatively small number of places, including East Hampshire, with a planning area that is part-in, part-out of a national park and at the case that housing targets should be set separately for those two parts of the planning area?

[Matthew Pennycook]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. There are local authorities around the country where the boundaries are such that they stray into areas where environmental protections are in place, such as national parks and other things. Local areas will need to engage with the mandatory higher housing targets that we are bringing forward when coming up with local plans. Those local plans will be tested by the Planning Inspectorate to see whether there are hard constraints of the type he speaks to and therefore whether a plan is sound on that basis. Hard constraints will still be taken into account in the development and examination of local plans.

New Developments on Green-belt Land

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Sir Gary. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) on securing this important debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss this issue.

My constituents in East Hampshire were among the top 10 by number of signatories to e-petition 600577, which is explicitly linked to this debate and is about green-belt and greenfield sites. It is important to make a distinction between the two: “green belt” is a particular land designation and a particularly important natural asset, but “greenfield” is also an important part of nature and amenity, whether for resident constituents or people coming from further afield. People often use the two terms interchangeably.

Realistically, I do not think we can say that we will never build on a greenfield site. Whatever type of dwelling we or our constituents live in, it is built on what was once a greenfield site. The reality is that the population has been growing for many years, for many reasons, including the positive fact that people are living longer, as well the tendency towards smaller households. However, we can make sure that we prioritise brownfield sites, and we need to give meaning to that. It is an easy phrase to throw out, but it has to mean something and to be enabled, through initiatives such as the facilitation of high-quality, amenity-enhancing estate redensification, town centre concentrations and city centre revitalisations.

The situation in my constituency is almost unique because the constituency is bisected by the boundary of a national park. Some 57% of the area is in the national park and 43% is outside it. Unusually, there is a sizeable town—Petersfield—inside the national park. Although the housing numbers were assessed on the basis of the whole district, effectively almost all of them have to go in the minority area, outside the boundary of the national park. That potentially puts a great deal of pressure on places just outside the boundary, such as Alton, Four Marks, Whitehill, Bordon and parts of the village of Liphook. In practical terms, East Hampshire District Council’s emerging local plan sets out that 632 homes a year will have to be built, but 532 of them—some 84%—will have to be delivered in the 43% of the area that is outside the national park.

The system nominally allows local authorities to use what is called “an alternative approach” to assess housing need where the strategic policy-making authority’s boundaries do not align with the local authority. However, there is a big risk in taking that route; authorities know that if they pursue it, they can expect challenge when the local plan is examined by the Planning Inspectorate. The consequences of the plan failing at that stage, in terms of speculative development and lack of infrastructure delivery, are potentially so great that local authorities are naturally reluctant to consider an alternative approach. We found it difficult to find examples of local authorities in a similar situation that have adopted such an approach.

I thank the Minister’s officials at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for meeting officials from my local council earlier this year to discuss these difficult circumstances, but the situation essentially remains the same. The “Planning for the Future” White Paper of 2020 contains proposals to look at land constraints right at the start of the process of assessment of housing need, but we are not clear about the status of those proposals. Is the Minister able to give us any further detail about that? That would be welcome.

In common with my right hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), I am also keen to urgently understand the meaning of the “more flexible alignment test” that is intended to replace the duty to co-operate. Finally, in a situation such as mine, where the boundary of a national park cuts across the constituency and the local authority area, it would be preferable if numbers could be assessed separately inside and outside the park.

Planning for the Future

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to see you in the chair today, Sir Charles. I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on securing this important debate.

The last time we debated this subject, in October in the main Chamber, I talked about three main themes. I will cover broadly the same three themes today, but I hope to do so in a fresh and original way in the time available.

The first is that, with any algorithm or formula, of course it is right to look at the inputs, how the formula works and the logic of it and to see whether we think those things are right. It is also right to look at the output of that formula and, if it seems to jar with the original intention, to go back and look at the inputs and logic.

This is not the time and the place to do that. Constructing an algorithm in a Westminster Hall debate is probably about as sensible as design by committee, but all those aspects warrant a fresh look. That starts with very basic things, such as how we define affordability. Sometimes the median is not the most appropriate thing to use. There is a danger in a constituency such as mine, where median incomes are based to some extent on the incomes of people working outside the area, that if house-building targets are driven based on those numbers, the result might be building more and more pricey larger executive homes that remain unaffordable to the people for whom the housing was intended to be more affordable.

In a constituency such as mine, and I suspect those of some others, yes, we need more houses. I think everybody these days accepts that we need to get supply and demand in better kilter. There is also an important question of mix and ensuring that as we increase those numbers that means an increase in houses that are genuinely affordable, in the sense meant by people who come to our surgeries. That is not only capital A Affordable as it is meant in the public sector, but affordable as in a home that I can afford to aspire to buy.

[Wera Hobhouse]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the existing affordable home ownership product is a much better way of delivering social housing than the first homes proposal in the White Paper?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Member raises important points. There is a need for housing of all different types, sizes and tenures, and there are different ways of delivering them. In the time we have available, I am afraid we are not going to get to the bottom of evaluating them in an ordinal way.

The third and important point I want to make is about national parks. I do not know whether there are others here who represent national park areas. There is the particular issue where part of a constituency is in a national park and parts are outside, so there are very different constraints in how land can be used. There is a danger that if a housing target or requirement is set based on the entire area, containing both national park and non-national park, with different constraints on what can be done in each part, the result will be the insufficient creation of new homes inside the national park and potentially too much on the edge.

A piece of work came out from Nationwide a few weeks ago that suggested that house prices in national parks have something like a 20% house price premium compared with those outside. In a constituency such as mine that is a huge amount of money. The Office for National Statistics is doing some further work, so hopefully we will be able to develop those figures. It is also important for the areas just outside the national park. In my constituency, that means areas such as Alton and Four Marks, where there is potentially a disproportionate amount of development in the border zone that can put considerable strain on infrastructure and provision of service. It can then be difficult to ensure adequate provision.

There has been a lot of debate about the proposals. Ministers have been in listening mode and have been very good in listening to colleagues across the House. I hope, as the matter develops further, it will be possible to take these considerations into account.

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

You are all being very well behaved on timing, far too well behaved. I might have to lift the time limit.

Planning and House Building

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for all the work he has done on this and the Backbench Business Committee for granting time to debate this important matter. With dozens of colleagues still wanting to speak, I am going to make just three short points. First, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) made the point that people now accept that we need more homes and that, for affordability, we need to increase the number of homes, including in constituencies such as mine in East Hampshire. However, we need to look not only at the aggregate number but at the mix, and for people on low incomes, focusing on the median price may be largely irrelevant.

My second point is about the algorithm, or, as we used the call them back in the olden days, the formula. With any such exercise, of course it is right to look at the input elements and to consult on whether they are the right ones, but it is also right to look at what happens when we run the numbers to see what the output is. If the outcome of that formula or exercise is to entrench historical patterns of population growth and contraction, in tension with the Government’s correct emphasis on levelling up and in some ways in direct contradiction to that emphasis, we need to look afresh at the formula.

[Steve Brine]

Is not the other problem with the formula or algorithm, or whatever we call it, that it seems to have a tin ear to constituencies such as my right hon. Friend’s and mine, where vast parts of the districts in question are covered by national parks? The algorithm does not seem to consider that.

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend is bang on. That is going to be my third point, which I will come to in a second.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend and I share a local planning authority, which has already been meeting the five-year supply requirements, but the algorithm means that the numbers will go up by 50% in our constituencies. Does he think that is acceptable?

[Damian Hinds]

My hon. Friend makes a good point—[Interruption.] Opposition Members are getting very upset about the clock, and I apologise, but do not worry, I will come in at well under four minutes anyway.

My third and final point is indeed about national parks. The local authority that I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond) is bisected by a national park. If a housing needs assessment is made on the basis of the local authority area but it then has to be heavily disproportionately implemented in the area outside the national park, that causes two sets of problems. First, inside the park, in areas such as Petersfield and Liss, housing will become more and more unaffordable over time. Also, just outside the national park, in places such as Alton and Four Marks, there will be a great deal of pressure and it will be difficult to keep up in terms of service provision. If two different parts of an area have very different constraints, a separate housing needs assessment should be made for each one. The Minister is a good Minister and a good man, and I take it very much at face value that this is a consultation. I encourage him and the Government to think again about some of these important matters.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We seemed to be having a bit of a problem with the clock. I will keep my eye on the four minutes, so if hon. Members would like to look at me, I will gesticulate appropriately when it gets towards the end of their time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

That was a matter of public record. It was referred to in the planning inspector’s report that my Department received in November, so all parties would have been aware of that.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Would my right hon. Friend agree that the work done with rough sleepers during this crisis presents a unique opportunity? Will he commit to redoubling efforts to bring together the national Government, local government, the voluntary sector and, crucially, employers to make sure that we can build on this platform, so that more rough sleepers can be found sustainable homes and careers and we can work towards the Government’s very laudable aim to end rough sleeping for good?

[Robert Jenrick]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. One of the great successes and few silver linings during the pandemic has been the fact that, working with charities and councils across the country, we have helped to bring in more than 90% of those people who are sleeping rough on our streets. That is something we should all be proud of and has undoubtedly saved hundreds, if not thousands of lives, but that is just the beginning. I am now working with the homelessness Minister—my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall)—and Dame Louise Casey on a long-term plan to give those people the accommodation they need to move on and restart their lives. That begins with working with local councils and bringing forward more than 6,000 new homes.