House Building Targets

Debate between Emma Hardy and Alex Sobel

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my hon. Friend’s constituency, Goodwin Community Housing is a great example of brownfield sites being used to build modern, modular, low-carbon housing. Does she agree that we need to see that model of housing develop if we are to meet our housing targets using brownfield sites?

[Emma Hardy]

I completely agree, and I look forward to going to see those properties on Friday.

We have a problem with landlords not implementing their permissions in full, and with one landowner in particular. The problem is not just that sites are not being developed, but that landlords are failing to manage their responsibilities for them. There are patches of land across the city—I will talk about the details in a moment—that are being left to go to ruin, and landlords are not taking full responsibly for health and safety.

The Lord Line building is a site of personal significance to the people of Hull, as it is one of the last buildings relating to Hull’s fishing heritage. It is the site of the dock where the fishing boats used to come in and out of when we were the capital city of the UK for the fishing trade, but it has been left to go to ruin. Youths go in there for reasons that I do not want to elaborate on here. We can see from the discarded needles, the bricks thrown from the top of the building, and the fire engines that attend the site regularly that it is not being properly safeguarded or protected. There will end up being a tragedy there, because people keep going to that building and it is not being looked after.

The owner of that land also owned the former Rank Hovis Clarence Mill on St Peter Street. They pledged to clear the building and promised a Radisson Blu hotel in its place. The demolition and clearing work still had not started by 2015, and in 2017 the permission expired and was not renewed. They bought the Heaven & Hell nightclub in March 2011. They said that they were going to put a £15 million development called Manor Cube on the site, and stated that the building work on the hotel would be completed by July 2013, but by that time no work had been completed.

The Lord Line building has been left to go to rack and ruin, causing great upset in the fishing community in Hull. The company—Manor Properties—seems to have a habit of promising pie-in-the-sky, wonderful, big dreams to the people of Hull, while letting the areas go to ruin.

There are a few points where I feel the Minister can tighten up the existing legislation to prevent this from happening again. We could have enhanced compulsory purchase orders where a site is allocated and consent is not implemented in full. Those powers could enable the local authority to acquire the site at 50% of its market value, provided that it commences development within 12 months of acquisition and at least 50% of the development is completed within three years. I know that the council would develop that land, but it does not have the power to purchase it. If a section 15 notice has to be served due to a lack of maintenance and dereliction on a site, allowing it to be acquired at 40% of its market value could also help the development.

The Minister should also focus public sector funding on unlocking those sites by providing additional grants and loans. The rules are set up to prevent the council from being able to compulsorily purchase the sites, but when people come into my city on the A63, they see this abandoned building on the way in. That is not the advertisement that I want for my city. People walking around the centre see patches of land that have been left or underdeveloped. The Minister could change that by just tightening up a few bits of legislation.

Removing VAT for any conversion works undertaken to properties’ heritage action zones would also help us. The Minister should change the rules about what constitutes a material start, to prevent landowners from undertaking minor works.

Insect Population

Debate between Emma Hardy and Alex Sobel

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the reduced insect population.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Davies. I am glad to see so many hon. Members present. I will give them plenty of time to intervene, but I hope that they will let me make a bit of progress first. I secured this important debate because the declining insect population is one of the lesser-known tragedies of the human effect on our environment. I wanted to call the debate “Insect Armageddon” or “Insectageddon”, but unfortunately I am little ahead of the House authorities on such matters. That is what we are experiencing, however, and we should be under no illusion about that. Insects are the canary in the coalmine of animal life on the planet: if insects go, all other species will follow.

If we are fighting a war against climate change—we should be under no illusion that we are experiencing a climate emergency—insects are on the frontline of the battlefield and humans are just another species in the war. We are the most intelligent soldiers fighting the war, however, and we cannot expect insects to know that their fields are being built on or that their farmer is using nitrates. We know that our actions are causing the disruption to their ecosystem.

I secured the debate due to the absolutely shocking evidence I heard in the Environmental Audit Committee evidence session on 12 February. I want to put on the record my thanks to Professor Georgina Mace, Dr Mark Mulligan, Professor Peter Cox and Matt Shardlow, who gave the evidence that inspired this debate. I also thank the National Trust, the Royal Society for the Protection & Birds, Friends of the Earth and Buglife, which have informed what I will say.

There is a massive depletion of insects, in relation to biomass and abundance. Some studies also show a loss of variety. Most people born by 1980 will perceive that, because 25 or 30 years ago, on a long summer car journey, the windscreen would be full of winged insects. That is now minimal. Why do we need abundance, biomass and a variety of insects to ensure a healthy planet? We need abundance and biomass to support the production of food and water, and to support nutrient cycles and oxygen production. We need variety because that ensures that if a single insect species becomes extinct, we will retain sufficient diversity. New varieties may be able to cope with climate change and other challenges that humans and the planet provide. Studies have most clearly documented the loss of abundance and biomass, which has mostly been caused by land use change for agriculture, the intensification of agriculture, and the application of pesticides, herbicides and novel chemicals in the environment.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has secured the debate. Does he agree that one way to encourage greater insect populations is to have living streets, such as the one that we are talking about in Whitefriargate in Hull? That whole street will be turned into a living street full of plants and, hopefully, insects.