Housing: Rhondda

Esther McVey Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

I will call Sir Chris Bryant to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. As is the convention in 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the availability and support for housing in Rhondda constituency.

It is a great delight to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms McVey; we were both in the National Youth Theatre, although you are obviously much younger than I, and so were a youth much later than I was—and remain one.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

You flatter me, sir.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I do not know whether many hon. Members present have visited, but they will know the stereotypical view of the Rhondda: lots of terraced houses up the mountains and down the valleys—many identical houses, but painted with different colours, and many of them mini palaces inside. They were built as miners’ cottages in the 19th century and early 20th century. One of the ironies is that in all my time as a Member of Parliament, which is now 22 years, I have never known us to have a housing crisis. Yes, a few people have faced financial problems and lost their homes, but despite the deprivation levels 66% of people in my constituency own their own home. That is very high compared with many other areas with similar levels of deprivation.

We also have very little social housing—just 12%. Compare that with other parts of the country: Cardiff, 17%; Neath Port Talbot, another next-door county, 19.2%; Birmingham, 23.5%; and Lambeth, just across the river from here, 33.5%. We have very few council houses or former council houses. There are estates such as Penrhys and Trebanog, which are now in the hands of various housing associations, but there are really very few. The commercial rented sector is therefore a very important part of ensuring that people have affordable homes to live in.

It is exceptional to me, as MP for the Rhondda, that we now for first the first time ever have a perfect storm of a housing crisis in the Rhondda. It worries me deeply. Several different elements have led to it. One is the bedroom tax. That came in in 2013, but some of the effects are still being felt today; it is pushing people out of some social housing into other commercial properties. Another is the housing benefit cap, which has now been in place for so many years that it simply has not kept up with rental rates, even in areas such as the Rhondda, where rent is much lower than in London or many other constituencies in the land.

Changes to the buy-to-let taxation system have also had an effect on many commercial landlords in the Rhondda. Those landlords would have bought only two properties at most, because they thought of them as their retirement income. They bought them on buy-to-let mortgages and expected to be able to deduct against tax a significant part of the mortgage interest. Now they find that they cannot. It is more difficult for them to afford to keep their buy-to-let properties, and many of them are selling up. That is even before we consider the effect that mortgage interest rates are having on buy-to-let mortgages. Commercial landlords can deduct less mortgage interest than they could before, and they are finding that the sums simply do not add up. I have heard about commercial landlords saying, “I cannot sell the property, but my mortgage is costing me more than the rent I can charge.”

The Welsh housing quality standard 2023, which was introduced by the Welsh Government, has added another burden to commercial landlords who have to meet that standard. Of course we are all in favour of properties meeting proper standards, but one problem is that many of our houses were built in the 19th century, long before the standards that we would expect today. The bedrooms are tiny or relatively small and do not meet those standards. They are difficult to insulate and heat, because of how they were built in the 19th century. That has posed another set of challenges for commercial landlords, who say, “How am I going to find £5,000 or £10,000? Even if I did find the £5,000 or £10,000, would I ever be able to bring that property up to the new housing quality standards?”

Then we have interest rates. If 65% of people living in the Rhondda own their own homes, that is an awful lot of people with mortgages. Many of them might be on long-term fixed-rate mortgages, but we do not tend to do 16 or 20-year fixed-rate mortgages in the UK—it is more like two, three, four or five. People are seeing significant increases in the amount that they have to pay when at the same time inflation is running at 8.7%. That poses a lot of challenges in the whole market.

There is another element. Again, it is something that was introduced by the Welsh Government, which changed the priority need basis whereby local authorities had to determine whether they had a statutory duty to provide accommodation, so it is different in Wales from in England. I fully understand the rationale behind that. I do not want anybody to be homeless. I want local authorities to be there to help whenever they can, but that has added to the situation as well.

The situation has resulted in dozens of landlords selling up. As I have said, most of them have only two properties. The idea that the landlords have vast portfolios of 30 or 50 properties is not what we have in the Rhondda. People mostly have just two. Letting agencies have said to me, “We would normally let three, four or five properties a month—maybe a bit more at some times of the year. Some of us have not managed to let a single property this year because there is no commercial property to let.”

Between 2018-19 and 2022-23, there was a 65% increase in the number of families forced to leave private rented accommodation because of no-fault evictions, which are normally under a section 21 notice. Every week my office has people ringing up in absolute despair. The local authority now recommends that people stay until they are forcibly evicted, because it knows that, try as hard as it can, it simply cannot meet the need.

Between 2019-20 and 2022-23, there was a 69% increase in temporary accommodation placements. Across the whole of Rhondda Cynon Taf, the local authority, that has risen from 598 a year to 861. In addition, the total number of days that people have spent in temporary accommodation is now running at 44,251 because more people than ever before, particularly families with children, are in temporary accommodation and they are staying longer—considerably longer in many instances.

The cost to Rhondda Cynon Taf, because of the temporary accommodation factor, has changed out of all proportion. In 2019, the cost stood at £514,000. Last year it was £1,633,000. In just those few years the cost has more than trebled so there is a significant additional cost. In the end, of course, temporary accommodation is not high quality. It is not the best option, especially for people who have children, a physical disability or other special needs. It ends up being more costly than providing proper social housing and leads to other social problems further down the line.

We also have another problem. Some commercial landlords are now so nervous about having people who might be in receipt of housing benefit, which has been capped, or people who have financial problems because of the cost of living crisis, that they now often insist on substantial deposits beforehand. We have heard of landlords demanding 12 months’ rent in advance. There is no way the vast majority of ordinary people could possibly afford that. If they could, they might as well buy a home, because they would have enough for a deposit to do so. The good news in the Rhondda is that people can buy properties that are relatively cheap compared with many other places in the country, but only if they have managed to build up a significant deposit. Of course, many people who are in this horrific cycle of being shunted from one commercial rented property or one temporary accommodation to another simply do not have those kinds of financial resources.

There is another problem. I am delighted that RCT is able, through the Welsh Government scheme, to offer £25,000 grants for people to take property that is not being lived in and make it habitable again, but that must now meet all the new standards. It is simply not possible to smash a two-up, two-down property with small rooms into the kind of property that meets present-day standards. That is yet another problem facing the whole market.

The demand for social housing is increasing dramatically for all the reasons that I have highlighted—people being forcibly evicted, people not being able to find the big deposits that are needed, and people whose landlords are selling their properties. We now have a situation where RCT, which is doing its level best to provide accommodation for people, is finding that it has not just a few applications for every property that becomes available through its scheme, but hundreds. It is not unheard of to have 250 applications for a single property the moment it comes into the system.

In the last three years, the numbers of people applying for a one-bed flat in Maerdy have quadrupled, and they have trebled for a three-bed house in Penygraig. There was a time when certain parts of the Rhondda or RCT were more popular than others, but now every single social housing property that becomes available is massively oversubscribed, and there is no way on God’s earth that RCT, try as it might, and as inventive as it tries to be, can meet the housing need.

As I said, there are now effectively no commercial rented properties available. This is not one of those debates where I want to shout at the Government, “You’ve done terrible things—look how you’ve completely let my constituents down.” All I am trying to do is reveal to both the Government here and the Government in Cardiff Bay—because some of these issues relate to decisions made in the Welsh Government, and some of them relate to decisions made in Westminster—how an area such as the Rhondda, which has beautiful mountains, lovely valleys and some amazing housing stock—albeit that much of it is old and difficult to heat, insulate and keep up to modern housing standards—is really struggling at a time when the commercial rented sector is falling on its face.

What are the answers? We need to do something about the housing benefit cap, which has been frozen for far too long and is now completely out of kilter with reality for most ordinary properties in the Rhondda. We need to change some of the taxation for buy-to-let properties, because otherwise we will simply lose the commercial rented sector in its totality in constituencies such as mine and perhaps in many other parts of the country, and that is problematic. And of course we need to build more social housing, but I know that that solution will not come on board quickly.

The Welsh Government need to think about the priorities they have set for councils such as Rhondda Cynon Taff, because at the moment it is simply unachievable, with all the will in the world, for RCT to meet its full statutory duties. The Welsh Government also have to think about the housing standards and how they apply in valleys communities. Some people might look at a two-up, two-down terraced property from the outside and think, “I don’t know what that’s going to look like inside,” but many of them are palaces indoors, because people take phenomenal pride in them. In a community where most people own their own home, there is that pride in the street where you live and the house you live in. That builds a sense of community and a sense of communal ownership of the whole terrace, the street and the town.

I want to say to the Welsh Government that I fully understand why they do not want commercial landlords to be ripping off tenants. I argued at the beginning of my time as an MP that we do not want commercial landlords simply coming along, buying up a house, spending 50p on it and then putting somebody in because they know they will be able to get vast amounts of housing benefit over the years because the tenant will be in there. That is the Government effectively subsidising bad commercial landlords. Yet we now have the flip side of that problem, which is that housing benefit is too low, so it is difficult for commercial landlords to make any kind of money from renting their properties, and we need roughly 20% of the housing stock in the Rhondda to be in the commercial rented sector.

I passionately believe in social housing. I would love Rhondda Cynon Taf to be allowed to build more properties. As it happens, the first local authority in the country to introduce the idea of a person buying their own council property was Newport, under Labour control. However, the key then was that if someone bought their property, the local authority was able to invest that money in building more social housing. One of the our problems is that we have not invested enough in social housing across the whole of the country for many years.

I am sure the Minister will be able to respond to all my problems, but if there is anything else she needs, I will send her a little report I have done, entitled “The New Housing Crisis in the Rhondda”; it is available on my website as well. I care passionately about making sure that people have a decent home. That is one of the great things that, historically, people in the Rhondda have been able to afford, but at the moment, we have a real challenge. I hope the Minister can help.

Housing Targets: Planning System

Esther McVey Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

I will call Gordon Henderson to move the motion and then the Minister to respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.

[Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered housing targets and the planning system.

This is not the first time I have raised the subject of overdevelopment in my constituency. In the last 12 years, I have done so on a number of occasions, so I will not repeat what I have said before, except to emphasise the problems that excessive housebuilding has caused my constituents. Our local roads are congested and cannot cope with the level of traffic generated by the new housing. My constituents struggle to get a GP appointment, because there are not enough doctors to service the thousands of extra people who have moved to the area. Many of our local schools are over-subscribed, and new arrivals struggle to get school places for their children.

The huge increase in housing development in my area has been driven by my local authority, Swale Borough Council, attempting to meet the top-down housing targets imposed by the Government. In past debates, successive Housing Ministers have insisted that the Government do not impose targets, and that it is up to local authorities to determine housing growth after consultation with the Planning Inspectorate, which of course is a Government quango. An example of the outcome of such consultation is that Swale Borough Council submitted its most recent local plan, which had a housing land allocation for 776 homes per year, only for the Planning Inspectorate to reject the proposal and insist that the figure should be increased to 1,048 per year.

The irony is that, despite the massive increases in housing in Swale over the past 30 years—17,000 new homes have been built in that time—developers have not once matched even the 776 figure in the past 10 years. The problem with nationally imposed mandatory housing targets is that they are arbitrary and lack supportable evidence of need. Officers and members of Swale Borough Council believe that targets should be set at local and sub-regional levels, and should take into account an area’s ability to deliver them. They believe that the housing delivery test, buffers, housing action plans and housing targets have served only to increase pressure on local authorities, rather than to deliver more housing.

Winnington Bridge Corridor

Esther McVey Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)]

Esther McVey will move the motion and then the Minister will respond. As is the convention in 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge of the debate to wind up.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Winnington Bridge corridor proposal.

It is a real pleasure to have you in the Chair, Mrs Murray, overseeing this vital debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for taking the time to hear the concerns of the constituents of Tatton as well as those of a neighbouring constituency, Weaver Vale, about Winnington bridge and the urgent need for it to be upgraded. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for being here today to support this debate and this campaign.

This is the new battle of Winnington bridge. The original one, often described as the last battle of the civil war, took place on 19 August 1659 and resulted in a win for the Government. Today I hope to elicit a win for the constituents of Tatton and the surrounding areas, and that there will be no need for much of a battle. Rather, I hope the Government will see common sense and common purpose and support the levelling-up bid to allow the upgrade of, and improvements to, this bridge.

As history points out, Winnington bridge, which crosses the River Weaver, has been a vital piece of infrastructure for many a year, and it remains so. In fact, its importance only grows, and it now carries the A533 trunk road between Northwich and Barnton. That is a major route, yet it is served only by a single-lane swing bridge. To cross the bridge, three lanes of traffic are funnelled down into one lane, which then allows people to cross the bridge single file, one way. I will repeat that, as most people cannot quite believe it: three lanes are funnelled into one for a single-file crossing.

The current bridge was built in 1908 to enable passage from one side of the river to the other and to allow use of the waterway below, allowing growth of the area’s developing chemical industry. This crossing was deemed to be so important in developing both Cheshire’s and Northwich’s economy that a “newfangled” swing bridge was constructed; it was one of the early electronically operated ones. I am sure the Minister will agree that a lot has changed since 1908 and that what was deemed state of the art back then, in an area surrounded by fields and with only a few houses, is far from what is needed in 2022 and certainly does not cater for heavy goods vehicle lorries and the mass movement of cars. That traffic now serves a thriving business area and local communities, and keeps increasing in this most sought-after part of the country.

The bridge has needed replacing for many years, and the levelling-up agenda and the levelling-up fund now allow the issue to be addressed. Cheshire West and Chester Council has identified Winnington bridge as the single most important piece of transport infrastructure for the area and has submitted a bid to the levelling-up fund—the deadline for bids was meant to be tomorrow, but I hear that it has now been extended. Please let the record show that I am pledging my support for that bid—one that the Government need to support and get behind too.

The project will include a new road bridge across the River Weaver, conversion of the existing single-track bridge, as a cycle-and-pedestrian-only option, and the undertaking of three junction improvements between the bridge and Northwich town centre to create a corridor scheme to fully address the congestion issues and create a cycle link from Barnton and Anderton through to Northwich town centre amenities and national cycle network route 5, thereby serving the residents of the villages of Barnton, Anderton with Marbury, Comberbach and Little Leigh.

The current bridge is an unsuitable crossing now and in the long term. The bridge is a prime crossing point for residents, the number of whom, in the last 10 years, has grown exponentially because of the 1,200 new homes built around the bridge. That number is only set to grow further, with an extra 473 new build homes having been approved or already having existing valid planning permission. On top of that, another 1,555 are proposed on the Winnington Works site. That means that there will be thousands of new residents in the local area, who will be using the bridge every day to get to work, school and the local amenities on either side of it.

The increase in cars on the road and commuters in those new houses will only worsen the already long queues and increase the emissions in the area. So bad is the annual wear and tear on the bridge that approximately £1 million to £2 million is spent every five years to retain it in its current state. Such has been the traffic use of late—it only keeps increasing—that in summer 2020 essential bridge maintenance costing approximately £980,000 was required to replace deteriorating parts of the 110-year-old bridge to ensure that it can continue to operate. A heavy goods vehicle traffic ban on the bridge to reduce the load is not feasible, as it serves as a vital artery for a successful industrial estate in Barnton.

We need a permanent solution now, as maintaining the bridge is not only costly but disruptive. A constituent has reported that congestion at peak times is ridiculous. The condition of local roads due to construction traffic is of lunar standards. We are constantly battling poorly planned roadworks, and it is impossible for a person to see a doctor when they are ill.

I cannot emphasise enough how much this problem has affected local people on so many levels, and it is only getting worse as more houses are built without a second thought to the existing community. Repeated closures for repairs cause significant congestion on top of the already long delays. Worried residents write to me saying they fear for their lives. Lives can be lost due to the extra time that emergency services take to navigate around the road closures. One constituent said:

“I was on ‘Battle’ Bridge”—

as it is now known—

“when an ambulance was trying to get through to Barnton. This was totally impossible. Because of the three-way permanent lights at the foot of Soot Hill, this was blocked completely.”

My constituents are rightly worried about the impact on local life. I hope the Minister will agree to speak to the whole Levelling-up team to ensure they are fully aware of the multitude of problems associated with this out-of-date, totally unsuitable, unworkable old bridge.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Lady, my constituency neighbour, for giving way, and I commend her for her excellent and impassioned speech. This issue is a great example of how Parliament works at its best; we are two neighbouring parliamentarians who do not share each other’s political points of view most of the time, but we both strongly back this excellent scheme. As she says, this bridge will unlock many opportunities. Not only will it improve connectivity—I know that, like me, she has been stuck in that traffic for many hours, as have our residents—but it is a pathway to building more than 1,900 houses, and it will draw in about £40 million of investment from Tata Chemicals Europe, safeguarding nearly 400 construction jobs for the future. This is probably one of the best levelling-up applications that Ministers and the Department will receive, and it has cross-party support. It has to happen, and it genuinely will level up people and infrastructure.

[Esther McVey]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour. On the extra congestion, something else that we need to bear in mind with the current cost of living crisis and the rise in fuel prices is that people are anxious that they will be left sitting in a car with the engine ticking over, going nowhere, for long periods of time, which is costly, wasteful and bad for the environment. Something has to be done. Building a two-lane road bridge, with the adjacent grade II listed bridge converted into a pedestrian and cycle bridge, is the best option, as evidenced by the feasibility study carried out by Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Other vital projects hinge on the Winnington bridge, as the hon. Gentleman alluded to. The Winnington Works in Northwich is a proposal to redevelop the brownfield site there—the old Tata Chemicals building—for a mixed-use development comprising approximately 1,500 new homes, with employment opportunities, public open space and a primary school, along with a range of other community facilities. This is just the type of project that we want to see the Government delivering in our area—one that takes a holistic approach to housing. However, the project relies on crossing the bridge with heavy building materials, demolition equipment and supplies to get the development going. We cannot build it or let people live there because they would not be able to get into or out of their new homes.

My constituents are rightly worried about further development where they live without this vital piece of infrastructure. They have said,

“I’m sure the developer will produce snazzy plans and glossy magazines for a terrific new housing estate, but they can’t build new roads or bridges that will be needed to get to and from those homes. Northwich and the surrounding areas have contributed its fair share of new housing developments”

and there will be many more, but we cannot have them

“without innovative solutions”

to the transport issues we face. There we have it: broken promises from developers and previous officials are leading to an infrastructure crisis.

There are so many benefits to the project being done that people on all sides are supporting it, as my constituency neighbour the hon. Member for Weaver Vale said. That includes the council, which estimates that the work could create an extra £16 million a year for Northwich in additional spend in the local shops and services and create 300 new jobs, with up to 2,000 more jobs being created during the construction phase. The Canal & River Trust would also be delighted with the upgraded bridge. Property developers will have a chance to invest in the local area. Residents will have improved roads and cycle lanes, safer routes for the emergency services and public health services, and cleaner air and less congestion. The opening of the corridor would change the daily lives of those in Anderton, Barton and the surrounding areas of Northwich and deliver part of the Government’s levelling-up agenda.

If the Government are truly determined to deliver the levelling-up agenda to all parts of the country, there could be no better place to invest and deliver it than in the construction of a new Winnington bridge. I therefore ask the Government to support the bid, just as I am doing.

Levelling Up: East of England

Esther McVey Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind hon. Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate. This is in line with current Government guidance and that of the House of Commons Commission. I also remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test before coming on to the parliamentary estate. Please give one another and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of levelling up in the East of England.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate. I am also grateful to the secretariat and supporters of the all-party parliamentary group for the east of England, which I co-chair with the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), for the research that they carried out ahead of the debate, including their October 2021 publication, “Achieving Sustainable and Inclusive Growth: The East of England Offer”.

The east of England, traditionally known as East Anglia, comprises the easternmost counties of the United Kingdom: Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and also Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. The western and southern boundaries of the region are somewhat porous, and some of those living in, say, south Essex, parts of Hertfordshire and parts of Bedfordshire may not view themselves as being part of the east of England. That said, it is great that those three counties are so well represented in this Chamber this morning. Although at times understated, East Anglians are welcoming people. There is no hard border to the region, as the Devil’s Dyke was never completed and ceased to function well over 1,100 years ago.

Levelling up is in many respects the Government’s signature tune. The Prime Minister first spoke of the need to level up across Britain in his first speech as Prime Minister on 24 July 2019. The policy was the cornerstone of the Conservative manifesto at the 2019 general election, and we now eagerly await publication of the levelling-up White Paper, which will set out the strategy as to how levelling up will be delivered.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Aldous]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for doing so, and I apologise if my speech is somewhat focused on the east of East Anglia. He is quite right to highlight the challenges and opportunities in the south of the region.

Finally, I will say that full-fibre connectivity for all households and businesses is vital if East Anglia is to reach its full economic potential. There are projects to deliver that connectivity in many towns across the region, including Cityfibre’s £15 million investment in the network across Lowestoft. However, there is a concern that digital deserts may emerge in some rural areas, so it is vital that the Government’s Project Gigabit programme is ramped up and is fully comprehensive.

For East Anglia to realise its full economic potential and provide local people with the opportunity to work in the exciting new emerging industries, a skills revolution is needed. The Skills and Post-16 Education Bill provides the framework to deliver that revolution, but there is a concern that the region may again be bypassed.

Sizewell C is an enormous project, which can bring great benefits to Suffolk, Waveney and further afield. It is estimated that during the 12-year construction period, £2 billion will be put into the Suffolk economy. During that period there will be three apprenticeship cycles and 1,500 apprenticeships. There is an opportunity to leave an enduring legacy of knowledge and skills, which in the long term—once Sizewell C is completely constructed and becomes operational—can make Suffolk and Waveney a compelling location in which to set up and grow a business.

Sizewell C is exactly the sort of project that requires a gear change in training, which an institute of technology would help to deliver. However, the proposal from the University of Suffolk, East Coast College, the College of West Anglia and Norwich University of the Arts has not been successful in the institute of technology competition, in which the second wave of successful bids has just been announced. In the first two waves, 21 institutes of technology have been created, which provide comprehensive coverage across the country; and yes, there is one at South Essex College at Chelmsford, but there is a vacuum in the east. I will follow this matter up with the Minister for Higher and Further Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), to find out why the bid for our area was rejected, but there is alarm that the necessary investment is not being made locally to ensure that the region fully benefits from the exciting opportunities that are emerging.

I have spoken for far too long; I must allow others their say. Generally, I am excited about the future economic prospects for East Anglia, as they provide the opportunity to reverse 40 years of economic decline in coastal communities such as Waveney. However, I have concerns that these issues are not fully taken into account in the emerging levelling-up strategy. In the east of England, it is crucial that the Government recognise the challenges faced in many coastal, rural and urban communities, and that they upgrade connectivity and invest in skills. If we do not do these things, we will not eliminate those deep pockets of deprivation, there will be a negative spin-off across the UK and the region’s ability to continue to be a net contributor to UK plc will be in peril. I hope that the Minister can allay these concerns in his summing-up.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

We want to get to the Front-Bench spokespeople by just before 10.45 am—that is five minutes for the Opposition spokesman and 10 minutes for the Minister. We are well supported today, with lots of people wanting to speak, so there will be a limit of four minutes per speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) on securing this important debate. He represents the most easterly constituency in the east of England, and I probably represent the region’s most westerly constituency, so there is a nice balance.

Levelling up is about being inclusive and making sure that people really are able to achieve the best of their opportunity. It is not always about money—my apologies if that is controversial. As a Conservative, I believe it is about empowering communities to help themselves as much as it is about giving them a ladder to raise themselves up. It is not just about business, but about education, health, transport, broadband—especially in rural areas such as mine—and high streets.

My constituency of South West Hertfordshire has great transport links, north to south, to London. As someone who commutes every day, the worry that I have is about the east-to-west transport links. If I were to go to the neighbouring constituency of Hemel Hempstead or Watford, it is a bit of a nightmare from where I live, whereas getting to London or Birmingham is relatively easy.

It is a real shame that one of my more affluent villages, Belsize, has a really poor mobile telephone signal as well as really poor broadband. During the global pandemic, when people were reliant on home deliveries and on communications that they were not normally used to, that became quite profound. One of my personal tasks and ambitions is to resolve these things over my parliamentary career. Levelling up is not always about spending money; it is actually about making communities viable for private sector businesses to get more involved.

As a former furniture retailer, I remain quite concerned about the level of usage of our high streets. I would argue that we have seen businesses with a real customer focus survive and prosper during the global pandemic, but I say to residents and communities up and down the country that if they value their high streets, they need to use them. It is all well and good using high streets during the global pandemic, but if people want to retain their local butcher or grocer, they need to use them in better times as well.

Healthcare remains a really big issue in my constituency. I have Watford General Hospital down in the south, and St Albans City Hospital to the east. Although I may not have an acute hospital in my constituency, healthcare remains a big issue because of my ageing population, and I look forward to hopefully having further conversations with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on how we ensure that we are able to offer first-class health provision, which is not necessarily always aligned with the big white elephant that a primary acute hospital may be regarded as.

Although my constituency of South West Hertfordshire is regarded as an affluent area, there is quite a large commuter population. About 10,000 people use public transport to get to work—that is quite a dated figure, and obviously from before the pandemic—which is a significantly higher number than the average in the east of England and nationally. Making sure that local transport provision is having an impact—while not necessarily being the most expensive—will ensure that people can stay in the community and do not have to resort to moving to more urbanised areas. I would argue that that is a better outcome for the community.

Right hon. and hon. Members have spoken about development. I represent a community that is 80% green belt, which remains a big issue, and I look forward to further discussions on what levelling up means for housing numbers and population growth post pandemic.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

I thank everybody for keeping to time, because we managed to get in everybody who wanted to speak. We will now move to the Front-Bench spokespeople.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms McVey. I sincerely thank the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) for securing the debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

I will confess that I love fielding debates for the Opposition in this place. No other parliamentary moment offers the chance to hear the hon. Member for Waveney talk in such depth and with such thoughtfulness to make his case. I was glad to be here and learn plenty from it, as I am sure the Minister did, although I have my own reflections. It set the tone for what has been a brilliant debate. He said at the beginning that his purpose was to highlight the possibility of the east of England being ignored by the levelling-up White Paper and to seek to avoid that. I suspect he managed that with aplomb, with the support of colleagues across party. His case was very well made.

As the hon. Member said, it has been two and half years since the Prime Minister spoke of the need to level up Britain. Two and half years later we are still waiting to find out what that means. It appears we may not have to wait too much longer. I hope the Minister will give us a little sneak preview among friends, including a sense of the timing, though I suspect he might wish to keep his powder dry, as might I to an extent. I might disappoint the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) who wants a detailed response and an alternative, but the Government will have to show their hand first. After all, we have waited two and half years. The case made around regional and local authority disparities is important. As the conversations on levelling up evolve, that will become even more important.

I will reflect on contributions from colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the East of England, made an important point about the London effect. We need to have that understanding at a regional, sub-regional and local authority level about how data can be skewed. So that, in trying to ensure that communities are not left behind—not a great phrase but we know what it means—we do not create a new collection of left-behind areas.

I share a lot of the frustrations of my hon. Friends the Members for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) and for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) around how things have been done previously. It is sad, avoidable and reductive, and does not serve an agenda of trying to move the country forward together, that we seem to be constantly pitted against each other in bidding rounds, where some must be winners and others must be losers. The funding is one off, so maybe someone wins today and loses tomorrow, or vice versa. In reality, no community that has been funded through levelling-up programmes so far that is not worse off when losses to the local authority are taken into account. That test must be passed, and it must be a comprehensive settlement that everybody has a stake in.

I will reiterate a point made by colleagues of all persuasions. The Opposition do not accept the framing of levelling up as north versus south. That was a point made by the hon. Members for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) and for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew). I represent one of the poorest communities in the country, based in the east midlands, and I hate the assumptions that come with that. That cuts both ways and I should not make assumptions about communities that might be better off according to their top lines. I should not assume that that is a place with streets paved with gold, with no social problems, challenges or pockets of deprivation. That is not what the evidence shows.

This is an all-regions approach, and the east of England is a study in that. Taken as a whole, looking at those top lines, the region is a net contributor, with an above average GDP growth rate over the past decade, which is forecast to continue, above average employment, below average unemployment and above average house prices. That would suggest that the east of England is fine and that levelling up should happen elsewhere. As we have heard, the reality is different. There is a different experience for those in the south of the region, which makes up the London commuter belt, while much of East Anglia would not. Even within those communities, there are pockets of deprivation.

We have heard that there are many areas that suffer high levels of deprivation. Those could be coastal communities, such as Lowestoft, referred to by the hon. Member for Waveney, Great Yarmouth just up the coast, and Clacton-on-Sea, as the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) mentioned, or they could be rural areas with associated challenges, such as Thetford, March and Wisbech, or parts of cities such as Peterborough and Norwich.

When the levelling-up White Paper is finally published, that nuanced understanding of regional variation will be one of the tests by which colleagues will judge it. However, the key point, which my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich South made in a couple of different contexts, is not just adopting the same approaches, because they will get the same outcomes. He made an important point about sustainability, saying that levelling up is not just about helping different communities to catch up on the same development model, because we know the impact that will have. That is profoundly true globally, and the question of how we support global development so that we do not just repeat the old models is a thorny question that we must address. However, it is true at home, too.

The East of England Local Government Association’s analysis of the autumn Budget was interesting, showing once again that 40% less—considerably less—was being made available for the east of England than for other areas. Of course, that was repeated in round one of the levelling-up fund bid, with just three of the seven of the region’s priority 1 projects having success. The EELGA is worried and says there is a clear risk that other deprived areas in the east of England will be left out and left behind, presumably on account of the wider region’s overall performance. Again, that creates a profound challenge, which applies across the region.

Transport is another key theme. I dare say that the Minister and I will participate in a lot of debates about different regions and different communities, which I very much look forward to, and transport will be a constant theme. It sometimes felt necessary to have an A to Z to follow things in this debate, but the sheer volume of A roads referred to was illustrative, telling us an awful lot about the natural geography and the infrastructure of the east of England, and about the challenges that come with that sort of road. The focus over the last year has been more on city region settlements, particularly around rail, but that focus alone clearly will not pass the overall test, because otherwise this becomes a long-running, self-perpetuating cycle.

The publication of the White Paper really ought to be the moment that that cycle is broken, because many rural and coastal communities—across the country, but particularly in the east of England—have faced significant challenges for a long time. As the hon. Member for Waveney said, over the past 40 years good jobs have left the region and not always been replaced, forcing young people to leave the area and seek opportunities elsewhere, taking their spending power away with them, which causes high streets to struggle, local institutions to decay and transport networks to close down. And so it goes, and so it goes. More of that decline just begets even more and more, until we break the cycle.

I will conclude there, because I know that colleagues will be keen that the long list of issues that have been put to the Minister are all comprehensively addressed, with a commitment today to addressing them. However, I will just say finally that in preparing for this debate, I thought that we were perhaps a couple of weeks—three or four weeks—too early, and timing is everything in politics, because we do not yet know what the Government will say on levelling up, I suspect that they may not quite know themselves yet what they will say. Actually, though, the timing for this debate was perfect, because the east of England offers an illustrative case of what has happened in the past, which we do not want to see repeated, and it is better for the Minister to hear that before the Government make their statement than it would be afterwards. I look forward to hearing his response to the debate.

[Esther McVey (in the Chair)]

I call the Minister to respond, and also mention that Peter Aldous needs a couple of minutes at the end to wind up the debate.

Building Safety

Esther McVey Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes two important points. On the first point, yes, this has been a feature. I was not fully aware, until I took on this responsibility, of how some within the development industry play fast and loose with the rules and set up special purpose vehicles, shell companies and so on to evade their responsibilities. They exhibit the unacceptable face of capitalism, I am afraid, and she is right to say that work requires to be done to bring them appropriately to account. I will be working with colleagues across Government to do just that.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement today but, like others, I will be awaiting the detail, not least because I was calling for leaseholders to be protected from the cost of cladding when I was a Minister in the Department. So what has happened to change the Government’s mind?

[Michael Gove]

As so often, my right hon. Friend is ahead of her time. There have been any number of occasions, including recently, when I have had to acknowledge that she has been right and the rest of us have been wrong, and this is one of those occasions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Esther McVey Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, who makes some important and powerful points. He is right that we need to have more people engaged in the planning system. He will know that presently, about 1% of the local community engages in local plan making; that is, as near as damn it, local planners and their blood relations. That rises to as much as 2% or 3% of the local community engaging in individual local planning applications. We want to make sure that we have an engaging process and that we use digitisation to help us with that, and we will consider his proposals as we move forward with our important planning reforms.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

6. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Transport on the potential contribution of transport infrastructure to levelling up in Cheshire.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O’Brien)]

Levelling up is an ambition that runs right across the Government. Ahead of the White Paper, the Transport Secretary and the Levelling Up Secretary met in recent weeks to discuss the critical contribution of transport to levelling up.

[Esther McVey]

Winnington bridge provides vital access to thousands of homes and businesses in Cheshire. It needs completely rebuilding to cope with the current demands and the increased housing scheduled for the area. May I urge the Government to provide funding for that as part of their levelling-up agenda?

[Neil O’Brien]

I know that this is something that my right hon. Friend has been campaigning very hard for. The next round of the levelling-up fund will be open in spring next year, and I am sure that, with her help, her local councils will be able to develop a strong bid for that important bridge.

Oral Answers to Questions

Esther McVey Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

The answer to that is that it is all published on gov.uk and it has been for months now. Clearly, the nationalists cannot reconcile themselves to the fact that this Conservative Government are supporting communities in Scotland that they have let down for so many years. We are investing billions of pounds in people, infrastructure, regeneration, transport, and high street refurbishments. We are delivering on the ground, building new relationships and binding together our precious Union.

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

What recent guidance the Government has provided to local authorities on opening up the high street in the context of the covid-19 outbreak.

[Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to help high streets recover from the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

As we embark on what we all hope will be a great British summer, this Government have announced a vital package of support for our high streets, from planning easements to funding support. Taken together, we are seeing more than £385 billion of support for our businesses and high streets. With our planning reforms, we will allow our high streets to adapt and thrive, see outdoor markets spring up, and al fresco dining flourish. I am confident that, despite all the challenges, people across this country will rediscover the delights of their local high street this summer.

[Esther McVey]

Cheshire East Council continues to keep unnecessary barriers in place on the high street in Knutsford, blocking off the car parking spaces and damaging local businesses. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Cheshire East Council should be helping local businesses and not literally putting barriers in their way?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that bringing back people to their towns and high streets is vital, including to the one that I know well in Knutsford. Local authorities should be doing everything they can to make those high streets as welcoming as possible. Covid-19 guidance and our al fresco dining revolution should not come at the cost of despoiling otherwise beautiful high streets such as that in Knutsford. With just a little imagination and creativity, it is perfectly possible for barriers to be made beautiful, even if they do need to be there. We want to see council officers apply thought and judgment, rather than being over-zealous. Put simply, if they will not take them down, they should build barriers better.

Live Events and Weddings: Covid-19 Support

Esther McVey Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)]

Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), who delayed his wedding, I speak as someone who got married in September and experienced the nightmare of having to change plans and guests right up to the last minute. In fact, the only two things that, fortunately, did not change were the date and the groom, so I feel that I have some understanding of how the wedding industry has suffered this year through lockdown. It has been a particularly turbulent year—and one that was unnecessarily turbulent, as the rules brought in were not based on science and were arbitrary.

Let me introduce right hon. and hon. Members to David Irlam, a constituent of mine who understands those arbitrary rules only too well. He owns a restaurant, King Street Kitchen in Knutsford, and he also has wedding venues, Colshaw Hall and Merrydale Manor in Tatton. There are stark differences: his restaurant is much smaller, yet David could legally host up to 60 guests from 30 different households there. He could not do so in his wedding venues, which are much bigger and with outside space: they were capped at 15 guests.

My constituent also said that Government had not taken into account the measures that the wedding industry could put into place to be covid-compliant, or the changes and distress when rules were changed overnight. When the rules were changed overnight, Arley Hall—a massive Jacobean hall with outside space, hundreds of acres and beautiful gardens—was allowed to hold a wedding service, but then all the guests left and went to a pub up the road, where they were allowed to eat. That venue had all the food and all the staff, but could not have that take place.

Tatton, and Cheshire as a whole, is an area with a thriving wedding sector. The number of weddings held the year before was 4,500; that figure is now down to 800, and the ones taking place are much smaller. When I speak to constituents who have wedding businesses, they say that, on average, they use about 25 preferred local suppliers. None of those suppliers has the income from those weddings now, but it does not have to be that way. With some thought, some coherence, and a road map to allow weddings to take place—in a covid-compliant way, obviously—the sector could re-emerge and allow weddings to take place.

At the Oak Tree of Peover, Jacqui Mooney explained to me that she has had to postpone 90 weddings and cancel 30; her income is less than one sixth of what it was. Please note that her business interruption insurance, for which she paid a very high premium, has not been of assistance in any way; furthermore, Competition and Markets Authority guidance and insurance companies have pushed brides back to the wedding venue, saying, “Quote frustrated contracts and insist on full refunds.”

The Oak Tree of Peover has helped brides and grooms in any way it can: it has postponed once for people, it has postponed twice for them, but it has been a logistical nightmare. In Jacqui Mooney’s words, “I dread things now if things do not turn around, because I can’t sleep of a night. I’m not eating because of all the things I have got to do and the money I pay back.” That is true of the business at Styal Lodge Weddings, too.

I end on this note, which is what David Irlam—operator of Colshaw Hall and Merrydale Manor—says: “I would happily be a guinea pig for the Minister. I will do a business venue that is covid compliant. I will do track and trace. I will make sure people are served at the table. I will make sure we do absolutely everything that is covid compliant. Please look at the rules we have put in place.” Please have a Zoom meeting with this person, and the rest of the people in my patch, so we can go back to having weddings and true once-in-a-lifetime—for most people—celebrations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I see on my Twitter and Instagram feeds and elsewhere the pain and heartbreak of couples who were looking forward to that special day. We have also heard about the financial costs that people have faced, such as deposits and other difficulties. The initial moves and the conversations that we have had illustrate the importance that we attach to these life-affirming events.

Some hon. Members have talked about the contrast between the numbers of people allowed in restaurants and in wedding venues, but there is a fundamental difference: the very nature of weddings, which bring family and friends together from across the country, and potentially from around the world, means that they are particularly vulnerable to the spread of covid-19. Despite some media coverage to the contrary, the hospitality sector has worked so hard to become covid-19-secure that pubs and restaurants are some of the safest places in the country. I have spoken to venue owners and organisers in the wedding sector, and unlike visits to a public house or restaurant, where groups are more isolated, it becomes harder to resist breaking social distancing at weddings, where we spend extended periods among family.

We want to continue working with those professionals, together with Public Health England and other health professionals, to ensure that we can manage social distancing throughout the wedding process. Just today, I had a conversation with Richard Eagleton of McQueens Flowers and Sarah Haywood of Sarah Haywood Weddings & Celebrations. They are both seeking to build a taskforce of the kind that my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury spoke about. I am happy to work closely, through a two-way dialogue, with them and their colleagues in the sector—the professionals who supply and service the sector, and the planners and venue owners—because that direct conversation will, I hope, lead to the kind of planning that hon. Members have suggested.

[Esther McVey]

I asked specifically whether the Minister would look into the pilot scheme that one of my constituents has put in place. Will he look into that and have a Zoom meeting with my constituent?

[Paul Scully]

I will happily look into any pilot scheme that has been happening. That may be something that we can feed into the taskforce with health officials, so as to look at how we might bring weddings on stream as and when the health advice allows. I am not an epidemiologist, but this is also about behavioural science, as well as the economics, which are very much part of my brief at the Department.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Esther McVey Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Housing (Esther McVey)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) for bringing this issue to Westminster Hall, and all the Members who have attended. This debate has shown MPs at their very best, bringing issues, cases, concerns and dilemmas to the Chamber and expressing what needs to be said here on behalf of their constituents. Members on both sides of the House want to be here to voice those concerns.

We all know that this issue causes much stress and anguish to residents. How do we support everybody? People can appreciate that issues are evolving as time goes on. We also understand that it is not the fault of the leaseholders who bought their homes that things have happened. We all understand that anybody could be one of those leaseholders; this is happening to so many. I praise what MPs are doing today in bringing this issue forward.

[Dr Offord]

Some of my constituents purchased properties under Help to Buy, so the Government certainly have a claim in this. How much of that responsibility will fall on the Treasury?

[Esther McVey]

That is a very well made point. In January, the Secretary of State said that we are currently considering options with the Treasury on the support that can go to leaseholders. Those are obviously ongoing conversations and negotiations, and I can go no further than that today.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I understand that, but the Minister will understand that people at Northpoint are forking out £11,000 for every month that the conversations go on. They have to be brought to an end, and something must happen soon.

[Esther McVey]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. As I said, MPs from both side of the House are raising these issues. The fire risk of tall buildings with cladding was brought to everybody’s attention after the terrible tragedy of Grenfell Tower. It had not been brought to people’s attention before.

[Ruth Cadbury]

With the deepest respect to the Minister, these issues were raised and recommendations made to the Government at the inquests into both the Lakanal House fire in south London, which took the lives of six residents, and the fire in Southampton, which took the lives of firefighters. Grenfell would not have happened had the recommended building standards been put place.

[Esther McVey]

The Government took immediate action straight after the report. The actions that we took included a comprehensive independent review of building safety, chaired by Dame Judith Hackitt, and we have accepted all the recommendations of her independent review. We will continue to bring forward legislation to deliver an enhanced safety regime for high-rise residential buildings. As we announced last month, we will begin immediately to establish the new building safety regulator—initially in shadow form, pending legislation—which Dame Judith will chair, to oversee the transition to the new regime.

[Meg Hillier]

The Minister has paid tribute to MPs for doing their best and for showing the best of MPs. What we hoped for was the best of the Minister, doing the best by our constituents. Although we recognise the action that the Government took after the Grenfell fire, our residents need some assurance and action, so they know that they will not have to wait years for the issue to be resolved. Can she give our constituents any comfort today?

[Esther McVey]

I started my speech with the Secretary of State’s remarks about what we are doing, the actions that we have taken, and how we will deliver going forward. I want to ensure that people understand the rigorous work of the expert panel and the advice that we are taking from it. That work is checked and verified, and we are taking it forward at the right pace. Of course, we are here to discuss those issues, which are being dealt with—negotiations are ongoing. What the issue absolutely impresses upon us is how important it is that things are done as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.

[Paul Blomfield]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on students, I wrote to the Secretary of State about HPL cladding after the Bolton fire. After two months, I had received no response. I raised it with him on the Floor of the House and he promised me an early response on 20 January, which I still have not received. Will the Minister give us some assurance about when the work on the risks of HPL cladding will conclude? Do the Government recognise that ACM cladding, about which colleagues on both sides of the House have raised concerns, presents exactly the same issues as HPL?

[Esther McVey]

I will take that message back to the Department and see what happened with the correspondence from the Secretary of State. I know that the Department replied to the letter from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) on 6 February, so if she has not already got it, it will be with her shortly.

[Paul Blomfield]

Can the Minister say when that work will be completed?

[Esther McVey]

I will go through exactly what we have done and how we have done it, and note the significant steps that we have taken, including the provision of £600 million to support people and the further work led by an expert panel. We have accepted all the recommendations from the independent review, and are going forward at a rigorous pace, which we can do, obviously, once we have had all those negotiations with the Treasury.

In December 2018, we banned the use of combustible materials in external walls of new high-rise buildings and, after implementing the ban, we checked its effectiveness. In January, we launched a consultation on the ban, which went further and asked whether the limit should be lowered from 18 metres to 11 metres. The Government also announced the fire safety Bill, and the associated regulatory changes, to deliver the recommendations of the Grenfell inquiry phase 1 report.

[Ms Lyn Brown]

I thank the Minister for the extensive detail that she is giving, but will she address the gentle point that I made? Even if the Minister had another five minutes, that would not be enough to address all the issues, many of which have not been raised simply because of a lack of time. Will the Government consider giving us a proper full-length debate in the main Chamber so that we can better express ourselves and hear more comprehensively from the Minister?

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. We need more time to discuss the matter—this is only a 90-minute debate—and the number of hon. Members who are here shows that. Not only should we have that debate, but we should come together to raise those points and work in a constructive fashion. The hon. Lady is quite right; 90 minutes is not long enough. We also need to, and we will, write back to the hon. Members present, because I cannot give a comprehensive response to everybody in the time that I have.

[Marsha De Cordova]

I take the Minister’s point about ensuring that we all get to express ourselves so she can hear our concerns. It is glaringly obvious from much of the engagement that leaseholders do not believe that they are being listened to or heard by Ministers. Will the Minister commit to meeting leaseholders and some of my constituents so that she can hear at first hand their concerns about their homes being wrapped in unsafe cladding?

[Esther McVey]

The Department has met leaseholders, and we have received and replied to letters from leaseholders. The hon. Lady is right: we have to have a bigger consultation and ensure that we meet leaseholders. Yesterday, Lord Younger met a group, some of whom are in the Public Gallery. It is imperative that we hear from the people who are most affected, and I absolutely agree that we should.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the Minister give way?

[Esther McVey]

Time is short—the right hon. Member for Leeds Central might like a minute or so at the end—but I will take any further interventions.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the Minister tell us whether she has spoken to—or will speak to—the Migration Advisory Committee about ensuring that we have the right skills to do the work properly and quickly?

--- Later in debate ---

[Esther McVey]

It is absolutely imperative that we have people with the right skills who are able to do the job straight away.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that we need to hear more not just about how great it is that we have all come to discuss these things, but about concrete actions? Some of my constituents in Ilford South, including the 100 people in Raphael House, have mental health issues and problems planning their futures and getting their kids into schools, because freeholders essentially have them over a barrel. The time has come to stop the platitudes and take some action.

[Esther McVey]

The Government took the unprecedented step of bringing forward £600 million to support the people whom the expert panel said were in the most dangerous buildings with ACM cladding. I started my speech with the words of the Secretary of State, who spoke about how we can ensure that we have the right support at the right place and at the right time. From the very start, we have taken the advice of experts in the field to ensure that we are supporting the leaseholders.

Wards Corner Redevelopment

Esther McVey Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Esther McVey)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing the debate. I know that this matter is of great importance to him and to those associated with Seven Sisters market.

Given the time limit, I may not be able to address every issue that has been raised. I should also make it clear that, for reasons that I will explain in more detail, I cannot comment freely on the regeneration of Wards Corner, and in particular the Secretary of State’s decision to confirm the Wards Corner compulsory purchase order. I know that the right hon. Gentleman, as an experienced Member of the House, will understand that, as there is an application to the Court of Appeal in respect of the High Court ruling upholding the Secretary of State’s decision to confirm the CPO, it is simply not possible for me to discuss the details and the application, as to do so might prejudice those judicial review proceedings. The matter was lodged with the Court of Appeal just before Christmas, and it may be a number of months before it is known whether permission will be given for it to be subject to those further proceedings. I therefore presume that the right hon. Gentleman considered it more important to put his concerns on the record than to hear anything that I might be able to say, and in that context I commend him for making those points. Let me emphasise, however, that the Government take the issue of regeneration and the role of planning extremely seriously. With that in mind, I will explain the background to and the Government’s involvement in the Wards Comer CPO, leading up to the application to the Court of Appeal. I will then place that in the context of the Government’s view on the use of CPO powers.

In September 2016, the London Borough of Haringey made the Wards Corner CPO to enable it to acquire 9 hectares compulsorily to facilitate the comprehensive regeneration of the land known as Wards Corner, for which it had previously granted planning permission for a mixed-use development. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the council made a robust case to the inquiry that the scheme would act as a catalyst for the local community by bringing an injection of new investment, higher order retail activity, an improved Seven Sisters market, and more and higher quality jobs. The overall investment in terms of construction cost alone was estimated at about £60 million. It is forecast that during the construction phase the development will provide 190 full-time equivalent direct jobs, and that once it has been completed a further 95 direct jobs will deliver £4.8 million per year in gross value added. The scheme will also support further spin-off jobs indirectly.

The CPO was submitted to the Secretary of State for confirmation. Following the receipt of public objections to it, a public local inquiry was arranged in July 2017. The community and the market traders themselves played a full and active part in the CPO process and in the public inquiry. An independent inquiry inspector heard oral submissions on behalf of the market traders’ group and other interested parties. The public inquiry inspector returned his findings and recommendation to the Secretary of State in January 2018, and just over a year ago the Secretary of State issued his decision to confirm the CPO.

That would normally end the Secretary of State’s formal involvement, but as I am pretty sure the right hon. Gentleman is aware, the Secretary of State’s decision was then challenged in the courts. The case was heard by the High Court in October 2019, and judgment was handed down in two days. The claim was dismissed and the judge refused leave to appeal the decision. I cannot interpret on the judgment, but I should say that, overall, the judge was not persuaded that a genuine doubt existed as to the approach adopted by the inspector and therefore the Secretary of State in his decision, on the issues of affordability and the public sector equality duty of concern to the claimants.

That was not the end of the matter, and litigation has continued. Following the High Court judgment, the claimant lodged an application to the Court of Appeal. As yet, there has been no word on whether the application has been accepted and it might be several months before it is known whether the fresh appeal will get permission to be heard at that next tier of the judicial system. Therefore, while the Government welcomed the judgment made in the High Court, the council must again wait to see whether it can take forward the order that will enable the proposals on much-needed regeneration for the area to proceed.

I would now like to set out the wider purpose of the CPO process and its role in enabling and supporting the regeneration of communities such as those in Tottenham. Successive Governments have supported compulsory purchase as an important tool to assemble land into a single ownership to enable the delivery of a wide range of development projects. Used properly, compulsory purchase can enable the development of new communities, essential social infrastructure and commercial facilities, all of which can support economic growth, regeneration and improvements in quality of life. It enables the acquisition of land and property in the public interest without the agreement of the owner, subject to the payment of fair compensation. While land can be acquired by agreement between the parties concerned, such voluntary approaches are unlikely to be suitable for assembling all the land needed for major projects because some owners might not agree to sell their land, or might ask an unreasonably high price. Local authorities and others are empowered to use compulsory purchase powers to deliver a wide range of projects, from large-scale town centre regeneration schemes to the refurbishment of individual empty homes.

To use compulsory purchase powers, an acquiring authority must first make a CPO and submit it to the relevant Minister to decide whether to confirm it. The acquiring authority must notify all qualifying persons, including the relevant owners and occupiers. The CPO is advertised through newspapers and site notices to notify the general public. Remaining objectors to the CPO have the right to object and be heard at a public local inquiry. An inspector’s task is to inquire into the CPO and to elicit all the information needed to enable the Minister to decide whether to confirm the CPO. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree that the CPO process provides ample opportunity for all interested parties to be fully, properly and fairly involved in the process.

The inspector will then prepare and submit their report to the Minister, including their recommendation on whether the CPO should be confirmed. The Minister will then carefully consider the inspector’s report and decide whether to confirm, modify or not confirm the CPO. In deciding whether to confirm the CPO, the Minister is acting in a quasi-judicial capacity. In exercising this function, it is incumbent upon the Minister to act and to been seen to act fairly and even-handedly. A CPO will be confirmed only when the Minister is satisfied that the order contributes to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of an area. The Minister must also be satisfied that there is a compelling case in the public interest to justify interfering with the human rights of those with an interest in the land affected by the CPO. In making the decision, the Minister must also have due regard to the public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010.

[Mr Lammy]

The Minister is setting out the rules that govern CPOs and am grateful for that. However, would she be worried if a local authority and others were engaging in evictions while the CPO is still being challenged in the courts to get people out of the building, or using false pretences regarding the state of the building to get the building vacated so that they can proceed as they desire?

[Esther McVey]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a compelling case, but any person aggrieved who wishes to dispute the validity of a CPO or any of its provisions has the right to legally challenge the confirmation of the CPO. Where a legal challenge is successful, the Court has the discretionary power to quash either the decision to confirm the CPO or the whole or any part of the CPO itself. A decision not to confirm a CPO may be challenged by way of a judicial review application made to the High Court and that was the case with the Wards Corner CPO.

I assure colleagues that the Government remain committed to the regeneration and revitalisation of communities most in need. We fully support Haringey Council in its commitment to regeneration throughout the Tottenham area. Major developments are ongoing at Tottenham Hale and around the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium, with others planned. The intention is that the development will provide a catalyst for the regeneration of neighbouring areas such as Seven Sisters, which is the focus of the CPO that we are debating today.

As I said at the start, I must avoid prejudicing the legal process should the application to the Court of Appeal succeed. We must await the outcome from the Court of Appeal. I commend and thank the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate and speaking so eloquently about the case.

Question put and agreed to.