Building Safety Regulator

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond, and to take part in this debate on the building safety regulator. I thank the hon. Members for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) and for Northampton South (Mike Reader) for securing this debate and for their opening speeches, both of which I thought were extremely reasonable and set the tone for what has been a largely reasonable debate in which there is much common ground.

It is a primary duty of any Government to ensure that everyone has a safe and high-quality home to live in. Progress has been made in recent years to ensure the nation’s housing stock, with the share of non-decent and unsafe homes witnessing a decline in the last decade. Official statistics from the National Centre for Social Research, funded by the Government, show that under the last Government the prevalence of non-decent homes fell from 17% in 2019 to 15% in 2023, with falls across every tenure. The focus of this debate is the building safety regulator and its performance since being established by the last Government.

Through the Building Safety Act, the BSR was created with the intention of regulating higher-risk buildings, raising the safety standards of all buildings, and helping professionals working in the sector. It was established in good faith, with sensible aims that any Government would agree were needed at the time; and, pertinently, as I think every speaker has referred to this afternoon, it was done in the light of the tragic loss of 72 lives in the appalling Grenfell Tower fire. As a former chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, I was taken to Grenfell Tower by the London Fire Brigade a week after the fire. I went to the top of the building and saw at first hand the devastation that had been wreaked there and the consequences of years of inadequate building safety control, so I believe the motivations behind the creation of the BSR were entirely understandable.

However, there is simply no point in denying that the BSR is not working today as it was originally intended. The truth is that it is proving to be a major additional contributor to a malaise that Britain has been suffering from pretty much since the turn of the millennium. Put simply, we struggle to build. Britain is now constrained within a self-imposed straitjacket of over-zealous red tape, which prevents much-needed development while at the same time causing absurd outcomes such as £100 million bat sanctuaries.

The context of this debate is worth noting. As we know, the Government have ambitious targets for housing delivery, having insisted that they will build 1.5 million new homes by the end of this Parliament; but with at least 25% of this Parliament now behind us, they are miles behind schedule, and barely a third of what should have been built by now is actually completed. The new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), has publicly said that his job should be on the line over whether or not he meets the target. Unfortunately for him, nobody believes that this Government will meet their housing target in just one Parliament: not the Office for Budget Responsibility, not Savills, not the Home Builders Federation, not Professor Paul Cheshire of the London School of Economics and not the National Federation of Builders—the list goes on and on.

In London the situation is particularly dire, not least because of some of the policies in the Mayor of London’s London plan. A further problem coming down the line is the possibility of the Government’s making changes to the landfill tax. At present, potentially toxic landfill is taxed at £126.15 per tonne, whereas harmless inert waste such as soil or concrete is taxed at £4.05 per tonne, and nothing at all if it is used to fill up former quarries. However, there are strong rumours circulating that the Government are thinking of abolishing the quarry exemption and switching all landfill up to the higher rate. Building industry experts have estimated that that rise, which is in excess of 3,000%, will add up to £28,000 to the construction cost per home. That is especially an issue in London, where the high proportion of apartment buildings generates much more landfill than elsewhere.

The impact of such a change on the construction industry is obvious. As inflation sits stubbornly at nearly 4%, twice the target level, alongside anaemic growth and increased costs to the industry, including materials and fuel, additional costs to the building trade are stacking up.

It is in that context that we need to consider the performance of the building safety regulator. The BSR is not only moving too slowly to fulfil its purpose, but wielding the axe to too many of the applications crossing its desk. As the hon. Member for Northampton South said, the Building Safety Regulator rejects about 70% of applications to begin construction, compared with roughly 10% to 15% of applications that get rejected in the wider British planning system.

Something is very clearly wrong here. When 150 high- rise residential construction projects are delayed across the UK because of the BSR, when schemes are delayed 38 weeks longer than the target time for approval, and when 60% of affected schemes are in London, the city with the highest need and the greatest demand, it is clear that we must work together to realise a better future for the BSR and to unchain the industry from some of the restraints it currently wears.

The Building Safety Regulator is all too often a handbrake on development, rather than an accelerator of safe and effective development. I welcome the Minister to her place in her first Westminster Hall debate, and I know she will be eager to tell us about the Government’s attempts to reform the BSR and solve this issue in June earlier this year. On the face of it, increasing the BSR’s headcount could be a positive move, but only if the staff brought in have the requisite technical expertise in building and fire safety and are thus able to accelerate the planning process. By simply increasing the BSR’s capacity, the Government have not yet been able, as was promised in an MHCLG press release,

“to enhance the review of newbuild applications, unblock delays and boost sector confidence”,

because it has not solved the core issue: the number of application rejections.

As the British Property Federation has argued, improved dialogue with applicants and more guidance on the BSR application process would go a long way to speeding things up by vastly increasing the likelihood that applications are right first time, rather than their having to be revised after being rejected. In the age of artificial intelligence, mandating machine-readable submissions and building an electronic file management system that ingests structured data would be immeasurably useful, enabling the use of commercially available AI to triage completeness, flag inconsistencies and vastly speed up the process for both the applicants and the regulator.

As was said earlier—I believe by the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), but I stand to be corrected—introducing greater transparency around the BSR’s performance is certainly welcome. The new fast-track process seems like a good idea, although it remains to be seen whether it is effective, but clearly more needs to be done.

Reforming the operation of the BSR should not be about making developments less safe. Changes must instead tackle the fundamental problem: being process-focused to the point that we fail to deliver. That is particularly true in places such as London, where it has now become difficult to build anything at all. The existing urban environment lends itself to denser developments, which are inevitably viewed as higher risk under the BSR and therefore face very lengthy delays and huge additional construction costs. Consequently, there is a danger that we risk urban sprawl into the countryside and the destruction of the green belt, with homes being forced into communities with an inability to meet the infrastructure demands of all new residents.

It is important that all sides work constructively, across Government and Opposition, to deliver remediation, building safety and the best outcomes for local communities. This debate has encouraged me that we can work across the House to tackle burdensome regulation in the housing and planning industry, including where the Building Safety Regulator is playing its well-intentioned, but undeniably imperfect role. That requires real and serious focus from the Government, who will have to act far faster than they have done to date. I will listen with interest to what the Minister says.

Ending Homelessness

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2025 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford, and to take part in this debate about the progress on ending homelessness. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) both for securing this debate and for their opening remarks. I know that both those hon. Members have made combatting homelessness a central part of the force that drives them in Parliament. As we have heard, their excellent work as co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness has been solid, earnest and methodical, and has produced robust conclusions. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East in particular has made a demonstrable difference in this field, with his 2017 private Member’s Bill, which went on to become the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which I will refer to shortly.

I do not doubt that all Members gathered here today share a strong desire to end rough sleeping and homelessness for good. Homelessness is a social tragedy, wherever it occurs and for whatever reason. No one in our society should be forced to live on the streets, and it is incumbent on us all to do our best to ensure that constituents can live in a safe, decent and secure home. Although progress was made to that end under the previous Government, work remains to be done, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East said in his opening speech. I offer my full support to the Government for their shared desire to end homelessness once and for all.

As policymakers have increasingly come to appreciate, homelessness does not simply begin at the point someone finds themselves on the street; rather, it is rooted in long-term causes, whether persistent issues with mental health or substance abuse, offenders stuck between prison and the streets, with no place to go, or young people in care leaving the system without a fixed destination. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East and implemented by the previous Government, recognised that fact in law, placing an enhanced duty on local authorities to intervene at an early stage in an effort to prevent homelessness from occurring. Over 740,000 households have been prevented from becoming homeless or were supported into settled accommodation since the introduction of the 2017 Act—an achievement that should be acknowledged.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East and the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree said in their opening speeches, prevention must be at the heart of any national strategy for tackling homelessness, which is why I welcome the Government’s decision to continue the previous Administration’s approach of offering more effective support to prevent rough sleeping from happening in the first place. At the heart of the previous Administration’s approach was the rough sleeping initiative, which saw pioneering work across society between local authorities, voluntary organisations and healthcare providers to tailor support where homelessness occurs, meeting the individual needs of people facing homelessness and helping them to build an independent life once off the streets.

Ending rough sleeping for good will require a whole-Government and a whole-society effort to be achievable, which is why it is vital that there is a sense of purpose from the very highest levels of Government to drive change. Although the Government’s ambition to carry on this work is laudable, it is disappointing that the full cross-Government strategy for ending homelessness that they promised in their manifesto has yet to emerge, despite repeated promises from Ministers of its publication.

Commentators such as the Institute for Government have already warned that a lack of co-ordination between Government Departments is undermining progress when tackling homelessness, preventing public bodies from working together to be proactive and focus on the root causes of homelessness. The previous Government’s “Ending rough sleeping for good” strategy brought together seven Departments from across Government to that end. I fear that, without a similar statement of intent from the current Government, their approach to ending homelessness will fall short and fail those in need.

The consequences of the lack of clarity are already becoming clear, not least in the effects of the Government’s Renters’ Rights Bill on the housing market. Although Ministers and Labour Members continue to claim that that legislation will make it easier to find a home, the message from the private rented sector appears to be quite the opposite, with 41% of private landlords saying, at the end 2024, that they were planning to sell their properties. The Government’s proposals look set to cut supply in the private rented sector, which will in turn inevitably risk driving rents up and making it harder for people to find a rented home. That is exactly what we have seen in Scotland, where similar measures to what the Government are proposing were implemented in 2017.

In England, we have already seen a seven-year drop, with Savills reporting that the number of rental properties on its books dropped by 42% in quarter 1 of this year compared with the same period in 2024. That means 42% fewer homes available for families, less choice and more pressure on rents. That is not theoretical; it is happening now, and the Renters’ Rights Bill is accelerating that trend.

Of equal concern is what effect an increasing number of people who are unable to rent privately will have on the temporary accommodation provision. An accessible private sector is vital to providing the housing stock that reduces homelessness pressure. If the Government are serious about reducing the demands on local authorities for temporary accommodation, they need to do far more than simply announce stop-gap measures. That is especially pressing, as has been repeated during this debate, when 172,420 children in England are living in temporary housing, which is up 7.6% on this time last year.

Only by making a concerted effort to reduce the cost of living and make private housing more affordable will the Government get people out of temporary accommodation and into long-term secure homes of their own. Sadly, the signs on that front are not encouraging, and the same goes for the Government’s plans to deliver 1.5 million homes. The most recent estimates for additional net dwellings for 2024-25 show the Government on course to miss their house building target by more than 100,000 homes this year.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the latest spending review, which promised more funding for the affordable homes budget, is less generous than on first appearance, with funding hardly different from previous levels. I am sure hon. Members will agree that Britain desperately needs new affordable homes to ensure the long-term supply of housing for those currently without a place to call their own. That is why under the previous Government, 800,000 people bought their first home, through schemes such as Help to Buy and stamp duty relief.

Yet in the current economic climate, more social and affordable homes look increasingly difficult to deliver. Ending homelessness must not be simply an idealistic ambition, but a clearly defined goal, with policies set out to achieve it. None of that is possible without a clear vision of what steps need to be taken. I urge the Government finally to publish—

[Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Gareth Bacon]

With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, given that I have to allow time for the Minister and the two proposers to speak, I cannot give way.

I urge the Government to finally publish the strategy in full and provide much-needed clarity to the individuals and organisations on the frontline of tackling homelessness about how they plan to support them to do so. No amount of good intentions or Government interventions can compensate for the unaffordable economic reality facing those trying to find permanent housing. I further urge the Government to consider the long-term consequences of many of their housing policies. A private rented sector, where supply is driven out of the market by over-regulation and costs that continue to rise, can lead only to even more people being unable to find a secure place to live—a fate the Government must do everything they can to avoid.

I end my remarks by calling on the Minister to respond more quickly and effectively to ease the temporary accommodation issue, to work with local communities to supply good-quality homes for families, and to publish the homelessness strategy, which was promised more than a year ago.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 13th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

It falls to me to open the bowling for the Opposition Front Bench, so I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment and welcome him to his place today.

The previous Government awarded the Mayor of London almost £9 billion of funding to build a total of 151,000 affordable homes in London. The second tranche of that money amounted to £4 billion, which was to build 35,000 homes between 2021 and 2026. To date, only 997 have been completed, with 443 of those homes being acquisitions rather than newly built. What plans does the Secretary of State have to hold the Mayor of London to account for this lamentable failure?

[Steve Reed]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words, but I think it is disingenuous to blame the Mayor of London for failings that were the fault of the previous Conservative Government and, I am afraid, current Conservative boroughs in London such as Bromley, which is a shocking 95% behind its house building target. We cannot tolerate that.

The previous Government choked off house building everywhere by scrapping house building targets and crashing the economy, sending mortgages through the roof so that people could not afford to buy new homes—of course, the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Braintree (Sir James Cleverly), was a major cheerleader for the Prime Minister who carried that through. In the last four years of the previous Government, housing consents collapsed by one fifth. It is this Government who will take the steps to remediate that situation, this Government who will get 1.5 million new homes built and this Government who will work with local government partners across the whole country, including here in London, to ensure that the homes this country needs are built.

[Gareth Bacon]

The whole House will have heard that the Secretary of State has no plans to intervene on the Mayor of London. Under section 340 of the Greater London Authority Act 1999, the Secretary of State has the power to direct the Mayor of London to review and revise specific policies of the London plan if they are seen to be hindering housing delivery. There are a plethora of policies—including an obsession with dual facing and twin staircasing and a bizarre aversion to corridors—that developers are united in saying are massively hindering development in the country’s largest city, which has the highest demand for affordable housing. The Secretary of State is holding all the cards and the purse strings. Why will he not intervene?

[Steve Reed]

First, I do recognise the challenges the hon. Gentleman has outlined. They should concern us all, and I thank him for raising them. He will be aware that we are making legislative changes right now, with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that is going through Parliament, to speed up the planning system that is holding back so many homes from being built. We will be tabling further amendments to the Bill to tackle some of the challenges the hon. Gentleman is talking about.

I am working with the Greater London Authority and the Mayor of London on an acceleration package that targets London in particular. We will make announcements on that within weeks, and the hon. Gentleman will then see the action that we intend to take here in the capital city to ensure that home building continues apace. We will also be looking nationally, because every region of the country needs new homes built to meet people’s dreams of having somewhere affordable to rent or buy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris]

We all want to see our high streets thriving. It is the business of government, local councils and local communities to push back on some of the decline that has been seen as inevitable in recent years. As part of that, we will be giving local communities the tools to reshape their high streets, such as high street rental auctions and the community right to buy.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

T3. Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has consistently called for the power to impose rent controls across Greater London. He cannot do that unless the Government change the law. Whenever it has been tried around the world it has failed, typically with rental property supply falling and rents perversely rising. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity now to rule out the possibility of imposing rent controls in Greater London?

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)]

As the shadow Minister will know from our exchanges in the Renters’ Rights Bill Committee, the Government have absolutely no plans to introduce rent controls in any form.

Employment Rights Bill

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 21st October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

We are approaching the end of a long and robust debate, with a total of 71 speeches so far and no fewer than seven maiden speeches. The hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) spoke powerfully and very impressively. The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) spoke memorably of overcoming considerable adversity and of her considerable achievements, culminating in her arrival in this House. The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Fleetwood (Lorraine Beavers) gave a moving tribute to her late parents. The hon. Member for Dover and Deal (Mike Tapp) laid down an ambitious claim to have the highest number of castles in his constituency and talked of his grandfather serving on flying boats in world war two, which is something that he and I share. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Kenneth Stevenson) spoke of his and his family’s great pride in his taking his seat here in Parliament. The hon. Member for Hamilton and Clyde Valley (Imogen Walker) spoke fluently about the history of her constituency, in a deeply impressive speech.

On the Opposition side, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Shivani Raja) talked about the entrepreneurial spirit of Leicestershire and about her fears that it could be eroded by the Bill. She also, I suspect, achieved a first for Parliament by managing to shoehorn a reference to Showaddywaddy into Hansard. My hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam) spoke movingly of her grandparents’ escape from Nazi Germany and amusingly of the Labour party’s contribution to introducing her parents, ultimately leading to the creation of a future Conservative MP. I commend all hon. Members who made their first mark in this House in a debate on so important a subject. I am sure that they will serve their constituents diligently in the coming years; I wish them all well.

There is much that the Opposition believe is wrong with the Bill, but I have limited time, so I will focus primarily on one element—the role of the trade unions, because their influence runs right through it. If, as expected, the House declines to support the amendment in the name of the shadow Business Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake), and grants the Bill a Second Reading, there will be time to explore the Bill’s many other problems in Committee.

A running theme throughout the debate was hon. Members’ enthusiastic declarations of membership of trade unions, but for some reason they forgot to mention how much they have received in financial donations from them. I remind them and the House that, according to the LabourList website, the Government MPs who have spoken today have accumulated a total of £371,974 in donations from the trade unions. Those donations are no surprise. The public are quickly becoming acclimatised to the idea that this Labour party is in the pocket of the highest bidder, whether that be Taylor Swift, Lord Alli or indeed the trade unions.

I was, however, pleasantly surprised by the number of hon. Members on the Government Benches who have spoken in today’s debate. When I attended the Bill briefing kindly organised by the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), just a handful of Labour Members were in attendance, but today they have turned up in great numbers to sing the Bill’s praises. It is to their credit that they are here. Perhaps they have read or watched news of the harm that this Bill will bring and are quietly apprehensive, but have put their heads above the parapet regardless. However, when push comes to shove, they remember that they will be up for re-election in four or five years’ time, and they have to think about their trade union donors.

Very early in this debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti) said that the Bill is about not growth, but ideology. He is right. This is a trade union charter that will send Britain back to the 1970s. Of course, we know that that is a goal of the Deputy Prime Minister, who has said that she wants to repeal union legislation dating back as far as the 1980s. I appreciate that neither the Secretary of State for Business and Trade nor the Deputy Prime Minister was born until the 1980s, so they will not remember the time when Britain was brought to a grinding halt by the trade unions. The lights were switched off, bodies were left unburied and rubbish piled up all over the place. It is at this point that I remind Members that their constituents will see how they vote today.

I understand that the inboxes of Labour Members are already full, following the freebie scandal, the cash-for-access scandal, the political choice to take away the winter fuel payment and the concerns about tax rises in the Budget. They have my sympathy, but I warn them that their inboxes are about to get even busier. When the junior doctors strike, meaning that their constituents cannot access important medical treatment, they will know that it was facilitated by this legislation. When local councils strike, meaning that their constituents cannot get their bins collected, they will know that it was facilitated by this legislation. When the train drivers strike, meaning that their constituents cannot see their loved ones, they will know that it was facilitated by this legislation. And when small businesses fail because they cannot cope with the massive extra bureaucracy and costs, they will know that it was facilitated by this legislation. As the letters pile high from constituents who are unable to access the services they expect, Labour Members might want to hire more staff, or ask their current staff to work late, but they will be prevented from doing so by the very regulations brought in by this legislation, which they support.

Labour’s misunderstanding of labour relations goes right to the top. When the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced that a deal had been reached with the British Medical Association, he said that he was making a real difference. However, we now know that the deal has failed and the BMA is already beginning preparations for further strike action just weeks after accepting the pay deal.

I represent a Greater London constituency and I, of course, remember the Mayor of London’s promise that there would be no Transport for London strikes under his regime, but that is not going very well either. We now learn, thanks to the latest copy of Civil Service World, that there are set to be strikes in the Secretary of State’s own Department. All of that was before this Bill was introduced.

It is clear that, despite being in the pocket of its trade union paymasters, Labour’s approach to industrial relations has failed and will continue to fail. Much of the reason for that future failure will be the rushed job that is this Bill. It has been rushed to the House so quickly that it contains fewer than half of the measures included in the plan to make work pay—a fact recognised by the Government’s “Next Steps to Make Work Pay” document. A vast amount of it will require secondary legislation to take effect.

The Prime Minister has talked incessantly of the Government’s mission to pursue growth, which is an entirely laudable aim, but growth does not just happen. Sometimes, the Government have to do things to facilitate it, and sometimes the Government must not do things that would jeopardise it. The measures in this rushed Bill threaten to destroy any prospect of economic growth.

I am sure the Secretary of State will deny it, but the fact remains that the trade unions will always win out against the Labour party. The unions have donated almost £30 million to the Labour party since 2020. According to LabourList, 16 Cabinet Ministers and more than 200 Labour MPs have received training and donations, averaging £9,500 each. This rushed Bill is the first part of what the trade unions have bought with their money: the chance to massively increase their power base, not just in the public sector but in the private sector, especially in small businesses. This will not lead to growth, unless the Prime Minister is talking about growth in red tape and growth in the trade unions’ ability to choke the economy.

This rushed Bill is not a charter for economic growth; it is a charter for industrial strife, plunging productivity, rising unemployment, inflation and economic ruin. This rushed Bill is not fit for purpose, and the Government should withdraw it and think again.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the impact of increases in inflation on local authority budgets.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

13. What recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of local authority funding.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)]

We recognise that councils have faced challenges since covid, which is one of the reasons why we allocated billions more in subsidies to local authorities in the financial year 2023-24. Discussions on public spending often require hard choices and trade-offs on many worthy intentions, but we hope that the additional billions allocated demonstrate the Government’s commitment to local authorities.

[Lee Rowley]

As I outlined, we have allocated additional funds to local authorities in this financial year. It is also a statement of fact that a number of local authorities in England have increased reserves as a result of covid. In the last financial year, additional grant funding of nearly £7 million has gone to the hon. Gentleman’s local council, Bury Council, for adult social care.

[Gareth Bacon]

Does my hon. Friend share my view that one way to support local government finance and to reward well-performing local authorities such as Bromley Council would be to introduce multi-year funding settlements? Will he commission a review into the merits of this, so that local authorities can better plan for the future?

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is a testament to the good work of Bromley Council that he can demonstrate this and talk about it with knowledge and experience. Multi-year financial settlements are something that we all aspire to. One of the reasons we brought forward the policy statement for financial year 2024-25 was to ensure greater clarity for councils at the end of this spending review, and we hope to be able to return to multi-year settlements in future Parliaments.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dehenna Davison]

Part of the reason is to spread awareness about the new voter ID regulations. We have given that additional funding to the Electoral Commission, as well as additional funding of more than £4 million to local authorities, to promote those additional measures locally. We do not want to price anyone out of democracy, but we must protect its integrity at all costs.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in reminding the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith) that it was Labour that first introduced voter identification, in Northern Ireland in 2003? The Electoral Commission was unable, in its 2021 public opinion tracker, to identify a single respondent who said that they were unable to vote.

[Dehenna Davison]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He has made the case for why the measures are needed and will benefit our democracy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Lady will know that the Government are committed to levelling up areas throughout the country, including her constituency. Working with Homes England, we deliver significant investment funds to enable York and other partners to deliver homes and, more importantly, places that people will want to come to, in order to drive all-important economic growth and level up the country.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of the contribution of statutory public consultations to local decision making.

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

Meaningful engagement with local communities is essential to the improvement of public services, and our reforms in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill will strengthen community engagement in planning and increase the opportunities for engagement through the development of digital services.

[Gareth Bacon]

I thank my hon. Friend and welcome her back to her well-deserved place on the Treasury Bench. Would she agree that the Mayor of London’s decision to go ahead with the expansion of the ultra low emission zone despite overwhelming opposition to the scheme expressed in a public consultation shows complete contempt for the people of outer London? Would she further agree that what appears to be a clear attempt by Transport for London to interfere with the outcome of the consultation in order to predetermine the result further undermines the democratic process?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for his vital question. I have seen the reports he refers to and I totally share his concerns about the consultation process led by the Mayor of London. Clearly these plans will have a significant impact on the communities that my hon. Friend represents so ably, which is why we must get to the bottom of what happened and hold the Mayor of London to account.

Management of the Economy and Ministerial Severance Payments

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. Like many others, I was astonished to see the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), recently give an interview in which he said that the only thing that the Government had got wrong was not to explain themselves properly. That is absolutely disgraceful. We are giving Government Members the chance to set this right today and to show whose side they are on. Are they on the side of the people they put in office, who walked away with ministerial severance payments and profited from the crisis that they caused, or are they on the side of working people, who are currently paying the price?

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

I would be grateful if the hon. Lady could advise the House on how many Labour Ministers refused their severance payments in 2010.

[Lisa Nandy]

I will throw the question straight back to the hon. Member: how many times did we see, in 44 days, the former Prime Minister and Chancellor essentially use the security of people in this country as an experiment? They treated us as lab rats for their ideology. They crashed the economy and left working people to pay the price.

[Gareth Bacon]

rose—

[Lisa Nandy]

If the hon. Member wants to be the first on the Government Benches to apologise, I will certainly give him the opportunity.

[Gareth Bacon]

I note that the hon. Lady did not answer my question; will she do so now?

[Lisa Nandy]

Honestly, a bit of humility from Government Members would be in order. The situation is unprecedented. They have been in office for 12 years. You put two people in office, or rather, they put two people in office, Mr Speaker—I would never for a moment suggest that you would do such a thing—who were fundamentally unsuitable for the role. They supported them, backed them to the hilt and stood up from the Government Benches and supported every move that they made. They cheered as the mini-Budget was announced and they still do not have the humility to apologise for the damage that they have inflicted on families up and down the country. The Chancellor may have U-turned, the new Prime Minister may have admitted that mistakes were made, and the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities may have apologised for the error of his party’s ways, but apologies do not cut it. Government Members allowed this to happen. Without them, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) would not have become Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Spelthorne would not have been Chancellor. Government Members let it happen; they cheered as the disastrous mini-Budget was commended to the House. They may be sorry now, although I am still waiting to hear it, but the damage has been done. Some 113,000 people were forced to re-mortgage between the mini-Budget and the present Chancellor’s belated U-turn.

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[Patricia Gibson]

Absolutely, and I am sure the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) will be taking note and learning the lessons he needs to learn from that insight.

There is not expected to be a reduction in mortgage rates any time soon.

[Gareth Bacon]

It happened yesterday.

[Patricia Gibson]

Some estimates put additional mortgage costs at £5,100 a year, on average, by the end of 2024. I hear the chuntering from the hon. Gentleman about mortgage rates going down. He would do well to reflect on the fact that 73% of mortgage holders are worried about rate rises.

Alongside this, the UK Government are set to raise taxes. They will balance the cost of their own incompetence on the backs of those who are already struggling, and whose struggles have been made so much worse by a Government who could not find their backside with both hands. The number of Scots seeking mortgage help has nearly quadrupled, again as a result of this Government’s staggering incompetence. It is particularly galling for people in Scotland, the majority of whom roundly rejected this Government.

As if all this were not enough, inflation is soaring, rising to over 10% in September, a rate not seen since the early 1980s, outpacing normal earnings growth and expected to peak at 11%. Inflation is partly driven by sky-high energy costs, and the Government are already backtracking on the one thing they have done to bring down energy costs, with the expected bill rises early next year hammering households all over again—we could see bills of more than £4,000 in April. The shadow of recession is looming over the UK and threatens Scotland’s recovery from the pandemic, with the Scottish Government’s budget £1.7 billion lower due to the impact of inflation and the need to help households on which the UK Government have turned their back. This means that in Scotland budgets have had to be reprioritised across a range of areas to provide this much-needed support. Sadly, for the Labour party, when Wales’s budget is under pressure it is the fault of the UK Government because of how devolution works, but when the Scottish Government’s budget is under pressure Labour joins the Tories in condemning the SNP. That is why Labour is thrashing around in its death throes in Scotland, because standing shoulder to shoulder with the Tories is not working for it. The people in Scotland are not fooled.

It is bad enough that households across the UK are struggling to balance budgets in the face of soaring inflation, rocketing energy bills and huge increases in mortgage costs, and it is bad enough that my constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran are facing unprecedented financial pressures, but while they do they are watching the revolving door of Government jobs, which have been changing with breathtaking speed. The loss of a Cabinet post is compensated for with three months’ salary, and that applies even to those who were in post for only a few weeks. Sky News has reported that this ministerial churn has amounted to £709,000 in severance payments for former Ministers and Whips. A total of 71 Ministers are eligible for this pay as a result of the instability of this Government. In view of the financial stress our constituents are facing because of decisions made by this Government, they have a right to know who has taken these payments, which are due entirely as a result of the instability and incompetence of this Government. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us today, but I certainly will not hold my breath.

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[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

I rise to reject the arguments put forward by the Opposition. It is a matter of regret that Opposition day debates have abandoned any pretence of being a forensic probing of Government policy and have instead become nothing more than petty attempts for clickbait on social media.

[David Linden]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gareth Bacon]

No. I have great affection for the hon. Gentleman, but I am mindful of Mr Deputy Speaker’s warning about the time because I know that other Members wish to speak. If the hon. Gentleman makes a speech later, he can address my comments.

In George Orwell’s “1984”, people are required during the “Two Minutes Hate” to watch a film depicting enemies of the state and loudly proclaim their hatred for them. The Labour party appears to believe that “1984” was a guidebook and not a warning, because it seems regularly to covet the chance to fabricate similarly misleading narratives, such as that of MPs voting to allow sewage in rivers, which was patently untrue. The volume of hateful correspondence and even threats against Members of this House has risen in recent years. Anecdotally, I gather from colleagues that there seems to be a strong correlation between spikes in abusive messages and Opposition day debates. I will leave the Opposition to reflect on that and on their methods.

I note that in the motion there is no mention at all of the covid pandemic, which caused the greatest contraction of the UK’s economy for 300 years, or of the £400 billion the Government spent on protecting people through the pandemic. Nor is there any mention of the £37 billion of targeted support for those on lower incomes. Nor is there any mention of the war in Ukraine, which has directly led to massive increases in energy prices. The recovery from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have led to inflationary pressures around the world, which have in turn led to interest rate rises around the world. Again, mysteriously, there is no mention at all of that in the Opposition’s motion.

On what is in the motion, I respectfully point out that ignoring the disastrous consequences of rising energy bills would have been economic mismanagement. Instead, the previous Prime Minister and Chancellor put together a supremely generous support package that safeguarded both businesses and households. The energy price guarantee caps the price per unit of electricity and gas, and was introduced to counteract the looming October price rise, saving each household £700 on average over the winter. Had that not occurred, many families would suffer exorbitant and potentially unaffordable costs.

Similarly, the energy bill relief scheme applies to non-domestic premises so that businesses do not go bust and incur massive job losses across the country, which would have caused destitution for thousands. The previous Prime Minister and Chancellor took action to prevent such situations from occurring in the wake of what are ultimately global surges in energy prices.

It is not ancient history, so let me point out that financially ruining the country and leaving a note that says, “There’s no money left”, as the Labour party did in 2010, is quite literally mismanaging the economy. Thanks to measures taken by this Government, as of yesterday, mortgage rates have begun to fall, and some lenders are offering five-year fixed-term rates at less than 5%.

Lastly, the calls to dock severance pay for departing Ministers are a relatively new phenomenon and an over-personalised cheap shot, which is typical of the Opposition. I am not aware that any Labour Minister was particularly concerned about the matter before certain quarters of the media began discussing it. Indeed, not accepting severance packages was certainly not high on the agenda of departing Labour Ministers throughout the Blair and Brown Administrations, and certainly not when they were booted out of office in 2010. That is underlined by the refusal of the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) to answer both the questions I asked during my earlier intervention. Yet again, it shows that the Opposition only follow and do not lead. The motion is simply game playing. It is entirely without merit and should not be supported.

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[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a great honour to follow the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne). I very much enjoyed his history lesson about when Gordon Brown came into power in 1997, when I was in primary 2. What relevance that has to today’s debate and the mortgage rates that are being experienced by my constituents, I am not quite sure. Unfortunately, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) was unable to take my intervention. I think he is right to express some concern about the tone of Opposition day debates. One of the questions I was going to ask him was how he thinks the Scottish Conservatives conduct their Opposition day debates in the Scottish Parliament and whether he could tell the Chamber how different they are. He seems to be shrugging his shoulders, so I am not sure he is aware how the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) conducts himself in the Scottish Parliament; perhaps he is going to explain.

[Gareth Bacon]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I must confess that I do not spend a lot of time watching the Scottish Parliament, because I am often here, so I cannot answer his question. I would be happy to have a drink with him, and we could discuss it then.

[David Linden]

That is very helpful, and over the course of that drink I will explain to the hon. Gentleman that the behaviour of his colleagues in the Scottish Conservative party during Opposition day debates is quite something. It reminds me of that biblical verse about removing the log from your eye before removing the speck from your neighbour’s.

There are two parts to the motion before the House. The first aspect of it is how interest rates are rising. A theme has been developed throughout the course of the debate that that is to do with what has happened in Ukraine and the covid pandemic. I would not dispute for a minute that what has happened in Ukraine has had an impact on the economy and that the global pandemic has had an impact on the economy. However, as I said to the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell), there is a third aspect that has also had an impact on the economy, and that is the nature of the Brexit that we took. I think most people and most respected economists would argue that Brexit has had an impact on the economy, and the cherry-picking—to use the Minister’s term—that the hon. Member for Sedgefield was indulging himself in, to try to ignore the fact that Brexit has had an impact on the economy, does a disservice to the debate.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Gareth Bacon Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

A friend of mine, while raising money for Shelter, the housing charity, ran the London marathon dressed as a house. In view of the quite serious injuries he sustained while doing that, it was perhaps not the wisest decision, but he was making a point. On the side of the house were painted the words “Home is everything”, and indeed it is, particularly for those who do not have one. Our country has a growing population, an ageing housing stock and a younger generation who have been almost entirely priced out of home ownership and for whom even renting a home costs far too high a proportion of their income. We need to build new homes.

The reason I am delighted to support the Second Reading of the Bill today, including its proposals for strengthening the planning system, is that it offers the best chance we have had for many years to improve what is an unacceptable and deeply flawed system. We currently have a serious problem. In 1995, two thirds of people between 18 and 34 were homeowners with a mortgage. The proportion is now just one in five. The Government observed in their February 2017 White Paper, “Fixing our broken housing market”, that the housing shortage was not a looming crisis, stating:

“We’re already living in it”

and noting that it was

“a problem that won’t solve itself”.

A gap has opened up between the places we want to see and those we actually create. Instead of beauty and a natural order in our new housing, we see a sterile sameness almost everywhere we look. The consequences are stark: most new housing is opposed most of the time, and in no other period in our history would housing be thought of as pollution. I understand why there is so much opposition. One witness in the housing review I did for the Prime Minister last year commented that

“the planning system rewards mediocrity”,

and people are entirely right to object to mediocrity.

We do not do enough to protect our beautiful countryside; nor do we insist on land reuse as a default starting point. Instead of the new housing that most people want, we have a soulless monoculture. The clunky and inconsistently applied methods for taxing land value uplift mean that we do not see the timely and right-sized improvements in physical and social infrastructure that we need, whether that is schools, doctors surgeries or strong sewerage systems. Most fundamentally of all, the wishes and interests of customers are barely considered. Indeed, for the very item on which customers spend the largest proportion of their incomes—their homes—they hold the least consumer power. That is intellectually indefensible.

There is a solution, and it involves creating the conditions in which customers are treated as if they matter the most, rather than for the most part scarcely mattering at all. More people want to build their own homes than to buy new ones. Research by the Home Builders Federation indicates that only 33% of people would consider buying a new build home, while research by the Nationwide Building Society indicates that between 53% and 61% of people would like to commission their own home at some point in their lives. For the under-34 age group, the figure is 80%.

If we genuinely want to see a solution to England’s housing problems, we must remove the risks around infrastructure—a proper public function—and create more certainty around planning so that the system is predictable, as should happen anyway in a rules-based system. We need permissioned and serviced plots to be readily available everywhere, and then allow consumers to make real choices. Moreover, there is clear evidence that consumers with free choices commission much greener houses with much lower running costs. Increasing consumer choice will therefore assist the Government in meeting their climate change commitments, which will not be met without significant changes in how we build houses. In conclusion, this Bill offers a real opportunity to deliver important changes and I am pleased to support it.