Greg Clark
Main Page: Greg Clark (Conservative - Tunbridge Wells)Oral Answers to Questions
Greg Clark Excerpts
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
1. What assessment his Department has made of the potential effect of local commissioning criteria on the availability of specialist domestic violence refuges.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
Domestic abuse is a devastating crime, and we are determined to ensure that support is available to every victim. We have secured £40 million in the spending review for this purpose, and we will shortly publish a national statement of expectations, drawn up with local government and domestic violence charities, which will set out what every area should offer to ensure victim safety.
Sarah Champion
The Secretary of State knows how devastating domestic violence is and how the services provide a literal lifeline. However, specialist services, particularly LGBT and black and minority ethnic services, face a huge funding crisis and many are going to the wall. In the national statement of expectations, will he commit to supporting and ring-fencing money for those specialist services?
Greg Clark
Yes, it is important that we have specialist services. That is part of the discussions we are having with the charities through the drawing up of the national statement. We have secured more funding than has been available—three times as much funding—and that will be important. I think there is a wider point here, too, because there are connections between the public space and the domestic space. It is incumbent on all of us to maintain a public sphere in which women are safe from abuse, bullying and harassment, and that example should start from public life.
Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)
I welcome what the Secretary of State has just said about the statement and about the additional money, but a recent Women’s Aid report stated:
“One major challenge facing specialist refuge provision is the awarding of tenders to large generic providers”.
The report also includes the shocking fact that one in six specialist refuges has closed since 2010, and it states that on one particular day, 103 children and 155 women across the country were turned away because a place was not available. What part does the Secretary of State feel the Government’s cuts may have played in this loss of services, and will he agree immediately to review the present procurement practices to ensure that the best possible quality of specialist refuges is available in every single community?
Greg Clark
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that there needs to be total confidence. Any person who suffers from domestic violence should be confident that they can have a place of safety. That is behind the statement of expectations that is being drawn up, and he will be pleased that that is continuing. He should know that the number of bed spaces in refuges has increased in the last two years, according to UK Refuges Online, but we need to make sure that that confidence is there. I am sure he will agree that true success is when women do not have to move from their homes because they have been the victims of violence by their partners. True success is when women can be confident in staying there, and when the perpetrators of such abuse have to leave.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
2. What steps his Department is taking to ensure the building of starter homes.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
The Government are implementing our manifesto commitment to extend to young people the opportunity to own a home of their own. Working with councils, housing associations and builders, the starter homes programme will bring that opportunity to 200,000 young people across the country.
Richard Graham
The Secretary of State will know that there are some situations in which it is not viable to have shared equity on properties—perhaps on infill or brownfield sites. In such situations, the local housing association may still be keen to build, but to rent. Will my right hon. Friend commit to meet to discuss a specific situation and consider support funding?
Greg Clark
I am always delighted to meet my hon. Friend. It sounds as though there is the prospect of another trip to Gloucester, which is always very enjoyable. We want to see more housing of all tenures, and our funding provides housing for rent as well as to purchase, but starter homes provide a big opportunity to people who have been losing out on meeting their aspiration to own a home of their own. That is true on brownfield sites as well as on any other site. I hope that in his city of Gloucester, there will be starter homes on those brownfield sites.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
How can these homes be called starter homes when someone would have to be on £90,000-plus to have a shot at even a one-bedroom version in my constituency? They are not starter anything; they are ending the hopes of a generation for whom affordable housing to buy and social housing to rent have all but vanished.
Greg Clark
I do not agree with the hon. Lady. She will know that the average price that a first-time buyer pays outside London is £181,000, which, with the discount of 20%, is £149,000, and under the very successful Help to Buy scheme, that would require a deposit of £7,500. That is making home ownership possible for the rising generation of young people.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that, in villages in places such as North East Hertfordshire, it is very expensive for young people to own a home. Will this scheme or any other scheme the Government are promoting at the moment help young people in villages in areas such as North East Hertfordshire to make a start with getting a home of their own?
Greg Clark
It will, indeed. We have embarked on the biggest programme of house building since the 1970s. Unfortunately, when they were in office, the previous Government accumulated a housing deficit and debt of similar proportions to the financial deficit and debt. This Government are correcting that: we are building homes for young people across the country so that they can do what previous generations did, which is to count on having a home of their own.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
That is slightly misleading, because only 7% of local authorities think the new starter homes initiative is any good and 60% think it will be useless in their area. Is that not a fact? Look at this all-male, middle-aged group on the Government Front Bench who are saying to young people in our country, “There’s no hope of a home—not in their lifetime.”
Greg Clark
There is nothing misleading, inadvertently or otherwise, about our commitment to giving many hundreds of thousands of young people the chance to have a home of their own. I would have thought that, for the next generation in his constituency, the hon. Gentleman would be promoting the availability of starter homes, giving people who have not been able to buy a home the possibility of doing so. He should get behind that scheme.
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
Many brownfield sites in my constituency had planning applications granted before the introduction of the Housing and Planning Act 2016. What advice does the Secretary of State give developers who are now looking to change those planning applications to ensure that they can integrate starter homes into the plans?
Greg Clark
It is always possible for developers to have discussions with local authorities if they want to—they are not bound by such applications—but I hope they will press ahead with making available the homes that are needed in my hon. Friend’s constituency as well as in other parts of the country.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State must be getting used to headlines in the housing and planning press that say, “Starter homes will crowd out genuinely affordable homes”, or “Traditional affordable rented homes are being swapped for discounted Starter Homes”. Will he therefore tell us how many genuinely affordable homes for rent or equity share will not be built as a result of the starter homes initiative, and what specific measures is he taking to prevent that from happening?
Greg Clark
We are building more homes than have been supported by Governments since the 1970s— 400,000 starter homes. The hon. Lady should be delighted to know that £8 billion of funding has gone in to providing them. With every decision we make, whether on starter homes or in giving the right the buy, we are putting ourselves on the side of the ordinary working people of this country who want a home of their own. In their opposition to such measures, Labour Members are showing how much further they are drifting from understanding—still less, representing—the ordinary working people of this country.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
3. Whether the Government plan to revise their definition of affordable housing.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
8. What assessment he has made of the effect on local authority budgets of social care costs.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
The spending review provided up to £3.5 billion of funding to help to meet the demographic pressures on social care—more than the £2.9 billion that local government and the directors of adult social services estimated was needed in their submission to the spending review.
Diana Johnson
Social care in Hull is facing a perfect storm, and GPs tell me that it is starting to impact on hospitals. We have had the deepest cuts in local government since 2010, and the national living wage is adding to costs. Will the Secretary of State accept the clear evidence of a growing funding gap that outstrips the social care levy, and that it is worst in areas of greatest and rising demand?
Greg Clark
The hon. Lady never misses a chance to be miserable about Hull, a great city that is on the rise. Hull has benefited to the tune of nearly £7 million a year from the local government settlement—it is one of the biggest gainers in the country. The last time she made that point, the leader of her council wanted not to take what she said at face value, and said:
“I do wish people would stop talking the city down. There is so much going on here…and a lot to look forward to.”
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
20. I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s visit to Shrewsbury the other week. He will have heard from the council of the big pressures it is under as a result of increasing costs in adult social care services. We have more senior citizens in Shropshire than the national average and the number is growing at a faster rate than the national average. What lessons has he learned from his visit to Shrewsbury, and what further assistance will he give my council to deal with that very important issue?
Greg Clark
I enjoyed my visit to Shrewsbury, as I enjoyed my visit to Hull. One thing that was welcomed in both places was a review of the underlying needs assessment, which has not been changed for many years, to ensure that the underlying pressures are properly reflected in the new settlement that, as a result of the Government’s reforms, comes in when 100% of the business rate is retained by local government.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk) (LD)
Clinical commissioning groups in my county of Norfolk have told the county council that they are withdrawing the money from the better care fund that was available for the protection of social care last year, leaving at least a £7.5 million gap. What is the Secretary of State doing in his discussions with the Secretary of State for Health to ensure that social care is protected? The risk of elderly, frail people and disabled people losing out more is very real.
Greg Clark
The right hon. Gentleman knows from his experience in the Department of Health how important it is to ensure that the social care system and the healthcare system are joined up. Part of the integration of health and social care is ensuring that people, whether they are NHS patients or cared for by the local authority, have the best care available delivered in the most efficient way.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Unitary councils have been established in that manner—with the health service embedded within them. What evidence is there that combining health and social care means that those services will be delivered more effectively and more efficiently?
Greg Clark
We know that where relationships are most embedded and advanced between local authorities in the NHS, people can be confident that they will have the best level of care without falling between the cracks of the two systems. Local government can do that working with the NHS, which is why that has been a prominent feature in some devolution deals.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
9. Whether his Department has made an estimate of how many families will move home as a result of the Pay to Stay provisions of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 over the course of this Parliament.
Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
13. What assessment his Department has made of the level of support for local enterprise partnerships from growth deals .
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
During the last Parliament, we devolved £7.7 billion of central Government funds in local growth deals, and in March, I invited applications for a further £1.8 billion of funds to further support local growth.
Mr Mak
Solent local enterprise partnership supports the regeneration of Dunsbury Hill Farm business park, which is creating more than 3,000 new jobs in my constituency. Will the Secretary of State continue to support LEPs, through the growth deals, to continue job creation in Havant and across Britain?
Greg Clark
I will indeed. My hon. Friend has been a big champion of the Dunsbury Hill Farm link road, which was funded by the LEP. I understand that the business park has its first tenants signed up and is creating 3,500 jobs, which is a further boost to the very successful time already being enjoyed on the Solent and in Havant in particular.
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
14. What assessment he has made of the effect of the right-to-buy scheme on the availability of low-cost housing for people on low incomes.
Mr Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire) (Con)
17. What plans his Department has to enhance and extend neighbourhood plans.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
We have already seen a revolution in neighbourhood planning, with 193 neighbourhood plans approved at referendum and nearly 2,000 groups across the country involved, covering nearly 10 million people. We announced in the Queen’s Speech that we will introduce a new package of measures further to strengthen neighbourhood planning in the forthcoming neighbourhood planning and infrastructure Bill.
Mr Jayawardena
My constituents are strong supporters of neighbourhood planning as a way of influencing the planning system in their local areas. Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss the forthcoming Bill and how it can give more weight to neighbourhood plans, local views and, indeed, permitted development where neighbours agree?
Greg Clark
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend. Neighbourhood plans are one of the most important successes of the Localism Act 2011 and they are catching fire across the country as more and more communities want to be able to shape the character of their communities. It is notable that when they go to referendum, the average yes vote is 89%. I think either side of the referendum campaign would regard that as emphatic.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Some councils, including Leeds City Council, are prioritising “easy” areas with neighbourhood plans and ignoring and not properly assisting those where it is difficult and there are huge pressures, such as Aireborough. Will the Secretary of State look at the guidance issued to councils, particularly as developers can carry on developing even though neighbourhood plans are being produced?
Greg Clark
I hope the hon. Gentleman will involve himself in the scrutiny of the new Bill, which is designed to help precisely those neighbourhoods where support from the local authority has not always been forthcoming and enthusiastic, so that they can insist on that and proceed apace.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
18. What steps his Department is taking to (a) ensure the use of brownfield land and (b) protect the green belt.
Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Greg Clark)
Since our last questions, the Housing and Planning Act 2016 has received its Royal Assent. I would like to thank parliamentary and departmental colleagues for their incredibly hard work on a landmark piece of legislation. With two further Bills set for the new Session, there can be no doubting the centrality of housing and devolution to this Government’s agenda.
Since our last questions, a respected leader of local government, Darren Cooper, the leader of Sandwell Council and deputy chair of the proposed west midlands combined authority, died at a young age. He was a champion of devolution for the black country and the west midlands, and I would like to pay tribute to him and his work.
More happily, last month marked the 10th anniversary of the creation of the Department for Communities and Local Government. It was my privilege to pay tribute to officials for their dedicated service. I do regret not inviting former Ministers in the Department to the celebrations. The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) would have been greatly encouraged by the progress made by the Department over the last six years, especially after the calamities of its first four.
Paul Flynn
The number of civil service jobs has been cut in most parts of the country, but the proportion of such jobs in London has increased by 16% since 2010. Why condemn people to live in overcrowded London, with its grossly polluted air and sky-high house prices, when they could live in the broad green acres of Wales where the air is sweet and the house prices are genuinely affordable?
Greg Clark
That enticing invitation to come to live and work in Wales will have been heard across the country, and I think the same applies to our great cities, towns and counties right across the country. Part of our devolution agenda is to take away the powers and resources that have been locked up in this city and to make them available across the country so that they can be locally led and bring about the revival that the hon. Gentleman refers to.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Con)
T2. Sabden, one of my beautiful villages, has a population of about 1,500. It has just had its bus service withdrawn by the operator. That service was part-subsidised by Lancashire County Council, but the council now refuses to subsidise even a skeleton service, which means that the elderly and the young have been set adrift: they cannot get into work or go to the doctor. Will the Secretary of State consider top-slicing the necessary money from the county council and giving it to the districts so that local people can get the service they deserve?
Greg Clark
Clearly, that is a great disappointment for my hon. Friend’s many constituents who rely on those services. In the local government financial settlement, we have been able to make available a flat cash settlement over four years to councils across the country, giving them the certainty of four-year funding. That is intended to allow them to plan ahead for precisely the sort of services that he describes.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s tribute to Darren Cooper. For many of us, he was not just a good local Labour council leader but a good colleague and a friend.
May I take the Secretary of State back to the answer he gave the House in reply to Question 2, when he talked about the Government’s housebuilding programme? The latest official figures show that the number of new homes is down by 9% and that, six years on, it is still a third below the peak achieved under Labour. This is the housebuilding recovery that never was. Does he not agree that when housing policy fails so badly, it gives an opening to those who want to fuel resentment and division? Will he therefore today disown the comments of his Cabinet colleague the Leader of the House who blames the fall in home ownership on EU migration? Will he point out to the Leader of the House that it is possible to have a healthily growing population alongside higher home ownership, just as Britain did during the baby-boom years under Macmillan and Wilson?
Greg Clark
I lay the blame for the shortage of housing on what happened during the tenure of the Labour party and the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne, who was the relevant Minister at that time. Ignominiously, he will go down in history as the Housing Minister who built the fewest homes in the peacetime history of this country, with only 85,000 being built in 2009. He is the man under whom we saw a fall in home ownership of a quarter of a million. The most significant thing is that when he was commenting on that, he said:
“I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing.”
Under this Government, the proportion of building is rising again; we have 250,000 planning permissions and more than 170,000 additions to the housing stock. We have doubled the rate of growth of housing compared with the rate that he presided over, so he might talk about lessons from the past, but we will be looking closely at his record to see what actions to avoid.
John Healey
May I suggest that the Secretary of State go back to the Department and call in his Government statisticians to put him right on these figures? The Labour record speaks for itself: 1 million more homeowners, 2 million new homes built, and the largest investment in social housing in a generation. That is a record that the present Housing Minister would give his right arm for; it might even get him a Cabinet promotion. May I, however, bring the Secretary of State back to the question of the European Union? Does he accept that the European Union is helpful to housebuilding in Britain? Does he agree that the European Investment Bank’s commitment of £1 billion to build almost 20,000 new affordable homes is now needed more than ever, not least because this Government’s housing investment over this Parliament will be only half what it was under Labour?
Greg Clark
The right hon. Gentleman should go back and check his record—as a former Minister, I am sure he has access to the files. Under the previous Labour Government, including during his time as Housing Minister, 420,000 homes were lost from this country’s affordable housing stock.
An important source of investment in housing, including in social and affordable housing, comes from the European Investment Bank, which has invested £2 billion in our housing stock over the years. It is important that we continue to have access not only to that investment but to investment from private sector bodies, all of which benefit from the confidence and stability that we have had through our arrangement, including the wholehearted commitment of a Government determined to increase house building.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
T4. The Minister will be aware that the average council tax increase in England has been 3.1%, whereas it has been 3.6% in Wales. Does that not clearly demonstrate that Conservative policies are delivering better services at a better price than anything that Labour can achieve?
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
T8. Will the Secretary of State inform the House of the latest position on the devolution deal in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire?
Greg Clark
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the discussions in the north midlands are well advanced. While a top-down process, dictated from Whitehall, might be tidier than the current negotiated process, in which proposals are made from the bottom up, I think he would accept that that would be to miss the point.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
T6. During a glorious bank holiday weekend in Salisbury, the city council hosted an international market as part of the Love Your Local Market campaign. Does he Minister agree that thriving high streets and local markets are good not only for the local economy but for a city’s sense of community?
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
City, regional and growth funds have the potential to transform areas across the country, from Edinburgh North and Leith all the way down to Hove. The Secretary of State had a meeting with Brighton’s council recently. Many areas in the south-east showed enthusiasm for these funds in the early days, but this has not translated into deals being struck. I know he had a constructive meeting in Brighton and Hove recently, so will he update the House on his thinking and on how he is going to get the balance right between urban areas and the hinterlands and the countryside, to make sure that cities do not lose the power they need?
Greg Clark
As I said to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), it is very important that these proposals come from the bottom up, and that requires local agreement. Discussions are taking place locally in the south of England, as they are in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, as to what is the right geography of a proposed deal. It is very important that these things are determined locally, rather than by my getting a pen and drawing lines on a map. I hope the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) will use his good influence to bring people together, so that we can advance what should be a very important and attractive deal.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
T7. Empty homes are a blight on our local communities, with some becoming derelict and dangerous, meaning that not only are local people deprived of somewhere to live, but entire areas can appear run down or unkempt. What is the Minister’s assessment of the number of empty homes and what is his Department doing to improve the situation?
Greg Clark
Yes, I have regular conversations with the Secretary of State. As with other areas of local government responsibility, sometimes its responsibilities cross the lines of departmental boundaries. We make sure, very particularly, that we join that up and reflect in the responsibilities and the funding of local government the full range of its commitments and needs.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
Office for National Statistics figures state that 3.3 million extra people will come to our country in the next 15 years. How on earth are we to make sure that there is enough land and that output will be increased enough to support the number of buildings required for that number of immigrants?