Leaseholders and Managing Agents

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He highlights something that is really important to us all: the mental health problems that this issue causes. It is not just a financial issue; it has both physical and mental health implications.

There was one more person to whom I was going to pay tribute. If I left her out, I would be in deep trouble, because it is my own head of office, Jackie George, who keeps a database of more than 7,000 leaseholders in my constituency and who keeps in touch with them regularly.

In 2017, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), committed the Government to act on leasehold abuses. Specifically, he committed them to legislate to prohibit the creation of new residential long leases on newly built or existing freehold houses, other than in exceptional circumstances; to restrict ground rents in newly established leases of houses and flats to a peppercorn; to address loopholes in order to improve transparency and fairness for leaseholders and freeholders; and to work with the Law Commission to support existing leaseholders. The Government said that would include making buying a freehold or extending a lease

“easier, faster, fairer and cheaper”.

In April 2018, the Government announced that managing agents in the sector would be subject to regulation by an independent body and that a code of practice would set out minimum standards for key areas of activity, including service charges. In October 2019, the then Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), confirmed in a written statement the Government’s intention to take forward those measures. In 2020, the Law Commission published its report and recommendations.

It is not good enough to say that the Government have been busy with other priorities. Since 2017, we have had seven Secretaries of State and nine Housing Ministers, yet leaseholders are still being ripped off.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I hope to give the hon. Gentleman a chance to clear the frog in his throat, and I congratulate him on securing the debate. Does he agree that the current arrangements, whereby there is no limit on the amount paid in service charges, insurance, ground rent and forfeiture charges, have left leaseholders at the mercy of the unscrupulous? Although we must allow the free market to prevail, that does not preclude the House and the Minister introducing and implementing fit-for-purpose regulation to protect the average leaseholder, who wants a fair bill for a fair service. That is not too much to ask for.

[Barry Gardiner]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Leaseholders are not asking for special favours; they simply want equity and justice.

The Government’s survey reported that more than 70% of leaseholders regretted buying a leasehold property. In London, and in my constituency of Brent North, the leasehold model accounts for more than 90% of properties sold. I do not believe that my constituents should have to wait a moment longer for basic rights over their own homes, the right to manage, and the right not to be subjected to unreasonable and sometimes fabricated service charges and then bullied into submission by managing agents who threaten legal proceedings and, ultimately, forfeiture.

For my constituents and millions like them throughout the country, the delay is imposing financial penury and severe impacts on their mental and physical health, as the right hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) said. The impacts include those on the residents of Williams Way in my constituency of Brent North, from where one resident wrote to me saying:

“My wife cried last night when I shared a few things about all of this. Management fees have increased: £5,600 in 2020 to £8,400 in 2022—I cannot afford to pay this significant increase. That is a 50% increase. Water storage has increased from £564 in 2020 to £1068—an 89% increase. The insurance premium charged at £5,820.76 in 2021 increased to £20,726.23 in 2022—a staggering 256% increase. A detailed explanation has not been provided.”

Hallmark Premier Estates is the managing agent there, but it is not providing a premier service—just as it is failing to do in Parkside Place in Barham village, where the insurance premium, which was £22,738 in 2021, has risen 108% to £47,415. No wonder I was told yesterday that the landlord would be replacing Hallmark as the managing agents for “unspecified reasons”.

One leaseholder in Lawns Court said:

“I have lived in my flat for 39 years, but I find I can no longer struggle to keep it - the service charges for my one-bedroom flat have risen from £1600 per annum to over £5000 per annum. That is a 212% increase.”

The managing agents there are Aldermartin, Baines & Cuthbert.

At the Living City development in Colindale in my constituency, leaseholders were advised in March last year that after the constant failure of the communal hot water supply to the building over three successive winters, they would receive a rebate on their service charge, only for that offer to be countermanded in October last year. Residents noted that their insurance cover appeared to be paying for associated commercial units, and found that the premium had been increased by 100%. Lift maintenance is also charged, conveniently, on a day rate rather than a job rate: the lift fails, and a day rate is charged to fix it. Strangely, it fails again the following day, and another day rate is charged to fix it again—and so on, day after day, until astronomical charges have been incurred, with the managing agents able to take a management fee every time, of course.

I have written to all these managing agents, challenging them to justify their service charges and other fees, and to none have I been writing longer than Freshwater and its associated companies—at the last count more than 150 linked under the same beneficial ownership. It is because of Freshwater that in 1999 I launched my original campaign for what became the 2002 Act. One of its leaseholders wrote to me from Barons Court in my constituency, saying:

“Dear Barry, every double bed apartment now costs £6000 up from £2600 per year a 130% increase in service charge and we had to pay for the Waking Watch. The management company will not tell us how much commission they receive from the insurance premiums. We arranged our own fire tests and paid for critical remediation work.”

The name of the company FirstPort is well known to many Members. Since 2013, my constituents in Chamberlayne Walk have been challenging unreasonable service charges by FirstPort management services. I say unreasonable but, in fact, the word “fraudulent” is closer to the truth: it even charged for the management of surrounding land that it did not own and was not its to manage. One resident wrote to me about a typical example of its practice, saying:

“I was charged £1725.88 for internal and external decorations (painting of the windows). My windows are UPVC - no redecoration was required.”

Another wrote to tell me:

“The back fill of the stack pipe which causes water to come up into my kitchen sink and has flooded my kitchen on many occasions is still an issue after 15 years of reporting it.”

Yet another person explained:

“My flat is a one-bedroom flat, one of the smallest on the estate and I was charged £2861 for redecorations - almost double the costs levied on the larger 2-bedroom flats this matter remains unresolved.”

FirstPort’s response to those and the more than 500 more complaints like them that I have received is to make no response and ignore things for as long as possible—for months and years, not days and weeks. There is a lack of accountability and transparency over what the residents are charged for and whether the costs are reasonably incurred and reasonable in amount. There is a total failure to provide leaseholders with a breakdown of service charges. Many of my constituents can wait more than 20 months for accounts to be finalised.

Even when FirstPort admits that refunds are owed to the leaseholder because of double counting, overcharging or charging for services not provided, the requests for the return of the overpayments are often ignored, or the returns can take many months to be made. FirstPort also charged multiple administration penalty charges of £60 each when someone queried the costs. One resident ended up being billed for more than £400 of admin charges and was then browbeaten into paying because of the threat of legal action.

In 2019, Nigel Howell, the then chief executive, conceded to me that it was unlawful for his company to impose late penalty fees on leaseholders who had disputed their charges—but not all leaseholders have been refunded. Nigel Howell also confirmed to me that his company had charged costs for areas not under FirstPort’s management and promised that a 20% refund would be given in the following year’s accounts. Strangely, Nigel Howell was removed from his post as chief executive.

After years of suffering, one brave, resilient resident finally took FirstPort to the tribunal. FirstPort sought to rely in its defence on two factors: it tried to rely on the payments made by leaseholders—in other words, by paying up they had intimated consent; and, especially ironic given the FirstPort practice of delay, it tried to rely on the length of time the leaseholder had taken in bringing the challenge to the tribunal.

On Friday 13 January, the last working day before the hearing, I received the following email in my office from my constituent at 5 pm:

“They are settling all of the claim. Their lawyers harassed me all week and made the offer on Friday afternoon, just hours before the hearing this Monday. They did not want this case heard as they have been lying to Barry. They owe money to 202 families.”

Of course FirstPort did not want the case heard in public: section 27A(5) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 states that

“the tenant is not to be taken to have agreed or admitted any matter by reason only of having made any payment.”

Tenants often pay expressly disputed service charges to avoid the risk of forfeiture and preserve their home and the value of their lease.

Of course FirstPort did not want that in the public domain, but it now is, and 200 other families have now been given heart that it is possible to take FirstPort on and beat it. Already, 42 other leaseholders on the estate have signed up to a class action. But the point is that this should not be happening. A code of conduct for managing agents will not do any good. The 1985 Act already provides that service charges must be reasonable and services and works must be carried out to a reasonable standard. The problem is the whole imbalance of power between the leaseholder and the freeholder.

Leasehold tribunals were intended to be a cheap, efficient way of resolving normal disputes between reasonable people without enormous legal costs, but landlords have intimidated leaseholders by engaging vast arrays of lawyers and threatening them with forfeiture and bankruptcy. There is a way to end this misery, but it is not with a new code of practice. Companies do not obey the existing primary legislation; they will not abide by a new code of practice. The way to end this misery is not with the safety regulator. Company law allows companies to avoid their obligations, go into administration while the directors set up new companies and repeat their scams all over again. This misery will end only when we have an end to leasehold. Our country has put up with a feudal system of land tenure for almost 2,000 years. It is time it stopped.

Voter Identification

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

It is safeguarding the integrity of the ballot box for the long term, which the Labour party seemed to care about when it was in government in 2010. Its lack of care right now demonstrates its lack of interest in going into government in future.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister very much. He probably knows what I will say but, having had voter ID for more than 20 years, it has become second nature in Northern Ireland. Free photographic ID is provided and can be used to fly to the UK mainland or to purchase age-restricted products. It is a simple process that can be facilitated with a simple form and photograph. It has cut down on fraud, and I stand behind the principle of one person, one vote, which it protects. Does the Minister agree that the free provision of electoral ID is an essential component of any legislation?

[Lee Rowley]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, who is one of the few people in this place with experience of voter ID. I encourage the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats to listen to what he says about its long-term success in Northern Ireland.

Brownfield Development and Green Belt

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank you for calling me, Ms Fovargue, and I thank the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for setting the scene. I supported her request to the Backbench Business Committee for this debate. We are discussing English planning rules, so I cannot share any knowledge from that perspective, but I wish to sow a Northern Ireland perspective into the debate, as I always do, because what we have in Northern Ireland is mirrored in England. I will also reflect on the contributions of right hon. and hon. Members.

I congratulate the Minister on her new role. I know that she will put her energy and commitment into her position, and I look forward both to her response and to her contributions in her role in the future.

The NPPF states:

“Planning policies and decisions should promote an effective use of land…in a way that makes as much use as possible of previously-developed or ‘brownfield’ land.”

It goes on to instruct local planning authorities to

“give substantial weight to the value of using suitable brownfield land…and support appropriate opportunities to remediate despoiled, degraded, derelict, contaminated or unstable land”.

That is the thrust of where I am coming from, because my constituency has utilised brownfield opportunities over the years, but there is still opportunity there. It took a long process to convince the planning authorities— I understand that the planning system in Northern Ireland is different from that on the mainland.

I represent an area that has a lot of land that is not under permitted development. Although our planning system is different, the problems are the same. It is incredibly costly for a developer to develop a brownfield site, with remedial costs on top of the cost to build, which is more expensive in Northern Ireland due to the Northern Ireland protocol. My goodness, I have to mention the Northern Ireland protocol in every debate I attend, because it affects us. It affects us in planning and in everything in life—it affects the very air I breathe—so its impact cannot be ignored.

New housing developments have to do a number of things. There is a delicate balance to strike between meeting the need for houses and protecting our natural environment, and I am not sure that the balance is being struck; what hon. Members have said today indicates that it is not. As the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills said, new housing developments must deliver affordable housing for people to buy and they must develop infrastructure, whether that be for storm water, sewerage, roads, footpaths or street lighting. In Northern Ireland, a great deal of that development is not put in the hands of the Departments but in the hands, and indeed the moneys, of the developer.

I have lived in the Ards area and peninsula for all but four years of my life. I am pleased that the Minister—and, I think, her husband—came over to my constituency last summer. I was pleased to have her come and see what she told me was the beauty of my constituency, including Strangford lough. I know that the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), who was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland for some time, also had an opportunity to go there on regular occasions, including to Mount Stewart and down the Ards peninsula where I live. It is an area of outstanding natural beauty and of special scientific interest, so there are broad controls over what can happen there. Over the years, we have been able to develop brownfield sites down the Ards peninsula. Whether it be Ballyhalbert, Portavogie or Carrowdore, where there was land available, or Ards town—the main town—Comber, Ballynahinch or Saintfield, all that brownfield land has probably been taken.

It is important to have the infrastructure. For 26 years, I was a councillor for Ards and North Down Borough Council, and I had a particular interest in planning. I recognised early on that there was an opportunity to move towards brownfield sites, and we moved that way and relaxed planning rules to ensure that brownfield sites could be used. Let us be honest: factories—in the linen sector, for example—had closed down, and they were never coming back, so that land was going to lie there for ages. It seemed logical to move in that way, so we did over time, but it took the planning laws to change.

The Library briefing succinctly sums up the issue when it says that:

“CPRE (formerly the Campaign to Protect Rural England) has argued there is sufficient brownfield land to meet England’s housing needs, noting that ‘there is space for at least one million homes on suitable brownfield land’.”

It continues:

“The planning consultancy Lichfields has argued that brownfield land ‘can only be a part of the solution to the housing crisis’”,

which we have to recognise. It then says that Lichfields

“noted that suitable brownfield land is often not available in places where there is more need for new homes.”

For example, in Belfast, some of the land along the River Lagan lay derelict for ages, but all of a sudden, it is a lovely housing development. A lot of work was done around the River Lagan, so the properties on that land became very attractive, as they did in Belfast harbour and across other parts. Land may look derelict and as though nothing can be done with it, but we have to recognise that it can be.

I will conclude, because I understand that the timescale for speeches is about seven minutes, Ms Fovargue. We have to make sure that the community is always involved and that we bring people with us. What I want to say is: “You don’t go agin them—if you go agin them, you get nowhere.” That is important and it is what we try to do back home. I do have concerns and issues about planning in my area, so I urge the Government and the Minister to continue the process that they have started and to ascertain the best way forward to ensure that we make use of brownfield sites, yet do not leave that as the only financially possible solution.

Capital Projects: Spending Decisions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

Just for clarity, the Treasury signs off budgets across Departments without any issue, as it has done under the Labour party, the coalition and the Conservative party.

The hon. Gentleman asks about round 3 of the levelling- up fund. We have given out billions of pounds under rounds 1 and 2. Local communities are excited by the opportunities that the changes will bring. I encourage his area to apply for round 3; I hope it is successful, and I hope he can share in the transformation that will come, which is already being delivered elsewhere.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The first line of the policy paper “Levelling Up Fund Round 2: prospectus” states:

“Investing in infrastructure has the potential to improve lives”.

I am anxious to find out how such infrastructure improvement can take place on coastal roads, where the environmental impact of erosion is leading to the isolation of communities. Will the Minister commit himself to a dedicated levelling-up strategy to address this serious issue?

[Lee Rowley]

I should be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, along with the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), to discuss that further.

EU Funding: Northern Ireland

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered replacement of funding from EU programmes in Northern Ireland.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to discuss this issue and, I hope, get clarity for a number of third sector partners and other groups in Northern Ireland and, potentially, areas of opportunity for them. It feels like a very long time ago, but during the EU referendum campaign there were assurances that Northern Ireland would not lose out, doing well, as we did, out of the EU funds, which were based on need. We know that the phrase “take back control” resonated with many people, but it appears to mean taking back control from some of the funds that have traditionally underpinned progress in Northern Ireland and from local decision makers, and handing it directly to London, without any sense of a strategy that local groups can try to support.

In March last year, in the early stages of the community renewal fund, I had a Westminster Hall debate, in which various eyebrow-raising allocations from that scheme were addressed. I am afraid that several of the reservations that people had about process, strategy, co-ordination and transparency have been borne out. It is worth saying that these concerns are not held just by groups that are applying for funding or by my party. The Northern Ireland Executive, as was, adopted the position that the best delivery mechanism for the shared prosperity fund would be via existing structures. Invest Northern Ireland, our economy arm, was very clear that it believed that the funding would be best delivered in conjunction with the programme for government. And the think-tank Pivotal and other respected commentators and business voices made the same point. People are up for change. They understand that it is a reality, and they roll with the punches. But it has to feel transparent, and there has to be a sense of fairness and coherence and that there is more to these allocations than just the whim of Ministers in London.

As I said, Northern Ireland was a net beneficiary in the EU. That is not a secret and is not anything to be ashamed of. Those allocations were made on the basis of need and, in many cases, were a counterweight to the obvious challenges that Northern Ireland faced and to decades of capital underinvestment. That is not just a historical issue: in 2021, the average capital spend per head in Northern Ireland was £1,325, compared with a UK average of £1,407. Of course, all that has contributed to a failure to attract quality investment and foreign direct investment, and decent jobs. That is reflected in our rates of economically inactive people, which are substantially higher than those in other regions.

The founder of our party, John Hume, said many times that the best peace process is a job: the best way to enable people to have hope in their futures and see beyond the things that have divided us in our region is to have meaningful employment—a reason to stay, to get up in the morning and to work together. Those were the opportunities that we saw in European participation, and that is why we continue to work so hard to protect our access to political and economic structures. Funds beyond the block grant, the EU funding as was and the promised successor funds, have been billed and are needed as additional, and they should be an opportunity to realise some of those ambitions, to remove barriers to employment and, in particular at the moment, to allow people to take advantage of the opportunities that the current very tight labour market offers. Unfortunately, that is not what we are getting.

Time is obviously short, so I want to focus on the loss of the European social fund and the European regional development fund and on the replacement, the SPF, and to touch on the levelling-up fund. It is worth clarifying that, as well as those assurances back in 2016, during the referendum campaign, the Conservative party manifesto in 2019 committed to replacing the ESF in its entirety. Northern Ireland got an average of £65 million a year from the ESF and ERDF in the period from 2014 to 2020, with Northern Ireland Departments having the power to manage that in line with UK strategy. That allowed them to align projects that they funded with regional and local strategies, ensuring complementarity and targeted outcomes.

The scenario now is that the UK Government and Northern Ireland Departments are essentially two players on the same pitch, in the same space, delivering the same sorts of projects. That has a built-in inefficiency and means that the results are less than the sum of the parts. That overlapping inevitably applies to monitoring, too. How are we supposed to measure the impact of different interventions in areas like skills if the scheme is only one part of an equation in which all the other Departments are trying to do similar things? It seems that it will be impossible to disaggregate that. The governance is sub-par and the quantum is less, too.

By comparison with the ESF and the ERDF averages, the allocation for the shared prosperity fund in Northern Ireland is £127 million over three years, so we are losing on average £23 million per year from that scheme. That has created this massive gap for funded groups, many of whom just cannot hold on. It is not like in the civil service; people have to be put on protected notice or face closure. Again, there is nothing co-ordinated about any of this. It is not even the survival of the fittest—that the strongest and best organisations will continue—because it is largely the luck of the draw on where organisations are in their funding cycle. Again, this is one more downside of the abandonment of devolution. Engaged and responsive local Ministers could monitor the situation and be flexible and creative with in-year allocation, match funding and bridge funding. They could, in short, protect us from the deficit created by Brexit and this devolution override.

I want to touch on how all this affects specific groups. The NOW Group is a highly regarded project that works across Belfast and further afield, supporting people who are economically inactive because of a disability get into employment. It has 17 years of ESF funding and runs high-profile facilities. If anyone has been in the café in Belfast City Hall, they will have seen NOW Group workers. They help hundreds of people with disabilities into all sorts of sectors, including leading corporates and the knowledge sector. It is a safe bet that any credible funder will keep backing a project like this, but the assurances are just not there. Reserves cannot last forever and, of course, smaller organisations will not have such reserves. In that project, 52 people are at risk of being put on notice and another 800 people with disabilities will be left with no service.

Mencap in south Belfast and far beyond has run ESF projects on social inclusion for decades and was well on track to exceed the target set by ESF of supporting 13,000 people by 2023. It is concerned by how limited the scope of SPF is compared to what they were able to do under ESF. The East Belfast Mission described well what is at stake:

“Our programmes have a long track record of being more successful than government initiatives”.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing the debate forward. I work with the East Belfast Mission regularly in my office, so I understand its work and its success rate from the people it helps in my constituency. The mission tells me, as I told the hon. Lady, that without this funding stream it will not be able to continue to have the success stories it has and that that will hurt individuals and families. Like the hon. Lady, I look to the Minister for some assurance that the funding it has received over the past few years can be continued. With that, we can help more of our people over the long term.

[Claire Hanna]

The mission itself captured that. It talks about its staff being based in local communities with lived experience that helps them understand the specific difficulties people face. It says:

“Many of the people we work with have faced societal and generational barriers to employment, through illness, trauma or other issues. Our projects help break the cycle and raise up our host communities.”

It says that if it loses the fund, it will not be able to provide certainty and will

“lose irreplaceable experience which has been built up over decades.”

This is not just a Belfast issue by any stretch of the imagination. Dozens of projects across Northern Ireland, particularly those supporting younger people, women and minorities, are at risk. First Steps Women’s Centre is a vital part of the community sector in Mid Ulster, working to integrate new and minority ethnic communities, providing crèche facilities to support women back into work and signposting people to other partners who can help them with the multitude of issues they may face.

I want to specifically ask the Minister how the Department ensures that the projects it is funding are aligned with Northern Ireland’s democratically agreed priorities—agreed by the Executive with all five parties—absent a formal role for those Departments. How do the Government propose that groups, such as those I have described, that are facing this essentially bureaucratic gap are supposed to address it? If the gap is not going to be addressed, what are the people who use those services supposed to do instead?

I want to address the widespread concerns about the levelling-up fund. It is a mighty slogan—who does not want to see things levelled up?—but unfortunately, like a lot of slogans of the last few years, it struggles a bit when it comes into contact with implementation. People perceive it as pitting communities against one another, with distant Ministers picking winners seemingly at random. Again, the initiative started badly for us. The initial allocations fell short of the promised 3% of the UK pot. That target was laid out in the strategy document, which seemed to acknowledge the traditional capital shortfall in Northern Ireland but has failed to address it. The fund was initially conceived as a scheme for England with a Barnett consequential, but it has evolved to be more centralised than was promised.

The same paper highlighted the issues that there would be given the fact that local governance structures in Northern Ireland are different from those in Britain, but it has failed to develop a more collaborative approach to mitigate those issues. The same overlap and duplication issues with the SPF pertain here, despite requests from me and others to consider the north-south dimension and co-ordination on this issue. That misses real opportunity to maximise value by co-ordinating with the Irish Government, who have, for example, a £400 million capital fund in the Shared Island unit.

Lessons from the first round of levelling up, which were very well telegraphed, do not appear to have been taken on board for round two. Although the projects that got the nod last week are no doubt good news for the relevant communities, nobody has any clue about what the winning ingredients in those bids were, or how others might have similar success in future applications. We are advised that the Northern Ireland bids were assessed against three of the four criteria set out in the prospectus, namely strategic fit to the economic case and deliverability.

The winning bids are in the public domain, but the other applicants are not. In the interests of transparency, reassurance and learning for future schemes, will the Minister therefore share details of the original Northern Ireland shortlist of projects and their ranking, as presented after the assessors’ moderation meeting? Will she also advise what, if any, additional considerations informed the Minister’s decision? Can she clarify whether the funding decisions were taken by the Minister alone? It has been suggested by some applicants—I have struggled to confirm this—that the gateway pass mark that was used in England, Scotland and Wales was 75%, and that that was dropped, after applications were submitted, to 57%. I hope that the Minister can confirm whether that is the case.

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. In my constituency of Strangford, an application was put in for the Whitespots park, an environmental scheme at Conlig. It is shovel ready—the boys could start it tomorrow —but we have missed out on two occasions. She is expressing her concerns over what is happening in her constituency; I echo those and support her in what she says.

[Claire Hanna]

That again illustrates the confusion that people have about what was selected. Will the Minister confirm whether any criteria additional to those specified were applied? Were they applied consistently to all projects? Will the transparent list that she will publish include any changes in ranking that occurred as a result of new criteria?

Again—for future learning—it was announced that there will be a round three of levelling-up funding. An enormous amount of work goes into the applications, including, as people will know, many thousands of pounds on proposals and engaging the strategy board. Will the Department therefore develop a reserve list from round two applications? That could prevent some groups from having to run up the same professional fees and pouring in the same time, particularly when they are being left in the dark about the criteria. Further, can the Minister clarify what consultation was held with the Northern Ireland Departments and other funding bodies to address the overlap in applications under levelling up and other schemes? Finally, does the Minister think that the spread of applications in Northern Ireland is appropriate?

A lot of these issues are very technical, but they are vital to achieving the things that we all want to achieve for Northern Ireland and for progress. They are also vital to people having some faith in this progress—that they have not had their eye wiped, essentially, by funds being promised, removed and not adequately replaced. That is not the case at the moment. People see this as a net loss from what we enjoyed before Brexit, and that should concern the Department.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dehenna Davison]

I will follow up in writing on that point. Having spoken to Sue Gray, one of our super officials, who has been outstanding in her engagement, I know how closely officials have been working with the Northern Ireland Finance, Economy and Communities Departments, maintaining regular contact as our plan has developed. That engagement continues.

Where have we got to? Drawing on insights from the partnership group, and from wider engagement, we published an investment plan just before Christmas last year. That sets out how Northern Ireland’s allocation will be spent and the impact we expect it to have. It supports the leading needs and opportunities in Northern Ireland, addressing high levels of economic inactivity, promoting entrepreneurship and innovation and strengthening pride in place. I am pleased to say that the plan has been given the seal of approval by our partners on the ground and is now being implemented.

Our first competition, for £42 million, which is roughly a third of the total UK SPF allocation, is focused on helping more economically inactive people into work. Many MPs, Assembly Members and other stakeholders have rightly made the case for prioritising this funding and the voluntary and community organisations that deliver it. I am sure the hon. Member for Belfast South welcomes this provision and the benefits it will bring not just to the organisations that receive it and the individuals they will help, but to Northern Ireland’s wider economy.

We are also working with councils in Northern Ireland to bring forward early communities and place projects, as well as a joined-up service for entrepreneurs seeking to start a business and create jobs. Pending further discussion with the Northern Ireland civil service, we may also commission Northern Ireland Executive Departments, or their arm’s length bodies, in the design and delivery of the fund. I am sure hon. Members will join me in encouraging their fullest involvement.

Part of this work is about ensuring that we mitigate issues for organisations as the European programmes we have discussed draw to a close. That issue has been raised with me by organisations not just in Northern Ireland but all around the UK; it is something that our Department and Ministers in other Departments have been incredibly focused on. With that in mind, we have been able to reprofile the SPF by moving funding from 2022-23 to 2023-24, so that it betters reflects funding needs. I know that this is an issue that my predecessors were asked to consider by many partners in Northern Ireland, and I am pleased we have been able make real progress in this area. It demonstrates something crucial, which is that SPF is not a fixed fund; it can and should flex to meet the evolving needs of the people of Northern Ireland—and it has been designed to do so.

It goes without saying that we will continue to engage with partners, including the Northern Ireland Departments and hon. Members on both sides of this House, on the design and operation of the fund, so that it delivers for businesses and communities in Northern Ireland and throughout the Union.

If we take a step back from the UK SPF to talk about other funding, which the hon. Member for Belfast South did with regards to the levelling-up fund, Members will know that Northern Ireland Departments have always provided funding alongside the European regional development fund and the European social fund. While we recognise the challenging budget circumstances Northern Ireland faces, the funding provided by UK SPF is only ever part of the answer. It is right that the Northern Ireland Departments continue to invest in provision that they have previously supported; that is something I think all of us would encourage.

The Government also want to play their part, making sure we are contributing towards building a brighter Northern Ireland. That is why, alongside the UK shared prosperity fund, we have used a wide range of other funds to spur growth, regeneration and investment. Those include: the community renewal fund, which backs 30 locally led, innovative projects to the value of £12 million, and the community ownership fund, which has so far supported six local communities in Northern Ireland to take ownership of assets at risk of loss, with a spend of £1.3 million. There are other important schemes and investments, such as £617 million for city and growth deals covering every part of Northern Ireland, and our new deal for Northern Ireland providing £400 million to help boost economic growth, invest in infrastructure and increase competitiveness. We are also investing £730 million into the Peace Plus programme, ensuring a total budget of almost £1 billion—the biggest peace programme to date. Through that package of investment, we will achieve significant, visible and tangible improvements to the places where people work and live.

[Jim Shannon]

The Minister mentioned £400 million. I do not expect an answer today—it might not be possible—but how much of the new deal money has been used or set aside?

[Dehenna Davison]

I do not have an answer to hand, but I will commit to follow that up and provide that information.

I will touch on the levelling-up fund, because we do not have much time left. Questions were raised about the shortlist, rankings and considerations. Much of the information around the considerations has been set out in the technical note that has been published. That will provide some information, and I am happy to provide a link.

The hon. Member for Belfast South asked about consistent application. Ministers were keen to ensure there was consistent application of the decision-making framework to ensure that they were not cherry-picking the winners. It was designed to reflect the scores and value of the projects that were selected. She also asked whether the decision was made by me alone, as a Minister. She knows that the fund is a joint fund across multiple Departments, ergo that was not the case. Various Departments are involved in the decision-making process.

The hon. Lady asked about round 3 of the levelling-up fund. We have indeed committed to a round 3, but I am not yet able to provide more details about that fund, because the conversations are ongoing and decisions are yet to be made. However, as soon as we have made the decisions and announced how round 3 will work, I will share that information with her.

I want to conclude by saying a huge thank you to the hon. Lady for securing this important debate. I hope this is the start of more constructive engagement between us as we both fight for what is best for the people of Northern Ireland.

Levelling-up Missions: East of England

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Peter Aldous]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. I am mindful of the fact that Jaywick, which is in his constituency, is statistically the most deprived area in the east of England. As he rightly says, pockets of deprivation can be hidden, because there are often areas of wealth within a few miles of them that camouflage that deprivation.

The east of England is an economic success story, and it is one of only three regions that are net contributors to the Exchequer. With the right policies and the necessary initiatives, we can significantly reduce poverty and create what, in effect, would be a global powerhouse, with specialist skills and expertise in such sectors as low-carbon energy, agritech, life sciences and sustainable fishing. Despite the drawbacks, a good start has been made locally in Waveney, and much of Lowestoft resembles a building site at present, with work well under way on the Gull Wing bridge—the long-awaited and much-needed third crossing of the port, which divides the town—as well as on the construction of permanent flood defences.

At this stage it is appropriate to pause and to recall that this evening is the 70th anniversary of the 1953 storm surge that hit our coast so cruelly, causing death, destruction and, ultimately, the demise of the beach village in Lowestoft. Today the region remains extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels and the threat of climate change, but the drive towards net zero presents our economy with significant opportunities, which we must grasp. In Lowestoft, work is also getting under way on the various towns fund projects designed to regenerate the town centre and the surrounds. These projects, together with the flood defence scheme and the new bridge, currently represent a public investment in the town of in excess of £220 million.

Due to inflation, the shortage of raw materials and supply chain challenges, delivering such construction projects is not easy at present, and I commend the project managers at Suffolk County Council, Coastal Partnership East and East Suffolk Council for their hard work. Our task locally is to ensure that the developments act as a catalyst for private sector investment and that they fit in with and complement the overall economic strategy for the region.

I will now briefly touch on the five missions where there is low confidence of meeting the 2030 targets.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine are very alike from a fishing point of view. He mentioned 1953, which is also an anniversary for us back home: the MV Princess Victoria went down that year, and I was at the service on Sunday, so 1953 also resonates with us.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it sometimes appears that the regions that shout the loudest get the lion’s share of the funding? Does he agree that the Government should consider introducing a scoring matrix, which would ensure that each constituency sees projects delivered? That would mean that my constituency could level up with the rest of the United Kingdom.

[Peter Aldous]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right that there are significant similarities between the east of England—East Anglia—and Northern Ireland. As far as a matrix is concerned, I am not 100% sure about that, but there needs to be much better feedback from Government on why particular bids are not successful. We probably need to look at the criteria that bids must satisfy before we come on to the next round.

I will comment on the five missions where there is low confidence in achieving the 2030 targets, and I will start with transport. It should be highlighted at the outset that the east of England, with 17 ports and airports—including two freeports and Stansted—is very much a strategic gateway to the whole UK. If the east of England has a fit-for-purpose, 21st-century transport system, the whole UK benefits; unfortunately, we are some way from achieving that. There is concern that the transport needs of the region are being overlooked in Whitehall, notwithstanding the good, co-ordinated work of our two strategic transport bodies, Transport East and England’s Economic Heartland.

On the railways, it is vital that funding is provided for the upgrading of the Ely and Haughley junctions. That will improve connectivity from the Felixstowe-Harwich freeport to the midlands and the north, thereby facilitating levelling up in those regions. It will get freight off the busy A14 and help to provide additional capacity for passenger services into London Liverpool Street. Reinstating the four trains per hour from Liverpool Street to Stansted would help to attract investment from airlines and to secure new routes to destinations such as San Francisco and Boston—that is the one in Massachusetts, not our near neighbour in Lincolnshire, although that road also needs improvement.

It is estimated that, if such routes are opened up, they will deliver £95 million in new investment to the east of England. However, if we are to deliver such investment, there is a need for good transport links to and from the airport. Locally, the Waveney constituency is served by two railway lines—the East Suffolk and the Wherry—which must be upgraded to improve accessibility and connectivity. That is vital to deliver meaningful levelling up to coastal communities such as Lowestoft and Yarmouth.

I will turn now to education. Achieving good grades not only benefits the individuals themselves, improving their life chances and sense of wellbeing, but enhances the prospects of economic growth. Unfortunately, the overall level of attainment across the region is behind that in England as a whole. That is predominantly because the funding for east of England schools is way below the national average. The f40 is a group of the lowest-funded education authorities in England; it is a club to which one does not aspire to belong but, unfortunately, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Central Bedfordshire are all members. To ensure that young people in the east of England have a fair opportunity to realise their full potential, attention should be given to revising the funding formula that applies to rural schools, and a significant part of the increased funding of £4.6 billion over the next few years should be allocated to councils to support children and young people with educational needs and disabilities.

On skills, exciting opportunities are emerging in the east of England, such as in the energy sector and in further education colleges such as East Coast College, with its campuses in Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth. Such colleges are doing great work, but they are hamstrung by a lack of revenue funding and a shortage of teachers and trainers. The key recommendations in the APPG’s report when it comes to meeting the region’s future needs are that there should be much greater in-work education provision and participation in further education and skills training for adults; improvements in the overall quality of training; better access to training, taking into account rurality and transport challenges; and better alignment with employers’ needs.

Local skills improvement plans, which are being worked up by chambers of commerce, councils and local enterprise partnerships, are the vehicle for bringing about that sea change. However, when we look at energy—with the construction of Sizewell C, with 50% of the UK’s offshore wind fleet anchored off our coast and with the potential for hydrogen production distribution starting from the gas terminal at Bacton—there is concern that the scale of the opportunity has not been fully recognised and acknowledged. The fact that we do not have a bespoke institute of technology is a disappointment.

With regard to the health mission, insufficient regard is had to the fact that population of the east of England is increasing and that a higher percentage of elderly people are resident in the area than in other areas. Those factors apply added pressure to our health and care sector, which is grappling with unprecedented demand and a workforce crisis. There are also significant health inequalities, including an increasing number of children living in poverty and an alarming gap in healthy life expectancy between areas that are often only a few miles apart. To meet those challenges, Government policy should recognise the significant population growth and pressures in the east of England to ensure that the region gets a fair share of funding overall for its demography and that the most deprived areas are recognised within that.

While home ownership in the east of England is the highest of any English region, at 67.4% in 2021, those homes are less affordable than in the rest of the UK. In 42 out of 48 areas in the region, average house prices are more than eight times the median wage. The bottom rungs of the housing ladder have, in effect, been sawn off. In my own constituency casework, the No. 1 issue is the challenges faced by many people seeking a comfortable, warm and dry place to live that they can truly call home. To meet that challenge, we need to build more houses, with the necessary supporting infrastructure, across all tenures, including social housing. We need to meet the needs of all people, whether those setting up home for the first time, those starting families or those looking to downsize or rightsize as their children leave home.

Moreover, the Government need to follow up on their recently announced and welcome ambition to reduce energy demand by driving forward a national retrofit programme. We have successful individual schemes, such as the energy company obligation, but we are yet to embark on the journey to upgrade the bulk of the UK’s existing building stock. Policies should be set in Whitehall—hopefully, the Chancellor will have more to say on that next month—and then delivered locally, carried out by local craftsmen who are trained in local colleges and overseen by local councils.

In conclusion, I will make three observations about levelling up in the east of England. First, those living in the east of England will clearly benefit if we achieve the 2030 targets for the 12 missions, but so will the rest of the UK. For example, as I mentioned, improved connectivity and transport links across the region will lead to benefits flowing to all corners of Great Britain.

Secondly, there is the opportunity not just to level up but to create global exemplars in sectors such as low-carbon energy, life sciences and agritech. Low-carbon energy is particularly important in my constituency on the East Anglian coast—the all-energy coast. Nowhere else in the UK, quite likely nowhere else in Europe and possibly nowhere else in the world, do we find offshore wind, nuclear, carbon capture and hydrogen clustered so closely together. We must realise the full potential of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It is an open goal staring us in the face, and it is vital that we do not kick the ball over the bar.

Thirdly, in these uncertain times, we need to have in mind our national security, which the east of England played a crucial role in providing during world war two, when the RAF and the US air force flew from our network of airfields across the region. I hope that security in that form will not be necessary again, but in a geopolitical context, we are in worrying and uncertain times. As the breadbasket of Britain, and as the aforementioned all-energy coast, we have a vital role to play in providing food and energy security.

Delivering on the levelling-up missions, not just in the east of England but across the country, requires collaboration. There is a need for Departments to be properly co-ordinated—I am conscious that I have commented on many issues that do not fall within the Minister’s remit, and I apologise for that. There is also a need for collaboration between national Government and local government, and with the region’s businesses. We need a delivery vehicle to achieve that. I look forward to the Minister’s summing up, and I hope she can pledge that the Government will commit to this important partnership approach.

Council Tax and Revenue Support Grant

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Chris Loder]

I would like to remind Members present that, just before the Division, I was talking about the fairness of the specifics of the Dorset Council revenue support grant. For the past three years, Dorset has received exactly zero revenue support grant. This is the first year since my election that we have received any form of revenue support grant. At a slim £654,000, that equates to roughly 0.2% of total council income. Although welcomed, that has come only after others and I spent a long time banging the drum for the situation to change. I am afraid that it is still overshadowed by the £24 million that, for example, Wandsworth Borough Council and other boroughs receive.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for being such an assiduous MP for his constituency, which he clearly is. He is outlining the pressure caused by the rising cost of living. Councils are finding it increasingly difficult to balance their books, and I believe that Government must consider increasing the grants to ensure that the basic service-level provision is in place—that basic services are maintained, and that the parity of grant that the hon. Gentleman has referred to applies across the whole of the United Kingdom. There is deep privation in the hon. Gentleman’s area: the same is true in other parts of the country.

[Chris Loder]

I agree that deprivation affects all parts of the United Kingdom—not just urban areas, but rural areas as well, and indeed all four nations of the UK.

Despite Dorset benefiting from £654,000 from the revenue support grant, local councillors have made me aware that while we have finally received a positive revenue support grant contribution, other Government grants have been reduced by a broadly similar amount, meaning that the council is little better off in real terms. It is therefore clear that the way in which local government finances and the revenue support grant are calculated and delivered is in need of urgent review. Unlike others, I am not looking for favour or preference for Dorset, or indeed West Dorset, but I am looking for fairness.

The average age in rural Dorset is much higher than almost anywhere else in the UK, with one third of the community aged over 65, compared with an average of 19% in England and just 10% in some London boroughs. That, alongside rising special educational needs and disabilities among young children, means that 69% of Dorset Council’s revenue is spent on social care. Since 2010-11, there has been a 25% rise in the number of those aged between 65 and 84 in Dorset, and a 20% increase in those aged over 85—with, of course, the associated social care needs. Those changing demographics have caused the council’s spending to change dramatically, with net spending on adult social care in Dorset increasing by 15% to £139 million, and children’s social care spending increasing by almost 25% between 2010-11 and 2019-20, reaching over £60 million. However, the fundamental funding structure has still not changed.

Care of adults and children is an obvious council priority, and with internal migration having increased the average age in Dorset, that service has taken up more and more of the council’s budget in recent years. That has resulted in cuts elsewhere: planning, development, culture, environment and regulatory services, and highways and transport have all seen reductions in net spending over the same period to facilitate the priority of adult and child social care. Highways and transport spending has been reduced by more than half over the past 10 years —a fact that is only too evident, as Dorset is also home to the worst frequency rail line in the country, between Yeovil, the county town of Dorchester and Weymouth. At best, there is a train every three hours, if you are lucky.

Buses have also been impacted, with Dorset Council having to spend its already tightening pool of transport resources on taking over vital community service routes from commercial operators that have pulled out. While concessionary bus passes appear good, they result in operators receiving 92p from a £6.50 single fare. That makes many routes commercially unviable and, paradoxically, reduces bus services in rural Dorset, which cuts off elderly communities from essential health and community services—the very groups of people who are meant to benefit from those concessionary passes. The young in West Dorset are also impacted by the inequalities in funding for transport. While I recognise that transport provision is often the responsibility of the Department for Transport, I am bringing up this issue today because of the situation we are in with the allocation of local government funding. Children throughout London enjoy the perks of free bus and tram travel to go to school or see their friends, but the parents of children in West Dorset are faced with financial obstacles. Some school bus passes cost over £600—and that is just for their child’s daily travel to and from their place of learning at sixth form or college.

A 17-year-old living in Dorset will have to find a way to pay to get to their sixth form college or apprenticeship. A 17-year-old living in a London borough will not, thanks to the 16-18 bus pass, which is included in the funding for London. It is also worth noting that per passenger journey in London, TfL receives 10 times the amount of public funding than we do in Dorset. This refusal to give Dorset its fair share, according to its population and characteristics, is pushing the elderly into increasing isolation. That is an increasing concern for me as their MP.

It also places obstacles in the way of our bright, young minds, all while residents and small businesses continue to buckle under the ever-high rates of council tax. It is time that Dorset received its fair share of Government investment and funding and that my hon. Friend the Minister and his colleagues show that the south-west is just as important to the levelling-up agenda as the north-east or indeed other parts of the United Kingdom. The need for funding is especially pronounced following the impacts of the covid-19 pandemic, during which, I am afraid to say, we lost some 20% of our businesses.

A very topical subject being debated around the country is funding for emergency services. Here, too, we see the detrimental impact that the Government’s failure to treat Dorset fairly is still having. My constituency and those surrounding it continue to face the difficult blight of county lines drugs gangs. Dorset Police’s resources are pushed to breaking point during the summer months, especially when the county’s population trebles with holidaymakers and day trippers. Dorset is the sixth-most popular region in the country for visitor trips during the summer, but these can sometimes stretch police resources. I understand that the Minister cannot answer for the Home Office, but I would like him to note this difficulty that we face.

I recognise that these policing matters sit with the Home Office, but I wonder whether my hon. Friend would consider the points I raised at the beginning of the debate. I will refresh everyone’s memory on what those are. Why is levelling up not focused on rural areas in the same way as urban areas? Why does rural hardship not seem to matter in the same way that urban poverty does? Why does Dorset Council have to raise 85% of its funds through council tax, when the national average is 50% and even less in some urban locations? Why is it deemed acceptable to put financial obstacles in the way of access to rural education but to remove them for urban education?

Why does Transport for London get £1.7 billion of Government money when needed, yet Dorset Council gets hardly anything? Why, despite known patterns of domestic migration, is the cost burden of rural social care placed on the local community, whereas other communities can get help? Why does Dorset receive such low levels of the revenue support grant, whereas in inner London there are boroughs that charge very low rates of council tax comparatively and are furnished with tens of millions of pounds in Government grants?

In short, it is my intention with this debate for the House to consider two central points. The first is that rural Britain, and specifically rural Dorset and my constituency of West Dorset, should finally receive its fair share of Government local authority support. For too long, Dorset has been overlooked in the allocation of RSG payments, and for too long council tax has had to cover the deficit. It is time that services in Dorset had adequate funding, so that they can continue to support rural and coastal communities in the way they need to. Finally, as I continue to champion relentlessly the needs of West Dorset and advocate for fairness across the board, I believe that the Government need to examine the whole system of revenue support grants, and that there is a need for reform so that local authorities such as Dorset Council receive their fair share of Government funding and support to enable us to thrive.

Building Safety

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to stress that it is not just cladding and buildings over 18 metres; there are other fire safety issues. It will be the responsibility of developers or, where appropriate, freeholders, to address those under the waterfall system that we have put in place through the Building Safety Act 2022.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Secretary of State very much for his statement. Building safety is vital for all parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), may I request a timescale for communications between the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland, which has responsibility for this? One thing to consider in all this is that we in Northern Ireland deserve the same safety as residents here on the United Kingdom mainland.

[Michael Gove]

I could not agree more. I will ask Sue Gray, the second permanent secretary at my Department, to be in touch with the Department for Communities this week. I will write to the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) with an update on the progress that we expect to make.

May I apologise to the House for referring to the Queen’s Speech, when I should, of course, have referred to the King’s Speech?

Holocaust Memorial Day

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this debate on Holocaust Memorial Day. Let me start by commending the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) for introducing it—he set the scene very well and succinctly, with a focus on the issues—and all the right hon. and hon. Members who have made contributions straight from the heart. I have been moved by many of them.

I commend the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western) for his maiden speech. His words were well chosen, and they were the words of someone who will make good contributions in this House. I look forward to his speeches on housing or whatever it may be; I am quite sure that he will add much to our debates. I wish him well and we are very pleased that he is here.

I have always been a supporter and a friend of Israel —that is no secret. I was before I came here, when I was in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and now that I am here I am a supporter of the Friends of Israel. I unashamedly put that on the record.

I also commend the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). His words, as always in this type of debate, were very pertinent. I understand why his soldiers followed him and why he could lead as he did. If I had been one of his soldiers, I would have followed him as well—I suspect we all would. I commend him for all that he does and for the service that he gave us in Northern Ireland. We recognise that he and others, gallant Members that they are, contributed much to the peace that we have in Northern Ireland. I thank him for that on the record.

The right hon. Member for Bromsgrove referred to how we are made in God’s image. I believe that with all my heart. Whenever I speak as chair of the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief, I speak equally for those with Christian faith, those with other faiths and those with no faith. That is what it is about, and that is what the right hon. Gentleman and others—including the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham—referred to. It is really important that we recognise where we are.

I want to speak about ordinary people, which is the theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day. I think that is touching and very fitting. I want to illustrate it with a story from the youngest member of my staff, who just last weekend came to London with her boyfriend for a birthday present. They did a tour of Westminster through the tours office here and then they spent some four hours in the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth. The Imperial War Museum is not often mentioned, but it should be, and I want to try to illustrate that today.

The weekend with her boyfriend was, of course, always going to be something special for my young member of staff. I would not have been particularly aware of the Imperial War Museum—perhaps because, as I have said, it is not highlighted as often as it should be—but when she regaled us with what she did during that weekend away, she became fixated on the museum. She told us that while her boyfriend had been enamoured of the guns and tanks, as boys are, almost three hours of her time was spent in the section that commemorated the holocaust. Describing it to us in the office, which she did very eloquently and in great detail, she said that she had gone in expecting to see a focus on Anne Frank, but instead was struck by the mountains of, in her words, “ordinary people”. She took the time to read every single post, and to look up on her phone the accounts for which she wanted more background. She studied history at school, but she said that looking at these “ordinary people’s stories” had a greater impact on her than her history GCSE course.

What is most notable is the fact that visits to the Imperial War Museum are free, and so is the information that is so vital to our young people, in giving them a sense of the despicable nature of what history books cannot tell us in words alone. They are able to take in so many displays, each one telling vital individual stories that drive home, or give a glimpse of, the horror that was suffered by so many. For me, that has reinforced the importance of taking children to museums and showing them displays of this kind, to allow them to feel the repulsion and the revulsion and to understand exactly what the figure of 6 million—the 6 million who were murdered—means in an individual setting.

Earlier, I said to the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) that to get an idea of what that figure means, she could imagine walking from Stranraer to Orkney without meeting anyone. The population of Scotland is 5.6 million. It is like walking across Northern Ireland three times and a bit without seeing a single person. That encapsulates what it means to have 6 million people no longer here. It really hits home.

We must also underline the importance of those who said nothing and understand the role that compliance plays. Our young people need to understand that no man is an island, and that we all bear a responsibility to stand up for what is right against what is morally wrong.

In her succinct and powerful speech, the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) referred to the war in Ukraine. When I heard the girls in the office discussing it, some of them were a bit gung ho about us sending troops, while others said that we were doing what was right. One of them, however, said that she could not really take in the idea of her 17-year-old nephew having a gun in his hands. However, that is the reality of war. Good people must stand up and do the right thing, and for us ordinary people to do nothing can never be an option.

Many of my constituents, like those of other Members, have visited Auschwitz and come back incredibly moved and perhaps even a bit traumatised by what they have seen, but they have received the message of Auschwitz, which is, “It can never happen again.” One of my sons went there with his friends, and that was the visit that made the difference for them, as it did for my constituents who took the time to do the same.

When we think of films like “Schindler’s List” and other blockbusters, the human impact is clear to us, but some young people do not watch war films. We need to ensure that every child is educated, not just in the facts and figures, but in the individual stories that touch people’s hearts and change their outlook. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: we must continue to fund educational visits to Auschwitz, and also arrange visits to the Imperial War Museum here in London. It holds some treasures, but it also has a focus on history and on what we must make sure never happens again. There, people can see and touch the atrocity, and build the determination that it will never be repeated.

I have that determination, as, I think, has every other Member who has spoken today, but do our children have it? Do our grandchildren? If they do not, are we prepared as a Parliament to put our money where our mouth is and fund educational awareness for this world, and, in particular, this great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?

Housing Association Tenants: Complaints Mechanisms

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to have been granted this debate.

I hope that it is fairly uncontroversial to state that everyone, regardless of their tenure, has the right to live in a decent, good-quality home. In recent weeks we have seen a litany of damning stories about the quality of housing provision in this country. No doubt there is poor-quality housing in every type of tenure, but social housing appears to be at the brunt end of this crisis of quality, although I might also mention one or two other areas. One in eight homes in the social housing sector fails the decent homes standard, which the Government website describes as

“setting the minimum standards that social homes are required to meet”.

Even by that lowest of bars, a combination of housing associations, successive Governments and construction companies are failing social tenants. It is a damning indictment of the state of the UK’s current social housing stock, and, unfortunately, the situation hardly looks likely to improve. Compared with 17% of tenants in the private rental market, 26% of social tenants report being dissatisfied with the way in which their landlords carry out repairs and maintenance. I think the House will agree that those are striking statistics.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for raising this issue. Does he agree that Government housing benefit funds are going to companies which are not taking care of their tenants, and that that is a problem not only for the tenants but for the Minister and the House, given that accountability is essential and the complaints procedures must be fit for purpose before any housing benefit is granted?

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman is right. The trouble is that there is almost a vacuum at present. I am sure that what I am pressing for would carry a great deal of weight throughout the House were it better populated at this time of night.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities’ own English Housing Survey reveals that 43% of tenants—just under half the total—choose not to make a complaint because of the hassle and time involved, and 63% are then unhappy with the response. I apologise to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for not having the statistics relating to Northern Ireland, but perhaps he can look into that and share them with me at some point.

Many of the cases that I want to highlight this evening stem from the deep dissatisfaction felt by many social tenants. They are all constituents of mine, but I have no doubt that the issues raised this evening will resonate with many beyond the borders of my constituency.

Last Friday I met a constituent from a development operated through Stonewater housing association who finds himself bearing the brunt of a completely inadequate complaints mechanism. Eight years after my constituent moved in, no work had been carried out to address several persistent structural issues in the property. Eventually, Stonewater carried out improvements which cost £330,000 and charged 24 properties in the building for the work, equating to just under £14,000 each. Stonewater has given each resident until the next financial year to pay the full amount, despite much of the work being substandard or unfinished. Disappointingly, Stonewater has not yet responded to complaints about its remedial work, and my constituent is left with a substandard set of repairs and an enormous, looming bill.

In another—particularly worrying—case, a 95-year-old constituent was living in a property managed by Orbit Housing Association. It was covered in damp. The walls were so wet that my constituent’s grandson claimed that the support bars she used to get on and off the toilet could have given way. Partly owing to significant damp arising from a leak upstairs, one evening the bathroom cabinet fell off the wall and narrowly missed hitting my constituent. Orbit had previously visited the property and added some new paint and sealant, but had not addressed the underlying problem of the damp.

When I visited the property myself, a month on, the issues remained. Seeing the nature of my constituent’s accommodation—including the bathroom in which this 95-year-old was having to survive—I was in a state of shock. Short of refitting the whole bathroom, the repairs were simply a sticking plaster, leaving my constituent in a home totally unfit for a frail 95-year-old woman.

I could go on, because the issues identified in those two developments are not strictly limited to social housing tenants. I have heard from residents in affordable housing, new-build developments and right-to-buy properties, all of whom are suffering similar problems with raising complaints.

Unfortunately, the issues I have just highlighted seem to represent yet more consequences of a failed housing market and permanent underinvestment. Over the past decade, money has been directed away from secure, affordable social homes to unaffordable homeownership products. Investment in social housing has dropped from £13.7 billion in 1979-80 to £5.1 billion last year, based on today’s prices, with 79% of spending up to 2020-21 reserved for the private sector. Is it any wonder, therefore, that housing developers are making record profits, with limited mechanisms to hold them to account?

I understand that the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill currently going through the House provides one potential avenue through which the social housing sector can be reformed. Many of the changes proposed in the Bill are broadly welcome, if not long overdue. I am pleased that the Government recognised the need for a professionalised social housing sector in their social housing White Paper in 2020. A professionalised housing sector, with managers undergoing continuous professional development, will likely improve services, allowing residents to be treated with the care and respect they deserve when lodging complaints. I also understand that in the Lords the Government tabled a new clause to the Bill on professional standards, and that they are considering further changes on Report.

If the Department is working on this, what specific steps is the Minister taking to improve the complaints mechanisms available to social housing tenants, either in further amendments to the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill or otherwise? Likewise, what progress, if any, has the Minister made on reversing the 63% dissatisfaction rate with the complaints process identified in her own Department’s English housing survey? Will the Minister meet me to discuss the difficulties that my constituents are facing and to allow them to feed in their suggestions for how the process can be improved?

--- Later in debate ---

[Felicity Buchan]

We are beefing up the powers of the ombudsman and the regulator. We will have very close interaction between the ombudsman and the regulator, and we are encouraging an environment in which unacceptable behaviour towards tenants will not be tolerated. We are about to embark upon a large marketing campaign—we have already run awareness campaigns—so that tenants are aware of their rights and of where to go.

The housing ombudsman’s complaint handling code was introduced in July 2020 to enable landlords quickly to resolve complaints raised by their residents, and to apply the learnings from those complaints to help to deliver improvements. Any failure to act on a complaint handling failure order could result in the ombudsman taking further action, such as a referral to the landlord’s governing body, or the regulator of social housing ordering the landlord to publish details of its failure to comply and/or publishing a special report on the landlord’s non-compliance.

The housing ombudsman scheme was revised in September 2020 to enable further investigation of systemic issues for the first time. The ombudsman is now able to look beyond individual disputes to the wider and deeper issues responsible for generating complaints so that we can, in turn, seek to address these issues. It is vital that the ombudsman is as efficient as possible, and it has delivered better service for social housing residents year on year, even though the number of complaints has been rising, partly because of our information and awareness campaigns.

[Jim Shannon]

On the process for making the complaint and the referral to the ombudsman for her or his determination, what is the timescale? Many people may want things to be done quickly. Is it possible to have a timescale?

[Felicity Buchan]

I could not agree more. We would like as many cases as possible to be resolved between the resident and the landlord, but I have the numbers. The ombudsman’s average handling time in 2020-21 had gone down to 5.2 months. Obviously, we want resolution with the landlord, but the ombudsman can be called and can give advice all the way through the process. One does not have to wait until the ombudsman’s ultimate determination.

We have also simplified things when it comes to accessing the ombudsman. From 1 October 2022, social housing residents with unresolved complaints have been able to access the housing ombudsman directly without having to go through a designated person, such as a Member of Parliament.

I am conscious that we do not have much time, but I want to talk about a few particular things. First, in March 2022, we set out a new policy of naming and shaming substandard social landlords, with the Government exposing those landlords that have either been found guilty by the ombudsman of severe maladministration or have been adjudged to have breached consumer standards. To date, 18 landlords have been named in this way.

In the case of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, which was responsible for the home in which Awaab Ishak lived, the Government have clearly gone further and withheld funding allocated under the affordable homes programme until the landlord can prove its housing is fit for purpose.

On Awaab’s law, we are considering how to make further changes to regulation. The Government strongly back the spirit of the proposals in Awaab’s law, for which Awaab Ishak’s family, the Manchester Evening News and Shelter are petitioning. It aims to make sure that landlords respond to complaints about damp and mould quickly and with proper regard to the risk to health. We are working through the specific recommendations to consider how changes could be made as soon as possible.

The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington touched on professionalisation. We are improving the way that landlords treat their residents. The professionalisation review, which launched in January 2022, will drive up standards by ensuring that social housing staff are better equipped to support residents, deal effectively with complaints, and make sure that homes are of good quality.

Awareness campaigns are important. Social housing tenants need to know what tools are available to them so that they can make complaints and, most importantly, have their properties remediated. We are now planning another targeted £1 million campaign that will include a media campaign, as well as upskilling third parties who interact with tenants. That will help to ensure that everyone living in the social housing sector knows their rights, knows how to sound the alarm when their landlord is failing to make the grade, and knows how to seek redress without delay.

Taken together, we are putting in place a robust and effective regime where complaints are treated with seriousness and tenants feel empowered to act. Given the stories that we have heard this evening, however, it is clear that we have further to go. The Government recognise that, which is why we are introducing the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill and are determined to get it right.

The changes that we have made are beginning to have an impact, and each step moves us closer to the situation where social housing residents are living in the homes that they deserve to live in. Let us be in no doubt that the Government are committed to improving the situation of tenants. As I have said, everyone deserves a decent and safe home, and to be treated with dignity and respect.

Question put and agreed to.