High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th March 2024 Public Bill Committees

All these things will create a particular focus, along with the high street rental auctions and so on that are already offered by the Minister and the Department. That variety and that opportunity will be absolutely superb. It certainly will be for Loughborough and Shepshed, and I am sure it will be for other towns across the country.

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

I rise to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South, my constituency neighbour, on this outstanding Bill. As he and I well know, Stoke-on-Trent is a classic example of why amendment 1 is so important, because it allows for more than three streets to be designated. Stoke-on-Trent is a city of six towns, each with its own identity and network of streets, and it is hugely important that the symbiotic relationship of streets is recognised by designating networks.

We all know that regenerating one street often attracts retailers to it, and the neighbouring street may then suffer and see shops closing. It is very important that we look at our high streets and our town and city centres holistically, and the Bill goes a long way towards doing that. I am absolutely supportive and I congratulate my hon. Friend again.

[James Grundy (Leigh) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South on bringing forward this important piece of legislation. My constituency has a number of towns, and I am pleased to be speaking in the 125th anniversary year of the creation of the county borough of Leigh, which was granted its own town charter in 1899. We hope that in future Leigh will once again have its own borough.

The towns in my constituency have benefited from various schemes that the Government have introduced. I think particularly of the Tyldesley heritage action zone, which has regenerated Elliott Street in Tyldesley and has been held up nationally as an example of how to work with the community in developing and regenerating some of our northern post-industrial towns.

At the other end of the constituency is Golborne, where we need to do a lot of work on redesignating the high street because we are submitting our final bid to reopen Golborne station, which is just off the high street, and I suspect there will be much more footfall there in years to come. Hopefully the station will be up and running by 2027, meaning that Golborne will once again see life to it after more than 60 years without a railway station.

Leigh itself has benefited from the levelling-up fund. We have had £11.4 million, although sadly not the full £20 million because, as the Minister knows, Wigan Council failed to bid for the full amount, leaving £8.6 million on the table that is not benefiting one of the poorest towns in the north of England. However, I am pleased to say that we have had the full £20 million of future towns funding, which I very much welcome. There is a lot of work to do in Leigh, including the regeneration of Leigh market just off Bradshawgate, Bradshawgate itself and the town square outside the town hall. Many of those schemes have cross-party support and the support of a number of community organisations such as Leigh Township Forum.

My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough mentioned the post-internet town centre. I pay tribute to Leigh Means Business, which is one of the community organisations that have been trying to drive regeneration in the town of Leigh and which has come up with a website—I hesitate to call it an app, because I am not that technologically minded—that lists all the shops in the town centre and what they provide to local residents. It will come up on people’s phones if they are in a local shop and they have downloaded it—or that is the intention—and say, “Are you also looking for this thing?”, and link to something in a nearby shop that provides that good or service. I warmly welcome what my hon. Friend said.

The designation of a high street is important. I would be remiss if I failed to mention the town of Atherton—I currently have the bottom half of it in my constituency, and after the boundary review I will hopefully have the entirety of it—which in many ways led the way in our borough on small town high street regeneration. That has been done in a very piecemeal manner by the independent councillors, with the support of local businesses, but in many ways what we saw in Atherton was a beta test for what worked and what did not.

My constituency has a number of towns that all benefit from the regeneration that the Government have brought forward, and the various moneys associated with that, but I welcome the deliberate designation of specific streets within town centres as high streets. It is important to target that funding carefully and designate zones for specific actions. With that, I feel I have made my point and will sit down, but I strongly welcome the measures in the Bill.

High Street Heritage and Conservation Areas

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

I am delighted to take part in this important debate and I congratulate my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), on securing it. I make no apology for the fact that Stoke-on-Trent is 100% represented in this debate, and that we dominate, because we are all incredibly proud of our city of six towns. It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who always has something enlightening to say.

[Marco Longhi]

Don’t forget the Black Country.

[Jo Gideon]

My hon. Friend, whose constituency is in the Black Country, raises an important point. We all hope that the Crooked House is rebuilt.

Conservation areas hold a special place in our hearts because of their historic and architectural significance. They are meant to be protected and preserved, yet empty properties in those areas threaten the essence of what makes our towns and cities special. The sight of boarded-up shops and decaying buildings has a serious impact on our collective sense of pride and identity. We need to encourage growth in these historic places and help our heritage assets to be more productive, unlocking their potential and making them more attractive to residents, businesses, tourists and investors.

In my constituency, conservation areas include the city centre, Hanley Park, our blue-green canal corridors and the old Spode factory, as well as the university quarter. Stoke-on-Trent is a city steeped in the tradition of ceramics. The Potteries has a rich heritage of craftsmanship and artistic achievement, which I am reminded of when I walk around the city centre and look up at the fine examples of architecture.

However, at street level many of those buildings house boarded-up shops and display the scars of antisocial behaviour and graffiti. Those structures, which in past eras would have been part of a proud civic scene, are now suffering neglect. High streets are important barometers of local pride. It saddens me when I see buddleia growing from the brickwork of those once-loved buildings. From Hanley Town Hall to the historic Bethesda chapel—a Methodist sanctuary that once accommodated up to 2,000 worshippers—buildings with a key purpose in times gone by now languish in need of a new purpose that respects their heritage but breathes new life into them.

Hanley features on the list of high street warning lights as one of the 100 towns where persistent vacancy rates have increased since 2015, so I am always pleased to see innovative ideas. For instance, the Potteries Centre in Hanley encourages pop-up shops for small businesses and welcomes community use to attract more people through its doors.

If we are to stop the decline of heritage buildings in our high streets, we must hold property owners to account when their properties fall into disrepair. Councils have a statutory duty to ensure community safety; when buildings are deemed unsafe, action must follow. Councils also have the power to offer discounted rent or easier lease arrangements on their own property portfolio to community organisations and charities. I believe that power should be used to stem the tide of empty buildings. In Hanley, I am particularly sorry about the Prince’s Trust move from its heritage building in Tontine Street. The Prince’s Trust provides a valuable resource to young people, so its departure from Hanley will mean that yet another building will stand empty and an important organisation will be gone from its city-centre base.

Injecting funds is not enough; if there is not community engagement and a bigger vision, well-intended investment in projects is far less likely to succeed. Although I am grateful that Stoke received £2 million in funding from the heritage action zone fund, there is still much more ground to cover. Without community buy-in, our town centres cannot thrive. Indeed, I am a fan of ideas such as the creation of a high street buy-out fund to help communities to purchase empty property on high streets, along with a specific business rates relief for regulated socially trading organisations.

Power is too distant from communities. Polling conducted across England by Power to Change revealed that three quarters of people felt that they had little or no control over the important decisions affecting their local area. We need to develop places that are really valued by the local communities that they serve. For that to happen, we need a collaborative approach and strong local leadership. There is no one-size-fits-all solution here and today’s consumer is very alert to something that is inauthentic.

Town centres should be places where we see a mixture of arts and culture alongside the traditional shopping experience. There is a growing consensus that experience will be at the heart of the future high street, whether it is in the form of a greater role for hospitality, community organisations or public services, or in the form of more residential property.

Across our city, many more opportunities exist to repurpose heritage buildings while preserving their distinct Potteries characteristics. In particular, the site of the old Spode Works presents a significant opportunity for intelligent regeneration, and levelling-up funding will encourage further investment. However, the complexity of the Spode site necessitates a sensible approach. Although many buildings should be repurposed, some buildings should make way for a new vision of the site. Revitalising our high streets is not solely about repurposing properties currently sitting empty but about enhancing our heritage. Does the Minister agree that we must show ambition in our vision, to create new heritage for future generations?

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Jo Gideon Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill will answer the many questions people raise about what levelling up means. It will lead to a greater understanding that levelling up is not an action or even a series of measures, but a philosophy—a philosophy that will determine the direction of Government policy making in years to come.

Stoke-on-Trent Central features regularly in the national media because we have branded ourselves as the litmus test for the levelling-up agenda. Shoppers in Hanley are asked what levelling up means to them and if it has happened in the city. It is unsurprising that many focus on their immediate surroundings, and reflect on the closed shops in the high street as a sign of continued decline. So I welcome the new powers for local leaders to run high street rental auctions, in which they can auction off tenancies in shops that have been vacant for over a year. This and the use of compulsory purchase orders will help to end the plague of empty shops that blight so many high streets. I also welcome the announcement that the al fresco dining revolution will be made permanent. In the Piccadilly area of Hanley, businesses use the pavements to full advantage, creating a local hospitality hotspot through café culture.

It is time there was better understanding about the missions behind the Government’s levelling-up agenda. The challenge of addressing decades of decline in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent is vast, so how do we do it and how will we know when it is done? It is rather like the old adage, “How do you eat an elephant?” We know the answer—“One bite at a time”—yet we are all hungry for change. We are impatient with the speed of reform and, as we come out of two years of firefighting a global pandemic, the hunger for transformative politics is greater than ever.

Working together with Stoke-on-Trent City Council, the Stoke-on-Trent MP trio have succeeded in making the case for massive investment to improve the city’s public transport offer, as well as for the £56 million levelling-up funding, which will unlock key regeneration sites within the city. It is understandable but frustrating that major regeneration projects take time, and that people walking around the city centre will currently only see rubble and fences marking the start of the Etruscan Square project. When finished, it will provide urban living space for young professionals with hybrid working lifestyles, and an e-sports arena to build on our Silicon Stoke ambitions. Fences also mark the goods yard project, which will provide a quality living, retail and hospitality offer canal-side and near the mainline station. However, those ambitious projects cannot be delivered overnight, and the original plans will need adjusting because of a number of factors outside the council’s control such as the rate of inflation and the co-operation of key partners such as Network Rail and First Buses.

In fact, it cannot be right that in the same month that Stoke-on-Trent has secured £31 million for a bus improvement plan, the local bus company has decided to cut back bus provision in Abbey Hulton in my constituency, where many residents are dependent on the service to access work. In Stoke-on-Trent, one in three households is without a car, so bus provision is a vital lifeline. Public transport is a public service that must address residents’ needs, and Government support must require that commitment from private sector partners.

Given the time limit, it is not possible to cover the entirety of the Bill, so I close by reaffirming my commitment to support the Government in their plans to tackle health and education inequalities so that my residents in Stoke-on-Trent Central have the same opportunities as people in more affluent parts of the country. Levelling-up means creating the right conditions for everyone to live a long, healthy, productive life—in short, to thrive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Brereton (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)]

If anywhere reflects the Government’s focus on levelling up, it is Stoke-on-Trent. After decades of neglect and decline under Labour, finally things are changing. It is a city on the up, with Conservative leadership delivering renewed ambition and focus for Stoke-on-Trent. £56 million from the levelling-up fund—more than anywhere else in the country—is regenerating key brownfield sites across the city, such as the Tams Crown works in Longton, which have lain derelict for more than a decade; and more than £70 million in transport improvements through both the transforming cities fund and the bus back better fund is helping to deliver better local bus and rail services. In a city where a third of households have no access to a private car, the lack of effective public transport is a major barrier to employment and skills. That is especially the case in areas such as Meir, where the figure is over 40%. It is vital that the Government announce that our proposals to reopen Meir station will be progressing.

Supporting people to access better-skilled and better-paid employment is more important now than ever, given the cost of living challenges. Stoke-on-Trent is already a city delivering on levelling up, with predictions that our city will have the third fastest jobs growth nationally. That was also reflected in the recent hugely successful jobs and skills fair organised by the three Stoke-on-Trent MPs.

[Jo Gideon]

Does my hon. Friend share my view that it is really annoying that the shadow Cabinet keeps popping into Stoke-on-Trent and reporting that our young people are dissatisfied? We talk to our young people daily and there are so many opportunities. That is really negative publicity that our young people can do without.

[Jack Brereton]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is vital that we talk up our city and all the fantastic training and job opportunities. The jobs and skills fair that we organised had 450 people attending to see the huge, fantastic range of opportunities available in Stoke-on-Trent. We are working on helping people to access those employment and skills opportunities. Through things such as the kickstart scheme and the lifetime skills guarantee, we are helping them to get into better-skilled, better-paid employment.

The Bill supports our high streets as well. It will enable new uses to fill some of those empty spaces in our town centres. I particularly welcome the new powers on compulsory purchase orders and auctions for properties that have been empty for more than 12 months. We must tackle the issues with absent landowners, especially when it comes to many of the important heritage assets in our town centres, of which there are many across the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent.

It is vital that we support the regeneration of our high streets and town centres. In Longton, despite having a nearly £1 million partnership scheme funded by the city council and Historic England, some owners, unfortunately, do not want to work with us. That includes owners who are overseas, properties tied up in complex legal agreements and even owners who are in prison. How can we work with people like that? We need to see both a carrot and a stick approach. We must support local authorities to have the resources to carry out more enforcement and greater transparency of high street ownership. I very much welcome the further measures to tackle those who allow damage to our heritage buildings and work against the levelling up of our city. Those sites are part of us—they are very much our character and identity. Our industrial heritage in the Potteries cannot be lost because, once it is, we cannot easily replace it.

In Stoke-on-Trent, we have also been working hard to improve digital connectivity with the roll-out of gigabit fibre, which is faster than in any other city in the country. We have so many fantastic and exciting opportunities to further develop the digital industry, gaming and creative industries, all of which will create the high-skilled, high-paid employment opportunities that we want to see based in Stoke-on-Trent. Ideally, they could fill some of those vacant spaces on the high street, providing well-paid, high-skilled employment opportunities in some of the fastest growing sectors.

If we can get the regeneration of our city right and secure improvements to our town centre built environments, we can deliver a step change in opportunities for our area. On the back of the huge Government investment and the fantastic Government support that we have received, we must now catalyse the wider private investment that we need to transform our city and level up opportunities for everyone in Stoke-on-Trent.

Budget Resolutions

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

I am delighted to speak in the Budget debate today on the theme of levelling up. In the short time I have, I want to focus on Stoke-on-Trent—or, to quote the Chancellor in his recent speech, the “great city” of Stoke-on-Trent. We have had £56 million of levelling-up funding for Stoke-on-Trent, which represents the biggest Government investment in my home city for 50 years and demonstrates the Government’s commitment to supporting our ambitions as a city.

When I was elected in 2019, I listened to those who said that Stoke-on-Trent had been forgotten and nothing could be done to change that. I made a promise to them that this would change, and I am glad that it has. Stoke-on-Trent is now recognised in Westminster as the litmus test for the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Pre-pandemic, the city was undergoing the most remarkable economic transformation, driven by our excellent location and resurgent manufacturing economy. However, Stoke-on-Trent is still the fifth most deprived city in the UK, so this investment is crucial for boosting local growth. The city needs help with its brownfield sites because of its industrial past. Subsidence has been an issue in Stoke-on-Trent for many years, and it will be for many to come, due to the former North Staffordshire coalfield, with more than 8,000 disused shafts, many ancient workings, and a huge and intricate web of tunnels beneath the city. Water is another issue. It was pumped out of the mines to extract the coal, but now the water level has risen again and is causing erosion and further subsidence. The prospect of harnessing this water and the power of geothermal energy to heat our city is an exciting one that needs Government support.

Transport also plays a huge role in levelling up, so I welcome the £50,000 awarded through the restoring your railway ideas fund for the Stoke to Leek line, to level up opportunity for our local communities. I will continue to make the case for a new station in Etruria to replace the one closed in 2005. Its location, next to our most successful enterprise zone, makes it a wise investment in an area where air pollution makes improved public transport options essential.

Levelling up is also about owning the challenges we face as a city and at community level, and owning the solutions. It is about asking Government for help, but not asking them to deliver everything, so I support trusting the people and investing in our social fabric, to empower communities with the delivery of innovative solutions to problems they understand better than anyone. The shared prosperity fund must be targeted at our community development, rather than capital funding, repurposing existing buildings and investing in youth workers, volunteer leaders, community champions and the multitude of very localised activities that need long-term support to ensure that services are sustainable. Levelling up must address such grassroots challenges, found in every village, town and city throughout our four nations.

The Budget provides the investment needed to power up key sites in Stoke-on-Trent, and nationally it strikes the right balance between fiscal responsibility and backing the UK to continue to recover, grow and prosper. It has my full support.

Building Safety

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Tuesday 29th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

First, I would like to join my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) in thanking all the builders and construction workers who have worked throughout the pandemic in Stoke-on-Trent. It is great to see new affordable, social and Help to Buy properties being completed. We need more homes that are affordable, safe and compliant with strict standards, including on non-combustible cladding, to avoid another tragedy as we learn the lessons from the heartbreak of Grenfell. We all agree that safety must come first in legislating for improved building standards. However, measures must also be proportionate. I have raised the concerns of flat- owners in my constituency who were facing real challenges with the requirement for an ESW1 form, even though their building had no cladding, and I welcome the agreement that the Government have reached to waive the need for flat-owners to have an ESW1 form when selling their properties, if their building does not have cladding.

The homes that are built need to be safe and in the right place, and for that we need to shape places to make them right. Stoke-on-Trent has no equal for friendliness, and the city’s economy is growing. With the right investment, we can deliver plenty of brownfield sites both for housing and for modern industrial development, but there are up-front costs to brownfield regeneration, and in our relatively low-value property market it is not currently commercially viable for developers to meet those clean-up costs.

Part of the reason for low property prices in the city is that our place has lost its shape, by which I mean that a raft of our potteries has closed, including some of the very biggest names that were lost in the 2008-09 financial crash. Those heritage sites are now in urgent need of repurposing. What we do have is resilience and public support for regeneration that preserves and celebrates our unique industrial heritage assets. The regeneration of Spode works is particularly exciting, providing residential growth and saving much loved and authentic built heritage, including as a hub for the cutting-edge games industry.

The legacy of the pottery industry is also present in former clay pits, and in that context I must once again raise the ongoing saga in Etruria in my constituency of a terrible sinkhole in Boatman Drive and the safety of homeowners, many of whom have not been able to access their properties by road for over a year. There are several hundred houses built on the site of an old marl hole, or clay pit. Homeowners are facing increased insurance premiums or are unable to sell their homes while the situation remains unresolved. I have raised it with the Minister for Housing, and I regret to report today that the subsidence is getting worse.

Where multiple agencies are involved, a clear process for resolving such complex situations is needed. I have met Baroness Vere, the roads Minister, and the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to discuss the matter, but regulations governing the residual and ongoing responsibility for the adequate remediation of brownfield sites and subsequent protections for new homeowners when catastrophic issues arise are within the scope of the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Part of the task of levelling up is to address the legacy of the past. The scars of deindustrialisation continue to make the task of regeneration complex, as places such as Stoke-on-Trent address abnormal site issues, such as land contamination, decaying industrial structures and the enduring misuse of brownfield land and old buildings.

We used to have a specialist national organisation to support local areas in dealing with these sites. English Partnerships, set up by a Conservative Government, did fantastic work in supporting areas around the country in resolving these conundrums, unlocking latent commercial value. I am very uncertain where that help and support come from today, so I ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government to consider whether there is a case for recreating an expert body that is properly resourced to support places like Stoke to resolve these problems and therefore accelerate economic recovery.

Cities like Stoke-on-Trent with lots of brownfield sites can be unlocked for affordable housing programmes. The city council is committed to powering up the city, and we are determined that our best days are ahead of us. We are already affordable, and with the right help for tackling site abnormals and connecting development sites, we could do even more. Building affordable and safe new homes and creating more and viable commercial sites; cleaning up and greening our city by repurposing even more brownfield sites; offering new homes and new employment opportunities locally; helping other parts of the country to protect their green belt—that is what levelling up is all about. I support the Government’s investment in building safety and welcome any future investment in ensuring the safety of developments on brownfield sites.

Planning System Reforms: Wild Belt Designation

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) on securing this important debate. I will be brief and focus my contribution on public transport and the inclusion of waterways in any wild belt.

I have had excellent meetings with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, which is a force of nature in itself. I know from its briefing that wild belt could happily overlap with other designations, such as national park and SSSI. However, we perhaps need further clarity on what wild belt designation would mean for mothballed and protected transport routes. A wild belt that can be enjoyed by people reconnecting with nature is surely one that needs to be connected to public transport corridors.

My bid, along with colleagues, to reopen the Stoke to Leek line is compelling precisely because of the transformative opportunity it presents to reconnect urban communities with the wider countryside. It will involve clearing quite a lot of vegetation and decades-old trees on the old mothballed line, but the net socioeconomic benefit will be substantial, on top of the environmental benefit of modal shift from road to rail.

I also want to see Etruria station reopened and built back better as an interchange with local buses and, crucially, with the existing blue-green corridor of the Trent-Mersey canal, which is on the national cycle network. I want to go further. My reverse Beeching bid for Etruria includes exploring the rewilding of Fowlea brook as a new blue-green corridor running through Etruria valley. The brook runs through concrete channels and culverts, and it still suffers the effects of centuries of heavy industry, even though it need not and should not.

The Environment Agency is already investing in flood protection in the brook by increasing its capacity in Stoke town, but I want the ambition of rewilding Fowlea brook to match what we are delivering on the River Trent. I said in my maiden speech that we need “more Trent in Stoke-on-Trent” and I am delighted that we are getting on and doing that. The Sunrise project has reintroduced meanders, canopy shade and spawning grounds to the Trent. The BBC’s “Countryfile” was hugely impressed with Trentside walks. Trentside walks will undoubtedly make Stoke-on-Trent an even better place to live, visit and study.

We could have a wild belt walk all along the urban Trent, levelling us up and even exceeding the ambition shown by central London’s Thames path. Causley brook and tributary brooks through Bentilee and Eaton Park could be superb trout-spawning grounds and walking routes, with a few interventions, and the route along Foxley brook through Abbey Hulton could be a much more attractive blue-green walking route if it were rewilded out of concrete and restored to the glory that attracted the abbey’s monks to the confluence of the Foxley and the Trent in the first place. In short, a focus on blue-green routes would mean rewilding for nature, for residents and for the leisure tourism economy. Waterways should be a priority.

Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

There has been a response and I will come on to that in a moment.

We have brought forward the biggest affordable homes programme for at least 10 years—£12 billion, a very substantial sum. At the moment, there is no sign that the market is even capable of building more homes than that. If it can, I will be the first person to be knocking on the door of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor asking for more money so that we can build more affordable homes of all types. Our ambition is to build 1 million new homes over the course of this Parliament and, yes, to get to that target of 300,000 homes a year that was set by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) when she was Prime Minister. She was right: we do need to build more homes.

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come to my hon. Friend in a moment.

Since 2010, we have delivered over half a million new affordable homes, including 365,000 affordable homes for rent, many of which—148,000—are going to social rent. The new affordable homes programme we have just brought forward has the largest contingent of social rented properties of any of its kind in recent years. Over 700,000 households, many first-time buyers, have now been able to take advantage of these schemes. We are committed to affordable homes of all tenures. That, of course, includes those that will be delivered through the £12 billion affordable homes programme, which, as well as building homes in its own right, is unlocking £38 billion- worth of private sector investment to drive affordable and market rent housing. That is the highest single funding commitment to affordable housing for at least a decade.

The truth, however, is that even those bold steps and record investment will only get us so far. To build the homes that I think we are agreed in this House we need and to level up truly, we have to face up to our generational duty and responsibility to increase the supply of homes at pace and at the volume that is required. That means taking decisive action to remove the barriers that for too long have held us back. My Department has a unique opportunity to achieve transformational change that will improve the lives of millions of people. We will be working on the most substantive reform of leasehold, property rights, building safety, renters’ rights and planning in a generation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

That is an extremely important point. Through our home building fund, we are investing in a number of ways in the emerging modern methods of construction industry, which I know my hon. Friend has championed for some time. We have been supporting new entrants into that market, including from overseas so that we internationalise the market; for example, Sekisui, the leading Japanese manufacturer, has now come to the UK. Our affordable homes programme makes a commitment that, in time, a quarter of all affordable homes in this country will be built to modern methods of construction, which helps to create the pipeline for investors to come into that sector.

The other thing that the Bill will do is empower local people to set standards for beauty and design in their area through design codes that developers will have to abide by, putting beauty at the heart of our planning system for the first time, and embedding the work of the late Sir Roger Scruton and everyone who was involved in the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission in the planning system as a matter of law. There will also be a greater emphasis on better outcomes, rather than simply on process, to protect and enhance the environment. We will ensure that biodiversity net gain is met, we will ensure that all streets are lined with trees, and we will deliver on net zero homes as a matter of national priority.

This is also, remember, the Bill that delivers the planning changes that we need to build the 48 hospitals and the schools that we need, and to ensure that we protect heritage and statues from those who would seek to tear them down. It provides the planning framework for our eight new freeports, and it ensures new powers and opportunities for the regeneration of high streets, town centres and brownfield land, which of course has never been needed more.

[Jo Gideon]

rose—

[Robert Jenrick]

Appropriately, I will come to my hon. Friend at this point.

[Jo Gideon]

As my right hon. Friend will know, Stoke-on-Trent City Council is rightly proud of its record; we build 97% of all new homes on brownfield sites. The latest data shows that the house building sector has bounced back after being temporarily shut down last year. Does he agree that the measures announced in the Queen’s Speech will continue to prioritise building on brownfield land so that we can protect our green fields?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Stoke-on-Trent is exactly the sort of place that is building the homes that the local community needs. It is meeting—indeed, exceeding—its national targets, and it is managing to do so sustainably and responsibly, in line with the preference of local people to build on brownfield land first. We have brought forward a £100 million fund to support that, which I think Stoke-on-Trent is already benefiting from—or I expect that it will in the future. That is exactly the kind of investment in sites that are less than viable, or where viability is challenged, that I expect to be able to announce later in the year.

These are once-in-a-generation reforms that will help us to build back fairer, increasing supply, improving affordability and unlocking opportunity for millions of young people. So too will essential reforms championing both homeowners and renters. As announced in the Queen’s Speech, the leasehold ground rent reform Bill will put an end to ground rent for new leasehold properties as part of the most significant change to property law in a generation. For too many, the dream of home ownership has been soured by leases imposing crippling ground rents, additional fees and onerous conditions.

That Bill is the first of two leasehold-reforming pieces of legislation that will put that right, making home ownership fairer and simpler, saving millions of leaseholders thousands if not tens of thousands of pounds, and reforming a system that we inherited from our distant forebears—an essentially feudal system that no longer meets the expectations and preferences of homeowners in the 21st century. Today, I will also be launching the Commonhold Council, which will pave the way for home- owners to take greater control of their home through a collective form of home ownership unusual in this country but ubiquitous in others around the world—another vital step towards people enjoying their homes as homeowners in the truest sense of the word.

We are also backing a fairer deal for the millions of renters. To that end, we will publish our consultation response on proposals to abolish section 21 no-fault evictions and improve security for tenants in the private rented sector, while strengthening possession grounds for landlords when they need that for valid reasons.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con) [V]]

I am truly humbled to be called to take part in today’s debate. As I lit a candle last night to mark the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, I reflected on my visit there some years ago. I was attending a conference in nearby Krakow and felt compelled to take time out to make the journey. I travelled there by train, and was unable to imagine what that journey would have been like for the millions of Jews who knew what the final destination meant.

We all have moments in our lives that remain embedded in our memories long after others fade. I remember vividly the eerie silence and the absence of birdsong as I entered the site. The sign “Arbeit Macht Frei” was a grim reminder that I was stepping back into the setting of the most abhorrent atrocity in the last 100 years. Before visiting the Auschwitz living museum, I had not fully understood the extent to which the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis reached beyond the Jewish population, to include a wide range of political opponents, other ethnic groups such as the Roma community, gay men and people with disabilities. But in remembering the lives of these victims, so brutally murdered by the Nazis, who felt empowered to commit these atrocities, we must recommit ourselves as a society to tackling that hatred, intolerance and prejudice in whatever modern day shape it may take.

That is why, as so few survivors of the holocaust remain to talk of their lived experience, it has never been more important that their stories are captured or retold by future generations—lest we forget. Yet as the London Eye lit up purple and candles were lit in windows yesterday evening to commemorate and remember the dead, denial, division and misinformation continues. I welcome the work of organisations such as the Holocaust Educational Trust that play an important role in providing educational events for students across the country on Holocaust Memorial Day and throughout the year. I also absolutely support the Government’s commitment to building a permanent statue and Holocaust Memorial education centre next to Parliament.

Lessons were meant to be learnt from the horrors of the holocaust. The world was to change for the better forever. How, then, do we explain Bosnia, Cambodia, Darfur, Rwanda, the Rohingya people and the plight of Uyghurs in China? As I know many colleagues wish to speak in this debate, I will end my speech now, with the poignant words of holocaust survivor Gena Turgel:

“We will continue to do our bit for as long as we can, secure in the knowledge that others will continue to light a candle long after us.”

North Staffordshire Potteries Towns: Levelling Up

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) on securing this important and timely debate. It is great to see such a united and robust representation from my constituency neighbours, friends and colleagues here from the Potteries towns of Stoke-on-Trent and north Staffordshire.

Stoke-on-Trent has great ambitions; the city is so much more than its history, yet it is undeniable that the potters of Stoke-on-Trent are our city’s beating heart and have been for more than 250 years. The pottery industry in Stoke-on-Trent accounts for a significant element of our city’s economic output. Our renowned ceramics can be found all over the world. However, none of that would be possible without the 8,700 employees working in the ceramics industry in Stoke-on-Trent.

We all know that, sadly, during the pandemic, hospitality, tourism and non-essential retail have been really badly hit. In Stoke-on-Trent, we have a heavy reliance on manufacturing and technical industries, so we entered the pandemic in a weaker position than parts of the UK with industries and services that are more adaptable to the new requirements of working from home and social distancing. With many manufacturers in the Potteries using heavy machinery as part of line production, it is a tall order to require them to operate from home, or with significantly reduced staff in order to abide by social distancing. Because of the nature of our workforce, we have had a higher redundancy rate generally in the west midlands—about 16% between July and September—compared with the national average of 11.3%.

The stark reality of the situation facing us is that between March and October this year, the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits in Stoke-on-Trent Central increased by more than 2,000 to roughly 5,000 people, from 4.7% to 8.5% of residents of working age. In my maiden speech in the House of Commons, I committed to a renewed focus on the economy and jobs in Stoke-on-Trent Central. That means investing time, resources and finances in skills—not just building on and expanding from our industrial heritage but looking to the jobs of the future, which will require new skills. Only 25% of adults in Stoke-on-Trent have qualifications above A-level, compared with a national average of 40.3%, which is why I welcome the Government’s investment in further education colleges and the commitment of £2.5 billion for a national skills fund to improve adult skills. However, more must be done to equip our workforce to face the challenges of a competitive and evolving economy.

The city-wide roll-out of full fibre across Stoke-on-Trent will have enormous advantages for our workforce. There are clear economic benefits associated with network build, such as the positioning of our city to gain early mover advantage in achieving 5G coverage. I will leave it to my colleagues to speak about Silicon Stoke and 5G in more detail. Further Government investment, such as the £250,000 received by Stoke on Trent College for its creative industries project, and a further £120,000 for a digital and construction skills project, are hugely welcome in our city. These projects alone will directly create 2,440 jobs and safeguard another 110, with 440 construction jobs also set to be created. To sustain this economic advantage, I will work with the Government and the city council to support a full fibre academy, in partnership with Stoke on Trent College and our secondary schools. It will train young people wishing to get involved in the field, giving them installation skills and hands-on field experience.

As our focus turns to creating higher-skilled, higher-paid employment in higher-value industries, post-industrial communities such as Stoke-on-Trent will need more support from the Government to help nurture and develop our large community of advanced manufacturing businesses, digital specialists, agritech companies and more. That is why I have lobbied relentlessly for the project backed by a major consortium of manufacturers, universities and research institutes to establish an advanced ceramics campus in Stoke-on-Trent, to encourage the fusion of education, research and public sector innovation with leading private sector partners such as Lucideon.

I am proud of our local businesses and how they have stepped up during recent difficult months. Businesses such as the Slamwich Club in Hanley, which recently won an award in the Staffordshire chamber of commerce business awards, embody the truly inspiring resilience of our city. Having been required to close the doors of the sandwich shop in March, Nicole and Steph, owners of the Slamwich Club, not only pivoted their entire offer to focus on food delivery services but decided to do so while leading the charge on the green revolution in our city, opting to use e-bikes to deliver their products across Stoke. It is precisely that innovative and entrepreneurial spirit that makes Stoke-on-Trent Central the perfect place to invest in and to be considered for allocations of funding for green technologies, such as green vehicle charging infrastructure, e-bike rental schemes and carbon capture technologies.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to providing £275 million of support for the installation of home and workplace charge points for electric vehicles, and £582 million for the plug-in car grant, both of which will help make it more affordable to own and drive an electric vehicle. Those are welcome investments in new technologies, which will ultimately consign our current air pollution problems to the past. However, it would not be an exaggeration to say, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) has done, that Stoke-on-Trent needs a transport revolution that will focus on improving our air quality while also supporting the city’s continued economic growth. To do that, we absolutely have to secure the £29 million investment from the Transforming Cities fund.

Bus use in Stoke-on-Trent has fallen by a third in 10 years. To reverse the decline, it is vital that we receive the tens of millions of pounds of investment promised in the Red Book to transform the city’s relationship with non-car transport. We cannot allow the absence of reliable public transport to damage our local economy and risk jobs. With my fellow Stoke-on-Trent colleagues, I have repeatedly made that point to the Government. Delivering the Transforming Cities fund deal is not only extremely important for providing better and more sustainable public transport in Stoke-on-Trent, but it is integral to supporting our local economy in the recovery from covid-19. I understand that a final decision will come shortly, so we all look forward to what we hope will be good news.

In Stoke-on-Trent, the legacy of our industrial heritage provides significant scope to create employment through the redevelopment of our city’s abundant brownfield sites. I want to see the heart of Hanley and Stoke reinvigorated with quality homes built with good-sized gardens, electric charging points, great connectivity and space for home working, as well as commercial developments that reflect the changing way we will operate our businesses post-covid. However, as the Minister is aware, because of the city’s status outside the West Midlands Combined Authority, we did not qualify for the £400 million of brownfield funding in July. That was hugely disappointing, because we have shown that with remediation support, such sites are an excellent opportunity for thousands of new homes, including Help to Buy homes. There is also massive potential for commercial investment on legacy land, as we have seen at both Festival Park, which is a former steelworks, and the Ceramic Valley enterprise zone. Our city is in the best position for brownfield regeneration with green space preservation. I hope the Minister will take into consideration Stoke-on-Trent’s unique situation during the bid process for the next round of funding.

Another challenge that we faced in Stoke-on-Trent was the definition of eligibility in applying for the Towns fund deal. We are a city of six towns, each of which has its own challenges, and yet it will be as one city that we grow and prosper. That requires significant work to redesign elements of the city, taking a holistic view. I ask the Minister to allow for a Stoke deal featuring three of our towns—Hanley, Longton and Tunstall—and to recognise the importance of investment in our towns in the future vision of levelling up our city as a whole.

Levelling up was always going to be a difficult challenge, and the unfortunate reality is that the pandemic has made it even harder. It has shone a light on what is so important by highlighting the inequalities that we all seek to tackle. Our city has a big heart and great people who care about each other and the future of our young people. In conclusion, I want to put in a plea for investment in our people—in the charity, voluntary and community sector and public services—who work with those who are furthest away from the workplace to ensure that no one is left behind in our mission to level up.

Towns Fund

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

We have actually included communities within larger cities in both the towns fund and the future high streets fund, because my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that there can be a world of difference between Birmingham city centre and the high street in Brierley Hill, and we want to support those places as well. There were beneficiaries of the future high streets fund in London, for example: I recall Putney putting in a bid that will now be considered by the Department, and it is absolutely right that we do that. Covid has of course brought profound challenges even to some of our most robust city centres, including London, Manchester and Birmingham, so it will be a focus of my Department’s work in the weeks and months ahead. We will give what support we can, working with Mayors, city council leaders and the GLA to provide further support for the renewal and adaptation of those places.

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

Stoke-on-Trent is a city of six towns and three highly motivated Conservative Members of Parliament. As my right hon. Friend knows, we work together to ensure joined-up strategic thinking and maximum benefit for everyone in Stoke-on-Trent. On behalf of all three Stoke-on-Trent MPs, will he ensure that the bid process for the next round of town deals will allow for a Stoke deal featuring three of our towns, Hanley, Longton and Tunstall, and will recognise the importance of investment in our towns in the future vision for our city as a whole?