Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

It is hugely frustrating when local plans are not in place. As my hon. Friend indicated, in his area the Lib Dem council has failed to do that, which is letting residents down. There have been changes as a result of the national planning policy framework giving additional protection through neighbourhood plans, but district councils and those with planning responsibilities need to get their plans in place.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

21. If he will make an assessment of the potential merits of a permitted development right for urban homeowners to increase their property to four storeys where that complies with the local authority’s design code.

[The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)]

We have introduced national permitted development rights to allow a wide range of existing residential and commercial buildings to extend upwards by up to two additional storeys. We have also recently consulted on proposals to apply local design codes to those rights and further announcements will be made in due course.

[John Penrose]

May I urge the Minister to go further and faster on this? The permitted development rights would create beautiful urban townscapes and unleash the biggest wave of housebuilding in half a century, which would in turn cut housing costs to rent or buy, be greener by allowing people to live within bicycling or walking distance from work and protecting rural landscapes from urban sprawl and, by increasing the development potential of almost any urban building, be the biggest single act of wealth creation in decades. What’s to dislike?

[Lee Rowley]

There is absolutely nothing to dislike, as my hon. Friend indicates, about speeding up the planning system to ensure we get the houses we so badly need. As I know my hon. Friend will appreciate, however, there is always a balance to be struck: we must ensure that we take local people with us, but we are committed to building more houses, and doing so in the right places.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I know Hull is the second most flood-prone city in England and I applaud the work undertaken by the local authority and championed by the hon. Lady. I do not know whether I will be able to join her on 5 July, but I will be visiting Hull soon, and I hope that when I do so I will have the opportunity to talk to her and others who are making sure that people’s homes are adequately protected.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

10. If he will take steps to increase house building through densification of urban areas through the use of local authority-approved building codes that pre-approve buildings.

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

We are committed to ensuring that the planning system promotes the efficient use of land and creates more well-designed places in collaboration with local people. We are introducing street vote powers in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill to allow residents to come together and propose additional developments on their street in line with their design preferences.

[John Penrose]

I am delighted that street votes, which I and others have campaigned for for many years, is in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. However, we need even stronger measures to stimulate housebuilding now that housing targets are rightly going to be much weaker. Will my hon. Friend consider building up, not out, which is street votes on steroids and is supported by many in the construction industry as the fastest, greenest and cheapest way to build many more beautiful urban homes for owner-occupiers and renters alike?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank my hon. Friend for his determination in bringing forward this innovative measure, which will enable the Government to meet their ambition of delivering the houses that are needed all over our community. He is right to say that local communities should be able to set their own local design codes. That will be a fantastic way for them to create a huge number of houses, building up, out and possibly around and across as well.

New Housing Supply

John Penrose Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of delivering new housing supply.

One of the critical issues facing our constituents today is housing. Whether it is young people struggling to get on the property ladder, tenants having to put up with high rents and substandard housing, or families who cannot afford an adequately sized home, across the political divide we are all acutely aware of the growing crisis we face. Seven out of 10 voters think that there is a national housing crisis. Housing is a top issue for millennials. After the first and second world wars, there were campaigns for homes “fit for heroes.” What we need now is a campaign for homes fit for a new generation.

It is worth pausing for a moment to reflect on why home ownership is so important. I think we all believe in the ideal of a property-owning democracy. MPs in every party will understand that buying your first home is a huge milestone in life. We all understand that having your own space and somewhere to call home is incredibly valuable. It gives people a stake in society and a sense that they control their own life. Ownership also provides much greater security than the rental market, which is especially difficult at the moment. It is not right that huge numbers of people, including families with young children, have to keep moving or are insecure and unable to properly put down roots anywhere. That is bad for all of us and undermines our collective sense of community.

House prices have reached unaffordable levels because, as is fairly evident, we have a housing shortage. The average home costs about £285,000. In London, where the picture is even more stark, the average cost is an enormous £523,000. Over the last 25 years, housing affordability has worsened in every single local authority across England, and younger people most acutely feel the impact of the crisis.

In my lifetime, the number of young families trying to buy a house has virtually halved. When I first bought a house, the average house cost three times the average income. Now it is between eight and nine times the average wage. In the last decade, over half of first-time buyers have had to rely on some kind of help from their parents. The increasing need to rely on the bank of mum and dad is widening the inequality gap and further eroding social mobility in the UK. The crisis is forcing those who cannot rely on well-off parents to fork out thousands of pounds more in rent, to stay at their family home for longer and to delay their plans to start a family.

Even those who can afford a home are getting less for their money. Since 1970, the average size of a living room in a new build property has declined by a total of 27%. The average floor space of homes has declined by almost 20% in that time. We need not only to build more houses but to build them better. Our constituents deserve and, rightly, expect both quantity and quality.

Obviously, housing is a matter of supply and demand. Let us deal with demand first. Since the mid-90s, the nation’s population has grown by between 9 million and 10 million, principally because of immigration. Governments of all persuasions—I am making this deliberately a non-party matter—have failed to build the homes required to meet that increased demand. The result has been a huge backlog in housing need—probably of 3 million or 4 million, although I have seen all sorts of estimates. Clearing that backlog and meeting new annual demand would require us to create several hundreds of thousands of homes every year for decades to come, which, again, all Governments have failed to do.

On the face of it, the answer is simple: build more houses. But with our planning system, that is far easier said than done. The real question is not whether to build, but where to build, and not just because demand is higher in some places than in others. All of us have run into vested interest groups who oppose new build estates. Often those groups can have legitimately held and valid concerns about overdevelopment, the impact on local amenities and infrastructure, or the concreting over of local countryside.

If we want to attack this problem properly, we should not see nimbys as irrational or selfish. Indeed, their feelings are entirely understandable. A home is probably the most significant investment that a family will ever make. So-called nimbys quite rightly want their children to grow up in a decent home in a good-quality neighbourhood. If someone has moved to a rural or semi-rural area, already facing stretched public services or congested roads, they will not wish to see their idyllic new home engulfed by rapid and substantial urban sprawl, or local infrastructure placed under unnecessary or additional stress.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful case and is absolutely right in the way he is laying out the problem and how people see it. Is he aware not just of nimbyism but of yimbyism—the “yes, in my backyard” movement? It says that many people are willing to accept densification, particularly in British towns, to see more investment in town centres and to breathe life back into those towns, both socially and economically. That goes with the grain of what people want and also cuts housing costs, both to rent and to buy.

[Mr Davis]

I agree entirely. It is slightly separate from the main thrust of my argument, but my hon. Friend is exactly right. One of the issues is quality of community, which is addressed directly by what he just said.

How do we get around the nimby problem in its conventional sense? I believe that a large part of the answer is garden towns and villages. It is not a new proposal but a tried and tested policy, albeit with some tweaks to deliver it in the 21st century. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) has spoken about it before, as have I, and there have been Policy Exchange think-tank papers on it. It is not that new, but it is worth resurrecting. In the 20th century, the garden city movement resulted in the creation of towns such as Letchworth and Welwyn Garden City, now populated by around 30,000 and 40,000 people in each case. Those new garden towns and cities were great successes. What is the measure of that? Nearly 3 million people live in the 32 towns created under the New Towns Acts 1946. Reviving these ideas will hold the key to solving much of the housing crisis.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan]

The Government have a manifesto commitment to abolish section 21, and we will do so as soon as parliamentary time allows. We have just finished the consultation on the decent homes standard, which concluded in mid-October. It is important that we get this legislation right, and we intend to do so.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

4. What assessment he has made of the impact of variations in staffing and resources on the effectiveness of local trading standards teams.

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

As my hon. Friend will know, local authorities are responsible for determining resourcing priorities in accordance with the needs of their local electorates, and the members of those electorates will differ according to the areas where they live. That said, the local government finance settlement for 2023-24 makes available up to £60 billion for local government in England in response to the requests of the sector, and the majority of that funding is ringfenced in recognition of the fact that local authorities are best placed to understand the priorities.

[John Penrose]

There is a widespread concern that some local trading standards teams are no longer capable of protecting local citizens from scams, fraud and rip-offs, or of delivering the strong and fair competition locally which will ultimately be the only route for levelling up jobs, exports and growth in left-behind communities. Will the Minister meet me to discuss the proposals for minimum standards in my Government-commissioned report “Power to the people”, so that we can level up opportunities in communities throughout the country?

[Lee Rowley]

I have read that report, and I should be happy to meet my hon. Friend to talk more about this important issue, in which I know he has a long-standing interest.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

John Penrose Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[David Simmonds]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am an unpaid vice-president of the Local Government Association. I place on the record my thanks to the Conservative Environment Network and the Royal Town Planning Institute for their assistance in formulating a number of the amendments that I tabled or signed.

I also thank the Government for the interest that they have shown in the issues highlighted in my amendments on wildbelt. There is a strong sense across parties that, in the way we approach regeneration, we must take account of the needs of wildlife as well as the need to provide green space around our towns and cities. Especially in areas where large-scale housing development may take place, it is incredibly important for local authorities and developers to identify sites that contribute to biodiversity.

I welcome the progress that we have made in respect of the greater degree of rigour around the planning process. It is clear that many local authorities face challenges in recruiting sufficient professional staff and in ensuring that, from both the developer perspective and a governmental perspective, we have the necessary strategy and oversight in place to ensure that our objectives are delivered.

I will focus on three areas that are especially important. We have heard a great deal about childcare, and I have made a number of interventions on the issue. Let me clarify that the reason I signed amendment 2 is that I am pretty clear that the guidance from the Department for Education—that is one of a number of a number of Departments that own guidance that is used in the planning process, another being the Home Office, which permits PCSOs and police services to be funded through section 106 agreements; those are owned by DLUHC as the Department responsible for local government but bring in other legislation—already allows for childcare to be considered. However, I would welcome confirmation from the Dispatch Box. I think the Minister noted that in her opening speech, but it would be helpful to have clarity.

Let me add my appreciation of the Government’s move on housing targets. The local authorities that serve my constituency have consistently delivered more housing than the targets that have come from any part of central Government or, indeed, the Mayor of London. It is clear that effective local leadership and a sense of ambition, particularly around regeneration, can deliver the homes that we need in this country.

Finally, let me place in the Government’s mind an issue that is very much on those of my constituents: the impact of ultra low emission zones. As we consider the impact of increased traffic on areas, I hope that, in due course, the Government will be minded to accept amendments that require the consent of the local authorities affected before such policies are introduced.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

There is much to like and admire in this Bill. Mention has already been made of street votes, and I want to put on the record my thanks to the Government for including them, as that has been a personal crusade of mine and many others outside the House. I am delighted that street votes are firmly and squarely in the Bill.

I am also delighted to see design codes. We have heard about the importance of beauty and of local democracy, local input and local vernacular styles; design codes are an essential way of delivering that and it is very welcome to see them in the Bill.

I also echo the comments of a number of colleagues about what had been new clause 21, which I also signed, and which the Government have responded to positively in dealing with the tyranny of housing targets. The result is to everybody’s credit and very welcome.

However, there is a “but” at the end of that sentence, and it is to do with the concern that a number of Members, including the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), mentioned about supply: our ability to build enough homes in future. Successive Governments of all political stripes have failed to deliver nearly enough homes over decades in this country, and I worry that this Bill fails to fix that fundamental underlying issue of inadequate supply. Street votes will help, but they will not be enough on their own, which is why I tabled new clause 88, and my thanks to the colleagues who have signed it already or spoken in support of it in this debate.

New clause 88 seeks to deal with the problem of under-supply by saying that anybody who owns a home in a town, city or urban area can redevelop it as of right, provided they follow the local design code, which the local council will by then have passed. That will lead to a dramatic increase in the amount of supply. On average, our towns and cities are about two storeys tall, so if the local design code effectively allows a townhouse revolution, which is what most of them will be, that will double the amount of home space available in our towns and cities in one go.

[Mr Richard Bacon]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is interesting that some of the most beautiful places in the world—Edinburgh, Cornish fishing villages, Paris or Berlin, where I lived—the normal height is four, five or perhaps six storeys without in any way over-dominating the scene?

[John Penrose]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and that means we end up with gentle densification and beauty in the local style, creating spaces where people really want to live.

We will end up with a huge increase of supply from this townhouse revolution that I have described, and we will also end up with a bump-up in the value of existing homes, because we are creating brownfield sites and every existing home ends up with a small increase in value because of the hope value created. It is greener, because we are allowing people to live nearer where they work, protecting green fields and, as we heard earlier, using brownfield sites. It creates the beauty we have all been looking for. Most importantly, it retains local decision-making sovereignty. I therefore hope the Government will pick this up, take it forward and examine it carefully. It is in the spirit of street votes, but it is street votes on steroids, and I therefore commend it to the Minister and Government.

[Mr Richard Bacon]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Deputy Speaker, even though you have restricted everyone to three minutes —I understand, of course, that you had no choice in the matter. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose). When I was discussing with him what to do about this problem, obviously I had crafted an immense amount of prose, but he said, “We will remove every alternate page and then deal with what is left,” which is sort of what I have done. I am also grateful to him for drawing new clause 88 to my attention, because I have seen much of the gentle densification he refers to in different cities on the continent. I have visited the Netherlands many times in my campaign for more custom and self-build, and he is right that it does work.

[John Penrose]

Does my hon. Friend agree that his proposals for a greater amount of custom and self-build will be another way of increasing supply, contributing to solving the problem I mentioned in my remarks just now?

[Mr Bacon]

Yes, I do. That is what I have seen in the Netherlands and we should have it here too.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

1. What steps his Department is taking to increase housebuilding through densification of urban areas using local authority-approved building codes that pre-approve buildings.

[The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)]

We want to build good-quality homes in the right places, and to give communities a greater say in the planning process. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill includes provision for new “street vote” powers which will allow residents to come together and bring forward the development that they want to see on their streets, in line with their design preferences. That will incentivise communities to consider the potential for development, especially in areas of high demand, and will support a gentle increase in density through well-considered, well-designed and locally supported proposals.

[John Penrose]

I thank the Minister for that reply, and agree with him that the “street votes” idea—which the Secretary of State described as “a cracking idea” a few months ago from that very Dispatch Box—is extremely welcome and at the core of the Bill. Will he consider applying the same principles of local consent and design codes on a slightly larger scale to increase supply and create wealth across whole neighbourhoods rather than just single streets, as outlined in chapter 4 of my recent paper “Poverty Trapped”?

Oral Answers to Questions

John Penrose Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Eddie Hughes]

I think it would be easier for me to agree to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the specific details of the case that she is talking about.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

13. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of provisions in the Planning (Street Plans) Bill to allow residents to vote on the design of new homes in their streets on levels of housing supply.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)]

It is a cracking private Member’s Bill. We shamelessly want to rip off all the ideas in it and take them for our own.

[John Penrose]

I am delighted to hear it. Will the Secretary of State look not only at those ideas, but at the related “build up, not out” proposals in my soon-to-be-launched policy paper “Poverty Trapped”? Both enshrine local democratic consent and style codes as essential steps for new developments. Does he agree that they are both vital to unlocking the scale of home building that will make buying or renting homes more affordable, reducing poverty and levelling up communities everywhere?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is rare that we have legislation that combines greater democratic control with the potential for the beautification —for want of a better word—of our urban and suburban environment, and also unlocks the potential for the value of individuals’ homes to be enhanced by additional development. It is a triple whammy of good news; we just need to make sure that it meshes with everything else that we want to do that is beneficial. I am really grateful to my hon. Friend and all the supporters of his legislation for helping the Government out so much.

Budget Resolutions

John Penrose Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I want to refer to the comments made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), my parliamentary neighbour, on the level of tax because, at the end of the Chancellor’s speech, there was an extremely welcome departure, in a genuine tax cut, from the fears that my right hon. Friend expressed. It came in the form of a reduction in the universal credit taper rate, but that is effectively a tax cut. It is particularly welcome because it is targeted, laser like, on the least well-off and the lowest paid. That is genuinely a levelling-up measure because it means that the lowest paid can retain more of their earnings. It is a cut of not just 1% or 2%; the rate has been cut right down by 8% to 55%. It is a huge levelling-up measure and extremely welcome to any red-blooded, tax-cutting Conservative.

Such a measure has an impact not just on tax cutting and levelling up, but on work incentives. One of the people I admire most in the Conservative party’s long and illustrious history is Nigel Lawson. When he cut top rates of tax from somewhere around 90%, as bequeathed to us by the Labour party, to 40% or 45%, he said that there was a point about work incentives, and that we could not expect people to work their socks off, only to have the Government swipe it all because the Government believe that they can spend the money better. He was right.

Of course, if that is right for the best paid, the high earners, the most well-off, it must also be right for the least well-off. Therefore, the tax cut that I am describing—the reduction in the taper rate for universal credit—is particularly welcome because of its effect on the work incentives of the least well-off in our country. That is often glossed over, but is essential for us all to remember.

That is also fairer. As a result of the Budget measures, our system is a great deal fairer than it was. The Government have effectively reduced taxation on the least well-off from 63% to 55%, but we can—I hope we will in future—go further. If we look at the effects of other taxes, which have been in place for many years, we see that taxes on earned income are roughly between 20% and 45%, but on dividends, they are between 7% and 38%—lower than the taxes on earned income. On capital gains, taxes run between 10% and 20%, again lower than on earned income. Taxes on property gains run between 18% and 28%, once again lower than on earned income. As a result, I believe that this is a vital step in what I hope will be the beginning of a long journey towards a Nigel Lawson-esque tax system that says, “It should not matter whether you are getting money from your earnings, from unearned income or from benefits; they should all be treated the same as income.” This is a proud Conservative idea, the principle first enunciated by Nigel Lawson. This is something that we own, and we should be fearless in putting it across.

[Liam Byrne]

I want to clarify that point, because it is potentially quite significant. The characteristic of a Lawson-esque tax system is, of course, that capital is taxed at the same rate as income. Is that what the hon. Gentleman is advocating?

[John Penrose]

I am indeed advocating that all income should be taxed equally. It is a Lawson-esque idea; the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The reason why it is so essential, and why Nigel Lawson had this right, is that the whole point of it is that it creates work incentives for everybody, because they know they are going to be treated fairly. It also means that we have a system that has legitimacy, because it does not matter who has the best lobbyists or the best campaigners; everybody knows we have a nice, simple, flat, straightforward tax system, and everybody knows where they stand. Nigel Lawson was right about this.

I hope that the Chancellor’s Budget speech last week was the first step in what I think will be a long and difficult but ultimately incredibly worthwhile journey in that respect. I hope that this is the beginning of something important, something exciting, and something that is ultimately fairer and more just but also economically far more literate, because it creates a situation where it always pays to work, it always pays to save and it always pays for people to try to get themselves out of benefits by taking extra hours if they possibly can. It creates a situation where those work incentives are always there.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Levelling-up Bids: North Somerset

John Penrose Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Steve McCabe (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that they should clean their spaces before they use them and as they leave, and that Mr Speaker has recommended that we wear masks.

I call John Penrose to move the motion.

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered levelling up bids in North Somerset.

It is good to have you in charge of our process, Mr McCabe. It is also good to see my fellow Somerset MP and constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), who is here to support the debate and is expecting to speak later, as well as the Minister, who I hope will respond fully and positively to some of my questions and provide reassurances during the course of the debate.

The debate is about North Somerset Council’s bids last week for both the levelling-up fund and the community renewal fund. The bid documentation is somewhere in the bowels of the Minister’s Department and is being gone through in huge detail, so I do not propose to take up an enormous amount of time by dwelling on what it says, other than to summarise briefly and say that my right hon. Friend and I strongly support both bids. It is quite noticeable that, at the moment, North Somerset Council is being run by a rainbow coalition, which is political speak for anybody except the Tories, yet here we are—my right hon. Friend and I, as the two local Conservative Members of Parliament—supporting the bids too. This is a cross-party, non-party political and pretty much unanimous set of proposals, which we urge the Minister to take very seriously indeed.

It is true that Weston has come an extraordinarily long way in recent years. Since I was elected 16 years ago, the place has become unrecognisably better, but even its most ardent supporters—I put myself right at the front of the queue—would say that we still have a great deal more that has to be done. The two bids for the levelling-up fund and the community renewal fund are a key part of taking the next steps in North Somerset’s journey overall, but particularly Weston-super-Mare’s journey.

Without going into too much detail about what is in the detail of the bids, I will highlight three main areas. One is the renewal of our local heritage assets. Weston-super-Mare was primarily built during the Victorian seaside town heyday, and it has some beautiful architecture. It has many beautiful bits of local heritage to it, with some of it going back much further than the Victorian era—for example, there is an iron-age hill fort. However, renewing those assets and making current use of them, so that they can continue to be used and looked after—they should be part of the town’s future, not just its past—is essential. That is a key part of the bid. They give the place its character and its sense of place, and are an absolutely essential part of the bid.

Equally, the bid involves a whole series of proposals for more festivals, activities and attractions—everything from street theatre to buskers—in order to create a sense of theatre, a sense of dynamism and a buzzing atmosphere, which will make the place great not just for local residents to visit and live. As we are a seaside town and a visitor destination, that will also make it a great place for visitors. Of course, visitors have traditionally been one of the town’s lifeblood industries, because we are a tourist destination, so that is an essential piece of the bids.

Last but not least, the bid dovetails with the Weston place-making strategy, which means that we have input from local businesses and residents, and from the council, to try to ensure that Weston as a location has a sustainable mix but also a balanced mix of reasons to live there, to visit there and to do business there and create wealth. The place-making strategy is essential, and it is also a key part of what the council has put together for the two bids.

So, if the bid is so flipping brilliant, why am I worried, why have I asked for this debate and why do we have the pleasure of the Minister’s company this afternoon? The answer is very simple. It is that in spite of the quality of the bid and of the cross-party backing that I mentioned earlier, there is one fly in the ointment. It is that, as the Minister will know, North Somerset Council as a whole—the entire district—is currently designated as a priority 2 area for both the funds that we are bidding into. It is not a priority 1 area, but a priority 2 area. Potentially, that is a problem because it might demote us in terms of the importance—even the urgency—and eligibility of our bids for those funds.

I am here to argue today that that designation is actually a mistake—or it would be a mistake if it were to happen—simply because North Somerset as a district overall is a place of stark contrasts. The constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset is one of the wealthiest constituencies in the country, whereas, to put it simply, my constituency of Weston-super-Mare is not.

For example, we can compare my constituency with two neighbouring district council areas, both of which are designated as priority 1 areas. I am sure that the Minister will be familiar with them; they are Sedgemoor District Council and Mendip District Council. They are right next door to the town of Weston-super-Mare. They are almost identical in terms of their populations to the population of my constituency as a whole. So, if my constituency was a district council, it would be pretty much the same size as they both are. Yet my constituency has a higher proportion of people claiming benefits than either of those two priority 1 areas, even though my area is technically designated as a priority 2 area.

My constituency has a lower healthy life expectancy than either of those two neighbouring districts, even though they are designated as priority 1 areas and my area is designated as priority 2. My constituency has a worse average travel time to employment than either of those two districts, even though they are designated as priority 1 and my area is designated as priority 2.

So I hope the Minister will understand why I am concerned. If my constituency was a stand-alone piece of geography, and not part of the broader North Somerset Council area, we would easily qualify as a priority 1 area. However, because of the accident of postcodes, if I can put it that way, and because of the averaging effect, we do not qualify as a priority 1 area. Of course, that is not to say that the need in my constituency of Weston-super-Mare is not extremely serious or, indeed, every bit as serious as that in the other district councils I have mentioned, both of which are priority 1 areas.

I will go further and say that I have just given the Minister the figures for my constituency as a whole. Within my constituency, the situation is even starker. If we look at two wards in the centre of the constituency, Weston-super-Mare South and Weston-super-Mare Central, they have indices of multiple deprivation that would rank them in the top—or worst, depending on how we look at it—3% or 4% of wards in the entire country; in fact, parts of one of them are in the worst 2%. They are equivalent to anywhere else that is right at the top of the priority 1 areas. It is not just that we would scrape into priority 1 area designation: we would be right at the top of the Minister’s list of concerns, and rightly so, because of those indices of multiple deprivation scores.

So, what do both I and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset hope to hear from the Minister when he gets to his feet in a minute? The answer is very simple. We hope to hear from him that he is able to give strong weighting to those overall scores—scores that are at a more detailed and more granular level than the scores for the district as a whole—when assessing the bid. As I mentioned right at the start, I hope that it will qualify under its own steam in any case.

We do not want a strong and capable bid to be disallowed because of an accident of postcode and because of the averaging effect. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will be able to reassure me and the residents of the constituency of Weston-super-Mare that that will not be the case, and that the bureaucratic process can be bent and manipulated sufficiently within the rules to allow the genuine need—as shown by the genuine levels of multiple deprivation—to be properly taken account of when these bids are finally totalled up.

If the Minister can do that, I may not be able to guarantee that we will erect a small statue in his name somewhere in the middle of Weston-super-Mare, but I can at least promise him that we will easily be able to carry him shoulder high along the Weston seafront, given the importance of the bids to the people of Weston-super-Mare. I will now sit down to make sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset has an opportunity to add to what I have already said and to explain the perspective from the other part of the North Somerset district council area.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr McCabe. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) on securing this debate. He spoke with eloquence and passion about the importance of supporting his constituency and the need to level up in Weston-super-Mare. His desire to support his community is shared by all parts and corners of this Government and certainly by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Levelling up is a crucial part of our Government’s agenda. We are committed to unlocking economic prosperity across all parts of the United Kingdom. That is why we will publish the levelling-up White Paper later this year. We will set out bold policy interventions to improve livelihoods and opportunities in all parts and all corners of the country. It will set out the next steps in our plan to enable more people to get on in life without feeling that they have to leave their hometown or home community just to get the job or types of services they want.

We want to address these long-standing geographical inequalities. We want to deliver economic opportunity and improve livelihoods in all parts of the country so that, wherever someone is born, they have the chance to achieve what they want to in life. That means creating new, good-quality jobs. It means boosting training, productivity and skills in places that have seen economic decline and the loss of industry, and not through a broad, one-size-fits-all approach, but by nurturing different types of economic growth and building on the strengths that different types of places and communities have.

Nowhere is more important in these types of conversations and debates than places such as Weston-super-Mare. We have heard about how skills and wages lag behind the average in the south-west and many other different parts of the country. That is why the levelling-up fund as a concept is such an important vehicle for investing in communities just like Weston-super-Mare. We want to work with councils such as North Somerset Council to invest in the type of everyday infrastructure that my hon. Friend outlined, regenerating town centres and high streets, investing in transport and supporting cultural and heritage assets right around the country. That is a key part of the levelling-up agenda. It is about local communities and councils such as North Somerset determining and identifying their own priorities and using the funds as vehicles to develop and submit proposals and to level up in their area. It is about empowering communities.

The deadline for bids was last Friday. We have received significant interest from right around the country. The assessment process is just starting, but of course we were delighted that North Somerset submitted its bid last week.

We have heard some information about the proposal this afternoon and it is important for us to assess its impact. It is interesting to hear about the transformation of the pier building and the Tropicana Weston, two of the historic buildings that bookend the north and south end of the pier, which is so important to the town and to the regional tourism economy. It is also about bringing back into use vacant spaces in the main shopping area in Weston, helping to create new employment spaces and enhanced wayfinding and connections through the town centre.

I completely understand the passion and importance associated with these bids. I understand my hon. Friend’s belief in them, his desire for them to succeed and the importance he places on the potential to transform Weston’s future, enabling economic growth, improving the town’s economic resilience and tackling deprivation.

The bids focus on regeneration, town centre improvements, cultural assets and transport improvements. They accurately reflect the themes of what we are trying to achieve with the fund, so I thank North Somerset for its bids. I also thank my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) for their support for them and for making clear how important they are to the community. I hope they understand that I cannot comment too much further on the bid itself today. However, we will certainly work to the timescales set out in the prospectus, ensuring that the decisions are delivered in a timely way.

On the levelling-up fund’s methodology, the bids will be assessed against the criteria set out in the prospectus and the strongest bids will be shortlisted. My hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend note that Weston-super-Mare, which is part of North Somerset, falls into category 2, despite it having similar characteristics to a number of category 1 places. When we designed the fund we tried to purposely make sure that councils are able to target the pockets of deprivation within their local authorities, as my hon. Friend has identified.

In the case of North Somerset’s bid, two supportive MPs have helped to shape a bid within a council area, as will be noted as part of the process. The bid aims to tackle the most deprived part of the local authority area. That is noted as part of the assessment process. We will look at how the bid addresses challenges in the town and whether they relate to issues to do with health, unemployment or the availability of well-paid jobs for people living in Weston-super-Mare. The focus on tackling deprivation in Weston is in line with the objectives of the fund.

The methodology that sits behind the index of places is set out in the prospectus that we published on gov.uk. It is based on the metrics covering places’ need for economic recovery, regeneration and improved transport connectivity, as clearly identified by my hon. Friend in his speech. Those metrics do not determine either the outcome of the bid or the place’s eligibility to bid. Again, we certainly take account of the fact that two Members of Parliament have supported the bid, targeted at a pocket of deprivation. I do not know if that warrants a statue in Weston-super-Mare—a sandcastle, perhaps.

My hon. Friend also raised a point about the indices of multiple deprivation and asked about them not being included in the methodology of the fund. That is an important point. We considered looking at the IMD as part of the index, but it is important to consider that IMD does not represent in all circumstances a one-size-fits-all approach to measuring economic need. It does not completely accurately reflect, in this circumstance, the policy outcomes of the fund that we have established, which is about transport, high street and cultural regeneration. There are some things that IMD does not consider—for example, productivity. Raising productivity is a key part of what the fund is trying to address. Therefore, IMD was considered but we think that the way in which the indexation was set up is ultimately right.

My hon. Friend also referenced the UK community renewal fund, which is another important funding stream that this Government are delivering. We think it will improve the overall funding landscape available to places like Weston-super-Mare. We have tried to establish a one-year transition programme that is free of some of the shackles and bureaucracy of the EU structural funds, to allow places to design bids to tackle the problems that they identify. The £220 million fund will be available to communities next year.

We have received North Somerset’s £2.8 million bid. It includes a number of employment-based bids, including tailored support for jobseekers in the most deprived communities. That will be noted. Among the proposals is a financial inclusion project, a network of community hubs in rural areas and targeted business support, so we were interested to receive that. It sets out how, taken together, these will all work to create new education and training opportunities that will lead to the establishment of new local businesses and help to steer people towards the right employment and education opportunities.

I want to highlight the importance of the role of Members of Parliament in this process. This debate is a prime example of the way in which we have designed the fund to put such importance on Members of Parliament coming together, bringing communities together, including local authorities and local stakeholders, and acting as facilitators in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare and my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset have highlighted that they have managed to do that in Weston-super-Mare, working together to tackle the challenges in the way they have outlined. We have given MPs the opportunity to write formally in support of bids, and we have received that letter from my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend.

[John Penrose]

The Minister is being very helpful and is showing that his Department is already getting to grips with the details behind the bids, so I thank him for his remarks so far. Could he just make sure that in the five minutes or so that are left, he focuses on the point about priority areas? He has been helpful on that topic, but I am still not quite clear whether starting from a priority area 2 designation automatically relegates us to being a long way down the list of projects being considered, or whether the other factors that I have talked about and which he has also mentioned—very carefully and fulsomely—will allow us to vault up the list of eligible projects and get a better showing in the eventual decisions on allocations.

[Luke Hall]

It is really important to say that that indexation is just one part of the wider assessment process. Yes, the categorisation—category 2 in this case—is taken into account, but the assessment also takes into account a number of other factors, such as the support of Members of Parliament. I think it is really noteworthy that two Members of Parliament are backing a bid that is targeted at the areas of deprivation. I urge my hon. Friend to look at the information on gov.uk, which clearly sets out that the categorisation is just one part of the assessment process. Yes, the weighting has an impact, but so do the bid’s strategic fit, deliverability and value for money. Those are all important parts of the process. It is not solely determined by the categorisation level 2.

I would also like to remark on the importance of other investment in North Somerset, outside of just those two streams of funding. Across the south-west, the Government are investing over £400 million in the region through the getting building fund, the future high streets fund, and the towns fund, which is delivering so much for the south-west. If we look at the business support that we have put into North Somerset, for example, we see £73 million of support for businesses and business grants. We have also ensured that Weston has benefited from the getting building fund. I think it is receiving a £1.7 million investment in the town centre, as part of the wider £13.5 million package across the area, for shovel-ready projects in Weston.

The need for regeneration and investment in the high street is also evident in so many of our communities. The funding that has been allocated is already going to be supporting the vacant Weston General Stores site, creating new work spaces for entrepreneurs, micro-manufacturing, events and community spaces. That will help to breathe huge new life into the town centre as well, so that is not to be underestimated. Residents can also look forward to the reopening of the Portishead rail line for the first time in 50 years. That is going to be a vital transport link between North Somerset and the surrounding employment areas.

Of course, these interventions—the levelling-up fund, the community renewal fund, the getting building fund and the other policies I have outlined—build on the £200 million we have invested across the wider area in recent years to support housing, skills and transport. That includes the two state-of-the-art training centres providing work-focused education at Weston College, the almost £12 million with which we have supported the Food Works innovation centre near Weston—a regional centre of excellence in that growing sector—and the major town centre transport improvements, including new cycle and pedestrian links across the town centre. There is huge investment in the region, and in Weston-super-Mare as well.

I hope that some of my remarks have helped reassure my hon. Friend that a number of factors go into the assessment of this bid, and it is not just the category place that determines the outcome. I very much look forward to seeing all the detail of the bid. We have had a number of them and we now have to look through them in detail. I know that he is as passionate as I am about levelling up in communities in the south-west and, of course, in Weston. As we have set out, we want every community to have the opportunity to shape its own future through locally designed solutions. I very much look forward to working with him on doing that as we look forward to the road to recovery for Weston-super-Mare.

Question put and agreed to.

Housing: North Somerset

John Penrose Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), my parliamentary neighbour, on securing this debate and on making the case so eloquently and forcefully not just on behalf of his own constituents but on behalf of my constituents—and, as he rightly pointed out, given the various comments that we have both been getting in the Lobby during the votes just now, on behalf of a great deal more constituencies right the way across the country.

I want to pick up on a couple of the points that my right hon. Friend made—very briefly, because I want to leave time for the Housing Minister to respond. He is absolutely right to say that North Somerset as a whole has absorbed a huge amount of housing over the past 50 years. We cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as NIMBYs. We have taken an enormous numbers of houses. We are happy to take more if they are in the right places, because, as he rightly points out, there are very many local residents who want their children to be able to afford to live locally—who do not want them to be forced to move away and come back only when they have made their fortunes, if they can. That is clearly not the right way to do it, and it is clearly not the right way to have sustainable and balanced communities either, so therefore we want to be able to have enough houses for this to be affordable. Both my right hon. Friend and I, and many local residents, agree with the notion that, as a country, we have to build more houses, but the question is where we build them and why the existing system is forcing people to build in the wrong places and in the wrong ways.

My right hon. Friend is also right to point out that if we stick with the current approach, we stand absolutely no chance of delivering on the number of houses that are required. That is not because there are not enough places with planning permission or because there are not enough permitted areas where planning permission has already been agreed, but simply because the existing housebuilders have a business model which requires them to dribble out houses consistently over many years at no more than a pre-set rate—about 800 every year in our areas—in order to avoid deflating the cost of housing by building too fast and ruining their investments. So, if we do not change something soon, we will never get to the numbers that the Minister is rightly setting for the entire country.

Therefore, I urge the Minister to consider that Weston-super-Mare, perhaps some of the areas in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, and certainly central Bristol should be willing to take more homes in the middle of towns, rather than in the areas, which, as my right hon. Friend rightly pointed out in his nicely coloured-in map, are not available to be built on outside towns. Central Weston needs the investment; central Weston would be delighted to have more homes built in the right places. That points to one of the advantages of the Government’s latest set of proposals for permitted development rights with carefully constructed local council-approved planning guidelines.

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

I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) on securing this Adjournment debate. Does the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) agree that one of the issues about density of dwelling in planning, and one of the issues with the White Paper proposals, is that we will have less control over what sort of densities would get built out by the developers?

[John Penrose]

Actually, I respectfully disagree with that last point, because local authorities will be able to set development codes, which will be able to dictate the level of density, and they can also dictate the look and feel of the areas. As a result, places like central Weston and central Bristol, where development is, on average two storeys tall, could easily—and in the case of central Weston, would gladly—absorb more homes if we were able to go up to four storeys tall. We are not proposing to emulate the Shard, as my right hon. Friend rightly points out, because that would be completely inappropriate, but we want to go up to four storeys, or maybe five at the outside. We want to build elegant townhouses and mews houses; the sort of things that we are proud to look at in parts of Weston already, and certainly in parts of central Bristol and parts of Bath. Such beautiful bits of architecture—more dense, but beautifully put together—could absorb all the homes if we were only able to do it. But the current system—the current method of allocating those homes—does not allow us to do it, because local authorities do not get credit if they start to allocate building in those areas.

[Dr Fox]

Will my hon. Friend accept that his argument is further strengthened by the fact that the housing density in many of our cities in the United Kingdom is well below the level of housing density that is taken for granted in most cities in Europe?

[John Penrose]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and if we do it this way round we are using the existing infrastructure, rather than overburdening the already stretched infrastructure in our rural areas. It is greener, too, because people can live closer to work. If we start building yet more in rural villages—in my case, places like Churchill or Langford or Congresbury—we just create commuter towns and villages, and we add to the level of the commuting carbon footprint as a result. If people can live near where they work—which is much more covid-friendly as well—we stand a chance of creating greener, more sustainable communities, and ones where investment is desired. However, that does require the Government to change the process—to change the way they give credit for the sites that are thus created. That would ensure that the big volume builders, whose whole business plan is based around building on greenfield sites, do not get the only view of the situation, and town and city centre development becomes a route for councils to satisfy the housing numbers they are required to build.