Havering Council: Funding

Jon Cruddas Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

I will call Jon Cruddas to move the motion, and then the Minister to respond. As is the convention in 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge of the debate to wind up.

[Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered funding for Havering Council.

This afternoon, I want to: highlight the financial situation facing the London Borough of Havering; ask for help and support from the Government; request a joint approach to remedying the situation; and offset the dangers of a section 114 report by the council’s chief financial officer, which would effectively freeze all non-statutory spending.

There is obviously also a wider national story here. Councils continue to face increasing demands for statutory services, especially adult and children’s social care, the provision of temporary accommodation, and homelessness support. Demographic forces are driving up demand for those services, and that affects some councils more than others. Meanwhile, central Government grant funding for councils dropped by some 40% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2019-20; it has gone from £46.5 billion down to £28 billion. Consequently, councils are more and more reliant on local funding through council tax and business rates. That has not been enough to compensate for the drop in central Government funding.

Since 2021, five local authorities have declared themselves effectively bankrupt because their costs are larger than their resources. Slough, Croydon, our neighbours in Thurrock, as well as Woking and Birmingham City Council, have all issued section 114 notices. Until recently, section 114 notices were generally seen as the result of financial mismanagement or equal pay backlogs. That is changing, however. Section 114 notices are increasingly likely to be issued by a significantly larger pool of councils, due to a one-two punch of demographic changes and dramatic shifts in funding. Combined, these changes mean that a whole series of councils look likely to become trapped in a position in which the cost of social care and homelessness exceeds their resources.

Many local authorities are already issuing warnings about section 114 notices. These include city councils, such as Sheffield, Coventry, Southampton and Nottingham; district councils, such as Mole Valley, Chelmsford, St Albans and South Cambridgeshire; borough councils, such as Windsor and Maidenhead, Surrey Heath and Wokingham; and county councils, such as Hampshire, Kent, Derbyshire and Northamptonshire, alongside councils such as Medway, Bradford, Barnsley, Rotherham and Manchester.

These councils do not fall on one side of a strict party political divide. They include councils from across the country, and from north and south; councils urban and rural; and councils led from both the left and the right. For instance, one in 10 of the so-called SIGOMA group —the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities, which represents 47 urban local authorities—has reported considering issuing a section 114 notice this year, and 20% say it might be possible in the next year. Similarly, one in 10 members of the County Councils Network reports facing effective bankruptcy. If we look at politics, the list includes Surrey Heath Council—the local council of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities—and various Labour-led authorities across the country.

Despite local authorities’ dire financial situation, the autumn statement had no new money for social care services, or any general local government funding beyond what was announced last year. However, I note that the Government increased local housing allowance rates last week, which is to be welcomed.

Although the language of local government often appears technically complex and incredibly dull and boring, we might conclude that much of British local government—a significant portion of the British state—is in danger of literally going bankrupt. This reality stretches way beyond those authorities that have already effectively declared themselves bust, and it has huge implications for public life across a range of services, from refuse collection, housing and homelessness, to education, social care, tackling antisocial behaviour, estate management, libraries and youth services—the list goes on. It is estimated that some 90% of councils have been using their reserves to meet their statutory duties, although some are more fortunate than others in that regard. I will come to that in a minute.

Take the general situation in London. According to London Councils, the capital’s boroughs’ overall resources are about 18% lower than in 2010-11 in real terms, but the population of the capital has grown by almost 800,000 since then. London boroughs need to make some £500 million of savings for 2024-25, to meet an estimated £2 billion funding gap over the next four years.

The next few weeks are critical. Councils will shortly receive their settlement figures, probably just as Parliament goes into recess. Following consultation, the figures will be confirmed in the middle of January, and council tax will be set in early March. It is against that general backdrop that I want to consider the situation facing Havering.

I should make three initial points regarding Havering. First, Havering has been very open about its predicament. In September 2023, the leader of the council, Ray Morgon, warned that the authority could be six months away from triggering a section 114 notice because of the escalating costs of social care and housing. Although other boroughs have tried to obscure their financial position and in effect hide from the communities that put them in the town hall, Havering has levelled with residents from the outset about what is going on. I very much welcome that as a mature form of civic leadership.

Secondly, Havering is generally regarded as a well-run and efficient council. It has low borrowing, unlike Croydon or Slough, and it has no historical pay claims, unlike Birmingham. It has the lowest unit costs in London, according to the well-regarded LG Futures consultancy, and is the third most productive council in the country, according to the consultancy IMPOWER. The situation it faces is very different from that of its immediate neighbours. Thurrock, for example, provided £655 million to companies via bonds, including for the purchase of some 53 solar farms. It shares a border with Barking and Dagenham, which I partly represent, and which has an accumulated debt of £1.2 billion. Havering is in a very different situation, and has not embarked on ill advised speculative activity to try to offset funding challenges.

Thirdly—this is not a party political issue—until May last year, the borough was a Conservative-led authority. Today it is run by 22 representatives of Havering Residents Association, supported by Labour’s nine councillors on the authority. On the scale of the financial challenge facing Havering, we have to bear in mind that local government funding continues to use a distribution model dating from 2013, based on data from the 2011 census. The model is ill equipped to deal with the kind of population flows that we have experienced in outer east London over the last decade.

Attempts at establishing a revised fair funding formula based on demographic change and modern need have effectively been parked by the Government, with pretty disastrous consequences for boroughs such as Havering. Moreover, the authority has limited resources to help take the strain. Havering’s reserves are the second lowest in London, standing at some £47.8 million. Meanwhile, the borough receives the third lowest settlement funding assessment in London, yet it remains in the top quartile for income collection.

The scale of the problem becomes apparent when we consider the demographic pressures facing adult and children’s social care. Havering has the second oldest population in London on the one hand, yet it has the fourth fastest growing children’s population in the entire country among those aged 0 to 14. On the growth of the child population, the Department for Education uses more recent data to allocate children’s school place capital funding. For 2025-26, it has allocated Havering a staggering 57% of all of London’s schools basic needs capital funding. That demonstrates the extraordinary expansion in the borough’s child population. That statistic shocked me, and it shows how important it is to use the latest data in distributing our resources. The other 43% of that funding is divided up between London’s other 33 boroughs. That is just one vivid statistical example of the changing demographics in the capital, of Havering’s growth and growing numbers of young people, and the escalating demands that that places on statutory expenditure.

As for the financial situation, Havering is currently forecast an overspend of some £23 million. In terms of its recent track record of budget setting, since 2010 it has delivered a mix of £163 million in savings and income generation, most of which has been reinvested in other services. It has also sold off £160 million of assets over the last 10 years.

To illustrate the scale of reduced support from central Government, Havering received nearly £100 million in central grant in 2010-11. That was reduced, in just over a decade, to just £37 million in 2023-24. Its budget gap is currently estimated to be some £31.2 million for next year, and £77 million over the next four years, against a net budget of £182 million. Currently, it has the fifth highest council tax in London. I accept that, for 2023-24, the authority’s core spending power was increased by some £18 million, including the council tax social precept, yet the pressures from social care were already £20 million in 2022-23, so the increased funding did not address additional demand and inflationary pressures for 2023-24.

On children and adult social care costs, it is estimated that the rates paid to providers for adult social care has increased by 33% since 2019-20, and children’s placement costs have risen by 49% over the same period. Those rises are partly accounted for by care home costs charged by hedge fund owners. In Scotland, in contrast, those running care homes have to be not-for-profit organisations. Basically, for-profit care is crippling our councils. Placements for our children can cost tens of thousands of pounds a week.

To add to that, Havering is seeing a large increase in those presenting as homeless, especially families. That is partly the effect of out-of-borough placements by other London local authorities, partly the effect of the housing benefit cap, and partly due to general migration to outer east London. It is now costing the authority some £3.5 million in cumulative accommodation costs.

Despite those extraordinary demand pressures, over 80% of Havering’s core income now comes from council tax. To repeat: it received the third lowest settlement funding assessment in London.

[Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. Many of Havering’s challenges that he has outlined are similar to those we experience across the water in Bexley. As a former deputy leader of the council, I have great sympathy for the arguments he is making. Given some of those challenges and the growth that, as we know, is coming out eastward on both sides of the river, does he agree that one way for the Government to quickly get more money out to the likes of Havering and Bexley would be to allocate more of the funding that currently goes to City Hall directly to those boroughs?

[Jon Cruddas]

I am not playing pass the parcel here; it seems to me that, objectively—all parties can agree—there is a structural problem that is escalating across the length and breadth of this country. Havering is where the rubber hits the wall, in terms of the escalating demographic changes, especially with young people set against the long-term legacy of an older community, and this one-two punch of funding pressures on our basic statutory reserves. Therefore, I am not going to get into this game; I want to create some sort of cross-party dialogue towards greater partnership to resolve these pressures, rather than playing this little tit-for-tat political game.

Meanwhile, our health challenges mean additional budget pressures for people coming out of hospitals who need social care. In fact, it would be better for them not to go into hospital at all, but Havering has the lowest number of GPs per head of population in London.

Therefore, overall, given that Havering had the second lowest level of reserves, and given the level of its overspend and the forecast budget gap for next year, it is warning that, without additional support, it is six to 12 months away from issuing a section 114 notice.

To help Havering—and to return to the point that the hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) made about how we resolve the situation—fundamentally, a fair-funding review must be implemented: one that better allocates resources based on modern realities of demographic change and need. I accept that that will not happen this side of an election, but may I suggest that any new money that the Government might allocate should not rest simply on the current funding formula, which is increasingly outdated and further compounds the inequalities in funding?

However, the only solution being offered seems to be capitalisation orders, which Havering will have to take if there is no new money. That penalises well-run councils with an additional 1% added to the Public Works Loan Board rate—a rate that is then fixed for 20 years—yet that blunt instrument will penalise an ever larger number of residents under well-run councils. Perversely, it will also increase those councils’ debts further each year and mean that we will go back to them year after year. Surely, as more councils are forced to use such orders, we need a more agile system—one that does not use a form of payday loan to pay for our public services. There should be different rules for good councils such as Havering. It is clear that the funding system is broken and must be fixed.

Overall, a crisis is unfolding across local government, and that is captured in well-run local authorities such as Havering. I request urgent discussions to look at these solutions between national Government and our civil leadership to help to address the looming funding crisis. I also suggest a more agile capitalisation system. The current system further penalises the residents of an increasing number of boroughs that are having to deal with the heightened level of statutory expenditure.

Havering is very much in the eye of the storm, yet it is commendably honest about the scale of the challenge it faces. I hope the Government are listening and will respond, because the clock is ticking. Otherwise, more councils will follow and our local communities will suffer. I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Housing Associations

Jon Cruddas Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will come to that point later.

For residents, be they social renters, key workers, people with shared equity or leaseholders, accountability and transparency are key. For public sector home owners or renters, responsibility for their home maintenance is generally clear, but in the private sector it is not. A recent example of such confusion is the Barking fire on Sunday. There appears to be a complete lack of information on who owns the freehold. Responsibility for the failings therefore cannot be allocated. How are residents supposed to feel confident in their homes when no particular company or individual will take responsibility for their safety and welfare? A clear system of regulation for housing association homes would go some way to making residents feel comfortable and protected.

[Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)]

This is an important debate. We had similar issues in Tower Hamlets, across Barking and Dagenham and Havering, with Old Ford, which was Circle Housing, and a notorious case on the Orchard Village estate because of a lack of effective regulation across the sector. At the same time, a number of housing associations increasingly saw their role as being developers, rather than fulfilling their historical ethical role of delivering for working people. Does my hon. Friend agree that the lack of regulation plays into the changing role of housing associations across the sector?

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I will come on to the role of housing associations and the change in their ethos. That will reinforce the concern that he expresses.

I hear all the time from constituents who are having trouble getting complaints about their housing associations dealt with. Issues such as above-inflation rent increases, unjustified service charges, unreasonable refurbishment costs and problems with repairs seem to be rife. The lack of information about tendering arrangements has also been a source of frustration. Residents often find it unclear who they can go to with their complaints, and do not have confidence that they will be given a fair hearing.

Accountability questions are all too common. In my constituency, there are many housing associations, many of which are very good. Some are average and some are poor. One of the best, if not the best, is Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community Association, commonly and locally known as HARCA. HARCA is a much-valued organisation in Tower Hamlets, going beyond its brief in housing to create community hubs and therefore maintaining a strong social ethos. It is also exemplary in its accountability. Its board has always had a majority of members from the local community, and it has created a tenant advisory panel with the aim of strengthening relationships with tenants and landlords. It was also an early adopter of the National Housing Federation’s “Together with Tenants” plan, again prioritising building good relationships with tenants.

In a recent consultation regarding plans for the Teviot estate in my constituency, there was a turnout of 81% of residents, 87% of whom voted in support of the plan. That demonstrates the high level of approval for HARCA’s work. HARCA also runs a resident-to-resident survey, where residents are trained to call other residents to get their comments on issues such as recent repairs, providing unbiased feedback for Poplar HARCA and involving the residents in shaping their local services.

Those initiatives have proved successful for Poplar HARCA not only in operating an efficient not-for-profit business, but in achieving high levels of resident approval. Its most recent survey, conducted in May, found that 83% of tenants and 75% of leaseholders were satisfied with the service. Clearly, involving residents in decision making at every possible level and seeking feedback regularly works in favour of both residents and housing associations.

However, that level of provision for, and investment in, tenants sometimes seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Housing associations are no longer obliged to have residents on their board. I urge the Minister to consider bringing back that requirement, as another means of making associations directly accountable to residents, and ensuring that executive boards have a local perspective.

At the opposite end of the spectrum to Poplar HARCA is A2Dominion, notorious in the housing world for its, at best, neglect of or, at worst, disdain for residents. The Daily Mirror recently reported that residents in Clyde House in south London are scared to sleep in their homes due to unsafe conditions. Thick mould covering pipes, water leaking into flats, vermin across the building and an assessment declaring it a

“moderate to high fire risk”

all appear in a new development.

A2Dominion is supposed to have the exact same social purpose as Poplar HARCA. However, residents are being ignored in their justified complaints. The lack of clear accountability means that it can get away with not taking responsibility for the necessary repairs and upkeep, while still charging tenants extortionate service charges. Associations such as A2Dominion need clear regulation, and residents need to know who they can turn to when they are not being taken seriously.

As the Minister knows, I have spoken several times in this place about fire safety in high-rise flats—not as often as him, of course—and the dangerous, highly flammable cladding that is still in place in too many blocks. If we want to show that we have learned the lessons from Grenfell, we have to bring in stringent legal oversight, so that no further lives are lost due to its absence, in addition to shoddy, cost-cutting workmanship, poor maintenance, wrong materials and weak fire regulations.

Another point of consideration is bringing local government into a more formal role in oversight. Local authorities are well placed to understand the performance, or underperformance, of housing associations through the relationships between councillors and residents, and through public realm services.

Fire Safety and Cladding

Jon Cruddas Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is getting to the fundamentals of the issues. Let me give an example. I met a bunch of laggers, who handed me a document about the combustible compounds contained in phenolic foam insulation, which is used in multiple buildings. That document was 15 years old, and it detailed the combustible properties of that foam, which is still used and passes Government tests. The whole industry has to put up its hands on its historic culpability and the way it has dodged the inspection regime. These are life and death issues for our constituents.

[Mr Reed]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the important point that he has made. He has emphasised that this is not just about ACM cladding—there is a problem with wider fire safety regulations in the entire building sector—which we cannot allow, not just on residential blocks but on many different kinds of buildings. We need to understand properly those conflicts of financial interest if we are to understand what led Ministers to reject advice that they should have followed all that time ago.

I hope the Minister will put me right on this point, but I fear that subsequent Secretaries of State and Housing Ministers did not correct the mistakes made in the decision to ignore the Lakanal House findings because, if they recognised it as political failure, they would have to take political responsibility for the 72 deaths at Grenfell Tower after it went up, which they did not want to do. That is an extraordinary thing to have to say, but I believe it is true because I can think of no other reason why Minister after Minister failed to correct regulations and guidance that were so manifestly unacceptable, and that posed such a threat to life. That is not just supposition—we saw that it was a threat to life in the scale of the tragedy and the deaths that happened at Grenfell Tower. I would go so far as to say that, if the Government were a private company and acted as they have, Ministers could be in the dock for corporate manslaughter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy Slaughter]

I find the Minister’s attitude astonishingly complacent. I am a member of the all-party group on fire safety rescue, which has done a lot of work on this, but it cannot possibly compete with the resources of the Government, so let us not be ridiculous about who should do the groundwork. I have taken part in a number of seminars with a number of experts. On those occasions I have heard a variety of views, but even now I still hear, from experts, manufacturers and others, special pleading for the acceptability of either leaving combustible materials—some of them more combustible than the materials used on Grenfell Tower—on blocks, or continuing to install them. That terrifies me, and I think that it ought to worry the Minister.

[Jon Cruddas]

When it comes to the question of complacency and how much confidence we have in the system, I should repeat what I said earlier today about the laggers who put in the insulation, and who are aware of health and safety reports that undermine confidence in the materials that the Government are standing by on behalf of their regulatory bodies. Something must be systemically wrong if the guys who put the stuff on these buildings—and they are guys—are aware of that, and have commissioned reports because they are being damaged by those materials. If they are aware of it, it should not be beyond our collective wit for the Government to be aware of it.

[Andy Slaughter]

My hon. Friend has made a telling point. We will not find things that are wrong unless we go and look for them, and I do not feel that the Government are going to go and look for them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)]

I was not going to speak, but given that we have more time than we anticipated, I shall make a few comments on the basis of the meeting—which I mentioned earlier—with members of the GMB heat and frost laggers’ branch in Dagenham. They are legendary in the sector for their knowledge of building materials and their compounds and properties, not least because they are the people who handle them. They also have a long-term legacy of dealing with the consequences—namely, an extraordinary profile of asbestos-related deaths and injuries—so it is in their interest to be acutely aware of the properties of the materials they are dealing with.

I am not a chemist, but given the nature of the debate and the brilliant speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), I think it is worth adding the contribution of those who deal with some these materials at the front end, including their introduction in high-rise properties such as Grenfell. Over the years, those people have briefed me on a number of the health and safety tests applied to installations and foams, and I want to address the question of foams specifically this afternoon. I will come to what they have told me in a minute, but it is worth reminding ourselves first of the consequences of Grenfell and what the Government are doing about them. They sought to commission an audit of buildings across England to establish what types of aluminium cladding were in use on which buildings. They also audited the types of insulation that lay underneath the cladding. They found, as I understand it, that three broad types of aluminium cladding are in use. The first is PE cladding—the type used at Grenfell—which is the least fire-resistant type of panelling. The second is the so-called FR or fire-resistant cladding, which is a bit better in a fire. The third is A2 cladding, which has a mineral core of limited combustibility.

The Government subsequently commissioned six large-scale tests that sought to establish which types of insulation could be used with each type of cladding, which relates back to the combination issues mentioned earlier. One type of combustible insulation identified was polyisocyanurate or PIR foam—the type of insulation used at Grenfell—and the other was traditional mineral wool insulation. However, I was informed this morning that the Government also commissioned a seventh test, the rationale being that not all plastic foams are alike. The original tests used only PIR foam insulation, but there is another popular type of combustible plastic foam known as phenolic foam, which is held to have quite different fire performance.

I want to focus on the consequences of that seventh test, because phenolic foam did indeed perform a little better than PIR foam, but it still failed the test. Phenolic foam was deemed to have failed the test after 28 minutes, compared with PIR’s 25 minutes. Altogether, that test means that the Government know of over 200 buildings with cladding that is of a configuration that failed the test post-Grenfell. However, it is my understanding, following this morning’s meeting, that the National House Building Council, which has the authority to sign off buildings, still appears prepared to sign off a variety of combustible insulation boards combined with cladding with a combustible core, having stated in 2017 that

“this is on the basis of...having reviewed a significant quantity of data”.

Therefore, as far as I am aware—this relates back to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter)—building inspectors still appear to believe that phenolic insulation could be used safely with FR-grade aluminium panels.

I know that sounds pretty complicated. I am not an expert on building regulations. Nevertheless, the devil really is in the detail. It appears that, with the Government test results and industry guidelines, phenolic insulation in combination with safer claddings is still deemed safe today; but that is not the point I really wished to raise this evening. My point is that tests are still coming to light that actually undermine some of the assumptions that were made, even post-Grenfell, as to the satisfactory status of some materials. That is why I had a meeting this morning with several laggers to hear about their concerns, because my lagger friends have known for many years of the problems with phenolic foam. I am simply using that as an example to demonstrate some of the systemic problems and the lack of confidence in the system and its regulation, and to point to the need for the industry to put its hands up about what it has known for years and years—even decades—predating Grenfell, predating earlier fires.

For example, this morning I was given confidential technical report 41772 into the volatiles of phenolic foam, dated 18 September 2003—some 16 years ago. The tests found

“a wide range of organic compounds varying in chemical nature and volatility”

contained in the foam. It was found that such products could release a

“series of compounds toxic by inhalation, in contact with the skin and if swallowed, that can cause burns and have possible carcinogenic effects”.

That, of course, is bad enough, particularly for the laggers who administer such materials. However, the laggers came to see me and handed me that report because they are aware of details of some of these materials that have never come to light. If they are aware of them, that shows that they have no confidence in the system of regulation and the working knowledge in the Department of the properties of some of these materials.

The report goes on to state that compounds that are flammable, highly flammable or extremely flammable, such as acetaldehyde, can be released from the foam. I am not a chemist, but the compound that interested me most was methyl dioxolane, which “may form explosive peroxides”. A number of questions follow from that that have implications for our confidence in the system as whole. How long have we known about the possibility of extremely flammable and explosive properties in phenolic foam, which is widely used in signed-off cladding systems across the country? We should remember that these tests took place 14 years before the Grenfell fire. Given what we know, how is that foam still deemed safe, even after the post-Grenfell test results called that into question? Do the Government still assume that phenolic foam is safe? Is this foam still being administered? Given that—and I have had the report—will the Government investigate what we know, and what we have historically known, about this specific foam, as an example of the compounds administered in these buildings, and their explosive properties?

Generally, the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North demonstrate the need to know more—way more—about these cladding systems, including the foams. Unless we get satisfactory answers to some of the questions he has asked, and that have been raised by the discovery of confidential reports on the compounds released by materials such as phenolic foam, how can we expect our residents to feel reassured? I am more than prepared to hand the Minister this report as an example of some the combustible properties of the materials that are signed off in the present building regulations.

Housing Bodies: Accountability

Jon Cruddas Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Cunningham]

I could not agree more. Such a review is long overdue, as even the data protection people do not give us clear answers about what information we are entitled to. They seem to forget that at the end of the day, we are the last line of defence for tenants—and anybody else who has problems, for that matter.

[Jon Cruddas (Dagenham and Rainham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the major problems is the transparency of housing associations? We had a notorious case in Orchard Village in South Hornchurch, which was raised in a debate in this place. One of the big problems was that housing associations were departing from their historical, ethical role of filling gaps in the market and becoming housing developers themselves, lacking oversight and transparency, and therefore no comeback was possible on behalf of our constituents.

[Mr Cunningham]

My hon. Friend has highlighted another major problem: at times, housing organisations hide behind the Data Protection Act 1998 to obscure the fact that they are bad managers of housing estates. That suggests that there is a wider issue with competition in the market, allowing poorer customer service to go unchallenged. Like most parts of the country, Coventry has recently seen some new, small-scale housing developments, and issues have arisen in a significant number of those developments as a result of the quality of the build. One recent example in Coventry has been the Philmont Court development in Tile Hill. That development of 48 flats is actually in my neighbouring constituency, that of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson), who cannot be here today because he has other business.