Social Housing Bill [Lords]

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

I was disappointed by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), who sounded complacent when he talked about the aspiration to buy a house. Of course, there is that aspiration, but does he not understand the aspiration of people on the waiting list? Millions of people, including 170,000 children in temporary accommodation, aspire just to have a key for a council house. Has he ever seen the gleam in a family’s eyes when they get that key and manage to get a secure home, knowing it is there for the future? It is not good enough to simply say that the aspiration to buy a house is more important than the aspiration to have a home, and one that is warm and secure.

Also, there was no sense of contrition that the right to buy legislation resulted in 2 million council houses being sold, whereas only 250,000 new houses were built in that period. Of those 2 million that were sold, 800,000 now belong to private landlords. That is quite shocking because the rents that private landlords charge are a multiple of what a council or social landlord would charge.

In my constituency, 6,000 homes have gone to private landlords. The council received about £140 million in capital receipts for those 6,000 houses. They are now worth £1.1 billion. This has been a racket; it has been like the gold rush in the Klondike, a race for money. In the meantime, rent levels in the remaining social housing are only 61% of the rents charged by the private landlords.

It is totally anomalous that for two or three houses on the same street in the same estate a higher rent will be charged by a private landlord than that for the people next door who are still renting from a social landlord. The Government need to move fast. We cannot allow so many children and families to be left in that perilous situation—55,000 individuals are struggling in the district of Wakefield.

Let me make one final point. The Treasury’s dead hand of economic orthodoxy prioritises house building by housing associations over house building by councils, which is a mistake. The Bill does not address that, but I wonder whether the Minister could respond on that in some way. A council can borrow money to build an asset worth more than what it has borrowed and receive an income from it through rent, yet that counts towards the national debt; for a housing association, it is different. I think those rules explains councils’ retreat from committing to build more housing rather than social landlords.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Monday 13th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Gentleman is well aware of what we have already done on furnished lettings exemption. We look at taxation in this regard and keep it under constant review. We have had a long discussion on this issue over many years, but I am more than happy to continue the conversation with him.

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

12. What discussions he has had with local authorities on the adequacy of the provision of local youth services.

[The Minister for Local Government and Homelessness (Alison McGovern)]

In December, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport published the national youth strategy, our 10-year plan to ensure that young people can access the services and opportunities they need to thrive, and I speak regularly to local leaders about this work. The local government finance settlement makes available £78 billion for English councils this year, most of which is not ringfenced, giving councils the flexibility to meet local needs, including for youth services.

[Jon Trickett]

I thank the Minister for her response. In the austerity years, over £1 billion was taken out of youth services by the previous Government—that was shameful and damaging to the social fabric. The Minister has already indicated that we are beginning to tackle that legacy, but in mining communities, where villages are remote and there are no bus services readily available in the evening, young people are being left behind. Is there more we can do to help those mining villages? Will she also reflect on the availability of the youth centre in Upton in my constituency, which has been closed since the Tories were in office but might be used as a youth hub?

[Alison McGovern]

My hon. Friend reminds us of the damage that was done, particularly to those least able to bear it. I am pleased that spending power for Wakefield has increased by just shy of 27% since Labour came to office, so when it comes to the youth centre in Upton, I hope that there are more options available for Wakefield than there once were. I am happy to work with him on that.

Local Government Reorganisation

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern]

Yes.

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The fact of the matter is that Britain has one of the most centralised political structures anywhere in the world. If we are to renew our democracy and rebuild confidence in the people, we need well-led, financially secure authorities that can speak powerfully to central Government, so I advise the Minister to proceed quickly and carefully with the reorganisation. [Interruption.] I do not want to listen to advice from Opposition Members. They launched a tsunami of financial attacks on local government that left councils strapped for resources.

One final point: there are 10,000 parish and town councils, including quite a number in my constituency. Will the Minister look at how we can use them to help to renew our democracy?

Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 13th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that question—it is an apt and fair one. Such protections are already in place in the national planning policy framework. I am more than happy to have a conversation with him about the matter he refers to, but nothing in the Bill specifically targets the release of sports fields for development and the protections in national policy still apply.

Finally, Lords amendment 40 seeks to restrict the environmental impacts that could be addressed through an environmental delivery plan. Before I explain why the Government cannot accept the amendment, let me remind the House of why part 3 of the Bill is so important. The current approach to discharging environmental obligations too often delays and deters development, and places unnecessary burdens on house builders and local authorities. It requires house builders to pay for localised and often costly mitigation measures, only to maintain the environmental status quo. By not taking a holistic view across larger geographies, mitigation measures often fail to secure the best outcomes for the environment. In short, as we have consistently argued, when it comes to development and the environment, the status quo too often sees sustainable house building, and nature recovery and restoration, stall.

The nature restoration fund will end that sub-optimal arrangement. By facilitating a more strategic approach to the discharge of environmental obligations, and enabling the use of funding from development to deliver environmental improvements at a scale that will have the greatest impact in driving the recovery of protected sites and species, it will streamline the delivery of new homes and infrastructure, and result in the more efficient delivery of improved environmental outcomes.

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The Minister is a very thoughtful individual, and he has a wide view of what is happening in the country. Housing is imperative, but in my constituency there was a proposal for 3,000 houses on what was effectively virgin land, and we established that the habitat of 32 rare and protected species would be irrevocably damaged. Does he agree that biodiversity has to be a central plank of the Government’s intentions, and will he assure the House that, if Lords amendment 40 is disagreed to, future Governments—who might be less caring about the environment—will not be able to use the law to damage habitats such as those I am describing?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am sure my hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot comment on individual planning applications, but the Government have been consistently clear that meeting our ambitious development targets need not and should not come at the expense of the environment. Part 3 unlocks a win-win for nature and the economy. Although I cannot commit future Governments to anything, we are confident that the nature restoration fund and environmental delivery plans that part 3 facilitates will result in the delivery of more homes and infrastructure in a more timely manner, as well as improved environmental outcomes.

In respect of Lords amendment 40, I would simply say that there is no convincing rationale for arbitrarily limiting the application of EDPs to strategic landscape matters and thereby preventing their use in supporting the recovery of protected sites and species where appropriate. I remind hon. Members that the Bill is now explicit that the Secretary of State can only approve an EDP where the effect of the conservation measures will materially outweigh the negative effect of development on the conservation status of each identified environmental feature. Moreover, both Natural England and the Secretary of State will have to take account of the best available scientific evidence when preparing, amending or revoking an EDP, and EDPs will be subject to robust scrutiny.

On Third Reading in the other place, we amended the Bill to allow the Government to bring forward regulations setting out how EDPs would prioritise addressing the negative effect of developments. Lords amendment 40 would undermine one of the core principles of the Bill —namely, that the alternative approach provided for by the NRF can apply to both sites and species. For that reason, I urge the House to reject the amendment.

Pride in Place

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I think the hon. Gentleman is asking me to do the Chancellor’s job, which I shall not be able to do. We think that this is an exciting way of investing in our communities, and that there is a huge opportunity for us to leverage in additional investment. We are very keen to talk to social impact investors and philanthropists about how we can invest. There is also a lot of interest among the business community—local businesses and business improvement districts—in bringing this together. If we get this right and the funding in place leverages in additional funding, we will have shown that this is a way of operating that we can then roll out across the country.

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

The Featherstone people have great pride in their place, but they are also shrewd. They know that the Tories did austerity, trickle-down economics and cuts across the health service, so they will very much welcome this announcement. May I push the Minister a little bit further on the question of a new economic model? Top-down economics has failed. Treasury mandarins do not understand what is happening in a place like Featherstone, whereas Featherstone people do. Does she see this measure as a way of community wealth building from the bottom up, rather than economics from the top down?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

Absolutely. The Prime Minister spoke about grassroots growth, which is growth rooted in our communities and our places, where we build community wealth, which fundamentally changes and rewires the economic model and the economic settlement. We are very deliberate about the fact that we want to put communities at the heart of both driving change, and driving wealth and economic opportunity. That is how we drive up living standards.