Planning and Infrastructure Bill

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith]

I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making. Milton Keynes is very close to me. I visit Milton Keynes all the time. I have many friends in Milton Keynes. It is a great city. However, a line in the sand has to be drawn as to the amount of our countryside, our farmland and our food-producing land that we allow to be lost to development of whatever kind.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa), in his speech earlier, reeled off a list of things that were already happening in his constituency, where they are already playing their part. In my own constituency, while we have had concerns about a lot of it, there has been an enormous list of things. The amount of house building in Buckinghamshire has been extraordinary. The village of Haddenham is unrecognisable from what it was because of the sheer volume of new house building that has gone on there. There are also incinerators, and we are about to get a new prison. Despite our objections, HS2 has ravaged the middle of the constituency. It is not as though Buckinghamshire has not done anything.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We have given way to infrastructure, including HS2, motorways and data centres across the entire green belt with very little community consent, and now, with this new Bill, all community consent seems to be going out the window. How can we protect the vital green space in my constituency, which provides the lungs of London and which will be destroyed because everyone will want a piece of the small bits of green belt we still have left?

[Greg Smith]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. The point she makes is absolutely right and it applies equally to my constituency as to hers. In my constituency, the backbone of our economy is agriculture and food production. The Labour party used to say in its manifesto that

“food security is national security”

yet this Bill seeks to build all over the very land that our farmers in Buckinghamshire and across the country use to produce the very food that gives us national security.

I want to focus on the infrastructure implications from the energy sector. I entirely approve of transitioning to cleaner forms of energy production, but it is a point I have made in this House time and again, and I will never get bored of saying it, that it takes 2,000 acres of ground-mounted solar panels to produce enough electricity for 50,000 homes on current usage. That is before everyone has two Teslas—which is perhaps not the brand that people would choose now—on the drive. However, a small modular reactor needs just two football pitches to deliver enough electricity on current usage for 1 million homes. Why on earth in this country are we messing around with solar, destroying thousands of acres of food-producing land, when other clean technologies are out there that can clean up our energy and electricity production in a way that is kinder and gentler on our national fabric and rural communities?

When I hear the Secretary of State talk about, as she did in her opening address, protecting high-grade agricultural land, I take that with a large pinch of salt. That is because, in my constituency in Buckinghamshire, we have caught those paid exorbitant amounts of money to come and grade the land prior to a planning application deliberately testing the land in the headland of the field—the bit not used to grow crops or grass or to graze animals. Of course, they will always get a lower land grade by testing the headland. If the Government are serious about wanting to protect high-grade agricultural land, I would urge the Minister to look at measures he could take to ensure that the fertile part of the field is tested, not the headland.

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[Robbie Moore]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is not fair at all for the state, be it national Government or our local authorities, to step in and not pay a landowner the market value they deserve. It is absolutely outrageous that this Government are introducing legislation, and changing section 12 of the Land Compensation Act 1961 on that basis. I do not think that that will create any efficiency within the planning system, and neither—dare I say it?—will it create any better means of money being spent by local authorities to deliver public services.

[Joy Morrissey]

We have seen with HS2 an example of planning authorities being taken over in a way that was not the traditional compulsory purchase process. HS2 has been allowed to take over properties, and not pay market value or even take possession. People are still waiting for compensation—their homes devastated, losing everything because of HS2’s ability to take over.

[Robbie Moore]

Let me get to the point—I know time is short, Madam Deputy Speaker. This Government’s approach in the Bill will not deliver planning done at speed, and it will not give the environmental protections that the Government are indicating to the wider public. It is not a good Bill.

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[Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)]

As a central Bedfordshire councillor, I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

There is much to welcome in this Bill, particularly its ambition to get nationally significant infrastructure built to support our country. While I disagree with the Government’s allocation of housing targets that favour building over our countryside, rather than the densification of our cities, where building homes would alleviate the worst of the acute housing crisis, I recognise the Government’s mandate to build 1.5 million homes and the need for ambitious planning reform. What are the Government doing to ensure that the 1.6 million homes with existing planning approval are built? I see nothing in this Bill.

Mid Bedfordshire has done more than its fair share in recent years to accommodate new housing, with the boroughs of central Bedfordshire and Bedford growing by 16% and 18% respectively over 10 years. We are not anti-development, but some development has changed the character of our historical market towns and quiet rural villages forever. Development is increasing the flooding risk in Maulden in my constituency, where compounded up-slope development has exacerbated the impact of pluvial flooding. We have development that has not delivered long-promised infrastructure, such as in Wixams in my constituency—a development where shovels first went into the ground nearly two decades ago but residents are yet to see the delivery of a new GP surgery. It is because of such issues that communities have become hardened to the prospect of yet more building.

This Government have a real opportunity, with thought and consideration, to create a planning system that people can have confidence in. Instead, people have been dismissed simply as blockers. The pensioners who fear a flood every time it rains—blockers. The young parents who cannot get to their GP because a surgery has not been built in their town—blockers. People with real, genuine concerns whom we in this House were elected to stand up for are not blockers, and this Bill could do much more for them.

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the “blockers”. These are people who live on floodplains, who have been waiting years for a GP surgery and who have never had any of the key infrastructure that they asked for delivered. They cannot have property built in certain places because of floodplains. That is not acknowledged in this Bill, which makes no provision for those residents.

[Blake Stephenson]

Absolutely. Since Bedfordshire was flooded in September, Ministers will know that I have been vocal about improving resilience, and the Government can do that in this Bill. New houses mean nothing if residents find themselves ankle-deep in water in their living rooms, as they did across the country last year.

I want the measures on nature recovery to be strengthened to include explicit plans to deliver nature-based solutions to flooding. I want schedule 3 to the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to be brought into force to ensure that communities have the right protections from flooding. I want this Bill to give internal drainage boards more powers to take over the maintenance of infrastructure to protect people from flooding. If it does not, local authorities should have the enforcement powers to ensure that sustainable drainage is maintained.

I also want to see more robust measures in this Bill ruling out development on floodplains, which goes to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey). The Bill could make a real difference to our resilience to flooding, and I urge the Government not to miss this opportunity. Despite protections in the NPPF, we still see development in functional floodplains. Rivers were here before us; they do not know and they do not care that we are here. As the Dutch have done successfully, we need to make room for our rivers. We must get out of their way, with stronger protections against development in floodplains.

I turn briefly to new towns, which are provided for in this legislation through development corporations. It will be important to ensure that those corporations have the power to deliver real places and communities, not just the cookie-cutter dormitory-on-trainline that developers might like to churn out for the highest possible profit margins. New towns should capture the essence and spirit of the communities into which they are sown, and they need to be beautiful, as the Deputy Prime Minister reflected on in her opening remarks. The Government should also address important questions that they are currently dodging on how these new towns will interplay with wider local development strategies. I am disappointed not to see some of that detail ironed out in this Bill.

New towns will result in a double whammy of housing development for some communities, but we do not yet know exactly how damaging that might be. The Government are also yet to confirm whether the housing provided by new towns will count towards a five-year land supply, meaning that our communities could be forced to take far more housing than they need, without the right infrastructure, unless this Bill is strengthened.

This Government talk about being on the side of the builders, not the blockers, but without improvements, I am afraid that the Bill is almost guaranteed to create a new generation of so-called blockers. Homes are needed so that young people who aspire to own their own home can do so. Most of the blockers, as this Government like to call them, are not standing in the way of progress: they are standing up for their communities against bad development.

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[Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

First, as I think the whole House has suggested in the speeches we have heard, our country does need more homes, particularly for young people. The most obvious stake that a young person can have in society is ownership of their own property that they live in with their family, but it is important that Government get their approach right. There is much to commend in the Government’s Bill, but there are also a few points I would like the Minister to focus on.

First, the rural-urban divide has become apparent. In my constituency, Bromsgrove and the villages is 89% green-belt. It is to the south of Birmingham and in the north of Worcestershire. In many ways, it is a rural idyll, yet Bromsgrove is seeing the housing target set by Government increase by 85% at a time when adjacent Birmingham’s housing target is decreasing by more than 20%.

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point, because the same thing is true in London. We have seen London housing targets decline for the Mayor of London, who has not met any of his housing targets, and all those extra housing numbers have been forced on to the outer counties surrounding London. I am not sure that is fair or will produce the housing that people need.

[Bradley Thomas]

My hon. Friend makes a great point. In fact, she leads me to a point I want to stress to the Minister, which is about intensive urban densification. Our country faces a real opportunity if we focus on increasing the number of properties, particularly in larger urban areas, including London and Birmingham. It is also a great opportunity to regenerate some of the larger towns across many of our constituencies.

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[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I refer hon. Members to my entry in the register of interests.

At his first Prime Minister’s Question Time in July last year, I asked the Prime Minister to reassure my constituents that they would have a meaningful say over the new development in the green belt in their area. He said that the Government “will work with communities”—but this Bill could not be further from that promise. We are seeing housing targets go through the roof in rural areas, as green-belt protections are removed. In my local councils of East Herts and Broxbourne, the targets are going up by more than 20% and within Broxbourne district specifically they are almost doubling. The loss of protections for unrestricted sprawl around the villages I represent is extremely worrying for my constituents who live in those villages of Brickenden, Hertford Heath, Great Amwell, Stanstead Abbotts and St Margarets, as their unique character and historical charm could be lost forever.

At the same time, targets are going down in London, where there is the infrastructure to cope. The plans do not add up. There is something in this Bill on which I can agree with the Government: the explanatory notes state that limited infrastructure delivery is a real cost on the lives of working people. I completely agree. It is far too common for new housing to be built without the increase in public service capacity to match.

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point on key infrastructure. Not only are we waiting for GP surgeries in my constituency, but we need a sewerage upgrade across my patch. We cannot even have new homes put in, because they cannot be attached to the sewerage system in its existing state. His point is valid: until infrastructure is put in place we cannot put homes in these new areas.

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[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

Nothing symbolises the drift and decline of the past 14 years more than the appalling state of planning and infrastructure in Britain: a housing crisis that has forced children to live in overcrowded and unsafe homes; an energy crisis that has left us dangerously exposed to shocks in the global energy market; and a litany of infrastructure failures. It is not just the reservoirs or the £120 million spent on the Tory bat tunnel for HS2, but the promised 40 new hospitals by 2030—a claim now exposed as fiction with funds not allocated, many schemes not new hospitals, and a tiny fraction due to complete on time. I can see in my constituency the direct impact that that failure, especially on housing, has on my residents. I admire the commitment of the shadow Minister, who has just left his place, to the spreadsheet that he has been quoting from throughout the debate. He seems to have missed the line in the spreadsheet that states the number of times the previous Government hit their housing target—precisely zero.

There are nearly 3,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and more than 2,000 in temporary accommodation. Behind those numbers are stories of daily struggle, like Sansha and her five children who live next to Grenfell Tower. Her son is in a wheelchair and awaiting open-heart surgery for his life-limiting condition. They live on the top floor, and the lift frequently breaks. There is no heating, no reliable hot water and just one working bathroom. They have been waiting more than three years for a move to a suitable property.

Then there is Lacey, whose six-year-old daughter has autism—and has tried to jump out of a window twice. Despite repeated safeguarding warnings, the family remains in overcrowded and unsafe housing. Then there is another resident I met recently who spent more than 15 years out of the borough with her children before moving back. There are more than 164,000 children living in temporary accommodation in England, the highest number on record. Instead of tackling the root causes, as the Bill seeks to do, we poured money into managing the problem.

[Joy Morrissey]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about temporary accommodation and the lack of housing availability. But why have the housing targets for London, which has some of the highest levels of unmet social housing accommodation need, not been raised to deal with overcrowding?

[Joe Powell]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point. The housing target for London is 88,000. She will know well that the previous target was never remotely close to being hit under the previous Government. With targets not being hit, we are interested in net new dwellings: affordable and social housing for the people I am most concerned about in my constituency. That is what the Bill will help to achieve.

I am delighted that we finally have a Government who have the ambition to tackle the problem. On energy, I am pleased that the Bill will deliver faster and more certain planning consent for critical infrastructure, including upgrading our electricity networks and maximising new clean energy sources. The Bill will move us on decisively from the era of the onshore wind ban, plummeting investment, and reliance on Putin and his fossil fuel oligarchs. If we are serious about speeding up delivery, however, we must address the capacity crisis in planning departments, so it is welcome that the Government have committed to 300 new planners. What assessment has been made of the total need for planners across the country to get to the level of approvals we need to meet our housing targets? Can the planning fee reform in the Bill support that recruitment through full cost recovery? We know that planning reform must be matched by the people and resources needed to make it work.

Green Belt: Basildon and Billericay

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Friday 17th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Holden]

I certainly agree, and I was about to move on to that point. None of us on the Opposition Benches is against more housing, but often that housing does not come about because of local need in our constituencies. This is about a Government shying away from difficult conversations about densification in our cities, a mayor who has consistently failed to deliver on his own housing targets, and a failure to redevelop crucial brownfield land in the centre and on the edges of our major cities.

My hon. Friend’s point about the grey belt is particularly important at the moment, because the council is starting to redesignate large areas of my constituency. Just a few years ago, those areas were grade 1 or grade 2 agricultural land. Now, they are being designated as grey belt, despite never having had any buildings on them. I am concerned about what this insidious grey belt phrasing could mean for developments right across the country.

The Government will ask where the housing should go. London is a third less dense than Paris. It seems mad that we are building on virgin greenfield sites rather than densifying our cities, especially at a time when constituents in Essex and across the country are having to cross-subsidise the Mayor of London for his transport. They do not get access to it, but they have to pay for it. If we had greater density in our cities, some of those transport routes would be able to fund themselves.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree not only that the Mayor of London has been given subsidies for Transport for London and has wonderful transport infrastructure links, but that he has the devolved power for housing and has not met his housing targets consistently? He has been rewarded with a reduction in housing targets, which have spilled over to the home counties.

[Mr Holden]

My hon. Friend is right to make that point. The Mayor of London is being rewarded for failure, just as he was with his knighthood not that long ago. My constituents, many of whom grew up in the area or moved there for the green space nearby, now feel that they face seeing their communities concreted over because of the Mayor of London’s failure.

The green belt was designated by Conservative Governments in the 1930s and Labour Governments in the 1940s. One cannot talk about it today in the context of Basildon and Billericay without talking about Basildon council’s disastrous local plan, which is built on the destruction of the green belt. It will result in the emergence of a contiguous conurbation all the way from Shoeburyness, through the Thames gateway corridor and my constituency, into Brentwood and then through London all the way to Uxbridge on the other side. Essentially, the area from Heathrow airport to Southend airport will become part of that contiguous conurbation.

What I have to say about the green belt rests on so many conversations I have had with county, borough, town and parish councillors, but overwhelmingly on conversations with local residents across my constituency. My argument rests on four main points. First, there is overwhelming opposition to the proposals, especially in the context of London seeing a reduction in its housing targets. Secondly, there are serious concerns about existing and future local services and infrastructure, if this housing goes on the green belt. Thirdly, there will be a need for even more physical infrastructure on whatever remains of the green belt to cope with the proposed development, leading to its further erosion in the future. Fourthly, local residents have broader concerns about why the plan is being rushed through so quickly with the destruction of so much green belt, while our local councils have a gun to their head in respect of the Government’s devolution plans.

I want to be clear: residents of Basildon and Billericay are not against development per se. They are entrepreneurial, hard-working people who love their area. They are also community oriented and have stayed in Essex to raise their family or moved to Essex from London for the green space and greater sense of community. The level of building proposed is on a scale completely out of whack with what other parts of the country away from the south-east face.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon]

Most in the sector would agree that Oflog—the Office for Local Government—had a vague remit that was an expensive way of gathering data. In the end, if it were to be developed, we could risk mission creep whereby its remit would verge into the areas that local authorities so disliked about the former Audit Commission. We are trying to get the right balance between the early warning system that enables us to see which individual councils are under stress, and, importantly, noting any developing systemic threats or themes for which central Government might have to take much earlier action. We want to rebuild that early warning system.

However, we are absolutely clear that we are not replacing the Audit Commission. For one, it was hugely expensive, and we need to ensure that any money goes to the frontline of local public services. Honestly, councils do not need inspectors going in to mark their homework when they should be trusted to get on and do the job well. People understand what the National Audit Office is, so we hope that they will understand and see the benefit of a local audit office, and that it will be embraced by the sector.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Will the Minister set out how he expects local authorities such as mine in Buckinghamshire to absorb with such little notice multi-million pound impacts from significant changes to the social care funding formula, and the effects of the NICs rises on commissioned services and suppliers, particularly charities such as Mind, which will be greatly affected by the changes?

[Jim McMahon]

Again, the hon. Lady’s council will see a core spending power increase of 5%, and that is only this part of the settlement—it does not include extended producer responsibility or billions of pounds in other grants that will come. This is a genuine attempt to make sure we give councils the funding that is needed, and I think we have succeeded in a very difficult context, but it is a matter of fact that some councils’ local tax bases are stronger, for reasons that go back many years and, in some cases, many centuries. That is not because of the efforts of the local council—it is what it is—and for too long, councils in deprived communities with lower tax bases have done everything that has been asked of them. They have raised council tax to the maximum, so local communities are paying more and more, but increasingly they are getting less and less. They are seeing their neighbourhood services diminish.

There are tough choices, and we do not shy away from that. We have been very honest in the oral statement about the trade-offs that have had to be made, but the increase of 5% in the core spending power of the hon. Lady’s council will help deal with the issues she has raised.

Building Safety

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady has made a series of important points. I know that she has already been in touch with the Department, but I want to be more closely in touch with her. Our project team, Operation Apex, are making sure that we can do everything possible to ensure that the ultimate responsible owner is identified and takes on responsibility for the work to which the hon. Lady has correctly drawn attention. I look forward to working more closely with her to address precisely that issue.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for standing up for leaseholders, particularly young people who have just got on to the housing ladder. May I ask him to look again at sprinklers as a safety measure? They are required in many countries, and the fact that they are not required here has always perplexed me. I also ask him to ensure that the building materials used for social housing are subject to the necessary level of scrutiny. Developers often use lower-quality materials which create a greater risk to safety, and we need to protect social housing tenants as well.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. She was an incredibly hard-working figure in local government in London, where she helped to ensure that the needs of those in social housing were understood. There are specific provisions in the building safety legislation introduced by the Minister for Housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), to address some of those questions about poor-quality material social housing.

Building Safety Bill

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Leaseholders have very little recourse and, from the announcements today, their passage of recourse remains incredibly uncertain.

Let me start with what is in the Bill. The first major change sets up the building safety regulator, a key recommendation of the Hackitt report. The regulator will oversee “higher risk buildings,” which have been defined as essentially over 18 metres. The Select Committee raised questions about whether the scope should be extended. The Fire Brigades Union says that 11 metres or four storeys would be a safer threshold, as that is the threshold that firefighters can reach with their ladders. The Secretary of State himself said last year that we should not rely on

“crude height limits with binary consequences,”

that do not

“reflect the complexity of the challenge at hand.”—[Official Report, 20 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 24.]

The two-tiered system this Bill creates is particularly stark when we look at privatised building control, which will continue to operate below 18 metres. The Hackitt report recognised that choice over building control inspection is a major weakness in the current system, allowing cosy relationships to flourish between developers and the private inspectors they pay handsomely.

The regulator will be the building control body for taller buildings, but not for those under 18 metres, even where other risks could remain. The Government should think again about their arbitrary definition of high-risk buildings.

Secondly, this Bill establishes clear responsibilities for building safety throughout a building’s life, in a golden thread of information. Lack of transparency was a key issue identified in the Hackitt report. The Grenfell inquiry has exposed how some building owners belittled residents as troublemakers rather than keeping them informed about the safety of their homes. The new system must be fully open and transparent to residents and leaseholders.

The need for transparency extends to the testing regime, which the Hackitt report found to be opaque and insufficient. While the Bill sets a framework for the regulation of construction products, the Government have kicked the issue of product testing down the road. This must be re-examined.

Thirdly, the Bill sets up limited mechanisms to recoup costs from developers, through legal action and a levy. The principle of the polluter must pay should apply to the building safety scandal. Labour has long been calling on the Government to take stronger action against developers who cut dangerous corners.

Extending the period in which a developer can be sued is welcome, but residents in many buildings will not be able to take advantage. The relationship of leaseholders and developers is like David and Goliath. Legal action is uncertain, expensive and risky, requiring money that leaseholders simply do not have. It also requires that a company still exists to sue, yet many have disappeared. What is more, given what we know from the Hackitt report and elsewhere, in how many cases can all the blame be legally pinned on a developer, given the failures of the regulatory regime at the time? Very few, I would imagine.

Finally, the Bill makes some changes around the new homes and social housing ombudsmen. After significant delay, some social housing reforms have finally come through, but how will the Secretary of State ensure that the social housing regulator has real teeth?

Although there are things we welcome in the Bill that will improve building safety into the future, there are, as I am sure we will hear from Members across the House, serious concerns about what is missing and the way in which ruinous costs for remediation works will still fall on leaseholders. What began as a cladding scandal after Grenfell has now led to a total breakdown in confidence in most tall and multi-storey buildings. This has now become a building safety crisis affecting hundreds of thousands of people. Young, first-time buyers have gone bankrupt. Couples have put having children on hold. Marriages have broken down. Life savings and assets have gone. Retirements have been ruined. The mental health and financial toll is incalculable.

Fundamentally, the Bill betrays leaseholders who will still face life-changing costs for problems that they did not create and who are trapped in unsellable, uninsurable and unmortgageable homes, notwithstanding some of the Secretary of State’s announcements today, which I fear will do little to resolve the situation. Two Prime Ministers, his two immediate predecessors and the Secretary of State himself have all said that leaseholders should not pay. I agree—I think we all agree in here—so why does the Bill not say it? On at least 17 different occasions in this House, they promised, even to their own Back Benchers, that they would protect leaseholders. We heard during the passage of the Fire Safety Act 2021 that the Building Safety Bill was the place to do so, so where is it? It is not in there.

What is more, legal advice on what is in the Bill says that the betrayal of leaseholders is even worse. As drafted, the Bill bakes in leaseholders’ potential liability. Our legal advice is that clause 124 provides very little additional protections. Their legal opinion is that this Bill in its totality, including clause 99, makes it

“more certain that remediation costs will fall under service charges”—

and be passed on. So on the Government’s fundamental promise to leaseholders, the Bill fails. No wonder they are furious, and bereft.

Of course, I welcome the building safety fund; it is a good thing, and it could provide a solution for many buildings. I have to commend the Secretary of State on getting £5.1 billion out of the Chancellor—he seems to have better negotiating skills than his boss, the Prime Minister. It is a lot of money and it could go some way to resolving the situation if it is properly used, but I do not understand why his financial commitment is not being met with the same zeal and determination to give it proper effect. His approach has so far been blighted by inertia and indifference and is now beset by increasing costs, relying on those in the industry who have created much of this mess to get us out of it. I have to tell him that it is just not working. Even his own Back Benchers accused him of “shocking incompetence”, and I feel that that view might be spreading after today’s shenanigans with his statement.

Let me explain: the scope of the fund is way too narrow and the deadlines for applying too tight, and yet it is being administered far too slowly, with just 12p in every pound of the fund allocated. At its current pace, it will be 2027 before the fund is even allocated. And because there is no grip on the wider issues, as we have been discussing today—such as risk, cost, work quality, accountability and sign-off—nearly all multi-storey buildings are now affected. Even when cladding is removed, a new, ever-growing list of additional seemingly necessary works are added. This means that innocent and drained leaseholders are constantly at the mercy of a system, with no accountability and no confidence in it, with an industry unable to take on risk, cornering a broken market for works, arguing over responsibility and unwilling to insure, mortgage or step up, all the while leaving leaseholders carrying the can. That is why this crisis is now affecting so many and costs keep going up. The truth is that all sense of appropriate risk has gone out of the system. The Secretary of State has talked about that today, and I have heard him say it many times before, but I am not sure what he is doing about it. Notwithstanding what is in his statement today, I still do not know whether this will provide the transparency, the recourse, or the scrutiny that leaseholders need. He says that there should be a clear route for residents to challenge. What would that route be? How would it work? What teeth would it have? He said that there will be more guidelines. What are they? When will they be published? Can we see them? Will this really have the effect that leaseholders need it to have, because time is a luxury that these homeowners simply do not have.

This is not just about the one-off high remediation costs that homeowners are facing today; it is that insurance premiums have gone through the roof, service charges are rocketing, and the waking watch, which we have heard so much about, and other costs are leaving leaseholders paying hundreds of pounds a month extra already.

Recent Government guidance has made the situation worse. Their advice note from January 2020 effectively brought all buildings of any height into scope of the dreaded EWS1 form. After today’s announcement, is that now scrapped? Does that guidance note still exist? [Interruption.] I do not know whether it is in the statement. I did not read it in there. The Secretary of State is pointing to it from a sedentary position. If it is in there, people need to know that now so that we can discuss it, and we should have known it before this debate; it is a very important thing to know. If he wants to come to the Dispatch Box to tell us whether that January 2020 advice note is now effectively scrapped, he can do so, because it is essential that people know that.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lucy Powell]

If the hon. Lady knows the answer, I will happily give way.

[Joy Morrissey]

I am not completely positive, but it did say in the statement that the EWS1 form should not be required in buildings of 18 metres, which is a welcome change. Common sense seems to be prevailing in this debate now. I welcome that announcement. Does the hon. Lady agree that this is something that we have been campaigning on for quite some time and that it is a welcome change to the legislation.

[Lucy Powell]

Well, it is not actually legislation. The hon. Lady is wrong about that. Yes, of course, we would welcome that. The crucial words that she said there were “should not”, not would not, and that is a different thing entirely. We still need to know on what terms that will be enforced, what recourse would a leaseholder have, and to whom, and what teeth will they have in order to put that into effect. Is it legislation? [Interruption.] I think the Secretary of State is trying to tell me that it is going to be legislation. [Interruption.] Oh, it is just down to the lenders. I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he wants to explain.

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[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement that the EWS1 forms should not be required for buildings below 18 metres; lenders were insisting on EWS1 forms, despite buildings not meeting the proper criteria in the new guidance, so it is a welcome announcement. I also welcome the announcements in the written statement on working towards market correction with regard to the total risk aversion that we are seeing in the market from lenders and surveyors, and the absolute stagnation in the market.

However, I echo the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and by the Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), regarding leaseholders and the issue of clause 124. I would like to see much greater levels of legislation to support leaseholders. I am speaking on behalf not just of the leaseholders, but of the parents of leaseholders in my constituency—parents in Beaconsfield, Marlow, Flackwell Heath and Iver who have given their life savings to help support their child to buy their first home, usually in London. The children of my constituents are now stuck in homes that they cannot afford to move out of because of the spiralling cost of insurance and the cost to the leaseholder that has been incurred because of the building safety regulations.

I ask that we consider how to help leaseholders. These are Conservative voters and the children of Conservative voters, who are now frustrated and angry that they cannot move up the housing ladder. We need to consider a way forward for them and remember that they have done what we Conservatives say that we always want to do: enable people to buy a home and get on the housing ladder. We are blocking them from moving forward. I ask the Secretary of State please to consider further action to help and support leaseholders.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Matt Rodda.

Oxford-Cambridge Arc

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) for securing this debate, which is very appropriate for not only those from our county, but those from adjacent counties as well. I pay special tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), who is here to show solidarity and concern for his local residents. He is an MP, and our only Minister, who continues to put the needs of his residents first. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) for their contributions.

May I start by inviting the Minister for Housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), to take a special trip to south Buckinghamshire? There is no better way to understand the complexities of what we are discussing in this debate than to visit and see at first hand what things are like in places such as Denham, Iver, Beaconsfield, Gerrards Cross and Marlow. We would love to have the Minister, and I think he might enjoy the trip.

In addition to what my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe has already alluded to, I would like to speak about the Oxford-Cambridge arc, the spatial framework and what appears to be a top-down housing target. Housing numbers are clearly the primary objective for establishing the arc and a token account is paid, through various vision documents, to innovation, environmental improvements or other place-based factors. However, it is unclear why the arc would be a key enabler for these in preference to working on a cross-boundary basis with existing strategic authorities, as initiated by England’s Economic Heartland.

I mention England’s Economic Heartland because Bucks, and particularly south Bucks, has the highest level of entrepreneurs, small business owners and self-employed people in the whole country. We are an economic powerhouse, and we will be so particularly after covid and the covid recovery. We are very focused on economic growth, job creation and vital infrastructure in Bucks. The housing will follow that, but we need to get the fundamentals right.

Local communities fear—as do I, as the local MP—that when that is combined with the changes to planning regulation, proposed planning regulation or the use of the old housing need algorithm, we will not be able to cope with the housing numbers that are placed on us. That is true of places across my constituency, but Bourne End and other towns have already seen the effects of over-development where all strategic green space and common land have already been given over to developers.

The spatial framework is something that I object to. With the existing planning responsibilities, it is unclear, as it appears to insert an additional layer of Government direction on housing and potential economic development. The framework proposals would need to be incorporated into new local plans, or the plans would risk being found unsound. Without a democratic mandate and with the possibility of facing strong opposition from local groups and planning authorities, it is unclear how these proposals would move forward. We do not have the strategic oversight of the London plan or a mayoral structure that has devolved power, so who would be accountable for this democratically unelected right to impose on us?

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has put her finger right on the heart of it. In other areas where they have these grand regional plans, there is a regional identity and a democratic personification of that in a regional Mayor. We do not have that in the Ox-Cam arc, do we?

[Joy Morrissey]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Although I am not advocating any more devolved power, if people in London and the west midlands do not like the strategic framework, they can at least vote the Mayor out. That is not the case here, and we have some of the most economically valuable land in the country. Covid has only shown how valuable and desirable our part of the country is to live in. People want to move from London to south Bucks. My fear is that the housing numbers and the algorithm set will just meet the housing demands of London rather than meeting the needs of local residents, who are desperate for more infrastructure, GP surgeries, better roads, better wi-fi connectivity and the basic amenities already afforded to London residents. Again, I would welcome the Minister visiting and touring south Bucks to see the unique perspective and challenges that we face.

I ask the Minister and the Government to support the alternative Buckinghamshire approach. Buckinghamshire and its council are not anti-growth. It is accepted that housing growth will continue at already high rates. However, those targets should be determined at local level. Bucks, in co-operation with its LEP, Buckinghamshire Business First, and health partners already put forward to Government an ambitious recovery and growth proposal. Discussions on that have commenced.

We urge the Government to work with Buckinghamshire Council to progress this bottom-up, democratically driven approach, to accelerate jobs, infrastructure and economic growth, rather than follow top-down and imposed targets within the structure of the arc or strategic framework, without democratic accountability. We have seen examples of how well we can work together, because every single week those partners were working and talking together during covid, to deliver the covid response effectively for Bucks residents. I believe we can move forward with an economic recovery plan for Bucks and Milton Keynes.

I have a few questions for the Minister, based on concerns residents have continually raised with me, about housing numbers and demands. The concern from residents across south Buckinghamshire is that more people from London will come to Beaconsfield, Marlow and Gerrards Cross, and the vital housing of bungalow-style, single-storey homes for older residents or the children of Bucks residents who are desperate to get on the housing ladder, will not be provided. If a percentage of housing were allocated only to Bucks residents, that would go a long way in securing more local support on the ground.

Do the millions of homes mentioned as part of the arc factor into the existing extremely high housing numbers already proposed in Buckinghamshire, or will they be additional numbers imposed on us at some point? How up to date are the data that inform the supposed need for the arc in the first place, given that covid and Brexit have changed the numbers and demands for inner London, outer London and surrounding green belt areas? Is the demand still the same as it was before?

With yet more pressure being put on Buckinghamshire, we require more protection for our green spaces, which have been left, unlike in London, without the expected levels of protection. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe has AONB land, as has the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green). I have nothing, apart from Burnham Beeches, which is run by the City of London. I do not have a lot of common land that is protected. We do not have metropolitan open land, because that is an inner green belt protection.

There are basic statutory protections for existing green space that we do not have in my constituency. Most of our green belt land is agricultural green belt land, which is owned by independent farmers or the council. That is problematic for development because it can be sold off piecemeal, and whole areas of biodiversity and vital areas of green infrastructure will be lost for ever, because there is not strategic oversight or protection put in place on that land.

Many other members of the arc have that protection, but south Buckinghamshire does not. As the local Member of Parliament, I want to fight to ensure that existing green spaces, biodiversity and protection for the lungs of London are in place for future generations. The relentless expansion of development into the lungs of London will have a dire consequence, not only for Buckinghamshire but anyone in outer London who values decent air quality, lower carbon emissions and a better quality of life.

[Mr Baker]

My hon. Friend reminds me of a discussion we had about the way that housing is built. Will she agree that it is really important that, when housing goes in, sufficient green space exists through developments, so that people can still feel that they are getting the benefits of the environment and an environmental amenity, even in the places right where they live?

[Joy Morrissey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. I thank the Minister and Government for initiating new nature reserves and the rewilding of areas such as Buckinghamshire, where we need to preserve green space, while adding strategic housing development. I welcome those excellent proposals and I am looking forward to working with the Minister on how we can take them forward in the county.

I would like to see a focus, particularly in Buckinghamshire, on biodiversity and on protecting the wild spaces, waterways, ancient woodlands, marshlands and meadows of south Buckinghamshire. The economic, ecological and environmental vandalism of proposals, done piecemeal, by predatory development, forgets the key and most beautiful part of living in south Bucks—the green space, the rolling hills and the quality of life that residents choose to have. Perhaps it is further from London and a longer commute, but residents are paying the price because they want to have that green space. I cannot express the value that every resident in Buckinghamshire places on that green space. They will fight to the death to maintain it and save it, not only for their community but for future communities. I as their MP will do the same.

I hope that the Minister will continue to look at alternative ways of incorporating new innovation that the Government is proposing for environmental biodiversity. First, the Government could perhaps include the Colne Valley Regional Park and Burnham Beeches in an expanded AONB or a national park, or they could find another way of providing additional protection when more housing demands are being put into the local area. If those things can be done in tandem with a locally led approach that values the opinions of residents in the county, we can move forward in a positive way, meeting the demand for housing but also preserving our green belt and green space and to build the infrastructure that we vitally need for the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Very easily, Sir Edward. It is a pleasure to have a chance to contribute, and to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) on securing the debate. If I may, I shall start with one of the points that he raised. Coming in as a Member of Parliament in 2010, we thought we were burying regional development agencies in the east of England, one of which was the East of England Development Agency. However, if one looks to the origins of the Oxford-Cambridge arc idea, essentially it is a regional development corporation idea: it stems from 2003, during the Blair period. It was given body and voice by the 2017 National Infrastructure Commission report by Lord Adonis—another leading figure of that period of government.

The first—and fundamental—question that has been raised by other Members during the debate is that this is a plan for an area that has no cohering identity. I almost feel like an interloper, Sir Edward. Before your inclusion of me in the debate, I felt like an interloper anyway, given the strong Buckinghamshire feeling about the debate —and all praise to Buckinghamshire. I am proudly from Bedfordshire and represent North East Bedfordshire. However, that makes the point, does it not? Essentially, this is not some grassroots, built-up, passionate call for helping our region to develop and unifying us into an identity that can have meaning for people on the ground—our local residents. No, no: this is a Blairite top-down plan, to be imposed on people in the region whether they like it or not.

I say “whether they like it or not” because, rather sadly, the spatial framework, which my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) spoke about, takes that additional step forward. It says that the arc’s 23 local planning authorities cannot continue to plan separately because

“planning at the local level for homes, business space, infrastructure and the environment is not integrated, and is unable to take an Arc-wide view.”

Well, my constituents do not want local planning to take an arc-wide view; they want it to take a local view—a neighbourhood view. The Government need to understand that the question that has been posed today is, how is that going to work when there is an absence of democratic accountability?

It is worse, because the spatial development framework goes on to say that all local plans must conform to the spatial framework, including the requirement that housing needs are met in full. Out of the window goes any discretion on housing growth targets. They must be met in full. For local authorities in my constituency, who are already achieving growth rates in housing well above the national average—my constituency is already growing at three times the national average—having a top-down target imposed with no discretion on local authority housing growth seems to me to raise major questions about democratic accountability.

Let us go to the two fundamental points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe. Where did this come from? Was it a plan for housing or a plan for economic development? If it was a plan for housing, let us get to the rub of the 1 million houses. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will say in a few minutes that the 1 million housing target is not a target. I know he will say that, because he has told me that in a debate, and it will be welcome to hear. The truth of the matter is that that target at the time included more than a quarter of a million extra houses that were going to be placed into the Oxford-Cambridge arc because that aspiration could not be met in London. It is an important point of principle of this Government to ensure that the housing needs of areas such as Greater London are met by regional authorities themselves and not displaced to other areas.

On housing growth, I would like to hear from the Minister what balance the Government will be able to provide for housing growth with the pieces of infrastructure that people care about. We have heard about expressways and railways, but what people care about in terms of infrastructure is: can I get an appointment with my doctor because my child is sick? Can I get my son or my daughter into a good local school? That is what people want to hear across the Ox-Cam arc and in the rest of the country. I know that the Minister and the Government are committed to that, but that is where our priorities should lie when we think about what to do with this particular region.

If the plan is an economic one, let us remember what the basis of it was: that somehow, by connecting or improving the connections between two major universities and other universities—of course, I would say Cranfield is also a major university, but let us say Oxford and Cambridge—we would unlock economic growth. That is the state-driven answer to how we unlock growth: “We can connect it.” So let me ask the Government: where is the international example of that having worked in practice? Can they name one example anywhere in the world where countries have joined universities to create economic growth? I bet they cannot, because most countries understand that we create economic growth around centres of educational excellence. We focus on the centres of educational excellence and build out that network of localities and business parks and innovation around where that core of academic excellence is. That is already happening in Cambridge, it is happening in Oxford, and it can happen around Cranfield. That is where the Government’s focus with the Ox-Cam arc should be moving.

There are some shared interests. There is the opportunity for more growth in housing. The Minister is absolutely right to focus on the core fundamental Conservative principle that everyone at every age should have the opportunity to own a home. That is something that we all want to do, and we want to do it in a way that is supported by local communities.

On the infrastructure, my colleagues from Buckinghamshire have already said bye-bye to the expressway, so we will have an expressway from Cambridge through Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes, and then we can stop off and get on—I do not know what they have in Buckinghamshire—perhaps a dirt track until we reach Oxfordshire, and back on the expressway again.

Heaven knows what will happen to the railway line. I know that the people of Cambridge are up in arms about it, and I know there are questions in North East Bedfordshire about it. If those transverse cross-country pieces of infrastructure are called into question, should we not have a rethink about how this interlacing, connecting Ox-Cam arc strategy would better be replaced with a central specific focus around certain areas for development there? There is probably more of a community interest between the good people of Buckinghamshire and the good people of Oxfordshire, and there might be a good common interest between the people of Bedfordshire, Milton Keynes and Northamptonshire, rather than saying that people in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough should somehow feel an affinity with the people of Oxfordshire and Berkshire.

[Joy Morrissey]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Alluding to the history between Oxford and my constituency, we were the first stop-off on the coach trip from London to Oxfordshire. The economic prosperity of Beaconsfield was built on providing meals, entertainment, hotels and livery to those making the vital trip from London to Oxford. There is that historic link, but my hon. Friend is right that the Oxford-Cambridge arc is not attributable to any of those historic qualities or natural linking that might be found in other regions.

Post Office Court of Appeal Judgment

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

No, indeed. We want to make sure that we can get these answers quickly for sub-postmasters who have already waited up to 20 years for a sense of justice. As I have said, statutory inquiries can take more than three years to get these answers. I want a report on my desk this summer to report back to postmasters, and Sir Wyn is getting the co-operation that he needs to get answers.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that postmasters provide the backbone of the Post Office and will he join me in thanking Jay Patel, the Patel family and Jaspal Singh who provide vital services to communities across Beaconsfield, Hedgerley and Burnham? Will he continue to fight for justice and compensation for those who have been exonerated and take on board the excellent suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) of looking at how we prevent these type of scandals from happening in the future?

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I know that she is a champion for community services in her area. That is what the Post Office does—not only is it a business, but it adds social value, as Jay Patel and his family continue to do. That is why we need to get answers. That is why we need to get justice. It is to give existing and future postmasters the confidence that they can work in a great organisation that is offering that social value and supporting their communities.

Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con) [V]]

May I thank my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the £280 billion package of financial support for businesses throughout the pandemic? I would like to offer my thanks on behalf of the 3,700 businesses in Beaconsfield that have benefited directly from Government loans throughout the pandemic. I also thank the Chancellor for protecting small businesses and hospitality. Small businesses have been the backbone of my constituency of Beaconsfield—we have more self-employed and entrepreneurs than anywhere in the country—and they want to get back to work and to be able to open up their businesses again. I believe, and may I suggest, that the best way to support our businesses post pandemic is with low taxation and a full lifting of restrictions so businesses, pubs and the local high street can get back to generating taxes and rebuilding our economy as quickly as we possibly can. May I also thank the Labour party for its support for such Conservative policies that even Thatcher would be proud of? Business rates relief and cutting VAT are wonderful Conservative policies, which I support so that we can give businesses a fighting chance to get back on their feet in the next year.

One of the most successful sorts of schemes that I would like to thank my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for are the grant schemes that councils have been administrating. Buckinghamshire Council has done an excellent job in getting this vital business support to our local businesses as quickly as possible; unlike some local authorities, it has given out all of its grant funding to small businesses. I ask Ministers for a commitment from the Government for further funding for councils such as Buckinghamshire Council to distribute to local businesses, which need that vital support in the coming months to make it to the end of lockdown. We just need a little bit more to get us over the line, to make sure that all of our businesses are able to open successfully and that we can see our economy restored.

Oral Answers to Questions

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

What plans the Government have to increase funding for local authorities in 2021.

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

What plans the Government have to increase funding for local authorities in 2021.

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

We are increasing funding for councils in 2021-22. Through the local government finance settlement, we are making an extra £2.2 billion available to councils, with an average cash increase of 4.5%—a real-terms increase. We have also announced £3 billion of covid-19 support for next year, taking our total direct support for local government in responding to the pandemic to more than £10 billion.

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and the way in which he has consistently and constructively raised this issue with me and Ministers in our Department. Leicestershire will see an increase of 5.5% in its core spending power next year and receive more than £11.5 million to deal with covid pressures. The Government certainly agree that we need an updated and fairer method for distributing funds within local government. I hope he understands that this year we have had to focus on supporting councils through the pandemic, but once this is over we will revisit our shared priority of funding reform. In the meantime, we have substantially increased the rural services delivery grant to £85 million, its highest level ever, which will support the delivery of services in places such as Leicestershire. I am, of course, happy to continue meeting him in the weeks ahead.

[Joy Morrissey [V]]

May I thank the Minister for his covid cash for councils? Will he confirm that the Government will ensure that councils have the financial support they need to respond to covid-19 and support their local communities? In places such as Bucks, particularly, our council is doing a fantastic job but there is a lot of concern about whether it will have the financial support to carry on throughout the pandemic and make sure that care is taken of all the residents.

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is right to say that councils have done an incredible job in responding to the pandemic. We have provided an unprecedented package of covid-related support for councils, which is now worth £10 billion over this year and next year. It includes £1 billion of unring-fenced funding, as well as support with lost income from tax, sales, fees and charges. Buckinghamshire will benefit from more than £54 million of covid support this year and £11 million for next year. Councils are the unsung heroes of the response to this pandemic and we are standing squarely behind them.

Homelessness and Temporary Accommodation

Joy Morrissey Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) for her very compelling speech and for the personal accounts of her constituents. All Members have experience of similar emails and one-to-one encounters, so I thank her for raising this important issue. I also thank the Minister for the Department’s commitment during the pandemic to tackling rough sleeping and trying to end it across England. We have had the highest commitment in funding that I can remember to tackle the issue during the pandemic and enable local councils to house those who are sleeping rough, so I thank the Minister for that.

The hon. Lady’s excellent speech was about the conditions of temporary accommodation, and I want to focus on temporary accommodation for families. As she said, this is particularly a London issue, given the high cost of living, the high population and the lack of affordable and social housing. It is something that I saw at first hand in my previous roles, when I worked as a community outreach worker. I saw families who were living in rat and cockroach-infested multi-dwelling homes with other families. It was a London issue that I saw over and over again.

I have visited other parts of the UK, including the west midlands, to look at best practice in places where we have tackled this problem proactively. Something that I noticed in the west midlands was the approach of linking housing to employment. Andy Street, the Mayor of the west midlands, has done an excellent job of providing housing, employment opportunities and transport. As housing is a devolved matter, mainly to the Mayor or local authorities, it would be worth the Mayor of London looking at how he can support families who are trapped in temporary accommodation.

I also ask that the Minister consider the high cost of temporary accommodation in urban areas. Between 2018 and 2019, councils spent more than £1 billion on temporary accommodation. That explosion in expenditure has been fuelled by a chronic lack of genuinely affordable social housing, and that is particularly true in London.

This is an incredibly complex issue to tackle, and as I said it is the devolved power of the Mayor. Unfortunately, the expansion of permitted development rights has inadvertently led to the creation of some low-quality and unsuitable accommodation—

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order.