Supported Exempt Accommodation

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Shabana Mahmood]

My right hon. Friend is exactly right. I will come to his point about the connection with organised crime, which is becoming a real problem. He is right that the distortion in the housing market in these communities means that working families are being priced out of good, viable family homes. Other social tenants cannot access them either; when a person cannot get enhanced housing benefits, they are subject to the local housing allowance

In fact, this lucrative loophole is causing huge problems not only for the tenants, who often get trapped in unsuitable properties, but for the communities living in those in those areas and those who might wish to live in them, too. It is exactly those nefarious operators moving into the sector who are causing problems in my constituency and across the country.

In practice, “more than minimal” means hardly anything at all. I have heard providers say that installing CCTV in communal areas or having a manager who might visit the property once in a blue moon counts as adequate supervision of vulnerable people. That sort of so-called supervision would certainly pass the “more the minimal” test, but the idea that that is what was meant by the regulations that determine access to larger pots of housing benefit is utterly outrageous.

Cowboy operators know that they can access more money per tenant, and they do not have to spend very much—or indeed anything at all—to demonstrate that they are providing care, support or supervision. So, what is the upshot? Lots of cash is available for those who know how to game the system.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend knows, I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on this matter a couple of years ago because of concerns about a property in my constituency where it took providers two days to discover someone’s body after he died. That is not supervision or support. Councils just do not have powers to deal with this issue. The Charity Commission got involved. Does my hon. Friend agree that we absolutely need better mechanisms by which to intervene when we are worried about a supported housing project?

Budget Resolutions

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

There were two main challenges facing the Chancellor as he prepared for the Budget. One, on the eve of COP26, was to accelerate progress on tackling climate change, yet he had nothing to say on that. Instead, he cut air passenger duty on domestic flights, sending out entirely the wrong signal when he should have been investing in our rail services. It was clear that net zero could not have been further from his mind.

The other challenge was to take the pressure off working people. The pandemic has hit household incomes and widened inequality. The Government have also created a perfect storm of financial pressure with the universal credit cut, the national insurance rise, energy prices soaring and food prices rising at the fastest rate for more than a decade. People were looking to the Chancellor to help them out, yet, according to the Resolution Foundation, this Budget has increased the UK’s tax burden by £3,000 a year per household. The Office for Budget Responsibility has also confirmed that the Chancellor’s underlying strategy is to put even more pressure on council tax payers, with £5.3 billion more expected by 2025. The Budget is masking the fact that the Government are seeking to take even more out of people’s pockets. There is a suggestion that the average council tax bill will be well over £2,000 in the next few years.

The tax system has been rigged in favour of the wealthy, with bankers and Amazon getting a tax cut while ordinary people are being hit with national insurance. A huge opportunity to level the playing field has been missed. A survey by the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers of 2,500 low-paid workers shows that over half of workers on less than £10 per hour are having to miss meals to pay everyday bills. Working people are being asked to pay more for less, and we are all paying the price for past Government failures.

On education, we know that there are 1,000 fewer Sure Start centres now than when the Conservatives came into power. The 75 family hubs are welcome, but after a decade-long failure to invest in children’s futures, this is clearly too little, too late. It also appears that schools are expected to fund the Government’s commitment to increasing teacher starter salaries to £30,000 from existing budgets. Schools simply do not have the money to meet that commitment. Also, the trumpeted rise in the budget for 16 to 19-year-olds is no rise at all when we look at the rising student numbers in that cohort. This comes at a time when the underfunding of colleges over recent years has already forced them to narrow their curriculum and put more pressure on an already stretched workforce. St Brendan’s College in my constituency has been trying really hard not to make those cuts, but the pressure is becoming very difficult for it to manage.

I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement of an £1.8 billion fund to develop brownfield land, which, it is claimed, will bring 1,500 hectares of brownfield land into use. I hope this means that Bristol will finally get the funding we need to unlock the development of Temple Quarter in the centre of the city. That could mean 10,000 new homes and 22,000 new jobs.

Finally, I would be failing in my duty as a west country MP if I did not mention cider. However, the 40-litre threshold for draught duty relief overwhelmingly favours large breweries. So on behalf of the smaller breweries and cider producers in the area, which often supply 30-litre kegs and would therefore be excluded from this measure, I urge a rethink from the Chancellor on this. Lowering the threshold to include any container would be a simple fix with huge benefits for independent businesses, and I am sure that my constituents would raise their glasses to the Chancellor if he did that.

Affordable and Safe Housing for All

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It really is disappointing that we did not see more ambition from the Government in this Queen’s Speech, when the need for Government action has never been greater. The past year has revealed the cracks in our creaking social care system and also highlighted the immense contribution made by those who work in it. In this National Dementia Week, I hoped that I would be standing here talking about the fact that the Government had finally revealed the plan for social care that they have supposedly been working on for the past two years. I appreciate that this is a difficult task. There are no easy answers, but leadership is about taking those difficult decisions and finally acting on something that we all know requires action, so why are the Government still dragging their feet? They have also failed to deliver an employment Bill to ban inexcusable fire and rehire tactics and to address record youth unemployment.

Turning to the subject of today’s debate, the housing crisis, the proposals to overhaul the planning system risk sidelining communities and eroding protection for green spaces, while offering no guarantees that the housing bill will be genuinely affordable. In Bristol there is a pressing need for new affordable housing. This stems from the fact that it is such a great place to live, not just for the people who have grown up in the city but for the many people wanting to move there. This presents challenges. Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees recently announced that Brislington Meadows, an ecologically important site in my constituency, would be protected from development after being lined up for new housing by the previous administration. As I have said, we absolutely recognise the massive need for new housing in the city, but Labour is also committed to implementing its ecological emergency strategy, which it is developing under its one city plan, and very much with the sustainable development goals in mind. Bristol is really leading the way as a city using the sustainable development goals as a model and a blueprint for future action. It is disappointing that we do not see the Government doing that at national level.

There will be difficult decisions to be made about planning and housing, and about the transport infrastructure that goes with that, but those decisions should be made by local people and by those who have been elected to represent them, not by developers or by their mates in central Government. It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) saying that he believed the system was already far too weighted in favour of developers. I think that many people on his side of the House will agree with that.

I am glad to see that the Environment Bill is back, but it does seem to have been making its way through Parliament forever, leaving us without an effective environmental regulator, which was meant to be in place before the end of the Brexit transition period. It is disappointing that the Government have refused to accept amendments to that Bill—for example, to adopt World Health Organisation air quality targets, or to address our overseas carbon footprint and the rampant deforestation linked to supply chains. I hope that during the second part of Report stage next week, the Government will look again at that. I have high hopes that our friends in the other place will significantly strengthen the Bill, but it is disappointing that the Government have not taken the opportunity to revise it of their own accord.

The animal sentience legislation was meant to be in place before we left the EU—another Government promise they have not kept. Although I am glad to see that such a Bill made it into the Queen’s Speech, I hope it can be amended before it becomes law to recognise crustaceans as sentient beings. I will probably be the only person who mentions lobsters in today’s debate—it is very on-brand for me, but I do think we have to get the lobsters in there somewhere.

Finally, the Government have shown their true colours with their shockingly undemocratic voter ID proposals. They show the Government’s real priorities—not building back better or greening the economy, but rigging the system in their own favour.

Rough Sleeping

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be happy to praise those local organisations for the good work they have done, and I join my hon. Friend in praising Bradford Council for its good work. It has seen an almost 60% reduction in the number of people sleeping rough in its area over the course of a year.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

Far too many homeless people end up in poor-quality supported housing where they do not actually get any of the support they need to help them to deal with the underlying issues, and too often they end up back on the streets as a result. Can the Minister give an update on what is happening with the supported housing pilots? When will he be able to bring in regulation or better oversight of the sector, so that we do not see homeless people ending up in that situation?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. She has worked on that with the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall), who is a parliamentary near neighbour of hers, in the Bristol area. We have taken forward research to see whether tighter regulation of supported housing is required, and we recently decided to extend those pilots and provide further funding for them, so that we can learn more before coming to a judgment as to whether we need to put in place legislative or other measures to protect people from poor-quality outcomes. I would be happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss that further, if she would benefit from that.

Towns Fund

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my hon. Friend, who has been a fantastic champion for her constituency since she was elected just a short time ago. As she says, it is a reflection on the Labour party—at least in Westminster—that it wants to pour cold water on a fund that is doing so much good work in communities across the country. Fortunately, that is quite a different picture from what we are seeing from local councils of all political persuasions elsewhere, which really want to get on board and make a huge success of these proposals. We will be doing a competitive phase next year, and I look forward to an application from the other parts of my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab) [V]]

From this towns fund being handed out to Tory seats, to the money being squandered on covid contracts and the ferry contract being awarded to a company with no ferries, this is all part of a very murky picture, is it not? How can my constituents have any confidence at all that public money is being well spent when cronyism, mates’ rates and political manoeuvring seem to be at the heart of so much Government decision making, not to mention downright incompetence?

[Robert Jenrick]

Well, I did not detect a question there, other than a whole series of pointless innuendos. We are going to keep focusing on what the public want us to do, which is investing and levelling up in the communities that need it the most despite all the challenges of covid, and that is exactly what this fund does.

Capital Infrastructure Projects: Bristol

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for capital infrastructure projects in Bristol.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Ghani.

The Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, is very keen to promote what he calls the “One City” approach. It is not the job of one organisation or one individual to deliver what Bristol needs; it is for the whole city to come together. In that spirit, rather than taking up my allotted 15 minutes today, I will share it with my colleagues —my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) and for Bristol South (Karin Smyth). We are even being extremely generous and allowing someone from over the border in south Gloucestershire to contribute—the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore). My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) cannot take part in the debate, as she is a member of the shadow Cabinet, but she is with us in spirit.

Bristol is generally seen as a really buzzing, thriving city. We are always being listed as one of the top 10 places to visit or to live. We are a net contributor to UK GDP, we have the highest number of net start-ups outside London and, as of September last year, we had the highest employment rate of the UK core cities. However, as with any city, there are challenges too. There are inequalities in income and opportunities. There is poor transport infrastructure and a desperate need for new affordable housing.

It was revealed at the weekend that the biggest increase in house prices in the whole UK over the last decade was in Easton ward, which was in my constituency but is now in Bristol West. Prices there went up 120%, from £129,000 to £283,000. The neighbouring Whitehall ward was eighth in the country; prices had gone up 102%. These are fairly modest houses. We need to build far more housing, and more affordable housing. We also need to build on our economic success by regenerating neglected parts of the city. The biggest scheme is the regeneration of Temple quarter, around Brunel’s historic Temple Meads station. This would mean 22,000 new jobs, at least 10,000 new homes and an economic boost of £1.6 billion per annum. The Secretary of State wrote to the Mayor last month saying Temple quarter showed a lot of promise and had impressive private sector backing.

There are two shovel-ready elements of the scheme. The first is the regeneration of Temple quarter and St Philip’s Marsh district. A business case has already been submitted to the Department and to Homes England. Bristol is asking for funding of £100 million. Secondly, the University of Bristol’s new Temple quarter enterprise campus is an innovation hub with a focus on digital quantum technology, engineering and green growth. The university is asking for £150 million from the Government, which will leverage £650 million of investment from the university and its partners.

It is estimated that this development would bring an estimated £626 million into the regional economy over the next decade and act as a catalyst for a further £2 billion of development on adjacent sites. In the short to medium term, this obviously means jobs in construction and in the long term many more employment opportunities will arise. I know the Government are very keen to support shovel-ready projects. In this case, a contractor is on board, planning permissions have been secured and construction could start in January 2021 with the campus opening in 2023. Because of covid, without Government support the project will be delayed by at least three to five years.

The other Temple quarter projects are the upgrading and renewal of Temple Meads station to support a doubling of passenger numbers to 22 million per year, increased rail capacity and faster trains. The last major upgrade to Temple Meads station was in 1936, and I think anyone who regularly uses the station will not be surprised to hear that. It is not a station that befits a city of Bristol’s standing and size and it desperately needs work.

We also need investment in flood resilience infrastructure to help future proof our city against climate change, to protect our heritage tourism and cultural sites, and improve cycling and walking routes. It would also unlock land for up to 4,500 homes, protect 12,000 existing homes and businesses from flooding and add £6.2 billion to the local economy.

This may sound like just a long list of asks, but all we ask for today is that the Government seriously consider the case Bristol and the West of England Combined Authority have made when it comes to bids where we might compete against other cities and towns for existing pots of money or future allocations. We were disappointed to be turned down for the housing infrastructure fund for the A4-A37 Temple Meads to Keynsham strategic growth corridor, which runs through my constituency. We already have huge pressures on the A4 and surrounding roads, yet thousands more homes could be built in the vicinity in the next few years, partly in Bristol, but also over the border in the neighbouring local authority of Bath and North East Somerset. The pressure will come on the Bristol roads, however, as people travel into the city to work and for leisure and shopping. Those homes are desperately needed, but the city will grind to a halt if we do not also invest in public transport. We also need to look at the pressure on schools, GPs and other local services.

I hope that if a successor to the housing infrastructure fund is announced in the spending review, any submission from Bristol will be looked on favourably. We hope too that the Department and Homes England will consider the business case for Temple quarter. We know that as a city we can deliver, but we need help to do so.

Before I hand over to my colleagues, I have three questions for the Minister. First, how will the Government support Bristol in seeking integrated investment to unlock its strategic development sites, including the shovel-ready projects in Temple quarter? Secondly, my colleagues will talk about transport issues in more detail, some of which concern the Department for Transport, but other Government Departments are involved too. Given the different funding streams and the role of different Departments, how can the Minister ensure that the strategic value of each of Temple quarter’s interconnected projects are realised and supported? Finally, will the Minister agree to visit Bristol or attend one of our forthcoming “One City” partnership meetings to hear how we are trying to lead the city out of a potential recession and how to support these key capital projects?

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Before I ask other Members to respond, I alert Members that this debate will not go beyond 4.43 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) on securing this short but important debate. It seems to me that she has set up shop in Westminster Hall this afternoon. But in all seriousness, the debate that she has led is an important one. I also congratulate the hon. Members for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) and for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), and the honoured interloper, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), on their contributions.

Let me begin on a very positive note, which is that I certainly enjoyed my visit to Bristol earlier this year, just before the covid emergency caused us to have lockdown. The rain did not alter the fact that it is clearly a buzzing and thriving city, as the hon. Member for Bristol East described it, and I shall be very happy to visit it again when circumstances allow, to see the work that she, her colleagues and other leaders from the city and the combined authority are undertaking.

As we lay the foundations for our recovery from the covid emergency, the Government are determined to invest in communities such as those in Bristol and across the western gateway, so that we can get them back on their feet and fulfilling their potential. I am heartened by what I have heard about the collaborative work being done across the community and across the city, between leaders and partners, to realise their vision for sustainability, activity and inclusive growth. It is right that we look to build on that momentum together and support our regions in this levelling-up opportunity, and that will be the focus of the upcoming spending review.

I understand that city leaders and the metro Mayor are working together across sectors in response to the pandemic to support the region’s journey to recovery. The Government are also committed to playing their part in providing immediate financial stimulus and capital infrastructure investment. The getting building fund is just one recent example of that commitment to job creation and the green recovery, accelerating shovel-ready projects in local areas. It is a £900 million fund targeted at places facing the greatest economic challenges as a result of the pandemic. We announced more than 300 successful projects in August, which were agreed with mayors and local enterprise partnerships to boost economies and local growth.

The west of England received £13.7 million in funding for seven projects through the getting building fund, and the seven projects are expected to directly create 1,144 jobs. In addition, the west of England has secured £202 million from the local growth fund, which has helped to fund a number of important projects in the city of Bristol, including £6 million for the Bristol Beacon, to transform that iconic music venue; £4.7 million for the city of Bristol’s Advanced Construction Skills Centre; and more than £7 million for the MetroWest phase 1, which was referenced by several colleagues earlier—a project that will see the reopening of the Portishead line and the introduction of half-hourly services on the Severn Beach line, significantly improving rail connections to and around Bristol.

The region has seen a further investment through an £80 million transforming cities fund and £6 million of funding to create an enterprise zone in the centre of Bristol, where small, innovative businesses can prosper. I make this commitment on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor: we will look carefully and considerately at all sensible projects that are brought forward. I will not make specific commitments on his behalf, but we are keen to ensure that, through the spending review and through other avenues, buzzing and thriving cities such as Bristol are supported. I encourage colleagues across the House and in local government to submit their thoughts and ideas for the spending review.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I got the impression the Minister was concluding, but maybe I am wrong and there is a lot more to come. It is important to stress that, although Bristol is a successful, buzzing, thriving city, there are inequalities, as we saw with the recent Black Lives Matter protest, and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) has the lowest staying-on rates in education and higher education in the country. Bristol is very much a city where there are inequalities and a need to level up.

[Christopher Pincher]

I hear what the hon. Lady says, and I will say a little more about the single housing infrastructure fund in a moment. She will know, of course, that a few weeks ago we announced our next iteration of the affordable housing programme with £12.3 billion of investment in affordable homes, the majority of which will be for discounted rents.

To address a point the hon. Member for Bristol South made about the Planning Inspectorate, I cannot comment on specific matters before it, but I am always keen to talk to colleagues there to ensure that the inspectorate is working at pace to quickly yet judiciously work its way through the applications and cases before it. Of course, it has the challenge of the covid backlog to deal with, but I know that people are working very hard in that regard.

The Government’s continued commitment to levelling up also means building the homes that this country needs, and I am glad to hear that Bristol has ambitious plans for house building. We remain committed to driving up supply in areas that really need it. I have mentioned the affordable homes programme, which we believe will support 180,000 new affordable homes for ownership and rent over the next four years in the percentages that I described.

We have also supplied an additional £450 million to boost the home building fund to help small developers—small and medium-sized enterprises are crucial in our recovery—to access finance for new housing developments. As the hon. Member for Bristol East will know, we have radical plans to reform our planning system to make it more democratic, transparent and speedy.

Deaths of Homeless People

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind the £1.2 billion that is going in to provide homelessness support through the rough sleeping strategy. He makes an extremely valid point; there is no shying away from a hugely difficult set of statistics, and we should all pause for thought. He paints a vivid image. It is right to point to the fact that we are continuing to invest in our health services, with £30 million made available from NHS England for rough sleeping over the next five years, and £2 million in health funding to test these community-based models of provision, but he is right: there is no shying away from and no complacency about the fact that this is an extremely difficult issue affecting our whole society. We will strain every sinew to make this happen.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is right that we should get homeless people off the streets, but I also have real concerns about the unregulated supported housing sector. I have discussed that with the Minister’s officials and his predecessor. The Charities Commission has just reported on Wick House in my constituency, where several people have died, and there seems to be consensus that we need regulation of this sector, to prevent exploitative landlords from moving into it. Will the Minister follow up on my conversations? Can we see some action on this, please?

[Luke Hall]

It is absolutely unacceptable that vulnerable people—indeed anybody—should have to live in poor-quality housing. She raises the issue of Wick House, which we both know about, as west of England Members of Parliament. I have been having those conversations this morning and I will be happy to update her as soon as I can.

Bird Nesting Sites: Protection

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I think this is the first time that you have chaired a debate that I have taken part in, Ms McDonagh, so it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today.

It is good to see so many hon. Members here to discuss this important environmental issue. We have already heard some excellent speeches on the consequences of netting and the action required. I commend the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill), who set the scene well.

In a short speech, I will concentrate mainly on my constituent, Maggie Moran, who started the petition that is the reason we are all here this afternoon. Maggie and her family are in Parliament today. She started her petition in the early hours of the morning after a long shift at Hull Royal Infirmary, where she works. At first it was shared among friends; it went on to gain more than 300,000 signatures, national media coverage and a response from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which I understand has written to developers reminding them of their legal obligations.

Maggie was kind enough to write to me before the debate. I know that she has also spoken to the media and received a lot of media coverage, and has explained why this issue is so important to her. In her note to me, she talks powerfully of her upbringing and how her family instilled in her a deep love and respect for nature. She speaks fondly of holidays where she and her father calculated the age of hedgerows. As she reminds us, our hedgerows are ancient, beautiful, rich ecosystems. They are homes, breeding grounds, safe corridors and hibernation spots for birds, bats, dormice, reptiles, insects, hedgehogs and others. They play a major part in preventing soil loss and reducing flooding. I represent a constituency in east Yorkshire. The Humber estuary is prone to flooding and 95% of the city of Hull is below sea level, so flooding is an important issue for me and my constituents. Also, hedgerows help to reduce road noise, and they produce oxygen, which of course helps with the climate challenge. Hedgerows are not obstacles to be removed, but life support systems to be protected. As has been discussed in more depth today, netting puts those fragile ecosystems at risk. It can entrap birds, dormice, bats and hedgehogs, separating them from their nests and food, injuring them and even putting their lives at risk.

We must look seriously at ending the practice of netting, but we must also think beyond that. Last year in the UK, numbers of bats, hedgehogs, birds and insects continued to plummet. The UN report last week spoke powerfully of how nature’s decline will presage our own. Awareness is growing that to support society, we must change the rules to give nature room to thrive. The Government must look again at how the developments we need—houses, schools and hospitals—can be achieved without destroying nature. As Maggie said, we must look at prioritising brownfield land, which the Campaign to Protect Rural England has said can be used for more than 1 million homes on 18,000 sites. When greenfield is the only option, we should include original habitats, including hedgerows and trees, in the designs.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech; I hope her constituent appreciates what she is saying on her behalf. As parliamentary species champion for the swift, I am keen to ensure that in urban development we put swift bricks into houses, which provide those birds with a habitat,. That is a really easy step and councils such as, I think, Exeter have made it compulsory for new developments. Does she agree that that is an excellent way to provide a home for swifts?

[Diana Johnson]

My hon. Friend, who is a great champion of nature and the environment, makes an important point. If that practice could be spread far and wide, it would be an excellent measure.

I will conclude by saying that it was nice to meet Maggie’s children Nell and John today; they are seeing at first hand what campaigning can achieve. Maggie told me that she put together the petition and brought her children to Parliament today because she hopes they will witness the lesson that, if we speak out, we can create real change for the future. To use her words:

“I want them to see that…if they believe in a cause, and if they have conviction and are willing to speak out and work hard, then anything can be achieved”.

I am profoundly thankful to Maggie for raising this issue with us. I hope that this debate will prove her right and that action will be forthcoming to deal with netting of hedgerows.

--- Later in debate ---

[Luke Pollard]

I agree that this is a complex area that requires detailed consultation not only with developers, but with public-sector land managers, such as Network Rail, HS2 and local councils. We also need to look at the way our wildlife uses not only our built environment but our natural environment in different ways. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) made a clear distinction between building on brownfield and building on greenfield sites, but there can be bird nesting sites in beautiful trees on both brownfield and greenfield sites, so we need to take steps to deal with what is sometimes a false distinction in our legislation between brown and green, but also to deal with the different ways in which different species use our built environments. I am grateful for the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) has just made.

The report from the UN said that we need “transformative change” to stop the trend of habitat loss, and we do. That is why it is really important that the Minister take the concerns expressed in this debate not only back to her Department—I hope that she will speak about the built environment in a moment—but to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, because we need a cross-Government approach to address many of these concerns.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. It is important that we look at how we farm our land. The vast majority of land in this country is used for growing food, and there is a real issue because as it becomes more industrialised in scale, there are fewer hedgerows, bigger fields and less attention to biodiversity. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should support measures to encourage farmers to farm more sustainably, with more regard for the biodiversity on the land?

[Luke Pollard]

I agree entirely. A few weeks ago, I visited a farm just outside Plymouth run by a fantastic farmer called Johnny Haimes, who demonstrated how agriculture could be more sustainable and still be profitable. That is the type of best practice that we need to encourage right across our agricultural sectors if we are to address the high levels of carbon that they use, but also to make our soils and our waterways in and around those agricultural lands more sustainable.

A number of hon. Members have made the point that it is not just developers that we need to look at. As the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) said, we need to look at how the public sector should lead by example on this matter. The majority of that can be done by local councils, but the right hon. Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire), in the good and passionate rebuke to austerity that I am glad he made, spoke about the loss of planning inspectors at local level. That has hollowed out some of the expertise, particularly in relation to wildlife; I am thinking of the loss of wildlife officers from our local councils.

I am very pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) mentioned the superb work that the Labour council in Exeter has done in choosing swift bricks. More councils should be looking at that. Indeed, about a month ago, there was a national day for putting up a bird box, and my mum—who should always get a good mention in these debates—bought me not one, not two, but three bird boxes for my birthday, so my garden in Plymouth has plenty more nesting sites.

That brings me to a good point about whether the habitats that are lost should be replaced one for one. That is a discussion that has just been had. I mentioned to the Minister before the debate that there was a fantastic piece on “Countryfile” last night about the net gain consultation—perfect wordplay for the debate that we are having today

That consultation was run by DEFRA, and it asked whether we should have a net gain of biodiversity if there is to be economic development. The Government consultation received 670 responses and closed in February. In theory, the results are to be published alongside the environment Bill later this year. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us whether that is still the plan, because we know that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs publishes plenty of consultations, but takes very little concrete action. I would be grateful if the Minister set out what she intends to do in respect of that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

It is also my first time serving with you in the Chair, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mike Hill) on securing the debate. I am sure it was a bit of a lottery and that probably many people applied for it.

As we have heard, more than 355,000 signatures are on the petition. That shows the strength of feeling about the misuse of anti-bird netting in our country, so I am pleased to see the passion shown in this debate. I am grateful for the contributions made by hon. Members from across the House and representing most parts of the country. The hon. Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman), who has unfortunately had to leave, highlighted the importance of developers using netting when it is not necessary. My right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire) reminded us that netting should only be used outside the nesting and breeding season. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) made such a powerful point about the great interest shown in this issue by the good citizens of the Buckinghamshire area in particular.

I am grateful for this opportunity to set out the Government’s position and the action we are taking, and to respond to the important points made in the debate. This Government share the public’s concern about the misuse of anti-bird netting. That is why we lost no time in taking action. On 8 April, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government set out the Government’s views. In an open letter to major developers, circulated by the Home Builders Federation to all its members, he made it clear that using anti-bird netting to prevent birds from nesting is not acceptable. He called on house builders to act, reminding them of the Natural England guidelines that specify what surveys of the potentially developed land are to be carried out, and how we can prevent or mitigate any danger to wildlife.

It is worth taking a moment to remember why this is so important. Native bird species have been in shocking decline since the 1960s, with 40 million birds vanishing from our skies. Some 56% of bird species in the UK are in decline. Nets stop birds getting through to make their nests. Gaps in the netting can leave birds trapped or young birds unfed.

I am aware that this is a complex issue. Nesting birds present in trees and hedges can cause real delays to construction. Some of the nets are placed with good intentions. In Norfolk recently, a district council draped nets over cliffs so that a sandscaping project could proceed. However, the nets covered more than the spring breeding ground of sand martins than was necessary. In this case, with advice from the RSPB, the upper section of the netting was removed, allowing nesting where there was no risk to the birds during the work.

[Kerry McCarthy]

A lot of people were very distressed when they saw the pictures of the sand martins that had flown thousands of miles back from their winter migration and could not get back to their nests. I accept that there probably needed to be some work done on coastal erosion, or whatever the reason for the netting was, but there must be an issue of timing with such things. It was done at exactly the wrong time, when those birds were returning to their homes.

[Mrs Wheeler]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. That council has learnt its lesson. It should have brought the RSPB in much earlier, but it did rectify the situation. I also watched that footage and it was very distressing.

Netting is permissible if the intention is to protect birds, but I suspect that many of those who signed the petition are concerned that these rules are often carefully misunderstood by some developers. Netting should never be used to hinder the natural cycle of nest building and the nurturing and feeding of young birds. Nets should protect birds not profits.

The law on protecting birds and preventing the disturbance of nests is clear. Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and the Animal Welfare Act 2006, prosecutions can be brought if someone causes unnecessary suffering to a bird by an act or failure to act, especially when the person concerned knew or reasonably ought to have known that their action or inaction would cause harm. Breaches can lead to fines or imprisonment. I am happy to acknowledge that some developers get the message. As we have heard, Bellway and Bovis Homes have declared that they are both changing their policies to stop the use of bird netting, and Barratt Homes does not net hedges or trees on any of its 400 or so sites across England, Scotland and Wales. Their actions show that it is possible not to use bird netting when firms plan ahead, so that construction does not clash with the nest-making and chick-rearing season.

As we have just marked Hedgehog Awareness Week, I am particularly aware that there must be wider recognition that we must do all we can to safeguard and enhance our biodiversity for the future. Today, local authorities already have a duty, under our national planning policy framework, to pursue net gains for biodiversity. The Government intend to give local authorities more powers to insist on the protection and enhancement of biodiversity. Our 25-year environment plan is a symbol of that deep commitment and a reflection of our shared desire to leave our environment in a better place than we found it. To answer the question of the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) specifically, our forthcoming Environment Bill will make biodiversity net gain mandatory for development.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Wheeler]

Regretfully, we need legislation to do that. When the Bill comes in, that will be the legislative vehicle for it, because whether it is birds or hedgehogs, we are determined that our wildlife does not just survive, but thrives.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I sit on the Environmental Audit Committee and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, which have been conducting pre-legislative scrutiny on the bits of the Environment Bill that have been published. Although I welcome the idea of biodiversity net gain, there is real concern about how it would be enforced. It is not something that we can replace like for like; it would take an awfully long time to replace what was destroyed, and in some cases, it could not be replaced. I urge the Minister to talk to environmentalists, ecologists and other specialists about whether it is feasible to make the proposed swap.

[Mrs Wheeler]

Again, the hon. Lady makes a perfectly reasonable point. I am sure the people in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will have heard it and will pick up on it.

DEFRA’s recent consultation proposed introducing a requirement for new developments to deliver a 10% net gain for biodiversity, onsite or off. It also includes an alternative tariff that developers could pay to offset the costs of providing environmental improvements. I look forward to seeing those proposals considered and debated in due course. I hope the hon. Lady will be involved in that.

Housing

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

It is the most obvious sign of a broken market, when house builders are making bumper profits and bumper bonuses building homes that ordinary workers cannot afford to buy. These are the fundamental facts. These are the hard truths about the Conservatives’ record on housing, which Ministers cannot deny or disguise, and which, come the next election, the Conservative party will not be able to dodge.

Given that record over nine years, it is little wonder that, when asked, three in four people say that they believe the country has a housing crisis. They are right, of course. Everybody knows someone who cannot get the home they need or desire. They say that the crisis is getting worse, not better, and they are right. Even many Conservatives have lost faith in the free market fundamentalism about housing, because it is failing on all fronts. That is why the Conservatives have been losing the argument and have been forced to cede ground to Labour, from legislating to outlaw letting fees, to banning combustible cladding on high-rise blocks and lifting the cap on council borrowing to build new homes.

However, those are baby steps. The biggest roadblock to the radical changes needed to fix the housing crisis for millions of people is the Conservative party itself. It is largely the same ideologically inflexible Conservative culprits who are making the Prime Minister’s life so difficult over Brexit who will not countenance the Government action that is needed to deal with the other big challenges our country faces: social care, falling real wages, deep regional divides and, of course, housing. So after nine years, we must conclude that the Conservatives in government cannot fix the housing crisis, and that it will fall to a Labour Government to do that.

Here is the plan. We will build 1 million genuinely affordable homes over 10 years, the majority of which will be for social rent, with the biggest council house building programme in this country for nearly 40 years. We will reset grants for affordable housing to at least £4 billion a year. We will scrap the Conservatives’ so-called affordable rent and establish a new Labour definition linked to local incomes and not to the market. We will stop the huge haemorrhage of social rented homes by halting the right to buy and ending the Government’s forced conversions to affordable rent.

We will end rough sleeping within five years, with 8,000 new homes available to those with a history of rough sleeping and a £100 million programme for emergency winter accommodation to help to prevent people from dying on our streets. We will legislate so that renters have new rights: to indefinite tenancies; to new minimum standards; to controls on rents; and to tougher enforcement. We will give young people on ordinary incomes the home ownership hope that they deserve, with first-buy homes, with mortgage costs linked to a third of local incomes and with first dibs on new homes in their area.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I am sure this is already on my right hon. Friend’s radar, but disability groups in Bristol are worried about the shortage of accessible homes in the UK. They say that something like 1.8 million households require some sort of adaptation or the addition of access features to their homes, but very few of them get that at the moment. Is it part of the future Labour Government’s plan to build more accessible homes?

[John Healey]

It is indeed, and if my hon. Friend looks at the big Green Paper plan that Labour has published, “Housing for the Many”, she will see that we talk not only about building more but about building better. We talk about doing what the public sector has often done in the past—namely, building to better standards. We want these to be the highest standards of design, accessibility, energy efficiency and high tech, so that in future, Labour’s affordable homes will become people’s best choice, not their last resort. Finally, we will create a fully fledged new Department for Housing, both to reflect the scale of the crisis and to drive our national new deal on housing. This will be Labour’s long-term plan for housing that will help to fix our country’s housing crisis. Where this Government have failed, a Labour Government will bring in the radical change that so many millions of people now want and need.

Rough Sleeping

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to see you in the Chair, Ms Buck. I know how personally committed you are to dealing with housing issues.

There is no more depressing image of the cumulative impact of the austerity policies of the Conservative Government and, before that, the coalition Government than the image of people sleeping rough on the streets everywhere we go. If anything, the last Labour Government failed to boast about their achievements on that. We can be incredibly proud of the fact that we virtually eradicated rough sleeping on our streets.

It has been a cumulative impact—a toxic cocktail of benefits cuts and sanctions, and a lack of support for people with mental health problems and addictions. All those things go together, of course. Often people present with a multitude of problems that result in their ending up on the streets. The failure to build housing or to provide affordable housing is part of that in particular.

The annual official account of rough sleepers that we carried out in December 2018 found that 82 people were sleeping rough in Bristol. That was down four from the previous year, but we know that that is just the tip of the iceberg; many more people over the course of the year will sleep rough. Bristol City Council is one of the few councils to keep any semblance of a record of homeless people who die in the city. Over the past five years in Bristol, at least 50 homeless people have died.

I pay tribute to Michael Yong, who was an excellent journalist at The Bristol Post. Sadly, he has just moved on, but he had been working with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism to tell the stories of all the people who had died, and to add a touch of humanity to them. Often their cause of death was unknown, their stories and even their dates of birth were not recorded, and in some cases it was an awfully long time before their families even realised that they had died.

We are trying to tackle the problem in Bristol. We have increased the provision for homeless people. There is a city-wide initiative for organisations to open their doors when the weather is particularly cold. Church groups, for example, and local hostels are involved. The city’s first 24-hour homeless shelter—St Anne’s House, in my constituency—was opened by the Secretary of State. I join others in paying tribute to St Mungo’s, which leads the rough sleeping partnership in the city.

Looking back at the history of Bristol, in Hillfields, in my constituency, some of the very first council houses were built 100 years ago under the Addison Act. In 1949, 70 years ago, Nye Bevan came to the city to lay one of the stones for the 10,000th house built since the second world war. That was when he was Minister for Housing. Everyone remembers him being Minister for Health, but he was Minister for Housing as well. It was crucial that those two things went together, because the population cannot be healthy unless they live in decent homes. It is so sad, as we celebrate the 100 years and the 70 years since those house-building programmes, that we are in the situation that we are in now.

Bristol is trying to build new homes. It has a target of building 2,000 homes a year, of which 800 will be affordable, by 2020. We are also setting up a new council-owned housing company that will give the council the ability to build even more new affordable homes. However, permitted development rights are a real problem. The fact that it is not necessary to apply for planning permission to convert office blocks to residential accommodation means that we do not have any power over the affordability element. In a place such as Bristol, that has a real impact.

I will briefly mention Jasper Thompson of Help Bristol’s Homeless, who is converting shipping containers into amazing homes for the homeless. The idea is that people will live in them for six months or so. They are really well furbished and well kitted-out. That also offers the opportunity for people who are moved off the streets into those homes to get extra support.

The Minister knows that I am concerned about supported housing provision—I have actually met with officials in her Department on that matter. The level of local housing allowance in Bristol is low. For a family living in a two-bedroom house, there is a monthly shortfall of around £217 between the LHA rate and a typical rent charge in the city. That is encouraging many providers to move into the supported housing sector, because they can make a lot more money. Some of them are not at all interested in providing support, and because the sector is not regulated, a business model is emerging that I think puts people at risk.

There is a particular property in my constituency where several people have died in recent years. Homeless people have actually said to me that they would not go there. They do not want to go there. They would be scared to go to Wick House, which is the name of the property in question. I have met with Lorna, the sister of Paul Way, who died in Wick House in 2017. It was meant to be supported accommodation, but it took support staff three days to knock on the door of his room and find his dead body. I also met with Catherine, the mother of George Mahoney, who died in 2016.

There have been some changes. Local authorities are piloting multi-disciplinary teams looking at all the different agencies that could perhaps help to regulate the sector more: the housing benefit people, the environment agencies, and people who deal with antisocial behaviour. I hope that Bristol can be part of that, and that there will be more unannounced inspections. We also need legislative changes to help to resolve the situation. We need to upgrade the definition of support; currently, it just has to be “more than minimal”. The definition of supported housing has not changed since 1977.

Ideally, everyone would have a home that they can call their own, and they would not be in halfway houses and temporary provision. However, if we are to get people off the streets, as a first measure we have to ensure that supported housing is fit for purpose. As I have said, it is costing local councils an awful lot of money, because providers can charge much higher rates for housing benefit properties than for ordinary accommodation. Organisations such as St Mungo’s are doing a great job providing such places, but others are exploiting the system, and I know that the Minister agrees.