Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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Faisal Rashid (Warrington South) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
Since 2010 we have delivered more than 407,000 new affordable homes. That includes more than 293,000 affordable homes for rent, of which 135,000 are for social rent. There is always more to do and I look forward to hearing from the hon. Gentleman what that might be.
Faisal Rashid
Between 2016 and 2017 a total of 138 two- bedroom properties were let in my Warrington South constituency through the social rent scheme, and about 1,100 families bid for them. What is the Minister doing to meet those unsustainable levels of demand in my constituency?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise the fact that demand in all parts of the housing market outstrips supply—social, affordable and, indeed, all ownership models that we put out there. We are putting significant resources behind all parts of the country to build the homes that the next generation needs. We have managed to get net output up from 124,000 after the crash, to 222,000. Indicators for next year are looking pretty good, too, but as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, significant resources are being applied to this problem and we will do our best to try to address it.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Minister will agree that every opportunity should be taken to increase the stock of social houses for rent, so will he acknowledge the great work of Rugby Borough Council, which is currently arranging for the replacement of old high-rise blocks with a greater number of houses on a conventional streetscape?
Kit Malthouse
I applaud any local authority that is putting its shoulder to the wheel of solving the housing crisis. A great sadness of my time as a borough councillor—I was a councillor for eight years—was the fact that the then Labour Government put an end to council house building. We were all induced, effectively, out of that business with decent homes money. We had to get rid of our housing and transfer it to housing associations or other formats. Fortunately, some councils did manage to hang on and I am very pleased that they are now doing their bit.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Some 66,000 council homes have been sold through right to buy since 2012, and just shy of 18,000 have been started—that is one replacement home started for every four sold, and they are not like for like, either. Are the Government ditching their promise for one-to-one replacement, and when are they going to come clean about that?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady is quite right to point out that we have not hit our one-to-one target. That is correct—it would be foolish to deny it—but at the same time those 66,000 homes that have been sold have satisfied a legitimate aspiration among all those people to own their own home, and we are committed to that. The lifting of the housing revenue account cap was specifically designed to set councils free to build a new generation of council houses, so that in time a further generation of council house occupants can also experience home ownership.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
On top of our £9 billion affordable homes programme, we have reintroduced social rent, removed the housing revenue account borrowing cap and announced £2 billion of long-term funding, and we are setting a long-term rent deal for councils and housing associations.
Kevin Hollinrake
There is currently a prohibition on the inclusion of residential properties in personal pensions such as self-invested personal pensions, which leaves potential accommodation over shops empty or unconverted. Will my hon. Friend work with his colleagues in the Treasury to reform these rules, provided that the properties are let out at a social rent?
Kit Malthouse
No one, but no one, works as hard as my hon. Friend on housing policy. There is not a time when I appear at the Dispatch Box that he does not badger me with some new idea. He obviously takes his moral duty to the next generation to build the housing they need very seriously, and I would be more than happy to walk arm in arm with him down Downing Street to No. 11 to propose exactly that idea.
Graham P. Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
It is disappointing that the Government have scrapped their one-for-one target. My local Labour-run council, Hyndburn Borough Council, wants to build some social houses on the Clayton triangle. What support can the Minister guarantee to make sure that those social homes are built on the Clayton triangle?
Kit Malthouse
Of course, one change we have made is to allow local authorities to bid into the affordable homes programme, specifically to support their house building aspirations. We have lifted the HRA borrowing cap, so the hon. Gentleman’s local authority is free, in a way that it was not before, to borrow that money. I point out to Opposition Members that one of the most debilitating parts of the debate about housing is their inability to accept that this Government and the coalition Government before us were faced with a catastrophic financial framework within which to build the homes that the next generation needs. It has taken time to recover capacity in the house building industry and in local authorities to achieve the kind of aspiration he wants to see.
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I congratulate the Government on their ambitious targets, but is the Minister aware that on the Isle of Wight there is deep concern about the housing targets and the lack of affordable housing? Fewer than 100 units were built between 2015 and 2018. I hope that my council will apply for exceptional circumstances to lower its targets in the interests of our tourism economy and quality of life, but to ensure that a much higher proportion of that is built for social housing. Will he meet me to discuss this issue further?
Kit Malthouse
I think a feeling that everybody shares across the House is the desire to address what is undoubtedly a housing crisis. Governments of all stripes over the past 30 or 40 years have failed to build the houses that the country needs. We are applying significant resources to try to correct that problem.
My hon. Friend raises an important issue, in that local authorities also have a duty to put their shoulder to the wheel to deal with the housing problem. Through the national planning policy framework, we have put the power to do so in their hands. It is perfectly possible for his local authority to produce an authoritative and ambitious local plan that both satisfies the aspirations of local residents for the kind of housing they want and sends a signal to the development community about what it should be doing on the Isle of Wight.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee has advised the Government that they need to do more to support neighbourhood planning in deprived areas. Does the Minister agree that he should give additional powers to town and parish councils to facilitate that and to ensure that all areas, especially those with acute need, are able to plan for and deliver the homes, including the social housing, that they desperately need, while also improving their wider built and natural environment?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Lady identifies a significant intention of ours on planning policy, which is to put local communities of all types and in all parts of the country in control of planning. It is the case, unfortunately, that over the past 30 or 40 years many neighbourhoods have felt that they are victims of the planning system rather than its masters. We are keen to promote the use of neighbourhood plans in all sorts of areas—urban, rural or wherever it might be—so that local people are in control of the disposition, size, place and type of housing they want, subject to their joining us in the general mission to satisfy what is undoubtedly a huge desire in the next generation for new homes.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
I hope that everybody in the House wants to see new build quality improve, and we will soon consult on the details of a new homes ombudsman to make it so. We are also cracking down on unfair leasehold practices. Most recently, on 28 March, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State unveiled an industry pledge to end the doubling of ground rents, and there have been more than 40 signatures from the sector so far.
John Spellar
But the Minister surely recognises that every week there are continuing reports of shoddy workmanship, long delays in putting them right, extortionate leases, which he mentioned, and unfinished roads, lights and pavements. On top of that, we have seen unaffordable housing and eye-watering profits and bonuses. He should not just hive this off to an ombudsman; we need direct action from his Department. This scandal has been going on for far too long.
Kit Malthouse
As a constituency MP with a large amount of house building in my patch, I regularly deal with exactly the sort of problems that the right hon. Gentleman raises, and I make my views known to the house building industry about its duty to produce a high-quality product for its customers, notwithstanding whatever the Government may do. He is quite right that other tools may well be available to us, and we are looking, for example, at what we could do with the Help to Buy scheme to encourage house builders to produce greater quality. I am pleased to note, however, that the recent Home Builders Federation star rating system has shown a general improvement, particularly among the larger house builders, with three now in the five-star zone.
Eddie Hughes (Walsall North) (Con)
I chaired the all-party group on excellence in the built environment, which recommended a new homes ombudsman, but it was October when the Government agreed to introduce one. Five months on, can I press the Minister to get a move on before he gets promoted to the Cabinet?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is quite right to point out that Housing Ministers do not last that long, and I am certainly pushing the envelope at nine months, but I will do my best in the time that remains to me to fulfil his desire, because it is an important one. If we are going to get to building 300,000 homes a year for the next generation—I know this is of particular importance to him given his background—these houses have to be fantastic, of great quality and of brilliant design, so that communities will continue to accept them in significant numbers.
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
Since 2010, over 21,850 new homes have been delivered in Tyne and Wear. In March, we announced over £16 million from the housing infrastructure fund, which will help to unlock a further 5,000 homes.
Chi Onwurah
I publish my constituency casework on my website, and every month since I was first elected in 2010, housing has been one of the top three issues constituents bring to me. Does the Minister agree that to deliver choice and affordability for my constituents, the right resources and powers need to be devolved to the region as part of the North of Tyne deal? We know what our housing need is.
Kit Malthouse
Given that Newcastle is one of the two mighty northern cities that made me the person I am, the hon. Lady will understand that I am keen to see that wonderful city, where I spent three fantastic years at university, achieve its aspirations. I know that the local authority has constituted a housing delivery board, and we are doing our best to give it the resources it needs to deliver housing from Ousemouth to Kenton Bank Foot to the Helix development in central Newcastle. I am certainly more than happy to help her in chivvying it on to fulfil the aspirations of the Geordies who need homes.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
The proportion of under-45-year-olds owning their own home was 50% in 2010-11. That fell to 42% in 2016-17, in the aftermath of the crash, but happily it has since risen to 45% in 2017-18. Supported by Government schemes including Help to Buy and right to buy, the number of first-time buyers rose to more than 370,000 in 2018, an 86% increase since 2010.
Rosie Duffield
Many of my constituents are simply priced out of the housing market. Rental properties and mortgages are out of reach to all but the wealthiest, meaning that families who have lived for generations in villages such as Bridge, Chartham and Sturry, where their parents and grandparents grew up, are now simply unable to afford a property. Will the Minister acknowledge that we urgently need realistically priced affordable homes for the next generation, especially in rural areas?
Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
We have already invested £10 million in the Chelmer Waterside development in my hon. Friend’s constituency, but she is still insatiable for more Government funding for her fast-growing constituency. As she knows, HIF bids are a competitive process, but I will look carefully at the proposals put in by Chelmsford; and, given her support, let us be hopeful of success.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
New figures today show that 40,000 people are still trapped in privately owned blocks wrapped in Grenfell-style aluminium composite material cladding. That is 40,000 lives on hold—weddings cancelled, mental ill-health rife—because people are trapped in properties that cannot be sold. The Prime Minister repeatedly said that she rules nothing out, so when will the Government finally say, “Enough is enough,” set up a loan fund for private blocks and get the job done?
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Kit Malthouse
As I hope the hon. Gentleman knows, we are putting enormous emphasis on the regeneration of brownfield land. It should be a first call for all local authorities trying to deliver new homes. As I recall, 56% of all new homes last year were delivered on brownfield land. Through Homes England, we are putting significant money behind remediation required in areas such as coalfields and other sites that might be contaminated. I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with details of how his area could access that funding.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Martin Whitfield (East Lothian) (Lab)
The Housing Minister has a make-it-so attitude. Will he therefore meet with me, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the timber industries, and the group to discuss timber’s role in hitting the future carbon target as well as the housing target?
Kit Malthouse
Given the emphasis the Government are putting on new and innovative construction techniques in building the homes that the next generation needs, I am more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. Notwithstanding the problems we had with timber-framed buildings back in the 1980s, there is significant potential for its use in future house building.
Housing
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
That was a remarkable example of a combination of encyclopaedic knowledge and conviction about what my hon. Friend rightly says should be not only the Government’s top domestic priority but the entire country’s primary moral mission: to build the homes that the next generation need and which are currently denied to them.
It is unusual for me to hear strains of my own speeches read back to me. I know that my hon. Friend has not been to listen to many of my speeches, but what he said resonates strongly with me: many of the themes he laid out in his preamble and diagnosis I am myself going around the country promoting—not least the dysfunctionality of the house building market. The one element that he omitted, but that I am sure he is aware of, is that the situation is not helped by the fact that in the crash of 2007-08, 50% of all small house builders were wiped out—removed from the market—having produced, as my hon. Friend said, more than half of all new homes. That proportion has now dropped to about a third, I think.
Both in coalition and since, the Government have done their best to try to push output up from a low of 124,000 in 2012 to 222,000 last year. The forward indicators for next year are looking pretty good as well.
Anna McMorrin
Why did the Government scrap the requirement for homes to be carbon neutral, when that would go a long way towards helping with living costs and budgets, as well as meeting climate targets?
Kit Malthouse
I totally acknowledge the role that high environmental standards have to play in a sense of social justice about housing. I went to a factory run by Accord Housing, which produces 1,000 modular homes a year. So good are the environmental standards in those homes that they have lower arrears because people can afford to heat them. That is definitely something on which I want to focus.
I want to address some of the questions that my hon. Friend raised. He is right that we need to do something about the way in which the house building market functions at the moment, and my job is to wander around being disruptive, supporting new entrants and players to create the competitive landscape that he is looking for—competing on quality and type; being disruptive on technology and encouraging modern methods of construction, including off-site manufacture and new techniques, so that new entrants find it easier to overcome the barriers to entry that he mentioned; and being disruptive on finance.
My hon. Friend is a little negative about Help to Buy, but I ask him to take care. Many tens of thousands of young people have accessed homes for the first time when the market was denied to them before, because of a Government-backed effective bank of mum and dad. While there will be assessments of that scheme, there is no indication at the moment that it has pushed up prices.
Mr Bacon
Of course people who are given cash will be grateful, but if there is a subsidy for demand rather than supply, we will not fundamentally solve the problem. Would it not be a good idea to wean people off Help to Buy and towards Help to Build, so that we subsidised supply? If we subsidise something we get more of it, and what we need more of is supply.
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is right. It is possible—although I know it is strange—for Government to do two things at the same time. Help to Buy affects a very small percentage of housing transactions—about 4%—and the indications are that it has not had a particular impact on prices. We continue to review the policy in the light of its success—some 160,000 people have now accessed homes who otherwise would not have done so.
In the last minute or so I want to return to my hon. Friend’s questions. He asked five specific questions. First, will we look at a review for the taskforce? Given that we are going into a spending round, with what may be small amounts of money in the scale of the spending that I have available, I would be more than happy to do so. I am of course also more than happy to look at planning guidance review and particularly land allocation. In particular, we could perhaps think about communicating more widely to local authorities. I would be happy to help him by sponsoring some kind of event to promote the idea and to help local authorities to learn.
On viability, when I was on the Treasury Committee we did a housing inquiry in which I posed the question to Kate Barker and David Orr whether we should do away with the viability test as part of the planning system, and both of them thought that that was a good idea. In the meantime we have standardised the viability test to see where we get to.
On the Planning Inspectorate, my hon. Friend is right. We are trying to talk to staff about how they can be more consistent in their decision making and apply it more regularly across the country.
Finally I would be more than happy to join my hon. Friend in raising consumer awareness, and I congratulate him on what was a tour de force of knowledge of housing policy.
Question put and agreed to.
Permitted Development and Shale Gas Exploration
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on securing this debate, which I will call “shale 2”, as it is a repeat of the Westminster Hall debate promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley). It is clear from today’s debate that passions remain as high on this subject as on that heady afternoon.
I know the hon. Lady was not trying to position herself as the sole custodian of our precious countryside. My party overwhelmingly represents the British countryside and recognises the precious nature of our green and pleasant land. As an unapologetic environmentalist myself, I share that view. Being genetically from Yorkshire—although I was brought up in the north-west and educated in the north-east—I also have the interests of the northern half of this country at heart. I now happily represent a part of the same bulge of chalk as my right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) —I also have oil production that goes on unnoticed and uncomplained about by my constituents—so this is a matter of extreme importance to me.
I emphasise that no final decision has been made on whether to bring these proposals forward. The consultations have now closed and the Government are currently considering the representations made and will issue a response in due course. These consultations are part of a range of measures to make planning decisions faster and fairer for all those affected by new shale gas development and to ensure that local communities are fully involved in the planning decisions that affect them.
As right hon. and hon. Members will know, my remit as Housing Minister in relation to shale gas development is focused on planning policy and delivering the related manifesto commitments. Given that hon. Members have raised matters beyond my remit, including energy policy and reported seismic events, I will refer those matters to the Minister for Energy and Clean Growth, my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), for a response.
Mr Betts
The Minister has talked about having faster applications. Can he explain how precisely that would be done in a way that allows communities to be fully consulted? Furthermore, as I understand it, the Government have done no impact assessment on their proposals. Does he intend to do one at any stage?
Kit Malthouse
I will come to those exact issues, if the esteemed Chair of the Select Committee will give me a moment.
In summer 2018, we consulted on whether permitted development rights should be expanded to include shale gas exploration development, including the circumstances in which this might be appropriate. I would like to make it clear that any potential permitted development right granted for shale gas exploration would not apply to hydraulic-fracturing operations or the production stage of shale gas extraction.
I should also emphasise that any permitted development right would cover only the planning aspects of the development and would not remove requirements under other regulatory regimes from the three regulators: the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive and the Oil and Gas Authority. It is important to note that all permitted development rights contain specific exemptions, conditions and restrictions to control and mitigate the impact of the development and to protect local amenity, and any potential permitted development right for shale gas exploration would be no exception.
A right could include things such as limits on the height of any structure, areas where a permitted development right would not apply and noise and operation controls. The consultation sought views on this.
Kevin Hollinrake
Would permitted development rights allow a producer to construct a well pad pretty much wherever they wanted to put it?
Kit Malthouse
The consultation asked exactly that question of whether there should be a restriction. I know my hon. Friend suggested—in the last debate and in this one—having density restrictions on well pads in particular areas. We will answer that question when we respond to the consultation.
The permitted development consultation and the NSIP consultation mentioned by my hon. Friend and the shadow Minister ran for 14 weeks and closed on 25 October. The Government are currently analysing the representations to the consultations and will publish a response in due course.
All hon. Members have highlighted the importance of community engagement in the planning process. I reassure the House that we remain profoundly committed to ensuring that local communities are fully involved in the planning decisions that affect them and to making planning decisions faster and fairer. These are long-standing principles that I am adamant we will stick to. However, we understand that communities feel that they are often not consulted closely enough before planning applications are submitted by developers to the local planning authority. That can lead to opposition to developments and a longer application process.
Engagement with communities at the pre-application stage gives local people an earlier say in the planning process and makes developers aware of issues of importance to the community that may need to be resolved. The planning system in the UK already provides an extensive legislative framework for community involvement. However, there is scope to do more. That is why we published a separate consultation—sadly, unmentioned this afternoon —on whether applicants should be required to conduct a pre-application consultation with the local community prior to submitting a planning application for shale gas development, which could further strengthen the role that local people play in the planning process. The consultation closed on 7 January. We are currently analysing the representations that we have received and will publish a response in due course.
We also welcome the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s report of its inquiry on planning guidance relating to hydraulic fracturing and shale exploration. The report was published on 5 July 2018. We are considering its conclusions and recommendations, and will respond—to use a well-utilised word in this House—shortly.
I thank all hon. Members who have participated in this interesting and fascinating debate. Domestic onshore gas production, including shale gas, has the potential to play a major role in further securing our energy supplies. The UK must have safe, secure and affordable supplies of energy with carbon emission levels that are consistent with the carbon budgets defined in the Climate Change Act 2008 and our international obligations. The written ministerial statements on energy and planning policy made by the Secretaries of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and for Housing, Communities and Local Government on 17 May 2018 reiterated the Government’s view that there could be substantial benefits from the safe and sustainable exploration and development of our onshore shale gas resources.
We remain expressly committed to ensuring that local communities are fully involved in planning decisions that affect them and to making planning decisions faster and fairer at the same time. We have now delivered on our promise to consult on how best to develop our planning processes for both the exploration and production of shale gas development, while ensuring that communities remain fully involved. We are currently considering the responses from those consultations and will respond in due course.
Housing Need: Shropshire, and Telford and Wrekin
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
It is a great pleasure to appear before you for the first time, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing the debate. Having felt the breeze on my face and heard the skylarks atop the Wrekin, and sung in Ludlow church as a boy chorister, I can appreciate why my hon. Friend and his county colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), are quite so assiduous in seeking to curate that beautiful part of the country as carefully as possible.
As Members will know, the Secretary of State has a quasi-judicial role in the planning system, so I am sure they understand that it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the detail of individual decisions or plans. However, I can talk more broadly about the issues raised by my hon. Friend. Like him, the Government fully recognise the need to plan for and build more homes. We are committed to enabling the housing market to deliver at least 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s. We need to make sure that homes are supplied that meet the diverse needs of our communities, such as homes for first-time buyers, homes suitable and accessible for older people, high-quality rental properties and well-designed social housing.
Each and every part of the country has its role to play in ensuring that these homes are delivered. The vital first step in the process is to bring forward local plans that give communities certainty about where development will take place. The planning system should be genuinely plan-led, with up-to-date plans providing a framework for addressing environmental, social and economic priorities for every area, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Local plans should be prepared in consultation with communities. I hear exactly what my hon. Friend says about consultation and I urge all local authorities to ensure the public are fully involved in the planning process at every level. Local authorities play a key role in delivering the development and infrastructure that is needed in the right places, and community participation is a vital part of that.
The best plans are those that have been developed through effective engagement with communities throughout the process. Having an up-to-date plan in place is essential to planning for housing, providing clarity to communities and developers about where homes and supporting development should be built—and where it should not—so that development is planned for, rather than the result of speculative planning applications. The two local authority areas over which my hon. Friend’s constituency spans should have regard to that. I am aware that Telford and Wrekin Council adopted its local plan last year, for which it should be congratulated. I understand that Shropshire Council is undertaking a partial review of its site allocations and management of development plan at present—I emphasise how important that is for the communities those councils serve.
Through the revised national planning policy framework, we have made significant reforms to make it easier and quicker to get a plan in place. We have introduced flexibility in how plan-making happens, with a new, more flexible plan-making framework and an expectation that plans are kept up to date and reviewed at least once every five years. We have also introduced a standardised approach to assessing housing need locally. When it was published last year, the revised NPPF introduced a standard method for assessing local housing need. After extensive consultation, it was introduced to speed up and reduce the cost of the plan-making process and to make the process more transparent and accessible. It was introduced to help ensure that we meet our commitment to deliver more homes, which have been better designed, faster.
In practice, all councils should make a realistic assessment of the number of homes their communities need, and they should use the standard method as the starting point, not the end point, in the process. The starting point is used to identify the minimum number of homes needed every year. What the standard method does not do, however, is provide a maximum number of homes needed, nor does it provide a target that must be planned for. It would be wrong to think that this is just a numbers game; we need to make sure that communities are fully on board through local plans. We need to make sure that constraints, such as green belt, are considered and that we find the right places for homes, within those constraints. We also need to ensure that the right infrastructure is in place and that we underpin all development with good design principles.
Development should not be progressed at any cost and local circumstances should be taken into account. Local authorities are best placed to do that and should plan how to meet the housing needs of their communities, considering land availability and relevant constraints, including green belt and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and whether need is more appropriately met in neighbouring areas.
Mark Pritchard
Does the Minister agree that the relationship first between the West Midlands combined authority and Shropshire Council, and secondly between Shropshire Council and Telford and Wrekin Council, whether it be commercial and/or financial, should be transparent? It is in the public interest that documentation relating to those relationships should be published.
Kit Malthouse
I agree with my hon. Friend. As he will know, under the plan-making process, all local authorities have a duty to co-operate with their neighbours in seeking to allocate housing need most appropriately in their region or area. Where those plans are put in place and there is co-operation about the allocation of housing, of course it should be completely transparent for local communities to see how their democratically elected representatives are disposing of the required housing need in their area.
I want to talk about environmental protection. The NPPF carries forward into planning the basic principle of the 25-year environment plan that we must leave our environment in a better condition than when we inherited it, and plan and design developments accordingly. The area which both my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin and my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow represent is particularly sensitive in environmental terms, and should be protected as much as possible.
As my hon. Friend mentioned, the green belt is a key feature of our natural heritage and fundamentally aims to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open. It is a national policy, but applied locally with green-belt land defined and protected by local planning authorities. By providing strong protection for the openness of green-belt land the NPPF prevents inappropriate development. He is right that local authorities have a duty to look at brownfield land first before they consider green-belt sites.
Mark Pritchard
Does the Minister share my surprise that my constituents were informed in the last few weeks by Shropshire Council that the west midlands appears to have run out of employment land?
Kit Malthouse
I cannot comment on specific dispositions towards plans, but it sounds surprising to me that the west midlands, which is such a large area, might be short of employment land. Nevertheless, dispersed employment, even in my hon. Friend’s constituency, should be welcomed. As he says, it is for local authorities to decide exactly which area is right to use for their employment and housing land. He is right that there should be a close relationship between Homes England and local authorities. That relationship should be transparent, with plans and decisions on display, subject to commercial confidentiality, giving local communities confidence that what is being done in their name and in their area has both involved them in its production and can be justified.
On transparency, I want to say a word about section 106 agreements, which my hon. Friend raised. To improve the section 106 process, we have recently mandated local authorities to publish viability assessments of particular developments. Local people can now see what the section 106 gain for their area will be, and can compare it against their neighbours, because we see different patterns of performance on section 106 agreements. All of that, allied with other changes we have made in the planning process, such as producing neighbourhood plans and pushing neighbourhood plans forward, is designed to make local people, including my hon. Friend’s constituents, feel that they are more the masters of the planning system and less its victims.
If we are going to raise acceptability for vital housing so that young people are able to live in beautiful areas of the country such as the one my hon. Friend represents, we need to ensure local people are in charge of where housing goes, what it looks like, how it is disposed and what kind of housing it is. Local people need to be an integral part of the process of producing new homes, having accepted that a significant number of homes need to be built for the next generation, as a moral obligation to be passed from one generation to the next. I will work closely with my hon. Friend and his county colleagues to make that happen sensitively in his constituency, as I will across the rest of the country.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Architects Act 1997 (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Architects Act 1997 (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
The regulations were laid before both Houses of Parliament on 18 February 2019. They are part of the Government’s programme of legislation to ensure that if the UK leaves the EU without a deal and implementation period, there will continue to be a functioning legislative and regulatory regime. Leaving the EU with a deal remains the Government’s top priority. That has not changed. However, the responsible thing to do is to accelerate no-deal preparations to ensure that the country is prepared for every eventuality. These regulations are made using powers in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 to fix legal deficiencies in retained EU law, to reflect the fact that the UK will no longer be an EU member state after exit day.
Our architectural sector is a global leader and plays a significant role in the British economy, with an export surplus of £437 million in 2015 and involvement in key global projects such as the transformation of the Reichstag building in Berlin and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. We want to protect and enhance that position over the coming years.
Let me provide some context for and background to the regulations. The EU’s mutual recognition of professional qualifications directive enables European economic area nationals to have certain qualifications recognised in another member state. That includes the recognition of suitably qualified architects. It is a reciprocal arrangement, allowing UK and other EEA nationals the opportunity easily to register to practise across Europe and allowing UK practices to recruit the best European talent. The Architects Act 1997 sets out the specific procedures for registering architects in the UK. The recognition of qualifications of EEA applicants is carried out by the competent authority, the Architects Registration Board, which is an arm’s length body of my Department.
There are currently three routes to recognition for an EEA architect wishing to register in the UK. The main route to recognition for an EEA national architect is through an automatic recognition system. To qualify for automatic recognition, an EEA national needs to meet three tests. They must have an approved qualification, which means one listed in annex V to the mutual recognition of professional qualifications directive, and they need access to the profession of architect in an EEA member state and a statement from their home competent authority confirming that they are fit to practise.
The second route, known as general systems, provides for recognition for EEA nationals who do not have an approved qualification. The general systems route allows them to map their qualifications and experience against UK standards with the Architects Registration Board. The applicant is offered compensation measures—that is, the opportunity to undertake additional training to make up any differences in qualification. It is a long and costly process, which on average only four people pursue annually.
The third route facilitates the temporary or occasional provision of service. It allows EEA professionals to work in the UK in a regulated profession on a temporary basis, while remaining established in their home state. Typically, fewer than 20 EEA architects pursue that option at any one time.
If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, the mutual recognition of professional qualifications directive will no longer apply in the UK. The regulations will ensure that UK architectural practices can continue to recruit the best European talent and maintain their global reputation as world leaders in the field of architecture. The policy intention is to provide the sector with confidence that almost all applicants will be able to register in the same way after exit day as they do currently. That is the approach favoured by the sector, which recognises the skills brought by these architects as contributing positively to the UK’s reputation as a world leader.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
I am glad that the Minister recognises the UK’s world-leading status in this field, but in saying how much he recognises the contribution that the sector makes, he seems to be failing to recognise the concerns of the Royal Institute of British Architects, which has pointed out that one in five architects working in the UK is from another EU member state. RIBA is asking for a more permanent basis for a new system of mutual recognition of professional qualifications. Why are the Government not providing that?
Kit Malthouse
It is certainly our intention that, once this has landed, the system of recognition will be reviewed. One thing that the regulations do is to freeze the qualifications at a particular date, so that we can buy ourselves some time to have exactly those discussions. I will come to this later, but in relation to other countries, such as Switzerland, that cannot be accommodated in these regulations, there have been very productive conversations, which will allow mutual recognition in the future.
The regulations allow applications made before exit day to be concluded under the current system as far as possible. For future applications, the regulations will freeze the current list of approved qualifications under the EU’s mutual recognition of professional qualifications directive. As a result, after EU exit in a no-deal scenario, an individual holding an approved qualification will be able to join the UK register of architects if they have access to the profession of architect in their home state. That approach will preserve access for UK practices to EEA-qualified architects. The process will be open to anyone with an EEA qualification and access to the profession in the corresponding state, regardless of their citizenship.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
The Minister is not addressing the fact that although the qualification requirements are frozen during the review period, however long it may last, at the end of the period new qualifications may be required. How long does he expect the review period to last before we get a settled position? Does he think there will be a detriment to people if new qualifications come in during the review period?
Kit Malthouse
Those are perfectly reasonable questions. We do not anticipate significant movement in the number of qualifications. Initially, the risk is low, but we would like to get the system under review as much as possible. If it becomes clear that a qualification needs to be accommodated, it is perfectly possible for us to take steps to do that on a one-off basis. The intention behind the system is that we maintain the ability of UK architect practices to access talent from across the world. Let us not forget that quite a lot of architects who come from non-EEA countries work in UK practices. They are accommodated in the UK perfectly happily.
Kit Malthouse
Let me make some progress. We will remove general systems as a route to registration, because it is a long and costly process that is not utilised often and it places a significant unnecessary burden on individuals and the Architects Registration Board. Therefore, applicants without an approved qualification, including applicants who would have previously qualified for acquired rights, will be able to pursue the prescribed exam route and undertake further examinations and periods of study to allow for registration. That is the route currently utilised by third-country nationals.
The regulations provide a legal basis for the Architects Registration Board to continue to communicate with other EEA competent authorities to facilitate recognition decisions, ensuring that the Architects Registration Board can verify that the applicant meets the UK’s high standards of competence. Currently, the ARB facilitates information sharing through the EU internal market information system. Without a deal, we cannot be confident that the ARB will continue to have access to that important information-sharing system; therefore, the regulations place a requirement on the applicant to obtain the relevant information from their home competent authority, should the ARB not be able to secure it correctly.
The regulations will remove the rights to temporary and occasional provision of services, because without guaranteed access to information systems and an agreed process for reciprocation, that route will become unwieldy and of less value. That will have a minimal impact on the sector, because only 12 people are practising on this basis. Historically, fewer than 20 people have practised as architects in the UK on a temporary and occasional basis at any one time.
Our overall approach to these changes is in line with both the policy and the legal intent of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and it enacts the policy that the Government set out in the guidance document in January. The draft regulations serve a specific purpose: to prioritise stability and certainty if the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period. The draft regulations will ensure that the UK continues to have access to top European talent after we leave the EU, thereby helping to maintain our reputation as a global leader in architectural services. Thereafter, the regulations provide a stable basis for Parliament to change the law when it is in the UK’s best interests to do so.
The draft regulations are necessary to ensure that the Architects Act 1997 continues to function appropriately if the UK leaves the EU without a deal or an implementation period. I hope colleagues will join me in supporting the regulations, which I commend to the Committee.
Kit Malthouse
I thank Committee members for reviewing these regulations. I will attempt to answer some of the questions that have been raised.
First, we acknowledge that the regulations are a temporary fix. Having consulted the industry, we have designed the regulations specifically to provide some immediate security and stability to architects who are operating at the moment and to those who might come in the near future. It is our intention to review the situation pretty quickly, but unfortunately I cannot give the Committee a date. Given that such professions are of high standing and that it takes quite a long time to qualify, one would hope that the level of movement in them will not be swift. Nevertheless, we are committed to reviewing the regulations. From conversations with European counterparts, I know that there is a recognition of the steps we are taking with the policy to recognise qualifications, and possibly a desire to reciprocate.
Part of my job is the discovery of all sorts of strange organisations across the world, and there is one, believe it or not, called the European Network of Architects’ Competent Authorities—the ENACA. At a recent meeting, although I gather that no formal decisions were made, a number of other competent authorities in EEA countries recognised what we were doing and were keen to reciprocate, and to continue to recognise UK-qualified architects where feasibly possible. There are moves already—it would be desirable, as in a number of other professional areas—to seek some kind of mutual recognition. We will review the matter, but unfortunately I cannot give hon. Members a date.
We are very mindful of the fact that architecture is a significant industry of great international repute. It builds buildings and designs other structures not just in Europe, but across the world. The Hong Kong floating airport on an island was designed by a British architect, and we seem to specialise in remarkable bridges across the world. There is a lot of stuff that we can do, and we are very keen to preserve that ability. In order to do so, we have been engaging significantly with the industry.
There have been roadshows and roundtables across the country—London, Birmingham, Newcastle and Cambridge, with more planned for Scotland and Northern Ireland—to understand the impact on the industry, and the industry’s readiness for a no-deal situation. Those discussions go beyond the scope of the regulations. We have met specifically with Foster and Partners, Allies and Morrison, and David Chipperfield Architects—three internationally renowned practices that produce work across the world—to discuss the implications for them.
One thing under consideration is the cost to business, which the hon. Gentleman from Scotland raised. There has not been a review of the cost, because we believe that it falls below the £5 million threshold, but the only imposition that we can foresee is a possible slight delay to the recognition of qualifications. However, we do not think that that will be significant, as long as the Architects Registration Board has access to the appropriate paperwork. Given that the regulations place the obligation on the applicant to produce the paperwork from their home country, the speed of approval is fundamentally in their own hands.
Brendan O'Hara
Given that I appear to be the Member for the whole of Scotland, I ask the Minister for the whole of England whether any assessment has been done on the impact on microbusinesses—very small businesses and one or two-person companies.
Kit Malthouse
There might be a misunderstanding here. Fundamentally, the regulations set out that the recognition of the person’s qualification to practise stays exactly the same. The only thing that changes is that, instead of the Architects Registration Board being able to get the information required to prove that the person has the qualification, the person has to get that information in the event that we do not have access to it. Fundamentally, the ARB will operate in the same way, but the route of access to the information will become the obligation of the individual. It will not be within the ability of the ARB, because of the lack of access to that information.
Competent authorities in the EU may decide to continue to provide the flow of information, in which case nothing will change. We are very keen, in introducing the regulations, to ensure that there is some stability for EEA nationals. We hope that the EU and the competent authorities will reciprocate, but Committee members will understand that that is not under our control. However, we are seeing movement in Europe suggesting that they are keen to do so. In theory, the cost to business should be minimal, because it is just about the flow of paperwork to prove that the qualification is valid.
We are in conversation with the industry, through our general engagement, about the impact of immigration. A discussion is going on, brokered by us, between industry and the Home Office about the impact of the immigration policy that the UK might put in place. We will continue to keep that conversation up and running.
Melanie Onn
I want to take the Minister back to the question of IMI documentation. It can sometimes be difficult for individuals to secure that paperwork, so there may be delays. Will he encourage reciprocity of arrangements to ensure that there are no delays if the IMI information is not available to the ARB?
Kit Malthouse
Absolutely. Nobody wants there to be any delay in the provision of information, and the ARB will seek to obtain that information itself informally and on an ad hoc basis. There is no intention on either side of the channel to hold up the approval of architects’ registration. We want to find a way to co-operate on that process. There is a technical, legal basis, because the IMI may not be available.
Having said that, I have a professional qualification myself—I am a chartered accountant—and if I wanted to practise chartered accountancy in an EEA country, I would expect to have all the documentation in my briefcase when I went to do so. It is not that difficult. If I am paying 450 quid a year for my registration at the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the least it can do is to provide me with my practising certificate, if I am a practising chartered accountant. Sadly, as a moderate accountant, I have not practised for many years.
Do not forget that people with a professional qualification have a requirement to do what is called CPD—continuing professional development—to maintain their suite of skills. That applies just as much to architects, and of course the CPD process is approved by the various competent authorities. The idea that architects qualify, never communicate again with their approving body during their professional life and then cannot find the paperwork when they need it is not a true reflection of the situation, but I understand what the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute was saying.
I hope that that has covered most of the questions. I am grateful to Committee members for considering the regulations. We recognise that the industry is an important one for the UK. Many of the industry’s comments that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby referred to were probably made before we released our policy, which the industry broadly approves of, albeit on a temporary basis. I hope that the Committee will join me in supporting the regulations.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Architects Act 1997 (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019.
Clyde House and A2Dominion
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) on securing this important debate. I understand her concerns and those of her constituents about the terrible situation at Clyde House, the state of their homes and how this has been addressed by the landlord, A2Dominion. I also congratulate her on the obviously pivotal role she played in resolving the situation. It is obvious from events that her intervention has brought A2Dominion up short and made them acknowledge its mistakes and errors. Indeed, I read in The Guardian that the director of property services had issued an apology saying:
“We recognise that things are not right and we’re going to put them right. We haven’t performed well, and you have my personal apology.”
She no doubt has the gratitude of her constituents and my congratulations as the Minister and those of the many Members who deal with these sorts of issues on a daily basis, as I do in my constituency.
Let me first make it clear that everyone has the right to be safe and to feel safe in their home, and they should expect their complaints to be dealt with promptly and effectively. The Government have taken steps to ensure that happens. Last year we published our social housing Green Paper, which sought views on how to improve redress for social housing residents in particular, and on a number of other issues that my right hon. Friend has raised this evening.
We engaged extensively with residents to inform and shape the Green Paper. We heard that residents want redress quickly when things go wrong, and for processes to be clearer and simpler. The Green Paper asked a range of questions on how we could deliver that, including a question on the future of the democratic filter, which is the process whereby a complaint is referred to the ombudsman via a designated person, or the complainant must wait eight weeks, which can further delay the complaints process.
The Green Paper also set out proposals to hold landlords to account more. To that end, we are reviewing the regulatory system for social housing so that the regulator can take action when a landlord consistently fails its residents. We want to rebalance the relationship between landlords and residents, and we will underpin that with a robust regulatory framework. We will publish our response to the Green Paper and the outcome of the review of regulation in due course.
I held roadshows across the country with hundreds of residents, particularly in social and affordable housing. I made a pledge that at some point before the summer we will publish that action plan. It will have a clear sense of direction and a clear timetable, because I was asked repeatedly by residents whether it was worth attending the roadshows, and whether they will actually see some change. I have made that pledge. How long I will be in this job, I am not sure—Housing Ministers do not often last that long—but I will try.
I also want to mention the other actions that the Government are taking to help all tenants. The Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 will strengthen all tenants’ rights and protect them from poor practice. The Act, which comes into force on 20 March, will empower all tenants, both private tenants and those in social housing, to take their landlord to court if their property is unfit for human habitation. Under the Act, landlords must ensure that their properties are fit from the start and throughout the tenancy. If they do not do so, the tenant has the right to take legal action. We have published guidance for tenants to help them understand their rights and responsibilities under the Act, and guidance for landlords and local authorities on how the Act might affect them.
Seema Malhotra
Can the Minister clarify whether, under the new arrangements, which I think we are all pleased to see coming into force, if a resident takes a landlord to court and wins, there are any circumstances in which they might be required to pay the landlord’s legal fees?
Kit Malthouse
That is a very good question, to which I do not actually have the answer, but I will make inquires and write to the hon. Lady. In most cases, as I am sure she knows, it is at the judge’s discretion where costs fall, and often it is decided on the merits of the case.
The 2018 Act does not place any additional responsibilities on social landlords, as they are already required to maintain their homes to a decent standard; it will act only as a backstop. We expect any problems with properties to be resolved far before they reach that stage.
The first step for residents with a complaint is to report problems to their landlord. The regulator expects all social landlords to have in place a complaints process that deals with issues promptly, politely and fairly. The onus is on individual landlords, working with residents, to set their approach and timescales for handling their residents’ complaints. I want to stress that if any hon. Member, acting on a constituent’s behalf, is unhappy with the response provided by a registered provider once their internal complaints process has been exhausted, that hon. Member may take the matter further.
Social housing residents can also approach the Housing Ombudsman Service at any time to seek advice. However, in order to refer a complaint formally to the ombudsman, a resident’s complaint must pass through the democratic filter. That involves referring a complaint to a designated person—a local councillor, a Member of Parliament or a tenant panel—for them either to deal with the complaint or to refer it to the ombudsman, or waiting eight weeks after their landlord’s complaints process has been exhausted. If the ombudsman determines that a complaint falls within its jurisdiction, it will investigate the complaint to determine whether there has been maladministration by the landlord. It will then issue a determination letter, which may include orders and recommendations to resolve the dispute. The landlord is expected to follow any orders within a specific timeframe.
Ruth Cadbury
A2Dominion is one of a number of large housing associations that, by definition, are charities, and yes, it is a registered social landlord. Almost all of its residents, certainly in my constituency, are either social rent tenants or leaseholders under the shared ownership scheme, many of whom are on fixed incomes. I see again and again seriously poor management practices and lack of repairs, such as those the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) has described. These residents do not have the time or energy to go through the process that the Minister has just set out. What they want is a decent-quality housing service that is at least as good as the local authority, and it should be as good as anyone would expect.
Kit Malthouse
I completely agree. I have a large number of housing association properties in my constituency, too, and my postbag as a constituency MP is filled with similar complaints. When I first became a Member of Parliament, I was astonished and dismayed to find I was effectively the postbox for local housing association’s complaints service. Were I the chief executive of such an organisation, I would be mortified if local Members of Parliament were receiving the level of correspondence that some of us do, and I would be taking action.
We have recently seen some large housing associations acknowledge their failures: A2Dominion has acknowledged its particular failure in Clyde House, and L&Q, one of the G15, has come out very publicly and acknowledged its failure. Action has been taken—for example, in the past couple of years on Circle Property, which also failed on service—but there is more we can do, particularly on regulation, about which the Green Paper will say more. We can swing the pendulum of regulation toward a sense of customer service and away from purely financial regulation. As I say, there is more to come.
Sometimes things go wrong, and where that happens it is of the utmost importance that any safety concerns are resolved as soon as practicable. All registered providers of social housing must comply with the regulatory standards set by the Regulator of Social Housing. That includes ensuring that all their properties meet and are maintained at the decent homes standard, which means that homes should be free of any category 1 hazards, in a reasonable state of repair, have reasonably modern facilities, and provide a reasonable degree of thermal comfort. The regulator’s standards also require landlords to provide a repairs and maintenance service that responds to the need of tenants and offers them choices. The objective is to get repairs and improvements right the first time.
Justine Greening
It would be helpful if my hon. Friend covered the question of compensation. Often there are very serious problems with people’s properties, and they may even need to be moved out. Those are extremely disruptive times for families with young children, and they end up living in hotels. Will the new framework provide more redress to compensate people who are affected by bad performance, as my constituents have been?
Kit Malthouse
My right hon. Friend poses a good question. I do not want to front-run the publication of the plan document, but she can be assured that one of the critical issues for the Government is to make sure that tenants are dealt with professionally and quickly, and that their problems are sorted out the first time. We are considering devising a performance framework for housing associations and other registered social landlords, making performance transparent to tenants, which might be useful to them when comparing landlords.
Where landlords do not provide a proper repairs and maintenance service, tenants should complain and have the right to expect that something is done. If my right hon. Friend’s constituents consider that their property has serious hazards that present a risk to health and safety, they can report that to their local council, which can inspect and assess the property using the housing health and safety rating system. If the local council becomes aware of a serious category 1 hazard, it has a duty to take appropriate action to address it. Hazards can include, among other things, damp, excess cold or heat, poor sanitation and fire risks. Councils have a range of powers to ensure that landlords take appropriate action to rectify the problem; in extreme cases, the council can take emergency remedial action itself and charge the landlord to do the work.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend has reminded me that it was remiss of me not to give thanks to Wandsworth Council for the work it did when issues of safety in Clyde House were raised. I put on record my thanks to the inspectors who went and made sure that health and safety measures were in place.
Kit Malthouse
I am grateful for my right hon. Friend’s intervention. I am pleased to hear that the system is working and that Wandsworth Council has played its part in resolving what was obviously a difficult and trying time for the residents of Clyde House. I hope the work we are doing on the social housing Green Paper and on shifting regulation generally more towards consumer standards and away from financial regulation will mean that the time in question will become a piece of history that we can all forget.
I thank my right hon. Friend again for securing this valuable debate. I have tried to set out the arrangements that are already in place to protect tenants, and I hope I have also made clear my commitment to improving things further. Nevertheless, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the issues at Clyde House, and I will be asking A2Dominion to come into the Department to explain what happened, what went wrong and where things might be improved. I would be more than happy to sit down with my right hon. Friend to discuss her ideas so that we can feed them into our work on the social housing Green Paper. As I have said, I am committed to ensuring that everyone can seek timely and effective solutions when they have a housing problem and can live in a home of which they can be proud.
Question put and agreed to.
Fire Safety and Sprinkler Systems
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
It is a great pleasure to appear before you once again, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on securing this debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), and other Members, on the formidable platoon of people who they marshal on this issue on a regular basis. As our call for evidence on the technical review of building regulations fire safety guidance is closing, I welcome this opportunity to respond to the debate.
I hope hon. Members recognise that ensuring that people are and feel safe in their homes is a priority for the Government, and that includes all parts of the Government, both elected and non-elected. Notwithstanding remarks by a number of Members about the official advice that Ministers receive, I hope people recognise that officials in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are as dedicated to the cause of fire safety as everyone else, and that their views and the advice they give are drawn from as wide a range of experts in the field as possible. As the former member of the London Assembly responsible for the constituency that contains Grenfell Tower, it is of particular importance to me that we reach a resolution on this issue quickly.
Before coming to sprinklers, I wish to update hon. Members about wider work that is under way on fire safety. In the immediate aftermath of the terrible Grenfell fire we acted quickly to establish the building safety programme, which worked tirelessly to identify and remediate buildings with unsafe cladding. Thanks to the testing and hard work of local authorities, we are confident that we have identified all social housing with unsafe ACM cladding systems in England, and we have made good progress in making those buildings permanently safe. Of the 158 social sector buildings, 125 have either started or completed remediation, and plans and commitments are in place to remediate the remaining 33 buildings. To help ensure swift progress, we have made £400 million available to social sector landlords to fund that remediation. I regret, however, that remediation in the private sector has been more challenging, with negotiations in some instances disappointingly slow.
Since Grenfell, we have worked intensively with local authorities to identify high-rise buildings with ACM cladding, and we have provided £1.3 million to assist them. Local authorities across England have assessed around 6,000 private sector high-rise buildings. They needed to take samples to test, and in some cases legal action was required to get owners to co-operate in that testing. We have taken strong action to give local authorities the support they need to enforce the removal and replacement of unsafe cladding. We have established a taskforce to oversee the remediation of private sector buildings, as well as a joint inspection team to support local authorities in pursuing enforcement action.
On 29 November, the Government went further and announced that we will back local authorities to take emergency action, including financial support, where building owners are not co-operating with remediation. As a result, we have made progress with commitments from owners to replace unsafe cladding. By the end of December 2018, 218 out of 266 privately owned buildings had either started, completed, or committed to remediation. Forty-eight private residential buildings remain where the owners are not currently co-operating, and that number has fallen from more than 200 buildings in June last year. We remain concerned about and engaged with leaseholders who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in a difficult and stressful situation. I recently met the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse to discuss the New Providence Wharf development in his constituency.
Sir Mike Penning
I am really pleased, and I think all hon. Members and people around the country will be pleased about the progress made on private leasehold properties. However, no matter how hard we try, and however many threats we make, a small group will fall through the net, particularly where developers have gone into liquidation. That is exactly where the Government need to step in, sometimes with the help of insurance companies—for example, when the situation with mesothelioma was terrible and many people did not get the compensation they deserved, we stepped in and put a tariff on those insurers. All these properties will have been insured, and people should get the compensation they need.
Kit Malthouse
I recognise the point that my right hon. Friend makes; he is quite right. Of the remaining private sector buildings, there are some where there is a dispute about the extent or type of cladding—whether it is thin or decorative, and what percentage of the building it covers—but there are a small number where the situation that he raises will pertain, where for reasons of absence, insolvency or intransigence we may need to take more forceful action.
I have said that if local authorities assess that there is a category 1 hazard and a threat to life in a building, they have the power to enter that building, do the necessary work and we will support them financially in doing so. In the final analysis that can be the result, but we are considering what action we can take in the circumstances that my right hon. Friend raises. I would like to reassure everybody that the Secretary of State and I, as well as senior officials, are engaged in serious and intense discussions with building owners to try and resolve these situations.
Our timber fire doors testing programme is almost complete; there have been no failed tests to date. However, we had previous issues with glass-reinforced plastic composite fire doors and we stepped in quickly to ensure that defective products were removed. My Department has been working with industry to ensure that defective doors already in situ will be remediated. We have not stopped there. While the focus on aluminium composite material cladding following the Grenfell Tower fire was the right priority, we are now moving into a phase of testing a range of non-ACM cladding, such as zinc and high-pressure laminate cladding. Those tests are starting shortly.
We will take the advice of the independent expert advisory panel on these findings and take appropriate action. At this stage I am not able to say what that might entail. It could be further advice to owners, it could mean further testing or it could mean further remediation of residential high-rise buildings if necessary. I will ensure hon. Members are kept updated on this important area of work.
Alongside the focus on remediation, my Department is taking forward the recommendations in Dame Judith Hackitt’s report. We published our implementation plan in December, which set out the principles of our approach, and a more detailed consultation is expected later in the spring.
One priority, alongside the remediation work and the recommendations in Dame Judith’s report, has been to deal with immediate issues of concern. At the end of November we introduced new regulations implementing the ban on the use of combustible materials in the external walls of high-rise buildings. These regulations are now fully in force. In December we issued strengthened guidance on assessments in lieu of tests. We consulted last year on a clarified version of the building regulations fire safety guidance, approved document B. We received more than 1,300 comments on the draft, which we have been working through. We are working towards publishing the revised, clarified guidance later in the spring.
As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, we issued a call for evidence to inform our technical review of the fire safety guidance, which will close shortly. We have received 150 responses and I am grateful for the input of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety to this work, which is shaping the debate. I cannot go into the full detail of what that call for evidence covered, because of time constraints, but it sets out a wide range of issues, across the full range of topics covered by approved document B, many of which have been mentioned by hon. Members today, although of course it was open to stakeholders to suggest other issues for consideration.
This debate has focused particularly on sprinkler systems. I understand the urgency and passion with which hon. Members have expressed themselves today and I share their desire for the Government to address the issue quickly. The call for evidence asked for data and views on sprinkler provision. Current building regulations guidance sets provisions for sprinklers in flats in blocks of flats over 30 metres tall. I know that there is intense debate about what should be considered to be the right height threshold; that debate is taking place in Scotland at the moment.
I am also conscious that the Scottish and Welsh Governments have recently taken action or are about to take action on this matter. These are obviously important considerations for the position in England. Members will understand that at this stage in what is essentially a legal process, I cannot make any firm commitments beyond reinforcing the point that we will consider the responses to the call for evidence carefully. We will set out our plans for how we propose to respond to the call for evidence as soon as we can. I recognise the need for speed.
Building regulations only apply when building work is under way. There is a separate question about whether sprinkler systems should be retrofitted to existing buildings, and, if so, how and whether this should be mandated. Retrofitting of sprinkler systems into existing tower blocks may not always be the answer to ensuring fire safety. Members may have seen that there was an enormous Ocado warehouse fire in my constituency a few weeks ago. I understand that the warehouse had an extensive fire suppression and sprinkler system, and it still went up in flames. Happily, there were no casualties but nevertheless it has left about 800 of my constituents worried about their future employment.
Decisions on whether to install a fire suppression system should be informed by a robust analysis of the specifics of a building, in consultation with the fire services. It was with this in mind that my Department offered local authorities a significant package of financial flexibilities through the housing revenue account, if they undertook analysis and decided that the installation of sprinklers was the right way forward. No local authorities have taken up the offer of these flexibilities to date, but I am willing to discuss the issue with any of them who may be considering taking up the offer made.
In the future we would expect the safety case approach for existing high-risk residential buildings, as recommended by Dame Judith Hackitt and which we will be implementing, to be the vehicle for building owners to consider what risk mitigation measures, including sprinkler systems, they need to consider and put in place. In doing so, if there is pressure from residents in any particular building to provide sprinklers, then I would expect local authorities and landlords to be alive to that and consider their options carefully.
I thank hon. Members for raising this important issue and for all their contributions. It is a timely debate, given the stage we are at in considering the review of approved document B, and I can assure the House that we will consider the issues raised today very carefully. I recognise the passion and commitment Members have for this cause, particularly those in the APPG. I also recognise the concern across the country among residents who live in high-rise buildings and feel insecure, whether that is because of the cladding or the general atmosphere around fire safety. It is critical for us as a Government to get this right, and I can reassure everybody that we will give it as much energy and urgency as we possibly can.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
Last year more housing was delivered in England than in all but one of the past 31 years, but there is still much more to do, from reform of the planning system and developer contributions to deploying Homes England as the WD40 of the house building industry, working on the recommendations of the Letwin review, and accelerating decision making in the Department. We are stretching every sinew to build more and better homes across the country, and to build them faster.
Mary Robinson
Building homes that people want to live in should be a challenge that we set ourselves as we aim to tackle the housing situation. Modern methods of construction encompass new and innovative building methods, including off-site manufacturing, to produce more homes in less time. During a recent visit to a modular homes factory, I saw how well constructed, well insulated and adaptable homes for life can provide quality housing in weeks rather than months. Does my hon. Friend agree that local authorities should recognise the diverse range of construction methods when developing their local plans to meet housing requirements?
Kit Malthouse
With her usual accuracy and perception, my hon. Friend has put her finger on one of the most exciting developments that we are currently seeing in house building, which is indeed off-site manufacturing. That technique holds enormous potential, not least because it is deployed to a significant extent in other parts of the world. We have a £450 million fund to support its development, and the first payment was made to Welwyn Hatfield just last week.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister not realise that this Government are not building enough new homes? Even the ones they are building are not in the right places for the right people. Is he not aware of the scandal—a situation my constituents cannot understand—that so much of the money that went to Help to Buy has ended up in the pockets of chief executives of building companies?
Kit Malthouse
The hon. Gentleman is right, in that Governments of all stripes have failed to build enough homes over the last few decades. Indeed, our efforts to correct that were hampered by the destruction of 50% of the small house building industry in the crash of 2008, when his party was in government. We have tried very hard to correct that, and last year we managed to reach a total of 222,000 homes, but we must push forward to 300,000. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in encouraging civic leaders throughout the country to embrace that ambition, and to build the homes that the next generation needs.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Members for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and, for that matter, for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Gordon Henderson) could all very legitimately shoehorn their inquiries into this question if they were so minded. That is merely a gentle hint; it is not obligatory.
Kit Malthouse
I sincerely agree with my hon. Friend that the Government’s objective should be to create a big, wide menu of tenure options from which young people can choose at different stages in their lives, and depending on their circumstances. We want to ensure that everyone can acquire good-quality homes for themselves and their families, but critically that everyone in the country, at some point in their lives, should have a shot at ownership.
Catherine West
Kit Malthouse
As I hope the House knows, this Government are extremely ambitious about our environmental targets and want to push further and faster in order to achieve them. The hon. Lady is right that there is enormous potential, particularly in the affordable homes programme and the new generation of council homes that we hope will be built to create higher environmental standards. I saw this for myself on a visit to a factory in Aldridge in the west midlands, where Accord Housing is producing modular homes for social and affordable rent. They said to me that so good are the environmental standards in those homes that they have lower arrears in buildings built that way because they are easier to heat and light.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
Would not the best way to reduce the time taken to build new homes be to support my Housing Reform Bill? Since I have not yet persuaded the Minister for Housing of that, if I bring it back in the next Session with a few tweaks, will he undertake to take another look at it?
Kit Malthouse
Mr Speaker, it will not surprise you to know that I am in constant conversation with my hon. Friend about his various ideas for the housing market from self-build to the reforms he is outlining, and I hope to continue those conversations. He is a veritable cornucopia of thinking and policy ideas in this sphere, and they are to be welcomed.
Mr Speaker
I enjoyed the hon. Lady’s question, but it would nevertheless have benefited from the generous application of the blue pencil.
Kit Malthouse
I urge the hon. Lady to take care with her opinion of Help to Buy as a scheme: it is one of the few Government policies for which people actually stop me in the streets to thank me. [Interruption.] Even though it had nothing to do with me, I am quite happy to take the credit for the policy—for the origination of it in any case. Several people have stopped me and thanked me for it, because it gives young people access to homes that otherwise they would not obtain.
The hon. Lady is right, though, that problems have been experienced in the market with leasehold, and we are determined to bring about change. The new Help to Buy scheme will be used to bring about some of that change, and the Secretary of State tells me he has not resiled one ounce from his promises.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
Our national planning policies are clear about the importance of making full and efficient use of brownfield land, supported by the requirement for every authority to publish and maintain a register of brownfield land suitable for housing. The £4.5 billion home building fund also provides support for new housing, much of it targeted on brownfield land.
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful to the Minister for that answer and for visiting the old power station site in Poole, one of the largest regeneration sites in the south-west. What more can he do to help to unlock brownfield sites such as that, which will provide the homes that we need and protect our green belt?
Kit Malthouse
It was a great pleasure to spend some time with my hon. Friend and his esteemed neighbour, our hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Sir Robert Syms), at the power station site in Poole. I would recommend it as a place to visit, not least to see the remarkable harbour bridge, which is a feat of British engineering worth visiting in itself. There is much that we can do in terms of applying funding, but the application of Homes England is critical to getting brownfield sites over the line. Homes England is becoming much more entrepreneurial and assertive in its use of the funds and the capacity we have given it to make these sites work. As we speak, it is releasing thousands of homes throughout the country.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The City of York Council administration has an abysmal house building record, and we have seen a net loss of social housing. We also have the largest brownfield site in the country, ready to be developed. In order to expedite matters, will the Minister say when he plans to announce the Government’s response to the right-to-buy receipts review, so that we can get house building moving?
Kit Malthouse
I have not been a Minister for long, but I have learned to use a word well honed in government, which is “shortly”. We will respond shortly but, more than that, it would give me enormous pleasure to visit York at some point over the next few months and view what I know is a large site with great potential that Homes England has already talked about in excited terms. Having had a fantastic weekend with my family in York just last year, it would be a great pleasure to repeat the experience.
Mr Speaker
Those outside the Chamber observing our proceedings could usefully know that in government the word “shortly” sometimes contains elasticity.
Mr Marcus Fysh (Yeovil) (Con)
Kit Malthouse
That is a remarkably crafty attempt by my hon. Friend to shoehorn in a question about student housing. He is absolutely right that brownfield land offers enormous potential for all sorts of housing throughout the country. In fact, you might be interested to know, Mr Speaker, that in 2016-17 some 56% of all new homes were delivered on brownfield sites, and that will have included student accommodation. In truth, the secret to student accommodation is the same as that for all sorts of other accommodation: supply. The more there is, the cheaper it will be and the more providers will compete on quality.
Mr Speaker
Well, I am somewhat better informed, and I thank the Minister for that.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
EU funds have been used to decontaminate brownfield land, making it suitable for development. A prime example of that is at Shawfield in the Clyde Gateway area. The Clyde Gateway has received £6 million of EU funds for decontamination work in the Shawfield area in South Lanarkshire, which borders on Glasgow. Recently, hexavalent chromium contamination from the former J&J White chemical works has seeped into the Polmadie burn, and it will cost tens of millions of pounds to clear up. It would be good to hear from the Minister exactly whether the shared prosperity fund will include any mechanism to cover brownfield land. Otherwise, it will go unremediated in future.
Kit Malthouse
There will be no intention to leave any sod of brownfield land unturned throughout the country in our quest for space to build the homes that the next generation needs. The hon. Lady makes a serious point and she is right that in the spending review and the consideration of arrangements as we leave the EU, we need to look to reproduce the capacity to deal with all that contaminated land, which is perhaps a relic of our industrial past but now holds enormous potential for the future.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
A recent report from Shelter states that permitted development is a totally
“unsuitable method of solving the housing crisis”,
and a Guardian piece at the weekend gave an example of permitted development rights flat conversions that are smaller than tiny hotel rooms and have no natural light and no communal space. The Government are presiding over a new generation of slum development. When are they going to deliver the properly planned, good quality, safe and healthy homes that our country and communities desperately need?
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
Permitted development rights have produced 46,000 homes over the past three years. Those homes have to come from somewhere. They are not, as the hon. Lady said, slums. All permitted developments have to comply with building regulations. As she knows, we are currently reviewing building regulations to see what can be required. As part of the work on the social housing Green Paper, we may well also look at the decent home standards that could, in time, apply to the private rented sector.
Trudy Harrison (Copeland) (Con)
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Amber Valley Borough Council is holding a planning meeting tonight on building 2,000 houses on the green belt across a number of sites. Can the Minister confirm that that should be a last resort and that the council has to show exceptional circumstances for each site before it does that?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is exactly right. The green belt should only be used in exceptional circumstances, after local authorities have demonstrated that they have exhausted all other options, including the use of brownfield, co-operating with their neighbours and looking at further density in their developments. We strengthened protections for the green belt in the national planning policy framework published in July 2018, and that should be a last resort.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The permanent secretary recently confirmed at the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee that the Government have undertaken no evaluation of the impact of permitted development rights since they were expanded in 2013. While the Minister states that more than 46,000 homes have been delivered under the policy, he can have no accurate idea of the quality of those homes. Amid increasing reports of appalling quality, unsafe homes being delivered under permitted development rights, will he pause this policy so that a proper evaluation can be undertaken?
Kit Malthouse
There is obviously a concerted attack taking place against permitted development rights, which I find distressing, given the sheer number of homes that they have produced for people who are desperate for those homes. As I have said, all homes, whether under permitted development rights or normal planning permission, have to comply with building regulations, and it is down to local authorities to ensure that that is the case.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that we should deliver more affordable homes to purchase in the form of discount market sale, which remain affordable in perpetuity?
Kit Malthouse
My hon. Friend is indefatigable and has raised that issue at every opportunity when I have been at the Dispatch Box. He is right that, as part of our affordable homes programme, we would like to see more discount market sales, particularly to younger people across the country. I urge local authorities, which we hope are bringing forward authoritative and forward-looking plans, to embrace that type of tenure.
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)
The number of homeless families in Coventry has more than tripled over the last three years, while the number of homeless children has increased eightfold in the last five years, with more than 600 children spending Christmas in temporary accommodation. Why does the Secretary of State think that the number of homeless families and children has increased so significantly under this Government?
Greater Manchester Spatial Framework
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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Jim McMahon
That is absolutely the point, and it will be echoed by thousands of people in Greater Manchester who are not happy with the current settlement.
In my constituency, we had a programme called housing market renewal. The idea was that areas of the housing market that were underperforming would be transformed through modernisation, demolition and rebuilding, to create urban environments where people were proud to live—not houses that were simply built to service the industrial revolution but houses that were fit for the future, too. In 2010, when the coalition Government came to power, that scheme was cancelled overnight. That left many streets in my constituency with their windows boarded up. Actually, many of those houses eventually had the boards taken off and are now in the hands of private landlords, who are making an unreasonable amount of money from housing benefit, so that people can live in what I still consider to be substandard accommodation.
The principle of a brownfield fund is really important. Not only is green-belt land more advantageous to build on, but green-belt sites are often the sites that are commercially viable to build on. The problem with many brownfield sites is that mediation—such as taking out any services that might have been there for a different road layout, removing contamination, and removing a lot of very expensive material to landfill—costs a lot of money. In areas such as Oldham, where some of the house prices are depressed—that is certainly the case in Oldham town—it is just not possible to reconcile the high development costs with the end-sale value of those properties. So there must be Government intervention to bridge that gap. None of that is proposed as part of this new settlement for the community, so, as has already been stated, we will have a situation where green-belt land is taken because it is developable and viable and it will make a profit for the developer but, for a range of reasons, brownfield sites will be left as eyesores.
Many sites in active use in my constituency are waste transfer sites—abattoirs or former haulage yards, for example. They are currently earmarked for employment use, because that is their current use, but they are in predominantly residential areas, so the road layout does not service large-vehicle movements. The community would love those sites to be re-categorised for residential development, but that is not allowed under this process, because there is a requirement that sites be practically deliverable within the life of the plan. Of course, if the current landowner has no immediate intention of developing that land, it cannot be included because it has no reasonable prospect of being delivered.
We all know that demand for sites for employment use is changing rapidly. Oldham used to have 300 mills. Those that remain are now self-storage. People always said, “We’re always going to need storage, so there’s always going to be a role for Oldham’s mills,” until, of course, we built high-bay warehousing out of town on the green belt because distribution companies wanted more than mills with five floors, in which it is more expensive to move goods around. That shift in demand should be taken into account.
Local areas should be allowed more flexibility to re-categorise and transform dirty industrial sites into new residential sites. That is not the case at the moment, due to the requirement for there to be a reasonable prospect of a site’s being brought into use within the life of the plan. That does not enable local areas to lead from the front and say to landowners, “We have a better vision for our community than a waste transfer site.” [Interruption.] I am being heckled by the Minister. That is fine—I am quite used to being heckled—but it would be great if he provided a substantive answer to some of these fundamental questions.
Why have an inflated target for housing and population when the latest data says we do not need that target? Why not allow the creation of a proper brownfield fund, so that we have the cash in place to redevelop the land that people want to see redeveloped? What about infrastructure? In Greater Manchester, we have lost more than 1 million miles of bus journeys since 2010.
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
I want to clarify something. The hon. Gentleman said there was an inflated housing target. On a number of occasions in the main Chamber and in Westminster Hall, I have heard his Front-Bench team make serious promises about the number of houses they will build, which is not dissimilar to the number that we are aiming to build. I just wonder whether he still pledges to hit that target, and if so, where he thinks those houses will go, if not in large conurbations such as Manchester.
Jim McMahon
I am speaking as a constituency MP rather than as a member of the Front-Bench team, but it is a fact that housing units in urban areas—in town centres and the immediate surrounding areas—are denser than houses of the type that are built on the green belt. If we had a brownfield fund in Oldham, we would see a renaissance of town centre living, with more apartments and town houses built. Of course, we would get more units on land in the town centre than on the green belt, where we generally see larger family housing built and, obviously, we get fewer per acre.
Kit Malthouse
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for providing that clarification. Just for clarity, he is saying that he is concerned not about the number of houses that are built but about where they are built in his constituency, and that he would like to see higher-density housing on brownfield sites. I agree with that aspiration. I hope he recognises that that is perfectly within the capability of the local authority and the Mayor in Manchester to decide through their plan process. If he would like to meet representatives of Homes England to talk about the marginal viability funding that we can and do provide for trickier sites that require remediation or other action to make them viable, I would be more than happy to facilitate that.
Graham Stringer (in the Chair)
Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions should be short and to the point, and that Members should speak when they have the Floor, not from a sedentary position.
The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
I will attempt to comply, Mr Stringer. It is a great pleasure to appear under your wise and steady hand for the first time. I apologise for my agitation during the debate, but I am eager for houses to be built across our great land for a generation that is crying out for them.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) on securing the debate and on recognising the importance of the plan-making functions of local authorities and the importance of Greater Manchester, which is a place I know well, having been brought up at the far end of the M62 in Liverpool. I look forward to celebrating the relationship between our cities on Sunday afternoon, when the greatest football team of all time will play Manchester United.
Ten local planning authorities make up the Greater Manchester area, which is a key element of the northern powerhouse. The Government fully recognise how vital joint working between those authorities is to the success of Greater Manchester. The northern powerhouse is about boosting the economy by investing in skills, innovation, transport and culture, as well as devolving significant powers and budgets directly to elected Mayors.
In that spirit, the Government have placed faith in the people of Greater Manchester and their elected representatives to shape their own future. We have backed that up through the devolution of a wide range of powers under the leadership of an elected Mayor. It is the Mayor’s role to work collaboratively across Greater Manchester, and across the political parties, to provide the leadership and coherent vision required. Of course, local MPs should play an important role in the development of his plan.
The Government have also set out a national planning policy in the national planning policy framework, which we revised last year. That sets the overall framework for planning nationally. Local authorities need to bring forward plans for their local areas that respond to the particular nature, challenges and opportunities in their areas, some of which have been outlined by hon. Members.
Our starting position is that we trust local planning authorities, or groups of local planning authorities, as in Greater Manchester and many other parts of the country, to work together to produce plans that reflect the spirit of co-operation and joint working that we want to see. As a matter of law, plans are subject to a range of engagement and consultation with communities and other organisations. That consultation is a vital element of the plan-making process.
Plans are then subject to rigorous examination by independent planning inspectors, who are appointed by the Planning Inspectorate. The planning inspector or, in some cases, a panel of planning inspectors, assesses plans against the national planning policy framework and any other material planning considerations before coming to their conclusions. Ultimately, planning inspectors make recommendations about the soundness of the plan. Paragraph 35 of the NPPF sets out four tests of soundness that plans must pass, namely that they are positively prepared, justified, effective and consistent with national policy.
I am sure that hon. Members will understand that I cannot comment on the content or merits of the draft Greater Manchester spatial framework, as that could be seen to prejudice the Secretary of State’s position later in the planning process. I am aware that the draft spatial framework is out for public consultation until 18 March. I encourage anyone with views about it to respond to the consultation and take an active role in its development, as several hon. Members have. Knowing the tireless work that all hon. Members present, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove, put into representing the interests of their constituents locally, I am confident that they will take on such a role.
Jim McMahon
The development of the spatial framework and the housing target were determined in this place and passed on to Greater Manchester to resolve. We agree with the spatial framework and the need to plan ahead, but there has to be a compromise. One Malthouse compromise has already died a death, so let us redo it for the Greater Manchester spatial framework.
Kit Malthouse
Watch this space. I will come on to housing numbers, but I just want to finish this.
The plan-making process means that there will be a further round of consultation before the plan is submitted for examination by a planning inspector. I understand that that is likely to take place in summer 2019. Anyone with views about the document should make them known at that stage and, given that the timing is not yet fixed, those interested should remain in contact with the Greater Manchester authorities, as I know that all hon. Members and their residents will. The Government fully recognise the need to plan for and build more homes. We are committed to delivering 300,000 additional homes every year by the mid-2020s, and every part of the country has a role to play in reaching that target.
To some specifics, on the green belt, it would be wrong to think that this was just a numbers game. Clearly, the Government are committed to protecting the areas that communities value, including the green belt. The NPPF was revised last year and maintains strong protections for the green belt. It sets a very high bar for alterations to green-belt boundaries, and although a local authority—or even a collection of them, as in this case—can use the plan to secure necessary alterations to its green belt, that is only in exceptional circumstances.
The Government do not list those exceptional circumstances, which could vary greatly. Instead, it is for local plan makers and the Planning Inspectorate examination to check that any change is justified. At this stage, it is worth pointing out that there is obviously a difference between green belt and greenfield. In some cases, I think that hon. Members might be confusing the two terms—one is in regulatory protection, the other is not. Fundamentally, it is for local authorities and local decision makers to provide the evidence base whether for variation of the green-belt boundary or for possible mitigation changes to the boundary by creation of space elsewhere.
It is still the case that the green belt overall in the country is bigger today than it was in 1997. We have taken particular steps to protect it. I also point out that in the NPPF that came out in July 2018, we put greater emphasis on seeking to develop brownfield land, especially within the green belt, as a priority.
A number of Members have mentioned the importance of the environment. As I hope everyone knows, we are in the middle of a consultation on the notion of biodiversity net gain in our housing and general development across the country, and that will conclude later in the year. It is absolutely right that in all we do we should seek to make the environment as much of a priority as we possibly can, and to accommodate and make space for nature.
Several Members mentioned the need for infrastructure. Plans are also about securing the necessary infrastructure to support development. It is essential to identify the type, scale and timing of the infrastructure required in any area, and that applies to smaller-scale infrastructure such as doctors’ surgeries or children’s playgrounds, right up to new hospitals, waterworks or rail connections. By identifying what is needed and where, the planning system can help to deliver the required infrastructure, either directly through tools such as section 106 agreements or the community infrastructure levy, or indirectly by signalling to utility companies or Government agencies such as the Highways Agency that certain items are required. Those agencies and companies can then build things in their own investment plans.
As I am sure hon. Members are aware, the Government also provide a number of opportunities for local authorities to bid for funding to assist with infrastructure. We have a £5.5 billion housing infrastructure fund, which can be used to bring forward housing sites and to release land for housing in a number of ways, including large infrastructure projects such as the multimillion-pound funding package for Carlisle that we announced last week, which put in a bid.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) is aware that Oldham has submitted a bid to the housing infrastructure fund for marginal viability funding, which is designed to overcome exactly the sort of problems that he raised in his speech with difficult or marginally viable sites that might require work or some Government assistance to get them under way. We and Homes England are working with his local authority to solve some of the problems that he mentioned.
The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton also mentioned neighbourhood plans. They have been incredibly popular across the country. About 13 million people now live under a neighbourhood planning system. We have provided £26 million of capacity support for neighbourhood plans, and I recognise that it takes a lot of commitment from local people to take control of planning in their local area. If the hon. Gentleman is having difficulties with neighbourhood plans, I will be more than happy to look at whether we can offer some kind of support because, however long I am in this job, I am keen to see neighbourhood planning established as a way for local people to take control of planning, so that they feel much less like its victims and more its master, particularly when it comes to design.
One area that we have made great play of in policy over the past few months is design. Where new homes are permitted, it is essential that we ensure that they are well designed. That is why we have established the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, chaired by Sir Roger Scruton. We held an important design conference in Birmingham just last week. We have also appointed a chief architect to work at the heart of Government to champion the important role that good design plays. I highlight the fact that the revised NPPF states that permission should be refused for poor design, especially when it fails to take the opportunities available for improving the character and quality of an area.
As has been said, many residents’ objections to new developments tend to stem from the feeling that the new development will detract from the quality of the area. If we can get design right, if we make space for beauty, if we build the conservation areas of the future and communities that work coherently, people will, we hope, start to welcome new development in their area as something that will enhance it and make it more sustainable.
Finally, I want to raise the issue of numbers. All hon. Members mentioned numbers. We are very keen to see a lot of houses built in this country—many millions, perhaps—over the decades to come, because we believe that there is huge pent-up demand. We have set a target of 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s, and I have heard nobody politically say that that is not a good and ambitious target for us to hit. The question is where those homes should go.
We have attempted to put in a standardised system to assess local housing need across the whole country on a formula basis. The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton is right to say that the ONS was tasked with producing the first projections, or the basis of the data for projections, of local housing need. Unfortunately, the numbers that the ONS produced created some very anomalous results across the country. For example, in relation to the city of Cambridge, one of the strongest-growing regions in the country and where there is enormous ambition, the 2016 forecast was that there was zero housing need in Cambridge. Other cities’ anomalous results caused alarm. As a result, we took the decision to step back and restore the 2014 numbers, and then consult further on a more coherent system going forward—one that could be generally agreed across the country. We really did not think that, on the basis of those anomalous results, it was a good time for people to take their foot off the accelerator, given that we all accept the strong need for housing, and that both major political parties have made ambitious promises about their housing targets.
I should clarify what the local housing need target is. It is exactly that—a target. It is a baseline from which a local authority can work to effectively establish the number of homes that it needs in its area. In the examination of any plan, a local inspector will look at the plan and accept properly evidenced and assessed variations from that target. If, for example, there are constraints such as an area of outstanding natural beauty, green belt or whatever it might be, and people can justify a lower number, an inspector should accept that. That said, if local authorities are ambitious for their area and want to address the legitimate housing needs of young people—many now have to live at home, with their parents and grandparents, into their 30s and 40s, even in the great cities of the north—they can go ahead of those targets if they wish. That, combined with the duty that now exists in the planning system to co-operate with neighbouring local authorities, means, we hope, that each area can arrive at a figure for provable, established local housing need, which has been assessed by an inspector, from a baseline that across the country will produce a target, we hope, of 300,000 homes.
Jim McMahon
I think, from what I have heard from the Minister—I must double-check this—that we may be making progress. Is the Minister saying that if Greater Manchester, on a proper evidence base, which could include more recent ONS population growth projections, comes forward with a lower housing target, the Government would be open to that?
Kit Malthouse
I am more than happy to write to the hon. Gentleman to set out the precise way in which the target should be taken into account. There has been a lot of misunderstanding, resulting in the notion that this is a mandated number that local authorities have to hit. We recognise that within the United Kingdom there are lots of variables to be taken into account. If a local authority falls largely within a national park, there are obviously significant constraints on its ability to produce housing. The planning system must be flexible enough to accommodate that.
At the same time, however, I urge all Members to bear it in mind that we have an urgent national mission to build homes. All parties, when in government over the past two or three decades, have failed to build enough houses to accommodate the next generation. As a result, we have seen falls in home ownership, rises in density, and a homelessness problem, and we need to address that situation. Much of it is about supply, and most of that supply will necessarily be built in the great cities of the north and across the whole of the country because, frankly, as the right hon. Gentleman said, they are great places to live; I speak as a former resident of one of them.
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
I am delighted to hear what my hon. Friend says about mandated numbers and I should be very grateful if he would write to me as well on this issue, because we have just produced an Island plan, and unfortunately we assess that the target of the Government and the Planning Inspectorate would require us to build 640 new homes on the Island. I believe that we should argue that we have exceptional circumstances, and I should be grateful for advice from him, because the problem is that half that housing is for domestic use and the other half is part of a larger market.
Kit Malthouse
I am happy to copy in all hon. Members who are present for this debate, so that they may understand how the local housing target will work. However, I urge hon. Members to recognise that there is a requirement across the whole of the country for us to look for more houses for younger people and, frankly, not to let local authority leaders off the hook—
Kit Malthouse
I am afraid that I do not have time to give way again. We must not let local authority leaders off the hook in relation to taking the sometimes difficult decisions—they are difficult; I have been a councillor myself—to build and develop the right types of houses in the right places for the next generation.
I appreciate that there is likely to be a range of views about the Greater Manchester spatial framework; that is to be expected, and shows that people care passionately about what happens in their communities, which is a good thing and I applaud it. The current version of the GMSF has been agreed by 10 local planning authorities and the Mayor as being suitable to be consulted upon. That in itself shows a unity of purpose, and no doubt a degree of compromise.
I suspect that there may be further refinements to the framework, and its policies and proposals, over the coming months. As part of that process, some of the important issues that many hon. Members have so passionately highlighted today may be considered.
National Planning Policy Framework
Kit Malthouse Excerpts(6 years, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)
The national planning policy framework is fundamental to delivering the homes and other development that we need, achieving high-quality places and protecting our environment.
Last year we published a revised framework, which implemented a range of reforms to help make planning more predictable and transparent, drive up quality and support delivery.
A consultation on further updates to the framework and associated planning guidance ran from 26 October to 7 December 2018, and the Government are grateful to everyone who responded. Having considered those responses, we are making very minor changes to the text of the framework, which are reflected in an updated version being published today. A copy of the revised framework is available on the Department’s web site, alongside our response to the consultation.
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