Fire Safety Bill

Liam Fox Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 27th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I have seen the site in question, and it brings home—I know he shares my feelings, as his constituency is so close to mine—the fact that certain parts of the country with high numbers of new build properties, including constituencies such as ours, are particularly badly affected. I have tens of thousands of constituents affected.

As welcome as they were, the five-point plan and the additional grant funding that the Government announced on 10 February are still only a partial solution to the cladding crisis, and they consciously and deliberately leave a significant proportion of leaseholders exposed to costs they cannot possibly hope to bear. For significant numbers of leaseholders, that exposure is not some theoretical future risk, but a reality that they are already confronting.

To take just one example, I had a lengthy exchange yesterday with the right-to- manage directors of a small 24-unit building in east Greenwich, Blenheim Court, which requires urgent remediation and is under 18 metres in height. As things stand, not only are the leaseholders in question living with the punishing uncertainty of not knowing if or when their building might be issued with a forced loan of the kind the Government propose, but because they do not have the funds to commence remediation works, they are struggling with myriad secondary costs, including a soaring building insurance premium, which has led their service charges to increase from about £2,500 a year per flat to more than £130,000—I have seen the invoice, and the figure is correct—and there is a very real risk of mass defaults as a result.

Every week that this House fails to act, more leaseholders are placed in similar situations and put at risk of negative equity and bankruptcy. I have absolutely no doubt that the Government will ultimately be forced to bring forward a more comprehensive solution that protects all affected leaseholders from the costs of fixing both cladding and non-cladding building safety defects. Seeking to pass the costs on to even a proportion of them will almost certainly mean that the works simply do not get done. Unless this House is content to follow that path and see many more lives needlessly destroyed in the interim, it must act today and take decisive steps towards resolving this crisis.

I urge Ministers, even at this late stage, to honour their commitments previously given from the Dispatch Box and come forward with a sensible concession. If they do not, I urge MPs from across the House to protect blameless leaseholders and support the amendment in the name of the Lord Bishop of St Albans in the Division Lobby shortly.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I rise to speak to the amendments in my name. I am grateful for the support from all parties for them. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) for the work they have done on this issue.

We have to find a way forward. We cannot continue this sterile ping-pong between the two Houses of Parliament. We need an actual plan, and I believe that my amendments set out a workable way that the Government can take this issue forward.

There are three issues that need to be dealt with, the first of which is forfeiture. The idea that people’s properties can be repossessed because they have been unable to pay cladding costs, which are unjust in the first place, is abhorrent. We need to reform leasehold legislation to prevent that from happening.

Secondly, we need a proper plan for apportionment of costs, as I set out in the appropriate persons for fire safety order costs amendment. That means that taxpayers are not asked to write a blank cheque, and nor will those with responsibility have the ability to collapse a company so that they can avoid costs at a future date. We have got to ensure that the “polluter pays” principle is applied in this case.

Fire Safety Bill

Liam Fox Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD) [V]]

I am pleased to see the Bill back before us, and proud that it was an amendment that I tabled last June in Committee—new clause 3—that first introduced the principle that leaseholders must be protected from the extortionate costs of fire safety remediation. I am very grateful to my noble Friend Baroness Pinnock for taking up the idea in the other place, and to the hon. Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) and the Lord Bishops of St Albans and London for improving it along the way.

The arguments for and against protecting leaseholders in the Bill are now well established. The Government continue to attempt to fob us off with the inadequate and flawed remediation fund, but fire safety experts have debunked the fund’s arbitrary 18-metre cut-off. Meanwhile, leaseholders keep trying in vain to tell the Government that it is not just about cladding; buildings of any height would still be left liable for non-cladding remediation of missing fire breaks, flammable balconies or dangerous insulation, as well as having to pay for waking watches and additional alarms.

I have listened with interest as Ministers continue to reject the amendment. We hear time and again that it is not sufficiently detailed, that it would require substantial drafting of primary legislation and that it could cause litigation, delay remediation work and have unintended consequences—that is a new one. The Government claim that it is Members who back the amendment who are apparently responsible for causing delays to the Bill, when it is the Government who have taken almost four years to bring forward a two-page Bill. Not once have the Government acknowledged the risks of the Bill passing without the amendment. Not once have the Government addressed the fact that financial costs will be incurred by leaseholders from day one if the Bill goes through without the amendment.

The Government have spent nine months finding fault with the amendment, but at no point have they brought forward their own. Leaseholders cannot rely on the flawed building safety fund, nor can they wait any longer for promises of hope in a building safety Bill that may or may not help in the future. Ministers can see the strength of feeling in this House, even among those on their own Benches, and they can hear the pleas from millions of desperate homeowners. This amendment may not be perfect, but it is the only proposal on the table to protect leaseholders from the financial repercussions of fire safety defects that are not of their making. I call on all Members to do the right thing and support it.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I understand why the Government will not accept the amendment, and I do not want to go there again, but what we need is urgency. Time is not just money; it is also worry, anxiety and uncertainty, and I echo the points made in one of the many excellent letters from my constituents in Portishead on this. It says: “It is not right that leaseholders have to worry about the costs of fixing safety defects that we did not cause.” We all agree with that; the question is who should pay. If the costs are a direct result of legislative change made by the Government, it is reasonable for taxpayers to contribute to that. If they are not, builders and insurers should pay, including for non-cladding related defects.

The second point that my constituent makes is this: “We recognise that the additional £3.5 billion announced by the Secretary of State is a step forward and we do welcome this funding. We are still awaiting the full detail of this funding announcement, as well as that of the proposed loans for medium-rise buildings.” In the last debate, we were told that more details would be forthcoming after the Budget. It is after the Budget, and we have still not had the details we are looking for, and these are real-time problems for which our constituents require real-time solutions.

My constituent goes on to say that “providing funding for buildings over 18 metres while forcing leaseholders in buildings under 18 metres to pay via a loan scheme is entirely unfair, because building height alone does not determine fire risk.” We understand that, and again it is about appreciating that there needs to be a cut-off to stop taxpayers having to sign a blank cheque, but the cost for remediation should be met by those who are actually responsible for the problems in the first place.

The final problem that my constituent raises—it has been raised so often in this debate and previous debates—is negative equity and the difficulty of resale, which is causing immense distress. It can be a major generational problem for people who are looking to sell or downsize. It can cause them a great deal of anxiety. We have heard that the market should sort it out, as we would normally expect, but we are still waiting for elements of that that the market would normally regard as being necessary.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Fox]

I will not, because time is short and so many Members want to get in; I apologise to my hon. Friend.

Last time, I asked what direct contact Ministers had had with the Association of British Insurers, the building societies and the banks, because without their help, we are unable to deal with the negative equity and resale problems that are at the heart of so much of the distress we find. I know from talking to so many of my constituents about this issue that they appreciate that the Government have already come a long way. They are very grateful for taxpayer support. The problem is that we need more details, and for real-time issues, we need real-time solutions. Urgency is the key.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

I am grateful to colleagues in the other place for the opportunity to reconsider amending this Bill. I also thank the hon. Members for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), and for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), for their perseverance in holding the Government to account over this cladding scandal.

Much has been said in this Chamber about why leaseholders should be protected from fire safety remediation costs, and I could repeat the long list of powerful arguments that colleagues from across the House and I have put to the Government, but instead I draw on the experiences of those whose voices are not often heard in this debate, and in particular want to mention the problems faced by disabled leaseholders. I pay tribute to the work of the Leaseholder Disability Action Group in highlighting them.

For many disabled constituents in Vauxhall, the difficulty finding accessible homes in London means that, where possible, they choose to invest in a property that they view as a potential property for life.

In many instances, shared ownership with a housing association is an affordable option for those who do not have enough for a large deposit or even a mortgage. Many disabled leaseholders will have spent thousands of pounds adapting their flats to suit their needs, including with bathroom and kitchen adaptations, which will often have been funded through local authority disabled grants. But like so many leaseholders caught up in this crisis, they are now facing the additional burden of remediation costs, on top of other fire safety measures, putting them at risk of bankruptcy and losing their home for life. What is more, we know that disabled people are less likely to have the savings or income to meet unforeseen bills, and these are all subject to means-testing. This cannot be right. The important amendment before us this evening would help to end this nightmare for all leaseholders, so I urge all colleagues across the House to join me in voting for it.

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Liam Fox Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), to the Dispatch Box. I always think that there is nothing like a baptism of fire for a new Minister.

Portishead in my constituency of North Somerset is one of the best examples in the United Kingdom of the development of a brownfield site, taking an old power station and turning it into a world-class marina. It is an attractive and desirable place to stay, the consequence of which is that large numbers of people have invested considerable sums to be able to live there.

We all welcome the response of Ministers that it cannot be right that leaseholders have to worry about the cost of fixing safety defects in their building that they did not cause. We welcome the more than £1.5 billion that the Government have put into this, but it cannot be right that all the burden for remediation falls on taxpayers. Where a problem arises from regulatory changes made after construction, assuming that the proper standards were met, it is reasonable for public money to be used, but that in no way absolves the construction industry or the NHBC of their responsibilities. For example, at Ninety4 on the Estuary in Portishead, a survey carried out to the external façade in July last year identified “combustible materials which are not only non-compliant with current building regulations but might not have been compliant with regulations in force at the time of construction.” It would be outrageous if taxpayers’ money were to be used in this circumstance.

Those who have built substandard dwellings need to be held to account, because these underlying issues give rise to others. Insurance, reselling and property values and the availability of mortgages are just three. Can my hon. Friend tell me what talks the Government have had directly with the big banks, the Council of Mortgage Lenders, the Association of British Insurers and NHBC? Will he take account of the fact that there is some sharp practice going on, especially in relation to surveys. Extortionate amounts are being paid by tenants for these surveys in relation to EWS1. I have one in front of me, which talks about incorrect height information, 24-hour monitored CCTV when there is none, timber decking to balconies when the balconies are composite decking and stacked balconies when they are open balconies—the list goes on and on.

In formulating the response to the consultation, which we look forward to hearing, may I say to my hon. Friend the Minister that this is not just about buildings? In fact, it is not about buildings; it is about people. It is about their hopes and their fears, their savings and their future. All the Government’s instincts on this issue have been right and the amount of money put aside is generous. What we now require is not good intentions, but delivery.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Liam Fox Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

For many of us, as we contemplate the inhumanity, brutality and sheer scale of the holocaust, one uncomfortable question sits in our minds: how could ordinary people like ourselves collude with, acquiesce in, or support a regime that behaved in such a barbaric way and, perhaps even more uncomfortably, do the factors exist in our contemporary world that could allow it to happen again.

In national socialism, nationalism was the dominant partner in the marriage. National socialism regarded itself as a seismic political shift, which recognised a new and glorious image of humanity. Yet this world view was accompanied and counterbalanced by a systematic, ideological dehumanisation of other groups of people: those who oppose the regime, political activists, Gypsies, the disabled, homosexuals, Christians, religious objectors and, of course, the Jews.

Incrementally, but steadily over time, national socialist propaganda dripped poison into German society. The distortion and then the strangulation of democracy, the suppression of the press and the Church brought about this position inch by inch and step by step. Yet from Cambodia to Srebrenica to Syria, the horrors of extreme nationalism continue to ricochet through our recent history. Today’s attempts at ethnic cleansing, including China’s treatment of the Uyghurs, are part of this terrible continuum.

The basic template of extreme nationalism, a deeply distorted sense of identity and self-worth combined with the exaggeration of perceived slights and the identification of a suitable scapegoat, is still in play. Across the world, many of these stereotypical ideas are being played out again with varying degrees of sophistication and brutality. The dehumanising of opponents, internally and externally, is a timeless theme in the book of extreme nationalism. It is the beast that stalks its prey of plurality, decency and civility. Decades separate us now from the holocaust, but human behaviour still holds flaws and dangers. We must confront dangerous ideologies whenever and wherever they take root. Today of all days, we remember that we have been warned.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

May I just gently remind those who are participating virtually to keep a close eye on the clock? I do not want to have to cut people off, but we have a large number of colleagues who want to contribute to this debate.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Liam Fox Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Monday 7th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

There is a five-minute limit on speeches.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

When I voted to leave the European Union, it was not primarily over concerns with immigration or concerns about how we would divvy up the money that came back from the contributions we would not be making to the European Union; it was entirely as a constitutional lever. I believe in the principle that the people who live under the law should have the right to choose the people who make the law. Incidentally, that also shapes my views on how the House of Lords should be reformed. However, that principle could not survive as soon as we had the direct application of EU law and the use of the ECJ. Therefore, for me that meant that there was only one choice, which was to leave the EU. I explained that to an American audience by saying that, if in the United States there was a court in Ottawa or Mexico City that could override the US Supreme Court and there was nothing legislators could do in the US, how would they like it? They said, “Absolutely, we would never ever accept it.” That, for me, is the key principle.

When I first heard of this internal market Bill, I was at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva and, frankly, I was shocked to hear that the Government were intending to break international law. That was until I came back and looked at the provisions themselves, and found out that nothing whatsoever was actually being broken in this Bill. In fact, nothing was actually being done in this Bill, other than setting out a set of contingency measures, which is of course a well-accepted legal principle.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Dr Fox]

I will give way once—to my right hon. Friend.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

There has been virtually no discussion during this entire debate about the fact that this is a safety net, which we hope will never be used. If we are on the high wire—and when we are dealing with the EU, we are on the high wire—we may not want to use a safety net, but it does no harm to have one.

[Dr Fox]

I entirely agree. I have used the analogy myself that this is a lifeboat that we hope we never have to launch. We hope the ship will never go down because we will reach a trade agreement, and we should reach a trade agreement because, as I said earlier in the House, there has never been a trade agreement that has begun with the two parties in complete identity of trade law, of tariffs and of regulation. It should be, if it was only about trade, an easy agreement to reach, but it is not just about trade. The main stumbling blocks are constitutional—the very constitutional issues that made me want to vote to leave the European Union in the first place.

There are those who have said that this Bill is outrageous and that it sets new precedents, but in fact it says only that, under certain circumstances, domestic law might have to be used to overrule treaty law. Is it revolutionary? Is it unprecedented? Well, on 12 February 2016, the German federal constitutional court said:

“Treaty overrides by national statutory law are permissible under”

the German constitution. It added:

“Under the system of the Basic Law, international treaties have the same rank as statutory federal law. Therefore, they can be superseded by later federal statutes that contradict them.”

That is merely the power that the United Kingdom Government are seeking to use as a contingency power, should they need it, yet nobody screams about the German Parliament being able to exercise an identical power.

In the short time that I have, I want to make a couple of comments about the value of free trade in the internal market to the Union itself. The 1707 articles of Union between England and Scotland, and those between Great Britain and Ireland in 1800, abolished all customs duties between the different parts of the United Kingdom. Free trade across the whole of the United Kingdom was not only integral to the development of the whole of the United Kingdom from the industrial revolution on, but it was particularly important to Scotland and Ireland, whose citizens could freely trade with the much bigger English market—something that exists today. That point was made very well by the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) earlier in this debate.

It is easy, given how successful it has been, to forget how important that single market is, and how easily it could be damaged and what the what the implications would be if it were interfered with or restricted. Of course, that is why the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady)—I am sorry that he has left his place—was unwilling to engage in debate with me last week when I asked what estimates had been made by the Scottish nationalists of the break-up of the UK internal market in terms of the Scottish economy. He said, “We will come and make those arguments in due course,” because they do not want to hear those arguments aired in front of the Scottish people at the present time.

The devolved legislatures were created after the UK joined the European Community and then the European Union. Because the single market rules apply to regional Governments and legislatures as well as central Governments of member states, there was no pressing need during our membership of the European Union for specific UK-based rules maintaining the UK internal market against fragmentation. Brexit changes all that, and that is why I believe that we should reject the Lords amendments tonight.

However, in supporting the Government, I just ask this one question: when did the Government’s legal advisers advise Ministers that the withdrawal Act indeed, by direct application, threatened the internal market of the United Kingdom? It was not something that I heard discussed at the time, but I would like to know the answer to that question, as would many of us who are supporting the Government tonight and who believe that what we are seeing is proportionate contingency planning, fulfilling the duty of the maintenance of the UK internal market, the key part of the United Kingdom itself.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

Who would have thought that we would be here on 7 December—there are 24 days to go—with the Government wanting to put these international law-breaking clauses back into the Bill and the Brexit negotiations still going? I have always thought that there will be an agreement, but I must confess that in the last few days I have felt a bit gloomy. I do not know whether the announcement in the last 20 minutes that the Prime Minister and Ursula von der Leyen are going to meet later this week to pore over the areas of disagreement should raise our hopes or not. What do they say? It’s the hope that kills you.

Anyway, the truth about this Bill is out. The offending clauses are nothing more and nothing less than a piece of negotiating leverage, which we now know will be dropped the moment a satisfactory resolution is found to the questions that the Joint Committee is properly considering. That was confirmed in the Prime Minister’s statement this afternoon.

The Prime Minister’s dilemma with this Bill and, indeed, with the talks is best explained in this way. Four and a bit years ago, he famously decided to publish the second of two articles that he had written about Brexit. One of them was for leaving the EU, and the other was against. When he made that decision, he climbed on the back of what I would describe as the Brexit tiger. It has taken him on quite a journey—it has taken him through the door of 10 Downing Street, which I am sure was his hope, but there is just one problem: it is not entirely clear he knows how to get off the tiger in order to secure a deal. He is the prisoner of the fateful decision that he made.

It is not that he was not aware of the consequences, because thanks to Tim Shipman, we now know what he wrote in the other article, which was not published. He said:

“Almost everyone expects there to be some sort of economic shock as a result of a Brexit. How big would it be?”

Well, we know the answer, because the Government have done their own economic assessment, and we saw what the Office for Budget Responsibility reported a couple of weeks ago: the economy is hit either way, but it is much worse if no agreement is reached.

The question now for the House and for the negotiators is, how do we get out of this? It is clearly not by the clauses that the Government are seeking to put back in the Bill. One of the reasons why the Government are having so much trouble with the level playing field negotiations is the existence of those clauses. Let us think about this for a moment. Why do Ministers think that the EU negotiators are so keen to tie down commitments that both sides will be asked to give in the negotiations? It is for the very simple reason, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) made clear in another brilliant speech, that we have shown that we are not to be trusted to keep our word. If a country is in the process of negotiating a new international treaty, it does not do wonders for its credibility if it is busy preparing to tear up part of the previous treaty that it negotiated with the same partners and signed just over a year ago.

The other issue is sovereignty, about which we have heard an enormous amount today. If sovereignty is absolute, and if we were to take it to its logical and absurd conclusion, for example, why should we be negotiating on fish at all? Would not giving any of “our fish”, as some people describe it, be a betrayal? If sovereignty is absolute, what are we doing in the World Trade Organisation? As the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) knows only too well, the WTO has a dispute resolution body that gives other countries, if they win a case against the UK, the ability to impose countervailing measures upon us, including tariffs. How could that be acceptable to a sovereign country that claims complete sovereign control? The truth, of course, is that sovereignty is not absolute. It is what we choose to do with it that matters, and we cannot avoid that choice. We cannot avoid that choice in these negotiations, because the only way out of this mess, in the interests of the country, is for both sets of negotiators to grasp the heavy responsibility that they have at this moment to make the choices that will secure the deal that the country desperately needs.

In conclusion, since German car makers, as was once rather fancifully suggested, are not going to turn up late in the day to rescue the negotiations, a bit like Blücher at Waterloo, we have to save ourselves. That is what we have to do at this point. Whatever the bluster, I simply say to those on the Front Bench that the country will not forgive this Government if they impose no deal upon us.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Liam Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I sympathise with him for his personal loss and the loss of many of his friends and associates at Grenfell Tower. He asks what is being done to accelerate the pace of remediation in London, where there have been challenges that are unique to our capital. Lord Greenhalgh convened a summit of the London Mayor and the London Fire Brigade back in September to address an action plan to accelerate the work of London remediation. There was a further progress tracking meeting last month, and there are case conference meetings to address specific buildings in the capital and beyond. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that there were something like 2,700 applications for the £1 billion that we put aside for non-ACM cladding. We will work through those. We have now agreed that a significant number of them meet the criteria, and the first funding of those applications is about to begin. I am confident that the funding will be fully allocated by the end of the financial year in 2021, for which the money was made available.

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

This is an issue of huge concern to many of my constituents in Portishead. It must be an absolute principle that leaseholders must be protected from the cost of remediation for safety issues that were not their fault. I welcome the Government’s support and approach. A £1.6 billion taxpayers’ commitment is huge, but the taxes of working families up and down the country should not be used to absolve developers, insurers and owners from their proper responsibilities. When will my hon. Friend come forward and set out how these responsibilities will be enforced?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right. As I said in my earlier remarks, first and foremost the responsibility must fall squarely on the developers of these properties, their owners and warranty holders. There are some good developers that have worked hard to remediate ACM cladding; something like 50% of the buildings that have had ACM cladding remediated have been done, and are being done, by the private sector. Pemberstone, Mace, Peabody, Barratt Developments and others are all working to remediate their buildings. We have been clear that those that do not, such as those referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), must recognise that they will receive the full force of the law. I can tell the House that, from December, those responsible for buildings where remediation is not forecast to start by the end of 2020 will be publicly named, as a further incentive for them to get going.

Housing: North Somerset

Liam Fox Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

I am very grateful for this opportunity to raise the issue of housing and house building numbers for North Somerset. I will make some comments about the general situation, how we got to this point and elements that affect my constituency. Then, with your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) will add some comments about the situation in his constituency.

North Somerset, as it is now, had a population in 1971 of 139,924 residents. By 2018, that had increased to 213,919. We have seen an increase of more than 50% in our population since the 1970s. That has naturally been accompanied by a huge amount of house building in my constituency. That has particularly been around Nailsea and Backwell. There has been huge development and growth in Clevedon and, most recently, the development in Portishead, one of the most successful developments of a brownfield site anywhere in the country. Of course, Weston-super-Mare has seen its own dramatic growth in that time, which my hon. Friend will come to.

Our current adopted requirement for housing is 20,995 dwellings for the period 2006 to 2026, which is 1,049 per year, but—this is where reality breaks in—developers have not delivered anything like those numbers in that period. In fact, despite a large number of sites with full planning consent, only 808 dwellings on average have been produced per year in that period. Only in one year, 2007, did we exceed the target, and that was at the height of growth in Portishead.

I now come to the projected numbers. The previous joint spatial plan gave North Somerset a new target of 25,000 new homes over 20 years, which means 1,250 per year. Under the new methodology, however, with a target of 300,000 new homes per year nationally for each year of this Parliament, that has risen again to 1,365 dwellings per year.

That was already beyond the realms of what we believed possible, but to take us well into “Alice in Wonderland” territory, the Government’s new algorithm in the plan to get us to 370,000 homes nationally per year takes it to 1,708 dwellings per year for North Somerset, which is 25,620 over a 15-year period. That is more than twice as many as the market has delivered on average in that period. So we have these fantasy numbers that come from the socialist planning edict, rather than what the market has delivered for us.

The question is, where will those houses actually go? I am aware of the strictures about not using props, but I will explain to the Minister the little gift that I intend to give him at the end of this debate, which will show him a map of North Somerset plus green belt. By the time we add on the flood plain, areas of outstanding natural beauty, aerodrome safeguarded zones and the conservation areas, he might like to show me on the map where the 26,000 homes will go.

I could encourage the Minister to improve his colouring-in skills, but there is nothing to colour in on a map where everything is already completely used up. Perhaps we will see the Shard built on Yatton high street; perhaps Churchill will have its new skyscrapers. It simply is not credible to apply those housing numbers to North Somerset.

We are not NIMBYs. As I have said, there has been a 50% increase in the number of our residents, and therefore housing, over the period, but we need to safeguard the quality of life for those who already live there. The infrastructure in our area is creaking in terms of the number of schools and the GP services that we have. Our policing is overstretched and our roads leave a great deal to be desired.

In Wrington, one of the villages in the green belt where there has been some development, we have already seen problems with flooding and drainage that were entirely predicted; I raised the issue with the district council at the time. Road traffic access is a nightmare in a village where the infrastructure had already been degraded. In Portishead, our schools are already full. Yatton is used as the emergency route when there is a closure to the M5, which is a joke, because at the best of times it is effectively a single lane road through a small village.

In Clevedon, there is an attempt to use our last bit of green belt in Cleveland East to build an overflow school. Long Ashton and Dundry in particular have the nightmare prospect of a huge housing estate being planned that will effectively take the urban sprawl from Bristol into North Somerset. The whole point of the green belt there is to stop urban sprawl and to stop Bristol moving south into North Somerset. We utterly reject the idea of some of those lovely villages having huge housing estates, which would be an eyesore as well as a burden on the local authority.



The Government have said that they want to increase the infrastructure budget, particularly in the north of England. I am absolutely, fully committed to that; it makes perfect sense to spread opportunity to all parts of the country. But if that is where the infrastructure spending is going to go, why are we increasing the housing supply in the south of England, where we are not getting the investment in the infrastructure? That applies not only to our constituencies in north Somerset but to many of the constituencies of my right hon. and hon. Friends, who took the opportunity in the Lobby tonight to say, “Speak for us when you are having your Adjournment debate.” We need to have house building commensurate with investment in the infrastructure. We cannot have the mismatch that we seem to be developing at the present time.

So what do we want to see in North Somerset? We need to develop brownfield sites, particularly in Bristol. The idea that there are cost issues should not be allowed to get in the way of building on the most appropriate sites where they are closest to the city environment with all the infrastructure that already exists there. We need to look, particularly in the post-covid environment, at change of use from offices and shops to more dwellings, bringing people back into our town centres and improving the life of our communities there. We want to get rid of North Somerset’s obligation to make up for unmet need in Bristol. Why should the residents of North Somerset have to pay the price, in terms of pressure on their infrastructure, for the failure of the authorities in Bristol to meet their own housing needs, especially given that there are brownfield sites yet to be built on?

We need to have—this is a more generic issue than just what we face in North Somerset—a methodology that is realistic. We need to have a clear link to local demographics, not some made-up numbers that are simply applied irrespective of the real conditions in our population. We must have a fact-based assessment of need in our constituencies. We must have a sensible view of the constraints already in place, including all the issues that I mentioned, including the fact that we have such a large amount of green belt, and the fact that we have the north Somerset levels, with some of the areas that would otherwise be used for planning being on floodplain. The clue to the impact on those areas is in the term “flood”, which is why we do not expect to see building there. We need to have to have the right type of housing. We want to see more affordable housing so that young people who grow up in North Somerset are not forced to leave and come back only when they have attained a much higher income later on in their life. We have a mismatch with our demographics. We need more young people to be able to stay and live where they grew up. We have to see housing targets and the type of house building that are in line with our environmental targets.

I believe that the Government fully understand the need for more house building across the United Kingdom, but we have already seen our share of development in our part of the country. We are constrained by the very elements that the Government themselves set down. We cannot build on green belt. We cannot build on floodplain. It is an accident of nature that we have the north Somerset levels. We cannot build in the protected areas: in areas of outstanding natural beauty or conservation areas. I invite my right hon. Friend the Minister, for some amusement over the weekend, to take back the map of North Somerset that shows all these elements included, and show me where 26,000 houses are meant to go.

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[Dr Fox]

Will my hon. Friend accept that his argument is further strengthened by the fact that the housing density in many of our cities in the United Kingdom is well below the level of housing density that is taken for granted in most cities in Europe?

[John Penrose]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and if we do it this way round we are using the existing infrastructure, rather than overburdening the already stretched infrastructure in our rural areas. It is greener, too, because people can live closer to work. If we start building yet more in rural villages—in my case, places like Churchill or Langford or Congresbury—we just create commuter towns and villages, and we add to the level of the commuting carbon footprint as a result. If people can live near where they work—which is much more covid-friendly as well—we stand a chance of creating greener, more sustainable communities, and ones where investment is desired. However, that does require the Government to change the process—to change the way they give credit for the sites that are thus created. That would ensure that the big volume builders, whose whole business plan is based around building on greenfield sites, do not get the only view of the situation, and town and city centre development becomes a route for councils to satisfy the housing numbers they are required to build.

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[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we have made it easier for councils to build council houses. He will know that, through the affordable homes programme that the Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced in September, over the next five years we will inject £12.2 billion into house building. We will build 180,000 new homes in our country, about 50% of which will be affordable and for social rent. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman raised that point, and I am pleased to have been able to make the point to him that we are building those affordable homes where they are necessary.

That is why we are looking at housing need now, considering carefully how each element of the formula that I described works together so that we can ensure that we achieve the right distribution of homes in the most appropriate places and address any perceived imbalances. We have consulted, as I said, on each element of the indicative formula, and we are reflecting carefully on the feedback we have received.

[Dr Fox]

May I take my right hon. Friend back to what the market has actually delivered over time? Does he accept that if councils are given targets for housing that are utterly unrealistic in relation to the numbers that have been built over time, the Government are likely to miss their own house building target, because houses will not be built in those areas to the extent that the Government would like, and that the process can be self-defeating if the correct balance is not achieved?

[Christopher Pincher]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. That is why I said that we are looking very closely at the consultation feedback that we have received. As part of the consultation on the “Planning for the future” White Paper, we have asked providers of feedback to consider how we can improve the duty to co-operate between local authorities so that we get the right sorts of homes spread over the regions of our country. We know that political geography does not always map easily on to economic or physical geography, so I recognise what my right hon. Friend says.

I will make a couple more points before the fickle finger of time points us towards the door of the Chamber. My right hon. Friend raised the issue of infrastructure. We recognise that the present system of infrastructure levy does not work. We have heard that 80% of local authorities think that the system of section 106 contributions is too slow, and negotiations between councils and developers cannot be relied on fully to provide what communities truly need, when they need it. That is why, in the White Paper, we have proposed a more widely set infrastructure levy. That will simplify the system and ensure fairer contributions from developers.

Crucially, we want to ensure that the levy provides funds up front for the required infrastructure—the schools, roads, clinics and playgrounds that local people expect to see if new, good-quality, sustainable homes are being built around them. We are consulting on whether the levy should be set nationally, or locally or regionally to take account of regional economies.

My right hon. Friend raised the question of build-out and land-banking. He will know that Sir Oliver Letwin produced a report on build-out a couple of years ago. He found no evidence of speculative land-banking, but we all recognise that developers do not always build out at the pace that we would like. Our proposals will help to achieve that speedier build-out, but I look forward to considering the ideas in the consultation, so that we can better incentivise developers to build out.

My right hon. Friend referred to flooding. He will know that we are considering carefully whether we need to make further changes to the national planning policy framework to protect areas at risk of flooding from unnecessary and inappropriate building. We should not lose sight of the Government’s successes over the past 10 years. There have been half a million additional new homes since 2010, and 240,000 of those were built in England last year alone. We can be proud of that.

I thank everybody who has contributed to this debate. We need to get this right, and that depends on what we build, and where we build. I look forward to reading the many contributions of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset and my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare to the two consultations that have just concluded, and look forward to further debates on this matter.

Question put and agreed to.