Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Lisa Nandy and John Redwood

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about doom gloom around the north of England, but I have just told him about the life-changing jobs that were brought to those communities by action taken under the last Labour Government. I have just told him what ambition looks like, and what levelling up looks like in action. If he thinks that that is doom and gloom, I dread to think what he thinks about the legacy of his Government.

In fairness to the Secretary of State—I feel I ought to say something nice to him; if he could see the faces behind him, he would not feel very cheerful—it is not his door and mind that have been completely closed, but the Treasury’s, and it is the Treasury that calls the shots. In fairness to him, he inherited a complete mess in relation to planning, and it falls to him to try to sort it out.

[John Redwood]

Why did the people of the north-east turn down Labour’s policy of elected regional government, and why did Labour not try it anywhere else?

[Lisa Nandy]

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could ask the Secretary of State that question, because it was his then policy adviser who led the campaign against it.

In all fairness to the Secretary of State, we were relieved to see the back of a planning framework that seemed to be based on a traffic light system. Our communities deserved far better than that. However, this Bill, as he has heard from colleagues on both sides of the House, allows neighbourhood plans to be overridden when they conflict with a national development management plan. The Secretary of State can make one of those plans at any time—without consultation if he chooses, and without any approval from a single Member of this House—and he can override people in any one of our communities if their plan conflicts with his to any extent. That is not being serious about handing power to local communities, is it?

The press release that accompanied the Bill said that the big idea behind handing power to local communities—notwithstanding that the Bill includes measures that allow Whitehall to override them—is something that the Secretary of State calls “street votes”. Will he explain exactly what those street votes will do to put power in people’s hands and put them in the driving seat of their own communities? The reason I ask is that, if he has a plan, it is not, unfortunately, in the Bill. How is it possible that that flagship idea, which headlined the press release, has not yet been written? Does he not accept that we are entitled to better than plans drawn up on the back of an envelope after horse-trading has taken place, usually to his detriment, behind closed doors in Whitehall?

The Secretary of State says that he wants beautiful communities that work for people, and I agree with him, but that means that we have to put power back into people’s hands, because people who have a stake in their own communities and who have skin in the game will do more, try harder, work for longer and be more creative in order to build thriving communities. It also means that we have to end the system where people can come to our communities and extract from them, taking our wealth, running down our housing and sitting on our land.

Surely the most basic plank of all this is that people have the right to know who owns their town, village or city. However, the measures in the Bill that try to ensure that more information is collected about land ownership also allow the Secretary of State to withhold that information from communities. Why on earth would a Secretary of State want to deny people in our villages, towns and cities the right to know who owns the housing, land, shopping centres and town centres that make up those beautiful places that we call home? I remind him that it was that great Conservative—also a great radical—John Ruskin who said:

“Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.”

The commitment to beauty in this Bill is not true.

We need a serious plan to tilt the balance of power back in favour of the people who built this country and will do so again, who have stake in the outcome and skin in the game. We have debated the problems they face many times in this Chamber—

Non-commissioned Exempt Accommodation

Debate between Lisa Nandy and John Redwood

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the significant increase in the numbers of people housed in non-commissioned exempt accommodation under successive Conservative Governments; regrets the opportunities that this increase has provided for unscrupulous operators to exploit vulnerable individuals for financial gain at the taxpayers’ expense; recognises that a range of factors have driven the marked growth of this sector including a chronic shortage of genuinely affordable housing, reductions in funding for housing-related support, new barriers to access for single adults requiring social rented housing or mainstream privately rented housing, and a weakening of regulation and oversight; further regrets the detrimental impact that the growth of poor quality non-commissioned exempt accommodation is having on the health and well-being of those vulnerable individuals placed in it and on the public purse; and calls on the Government to introduce a package of emergency measures designed to secure immediate improvements in the quality of non-commissioned exempt accommodation and associated support, to ensure claims for exempt Housing Benefit consistently provide value for money and to drive unscrupulous operators out of the sector.

We move from the global to the very, very local. There is a scandal quietly unfolding in communities across this country, and today we set out our determination that the Government will finally take this seriously and act to put it right. Across Britain, from Blackpool to Birmingham, houses are being bought or rented supposedly to house vulnerable people in accommodation with extra care and help. Instead, these shameless profiteers are leaving vulnerable people languishing in disgusting, unsafe housing, and people who badly need our help are denied it. The taxpayer is paying for all of this and it is blighting entire neighbourhoods.

It was right to ensure that those who genuinely provide or need supported housing could access enhanced housing benefit, because the cost of housing vulnerable people who need care and support is undeniably higher. Before I came to this place, I worked for Centrepoint, whose work with care leavers, and young people with mental health problems and addiction issues is second to none. It takes time, care and commitment to help those young people build the lives they deserve. But it is utterly wrong that we have allowed this system to be abused and used by people who are destroying entire communities.

Very many good organisations do provide proper support through supported exempt accommodation, and they are as appalled as we are at this scandal—it cannot continue. Colleagues on the Opposition Benches have raised this issue time and again with Ministers. How can it possibly be that nearly 18 months after the Government recognised the problem and commissioned pilots to consider how to solve it, this is still going on? Over the past few years, this problem has skyrocketed. More than 150,000 households in this country are living in exempt accommodation—that is a 62% increase in five years. Not all of them are bad placements—some of them are a lifeline—but it is crystal clear that there is an growing scandal of rogue operators, who know how to cheat the system, and are making life a misery for the people they are supposed to care for and the people who live in these proud communities. They deserve so much better and we are determined that they are going to get it.

I would like to thank colleagues from across this House, and particularly Members from Birmingham and Bristol, who have long recognised the growing scandal and campaigned hard to make it right. They are here today and I am sure that they will have plenty to say to the Minister about it. Many of our local councils, too, are doing great work to address the problem head-on. For example, Birmingham City Council has introduced greater scrutiny of new exempt benefit claims and encourages all providers to sign up to a set of quality standards for exempt accommodation. It has joined a partnership of voluntary and statutory agencies to produce a charter of rights for residents of supported exempt accommodation. But such efforts are thwarted by weak laws and a Government that will not grant them the powers to take action.

This Government have not even given us the information that we deserve. It took a Freedom of Information Act request from the charity Crisis to tell us how many tenancies there are—we do not know where they are. There has been no announcement about the pilots for several months. We have not even been told whether they have ended, what they have concluded or the timetable for when action is going to be taken. But we do know this: the law is too weak. It says a provider must deliver care, support and supervision that is, in legal terms, “more than minimal”. But “more than minimal” has no firm definition, test or criteria It could mean having a manager who visits the property once in a blue moon or installing a CCTV system. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) told the Minister in a recent Westminster Hall debate, in one shocking incident a key worker visited a property where the tenant had just been murdered, mistook the murderer for the victim and told her mother she was fine—she was dead.

We will hear many terrible stories today from colleagues in this House that show that this “more than minimal” definition is allowing these disgraceful firms and individuals to milk the taxpayer at the expense of some of the most vulnerable people in our country; they are destroying neighbourhoods and we are determined that the stories of those people affected will be heard in the highest levels of Government today.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What do the local authorities or governments say when a specific case is reported of totally unsatisfactory accommodation in the way the hon. Lady alleges?

[Lisa Nandy]

They say, “Give us the powers to act. Give us the powers and the laws that we need and we will take action.” The people who lead authorities throughout the country have skin in the game: they live in these communities. These are not just the people they are elected to represent; they are friends, family and neighbours, as well as constituents. The people who lead authorities care deeply about taking action but simply do not have the power to do so.