Lord Barwell
Main Page: Lord Barwell (Conservative - Life peer)(7 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
Our recent housing White Paper underlines the Government’s continuing commitment to the green belt. Local councils should remove land only in exceptional circumstances, and the White Paper clarifies what that means: when they can demonstrate that they have fully examined all other reasonable options for meeting housing need.
Mr Nuttall
When a plan proposes large-scale development on the green belt, as in the case of the Greater Manchester spatial framework, will my hon. Friend assure me that he will carefully assess how realistic the various projections and assumptions are for things such as population growth and household size?
Gavin Barwell
I assure my hon. Friend that the approach that is taken will be robustly tested by a planning inspector in public, and that he will be able to give evidence. My hon. Friend is right that before councils think about releasing green-belt land, they should consider brownfield land, surplus Government land, density and how their neighbours can help to meet housing need.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Plans to build on the green belt in Bury are part of the Greater Manchester spatial strategy, which also affects Flixton in my constituency. Does the Minister agree that Greater Manchester councils should look at using brownfield and other sites in preference to green belt, as he says, and perhaps at increasing density when possible?
Gavin Barwell
I very much agree with hon. Lady. The White Paper sets out clearly what “exceptional circumstances” means. It is a phrase in the national planning policy framework that has not been defined previously. This is about looking at brownfield land, surplus public sector land, density and what neighbouring areas can do before precious green-belt land is released.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
Small builders tell us that the two key constraints that they face are access to land and finance. Our home building fund includes £1 billion of short-term loan funding for small builders, and our recent White Paper will ensure that councils make small sites available.
Mark Pawsey
I thank the Minister for that answer, because the time it takes to get a site through the planning process is often a challenge for small builders, who are less able to bear the risk involved and the funding required. Will he continue with the reforms he is making to the planning system to ensure that local planning authorities can deal speedily with small sites?
Gavin Barwell
My hon. Friend is right to raise the challenges that small builders face. We plan to boost the capacity of planning authorities by allowing them to increase planning fees. With regard to the designation regime, the Government will take action when councils are not taking sufficient decisions within a certain timescale. I also draw the House’s attention to the new permission in principle regime, which is a way for small builders to find out the planning certainty for a site without their having to do the full preparation work.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
My local authority of Flintshire, which is just over the border from England, is building 500 new council homes, which are being constructed by small builders. Is not this approach, which is putting people into housing and creating jobs in the private building sector, a good way forward?
Gavin Barwell
The White Paper is very clear on this point—we absolutely want councils to get back into the business of building homes. There is a huge need for more housing and the more people who are involved in the building of homes the happier the Government will be.
Robert Courts (Witney) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
Our recent housing White Paper sets out measures to increase the use of modern methods of construction in housebuilding. The key is to provide a pipeline of work to encourage suppliers to invest in new plant. We will do that through our accelerated construction and home building fund, and through the growing build-to-rent and custom build markets.
Robert Courts
Does the Minister not agree that custom built homes, which can often be built more quickly and cheaply, and often to a higher standard than other types of housing, have a real part to play in solving housing supply issues?
Gavin Barwell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only can homes be built more quickly and with a better environmental performance, which means that they are cheaper for people to live in when they move there but, in terms of the real skills challenge we face if we are going to build many more homes, that is a way of getting new people involved in the building of homes.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I recently had the pleasure of meeting one of the partners of Waugh Thistleton, the architects behind a new housing development at Dalston Lane in Hackney, which uses more timber than any other project in the world. Is cross-laminated timber on the Department’s radar, and what are the Government doing to help to support architects who are exploring this very sustainable material?
Gavin Barwell
It is absolutely on our agenda. The term “modern methods of construction” covers a wide range of different techniques. The key policy area is our home building fund, which provides £1 billion of loan funding for people who are innovating. Too many homes are still built in exactly the same way as they were 100 years ago. We are determined to change that, and I am very happy to hear about the example provided by the hon. Lady.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
Gavin Barwell
My hon. Friend is right to say that it is not good enough just to get new homes built. They need to be built well and to stand the test of time. Building inspectors check to ensure that building regulation requirements are met, but we are also considering the recommendations in the report of the all-party group on excellence in the built environment.
Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
At the weekend, we learned that Bovis Homes is to pay £7 million in compensation for poorly built new homes. Will the Minister tell the House what he will do to improve the quality of new homes, including those built by new methods of construction, and to ensure they are built in well-planned communities with appropriate infrastructure? Unfortunately, while the housing White Paper had warm words, it lacked any substance whatsoever on quality and place-making issues.
Gavin Barwell
Despite what the hon. Lady says, there has been a very warm reaction to the housing White Paper from right across the housing sector. I have spent the past week travelling around the country and holding meetings with housing professionals, including, interestingly, Labour councillors, who are very keen to get behind the Government’s agenda to build the homes that Governments of both colours, over 30 or 40 years, have failed to build.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
For reasons best known to themselves, about two years ago Reading Borough Council and West Berkshire Council challenged the Government’s policy of assisting brownfield development via vacant building credit. Will the Minister update us on whether the Government are still committed to vacant building credit to release more residential homes on brownfield land?
Gavin Barwell
We are certainly absolutely committed to trying to get a greater proportion of the homes we need built on brownfield land. The White Paper sets out a huge range of different things that we will do to achieve that, but I will happily write to my hon. Friend about the details of the issue he raises.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s commitment to new construction methods, but will he confirm to the House that the Government’s commitment to starter homes, which are designed to encourage home ownership, remains undiminished?
Gavin Barwell
Absolutely. Starter homes are an important part of the way in which the Government are going to try to help people to get into home ownership. There are a number of different schemes—[Interruption.] We are not proceeding with a statutory obligation because that reflects the view expressed to us by large numbers of people. Starter homes go alongside shared ownership and the Help to Buy scheme. None of these schemes existed when the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) was housing Minister and did nothing to reverse to the decline in home ownership.
Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab)
Sir Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
We are investing nearly £250,000 in Colchester and Tendring to identify those at risk of rough sleeping and support them into accommodation. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) for the role he played in the Homelessness Reduction Bill and join in his tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).
Will Quince
I thank the Minister for that response. May I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), whose Homelessness Reduction Bill will play such a large part in tackling homelessness? As the Minister said, from having sat on that Bill Committee and seen cross-party working in action, does he agree with me that it is by taking party politics out of this issue and working on a cross-party basis that we will tackle homelessness?
Gavin Barwell
My hon. Friend is right, and the Secretary of State said exactly that earlier in our questions. There is a real need not just to invest more money in this crucial area, but also to change the law, to ensure both that we have a full safety net and that we intervene earlier to prevent people from becoming homeless, rather than just at the point of crisis.
Sir Simon Burns
Does my hon. Friend agree that the work that Chelmsford City Council is doing to tackle the totally unacceptable problem of rough sleeping in Chelmsford is both innovative and positive?
Gavin Barwell
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. I thank him for his personal commitment to this issue and say to him that the work that Chelmsford is doing is being supported by nearly £1 million from the £50 million that the Secretary of State referred to.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
If the Department for Work and Pensions cuts housing support, that immediately adds to homelessness pressures for the Department for Communities and Local Government. Does the Minister think that the DWP should go ahead with cuts to housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds in a month’s time, and if not, is he making representations to his colleagues in other Departments to stop it?
Gavin Barwell
This Government have increased discretionary housing payment to £870 million across this Parliament; that is a 55% increase, and thus far 60% of—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady says it is nowhere near enough; 60% of local councils have not taken up their full allocation.
Mr Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Gavin Barwell)
The White Paper sets out a number of measures that we are taking to deal with that situation. First, we have the £2.3 billion infrastructure fund that the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement. Secondly, as I mentioned to the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), we are giving local authorities real power to intervene to ensure that schemes get built out. We cannot just plan for the right number of homes; we need to ensure that they also get built.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Waste collection and processing is currently regulated and underpinned by the EU waste framework directive and the Environmental Protection Act 1990. Local government takes on a great deal of responsibility for waste management and has invested significant sums in bins, fleets, staffing and processing centres to meet those obligations. What certainty can the Secretary of State give to local government on this and on future waste investment plans?
Mr Speaker
Ministers have no responsibility for the whereabouts of Liberal Democrat Members—or those of any other party, for that matter. However, the hon. Gentleman has made his point in his own way, with force and alacrity.
Gavin Barwell
Thank you, Mr Speaker. All I can say is, “Thank goodness for that!”
On housing supply, we are measuring the total size of the housing stock, and local authorities are being asked to plan for not only the necessary number of homes but, as was clear in the discussion we had earlier, the right mix of homes for the changing demography of their area.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
Why is the Minister abolishing the requirement for Parliament to approve the local government finance settlement through the Local Government Finance Bill? Is it because the Government have inflicted so much damage to local government services through cuts that they want to hide that and not be accountable to Parliament?
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The chief executive of Centrepoint recently said that the Government’s plan to axe housing benefit for 18 to 21-year-olds
“could cost the taxpayer more money than it saves”.
In the light of cross-party support for the Homelessness Reduction Bill, will the Minister scrap that damaging policy and focus instead on delivering the genuinely affordable homes that our young people need?
Gavin Barwell
I can certainly commit to the last part of what the hon. Lady asked for. In London, the Government are providing £3.15 billion of funding to the Mayor, who has been generous enough to say that that is the best ever settlement for affordable housing in London. On the other matter, we need to ensure that private landlords still have the confidence to let to younger people and we are considering that issue.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
As important as the funding formula debate is, does my right hon. Friend agree that the way in which councils organise themselves is also important to ensure the maximum bang for the taxpayers’ buck? Against that backdrop, I hope that my right hon. Friend will give Dorset’s innovative proposals the thumbs-up, because they are the best way—indeed the only way—of securing services for local people.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Leasehold Advisory Service should play an important role in providing advice to leaseholders. However, the current chair Roger Southam has extensive previous business interests with freeholders and has even boasted of maximising ground rent opportunities for them. Can Ministers not see how that looks? In order to regain leaseholders’ confidence, will Ministers agree to an urgent review into the suitability of Mr Southam to continue as chair?
Gavin Barwell
I am well aware of the hon. Gentleman’s passion for this issue; he spoke powerfully in a debate on this matter a few weeks ago. I recently announced that funding for LEASE will continue to come purely from the Government so that no one can be in any doubt that its job is to stand up for the interests of leaseholders.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
Local authorities come in for a bit of stick in this Chamber from time to time, but the Secretary of State will be fully aware of the tremendous work that North Yorkshire County Council did in Tadcaster over the past year. Will he take this opportunity to thank North Yorkshire and David Bowe in particular, who did so much great work in ensuring the restoration of the bridge? Will he also thank the local enterprise partnership for its help?
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
Can the Minister say what plans he has to introduce a new homes ombudsman?
Gavin Barwell
I said in response to an earlier question that the Government are currently looking at the report from the all-party parliamentary group for excellence in the built environment. The Government are determined to build the homes that this country needs, but the homes must be built to a sufficient quality, too.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
I will be brief. I have elicited three positive responses about the possibility of a Belfast city deal. Instead of a fourth positive response, can we have a meeting?