Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Best (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Motion ZH, the government amendment in lieu of Lords Amendment 329. The intention of the earlier Lords amendment was to make local plans more specific in spelling out the housing needs of each locality and the ways in which those needs are to be met. This would identify how homelessness and temporary accommodation can be eliminated over a reasonable timescale. The amendment, devised by Shelter, detailed what the local plan should cover, including the needs of all those registered on the local housing authority’s allocation scheme. This would mean all local plans highlighting the need for, and the steps to provide, the homes sought by those now in increasing difficulty as opportunities to buy or to rent have become alarmingly scarce.

The government amendment seeks to take this on board in a somewhat condensed version. It requires the local plan to

“take account of an assessment of the amount, and type, of housing that is needed in the local planning authority’s area, including the amount of affordable housing that is needed”.

This takes us into the same territory as my amendment and would sharpen up local plans to provide more precision in identifying and addressing the need for housing for those who are homeless or in temporary accommodation or on the never-ending waiting list for a home that they can afford. What is on the face of the Bill will now need to be buttressed by guidance for local planning authorities, to put a bit more flesh on the bones of this legislative measure. It would be good if the Minister could provide an assurance that this ingredient will be incorporated in forthcoming planning guidance.

The government amendment in lieu also raises the thorny question of defining “affordable housing”, which has been debated in this House on numerous occasions and not resolved. The government amendment adds that “affordable housing” means social housing as it has been defined—very broadly and often misleadingly—since 2008. However, the amendment adds some new, encouraging words that “affordable housing” could mean housing of

“any other description of housing that may be prescribed”.

This is helpful. It opens the door for a new definition of affordable housing which, in the future, this or another Secretary of State may prescribe. It would be good to see whether agreement can be reached in the months ahead on a more satisfactory definition, to update the old one from 2008 in readiness for the first opportunity to substitute a better version.

With these comments, I say that I feel that the Government have made a serious effort to take on board the need to sharpen up the local plan in respect of meeting housing need. I am grateful to the Government, and to the Minister in particular, for this change that they are willing to make to the Bill.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I have one remark to make in support of Motion M1, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale. The noble Earl, with whom it is always so difficult to disagree, stated that the reason the Government are unhappy with the idea of climate change becoming more central is that it opens up a wide range of challenge. But climate change is going to be the central, existential issue of planning beyond our lifetimes. It is not an add-on; it is not planting a few trees in order to get planning permission. It is absolutely core, and dealing with that will make life very difficult for planning applications. I support this amendment so that climate change becomes central to the decision-making process, not an adjunct.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will intervene briefly to speak to three Motions in this group—first, Motion ZH, to which the noble Lord, Lord Best, has just spoken. It is the substitute for an amendment on housing need that he promoted on Report. There is a crucial difference between the original amendment, which required local authorities not just to assess need but to make provision for it. The Government’s amendment deletes that last half—making provision for need. None the less, we have heard some encouraging words about social rent. It is a brave man who seeks to outbid the noble Lord, Lord Best, when it comes to speaking or voting on amendments on housing, so I am happy to follow his lead and not press that. I pay tribute to the work that he has been doing on this.

Secondly, it was disappointing to hear my noble friend Lord Howe say that Motion N1 on healthy homes, from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, still had to be resisted. Ever since the Private Member’s Bill was introduced, we have had numerous debates in Committee and on Report, and each time, in response, the noble Lord has moved further and further towards the Government. There never was a wide disagreement, because the Government always said that they agreed with the thrust of what he was trying to do.

It is worth reading out what may be the only sentence of the original amendment that remains:

“The Secretary of State must promote a comprehensive regulatory framework for planning and the built environment designed to secure the physical, mental and social health and well-being of the people of England by ensuring the creation of healthy homes and neighbourhoods”.


That is apparently too much. It continues:

“The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for a system of standards”.


In other words, how that objective is reached is left entirely to the Secretary of State. Far from cutting across, as my noble friend Lord Howe said, the amendment seeks to bring it all together under a comprehensive framework to promote healthy homes.

The last point I want to make is on Motion R1 of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. It repeats an amendment that I originally proposed in Committee that gives local authorities powers to fix their own planning fees. In the other place, the amendment was resisted on these grounds:

“It will lead to inconsistency of fees between local planning authorities and does not provide any incentive to tackle inefficiencies”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/10/23; col 186.]


Central government should be quite careful before it preaches to local government about inefficiencies. This is the month in which we abandoned most of HS2. Pick up any NAO report and you will find criticism of the MoD on procurement. There has been criticism of the new hospitals programme and of HMRC in its response to taxpayer inquiries. If I were running a planning department in a local authority, I would be slightly miffed if I were told that, if I had the resources I needed, it might lead to inefficiencies.

There are problems in planning departments, but they are because a quarter of planners left the public sector between 2013 and 2020, so of course they cannot turn around planning applications as speedily as they might. The argument about promoting inefficiency does not really hold water. If one were to take that argument, why stop at planning fees? What about taking books out of a public library, swimming or parking? Are these not areas where local authorities might conceivably be inefficient?

Almost the first sentence of the White Paper introducing the Bill said that it would promote a “revolution in local democracy”, but allowing planning departments to set fees, so that they can recoup the costs of planning, is apparently a step too far. Yes, you will have inconsistency of fees, but that will happen if you have local democracy. We already have inconsistency of fees in every other charge a local authority makes, including building control fees. The argument that it will somehow confuse individuals or developers does not hold water. How many individuals make planning applications to a range of different local authorities and then express surprise that the fees are different? Yes, developers will be confronted with different fees, but they want an efficient planning department that processes their applications quickly.

I cannot understand why the Government are digging in their heels on this amendment, which empowers local government and gives them resources. It does not get resources at the moment because, in a unitary authority, the planning department, which does not get enough money from planning fees, has to bid for resources from the council tax in competition against adult social care and other services. It is no wonder that it misses out. At this very late stage on the Bill, I ask my noble friend whether the Government could show a little ankle on this, move a little towards empowering local government and trust it to get this right.

Economic Update

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it is absolutely true that people across the United Kingdom are worried about the cost of living. I apologise if I did not answer the question from the most reverend Primate; I will answer it now, but it might not be the full answer required. It is not always easy to remember everything that one is asked at the Dispatch Box, so I sincerely apologise to the House. The Government have announced £37,000 million of support for the cost of living this financial year. We have the energy price guarantee and the energy bill relief scheme, which will help millions of households. We are supporting millions of vulnerable households, which will receive £1,200 in one-off support, with additional support for pensioners and those claiming disability benefits, as the noble Baroness knows.

However, obviously the issue of uprating benefits and other aspects of government spending are being considered in totality. The Work and Pensions Secretary is conducting her annual review of benefits and I promise the noble Baroness that more will be said on this in the medium-term fiscal plan.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, has the noble Lord seen the recent article in the Financial Times that suggests that a future Government of any complexion will simply be a creature of the bond markets and not the other way round? Does he agree, and is that a good thing?

[Lord True (Con)]

I do not know that I do agree. I fear that I am not the most assiduous reader of the Financial Times—certainly not its editorial copy. The Government’s aspiration is to serve the people, not the bond markets.

Ukraine

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, does the noble Baroness the Leader of the House share my concern that some western negotiators may view eastern parts of Ukraine as bargaining chips that could be included in a negotiation? Does she share my feeling that that would be a terrible precedent to set and that the Government of Ukraine would certainly view it as a betrayal?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord. Certainly, we are absolutely committed to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to providing it with a full range of support.

House of Lords: Governance

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords—I use that term advisedly, given our previous speaker—welcome back. I will endeavour to follow the excellent speeches we have had so far. I will focus on just one issue, highlighting the governance of the key decisions necessary to make progress on restoration and renewal. This cuts across both Chambers, but this is my opportunity as a Peer to raise it in this one. I should perhaps mention that I served until quite recently on the Finance Committee and am now on the Audit Committee. One of my first questions was indeed, as the previous speaker alluded to: why do we have two? But that is for another day.

The Members of the two Houses have the right to decide when, and even whether, to move out and let R&R get fully under way. I know that it would be heretical to question whether essential infrastructural, engineering and health and safety decisions such as these should be made in that way. I cannot bring to mind another public or private sector organisation where that would be the case.

In reserving that right, Members also need to be clear on their associated responsibility for the eye-watering costs being incurred in the interim by delays in the necessary decision-making. The R&R project bodies—the sponsor body and the delivery authority—are set up, staff are appointed and costs are being incurred, but the final decision on going ahead depends on decision-making by parliamentarians to fix conclusively whether or not they are even willing to move out.

I thought the matter had been voted on and settled months ago, but it appears that it will be considered once again and voted on in January. I am not going to stray into the financial implications of one or even both Houses refusing to move out. I simply note that this would very substantially increase R&R costs. My point today is simply this: it is about the money being wasted through delay. I believe that well over £100 million —in fact closer to £200 million—has so far been spent on R&R, despite it not having started and no intrusive surveys having yet taken place.

Substantial sums of public money—in the order of £10 million a month, I believe—will continue to be spent simply on maintaining these buildings and keeping them safe until they can be worked on, for example, keeping the sewerage system going and the fire precautions updated. Much of this expenditure will be nugatory, which is to say that it will not be part of the R&R transformation but is required simply to keep the place ticking over until a decision is made by Parliament and R&R goes ahead in the form that it decides. I believe that not all who govern this decision—nor their constituents, in the case of MPs—are fully aware of the costs that are now being run up in this way. I therefore ask the Senior Deputy Speaker to obtain these figures, which are publicly available, and bring them to daylight. Can he bring further attention to this governance bottleneck? I urge both Houses to exercise their governance roles in this area to enable a speedy and conclusive resolution.

Afghanistan

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the many preceding eloquent and erudite speeches reflect perhaps a measure of agreement on a number of points. We went to Afghanistan with the US and others largely to strike, successfully, at terrorist capability based there. However, an Afghan proverb says that community is not created by force. The mission creep that followed resulted in a far wider—laudable, but much longer-term—set of objectives being taken on.

In the subsequent two decades, many have died and been injured and I join in the condolences and tributes expressed by other speakers today. It is for others to decide whether the sacrifice was worth it but, as other noble Lords have said, it disrupted terrorist activity and kept our country safer from attack. It also gave a generation of young people, particularly women, in Afghanistan a tantalising taste of another way of living.

Withdrawal at some point was inevitable and we really had no choice other than to leave once the US pulled out. It is the regrettable manner of the allies’ withdrawal and the chilling messages that it sends that so many have spoken about today. Many points have been made and moving examples cited and I will not repeat them here.

However, I will ask the following questions and I would be grateful for the Minister’s replies. First, on UK relationships, where does this leave the UK-US relationship and what role, if any, does the UK now have in seeking to work with China and Russia on Afghanistan and its neighbours, given the pretty poor relationships that we have with both at present? I cannot help but wonder what their embassies are saying to the Taliban today.

Secondly, on the Taliban, to what extent do the Government actually believe that Taliban 2 is really different from Taliban 1? Will internal pressures with those who have lived and fought alongside them create splinter groups and renewed conflict? We heard a great deal from the Front Bench early in the debate today that the Taliban must do this or not do that, but what ability do we have to enforce any of that? Can we now expect a boom in the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan across central Asia to Europe and beyond?

Many today have spoken about those people coming to the UK. Over the last day or so, the Taliban appear to have been allowing an exodus, but on what grounds does the Minister believe that this will continue for the several months—nay, years—envisaged in recent announcements? Would it not be wise to have a plan for when the Taliban start to restrict or even select—we need to ponder this point—those whom they allow to come to the UK?

I close with a chilling phrase from Sun Tzu’s Art of War:

“When … your ardor”


is

“damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no person, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.”

We need a plan to avert the consequences that, in different ways, now threaten both us and the vulnerable people of Afghanistan.