Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th September 2023 Lords Chamber

As I said, it is a matter of great regret that this debate is taking place before the Select Committee report appears next week. I encourage noble Lords to read it when it appears. I think they will find a great deal of evidence in it that is relevant to what we are discussing today.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, we ought to remember that we are discussing the amendments that the Government have put before us, rather than a committee report that we have not got and which will, no doubt, be of great interest.

We have to recognise that there may well be an issue here that needs properly to be addressed. My concern is that this is not the way to address it. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, suggested that when we deal with the environment, we should consider it very carefully, go out to consultation and make sure that what we are doing is right. None of that has happened here. The Government have put down a whole series of amendments to this Christmas tree of a Bill and some of us are suggesting that we should not do this—although, were they to come forward with something that met the particular problems in a way that was not so manifestly bad, I am sure we would be supportive.

I rather object to the fact that the newspapers say that I am a Conservative rebel. It is the Government who are the rebel here, because they are not being conservative over this. First, they are asking local authorities—I can hardly believe it—to disregard the facts. This is the kind of attitude that we see in the Republican Party in the United States, the people who do not believe in climate change, the anti-vaxxers, who say “Don’t look at the facts”. The second thing that local authorities are being asked to do is encourage ignorance: not only “Don’t look at the facts” but “Don’t look at any evidence or find any evidence—just do what the Government say should be done”.

The argument the Government have put forward is that we need this to build more houses. I was the Secretary of State responsible for that. I had a long history of dealing with the housebuilders, who tell us that this will increase the number of houses. The number of houses built has nothing to do with this at all—it is about whether the housebuilders think that that number will keep the price up at the level at which they have it. The housebuilders are not building the houses they have already got planning permission for in areas which are not in any way affected by this. We know that perfectly well. It is a canard, if I may use a foreign word, to suggest that this will have any effect on the number of houses. The number of houses in this country is not reaching 300,000 because the housebuilders have bought the land at a price which means that they can sell only at a level which is too elevated for the present time, with mortgages as they are. Let us not kid ourselves that, by voting against this, we will in some way reduce the number of houses, because we will not.

I find it extremely difficult when I am told that the housebuilders should not pay for the damage they do. Three arguments are used. First is the housemaid’s argument: it is only a very little bit—“It is only a very little baby”—and therefore we do not have to take it into account. As a former chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I have to say that that is the argument everybody uses every time you want to do anything—“It isn’t me”; “They are bigger than we are”; “Don’t do it in Britain because of China”; “Don’t do it because of the farmers”; “Don’t do it for anyone, but don’t ask me to pay for my pollution”.

Secondly, I thought that the Conservative Party was in favour of the polluter pays. Were my noble friend the Minister canvassing in the Mid Bedfordshire by-election at this moment, would she turn to an elector and say, “In future, housebuilders building in the Wye Valley or near the Monnow will not have to contribute for the cost and the damage they do, but you will through your taxes. You, the Mid Bedfordshire voter in the by-election, will now be asked to subsidise the housebuilders”? That is what these amendments are about—the subsidising of the housebuilders.

In the end, we could go even further. Why do we not have a Bill to say that housebuilders can ignore health and safety arrangements because then more housing would be built? Why do we not say that local authorities must not know what the health and safety laws are and must not investigate what they might be so that houses might be built?

This is one of the worst pieces of legislation I have ever seen, and I have been around a long time. It is entirely unconservative. If all this was so obvious so long ago, why was it not included in the Bill in the first place, or in some other Bill? As we have, in my view, some pretty peculiar legislation on ex-EU laws, why have the Government not used their powers therein?

I sat through debate after debate on how we were going to protect the British people instead of the court in Brussels and on how we would have proper protection against government mishandling of the environment. We were assured that Glenys Stacey and her department would be treated with all the respect that one would have expected. We were told that she would have all the powers necessary for the Government to take her seriously. What have they done? Two pathetic letters, and no statement—this is a judgment that you should make and we will change things because that is why you are there. That means that the British people are now less protected from government mistakes than any country in the rest of Europe. I make no comment about Brexit, but that is where this House and the other place have left the people of Britain.

I do not believe that the Government can do these things and not expect future generations to say, “If they could do that on this issue, what about other things?” They could say that local authorities can ignore this, that and the other and do not need the facts. Indeed, we do not have the facts here—there is no proof about these houses or any of this; it is an assertion by the Secretary of State.

I am not a Conservative rebel—I am a Conservative. Therefore, I am voting for the principle of the polluter pays, for facts and for knowledge, and I am not voting for ignorance and the disregard of facts.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The noble Lord, Lord Deben, is not an easy act to follow, but I shall try.

We were lied to in this House. Our Government promised us repeatedly that there would be no lessening of environmental protection at any time. They promised us that and they lied. As a result of Brexit, we are now almost unprotected. Loads of us knew at the time that they were lying.