Plan for Neighbourhoods

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I extend my appreciation to my noble friend for all the work that she does in this area. She speaks with great experience, skills and depth of knowledge.

I do not want to pre-empt the upcoming spending review by making any commitments to expansion, but I recognise that other places want to join the plan for neighbourhoods—this was raised also by several Members in the other place. While I cannot make any commitments, the Government welcome correspondence from interested parties. We have taken inspiration from the new deal for communities, the work of John Prescott that my noble friend was talking about, which provided the stability of long-term funding, backed by the support of central government. We have learned what has worked well in the past and are utilising that same methodology.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I welcome the Statement, which builds on initiatives from previous Administrations. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, referred to her pioneering work at the beginning of this century. Going back even further, I was a Minister in the Department of the Environment in the 1980s. We had inner-city partnerships, where the Government provided two-thirds of the money and the local authority one third. We funded a range of projects exactly the same as the projects that are hoped for under this programme.

I can see a range of bids coming to the neighbourhood boards. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned improved recreation facilities. Looking through the Statement in the other place, I see there were demands for community shops. People may want to rescue a theatre. However, the first priority listed in the Statement is the modernisation of social housing. I am all in favour of social housing being modernised, but there is a mainstream programme to do that. To what extent will the smaller projects that I have been referring to and which the programme is aimed at be swamped by the modernisation of social housing? Is that really one of the objectives, or is that put in to patch up a deficiency in another mainstream government programme?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a very interesting point. My only answer at this time is that, of course, as a country, we want to see the modernisation of social housing. The Deputy Prime Minister has announced that 1.5 million houses are to be built in this Parliament, and that is still the ambition, but the specifics of what the money can be spent on are entirely up to the local regeneration neighbourhood board—the people. They need to look at what the priorities are for their area and work out how they can put this £2 million a year into various projects. If that means putting some money into modernising housing, it is a decision for them to reflect upon. As central government, we have our focus and manifesto commitments on housing overall, but whatever is needed in the local area is for the board to deliberate and decide upon.