Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I am focusing on homes, and we have been emphatic and clear that the sale of leasehold homes will be precluded other than in exceptional circumstances. I am happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman both later in the debate and outside the Chamber about whether further consumer protections for those purchasing a flat may be proportionate and reasonable.

New clause 54 grants homeowners who have been mis-sold a new lease of a house the right to acquire the freehold from the landlord, as well as any superior leasehold interest in the property, for zero cost. New clauses 55 and 56 set out protections and reasonable limitations on this requirement, and new clause 57 provides for the Secretary of State to make regulations setting out further details on how redress can be obtained.

We understand that granting homeowners the right to redress alone may not be enough to prevent bad actors from attempting to breach the ban on the sale of leases on houses, which is why we are introducing a system of financial penalties where there is a breach. These penalties will start at £500 for a minor breach, rising to £30,000 for the most serious breaches. To enforce this system of fines, as set out in new clause 58, we are asking all local weights and measures authorities to play a part where they see infractions in their area. We will also set out how they need to work through new clause 60.

The chief responsibility for investigating and taking action will lie with the lead enforcement authority. Through new clause 61, the Secretary of State will have the power to appoint the right authority to fulfil this important role, while new clause 62 details the duties. By amending the Consumer Rights Act 2015, clauses 63 and 64 also vest the appropriate investigatory and enforcement powers essential for both the lead authority and local authorities to carry out the job.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Can the Minister assist me with a relatively unusual issue in my constituency? I have listened very carefully to his helpful speech. In the Loddon Park development on the edge of Woodley in my constituency, residents were sold properties only to discover in the small print of their contract, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) said, that they were expected to pay a standing charge to upkeep open space on this large development, even though they are freeholders of their own houses. Will the Minister look into this matter and write to me about what redress might be open to them?

[Lee Rowley]

I am very happy to write to the hon. Gentleman about the specifics.

In addition to the building safety measures and the ban on new leasehold houses, the Government have tabled a number of consequential amendments to refine and improve the Bill.

With the leave of the House, I will mention three key issues among the many that were brought to our attention in Committee. I understand these issues will be subject to further debate today, but I want to acknowledge that they are: capping existing ground rents, which has already been raised; leaseholder forfeiture, which I know will be raised; and support for the residents of freehold estates, which has already been extensively addressed.

I know that Members will have questions about the Government’s plan to address ground rents, and we have consulted on introducing a cap on ground rents in the Bill. We extended the consultation on request and, as a result, we are still considering our next steps. We will say more shortly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Betts]

It is five years since we produced the Select Committee report on leasehold reform. It came after long years of campaigning by the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform, and I particularly commend the efforts of the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), who has just spoken; my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders); and our good friend Jim Fitzpatrick, who is no longer in this House, but who certainly made a major contribution to that. To be fair to the Government, it is good that we have made progress on many of the items in the Select Committee report. The caveat, of course, is that we probably have not gone as far as we would have wanted or as quickly as we would have expected.

When the Committee met, I remember going into a room with about 100 leaseholders from all over the country—the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who was in his place a few minutes ago, was there as well—and hearing horror stories of people being ripped off in the sale of leasehold homes by developers. They were told that there was no difference between a leasehold property and a freehold property. They were told that by the solicitors who worked for them, because the solicitors were recommended by the developers. That was together with the free carpets in the living room that came as a bribe—that is what it was. Leaseholders were not aware that they would have to pay £300 to get a doorbell fitted if they wanted one because they had to get permission, or £3,000 for a conservatory, or whatever fees the freeholder chose.

Leaseholders were told that they could, within a couple of years, buy the freehold at a fixed price from the same developer. The problem, of course, was that by the time a leaseholder came to inquire about purchasing the freehold, the freehold had been sold to another party. There are lots of examples of that, which is why I have an amendment—new clause 39—that I want to push to a vote, although I hope the Minister will accept it. It is a simple amendment to say that before the sale of a freehold, the right of first refusal has to go to the existing leaseholder. That right already exists for leaseholders in flats, but not for leaseholders in houses. Why is that? That really cannot be justified or even explained.

Will the Minister accept just that one simple amendment? It would give leaseholders that right, and stop freeholders —we know that this happens—who want to evade the legislation, including the improvements the Government are bringing in, passing a property around from one organisation to a subsidiary to a third party, with a view to evading the legislation, so that leaseholders never know where to go to get the relevant freeholder to agree to the sale.

[Matt Rodda]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that part of the problem is that some of the freeholders are based overseas, and it is extremely difficult for leaseholders to track them down? This is an ongoing issue that I hope the Government will look into.

[Mr Betts]

Absolutely. I hope the Minister will have a look at the whole issue of freeholders who will not respond. That certainly applies to many who are overseas, with whom it is very difficult to get in touch.

I will not press new clause 40 to the vote, but the purpose of it is to say to the Minister that the default answer cannot be that the leaseholder can always go to a tribunal. Most leaseholders are simply ordinary residents trying to get on with their lives, who think it ought to be fairly easy to put in a request, get a calculation done and buy their freehold. They are not ready for these organisations, with all their lawyers and surveyors, that want to evade this and try to hide away, in some cases overseas, so that they cannot be contacted.

Can the Minister look at that issue? I know he is aware of it, because we share the same problem with Coppen Estates. There are others that are based overseas, but this one is based in a semi-boarded-up shopfront with a letterbox that never seems to be opened. That is the sort of company we are dealing with. They are small organisations that make a living out of charging ground rents from leaseholders, who cannot exercise their enfranchisement because of the attitude and evasion of the freeholders concerned. I hope that the Minister will have another look at that issue.

The other amendments I have tabled are about having professional qualifications and some form of regulation of property managers. The Government have legislated to say that the managers of social housing will need professional qualifications in future, but what is the difference between a manager of social housing and a property manager of leasehold blocks? In some ways, there may be greater complications in trying to manage a multitude of different leaseholders than people who have secure tenancies in a council or housing association block of flats. What is the difference?

Why will the Government not recognise that there are some good property managers who are well qualified, experienced and can be held to account, but others who are not like that? Indeed, some are put in place for that purpose: they are cheap, they do not have experience or qualifications, and they provide another way of avoiding the restrictions and rules that are rightly put on the management of property. They do not bother with proper service charge information or a proper list of charges for permission fees. I accept that the Government have tried to improve that, but in the end such improvements will only work if the individual or organisation managing the property does so in a proper way. Will the Minister look at those issues? What is the rationale? Why is there resistance to ensuring that people doing a serious and important job as property managers are qualified to do it and properly held to account through regulation?

High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 26th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on this. I am interested in the point that he made about the broader town-centre area. My experience is that many adjoining streets can benefit from this kind of measure and, indeed, neighbouring shopping centres. I urge him to look at that and be as flexible as possible, as there is a risk of displacement activity and concentrating on a small area. I hope that he has thought about that.

[Jack Brereton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that important point. I agree entirely that the side streets that make up the high street are just as important, and we do not want to see displacement. We want the whole area to be lifted and improved so that it attracts new uses to fill those empty spaces.

Local government should make the designation according to local circumstances, as long as an area is important to the local economy because of a concentration of high street uses. It is further specified that it should not include streets where the importance is considered to be derived principally from goods or services purchased in the course of business. High street consumer retail, including hospitality, is part of what makes the totemic importance of our streets. Defining high streets to the letter is impossible, and we must recognise their evolving nature and the need to attract alternative uses, which may not be primarily retail.

The Bill is not prescriptive by design. For example, one option would be to legislate for the definition of high streets based on the definition used by the Office for National Statistics in its pioneering and experimental work with the Ordnance Survey to map the location and characteristics of high streets in Great Britain. According to that working definition, a high street consists of

“15 or more retail addresses within 150 metres.”

That dataset aims to bound retail clusters using street names, while aiming deliberately to exclude retail functions such as retail parks, industrial estates and isolated shopping centres. By that definition, there are 6,969 high streets in Great Britain, of which 6,136 are in England. In London alone, the Office for National Statistics and Ordnance Survey map shows 1,204 high streets. More importantly, the west midlands has 604, including the sweep of Market Street, Times Square, The Strand, which includes my constituency office, and the pedestrianised Exchange shopping centre in Longton. Interestingly, it also manages to capture that part of City Road in Fenton, also in my constituency, that is primarily retail in character, while excluding the part that is not.

I am drawing attention to the ONS data work and the demo map on the Ordnance Survey website, because it may prove to be a useful starting point for local authorities. It also, of course, helps me to make the point that local authorities do not have to work from scratch on this. There is no intention to place an onerous burden on local authorities; the intent is to get local authorities to become familiar with the data and more proactive about the best practice for the improvement of local high streets, in collaboration with all those who have an interest in making our high streets the best places to be.

I rejected specifying the ONS and Ordnance Survey definition in the Bill, partly because it encompasses so many streets within its definition, and to designate and draw up improvement plans for them all would be onerous. That task could be managed, however, with the stipulation that only up to three high streets per authority can be chosen. That said, I note that local authorities across England have designated nearly 10,000 conservation areas, so there may be room for greater possibility in the designations.

More fundamentally, the ONS and OS definition does not quite encompass what I would think of as a high street in parts of the country, including in my home city. But I stress that it is a great starting point for designating purposes and for the consultees on designations and improvement plans. As the ONS said in the 6 June 2019 article, “High streets in Great Britain”:

“The closure of branches of retailers across many high streets has led to worries about the decline of retail on the high street, and in turn anxiety about how high streets will develop in the future.”

In this context, it is important that good data on high streets are available to monitor the changes and inform policy responses. The article goes on to say:

“It should be noted that this high streets project is very much a work in progress.”

That is reiterated in the 10 August 2020 update, which says:

“We continue to develop our work which means that the data and results in this article are Experimental Statistics.”

At this experimental stage, it seems the right time to start a wider conversation with local government and local communities on which streets should be designated formally as high streets for the purpose of closer study, review and improvement plans. The requirement that at least one street be identified by each local authority ensures that every local authority will engage in this process, and the stipulation that only up to three can be designated at one time is designed to ensure that the task is not too onerous and is meaningful.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jack Brereton]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting point, but I would say that it varies from place to place. Across the country we have various types of high street, in towns small and large, so it varies depending on the nature of the area and whether it is urban or more rural. It would depend on that right across the country.

As I say, there will no doubt be considerable pressure to designate a large number of high streets from the beginning of this Bill becoming an Act, but I fear that it would prove overwhelming and we should safeguard against this. I say that with a certain trepidation, because there are six historic market towns in the modern city of Stoke-on-Trent. The idea of designating more than three high streets is tempting, because each town has a high street that could, and indeed should, be designated at some point in a rolling process of improvements across the city. I accept that this may prove something to revisit at later stages of the Bill.

The eagle-eyed in the House will have noticed that, for the purposes of the Bill, high street uses mirror those already legislated for in part 10 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. This encompasses a good range of what would ordinarily be seen as high street uses by the general public and does not specify an exact number of retail addresses within a certain distance, as attempted in the ONS’s experimental definition.

Members will be interested to know that the ONS discovered what it calls

“one notable geographic feature in England”

in what was otherwise a distribution of retail addresses on high streets across the whole of Great Britain that showed no clear pattern across the country. The English feature—this is germane to an English Bill—is that there are hub towns with a higher proportion of retail addresses on their high streets. Hub towns are those that are identified in the official rural-urban classification for England as being important hubs for the rural areas around them because they provide services, employment and businesses. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs includes towns like Stone and Cheadle, in north Staffordshire, in this category. There will be a need for improvement plans to be consulted on beyond the immediate town and rural areas that depend on high streets’ success in these hubs.

There is a great deal of data, and it is time for local authorities to use this to best effect and focus attention on preserving, enhancing and reviving our high streets. They should do this in concert with the communities they serve—both businesses and residential.

[Matt Rodda]

I wonder if the hon. Gentleman has considered the public transport implications of what he is saying, because he is making a very good point about hub towns and rural areas, and their connectivity to bigger towns or cities. In my county, one of the very important benefits we have is the existence of excellent bus services—Reading buses connect to neighbouring smaller towns—and I understand that there might be an issue in Staffordshire with the different level of bus provision. I wonder whether he would like to comment on the importance of public transport and its ability to help regenerate towns and cities.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the way he is addressing this issue. Can I draw his attention to a particular variant of this practice that exists in my constituency? Between a developer and a local authority, a scheme was allowed whereby residents were—and continue to be—charged for access to public open space on their estate and, indeed, to maintain a neighbouring park that residents across the district can enjoy. That is surely wrong, and I hope he will look into that matter.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: a number of the people who have built, operated and retain the freehold on these estates levy service charges for all sorts of things that, in my view, are totally inappropriate. That is why the Bill makes clear that service charges have to be issued in a standardised format, so that they can be more easily scrutinised and challenged. It also makes clear that those charges can be challenged in such a way as to ensure that egregious examples, such as the one the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, will end.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

If we can address that in the Bill, we should push for it, but we should also push to ensure that, whether in social housing or private rentals, people should have confidence that their homes are safe. Homes should be a safe place, but at the moment, that is not the case for too many.

Huge swathes of renters have been left paying a heavy price for the Government’s inaction on section 21. This is real for people such as the Brady family, who live in Wiltshire and have experienced two no-fault evictions in the past two years. Mr Brady is a gardener and Mrs Brady works full time. After being forced out of their home, where they had lived for 15 years, they have resorted to living in their van. The family are able to bid on council houses when they become available, but so far, everything has been at least an hour away from where they live. Mr Brady said:

“There is a housing crisis and there are reasons behind it—you can use whatever excuses you want but it is a political decision. It was a political decision not to build enough houses, it was a political decision to sell off the social housing stock.”

Those are not my words but the words of a man who would still have a roof over his head if the Government had not dragged their feet.

I feel that more delay is inevitable. Conservative Members threatened in the newspapers this weekend to choose their self-interest over the national interest by opposing or delaying the Bill. They do not want to see these changes enacted. Then, on Friday evening, the Department snuck out the suggestion that section 21 changes are dependent on court improvements, which could take years to complete. Today we discovered—not from an announcement to the press, to Parliament or to the public, but from a leak—that that is indeed the core part of a grubby private deal that the Secretary of State has struck behind closed doors with his own Back Benchers. So the Government who broke our justice system are now using their own failure as an excuse to break their own promises.

Just how long will it take? Can the Secretary of State promise that the Government will meet the pledge they made at the last general election, which he mentioned, before the next general election? Renters simply cannot afford any more excuses or delays; he must provide clarity on that. [Interruption.] I know that he is a confident Secretary of State—he says so from a sedentary position—and I have confidence in his abilities, but people who are facing section 21 notices cannot afford any more dither and delay. He will get support from those on the Labour Benches in enacting this legislation to protect families who need protection.

We think that the Bill is a good starting point. We fear that a number of loopholes have been left in it, however. One such loophole is the commencement clause, which leaves Ministers the power to decide when—or, perhaps, whether—to actually bring an end to section 21. But that is not the only loophole. I hope that the Minister will engage with us constructively in Committee to close all those loopholes and strengthen the Bill in a range of areas.

For example, the new grounds for and protections from evictions are a welcome step, but the details on those grounds remain vague. On evictions, there remains a loophole by which renters are protected only for the first six months of their tenancy if their landlord decides to sell the property or move back in. That time limit needs to be increased as part of the Bill to give renters proper protection.

On section 21, it is not just a question of when the law is implemented but of how. Every household threatened with homelessness by a section 21 notice has the right to assistance from their local council to prevent them from becoming homeless, but the Bill removes that right to immediate help. That loophole could lead to a huge spike in homelessness and must be closed.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I am grateful to her for highlighting that point; I have come across such cases, and it is an absolutely appalling situation. Often young families are thrust out of their homes with very little notice, and local authorities struggle to cope. At the moment, many such cases that I have come across involve people being moved to B&Bs out of the area.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that concern. To be fair to the Secretary of State, he acknowledged the challenges in his remarks—not just the housing challenges but all the challenges faced by families. People are scared and live insecure lives because of the devastation and ripple effect of the challenges they face.

New Housing Supply

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Western]

Given that this is a multi-layered and complex process, I am not certain that I would. I would be looking into questions such as housing density, and considering other flexible options that we could adopt to deliver that result, alongside broader reforms of the planning system. If we are to tackle the housing crisis credibly, we must look at planning reform as well as the supply of land. I will say more about that shortly.

Those are the quick wins—including the builder’s remedy—but what of the sustainable longer-term changes that we need to plan effectively for greater housing delivery? There are two key elements: reforming the planning system, and increasing the supply of land. First, we must accept that our 76-year-old discretionary planning system is not fit for purpose. The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 should be scrapped, because it stymies development. Perfectly acceptable applications are rejected on the flimsiest of grounds if there is local opposition, often coming from those making their feelings known from the safety and security of a comfortable home of their own. What should replace that planning system? We must shift away from a discretionary system to one that is rules-based, underpinned by a flexible zoning code, and determined nationally for local implementation. Land would be allocated for certain uses, and if a compliant application for the usage deemed appropriate for that land was received, it would be automatically approved. The system would be clear, fair, even-handed and efficient.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a fascinating speech, and a powerful case. Does he agree that as part of reform of the planning system, developers should be encouraged to build on existing brownfield sites in towns and cities? Many such areas are very large and could contain a large amount of housing, and many English towns and cities have relatively low density and a great deal of brownfield land.

[Andrew Western]

I entirely agree. I am in no way opposed to increasing density, and, indeed, unlocking the more than 1 million homes that currently have planning permission on brownfield sites. However, that alone will not resolve the issue. In comparison with our European neighbours, we are short of some 4.3 million homes per capita, so there is more to do than simply increasing density on brownfield land, although there is a potential for up to 1.5 million additional units.

Of course, even a reformed planning system needs adequate land supply. There are few issues thornier than this, but the fact is that whatever the density, whatever the tenure type and whichever way we cut the cake, there are not enough brownfield sites in urban areas to meet our housing need. We have to be honest about that, and we fail future generations when we are not. It is for this reason that I believe we must now look to the green belt for additional land capacity.

One option would be to provide brownfield land within the green belt for development, as my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench propose. I would support that in a heartbeat, but a more radical option—to which the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden alluded in connection with the use of garden cities—would be to allow all green-belt land within 1 mile of a commuter railway station, and not subject to any other protections, to be used for housing. Such a move could deliver between 1.9 million and 2.1 million homes in locations where people actually want to live: on the outskirts of major conurbations, with the connectivity enabling them to take advantage of all that that offers. However, the point about protections is important, because with either of these options, national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, sites of special scientific interest and green spaces with protections would be left untouched. Our genuine natural beauty would be preserved, rather than the artificial construct that is the green belt—in truth, less a green belt than an urban choke.

That is how we should drive the delivery of new housing. We need testing housing targets, five-year land supply, sound local plans and a builder’s remedy now, planning reform, flexible zoning and strategically managed building on the green belt in the long term. None of this is easy, but if we are to tackle generational inequality, uphold the promise that each generation should do better than the last, deliver rapid economic growth and ensure that everyone has access to a safe and secure home of their own, we must meet this challenge regardless. We have a unique opportunity to side with the builders, not the blockers, and to truly start planning for growth. I am, and always will be, proudly Labour and proudly yimby, but I am proudest of all that it is now clear that a Labour Government will respond to this unprecedented challenge and deliver the new housing that our country so desperately needs.

Christianity in Society

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and thank you for getting me in at the last moment. I also thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for bringing forward this debate.

Today’s debate is timely, given the approach of Easter. We are also now in the holy month of Ramadan, and Passover and Vaisakhi will soon be upon us as well. I declare an interest as somebody who was brought up in the Church of England, although I was told off by a local vicar last year for not attending regularly. He has a good memory, because I think the last time I went was some years ago.

I pay tribute to the role of churches in my community, and it is timely to reflect on the wider values of faith communities in British history. Certainly in Reading, and in Woodley, which is the other town I represent, there is an enormous contribution from our local faith community. That includes churches and many other faiths. I am grateful for this opportunity to thank them for their outstanding community work at this time. I will give the example of the Whitley Community Development Association, which has benefited enormously. That group, which is led by residents in a very disadvantaged part of our community, regularly receives donations of food and other support from local churches and other faith communities. They have had support from a gurdwara as far away as Slough, which is certainly far away from a Reading perspective, although perhaps not for people outside Berkshire. I thank all those churches and other faith communities for getting involved. Other food bank support in our area includes the Trussell Trust and ReadiFood, which is heavily involved with local churches, and I thank them, as many families and pensioners are suffering enormously in the cost of living crisis.

Other notable community organisations that have a religious link include CommuniCare, which carries out very useful advice work for many residents. It has been a privilege to visit its office on a number of occasions. There are literally queues of people waiting outside in the morning to be helped by that charity. Once again, I thank local church members for supporting it. Indeed, I thank other faith communities and people of no faith for their work in community organisations.

I also pay tribute to a practical demonstration of people’s faith that is truly humbling. In our town, as in many parts of the country, there is a terrific problem with homelessness. I have been privileged to visit New Beginnings, which is a wonderful community organisation that takes in people who are street homeless, and offers them a warm meal and a place to stay. It has converted a former pub, turning it into a place of refuge for people who are in deep trouble, and it offers them practical help. That was set up by a number of practising Christians, and there is a strong church element to it.

Sadaka is a similar organisation that has Muslim heritage. Equally, a number of practising Muslims wanted to show their support to the wider community. In a truly amazing demonstration of that support, they offer food regularly on a Saturday morning. It has no property of its own and is looking for one, so if anybody has a spare property in Reading to give them, we would be delighted to accept that.

I appreciate that time is limited, but two other forms of help are worth mentioning as practical demonstrations of peoples’ faith in my area and across the country. The first is wider help for the vulnerable—I mention Street Pastors in particular—and the second is the long-standing work of church and faith communities in supporting international development. I particularly want to thank CAFOD—the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development. I am not a Catholic, but I am hugely supportive of its work, and it has reached out to me since I became an MP in 2017. There are many other groups, such as the charities that make up the Disasters Emergency Committee, including Oxfam, Islamic Relief and a number of others, that do incredible work. That is motivated by people’s faith and belief in supporting other human beings at a time of great need. Those charities deserve huge support and appreciation for their incredibly valuable work.

There are many other groups that I have not been able to mention. I appreciate this opportunity to say some words of thanks and encouragement to the faith communities —particularly Christians, as they are the subject of the debate—that play such an important role across many fields. I also thank Support U, a charity that supports LGBT people in our area; I have had the privilege of working with that absolutely fantastic organisation.

Thank you for allowing me to take part in today’s debate, Mr Mundell, and I again thank the hon. Member for Don Valley for securing it. It has been a wonderful opportunity to thank many hard-working and motivated people whose faith is at the heart of what they do.

Building Safety

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

We absolutely will—it is with their concerns in mind that I made the statement today. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind words about the Department’s engagement. May I thank, in particular, the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), who has made personal visits to many of those who are most directly affected and is ensuring that, within the Department, every lever is being pulled to help them on an individual basis?

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Could he explain to the House how this action will help residents living in blocks that are just under the threshold for intervention? We have many such blocks in Reading and Woodley. In addition, could he update the House on what measures the Department will take to tackle wooden cladding, insufficient partitions walls, and weak or unsafe fire doors?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to stress that it is not just cladding and buildings over 18 metres; there are other fire safety issues. It will be the responsibility of developers or, where appropriate, freeholders, to address those under the waterfall system that we have put in place through the Building Safety Act 2022.

Management of the Economy and Ministerial Severance Payments

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

In my seven and a half years in this place, I have never known a time like this. Our country was already straining and buckling under the weight of 12 long years of austerity, the impact of the covid-19 pandemic, the economic consequences of Brexit and the war in Ukraine. But when people across our country most needed leadership, comfort and meaningful support from their Government, the Government gambled their security on their own ideological slot machine, inflicting entirely unnecessary additional damage on the economy, instigating a financial crisis and opening a vast, gaping hole in the public finances.

There is another thing I have never known before: the sheer scale and extent of the collective anxiety out there in our communities. That is palpable everywhere I go. People are terrified about how they will meet increased mortgage or rent payments, terrified about how they will afford to pay their bills and terrified about how they will continue to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads this winter. By undermining our economic security so much, this Government have delivered a huge blow not only to our nation’s finances and the health of our economy, but to our nation’s mental health.

What is the response of the Government and Conservative Members? To put the blame everywhere but at their own door. In no other country anywhere in the world did the central bank have to step in overnight to stop a collapse in pension funds

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and is contrasting effectively the Government’s reckless disregard for the everyday reality of residents across the country. Does she agree that there is particular pressure on many younger people who are currently trying to get on to the housing ladder?

[Helen Hayes]

It was already so hard for young people in our country to afford to get on to the housing ladder, and it is devastating for so many of them that that challenge has been made even worse.

This Government seek to pretend that the extraordinary and unprecedented situation we face—a £30 billion self-inflicted hole in our public finances—is normal and nothing more than a minor accounting error that they are seeking to rectify before they carry on with business as usual. They seek to normalise the terrible damage they have done.

This is not normal. My constituents do not get to carry on as normal as they struggle to pay their mortgages. My local councils, which, later this week, are likely to face further swingeing budget cuts to services that are already stretched to breaking point, do not get to carry on as normal. Our public services, including our NHS, do not get to carry on as normal. They all have to live with the disastrous consequences of this Government’s ideologically driven mismanagement of our economy. The loss-of-office payments are the salt in the wounds. The previous Chancellor and Prime Minister were reluctant to tax the windfall profits of the energy giants, but happy to take the windfall profits from the disaster they created.

This is UK Parliament Week, and when I visit schools in my constituency, as I did this morning, children ask whether it is right that former Ministers who presided over such a disaster are taking loss-of-office payments. They also ask whether the most senior politician responsible for our nation’s health during a pandemic that saw such catastrophic loss of life should be taking part in a reality TV show while his constituents are left to fend for themselves during the current crisis.

I hope that Government Members will visit schools in their constituencies this week to hear what children in our nation think about their behaviour, which is corrosive to trust and confidence in our politics, widens the gulf between those in power and the communities they represent, and brings shame on this place while our constituents foot the bill. I hope that Government Members will reflect on that as they decide how to vote on the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I echo at the outset the words of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities: mistakes were made. The Prime Minister said the same thing. The most important thing is that we fix them rapidly. That is the difference between the Government and the Opposition: we do not repeat mistakes and go on, but fix them amazingly quickly. We had a quick change of leader and of Chancellor, but most of the measures that the Opposition have been discussing were never implemented. They were reversed before implementation. We await the autumn statement on Thursday to see all the measures that the Government will take to ensure that we live within our means and get the economy on the right path again.

Various Members on both sides of the House have mentioned the different crises that we have faced since the 2019 election. I sit on the Treasury Committee, and we have been following closely the economic response first to the pandemic and then to the war in Ukraine. There is no doubt that the pandemic was an extraordinary economic shock, not just to the UK, but to economies around the world. However, our response was by and large incredibly generous and ensured that the economic reaction was less severe than it would otherwise have been. Likewise, with Ukraine, there has been a huge amount of support for households in the cost of living crisis. Various Members have mentioned the energy price fix. We are also introducing a windfall tax, and there are too many forms of support for households to mention. Most people understand that the Government’s response to those two major, once-in-a-century crises, which happened back to back, has been extraordinary. It would have been amazing if no mistakes had been made. Some were made and we have put them right.

We all know what is happening here. As my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) said, it is political game playing. The Opposition are looking to the next general election and trying to burnish their economic reputation. They know that the Conservatives are trusted most on the economy and Labour is not. I do not blame the Opposition—they are trying to turn that around and say, “You can trust us with the economy; you can’t trust the Conservative party.”

It is worth reminding people of the Labour party’s economic record and why a lot of my older constituents vote Conservative. They have lived through previous Labour Governments. I will go back not to the Labour Chancellor going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund in 1967 or to the winter of discontent, which I remember, when the rubbish was piling up in the streets, but to the last Labour Government of 1997 to 2010. I was economics correspondent at the BBC when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown came in and at the time of their emergency first Budget. That election campaign was largely fought on unemployment, but the economic scenario in 1997 was golden. For years afterwards, people said that Gordon Brown was the lucky Chancellor. He inherited extraordinarily benign economic conditions. I gave up being an economics journalist because there was nothing to write about. We had budget surpluses and flat inflation, but it was all inherited from the previous Conservative Government and the result of the reforms they introduced. However, that did not last.

It was mentioned earlier that every Labour Government have left office with unemployment higher than when they came in. The same is true of the 1997 to 2010 Labour Government.

[Matt Rodda]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for going back to the 1990s. It is fascinating to hear him recall that long period of higher growth compared with when the Conservatives have been in power. Does he want to reflect on that and the difference between the two parties’ management of the economy?

[Anthony Browne]

I will come to that. The economy is like a tanker and it generally moves slowly. In 1997, the Labour Government inherited the results of the all the reforms that Norman Lamont, Ken Clarke and others introduced under John Major. However, that did not last.

The Labour campaign in 1997 was fought on employment and I particularly remember Gordon Brown’s rousing speeches about workless households—households where no one had ever worked. That was Labour’s big attack on the Conservatives’ economic incompetence. What happened to workless households under the last Labour Government? They did not decrease—they doubled. There were twice as many workless households when Labour lost power in 2010 than when they came in in 1997.

Another big campaign theme for Labour in 1997 was youth unemployment. One would have thought that, after 13 years of Labour Government, youth unemployment would come down. What happened to youth unemployment? It went up by almost half; 939,000—almost a million—people aged between 16 and 24 were out of work in 2010. That is the legacy of Labour’s economic policies.

We have discussed filling black holes and living within our means. I am a fiscal conservative and I believe that all countries and Governments need to live within their means. Labour inherited a golden economic scenario, but what happened in the end? As I said earlier, the last Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury left a note for his successor on his desk. We all know what it said: “Dear Chief Secretary, I am afraid we have run out of money.” As Margaret Thatcher famously said, the trouble with socialism is that

“you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

It is not surprising that the Opposition are trying to burnish their economic credentials and point to any mistakes that the Conservatives have made. We are putting those mistakes right and the Labour party would not do that.

Much of the debate has been about home ownership rates. I am a huge supporter of increasing home ownership. I set up the HomeOwners Alliance to campaign for people to own their homes. Some 86% of people want to own their homes. The Labour party has traditionally and historically not been a huge supporter of homeowners, preferring to focus on social housing. That is important, but so is owning your own home. Most people who live in social housing want to own their home. I welcome the Labour’s conversion and attempt to position itself as the party of home ownership—good luck to them. However, what happened to home ownership under the last Labour Government?

Generally, from the 1910s and 1920s onwards, home ownership increased under different Governments—even some early Labour Governments. It went up and up under Margaret Thatcher. What happened when Labour was elected in 1997? It took about two years for home ownership rates to start collapsing, and that continued throughout Labour’s last term. The Labour party was not the party of the homeowner; it was the party of falling home ownership rates. When we were elected in 2010, it took a couple of years to turn things around—a bit like a tanker—but home ownership rates started to increase again through all our measures to help homeowners. I totally support the Government’s ambition to build homes and help home ownership increase.

[Matt Rodda]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time, but I would like to point out that, as I understand the figures, home ownership is actually declining at the moment. Certainly in my constituency, it has been for some time, and my predecessor, who was a Conservative, wrote an article in The Economist about it. The hon. Gentleman might want to reflect on the difference between what the Conservative Government are claiming and what has actually happened.

[Anthony Browne]

I do not know what is happening in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but nationally—I can provide him with a graph later—home ownership rates began going down a bit after 2010, but then they started going up again. They have had a bit of a wobble, but there have been a lot of economic things happening.

Given our economic track record versus the Labour party’s rhetoric, many constituents say to me when I knock on their doors and they are worried about the pandemic, the cost of living crisis and Ukraine, “Just imagine what would have happened if the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn had won in 2019.” Am I allowed to say that?

New Developments on Green-belt Land

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I commend and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) for her excellent speech and for securing the debate, and I concur with many of the points raised by Members on both sides of the Chamber. In the time available to me, I would like to raise three points: first, the pressure on green land in and around Reading and the neighbouring town of Woodley; secondly, the importance of protecting green spaces and historic streets within towns; and thirdly, the need for the Government to rethink their planning proposals and to have a new planning policy.

First, the pressure on green land in our part of the Thames valley is already significant, as colleagues may know. We have a growing population in our part of southern England, and there is a lot of pressure from speculative developers trying to build on the outskirts of existing towns. Reading does not have a green belt, but it does have a lot of green land. The Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty is a short distance away from the northern boundary of the town. In other directions there are protected sites and interesting landscapes that need to be preserved for local amenity use. As other Members have said, it is so important for local residents to be able to go out and enjoy the countryside, whether that is walking their dog, looking at the countryside or enjoying the green space. That is important for people’s wellbeing and mental health, and everyone should have access to our wonderful countryside.

Sadly, in our area we have a specific problem with speculative developers, and I would like to mention one case that indicates just how appalling this can be. On one site on the edge of Emmer Green, a small village that is now part of Reading, a speculative developer wanted to build a large number of executive homes. That would have started to join up Reading with the neighbouring south Oxfordshire village of Sonning Common, which is completely against the wider thrust of planning policy and the importance of maintaining separate settlements. It was an unsuitable, unsustainable site that would have led to a large amount of extra traffic in both directions, which no residents in the area wanted. I and neighbouring MPs and parish councils campaigned against it, and we were successful. However, I am concerned that the Government’s proposals could unleash a wave of similar applications on the outskirts of existing towns and cities in my constituency and neighbouring parts of southern England.

The strange contrast is that, in Reading, there is a large amount of brownfield land. We actually have enough brownfield in the borough of Reading, let alone the neighbouring suburbs, to provide almost all the housing that is needed until 2036, and that is from Reading Borough Council’s local plan. I urge the Minister to listen to that point, and I hope he will consider rethinking the policy.

Secondly, preserving historic streets is a related issue for many people living in towns and cities; my colleagues from two historic cities—my hon. Friends the Members for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for City of Chester (Christian Matheson)—mentioned it, and others have hinted at it. Reading is a Victorian, Georgian and arts and crafts town, with a huge amount of really attractive architecture. Sadly, as a university town with many new residents coming in, we already face a lot of pressure, with houses being converted into bedsits, which causes all sorts of issues for neighbouring residents, such as overflowing bins and parking problems. The Government’s proposals would allow what could, in many cases, be quite ugly extensions under permitted development, such as unwanted large rear extensions and loft conversions that are out of keeping. That aspect needs to be rethought, and there should be an emphasis on maintaining the attractive visual appearance of historic areas, whether or not they are conservation areas, for the benefit of all residents. I hope the Minister will consider that point about our wonderful urban environments in many towns and cities, which is related to the issue of preserving the green environment.

I appreciate that there is pressure on time, so I will move on and highlight a potential future policy. As many Members have rightly said, there should be much greater emphasis on redeveloping brownfield. We have some interesting and positive examples of that in our town, in which attractive, red-brick terraced houses or low-rise flats have replaced industrial sites near the town centre, often reusing land that had been derelict for some time and providing a benefit to local residents by removing an ugly site. Also, the environment is protected by the reduction in traffic and the increase in cycling, walking and public transport use. All those are for the greater good, at a time when we are trying to address the serious challenges of climate change and other related environmental challenges. That, surely, should be the way forward.

I hope the Minister will focus on that point and look again at the balance in the planning system between brownfield and greenfield, which seems to be out of kilter. Sadly, the Government proposals, from what I understand of them, would take that much further and allow developers far more leeway to build in areas where local residents clearly do not want development and where there would be unfortunate environmental impacts such as increased car pollution and traffic jams and, indeed, an economic impact owing to transport delays.

I shall conclude, as I appreciate that there is time pressure. I hope that the Minister will think again and listen to the concerns raised by Members on both sides of the Chamber.

Solar Farms and Battery Storage

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[James Gray]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great considerations that we are currently battling with is the question of food security. Post-Ukraine, or during Ukraine, we are facing a real crisis in food production in this country. Why we are taking perfectly usable agricultural land and covering it with vanity mirrors and industrial battery storage units, I simply cannot imagine. It is extraordinary.

Just yesterday, we had a debate in this Chamber on a similar subject—the question of housing in planning—and, to some extent, we are discussing the same thing. Developers should, of course, be encouraged to reuse brownfield sites in town centres, but, given the choice between a brownfield site in a town centre or a greenfield site in the countryside, they are going to go for the greenfield site. We therefore have to change the planning system to focus house building on previously used land. A little off the subject, Mr Paisley—thank you for not picking me up on that.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a fascinating speech. Does he feel that there is a need to prioritise brownfield land and particularly to look at brownfield in urban areas, as well as in rural areas?

[James Gray]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. We have car parks that are good places to put overhead solar farms, as they do in many other parts of the world. Every factory that is built should have solar panels on the roof. Massive areas in town centres should have solar panels attached. However, those solutions cost developers quite a lot more money, and they are not going to do that if they can just buy a nice greenfield site and stick the solar farm out there. It is much easier for them to do that. That is why the planning system has to constrain what they do, so that they are forced to come back into our town centres and use the kind of solutions he describes.

We ought to move on to the central question, which is about planning. Wiltshire Council is being particularly targeted at the moment because it is being a little too cautious. The council is very concerned that, if it turns applications down, unless it can demonstrate that the application absolutely did not fall within the current planning guidance, the inspector will overturn that decision at appeal, and the council will then be faced with substantial barristers’ costs.

Wiltshire Council is saying, perfectly reasonably, “We need to be guaranteed that we are within planning law when turning down these applications.” That is why the detailed definition of planning law and the NPPF is incredibly important in order to give some comfort to councils such as Wiltshire Council when they say, “This is going to be turned down. Here’s why.” The wording of the NPPF should therefore be clear. I have been saying to my council that, at the moment, it is clear. Paragraph 155a of the NPPF says that local plans should provide a

“strategy for energy…while ensuring that adverse impacts are addressed…including cumulative landscape and visual impacts.”

The guidance says:

“It is for each local authority to determine a planning application to include the consideration of intrinsic character and beauty of the countryside, as well as whether the best quality land is being used for agricultural purposes. Large-scale solar farms can have a negative impact on the rural environment, particularly in undulating landscapes.”

There is not one inch of Wiltshire that is not undulating, so, if that were to be applied in detail, there would be no solar farms in the county of Wiltshire.

As has been said, guidance also states very clearly that solar farms should be focused on

“previously developed and non agricultural land…that is not of high environmental value”.

The guidance actually says that at the moment, leaving aside the upcoming review.

On 9 March, in this Chamber, the Science Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), confirmed that interpretation of the NPPF. He said:

“In 2021, the Government set up a national infrastructure planning reform programme,”

which will be reviewed

“later this year”.

We would be interested to hear when that happens; we want to know the outcome. He continued:

“As part of that, the Government are reviewing the national policy statements for energy.”

Importantly, speaking as a Minister from the Dispatch Box, he said:

“It seems to me that”

we need

“a clearer national policy statement…The draft revised national policy statement for renewables includes a new section on solar projects, providing clear and specific guidance to decision makers on the impact on, for example, local amenities, biodiversity, landscape, wildlife and land use…It requires developers to justify using any such land and to design their projects to avoid, mitigate and, where necessary, compensate for impacts”—[Official Report, 9 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 127-8WH.]

on agricultural land.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray) and the other speakers, who made some very interesting points.

I am very much in favour of a sensible approach to this issue that balances the importance of energy security and tackling the climate emergency with not creating eyesores in the countryside. I am proud of our record in my area of central Berkshire. I represent an urban seat, but we have a strong tradition of solar power from our borough council and neighbouring local authorities, and in land nearby. Much of it is on the roofs of buildings and on brownfield land. I want to get across the positive message about using those types of land. There is a large amount of brownfield land in southern England, although I appreciate the points made by colleagues from slightly further west. There is also the issue of developers looking for land in the south, where sunlight is slightly more plentiful.

I want to say a few words about Reading Borough Council’s excellent work over many years of putting solar panels on the roofs of council houses, schools and other public buildings. Wokingham Borough Council was Conservative-run—I am afraid to say to Government Members that it is now under a different administration—when it planned a large solar farm in its area of Berkshire, which is suburban and semi-rural. The councils there were mindful of the visual impact, and I respect their work on that. I hope we can progress in a sensible, cross-party and consensual way and look at the opportunities.

I want to pay tribute briefly to the private individuals and charitable bodies that have driven alternative energy schemes in our area. I also want to highlight the importance of low-flow hydro. We have a small scheme on the Thames, the Queen has one at Windsor castle, and other landowners along the Thames have such schemes. They use water power, which in the past would have been used to drive mills, to generate electricity. It is a simple, low-tech but very effective form of hydroelectric power at a local level, which has a very limited impact on the environment near the river.

I understand the concerns raised by the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, but my experience of solar farms has been somewhat more positive. I draw his attention to the site at Pingewood in Berkshire, which is next to the M4—indeed, he may well drive past it. It is on a former landfill site next to a motorway, and is very close to grid connectivity because of the pylons running through our county. It makes one realise that there are actually sites in locations that already have visual intrusion from infrastructure, which could be used and perhaps should be prioritised. I had the pleasure of visiting there with the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman), who I shadow. We were looking at the scheme on that land, which is supported by one of the energy providers and is used for pension investments. I know that the hon. Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies) is a huge enthusiast for auto-enrolment. Auto-enrolment savings are being used to invest in solar on brownfield sites. Surely that is the sort of model that we want to encourage.

In the south of England, as the hon. Member for North Wiltshire rightly said, there are sites that used to be airfields or military installations, as well as transport land, the roofs of car parks and many other things, which should be prioritised. I genuinely hope that we can come to some agreement to do that. In my constituency there are many flat building roofs, whether on garage blocks or large businesses. The tragedy is that there is not enough incentivisation to use the large acreage of land that exists in areas with high amounts of solar radiation where it would be ideal to place solar panels, such as in the south of England and London.

I hope the Minister can address that point about whether it is possible for the Government to look at incentivised development of that type of site, and to support local authorities and community groups more. There is obviously going to be an economy of scale with the very big sites. However, is it somehow possible to encourage development in a sensitive way that makes good use of currently wasted space in areas with high levels of sunlight? When large public buildings are built, such as hospitals, schools and stations, could the default position be that solar is included in the roofs? Will the Minister consider that? As a way of removing pressure from valuable agricultural land, and given that build costs would be lower if solar was installed at the point of construction, is there a way of incentivising that through the planning system? That way, businesses would have a genuine incentive to put solar on new builds, in a way and on a scale that does not currently exist.

I think about that every day when I go to Reading station, which is a wonderful new piece of infrastructure in our area, and one that serves colleagues further west. The trains there are electric, so why on earth does that station not have solar panels all over its roof? It is a huge area of space that could be used for solar without any intrusion into green space, and would actually protect rural areas by giving us more capacity. Can the Minister address those points? It has been a pleasure to speak today and I hope we can agree a consensual way forward.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Anthony Mangnall, you have until 10 past 5.