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.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could ask the Secretary of State that question, because it was his then policy adviser who led the campaign against it.

In all fairness to the Secretary of State, we were relieved to see the back of a planning framework that seemed to be based on a traffic light system. Our communities deserved far better than that. However, this Bill, as he has heard from colleagues on both sides of the House, allows neighbourhood plans to be overridden when they conflict with a national development management plan. The Secretary of State can make one of those plans at any time—without consultation if he chooses, and without any approval from a single Member of this House—and he can override people in any one of our communities if their plan conflicts with his to any extent. That is not being serious about handing power to local communities, is it?

The press release that accompanied the Bill said that the big idea behind handing power to local communities—notwithstanding that the Bill includes measures that allow Whitehall to override them—is something that the Secretary of State calls “street votes”. Will he explain exactly what those street votes will do to put power in people’s hands and put them in the driving seat of their own communities? The reason I ask is that, if he has a plan, it is not, unfortunately, in the Bill. How is it possible that that flagship idea, which headlined the press release, has not yet been written? Does he not accept that we are entitled to better than plans drawn up on the back of an envelope after horse-trading has taken place, usually to his detriment, behind closed doors in Whitehall?

The Secretary of State says that he wants beautiful communities that work for people, and I agree with him, but that means that we have to put power back into people’s hands, because people who have a stake in their own communities and who have skin in the game will do more, try harder, work for longer and be more creative in order to build thriving communities. It also means that we have to end the system where people can come to our communities and extract from them, taking our wealth, running down our housing and sitting on our land.

Surely the most basic plank of all this is that people have the right to know who owns their town, village or city. However, the measures in the Bill that try to ensure that more information is collected about land ownership also allow the Secretary of State to withhold that information from communities. Why on earth would a Secretary of State want to deny people in our villages, towns and cities the right to know who owns the housing, land, shopping centres and town centres that make up those beautiful places that we call home? I remind him that it was that great Conservative—also a great radical—John Ruskin who said:

“Nothing can be beautiful which is not true.”

The commitment to beauty in this Bill is not true.

We need a serious plan to tilt the balance of power back in favour of the people who built this country and will do so again, who have stake in the outcome and skin in the game. We have debated the problems they face many times in this Chamber—

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

rose—

[Lisa Nandy]

If I am not mistaken, my hon. Friend is about to raise one of them, so I give way to him.

[Matt Rodda]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. She is absolutely right to highlight the very poorly designed planning system and the failure of the current proposals to change anything. In my area, there are enormous pressures on land and terrible pressures on green spaces, yet brownfield land in the south of England is not being redeveloped as it should be. When it is redeveloped, it is not done appropriately, and local needs and local authorities are not listened to as much as they should be. Does she agree that there needs to be a complete rethink of that imbalance?

[Lisa Nandy]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who reminds us that we have had 12 long years without real action to put power back in people’s hands. He raises a really important point—I think all Members have raised it: that, as long as there are centralising tendencies in Government, and as long as they find their way into Bills such as this, we will continue to undermine the situation. If the Secretary of State does not want to listen to Opposition Members, I urge him to listen to Members on his own side; looking at their faces, I do not believe they will allow this to drop.

We have debated the problems that people face in this House many times. There are simple changes that the Secretary of State could make in order to stop people coming into our communities and extracting from them.

Non-commissioned Exempt Accommodation

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I accept that it is meant to be in the spirit of being helpful and adding to the debate, but the idea that criminal enterprises currently lining their pockets with our constituents’ money will be put off exploiting this business model because of a national statement of expectation is absolutely for the birds. I am sorry, but that will not work here. If it did, I would support it, because I want this problem fixed. I am desperate to see vulnerable people no longer being exploited and communities no longer being destroyed, but that measure will not cut it. These are proper operators and they have spotted a loophole in the law. They have calculated correctly that, instead of going further into the drugs business where they might have to do 20 years in prison, they can just get into the housing sector and no one will put them away for it—at all. In fact, they can do so in plain sight and nobody can do a thing about it. That is what I want the Government to take action on, because that is what I have seen in my own constituency of Birmingham, Ladywood. That is what my colleagues in Birmingham have seen in their constituencies, and some of them have truly horrific examples of abuse of vulnerable tenants.

We are seeing that problem all across the country. I was very grateful to the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Julie Marson) for saying that this is national issue. It can become a little too easy for Members in this place to think that this is a problem for some cities—let us be honest, if we are to be party political about this, it is problem for some Labour-run cities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said, piecemeal action—a pilot here and a little bit of a change there—just creates a whack-a-mole system. A problem that starts in Birmingham will soon spread to Sandwell, to Stoke and then to Dudley, and to other places too, unless we have a national change in the law of our land that stops the problem dead for everybody. Then, a Member whose constituency is currently not afflicted by it would not have to worry about a proliferation of exempt accommodation taking place in their patch. If they do have it in their constituency already, they could at least see that there was an end in sight to this absolute abuse of the system, which, as Mr Deputy Speaker can tell, leaves most of us utterly impotent with rage because, unless the Government change the law, we can simply not fix this problem.

The first area of the law that requires change is the “more than minimal” test, which has been discussed today. The Minister made the point that the “more than minimal” requirement for the access to enhanced housing benefit regulations has come about as a matter of case law. He is, of course, right; that was done by a housing benefit tribunal. In this country, though, we do not distinguish between case law and Acts of Parliament or statutory instruments. The law is the law and if a judicial authority—a judge or a tribunal—comes to a clarification or a statement of the law that is against what the Government expect to happen, all that creates is a system that is open to abuse. It is the job of this legislature, this House of Commons, to put it right, and only the Government have the power to introduce that legislation to make it so. That rule—the “more than minimal” requirement—must be changed. It must be tightened up.

I do not buy the argument that, somehow, tightening up the access to enhanced housing benefit will somehow drive the good providers out of the sector. That is also for the birds. Those providers are already doing the things that are required in order to help vulnerable people turn their lives around. In the end, that is the thing in which we should all be interested. These are people who have escaped abusive relationships, who have come out of the prison system and are desperate to turn their lives around, and who have had addiction issues and need help to turn their lives around. They need good quality housing in order to do that. The hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) was right when he said that people should be sentenced to a house so that they can have stability—the stability that is required to help them turn their life around and become a citizen able to play their full part in society once more. That is not possible if the rogue operators get their hands on these people first. The good providers, who have a moral and a social mission when it comes to supported housing, will already be doing the right thing. I do not buy the idea that they will be pushed out of the system if the regulations for access to the cash in the first place are tightened up.

The Government and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in particular, rather than the Department for Work and Pensions, need to tighten up the broader regulatory framework. It should not be possible to be providing housing to some of the most vulnerable people in our country and to not even have to pass some sort of character test. The idea that the good providers who are operating will fail fit and proper persons tests is a joke. They will pass it because they have a social, moral mission and they can prove their track record in helping people to turn their lives around. If they do not pass it, they should not have access to vulnerable people in the first place. We know what happens when vulnerable people get into bad accommodation: they are ripe for further abuse, ripe for further grooming into drug activity, and ripe for further grooming into sexual exploitation. We should not allow any provider who cannot pass a fit and proper person’s test to get anywhere near some of these people because they will exacerbate the problem rather than alleviate it. Frankly, I have no sympathy with anyone who we currently think of as a good provider but who ends up failing that test, because it proves they were not a good provider in the first place.

We also need more powers for local authorities—a point that was also raised earlier in the debate—to prevent the dumping of problem people from one part of a country to another. I accept that there are some classes of vulnerable individuals who need to break the link with their local area if they are going to turn their lives around, but that is not the case for the vast majority of people who have ended up in exempt supported accommodation.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She speaks from deep experience and her legal background stands her in good stead on these important matters. Does she agree that this is part of a series of problems where the Government have got the emphasis quite wrong in their housing policy? They have not given enough powers to local government, they have not regulated the system enough and they have allowed exactly the wrong type of landlords to drive a coach and horses through what limited regulation there is. In many ways, that reflects a bigger picture, not only of the poor vulnerable people who are being mistreated, but of a lack of emphasis on council housing and a lack of regulation of private rented accommodation. The whole system needs a complete rethink and Ministers need to listen to what my hon. Friend is saying.

[Shabana Mahmood]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend that we need a system-wide approach. Local authorities need the power to reject applications for exempt accommodation on the grounds of saturation or oversupply. We must break the habit of putting huge amounts of need into already stretched areas and then wondering why those areas can never recover. We wonder why people who have raised their families and committed themselves to stable communities in modest properties that they are proud of, whether they are socially renting or have managed to become owner-occupiers, are so desperate to leave the areas that they were committed to, when we have loaded all sorts of high need into those areas and provided none of the services to support them.

People dumping has to stop, over-saturation has to stop and local authorities need the power to prevent an over-saturation of supply. We need community impact assessments before we get large numbers of exempt supported accommodation across our different communities, to ensure we are not loading more need into already difficult areas.

As I said earlier, the vast majority of tenants in exempt accommodation should be able to demonstrate some sort of local link to the area. Unless it is a requirement because of a prison or domestic violence-related issue, most people need some such link in order to have the stability to turn their lives around.

Finally, we need an inspections regime. We need to keep providers on their toes so that it is not the case that once someone has accessed the system, nobody will ever ask them questions again. There should be at least an annual check to ensure that people who have access to vulnerable tenants and taxpayer cash are doing the thing they said they would do and fulfilling the promises they made.

Only with Government action can we turn the dial on a huge problem that affects not only my constituency, but people all across this country. Our communities deserve nothing less. When the Minister stands to close this debate, I hope he will not simply say, “We’re watching, and we’re waiting and seeing, and we’re going to think about what we’re going to do,” but give us a legislative timetable for making the changes that are needed.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)]

It is a real honour to be able to contribute to this debate today. It is not only an essential time for remembrance and learning but an important time of reflection on the current shape of our society and the direction the world is taking.

We have heard some incredibly powerful and emotive speeches from hon. Members of all parties. Many others have shared their thoughts, as I did, when we signed the Holocaust Education Trust’s book of commitment this week. I pay tribute to its, and others’, vital work to ensure that the atrocities that took place are never forgotten and that the horrors of the holocaust that we saw in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which was liberated 77 years ago to this very day, are never repeated.

It was a true privilege to hear from all those who spoke today. I start by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) for his incredibly powerful speech. To speak from personal experience is never easy, especially in this place, but I know his words will have had a powerful impact far beyond this House. I thank the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for speaking out about the shameful rise in antisemitism in this country and for sharing his own personal experience of antisemitism that no one should be on the receiving end of. My thoughts and solidarity are with him and his family. We have heard many powerful accounts. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) shared Rena’s testimony, which was one of courage beyond her young years. We could all learn from that and renew our efforts to stop more children experiencing the horror that Rena did.

I am especially thankful to my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) for highlighting that alongside the 6 million Jews that were killed, Roma and Gypsy people, Slavic people, LGBT communities, the disabled and religious and political minorities were also targeted by this fascist regime. I will not forget the words that she shared with us. They were so incredibly powerful and I am so proud to call her my friend. She is absolutely right when she says that memorialisation must lead to action. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) laid out some of the actions that we could be taking, particularly in challenging fake news and online hate on social media. That is key to fighting the abhorrent rise of antisemitism, but also Islamophobia. Genocide, as we have heard so many times today, starts with the othering of people that she spoke of. It is that othering of people that leads to the horrors experienced by the Bosnian Muslim families that the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) so eloquently spoke of.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I want to offer my wholehearted support to my hon. Friend and to say how moving I have found her speech and indeed the other speeches that I have been here for today. I also wholeheartedly support the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the work of the local Jewish community in Reading and Woodley. I am afraid that, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq), I have had to be in a Committee today. I apologise for that, but I would like to offer my support, once again, for this debate and say how moving it has been. I am sure that colleagues across the House feel the same way.

[Sarah Owen]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and echo his sentiments. We heard some really impassioned and powerful speeches today, but I know that many other Members across the House would have wished to be here to speak.

I am sure we all join my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark) in her commitment to remember the 1.5 million Armenian people killed and to recognise that atrocity and evil act. As my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) said, these evil acts impact people like Bill for many, many years to come. The impact of the holocaust is felt through generations, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West said, so we must protect future generations from this horror.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) is absolutely right that we must be vigilant and act at the first signs of any potential genocide. We must also remember the atrocities that have taken place across the world, including the murder of 100,000 people in Babi Yar, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) spoke about so eloquently. I thank him for sharing the powerful lessons from the Kindertransport children.

As my wonderful friends, the hon. Members for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) and for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy) said, antisemitism is not an historic problem, but, sadly, a scourge in our modern-day society that we can only beat together. As we have heard in so many speeches, memorials often bring people together. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) spoke from the heart when she talked about the peace garden in her constituency. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West said, these memorials exist not just to remember the dead, but as a sign of resilience.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) was absolutely right to talk from her considerable experience about the shock waves of pain caused by genocide, particularly the shock waves felt by children, so it was very fitting that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) paid such a lovely tribute to the inspirational Lord Dubs from whom we have much to learn.

I know that the original sponsor of today’s debate could not join us, so let me take this moment to pay tribute also to my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and thank her for her years of dedication in fighting the far right—the same extremism and fascism that committed the atrocities some 80 years ago, but just under a different guise.

I echo the pledge that others have made today to fight racism and prejudice wherever they are found. I stand in solidarity with Members on both sides of the House in that commitment, as does the Labour party. Wherever and whenever we see the poison of division and hatred raise its ugly head, we must address it, even when it is uncomfortably close to home, which is why our party’s move to a new independent complaints process has been welcomed by many. It involved extensive engagement with the Jewish Labour movement and the Jewish community, and it is an important step in showing that Labour is, and always will be, the party of equality.

Just as they did then, many decades ago, people, sadly, still need a voice of equality and diversity in the face of tyranny and fascism. Tragically, world leaders are not learning the lessons of the past fast enough. We see that, as we stare at the horror of genocide currently taking place in Xinjiang against the Uyghur Muslims and the more recent genocides that have taken place in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur and against the Yazidi and Rohingya, which we are all remembering here today. It is why the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2022—One Day—is so sadly fitting. It brings us together not only to remember the 6 million Jews who were killed, but to look forward to a future when, one day, there will be no more genocides and no more war.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust sums it up best when it says:

“We learn more about the past, we empathise with others today, and we take action for a better future.”

I believe that we can have a better future, but it will not come without courage—the courage to stand up to tyranny and oppression wherever we see it, whether that be through diplomacy, through trade measures such as the genocide amendment, or by standing shoulder to shoulder with those who are oppressed simply because of who they are—because that one day, when there is no longer war or genocide, will always be worth striving for.

Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords]

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mike Penning]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. On new clause 1, I do not think there is any argument that we need to look at historical leaseholds. However, my constituency has lots of new build and regeneration going on, and a lot of leasehold properties being built, and I am not convinced that that investment would come forward if the developers did not see where that income stream would come from, including pensions and so on. A lot of evidence is going back and forth, but I disagree just on that point.

I completely agree on the historical leasehold issue. The real problem is in the myriad different leases that are out there and have been for many years. I read the Select Committee report referred to by its Chair, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), a moment ago, and I found some of the things that lawyers were doing astonishing. It fascinates me how they ever got insured and how they have not been struck off—I know that other investigations are going on. This is about not just ground rent but service charges and buildings insurance, which is an issue we must address, whether in this Bill or another measure.

I own a freehold property with a mortgage, and I have contents and buildings insurance. In my buildings insurance, I have legal protection of the sort that we would expect our constituents to benefit from when they pay for buildings insurance. However, those in leasehold properties must pay buildings insurance to the freeholder or their management company and have no choice whatsoever about the company, what the premium is or what the coverage is. I use an example from my own constituency of what happens when a claim is made. We had a large sinkhole in a housing development where there were leaseholders: I sat in a meeting with the insurance representative, the freeholder and my leaseholder constituents, and the insurance company said straight to me, absolutely deadpan, “Your constituents may well have paid the premium, but the policy is not theirs. They have no cover whatsoever—the cover is for the freeholder.”

There has to be something morally wrong about that. Insurance has developed over the years; it used to cover very few things, but these days nearly all buildings insurance worth its salt has legal protection. That is what it says on the tin. The Bill does not cover that in the way I think it should. Sometimes it is wrapped into the service charges and everything else, and the ground rent is part of that package, but at the same time we have houses with historical freeholds, some of them from the old military estates where people have bought properties on what used to be Ministry of Defence property, and they are paying leasehold rents on what everybody assumed was a freehold property. Something is structurally wrong.

There was an allusion earlier to looking forward rather than back. I say to the Minister that looking forward is fantastic—we need some dates and some targets that our constituents can look forward to—but we should not rule out looking back just because it is difficult. As I said on the Building Safety Bill in this House only last week, looking back because it is difficult is what this House is supposed to do. It will be more difficult to look back and bring in those leaseholders, our constituents, who feel left out of this legislation and still very vulnerable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) said, but it can be done.

This is not a case of, “It’s impossible”, because we are doing it retrospectively in the Building Safety Bill. We are going back 30-odd years retrospectively on that Bill. Can the Minister explain, when he sums up on new clause 1, why the Government feel that that is so difficult, when we are doing it on a separate piece of legislation that is going through the House today?

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I express my support for new clause 1; I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), and to others across the House, for their words tonight and for pointing out the enormous imbalance between powerful developers on the one hand and people buying a property for themselves, who possibly do not have all the information before them that ideally they should, on the other.

I refer to an issue in my own constituency, an attractive modern development on the edge of the town of Woodley, which is part of my Reading East constituency. The Loddon Park development is relatively recent, but there is a clear need for action to be taken. This development is in the south-east of England, a different part of the country from many of the developments mentioned tonight, and while there are some similarities there are also some differences.

Loddon Park is an attractive new estate, built in the past few years in parkland on the edge of Woodley. There are several hundred properties, a mixture of owner-occupied and some social housing. There are many attractive ponds and features, including meadowland, in the development. Unfortunately, when the whole development was given planning permission, the local authority—mistakenly, I believe—allowed the site developer to charge upkeep for those common areas in perpetuity. There is no limit, as I understand it, to the charge that can be made. It is deeply unfair for normal householders—many of them have young families, are commuters who work locally and are facing, like many people across the country, significant rises in the cost of living—to face in addition ongoing costs for maintaining the landscape around their homes. Frankly, that is wrong.

I hope the Minister will consider new clause 1. We have heard arguments from many MPs across the House and from different places around the country, whether in the south or the north of England; we have heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who set out some powerful legal arguments for why this action should be considered. I hope the Minister will look at it again, even at this stage, and will consider further action by the Government and our new clause.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to make a contribution in such debates, and it is nice to be here. When we look at amendment 1 and the reasons why the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) tabled it, as he expressed in his contribution, it is hard to say that we should not support it.

We must make sure that there is financial fairness for leaseholders, especially long leaseholders who plan to hold a lease for more than 21 years. The issue of ground rent payment has been brought to my attention by my constituents, and the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) rightly gave an example of his constituents. An elderly couple in my constituency, who paid their mortgage off more than 15 years ago, are still paying ground rent of more than £50 a year. Although that is not much, I am pleased that the need to abolish this has been recognised. We already changed the legislation in Northern Ireland, so I understand why this Minister and Government are looking forward to making these changes tonight. Many Members have stated that many people have long leases with higher ground rents at the start of their lease, with shorter ground rent review periods. As a result, leaseholders face unsustainable ground rents, so there is a real need to change this, as hon. Members have said.

Leaseholders with high or escalating ground rents will often struggle to remortgage or sell their houses, leaving them in greater financial distress. The Bill aims to restrict ground rents on newly created long residential leases, with some exceptions, to a token of one peppercorn a year. That effectively restricts ground rents to zero financial value. The intention is to make leasehold ownership fair and more affordable for leaseholders. We should support that purpose.

In Northern Ireland, individuals can apply to the Land Registry to buy out their ground rent. In some cases, the individuals cannot afford to pay the substantial sum outright, so I am pleased that the Bill has assurances for long leaseholders and that Government have protected householders. If ground rent is demanded in contravention of the Bill and any payment received is not returned in 28 days, the landlord will face a fine ranging from £500 to £30,000 per qualifying lease. The fines are clear and hopefully prohibitive.

However, there is one substantial problem with the Bill, as others have said: it will apply only to new leases and will not assist existing leaseholders faced with high and escalating ground rents. I feel that they should not be left behind and I would be grateful if the Minister clarified this matter, looked at it again and considered the impact that the situation has not only on finance, but the possibility of remortgaging or selling property.

The Bill’s commencement date has also raised concerns across the House, so I would be grateful if more clarity was given about that. A Bill on broader leasehold reform is expected in the third Session of this Parliament and I would encourage discussion and a closer look at how the situation can be improved to make circumstances easier for leaseholders. Others have said that we just need a wee bit more movement, and perhaps that can be done in the next Session.

Building Safety Bill

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

As introduced, the Bill proposed to retrospectively and prospectively extend the limitation period to 15 years, meaning that it would not only apply going forward, but that it would be possible to bring a claim with respect to buildings completed from mid-2007 onwards, should the building have been constructed in such a way as to make it unfit for habitation.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I ask for the Minister’s further reassurance on some points of detail that relate to these amendments. First, around half of the buildings in my constituency that have difficulties associated with them have non-cladding-related problems. Those include internal compartmentalisation that has been improperly finished. Indeed, in Queens Wharf in Reading town centre, the building owners estimate that nearly £1 million of work needs to be carried out. These are often very large sums. In other cases, the problem is wooden cladding, wooden balconies or a range of other things. Do the amendments relate to these problems, or to flammable cladding only?

[Christopher Pincher]

The Defective Premises Act has been in effect since 1972, so there is a significant body of case law that those wishing to bring an action, and indeed the courts, will be able to refer to, to determine whether a premises is defective and therefore whether an action should be successful. I am happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with further detail, but I can assure him that the Act is of long standing and has been well used, and there is a body of case law that can be applied.

--- Later in debate ---

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

Let me begin by paying tribute to my constituents and the community of north Kensington.

I welcome the Bill, and I welcomed last week’s announcements that leaseholders in intermediate buildings would not have to pay for the remediation of cladding and other fire safety defects. I understand from the Minister that this will be incorporated in legislation in the other place. I want to stress how crucial it is that we get that right: it is critically important that we have robust legal protection for leaseholders. I welcome the statement that those on the Front Bench will listen to all good ideas, but it is important for us to be able to put this into practice quickly and effectively. I ask the Minister, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) and the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), to ensure that when the Bill comes back to this place, there is the opportunity for full debate and full scrutiny.

A number of Members said that some developers and freeholders have been behaving very badly, and I have such a situation in my constituency. Leaseholders in Collier House have paid for the remediation and the building is eligible for an existing fund, yet the building owner, outrageously, will not apply for those moneys. He does not want to get involved because the leaseholders have already paid. Such situations are clearly wrong in terms of how people should behave. I ask the Minister, as colleagues have, to ensure that we look to remedy situations where leaseholders have paid and take that into consideration. We need to find solutions, because they paid thinking that they were doing the right thing, and they may now be out of pocket as a result.

In conclusion, I very much welcome the direction of travel. However, it will be critically important to get the proposals right in the other place, and I ask that we have the opportunity for full scrutiny of what the other place decides.

[Matt Rodda]

I offer my support to the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan). My thoughts are still with her community five years after the disaster. I am sure that the whole House would echo that support for her community.

I also thank the Minister for allowing me to intervene and for partially addressing my points. However, I want to expand on them, because they are very relevant to our discussions. The challenges for many people in my community will come from the sheer complexity of the situation. It is extremely stressful for many leaseholders and tenants, as Members across the House have said. It is very difficult for them to live in buildings with enormous problems. In many cases, they have suffered from these problems for some years, living in a period of prolonged stress and difficulty—both emotional and financial stress—and I look forward to working with the Minister and the Government to try to deal with this very serious problem.

I will highlight some of the practical difficulties that we need to tackle, as the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), mentioned. The great difficulty for many residents in my constituency and others is that the routes to redress are limited. In many cases, the legal route that the Minister outlined will be extremely difficult.

Perhaps I can describe the type of blocks that I am referring to. Many of the cases in Reading and in Woodley—a town next to the main town of Reading—involve low-rise blocks, so there has been a delay because they are lower- rise. There are problems from issues other than cladding, and many tenants and leaseholders live in these blocks. In one of the biggest neighbourhoods in Reading, there is a large area called Chatham Place, with a series of blocks and a series of different problems, including wooden cladding, balconies and a range of other things. There is also a combination of leaseholders and social housing tenants in the same block. There are multiple problems, and the Minister is right to explore the legal route to redress, but there are very serious challenges because of the difficulty of getting a group of people together to take action and of tracing the legal entities, companies, developers—in some cases, the developers are overseas—architects and the range of others involved. I ask the Minister to work with Opposition Members to look at the issue again and explore other avenues for toughening up the Bill. I look forward to the Lords amendments and I ask him to come back and look at this Bill again in more detail.

I wish to make two other points, also on behalf of local authorities and housing associations. The first point, which was raised with me by a local council that represents a town centre ward in Reading, was the difficulty, even now, for local authority officers to understand the exact guidance on different types of cladding. The issue of flammable insulation in walls was raised with me and there does not seem to be a clear answer on that. Secondly, in my area, housing associations were some of the first building owners to take action. However, as was rightly mentioned, these housing associations and their tenants could inadvertently be penalised. Please will the Minister look into that and provide reassurance?