Council Tax: Government’s Proposed Increase

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]]

This Government, like their predecessor and their predecessor, are pursuing a policy that promotes an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots. The opening remarks of the Secretary of State suggest he is clueless about how hard this is hurting hard-pressed households across the country. Most shameful of all is the Government’s disingenuous claim to level up our country and our society. This is laid bare in their approach to local government finance, where they have brazenly encouraged this widening of wealth between our local authorities—between shire and city, and north and south. Instead, they have presided over an acceleration of inequality across this country, while families have to stump up more money for less locally.

Fortunately, the public are starting to see this for the charade it is. After years of inflation-busting council tax increases in effect forced on authorities by this Conservative Government, the public see next to nothing in return: holes in the roads, holes in their arguments. Across England, we have seen the average band D council tax increase dramatically, way ahead of inflation. In 2015-16, this was £1,500, and it is expected now to rise to almost £2,000 in this next financial year. This represents an eye-watering 29% increase in cash terms on its level in 2015-16.

Residents in Warwick and Leamington are facing a further increase of £94 on average this coming financial year, despite next to no increase in wages and inflation at between 0.5% to 0.7%. Warwickshire County Council has lost half a billion in funding since 2013. Among all the services it has cut or closed, let me just mention the virtual closure of youth services, which has clearly contributed to knife crime rocketing. We now have the prospect of yet another rise in the police levy from the police and crime commissioner. It is another 6%—12 times the inflation rate—on local taxes, while cutting 87 staff from the investigations and domestic abuse teams. That is 87 dedicated and experienced police staff being made redundant.

This is all against a backdrop of the Government handing out cash to their mates, with £21 billion for a failed test and trace scheme that sees call operators staying at home and making a couple of calls a day. The Government are starving local public health of money, although local public health would do it better for less. They are shovelling money to other mates setting up middlemen businesses to import personal protective equipment that never arrives—merely hundreds of millions of pounds in their case.

Let me give the Government one desperate plea from local government: charge a fair fee for planning. It is ridiculous that a site employing 2,000 people here for the new megalab in Leamington is, in effect, being subsidised by Warwick District Council. I also make a plea to provide some long-term certainty. How many times have we heard the Government say they will do whatever it takes, only to take whatever they like from what they promised local government? On 16 March, the Secretary of State told 300 council leaders they would do whatever necessary to support them. We are seeing an ever-widening gap in our society, and another inflation-busting council tax is just one too many for them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The current system is not successful. It leads to long-winded wrangling. It places the cards in the hands of big developers, rather than local councils, communities and, in particular, small developers, who find it too costly and complex to navigate. The new infrastructure levy will be simpler and more certain and, as my hon. Friend says, it will do two important things. First, it will raise a larger amount of money, capturing more of the uplift in land values, so that more money can be put at the disposal of local communities. Secondly, it will give greater freedom to local councils to decide how they choose to spend that, so that development can benefit communities in flexible ways.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with the Office for National Statistics on housing need and planning reforms.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

We regularly engage with the ONS on many issues, including the role of household projections within the local housing need standard method. The hon. Gentleman may also be interested to learn that, alongside the planning reform White Paper, Ministers and officials have hosted and attended a very large number of consultation events. We are always interested in working with stakeholders and experts on proposals, and we welcome the expertise that the ONS brings.

[Matt Western]

Like communities up and down the country, the people of Warwick and Leamington are extremely concerned about overdevelopment and, in villages such as Bishop’s Tachbrook, urban sprawl. When we look at the numbers from the district plan, we see 932 homes supposed to be built per year and the Government’s figure from their “malgorithm” is 910 homes per year, whereas the ONS estimates 623 properties a year and, likewise, Lichfields 627. There seems to be a huge disparity between the figures from the ONS and Lichfields versus those of the Government. Will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss and explain the reasons for that because, on the face of it, the figures do not stack up?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am always happy, of course, to meet the hon. Gentleman, although he may be misinformed in so far as I think the local housing need for his own constituency and local authority is 627 a year, not the 910 that was projected in the Lichfields projections in the middle of last year. However, I am always very happy to meet him, and I am sure at that time he will be very keen also to put on record his great pleasure in receiving £10 million in future high streets funding for Leamington, because his Boxing day tweet, in which he seemed to rubbish this spending, did smack a little of “Bah, humbug!” It seems that Ebenezer Scrooge does not live simply in the mind of Charles Dickens; he is alive and well, and living somewhere in Warwick.

Housing: North Somerset

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Commons Chamber

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), my parliamentary neighbour, on securing this debate and on making the case so eloquently and forcefully not just on behalf of his own constituents but on behalf of my constituents—and, as he rightly pointed out, given the various comments that we have both been getting in the Lobby during the votes just now, on behalf of a great deal more constituencies right the way across the country.

I want to pick up on a couple of the points that my right hon. Friend made—very briefly, because I want to leave time for the Housing Minister to respond. He is absolutely right to say that North Somerset as a whole has absorbed a huge amount of housing over the past 50 years. We cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as NIMBYs. We have taken an enormous numbers of houses. We are happy to take more if they are in the right places, because, as he rightly points out, there are very many local residents who want their children to be able to afford to live locally—who do not want them to be forced to move away and come back only when they have made their fortunes, if they can. That is clearly not the right way to do it, and it is clearly not the right way to have sustainable and balanced communities either, so therefore we want to be able to have enough houses for this to be affordable. Both my right hon. Friend and I, and many local residents, agree with the notion that, as a country, we have to build more houses, but the question is where we build them and why the existing system is forcing people to build in the wrong places and in the wrong ways.

My right hon. Friend is also right to point out that if we stick with the current approach, we stand absolutely no chance of delivering on the number of houses that are required. That is not because there are not enough places with planning permission or because there are not enough permitted areas where planning permission has already been agreed, but simply because the existing housebuilders have a business model which requires them to dribble out houses consistently over many years at no more than a pre-set rate—about 800 every year in our areas—in order to avoid deflating the cost of housing by building too fast and ruining their investments. So, if we do not change something soon, we will never get to the numbers that the Minister is rightly setting for the entire country.

Therefore, I urge the Minister to consider that Weston-super-Mare, perhaps some of the areas in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, and certainly central Bristol should be willing to take more homes in the middle of towns, rather than in the areas, which, as my right hon. Friend rightly pointed out in his nicely coloured-in map, are not available to be built on outside towns. Central Weston needs the investment; central Weston would be delighted to have more homes built in the right places. That points to one of the advantages of the Government’s latest set of proposals for permitted development rights with carefully constructed local council-approved planning guidelines.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) on securing this Adjournment debate. Does the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) agree that one of the issues about density of dwelling in planning, and one of the issues with the White Paper proposals, is that we will have less control over what sort of densities would get built out by the developers?

[John Penrose]

Actually, I respectfully disagree with that last point, because local authorities will be able to set development codes, which will be able to dictate the level of density, and they can also dictate the look and feel of the areas. As a result, places like central Weston and central Bristol, where development is, on average two storeys tall, could easily—and in the case of central Weston, would gladly—absorb more homes if we were able to go up to four storeys tall. We are not proposing to emulate the Shard, as my right hon. Friend rightly points out, because that would be completely inappropriate, but we want to go up to four storeys, or maybe five at the outside. We want to build elegant townhouses and mews houses; the sort of things that we are proud to look at in parts of Weston already, and certainly in parts of central Bristol and parts of Bath. Such beautiful bits of architecture—more dense, but beautifully put together—could absorb all the homes if we were only able to do it. But the current system—the current method of allocating those homes—does not allow us to do it, because local authorities do not get credit if they start to allocate building in those areas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western]

Will the Minister give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am happy to give way to the hon. Gentleman, because I am sure he wants to raise a point about North Somerset.

[Matt Western]

The Minister is very generous. I want to concentrate on that point about affordability. In his vision, does he see that there is a role for council house or council flat building? Surely, as the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) illustrated about his area—I am sure it is true across the country—truly affordable accommodation must be delivered through council house building as well.

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Gentleman will know that we have made it easier for councils to build council houses. He will know that, through the affordable homes programme that the Chancellor and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced in September, over the next five years we will inject £12.2 billion into house building. We will build 180,000 new homes in our country, about 50% of which will be affordable and for social rent. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman raised that point, and I am pleased to have been able to make the point to him that we are building those affordable homes where they are necessary.

That is why we are looking at housing need now, considering carefully how each element of the formula that I described works together so that we can ensure that we achieve the right distribution of homes in the most appropriate places and address any perceived imbalances. We have consulted, as I said, on each element of the indicative formula, and we are reflecting carefully on the feedback we have received.

Town and Country Planning

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I rise to oppose these plans. What have we learned since the war? When we think back to the new towns developed in Hertfordshire, Essex and elsewhere, and the great planning that went into them, we realised that we really did some fantastic stuff. These statutory instruments would remove the ability of people in Warwick and Leamington and across the country to have their say in how their neighbourhood is being developed—we have seen a degree of that over the past 10 years—and instead hand over power to the big housing developers while communities and councils are emasculated. Shelter, the Local Government Association, Crisis, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors are among the bodies to have expressed serious misgivings about these changes.

SIs 632 and 755 have been spoken about around the Chamber, so I will not dwell on them. It is actually SI 756 that most concerns me. Developers will be able to demolish housing and offices and rebuild them as denser and taller blocks of flats—as tall as six storeys and containing up to 60 or 70 flats—without making a full planning application. We already know that the previous permitted development regulations, which allow for the conversion of empty office blocks into new homes, have led to modern-day slums. This was forcefully exposed by BBC “Panorama” earlier this year, and the Government’s own report has concluded that

“permitted development conversions do seem to create worse-quality residential environments than planning permission conversions in relation to a number of factors widely linked to the health, well-being and quality of life of future occupiers.”

There is also a lack of control over where the homes are placed. Naturally, many previous PDR developments have ended up on industrial estates and other unsuitable places. This leaves residents without essentials such as access to public transport, local services, shops and amenities. Whatever happened to our communities and town planning? It beggars belief, therefore, that the Government are seeking to expand these rights at the cost of the most vulnerable members of our society and our communities, who will end up living in these appalling homes. It is the developers who are gaining significantly. I think about the multimillionaires and billionaires who have made so much money out of development in south Warwickshire, south of Warwick and Leamington, but they have provided no amenities or facilities there.

One of the most serious problems running through all the statutory instruments is that they allow developers to avoid obligations to build affordable housing. Last year, just 6,300 new social homes were built in England. When sales and demolitions are accounted for, we lost more than 17,000 social homes over the course of last year. We have had only 21 new social rented council homes built in Warwick district since 2010—and we wonder why we have a housing crisis. Section 106 obligations are now the main way to get new social rented homes built. According to the most recent year’s stats, 10 times as many social rented homes were built through section 106 as were built with money from Government grants. These SIs mean that developers are not obliged to contribute to affordable housing through section 106.

Instead, the Government must make building social rented council homes their No. 1 priority. Look at places such as Goldsmith Street in Norwich: built under a Labour council, it shows us what social rented housing can be—beautiful, well designed and environmentally friendly; reminiscent of the great developments in the post-war period. We know that building social rented homes is popular: 268,000 people have signed George Clarke’s petition to build 100,000 council homes a year for the next 30 years.

These statutory instruments will strip away power from local communities in favour of big housing developers. They will lead to poor-quality unaffordable homes. I am afraid that these changes are a foretaste of the full reforms proposed in the planning White Paper. They are a developers’ charter, giving them sweeping power to build poor-quality homes and, importantly, avoid commitments to build truly affordable social rented homes.

United Kingdom Internal Market Bill

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Commons Chamber

I urge Ministers to accept that the provisions in new clause 10 are needed, because the measures set out in the Bill could otherwise affect the ability of all the Administrations within the UK to achieve their environmental ambitions and to keep improving environmental standards. We hear so much from the Government about how much they care about these issues. Here is an opportunity for them to demonstrate that, by accepting the new clause.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). As someone who opposed Brexit, I have bought into the fact we have left the EU. I accept exactly where we are. I guess that my frustration, like so many people around this place, is that we find ourselves at this crossroads, at this dangerous juncture, at such a late hour. I think all of us want a Brexit deal that protects our economy and protects jobs, regularises our standards and provides environmental protections, but foremost also secures our businesses, which are so dependent on relations with our nearest neighbours, within Europe.

I want to speak to new clause 11, but I will also address in passing amendment 86. We were told that we had an oven-ready deal. According to the Foreign Secretary, it was going to be a “cracking deal” for Northern Ireland. But of course, the Prime Minister was not talking turkey, certainly not in anticipation of Christmas, as we have just heard. This was a deal that the Prime Minister himself cooked up, yet now it is stated that this could break up our country—our Union. This is an historic admission of failure. New clause 11, put forward by my honourable colleagues, seeks to ensure that we get this Brexit deal done. It is a broad new clause that demands that the Government should review and report to Parliament on the workings of the Act, addressing the functioning of the UK internal market Act and the effectiveness of the market access principles that have been promised, as well as agreeing common frameworks with the devolved Administrations.

My concerns lie with the fact that the Bill, to my mind, frustrates a deal. The trade economists we on the International Trade Committee have heard from made it pretty clear that failure to get a deal will cause our manufacturing industry exports to fall by around 20%. For the automotive industry specifically, which I have a clear passion for, should we not have a deal by 31 December, we will, of course, fall to WTO rules, which will see 10% tariffs on all passenger cars, 22% tariffs on vans and trucks—another important part of our export mix—and 3.5% tariffs on components, which of course are intrinsic and critical to our manufacturing. The Government are talking about maybe getting, through our deal with Japan, a special arrangement that will enable any Japanese components that go into our products to actually count as being of UK origin. I would be amazed if the European Union would actually accept that.

Jaguar Land Rover has warned that it could be forced to close plants if the right Brexit deal is not agreed, jeopardising £80 billion of planned investment. Ford has said that no deal would be disastrous and would make it reconsider its investments in the UK. Nissan has said that its operations in Sunderland would struggle to survive the extra tariffs imposed by a no deal. Toyota has said it would be forced to halt car production in the UK, temporarily closing its plant in Derbyshire. BMW has said that it could shift production of the Mini from Cowley to the Netherlands if there is a no-deal Brexit. These are not idle threats; this is the reality faced by many multinational businesses.

I am afraid that the Prime Minister is prepared to play Russian roulette—hardly a surprise, given the nature of his sponsors—with our businesses, our jobs and our prosperity in this country. That has to be our concern. Although there might be talk about the possibility of a US trade deal, we have heard in recent days that the passing of this Bill would jeopardise any UK-US trade deal. It is very unlikely to pass through Congress, such is the strength and purpose of the Irish caucus in Washington.

Let me turn to international law and Britain’s reputation. This is not simply about Brexit. Do we want to be a trustworthy nation—one that stands up for the rule of law? Does the Prime Minister really want to throw that all away by disregarding international treaties, in particular one that he personally negotiated and signed up to? That will undermine our standing in the world.

I am reminded of the incredibly powerful speech yesterday by the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who said:

“whether a decision to break international law is taken by a Minister or by this Parliament; it is still a decision to break international law. This can only weaken the UK in the eyes of the world… It will lead to untold damage to the United Kingdom’s reputation”.—[Official Report, 21 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 667-668.]

We have heard it from Lord Howard, from Sir John Major, from David Cameron—from so many former Prime Ministers.

It is clear that our Prime Minister is being reckless. Can Members imagine what the co-founder of the modern Conservative party, Robert Peel, would be thinking now—a person who championed law and order? In our Prime Minister, we have a man who is legendary for wrecking restaurants in Oxford. Does he not see that by his behaviour and actions, he is damaging Britain’s reputation—doing a modern-day Ratner? Members may recall Gerald Ratner, the entrepreneur who set up an incredible business empire and then destroyed his entire business with a few ill-chosen words. We risk not just tarnishing our reputation but seriously damaging it. We must be concerned about that.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I turn to new clause 11(4) and the need to preserve the Union. It is clear that while we are in danger of destabilising the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, we also risk undermining the devolution settlement. With the Bill, the Government are seeking to usurp the process of agreeing common frameworks on key devolved matters such as agriculture and food standards. The Welsh Government have made it clear that this is seen as a power grab, a centralisation of powers and an emasculation of the devolved Government. They have described it as

“an attack on democracy and an affront to the people of Wales”.

The voice of the Welsh Government is echoed by the Scottish Government in Holyrood, who say that it is “impossible to recommend” that the Scottish Parliament give its consent to the Bill. It has been condemned by the First Minister and Scottish Labour.

Finally, let me turn to the situation with state aid. For me, this is a red herring. I listened closely to the comments made by the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who has served this House for many decades and championed the cause of leaving the European Union. To my mind, however, what I have witnessed over decades is how intelligently other nations have used state aid to their benefit. They have long provided aid, support, guarantees—call it what you will, even state ownership. I do not believe that this has been to their disadvantage and I do not believe it would be to the disadvantage of Northern Ireland either—I think it would actually be to its great advantage. I heard the comments by the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), but as I see it, both Germany and France have stronger steel industries, and they have made the system of state aid work for them. For all those reasons, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will be opposing the Bill.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just a gentle reminder that because we are in Committee, it is usually customary to call me “Chair” rather than “Deputy Speaker”. I know that it is difficult to follow, because we said this at the beginning and people are in and out of the Chamber, but that is just a reminder.

Rented Homes: End of Evictions Ban

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend is rarely silenced for long. I hear what he says and he has heard what I have said. We will bring forward the renters’ reform Bill, which will be the biggest rent change and tenancy change in a generation, when it is appropriate. In the meantime, we will continue to support tenants and landlords through the measures that I have already outlined.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

We know that 9% of private renters have made a claim for universal credit during the crisis and, of course, we are expecting a massive spike in future universal credit claims in the months to come. Given that the local housing allowance barely covers local rents, particularly in Warwick and Leamington, where house prices and rents are so expensive, surely the Government should adhere to and honour their promise to renters back in March to protect them for the months to come.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his question. As I have already said, his constituents will be able to take advantage of a discretionary housing payment application to their local authority if they have need. We have given half a billion pounds to local authorities to apply council tax relief to their residents where it is appropriate. Of course, we will also continue to work hard. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his Budget statement and a statement just a few weeks ago, and I am sure that he will make further financial announcements in due course that will be designed to stimulate the economy as we exit this crisis and to support all our people, including the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, to get back to work.

Housing, Communities and Local Government: Departmental Spending

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I would like to start, as others have, by praising our local authorities rather than burying them, as perhaps the Government would wish. In the last few months, we have seen an extraordinary effort, contrasting very favourably with the work of our national Government. We have seen real professionalism, we have seen them deliver, whether it be business grants or addressing business rates, and we have seen them delivering on the shielding programme as well. But of course, as we have heard, no other Department has faced the same scale of cuts that local authorities have. After 10 years, £15 billion has been cut and now with coronavirus, we are seeing an £11 billion hit to those authorities, but the Government are providing them with only £3.2 billion. Contrast that with what the Government said on 16 March, which was “Whatever it takes, we will stand by you”. That does not seem to be the case, and that is really hurting the authorities.

I commend my local authority Warwick District Council for what it has done. It has been agile, it has been active and it has delivered, and I praise it publicly for what it has done. But the challenges are great in social care, as we have heard; youth services; women’s refuges; and the enforcement that is now required of those authorities in making sure that we meet the challenge of coronavirus.

I want to talk about housing, because there is no greater priority. We know that there is a huge amount of homelessness in the UK. We need to build social homes on a massive scale. We need to build 300,000 houses a year, and of those 150,000 need to be social rented properties. Last year, only 6,300 were built, and in my constituency only 21 council homes—social rent properties—have been built.



The Help to Buy scheme is costing Government £4 billion. The Government are also spending £23 billion a year on housing benefit and paying £8 billion to private landlords. That is why we need to get hold of the issue of social rent properties and what council councils can actually deliver in that field.

The Government say they want to build, but they should start with rebuilding trust in our Government, and they can take a leaf out of the book of local government on how to deliver that. For 10 years, this Government and their predecessors have taken a wrecking ball to local authorities, but they have shown in the last few months what they can do and they are trusted by our public. We have seen that with covid-19, but we need to address issues such as knife crime and the issues among our social services.

In closing, the Government told us that they could not address the issue of rough sleepers until 2027, but they have managed to do so in a matter of months. It is now time that they deliver elsewhere.

Business and Planning Bill

Matt Western Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I thank everyone in the Chamber for the constructive discussion that we have had in Committee and on Second Reading. I want particularly to thank Opposition Front Benchers for the positive discussions we have had over the last several days to bring this Bill through all its stages today.

I also thank all the members of the BEIS team who have provided such great support for the Bill, those in the Department for Transport, those in my office and particularly—in my own Department, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government—Simon Gallagher and his planning team for all their efforts while there have been other demands, with the covid-19 emergency, on their time.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy set out, the overall aim of the Bill is to provide a boost to key sectors of our economy—the hospitality, construction, transport and SME sectors. It will support businesses across the economy, particularly in the hardest-hit sectors, to transition from the immediate crisis and the response to lockdown towards economic recovery. It will also support businesses to implement new safer ways of working to manage the ongoing risk of covid-19, and particularly the need, as we all know, for continued social distancing.

Hon. Members have made important points in their contributions on the amendments and new clauses tabled in Committee, and I should like to discuss them in turn. I turn first to amendment 3 to clause 9 of this Bill, which speaks to the same point as amendment 2. I thank Opposition Members for this amendment, as it raises the important matter that we would want to include in our definition of “relevant highway” those highways that benefit from a temporary traffic restriction order. This is particularly so given that more of these orders are now being made to encourage active travel, including walking, as people get back to work and more shops reopen. Our definition did not include highways where such temporary traffic restriction orders are in place, and it should have done; that was our intention. If we do not make this change, the scope of the pavement licence provisions will be limited, reducing the number of businesses that will be able to benefit and undermining the powers granted to local authorities that allow them to manage their public spaces in response to covid-19.

For those reasons, and in the spirit of the constructive comments made by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), I will accept this minor technical amendment, amendment 3, to the definition of relevant highway in clause 9. I am grateful to him for bringing it to our attention, and I invite him to move it formally later. [Interruption.] It may only be the one, but bag them while you can.

I turn to amendment 1 to clause 11. Clause 11, as drafted, provides a bespoke temporary change to the Licensing Act 2003 to provide an automatic extension to the terms of on-sales alcohol premises to allow the sale for consumption off the premises. This is the amendment to which the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) spoke very eloquently. It is important that every person wishing to sell alcohol has a licence to do so, and for licensing authorities to be able to record and regulate the sale of alcohol through their area of control. The amendment would allow mobile traders to sell alcohol in places not previously allowed, and that could lead to a significant number of alcohol sales taking place from new locations not previously allowed by licensing authorities, potentially leading to crowding and disorder in those new locations. I would encourage mobile traders to apply for a variation order to their licence under existing legislation. For that reason, I am not able to accept his amendment, although I understand the thrust of it. I also recognise that it is perhaps an important issue in rural areas such as the one that he represents, so I would be happy to talk to him further about how we can help the rural economy through this difficult time moving towards winter. I am sure that my colleagues in the Home Office will be prepared similarly so to do.

I now turn to new clauses 1 and 2. The extraordinary support that we have put in place has been about getting us through this crisis, and the Bill is now supporting us out of it. It is the case that some firms will be affected by coronavirus for longer than others, and the Government will seek to support these firms appropriately. So far, the coronavirus job retention scheme has helped 1.1 million employers across the United Kingdom to furlough 9.2 million jobs, protecting many, many people’s livelihoods. Starting with the first release on 11 June, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is publishing monthly figures for the coronavirus job retention scheme claims, broken down by employer size, sector and geography. These figures are publicly available on the gov.uk website. They show the total number of jobs furloughed and the value of claims made within the accommodation, food services, arts, entertainment and recreation sectors. The Office for National Statistics also provides a very great deal of data.

I therefore believe that there is data available that the House can see and that Opposition Members can use, and therefore there is no need for the new clause. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale is, I would suggest, a seasoned player in the Standing Orders of this House, and he knows how to use urgent questions, SO24 applications and Opposition day debates. There will be plenty of opportunities for him to raise issues of concern with the Executive at the Dispatch Box without the need for the new clause.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) spoke very eloquently about the importance of supporting the hospitality and leisure sector, particularly in rural economies as wintertime approaches. I remind him that the tools that we have put in place already, such as the job retention scheme, are only temporary. There may be other, more effective and more sensible long-term tools to support the economic sectors to which he referred. The Chancellor made it absolutely clear in his remarks at the Dispatch Box during the Budget and subsequently that he will do whatever it takes to support our economy and its relevant sectors as we move through this crisis. I am therefore afraid that we cannot support new clauses 1 and 2, and I encourage those who proposed them to withdraw them.

I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for tabling new clause 4, which would require the Secretary of State, prior to making any regulations to extend the time limits associated with the powers in respect of construction working hours, or extending the duration of certain planning permissions or extensions in connection with outline planning permissions, to make a statement to the House on the reasons for the extension beyond 1 April 2021. We recognise that there are concerns about this, but let me assure the hon. Gentleman that the powers in question were drawn in a proportionate way to address only what is necessary to facilitate the continued activity in the sector through this crisis. These delegated powers are considered essential to allow the flexibility necessary to respond to the emerging effects of coronavirus, its potential continuing effect on the sector, and the uncertainty around its future trajectory. Our intention is to exercise the powers only if the effects of coronavirus, including social distancing measures or other restrictions, continue for a longer period. I can make that clear to him from the Dispatch Box.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Just to pick up on new clause 4 and on the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), while this from the Government is viewed as continuing into the future, the importance of the new clause is taking stock of the situation and realising how well that has worked. From comments across the Chamber, I am sure that the Minister understands there is concern about or fear of mayhem, because this is being rushed through. Local authorities such as Warwick District Council and Warwickshire County Council, have few resources, are under huge financial pressure and have little capacity to be able to enforce such changes. I welcome what the Government are trying to do, but I have real concerns about the ability to enforce.

Windrush Day 2020

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes the important point, which I will come to later, that as we celebrate Windrush Day we must also be mindful of the justice that so many of the Windrush generation are still waiting for. Two years on from that first Windrush Day, only 60 Windrush citizens, as he says, have received compensation from a Government scheme, which is complex and hard to access and far too slow to deliver.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to allow me to amplify that point. My understanding is that the compensation claims of people who applied in November-December time are still outstanding, and that is inexcusable, six months on. Perhaps I might join with her and put my name to her remarks about just how extraordinary that generation were, coming over here in the immediate aftermath of war, when we had lost so many men from the population. They contributed so greatly to rebuilding this nation.

[Helen Hayes]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. That mismatch between the contribution that Windrush citizens made to this country, and their appalling treatment at the hands of the British Government and the wait that so many still have for compensation is something to which we must urgently turn our attention.

The Windrush generation are still living with the pain and devastation of the Windrush scandal. Stephen S. Thompson’s powerful drama “Sitting in Limbo”—based on the experience of his brother, Anthony Bryan, who lost his job, home and mental wellbeing as a consequence of the Home Office’s refusing to accept his status as a British citizen, despite his having been in the country since the age of eight—was devastating to watch. Even more excruciating was the news that Anthony Bryan still had not received compensation from the Windrush compensation scheme and was only contacted by the Home Office days before the drama was due to be screened.

Anthony Bryan’s experience mirrors that of so many of my constituents. The common experience of the victims of the Windrush scandal is that the Government’s compensation scheme does not function effectively or deliver the redress that they are due. I and other Opposition Members have voiced concerns about the scheme many times, and those have all too often been dismissed out of hand by Ministers.

Local Government Responsibilities: Public Services

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

This is such an important topic, as the Minister appreciates, and our local services and local authorities are very much on the frontline. What will happen in terms of emergency legislation for the powers that local authorities have, and how will the democratic process work in this crisis?

[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

rose—

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[Luke Hall]

May I suggest that my hon. Friend and I meet after the debate, so I can outline in detail some of the measures relevant to his local establishments? I would be happy to do that.

It is important that as part of mitigating some of the effects of the virus, we are working with the 38 local resilience forums in England, which have plans and frameworks for pandemic influenza already in place. We will supplement our support for LRFs with a new taskforce to compare preparations, to identify gaps and to highlight where additional assistance might be required for local authorities.

[Matt Western]

The question from my local authorities, is will his Department issue guidance on how they join up the local authority resilience partnership with the local health resilience partnership?

[Luke Hall]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that the local resilience forums engage regularly with the local health partnerships—in fact, many health partnerships have a seat on the LRF. I am happy to take a look at his local LRF and discuss the matter with him, to make sure that that conversation is happening. We are working to ensure that LRF preparedness is ready across the country, including with tabletop exercises. We have Andy Battle, a retired deputy chief constable, looking through all the plans, and I am happy to look at the hon. Gentleman’s local plan specifically to make sure there is sufficient engagement with the national health service in his community.

The covid-19 LRF taskforce will also enhance LRFs’ abilities to respond to coronavirus by rapidly assessing preparedness. We are continuing to work closely with local authorities and their partners to prepare for the most intense phase of the crisis, and by helping local businesses and communities to plan, we will be prepared as a nation to meet the challenges we face.

We will take whatever action is necessary to ensure that local government can continue its vital function in the weeks ahead. We are committed to supporting local government to deliver our priorities of social care, providing vital support for vulnerable people and supporting their local economies. Local partners are keeping their plans under constant review and getting close support from this Government to ensure that plans are fully up to date and reflect the relevant scientific advice on coronavirus. For now though, it is clearly right that we focus on ensuring that local authorities can play their essential part in the wider national effort. We have taken decisive action already by providing additional funding to key public services and directly to the most vulnerable. We have acted by lightening the regulatory burden on local authorities. We have acted by reviewing and improving local resilience and economic preparedness efforts. I am, like other hon. Members, aware that we will need to do more in the coming weeks. We stand prepared to do that. I will ensure that I am available to any Member of this House who wants to discuss their local preparedness and to meet their local agencies. Our resilience teams are, of course, engaged with every local area to make sure that we have absolutely up-to-date intelligence in Government, to knit together at the national level.

Our commitment to ensuring that local authorities have the tools they need to respond to coronavirus is unwavering. We will give councils the support they need. We will be able to outline the further steps we intend to take very shortly. In supporting local authorities to deliver the services they need to deliver, we will do whatever it takes.

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[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

I am sad to report to the House that, having spent 22 years as a member of a local authority and having been elected as a Member of Parliament, I have gone down in the index of public trust. When it comes to politicians and Members of Parliament, we are fortunate that we still sit above lawyers and estate agents, but local government is very much trusted by the people of this country. That is why what the Minister and the Government have done, not only in their approach to the coronavirus outbreak but to the bigger strategic challenge of how we properly resource our local services for the coming years, is very important.

One of the long-standing frustrations of my time in local government is that Parliament—it has the opportunity to be incredibly strategic on behalf of our country and to think about what it wants to achieve for the nation in many of these big-picture issues, such as housing, healthcare, social care and education—has sometimes been drawn into detailed debates about very specific issues, when we would achieve so much more by allowing our locally elected colleagues to demonstrate the leadership that they are demonstrating in response to this crisis. They need to have those resources to accept from this House the challenge to deliver against those ambitions and then to be left to get on with it.

Local resilience forums, which the Minister referred to on a number of occasions in his speech, are to me a very good example of exactly that kind of leadership. My experience as a councillor is in the London Borough of Hillingdon, although my constituency straddles two London local authorities. Going back to 2001, with 9/11 we suddenly had to deal with thousands of stranded travellers who had no means of getting back to their homes. They needed to be found somewhere to stay, to be fed and, in many cases, to be provided with medical care, communications and support. We saw local organisations––not just the local authority, but schools and the military––rallying around, co-ordinated by the local authority, to provide that crucial support.

In the decade since, we have had to deal with significant outbreaks of very serious illnesses, including severe acute respiratory syndrome, middle east respiratory syndrome, H5N1 and swine flu, from which a young girl in my local area sadly passed away. The local authority then had to step in to manage those communications, in order to reassure that community and make sure that the support was in place so that a school or community that was grieving could deal with the situation. It is impossible to do that directly from this House, which is why the Government have rightly taken the view that they will look at the strategic question of providing an appropriate level of resources and then enable those people in their local communities to route that money directly to where it makes the most difference.

My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) referred to the provision of a bus to make emergency accommodation available for homeless people. Many of us have local authorities that have contracts with local voluntary organisations, for example, the YMCA, as in the case of my local authority, to provide that kind of emergency accommodation. In other parts of the country, such accommodation may be provided directly by the local authority itself. It is crucial, therefore, that the theme that runs throughout all this is the ability of local authorities and local resilience forums to deploy the money that is rightly coming from this Government in the most flexible way possible to meet those local challenges.

Lessons could be learned on that, and I am cognisant of what Opposition Members have said about the challenges associated with special educational needs and disabilities, and the educational provision for people in that situation. It is clear that the more local flexibility there is, the easier it is for those communities to rise to the challenge of meeting the needs of those individuals. The more we seek to control that from the centre, the less satisfied many of our residents and voters will be with the outcomes they are seeing. Given the amazing range of provision that we see—I am cognisant of the remarks about what was happening on youth services—we have fantastic voluntary organisations, which are providing brilliant opportunities to young people. A decade or two ago, their lives would perhaps have been lived in a youth club, but they are now being lived online, on a smartphone, where they talk to their friends in the privacy of their bedrooms. So something different is required in the modern world, and that is another example of where the leadership of local authorities, which know their communities, can deploy those resources, albeit more limited than they might have been historically, in the most effective way.

I wish to make a couple of specific observations about particular strengths of the Government’s response. The first relates to the announcements that have been made to support nurseries and early years providers. I should declare an interest: as a parent of two young children, I am a user of my local council-run nursery. There are many people, some employed in our public services and others who are going about their daily business who are dependent on the existence of those services to ensure that they can live their lives. Such services provide an opportunity for their children and the children who may not come from prosperous backgrounds to gain the best possible start in life. So I am pleased with the commitment that the Government have given to ensure that, even if children are having to step back from those places because of the immediate prevailing situation, funding will still find its way, and so when this moment of emergency passes families can find that those services and the opportunities for the youngest children are still there. That is an extremely wise move, and the more we can send that message to proprietors and managers of nurseries and parents whose children use them, the better.

The second thing I wish to refer to is the distribution of personal protective equipment. Because of my personal connections with the national health service and from what I hear as a local councillor, I know that there is, understandably, a high degree of anxiety among many of those staff who, unlike us in this Chamber, will be sent out to people who are known to be suffering from the coronavirus in order to provide direct, hands-on personal care. They are worried about whether they will be able to access the quality and standard of equipment that will be necessary to keep them safe. The announcement by the Minister that the distribution from national stocks of those products to those frontline workers is going to be absolutely crucial once again in providing that degree of reassurance.

That is not reassurance to those in the markets who are wondering which moves to make when they are trading their shares, and it is not reassurance to the international community; it is reassurance to people who are absolutely at the frontline of responding in a very direct and very human way to this crisis. Again, the more we can get out the message the better that, as well as a sum that is so mind-bogglingly large—over £300 billion—that it is hard to grasp, this House is thinking about the basics of face masks and gloves and aprons that people need to make sure that they are safe when they are doing an essential job, to bring this country together and to keep our people safe.

[Matt Western]

On that point, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be useful to understand from Government just how they are ramping up the production and supply of PPE, or ventilators or testing kits, so we understand where the base was and where we might be in two weeks’ time?

[David Simmonds]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I have been very much reassured by what I have heard from Ministers over a number of days about the initiatives that are taking place to ensure that ventilators, for example, and other equipment are available. One of the things I am particularly aware of because of my local government experience and knowledge of what local resilience forums do is that there are long-standing plans in place, backed up by stockpiles of various different types of equipment that may be required. It is welcome that the Minister has been very clear today that, based on need and local requirements, the distribution of that is going to begin, particularly for the volunteer groups that many colleagues have referred to, with people who are not familiar with some of the challenges and risks that may be involved in treating patients with serious illnesses; the knowledge that they can access good quality personal protective equipment supplied through central Government and by their local authority, is going to be absolutely crucial.

In conclusion, I would simply like to make the following point. We have seen examples up and down the land of local authorities consistently on a cross-party basis—I can think of examples from the response of Manchester to the Arena bombing to those of local authorities across the country to the refugee crisis in Europe—where our local government colleagues have demonstrated very capably that they will rise to any challenge which this House sets. It is most welcome that Ministers have been clear that they will provide the financial resources that are central to the delivery of that, and I trust that all hon. Members will be providing a similar degree of cross-party moral support to our colleagues in local government that at this time of national challenge, we need to work together and rise to it together.

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[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Having been a councillor myself, I can echo his comments. The difficulty for our local authorities is that in the absence of the central Government grant, they are having to be more inventive and creative in respect of how they bring in revenue streams. What we have found in the last couple of weeks and what is forecast is that certain revenue streams will be cut off, and councils will become more and more desperate to continue what few services they can maintain. When the car parking charges and the revenue streams for the local civic centre are not coming in, they will be under even more pressure than they were before. Does he agree that the local authorities need to understand urgently how the £500 million that the Chancellor mentioned will be distributed—and distributed fairly?

[Jim McMahon]

I think that is right. When councils have to look elsewhere for funding, a risk naturally comes with that. The National Audit Office produced a report on this and the Government share these concerns. The Public Works Loan Board interest rate was doubled overnight by the Government, because they are concerned about the exposure that councils face in buying assets as investments. The NAO expressed the same concern. In a two-year period, councils have been buying investment portfolio assets of £6 billion. Why? Because they are desperate to see income from other places, but this is office accommodation and in retail, sometimes not even in the area that the council is responsible for. The Government response is to double the Public Works Loan Board rate instead of addressing the fundamental reason why councils have to look elsewhere for funding, which feels illogical. We have to make sure that the base funding for councils is absolutely where it needs to be.

We are coming to the greatest test of local government, public service and society that any of us have seen in our lifetime. It will test us all. It will test the fabric of society and test public services to breaking point, at a time when they are built on extremely weak foundations. I am genuinely fearful for how we can continue this in a sustained period. For a short time, they will make it work. They will roll their sleeves up and work together. They will create a partnership at a local level and find a way through it, but the Government know full well that this is not a crisis that will last weeks or even months. A sustained response will be required and the Government will have to make sure that they give local government the funding that they need to provide the critical response. We also need to manage public expectation.