Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Matthew Pennycook Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call shadow Minister.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Well, what can one say about that last 20 minutes, apart from that it must have felt far more persuasive when the Minister practised it in the mirror this morning, but I do congratulate her on the birth of her grandson.

I will start by thanking their lordships for the extensive and forensic scrutiny to which they have subjected this complex and demanding piece of legislation. I put on record the appreciation felt on these Benches for the tireless work of our noble Friends, Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lady Taylor of Stevenage, ably assisted as ever by Ben Wood and the whole Labour Lords team.

This Bill has been with us for some time now. First published in May 2022, it has progressed slowly against the backdrop of significant political and economic turbulence, the responsibility for which lies squarely with the Conservatives. It has survived an unprecedented degree of ministerial churn: three Prime Ministers; four Secretaries of State, albeit one a retread; four Housing and Planning Ministers; and four Levelling Up Ministers. With so many minds on the Government Benches having grappled thoughtfully with the implications of each of the Bill’s many provisions, one might have hoped that it would have been significantly improved and that its worst features would have been substantially mitigated, if not removed altogether. Sadly, despite the addition of scores of new clauses and a large number of new schedules to the extensive number it already contained, the Bill remains not only eclectic but deeply muddled. It is a rag-tag mix of measures—some sensible, but many more ill-considered or downright damaging—that attempt but fail to render coherent a Tory levelling up, devolution and planning agenda that is anything but.

In the eight months that the Bill was considered in the other place, the Government were forced to give way on a variety of fronts. I am glad that, in a range of areas, the arguments that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) and I made in Committee last year have been partially accepted.

However, although the Government’s concessions have rendered the Bill slightly more palatable, they have not resolved the fact that it still contains a range of measures, from the new infrastructure levy to community land auction arrangements, that are riven with flaws. We regret the fact that Ministers did not reconsider their inclusion entirely. It will now fall to a future Labour Government to halt, review or rescind each of them.

We do not have an opportunity today to attempt, again, to address many of the more problematic parts of the Bill but, as a result of the prodigious efforts of noble Lords in the other place, we have a chance to make a number of important changes that would modestly improve the Bill and, in so doing, enhance outcomes for local communities across the country. It is with that objective in mind that I turn to a selection of the unusually large number of amendments that the other place has sent to us for consideration.

Lords amendments 1 and 10 relate to the levelling-up mission set out in part 1 of the Bill and the distinct, but related, third round of the levelling-up fund. They seek respectively to ensure that the missions and the fund application process are properly integrated and that round 3 of the fund takes place not only in a timely manner but on the basis of a reformed application process. We support both.

The Opposition’s views on the Government’s levelling-up missions are well known, but, if we are to give statutory force to a statement setting such missions for a period of no less than five years, it is right not only that it comes into effect soon after the Bill receives Royal Assent but that it is accompanied by a statement detailing the application process for round 3 of the levelling-up fund, including transparent criteria so that the two can be fully aligned.

Similarly, our criticisms of the levelling-up funding process are a matter of public record, but, if the fund is to be the primary means of delivering priority local infrastructure projects for the foreseeable future, it is right that steps are taken prior to the opening of round 3 to simplify the application process and to reduce the onerous requirements and resources it presently involves.

We recognise that, by tabling an amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 10, the Government have sought to enshrine in the Bill an assurance in respect of round 3 of the levelling-up fund. However, not only is the content of the proposed statement left completely undefined, but the proposed amendment in lieu fails to achieve one of the central objectives sought by their noble Lords, namely that such a statement be published within the same timescale as a statement on the levelling-up missions so that the two processes, which are clearly connected, fully complement each other. For those reasons, we cannot support the Government amendment in lieu and we will support Lords amendment 10, along with Lords amendment 1.

The question of whether the Government’s proposed levelling-up missions are comprehensive enough to reduce inequalities between and within regions has arisen since the White Paper was first published in February 2022. Lords amendments 2 and 4 seek to augment the 12 missions set out in that document by requiring the addition of separate missions relating to child poverty and health disparities. We welcome the Government’s acceptance that addressing the impact of economic and social disparities warrants a greater focus in respect of levelling-up missions and that they have tabled amendments in lieu of Lords amendments 2 and 4 to that end. However, in our view, the requirement that Ministers “must have regard” to these disparities in the preparation and review of all the missions falls some way short of the implications that establishing dedicated new missions on child poverty and health disparities would have for life chances across the country. For that reason, we cannot support the Government amendment in lieu and will support Lords amendments 2 and 4.

We also support Lords amendment 22. We remain firmly of the view that there are circumstances in which virtual or hybrid meetings are necessary or useful, and that their use could help to reduce barriers to public engagement, particularly in relation to the planning process. As we argued in Committee last year, a number of organisations, including the Planning Inspectorate, already enjoy the freedom to offer such meetings as they deem necessary, and there is widespread support for putting local authority remote meeting arrangements on a permanent footing, including from the Local Government Association, Lawyers in Local Government and the Association of Democratic Services Officers. The Government have offered no compelling reason why this amendment should not be incorporated into the Bill, and we therefore urge the House to support it.

As the Minister will know, the establishment of a new tier of national planning policy in the form of national development management policies, and their precise relationship and standing in respect of local development plans, has been a point of contention throughout the Bill’s passage. The Opposition feel strongly that it cannot be right that national policies that will have a far greater impact on local communities than any existing national policy statement and that have significant implications for the status and remit of local planning can be developed without an obligatory and defined public consultation and parliamentary approval process. Lords amendment 44 stipulates such a process, including minimum public consultation requirements and a mechanism for facilitating parliamentary scrutiny based on that which currently applies to designating a national policy statement.

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[Mrs Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that people deserve to have their voices heard and to decide for themselves who they want to represent them as their police and crime commissioner?

[Matthew Pennycook]

My hon. Friend is right. As I was about to say, we believe that this change is clearly driven by political expediency and is intended to facilitate the transfer of the PCC functions in the west midlands to its Mayor prior to the elections that will take place in May 2024. This is the latest attempt to achieve that end—a provision enabling the Mayor to expand the boundary of the West Midlands Combined Authority without the consent of the constituent authorities, having been defeated in the other place on 13 July. Lords amendment 273 does not engage with the substantive issue of whether a transfer on this basis is appropriate. All it seeks to do is to delay the point at which the measures contained in clause 59 come into force, so that this not insignificant change can be enacted in a considered manner after the next set of elections take place. The amendment has our support.

Finally, Lords amendment 329, which was tabled by Lord Best, would require local plans to identify the scale and nature of local housing need and to make provision for sufficient social rented housing so that homelessness and the use of temporary accommodation can be ended. The importance of this matter cannot be overstated. As a result of the reduced supply of genuinely affordable homes over the past 13 years, more than 1.2 million households languish on local authority waiting lists; millions of families are trapped in overcrowded or unsuitable properties; and, to our shame as a nation, the number of households in temporary accommodation, many of whom contain young children, surpassed 100,000 for the first time this year. National planning policy is clear that local plans should, as a minimum, provide for objectively assessed needs for housing, but we know that the true extent of local housing need, and in particular the need for social rented housing, is not often reflected in them.

We strongly support the principle that underpins Lords amendment 329: that local planning authorities should be required, rather than encouraged, to properly identify local housing need and plan to meet it. We recognise that the Government have made an important concession with their proposed amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 329, which would ensure that local plans must take account of an assessment of local housing need, including affordable housing need. However, the Government amendment in lieu falls short, in failing to require local planning authorities to plan to accommodate that identified need. For that reason, we are minded to support Lords amendment 329 today, with a view to encouraging the Government to consider whether they can move a little further on this matter.

[Rachael Maskell]

Having served on the Bill Committee for six months, I have to say to the Minister that I found it really disrespectful that she would not take my intervention; I am here to scrutinise the legislation. I say to my hon. Friend—the future Housing Minister—that I welcome our adoption of these measures to ensure that we get the right tenure, not least because of the housing crisis that I see in my constituency. Let me push him further by asking whether we will accept the principles of Lords amendment 46 on healthy homes and the built environment, because we know that housing is about not just bricks and mortar, but the environments in which people live.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I thank her again, as I did at the time, for the many months of work that she did on the Bill Committee. She is right to raise the point about healthy homes; we fully support the principles of that campaign. We disagree with the Government’s suggestion that the issue is already well addressed, and I gently encourage the Minister to continue the conversations that I believe the Government are having with Lord Crisp and the other proposers of that amendment in the other place.

To conclude, while we welcome a small number of the concessions that the Government have felt able to make to the Bill, we believe that most do not go far enough. This unwieldy and confused piece of legislation is flawed on many levels. We have an opportunity today to make modest but important improvements to it. On that basis, we urge the House to support the many reasonable amendments that the other place has sent to us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Father of the House.