Growth Corridor Strategy
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I am today updating the House on the Government’s plans to supercharge growth in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor and the high-potential sectors within it, as part of our ambitious plan for change.
The Oxford-Cambridge region is already home to world-leading universities and globally renowned science and technology firms. It has the potential to become one of the most innovative and economically dynamic areas in the world, but numerous constraints, from inadequate transport connections to a lack of affordable housing, prevent it from realising its true potential. This Government are determined to do what is necessary to drive sustainable economic growth in the region to the benefit of local communities and national prosperity.
The Chancellor has today announced the appointment of Lord Patrick Vallance as a champion for the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor. His extensive experience across life sciences, academia and Government makes him ideally suited to identify and maximise growth opportunities in the region. He will work with me and other Ministers to ensure the corridor makes a significant contribution to kick-starting economic growth.
Working with local partners, Peter Freeman and the Cambridge Growth Company are progressing the development of an ambitious plan for delivering high-quality sustainable growth in Cambridge and its environs. Their work will continue in earnest.
In greater Cambridge, the benefits of decisive Government intervention are already evident. As a result of close working with local authorities and regulators, the Environment Agency has lifted objections to development in the area, paving the way for 4,500 additional homes, new schools and new office, retail and laboratory space to be built.
The Government welcome the University of Cambridge’s proposal for a new flagship innovation hub in the centre of the city, which will attract global investment and foster a community that catalyses innovation. The Chancellor has today also confirmed the prioritisation of a new Cambridge cancer research hospital as part of the new hospitals programme, bringing together Cambridge University Hospitals’ cancer services, with researchers from AstraZeneca and Cancer Research UK.
To ensure we can realise Oxford’s full potential, we intend to take forward a new growth commission to explore how we can best unlock and accelerate nationally significant growth for the city and the surrounding area. The commission builds on the Government’s commitment to making Culham in Oxfordshire the country’s first AI growth zone as part of the Government’s AI opportunities action plan. This is the Government’s modern industrial strategy in action.
Across the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, we are demonstrating our commitment to investing in the delivery of major transport infrastructure and public services to boost the region’s economic prosperity and contribute to national economic growth. The Government are:
delivering the acceleration of phase 2 of East West Rail, connecting Oxford to Bedford from 2030. The full new railway to Cambridge will support vibrant new and expanded communities. We have already received 18 submissions for large-scale new developments within the corridor, each of which will be considered by the new towns taskforce;
moving quicker at Tempsford to deliver an east coast main line station three to five years earlier than planned, which will link services directly to London in under an hour;
committed to upgrading 10 miles of the A428, improving journeys between Milton Keynes and Cambridge; and
unlocking £7.9 billion investment in the next five years for water companies, by agreeing their water resource management plans. This will improve our water infrastructure and provide a foundation for growth and includes nine new reservoirs, such as the new fens reservoir serving Cambridge and the Abingdon reservoir near Oxford.
We will continue to update Parliament on the work of the Government in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor.
[HCWS396]
Rural Housing Targets
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I note your stricture on the two minutes at the end, Ms Jardine. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair.
I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) on securing this important debate. I also thank him for so clearly articulating his concerns about the implications of housing targets for his constituency. As he might expect, I take issue with a number of the arguments he made, for reasons that I will come to, but no one can be in any doubt as to his commitment to forcefully representing the views of those he represents. I also thank the shadow Minister and other hon. Members for their contributions in what has been a thoughtful and well-informed debate.
I must make it clear at the outset that I am unable to comment on individual local plans or local planning applications, or, for that matter, on how individual local planning authorities may interpret national planning policy. That is due to the quasi-judicial nature of the planning process and the potential decision-making role of the Deputy Prime Minister. I can and will, however, make general comments as they relate to the various matters raised, and I will touch on each of the three specific points raised by the right hon. Member for East Hampshire in his opening speech.
I do not think any Members present would dispute that England is in the grip of an acute and entrenched housing crisis, and we have heard several arguments to that effect. The crisis is blighting the lives of not just those at the sharp end in temporary accommodation, but the many families out there desperate to buy a first home of their own. It is also hampering economic growth and productivity, and consuming ever-larger amounts of public money in the form of the rapidly rising housing benefit bill.
The crisis has many causes, but among the most important is a failure, over many decades, to build enough homes of all tenures to meet housing demand in both rural and urban areas. The Government are absolutely determined to tackle it head on, which is why our plan for change commits us to an ambitious and stretching—I have never been anything other than candid about the fact that it is incredibly stretching—milestone of building 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. I gently say to the shadow Minister that it is not enough to will the ends; we have to will the means as well. That is why we have instituted various reforms to date, and we are planning more.
Planning reform is integral to meeting that manifesto commitment, which is why we have already overhauled the national planning policy framework to reverse the anti-supply changes made by the previous Government in December 2023, and to introduce a range of measures that will enable us to build the homes and infrastructure that the country needs.
We believe in a plan-led system. It is through local development plans that communities shape decisions about how to deliver the housing and wider development that their area needs, and those plans must remain the cornerstone of our planning system. However, we are clear that local decisions must be about how to meet housing need, not whether to do so at all. That is why we have restored mandatory housing targets, as the manifesto on which we stood and won a decisive victory last July committed us to doing. That means that local authorities must use the standard method as the basis for determining housing requirements in their local plans.
However, we made it clear that a mandatory method is insufficient if the method itself is not adequate to meet housing need. That is why our revised NPPF implements a new standard method for assessing housing needs, which aligns with our ambitions for 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament. We think that the new standard method strikes the right balance. Indeed, we adjusted it from the proposals we consulted on last July in response to significant feedback from experts, developers and local authorities across the country, much of which pressed us on the fact that the formula we consulted on was not sufficiently responsive to affordability demands. The revised NPPF that we published on 12 December contains the adjusted method.
The new method better responds to affordability pressures by using a higher affordability adjustment in its calculation. That recognises the importance of housing affordability in assessing housing needs, and helps direct more homes to where they are most needed and least affordable. It also provides greater certainty to the sector through more stable and predictable housing numbers compared with the previous approach, which, as the shadow Minister will know, relied on out-of-date demographic projections and unevidenced and arbitrary adjustments.
The right hon. Member for East Hampshire raised a specific concern about how the standard method translates into local plan making. Although local authorities are expected to use the standard method to assess housing needs, they are able to justify a lower housing requirement than the figure set by the method on the basis of local constraints on land availability, development and other relevant matters such as national landscapes, protected habitats and flood risk areas. Local authorities will need to consider these matters as they prepare their plans, but we expect them to explore all options to deliver the homes that their communities need. That means maximising brownfield land, densifying available brownfield sites, working with neighbouring authorities on cross-boundary housing growth, and, where necessary, reviewing the green belt.
Damian Hinds
Does the Minister accept the point that local councils do not want to end up in legal proceedings? They can cost an awful lot of money, and there is an awful lot of weight placed on knowing that the plan is sound. A council takes a risk by deviating from the standard method. Yes, the guidance says that it can deviate as long as it can prove—well, I am genuinely not sure what the guidance says, but whatever it says is not totally clear to people. It leaves a great deal of nervousness that deviation would leave councils exposed to potentially very high costs, which are ultimately borne by local people. Could the Minister look at clarifying the advice on how one can deviate from the method?
Matthew Pennycook
I will reflect on the concerns that the right hon. Gentleman raises about the clarity of the guidance, but local planning authorities can and do prepare, develop and submit local plans, arguing that those constraints exist and that their housing requirement should therefore be lower than the standard method indicates. They are expected to evidence and justify that approach to planning for housing in their local plan consultation. Ultimately, at plan examination, that will be scrutinised by a planning inspector to determine whether the constraints are justified and whether the plan is sound.
The right hon. Gentleman and others mentioned the balance between rural and urban housing targets. We recognise that the targets we introduced are ambitious and mean uplifts in many areas. However, we believe that the significant and entrenched nature of the housing crisis in England means that all areas of the country, including rural areas, must play their part in providing the homes that their communities need. That will enable us to deliver 1.5 million homes.
I strongly reject the idea that, through the new formula, we are reducing the number of houses that need to be built in urban areas. The new formula directs housing growth to our large urban areas. It does not do so on the basis of an arbitrary 35% urban uplift like the one the previous Government applied to the 20 largest cities and urban centres. Instead, across all city regions, the new standard method increases targets by an average of 20%, and through it housing growth is directed towards a wider range of urban areas—smaller cities and urban areas, as well as the core of large cities. We think that is a better method by which to proceed.
Several hon. Members mentioned the green belt. The manifesto on which the Government were elected was clear that the green belt has an important role to play, and that a number of its intentions, including preventing urban sprawl, have served our towns and cities very well over many decades. The Government will always look to brownfield first; ours is a brownfield-first approach. We took measures in the revised NPPF last year to strengthen that approach to brownfield land. We are consulting on a brownfield passport to make it easier to prioritise and accelerate delivery on brownfield land.
We have also been very clear that there is not sufficient land on brownfield registers across the country, let alone enough that is viable and in the right location, to build all the homes we need, so we need to take a different approach to the green belt to ensure that it better meets the needs of the present generation and future generations. Our changes are intended to ensure that we go from the haphazard approach to release and development under the previous Government—plenty of green belt was released haphazardly—to a more strategic and targeted approach that ensures that, where we are releasing the green belt, we release the right parts of it, such as lower-quality grey-belt land, and that golden rules apply so that communities have the quid pro quo of sufficient affordable housing, access to nature and good infrastructure.
Andrew George
On greenfield development, whether it be in the green belt or outside it, rural housing developments often take place in green locations. In the light of that, will the Minister ensure that the Government strengthen local authorities’ ability to use the rural exception policy? We would rather pay 10 times agricultural value than 100 times agricultural value, because we cannot deliver affordable homes on land at that price.
Matthew Pennycook
I will come on to rural exception sites, but the hon. Gentleman draws attention to an important point. Under the revised NPPF, it will be for local authorities to make these decisions and conduct green-belt reviews to identify the grey-belt land in their areas. The Government will provide guidance and support with the methodology, but ultimately local areas will make these decisions through the reviews they carry out. We have ensured that the sustainability of sites in the green belt is prioritised. No one wants isolated and disconnected development, which is why our policy asks local authorities to pay particular attention to transport connections when considering whether grey belt is sustainably located.
I want to touch briefly on infrastructure. The Government recognise that providing the homes and jobs we need is not sufficient to create sustainable, healthy places. Our communities also need to be supported by an appropriate range of services and facilities, as the right hon. Member for East Hampshire made clear. National planning policy expects local authorities to plan positively for the provision and use of shared spaces, community facilities and other local services to enhance the sustainability of communities and residential environments, taking into account local strategies to improve the health, social and cultural wellbeing of all sections of the community.
The revised NPPF also includes changes intended to ensure that the planning system supports the increased provision and modernisation of key public services infrastructure such as health, blue light, library, adult education, university and criminal justice facilities. Local authorities should use their development plans to address the needs and opportunities for infrastructure. They should identify what infrastructure is required and how it can be funded and brought forward. Contributions from developers play an important role in delivering the infrastructure that mitigates the impacts of new development and supports growth. The Government are committed to strengthening the existing system of developer contributions to ensure that new developments provide appropriate, affordable homes and infrastructure. We will set out further details on that matter in due course.
Before winding up, I want to touch on housing targets and national parks. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire knows I am well aware of the concerns about housing targets in his constituency and the particular challenges of setting those targets for East Hampshire, given the boundary overlaps with the South Downs national park. As part of our package of reforms in December 2024, we set out further guidance for local authorities on that very matter, and we provide flexibility in policy for those areas when calculating housing needs and setting targets.
The right hon. Member knows that this is primarily related to the availability of appropriate data for those areas. Officials in my Department regularly engage with officials from the Office for National Statistics and other stakeholders on a range of matters, including the data and statistics available to make decisions on housing needs. We will continue to do so as we drive forward our planning reforms. Although we expect all areas to contribute towards our housing ambitions, we recognise the unique role of national parks. That is why national policy is clear that within national parks, new housing should be focused on meeting affordable housing requirements and supporting local employment opportunities and key services.
We expect rural exception sites to come forward wherever possible. Policy helps local authorities meet the local housing needs of rural communities, enabling local people, those with a family connection or those with employment connections to live locally and help sustain thriving places. We want to go further in this regard to better support and increase rural affordable housing. We sought views on this issue specifically as part of the NPPF consultation last summer. We are committed to considering further measures to support affordable housing in rural communities as part of the work that is under way to produce a set of national policies for decision making next year.
I thank the right hon. Member for East Hampshire once again for giving the House an opportunity to discuss these matters and other hon. Members for taking part. If anyone has particular constituency concerns, I am more than happy to meet them, but I appreciate their putting their views on the record in this debate.
National Infrastructure Planning
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(3 days, 23 hours ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Sustained economic growth is central to the Government’s plan for change. It is the only way to increase the prosperity of our country and improve the living standards of working people.
Building and upgrading the right economic infrastructure—whether that be electricity networks, public transport links, renewable energy projects, roads, or water supplies—is essential to achieving that growth and delivering the Government’s long-term missions. Yet when it comes to infrastructure delivery, Britain today performs poorly against comparator countries. That needs to change.
That is why the Government moved quickly last year to lift the ban on onshore wind and expand the scope of the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime, enabling laboratories, gigafactories and data centres to be directed into the process. Last week, the Prime Minister announced plans to speed up the conclusion of legal challenges against development consent orders, including committing to legislate to ensure that meritless claims are given only a single permission attempt to seek a judicial review.
Yesterday, the Government published two interlinked working papers: the first, from His Majesty’s Treasury, set out the Government’s plan for their 10-year infrastructure strategy, which will be published alongside the spending review in June; the second, from the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, detailed our legislative proposals to streamline the consenting of critical national infrastructure—proposals which, subject to further work and the views expressed in response to the working paper, will be taken forward through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Copies of these documents will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses.
The proposals in the latter paper are intended to help deliver the commitment that the Government made in their plan for change to determine applications for at least 150 major infrastructure projects by the end of this Parliament. This target is more than the total number of decisions made under the NSIP regime since it was introduced in 2011, and nearly triple the 57 decisions made during the previous Parliament. Delivering this ambitious commitment will require decisive action on several fronts.
We are not, however, starting from scratch. The NSIP reform action plan, published in 2023, laid the foundations for a better, faster, greener, fairer, and more resilient NSIP regime. The action plan was broadly welcomed by infrastructure developers and communities, and the implementation of many of its proposals is already under way. These include enabling public bodies to recover costs for their services, and the provision of new services on the part of the Planning Inspectorate to enhance its advice to applicants and fast-track examinations.
We now want to move further and faster—which is why our working paper outlines legislative proposals to deliver two key objectives: clearer and stronger national policy; and faster decisions under the NSIP regime. With respect to national policy statements, the working paper confirms that the Government will implement recommendations from the National Infrastructure Commission to require that each NPS is updated at least every five years. This is essential given that some NPSs, such as those for waste water and hazardous waste, have not been updated for over 10 years.
The working paper also proposes a faster process for amending NPSs to reflect legislative changes, changes to current Government policy or relevant court decisions that have taken place between five-yearly updates. Both measures will ensure that national policy better reflects the Government’s priorities and provides stronger guidance to decision makers determining applications in line with the current national interest.
When it comes to ensuring faster and more consistent decisions under the NSIP regime, the paper outlines four proposals. First, we want to protect the consultation process while making it less burdensome. The time taken for applications to complete the pre-application stage has grown from 14.5 months in 2013 to 27.9 months in 2021, in part as a result of increased consultation and re-consultation on project proposals. Prescriptive statutory requirements and uncertainty about meeting them make developers cautious, resulting in gold-plating, which delays projects and confuses communities.
Our proposals seek to rebalance and improve the quality of consultation, with the aim of closing down issues and reducing the examination burden for all parties by:
clarifying the requirements around consultation;
introducing a new duty on all parties to identify and, where possible, narrow down any areas of disagreement during the pre-application stage;
revising requirements around the contents of consultation reports to reduce their length and make them more accessible; and
removing the requirement to consult ‘Category 3’ persons during the pre-application stage.
This also responds to the concerns raised by the NIC and stakeholders, and brings the statutory consultation requirements in the NSIP regime closer in line with other parts of the planning system.
Secondly, we want to further support the building of infrastructure after a development consent order is granted. The paper seeks views on how to ensure the system returns to the ‘one-stop shop’ it was originally intended to be, with more consents, licences, and permits granted in parallel with a DCO. We know that seeking these permissions post consent can delay construction by six to 18 months. Our paper invites contributions on whether this can be tackled through stronger guidance, or if an alternative model of seeking a ‘deemed consent’, replicating the approach of deemed marine licences, would have merit. We also outline proposals to streamline the process applicants need to follow to make factual corrections, or more substantive amendments to a DCO.
Thirdly, we consider ways to make the NSIP regime more flexible, so that it can accommodate the complexity and volume of projects expected over the coming years. Building on feedback received from infrastructure stakeholders in response to our NPPF consultation, we propose to amend the Planning Act 2008 to allow the Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), to consider on a case-by-case basis if a project would be better determined via an alternative consenting route. This will enable projects which would otherwise be unviable due to disproportionate planning requirements to be brought forward, while in turn ensuring that the capacity of the NSIP regime is reserved for those projects that truly merit it.
One of the original objectives behind the NSIP regime was to enable all major projects across different sectors to follow a uniform consenting process. This has broadly been achieved; providing greater certainty for applicants on what are often one-off, unique and once-in-a-generation schemes is why the regime is widely supported by industry.
However, given the volume and complexity of projects set to come forward over the course of this Parliament, our paper explores whether the NSIP regime is sufficiently flexible to deliver robust and swift decisions in all instances. The paper outlines three examples where rigidity of process may be holding back better consenting outcomes, and seeks views on how best to address these concerns. It invites views on whether the best means of introducing greater flexibility would be via a general ‘process modification power’ to be used on a discretionary case-by-case basis; or whether it would be more appropriate to make a series of specific changes to tackle known issues via amendments to the Planning Act 2008, changes to secondary legislation or improvements in guidance.
Fourthly, we outline plans to increase the reach of statutory guidance in the system, to enable greater clarity over expectations for those involved in the consenting process, and to support implementation of our changes, particularly those linked to consultation.
Finally, the working paper also sets out our proposals for amending and updating existing transport consenting regimes to support quicker delivery of transport projects that are consented via the Highways Act 1980 and the Transport and Works Act 1992.
We look forward to receiving views on the proposals set out in the working paper, and to working with all those with an interest in streamlining the delivery of major national infrastructure.
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Holocaust Memorial Day
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 week ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Holocaust Memorial Day.
It is an immense privilege to open this important debate on behalf of the Government. As hon. Members will know, 80 years ago this month, soldiers of the Soviet 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front opened the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau. That infamous camp has become the symbol of the Shoah and is synonymous around the world with terror and genocide more widely. Its distinctive railway tracks that led almost directly to the gas chambers, as well as the chilling words over the gate of the Auschwitz I main camp, “Arbeit macht frei”, are instantly recognisable, as are the piles of shoes, suitcases and other personal effects—the only remnants of the more than 1 million Jewish men, women and children from every corner of Europe who perished at the site.
Almost all the deportees who arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau camps were immediately selected for death in the gas chambers. It is estimated that the SS and police deported at least 1.3 million people to the complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these, the camp authorities murdered 1.1 million.
On Monday, world leaders will gather at Auschwitz-Birkenau to mark the 80th anniversary of its liberation. The United Kingdom will be represented by His Majesty the King. Mala Tribich MBE, Holocaust survivor and sister of the late Sir Ben Helfgott—may his memory be a blessing—will also attend. The number of those who survived the Shoah is dwindling, as you will know, Madam Deputy Speaker. Those who remain with us grow ever frailer. As a result, this is likely to be the last gathering of Holocaust survivors.
Eighty years ago, the US 3rd Army 6th Armoured Division liberated Buchenwald, the largest concentration camp on German soil. General—later President—Dwight D. Eisenhower, wrote afterward:
“I have never felt able to describe my emotional reaction when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency.”
Eighty years ago, British forces liberated concentration camps in northern Germany, including Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen. They entered the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which was about 45 km from Hanover, in mid-April 1945. Some 55,000 prisoners, many in critical condition because of a typhus epidemic, were found alive. Within three months of liberation, more than 13,000 of them had died from the effects of malnutrition or disease. BBC journalist Richard Dimbleby famously described the scenes of almost unimaginable horror that greeted him as he toured Belsen concentration camp shortly after its liberation.
Bergen-Belsen began as a prisoner of war camp, and was used for Jewish inmates from 1943 onwards. It is estimated that 70,000 people died there. Richard Dimbleby was the first broadcaster to enter the camp and, overcome, broke down several times while making his report. The BBC initially refused to play the report as it could not believe the scenes he had described. It was broadcast only after Dimbleby threatened to resign. The images from Belsen—emaciated figures lying half-dead on open ground in freezing weather, while thousands of corpses were bulldozed into great pits—are excruciating to see to this day. Some of the first-hand witnesses simply cannot bring themselves to speak of it. It haunts them to this day.
Over the decades, Holocaust survivors, many of whom experienced Belsen or Auschwitz, have shared their testimony, but 80 years after the Holocaust, their numbers are dwindling, and soon these first-hand witnesses will no longer be with us. The remarkable Lily Ebert MBE died aged 100 at home in London last October. Her life after Auschwitz showed that even in the face of unspeakable evil, the human spirit can triumph. She emerged from the darkness to bear harrowing witness, but also to rebuild hope with future generations. May her memory be a blessing. Henry Wuga, aged 100, and Bob Kirk, aged 99, who both came to the UK on the Kindertransport, died in 2024. Both men dedicated their lives to Holocaust education. The impact that Lily, Henry and Bob had on young and old cannot be overestimated, and highlights the importance of first-hand testimony.
Both because of the alarming rise in anti-Jewish hate in recent years, and because those who survived are now in their 80s and 90s, it is essential that as a country, we do more to preserve the memory of this unique act of evil and those who perished in it. It is also imperative that we continue to educate future generations about what happened, both as a mark of respect to those who were lost and those who survived, and as a warning about what happens when antisemitism, prejudice and hatred are allowed to flourish unchecked.
Some 27 years ago, former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson decided to establish an international organisation that would expand Holocaust education worldwide. He asked President Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair to join him in that effort. Persson also developed the idea of an international forum of Governments interested in discussing Holocaust education, which took place in Stockholm from 27 to 29 January 2000. The forum was attended by representatives of 46 Governments, including 23 Heads of State or Prime Ministers, and 14 Deputy Prime Ministers or Ministers.
The declaration of the Stockholm international forum led to the establishment of Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, and the foundation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. This year, the UK had the privilege of holding the chair of the IHRA, and it continues to have an excellent reputation in the field of Holocaust remembrance and education, and tackling antisemitism.
We are fortunate in the UK to have organisations such as the Holocaust Educational Trust, led by Karen Pollock CBE, and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, led by Olivia Marks-Woldman OBE. The Holocaust Educational Trust, which has worked with Holocaust survivors for decades, is well aware of the increasing frailty of survivors, and that there will come a day when we no longer have living witnesses. That is why it has recently developed, with the support of the Government, Testimony360—a free digital education programme that combines digital eyewitness testimony with virtual reality, revolutionising access to survivor testimony and providing an invaluable opportunity for students learning about the Holocaust.
The UK took on the presidency of the IHRA in 2024, with the world on the cusp of significant change in Holocaust remembrance. Within a few short years, Holocaust survivors will move from contemporary memory into history books. How we remember is a matter of debate, but different views coalesce around three headings: landscape, archives—including testimony—and objects. Our presidency has successfully strengthened all three under the general title of “In plain sight”. This title is a reminder that the Holocaust did not happen in dark corners but in broad daylight. Jewish men, women and children suffered persecution in the full view of their neighbours—indeed, often by their neighbours. Laws discriminating against Jews and depriving them of rights and property were passed openly by legislatures. The attempted destruction of the Jewish people and their culture was not conducted in secret, but brazenly and openly.
Our presidency was also keen to engage young people, through our remarkably successful “My hometown” project, which invited schools across IHRA member countries to look at what happened in their hometown during the Holocaust. Schools in former occupied countries, and those receiving victims of Nazis and their collaborators, produced original and moving projects. Schools participated from as far afield as Argentina, Greece, Canada and Poland, alongside other member countries, including the UK.
Projects ranged widely in their subject matter. One focused on the influence of Holocaust survivors fleeing to Argentina on the music of Argentinian tango. In Nottingham, an amazing teacher, Domonic Townsend, from the Nottingham University Samworth Academy, worked on a remarkable project. The school houses a specialist provision unit for deaf children. Alongside the Nottinghamshire Deaf Society, Domonic created the first Holocaust-specific sign language lexicon for accessing Holocaust education, to empower our young children to access that education in an inclusive way. I urge all hon. Members to watch the video on YouTube. It is truly inspiring.
The UK presidency also worked with the Association of Jewish Refugees on our legacy project, the Holocaust testimony portal, which pulls together for the first time testimony from UK Holocaust survivors and refugees who made their home in Britain. This includes testimony from the AJR Refugee Voices initiative, the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, the Shoah Foundation and many more archives. Hopefully, more archives—particularly the smaller, more specialised ones—will join in the coming months. The portal allows users to find in a single place the testimonies of individual survivors across the decades.
To commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, we have developed with the AJR the digital project “80 Objects/80 Lives”, a collection of one-minute clips featuring 80 objects from filmed testimonies of British Holocaust survivors and refugees. The objects represent the personal histories and experiences of Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees before, during and at the end of the second world war. Objects such as a teddy bear, a doll, a watch or a spoon take on special meanings; a passport stamped with the letter J, a yellow star, and a bowl from Bergen-Belsen are bittersweet remnants of a lost world.
Eighty years after the Holocaust, we sadly still contend with Holocaust denial. Some forms of denial are less common, and in some states it is now illegal and punishable under the law, but the forms that Holocaust denial can take are ever-changing. It once referred to those who claimed that 6 million Jews were not murdered, and that there were no gas chambers whatsoever; today, these outright deniers are few and mostly relegated to the fringe. The problems we face today are more complex and more subtle, and are often nuanced and difficult to identify. However, that does not render them less dangerous, or the need to challenge them less compelling. After all, we are living in an age when facts are routinely disputed, and disinformation and misinformation are rampant. This presents a real and present danger for Holocaust education, remembrance and research.
It has been a long process even for democratic countries to confront their own problematic histories. It was only in 1995 that the French Government accepted responsibility for the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews, and that Austria finally dispelled the myth of being Hitler’s “first victim” and made amends to Austrian Nazi victims.
We have all watched the misinformation emanating from Russia that tries to justify the war in Ukraine as “denazification”, but across eastern Europe fascist leaders of the past who were involved in the persecution of Jews but who fought communism are shamefully being rehabilitated and, in some cases, given public honours. Lithuania’s Genocide and Resistance Research Centre decided that the leader of the Nazi-allied Lithuanian Activist Front is worthy of such honours. Hungary’s Government built a new museum that would tread lightly on the role of local collaborators. Even in Romania, which has done so much to confront its own problematic history, the Church is canonising religious leaders who were known for their wartime antisemitism.
Other forms of distortion have come about more quietly. Following a UN recommendation, dozens of countries now mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day with special programmes and educational initiatives. This is a real achievement, but it has brought with it a universalising of the Holocaust and its meaning. There are, however, general lessons on how hatred and intolerance can lead to discrimination, exclusion and even mass murder, and the need to be open to asylum seekers fleeing for their lives.
Yet with growing frequency the essential story of the Holocaust—the pernicious spread of antisemitism, the widespread indifference and the genocidal murder of a third of the world’s Jewish population—is obscured or ignored. It is as though antisemitism is no longer a problem, and Jews are no longer threatened. Surely this cannot be the message that Holocaust commemoration carries with it. We must guard against the watering down of Holocaust Memorial Day. It is a day when central to all our commemorations should be the murder of 6 million Jewish men, women and children.
Today, Holocaust denial and distortion move instantan-eously across social media platforms and are amplified by algorithms that drive anger and division. Sadly, the alarming resurgence of antisemitism since 7 October 2023 shows how the hate of the past is still with us. Today and every day, we stand in solidarity with the Jewish community at home and abroad.
The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2025, “For a better future”, is particularly timely, because remembrance without resolve is a hollow gesture. Even as we remember the past, we must be ever vigilant about the present and future. That is why we have a duty to remember, and why the new Holocaust memorial and learning centre at the heart of Westminster is so important in keeping alive the memory of those murdered during the Holocaust.
Finally, it would be remiss of me not to mention the long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that began on Sunday 19 February. As part of the agreement, we saw the release of three of the Israeli hostages who were taken from their homes and from a music festival on 7 October, and the release of hundreds of Palestinians. One of the hostages was British citizen Emily Damari, who has now been reunited with her family, including her mother Amanda, who never stopped her tireless fight to bring her daughter home. We wish all three hostages the very best as they begin the road to recovery after the intolerable trauma they have experienced.
Yet while we rightly welcome the ceasefire deal, we must not forget about those who remain in captivity under Hamas. We must now see the remaining phases of the ceasefire deal implemented in full and on schedule, including the release of the remaining hostages and a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Hopefully, these first tentative steps will lead to a lasting solution, with the people of Israel and the Palestinians living side by side in peace. The UK stands ready to do everything it can to support that hope for a permanent and peaceful solution. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.
Oral Answers to Questions
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 week, 3 days ago)
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Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
By the end of this Parliament, this Labour Government will have finally brought the feudal leasehold system to an end. On 21 November, I made a detailed written ministerial statement setting out how the Government intend to honour that manifesto commitment, including the steps we will take to implement reforms to the system already in statute.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
Every week my constituents in Poole, many of whom are retired, contact me with their concerns about the leasehold properties they live in. They are worried about excessive service charges, unfair ground rent, and exit and event fees. Can the Minister reassure them and me that the Government will tackle those problems once and for all, and will do so as a matter of priority?
Matthew Pennycook
I sympathise with the plight of my hon. Friend’s constituents. With regard to service charges in particular, we know that opaque and unaffordable charges are putting leaseholders and tenants across the country under immense strain. The Government are committed to improving service charge transparency and making it easier to challenge unreasonable increases. In the coming months, we intend to consult on how the provisions in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 relating to service charges and legal costs should be enacted, with a view to bringing those measures into force as quickly as possible thereafter.
Sarah Hall
Many of my constituents cannot afford to buy their freeholds under the current leasehold legislation. When does the Minister think the legislation to ensure that leaseholders can enfranchise easier, cheaper and quicker will come into force?
Matthew Pennycook
I fully appreciate the desire of my hon. Friend’s constituents to take advantage of the provisions in the 2024 Act that will make it cheaper and easier for existing leaseholders in houses and flats to buy their freehold. Unfortunately, we discovered on assuming office that the previous Government had passed the Act with a number of specific but serious flaws that prevent certain provisions, including those relating to enfranchisement valuations, from operating as intended. We need to fix those flaws through primary legislation, and we intend to do so at the earliest possible opportunity.
Anna Dixon
Earlier this month, together with about 40 Labour MPs, I met the managing director of FirstPort. I raised the case of 90-year-old Tom, who lives in a retirement complex in Bingley in my constituency. Like many of the residents whose stories we shared, he has been hit by extortionate service charges that have risen way above inflation. Does the Minister agree that stronger regulation of managing agents is needed to protect pensioners like Tom and others in leasehold flats from unaffordable housing costs?
Matthew Pennycook
We are very much aware that some managing agents provide a very poor quality of service to people like Tom and leaseholders across the country. Managing agents play a key role in the maintenance of multi-occupancy buildings and freehold estates, and their importance will only grow as we transition towards a commonhold future. As such, we have made it clear that we will strengthen the regulation of managing agents to drive up the standard of their service, and we are considering carefully the recommendations made in Lord Best’s 2019 report on regulating the property agent sector.
Mr Joshua Reynolds
Residents of a housing development in Maidenhead bought their properties 10 years ago on 99-year leases. Now they are coming to sell their flats, they are faced with a charge of £15,000 to £25,000 each to extend their lease so that the new owners can get a mortgage. What will the Minister do directly to help those residents?
Matthew Pennycook
In terms of lease extensions, there are provisions in the 2024 Act that will provide some assistance to the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. As with other parts of that Act, those provisions, in many cases, require a detailed programme of secondary legislation. In some specific circumstances, we cannot switch on the provisions until we have made the fixes through primary legislation that I referred to in answer to a previous question, but we are working at pace. I am more than happy to have a conversation with him about what we are doing in this area.
Dr Pinkerton
Residents living in Mytchett Heath, a retirement community in my constituency, have reported the regular and repeated withholding of invoices, excessive insurance charges and £107,000-worth of maintenance without any supporting rationale. All of this adds up to a 70% increase in service charges since 2020. What is the Minister doing to ensure that not-for-profit companies such as Cognatum Estates, which is, to be very clear, not a social landlord, are held to account? Will he accede to a meeting with me and residents of Mytchett Heath and other Cognatum leaseholders to understand the challenges and anxieties they face?
Matthew Pennycook
In addition to the measures I have set out, we intend to proceed with implementing the service charge transparency provisions of the 2024 Act so that residents in all tenures can more easily challenge unreasonable increases. I think complaints about not-for-profit freeholders can be made to the housing ombudsman. I am more than happy to hear more from the hon. Gentleman about the particular circumstances of this case and give him further advice.
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his reassurance to leaseholders, but what message does he have for freeholders, such as the residents of the Wolds View development in Driffield, who are trapped at the mercy of an unaccountable management company? Will he legislate to protect not just future homeowners but those currently stuck in these contracts?
Matthew Pennycook
We are determined to end the injustice of fleecehold entirely, and we will consult next year on legislative and policy options to reduce the prevalence of such arrangements. We remain committed to protecting residential freeholders on existing estates from unfair charges. Similar to my previous answers, we need to implement the 2024 Act’s new consumer protection provisions and bring those measures into force as quickly as possible. That is our intention.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The Government recognise that excessive concentrations of second homes impact on the availability and affordability of homes for local residents to buy and rent, as well as on local services. From April, councils will be able to charge a council tax premium of up to 100% on second homes but, as the hon. Gentleman will know, we do not think this is enough. We are considering what additional powers we might give local authorities to enable them to better respond to the pressures they face.
Tim Farron
I am encouraged by the Minister’s reply. Towns and communities in my constituency, such as Coniston, Hawkshead, Pooley Bridge and a whole range of other beautiful places, have so many second homes that up to 85% of properties are not lived in for most of the year, meaning that the very survival of those communities is under serious threat. The Government have done a number of things, including talking about short-term lets being a separate category of planning use. However, will the Minister agree to look at also making second homes a separate category of planning use so that we can prevent these beautiful places from becoming ghost towns?
Matthew Pennycook
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the previous Government consulted on making short-term lets a different use class, but did not consult on second homes becoming a use class. As part of our wider consideration about the additional powers we might give local authorities, I am more than happy to have a conversation with him. I understand that the pressures in his part of the world are particularly acute because of both second homes and short-term lets.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I recognise that social housing providers need support to build their capacity and make a greater contribution to affordable housing supply, including via section 106. To assist in that, we have proposed a new five-year social housing rent settlement and permitted councils to keep all their right-to-buy receipts.
Mr Betts
I know that my hon. Friend is committed to increasing the provision of social housing. In the past few years, most social housing has been provided through section 106 agreements. According to the National Housing Federation, thousands of houses around the country are available but cannot be purchased under section 106 agreements because registered social landlords simply do not have the resources. I am sure that he is aware of that problem, but does he have any plans to deal with it and bring those houses, which are badly needed, back into use?
Matthew Pennycook
The Government certainly recognise the ongoing challenge posed by the reduced appetite of registered providers of social housing to buy affordable homes delivered under section 106 agreements. As I hope my hon. Friend is aware, the Homes England section 106 affordable housing clearing service was launched back in December alongside the revised national planning policy framework, with the aim of supporting buyers and sellers of section 106 homes to find each other more effectively. We are calling on all developers with uncontracted section 106 affordable homes, as well as providers and local planning authorities, to engage proactively with that new service. We will consider what further measures may be necessary to address the problem, informed by data from that service.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Private developers in my constituency have obligations to build social homes under section 106, and they are ready to do so. The difficulty they face is that there is no social landlord available to take those units. When I raised this issue with the Deputy Prime Minister in October, she said that she was aware of the problem and was working to tackle it. Will the Minister update the House on the progress made?
Matthew Pennycook
I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman heard my previous answer, but I have just made it clear that we acted on 12 December to establish a matching service. I would advise him to ask the developers whether they have taken advantage of that service. We want to learn lessons from the data that comes out of it to see whether we need to take further steps. We think that the matching service will allow registered providers and developers trying to offload section 106 units to come together to see if agreements can be reached.
Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
In December 2024 we published a revised national planning policy framework, following extensive consultation. We are also making progress on developing our planning and infrastructure Bill, which will be introduced in the coming months.
Mary Glindon
A constituent of mine is endeavouring to prevent her neighbour from building an extension that would affect the rights of access set out in her restrictive covenant. She was initially quoted £80,000 to £100,000 to take the neighbour to court. Such costs make civil law inaccessible to ordinary people. Will the Minister consider looking at ways that restrictive covenants can be brought into the planning process as a material consideration?
Matthew Pennycook
I am sorry to learn of the experience of my hon. Friend’s constituent. Legal restrictions on properties are not usually treated as material planning considerations; the planning process only addresses whether the development is acceptable in planning terms. Material considerations must relate to a planning purpose such as the character or use of the land. If my hon. Friend wishes to write to me with further details on this, I will endeavour to explore it further.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
In Gosport we are facing a massive increase in our housing numbers, and planners are putting in applications to build across the very last green spaces, in the strategic gap between Gosport and Fareham, which already has air quality issues and overstretched local infrastructure. We do have an abundance of disused military sites, however, so what priority is the Minister giving to encourage development on brownfield sites rather than eating up the last remaining green fields in areas such as Gosport, which are already overdeveloped?
Matthew Pennycook
The Government have a “brownfield first” approach to development. We strengthened that approach in the recently revised national planning policy framework. We also published last year a brownfield passport working paper to explore further ways in which we might prioritise and accelerate the release of brownfield land. On plan making, we are asking local authorities to take a sequential approach—brownfield first, densify those brownfield sites if possible and work cross-boundary where possible, and only then explore grey belt release and greenfield release in extremis. We are in conversation with Departments across the board about how we can best optimise the use of public sector land across all Departments.
Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
All social housing tenants deserve to live in decent homes, to be treated with fairness and respect and to have their problems quickly resolved. Under the Regulator of Social Housing’s safety and quality standard, housing associations and councils must provide an effective, efficient and timely repair service for their homes, including setting timetables for completion and clearly communicating with residents. As my hon. Friend knows, we will also introduce Awaab’s law and a new decent homes standard to set the minimum quality that social homes must meet.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Recently, a 1-acre site in Corfe Mullen in my constituency was sold. It was a house surrounded by lots of beautiful gardens, and I think the House can see where this is going. The neighbours raised the alarm that the trees were going to be taken down. They flagged it with the council, which did not see a problem, and a week later, in the dead of night, the developers brought chainsaws and destroyed every bit of nature on the site. Will the Minister commit to bringing forward legislation to auto-protect trees above a particular size or age in their planning reforms, so that developers do not get away with environmental vandalism?
Matthew Pennycook
Protections are already in place, but if the hon. Lady wishes to write to me with further details of that particular case, on which I do not have the full information to allow me to comment now, I will endeavour to look into the matter more carefully and to provide her with a full response.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
Matthew Pennycook
I confess that that is a question to which I do not have the answer. The Government intend to amend building regulations later this year as part of the introduction of future standards, and it sounds like this issue, which I think came up in the debate on a private Member’s Bill on Friday, is one that we need to consider. I am more than happy to sit down with the hon. Gentleman and have a further discussion about it.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Matthew Pennycook
There are issues in such cases, particularly around the data that is available, and we are in conversation with the Office for National Statistics about that. I am more than happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss it further.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
Matthew Pennycook
Ancient woodland and ancient and veteran trees are already strictly protected in national planning policy, while tree preservation orders safeguard individual trees or groups of trees of particular value. It is for local planning authorities to apply the protections effectively as they have principal responsibility. I am more than happy to discuss that further with my hon. Friend.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
My constituents, particularly in Great Glen, have just experienced devastating flooding. Under the last Government, we opened up the flood recovery framework so that they could get grants to protect themselves. When will they be able to access that money under this Government?
Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)
Will the Government look at redefining affordable housing in national policy so that it is pegged to average local income rather than at the whim of an overheated housing market?
Matthew Pennycook
We did make changes to some of the definitions around affordable housing in the recently revised national planning policy framework, by separating out the definition of social rent, but I hear the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. I will certainly bear them in mind as we develop policy.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
The Planning Inspectorate has overturned the democratic decision of Walsall council and decided to allow a battery energy storage system to go ahead at Chapel Lane in my constituency, a green-belt site in a historical open space. As this creates a dangerous precedent, will the Secretary of State clarify whether we will see more of this under her new policies on the grey belt?
Matthew Pennycook
The right hon. Lady will appreciate that we cannot comment on live or concluded decisions, as to do so would prejudice them. Our policy on grey belt and on how grey belt is released is set out in full in our response to the NPPF consultation.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
Recently, I visited the Royal Mail delivery office in Huyton. Posties spoke to me about serious problems with low-level letterboxes, including bad back and joint issues and an increase in bad dog attacks. One postie even showed me scars across his hand from a dog attack. Will the Minister meet me, the Communication Workers Union and posties to discuss the matter in regard to new builds?
Matthew Pennycook
Not least with a view to making myself the most popular Member of the House, I will happily do so.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
On Friday, I met the leader of Wiltshire council, who asserts that the way the Government have calculated the distribution of compensation between in-house and commissioned services means that Wiltshire has not fared well in the local government settlement that was announced on 18 December. Will the Minister meet me so that I can better understand the thinking and relay it back to the leader of my council?
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
Many residents of West Suffolk who live in new build homes put up with management companies that fail to do the basic things expected of them, from sorting out roads and planting trees to maintaining shared spaces. They often pass the buck to the developers, who pass it back again. What plans have the Government to get to grips with these cowboy companies?
Matthew Pennycook
As I made clear in a previous answer, we remain committed to protecting residential freeholders on these estates from unfair charges. This year, we will consult on implementing the consumer protection provisions in the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which will cover up to 1.75 million homes subject to those charges. We intend to bring the measures into force as quickly as possible. I am more than happy to discuss the matter further with the hon. Gentleman.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, there are 160,000 children in temporary accommodation, and in many cases the definition of “temporary” is being stretched to breaking point. Does she agree that the Government’s homelessness strategy needs to look specifically at the outcomes for children who have experienced long-term or repeated spells in temporary accommodation?
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
The New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill—the sunshine Bill—received a sunny disposition from all sides of the House among the private Members’ Bills we debated on Friday. In the upcoming uprating of building regulations, will the Housing Minister confirm that solar generation will be part of the requirements for all new houses?
Matthew Pennycook
The Government’s position was set out in some detail on Friday when I responded to the debate on the private Member’s Bill. As the hon. Gentleman will know, I am in conversation with the promoter of that Bill, the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), to shape the design of the future standards that we are bringing forward.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
In Scotland, we have record levels of children living in temporary accommodation without a home to call their own. Some 10,000 children have been left homeless on the SNP Government’s watch. The SNP is taking Scotland in the wrong direction. Does the Secretary of State agree that Scotland needs a new direction and a Scottish Labour Government in 2026?
Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
Suffolk has a huge flooding problem. Part of the problem has been driven by overdevelopment in low-lying rural areas. In her steps to reform the planning system—as well as building more houses, which I totally accept we need to do—can the Secretary of State promise to force councils and developers to properly account for flood risk, ensure that developers are held accountable to residents when developments are badly impacted by floods, and ensure that housing targets favour homes built in dense urban areas?
Matthew Pennycook
As I have made clear, we are prioritising development on previously developed brownfield land wherever possible, and we encourage local authorities to look to that option in the first instance. We have made changes to the NPPF to clarify flood risk and issues that relate to it. If the hon. Gentleman writes to me, I will be more than happy to look at the specifics in his area in more detail.
New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill
Matthew Pennycook ExcerptsFriday 17th January 2025
(1 week, 6 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill 2024-26 View all New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Let me start by sincerely thanking the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) for introducing the Bill, for the constructive spirit in which he has engaged with me on it, and for his laudable efforts outside the Chamber—including his efforts as a local councillor, before coming to this place—to promote the further growth of solar power. I know it is a cause that he cares about, and his passion and commitment were evident in his opening remarks. I also thank all the other Members who have spoken this morning for their thoughtful and well-informed contributions. It has been a wide-ranging debate and the quality has been high—although the same cannot be said, I am afraid, for many of the puns that have been made throughout.
The Government are extremely sympathetic to the intention behind the Bill, namely to significantly boost the deployment of rooftop solar. That aim is clearly shared widely across the House, and for good reason. Self-generation and consumption through solar PV panels not only decreases emissions and delivers bill savings for householders, but provides security from fluctuations in wholesale electricity prices. As solar technology becomes more efficient and affordable, installing panels during construction is increasingly more cost-effective than retrofitting, a point that many Members touched on. The Government are, therefore, in complete agreement with the hon. Gentleman that solar energy has an integral role to play in improving the energy efficiency and reducing the carbon emissions of new homes.
However, we cannot support the Bill today. That is because the Government already intend to amend building regulations later this year as part of the introduction of future standards that will set more ambitious energy efficiency and carbon emissions requirements for new homes. The new standards will ensure that all new homes are future-proof, with low-carbon heating and very high-quality building fabric. Not only will they help us to deliver our commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, but they will reduce bills, tackle fuel poverty, grow skills, foster diverse job markets and make Britain energy secure.
Let me make this absolutely clear to the House and to those watching our proceedings: solar energy will have an extremely important role to play in these standards. The Government’s reservations about the Bill are not related to its objective; rather, they stem from recognition that the regulatory landscape being dealt with is incredibly complex and that we must take great care to get the technical detail right. My officials and I are working to develop the technical detail of the solar standards we intend to implement, with a view to ensuring that they are both ambitious and achievable. Our concern is that passing primary legislation that does not strike that balance correctly could have adverse effects, including on housing supply, the construction industry and local authorities.
Although the Bill is not inherently flawed, we are not convinced that it is the most appropriate means of proceeding, for reasons I shall set out shortly. None the less, the hon. Member for Cheltenham has done the House a great service by providing hon. Members with a valuable opportunity to debate this important issue. In the time available to me, I will try to give the House a sense of some of the practical challenges we have been wrestling with as we develop and refine our emerging proposals, and how they speak to potential weaknesses in the Bill.
As hon. Members will be aware, in December 2023 the previous Government published the future homes and buildings standards consultation, setting out proposals on what new standards should entail. The consultation closed in March last year. Over 2,000 responses were received, and some of the most detailed feedback the Department received related to the options set out in respect of solar. The hon. Gentleman has, I know, amassed a not inconsiderable amount of technical expertise when it comes to rooftop solar systems, and he has consulted with industry stakeholders, so he will be acutely aware that setting environmental standards for new homes is not something that Government can do in isolation. To succeed, we must take industry with us, and crucially, we must also ensure that the standards we set are achievable on all sites across the country.
While it is certainly not dictatorial, the expert feedback to the consultation as well as our ongoing work with the industry-led future homes hub, where we have been considering matters such as design flexibility, has been invaluable in shaping the Government’s thinking on what future standards should look like and how they should be implemented. The feedback to the consultation we received drew attention in particular to a number of practical considerations, which we believe it is essential to take into account when determining the precise role of solar in the new standards. I shall touch briefly on three, to illustrate the sort of practical issue my officials and I have been weighing up as we develop the forthcoming new standards, and in so doing give the House a sense of why we feel the Bill may not be the right way to achieve the objective we all share.
The first consideration relates to the ground floor area requirement. As hon. Members know, the future homes and buildings standards consultation set out two options for new homes; both included very high-quality building fabric and a heat pump. The first option also included several additional elements, notably solar panels equating to 40% of the ground-floor area. While respondents were very supportive of the inclusion of solar panels, widespread concerns were raised about the proposed level of solar coverage, which many argued would be virtually impossible to achieve on certain types of home—for example, those with dormer windows.
Clause 1(2) of the Bill sets out a requirement for the same level of solar coverage as was proposed in the consultation. Having thoroughly explored the evidence submitted during the consultation process, the Government have concluded that this level of ground-floor area coverage, rather than just being challenging for a small proportion of new supply, is simply not feasible for many new homes. Importantly, our concern is that setting a requirement at this level in law would result in a significant number of homes needing to apply for an exemption to the standards, which in turn could cause unmanageable workloads in local authorities, lead to significant bottlenecks in housing supply, and ultimately reduce the speed at which rooftop solar on new homes is rolled out.
Determining exemptions is by no means a trivial task. Solar panel systems must be designed carefully for each individual house, taking into account features such as roof shape and pitch, roof lights and dormers. As such, determining the number of solar panels a roof can reasonably accept is a technical design exercise for which many local planning authorities are simply not resourced to carry out in large numbers. Furthermore, any regulation would need to have an enforcement mechanism to deal with instances where unscrupulous developers simply did not comply. The Bill does not address that point, and again, we fear it could end up being another burden that will fall on overstretched local planning authorities. Alive as we are to these unintended consequences, the Government are determined to take an approach that is both ambitious and technically feasible so that widespread exemptions are not necessary.
The second issue relates to the timeframe for introducing the changes. Clause 1(1) stipulates that solar PV will be mandatory on new build homes from 1 October 2026. While that may seem some way into the future, the design and specification of new housing developments is typically set some considerable time prior to construction. As a result, the Bill’s proposed commencement date could risk a significant increase in costs and delays to housing delivery, as developers are forced to rapidly redesign, including sites already in train.
It is important to bear in mind that those in the industry cannot properly prepare for the new requirement until they have access to the final regulations and accompanying statutory guidance. Preparing the regulations and said guidance is not an insignificant task. They need to be drafted and consulted upon, with the consultation open for at least 12 weeks to align with standard protocol and to permit industry sufficient time to respond to such significant proposals.
Following the consultation, the regulations and guidance will need to be finalised and passed using the affirmative resolution process. It is therefore unlikely that the full detail will be available to the construction sector until the end of this year at the earliest, giving the sector only a few months to redesign and get supply chains prepared. These issues are particularly pertinent for small and medium-sized enterprises, which are less equipped to respond quickly. By potentially compressing this period to meet the proposed deadline, housing sites that are already under way may become unviable, leading to wasted investment, a negative impact on housing supply and disruption to numerous local communities across the country—outcomes that I am sure Members will agree we must try to avoid.
The third and final issue relates to transitional arrangements. Government typically minimise the disruption associated with the introduction of new building regulations by setting out associated transitional arrangements. These arrangements determine the limited conditions under which a building can be built to the previous standards. That gives industry time to adapt to new standards and allows work that is already under way to be completed without major disruption. When the 2021 standards were introduced, a six-month period was allowed between laying the regulations and the standards coming into force, followed by a 12-month transitional period. That meant the regulations were laid on 15 December 2021, with the transitional period ending on 15 June 2023.
This Bill does make provision for the Secretary of State to put in place transitional arrangements. However, our reading of the Bill is that those arrangements cannot contradict or override its main premise that new homes built from 1 October 2026 must be fitted with solar panels. As a result, we are concerned that there may not be sufficient time for appropriate transitional arrangements to be set. We believe it is vital that they are set, given that the construction sector typically plans ahead by at least two, if not three or even more, years. Providing merely a matter of weeks between publishing such significant legislation and its taking effect would not be realistic or fair, in our view.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
I have been listening carefully to what the Minister has said. Does he agree that a vote on Second Reading is a vote on the principle of the Bill, and the objections that he has been raising are micro, technical ones? Does he not agree that the urgency of the climate crisis and the immense benefits associated with solar PV mean that he should stop raining on the parade of this Bill and give us the opportunity to vote on photons?
Matthew Pennycook
The hon. Lady makes a fair challenge, but the Government do not intend to proceed on the basis of primary legislation. She might find that the primary legislation route is ultimately slower than the way in which we intend to introduce the future standards later this year. Speed is absolutely an issue we are grappling with, but I gently challenge the idea that this private Member’s Bill is the fastest way to proceed, even leaving aside the points I have raised, which I do not consider to be minor or technical.
In contrast, the future homes standards consultation sets out two options for transitional arrangements, which we believe are far more robust. The first option involves a six-month period between the laying date of the regulations and the regulations coming into force. The second option involves a period of up to 12 months. That approach to transition will ensure that as many homes as possible are required to meet the new standards in a way that is structured and achievable.
It is our responsibility to ensure that the standards we set for new homes are ambitious, but also technically feasible and deliverable, as I have said. For the reasons I have set out, and others that I have not covered today, we believe that forthcoming future standards, developed as a clear and coherent response to the 2023 consultation, are a more appropriate and arguably faster means of achieving the Bill’s aims, which we fully share with the hon. Member for Cheltenham.
Nesil Caliskan
Reflecting on the point made by the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking) about industry using excuses to push back on delivering homes, can the Minister give assurances that in their efforts the Government will push ahead with renewable energy, particularly solar, and do everything they can to ensure that industry and housing companies do not use viability as an excuse not to deliver the many new homes that we need?
Matthew Pennycook
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am afraid that the time to go into it is not available to me, but I would mention the Government’s intention to revise viability guidance this year to strengthen the section 106 developer contributions system rather than implementing the infrastructure levy that the previous Government devised. In lots of different respects, this Government are absolutely ensuring that developers are held to the commitments they make, and, as she will know, we gave significant weight to the benefits of renewable and low-carbon energy proposals more generally in the NPPF.
As I was saying, maintaining consistency with the established direction of travel is vital. There is a history of environmental standards being committed to and then withdrawn by previous Governments, which has understandably left industry reluctant to invest in preparing for new standards. However, since its announcement in 2019, the future homes standard has become a world-recognised framework, giving industry time to develop the necessary supply chains, skills and construction practices, and many developers are already building to higher standards in anticipation of its roll-out. Introducing conflicting legislation at this stage could create significant confusion and risks reversing the confidence and momentum that we have worked hard to establish.
Let me reassure the House that it is our firm intention to legislate for future standards later this year, as I have made clear, and to increase rooftop solar deployment significantly as a result. I understand that hon. Members and industry will need more details about what the standards will entail before they can arrive at a judgment as to their efficacy. Although we need to take the necessary time to get that right, my intention is to set out further details as soon as I am able—in the not-too-distant future, I hope.
Ruth Cadbury
I understand that 1.5 million Germans live in flats that have solar panels on their balconies. Will the Minister consider that as an option, in both new and retrofitted housing, as he looks at this important work?
Matthew Pennycook
As I said, we will set out further details on the new standards in the not-too-distant future.
I reiterate my thanks to the hon. Member for Cheltenham for introducing this commendable Bill. Although the Government cannot support it for the reasons that I have given, we very much agree with the sentiment and ambition that have motivated it, and I recognise and appreciate all the dedicated work that I know he has put into it. For that reason, and assuming that he is willing, I would very much welcome an ongoing dialogue with him as the Government progress our work on the new standards, so that he has an opportunity to build on the important contribution that he has made in introducing this legislation, and to work closely with me and my officials prior to the introduction of our legislation so that his work and the views he has developed are properly incorporated and taken into account. On that basis, and given the widespread consensus on the objectives of the Bill, I hope that he will not seek to divide the House on its Second Reading.
Green Belt: Basildon and Billericay
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 week, 6 days ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I start by congratulating the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) on securing this important debate on the green belt in his constituency. While I disagree with many of the views he has just set out, I acknowledge the strength of feeling, and in particular his views on the emerging Basildon local plan.
As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, this Government take a “brownfield first” approach to development. To that end, we made targeted changes to the national planning policy framework in December to place even stronger emphasis on the value of brownfield redevelopment, and to clarify that proposals for development on such land should be approved unless substantial harm would be caused by them. With a view to informing future policy development, we also published a brownfield passport planning reform working paper in September, setting out a series of proposals designed to prioritise and fast-track building on previously developed urban land wherever possible. None the less, we know that there are simply not enough sites on brownfield registers across the country to deliver the volume of homes that we need each year, let alone sites that are viable and in the right location.
That is why, in our first month in office, we consulted on a new approach to the green belt to support local planning authorities that face acute housing and development pressures in meeting their needs. I reiterate that the Government attach great importance to green belts and remain committed to preserving them. Green belts have served England’s towns and cities well over many decades, not least by checking the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas and preventing neighbouring towns from merging into one another.
The Government have not changed the five purposes of the green belt set out in paragraph 143 of the national planning policy framework, and do not propose to alter its general extent. Instead, our reforms provide for a more strategic approach to green belt land designation and release, allowing us to move away from the previous Government’s approach to the green belt, which was to allow land within it to be released regularly, in a haphazard manner, and often for speculative development that did not meet local housing need. As a result of our changes to national planning policy, local authorities must take a sequential approach to releasing land to meet their housing need: brownfield first, followed by low-quality land in the green belt, and only then higher-performing land. To identify low-performing sites, we have incorporated into the NPPF a definition of grey belt land that reflects the fact that there are areas currently designated as green belt that contribute little to it by way of aesthetic, public access or ecological value.
To ensure that local authorities are well equipped and supported to implement our policy changes, we will provide grant funding totalling £14.8 million to support authorities with green belt reviews, and we intend to provide further guidance in the near future to support a consistent approach across the country to grey belt designation. I was interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that his local authority is identifying swathes of grey belt land, given that we only published our precise definition of grey belt land on 12 December. I shall be interested to hear how Basildon council is progressing its green belt view based on that definition.
Because the Government recognise the public value provided by the green belt, we have ensured that where major development involving the provision of housing is proposed on land released from it through plan preparation or review, or on green belt sites subject to a planning application, it will be subject to new “golden rules”, ensuring the delivery of high levels of affordable housing; the provision of new, or improvements to existing, green spaces that are accessible to the public; and, importantly—I noted the right hon. Gentleman’s comments on the subject—the making of necessary improvements to local or national infrastructure.
Mr Francois
Mid and South Essex hospitals trust, which runs Basildon hospital, reported that in the autumn, the hospital was running at between 98% and 99% of its bed capacity. In recent weeks, because of winter pressures and flu, bed capacity has exceeded 100%. The standard NHS ratio is 2.4 new patients for each house, so 27,000 new households is just under 65,000 new patients for Basildon hospital, which is already bursting at the seams. Surely the new local plan is unsound on that score alone; Basildon hospital just cannot cope with it.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I note his concerns about hospital capacity in the area. My colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care will also have registered those comments. We are working closely with colleagues across Government to bring forward the necessary infrastructure, whether it be health or educational provision. It is for local authorities in the first instance, through the development of up-to-date local plans, to address the needs and opportunities in their area in relation to infrastructure, and—as planning policy guidance makes very clear—to bring forward infrastructure funding statements setting out what local infrastructure is needed and how it should be funded, including through the contributions made by developers.
Mr Francois
I understand the principle, but I have read the local plan. There is not one specific word in there about plans to expand Basildon. There is an associated infrastructure delivery plan, which is a living document; it is three years out of date, and there is no specific plan in there for Basildon. I understand the theory, but Basildon borough council simply has not addressed this—it has said nothing about it at all.
Matthew Pennycook
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I have heard the point he has made. He will understand that given the quasi-judicial nature of the planning system, I cannot comment on the specifics of an individual local authority’s plan, but he has put his point on the record regarding health provision in the area.
When it comes to affordable housing, our new golden rules will require a 15 percentage point premium on top of existing requirements, up to a maximum of 50%. No site-specific viability assessments will be permitted until we have strengthened national planning guidance on viability, in which we will consider the case for permitting viability negotiations on previously developed land and larger strategic sites that are likely to carry greater infrastructure costs. We have also ensured that the sustainability of sites must be prioritised. No one wants to see isolated and disconnected development, which is why our policy asks authorities to pay particular attention to transport connections when considering whether grey belt is sustainably located.
I want to make it clear that while our reforms will help deliver the homes and development that this country so desperately needs, they will not come at the expense of the natural environment or rural communities. We are maintaining the existing strong protections in the national planning policy framework for the best and most versatile agricultural land—the land most important for food production—and we have preserved protections for high-quality green-belt land and land safeguarded for environmental reasons, such as national landscapes. Alongside those protections, we are ensuring that green-belt developments deliver more accessible green space and support nature recovery.
As the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay knows, to support the Government’s plan-for-change milestone of building 1.5 million new homes this Parliament, we introduced a new standard method for assessing local housing need. We recognise that as a result, some areas of the country will see their targets raised. That includes London and the south-east; the numbers we consulted on back in July were raised partly in response to concerns expressed through the consultation about the lack of responsiveness to affordability. Many areas will see their targets raised, and on 12 December, we raised London’s target from the number we had consulted on. However, the acute and entrenched nature of the housing crisis in England demands that we take steps to significantly increase the supply of homes of all tenures, and all parts of the country, including Basildon and Billericay, need to play their part.
Before I conclude, I will touch on the importance of up-to-date local plans. As I have just made clear to the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford, due to the Secretary of State’s quasi-judicial role, I cannot comment on specifics. However, I will take the opportunity to underline that having up-to-date local plans is the best way for local communities to shape development in their area, deliver housing that meets the needs of their communities, and ensure the provision of supporting infrastructure in a sustainable manner.
Mr Holden
Will the Minister reflect on the concerns I have raised, and that have been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) in previous debates, about the huge changes we face locally with devolution? Who will be accountable for local plans when the council that is ramming them through will not even exist in the near future? There is real concern that this is like a hit job being done on our local communities.
Matthew Pennycook
I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s point. That will depend, of course, on the state of the local plan and what point it is at—whether it is at regulation 18 or 19—and where it is moving forward, but I recognise the point about interaction of the local plan development process with the proposals set out in the English devolution White Paper. There is also a related concern, which I have spoken to the right hon. Gentleman about on a previous occasion: the Government are very clear that we want to see universal coverage of strategic planning across the country, and we will be asking sub-regions across the country to come together to produce spatial development strategies. That may address concerns in his part of the country and others by ensuring that they consider whether cross-border co-operation might ensure that housing growth happens in a planned and more sensible way, rather than every local authority attempting to meet its need within its own confines.
The right hon. Gentleman will know that this Government inherited what I consider to be a frankly appalling situation in which less than a third of local planning authorities have an up-to-date local development plan. That is not a sustainable basis for a plan-led system, and that is why we have set out an expectation that every local planning authority must have a local plan. I appreciate that the right hon. Gentleman’s involvement in the affairs of Basildon council is a relatively recent development, but he will know that some of the pressures of unplanned development that the authority is experiencing will be because the current local plan was adopted in 1998, making the authority one of a very small number without a Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 plan in place. That reinforces the point that getting a local plan in place is the most effective protection against speculative development. Where plans are not up to date, or where local planning authorities are not delivering the homes that their communities need, it is right that development can come forward from outside the plan, but we want to see more plan-led development across the country.
The new council leadership has acted to address the failures of its predecessors by bringing forward a new local plan. I have registered the right hon. Gentleman’s views about it. Local residents will obviously, through consultation, be able to feed in their own views about that emerging local plan, but we think it is important that it comes forward, whatever form it finally emerges in. It is a sad reflection of the predecessors in that authority that the previous Government had to intervene to ensure a new local plan timetable was produced in December 2023. As the council continues to work on the emerging plan, we expect it to explore all options to deliver its housing targets, including maximising the use of brownfield land; considering the densification of sites, where appropriate; working with neighbouring authorities, as I said, as we move towards that emerging universal strategic plan coverage; and, where necessary, having considered fully all other reasonable options for meeting its identified development needs, reviewing its green belt.
To conclude, I thank the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay for bringing this important matter to the House. I note the concerns that he and the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford have raised, and I look forward to engaging with him further on how best we can meet housing need in full in his constituency.
Question put and agreed to.
Town Centres: Stoke-on-Trent
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
It is an absolute pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Turner, as well as the reassuring presence of Mr Dowd at your side, stewarding the debate along. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) for securing this very important debate in Stoke-on-Trent’s centenary year.
My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituency. Although the city, as he rightly said, has experienced hard times over recent years, his constituents should know that, from the outset of this Government coming into office, he has been pressing me on what more this Labour Government can do, in partnership with local leaders and my hon. Friends, to ensure that we maximise the opportunities in the city as we go forward. I share his passion to support the regeneration of the town centres of Stoke-on-Trent and to create better places to live, work and play across the city.
My hon. Friend referenced the meeting we had just a few weeks ago, alongside members of the council, to discuss their plans for a comprehensive regeneration of Stoke-on-Trent city centre. It was clear from that meeting that they are keen to make sure that the city plays a full role in delivering on the Government’s growth strategy, including delivering on a substantial number of new homes, as part of our Plan for Change milestone to build 1.5 million new homes in this Parliament.
Stoke-on-Trent city centre is facing the same problems as many town centres across the country: lower occupancy rates and footfall due to consumer habits changing, which make a retail, office-led city centre strategy difficult for the future. I have been pleased to see, in the case of Stoke-on-Trent—as well as other cities across the country where Labour Members and Labour local leaders are in place—that the new Labour-run city council, under the leadership of Councillor Jane Ashworth, has brought forward a committed and energetic programme and a serious plan for Hanley to take things forward, which will see a radical shift to a residential-led model, aiming to create a revitalised city centre that can play a strengthened socioeconomic role and unlock the development of thousands of new homes, through the process that we discussed.
It has been good to see that so much of the regeneration in Stoke-on-Trent is already well under way. My hon. Friend has referenced a number of the very positive changes that are taking place, including the Smithfield Quarter, a fantastic mixed-use development that pays homage to the original Smithfield bottle works on the site and is an excellent example of intertwining cultural heritage while also looking to the future needs of the city.
The Government have supported this vital regeneration work through Homes England, which has been working successfully with the council for many years. In 2022, a partnership agreement was signed with the council to accelerate the delivery of high-quality, place-making, housing-led and mixed-use developments in the city. The partnership aims to unlock, as my hon. Friend is aware, 4,000 homes across a range of sites within the city, and has to date supported 607 homes across several sites.
The city has also been in receipt of considerable capital investment from Homes England over recent years, including £22 million of affordable housing programme investment and £10 million of housing infrastructure grant investment to unlock a combined 1,500 homes. Through that partnership, significant strides have been made to progress 13 priority sites in the council’s pipeline, and support the council’s local plan review.
Homes England has also provided around £800,000 in revenue funding to support the delivery of priority sites. As my hon. Friend will be aware, some of the key interventions that have taken place include: Homes England acting in collaboration with the city council, procuring and jointly leading the production of a city centre masterplan, providing a connected vision for Stoke and Hanley; and a serious delivery plan—I think that is the point—with clear evidence steps for the development of that key strategic corridor.
We have also seen progress on several flagship sites across the city, providing a catalyst for the regeneration that needs to happen and that I know my hon. Friend is working hard to see delivered. Etruscan Square, for example, is a major city centre development to regenerate the former bus station site in Hanley, which has secured outline planning permission for a 300-home mixed-used development, following on from receiving £20 million of Government funding in 2021. The North Shelton opportunity area is a collection of three brownfield sites; through our brownfield land release fund, the council has been rewarded money to remediate the site and make way for up to 50 homes.
To reiterate the point that my hon. Friend made, we need to see that partnership working continue. I urge local leaders to continue to press forward with that ambition across the whole city, and I have impressed on Homes England the need to continue supporting Stoke-on-Trent with the necessary skills, powers and investment needed to bring forward development, including on known complex brownfield sites in Hanley town centre, at the nearest possible opportunity. As my hon. Friend knows, I am committed to working with him and others to ensure that we are utilising all the powers that are already available, or that the Government intend to bring forward, to ensure that we realise the full potential of the city, including powers in relation to compulsory purchase orders, as was referenced.
Despite the previous Administration making a number of unfunded commitments to local authorities and mayoral combined authorities, at October’s Budget this Government confirmed that the majority of local growth projects have been protected, and that the UK shared prosperity fund has been extended for another year, providing much needed certainty for places to deliver locally. My hon. Friend will also be aware that Stoke-on-Trent received £56 million towards key regeneration sites across the city through the levelling-up fund, supporting both housing and broader economic development.
Gareth Snell
On the point about funding, we got £8 million in the recovery fund, and I am reliably informed by the Minister’s Department that this was the second largest recovery fund settlement anywhere in the country. I thank the Department for that, because it is a huge recognition of the financial challenges we have had in the past and a down payment on what I hope and believe to be the interest that the Department will take in Stoke-on-Trent going forward.
Matthew Pennycook
I will pass on my hon. Friend’s appreciation to ministerial colleagues in the Department who oversaw that decision. He can take as given that the funding awarded is a recognition of the importance we place on revitalising cities such as Stoke-on-Trent.
The Goods Yard is another great example of creating new city centre living opportunities, with new apartments alongside work and leisure spaces and next to the main train station. I look forward to overseeing the opening of that in the coming months. More recently, £6.5 million of additional Government funding has been agreed to support public realm regeneration in Tunstall, Longton, Stoke, Burslem, and Middleport, as part of Stoke-on-Trent’s levelling up partnership. In Tunstall, I have been heartened to see the planned artworks to celebrate the town’s heritage and brighten up the area.
I will touch briefly on planning reforms. As hon. Members will be aware, the Government consulted on changes to national planning policy, and other changes to the planning system, last year. Having reviewed the available evidence and feedback from the consultation, we published our formal response and a revised national planning policy framework on 12 December.
The revised NPPF supports the role of high streets and town centres, by expecting local plans to create a positive framework for their growth and adaptation. It also expects planning applications for town centre uses—defined as retail, development, leisure, entertainment and more intensive sport and recreation uses, as well as offices, arts, culture and tourism development—to be located in town centres where possible, to support their viability and inhibit trade from being drawn to other locations.
The planning and infrastructure Bill, which will be forthcoming later this year, will speed up and streamline the planning process to build more homes of all tenures and accelerate the delivery of major infrastructure projects, aligning with our industrial, energy and transport strategies. The Bill will make improvements at a local level, modernising planning committees and increasing local planning authorities’ capacity to deliver the type of interventions that I have referenced today and deliver an improved service. It will also support more effective land assembly for development in the public interest by reforming the compulsory purchase process. I know that in many parts of the country—Stoke is a great example of this—fragmented and complex land ownership can be a real barrier to development.
Gareth Snell
What the Minister has just said is music to my ears, because this is not just about compiling the land that we know is available for development; it is about the consequential impact of that. If we can bring that land together in Stoke-on-Trent, we will be able to protect our greenfield sites from unnecessary development. The more we can do to put houses in Hanley, the greater our chances are of protecting Berryhill Fields, in the middle of my constituency, which are the green lungs of north Staffordshire.
Matthew Pennycook
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This Government have a brownfield-first approach to development. In all instances where it is possible, we want to see brownfield development prioritised and accelerated, and we are making a number of changes to ensure that is the case. These include not only some of the revisions we made to the NPPF, but the proposals that we have outlined in our brownfield passport working paper, which will feed into the development of national development management policies, which we will consult on later this year. All of these interventions are to ensure that, wherever possible, we can get brownfield-led development.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that in many parts of the country that fragmented ownership of land is a real barrier. We want generally to see more coherent land assembly and master planning of large sites to ensure that we can maximise their potential, not least in terms of density and getting the number of homes we need on site. In that way, in many parts of the country, it will be possible to avoid having to look at green belt release, although we are clear that where green belt does need to be released—and grey belt as a priority release within that—that does need to take place to meet local housing targets.
To conclude, I again thank my hon. Friend for bringing this important debate to the House today and for his ongoing engagement. I would like to assure him and the city council that the Government recognise the vital role that Stoke-on-Trent will play in our growth mission. We want to see councils across the country working in collaboration and partnership with the Government to create a sustainable and suitable housing supply for those who live in and commute to town and city centres. I very much look forward to working with him and my hon. Friends to that end.
Question put and agreed to.
Renters’ Rights Bill
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(2 weeks, 2 days ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government new clause 14—Prohibition of rent in advance before lease entered into.
Government new clause 15—Guarantor not liable for rent payable after tenant’s death.
Government new clause 16—Limitation on obligation to pay removal expenses.
New clause 1—Limit on rent to be requested in advance of tenancy—
“In the 1988 Act, after section 14ZB (inserted by section 8 of this Act) insert—
“14ZBA Maximum rent to be paid in advance
No rent may be requested or received in advance of any period of the tenancy which exceeds the rent for two months of the tenancy.””
This new clause would prohibit landlords from requesting or accepting more than two month's rent in advance.
New clause 2—Impact of Act on provision of short-term lets—
“The Secretary of State must, within two years of the passing of this Act, publish a review of the impact of sections 1 to 3 on the number of landlords offering properties on short-term lets rather than in the private rented sector.”
New clause 3—Limit on rent in advance of tenancy—
“In Schedule 1 to the Tenant Fees Act 2019, after paragraph (1) insert—
“(1A) But if the amount of rent payable in advance of any period of the tenancy exceeds the equivalent of one month’s rent, the amount of the excess is a prohibited payment.””
This new clause would make it unlawful for a landlord to demand or accept more than one month’s rent in advance in respect of a tenancy or licence of residential accommodation.
New clause 4—Signature of lease for student accommodation—
“Where a tenant meets the student test set out in paragraph 10 of Schedule 1, the relevant tenancy agreement may not be signed before 1 March in the year in which the tenancy is intended to take effect.”
This new clause would prevent student leases being signed before March in the year in which they are intended to commence.
New clause 5—Review of tenancy deposit schemes and requirements—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, conduct a review of tenancy deposit schemes and tenancy deposit requirements.
(2) The review must include, but not be limited to—
(a) consideration of options for tenancy “passporting”; and
(b) measures to improve trust in the deposit dispute process.
(3) As part of the review the Secretary of State must consult with such parties as they see fit, which must include representatives of tenants’ and landlords’ interests.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State, within 12 months of the Act passing, to review and consult on tenancy deposit schemes and requirements.
New clause 6—Duties of local authorities: care leavers—
“(1) Where it is requested of a local housing authority by, or on behalf of—
(a) a relevant child as defined by section 23A of the Children Act 1989, or
(b) a former relevant child as defined by section 23C of the Children Act 1989,
the local housing authority shall provide assistance to the individual making the request, or the individual on whose behalf the request is made, in paying or guaranteeing any deposit required to agree a tenancy.
(2) The assistance to be provided under subsection (1) may include, but not be limited to, the payment of a deposit on behalf of an individual listed in subsection (1), or acting as a guarantor for any deposit paid by or on behalf of an individual listed in subsection (1).”
This new clause would place a duty on local authorities to help care leavers pay or guarantee any required deposit to enable them to agree a tenancy in the private rented sector.
New clause 7—Rules for proposed rent levels—
“(1) The Secretary of State must establish a body to be known as the Independent Living Rent Body.
(2) The “proposed rent” referred to in section 55(2) must be calculated with reference to rules set by the Independent Living Rent Body.
(3) In setting rules to be applied to the calculation of a proposed rent under section 55(2) the Independent Living Rent Body will have regard to property type, size and condition, location, local incomes, and such other criteria as it sees fit.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to establish an independent body that would set rules to be used when calculating the proposed rent payable in relation to an advertised tenancy.
New clause 8—Mediated rent pauses (housing conditions)—
“(1) This section applies where–
(a) there is a tenancy to which section 9A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 applies;
(b) it appears to the tenant that the landlord has breached the covenant implied by that section; and
(c) it appears to the tenant that the landlord has failed to carry out works necessary to remedy any such breaches within the timeframes set out in regulations made by the Secretary of State under section 10A(3) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
(2) A tenant is entitled to make arrangements to pay rent to an independent individual, rather than to the relevant landlord.
(3) The independent individual shall not pass any rent paid under subsection (2) to the landlord until there has been a determination or agreement between the landlord and tenant as to the landlord’s liability for any breach of the covenant implied by section 9A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
(4) Where a determination or agreement under subsection (3) sets a time by which works are to be completed, the independent individual will –
(a) release any rent paid under subsection (2) to the landlord if the works are completed by that time;
(b) release any rent paid under subsection (2) back to the tenant if the works have not been completed by that time.
(5) In this section an “independent individual” means the independent individual responsible for investigating complaints made against members of a landlord redress scheme under section 62.”
New clause 9—Home adaptations—
“(1) The Housing Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 16 insert—
“16A Home adaptations
(1) It is an implied term of every assured tenancy to which this section applies that a landlord shall give permission for adaptations where a local council has carried out a Home Assessment and recommends adaptations which constitute reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010. Tenants have the right to appeal a landlord’s refusal to adapt a property.
(2) This section applies to every assured tenancy other than a tenancy of social housing, within the meaning of Part 2 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008.””
This new clause would ensure that landlords give permission for home adaptations for people who have disabilities where a Home Assessment has been carried out.
New clause 10—Guarantor to have no further liability following death of tenant—
“(1) Subject to subsection (3), a guarantee agreement relating to a relevant tenancy ceases to have effect upon the death of a relevant tenant.
(2) Upon the death of a relevant tenant the guarantor in respect of a relevant tenancy shall incur no further liability in relation to matters arising under the tenancy.
(3) Nothing in this section shall affect the liability of a guarantor in relation to matters which arose before the date of the death of the relevant tenant.
(4) In assessing any liability under subsection (3), account shall be taken of any tenancy deposit paid in respect of the tenancy.
(5) Where there is more than one relevant tenant, this section shall apply only upon the death of both or all of the tenants.
(6) In this section—
“guarantor” is a person who enters into a guarantee agreement in relation to a relevant tenancy;
“guarantee agreement” is a contractual promise (whether incorporated in or separate from the tenancy agreement) to indemnify or compensate a relevant person in respect of an obligation under the tenancy if the tenant fails to perform or comply with the obligation;
“relevant tenancy” has the same meaning as in section 41, and “relevant tenant” is to be interpreted accordingly; and
“tenancy deposit” has the same meaning as in section 212(8) of the Housing Act 2004.”
New clause 11—Restrictions on the requirement for tenants to provide a guarantor—
“(1) A relevant person must not, in any of the circumstances set out in subsection (3), require a person, as a condition of the grant of a relevant tenancy, to provide a guarantor in relation to the observance or performance of the tenant’s obligations under the tenancy.
(2) For the purposes of this Act, requiring a person to provide a guarantor includes accepting an offer by that person to provide a guarantor.
(3) The circumstances are –
(a) that the person has paid a tenancy deposit or has been assisted under a deposit scheme;
(b) that the person is required to pay rent in advance equivalent to one month’s rent or more;
(c) that on a reasonable assessment of their means the person’s income (including state benefits received and any other lawful source of income) is sufficient to enable them to pay the full rent due under the tenancy;
(d) that arrangements will be made for housing benefit or the housing element of universal credit to be paid directly in respect of rent to the relevant person;
(e) that the relevant person has entered into a contract of insurance under which they are insured against non-payment of rent; or
(f) such other circumstances as may be prescribed in regulations made by the Secretary of State.
(4) In any other case where a relevant person lawfully requires a person, as a condition of the grant of a relevant tenancy, to provide a guarantor, the sum for which the guarantor may become liable under the relevant guarantee shall not exceed a sum equal to six months’ rent.
(5) In any case where a relevant person requires a tenant, as a condition of the grant of a relevant joint tenancy, to provide a guarantor, the sum claimed under the guarantee shall not exceed such proportion of the loss as is attributable to the act or default of the individual tenant on whose behalf the guarantee was given and, if such proportion cannot be proved, shall not exceed the sum obtained by dividing the total loss by the number of tenants.
(6) In this section–
a “guarantor” is a person who enters into a guarantee in relation to a relevant tenancy;
a “guarantee” is a contractual promise to be responsible for the performance of an obligation owed by the tenant to a relevant person under the tenancy if the tenant fails to perform the obligation;
a “deposit scheme” includes a scheme whereby a sum payable by way of deposit or a bond or guarantee is provided by a local authority, registered charity or voluntary organisation for the purpose of providing security to a landlord for the performance of a tenant’s obligations under a tenancy;
“tenancy deposit” has the same meaning as in section 212(8) of the Housing Act 2004.”
This new clause would restrict the circumstances in which a landlord can request a guarantor.
New clause 17—Use of licence conditions to improve housing conditions—
“In section 90 of the Housing Act 2004, for subsection (1) substitute—
“(1) A licence may include such conditions as the local housing authority consider appropriate for regulating all or any of the following—
(a) the management, use and occupation of the house concerned, and
(b) its condition and contents.””
This new clause would enable local authorities operating selective licensing schemes to use licence conditions to improve housing conditions.
New clause 18—Increases to duration of discretionary licensing schemes—
“(1) The Housing Act 2004 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 60(2), omit “five” and insert “ten”.
(3) In section 84(2), omit “five” and insert “ten”.”
This new clause would increase the maximum duration of additional HMO licensing schemes and selective licensing schemes from five to ten years.
New clause 19—Assessment of operation of possession process—
“(1) The Lord Chancellor must prepare an assessment of the operation of the process by which—
(a) on applications made by landlords, the county court is able to make orders for the possession of dwellings in England that are let under assured and regulated tenancies, and
(b) such orders are enforced.
(2) The Lord Chancellor must publish the assessment at such time, and in such manner, as the Lord Chancellor thinks appropriate.
(3) In this section—
“assured tenancy” means an assured tenancy within the meaning of the 1988 Act;
“dwelling” means a building or part of a building which is occupied or intended to be occupied as a separate dwelling;
“regulated tenancy” means a regulated tenancy within the meaning of the Rent Act 1977.”
New clause 20—Review of the impact of the Act on the housing market—
“(1) The Secretary of State must publish an annual report outlining the impact of the provisions of this Act on the housing market in the UK.
(2) A report under this section must include the impact of this Act on—
(a) the availability of homes in the private rental sector;
(b) rents charged under tenancies;
(c) house prices; and
(d) requests for social housing.
(3) A report under this section must be laid before Parliament.”
New clause 21—Appropriate insurance products to be available to landlords—
“The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, consult with representatives of the insurance sector to ensure that—
(1) sufficient and appropriate insurance products will be available for landlords wishing to let a property to a tenant who—
(a) is in receipt of benefits; or
(b) will be keeping a pet in the property during their tenancy; and
(2) such insurance products will not disadvantage landlords wishing to let a property to a such tenant or dissuade them from doing so.”
New clause 22—Requirement on landlords to pay for alternative accommodation—
“In section 9A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (fitness for human habitation of dwellings in England), after subsection(1) insert—
(1A) Where a dwelling—
(a)is found to be at any point in a tenancy; or
(b)becomes during the period of the tenancy unfit for human habitation, the landlord must pay any costs incurred by the tenant in obtaining alternative accommodation.
(1B) A landlord must hold appropriate insurance for the purposes of paying any costs under subsection (1A).
(1C) For the purposes of this section—
“costs” include—
(a) moving costs;
(b) deposits;
(c) rent, up to the amount of the rent for the original property;
“fitness for human habitation” is to be understood with reference to section 10 of this Act, but excludes any conditions caused by any damage or neglect on the part of the tenant.””
New clause 23—Permission for home adaptations—
“(1) The Housing Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 16 insert—
“16A Home adaptations
(1) It is an implied term of every assured tenancy that a landlord shall give permission for adaptations where a local council has carried out a Home Assessment and recommends adaptations which constitute reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010.
(2) A tenant may appeal a landlord’s refusal to give permission for such adaptations.””
This new clause would ensure that landlords of private and social tenancies provide permission for home adaptations for people who have disabilities where a Home Assessment has been carried out.
New clause 24—Discrimination relating to requirement for home adaptations—
“A relevant person must not, in relation to a dwelling that is to be let on an agreement which may give rise to a relevant tenancy—
(a) on the basis that a person does or may require home adaptations, prevent the person from—
(i) enquiring whether the dwelling is available for let,
(ii) accessing information about the dwelling,
(iii) viewing the dwelling in order to consider whether to seek to rent it, or
(iv) entering into a tenancy of the dwelling, or
(b) apply a provision, criterion or practice in order to make people requiring home adaptations less likely to enter into a tenancy of the dwelling than people who do not require home adaptations.”
Amendment 57, in clause 1, page 1, line 13, at end insert—
“unless the tenant meets the student test where the tenancy is entered into.
(1A) For the purposes of this section, a tenant who meets the student test when a tenancy is entered into has the same meaning as in Ground 4A.”
Amendment 58, page 1, line 13, at end insert—
“unless the landlord and the tenant mutually agree to have a fixed term during which period the landlord agrees to suspend the ability to seek possession under Ground 1 (Occupation by landlord or family), Ground 1A (Sale of dwelling-house) or Ground 6 (Redevelopment) of Schedule 2.
(1A) During a fixed term tenancy agreed under subsection (1) the landlord shall not be entitled to increase the rent as provided for by section 13.”
Amendment 60, page 1, line 13, at end insert
“unless the landlord acts as landlord for fewer than five properties.”
Government amendments 12 to 17.
Amendment 1, in clause 7, page 9, line 6, leave out from “determination” to end of line 11 and insert—
“(4AA) Where the rent for a particular period of the tenancy is to be greater than the rent for the previous period by virtue of a notice, determination or agreement mentioned in subsection (4A), the rent may not be greater than the rent for the previous period increased by the Bank of England Base Rate.
(4AB) Any provision relating to an assured tenancy to which this section applies is of no effect so far as it provides—
(a) that the rent for a particular period of the tenancy must or may be greater than the rent for the previous period otherwise than by virtue of a notice, determination or agreement mentioned in subsection (4A), or
(b) that the rent for a particular period of the tenancy, where greater than the rent for the previous period by virtue of a notice, determination or agreement mentioned in subsection (4A), must or may be greater than the rent for the previous period increased by the Bank of England Base Rate.”
This amendment would cap in-tenancy rent increases to the Bank of England base rate.
Amendment 9, page 9, line 6, leave out from “determination” to the end of line 11 and insert—
“(4AA) Where the rent for a particular period of the tenancy is to be greater than the rent for the previous period by virtue of a notice, determination or agreement mentioned in subsection (4A), the rent may not be greater than whichever is the lesser of—
(a) the rent for the previous period plus an increase equal to the rent multiplied by CPI; or
(b) the rent for the previous period plus an increase equal to the rent multiplied by the percentage increase in median national earnings.
(4AB) Any provision relating to an assured tenancy to which this section applies is of no effect so far as it provides—
(a) that the rent for a particular period of the tenancy must or may be greater than the rent for the previous period otherwise than by virtue of a notice, determination or agreement mentioned in subsection (4A), or
(b) that the rent for a particular period of the tenancy, where greater than the rent for the previous period by virtue of a notice, determination or agreement mentioned in subsection (4A), must or may be greater than the lesser of—
(i) the rent for the previous period plus an increase equal to the rent multiplied by CPI; or
(ii) the rent for the previous period plus an increase equal to the rent multiplied by the percentage increase in median national earnings.
(4AC) In this section—
“CPI” means the Consumer Prices Index 12-month rate published by the Office for National Statistics for 1 April preceding the date the notice is served.
“the percentage increase in median national earnings” means that calculated by the UK Statistics Authority over a three-year period ending on the date on which the notice was served.”
This amendment would introduce limits on the increases which could be made to rents by landlords. The limits would be calculated by reference to increases in CPI or median national earnings.
Amendment 5, in clause 8, page 11, line 16, at end insert—
“(aa) after “subject to” insert “section 13(4AA) and”;
(ab) omit from “concerned” to the end of the subsection and insert “should be let”;”.
This amendment would amend the Housing Act 1988 so that when determining rents tribunals must take into account the limits on rent increases introduced by Amendment 9 and need not consider existing market rates.
Amendment 6, page 11, line 17, leave out subsections (b), (c) and (d).
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 5.
Amendment 55, page 11, line 27, at end insert—
“(4A) In subsection (2), after paragraph (b) insert—
“(ba) any change in the value of the dwelling-house resulting from improvement works to the property facilitated by any means-tested energy efficiency grant scheme””.
This amendment would ensure that improvements to a property facilitated by means-tested energy efficiency grant schemes can be disregarded by a tribunal determining a new rent for the property, and can therefore not be used as grounds for increasing rent levels.
Government amendment 27.
Amendment 61, in clause 11, page 16, line 26, at end insert—
“(4) The Secretary of State must consult with representatives of the insurance sector before this section comes into effect to ensure that appropriate insurance products are available for tenants whose landlords have required insurance as a condition for consenting to the keeping of a pet.”
Government amendments 28 and 29.
Amendment 2, in clause 19, page 32, line 16, at end insert—
“(aa) where it is given by a tenant in relation to a premises in which they are the first tenants since its construction, not less than twenty-four months before the date on which the notice is to take effect;”.
This amendment would allow an assured short-term tenancy for the first two years after a premises is constructed.
Government amendments 30 and 34 to 39.
Amendment 7, in clause 75, page 101, line 6, at end insert—
“(2A) Information or documents to be provided under regulations under subsection (2) must include—
(a) in respect of a landlord entry—
(i) the address and contact details of the landlord;
(ii) the address and contact details of the managing agent;
(iii) details of each rented property owned by the landlord;
(iv) details of any enforcement action that any local authority has taken against the landlord;
(v) details of any enforcement action that any local authority has taken against the managing agent;
(vi) details of any banning orders or rent repayment orders that have been made against the landlord;
(vii) details of any reports that the landlord has failed to carry out works necessary to remedy any breaches of any applicable housing regulations within the timeframes set out by regulations made by the Secretary of State under
section 10A(3) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
(b) in respect of a dwelling entry—
(i) the address and contact details of the landlord;
(ii) the address and contact details of the managing agent;
(iii) details of any notices given to the previous tenant under
section 8 of the Housing Act 1988, including the grounds relied upon;
(iv) details of the rent that was payable at the commencement of the existing tenancy or, where there is no existing tenancy, the most recent tenancy;
(v) details of any increases in the rent imposed during the existing tenancy and the previous tenancy;
(vi) details of energy performance certificates required by
regulation 6(5) of the Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012;
(vii) details of gas safety certificates required by regulation 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998;
(viii) details of electrical safety reports required by the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2010;
(ix) details of checks required under
regulation 4(1)(b) of the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015; and
(x) details of any features of the dwelling relevant to people with disabilities.”
This amendment would introduce specific requirements for landlord and dwelling entries on the Private Rented Sector Database.
Government amendments 40 and 41.
Amendment 11, in clause 96, page 114, line 22, at end insert—
“(1A) In section 40 (introduction and key definitions), in subsection (1) after “has” insert—
“breached a requirement imposed by sections 62(1) or 80(3) of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 or””.
This amendment would enable a tribunal to make a rent repayment order where a landlord has failed to join a landlord redress scheme or have active entries in the private rented sector database.
Amendment 3, in clause 98, page 117, line 33, after “(homelessness),” insert—
“or that is provided by the Ministry of Defence for use as service family accommodation,”.
This amendment would extend the Decent Homes Standard to Ministry of Defence service family accommodation.
Amendment 8, page 117, line 33, leave out from “(homelessness)” to the end of line 3 on page 118.
This amendment would make the Decent Homes Standard apply to all homeless temporary accommodation provided under the Housing Act 1996 by adapting the definition of “residential premises” in the Housing Act 2004 to remove a requirement for such temporary accommodation to meet certain Government regulations.
Government amendments 42 to 52.
Amendment 56, in clause 142, page 151, line 9, leave out from “subject to” to the end of line 27 and insert—
“the publication of an assessment under section [Assessment of operation of possession process].
Amendment 10, in schedule 1, page 160, line 13, leave out subsection (a).
This amendment would extend the special provisions for purpose-built student housing to HMO student properties.
Government amendments 18 to 22.
Amendment 59, page 168, line 25, at end insert—
“20A After Ground 6 insert—
“Ground 6ZA
The landlord or superior landlord who is seeking possession intends to undertake such works as are necessary to ensure that the property meets the standards set out by regulations under
section 2A of the Housing Act 2004
and the intended work cannot reasonably be carried out without the tenant giving up possession of the dwelling-house because—
(a) the tenant is not willing to agree to such a variation of the terms of the tenancy as would give such access and other facilities as would permit the intended work to be carried out, or
(b) the nature of the intended work is such that no such variation is practicable, or
(c) the tenant is not willing to accept an assured tenancy of such part only of the dwelling-house (in this sub-paragraph referred to as “the reduced part”) as would leave in the possession of his landlord so much of the dwelling-house as would be reasonable to enable the intended work to be carried out and, where appropriate, as would give such access and other facilities over the reduced part as would permit the intended work to be carried out, or
(d) the nature of the intended work is such that such a tenancy is not practicable.””
Government amendments 23 to 26, 31 to 33, 53 and 54.
Matthew Pennycook
It is a pleasure to bring this important Bill back to the House this afternoon. Let me begin by thanking hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber for their engagement with it over recent months. In particular, I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), and other members of the Committee for the diligent and thoughtful line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill that they undertook over the course of many sittings late last year.
This Labour Government promised to succeed where their predecessor had failed, by quickly and decisively acting to transform the experience of private renting in England. Today, we make further tangible progress towards delivering on that commitment. Our Renters’ Rights Bill will modernise the regulation of our country’s insecure and unjust private rented sector, levelling decisively the playing field between landlord and tenant. It will empower renters by providing them with greater security, rights and protections so that they can stay in their homes for longer, build lives in their communities and avoid the risk of homelessness.
It will ensure that we can drive up the quality of privately rented housing so that renters have access to good-quality and safe homes as a matter of course. It will also allow us to crack down on the minority of unscrupulous landlords who exploit, mistreat or discriminate against renters. The Bill will also provide tangible benefits for responsible landlords who provide high-quality homes and a good service to their tenants. Not only will its provisions see the reputation of the sector as a whole improve, as we clamp down on those landlords whose behaviour currently tarnishes it, but the Bill will also ensure that good landlords enjoy simpler regulation and clear and expanded possession grounds, so that they can regain their properties quickly when necessary.
Although we have eschewed the previous Government’s habit of shoehorning swathes of new clauses into legislation following Second Reading, we needed to make a modest number of improvements to the Bill in Committee. Many of the amendments in question were minor and technical or consequential in nature, but I shall briefly explain to the House some of the more substantive changes.
To increase fairness for tenants being evicted because their landlord is at fault, we chose to make an amendment connected to ground 6A. As hon. Members will be aware this mandatory ground allows landlords to remove their tenants when eviction is necessary for them to comply not only with enforcement action, but as a result of separate changes that we made to the Bill with planning enforcement action as well. The amendment allows the court to require landlords to pay compensation to the tenant when they are forced to vacate their homes under such circumstances.
To provide greater flexibility for social landlords in meeting the demands of local housing markets, we widened ground 1B for rent-to-buy tenancies, ensuring that registered providers can take possession in all necessary circumstances. We also exempted assured tenancies from the 90-day rule, which protects housing supply in London and benefits permanent residents by preventing the conversion of family homes into short-term lets. Should a tenant give notice early in their tenancy, meaning that they leave before 90 consecutive nights have passed, these changes mean that the landlord will not automatically be found to have inadvertently provided temporary sleeping accommodation.
Lastly, we made changes to ensure that the introduction of a decent homes standard in the private rented sector works as intended.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
Last week, I asked the Government to ensure that all service family accommodation meets the minimum standards of social housing, as set out in the decent homes standard. The Minister for Veterans confirmed that this is already done, so will the Government support amending the Renters’ Rights Bill officially to extend the decent homes standard to Ministry of Defence service family accommodation?
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the hon. Lady for her question and I agree with the objective that she has in mind, but, as we discussed fairly extensively in Committee, we do not think that the Renters’ Rights Bill and the way that the decent homes standard will apply to assured tenancies in this sector is right for MOD accommodation. The MOD is undertaking its own review, and I shall touch on that issue later in the debate.
As I was saying, the changes around the decent homes standard will guarantee that the appropriate person can always be subject to enforcement action and they close a potential gap that may have been exploited by clarifying the types of accommodation that will be required to meet the standard.
Today, we are proposing a small number of further improvements, most of which are again minor and technical in nature. As I have made clear repeatedly, the Government have long recognised that demands for extortionate amounts of rent in advance put undue financial strain on tenants and can exclude certain groups from renting altogether. I am sure that many of us in the Chamber will have heard powerful stories from our constituents about the impact of such demands. The typical story is all too familiar. Tenants find and view a property which, as advertised, matches their budget only to find that, on application, they are suddenly asked to pay several months’ rent up front to secure it. Tenants in such circumstances often confront an almost impossible choice: do they find a way to make a large rent-in-advance payment, thereby stretching their finances to breaking point, or do they walk away and risk homelessness if they are unable to find an alternative?
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall and Camberwell Green) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for the work he has been doing. He highlighted the issue of tenants being asked to pay up front. In my constituency and many other London constituencies, that up-front cost amounts in some cases to a deposit to purchase a home. Does he agree that we need to look into that issue and into estate agents effectively getting tenants to bid against each other for private rented accommodation?
Matthew Pennycook
My hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee is absolutely right and, as I will detail, that is precisely why the Government are moving to prohibit that practice. As she will know, the Government have already moved to ban bidding wars through the Bill, where desperate tenants are often pitted against each other so that a landlord can extract the highest possible rental payment. Demands for large rent-in-advance payments—in many parts of the country, they can be six, nine or even 12 months’ rent in advance—can have a similar effect, with tenants encouraged to offer ever larger sums up front to outdo the competition and secure a home that may or may not be of a good standard, or risk being locked out of renting altogether.
As I stated previously, the interaction of the new rent periods in clause 1, which cannot be longer than a month, and the existing provisions of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 related to prohibited payments, arguably provide a measure of protection against requests for large amounts of advance rent. As I made clear in Committee, however, there is a strong case for putting the matter beyond doubt, and that is what we intend to do.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Minister will know, before coming to this place I worked for a homelessness charity in Harlow called Streets2Homes. Part of our role was to support homeless people—both rough sleepers and the hidden homeless—to get into rented accommodation, and often we provided deposits for that. Does he agree that the legislation will help charities like Streets2Homes provide more support to more people in need?
Matthew Pennycook
It absolutely will. I will detail some of the other changes that we are making to ensure that the Bill achieves our objectives.
Having listened to the concerns raised by numerous stakeholders, the views expressed on Second Reading and in Committee, and the representatives made to me by individual hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) and for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), we have tabled new clauses 13 and 14.
New clause 14 would limit the amount of rent that a landlord can require to a maximum of one month. It would prevent unscrupulous landlords from using rent in advance to either set tenants against each other in de facto bidding wars or to exclude all together certain types of renters who are otherwise perfectly able to afford the monthly rent on a property. It does so by amending schedule 1 to the Tenant Fees Act 2019 so that any payment of rent made before a tenancy agreement is signed will be a prohibited payment. If a landlord or letting agent invites, encourages or accepts such a payment, they could face local authority enforcement action and a fine of up to £5,000.
New clause 13 would amend the Housing Act 1988 to ensure that tenants continue to be protected from unreasonable requests for rent to be paid early once a tenancy has commenced. Landlords will no longer be able to include any terms in the tenancy agreement that have the effect of requiring rent to be paid prior to the rent due date. Tenants will retain the flexibility to make payments of rent in advance within a tenancy agreement should they wish to do so.
The effect of the new clauses will be that tenants can be certain that the financial outlay to secure a tenancy will not exceed the cost of a tenancy deposit and the first month’s rent, and that they will not be required to pay their rent earlier than agreed. The new clauses will thereby reduce the barriers that stop tenants moving from substandard or insecure housing, and I commend them to the House.
Hon. Members with large student populations in their constituencies will know that the dynamics of the general student rental market in many parts of the country see students compelled to make important decisions about accommodation long before they have formed stable friendship groups, or have had time to properly judge a property’s condition or location, and to consequently pay substantial deposits at a point in time when they are already coping with significant additional costs. This arms race, in which students are pressured ever earlier in the year to enter into contracts for the subsequent academic year, clearly is not benefiting them, and it is arguable whether it benefits the student landlords engaged in it.
The Government have therefore tabled amendments 18 and 53, which will prevent the use of possession ground 4A in instances where a student tenancy was agreed more than six months in advance of the date of occupation, thereby helping to reduce the prevalence of the practice. I want to be clear that the amendment will not lead to an outright ban on contracts being agreed more than six months in advance. Instead, making the use of ground 4A conditional on not doing so will act as a strong disincentive against landlords who wish to use it to pressure students into early sign-ups, as many do now. I thank all those who have advocated for this change, including the former Member for Sheffield Central, Paul Blomfield, during his time in Parliament, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley, and organisations such as Unipol.
Having taken up the cause of a family in her constituency who were forced by a letting agent to continue to pay as guarantors for a property that had been rented by their son before he tragically took his own life, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) has been campaigning for many years to protect bereaved families by prohibiting the practice. I pay tribute to her for her tireless efforts to secure a change in this area. She was unable to persuade the previous Government to make the necessary changes to the Renters (Reform) Bill, but this Government are determined to act to end the abhorrent practice where guarantors are held liable for unpaid rent owed solely as a result of the death of a tenant who is a family member.
We have tabled new clause 15, which will limit the liability of a guarantor of a tenancy agreement for rent in circumstances where a tenant has died. I should make it clear that if in a joint tenancy the guarantor is not a family member, their liability for rent will be maintained. We consider that fair because we do not think it is reasonable to remove the guarantor’s liability and therefore expose a landlord to additional financial risk where the guarantor is not related to the deceased. Our new clause strikes the right balance: guarantors will be protected from being held liable for rent when they are grieving; landlords will be able to reclaim costs owed prior to a tenant’s death; and guarantor’s liability for other costs incurred under the tenancy will not be affected.
I turn to amendments 40 and 41, which will amend existing powers to charge fees for the private rented sector database. The amendments will expand the definition of relevant costs that can be considered when calculating such fees and would enable fee revenue to include PRS enforcement costs incurred by local housing authorities. Hon. Members should be assured that database fees will be calculated and agreed at a later date, with further details set out in secondary legislation and developed on the basis that fees must be reasonable and proportionate. The amendments do not alter that position. In setting the fees, a range of factors will be considered, including the costs incurred by landlords. However, we need to ensure that when calculating fees, we can take into account all relevant costs, and the amendments will ensure that that is the case.
Enabling fee revenue to include PRS enforcement costs is also important. For the reforms to have the impact we all want, effective enforcement will be crucial, and that point was debated at length in Committee. As we have touched on frequently throughout our consideration of the Bill, local housing authority capacity and resourcing is a real problem. The amendments provide an additional lever to help ensure that every local housing authority has the tools and resources it needs to carry out its enforcement role, so that good tenants and landlords benefit from a well-regulated and enforced PRS.
Amendments 35 to 39 will expand the scope of what can be covered by the compulsory fee that private landlords will be required to pay to fund the new PRS landlord ombudsman. They will ensure that the fee can cover the set-up costs of the ombudsman and activities specified in the regulations beyond those strictly necessary for mandatory aspects of landlord redress. That will allow the ombudsman to set up the core redress service and to provide additional member benefits, such as landlord-initiated mediation or voluntary member redress, without the costs having to be borne by the taxpayer.
I turn to amendments 42 to 52. Rent repayment orders are an important and effective tenant-led enforcement tool. They deter landlords from non-compliance and empower tenants to take action against unscrupulous landlords. The Bill will significantly strengthen rent repayment orders, including their extension to superior landlords in rent-to-rent arrangements. But we intend to go further and ensure that those sorts of arrangements cannot be used to evade responsibility and escape enforcement action. We are also making it clear that tenants and local authorities can seek a rent repayment order against any landlord in the chain, regardless of who they paid the rent to.
Amendments 24 and 26 will limit the circumstances in which landlords can use ground 7 to obtain possession from a person who has inherited a tenancy following the death of a tenant. They will provide greater security for bereaved tenants by preventing them from losing their home, and I acknowledge the role that Marie Curie has played in advocating for change in respect of the matter. Landlords will still be able to use ground 7 if the original tenant had inherited it by will or intestacy, or if the inheriting individual did not live in the property before the tenant passed away. Landlords will also be able to use ground 7 for specialist tenancies, such as supported and temporary accommodation. That is in recognition of the critical role such tenancies play in supplying housing to those with specialist needs.
Private registered providers are currently restricted from using the possession ground for redevelopment—ground 6—apart from where they have a superior landlord who wants to redevelop the property. Other possession grounds, such as the suitable alternative accommodation ground—ground 9—can be used to move tenants, but only if clear conditions are met. Although we expect PRPs to work closely with tenants to facilitate moves to enable redevelopment work, the Government accept that in limited cases it is increasingly hard to meet those conditions, preventing PRPs from progressing with crucial redevelopment work. I thank the National Housing Federation for raising concerns about that matter with me.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I welcome what the Minister just said. Is he aware that a lot of landlords are using unreasonable arguments to terminate tenancies or raise rents ahead of this legislation coming into force, and is there anything he or his Department can do to protect tenants during this stressful period for them?
Matthew Pennycook
There is a lot of bad practice out there. That is the very reason why the Government have acted so quickly to introduce these reforms, and we are confident that once they are in place, they will provide tenants with the protection that they deserve. In the interim, I am afraid that there will continue to be bad practice of the kind that the Bill will stamp out.
For the reasons that I have just alluded to, we have tabled amendments 19 and 22 to give private registered providers an alternative route for obtaining possession for redevelopment and for decant accommodation. Where the landlord seeks possession on ground 6 or ground 6ZA because they intend to carry out redevelopment work or want to move a tenant on from decant accommodation, they will need to provide alternative accommodation that meets specific requirements. That includes the accommodation being affordable, in a suitable location and not overcrowded. The accommodation must also be let as an assured tenancy or equivalent, unless it is being let for a temporary period pending the tenant being moved to an assured tenancy or equivalent. To use ground 6ZA, landlords must give tenants prior notice to ensure that they are fully aware that the accommodation is provided for temporary decant use. If the landlord does not do that, they are liable for a fine of up to £7,000.
Where landlords wish to accommodate tenants temporarily in properties that are earmarked for redevelopment, social landlords must give prior notice, and set out in a written statement the intention to redevelop the accommodation and the timeframe for redevelopment. Under those circumstances, alternative accommodation will not need to be provided. Social landlords will also be required to pay removal expenses for social tenants when using ground 6 and ground 6ZA. We do not expect that the need to use those grounds will arise often in practice through the engagement of PRPs with tenants, but where needed, the amendments will ensure that significant redevelopment work is not unduly delayed.
Government amendments 12, 13, 17, 20, 21, 23, 28 to 30 and 54 are related and consequential provisions to reflect the new ability for landlords to gain possession for redevelopment and for decant accommodation. We think that this group of amendments gets the balance right, enabling PRPs to progress redevelopment and use temporary decant accommodation during redevelopment works, while ensuring that tenants are provided with appropriate alternative accommodation and removal expenses.
Let me turn finally to amendment 34. Clause 30 ensures that long leases can continue to function by excluding leases over seven years from the assured regime. Those leases are typically used in purchases of leasehold and shared-ownership properties. I am grateful to stakeholders for raising concerns about the possibility of some unscrupulous landlords using clause 30 to circumnavigate the new assured regime by issuing leases of over seven years with a break or early-termination clause that is operable in the first few years. Tenants must not be cheated out of the protections of the assured tenancy regime. The amendment will therefore exclude all leases over 21 years from the assured regime. That will act as a much stronger deterrent to landlords who seek to avoid the assured tenancy regime. The amendment also excludes existing leases of between seven and 21 years, to ensure that they can continue to operate as currently intended. It also ensures that regulated home purchase plans can continue to enable consumers to purchase properties using the principles of Islamic finance by adding them to the list of excluded tenancies in schedule 1 to the Housing Act 1988.
The amendments that the Government have tabled for consideration today are a series of targeted changes designed to ensure that the Bill works as intended, and I commend them all to the House. I thank hon. Members for their efforts to improve the Bill, and for the scrutiny and challenge that the Bill has received so far. I look forward to listening to the remainder of the debate.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
I am sure that all Members have plenty of examples in their inboxes of why this Bill is so needed. Recent cases in my inbox have ranged from someone who had to wait two years for a boiler to be fixed, to someone who has a home so damp that they cannot walk through it without shoes on, as the carpets are permanently wet. They have had numerous electrical appliances fail and have lost their property to mould. Worst of all, they are permanently ill. Even the ombudsman finding in their favour has not produced decisive action to address the problem. It is an outrage that people are living in such conditions in the 21st century and, after the inaction of the previous Government, I welcome the approach set out in this Bill to fixing hazards such as mould.
I also welcome the security of tenancy. So often when people approach their MP about homelessness issues, they talk about the importance of being in a particular location. They say it is because their children are settled in their school, because they need to care for a relative who lives there, and because they need the support of family and friends. Repeatedly moving around robs people of vital community links and stability. It also affects the life chances of children and young people. It is not only no-fault evictions that lead to people moving around; so too do rent rises. So I welcome the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) to limit the maximum rent increase. Far too many people are forced out of their rental properties by exorbitant rent rises, and this Bill does not go far enough to prevent that situation.
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) asked where the properties will go. In some cases, as our new clause 2 sets out, they will go to people on short-term contracts. We therefore need to consider the impact on the market as a whole.
I wish to raise one small concern of a landlord about the impact that the changes will have both on them and on their tenants. They own a single, upper-floor, leasehold flat. They own only the inside of the flat—not the exterior, the wall gaps or the loft. The Bill’s provisions on energy efficiency and so forth are of concern to them. Obviously, we want people to have homes that they can afford to heat and that meet climate change obligations, but not all small landlords are scrupulous, and relying on them to be so is not appropriate protection for tenants. As the Bill progresses, I ask the Minister to consider how the Government will support small landlords who want to do the right thing, so that the private rental sector does not become the sole preserve of well-heeled, large landlords.
Matthew Pennycook
I wonder whether I might provide some helpful clarification: this Bill has no provisions in it that deal with minimum energy-efficiency standards in the private rented sector. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will shortly go out to consultation on those MEE standards for the PRS, but it is not within the scope of this Bill.
Claire Young
I thank the Minister for that clarification.
In conclusion, I welcome the Bill and the protections it provides, but I urge Ministers to accept the Liberal Democrat amendments put forward by my hon. Friends the Members for Taunton and Wellington and for St Albans (Daisy Cooper).
Tom Hayes
I never disagree with my hon. Friend, and his point shows why we need the Bill.
I welcome the Bill’s protections against unreasonable rent rises and rental bidding. My disabled constituent Tracey, also from Boscombe, got in contact with me about how a substantial hike in her rent acted as an effective eviction as she was unable to pay. Despite looking to use her personal independence payment towards her rent, she was forced to look for alternative accommodation, and we all know how difficult that is in the private rented sector for people with disabilities. I welcome the protections in the Bill against unreasonable rent rises because they will provide much-needed security for renters like Tracey who struggle to find appropriate accommodation in the rented sector to meet their needs.
I also welcome the introduction of a new ombudsman service, which will provide quick, fair, impartial and binding resolutions for tenants’ complaints about their landlord, bringing tenant-landlord complaint resolution on a par with established redress practices for tenants in social housing or consumers of property agent services. I welcome the move to make it illegal for landlords to discriminate against tenants in receipt of housing benefit or other benefits or with children when choosing to let their property. That particularly affects James in my constituency, who is homeless and cannot secure private rented housing because he is in receipt of benefits.
All of us who hold constituency surgeries week in, week out will know these stories. All of us have campaigned for better renters’ rights because we have heard those stories on the doorstep, and I commend the Government for bringing forward the Bill at such an early stage in this Parliament. We must of course make the point that not all landlords are bad, but the Bill is important because it weeds out those bad landlords so that the good landlords—those who care about their tenants and who provide an important duty to the housing market—can continue to have a good reputation, and so the overall market continues to have that good reputation.
I commend the Bill and the ministerial team for bringing it forward. I am thrilled that renters in Bournemouth and across Britain will finally, after many years of delay, get the renters’ rights they deserve—no, that they are entitled to.
Matthew Pennycook
Let me begin by thanking all hon. Members for their contributions. It has been a thoughtful and good-natured debate, and while there are many genuine points of difference and emphasis, there is a consensus across the House that reform of the private rented sector is long overdue and must be taken forward.
In the time I have available to me, I will respond to a number of the amendments and key arguments. In his contribution, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), suggested that Government new clauses 13 and 14 risk locking out of the rental market those renters who are on the financial margins and fettering landlords and tenants coming to fair agreements on tenancies in the assured regime that we are introducing. I gently say to him that he seriously downplays the imbalance between landlords and tenants, and the fact that requiring multiple months of rent from a tenant in advance when agreeing a tenancy is unfair, places considerable strain on tenants and can exclude some people and families from renting altogether.
Landlords will continue to be able to take a holding deposit of up to one week, a tenancy deposit of five or six weeks’ rent and up to one month’s rent in advance before a tenancy has begun. They will also be free to undertake the necessary referencing and affordability checks to give them confidence that a tenancy is sustainable for all parties. If and when they are not satisfied by the outcomes of pre-tenancy checks, options are available to tenants and landlords to ensure that rent in advance need not be used—requesting a guarantor or engaging in landlord insurance, for example. I hope that provides the shadow Minister with a degree of reassurance on that point.
The shadow Minister tabled a number of amendments—several of which we debated in detail in Committee. With regard to amendments 57, 58 and 60, I restate the argument that I made in Committee: fixed terms mean that tenants are locked into tenancy agreements without the freedom to move should their personal circumstances change, and compel tenants to pay rent regardless of whether a property is fit to live in, reducing the incentive for unscrupulous landlords to complete repairs. For that reason, the Government remain firmly of the view that there is no place whatsoever for fixed terms of any kind in the new tenancy regime that the Bill introduces.
A number of hon. Members referred to problems with short-term lets. The Government are cognisant of the impact that excessive concentrations of short-term lets can have on the affordability and availability of local housing and the sustainability of local communities. We are committed to monitoring that issue and, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos), knows, we are exploring what further powers local authorities need to bear down on it. However, putting an arbitrary deadline in law, as new clause 2 would do, is not the way to proceed.
Gideon Amos
I am grateful to the Minister for his response on that issue. Will he comment on the question of a use class order for second homes?
Matthew Pennycook
The hon. Gentleman tempts me to engage in an entirely different debate. I am more than happy to update him, at the appropriate time, with all the measures that the Government will take forward in response to that issue. He can be assured, however, that we are giving it serious attention, and this will not be a case of the Government kicking something into the long grass.
The Government are clear that we will not delay on giving renters the long-term security, rights and protections that they deserve by making the necessary and long-overdue transformation of the sector, contingent on a broad and undefined assessment of the possession process, as new clause 19 and amendment 56 propose. The shadow Minister knows that I fully agree with him that court readiness is essential to the successful operation of the new system. That is why my officials and I are working closely with the Minister for Courts and Legal Services and her team to ensure that the Courts and Tribunals Service is ready when the new tenancy system is brought into force.
The shadow Minister also pressed the Government to place in the Bill a legal requirement to publish an annual review of its impact on the availability of homes. He will know that the Government have published a green-rated impact assessment. We will, of course, closely monitor the impact of the Bill on the housing market, but setting an arbitrary deadline in law for doing so would, we believe, detract from that work. Although I do not begrudge him for tabling new clause 20 to make that point, he will know that no Government could accept such an amendment.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, and several Members of his party raised the issue of military accommodation and tabled amendment 3. There is no dispute about that amendment’s objective—namely to ensure that all service accommodation equals or exceeds the decent homes standard. The Government have made that commitment. Where we do disagree is on whether the approach that we are taking in the Bill is appropriate for the unique circumstances surrounding Ministry of Defence accommodation. We do not believe that it is, for various reasons that we discussed at length in Committee, including the problems that local authorities have in inspecting accommodation that is behind the wire on sensitive MOD bases.
As the hon. Gentleman is aware, the Ministry of Defence is committed to reviewing its decent homes-plus standard for accommodation, with the aim of improving the standard of SFA across the estate, where it needs improvement, as part of its long-term strategy for service accommodation. That review will be informed by my Department’s work on housing standards, including our review of the content of the DHS, which Ministers in the Ministry of Defence are committed to aligning with. The Ministry of Defence will provide further information on the review of its target early in 2025.
Gideon Amos
The Minister is generous in giving way. On the question of accommodation behind the wire, to clarify, amendment 3 deals with service family accommodation. Service family accommodation is generally not behind the wire; it is on the street, where councils can access it.
Matthew Pennycook
That is only one of the issues; as the hon. Gentleman knows, we debated many others in Committee. I appreciate that there is a principled disagreement on this point. We share his objective, but we think that there is a different and more sensible way to go about meeting it. Addressing service accommodation through this Bill is not the way to proceed.
Calum Miller
I am very grateful to the Minister; I appreciate the time constraints that he faces. The critical question is when those in our communities who live in service accommodation can expect it to reach the standards that he and his colleagues intend to set out. I appreciate the co-operation with Defence Ministers, but can the Minister give us a date by which that standard will be in place?
Matthew Pennycook
I am sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman’s question and his desire for that information, but it is not for me to give a date from the Dispatch Box today; my colleagues in the Ministry of Defence will provide further information on the review of that target standard early this year.
The Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker) and the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer), spoke in support of their respective amendments to introduce forms of rent control. I assure each of those Members that I entirely understand their concerns about the affordability of rent generally, and specifically the potential for retaliatory no-fault economic evictions. Once section 21 evictions are done away with, unscrupulous landlords will no doubt attempt to evict tenants who assert their rights by means of extortionate rent rises.
However, as we debated extensively in Committee, the Government sincerely believe that the introduction of rent controls in the private rented sector could harm tenants as well as landlords by reducing supply and discouraging investment. While I fully appreciate that there is a broad spectrum of regulation that falls under the title of rent control, there is, as we debated at length in Committee, sufficient international evidence from countries such as Sweden and Germany, cities such as San Francisco and Ontario, and the Scottish experience since 2017, to attest to the potential detrimental impacts of rent control. For that reason, we believe that we should proceed on the basis of the protections that the Bill provides against unreasonable within-tenancy rent rises, as well as wider action to improve affordability, not least support for the growth of the build-to-rent sector.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Wavertree also tabled new clause 5, which would place a duty on the Secretary of State to conduct a review of the tenancy deposit protection schemes and requirements. The contracts governing those schemes are due to end next year, and their re-procurement provides an opportunity for the Department to review their objectives and how they operate. I am more than happy to engage with my hon. Friend on that process; on that basis, I ask her to not divide the House on her new clause. I am also more than happy to ensure that she is closely involved in the development of the PRS database. We believe that there are good reasons for the detail relating to that database to be laid out in secondary legislation, rather than put in the Bill, as her amendment 7 stipulates. However, it is our clear expectation that the database will capture key information about landlords, and we recognise that there may be clear benefits in using it to collect a wider range of information, as her amendment suggests.
My hon. Friend also tabled new clause 6, which would require local authorities, if requested, to pay or guarantee the tenancy deposits of care leavers seeking to access the private rented sector. I am of the view that local authorities, rather than central Government, are best placed to assess the best way of supporting care leavers in their area. I reassure my hon. Friend that while local authorities maintain their ability to support care leavers in their areas, the Government are committed to putting in place the support that local government needs to do so effectively.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) made a strong case for new clause 11 on acting to limit guarantors. I appreciate fully that obtaining a guarantor can be difficult for some prospective tenants, and I understand the reasoning behind his amendment. However, I am also mindful that in some instances the use of guarantors can provide good landlords with the assurance necessary to let their properties to tenants who may otherwise find it difficult to access private rented accommodation. For example, there are those with a poor credit history—the kind of tenant who the shadow Minister worries our rent-in-advance amendments will harm. Having considered this issue in great detail, I ultimately concluded that limiting guarantors could inadvertently make life more difficult for certain types of renter. That said, I will keep the matter under review, and I am more than happy to engage in a dialogue with my hon. Friend about this in the weeks and months to come.
Several Opposition Members mentioned new clause 22, in the name of the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper). The Government are clear that all landlords must keep their properties in a fit state, and that there need to be robust routes of redress when they do not. However, tenants can already take their landlord to court if their home is unfit for human habitation, and if the courts find that landlords have not met their obligations, they can award compensation, as well as requiring landlords to carry out repairs. For that reason, while agreeing entirely with the objective, I believe that the hon. Lady’s amendment is unnecessary.
I will briefly refer to two amendments on the amendment paper that were not spoken to by the Members who tabled them. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) rightly called for protection from discrimination for renters who require home adaptations. The rental discrimination provisions in the Bill are specifically designed to protect victims of discrimination who may not be eligible to make a case under the Equality Act 2010, such as those who have children or are in receipt of benefits. People with a disability are already afforded protections from discrimination relating to the provision of housing or services under the Act. For that reason, we do not believe her new clause 24 is warranted, but I am more than happy to discuss the matter with her outside the Chamber.
My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) tabled amendment 11 to make rent repayment orders available for initial failure to be a member of the PRS landlord ombudsman or to register with the PRS database. She will recognise that we have significantly strengthened the RRO provisions in the previous Government’s Renters (Reform) Bill. However, I took the view that it would be inappropriate to extend rent repayment orders to non-criminal breaches of the kind that her amendment covers. Instead, local authorities will be able to issue civil penalties for the initial failures in question, with the possibility of higher financial penalties and RROs if landlords fail to sign up, having been fined.
Finally, I will mention the amendments relating to home adaptations—both new clause 9, in the name of the hon. Member for Bristol Central, and new clause 23, in the name of the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington. Both amendments seek to require PRS landlords to permit home disability adaptations for assured tenants when these have been recommended in a local authority home assessment. The hon. Member for Bristol Central tabled the same amendment in Committee, and as we discussed then, the Equality Act already provides that landlords cannot unreasonably refuse a request for reasonable adjustments to a disabled person’s home. As I said in Committee, measures already in this Bill will improve the situation for disabled renters who request home adaptations. The abolition of section 21 notices will remove the threat of retaliatory eviction, empowering tenants to request the home adaptations they need and to complain if their requests are unreasonably refused. In addition, we are establishing the new PRS ombudsman, which will have strong powers to put things right for tenants where their landlord has failed to resolve a legitimate complaint.
I must say candidly to the hon. Lady that I remain somewhat unconvinced that these amendments are the way to address this absolutely legitimate issue—I recognise the problem she identifies—and for that reason, the Government will not be able to accept them. However, I can give her the assurance that we will commit to continuing to consider what more we may need to do to ensure that requests for reasonable adjustments cannot be unreasonably refused, including those recommended by local authority home assessments. I am more happy to engage with Members across the House, and to meet her, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington and other Members who have concerns on the subject, to discuss her amendment and the problem generally in more detail. I hope that, on that basis, she will consider not pressing her new clause to a vote.
Carla Denyer
If the Minister can confirm that the cross-party meeting will include the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, and that it will take place before the Bill goes to the Lords, I will be happy to withdraw my new clause.
Matthew Pennycook
I will happily give the hon. Member that assurance, and I am more than happy to ensure that my hon. Friend the Chair of the Committee attends, as well as any other Member with an interest in this issue. It is important, and I understand the problem that the hon. Member outlines. There are reasons why we do not think the new clause is necessarily the best way to approach the issue, but I am more than happy to have a dialogue on that point.
In conclusion, today we are making targeted amendments that aim to ensure that the Bill operates as intended. In many cases, we think that the amendments pushed by hon. Members are unnecessary, because we think that the Bill strikes the right balance between the interests of landlords and those of tenants. On that basis, I hope the whole House can get behind the Bill this evening.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 13 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
Prohibition of rent in advance before lease entered into
(1) Schedule 1 to the Tenant Fees Act 2019 (permitted payments) is amended in accordance with subsections (2) and (3).
(2) After paragraph 1(1) (rent is a permitted payment) insert—
“(1A) But a payment of rent is a prohibited payment if—
(a) it is payable before the tenancy is entered into, and
(b) the tenancy is an assured tenancy.
(1B) This paragraph is subject to paragraph 1A.”
(3) For sub-paragraph (2) of paragraph 1 substitute—
“Increased rent
1A (1) If the amount of rent payable in respect of any relevant period (“P1”) is more than the amount of rent payable in respect of any later relevant period (“P2”), the additional amount payable in respect of P1 is a prohibited payment.
(2) That is subject to the following provisions of this paragraph.”
(4) After section 5 of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 insert—
“Other provision about rent in advance
5A Pre-tenancy payments of rent: prohibitions
(1) A landlord must not—
(a) invite or encourage a relevant person to make a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent to the landlord in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England,
(b) accept an offer from a relevant person to make a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent to the landlord in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England, or
(c) accept from a relevant person a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England.
(2) A landlord must not—
(a) invite or encourage a relevant person to make a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent to a third party in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England,
(b) accept an offer from a relevant person to make a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent to a third party in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England, or
(c) accept from a third party a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England.
(3) A letting agent must not—
(a) invite or encourage a relevant person to make a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent to the letting agent in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England,
(b) accept an offer from a relevant person to make a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent to the letting agent in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England, or
(c) accept from a relevant person a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England.
(4) A letting agent must not—
(a) invite or encourage a relevant person to make a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent to a third party in connections with an assured tenancy of housing in England,
(b) accept an offer from a relevant person to make a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent to a third party in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England, or
(c) accept from a third party a prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent in connection with an assured tenancy of housing in England.
(5) The Secretary of State may, by regulations made by statutory instrument, amend this section for the purpose of making provision about the descriptions of rent due in advance to which any provision of subsection (1), (2), (3) or (4) applies.
For this purpose “rent due in advance” means rent due before the period for which it is payable.
(6) Regulations under subsection (5)—
(a) may make different provision for different purposes;
(b) may make supplemental, incidental, consequential, transitional, transitory or saving provision;
(c) are to be made by statutory instrument.
(7) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (5) may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(8) In this section “prohibited pre-tenancy payment of rent” means a payment of rent that is prohibited by paragraph 1(1A) of Schedule 1.
5B Effect of a breach of section 5A
A term of an agreement between a letting agent and a relevant person which breaches section 5A is not binding on a relevant person.
Where a term of an agreement is not binding on a relevant person as a result of this section, the agreement continues, so far as practicable, to have effect in every other respect.”
(5) The Tenant Fees Act 2019 is further amended as follows—
(a) in section 6 (enforcement by local weights and measures authorities)—
(i) in subsection (1), in paragraph (b) omit “and” and after that paragraph insert—
“(ba) section 5A (pre-tenancy payments of rent: prohibitions), and”;
(ii) in subsection (3), for “or 2” substitute “, 2 or 5A”;
(b) in section 7 (enforcement by district councils), in subsection (1), for “and 2” substitute
“, 2 and 5A”;
(c) in section 8 (financial penalties), in subsection (1), for “or 2” substitute “, 2 or 5A”;
(d) in section 10 (recovery by enforcement authority of amount paid)—
(i) in subsection (1)(a), for “or 2” substitute “, 2 or 5A”;
(ii) after subsection (2) insert—
“(2A) But that obligation to pay the amount, or remaining part, of the prohibited payment is subject to subsection (3), unless it is a case where the payment is prohibited by paragraph 1(1A) of Schedule 1 (pre-tenancy payment of rent).”;
(iii) in subsection (3), for “But subsection (2) does not apply in relation to a prohibited payment” substitute “Subsection (2) does not apply in relation to the prohibited payment”;
(e) in section 15 (recovery by relevant person of amount paid), in subsection (1)(a), for “or 2” substitute “, 2 or 5A”.”.—(Matthew Pennycook.)
This amends the Tenant Fees Act 2019 so that rent in advance payable before the tenancy is entered into is a “prohibited payment” for the purposes of that Act. The new section 5A then also adds new prohibitions relating to that kind of prohibited payment.
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
The House divided: Ayes 372, Noes 114
[Division lists to follow.]
Question accordingly agreed to.
New clause 14 read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
Matthew Pennycook
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
It has been a real privilege to take this vital piece of legislation through the House. I want to thank everyone who has played a role in getting the Bill to this stage: my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister for her passionate commitment to improving the lives of England’s 11 million private renters; the Department’s Bill team who have worked tirelessly on the legislation for the past six months; my outstanding private office, including my fantastic private secretary Will Gaby, who has led the team on the Bill; the Clerks, Chairs and parliamentary counsel for facilitating its progress; the witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee; and hon. Members from across the House who provided valuable input today and at previous stages.
The current system for private renting is broken. While the Government recognise that the majority of landlords provide high-quality homes and a good service to their tenants, it remains the case that the private rented sector still provides the least affordable, poorest quality and most insecure housing of all tenures. This intolerable state of affairs is why renters have been demanding change for many years, and I am extremely proud that this Government have acted so early in the Parliament to deliver it.
The Renters’ Rights Bill will deliver on our manifesto commitment to overhaul the regulation of the private rented sector and to decisively raise standards within it. It is bitterly disappointing that despite not forcing a single Division in Committee, the Opposition decided today to set their face firmly against private rented sector reform on the basis of a series of specious and, indeed, spurious arguments. They may be intent on letting down England’s private renters once again, but this Labour Government will not put tens of thousands of them at risk of homelessness, nor will we prolong the uncertainty that responsible landlords across the country have experienced over recent years by hesitating. We will finish the job and give England’s 11 million private renters the greater security, rights and protections they deserve. I wish Baroness Taylor the best with moving the Bill forward in the other place, and I commend it to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call Kevin Hollinrake, who has 35 seconds.
Compulsory Purchase Reforms
Matthew Pennycook Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I am today publishing a consultation on reforms to the compulsory purchase process and compensation provisions in England and Wales.
The Government are determined to achieve our hugely ambitious plan for change milestones of building 1.5 million safe and decent homes and fast-tracking 150 planning decisions on major infrastructure by the end of this Parliament.
To support the delivery of a range of development, regeneration and infrastructure projects in the public interest, we need to make better use of underutilised land across the country. We know that many local authorities share this objective, but their plans are all too often frustrated by onerous barriers to land assembly, complex purchasing processes, and unrealistic compensation expectations on the part of landowners. The result is significant amounts of developable land that remains unused and overpriced.
In our 2024 general election manifesto, the Government committed to further reforming compulsory purchase compensation rules to improve land assembly, speed up site delivery, and deliver housing, infrastructure, amenity, and transport benefits in the public interest. We promised to take steps to ensure that for specific types of development schemes, landowners are awarded fair compensation rather than inflated prices based on the prospect of planning permission being granted on the land in the future—known as “hope value”.
The eight-week consultation that we are launching today is the next step in fulfilling this commitment. Building on the Government’s 9 September commencement of regulations that enact the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 power to remove “hope value” from the assessment of compensation in compulsory purchase cases by directions where justified in the public interest, the consultation proposes new reforms to the process for compulsorily acquiring land without hope value compensation through general directions on certain types of sites that deliver clear benefits in the public interest.
The objective is twofold. First, to make the compulsory purchase process faster and more efficient so that acquiring authorities are incentivised to make use of it where appropriate. Secondly, to enable more land value to be captured where justified in the public interest and then invested in schemes for public benefit.
The consultation also seeks views on broader reforms to ensure the balance of the assessment of compensation awarded to landowners is fair, both to speed up decisions on compulsory purchase orders and to reduce the administrative costs of undertaking compulsory purchase.
Through this consultation, we want to understand better how the proposed reforms would operate in practice and how successfully they would deliver on our objectives of streamlining the compulsory purchase process and bringing forward much needed development including for housing, regeneration and infrastructure.
Subject to feedback to this consultation, we intend to bring forward measures in the planning and infrastructure Bill to implement the changes.
I look forward to continuing to work with all those with an interest in improving the compulsory purchase process and compensation regimes to make sure our reforms are robust and deliverable.
[HCWS346]