Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Munira Wilson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I have a lot of sympathy for the hon. Lady and the situation in which she finds herself. I know that she is a doughty champion for York—it is a beautiful city, and a potential home for the House of Lords if it does not want to move to Stoke—and that York needs the right type of housing and commercial investment. I look forward to working with her and with Homes England, and also to consider what we can do in the Bill to deal with some of the consequences of some of her constituents foolishly having voted for Liberal Democrats at the local level.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

The Secretary of State was asking for good ideas on things that have been missed in the Bill. On building more social and affordable housing and GP surgeries, there is a missed opportunity here to ensure that public sector-owned assets such as land and buildings, including police stations, can be sold for slightly below market value where a GP surgery is needed or housing associations want to build social housing. He is aware that I have been campaigning for that on Teddington police station in my constituency, which the Labour Mayor wants to sell to the highest bidder for luxury housing, even though the community wants a new GP surgery and more affordable housing. Will he put that provision in the Bill?

[Michael Gove]

Well, this is a first. It is the first time—certainly in the last seven years—that there has been a Lib Dem policy proposal that makes sense. I am nostalgic for those coalition years when, every so often, there was a Lib Dem policy proposal that made sense—they normally came from people who are no longer in the House—and that one does. Yes, she is absolutely right.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I should probably quit while I am ahead. We have consensus on one particular area where reform is needed. I stressed earlier, in introducing the Bill, that it sets out to ensure that urban regeneration becomes a reality, that our planning system is modernised, that the missions we have to level up this country are on the face of the Bill and that we are accountable to this House. There are so many colleagues who want to contribute, because that mission is so important. I beg leave to ask the House to give the Bill its Second Reading. With that, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will sit down.

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[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am grateful to have caught your eye in this very important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I am not so grateful to have to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy). I cannot believe that in a speech that lasted more than half an hour, she could not find something to welcome in the Bill, which will help to level up some of our poorest communities in this country. I can only conclude that she and I have been reading different Bills.

I declare my registered interest as a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors; I have practised professionally in planning matters. I welcome the fact that earlier zonal planning proposals were dropped, and I welcome the abolition of the five-year land supply. It is right to try to speed up the planning process by better using data and digitalisation. Where better to start than by streaming and accelerating the local planning process, and concurrently introducing neighbourhood development orders in clause 89 to make the neighbourhood plan process easier? That is important, because those plans are where most people become involved in the planning process. They are a truly democratic part of that process.

Unfortunately, the democratic theme applies with a vengeance to the national development management policies set out in clauses 83 and 84, which I referred to in an intervention on the Secretary of State. It is very important that we think carefully about them, because they set a dangerous precedent that begins to nationalise planning policy and upsets the delicate balance between national and local policy that has existed since the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which largely decentralised planning.

[Munira Wilson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I will not, because I have only four minutes.

Given the enabling power in the Bill to implement NDMPs, and the enormous centralising power, what will they contain and what will be the consultation process to create and amend them? That is a key question, and I hope that the Minister for Housing will provide some answers when he sums up.

I was heavily involved in the Public Accounts Committee’s inquiry into local government finance; indeed, I secured an Adjournment debate on the subject on 27 April—it is printed at column 845 of the Official Report—to urge the Government to stop local authorities such as Cotswold District Council, which wants to borrow £76.5 million on an annual core spending budget of just £11.2 million. The Liberal Democrats running that council are financially illiterate.

I welcome the implementation of the Letwin review to speed up development with the introduction of a development commencement notice that sets out the annual rate of housing delivery within large developments and the consequent completion notice. I also welcome the new infrastructure levy in clause 113, to be set in conjunction with the retained section 106 powers. In the Cotswolds, agricultural land is worth between £10,000 and £15,000 per acre; with planning permission, that could increase to half a million pounds or more. With good tax advice, only 10% is paid on the gain.

If the infrastructure levy is properly implemented, it could provide substantial infrastructure. It could end the endless argument about delays and viability, because the developer would know before purchasing the site what they would be expected to provide. The construct of charging on the gross development value—I urge the Minister to listen to this—is interesting, but will deter any aspect of environmental design improvement unless it is statutorily required. A better construct might be to capture the increase in land value, which I have demonstrated is there.

Finally, the increase in planning and enforcement fees is welcome. Most planning departments are poorly funded; they should be properly funded to determine applications rapidly and should employ good and well-qualified planners. Thank you for allowing me to speak in this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker.

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[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Since 1996, 22,317 houses have been built in North Somerset compared with a target of 24,687, which shows that this is not a nimby district. However, as many colleagues will recognise, the overall figures hide enormous variability. During the years when the town of Portishead, a triumph of regeneration, was growing, we exceeded our targets by some way. Taking the period as a whole, targets were exceeded in seven years but missed in 18 years. That is a very good reason for housing planning to be considered over longer periods. Five-year housing land supply measures are nonsensical and should be dropped.

But these figures show the effect of two important factors which need to be tackled in this legislation. The first is the conflicting signals given by central Government to local authorities on planning priorities. While overall housing target numbers are given, there are simultaneous restrictions being put in place. In North Somerset, the land area is 40% green belt, 30% flood zone and 15% area of outstanding natural beauty. In my discussion with the Secretary of State, he made clear he hoped the Planning Inspectorate would take account of local authorities that had tried to balance these conflicting and sometimes contradictory factors when it comes to housing targets, but we have to go much further. We need to furnish local authorities with a clear mechanism to net off the proportion of their land covered by things such as green belt, floodplain and AONB so that more realistic housing targets can be set, reflecting more accurately the availability of land in any one locality.

The second issue we need to tackle is land banking and build-out, which creates a Catch-22 for local authorities. Developers are given permission to build, but they do not do so. They then complain to the Planning Inspectorate that the local authority needs to give more land for housing, which creates a huge amount of uncertainty for local residents and even planning blight, but it helps to fill the developers’ pockets.

[Munira Wilson]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Fox]

I will not give way because so many colleagues want to take part.

The next issue is the green belt. The current framework has stood the test of time and represents a good balance between the values represented by green-belt policy and the need for some unavoidable development to meet local need. The village in which I live has seen two examples of redevelopment and infilling, which represents small and more acceptable development much better than the huge housing estates we have seen in other towns such as Backwell, Nailsea and Yatton in my constituency.

That brings me to my brief final point. We need to see more small developers coming into the housing market to provide much-needed competition and flexibility. I would like the Government to consider whether we can make it easier to have small developments of perhaps 30 to 40 houses, which would be much more attractive to small, new, innovative builders and much less attractive to the current dominant players in the housing market. As a matter of policy, we should introduce competition into the house building market. After all, if I remember correctly, we are a Conservative Government.

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[Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)]

There is much in the Bill that I welcome, such as digitising the planning system, tackling land banking and enforcing planning controls. I also welcome the important omission of the growth zone proposals that were in the “Planning for the Future” White Paper. These zones would have removed local input on what is built in areas designated for growth. I campaigned strongly against them, and I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for killing them off.

There are other measures that urgently need to be added to the Bill because, as it stands, it does not curb the powers of the Planning Inspectorate, it has no new protections for greenfield sites and it does not reduce or disapply housing targets. Excessive housing targets are creating ever greater pressure on elected local councillors to approve applications that amount to overdevelopment. Where committees turn down such proposals, they are at risk of being overturned on appeal.

Targets remain very high, even after the Government’s climbdown on the so-called “mutant algorithm.” The Bill’s focus on better design does not resolve these issues. Loss of precious green space remains problematic even if what is built on it is well designed. A block of flats is still a block of flats no matter how tastefully it is presented.

In one respect, as we have heard already today, the Bill worsens the problems that Back-Bench colleagues and I have been highlighting about the erosion of local control over planning. Clauses 83 and 84 empower the Secretary of State to set development management policies at a national level, which will override local plans.

[Munira Wilson]

rose—

[Theresa Villiers]

I am sorry, but I am unable to give way.

This radical change departs from a long-established planning principle that primacy should be given to elected councillors making decisions in accordance with their local plan. Management policies of this kind are at the heart of almost all planning decisions, covering matters as crucial as character, tall buildings, affordable housing and protection of open spaces. Removing from councils the power to set these management policies will severely weaken democratic control of the planning process. Development management policies form a bulwark of defence against inappropriate development. Centralised control would almost inevitably force councils to approve many applications that they would previously have rejected. These clauses amount to an aggressive power grab by the centre, and I hope they will be dropped.

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[Bob Seely]

I would rather not give way as I have only one minute—

[Munira Wilson]

rose—

[Bob Seely]

Okay, I give way.

[Munira Wilson]

I know the hon. Gentleman was desperate to get an extra minute. He is making a really impassioned speech and I agree with much of what he has said so far. He mentioned developers snapping up greenfield sites. In my constituency, the local community rose up to protect a site called Udney Park Playing Fields in Teddington, and thanks to a legal challenge it is now protected green space. The developer, however, will not now sell the site back to the community despite a good bid to turn it into playing fields, because they paid over the odds and they will wait years and years until planning policy changes. Meanwhile, the site is going to rack and ruin. Do we not need powers to tackle that?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We need short interventions, because there are many people who wish to speak.

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[Stuart Andrew]

Yes, there will be, and it will come at the second stage of Committee.

[Munira Wilson]

The Minister talked about building the homes that communities want and need, and he made a commitment to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) about not devolving powers upwards. Last year, central Government pushed through permitted development rights, which enable developers to put whole storeys on top of existing buildings, causing misery for leaseholders even when residents and local planning authorities have opposed them. Will he look at rescinding those powers in the Bill?

[Stuart Andrew]

No, I will not.

As I said, these new freedoms will help communities to repurpose and redesign old unused sites, and turn them into new vibrant communities. The Bill allows us to become a regeneration nation. It will support the housing and construction sector to play its part in growing our economy, creating well-paid jobs and levelling up. At the same time, the Bill brings our ageing analogue planning system into the digital age, with residents able to share their views at the touch of a smartphone. It places local people at the heart of a smoother, simpler more streamlined planning system using street votes, new design codes and community-led plans.

Most importantly, by enshrining the 12 missions of our levelling-up White Paper into law and offering every part of England a devolution deal by 2030, the Bill fulfils our promise to the British people—a fundamental promise upon which the Government were elected—to take power away from Whitehall and place it directly in the hands of communities, so that they can determine their future and realise their full potential. That is the pledge we made and that is what the Bill delivers. I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I respectfully disagree with the hon. and learned Lady. Not only are we respecting the devolution settlement; we are enhancing it. Only the other week, I had the chance to speak to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, which, as she will know, is the successor body to the oldest local government organisation in the world. There was a huge welcome from the Scottish National party, Conservative, independent, Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors in Scotland for the approach that we were taking in the UK Government. [Interruption.] There is a straightforward division between us. I prefer to trust locally elected councillors in Scotland, whereas she prefers the view of the House of Lords. You know:

“Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord…A Man’s a Man for a’ That”.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)]

The situation in Ukraine is at the forefront of the minds of us all in this House, and I am grateful for the immensely hard work of civil servants across Government, and of those in local government, as well as those involved in diplomatic and humanitarian efforts at this time.

My Department has two specific roles in supporting cross-Government work. The first is exploring how we can support the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and other Departments with a sanctions regime that meets the needs of the hour, and in particular how we can target the property and assets of those in this country who have been supporting the Putin regime. We are also responsible for ensuring that we can provide appropriate support for refugees arriving in this country. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has already expanded the family sponsorship system, and we have an existing humanitarian sponsorship scheme, which is being expanded now to ensure that local authorities and others can play their part in ensuring a warm and safe welcome for those fleeing persecution.

[Munira Wilson]

More than 2,100 residents have signed my petition to see the former Teddington police station site repurposed for community use and affordable housing. The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), confirmed last week that there is nothing in law or guidance that says the Mayor of London has to sell the site to the highest bidder, as he claims, and he has reportedly rejected a bid for a new home for Park Road GP surgery and affordable homes because he is insisting on getting the highest price—probably from luxury developers. Will the Minister join me in calling on the Mayor to reconsider this decision, as Teddington residents are demanding?

[Michael Gove]

I know how determined the hon. Lady has been to represent the residents of Teddington in this matter, and I know she has raised it in a Westminster Hall debate with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I will seek to ensure that my ministerial team are closely engaged with the hon. Lady to ensure that we can come to a fair and equitable solution for her residents.

Teddington Police Station

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the sale and future use of Teddington police station.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I am very grateful to have been granted this short debate to discuss the future of the Teddington police station site in my constituency. The site is owned by the taxpayer and, I fear, is in the process of being sold off to the highest bidder. It is an important site of great concern and interest, not only to me, as the MP representing the area, but to local councillors and many hundreds if not thousands of local residents.

I want to set out the case to the Minister for why such scarce sites, which are already in public ownership, can and should be sold for a good return to the public purse while also being repurposed for important community uses and much-needed affordable housing. National policy legislation and guidance are apparently forcing the hand of London’s Deputy Mayor for Policing to sell for best value, interpreted as the best offer available on the open market. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to provide some clarity on those points of national policy to the Mayor of London and his deputy so that Teddington police station can be sold for community benefit, not just to luxury housing developers.

I will start with a few words of background. Teddington police station was first earmarked for closure back in 2017, in response to falling police numbers. London’s Deputy Mayor for Policing, Sophie Linden, confirmed the closure to me in August 2021. I wrote back to her—and, back in 2020, to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner—setting out the need for a local police base to serve the Teddington and Hampton Wick area, not least because we all hoped and expected to see additional police officers on our streets, as promised by the 2019 Conservative party manifesto.

While I accept that far fewer people now report crimes at police stations, having a visible and easily accessible base for local community police teams is important, and means that they spend more time on the beat than travelling. It is therefore very disappointing that Teddington police station has closed.

However, that decision has sadly now been taken, so the main question at stake is, what should happen to a publicly owned site in such a prime location—in the heart of Teddington, close to the railway station, shops, parks and a range of services? How can we repurpose a public asset for public good, in the midst of crises in both health and housing?

Park Road surgery, a popular and thriving GP practice across the road from the police station, is bursting at the seams. Its premises are not fit for purpose to serve its 13,000-strong patient list, which spans Teddington, Hampton Wick, Fulwell, Hampton Hill, and west and south Twickenham. The converted Victorian house can only suitably cater to a quarter of that number of patients and, to use the GP partners’ own words, “Physical access is terrible”.

Dr Nick Grundy and partners have been seeking a new home for over 10 years. The Teddington police station site would be ideal for a new surgery delivering health and community services fit for the 21st century, enabling the practice to grow and meet the demand fuelled by recent developments in the area. This Government have committed to boosting GP numbers—something that we have yet to see materialise. However, in the hope that we will be seeing more GPs in Teddington for the rising demand, Park Road surgery desperately needs a new home.

The surgery’s partners have, with support from the council, been working with a local housing association on a bid for Teddington police station. It includes 100% affordable and social housing, together with the new surgery that is needed. Homes in Teddington—recently voted the best place to live in London—are simply out of reach in terms of cost for many of the nurses, police officers, firefighters and other key workers who serve our local community. They are also out of reach for many young adults who have had the benefit of growing up in the area but are simply priced out of it. Week in, week out, my surgery and inbox are filled with people in desperately overcrowded or unsuitable social housing, on a waiting list that they will never reach the top of. A local housing needs assessment undertaken for Richmond Council last year found that the borough has a need for 1,123 affordable rented homes per annum. It achieves nowhere close to that figure.

Although the local authority has met its house building targets in recent years, it has fallen some way short of being able to secure 50% of those new homes as affordable, and the culprit is viability. Typically, developers pay top dollar for sites in sought-after areas such as Teddington, and then struggle to develop them as their over-ambitious plans cannot meet the demands of local planning policy. Scarce sites are left derelict: Udney Park playing fields, also in Teddington, is a case in point. That site was sold by a charity—believing the Mayor that it had to secure the very best price—thus attracting bidders with unrealistic views of what could be achieved on the site. It now lies unused and derelict, with community groups desperate to repurpose it.

Coming back to the police station, the bid from the local housing association, in partnership with Park Road surgery, stands little chance of being the highest bid when competing against luxury housing developers. Met Police property services, the Deputy Mayor for Policing, and the Mayor of London have all claimed in writing and verbally in meetings that they have a statutory duty to achieve best value. The Mayor’s response to a written question from Liberal Democrat Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon stated that

“MOPAC has a statutory duty…to secure value for money in the use of assets…In disposals, best value is normally most effectively demonstrated by an open market transaction…MOPAC has no powers to dispose of land at an undervalue to provide affordable housing.”

Based on the legal advice secured by Richmond Council and expert advice from the House of Commons Library, I would like to challenge the legal and policy basis for that response by the Mayor. It is my belief that MOPAC does not have to sell to the highest bidder and can take community need into consideration, looking favourably on the local housing association and Park Road surgery bid.

MOPAC was established by the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011, and is a separate legal entity from the GLA. It does not appear to be defined as a local authority for the purposes of the Local Government Act 1999, which imposed a duty to secure best value on local authorities, nor are there limitations equivalent to section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972, requiring land to be disposed of at best consideration. There is nothing on the face of the 2011 Act to secure value for money in the use of assets, as stated by the Mayor. In fact, the powers delegated to the deputy Mayor under that Act in relation to disposals appear to allow some discretion to dispose at an undervalue. As such, my first question to the Minister is whether he agrees that there is no statutory duty on the face of the PRSR Act 2011 to secure value for money in the use of assets.

MOPAC is obliged by virtue of section 17(4) of the 2011 Act to have regard to the revised financial management code of practice issued in 2018. The guidance stresses the importance of securing value for money, but that does not amount to a specific, positive requirement to dispose at full market value, so my second question to the Minister is whether he agrees that the fiduciary guidance relevant to MOPAC does not impose a specific requirement to dispose at market value.

Furthermore, the Government gave a general consent in 2003 for local authorities to dispose of land at below market value. That consent stated explicitly that it applied to the Metropolitan Police Authority, which was MOPAC’s predecessor body. The conditions for a sale below market value include where the land is likely to contribute to the promotion or improvement of economic, social, or environmental wellbeing. I contend that the local housing association and Park Road surgery bid fulfil those criteria. My third question to the Minister is: does he consider this general consent to apply to MOPAC?

Time is fast running out on the decision about the future of Teddington police station. Bids have already closed and they are being reviewed as we speak, as it is MOPAC’s intention to secure the proceeds of the sale by the end of the financial year. The deputy Mayor claims that this money is desperately needed for frontline policing. I would suggest to the Minister that the money for that should be coming from the Home Office rather than from property developers.

The Mayor of London has responsibility for the Met, as police and crime commissioner for the capital. However, he also has a responsibility for housing, and a stated ambition to build 30,000 genuinely affordable homes over five years. He is rightly keen to see Richmond build more affordable and social housing, but land is very scarce in the borough.

The Mayor has previously called on the NHS to sell surplus land and buildings for housing and new GP surgeries. However, there is a complete disconnect in policy terms. A public asset, owned by the Met police, could be repurposed for a much-needed GP surgery and desperately needed affordable housing, for a good and fair price—albeit not the highest price available on the open market. Over 1,800 local residents have signed my petition in less than two weeks, calling on the Mayor to step in and prioritise the bid for affordable housing and the Park Road surgery over developers who can undoubtedly offer more money, but also offer an uncertain future for the site, likely to provide limited benefit to the local community. Together with the leader of Richmond Council, Councillor Gareth Roberts, I have written to the Mayor urging him to do the same.

Today I am asking the Minister to clarify the legislation and national guidance that MOPAC must adhere to, as set out in my three questions, when selling Teddington police station. I hope that he will acknowledge that there is no clear statutory basis for selling the site to the highest bidder, and clarify whether there is a dispensation in national policy to sell at below market value for the wellbeing of the local community. I urge the Minister to back my campaign for the future of Teddington police station.

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[Munira Wilson]

I appreciate that the Minister may not know definitively at this point whether MOPAC is covered by that general consent. If he cannot put that on the record definitively now, will he write to me urgently to confirm whether that is the case, so that I can flag it up with the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor for Policing?

[Neil O'Brien]

I will write to the hon. Lady today on that exact point.

Let me turn to the wider issues that the hon. Lady raised. She powerfully advocated the views expressed by many of her constituents that the former police station should not be converted into luxury flats. We do not want to see London turning into a city full of luxury flats for millionaires; it needs to be a city that serves the whole community. That sentiment is widely felt across London and indeed beyond. The Government are clear that the answer to the problem is encouraging and increasing the supply of affordable homes across the board, and encouraging high-quality mixed developments. That is what we are delivering through the £11.5 billion affordable housing programme, which is part of the largest investment in affordable housing in over a decade.

The hon. Lady made the point that of course we all want to see additional resources going into our police as well and there are choices that MOPAC can make. However, it is worth putting that into some context. As part of our plan to recruit an extra 20,000 police officers, as of the end of last year the Metropolitan police had already recruited 2,121 additional uplift officers, and in 2022-23 the Metropolitan police will receive up to £3.24 billion, an increase of £164 million, or 5%, on the previous year’s settlement. Yes, of course we want more resources to flow into the police, but they are already flowing from central Government.

We should be clear that there are choices for MOPAC. In my letter to the hon. Lady I will absolutely clarify and underline what I have said in the debate, namely that there are choices that MOPAC can make.

[Munira Wilson]

I decided not to pursue this point in my speech, but if the Minister is writing to me about the choices that MOPAC can make on funding, I must point out that it was very striking that, when the deputy Mayor wrote to me about the sale of the police station, she was very clear the money was needed for frontline policing—that the Mayor was funding an extra several thousand police officers—and to tackle violent crime. That suggested to me that there was a need to spend what is essentially a capital receipt on revenue activity. I hope the Minister can address that point, too, in his letter, regarding how that money should be spent if it is raised from the sale.

[Neil O'Brien]

I am very happy to add some of those points to the letter.

In the time remaining, let me touch on a couple of the wider issues that the hon. Lady mentioned. We are keen to support councils such as the London Borough of Richmond to deliver on regeneration and more affordable housing. We are very keen to encourage more generally the reuse of suitable brownfield land and existing buildings for all kinds of environmental and social reasons. Across the country, we are increasing the assessment of housing need by 35% in our urban areas and supporting that with the £1.8 billion brownfield regeneration funding announced at the spending review. Also, we are trying to make it easier for things to change purpose.

The whole thrust of Government policy is in many ways towards more brownfield regeneration and more reuse, including for social reasons. We will match that with the actions we are taking through the £150 million community ownership fund to support the retention of local assets across the country. Therefore, as part of the wider thrust of Government policy, which is about regeneration and trying to encourage communities to hold on to and continue to use assets that are important to them, the vision the hon. Lady is sketching out is clearly in strategic alignment with what the Government are trying to do.

This case is clearly important to the hon. Lady’s constituents. She and her community will feel a legitimate frustration when people say, “We don’t have any choice, there are no options here. There is nothing we can do about it.” It is clear to me, however, that there are choices. Given the context and the recent financial settlement for police and for local government, we are in a period of increasing numbers of officers and increasing funding. The hon. Lady’s proposal for more affordable housing and for the regeneration of a building that is important to the wider community is absolutely in alignment with what the Government are trying to do.

I will endeavour to write to the hon. Lady as soon as possible to underline the points that I have made. I am conscious that, as she pointed out, the matter is subject to negotiations, even as we speak.

[Munira Wilson]

I thank the Minister for being so generous in giving way again. I may be pushing my luck here, but as well as writing to me, might I persuade him to write to the Mayor of London, or indeed to the Deputy Mayor for Policing?

[Neil O'Brien]

Let me mull on that exact point and come back to the hon. Lady. I am sure that she will certainly share more widely whatever I send her, and she is welcome to do so.

We have already established in the debate that there are some wider choices available to MOPAC. I am happy to put some of those in black and white for the hon. Lady if that is useful to her. I wish her the best in all her wider endeavours in supporting such community regeneration projects in her constituency.

Question put and agreed to.

Affordable Housing: Planning Reform

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Derek Thomas]

I would not want a tabloid paper to misinterpret what I said about coming to Cornwall; please do still come. I am going to Devon as well, so let us not argue about jam and cream. Absolutely, the topic of the debate I had in 2018 was that very thing: how to ensure that properties that should pay council tax do so, because that helps to deliver services that we all need, including for those who own a second home.

If a person is lucky enough to get anywhere near a rental property, then they will pay approximately £100 a week for one bedroom in a shared house; £200 a week for a two-bedroom house with no garden; and £400-plus a week for a three-bedroom house. That may not surprise people living in London, but it marks an enormous inflation in rent in Cornwall, particularly given that the average wage in my constituency is £25,000 a year. It can quickly be seen that such rent is not an affordable housing solution.

As it happens, there is almost no chance of securing a property. A search for houses to rent in my constituency last night returned a total of three three-bedroom houses across the whole constituency. A letting agent has advised me that 100 families compete for each three-bedroom property that is advertised. Those families include key public sector workers who have accepted jobs as teachers, police officers, NHS workers and, ironically, according to our own planning department, planning officers themselves. On the Isles of Scilly, people with jobs that are critical to the islands’ day-to-day existence face the prospect of leaving Scilly in the spring if they cannot find a home to rent. Properties for sale are equally few, and are out of reach for the majority of those needing homes in Cornwall and on Scilly. House prices have risen by 15% in the last year.

I do not want to dwell on the severity of the situation much more, other than to thank a number of town and parish councils in my constituency. They share my concern and have taken time to discuss the issue and write to me, pressing and calling for action. They include Penzance Council, Ludgvan Parish Council, St Just Town Council, St Erth Parish Council, Sancreed Parish Council and a representative of Madron Parish Council, to name just a few.

I am pleased to say that there has been a dramatic gear change at Cornwall Council since May this year. A new Conservative administration, council leaders and MPs are tackling the housing shortage. The council’s strategy, now under consultation, includes commitments to improve availability and access to homes for local residents by working with public and private sector partners to bring forward sites, and to provide modular private rented homes for key workers and local people in towns. After years of pressure from me, there is a renewed emphasis on bringing more long-term empty homes back into use. It is unbelievable that there are thousands of empty homes in Cornwall. They are not second homes or holiday lets; they are just empty—not used at all—despite the pressure on housing that we have had for such a long time.

The council plans to increase the rate of affordable housing provision on exception sites—increasing the minimum number of affordable housing units, I hope to 100%—through the use of grants. It will work with housing associations to develop a pipeline of sites to increase affordable housing, including by releasing council sites, which is a new and novel idea. Critically, the council wants to re-engage with small and medium-sized developers to find and develop land, and to step up work with local councils, parishes, towns and communities to identify suitable and stalled sites.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

In my constituency of Twickenham, housing is extremely expensive. For anyone who grows up in the area and for key workers, as the hon. Gentleman said, it is almost impossible to get on the housing ladder. The social housing waiting list is enormous, and I see people every week who are struggling to get rehoused. He spoke about finding sites. We have very few sites in south-west London. Does he agree that, where there are public sector-owned sites, for instance police stations—Teddington police station, to be exact, in my constituency—there is national legislation that forces the owner to get the best value, so they have to sell to the highest bidder? I know that there are local housing associations—and, indeed, a GP surgery—that would be keen to redevelop that police station for affordable and social housing, but they are going to be outbid by luxury developers, who will build more luxury housing that we do not need.

[Derek Thomas]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. That is a theme with which we are familiar in Cornwall. In fact, in 2015 we signed a devolution deal that talked about one public estate. The idea was that all publicly owned land would be used for the benefit of the local community, including for housing. It would be fair to say that that has not materialised, for various reasons. When we talked to the NHS, it said what the hon. Lady said: that it must get the maximum return. The police station in St Ives, where the housing shortage is most critical, has been sold, even though there was a local attempt to try to secure it for housing. There is a real challenge, and maybe the Minister will look at that. Network Rail owns land, and all sorts of land that could be built on seems to be locked up. That would be a great thing to address, and I am sure that it will be addressed in the White Paper.

Another bugbear of mine has been the sheer number of planning proposals that have approval but are yet to be built. I understand that, in Cornwall alone, there are 19 units that are approved and not yet built. The council intends to work with Homes England to develop a partnership to unlock developments that have planning permission, so that they can become homes for local people. Other ideas include a pilot to explore the conversion of vacant buildings in town centres, which the towns fund is seeking to do in Penzance and St Ives.

I am also hopeful that the council recognises that it is not solely responsible for bringing family homes into existence. For example, despite several attempts by me and other colleagues in Cornwall, the council has repeatedly blocked opportunities to build family homes using models such as rent to buy, because it has an apparent dislike of local people freely owning their own homes. This is a missed opportunity, as I know that rent-to-buy companies have had ambitions to build thousands of homes on sites without using any public money, which would have helped to address many of the pressures that we see. I am hopeful that we will see a change of heart at the council.

The timing of this debate is not an accident. I have been trying to secure it for some time but was particularly keen to get it now, because I am aware that the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities plans to bring forward revised proposals to address the problems faced by hundreds of thousands of people who need housing across the country. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) referred to the waiting list for social housing in her constituency. In Cornwall, there are 14,000 homes needed by people on the list. There is no better way to level up than to ensure that people have a secure home of their own.

Secure homes mean secure communities which, in turn, mean secure rural schools, secure services such as post offices, GP practices and bus routes, and the survival of pubs and churches. The Government’s plan must speed up the delivery of homes that are genuinely secure and affordable. Cash that goes to councils for housing must be spent on housing, not on endless meetings and draft proposals. A recent council-owned scheme that I visited took seven years to deliver 55 houses for shared ownership and affordable rent.

Support must be given to small builders, which are best placed to build quality homes in rural areas, and there needs to be a massive effort to attract people into the trade with high-quality training opportunities. The building trade can be seen—I know this from my experience in school, because I went on to become a Cornish mason, which involves slate, stone and different types of plastering—as a negative career, but I can testify that some of our most skilled people work in the construction trade, and we need an awful lot more of them.

As I have just discussed, land belonging to the public sector must be secured in order to build homes that are affordable, and this must be done quickly. I am fully in favour of building homes, but we must ensure that they are built in the right place for the right people, and at the right price. If we do not, which is the greatest fear of people in Cornwall, house building in areas such as Cornwall will never match the demand of an open market, prices will always be out of reach, and green fields will continue to be lost. In the current climate, we cannot leave the situation to the mercy of market forces. Although I would ordinarily support that, intervention is needed in Cornwall, on Scilly and in many parts of the United Kingdom.

Novel ideas must be considered to ensure that people can access the homes they need. With your permission, Dr Huq, I will suggest a few novel ideas to the Minister that would help to address the situation in Cornwall and elsewhere where it is a real issue for local people. First, we could speed up and increase the supply of housing by using Homes England money to pay on results, such as rewarding social landlords and developers big and small on the completion of homes that people can afford. At the moment, it takes an age to even get anywhere near the site by using Homes England money. It would be far better to create the incentive that the money follows the completion of homes.

Secondly, the Government should consider offering local authorities the opportunity to introduce a blanket requirement for all new building to be restricted to primary residence only. This policy idea is reassuring to communities who find that they are quickly becoming ghost towns in the winter months. When I go and talk to my parish and town councils about the housing that is needed, they have no confidence that the houses will meet a local need. To have a blanket restriction—as a tool and opportunity for local councils—that all new housing must be for primary residence only would really help to reassure communities who, at the moment, often oppose such developments.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq, and to wind up this Westminster Hall debate. It has been thoughtful and considered, with detailed and useful contributions from Members from across the House. I hope that I will be able to pick up on the points made by Members, and occasionally I may refer to the excellent speech that has been provided to me by my officials.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) on his appointment to the shadow housing portfolio—a very important role indeed. I look forward to working with him as he attempts to keep us true, and to helping to persuade him of the righteousness of our approach, and I wish him well. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) on securing this important debate and making such a thoughtful contribution. I am sure that he will not stop promoting Cornwall or, for that matter, Devon. We want him to promote them, but we also want to ensure that his constituents have good quality, decent and affordable homes to live in.

I remind everybody of the importance of building more homes. The hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich spoke about other reasons and methods to ensure that we provide affordable homes, but fundamentally we have to build more homes if we are going to supply good quality homes in the places that people want. That is why over the last 10 years we have had programmes such as the affordable homes programme, under which hundreds of thousands of new properties have been built across our country. That is why we are using programmes such as Help to Buy, which has only recently provided its 300,000th instance of help to buy for Sam Legg and his partner, Megan, who bought a home in Asfordby in Leicestershire. Sam said that without the Help to Buy programme, he would not have been able to afford to get on to the property ladder. That is a dream that more than 80% of people, particularly those in the social and private rented sectors, say they want to achieve—the right to own, the right to buy and the right to acquire. They want to get themselves on to the property ladder.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives and several other colleagues—including my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard)—mentioned the importance of primary residences. I recognise the challenge that has been put to us, and it is one of the reasons why we have reformed stamp duty and increased the costs to foreign and international purchasers of British property. To the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes, it is why we will introduce a threshold for the business rate loophole tie-up, to ensure that only proper letters are letting their properties and making use of the business rate regime.

I am conscious that other Members have made points about council tax and the importance of local authorities having discretion over it. We have allowed local authorities to increase the council tax to 100% for second homes, but I will consider carefully the points that Members have made about local authorities having further discretion over their council tax regime.

The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) spoke about First Homes, which the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport mentioned in a slightly different context. I was pleased to visit Bolsover a couple of weeks ago to give Nicky Bembridge, an NHS worker, the keys to his first home. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the First Homes regime is provided by developer contributions and it does not cost the taxpayer a penny. It means that local homes are available to local people at a discount of at least 30% off the market rate. Local authorities have the discretion to determine which residents will be eligible—it could be people who live locally, or people with skills that are missing from the area and are needed.

The First Homes product allows people to get on the property ladder, while covenanting the discount into the future so that future generations of local people or skilled workers, defined by the local authority, will be able to get on to the property ladder. I rather hope that if some First Homes are built in Plymouth, they can be built on the site of the former registry office, which I think is being demolished—thanks partly to £250,000 of brownfield funding that the Government are providing to Plymouth City Council to ensure that that work is done.

The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) mentioned brownfield sites. We are absolutely committed to further development on brownfield land, and that is one of the reasons why we have introduced further funding for that purpose. In the recent Budget, £1.8 billion was made available for brownfield remediation, £300 million of which will be given to mayoral combined authorities. Greater Manchester has already benefited to the tune of more than £90 million of public money for brownfield remediation, and we look forward to going further in the future.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) raised an important point about the time it takes to make local plans. She is perhaps more aware of that than most, because York has not had a local plan since 1956, when the present planning regime was barely eight years old.

We are very conscious of that challenge. If we are to get more developers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to build different types of property on different land packets to different tenures, we need a planning system that is far more transparent, predictable and speedy. I take on board the points made about the planning system by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, but I think we all recognise that it is far too slow. It can take seven years for a local plan to be produced, and a further five years for planning permissions to be granted and spades to go into the ground. That is far too long for SME developers that are living, quite literally, hand to mouth. We need a system that is far more predictable and speedy, and that will be the effect of our planning reforms, which I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House we will introduce.

We also want to make the planning system far more engaging. It is very important that more people get involved in our planning system. It really is not very democratic that literally 1% of local people on average get involved in local plan making—that is more or less local planning officers and their blood relations. The percentage rises to a massive 2% or 3% of people getting involved in individual planning applications—still not enough. We need a system that is far more engaging, three-dimensional and digitised. That is what our planning reforms will provide.

By providing a digital planning system, we will free up local planning officers, giving them much more bandwidth to do the sort of strategic planning that they trained to do, that we want them to do and that communities need them to do, rather than focusing on the administration of agreeing that a dormer window can be put in a particular building. We will ensure that we have a faster and more accessible planning system. We have also committed ourselves to a review of the resourcing of local planning authorities to make sure that—quite apart from digitisation, which should increase their bandwidth—they have the wherewithal to do the work that we want them to do.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives raised the importance of skills and apprenticeships in our construction supply chain, a point also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover. The Department for Education has made available some £2.7 billion for the purposes of apprenticeships, and innovative partnerships between the National House Building Council and developers such as Redrow have allowed for the development of bricklayer academies. One has opened in my constituency —I am sure it is just coincidence that they chose Tamworth.

The academies mean that the time it takes to train a bricklayer is cut in half. They also allow young people to see that there is a career in construction beyond bricklaying. They may be 19 and learning how to lay bricks, but they also learn that, by the time they are 30 or 35, they can do other things in the construction sector and they do not have to lay bricks for the rest of their working life. That encourages more people, and also more women, into the construction sector—a very important thing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover raised the importance of infrastructure. That point was also made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. We recognise that, if we are to get more people to support our planning regime, they must have the infrastructure to support the homes that are built around or near them—the GP clinic, school, roundabout or kids’ play area. We know that the present system of section 106 agreements is loaded in favour of the developers, and that the bigger developers tend to have the bigger lawyers, with the bigger guns, who can drive down the will of local authorities to resist.

That system means that proposed infrastructure is often negotiated away, or does not arrive on time. We are going to introduce an infrastructure levy, and I hear the point made by many contributors that that ought to be as localised as possible. That levy will allow infrastructure to be built up front, when people want it and in a way that they expect. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover rightly said, if the infrastructure can be put in place, that will carry with it the hearts and minds of local communities, who will see that they will get some bang for their buck.

Members raised the issue of empty homes. There are sometimes good reasons that homes are empty—for example, if they cannot be repaired, if they are in the wrong place to meet demand or if they are not the right size for the people who most need them. However, I hear what colleagues have said. As I have already pointed out in my remarks about council tax and the consideration of further discretions, I will go away and ponder the points that have been raised by a significant number of Members.

I will make one final point, Dr Huq, before I make some concluding remarks.

[Munira Wilson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

Before I make those remarks, I will allow the hon. Lady rapidly to intervene.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

The hon. Lady will have to be quick.

[Munira Wilson]

I want to pick up the point I made in my intervention, about the statutory duty placed on police forces to sell to the highest bidder police stations that are being closed, which therefore considers financial rather than social value. This is a problem not just for Teddington police station, but across London, where we have a real dearth of sites. Will the Minister look at changing national legislation so police forces can consider affordable housing bids?

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I remind her that developer contributions can contribute to affordable homes being built in her locality, and that it is a Government obligation carefully to consider how public money is spent so as to ensure we get best value for it. I will certainly go away and consider the point she has raised.

I will say one quick thing about net zero, which a number of Members raised. The future homes standard, which we are to introduce in 2025, will mean that homes are built with materials and heating systems that make them at least 75% more carbon efficient than homes built to present standards. As a down payment on the 2025 date that we have set the sector, next year we will introduce an uplift in building regulations to ensure that homes are at least 31% more carbon efficient than homes built at present.

This has been an important debate, and I have been pleased to hear the contributions made by colleagues from across the Chamber. I hope I have given reassurances to Members as to the importance that the Government place on building good-quality, affordable homes around our country, where they are needed. Be they for ownership, shared ownership, affordable rent or social rent, we need more good-quality homes. That is one of the building blocks of levelling up. It is a mission that the Government have set me and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and one that we shall deliver.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

Of course, the first part of the hon. Lady’s question was confirmed in a manifesto commitment from this Government. I assure her that we have been having engagement events right across the United Kingdom, with 16 such events in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have confirmed that the devolved Administrations will have a place in the oversight of the fund; we have been working closely with them, and I will reach out to them soon to organise discussions about the delivery of the fund directly into Scotland.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Education on the provision of financial support by local authorities for schools during the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

We regularly engage with the Department for Education on matters relating to local authorities’ finances. We have provided £4.6 billion of un-ringfenced funds to councils to manage a range of covid-19-related pressures. The DFE has already distributed £102 million for exceptional covid-related costs incurred by schools and will shortly process claims made in December.

[Munira Wilson [V]]

Many primary schools in Twickenham are struggling with the double whammy of the costs of making their sites covid secure and the lost income from lettings and fundraising, and the Department for Education has not reimbursed a lot of those costs. The Minister for School Standards has repeatedly told me that schools that have low reserves and face severe financial difficulties should seek support from their local authority, so will the Minister be making funds available to local authorities specifically to support schools in need? If not, will he issue guidance on the use of existing covid funding to local authorities, which is already insufficient to meet their covid costs?

[Luke Hall]

I completely reject the last part of the hon. Lady’s question, in which she said that funding is insufficient. Local authorities are projected to spend £6.9 billion on covid-related pressures this year. We have already provided them with £8 billion of support and we have confirmed a total of £11 billion of support. We have allocated directly to councils £4.6 billion of un-ringfenced funds, of which Richmond has received £12.5 million. That means that Richmond can allocate funding according to local priorities—it is for the council to make decisions on how the funds are best used, including in schools. We recognise that councils are best placed to understand the needs of their populations. I know how important this issue is to the hon. Lady so am always happy to meet her to discuss it in greater depth.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I can certainly confirm that buildings that are without cladding should not have an EWS1 form apply to them. EWS1 forms can be applied in other egregious circumstances, and we are working with the sector to make sure that we obviate, as far as is possible, the responsibility of leaseholders to provide those forms. There is more work to be done to ensure that buildings can have their value restored to them and that people can move effectively without recourse to an EWS1 form.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) [V]]

In my local authority of Richmond upon Thames, remediation work has either been started or completed on fewer than 50% of buildings with dangerous cladding. Leaseholders living in these buildings, such as the residents of the Sandy Lane estate in my constituency, are living at constant personal and financial risk. So may I press the Minister again: will he, in the first instance, commit to covering the costs of both the assessment and the remedial work, to keep not just my constituents safe, but leaseholders across the capital and the country, and claim the money back from freeholders and developers later?

[Christopher Pincher]

As I said a moment ago, some 79% of all identified high-rise ACM buildings have either completed or started their remediation, and some 97% of social sector buildings have either completed or started their remediation. I know that there are specific challenges in London, which is why the Secretary of State and Lord Greenhalgh have undertaken roundtables with the Mayor, the fire brigade and the sector to ensure that the pace of acceleration is speeded up. We want to make sure that this work is done. We will continue to work with the developer community and with leaseholders to make sure that it is. Where necessary, as we have already demonstrated, public money will be spent, but in the first instance the responsibility should fall on those who built these buildings or who own them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Member is entirely incorrect. We are determined to build more homes in this country while protecting and enhancing standards, and absolutely nothing that we do will compromise building safety regulations. Indeed, quite the opposite. We are creating the largest change to building safety standards in my lifetime.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

  In ensuring that children with special educational needs and disabilities have the provision that they need locally, the London Borough of Richmond is running a cumulative deficit of some £15 million in the high needs element of its dedicated schools budget, putting wider council finances and services at risk. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me, representatives of the council and the Department for Education to find a workable solution to this untenable situation? Our discussions with the DFE have proved fruitless so far.

[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. Of course she is right that the dedicated schools grant is administered by the DFE, which is responsible for its amount and allocation, but we are certainly working closely with the DFE, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy and the sector to understand what more can be done to mitigate the immediate risks. I am personally very happy to meet her and her council to have a discussion about what more can be done.