Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Robert Halfon Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am delighted to be able to move the Second Reading of this Bill. The Government are getting on with the job, and no Department is doing more than my own. There are five Bills in the Queen’s Speech generated from our Department. As well as the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, there is legislation to improve conditions for those in social housing, to improve the rights of those in the private rented sector, to ensure that business rates can be updated so that our economy thrives, and to get rid of the pernicious employment of boycott, divestment and sanctions policies by those who seek to de-legitimise the state of Israel. I hope that all five pieces of legislation will command support across this House. They are designed to address the people’s priorities and to ensure that this Government provide social justice and greater opportunity for all our citizens.

This Bill looks specifically at how we can ensure that the Government’s levelling-up missions laid out in our White Paper published in February can be given effect, how we can have a planning system that priorities urban regeneration and the use of brownfield land, and how we can strengthen our democratic system overall.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will know that perhaps one of the most exciting pages in the levelling-up White Paper is page 238, which announces that there will be a new hospital health campus in Harlow over the coming years. He knows how important that is because of the fact that our current hospital estate is not fit for purpose despite the incredible work that staff do. Can he confirm that the timeline for our new hospital will be announced in the coming months?

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Of the more than 400 pages in the White Paper, page 238 is perhaps one of the most important, not least because it contains an image of what we can hope to see and what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will be announcing, which is action to ensure that my right hon. Friend’s constituents get the state-of-the-art, 21st-century hospital that they deserve. That would not happen, I am afraid, under the Opposition, because it is only through the investment that we are putting in and the sound economy that has been created under my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s leadership that we are able to ensure that the citizens of Harlow get the hospitals that they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is a born performer and he was clearly having fun today. I was glad for him that he could not see the faces behind him when we reached the planning section. I suspect he may need to reach over to this side of the House a little more in the coming weeks and months than he has just done in that performance today.

Even the Secretary of State cannot perform his way out of this one. The Bill has been brought to the House on the day when the reality of the Government’s record on levelling up has been laid bare. New figures published today by the Office for National Statistics show that London alone of the regions of the UK has had a post-pandemic recovery that has far outstripped the rest of us. Our industrial heartlands, once the engine room of Britain, including the west midlands, are performing at 10% below pre-covid levels. That is the brutal reality of a decade of underinvestment, money stripped out of communities and money taken out of people’s pockets. This is what it has done to our communities in every part of this country.

So how is it that the Secretary of State has come to the House with lots of jokes, smart phrases and slogans but nothing in the Bill that will turn that around? The only mention of levelling up in this hefty great tome, apart from in the title, is in the 12 missions that will be written into law. But this is a law not worth the paper it is written on because tucked away in clause 5 is the sleight of hand that has become so characteristic of this Government. The cat is out of the bag. Not only will they not back the country, but they will not even back themselves. In clause 5 is a measure that allows the Government to tear up those missions on a whim—their entire levelling up agenda, the promise made to the people of Britain and on which they won the last general election—presumably when they fail to deliver every single one.

The country simply cannot go on like this.

[Robert Halfon]

rose—

[Lisa Nandy]

I will give way in a moment.

In 19 of the last 20 years, only two regions of our country have been given the backing they needed from their Government to succeed. They cannot try to fire the economy on one cylinder and expect it to work. If the right hon. Gentleman would like to tell me how he thinks that can work, believe me, I am all ears.

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Lady said that, under the Conservative Government, there has been a lack of investment in the regions. Harlow, as she knows, has a fair bit of deprivation, but under this Government it has been levelling up for the past 10 years: an advanced manufacturing centre, millions of pounds; an enterprise zone, millions of pounds; a new hospital coming, hundreds of millions of pounds; a new road junction on the M11 just about to open up, many millions of pounds; infra- structure improvements; a technical school opened up; and a £23 million town fund. That has not been happening just over the past year; it has been happening over the past 10 years. This Government have been levelling up Harlow for 10 years.

[Lisa Nandy]

That was a superb audition for the forthcoming reshuffle and I am sure we will hear many more of them. I hope that that gave the right hon. Gentleman a better press release for his local paper than the failure to back the hospital that was promised. Let me tell him the reality of what levelling up has done in Essex: £292.5 million taken by his Government from the people of Essex, even when levelling-up funds are taken into account. That is the reality of levelling up for the people he represents. No wonder he sits there with such a glum face, listening to that record.

Our core cities are still far outpaced by London. We are an outlier across major economies. The inequalities between regions are outstripped by the inequalities within them. And even the winners in this system are losing. London is the region with the highest disposable income in the country, but I do not need to tell any of my London colleagues the reality of overheating some parts of our economy and underinvesting in others. Once we take the crippling housing costs that are holding back a generation into account, disposable income in London falls way down the ranking and people are worse off.

The Secretary of State has presented a Bill today that contains more aimed at dealing with housing and planning than it does on levelling up, democracy and devolution. Can he not see the problem? We are one of the most geographically unequal countries of any major economy. As someone once said, when levelling up was a thing:

“for too many people in this country, geography turns out to be destiny”.

If this Government continue to write off the opportunities for many parts of the country—to write off the potential and the assets we have, for lack of imagination and investment—they will continue to cram more and more people into small corners of the country, and that in turn will continue to push up housing prices. Surely the Secretary of State can see, even if he cannot admit it today, that one of the chief ways to deal with the over 120 clauses aimed at dealing with pressures on land, planning and development, is to level up the country. The clue is in the title. Why are they not doing it? Any self-respecting Secretary of State would have brought us a plan to get proper resources spent wisely and invested for the long-term recovery of our local economies.

Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I have enormous sympathy for the hon. Lady. One of the reasons why Lord Harrington has joined my Department and is working with the Home Office is to ensure that we can get people whom we have accepted out of hotel accommodation, which is unsuitable for the long term, and into the community, but that requires us to ensure that those local authorities receiving individuals are supported in the way they are. I would be more than happy to return to the House to outline the steps we are taking to deal with this situation, but it comes back to the essential point that the Chairman of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), brought out. As we show a warm welcome to people who are fleeing persecution, we need to ensure that that welcome can be truly stable and secure. That means additional accommodation, which means moving beyond hotels and local authorities, and that is why the Homes for Ukraine scheme harnesses the kindness of civil society, but there is more that we must do, and we will update the House in due course.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the scheme that my right hon. Friend has set out. It was Sir Nicholas Winton who said:

“If something is not impossible, then there must be a way to do it”.

May I ask my right hon. Friend if he would extend the scheme, or the imagination he has set out today, to make sure that Britain offers a refuge to and harbours Ukrainian orphans who are able to come here, and will he work with Ukraine to bring them over and make sure that these children are looked after?

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes a characteristically compassionate and acute point. One of the areas of greatest difficulty is helping orphans and unaccompanied children, and that is something we need to do more on, and we will.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 25th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Neil O'Brien]

I would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, the community renewal fund is intended to act as an innovative source of funding to try new ways of doing things as we move on from EU structural funds, and to enable us to start working on new ideas ahead of the levelling-up fund.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

7. What steps his Department is taking to support towns.

[The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)]

The Department is investing billions in regeneration across the whole UK as part of the Government’s central priority to level up and unite our country. Programmes such as the £3.6 billion towns fund and the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund will help to achieve that by supporting the renewal of our towns and cities, including in my right hon. Friend’s constituency of Harlow, which has been awarded a £23.7 million town deal.

[Robert Halfon]

I am pleased to report to the House that almost 8,000 new apprentices have been taken on in Harlow since 2010. Does my hon. Friend agree that the best example of levelling up is providing young people with the skills they need to climb the educational ladder of opportunity? To that purpose, will she, my constituency neighbour, support our bid of £20 million to the levelling-up fund to provide vital regeneration for Harlow to help our town to grow and evolve?

[Kemi Badenoch]

As a fellow Essex MP, I am delighted that so many apprentices have taken their step towards a career in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. I know many of them will have come from my own constituency next door in Saffron Walden. It is fair to say that we both agree that equipping the next generation with the skills to compete and succeed is integral to levelling up. Having said that, I cannot comment on individual bids to our levelling-up fund—I suspect I will be saying that quite a lot during this afternoon’s session—but I will say to him that we are determined to help Harlow transform local skills and infrastructure, capitalising on his brand-new hospital, science park and, of course, the £23.7 million town deal.

Antisemitic Attacks

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on recent antisemitic attacks across the UK.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

No one could fail to be appalled by the disgraceful scenes of antisemitic abuse directed at members of the Jewish community in the past week. In Chigwell, Rabbi Rafi Goodwin was hospitalised after being attacked outside his synagogue. In London, activists drove through Golders Green and Finchley, both areas with large Jewish populations, apparently shouting antisemitic abuse through a megaphone. These are intimidatory, racist and extremely serious crimes. The police have since made four arrests for racially aggravated public order offences and have placed extra patrols in the St John’s Wood and Golders Green areas.

During Shavuot, as always, we stand with our Jewish friends and neighbours, who have sadly been subjected to a deeply disturbing upsurge in antisemitism in recent years, particularly on social media. Like all forms of racism, antisemitism has no place in our society. A lot of young British Jews are discovering for the first time that their friends do not understand antisemitism, cannot recognise it and do not care that they are spreading it. British Jews are not responsible for the actions of a Government thousands of miles away, but are made to feel as if they are. They see their friends post social media content that glorifies Hamas—an illegal terrorist organisation, whose charter calls for every Jew in the world to be killed. Today, the world celebrates International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. Under Hamas, people are murdered for being gay.

Every time the virus of antisemitism re-enters our society, it masks itself as social justice, selling itself as speaking truth to power. This Government are taking robust action to root it out. We are leading the way as the first Government to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism and calling on others to do the same. As a result, nearly three quarters of local councils have adopted it. I have written to councils and universities that are still dragging their feet. They will shortly be named and shamed if they fail to act. All Members of Parliament, bar one, have signed up to it.

We are also doing our utmost to keep the Jewish community safe through the £65 million protective security grant to protect Jewish schools, synagogues and community buildings. We are working closely with the Community Security Trust to ensure victims can come forward and report attacks to the police.

We recognise that education is one of the most powerful tools we have for tackling antisemitism. We are proud to back the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Anne Frank Trust, among others, to ensure that we challenge prejudice from an early age. With the last holocaust survivors leaving us, we are also ensuring that future generations never forget where hatred can lead through—I hope—a new world-class holocaust memorial and learning centre next to the Palace of Westminster. It is currently awaiting the outcome of a planning inquiry. Some of the opposition to it has only served to make the case for why it is needed.

Today, the Government and, I hope, the whole House send a clear message of support and reassurance to our Jewish friends and neighbours. We seek a society where the UK’s largest established religions can live safely and freely, and can prosper, as an essential part of a nation that is confident in its diversity but ultimately strong in its unity.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very disappointed. I said at the beginning that the Secretary of State had three minutes, and he went on to take four minutes. Unfortunately, I do not make the rules of the House, but I have to stick to them. We now go to Robert Halfon, who is participating virtually, with two minutes.

[Robert Halfon [V]]

In a 2018 House of Commons debate on antisemitism, I said the air had grown tighter for Jews:

“you feel very hot, you undo a button on your shirt and your mouth goes dry.”—[Official Report, 17 April 2018; Vol. 639, c. 262.]

Sadly, after yesterday’s horrific incidents, highlighted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—particularly the rabbi being beaten up in Chigwell in Essex—I fear that the air has become even tighter. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing) for her strong support against antisemitism.

Since 2018, the Community Security Trust has recorded the highest ever number of antisemitic incidents—more than 1,800 in 2019. In Harlow just a few days ago, swastikas were graffitied on walls in a public walkway. Thankfully, they have now been removed. Why, in the 21st century, must Jewish schools and synagogues have guards outside? The growth of antisemitism has happened for a number of reasons. There are too many of what Vladimir Lenin called “useful idiots”, whether they are some Labour party activists, condemned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and those who use the conflict in Israel as an excuse; the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen telling Jews to read negative articles about Jews; or the NUS giving moral equivalence to antisemitism and what it calls the liberation of Palestine. I remind the House that the so-called liberation is being conducted by Iranian-funded extreme Islamist terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

What protections and support are being given specifically to Jews and to the Community Security Trust? What are the Government doing to educate pupils about antisemitism so that this evil is wiped out? Will there be severe penalties for those found guilty of antisemitic behaviours? As a proud British Jewish MP, I never imagined that I would live at a time when I and the Jewish community would question whether Britain is a safe place for Jews any more.

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks today and his long record of supporting the British Jewish community and fighting antisemitism. We must ensure that this is a country where our Jewish friends and neighbours feel safe, and I am sure that the whole House will send a strong message today of support and reassurance to them.

The Government will continue to support the Community Security Trust—I join my right hon. Friend in praising its work. Partly funded by the Government and partly by philanthropy, it helps to ensure the security of 650 Jewish communal buildings and 1,000 events every year. It has reported to us a steep rise this week in antisemitic incidents—a 320% increase in a week. I am afraid that that is likely to rise further as there is always a delay in reporting. We will continue to support the trust and we will work with the Metropolitan police and police forces in other parts of the country, who are putting out extra patrols in the coming days to provide reassurance to Jewish citizens.

We will also support groups across the country, for example, the Union of Jewish Students, which does so much good work for Jews on campuses across the UK who suffer antisemitic attacks and abuse. We will keep on with that work as well as the educational work to which my right hon. Friend referred. In my opening remarks, I paid tribute to a number of the fantastic organisations, such as the Holocaust Memorial Trust, which deliver that day in, day out, and have continued to do so even during the difficulties that covid-19 posed.

Towns Fund

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

I welcome this debate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and the Government for supporting the town fund and Harlow. Harlow has been my home for 20 years. It is a town of achievement, aspiration, community and opportunity. Although Harlow may not yet have enormous reserves of economic capital, it has enough social and cultural capital to fill any vault in any bank.

I wish to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Government for the recent investments in our town. Harlow has received £50 million for the M11 junction 7A, hundreds of millions for our new Harlow hospital, and major investment for our enterprise zone. I am proud to note that Harlow College is one of the finest colleges in the country, and Harlow is on its way to becoming the skills capital of the east of England, following a recent £3 million upgrade for T-level delivery and the construction of the £12 million advanced manufacturing centre. I welcome the fact that the Government have already committed £300 million to the creation of Public Health England’s science campus in Harlow, in anticipation of PHE’s expected move. I look forward to the Government confirming the funding for the project in the next spending statement.

Despite all that, Harlow remains the second most-deprived area in Essex. It is essential that that is recognised in the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Part of the town centre is in a real state of disrepair, plagued by antisocial behaviour. Our neighbourhood centres are in desperate need of regeneration. Harlow’s towns fund bid sets out to remedy such problems and address the challenges posed by ageing infrastructure, through town centre improvements; the redevelopment of Staple Tye neighbourhood centre; measures to increase connectivity at the enterprise zone; and investment in a new institute of technology.

Sadly, we lost out on £10.4 million from the future high streets fund because the Government procurement letter stated that Harlow Council’s bid

“did not meet stringent criteria on value for money for the taxpayer”.

The towns fund bid is a chance to make up for that loss. It will be the thread that ties together all the Government’s recent investments in Harlow. The town centre must be fit for purpose to support economic growth and social capital and make Harlow a place that offers community, security and prosperity for all our citizens—a town that aspirational people want to move to and live in.

I give special thanks to the Minister, who is responsible for the towns fund, all members of the Harlow growth board, the chief executive of Harlow Council and the senior officers who are working day and night to make sure the bid succeeds. I hope that, this time, our bid will be a success and our town will get the much needed funding that it deserves.

Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 17th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I certainly can give the hon. Member that assurance, but equally, I would be more than happy to meet her and her right hon. Friend. She raises a number of different points. Her local council has received a great deal of money from the Government over the course of this year. It has received almost £50 million in covid-19 expenditure alone so far, in addition to the schemes I have already referred to, which will no doubt amount to many further millions of pounds. The Government have provided the council with £56 million to support 4,000 of her local businesses. She also mentions homelessness and rough sleeping, on which we have worked very closely with Newham Council—I visited a brilliant move-on accommodation site in her constituency earlier this year with the mayor—and we will be providing it with further funding next year, thanks to the £750 million that we are investing in our campaign to end rough sleeping.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

Madam Deputy Speaker, may I wish you, as my brilliant constituency neighbour across the border in Epping Forest, a happy Christmas?

My right hon. Friend knows that we are in the process of bidding for the £25 million towns fund to regenerate Harlow. Coupled with the recently announced £50 million Harlow investment fund, does he agree that this regeneration money will completely transform our town to build an even better Harlow? Does he also agree that these regeneration funds are all the more important given the struggle that local businesses and shopkeepers have had to face because of the coronavirus pandemic, and will he confirm that every possible financial support will be given to the residents of Harlow to help us through this pandemic?

[Robert Jenrick]

Can I thank my right hon. Friend for his hard work over the course of this year and for the campaigns we have worked on together? Not least of those is the decision he campaigned on for many years to institute national space standards for new homes built under permitted development rights, which I think will make a great deal of difference in Harlow, as across the country. He is right to highlight the many ways in which the Government are supporting Harlow—through the towns fund, which is bringing forward very exciting and welcome proposals, and also through the work of Homes England in my Department, which is putting £240 million against the new garden village to provide much-needed housing and further town centre regeneration for his local community. I look forward to visiting Harlow, I am sure, next year and seeing the results.

Arcadia and Debenhams: Business Support and Job Retention

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

In Harlow, we have an excellent Topshop that has done very well, and clearly the staff are worried about their pensions and their jobs. Surely, the time has come for legislation to stop these robber barons who own these big companies, who plunder the assets, with the taxpayer left to foot the bill and anxious employees losing their jobs and pensions. We should make sure that we seize the assets of those big vulture capitalists and get the money that the hard-working employees deserve.

[Paul Scully]

My right hon. Friend raises some important points. There is already legislation and regulation in place to look at this. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has written to the administrators to make sure that they can expedite the report looking at directors’ behaviour, not just in the immediate weeks but looking back to see if anything untoward has happened.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

Our actions are designed to ensure that the hon. Lady’s constituents and others around the country are not liable for the costs of cladding. I cannot say to her that there will not be some costs that fall on leaseholders that have some connection with defects in their properties, but we are working hard with Mr Wade and others to ensure that we have solutions to mitigate that, and we must make sure that developers and owners step up to the plate and remedy the situations that they have created. Where they cannot, thus far the Government have demonstrated that we will step in and support remediation of buildings, but we cannot and should not offer a blank cheque on behalf of taxpayers. The primary responsibility must reside with developers who built those buildings.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

I welcome what my hon. Friend is doing, particularly on fairness for leaseholders, but what measures can he take to support Harlow locally to improve the quality of social housing, given the urgent need to ensure that our social housing stock is fit for purpose and we can build an even better Harlow for residents, for the 21st century and beyond?

[Christopher Pincher]

My right hon. Friend campaigns for Harlow possibly like no other colleague campaigns for any constituency in the country. He was integral to our work on space standards for upbuilding and ensuring that buildings have light in all habitable rooms. In answer to his question, I point him to our affordable homes programme, under which £12.2 billion will deliver 180,000 affordable new homes in the next five years, and to our reforms to the housing revenue account, which will allow local councils more easily to build social homes if they wish. Harlow may wish to pursue those two endeavours.

Town and Country Planning

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I believe in liberalising planning regulations in the sense that I want more affordable housing for my constituents in Harlow, where we do have some exemplary PDR conversions—Edinburgh House has been developed to an extremely high standard—but, as the House will know, Harlow has paid a high price for the prior extension of PDRs. Office blocks never intended for residential dwellings have been brought up on the cheap by developers and converted rapidly into rabbit-hutch housing.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that quality is just as important as quantity?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend is right, and that is the kernel of my argument today. What has happened is that the homes, some of them smaller than my office in the House of Commons, and the relatively inexpensive rent charged by property management companies have proved an attractive and lucrative model for social housing, and, I am sorry to say, it is predominantly London’s Labour borough councils have that seen this as an opportunity for what can be described as social cleansing: moving vulnerable residents from their own boroughs into our town of Harlow.

The redevelopment of Terminus House in particular is a blight on our town centre. Antisocial behaviour sky-rocketed. Essex police have attended 238 recorded incidents at or near the site. Another office block, Templefields, has been converted in an isolated part of town on an industrial estate with no proper transport links or amenities for residents.

The crucial issue is how we avoid this in the future. I have had long meetings with the Minister and have been reassured that today’s extension of PDRs, allowing for additional stories to be built on top of purpose- built flats, will not have the same consequences for my constituency, particularly because the Government have announced that they are putting a stop to matchbox houses. All new homes developed under PDRs must meet the nationally prescribed space standard. A one-bedroom apartment will need to be a minimum of 37 square metres.

[Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that the 300,000 dwellings per year target is indeed delivered, and that, as part of that, some innovation in the planning system, with the right controls, is needed? Does he also agree that we would not be in such a challenging situation if it was not for the failure of the Mayor of London to deliver housing in the centre of London, and our businesses are paying a terrible price for the failure to make London a proper live-work city?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We need interventions to be short. Lots of Members want to speak, and they will not be able to do so if there are lots of interventions, and long ones.

[Robert Halfon]

I go back to my previous argument: we need quality housing. We need a lighter planning regime, because I want affordable houses for my constituents, but I want them in the right place. I therefore welcome what the Secretary of State said to me in our meeting yesterday: the introduction of a prior approvals process for these new rights, and local planning authorities and the community will now have a say over any new redevelopment, with the ability to object to plans. Local authorities can also now consider the external appearance of the building, the development’s impact on transport and neighbouring premises, as well as the provision of adequate natural light.

I understand—I would welcome the Minister’s confirmation of this—that a time-limited PDR allowing for the conversion of warehouses and buildings on industrial estates lapses today and that the Government will not be renewing this right. It was noted by the shadow Minister that the rights introduced today are so limited that this is just to deliver around 800 homes per year.

On the basis that the Secretary of State is putting an end to rabbit-hutch housing and creating a level playing field by prohibiting unwanted through-the-backdoor developments, I will support the Government. However, as I have said previously to my right hon. Friend the Minister, I ask that the Government hold to account those councils that are socially cleansing their boroughs by moving people to strange areas without any links to their families and friends. If councils must make out-of-area placements, they should contribute financially to the receiving councils’ associated costs, so that Harlow does not bear the brunt financially.

Extended PDRs have caused irreparable damage to Harlow’s landscape, social cohesion and reputation. There are unintended consequences to the drain on our local resources, which is why I strongly welcome the Secretary of State’s moves. I note that we will be able to repair some of the damage because of our £25 million bid for the Government towns fund, and I very much welcome the £1 million of accelerated funding for Harlow, announced last week, to regenerate our town centre and make sure that what has gone wrong in the past can never happen again.

Rented Homes: End of Evictions Ban

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady for her question. New and existing universal credit claimants who have been in work can claim a nine-month grace period from the cap on universal credit that they received. They can apply for discretionary housing payments, and we have made more money available for that particular situation. I would say to her, as I said to the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), that the best way to help her constituents is to get our economy back on track and her constituents back to work. We have created more jobs in the past 10 years than ever before. We have closed the gap between rich and poor. The actions that we have taken will support her constituents, and we will continue to do so as we leave the crisis.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]]

I welcome the measures that the Government have introduced to protect renters in Harlow during the pandemic. However, tenants living in permitted-development-rights office-block conversions in my constituency have had a rent rise from £612 a month—a little below the old housing allowance rate—to £718 this financial year, which is a little below the new local housing allowance rate and, after universal credit, that rent increase means that they are £13 a month over the benefit cap, which is recouped. While taxpayers pay more and private landlords earn more, tenants in those blocks end up £13 worse off. What steps will the Government take to ensure that landlords do not move the goalposts and that tenants get the benefit of local housing allowance rate increases?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my right hon. Friend for his question.  He has brought the issue of office conversions to my attention before, and is a doughty campaigner on behalf of his constituents. As I said to the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare), new and existing universal credit claimants who had been in work can apply for the nine-month grace period on their welfare benefits being capped. There are exemptions for the most vulnerable, including the disabled, and they can apply to their local authority for discretionary housing payments, so there are tools available to help my right hon. Friend’s constituents. The biggest tool of all, of course, is the tool of work, and that is what we will work exceptionally hard to provide to everybody who either has no job or fears losing theirs.