Oral Answers to Questions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateRobert Jenrick
Main Page: Robert Jenrick (Conservative - Newark)Department Debates - View all Robert Jenrick's debates with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
(3 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberMay I associate myself and all on the Government Benches with the remarks you have just made with respect to Julia, Mr Speaker? We are all very saddened to hear of her death. As you said, service to this House comes in many forms and few have served it as well as she has. We all pass on our deepest condolences to her husband, family and friends.
The Government’s response to the pandemic has seen billions of pounds of support flowing to our high streets through business grants, the furlough scheme and tax deferrals. We look to the future with renewed optimism through the progress of our world-beating vaccination programme, but we know the pandemic has magnified and accelerated market forces and will have a lasting impact on the hight street. The role of high streets has always evolved. I am confident that it will do so again, provided there is the right leadership from local councils to make that happen. We are supporting councils and the pace of change through planning and licensing reform, preserving what is best about the high street at the heart of our local communities but enabling it to move forward with renewed confidence.
I, too, pass on my great sympathies to the family of Julia Clifford. She was indeed a great person and always cheerful.
High streets need to adapt to the changing nature of retail and become places that offer a chance for everyone to work, rest and play as well as shop. Does my right hon. Friend agree that planning policy must adapt, so that councils and businesses can make the changes they need to remain competitive and broaden their appeal to the public?
I fully agree with my hon. Friend. We are seeing profound changes to the high street. As it begins to reopen later this year, we will need an extremely flexible planning system so that we can ensure that small businesses and entrepreneurs can adapt and evolve. We will need a mixed economy, ensuring that there are housing, leisure, shops and restaurants in town and city centres. That is what we are seeking to achieve. We have already put in place, at great speed, a number of significant planning reforms: for example, our reform of use class orders; the ability of local councils to hold markets and of pubs to have marquees in their gardens for longer than they would have done in the past; and permitted development rights to enable businesses that are no longer viable to be turned into high-quality homes so that people of all ages can live in the towns in which they work.
The past year has been incredibly difficult for businesses on the high streets across Sevenoaks and Swanley, but while some landlords have shared that burden others have not. What more can the Government do to encourage landlords to adjust rents where businesses have lost significant trade, or indeed have been unable to trade?
My hon. Friend raises an important question. We are experiencing probably the most significant adjustment in commercial property in our lifetimes and the Government are doing a number of things to assist that process. First, we have helped businesses with their cash flow during the pandemic through the business rates holiday and the business grants that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has made available. Secondly, we have given businesses peace of mind during the most difficult months by introducing legislation to protect them from eviction, and from forms of insolvency and debt collection if they cannot pay their rent during this period. Finally, we have worked with the sector to publish a code of practice to help to support rent negotiations.
What is required now, if it has not happened already, are very urgent conversations or mediation, if that is necessary, between landlords and their tenants to ensure that where they can pay, they do so—we expect that to happen—and where they cannot pay, sensible, pragmatic arrangements are put in place. It is not in the interests of good landlords to lose viable businesses at this moment and we strongly encourage landlords, if they have not already, to have those productive conversations as quickly as they can.
The town deal funding combined with levelling-up funds and others are potentially transformational for our high street and local economy in Mansfield, but we need some support. It seems likely that we may have to re-submit our bid this spring to try to get the maximum funding, so will the Secretary of State assure me that he will be able to get proper feedback and support for our new bid, and will he look at whether he might be able to give us some security by ensuring that we cannot get a lower amount if we try again?
My hon. Friend has been a doughty champion for Mansfield. I was very pleased that, in the summer of last year, we were able to provide Mansfield District Council with £1 million of accelerated funding to make immediate improvements to the town. He is right to say that, in some places, our experience is—both through the towns fund and the high streets fund—that local proposals have required further support and guidance to ensure that they meet the perfectly understandable value-for-money requirements put in place by my Department and the Treasury. We are going to help Mansfield to prepare its proposals. We have put in place consultancy arrangements to do that and I look forward to working with him.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a significant part of regenerating our high streets needs to be bringing back into use old, historic buildings that have been out of use for far too long? That underlines why the Ipswich town deal bid is such a good bid, because at the heart of it, and the two most popular projects in the consultation, are plans to breathe new life into the Paul’s silo building—£4 million on the waterfront—and the old Post Office building: two iconic buildings for Ipswich that need a breath of new life.
My hon. Friend and I share a personal interest in historic buildings and the culture and heritage of our towns and cities. Ipswich, as the county town of Suffolk, has a particularly rich heritage. We want to see historic buildings restored and regenerated, and that is a significant part of all the funds that we have made available to date and will be of their successors—the levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund. I very much look forward to working with him as he finalises his proposals and ensures that Ipswich gets the regeneration funding that it needs.
I offer my condolences on behalf of the Opposition to the family of Julia Clifford on their very, very sad loss.
High streets need support to help them to recover, so will the Secretary of State guarantee that the funding that all areas receive under the levelling-up fund will be at least as much as they received under their local growth deal?
I am delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman’s and the Opposition’s new-found enthusiasm for business and supporting the wealth creators in this country. Of course, it was just over a year ago that they were supporting the overthrow of capitalism. The Leader of the Opposition’s relaunch last week was not quite the Beveridge moment that it was billed as, but we will keep on supporting small businesses on the high street. The Chancellor has done that very successfully over the course of this year in difficult circumstances, with the business rates holiday, the cut in VAT and the support for business grants. We are going to be doing more, as the hon. Gentleman said, with the £4 billion levelling-up fund, which builds on the success of the £3.6 billion towns fund. That will ensure that communities across the country—but particularly those that are furthest away from the labour market, have the highest levels of deprivation and have not seen the levels of Government investment that we would wish hitherto—get the funding that they need to move forward into the year.
The first word in “Build back better” is, of course, “build”, and one of the key priorities for my Department throughout the pandemic has been to ensure that house building continues and the housing market stays open. This Government have gone to great lengths to keep the housing industry open, in turn sustaining hundreds of thousands of people’s jobs and livelihoods. House building and the whole ecosystem that it supports, from show homes to home maintenance, have been able to continue during the pandemic and to do so safely. This was shown in the third quarter statistics last year, where housing starts were up 111% on the first quarter and completions were up 185%. At the same time, we are seeing the biggest investment in affordable homes for a decade, delivering much needed new homes on brownfield land through our £7.1 billion national home building fund.
I wonder whether the Secretary of State has seen the reports in The Times today showing high levels of interest in new houses with open space. That is certainly the case at Houlton in my constituency, where the master developer of a 6,000-home site, Urban&Civic, has put green space and a sense of community at its heart, and surpassed its target with 513 occupations in the last three months and a further 310 homes currently under construction. Does he agree that the provision of high-quality open space should be a key part of all housing developments, and will he come to Houlton to see the great work that is being done there, as soon as he is able to do so?
I would be delighted to visit my hon. Friend in Houlton, and I pay tribute to Urban&Civic, which I know well. It is a developer that has carefully masterplanned large sites and tried, where it can, to weave in trees, public realm and public spaces, which is exactly the right way forward. I was pleased to see that it has now been taken over by the Wellcome Trust, which says something about the sort of projects that it will take forward in the future: high-quality, sustainable communities. I have made it a personal priority to ensure that new developments are well-planned. That is why we brought forward the national model design code, and we are also changing the law so that all new streets that are built in this country will be tree lined.
People want to live in strong communities where they can see their unique character, heritage and culture reflected and respected in the buildings they pass in their daily lives, so the Government have established the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission to do just that, by championing beauty in the built environment. We have recently published a comprehensive response to the report, and will be implementing the vast majority of its recommendations. That includes embedding the principle of beauty in the planning system for the first time since it was created in the post-war years; publishing a new national model design code so that communities can demand well-designed local buildings; and establishing a fast track for beauty, where individuals and good-quality builders can see high-quality developments proceed at pace.
I am delighted by my right hon. Friend’s response. This is a vital report and it will make a huge difference to future developments in communities such as mine when these proposals are taken forward. We have a number of exciting developments across Furness, from Hartley’s Brewery in Ulverston to Salthouse sands in Barrow, which are actively seeking to celebrate local history. How best can those developers engage with my right hon. Friend’s Department to ensure that they meet the proposed standards?
My hon. Friend represents one of the most beautiful constituencies in the country, one with a very rich heritage, and I understand why he would want to see that preserved and enhanced, as do we. The developer community should now be engaging with our national model design code and his own local councils should now bring forward their own version of that. My Department stands ready, with our new place unit, to support local councils to produce high-quality, compelling and locally popular design codes. We will be piloting that over the course of the year—perhaps his local council might like to be one of the pilot areas.
Central to this Government’s mission is the promise of helping more people to achieve the dream of home ownership. That is why we have introduced a new shared ownership model cutting the minimum stake that someone needs to buy a home of their own to 10% and allowing them to increase in 1% steps. Thousands more people will benefit, as up to 50% of the homes delivered through our new affordable homes programme will be shared ownership, with those in rented homes being given the right to shared ownership. This all comes on top of our new Help to Buy scheme, which specifically targets first-time buyers, our First Homes policy, which discounts new homes by at least 30%, and our landmark leasehold reforms announced earlier in the year.
City of York Council is already the subject of written warnings by the Secretary of State’s Department for its failure to produce its first local plan since the 1950s, and has now again been reprimanded by inspectors for delays and errors in the production of that plan. Will he now step in and have this plan drafted for the council to send a clear message to it, and to any other council, that we will not tolerate those who seek to prevent the delivery of homes for rental and ownership?
My hon. Friend will appreciate that in my quasi-judicial role I cannot comment on York’s plan, other than to say that it is long overdue, as he says. York is one of those communities that have failed to produce a plan for a very long time. We have a plan-based system in this country, and the planning reforms that I am bringing forward place greater emphasis than ever on these local plans. One has to have a local plan in order to make the system succeed. It is not optional. Local areas that take too long or do not produce those plans, including York, will need to face the consequences, and we will have to consider how we need to proceed if they do not bring one forward quickly.
This Government are making the dream of home ownership a reality, with the number of first-time buyers now at its highest level for 12 years. Over the past decade, our schemes like Help to Buy and Right to Buy have helped nearly 700,000 families to buy a home of their own. Applications for the Help to Buy affordable new-build scheme in Scotland have now been closed and the Scottish first home fund is currently paused, but the people of Scotland need not worry: we are working very closely with the Chancellor on how to increase the options for first-time buyers looking to access mortgages across the United Kingdom, which will, in turn, help more people in Scotland to become homeowners, from Glasgow to Inverness.
It is a fact that second home buyers often price out young first-time buyers in the highlands, and this of course takes me to that dread old spectre of highland depopulation. So on a personal level I would be extremely grateful if the Secretary of State could share his thinking and his methodology with the Scottish Government, and make every encouraging noise that he can to the Scottish Government, to make sure that young local people can buy homes in the highlands and live and work there in the years to come.
The hon. Gentleman and I share the same view that young people in this country should have every right to get on the housing ladder that those of us who were fortunate to do so in previous years had. It is a shame that the Scottish Government have chosen to close the Help to Buy scheme and to pause the first home fund without bringing forward any credible alternatives. Of course many of these issues are devolved, but where the Chancellor and I can take action in Scotland, we certainly will. As I said earlier, we are working very closely with the big banks on a UK-wide basis to see what more we can do to help first-time buyers access high loan to value mortgages and get on the ladder.
On Saturday, I was delighted to announce that the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government will be opening a new dual headquarters in the great city of Wolverhampton, taking Ministers, senior civil servants and decision makers to the west midlands. We are leading efforts to level up all parts of the country, so it is only right that MHCLG brings decision makers to the communities that we seek to serve. This is about more than just the hundreds of jobs that we will bring to the region, with 800 MHCLG staff outside London by 2030—it is about pride, prestige, proximity to power, ensuring that more local voices are reflected in the creation of Government policy and playing our part in raising the stature of smaller cities such as Wolverhampton, which have been undervalued by Governments hitherto.
Earlier today, I was pleased to meet representatives from Wolverhampton, who included—you will be pleased to know, Mr Speaker, as a supporter of Chorley FC— the mighty Wolverhampton Wanderers football club. All at the Ministry look forward to being an integral part of the great city of Wolverhampton and the wider west midlands.
I think the Secretary of State means the team that scraped through.
Can the Secretary of State tell me what projections have been made of the impact on homelessness of the ending of the protection for renters at the end of next month? What provision will be made to assist local authorities in supporting those who find themselves evicted?
My right hon Friend the Lord Chancellor and I are working to consider what further steps are necessary. We will hear in a few moments’ time the Prime Minister’s statement, which will set out the road map for the reopening of our economy, but it is important that we keep in place measures that protect the most vulnerable in society, including those who are renting. That is exactly what we have done since the beginning of the pandemic, and I intend to keep doing so for as long as is necessary.
The hon. Lady will also be aware that we have spent more than £700 million protecting rough sleepers in her part of the country and across the whole of England. We have helped more than 34,000 of the most vulnerable people in society into safe and secure accommodation, and we intend to build on that over the course of the year as we move forward with our pledge to end rough sleeping.
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We went into the pandemic as one of the leading countries in the world in terms of having a cashless society. The chief executive of the Royal Mint, based in Llantrisant in Wales, has suggested recently that coin use may have dropped by as much as a fifth over the course of the pandemic, and much of that will not be restored afterwards, so it is important that we protect access to cash for the most vulnerable in society, including those in smaller towns, villages and rural areas. My right hon Friend the Chancellor has committed to doing just that and ensuring that the infrastructure that supports cash is sustainable in the long term, including proposals that would see cashback offered at shops without consumers having to make a purchase.
The Resolution Foundation has found that 450,000 households have fallen into rent arrears since last January due to the covid pandemic. Does the Secretary of State think the Government’s decision to freeze local housing allowance will improve that situation or make it worse, and what objections has he raised in Cabinet about this freeze?
I am proud of the response that this Government have made to the pandemic. At every turn, we have tried to protect the most vulnerable people in society. My Department has protected renters through bringing forward the moratorium on evictions. We raised the local housing allowance to the 30th percentile, ensuring that there is more support for those people who need it. In England, we have supported rough sleepers, those shielding and many of the most vulnerable people; that is absolutely right. Our record stands up very well compared with that of the Scottish Government. In fact, the courts in Scotland opened long before those in England, ensuring that people in England were protected from eviction while those in Scotland were being evicted.
Last week, The Sunday Times revealed that property developers who have built flats covered in dangerous cladding have donated £2.5 million to the Conservative party since 2017. This comes after the 10 biggest house builders have made £15 billion in profit since the Grenfell Tower disaster, and of course, they have made a tidy sum during the covid-19 pandemic from a market boom fuelled by the stamp duty holiday. The Housing Secretary said he believes in the polluter pays principle. Why, then, are leaseholders still footing the bill for the building safety crisis?
The hon. Gentleman may have missed my statement to the House the other day in which I announced on behalf of the Chancellor that we will be bringing forward levies and taxes on the property development industry. [Interruption.] He suggests that they are too low, but he does not know what the scale of them is, and he will have to wait until my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announces them in due course. We will ensure that those who created this situation pay for it. I would add that many of these buildings—in fact, the lion’s share of them—were built under the last Labour Government, who did nothing to tackle this issue. We are clearing up the mess. We are bringing forward an entirely new building safety regime, which will be world class and ensure that people can always be safe and feel safe in their homes.
As my hon. Friend notes, the £3.6 billion towns fund is being delivered in England with great success. There is, however, nothing to prevent the Welsh Government from investing in the same way in towns such as the one that he represents across Wales. At the latest spending review, the Welsh Government received an additional £1.3 billion for the next financial year through the Barnett formula and £12 million through changes in my Department’s overall settlement. I strongly encourage him to hold the Welsh Government to account and ensure that they invest more in communities such as the one that he serves.
I do not think my right hon. Friend needs any reminding; he of course was the Chancellor who gave us the business rates holiday that has supported hundreds of thousands of businesses on every high street across the country. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait till the Budget next week, where the Chancellor will be setting out how he intends to continue supporting businesses and jobs in all parts of the United Kingdom over the course of the year.
I agree wholeheartedly with my right hon. Friend. It does speak to the priorities of the current Mayor of London that he would devote so much time to statues and street names, rather than to the things that really matter to people in London, which are tackling crime, ensuring they do not have to pay his 10% mayoral precept on their council tax and ensuring that good-quality affordable homes are built in the places people want to see them.
This Government were elected on a clear manifesto pledge to ensure that we level up all parts of this United Kingdom, including the communities that the hon. Member serves in Scotland, and that is exactly what we intend to do. The UK shared prosperity fund will ensure that at least as much, if not more, funding goes to communities in Scotland than would have been received if we had stayed within the European Union. He seems to have a strange aversion to localism and to ensuring that local authorities in Scotland—democratically elected councillors in his constituency and others—have a say over the future of their areas.
I very much enjoyed visiting East Devon during the general election campaign, and I look forward to seeing Exmouth’s application in due course. As I said then, Exmouth is exactly the sort of town that we want to benefit from the town regeneration funds that we have made available. I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that we are driving forward our plans to boost town centre regeneration in every corner of the country. The levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund will build on the work of the future high streets fund and the towns fund, and the prospectuses for those will be published very soon. I hope East Devon District Council will work with him to grasp this opportunity and put in good proposals that we can consider carefully.
My hon. Friend is right to welcome the landmark reforms that we announced earlier in the year, which will be the biggest changes to English property law for over 40 years. Of course, I would like to see them apply in Wales as well, and we have had conversations with colleagues in the Welsh Government. I strongly encourage them to take the same approach as us, which is to ensure there is always fairness for leaseholders, and that those reforms come into place across the whole of England and Wales.
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and we are actively considering it. We have responded to a consultation on how we can improve access to public buildings and to homes for disabled people, and if there is more we can do, we should do it.
I am aware of my hon. Friend’s concerns regarding the new development at Horton Heath. As he says, I cannot comment on individual planning cases, but he is right that where a local council acts as the developer and master planner of a particular site it is incumbent upon it to ensure that it takes account of the views of statutory consultees such as the Environment Agency, of the local community and, indeed, of strong local Members of Parliament like him.
I am suspending the House for three minutes to enable the necessary arrangements for the next business to be made.