Local Government Finance (England)

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That the Local Government Finance Report (England) 2021-22 (HC 1200), which was laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

With this it will be convenient to consider the following motions:

That the Referendums relating to Council Tax Increases (Alternative Notional Amounts) (England) Report 2021-22 (HC 1201), which was laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.

That the Referendums relating to Council Tax Increases (Principles) (England) Report 2021-22 (HC 1202), which was laid before this House on 4 February, be approved.

[Robert Jenrick]

Among the many acts of heroism that we have seen over the past year, the quiet dedication, hard work and compassion shown by all who serve their communities in local government has truly shone through. I am sincerely thankful for their efforts. I am grateful to them for protecting the most vulnerable, including those who are shielding from the pandemic, and providing unprecedented levels of support through Everyone In to reduce rough sleeping, bringing it to the lowest levels that we have seen for many years. I am grateful to councils for their support for local businesses, enterprises and entrepreneurs; for keeping essential public services going against the odds; and for the part that they are now playing in the success of our national vaccine programme, ensuring that it reaches all communities and paving the way for our recovery as a nation later this year.

From the outset of the pandemic, we promised to do everything within our power to support local authorities during this most unusual and difficult time. Our local government financial settlement shows that we have kept that promise, with a real-terms increase in core spending power and a guarantee that no council anywhere in the land will receive less funding than it did last year. That stands alongside an unprecedented package of covid-19 support this year and next year, totalling more than £11 billion directly to councils and £30 billion in additional help for local councils and their businesses and communities.

The settlement strengthens social care, with councils able to access an additional £1 billion, comprising £300 million from the social care grant and a 3% adult social care council tax precept. It also supports children’s social care, helping councils to provide better services for the most vulnerable children in society, children in care and children with disabilities. Those vital services have experienced severe disruption over the last few months and will no doubt experience further demand as we ease lockdown and move forward as a country.

Balancing the contributions of national and local taxpayers, this settlement gives councils increased flexibility, with a 2% council tax referendum limit for most authorities and an extra 3% for social care authorities, which councils may choose to defer until 2022-23. I can inform the House that many councils, particularly Conservative ones, are indeed doing so. The council tax referendum principles are not a cap, nor do they force councils to set taxes at the threshold level. Councils should and must consider the financial concerns of local residents at this most challenging time, alongside the public’s support for action on keeping our streets safe and providing essential services.

Recognising the vital door-to-door services that councils deliver day in, day out to the most isolated, our settlement provides an extra £4 million to authorities in remote rural areas through the rural services delivery grant, taking the total to £85 million—the highest contribution to the delivery of public services in our rural areas to date. Lower- tier local councils will also receive a new £111 million lower-tier services grant, with main funding allocations for the full range of council services rising in line with inflation.

Finally, we know that the new homes bonus accounts for a considerable part of funding for many councils. We are therefore implementing a further round of the bonus allocations, with the same 0.4% funding baseline as last year and no new legacy payments on the new round. We will reform it over the course of next year to ensure that this significant amount of money is focused on the councils that are keenest to build, build, build and get the homes this country needs under way.

While these measures are providing confidence and stability, we know that councils will continue to face very unusual challenges as a result of covid-19 for quite some time, despite all the success of the vaccine roll-out, so today I am setting out further details of nearly £3 billion in additional covid-19 support for councils next year. We were able to provide certainty to local councils in December on allocations for £1.55 billion of unring-fenced funding, and I am now very pleased to confirm, on top of the funding already provided in the settlement, the final allocations for £670 million of grant funding for local council tax support. This helps local authorities to continue reducing council tax bills for those who are finding it hardest to pay.

We have also provided our published final position on the extension of the sales, fees and charges scheme from April to June 2021, a vital safety net for councils facing lost income as a result of covid-19, ensuring that everything—from the local car parks to our theatres, heritage attractions and all the things that local councils provide and which demand income to keep going—will have that guarantee of certainty and confidence to move forward until at least the mid-point of this calendar year. They will soon receive grant funding reflecting 75% of irrecoverable losses in their council tax and business rates income from 2020-21, with an up-front payment early in the financial year to aid cash flow. In both respects, we have listened to the sector, acted and provided them with the certainty and the resources they need. We made promises and we have kept them, and we are making sure that local councils can continue to deliver for their citizens.

We know that a handful of councils face serious financial challenges—some, it has to be said, due to very poor management, but others due to the exceptional events of the past year. There is quite a broad range, and today we are publishing details of the targeted support that we are providing to four councils unable to balance their budgets without some additional recourse to Government. This aid is provided on an exceptional basis, with these councils being subject to rigorous reviews of their financial positions, their governance and their ability to meet some or all of their budget gaps for the next year without Government funding. Taxpayer support of this kind is never provided lightly, and in return for the increased flexibility afforded to councils next year, we expect sound financial management, with residents shielded from unaffordable increases.

I wish I could say that here, in our nation’s great capital, the Greater London Authority is blazing a trail that others might wish to follow, but, sadly, the opposite is true. I have reluctantly placed before the House today a principle to allow for the Mayor of London’s request to increase council tax by £15 on band D properties without holding a referendum in order to fund transport concessions above the level available elsewhere. This brings the total increase in precept he is seeking from Londoners to nearly 10%. While the final decision on the increases rests with the Mayor, and with the Mayor alone, I would urge him to abandon this ill-judged pursuit of tax hikes and to behave responsibly at a time of great difficulty for Londoners.

We want to unite and level up our councils, as we do the whole of the country, and to build back better from this pandemic and stronger than before. That starts with holding local polls in May this year. We said that further delaying elections would require a high bar, and the huge success of our vaccine programme gives us confidence that we can and should now move forwards. More than ever, people deserve their say on issues ranging from safer streets to the level of council tax, and we are providing £15 million to ensure that our polls are made covid- secure. My Department and the Cabinet Office will do all we can to support local council officers and the brilliant staff and volunteers of polling stations the length and breadth of England with the hard work and challenges that lie ahead. We want to ensure that the process is as smooth as possible and, in particular, that as many schools as possible can remain open.

We know that there are challenges posed by the pandemic, of course there are, and we also know that the scars are likely to take time to heal, but we are not cowed by them. We want to work together to learn from our experiences and to solve long-term problems in local government, because councils will be the thread running through our response to each and every one of these issues. We will empower them to reboot and restart vital public services on which communities depend, from health to justice: making sure that vulnerable children get the care that they need; helping schools to see children returned safely and address lost learning, particularly in our most deprived communities; and increasing funding for social care to help tackle the backlog in assessments while laying the foundations for future reforms and a sustainable future for the sector for decades to come.

As we tackle those issues, we will help councils to grapple with the sharp drops in footfall that we have seen on our high streets, and the knock-on effects for local businesses. Our £3.6 billion towns fund and the urban centre recovery taskforce will ensure that our towns and city centres are renewed and become once again the vibrant places that we love and that we want to see people living, working and shopping in again, and attracting tourists from home and abroad.

Our £900 million getting building fund is integral to this work, kickstarting local recoveries and delivering the next generation of roads, bridges, 5G networks and full-fibre broadband, with more than 50% of the shovel-ready projects already started, creating thousands of jobs all over the country. Our £4 billion new levelling up fund will invest in high-value local projects, regenerating eyesores, upgrading town centres, breathing new life into local arts and culture and, above all, creating and sustaining jobs. We will be setting out more details on that shortly through my right hon Friend the Chancellor.

In each and every one of these endeavours, we see a very strong role for local councils, knowing their communities best and being at the heart of their future economic recovery. We do this while helping councils to seize new opportunities, particularly in technology. We do not intend to return to the way that things were done before by default. As we leave the pandemic, we want to ensure that councils build back better, build better public services and embrace some of the good things that have come out of this unusual period. Councils have rightly embraced meeting and working remotely, and we will build on reforms to digitise our planning system, utilise our local digital fund and ensure that local authorities fully embrace moving more meetings, services and processes online, transforming how they deliver for residents, for their staff and for the country.

We will work with councils to build back better from the pandemic, becoming a more prosperous, greener, safer and more neighbourly country. Local councillors will be a golden thread woven through the fabric of that better country. The settlement that we are debating today provides local councils with the resources that they need to plan for the future. It recognises the role that councils have played every day at the forefront of our response to covid-19, and we thank and salute them for the hard work that they have done on our behalf. This settlement places them at the heart of our national recovery. I commend this motion to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I should inform the House that the Order Paper notes that these instruments have not yet been considered by the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. I have now just been informed that the Committee has in fact considered the instruments and has not drawn them to the attention of the House. The Committee’s report will be published on Friday.

Local Government Finance Settlement

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Written Statements

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

Today I laid before the House the “Report on Local Government Finance (England) 2021-22”, the “Council Tax referendum principles report 2021-22” and “Council Tax alternative notional amounts report 2021-2022”, which together form the annual local Government finance settlement for local authorities in England.

My Ministers and I have held meetings with representative groups, including the Local Government Association, and with councils and MPs. Representations from 155 organisations or individuals have been carefully considered before finalising the settlement.



Social care

This Government are dedicated to supporting the most vulnerable, which is why this settlement provides access of up to an additional £1 billion of funding for adult and children’s social care, comprising £300 million in grant and a 3% adult social care precept. In the interests of stability, the Government propos to roll forward allocations of the £1.41 billion 2020-21 social care grant and continue the 2020-21 improved better care fund at £2.1 billion.

Our proposal is to use £240 million of the additional £300 million social care grant as an “equalisation” component, to level the playing field, recognising that the distribution of resources generated through the adult social care precept does not match the pattern of assessed need. The remaining £60 million will be allocated directly through the existing adult social care funding formula.

New homes bonus

Following consultation, the Government are proposing a new round of 2021-22 (year 11) new homes bonus payments. This will be the final set of allocations under the current approach.

The Government are committed to developing a more efficient and effective way of incentivising housing growth, which is why I am pleased to announce that we plan to consult shortly on the future of the new homes bonus.

Lower tier services grant

The Government are proposing a new un-ringfenced lower tier services grant in 2021-22, which will allocate £111 million to local authorities with responsibility for lower tier services.

As part of this, the Government are proposing a minimum funding floor, at a cost of £25 million, so that no authority, either upper or lower tier, will have less funding available in 2021-22 than last year. This minimum funding floor is in response to the current exceptional circumstances and is a one-off.

Minor changes have been made to all allocations proposed at the provisional settlement to take account of changes to new homes bonus allocations arising from updated house completion statistics.

Rural services delivery grant

The Government will be increasing the rural services delivery grant by £4 million, taking the total to £85 million, the highest ever. As in previous years, this grant will be distributed to the top quartile of local authorities on the “super-sparsity” indicator.

Independent living fund

I can confirm that the former independent living fund recipient grant will continue to be paid to local authorities in 2021-22. The total value of the grant will be maintained at the 2020-21 value of £160.6 million, with the same approach to individual local authority allocations. Details will be published shortly.

Council tax

The Government manifesto commits to continuing to protect local taxpayers from excessive council tax increases, and it is for the House of Commons to set an annual threshold at which a council tax referendum is triggered. This is an additional local democratic check and balance to avoid the repeat seen under the last Labour Government when council tax more than doubled.

Next year, local authorities can increase council tax levels by up to 2% without holding a referendum and, where councils have adult social care responsibilities, they will be able to increase by a further 3% specifically for these services. To provide greater flexibility for councils that must take into consideration the situations of their residents when making council tax decisions, this 3% increase for adult social care can be deferred for use in 2022-23.

A referendum principle of up to 2% or £5, whichever is greater, will apply to shire district councils, and £15 on band D for police and crime commissioners. This package of referendum principles strikes a fair balance. The council tax referendum provisions are not a cap, nor do they force councils to set taxes at the threshold level. Councillors, mayors and police and crime commissioners and local councils will rightly want to consider the financial needs of local residents at this challenging point in time, alongside the public’s support for action on keeping our streets safe and providing key services.

Following the Mayor of London’s request, I have decided to place before Parliament a principle for the Greater London Authority which reflects the Mayor’s request for an increase of £15 (on band D) to fund transport concessions above the average level available elsewhere in England. The final decision on the increase in tax will be for the Mayor of London to take. The reasoning is set out in a letter to the Mayor, which I have placed in the Library.

At the same time as providing councils with the flexibility to set increases where they consider it appropriate, the Government also recognise the importance of providing support to those least able to pay. That is why we are providing councils with £670 million of new funding alongside the settlement, to enable them to continue reducing council tax bills for low-income households. This is in addition to the funding that is already built into the local Government finance system to fund local council tax support, which is a local discount, rather than a benefit payment.

Future of local government finance

As announced earlier in the year, the Government will not proceed with widescale funding reform in 2021-22, including the implementation of the review of relative needs and resources, 75% business rates retention, and a reset of accumulated growth under the business rates retention system.

Our decision to postpone reform has been taken in the interest of creating stability for local authorities and has allowed both the Government and councils to focus on meeting the immediate public health challenges posed by the covid-19 pandemic. We will revisit the priorities for finance reform in time for the next spending review, taking account of wider work on the future, of business rates and how best to organise and finance adult social care.

Covid-19 support

Councils have welcomed our estimated £3 billion package of support to respond to additional expenditure pressures and loss of income from the covid-19 pandemic in 2021-22. This package, on which I will provide further details shortly, includes £1.55 billion of un-ringfenced grant funding; a commitment to meet 75% of councils’ irrecoverable losses in council tax and business rates income for 2020-21, worth an estimated £800 million; an extension to the existing sales, fees and charges scheme for three further months, from April to June 2021; and an additional £670 million local council tax support grant.

Conclusion

Depending on local decisions, core spending power in England may rise from £49.0 billion in 2020-21 to up to £51.3 billion in 2021-22, a 4.6% increase in cash terms.

This settlement and the additional covid-19 resources build on the largest year-on-year increase in spending power in a decade last year, and recognise the resources and flexibility councils need to maintain critical services and their role at the heart of the national recovery from covid-19. The settlement provides further stability for the whole sector by maintaining core spending power at pre-pandemic levels, as a minimum for every authority in England. This stands alongside an unprecedented package of covid-19 support this year and next year, totalling over £11 billion in direct support for councils and £30 billion in additional support for local councils, businesses and communities.

[HCWS764]

Design and Building Standards

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Written Statements

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

In late 2018, the Government established the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission. Under the leadership of Nicholas Boys Smith and the late Sir Roger Scruton, it was tasked with championing beauty in the built environment and advising the Government on the reforms needed to ensure new homes are built to much higher, locally popular design standards and reflect local character and preferences.

The Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission’s report, “Living with Beauty”, set out 45 policy propositions, for Government and industry, on ways the planning and development process needed to change to provide the conditions for building more beautiful places. The report set out three principal aims: to “ask for beauty”, to “refuse ugliness” and to “promote stewardship”.

When the report was published, we welcomed the commission’s recommendations and committed to taking forward as many of them as possible. We agreed with the commission’s assessment that the design quality of new development is too often mediocre and that systemic change would be needed to ensure design and beauty were a core part of the planning process, not an afterthought.

Over the past 12 months, we have undertaken a review of the existing planning system to consider what changes the Government could make to deliver on the commission’s ambitions. As part of this, on 6 August we published “Planning for the Future” which included proposals for putting beauty at the heart of the planning system. This set out the importance of setting local expectations on design, ensuring communities have their say and promoting more widespread use of digital technologies to open up the design and planning processes to communities and encourage more participation in the planning system.

Following this work, on 30 January 2021, we published a comprehensive response to the commission’s report setting out clear steps the Government are taking to embed beauty, design and placemaking in the planning system.

First, we are proposing significant revisions to the national planning policy framework to put a greater emphasis on design and beauty. For the first time in the modern planning system, beauty and placemaking will be a strategic policy in their own right. This will put an emphasis on granting permission for well-designed buildings and refusing it for poor quality schemes. To ensure local preferences lie at the heart of this, we are asking all local authorities to work with local communities to produce local design codes or guides, setting out the design standards that new buildings will be expected to meet. These reforms will empower communities to expect and demand beauty in the built environment.

Secondly, we are also introducing a new expectation that all new streets should be tree-lined. This will deliver on the Government’s manifesto commitment for tree-lined streets, improve biodiversity and support the Government’s wider ambitions to plant 40 million trees. The updated national planning policy framework will also include wider changes to address environmental issues, including on managing the risk of floods, supporting heritage listings and amend the rules for the application of article 4 directions. The consultation on the revisions to the national planning policy framework was launched on the 30 January 2021 and will close on 27 March 2021.

Thirdly, in line with the commission’s recommendations, we have produced the first national model design code. We agree with the commission’s view that the use of local design codes, in which communities have a say, is an effective way of setting design expectations that will shape and deliver beautiful homes and places. Whereas a design guide sets out high level principles of good design, a design code sets out illustrated design requirements that provide specific, detailed parameters or constraints for the physical development of a site or area. The national model design code provides a clear framework setting out the parameters that contribute to good design and a step-by-step process for local authorities to follow to produce their own local codes and guides. We have made clear in the national planning policy framework that all areas should produce their own codes or guides, based on the principles set out in the design code. The Prime Minister also recently set out his 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution, which will create, support and protect hundreds of thousands of green jobs, whilst making strides towards net zero by 2050. This includes plans to make cycling and walking more attractive ways to travel, making our homes, schools and hospitals greener, warmer and more energy efficient and protecting and restoring our natural environment, planting 30,000 hectares of trees every year, while creating and retaining thousands of jobs. This vision is at the heart of the national model design code which puts a strong emphasis on building greener and more energy-efficient developments.

Fourthly, to ensure communities understand the principles and vision set out in the national model design code and to support them to apply it, we intend to establish a new Office for Place within the next year. This organisation will draw on Britain’s world-class design expertise to support communities to turn their visions of beautiful design into local standards all new buildings will be required to meet. We will be establishing an interim Office for Place within the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, with a transition board chaired by Nicholas Boys Smith tasked with considering what form the organisation should take, informed by responses to the “Planning for the Future” consultation. The interim Office for Place will begin the work to drive up design standards now. This year it will be piloting the design code with 20 communities and empowering local authorities to demand beauty, design quality and placemaking, through training on the principles outlined in the code. We have launched an expression of interest for local authorities to apply to be one of the first 10 pilot areas and the recipients of a share of £500,000 to support this work. We are seeking views on the draft national model design code, alongside the national planning policy framework consultation.

Fifthly, the Government are also relaunching the community housing fund, making £4 million available to help community land trusts bid for funds to support them to prepare bids for the £11.5 billion affordable homes programme. This programme is the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade and will provide up to 180,000 new homes across England, should economic conditions allow.

Looking forward, the Government’s “Planning for the Future” White Paper published on 6 August 2020 outlined a set of reforms that are intended to lay the foundations for future house building and economic development, whilst meeting our commitments to design, the environment and climate. As more homes are delivered under the new system, they will be built to higher standards, placing a clear emphasis on design, beauty, heritage and sustainability and ensuring that communities are at the heart of the planning system. We are currently analysing the 40,000 consultation responses and will publish a response in due course.

Finally, the Government are also encouraging local communities to nominate historic buildings, monuments, parks and gardens and other heritage assets they value so they can be protected through the planning system. Following an overwhelmingly positive response to the expressions of interest, funding has been doubled to £1.5 million, allowing 22 areas to develop and update their local heritage lists, instead of the ten originally announced.

The response to the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission’s report, along with the reforms to the national planning policy framework, the national design code, the intention to establish the Office for Place and our wider proposals to reform the planning system, will ensure that for the first time design is established as a core pillar of the planning process. They will encourage a more diverse and competitive building industry. They will make the planning process more digital and accessible for everyone, not just those with planning expertise or with the time to attend late night meetings. They will support communities to define their visions of good design and empower them to demand these standards are met in all new developments. Ultimately, they will ensure that beautiful homes and places become the expectation and the norm.

[HCWS750]

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I bow in respect to the first two speeches, and I expect they will be matched by those that follow.

“We remember those who were murdered for who they were. We stand against prejudice, hostility and division in the world today. We learn from the tragedies and horrors of the past. We work towards a better future.”

Those were the words put out with the photograph of the candle we lit last night. Had I been born in the Dutch Jewish line of my family, I could have died at Bergen-Belsen with many of the other 113 members of grandfather’s extended family.

The purpose of the holocaust memorial and education centre is for us to know, to care and to act, whatever our heritage. It may be that the Secretary of State will announce that if the proposed national heritage memorial and learning centre is built—whether it is built in Victoria Tower Gardens or not—then entry will be free. We have always assumed it would be free, but the Government were not able to say that. What the Government did say through its agency is that the bulk of the money should be spent on education, not on construction.

The proposal in September 2015 was that the centre should be completed by 2020, a year ago, that it should have the support of the local authority wherever it was to be built, and that it could be built anywhere within 3 miles of London on a suitable site. Page 10 of the publication showed that and included: west of Regent’s park; Spitalfields; most of Southwark, including the Imperial War Museum—

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

indicated dissent.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

The Secretary of State may shake his head. He will have his chance to speak. I want him at the moment to listen, if I may. I respect him and I respect what he tries to do, but I ask him to publish the analysis done before 2016 of the sites at the Imperial War Museum and Victoria Tower Gardens. I will publish what I know. He will need to consider what he is putting forward and his deputy needs to say whether he can seriously make a decision on the Secretary of State’s behalf when the Government are so implicated in an inappropriate scheme in an inappropriate place, with a design not accepted in Ottawa.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I start by adding my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) and all those Members who secured this afternoon’s debate, including the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), whose personal bravery and courage in combating antisemitism I think we all admire in this House.

Yesterday, I was honoured to speak at the annual Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony honouring millions of Jewish people and other victims of Nazi persecution. Like thousands of people from across our country, I then lit a candle in their memory, joining them to be the light in the darkness, the theme of this year’s commemorations.

As it is for many others, the holocaust is part of my family’s story, but it is a universal human tragedy as much as a personal one—a tragedy from which we can all learn something. In doing so, we must draw on the power of the testimony of holocaust survivors. As many Members have said today, it is one of the greatest privileges to meet them. We need to ensure that their stories endure and are understood by us and by future generations.

We have heard today from many Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), about the connections that we draw between the memories of atrocities of the past and those of the present. He can be assured that I have already drawn his powerful call for action to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the Metropolitan police war crimes unit.

We remember, as others have said, the subsequent genocides—the millions of victims of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia; the million-plus victims of the Rwandan genocide; the 8,000 Muslim men and boys who were murdered in Srebrenica. We heard powerful first-hand testimony from my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) of those deeply disturbing events within our own lifetime and within the continent of Europe.

It is now more than 75 years since the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. A year ago this week, I accompanied His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales to Jerusalem to mark that occasion. I was pleased that subsequently, we were able to make a £1 million donation on behalf of the United Kingdom to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation to ensure that the camp, which many hon. Members have spoken of today, endures as a grim memorial—one of the most unforgettable places that anyone can visit.

It is distressing, but perhaps not entirely surprising, that covid-19 has itself given the hatemongers another excuse to dredge up and repurpose age-old antisemitic tropes, claiming, just as they did as far back as the black death and later, that the Jews were the cause of the virus.

As we have heard in the course of this debate, we see antisemitism everywhere. As my hon. Friends the Members for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) said, we see it most prominently on social media, where, sadly, antisemitic abuse is rife. We see it on our university campuses, and I pay tribute to the fantastic work and bravery of the Union of Jewish Students, which does so much to ensure that Jewish students can enjoy all that university should have to offer.

No realm of public life has escaped the cancer of antisemitism, which is why I am proud that we are the first Government to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism. It is a tool to identify how antisemitism manifests itself in the 21st century, but as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, it is a tool only as useful as our willingness to apply it robustly. I am pleased that nearly three quarters of local councils have responded to our call and adopted it, and I am most grateful for the strong support of the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), in that regard.

I was heartened to see the English Premier League adopt the definition, thanks in part to the efforts of the noble Lord Mann, using its fantastic and unique international reach to provide a powerful reminder to those who perpetrate antisemitism in sport around the world. I strongly urge other institutions, councils and universities that have not yet adopted it to do so as quickly as possible. The reluctance of some of our great universities to do so is difficult to explain. It is surely not beyond the wit of our greatest minds and our most liberal institutions to be able to criticise the state of Israel without lapsing into antisemitism. I am pleased that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge agree and have shown the way.

The work of tackling antisemitism will continue, I hope, through a new holocaust memorial and learning centre, which currently awaits the outcome of a planning inquiry. If built, it will be a world-class memorial on our preferred location next to the Palace of Westminster. I thank Lord Pickles and Ed Balls, the co-chairs of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation advisory board, for their fantastic efforts in pushing this project forward. Some of the opposition to the memorial, the inaccurate reporting and, I am afraid to say, the statement we heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), who knows perfectly well that his argument of partiality was tested at a judicial review and found to be wanting, only focuses our attention and increases our resolve to make sure that the memorial is built within the lifetime of this Parliament. I am grateful that it has received the full support of all living Prime Ministers, the Leader of the Opposition and the leaders of the other major political parties and major faiths.

I know that some local residents, including my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West, have concerns about the memorial’s setting. However, I too walk there on a weekend when I am in Westminster, and I take my children to play in the playground. I can never forget that my children are the great grandchildren of holocaust survivors. I want their generation never to go through those horrors, and I want this Parliament to be able to look out upon that new memorial as a lasting reminder and as a source of education and nourishment to future generations.

I am also proud that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government supports holocaust education and remembrance. Like other Members, I pay tribute to Karen Pollock and the Holocaust Educational Trust, and to Olivia Marks-Woldman and her team at Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, both of whom are worthy recipients this year of honours from Her Majesty the Queen. They have done a fantastic job of keeping the flame alight, despite covid-19.

We gather today to fulfil a solemn obligation—an obligation of remembrance, to never allow the memory of those who died in the holocaust to be forgotten. Memory is the constant obligation of all generations. Today we mourn with those who mourn, and we grieve with those who grieve. We pay tribute to those who survived, who all these years have borne witness to that great evil and have served mankind by their example. We honour and remember the memory of all the allied forces who suffered appalling casualties and freed Europe from the grip of tyranny. Today we acknowledge the resilience and strength of Jewish people here in the UK and around the world. Finally, we pay tribute to the memory of those non-Jewish heroes who saved countless lives; those who the people of Israel call the “righteous among the nations”. In an age of indifference, they acted. In an age of fear, they showed courage. Their memory and their example should, like the light in the darkness, kindle a new flame in our hearts to do the same in our time.

Council Tax: Government’s Proposed Increase

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to end and add:

“notes that council tax doubled under the last Labour Government, but has fallen in real terms in England since 2010; asserts that council budgets are a local decision for elected councillors and mayors, but local taxpayers are now protected from excessive council tax increases, a policy opposed by the LGA Labour Group; disagrees with the Labour Party’s ‘Land for the Many’ proposals to hit hard-working families and pensioners with a new homes tax; notes that the biggest increases in council tax have been under the Labour Government in Wales thanks to their council tax revaluation and lack of referendum protections; welcomes the fact that Conservative councils set the lowest average Band D rates; and further welcomes the additional government funding of over £30 billion provided by the Government to support councils during the Covid-19 pandemic.”.

The Labour party position on this most important question is so inconsistent and contradictory that it is difficult to know where to start, but let me give a few basic facts to the House. The Leader of the Opposition thinks councils should not be given limited flexibility to decide themselves, locally, to raise their council tax rate. Yet, as we have already heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan), the Labour Mayor of London has decided to hike his share of council tax by 10%, while still finding the room to up his personal PR budget to £13 million, run by a £130,000-a-year spin doctor based in California. I am all in favour of working from home, but that really is quite a leap.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

May we just leave London for a moment, because there is a real dissonance between what people pay in a big city such as London and what people pay and get back in a rural area such as West Lindsey, with which my right hon. Friend is very familiar? We pay slightly more and we get a lot less— sometimes not even a street lamp; maybe a rubbish collection every two weeks. So can he address this real issue on behalf of rural people and say what he is doing to help us in rural areas?

[Robert Jenrick]

I certainly can. My right hon. Friend is fortunate to have a good Conservative council and it will benefit from the largest ever rural services grant in the settlement, which will give more money to help deliver the sorts of services that his constituents will rely on in a very rural part of the country.

The shadow Communities Secretary as leader of Lambeth Council hiked council tax by more than £100, including a 5% rise at the height of the unemployment crisis presided over by the last Labour Government. Yet today he believes that councils should not even have limited flexibility to do the same. Labour leaders in local government do not want limited flexibility to increase council taxes; they want to abolish the right of local people to veto excessive tax increases altogether, so that they can increase taxes by as much as they want. We all know where that leads for Labour councils: while council tax has fallen under the Conservatives in real terms since 2010, the last Labour Government presided over a doubling of council tax and, in Labour-run Wales, it is trebling.

Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition should pick up the phone, check in with his own local leadership from time to time and get their ducks in a row before opposing the very same flexibility that their councils are the greatest advocates of. From Leeds to Telford to the Wirral to Sefton, the A to Z of Labour local councils have demanded that we allow them to increase council tax “without limit”. They describe in their responses to the local government settlement that keeping their tax-raising instincts in check is frustrating, “an imposition”—not an imposition on tax payers, I hasten to add; they barely get a look-in. It is all there in black and white in the Labour councils’ responses to the local government settlement.

[Steve Reed]

The Secretary of State may want to correct the record, because actually I froze council tax, with a zero increase, the year following the crisis in 2007-08 and the year after that as well, but does he recognise that it is the Conservative leader of the Local Government Association, James Jamieson—a councillor I am sure he knows very well—who has called for the cap to be lifted for council tax increases and for a referendum to be abolished, not the Labour party Front Bench?

[Robert Jenrick]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Mr Jenrick, you moved the amendment. I presume that you did not wish to. Could you withdraw the moving of the amendment?

[Robert Jenrick]

Yes, I am happy to withdraw it, Mr Speaker.

I will come on to the remarks of the LGA in a few minutes, if I may, but the hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways: he cannot say that he is unhappy that we have imposed a cap that provides limited flexibility for local councils to decide of their own volition whether to increase council tax or not, and that he wants the cap lifted altogether so councils can increase it without limit, which seems to be the consensus among his own local government leaders.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could check in with his own council in Croydon, a council that in its consultation response to the Department on last year’s finance settlement said:

“we are disappointed that the ability to increase locally determined Council Tax has been reduced and that”

it

“can…only be increased by 2%”—

directly contradicting the hon. Gentleman.

How are these councils actually performing?  Croydon is a council that has found itself in £1.5 billion of debt, the only council to go bust in 2020, following the collapse of its housebuilding company, Brick by Brick, which may not have proved to be very good at building, but did prove to be extremely good at owing people a lot of money. The problem is that Labour in local government today is a catalogue of failure, dysfunction and waste.

In Nottingham, the party opposite blew £38 million on a failed energy company and made 230 of its employees redundant over Skype, before rewarding themselves with a backdated pay rise. Robin Hood Energy, they described it. Well, Robin Hood stole from the rich, but Labour’s Robin Hood just stole from everyone.

Up in Durham, the council, at the height of the pandemic, approved a new 3,500 square feet roof terrace on its £50 million county hall. Merton Council reportedly set up a building company with a £2 million investment, only not to deliver a single home. The council leader said it was designed to make money, but he had built in—I kid you not—jumping off points. It turns out that there was no parachute for local residents. Labour Warrington has debts of least £1.6 billion. After Bristol City Council’s socialist energy company went bust, Warrington’s own version, Together Energy, decided it would be a good idea to buy it and then, of course, got into financial difficulties itself. Hackney Council planted thousands of trees, only for them to die due to neglect—literally, Labour dead wood.

Even the Labour Local Government Front Bench keeps up the tradition, inexplicably taking two shadow Secretaries of State to do the job of one actual one. The shadow Housing Secretary freely admits to reporters that she has no policies. The shadow Local Government Secretary reportedly rebuked a colleague in the shadow Cabinet for trying to develop some. From what we have heard today, perhaps it would have been better if he had taken his own advice. His first attempt after nine months has fallen apart at the slightest interrogation. Labour councils themselves want to raise taxes locally at or above the flexibility we are proposing. Labour and Liberal Democrat councils consistently have higher council taxes than Conservative councils. Labour councils consistently underperform Conservative councils. Whether it is Croydon or Nottingham, they are consistently letting down their local residents.

[Gary Sambrook]

May I add to the Secretary of State’s list? In Birmingham, the city council originally budgeted £2 million to move a bus depot. That escalated to £16 million, which local people are going to have to pay, all to achieve a move down the road of only 300 metres. Is that not just a perfect example of Labour incompetence in local government?

[Robert Jenrick]

There are many examples I could cite from Birmingham City Council, but I do not think time allows me to do that.

Let us contrast this Government’s approach to protecting the interests of local tax payers with that of Labour. In one year alone, the last Labour Administration oversaw an increase in council tax by a staggering 12.9%. In comparison, as we have said, since 2010 this Government have implemented five years of council tax freezes, under which the great majority of councils did not increase council tax at all. In retail price index terms, council tax is lower than it was in 2010. We have introduced legislation to end crude and universal top-down capping, ensuring significant council tax increases can be implemented only through a referendum, giving local tax payers a right to veto excessive tax increases.

Across the country, Conservatives charge the lowest taxes. We see this on the ground wherever we look. In the Leader of the Opposition’s constituency, in Labour-run Camden, council tax is three times as high as in neighbouring Conservative-run Westminster. As I am sure the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) can testify, residents in Labour Merton and Lambeth pay almost twice the council tax of residents living just one or two roads away in Wandsworth. The Mayor of London has presided over a rise in council tax every year he was elected. To put that in perspective, when the Prime Minister was Mayor, he reduced the amount of council tax he charged Londoners by almost 11% during his tenure. In his last year alone, band D households in the 32 London boroughs saw their Greater London Authority council tax charges fall by 6.4%. Across the country, Conservative Mayors, whether Andy Street in the west midlands or Ben Houchen in Teesside, are continuing that tradition: low on taxes; high on leadership and delivery.

The provisional local finance settlement, which I announced to the House on 17 December, set out our proposals to increase the core spending power available to councils by 4.5%, a significant and real-terms increase. That comes on top of a 4.5% real-terms increase this year—a settlement the Labour party considered so good that, for the first time in living memory, it did not even oppose it. In total, we expect core spending power for English councils to increase from £49 billion this year to £51.2 billion next year, in line with last year’s increases and recognising the resources that councils need to meet extraordinary pressures while maintaining the essential services they provide.

The measures I proposed will provide an additional £1 billion of funding for adult and children’s social care. We have also confirmed that we intend to roll forward last year’s £1.4 billion of social care grant and continue the 2020-21 improved better care funding at £2.1 billion. We are considering responses to the settlement consultation and will return to the House to set out the final funding package for local government in the very near future.

The shadow Secretary of State has suggested to the House today that this Government have not delivered on our commitment to communities during the pandemic. This past year has seen the largest ever injection of in-year cash to the local government sector. Taken together, we have provided over £36 billion of support to and through local government in response to the pandemic. To put that in context, in 2019-20 the entire council tax take for the whole of England was £31.6 billion—less than we have provided in year to and through local councils this year alone. Local authorities have received £8 billion in direct funding, with a further £3 billion extra already announced for 2021-22, and we forecast adding an additional £1.2 billion to that from schemes to compensate for lost council income from sales, fees and charges.

That takes the total additional funding provided to local authorities to over £12 billion, £2 billion more than the sum the Local Government Association called for at the start of the pandemic—the sum the shadow Secretary of State himself estimated to be the cost to councils of covid at the time. We know today that we have provided £1 billion more than local government has self-reported to my Department as covid-related costs throughout that period—£1 billion more than even councils have told us they have spent and need. Let us be clear that when the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and I promised to support local councils and the communities that rely on them, we meant that promise, and we have delivered on that promise.

Since the start of the pandemic, we have mobilised our welfare system like never before, with generous income support schemes, mortgage holidays, support for renters, a £500 million local authority hardship fund, a £170 million covid winter grant scheme and much-needed help with utilities. To support local economies, we have provided £12 billion in grants to thousands of businesses the length and breadth of the country, and a business rates holiday worth around £10 billion to local retail, hospitality and leisure sectors. We have operated a major reimbursement scheme for lost council income, recovering billions of pounds from car parks, leisure centres, theatres and tourist attractions—money that will go to help councils move forward and recover.

That is not even to mention £4.6 billion of un-ring-fenced grant support to councils, £1 billion through the infection control fund, £1 billion through the contain outbreak management grant and £300 million via the test and trace service support grant. I could go on and on: 5 million food boxes delivered; 2 million shielded people protected through councils; and, of course, 33,000 rough sleepers brought in off the streets under the world-class Everyone In programme, and given the chance to rebuild their lives. That is central Government and local government working together through a unique pandemic to support millions of people across the country.

Local government has been—and remains—at the forefront of our response to covid-19. This Government are proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with local government in its hour of greatest need: with the officers, the teachers, the refuse collectors, the care workers, and the environmental health officers enforcing our regulations. For all that they have done, we salute them and thank them on behalf of our communities and our country. We owe them the stability, certainty and flexibility to plan for a brighter future ahead, and that is exactly what we have done, what we will do and what we will always do for them.

Our communities have never needed good council leadership more than they do today. Whether it is in Croydon or in Nottingham, across the country the reputation of too many Labour councils is, frankly, rotten. We take no lectures from the Labour party, which presided over eye-watering increases in council tax throughout its time in office, and whose economic mismanagement in local government has been laid painfully bare for all to see. The reports of those councils—Croydon and Nottingham—spell it out: mismanagement; waste; poor public services; and, yes, higher council taxes. There is a toxic legacy of debt and dysfunction, not just for today but for future generations. And where, frankly, was the shadow Secretary of State? Where was his denunciation of Croydon and Nottingham? He was silent. He was invisible. His famous Twitter account was as uncharacteristically quiet as that of Donald Trump—no leadership when the country needed it.

While we have reduced council tax in real terms under our watch, Labour has increased it time and again. While we have been clear that we have a plan to protect local councils and that we care about local council taxpayers, Labour has perfected the art of saying nothing at all. Frankly, council taxpayers across the country deserve better than this absurd and hypocritical debate from the Labour party, and they will have the opportunity to say so in May.

[Mr Speaker]

For the avoidance of doubt, the Secretary of State has not moved the selected amendment. The Question before the House remains that already proposed, as on the Order Paper. I remind hon. Members that a time limit is in effect for Back Benchers. The countdown clock will be visible on the screens of hon. Members participating virtually and on the screens in the Chamber. For hon. Members participating physically in the Chamber, the usual clock in the Chamber will operate. I am going to start with a four-minute limit. I call Peter Dowd, up in Liverpool.

Building and Construction Products Safety

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Written Statements

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

I wish to update the House on the Government’s work to tighten regulatory oversight of construction product safety, so that people can feel confident that the products used to construct our homes will perform as they should.

Introduction

Shocking recent testimony to the Grenfell inquiry has shown that some manufacturers of safety-critical construction products appear to have put lives at risk by gaming product-testing regimes, putting products on the market that do not perform as advertised, and to be refusing to take responsibility when caught in the act.

This is unacceptable. This Government will act decisively to protect residents by ensuring that companies who manufacture or sell construction products act responsibly or face the consequences.

In her independent review of the building regulations and fire safety system, Dame Judith Hackitt recommended that industry should ensure that construction products are properly tested, certified, labelled and marketed and Government should put in place a robust regulatory framework to incentivise and oversee this. We agree.

In July 2020, this Government published in draft the Building Safety Bill. The Bill set out the biggest reforms to building safety regulation for a generation, including provisions to strengthen and extend the scope of the powers available to Government to regulate construction products. I welcome the constructive report published by the pre-legislative Committee on the draft Bill—the Government will respond to it shortly and we intend to introduce the Bill in the spring. In my statement to the House of 20 July 2020, I also committed that the Government would develop options for a new, national regulatory function that would ensure that those regulations are better enforced. Today, I want to update the House on the progress we have made on both fronts—the regulations and the regulator—as well as our plans to go further on product testing.

Broader, tougher construction products regulations

First, we are making good progress in extending and strengthening construction product regulations. At present, some products are not covered by the regulations. Our Bill will ensure that all construction products will be covered by the regulatory regime, and that all manufacturers will be required to ensure that their products are safe before putting them on the market. The Bill will also ensure that products designated as “safety critical” will be subject to additional requirements, including having to meet clear performance standards and to have undergone mandatory testing and control processes before they can be sold. The Bill will also make it possible for regulators to remove from the market any product that poses a significant safety risk, and to prosecute or use civil penalties against any company that flouts the rules.

A strong national regulator for construction products

Secondly, I am pleased to announce today that this Government will establish a national regulator to ensure that the regulations are better enforced, and to provide vital market surveillance that will enable us to spot and respond to safety concern earlier and more effectively. We will do this by extending the remit of the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS), which will take on oversight of construction products alongside its existing responsibilities. OPSS has valuable skills and experience in regulating consumer products and of working closely with local authority Trading Standards and other regulators, and will be granted up to £10 million in 2021-22 to establish the new function.

The national regulator will have strong inspection and enforcement powers—including to commission and conduct its own product testing when investigating concerns—and will work with both national regulators (such as the Building Safety Regulator) and local regulators (such as Trading Standards) to encourage and enforce compliance. The regulator will also advise the public, Government and the sector on technical and policy issues, pursuant to its function. Over coming months, I expect the regulator to begin to operate in shadow form, including engaging with the sector to clarify how the new regime will operate in practice.

Going further on product testing

Thirdly, recent testimony to the Grenfell inquiry has shone a light on appalling practices by some manufacturers of construction products, including what appears to be wilful attempts to game the system and to rig the results of safety tests that are intended to give the market vital information about how products will perform in a fire.

I have written to the Advertising Standards Authority and National Trading Standards to ask them what steps they can take to ensure that marketing of construction products is not misleading. We will provide further information to the House on this in due course.

Furthermore, I am today announcing that I will shortly commission an independent review to examine in detail the deficiencies in testing and conformity assessment regime for construction products, and to recommend how we can prevent abuse of the system by irresponsible companies who are prepared to put profits before lives. The review will report later this year, and may lead to further regulatory changes.

Ongoing work to improve building safety

These measures come on top of other major steps we are taking as we deliver our commitment to bring about a generational shift in building safety, including:

£1.6 billion of funding to remove dangerous cladding from high rise buildings

Introducing the Building Safety Bill and Fire Safety Bill to bring about the biggest change in building safety for a generation

Establishing a new building safety regulator

Recruiting the first ever chief inspector of buildings

Conclusion

I trust that these important measures will receive broad support across the House. I also call on companies who manufacture, sell or distribute construction products to do the right thing and address the rotten culture and poor practice that have come to light. We have a shared responsibility to confront poor practice and establish new norms that will restore public confidence in the industry. Residents deserve and expect nothing less.

[HCWS722]

Building Regulations: Future Homes Standard and Future Buildings Standard

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Written Statements

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

I am today announcing a package of changes in relation to part L and F of the building regulations. This includes the Government’s response to the 2019 future homes standard consultation and the launch of the future buildings standard consultation.

Some 40% of the UK’s energy consumption and carbon emissions arise from the way buildings are lit, heated and used, and homes—both new and existing—account for 22% of emissions. Therefore, if we are to meet our ambitious target to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, we must improve the minimum energy efficiency standards of new buildings and homes. By improving energy efficiency and moving to cleaner sources of heat, we can reduce carbon emissions, lower energy consumption and bills for households and ensure that we will be the first generation to leave the environment in a better state than we found it.

I am publishing the Government’s response to the future homes standard consultation of 2019. This was the first stage of a two-part consultation which proposed an ambitious uplift in the energy efficiency of new homes through changes to part L (conservation of fuel and power) of the building regulations.

The future homes standard will deliver a considerable improvement in energy efficiency standards for new homes. We expect that homes built to the future homes standard will have carbon dioxide emissions 75% to 80% lower than those built to current building regulations standards, which means they will be fit for the future, with low carbon heating and very high fabric standards. The interim uplift to energy efficiency requirements will act as a stepping stone towards the full future homes standard, and should result in a meaningful and achievable 31% in carbon emissions savings compared to the current standard. We anticipate that a two-stage approach to implementing the future homes standard will help to prepare the necessary supply chains and appropriately skilled workforce by encouraging the use of low-carbon heating in new homes, while accounting for market factors.

The Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution noted that we must implement the future homes standard within the shortest possible timeline. Therefore, our priority will be to implement an interim uplift to the energy efficiency requirements for new homes and nondomestic buildings as swiftly as possible. This key stepping stone will enable us to successfully implement the future homes standard and future buildings standard. We have also listened to those stakeholders that called for a swifter and more certain pathway to implementation. Our work on a full technical specification for the future homes standard has been accelerated and we will consult on this in 2023. We also intend to introduce the necessary legislation in 2024, with regulations coming into force from 2025. In the meantime, to provide greater certainty for all stakeholders, we have published a draft notional building specification for the future homes standard alongside this consultation response which provides a basis on which we can begin to engage with all parts of industry on the indicative technical detail of the future homes standard.

To ensure as many homes as possible are being built in line with new energy efficiency standards, transitional arrangements will now apply to individual homes rather than an entire development and the transitional period will be one year. This approach will support implementation of the 2021 interim uplift and as such the successful implementation of the future homes standard from 2025.

I am also publishing today the future buildings standard, which is the second stage of the two-part consultation. This consultation builds on the future homes standard consultation by setting out energy and ventilation standards for non-domestic buildings, existing homes and to mitigate against overheating in residential buildings.

The future buildings standard consultation proposes changes to the building regulations and primarily covers new and existing non-domestic buildings. This includes an interim uplift of part L and part F requirements for new and existing non-domestic buildings. The interim uplift will also encompass existing homes, meaning that when works take place in an existing home, such as an extension to a property, the work carried out will need to meet the standards set by building regulations—these requirements will not apply to the wider building. It also proposes some changes to requirements for new homes, including to the fabric energy efficiency standard; some standards for building services; and to guidance on the calibration of devices that carry out airtightness testing. Finally, it details a new standard for mitigating overheating in new residential buildings.

Together, the future homes standard and future buildings standard set out a pathway towards creating homes and buildings that are fit for the future; a built environment with lower carbon emissions; and homes that are adapted to the overheating risks caused by a warming climate. By making our homes and other buildings more energy efficient and embracing smart and low carbon technologies, we can improve the energy efficiency of peoples’ homes and boost economic growth while meeting our targets for carbon reduction.

I am depositing a copy of the Government response to the 2019 future homes standard consultation and the future buildings standard consultation in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS721]

Planning and Heritage: Historic Statues, Plaques, Memorials and Monuments

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2021 Written Statements

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

Protecting our nation’s heritage



I would like to update the House about the role of the planning system in relation to the protection of historic statues, plaques, memorials and monuments. I am concerned that, over the last few months, some such heritage assets may have been removed without proper debate, consultation with the public and due process.



Indeed, the removal of a statue in Bristol was an act of criminal damage. We should never tolerate criminal acts and mob rule.



This Government are committed to ensuring our nation’s heritage is appropriately protected. It is important that all decisions on removing historic statues, plaques (which are part of a building and whose alteration or removal materially affects the external appearance of the building), memorials and monuments—even for a temporary period—are taken in accordance with the law and following the correct process. Decisions to remove any such heritage assets owned by a local authority should be taken in accordance with its constitution, following consultation with the local community and interested parties, and the rationale for a decision to remove should be transparent.



The planning system plays a crucial role in conserving and enhancing our heritage. Under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, listed building consent from the local planning authority is required for the removal or alteration of a statue, plaque, memorial or monument which is designated as a listed building, or which forms part of a listed building, where it affects the special historic or architectural character of the listed building.



Paragraph 193 of the national planning policy framework already states that great weight should be given to the conservation of a designated heritage asset. Paragraph 195 also requires that where development will lead to substantial harm to a designated heritage asset, local planning authorities should refuse consent, unless it can be demonstrated that the substantial harm or total loss is necessary to achieve substantial public benefits that outweigh that harm or loss.



I would also like to remind local planning authorities of the current requirements to notify Historic England and the national amenity societies of applications involving the demolition of a listed building. In those cases where local planning authorities are minded to grant consent for the removal of a listed statue, plaque, memorial or monument despite an extant objection from Historic England or one of the national amenity societies, they are required to notify the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, who will then consider whether to call in the application or not. Where an extant objection is in relation to a listed building consent application made by Historic England or a local authority itself, the local planning authority must refer it to the Secretary of State for determination.



At present, these notification requirements do not apply in relation to grade II listed buildings where the removal of a statue, plaque, memorial or monument constitutes an alteration to a listed building rather than demolition. I intend to exercise my powers to direct local planning authorities that these types of application are subject to the same notification requirements as for applications involving the demolition of a listed building.



It is also important that the removal of historic statues, plaques, memorials and monuments which are not listed are subject to proper process. These heritage assets can often be well known local landmarks, but unless they meet certain size thresholds, their removal will not be currently classified as development for planning purposes and so is not subject to planning control.



I am today therefore setting out my intention to make the removal of any historic unlisted statue, plaque, memorial or monument subject to an explicit requirement to obtain planning permission. I also intend to require local planning authorities to adhere to similar notification requirements as for listed building consent applications involving listed statues, plaques, memorials and monuments. This will require directions and changes to secondary legislation including the permitted development right for the demolition of buildings.



In considering any applications to remove a historic statue, plaque, memorial or monument (whether a listed building or not), local planning authorities should have regard to the Government’s clear policy on heritage (summarised as “retain and explain”) as set out by the Digital Infrastructure Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman)—to Parliament on 25 September 2020. This statement now forms part of national planning policy and should be applied accordingly.



Historic statues, plaques, memorials and monuments should not be removed before a decision on the application is made.



I would also draw local planning authorities’ attention to the advice Historic England has published to support decision making involving heritage whose story or meaning has become challenged (“Checklist to help local authorities to deal with contested heritage listed building decisions”). As they note, “Our stance on historic statues and sites which have become contested is to retain and explain them; to provide thoughtful, long-lasting and powerful reinterpretation that responds to their contested history and tells the full story.”



The new legislation and directions referred to in this statement will come into effect in the spring.



I would like to make clear that, as the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, I have wide discretion to “call in” planning applications or recover appeals for my own determination, not least because of the controversy attached to such decisions. I will not hesitate to use those powers in relation to applications and appeals involving historic statues, plaques, memorials or monuments where I consider such action is necessary to reflect the Government’s planning policies as set out above.



In conclusion, this Government believe it is always right to examine Britain’s history, but the knee-jerk removal of statues does harm rather than good. Our aim should be to use heritage to educate people about all aspects of Britain’s past rather than censoring our shared British history.

[HCWS713]

Leasehold, Commonhold and Ground Rents

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Written Statements

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

The Government are committed to promoting fairness and transparency for homeowners and ensuring that consumers are protected from abuse and poor service.

Last week I announced the most significant set of reforms to how we hold property for at least 40 years and the beginning of even more fundamental change to English property law, through the widespread introduction of the commonhold tenure.

To deliver this, we will bring forward legislation in the upcoming session to set future ground rents to zero. This will be the first part of seminal two-part legislation to implement reforms in this Parliament.

Enfranchisement valuation and lease extensions

In 2017 the Government asked the Law Commission to review the legislation on leasehold enfranchisement, with the aim of making it easier, quicker and more cost-effective for leaseholders to buy their freehold or extend their lease.

The Law Commission have now completed this work and their findings are clear. Under the current system, too many leaseholders find the process for extending their lease or buying their freehold prohibitively expensive, too complex and lacking transparency. I am addressing this, addressing historic imbalance to ensure fairness for leaseholders, whilst taking account of the legitimate rights of freeholders. I will continue to ensure we meet this objective as we bring forward reforms.

The Government will reform the process of enfranchisement valuation leaseholders must follow to calculate the cost of extending their lease or buying their freehold. Taken together these measures could save leaseholders thousands of pounds, depending on the remaining term of their lease.

The Government will abolish marriage value, cap the treatment of ground rents at 0.1% of the freehold value and prescribe rates for the calculations at market value. The Government will also introduce an online calculator, further simplifying the process for leaseholds and ensuring standardisation and fairness for all those looking to enfranchise.

Existing discounts for improvements made by the leaseholder and for security of tenure will be retained, alongside a separate valuation methodology for low-value properties known as “section 9(1)”. Leaseholders will also be able to voluntarily agree to a restriction on future development of their property to avoid paying “development value”.

Leaseholders of houses can currently only extend their lease once at a “modern ground rent” for 50 years, compared to leaseholders of flats who can extend as often as they wish at a zero “peppercorn” ground rent for 90 years.

I am confirming that the Government will give leaseholders of all types of property the same right to extend their lease as often as they wish, at zero ground rent, for a term of 990 years. There will continue to be redevelopment breaks during the last 12 months of the original lease or the last five years of each period of 90 years of the extension, subject to existing safeguards and compensation.

We will also enable leaseholders, where they already have a long lease, to buy out the ground rent without the need to extend the term of the lease.

Commonhold

In 2017 the Government also asked the Law Commission to recommend reforms to reinvigorate commonhold as a workable alternative to leasehold, for both existing and new homes.

Having closely reviewed their report, I am confirming I will establish a new Commonhold Council as a partnership of industry, leaseholders and Government that will prepare homeowners and the market for the widespread take-up of commonhold. I will start this work immediately, including considering legislation. I know this will take time and close working with consumers and industry, and the Commonhold Council will be the critical first step of this.

Restricting future ground rents

Finally, ahead of legislating to restrict future ground rents to zero for future leases, I am also confirming that this policy now also applies to retirement properties. Restricting future ground rents to zero is a basic matter of fairness and including retirement properties will ensure that those who live in retirement housing benefit from the same reform as other leaseholders.

I do not see a compelling argument to exclude the elderly from this new protection, in fact, they deserve it more than most.

In recognition of the previous announcement of the ground rent exemption in June 2019, and wishing to mitigate potential impact on these developers, commencement of this provision will be deferred and come into force (for retirement properties) 12 months after Royal Assent.

This announcement is the beginning of a programme of historic leasehold and property reforms. This package is only part of Government’s response to the Law Commission’s reports. The Government will respond to the Law Commission’s remaining recommendations on enfranchisement, commonhold and right to manage in due course. We will translate these measures into law as soon as possible, starting with legislation to set future ground rents to zero in the upcoming Session. This will be the first part of major two-part legislation to implement leasehold and commonhold reforms in this Parliament.

It is my ambition that together these fundamentally enhance the fairness of English property rights and be seen in the future as landmark reforms to the way we own homes.

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Rough Sleeping and Protection for Renters

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Written Statements

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

Last week I announced further support to protect the most vulnerable through the national lockdown. This includes further efforts and funding to protect rough sleepers and ensure they are registered with a GP, where they are not already. I also confirmed that evictions will not be enforced by bailiffs until at least 21 February, except for in the most egregious situations. I have set out below the comprehensive set of measures the Government have put in place to protect tenants, while ensuring landlords have access to justice for the most serious cases.



Rough sleeping



Given the new variant of covid-19 that is driving infection rates and the Prime Minister’s announcement of a new national lockdown, it is clear we need to redouble our efforts to ensure that people who sleep rough, who we know are vulnerable to this disease, are kept as safe as possible and that we do everything we can to protect the NHS.



As a result, I am launching an additional £10 million fund, as part of the over £700 million deployed this year, to help ensure even more rough sleepers are safely accommodated and will be asking that this opportunity is actively used to make sure all rough sleepers are registered with a GP, and are factored into local area vaccination plans, in line with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) prioritisation for covid-19 vaccinations. In due course, those vaccination efforts will be simpler and more successful where rough sleepers are in safe accommodation.



This Government are committed to ending rough sleeping and we have taken huge steps working with local authorities and their partners to protect rough sleepers during the pandemic. This work has not stopped, and in November we had supported around 33,000 people with nearly 10,000 in emergency accommodation and over 23,000 already moved on into longer-term accommodation.



This work has had a huge impact; intelligence from local authorities indicates that numbers on the streets have fallen significantly. A recent study published by The Lancet showed that because of this response 266 deaths were avoided during the first wave of the pandemic among England’s homeless population, as well as 21,092 infections, 1,164 hospital admissions and 338 admissions to intensive care units.



These efforts have been backed by significant Government support. We have given councils over £4.6 billion in unringfenced grants to help them to manage the impacts of covid-19, which we have been clear includes their work to support rough sleepers.



We have also been in close contact with councils to develop plans for the coming months, supported by the £266 million Next Steps Accommodation Programme which aims to ensure that as few people as possible return to the streets. This includes bringing forward 3,300 new homes this year for rough sleepers, leaving a national legacy of this Government’s support for these individuals.



In addition, to prepare for winter months, we launched a £10 million cold weather fund for all local authorities to bring forward covid-secure accommodation this winter and to keep vulnerable people safe from the cold. This is accompanied by a £2 million transformation fund for the voluntary sector, as well as comprehensive guidance on reopening night shelters more safely, where not doing so would endanger lives.



With the introduction of national restrictions in November, we asked all local authorities to update their plans for rough sleepers to make sure they had somewhere safe to go over the winter. We provided targeted support through the Protect Programme to support local authorities with higher numbers of rough sleepers to meet the specific challenges they faced. In total, we are spending over £700 million in 2020-21 on homelessness and rough sleeping.



Despite the success of ongoing interventions, we know there are some people on the streets who have not engaged with that support, or have lost accommodation provided to them, which is why I have asked local authorities to make further efforts to accommodate all rough sleepers again, even those who have previously refused help.



The Government have asked local areas to ensure that vulnerable groups will be able to access the vaccine, when they fall into one of the JCVI priority groups, and this should include people experiencing rough sleeping. Local authorities should work with their local health partners to ensure that—when they are prioritised—individuals experiencing homelessness are able to access the vaccine by other means if mainstream provision is unsuitable. This will help ensure that the wider health needs of people who sleep rough are addressed, supporting them now and for the future.



I encourage all relevant partners and local authorities to consider how they can best use the available support to protect the most vulnerable.



Ongoing protection for renters



Since the start of the pandemic, the Government have put in place unprecedented support to protect renters. Further legislation to extend protections for renters has come into force today, continuing to prevent bailiffs from attending residential premises to enforce a writ or warrant of possession except in the most egregious circumstances. This will ensure we continue to protect public health during the new period of national lockdown restrictions, at a time when the risk of virus transmission is very high, and to avoid placing additional burdens on the NHS and local authorities.



The measure contains some exemptions for the most serious cases. These exemptions are for:



cases where the court is satisfied that the claim is against trespassers who are persons unknown;

cases where the court is satisfied that the order for possession was made wholly or partly on the grounds of antisocial behaviour, nuisance or false statements, domestic abuse in social tenancies or substantial rent arrears equivalent to six month’s rent; or

where the property is unoccupied and the court is satisfied that the order for possession was made wholly or partly on the grounds of death of the tenant.

Many landlords have been compassionate and shown huge forbearance for tenants over this period. However, in order to ensure that the restrictions do not disproportionately impact landlords, some of whom rely on rental income for their livelihoods, we have amended the rent arrears exemption from the earlier regulations, to apply in cases where there are six months’ rent arrears or more. Recognising the need for landlords to be able to access justice in cases such as this, the Government have amended the rent arrears exemption to apply in cases where there are six months’ rent arrears or more.



This legislation will be in place for at least six weeks, when it will be reviewed and consideration taken to the latest public health data. The legislation applies to England only.



These continued restrictions on bailiff enforcement build on protections for renters announced last year, including six-month notice periods until at least the end of March for all but the most serious cases. This means that renters served notice today can stay in their homes until July 2021, with time to find alternative support or accommodation.



Courts will continue to remain open throughout the new period of national lockdown restrictions. The court rules and procedures introduced in September to respond to the pandemic remain in place and will be regularly reviewed. This includes the requirement for landlords to send the court information about the impact the pandemic has had on their tenant. The judiciary will continue to prioritise the most serious cases, such as antisocial behaviour or fraud.



In addition, the Government are piloting a new mediation service as part of the possession action process to support landlords and tenants to resolve disputes before a formal court hearing takes place. This new service will be free to use for tenants and landlords that agree to do so. We anticipate the pilot rolling out in February for six months. It will help more tenants at an early stage of the possession process, mitigating the risk of tenants becoming homeless and helping to sustain tenancies where possible.



We have taken action to prevent people getting into financial hardship by helping businesses to pay salaries, with the job retention scheme extended to the end of April, and boosted the welfare safety net by billions. This helps to ensure that tenants are able to pay their rent, minimising the impact on landlords. We strongly encourage all tenants to pay their rent and if they are having difficulty in doing so, they should have an early conversation with their landlord.



To further support landlords with buy to let mortgages, the mortgage holiday has been extended with applications open to 31 March 2021. Borrowers impacted by coronavirus that have not yet had a mortgage payment holiday will be entitled to a six-month holiday, and those that have already started a mortgage payment holiday will be able to top up to six months without this being recorded on their credit file.



Taken together, our package of protections for renters strikes the right balance between prioritising public health and supporting renters, while ensuring landlords can access and exercise their right to justice. This, along with the measures being announced today to step up the Government’s ongoing support for rough sleepers and ensure their wider health needs are addressed, will safeguard the most vulnerable people across England through the national lockdown.

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