Westferry Printworks Development
Debate between Robert Jenrick and Sarah Jones(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
If I may, I will make some progress. I am conscious that a lot of time is passing.
In the same month, the planning inspector submitted his report to me recommending that the appeal be dismissed. As is usual, my officials reviewed the inspector’s report and prepared advice for me to consider. I reviewed this, along with advice on six other urgent planning cases, upon my return to the Department in December following the general election.
Robert Jenrick
Not at this time. I need to make some progress.
Upon reviewing the advice on Westferry, including the inspector’s recommendation, I requested further advice on key questions—for example, asking the Department to source images to understand the potential impact of the scheme on historic Greenwich. Having reviewed all the evidence and taken a further in-depth meeting with senior officials to discuss the case in the first week in January, I determined to allow the appeal and grant planning permission. As I have set out in the letter to the Select Committee Chair, in coming to the decision I considered the significant contribution of housing in a part of the country that is particularly unaffordable, including almost 300 affordable homes, as well as the significant economic benefits from the development, including the hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs that it would have created. The House should remember that we are talking about a large brownfield site in a part of London that already has a high number of tall buildings, so in many respects it is exactly the kind of location where we should be building homes if we are serious about tackling London’s housing needs.
On 14 January, my full rationale was published in the usual way, through the decision letter, with the full inspector’s report. In this case, Tower Hamlets and the Mayor of London challenged the decision in court, as happens in many cases. The irony, of course, is that, as we have already discussed, they could have made the decision themselves but chose not to do so.
On 21 May 2020, my Department proposed that the decision be quashed and redetermined by another Minister in the usual way. The other parties to the matter—Tower Hamlets Council, the Mayor of London and the developer—agreed and the court duly consented. My rationale was that although there was no actual bias whatsoever in the decision making for the application, inferences, even of the appearance of bias, could harm the integrity of the planning system. I did not want that to happen.
Robert Jenrick
I will give way one more time, but let me make this point first.
I cannot say at this point which Minister will take this matter forward. We will ensure that it is someone who has no previous connection to the case or its parties, as we do in other instances. I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Croydon North to the fact that there are several planning Ministers in my Department, and although all actions go out in the name of the Secretary of State, by no means does the Secretary of State take all the decisions in the Department. For example, in the Sandown Park racecourse case to which he referred earlier, the decision was taken by another planning Minister and was one about which I knew none of the facts until it was incorrectly reported by The Times newspaper and propagated once again by the hon. Gentleman.
Robert Jenrick
No; I wish to make this point, because it is important. The hon. Member for Croydon North also propagated another inaccurate story that is more serious and disappointing, and that is the one in respect of the application to build a new holocaust memorial for the United Kingdom in the grounds of this building. There has been a suggestion that in that case I used my powers as Secretary of State to call in the application. That is incorrect. The Secretary of State is the applicant for the holocaust memorial, and there is a clear Chinese wall whereby another Minister in the Department who has no interest in that application takes the ultimate decision. That is exactly what we did in that case, so I strongly urge Members from all parties, as well as the media who have reported on that issue, to tread carefully. We should not bring something as important as our national holocaust memorial into this party political discussion.
Robert Jenrick
Let me let me make some progress, because many other speakers wish to participate in this debate.
Any accusation that my view on a highly complex and publicised development could have been swayed by an encounter with a developer is not just simply wrong, but actually outrageous.
Who the applicant was is immaterial to my decision, as it always is, and always should be. I knew nothing of the donation that was made and would never have allowed it to influence my decision, even if I had known about it. However, I am not blind to the fact that things could and should have been done differently. On reflection, I should have handled the communication differently—[Interruption.] Let me make this point, please.
It is unfortunate that some have sought partisan advantage in this, rather than having a serious discussion about Britain’s housing shortage. I stand by the decision that I made.
I believe passionately that Britain needs to build houses and that is what we are doing. Indeed, the Government’s track record on housing delivery stands in stark contrast to that of the Opposition. Last year, we delivered 240,000 homes, more new homes than at any point in the past 30 years, taking the total delivered since 2010 to 1.5 million. By comparison, under Labour, house building fell to levels not seen since the 1920s, with the number of first- time buyers down by 50% and the number of socially rented homes down by 420,000.
Robert Jenrick
I have given way many times. I cannot be accused of not giving way—I have done it enough times. I need to make progress and I want to ensure others have their say.
The only thing that went up under Labour was social housing waiting lists, so I will not take lessons from Labour on housing, particularly on affordable housing. This development was going to build 282 affordable homes. That is actually more affordable homes than the Labour Welsh Government has built as council houses in the whole of Wales in five years. Last year in Wales the Labour party only built 57 council houses—
Robert Jenrick
I am not giving way to the hon. Lady. I think I have made that perfectly—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Lady must sit down. She cannot be standing up in the Chamber. If the Secretary of State wants to give way, he will give way, and she must not heckle.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Jenrick and Sarah Jones(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
First, let me say that it is completely unacceptable for anyone to feel unsafe or intimidated in their home. Earlier this year, I announced an additional £165 million for the troubled families programme to tackle some of the issues of antisocial behaviour and to help to transform people’s lives. Later this year I will publish our social housing White Paper, which I hope will empower tenants and improve the quality of life in social housing for ever. We have also given landlords, the police and councils a significant range of powers to tackle antisocial behaviour, including criminal behaviour orders and community protection notices.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Robert Jenrick
That was a matter of public record. It was referred to in the planning inspector’s report that my Department received in November, so all parties would have been aware of that.
Rough Sleeping
Debate between Robert Jenrick and Sarah Jones(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Sarah Jones
That is particularly insulting to the hundreds of our armed forces veterans who are sleeping rough, who this Government have abandoned despite their years of service to our country.
As the first snow of the new decade falls on our streets outside, we must face up to the human cost of this Conservative Government: two people a day are dying on our streets; 127,000 children are homeless in temporary accommodation; and the rough sleeping figures are five times higher than the official statistics. Homelessness was tackled by the last Labour Government when we inherited a similar scale of crisis. We reduced rough sleeping by three quarters. The Secretary of State’s announcements today will not go far enough to deliver on his targets. To quote Louise Casey:
“We have gone from a beacon of success to an international example of failure”,
and we
“must not allow this issue to be ignored, we must feel its impact and act as the country we are proud to be.”
Robert Jenrick
I accept the hon. Lady’s comments and say with all sincerity and humility that we must do more as a country to tackle rough sleeping. That is exactly what this new Conservative Administration intend to do. The Prime Minister and I have put this at the heart of our agenda, and we intend to deliver on the promises we have made today.
The hon. Lady asks me about the statistics, but I think she is misinformed. The statistics published today are not the Government’s statistics. They are statistics produced by a rigorous count conducted by local authorities, with independent verification; they are then compiled independently by Homeless Link, which is the umbrella organisation for some of the most respected homelessness charities in this country, including Shelter, Crisis and St Mungo’s. The methodology, which has been used for 10 years, is broadly the same as that used in most developed countries, including Canada and Japan; it is highly respected and it is vastly superior to the methodology used under the last Labour Government, when the current shadow Secretary of State for Housing, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), was this country’s Housing Minister. That methodology was deeply flawed. It asked local authorities to count only if, in their opinion, there were more than 10 rough sleepers in their area. As a result, there was no count in vast parts of the country. The statistics published today are robust and a huge improvement on those that came before them.
The hon. Lady asks about the rough sleeping initiative and the funding we have put in. In fact, the increases are significant. RSI funding has gone up by 30% this year. We are spending £400 million in the next financial year, and the announcement made today is of an additional £236 million—and yes, it is new money.
The hon. Lady spoke about housing more generally. I have to say that last year we built more homes in this country than we have in any year of the last 30. On average, we are building more affordable homes every year than the last Labour Government built, and more council houses were built last year than in the 13 years of Labour Government. Where does Labour have control? In Wales. How many council houses were built in Wales last year? Fifty-seven. How many were built the year before? Eighty. How many in each of the three years before that? Zero, zero and zero. What is the No. 1 challenge facing the Government in achieving our housing targets? The failing Labour Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
The hon. Lady asks about our commitment to a fairer deal between tenants and landlords. In the Queen’s Speech, we said we would introduce a renter’s rights Bill, which will be a significant piece of legislation. We are in the process of drafting that Bill, which will absolutely bring an end to section 21.
Finally, the hon. Lady made some disparaging remarks about my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Adam Holloway). I point out politely that in the past few years, he has spent over five months sleeping rough on the streets of London, Birmingham and New York city. I may be mistaken, but I do not think the hon. Lady has done that. I do not think any other Member of this House has spent so much time with members of our homeless population. I know for a fact that he has members of staff in his office in this House whom he has mentored off the streets and into a better life. Sometimes, he asks unacceptable questions, as George Orwell would put it, but we have to ask unacceptable questions sometimes if we as politicians genuinely want to tackle the big questions of our age. To tackle rough sleeping, we have to tackle addiction.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robert Jenrick and Sarah Jones(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Robert Jenrick
Due to my quasi-judicial role in the planning system, I cannot comment on the merits of the plan itself. I can say, however, that a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend, have made me aware of their concerns; even, I think, the shadow Secretary of State is campaigning against the plan. These matters will be looked at by a planning inspector should the plan reach submission.
Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)
Flats have a crucial role to play in meeting housing demand, especially for first-time buyers. In London, the price gap between a flat and a house is more than £160,000, but the entire market for high-rise flats has ground to a halt, because the Secretary of State has repeatedly failed to publish flammable cladding tests and mortgage lenders have taken fright. Up to 600,000 people are now in unsellable properties, and The Sunday Times put the number much higher at 3 million private flats now exposed. So after promising the results repeatedly since last summer will the Secretary of State tell us when he will publish the test results and how he will fix this problem that sits squarely at his door?
Robert Jenrick
Like the hon. Lady, I am committed to tackling this issue. We want to bring about the largest change in building safety standards that this country has known in a generation, and we are doing that in many different ways. We have done it through banning ACM, the most dangerous cladding on buildings. We have done it through launching a new building safety regulator; there was no building safety regulator in this country, and successive Governments had failed to do that. I will be publishing the results of the Building Research Establishment’s studies. The reason for the delay is that we want to ensure that the right studies are done and as much work is done as possible. We will be guided by the experts and by expert evidence. I will not publish results until experts tell us that they are ready to do so, and I expect that will be in a few weeks’ time.