Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 17th October 2023 Commons Chamber

Consideration of Lords amendments

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is engaged by Lords amendments 46, 73 to 75, 78, 82, 231, 241, 249, 301 to 327 and 349 to 367. If any of these Lords amendments are agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered in the Journal.

Clause 148

Guidance

[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

I beg to move amendment (a) to Lords amendment 117.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to consider:

Government amendments (b) to (d) to Lords amendment 117.

Lords amendment 231, and Government amendment (a).

Lords amendment 237, and Government amendments (a) and (b).

Lords amendment 369, and Government amendments (a), (c), (b) and (d).

Lords amendment 1, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 2 and 4, Government motions to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendment 3, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 6, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (d) in lieu.

Lords amendment 10, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendment 13, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 14, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (p) in lieu.

Lords amendment 18, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendment 22, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 30 and 31, Government motions to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (d) in lieu.

Lords amendment 44, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendment 45, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 46, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 80, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 81, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.

Lords amendment 82, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 90, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in lieu.

Lords amendments 102 and 103, Government motions to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (d) in lieu.

Lords amendment 133, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 134, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 137, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 139, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 142, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 156, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 157, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 172, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 180, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 199, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 239, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.

Lords amendment 240, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (c) in lieu.

Lords amendment 241, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendments 242, 243 and 288, Government motions to disagree, and Government amendments (a) to (d) in lieu.

Lords amendment 244, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 249, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 273, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in lieu.

Lords amendment 280, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 285, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendment (a) in lieu.

Lords amendment 327, and Government motion to disagree.

Lords amendment 329, Government motion to disagree, and Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu.

Lords amendments 5, 7 to 9, 11, 12, 15 to 17, 19 to 21, 23 to 29, 32 to 43, 47 to 79, 83 to 89, 91 to 101, 104 to 116, 118 to 132, 135, 136, 138, 140, 141, 143 to 155, 158 to 171, 173 to 179, 181 to 198, 200 to 230, 232 to 236, 238, 245 to 248, 250 to 272, 274 to 279, 281 to 284, 286, 287, 289 to 326, 328, 330 to 368 and 370 to 418.

[Rachel Maclean]

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill has had a lengthy passage. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to all my predecessors in my role and to colleagues across the Department who have shepherded the Bill to its position.

The Bill reflects the huge importance of levelling up for the future of the country. For decades, successive Governments have failed to address the inequality of opportunity in our country. Economic growth has for too long been concentrated in a select few areas. The Bill will ensure that this Government and future Governments set clear, long-term objectives for addressing entrenched geographic disparities.

The Bill will expand and deepen devolution across England. It will devolve powers to all areas in England where there is demand for it, allowing local leaders to regenerate their towns and cities and restore pride in places by creating a new institutional model more suitable for devolution to whole-county areas outside city regions that have more than one council: the combined county authority.

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[Dehenna Davison]

As someone proud to represent a predominantly rural community, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways to level up in rural areas is by ensuring that those areas get strong devolution deals with strong local leadership?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just a little reminder that if Members intervene on a speaker, it is customary to stay until the end of their speech.

[Rachel Maclean]

I want to reiterate my thanks to my former colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), who did so much to shepherd the Bill to its current position. I completely agree with her. The best way to ensure levelling up across the country is by voting Conservative, because we have done more than any other Government to spread opportunity around the country.

To avoid anything that would duplicate the work I just mentioned, we have tabled an amendment that will require the Government to have regard to the needs of rural communities in preparing the statement of levelling-up missions. That is consistent with the approach we have taken in other areas, including with respect to the devolved Administrations.

We have heard the concerns highlighted through Lords amendment 199 on access to banking facilities for communities, and we share those concerns. Branch closures are commercial decisions for banks, and we do not believe that a blanket requirement on local authorities to produce strategies to inhibit that would be effective or proportionate. Instead, the Treasury will continue to support the roll-out of alternative services, such as banking hubs, which will ensure that communities across the country have access to the facilities they need.

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[Rachel Maclean]

No, I will not give way. The hon. Lady can speak later.

This policy has been described by the Lib Dems’ own former leader—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just a little reminder that we are on Lords amendments. I am sure the Minister will be referring her remarks back to the relevant ones.

[Rachel Maclean]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. We did discuss the matter of housing targets in the Lords debate.

The Lib Dems’ policy to have 380,000 houses a year—that is certainly this week’s policy—has been described by their own former leader as Thatcherite. So anyone contemplating voting Liberal Democrat needs to know what this means. I am afraid that they can no longer sustain a position of objecting to every single house being built in their area, or avoid making local plans to give communities a proper say over housing and the green belt. As we have seen with so many Liberal Democrat local authorities, they have kicked the can down the road and failed their residents.

I shall finish by expressing my gratitude to all my colleagues, both here and in the other place, for their continued and dedicated engagement with this complicated and complex Bill during its passage. We have listened carefully to the views of Members on both sides of the House, stakeholders and members of the public. The amendments we have made to the Bill as it has progressed to the Lords have further enhanced it and I commend it to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call shadow Minister.

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Well, what can one say about that last 20 minutes, apart from that it must have felt far more persuasive when the Minister practised it in the mirror this morning, but I do congratulate her on the birth of her grandson.

I will start by thanking their lordships for the extensive and forensic scrutiny to which they have subjected this complex and demanding piece of legislation. I put on record the appreciation felt on these Benches for the tireless work of our noble Friends, Baroness Hayman of Ullock and Lady Taylor of Stevenage, ably assisted as ever by Ben Wood and the whole Labour Lords team.

This Bill has been with us for some time now. First published in May 2022, it has progressed slowly against the backdrop of significant political and economic turbulence, the responsibility for which lies squarely with the Conservatives. It has survived an unprecedented degree of ministerial churn: three Prime Ministers; four Secretaries of State, albeit one a retread; four Housing and Planning Ministers; and four Levelling Up Ministers. With so many minds on the Government Benches having grappled thoughtfully with the implications of each of the Bill’s many provisions, one might have hoped that it would have been significantly improved and that its worst features would have been substantially mitigated, if not removed altogether. Sadly, despite the addition of scores of new clauses and a large number of new schedules to the extensive number it already contained, the Bill remains not only eclectic but deeply muddled. It is a rag-tag mix of measures—some sensible, but many more ill-considered or downright damaging—that attempt but fail to render coherent a Tory levelling up, devolution and planning agenda that is anything but.

In the eight months that the Bill was considered in the other place, the Government were forced to give way on a variety of fronts. I am glad that, in a range of areas, the arguments that my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) and I made in Committee last year have been partially accepted.

However, although the Government’s concessions have rendered the Bill slightly more palatable, they have not resolved the fact that it still contains a range of measures, from the new infrastructure levy to community land auction arrangements, that are riven with flaws. We regret the fact that Ministers did not reconsider their inclusion entirely. It will now fall to a future Labour Government to halt, review or rescind each of them.

We do not have an opportunity today to attempt, again, to address many of the more problematic parts of the Bill but, as a result of the prodigious efforts of noble Lords in the other place, we have a chance to make a number of important changes that would modestly improve the Bill and, in so doing, enhance outcomes for local communities across the country. It is with that objective in mind that I turn to a selection of the unusually large number of amendments that the other place has sent to us for consideration.

Lords amendments 1 and 10 relate to the levelling-up mission set out in part 1 of the Bill and the distinct, but related, third round of the levelling-up fund. They seek respectively to ensure that the missions and the fund application process are properly integrated and that round 3 of the fund takes place not only in a timely manner but on the basis of a reformed application process. We support both.

The Opposition’s views on the Government’s levelling-up missions are well known, but, if we are to give statutory force to a statement setting such missions for a period of no less than five years, it is right not only that it comes into effect soon after the Bill receives Royal Assent but that it is accompanied by a statement detailing the application process for round 3 of the levelling-up fund, including transparent criteria so that the two can be fully aligned.

Similarly, our criticisms of the levelling-up funding process are a matter of public record, but, if the fund is to be the primary means of delivering priority local infrastructure projects for the foreseeable future, it is right that steps are taken prior to the opening of round 3 to simplify the application process and to reduce the onerous requirements and resources it presently involves.

We recognise that, by tabling an amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 10, the Government have sought to enshrine in the Bill an assurance in respect of round 3 of the levelling-up fund. However, not only is the content of the proposed statement left completely undefined, but the proposed amendment in lieu fails to achieve one of the central objectives sought by their noble Lords, namely that such a statement be published within the same timescale as a statement on the levelling-up missions so that the two processes, which are clearly connected, fully complement each other. For those reasons, we cannot support the Government amendment in lieu and we will support Lords amendment 10, along with Lords amendment 1.

The question of whether the Government’s proposed levelling-up missions are comprehensive enough to reduce inequalities between and within regions has arisen since the White Paper was first published in February 2022. Lords amendments 2 and 4 seek to augment the 12 missions set out in that document by requiring the addition of separate missions relating to child poverty and health disparities. We welcome the Government’s acceptance that addressing the impact of economic and social disparities warrants a greater focus in respect of levelling-up missions and that they have tabled amendments in lieu of Lords amendments 2 and 4 to that end. However, in our view, the requirement that Ministers “must have regard” to these disparities in the preparation and review of all the missions falls some way short of the implications that establishing dedicated new missions on child poverty and health disparities would have for life chances across the country. For that reason, we cannot support the Government amendment in lieu and will support Lords amendments 2 and 4.

We also support Lords amendment 22. We remain firmly of the view that there are circumstances in which virtual or hybrid meetings are necessary or useful, and that their use could help to reduce barriers to public engagement, particularly in relation to the planning process. As we argued in Committee last year, a number of organisations, including the Planning Inspectorate, already enjoy the freedom to offer such meetings as they deem necessary, and there is widespread support for putting local authority remote meeting arrangements on a permanent footing, including from the Local Government Association, Lawyers in Local Government and the Association of Democratic Services Officers. The Government have offered no compelling reason why this amendment should not be incorporated into the Bill, and we therefore urge the House to support it.

As the Minister will know, the establishment of a new tier of national planning policy in the form of national development management policies, and their precise relationship and standing in respect of local development plans, has been a point of contention throughout the Bill’s passage. The Opposition feel strongly that it cannot be right that national policies that will have a far greater impact on local communities than any existing national policy statement and that have significant implications for the status and remit of local planning can be developed without an obligatory and defined public consultation and parliamentary approval process. Lords amendment 44 stipulates such a process, including minimum public consultation requirements and a mechanism for facilitating parliamentary scrutiny based on that which currently applies to designating a national policy statement.

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[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I thank her again, as I did at the time, for the many months of work that she did on the Bill Committee. She is right to raise the point about healthy homes; we fully support the principles of that campaign. We disagree with the Government’s suggestion that the issue is already well addressed, and I gently encourage the Minister to continue the conversations that I believe the Government are having with Lord Crisp and the other proposers of that amendment in the other place.

To conclude, while we welcome a small number of the concessions that the Government have felt able to make to the Bill, we believe that most do not go far enough. This unwieldy and confused piece of legislation is flawed on many levels. We have an opportunity today to make modest but important improvements to it. On that basis, we urge the House to support the many reasonable amendments that the other place has sent to us.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Father of the House.

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[Sir Peter Bottomley]

The hon. Lady reminds me that I meant to say that when Dr Christopher Addison became the first Minister for Health in 1919, the first action he took was to help build social housing on a scale that would allow people’s health to be improved by living in far better environments, inside and outside their homes.

Yesterday, in levelling-up questions, the Secretary of State very kindly spoke clearly about the approach to the development at Lansdowne Nursery, on the A259 in my constituency, and the threat to Chatsmore Farm, in what is known locally as the Goring gap.

It is important that the words that the Secretary of State spoke yesterday should be passed on to planning inspectors, including the one in Arundel today, who is considering the appeal against the properly justified refusal of planning permission to put homes on the Lansdowne Nursery site.

I invite Ministers from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to come to my constituency—and to the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb)—to see how every bit of grass is under threat from opportunist developers.

Those developers have rightly been turned down by local authorities—boroughs and districts. They should be supported by planning inspectors, not at risk of what I would call “a rogue decision” by someone from Bristol.

Turning to amendment 22, after clause 70, the Government are wrong to ban parish councils from meeting remotely if they want to. Some parish councils cover a large area and many elderly people kindly serve on them. If they want to have a valid meeting, why can they not tune in, if they are ill, remote or for some other reason? It seems to me to be totally unnecessary for central Government to say to local councils, especially parish councils, “You cannot do that.” I hope that the Government will think again, if not in this Bill then in another one. Let people have autonomy and a degree of sovereignty. If their powers are limited, then how they use them should be up to them, in my view.

In amendments 242 and 243, Lord Young of Cookham has helped qualifying and non-qualifying residential leaseholders. I accept that the Government proposals are limited to residential leaseholders and do not cover commercial leaseholders.

What the House should not accept, and where the Government should think again, is why there has to be a distinction between qualifying and non-qualifying leaseholders. Many non-qualifying leaseholders have homes on which they cannot get a mortgage or sell, and on which they cannot avoid paying high annual costs, as well as remediation costs.

I repeat the question put by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, about what happens to people who have paid but who will now not qualify. Will the Minister give clear advice when she winds up, or in a later statement, on what happens to leaseholders facing claims for payment that they think they should not have to pay? Can people get out of this dilemma, which is caused by too many people in Government not understanding the legal status of residential leaseholders?

I do not believe that Dame Judith Hackitt understood it when she put forward her fire safety proposals, and I do not think the Government understood in the early days. Now that they do understand, will they please remove the distinction? The idea that if people live in homes below 11 metres they are not facing an un-mortgageable and unsellable home is wrong. Many people who have leasehold homes under that level are frankly in a dilemma that Government ought to be able to resolve.

I could go on for longer, but many other Members wish to speak. I congratulate those who have helped to improve the Bill. There are many elements that I support—the Government can take that for granted—but on issues where they are allowing injustice or ineffective approaches to continue, let us change that.

Let us be on the side of the 5 million to 6 million residential leaseholders whom we have ignored for too long, whose situation has been understood poorly. Now that it is understood better, we ought to allow them to have better, healthier, happier and more financially secure lives.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

This is my first scrutiny of Lords amendments as the SNP’s levelling-up spokesperson, so I would like to start by thanking my hon. Friends the Members for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) and for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) for their work scrutinising the Bill so far.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) is making her maiden speech today—I made mine just two years ago. With your indulgence, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I were to give her any advice, it would be this: watch out for the grey hairs—you will get lots of them. Work in a collegiate manner—the public think that we in this place all hate each other, but we really do not. And wear trainers where possible.

I felt a tad left out earlier, because when the Minister went on her bizarre monologue about Labour and the Liberal Democrats, she left out the SNP. Does that reflect the fact that she does not think Scotland matters? That remains to be seen. The intention behind the Bill—to help areas across the four nations—is admirable. However, as per usual with this Tory Government, their aim is commendable but their journey towards that aim is terrible. The Bill is muddled, confused and not fit for purpose.

The Tory track record on levelling up is weak at best and politically motivated cronyism at worst. On the SNP Benches, we have been clear from the start that the Bill is simply not good enough. But, because of the approach that the Government have adopted, it is now doomed to fail, arguably like most of their policies. It pushes funding, which is so desperately needed in struggling areas across the four nations, to be allocated to boost support in politically beneficial regions.

Take Scotland, for example. The second round of levelling-up funding in January 2023 saw only £177 million distributed to a nation that was promised very much more. In Scotland we are continually told that we are in a Union of equals, yet that figure is only 8.4% of the possible £2.1 billion, meaning many local authorities, including North Lanarkshire in my Airdrie and Shotts constituency, have been left behind and forgotten by this Government. The Conservative Government cannot be trusted to level up Scotland. They have neither the will nor the desire to do so.