Planning for the Future

Scott Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for bringing forward such an important debate. Others in the Chamber will no doubt make arguments about algorithms and housing numbers, but I want to focus my remarks on the delivery of affordable housing, particularly in our Cornish communities. Obviously, that goes hand in hand with housing targets.

Cornwall has a proud track record of delivering 30% affordable housing over the past 10 years. I would not be in this place if, at 29 years old, as a postman, I could afford an open market house in my home town. That was the driving force for my getting involved in politics; I wanted to give people opportunity. At the time, the Labour Government seemed very interested in providing houses for people who were out of work, but not particularly interested in trying to help people who were. I support the Government’s plans for key worker housing, particularly the 30% key worker discount that the Secretary of State announced recently—I am very keen to support that.

Cornwall has a very low wage base and a very high house price market, and that creates all sorts of intrinsic problems with our housing stock. One of the ways that we saw to that in my time on the district council, before it was abolished, was to implement a community self-build scheme in a community very close to me, so that locals were able to purchase a plot of land and build their own houses. It was an exceptional scheme, and I hope the Government and Ministers will look at it.

We have done a lot of work on sites such as rural exemption sites. They are not completely a panacea, but I would like to see their use increase to allow local people in towns and villages where there is not a development boundary at present to get a house in the town or village in which they grew up.

One issue that I want to cover is public sector land. Cornwall is supposed to be integrating into the One Public Estate programme, but we have had some significant problems, particularly with the NHS property holdings company, which seems to want to keep hold of its land. If the Minister is able to apply some pressure to it, we would be very keen to get hold of some of its land to provide some key worker housing for our community hospitals, particularly in the Bude and Stratton area.

We have had significant challenges in the system with land values. I frequently talk to developers in Cornwall, and they say that they have long discussions with planners about affordable housing criteria, road allocations and access, which take forever. We really need to start delivering houses for people now, so I would ask that we look at speeding that up.

I would also ask that we consider more accurate town and village housing data. Some of our town and parish councils have been exceptionally good in collecting information about the people who are in need of housing in their areas and what the tenure mix needs to be, and I would ask that we look at that. I know that the Government are making progress on the challenges around sizeable deposits, and I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment on longer term mortgages. I think that is a good step.

I have highlighted some of the problems, and there are also the challenges relating to covid. A lot of people wish to relocate their businesses and move to Cornwall, and that is a great thing. If they are taking second homes and living in them permanently, that is an exceptionally good thing, but it puts more pressure on Cornish housing stock. If the Minister is looking at pilots, we would be very keen to have a community self-build pilot in Cornwall to demonstrate our willingness to support people. I also ask the Minister to apply some pressure to Cornwall Council, which seems very resistant to the idea of Rentplus, which I think is an exceptionally good model for people who do not have a deposit but want to own a house, and want to use the rent that they pay as a deposit for their mortgage.

On NHS property holdings, can we get One Public Estate working so that we can get key worker housing for some of our nurses in Bude and the surrounding areas? Can we simplify the system so that developers do not have to go on a massively long journey to get the planning that they are seeking? Can we have a service plot provision in Cornwall as a pilot, more flexible tenures, and a simpler planning system for schemes that are exemption sites? Can the Minister look at agricultural ties? So many farmers approach me to say their family are looking to build a house on land. Can we look at that as well, please, Minister?

[Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)]

We are going to have a vote soon, so I might have to cut off Harriett Baldwin in full flow, but we will bring her back—all of you back—after 15 minutes.

Planning and House Building

Scott Mann Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

I recognise that the building of homes is one of the biggest domestic issues facing our country. I am unashamedly pro home ownership. A large contingent of people in my constituency are stuck in the rental trap, and I want to be able to provide them with the opportunities that many other people in the UK already enjoy. So although there is a legitimate debate to be had about housing numbers, the much wider issue is about the tenure of those homes and where they are built.

For years, we have seen a planning system that has been far too rigid, a lack of adequate and appropriate land coming forward, and huge disparities in the way applications are being considered, not only between different authorities, but within individual planning departments. We have to recognise the inadequacies of the current system. Houses being built predominantly by large house builders puts huge pressure on local services immediately. At the moment, there is little involvement for small and medium-sized builders in the planning system. We are faced with constant section 106 delays, which help no one and delay the building of affordable housing. We also have to wait a long time for infrastructure because we have no community infrastructure levy to provide some of that support.

Although there are some challenges within the White Paper, I broadly welcome the idea of highlighting areas for growth, renewal and protection. I also recognise the need for local authorities now to engage with town and parish councils to bring forward land for development and areas for protection. We recognise the challenges in Cornwall, which relate to people getting deposits; people being stuck in the rental trap; the cost of land; the lack of land; and the lack of housing opportunity.

What do I want to see in the planning Bill? I know that the Minister probably has not heard that he has not been ambitious enough, but on self-build I encourage him to go further. We have an opportunity to get serviced plots in some of these areas where people do not have ownership of any land or housing. Why not give young people in Cornwall the opportunity to be able to build their own home? That is what I would like to see, as I am excited about what that might mean. The Minister has done an excellent job in bringing forward 30% discounts for key workers, and for local people in communities such as mine. For the first time in a long time, we are able to see a design guide in Cornwall—since the abolition of the district councils, there has been no design guide, and we have seen samey, identical houses that are all standard and no character—and I am excited about that.

I have a couple of questions to ask in the 20 seconds I have left. How will neighbourhood plans that have been out to referendum fit in with land allocations? How will the 30% discount work in terms of developer contributions? Will the community infrastructure levy be ring-fenced? Let me finish by saying that I cannot turn a blind eye to the people in Cornwall who want a plot of land or a house.

CCRC Decision on 44 Post Office Prosecutions

Scott Mann Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I am glad to report that the Post Office is not using private prosecutions any more—the Justice Committee met last week to talk about private prosecutions—but the hon. Member is absolutely right to talk about her constituents and the losses they have suffered. I am glad that the independent inquiry will be able to get to the bottom of that to make sure that it can never happen again.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

In my previous life, I remember collecting the mail from post office branches at the time the Horizon scandal was happening. I remember vividly the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses not being able to balance the tills at that time, and having the stress and anguish of that resting over them. While it is absolutely right that we recognise the hole the Post Office is in, it is worth remembering that at its heart—its very core—is not some mythical bogeyman, but hard-working sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses across the country. The reputational damage that has been done by the Horizon scandal threatens their very livelihoods, and we need to act on this now. With the traditional banking system closing many of the branches in rural communities, what can the Department do to ensure that post office branches have a workable banking system and can offer other services to make these vital rural services more viable?

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for that really important point. It is important to remember what a vital service the post office is for all of us, and we must make sure that while we are looking backwards at the situation with sub-postmasters, we do not threaten the future viability of the network. On banking, we are working with the Post Office as it introduces greater services for various banks to expand the branches and the types of banks they can deal with in-house.

Westferry Printworks Development

Scott Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mark Eastwood) on an exceptionally good maiden speech.

Mr Desmond has had business dinners with lots of people and lots of parties on different occasions and made donations to many political parties over the years. I simply say that I have always found my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State one of the most professional Ministers I have worked with. I wholeheartedly support him today.

My reading of the application is that the council delayed time and again, increased community infrastructure levies and did not make a decision. Ultimately, decisions need to be taken. Although I acknowledge today’s debate, I would like to focus attention on what really matters for families around the country.

In the light of covid-19, we need comprehensive and far-reaching changes to our planning laws. Radical planning reform needs to increase supply across our countries to support our working people. On general principles, the current system is broken. The principles enshrined in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 are no longer fit for purpose. Even recent changes to the national planning policy framework and neighbourhood development plans, while absolutely laudable, do not deliver the housing that this country needs. We need a much more liberal approach to development, and we need to get planning into the economic development arm of local authorities as soon as possible.

I would like the team on our Front Bench to focus on two priorities: the reform of town centres and the right to build. On town centres, we need to drop the change of use rule that currently exists in high streets to free up potentially 3 million or 4 million properties that people could move into. As high streets change in the light of covid-19, we must change our policies too. High streets are social hubs. We need to prioritise converting shops into older people’s flats, helping with loneliness, access and more high street viability. The Government should allow private pension funds to invest in new build residential properties. In fact, I am on a call with the mayors in my patch tonight, and I hope we will be able to discuss how we might make some changes in North Cornwall to facilitate some of this. I urge those on our Front Bench to be bold with our planning reforms for town centres.

Secondly, and lastly, I would like to touch on the right to build. We have had a plan-led approach, but it is not delivering. Although we have done well, it is not delivering the homes that people require. Town planning needs to sit with the economic development arm of local authorities, rather than with the planners. My surgeries have been full up, as have those of other Members, with local people who have spent thousands of pounds getting an application ready for committee in order for it to be determined, only to have it turned down by the local authority. The authorities view planning as a problem to be resolved, rather than an opportunity for a home for a person or a local opportunity for employment, and we need to change that. In conclusion, it is my view that we need to facilitate smaller developments. We need to be much more supportive, and we need to invest in our high streets and ensure that we can change those properties to make those high streets more viable.

Horizon: Sub-Postmaster Convictions

Scott Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I welcome the hon. Lady to her place, and I appreciate her comments. A public inquiry, according to Jason Beer QC, one of the leading experts on this, talks about what happened, why it happened and who is to blame, and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. This independent review, chaired by someone independent of both the Government and the Post Office, will indeed look to do that—to understand and acknowledge what went wrong in relation to the Horizon system by drawing on the evidence of those people who, as we have discussed, have been wronged in this situation, using both Mr Justice Fraser’s judgment and words and his own evidence that he will call upon.

The Government want to be fully assured—I want to be fully assured—that the right lessons are learned for the future and concrete changes have taken place at Post Office Ltd to ensure that this is not repeated. We want to be sure that, through this review, there is a public summary of the failings that occurred at Post Office Ltd, drawing on the judgments and, as I say, listening to those who have been most affected. That is the purpose of the independent review we are in the process of setting up.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

It is absolutely right that we acknowledge the injustices that were done at the time. I have spent a bit of time in post offices in my time, and I remember having conversations with sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses in which they acknowledged to me that they could not get their books to balance at the end of particular days. They were really worried about it at the time. It is worth remembering that the post office network is made up of sub-postmasters, and they need our support at this moment in time. What can the Department do to ensure that our sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses who are working around the country have the ability to continue while the Horizon scandal is taking place?

[Paul Scully]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. The Government provided nearly £2 billion for the period 2010-18 and are investing a further £370 million from 2018-21 to invest in the transformation of the business. A negotiated agreement was secured with all 28 UK banks in 2019 and took effect in 2020. That has resulted in a significant increase in the overall fees received by the Post Office from the banks, and that will rise further if transaction volumes continue to grow. We have also encouraged the Post Office to strengthen its relationship with postmasters and postmaster training to foster a stronger commercial partnership. We recently put in place personalised support for postmasters. If we are going to get the future relationship with postmasters right, we have to tackle the injustices that have happened in the past, but we also have to rebuild, with the new management in the Post Office, trust and training and respect for the sub-postmasters of the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Scott Mann Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

We are working with the mayor of the West Midlands to ensure that the right homes are built in the right places, through, for instance, a brownfield strategy. Of course the hon. Lady is right—we want green spaces that people can enjoy—but we also want homes that people can live in, and she cannot have it both ways. We want to build homes that people can afford to rent or to buy so that they have a stake in the country and a right to aspire to homes that they can enjoy and pass on to their families, and that is what this Government will deliver.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to provide affordable housing in the south-west.

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

This Government are committed to increasing the supply of affordable housing with our £9 billion affordable homes programme from 2016 to 2022, and we have committed in our manifesto to bringing forward a successor, which we hope will be bigger and better. We have delivered almost 52,000 new affordable homes in the south-west since 2010.

[Scott Mann]

My constituents are particularly excited about this Department’s agenda, and they are pleased about the Government’s commitment to delivering more local affordable housing. How will my right hon. Friend ensure not only that we are building homes for the future but that they are of a high quality and high standard?

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As well as enabling people to get on to the housing ladder, it is important to ensure that the new homes we build are of good quality. It is unacceptable that new houses have in many cases been built to a shoddy standard and that some house builders have displayed poor service when house buyers find that they have problems with their new home. That is why I am today announcing a statutory independent new homes ombudsman to protect homebuyers from these rogue developers. Poor-quality builders will now have to pay compensation for shoddy workmanship, and house builders must join the new ombudsman scheme, so all house buyers will see swift action to resolve the issues that they encounter and builders must put quality first if they wish to continue to be part of the Government’s Help to Buy scheme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Scott Mann Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that we are consulting on right to buy to see what we can do with the sales receipts. Let me say what this Government have done to support councils in building. We increased to £9 billion the size of the affordable homes programme to which councils can apply. We have reintroduced social rents. We have removed the HRA borrowing caps for local authorities and given £2 billion to housing authorities to help with the ability to increase purchases and build by councils. So this Government are doing far more. Under this Government, social housing has gone up by 79,000, but in the previous 13 years under Labour it fell by 420,000.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

There are currently over 20,000 people on the council housing waiting list in Cornwall, yet we are in the ridiculous situation where private pension providers can invest in business development but not in residential development. Will the Secretary of State look at making representations to the Treasury to allow pension providers to invest in social residential housing?

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend makes a very good suggestion. That is exactly what the Secretary of State will be looking at—how we get that investment into the housing structure. Under this Government, council housing waiting lists have come down by nearly half a million.

Park Home Residents: Legal Protection

Scott Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I hope that in due course you will be correctly described on the nameplate that currently refers to the missing chairman.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) for moving the motion and ensuring that we got under way as quickly as possible, and I thank you, Mr Hollobone, for coming along at very short notice to fill the vacancy.

I welcome our new Minister. When he looks back at his career many years hence he will recall that his first debate was one with procedural irregularities that, with a bit of help from the Clerk, had to be overlooked.

When this debate was selected, I had the privilege of being able to speak to the Housing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey), who told me that she would have liked to be able to respond to the debate because the subject is close to her heart. She is, however, in Manchester doing a lot of other debates, but she said that in her absence her new junior Minister would be well briefed and able to respond, and she offered to meet me to discuss my concerns and said that she would attend an early meeting of the all-party group to discuss our concerns.

Sixty years ago, in 1959, Sir Arton Wilson produced a report for the Government that found that the legislation applying to people living in caravans was both unclear and insufficient. The Government’s response was quick, enacting the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960. The Act stipulates that occupiers of land must acquire a licence from the local council before using the land as a caravan site. The Act defines a caravan site as,

“land on which a caravan is stationed for the purposes of human habitation and land which is used in conjunction”

therewith. Section 29 defines “caravan” as including,

“any structure designed or adapted for human habitation which is capable of being moved from one place to another”.

Over the years the term “caravan” in relation to permanent residential accommodation has been replaced by the expression “park home”. In law and practice, however, park homes—and mobile homes—are caravans. They are chattels rather than real estate. Section 1(1) of the 1960 Act provides that

“no occupier of land shall...cause or permit any part of the land to be used as a caravan site unless he is the holder of a site licence”.

Section 1(2) provides that any occupier of land who

“contravenes subsection (1)...shall be guilty of an offence”.

Section 3(3) provides that a local authority may issue a site licence only if

“the applicant is, at the time when the site licence is issued, entitled to the benefit of a permission for the use of the land as a caravan site granted under Part III”

of the 1947 Act.

Local councils have the power to refuse, revoke or impose limitations on a site licence if it is deemed necessary. The conditions that can be attached to such licences are set out in legislation. The most recent addition was the Mobile Homes Act 2013, a private Member’s Bill facilitated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) when he was Housing Minster, which was brought before the House and ably carried through to enactment by my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), whom I am delighted to see in his place today. He used his place in the ballot to ensure that such an important issue would be the subject of private Members’ legislation in the absence of parliamentary time for Government legislation.

The 2013 Act contained a power for the Government to introduce a fit and proper person test for anyone applying for a site licence. That provision has been the subject of a recent public consultation, to which I am sure my hon. Friend will refer in closing. There has therefore been extensive and growing regulation of those who own or operate sites for residential park homes, but none of the legal protections afforded to residents of such homes by the 1960 Act and subsequent Acts applies if the site on which the park home or caravan is situated is unlicensed. The main purpose of this debate is to raise public awareness of that issue, and to highlight the failure of local authorities to enforce the requirement for site licences.

The unwillingness of local authorities to protect vulnerable residents is leading to a proliferation of unlicensed sites on which residents are at the mercy of unscrupulous site owners. The problem has become even more widespread because of recent controversial planning decisions that have enabled many caravan parks that were previously used and licensed only for touring and for non-residential purposes to be reclassified as year-round fully residential sites.

One such decision is that of 15 February 2018 in respect of two appeals against the refusal of Christchurch and East Dorset Councils to grant a certificate of lawful existing use for the permanent residential use of 45 caravans on land on the north side of Matchams Drive. At the time of the appeal, the site was subject to a licence granted to the Bournemouth and District Outdoor Club for use by touring caravans, but following the appeal decision the site is being developed and used for the siting of permanent residential caravans, despite no variation of the original site licence having been granted and without any transfer of that licence to the new owners.

Paragraph 49 of the appeal decision in respect of Matchams Drive, which is now being renamed Silver Mists, referred to the fact that the site licence conditions would protect infrastructure with respect to issues such as hard standing and drainage. The inspector said that the council retained control

“by virtue of the manner in which the licence is framed. This might include the need for planning permission for certain works, as set out in the licence”.

He went on to say, in paragraph 58:

“Trees on the site are the subject to a Tree Preservation Order…and that would apply irrespective of the outcome of this appeal.”

In paragraph 45, he stated:

“The site is secluded with a perimeter fence and gates. When entering the site it is surrounded by mature planting. There is nothing in the LDC application that would lead to a finding that this would change.”

If you visited that site today, Mr Hollobone, you would see that it is more like a moonscape—devoid of vegetation, with monumental earthworks having taken place and most of the trees and vegetation having been removed, despite the site being in a protected heathland habitat. These issues should have been controlled by the local authority through the site licence process, but there has been a reckless failure to take action. One of the park homes that is currently being advertised on that site is 50 feet by 20 feet, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and priced at £379,950, but it does not say anywhere that it is on an unlicensed site.

Silver Mists is within 400 metres of protected heathland. Under the severe restrictions in the habitats directive it would never have been given planning permission as an ordinary residential development, but there will now be 45 new permanent dwellings on the site, making a mockery of the protections that Natural England seeks to enforce on environmental grounds. Paragraph 3.4 of the supplementary planning document, “The Dorset Heathlands Planning Framework 2015-2020”, states that

“caravan and touring holiday accommodation”

is

“likely to have the same effect”

on the heathland as residential development. That is not the opinion of Natural England, but that organisation seems unable to enforce its own rules against caravan sites, even though it imposes the same rules with total inflexibility and rigour on any new proposed residential development, however small.

Although the issues relating to Silver Mists are matters for the new unitary Dorset Council, the largest number of unlicensed sites in my constituency are in the new Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole unitary authority area. The property section of the current edition of the Christchurch Times, a popular weekly newspaper, contains two full pages of advertising that promotes park homes provided by RoyaleLife. These include New Forest Glades in Matchams Lane and New Forest Glen, currently known as Tall Trees, in Matchams Lane. Despite their names, both sites are well outside the New Forest. What is more serious, however, is the description of the homes, which are offered for sale as “single storey” and coming from “the UK’s largest bungalow provider”. They are not bungalows. The “Collins English Dictionary” defines a bungalow as

“a one storey house, sometimes with an attic”.

It also quotes the origin as coming from the 17th century Hindi word “bangla”, meaning a house of the Bengal type. To describe a caravan as a bungalow must surely be a breach of advertising standards.

The promotional material omits any reference to the fact that the homes are caravans or park homes—and, therefore, chattels rather than interests in land. It highlights one of the consequences flowing from such status—the exemption from stamp duty—but fails to mention liability for 10% to be paid on resale. Furthermore, it does not refer to the fact that, as caravan sites, they have to be licensed under the 1960 Act, but are not.

New Forest Glades, formerly known as Port View Caravan Park, benefits in planning terms from a certificate of lawfulness permitting the siting of caravans for residential use on the land identified in that certificate. An application has been submitted to Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council for a caravan site licence, but the land identified in the application is not co-extensive with the land identified on the approved plan. When I first complained to the council I was told that the applicant had not even paid the required fee for the application. The council is advising the applicants that unless their current application is amended it will be refused. New Forest Glades is, therefore, being heavily marketed as a site for expensive new luxury bungalows, some of which are, I believe, already occupied. The caravans are not bungalows and do not even enjoy the benefit of a site licence, and gullible members of the public are being seduced by sharp marketing and misleading advertising into buying homes that are no more than chattels on unlicensed and therefore illegal sites.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

My hon. Friend highlights some of the poorer practice in the industry, but to shine some light on the situation I would like to highlight some of the better practices. I had an email from Mother Ivey’s Bay Holiday Park yesterday, telling me that it champions the real living wage on its park homes, gifts 1% of its hire fleet to families in need through the Family Holiday Association, and never permits residential occupation of its holiday parks. Is there a lot we can learn from holiday parks such as Mother Ivey’s Bay, which are industry exemplars?

[Sir Christopher Chope]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We can learn a lot from them and the best way to encourage them is to take strong action against rogue traders. I shall come on to those points later.

Oral Answers to Questions

Scott Mann Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

1. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the time it takes to build new homes.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

19. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the time it takes to build new homes.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)]

More housing was delivered across England last year than in all but one of the past 31 years. We have examined the recommendations of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on the build-out review, and the Government responded in full at the spring statement earlier this year with a commitment to speed up the planning system and introduce new guidance to encourage diversification.

[Scott Mann]

May I give the Secretary of State some feedback from architects and planners in Cornwall? The community infrastructure levy is having a detrimental impact due to not only the onerous nature of the number of forms that need to be filled out, but the fact that sites that could be deliverable are not coming forward because of the money. Will he look at that to see whether he can bring forward more sites, because we all want more houses in Cornwall?

[James Brokenshire]

I thank my hon. Friend for the input from Cornwall, which, as he knows, is where my family hail from, so I take particular interest in it. Small developers can benefit from exemptions for self-build homes and developments of less than 100 square metres. The CIL contains flexibility and some exemptions, and we introduced guidance in July, but I will certainly listen to my hon. Friend and, indeed, other hon. Members about the community infrastructure levy.

Shared Prosperity Fund

Scott Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope that what is starting to emerge as a consensus in this place is that whatever happens over the next few weeks, months and years, business as usual and the way we have done our politics previously are not going to cut it. This is an opportunity to look at how we invest in our regional communities and to empower decision making at a regional and local level. That is not a silver bullet solution—it will not necessarily address all the challenges that we face—but it has to be part of the solution to many of the concerns that our constituents have.

My right hon. Friend provokes me to make another point. This country has one of the most centralised systems of public finance, policy making and political control of all the OECD nations. The Guardian—I am not sure whether the Minister is a regular reader—reported that local government in this country controls only 1.6% of GDP. That figure is 6% in France, 11% in Germany and 16% in Sweden, yet local government delivers around a quarter of all public services. The inevitable consequence is that decisions, however well meaning, do not always adequately reflect the needs or opportunities of local areas.

The issue is no more acute than in the way that successive Governments have decided where to prioritise investment. I have made this point many times before: when it comes to spending on transport infrastructure, the gap between more affluent areas, such as London and the south-east of England, and the north is particularly stark. Despite the work of the Minister and those in Government supporting the northern powerhouse, it is still the case that, since the northern powerhouse was introduced by the Government in 2014, public transport investment per person has been three times higher in London than in Yorkshire and the Humber.

It is no surprise that that is the case. However herculean the efforts of individual Ministers, the rules of engagement are stacked against us. The inequalities are built into the criteria of the Treasury Green Book model, which favours infrastructure development in more affluent areas, meeting existing demand rather than stimulating latent potential. In the words of my friend and neighbour, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham—himself a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury—the Government have

“a tendency to shovel more and more into the areas that are already doing well.”

We see that in transport investment and other Government programmes.

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. Does he acknowledge that it is not just the north that suffers this problem? Some areas in the south-west have exactly the same difficulty. Does he agree that the Treasury should have other mechanisms, rather than looking at just the economic benefits? Perhaps it could look at the social benefits of putting money into areas such as his and mine.

[Dan Jarvis]

I absolutely agree, and I always try to choose my words very carefully. Not for one moment will Labour try to pit the north against the south, or different parts of the country against each other. I absolutely accept that there are different needs in the remoter regions of our United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to make the point that there are areas of deprivation in the south, south-west and south-east, and indeed in London, just as there are in the north. That is why it is so important that we take this opportunity to get the design of this fund right, so that every corner of the country will be best placed to benefit from it.

I was about to make the point that in 1960 the UK had the highest levels of productivity in Europe. Now, though, a French worker produces, on average, more by the end of Thursday than a worker in the UK does by the end of the week. In the UK, the gap between the richest and poorest regions is around 150%, which is almost twice as large as in France and three quarters larger than in Germany. Such gaps in wealth distribution and productivity are neither normal nor inevitable, but for some of our most deprived regions they are increasing. The consequences of public policies and investment decisions entrench the economic and social divide. If we fix that, the prize will be huge.

Looking at the north of England, Transport for the North’s “Northern Powerhouse Independent Economic Review” suggests that we could add £97 billion to our economy by 2025, which is over and above business-as-usual levels. Over the same period, we could add 850,000 jobs, which is also over and above business-as-usual levels. We can do that by focusing on what we are good at. In South Yorkshire, the same qualities that fired the world’s first industrial revolution now power our 21st-century advanced manufacturing and engineering story. Companies such as Rolls-Royce, Boeing and McLaren have chosen our region because we are in the vanguard of developing new materials and solutions to real-life manufacturing and engineering problems. This must be the start of our economic transformation, not the end. To go further, we must have the tools and resources.

--- Later in debate ---

[Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)]

Cornwall has been a net beneficiary of objective 1 and convergence funding, as we have heard from other Members, for the past 20 years. If we step away from the coastal towns that many people visit on holiday, we find pockets of rural deprivation that successive Governments have found difficult to identify. Although the moneys that have flowed into Cornwall have been welcome, there have been challenges with how the money has been administered. I want to raise those challenges with the Minster today in the hope that we can avoid them when we allocate the shared prosperity fund.

Cornwall was a net recipient of almost £1 billion over 20 years. Although there have been some noteworthy allocations of the cash—probably the most important and successful was the roll-out of superfast broadband across Cornwall—much of the money was allocated to buildings and industrial parks. Without a strategic investment plan, the net result over the past 20 years has not really moved the dial. Much of the failure came from the application process and does not reflect any lack of will by the people administering the funds. Most of the businesses in North Cornwall are small family businesses employing between five and 10 people. They generally work six days a week, 10 hours a day, and did not have compliance teams that could pore over complex and onerous forms. There was therefore a tendency for the bigger companies and charities to put in their bids, and because they had the time and the resources, they were able to make the applications that the small businesses were unable to.

One stat that struck me was in a recent cost-benefit analysis of the objective 1 funding: for every £250,000 that was spent, Cornwall was the net beneficiary of one job. That fundamentally illustrates why small businesses were unable to access the money when that is exactly where it needs to go. Can we simplify the application process to make the shared prosperity fund easier to access? The countryside productivity small grants scheme, a similar fund, is administered by DEFRA, which is simpler and much more straightforward.

We are still waiting. After assurances that the funding criteria would be in place, we are still in the dark. I encourage the Minister to lay out the fund as soon as is practical, so that Cornwall can benefit. Cornwall has seen historic growth over the last five years. Unemployment is at record lows and tourism in the county is booming off the back of great weather and the devaluation of the pound.

Many of the small businesses in North Cornwall are exporting for the first time, but we need to start investing in people. Young people growing up and going through secondary education and college will now work until they are 80 and will have at least four careers in their lifetimes. The Government need to invest in those young people in college and give them a future by moving the dial on their social mobility.

In summary, we need a more straightforward process, quicker allocation and the apprenticeships and investment in skills that our young people need.