Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

5. What funding he plans to provide to local authorities in Essex in the 2024-25 financial year.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

The Government will bring forward our proposals for the 2024-25 local government finance settlement in the usual way, towards the end of the calendar year, but I pledge that it will be before the House rises. We will set out our proposals for the 2024-25 financial year and then invite views in our formal consultation.

[Priti Patel]

I welcome the Minister to his new responsibilities. He may know—he definitely will now—that Braintree District Council, Colchester City Council, Maldon District Council and Essex County Council provide essential statutory services to my Witham constituents and many more. The costs of statutory services such as adult social care and care for children are rising. I suspect that he will give a nuanced answer, but can he give any indication of how the local government finance settlement will support those local authorities in delivering those vital statutory services?

[Simon Hoare]

I have never given a nuanced answer in my life and I do not intend to start doing so now. I thank all the councils my right hon. Friend mentioned for the work they do in delivering services for their communities. Local government has seen a real-terms increase in core spending power over the period 2019-20 to 2023-24. I know she knows that, but I assure her and the House that we recognise and understand the pressures on local government. We will look in the round at sector spending when finalising the budget at the upcoming settlement, as we do every year, but I shall certainly bear at the forefront of my mind the representations that she has made.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to reform the leasehold system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Hollern (Blackburn) (Lab)]

18. What recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of assessments of relative needs at ensuring the adequacy of council funding.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

We are in close and regular contact with sector representative bodies and councils from across the local government family to monitor budgets and service delivery. I have had many discussions with those bodies and organisations since my appointment. As hon. Members will know, the final local government finance settlement for 2023-24 made available up to £59.7 billion for local government in England, an increase in core spending power of up to £5.1 billion, or 9.4%, in cash terms on 2022-23. The Government will continue to look in the round at local government spending ahead of fiscal events, and we will be announcing funding for next year’s finance settlement later this month.

[Sarah Dyke]

May I take this opportunity to wish Mr Speaker a speedy recovery?

I thank the Minister for his response, but I say respectfully that I do not find it satisfactory. I declare an interest as a proudly active Somerset councillor. Councils provide essential services, such as adults’ and children’s social care, yet increasing costs in social care, alongside inflation, mean that many councils around the country are struggling to provide adequate care. I must warn him that, without action, lives will be foreshortened. The cost of providing services is higher in rural areas than urban areas, yet rural residents will receive 13% less per head in social care support. Will he reassure me that the forthcoming fair funding review will address the unequal way rural councils are funded?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady, who is my constituency neighbour in some respects, makes an important point in a serious way. I concur very much on the seriousness of the issue and the challenge that it is presenting to our upper-tier authorities. As I said, we will of course look in the round at all the pressures being placed on local government to see what we can do to help. She rightly mentions the rural services delivery grant, which I have championed. It is very much in my mind to see what we can do during the settlement to address the issue that she raises of the cost disparity of delivering quality services in rural settings, particularly where populations are sparse.

[Kate Hollern]

Under the current relative needs assessment formula, the poorest fifth of councils receive about 10% below their assessed needs, while the richest fifth get 15% above them. That is hardly levelling up, is it, Minister? A review of the current formula, which is over 10 years old, has been repeatedly postponed. Meanwhile, local authorities such as Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council could be missing out on thousands or perhaps millions of pounds, which could deliver much-needed services in our town. When will the review finally take place?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady raises an important point about the formula. I am tempted to say that if the spectre of covid had not, quite rightly, taken up a huge amount of bandwidth in both central Government and local government, we might have been in a different place. We can spend an awful lot of time discussing the minutiae of the formula, and there will be a time when that needs to be done. The crucial task that we have in hand at the current time is to play the cards that we have been dealt, to deliver a settlement that works for local government and to deliver the quality and range of services that all our communities, irrespective of where they are in the country, have a legitimate expectation to receive.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We are not making terribly fast progress this afternoon. Could everyone who has their question written down cut out the bit at the beginning and just ask the question? This is not speech time; it is Question Time, so let us just have questions. If we get short questions, we can get short answers, too.

[Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)]

Local government finance has been front and centre of our local news given the stark situation in Nottingham. The Minister will know about Nottingham’s unique circumstances following decades of poor decisions and mismanagement, but it will not be lost on him that the whole sector is under significant pressure. I know that he will make the case about finances to the Treasury, but the Government could help significantly by allowing more flexibility in the system. Will he work with colleagues around Government to help us to remove ringfences, particularly in areas, such as public health and transport, in which we could make better decisions if we had more freedom to do so?

[Simon Hoare]

I am not going to give a running commentary on the situation in Nottingham, save to say that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I keep it under close review. On my hon. Friend’s wider point about trust and liberalisation, his call falls on open ears. I am happy to work with anybody who wants to ensure that our local authorities can stand up and deliver, as long as they accept accountability and responsibility for the decisions they take. The Government have a proud record on working in a relationship of trust with our local councillors and councils in order to deliver for people up and down the land.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

In 2018, Tory-led Northamptonshire County Council issued a section 114 notice—as close as a council can come to declaring itself bankrupt. Since then, under this Conservative Government, we have seen a further eight councils from across the political spectrum do exactly the same. In September, the credit agency Moody’s warned that more local authorities will

“fail over the near term”

due to high inflation, interest rates and service demand. By the Government’s own assessment, how many more councils are at risk between now and budgets being set next year?

[Simon Hoare]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place and echo the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State; it is great to see him back on the Front Bench.

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Nobody is going to doubt that section 114 is a serious issue. As I have said to the Local Government Association and others, I do not think it is right for us to name and shame, point the finger or assign blame. We are intent on working with councils that have already alerted us to see what we can do to help, and on working alongside councils that have concerns to ensure they do not fall into that situation. I am not going to give a running commentary on that, save to make this pledge: we will work with those councils to ensure that they can continue to deliver for their voters.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

12. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero on the use of land for renewable energy generation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

16. What recent discussions he has had with the Electoral Commission on administering free and fair elections.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

Free, fair and resilient elections are pivotal to our society, and if we agree on nothing else in this House, I hope it is on that. The Government regularly meet the Electoral Commission, both at ministerial and official level, to discuss a broad range of electoral issues, and I am due to have my first meeting with it next Tuesday.

[Chris Elmore]

I thank the Minister for his answer, and I welcome him to his place. He will know that the cyber-attack in October 2021 was not detected until August 2022, and the commission admitted that it had failed a cyber security test in the same year. What work is the Minister doing with the Security Minister to ensure that the defending democracy taskforce has a remit with the Electoral Commission? I agree with the Minister, as should all Members of this House, that we should have free and fair elections without intervention from other states, so what work is he doing to ensure the general election next year is protected from any hostile states?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman—and, dare I say it, my friend—raises an important point. There is a good range of discussion taking place between my Department and the Home Office and a range of meetings focused on that. Conscious of the role that the commission can play, we must ensure that those who stand in our elections, participate in them and administer them feel safe and secure in their roles, and moreover that the results, whatever they are, stand up and are not open to challenge as a result of cyber-attack or anything else.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

A report from the all-party parliamentary group on democracy and the constitution has found that the photo voter ID scheme creates a real risk of injustice and potential discrimination. The report highlighted the case of an immunocompromised woman who was denied her right and her voice at the local elections after being told that she needed to take off her mask. Does the Minister agree that denying someone a say in how their community is run because of a disability is completely unacceptable? Can he confirm that any indications of potential discrimination found in the photo voter ID system will be dealt with prior to the next set of elections?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady raises a serious point, and let me put it on record that I would be happy to meet her and the APPG to discuss their issues and concerns. We have made great strides—there is a specific workstream—in ensuring we maximise how those who have a disability can vote and do so in a free and unfettered way, and we will continue with that. I am very sorry to hear about the case the hon. Lady raises, but if she wishes to write to me on the issue, I will of course look into it in my discussions with the commission. It is absolutely pivotal that, in all we do with regard to our election rules, access to voting—freedom to vote—is absolutely at the heart of it, and as the Minister responsible for elections, I shall guarantee that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Right, I am going to issue a challenge to the House. We have 10 topical questions and others to get through, we have very little time to do it—and we have a lot of business today—and I would not like Mr Speaker to think that we are going slowly just because he is not here: short questions, short answers!

Elections Act 2022 and Boundary Review

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Thursday 30th November 2023 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

I wish to make a statement.

Evaluation of the Elections Act 2022

The Government are committed to ensuring UK elections remain secure, fair, modern and transparent. As part of this commitment, the Elections Act 2022 introduced new measures designed to increase the security and integrity of UK elections. Two of these measures, voter identification in Great Britain and enhanced support for disabled voters in polling stations, were delivered for the first time in polling stations at the May 2023 local council elections.

The Government are pleased with the introduction of voter identification in Great Britain, with data gathered in polling stations showing that 99.75% of voters were able to cast their vote successfully under the new measures. This smooth roll-out is a testament to the skill and careful planning of local authorities and electoral administrators, without whom the realisation of these measures would not be possible. We thank them.

However, the Government are committed to understanding fully the impact of the Elections Act and to improving its implementation where necessary. They are committed in legislation to undertake an evaluation of the voter identification policy after its first implementation. To this end, the Government appointed external research agency IFF Research to evaluate the implementation of the Act, examining the impact of the voter identification and accessibility measures at the May 2023 local elections. The Government are also committed in legislation to conducting further evaluations at the next two UK parliamentary general elections.

Today, I am pleased to share IFF Research’s first evaluation report. This independent evaluation has used data gathered at polling stations, supplemented by public opinion survey results, the Electoral Commission’s data and report on the May elections, surveys with the electoral sector and qualitative research to provide a full picture of the impact and implementation of the voter identification and accessibility measures. While providing further evidence of successful delivery, the report also makes a number of recommendations for both the Government and others including the Electoral Commission for ongoing improvements.

In addition to the Government evaluation, I have today published the Government response to the Electoral Commission’s report on the May 2023 polls. The Government welcome the views of the commission and have considered its recommendations carefully.

Implementing the Elections Act requires close partnership working between the Government, the commission, the electoral sector, and their representative bodies. We look forward to continuing close engagement with all our partners as we implement the remaining measures from the Act and take forward any necessary adjustments in response to this evaluation.

Responding to the evaluation

The IFF evaluation makes an assessment of where adjustments may be made to delivery of the voter identification and accessibility measures that would improve the experience of both voters and electoral administrators. The Government are keen to support the diligent work of the Electoral Commission and other partners and we look forward to discussing these recommendations further.

These recommendations include: action that may be taken on training and guidance for polling station staff and electoral administrators on the reasoning behind which photographic identification documents are accepted in the polling station; how to apply the Electoral Commission’s guidance for returning officers on supporting disabled voters to enable or make it easier for them to vote in polling stations; activity and communications to address any gaps in awareness or understanding across the whole electorate of the voter identification requirements; the availability of the voter authority certificate; and the additional support and equipment available to disabled voters and more specifically to address this among groups where awareness is low; supporting electors who may struggle with the online application process to apply for a voter authority certificate; and increasing the time available for processing voter authority certificates ahead of a UK parliamentary general election.

Many of these recommendations are, of course, in areas where the Government recognise they should and do not have a direct role, but in these and other aspects of delivery we remain keen to support the brilliant work of returning officers, electoral registration officers, their electoral services teams, the Electoral Commission, and all our other partners.

Other recommendations in the report are specific to supporting and strengthening future evaluations, for example by gathering more evidence from specific groups of interest, and these will be taken forward in future plans.

Ongoing evaluation

The Government are committed to maintaining the integrity of the ballot and ensuring that UK elections remain accessible to all. While the evaluation published today demonstrates the significant steps we are taking in achieving these aims, the Government will continue to learn from this and future evaluations and other sources of data. We look forward to further assessments that will be published in the future and the ongoing successful implementation of the Elections Act, ensuring the integrity and accessibility of our democracy now and into the future.

Copies of the “Electoral Integrity Programme Evaluation Report: Year 1” and the Government’s response to the Electoral Commission’s report on the May 2023 polls will be placed in the House Libraries.

Implementation of the Boundary Review

The Government’s 2019 manifesto committed to ensuring updated and more equal parliamentary boundaries. These help to make sure that votes carry more equal weight in Parliament, across the whole United Kingdom. To this end, Parliament passed the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 2020, which provided for the number of constituencies in the UK to remain at 650 and for a boundary review to take place on the basis of this number of constituencies and to report before 1 July 2023.

The 2020 Act also provides for regular boundary reviews, which will ensure that the boundaries remain up to date and involve less change at each cycle by not having such a long period between reviews. The boundary commissions will likely commence their next review in 2029 and complete it by October 2031.

The four independent boundary commissions commenced their review shortly after the Act came into force. Having completed the review, the boundary commissions submitted their final reports to the Speaker of the House of Commons on 27 June 2023. The Speaker laid the reports before Parliament on 28 June 2023. We thank the Boundary Commission for its work.

At the Privy Council meeting on 15 November 2023, His Majesty the King made the Order in Council to enact the changes recommended by the boundary commissions. The order came into force on 29 November 2023 and the new parliamentary constituencies and boundaries will take effect at the next UK parliamentary general election. Until that time, any UK parliamentary by-elections will continue to use the pre-existing constituencies and boundaries.

[HCWS83]

Rural Councils: Funding

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Latham. Time is limited, so I will try to canter through as much as I can.

A number of colleagues have raised important technical questions, and if I do not address them, please forgive me. I will certainly write to my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) and, with his permission, circulate our reply to those who have attended today’s debate. I think that is only fair.

I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) that it was on the proviso of being hunted by her that I accepted this position. That was one of my key asks, and I look forward to the chase. She referenced the work of Onward, and of course I would be more than happy to meet her and the authors of that report to discuss it still further.

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour the Member for West Dorset for initiating this debate. Since entering the Commons in 2019, he has spoken with huge passion and knowledge about the challenges and tribulations that face councillors and officers in our rural areas, as well as the opportunities available to them. He and I could dilate for about 14 hours on the challenges facing Dorset; it would be of enormous fascination to us, but less so, I suggest, to the wider House. I know that others also face the issues we face in our county. Whether it is helpful or not, I should say that before becoming an MP I served as a rural district councillor and also county councillor, so I understand at first hand some of the issues discussed today.

I welcome the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), who referenced our joint working on the LGA. It was a shame when he had to step aside from Front-Bench duties; it is great to see him back to full health and I look forward to him shadowing me for many, many years to come.

My hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset mentioned the great contest between Sherborne and Shaftesbury to take place later this afternoon; all I can say to him is that I am sure that Sherborne will be a graceful runner-up.

[Chris Loder]

Let’s see, my hon. Friend.

[Simon Hoare]

Let us see.

Let me turn to some of the points that were made in the debate. Although levelling up is often portrayed in the media—and, indeed, sometimes in this place—as being something that is solely about the industrial north and midlands constituencies, it is not. There are strategies in place for coastal and for rural levelling up. As a one nation Conservative, I could support nothing other than that. We have to have policies that are of benefit to all our people, irrespective of where they live.

[James Gray in the Chair]

[Anne Marie Morris]

Will the Minister give way?

[Simon Hoare]

Will my hon. Friend forgive me for not giving way? I am really short of time and want to try to cover as much territory as I can.

Let me turn to some of the principal points. With regard to formula reform, if my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset looks at my last question from the Back Benches to our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and at my contribution to the debate on the King’s Speech, he will recall that I made precisely that point. It is a point that he, I, most people present and others have made throughout our time here: the formula needs reform. My hunch is that we could have done it, and probably would have done it, immediately after the 2019 general election, but along came our old friend covid. As desirable as a fundamental review of the formula would be, I do not believe that trying to ask councillors and their officers, who rose magnificently to the challenge of meeting local demand during the crisis of covid, to turn bandwidth, support and attention towards thinking about solutions to formula questions would have been the right thing to do.

We need to reform the formula, as is recognised, but I suggest to my hon. Friend that now is not the right time. In this settlement, we will have to play the hand of cards we are dealt under the rubric of the formula as it currently exists. I fundamentally agree with the Opposition spokesman and others that this should never be a job of robbing Peter to pay Paul. There are acute and identified needs for service delivery due to geography and sparsity in our rural areas, but there are also acute needs in our urban areas. Deprivation is deprivation; it merely manifests itself in different quantums and different varieties in urban and rural settings.

The Opposition spokesman is absolutely right to say that we do not want some sort of bidding war or competition. Where our people are in need and have a legitimate aspiration for the delivery of quality and reliable services, they should be delivered in a cost-effective way, irrespective of where one lives. If deprivation, poverty and need are blind, so must be those who provide services and the formulas that generate the cash to be able to do so.

We know that rural services are key. We also know, as a matter of indisputable fact, that by definition their delivery costs are higher, partly, although not exclusively, due to both sparsity and geography. [Interruption.] Mr Gray, I have been directing my remarks to Mrs Latham, having not realised that the Chair had changed. My apologies, Sir, if you have taken the Chair and I have transitioned you into something that you did not wish to be.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

It’s a modern world.

[Simon Hoare]

I take the point about the challenges of an ageing population, home-to-school transport and SEND. All have high demands and all have an irrepressible trajectory, which is why it is so important that His Majesty’s Government do not view these things in silos or, indeed, in isolation. It requires collaboration and close working between my Department, the Department for Education, sometimes the Home Office when it comes to police and fire services, and, arguably most importantly, the Department of Health and Social Care as it relates to the delivery of social care for some of the most needy and vulnerable in our communities. I am lucky that the Department and I have an excellent relationship with those Departments. Conversations are ongoing, and we will work as closely as we can—not out of turf warfare or some sort of testosterone-driven competition whereby people say, “My Department is better than yours,” but focused solely and singularly on how best to use taxpayers’ money to help councils to deliver the services they require.

As Members have mentioned, councils have done the most fantastic work in meeting funding challenges. They have shared back-of-house functions and delivered shared services, and combined authorities have come together to create unitaries, as we did in Dorset. As a result of going unitary—it has not been without problems; let us not be false about that—there have been massive savings and no cuts to any of the services that are delivered to our people by Dorset Council. We have to salute the ingenuity of councillors and their officers, who work tirelessly to meet contemporary needs in challenging times.

I have to say to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) that I am sure his constituents will be fantastically interested in what he said: I was perplexed to hear that councils should be precluded from the delivery of housing in their areas. Many councils ask us to allow them to build social rented properties, affordable housing and the like. I noted his comments with interest, and I am sure his constituents will note them with alarm.

As I say, we should not take the concerns in our rural areas personally, because I hear exactly the same calls for additional funding, changes to the formula, other reviews—

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Order. I fear that we have come to the end, so I must cut the Minister off mid-flow.

[Simon Hoare]

Forgive me; I thought we had until 11.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

It is now 11 o’clock.

[Simon Hoare]

Oh yes, so it is.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Also, it doesn’t do to argue with the Chair, Minister.

[Simon Hoare]

I wasn’t, Mr Gray.

[James Gray (in the Chair)]

Quite right too.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).

Havering Council: Funding

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I first of all thank and congratulate the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) not only for raising this issue, but raising it in the tone that he did. I am grateful to him for that. I am also grateful for the work that his council leader, Ray Morgon, is doing on behalf of his residents. The hon. Gentleman raised that, which I thought was very important.

I will spend a moment or two setting the scene. It is not my intention to name and shame local authorities. I think the hon. Gentleman made an apposite point: we must all focus on the funding of the services that many of the most vulnerable citizens across the country rely on. As tempting as it is to try to play politics, I am not going to do so. Likewise, my door is open to those councils that are anxious that they are approaching the issuing of a section 114, because prevention is better than cure.

I join the hon. Gentleman in commending his council, without providing a running commentary on discussions between individual councils and my Department. I commend the openness with which the leadership of Havering and others in the borough have engaged the community and my Department. They are right to do so, and they will continue to have as much support from my officials and me as they possibly can.

The hon. Gentleman is also right, on section 114, that there is a mixed mosaic of reasons. It would be far easier if there was one geography, one political control and one reason for the trigger, but he set out a number of councils in different parts of the country that find themselves in challenging circumstances for a multitude of reasons. Irrespective of the reason, as with Havering, my Department stands ready to work alongside those councils, with the Local Government Association and others.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned SIGOMA. I was with the leader of SIGOMA, Sir Stephen Houghton, this morning, discussing the issues that his member councils are facing. That meeting was very useful. We will work alongside those councils to ensure that they can stay standing up to deliver their services.

The hon. Gentleman asked me to meet him; I am more than happy to do so, with any council officers or elected members that he deems appropriate, because we have to get this right. I recognise entirely the demographic challenges to which he alluded and how a council will need to change its mindset and policy-setting priorities to respond to those changes in pretty quick time.

The hon. Gentleman welcomed the changes that the Chancellor announced to the local housing allowance, and I welcome that. We listened to a whole variety of stakeholders, and there was general agreement that that is the right thing to do.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the timing of the settlement, which was not helped this year by the lateness of the autumn statement. I can share with him and the House that the instruction I gave to officials, who are more than prepared to meet the challenge, is to get the figures and as much information as we possibly can out of the door, on the proviso that those figures are correct and robust. I spent 11 years serving in local government as a parish councillor, a district councillor and a county councillor. I spent several years as a cabinet member on West Oxfordshire District Council putting together the budget, and I remember sitting for too many hours with the finance director when we all wanted to go home for family things, trying to crunch numbers, make savings and work out different things. There must be a better way of doing it. I am yet to identify what that is; when I do, I will share it, among the first people, with the hon. Gentleman. That is important, given these uncertain times.

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out the increasing complexity, range and quantum of demand from both ends of the age spectrum, from the needs of the very young to those of the vulnerable elderly. We must ensure that we are focused, as I know he and his council are, and remind ourselves that we can get tied up in the minutiae of the formula for this, the process for that and the probity of making announcements. We have people sitting at home wondering how, if or when their legitimate applications for support will be processed and delivered to make their lives more comfortable and better.

The hon. Gentleman talked about the social care grant. Through the 2023-24 settlement, Havering is receiving £14.2 million. That is a £5.8 million increase compared with the previous year’s settlement. The funding can be used for both adult’s and children’s social care. Additionally, we are providing £2.4 million through the market sustainability and improvement fund, £1 million through the discharge fund, and £6.8 million through the improved better care fund, which I am told is already improving local health outcomes and supporting the crucial social care sector.

Those figures are important, but—there is always a “but”, isn’t there?—I acknowledge the challenging position in which local government in England finds itself. We all know the issues that have afflicted the national economy in recent years. I do not offer them up to the hon. Gentleman as excuses, but we would be negligent if we did not put them into our mix of thinking. Just when the reverberations of the ’08 banking collapse started to be less severe, along came the pandemic and then Ukraine. They led to inflation, interest and all those pressures that people have felt in their back pocket and that council officers have felt in their budget settlements. Despite all those challenges, central Government have sought to provide big increases in funding to local government in recent years to try to address some of the reasons that the hon. Gentleman set before us. The local government finance settlement for 2023-24 made available up to £59.7 billion of funding for local government in England. That was an increase in core spending power of up to £5.1 billion on 2022-23—or, to put it another way, 9.4% in cash terms. Havering’s core spending power as a council rose to £218.7 million—a 9.2% increase on the funding for 2022-23.

Numbers and percentages are fine; we know that. But—again, there is another “but”—we are all aware, and it would be foolhardy of any Minister to pretend otherwise, that there are huge increases in demand for service. Costs are going up. It is great news that we have increases to the living wage—I suggest that nobody would challenge that as a matter of principle. However, it clearly has an effect on the pay requirements, particularly for local councils, when they are already under pressure. I know that Councillor Morgon is addressing the council’s funding pressure, and he himself has noted the unprecedented demand for both adult and children’s social care. As the hon. Gentleman said, Havering has one of the oldest populations in London, together with the second fastest growing young population in the country. There is pressure from both ends of the public sector service demand telescope, so it is understandable that the council is feeling the pressure from a growing need for social care.

I want the hon. Gentleman to understand that I get that, and to convey to anybody who is interested that we have empathy for his points. We are determined to continue working alongside Havering London Borough Council to ensure that it can deliver not just the services demanded of it, but the services that the councillors and officers themselves want to deliver, because they are true and honest public servants. It is not going to be easy. I am afraid I am not the owner of the ministerial goose that is laying a multitude of golden eggs for the local government sector, but we will continue to work with the hon. Gentleman and his council.

I will close by repeating my warm invitation for him to come in and have a conversation. We can go over the figures and think about these issues. I am almost preaching to the choir on this point. I know that the hon. Gentleman will keep at the forefront of his mind—as will I—that, whether we are Opposition MPs, Government Ministers or councillors, our primary duty is to do our very best to serve the public who put us here, and to discharge the duties that they give us in order to try to make their lives a little safer, a little more comfortable and a little easier. He and I share that endeavour, and I look forward to welcoming him and his colleagues to do the very best we can for his residents.

Question put and agreed to.

Isle of Wight Local Government Finance

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) not only on securing this important debate, but on advancing the argument in the way that he did. Let me also add my thanks to Wendy Perera, the chief executive of my hon. Friend’s council, to Councillor Phil Jordan, its leader, and, of course, to Chris Ward, the section 151 officer. They all work very closely with my Department, advocating for the Isle of Wight as my hon. Friend does, and my Department and I are very grateful to them for their engagement over this period.

Let me start by saying that the Government are, of course, committed to serving the needs of diverse communities across our country. This debate has provided an excellent opportunity to discuss the Island communities for whom my hon. Friend has long been an effective campaigner. As he mentioned, my predecessor visited the Island recently, and found it immensely helpful to hear from local voices about the issues faced by Island authorities.

I now have a confession to make. I have never visited the Isle of Wight. If my hon. Friend would like me to undertake a state visit with full pomp and ceremony, with flags and with town bands playing, I should of course be delighted to accept. I must warn him that I do get a little seasick, so we had better choose a slightly calm sailing day.

I have heard what my hon. Friend has had to say, as has my predecessor and as have officials in the Department. I say this in no way to rile him, and he should not take it personally—in fact, I know he does not—but having been in this job for nine days and in this place for eight and a half years, I have yet to see any right hon. or hon. Member doing cartwheels up and down the Library Corridor or across Central Lobby while declaring how perfectly satisfied they are with their local government settlement. There is always room for improvement.

My hon. Friend, and the House, will know that the local government finance settlement is in progress, and I want to give as much correct information in as timely a fashion as I can throughout that process to local councils across the country. Against that backdrop—very much early doors, as it were—I know my hon. Friend will appreciate that I cannot and will not pre-empt the formal process of determination and decision making, but I hear very clearly what he has said both in this debate and in representations. He kindly acknowledged that he was in receipt of my letter of today’s date—which shows that the systems are working—and it may be helpful if I read some of it into the record. It includes these words:

“we have concluded the evidence-gathering part of this process and I would like to take this opportunity to once again thank you”—

—my hon. Friend—

“and the Isle of Wight Council for your co-operation throughout this process. Island funding is an issue that you have raised with the Department numerous times, and I am pleased we have progressed this issue to this stage.

My officials are currently assessing the evidence submitted by your council and intend to share a draft of the report for comment to…Council officers in due course.”

Let me assure my hon. Friend that this will happen during the process of making final determinations on the funding settlement, not afterwards. It will be done in a timely and sequential way.

My letter explained that the council officers

“will then have the opportunity to comment on the report and my officials are happy to respond to any further questions and comments”

that may arise from that process—as, of course, am I.

A go-to phrase of Ministers at the Dispatch Box is to refer to a right hon. or hon. Friend as a “doughty champion”. That phrase sits well in the parliamentary vocabulary, but if it were to be worn as a crown—I say this in all sincerity to my hon. Friend, and I hope it gives confidence to his constituents and to those other deliverers of public services across the Isle of Wight— then, based on the list of correspondence and strong representations he makes not only to my Department but to Departments across Government, that crown would fit his head as if bespokely tailored. I congratulate him for all he does on behalf of his constituents, who should be very proud that they have such a doughty champion.

Let me turn to the hard figures. As a statement of principle and fact, we recognise the key role that local government plays in and across our communities. The word that we share is, of course, “government”—central and local. So long as the Prime Minister keeps me in post, I want to advance cordial relations and co-operative and collaborative working. Whether in town hall or Whitehall, we are all focused on serving people’s needs, and very often those people are among our most needy and vulnerable constituents. The work done by local government in helping to meet those needs is profound and widely recognised.

This year’s local government finance settlement for the Isle of Wight was £162.9 million—a more than 10% increase in core spending compared with the previous year. As the local authority has responsibilities for social care, the demographics of the Isle of Wight will throw up particular challenges, as do the demographics in many rural areas across the country. I know the council benefited from the additional social care funding announced last year, receiving an increase of over £4 million in its social care grant allocation. That was in addition to funding from the improved better care fund and the market sustainability and improvement fund. The increase was above the 9.4% average for local authorities across England. Overall, the Government made available up to £59.7 billion for local government—an increase in core spending power of up to £5.1 billion compared with 2022-23.

My hon. Friend is correct to say that the challenges and opportunities faced by island communities differ greatly from those facing other authorities in England. The separation from the mainland by water can lead to increased costs in some areas. I pause for a moment to say that, as a Member of Parliament for a rural constituency, I have long argued in speeches and representations to Ministers from the Back Benches that the additional costs of delivering public services in a rural area should be taken into account. Of course, we do that through the rural services delivery grant.

[Bob Seely]

I completely accept the argument about isolation in a rural area, be it Dorset or Cumbria—a large part of the Isle of Wight qualifies as a rural area, too—but there is a specific additional cost that comes from ferry use, in terms of time, funds and the greater difficulty in sharing services. Does the Minister accept that point?

--- Later in debate ---

[Simon Hoare]

The fact that the best way to get to the Isle of Wight is by ferry is not something that any Minister of the Crown would wish to dispute with anybody who lives on the Isle of Wight. That is, of course, true, and I will turn to that in a moment. I hope my hon. Friend recognises that the Government have taken it into account, and I intend to continue taking it into account in my deliberations.

It is, of course, for that reason that the Government have consistently stood alongside the islands of our country to provide additional support in recognition of the unique circumstances they face, as my hon. Friend has set out for the House this afternoon. As he will be aware, the Isles of Scilly, for example, receives bespoke funding at the local government finance settlement for that. Our response to my hon. Friend’s previous calls for the Government and my Department to recognise that has been that in recent years, as he has noted, we have provided an additional £1 million in grant funding to the Isle of Wight, in the light of the exceptional circumstances faced by the authority.

I am certain that he would have liked that money to be more, but, again, I say to him that the Government and I have to take decisions in the round, against the backdrop of a series of interdepartmental calls for public money and very strong calls for public money within the Department for different elements of the delivery of local government. That is why I said earlier, not as some flippant point, but as a serious one, that he should not take this personally. I receive and am receiving representations from Members from across the House and from across the geographies of our kingdom about how the Government will support local government this coming year.

Let me say a word or two about the evidence base and evidence gathering. My hon. Friend has mentioned that my Department has worked productively with the Isle of Wight Council this year on evidence gathering, to help us better understand the additional costs faced by the Island. As he highlights, it is challenging to quantify an island effect, but I hope he will agree that the joint work on the evidence gathering exercise has been a valuable process, both for the Isle of Wight and for the Government. Let me assure him and, through him, his constituents that my Department and I will make the very best use of this information, provided by the Isle of Wight Council, in order to come to a decision.

Too often, I fear, these things are commissioned and looked at, and then someone realises that a window with a slightly dodgy sash needs a bit of a prop if they are to have ventilation and these reports are used for that purpose, or for propping open a door while people are coming in and out. The documentation submitted will be on my desk and it will be at the forefront of my mind when I look at the figures on the settlement for the coming financial year. As always, we will be announcing our proposals, which are subject to consultation, in the upcoming local government finance settlement. We will do that in the usual way later this year.

The autumn statement, which many have welcomed, was comparatively late this year, which means that my officials and Department will have to work at pace to get the figures out to local authorities for them to think about their draft budgets and for us to undertake our consultation. I have set two challenges for my officials. Let me pause to say, albeit having been only nine days in the job, that I have unchallengeable support and admiration for them. They are the most phenomenal team of public servants, who are fully seized of and alert to the challenges of delivering public service in the local government arena. They have risen to the challenges I have set them and accepted them with alacrity. The challenges are that the data that we provide to local authorities must be delivered in as timely a fashion as possible; and, more importantly, that any figure work that we provide to them must be correct and beyond peradventure.

[Bob Seely]

My hon. Friend will be delighted to know that the invitation to visit the Isle of Wight is in his private office as we speak. Tennyson used to invite people in poetry, but I am afraid that, just because of the time, I have done it in prose. For many of the figures that he is talking about, we will be able to get Chris, Wendy and others, including the NHS, to come to talk about the additional costs. We hope that he will be able to see proper, physical, practical examples to back up the numbers that we have provided.

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his uber efficiency in organising such a trip. My Speedos will be dusted off—don’t get excited, Mr Deputy Speaker—and I hope to share a 99 with him at some bracing seaside venue. In sincerity, I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I look forward to that hugely.

To draw my remarks to some form of conclusion, I hear the representations that my hon. Friend has made. In turn, I hope he has heard my total commitment from the Treasury Bench to studying with great care, as my predecessor did and as my officials do, all and any submissions made by him and his council. We hope to arrive at a circumstance and solution that works for the people of the Isle of Wight.

Government support to the Isle of Wight, as my hon. Friend was kind enough to reference in his remarks, is manifest outwith the local government finance settlement. We are investing in key capital projects across the Island, as part of our aim to level up all parts of the country. The fantastic and magnificent work of the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) is testimony to that. In recent funding announcements, the Island has benefited from £20 million for the town partnerships endowment, which will support the town of Ryde in the development of a new long-term plan; £5.8 million in round 1 levelling-up funding to the East Cowes marine hub; and, only this week, £13.6 million from the levelling-up fund to deliver the Island green link, providing cycle and walking infrastructure extending from Ryde in the east to Yarmouth in the west of the Island.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the issue. While I am not able to give him the figures in pounds, shillings and pence, I hope I have been able to persuade him of the seriousness with which I take his case and with which I will approach this issue over the coming weeks and months. I am committed, as are the Government, to doing as much as we possibly can to ensure our fantastic councils, not just in the Isle of Wight but across the United Kingdom, can work alongside us and deliver for all of our constituents.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I have been to the Isle of Wight and it is beyond glorious, so the Minister and his Speedos are in for a real treat.

Question put and agreed to.

Housing Associations: Charges

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) not only for raising this important issue but for the way in which she did so. I described her as my right hon. Friend; she is also a friend and near constituency neighbour in a neighbouring county, so it is a real delight for me to make my Dispatch Box debut responding to her debate this evening. I, too, congratulate her colleague Councillor Nick Adams-King for the work that he has been doing on this issue, along with my county neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax).

The first question that my right hon. Friend asked was how we can help. She was right to point out in her concluding remarks that such issues can often get passed from pillar to post—different names with different acronyms, with everybody trying to, Pontius-Pilate-like, wash their hands of it. My Department will not do that. Of course, her constituents are perfectly entitled to seek legal advice. That would come at a cost, and it may well be that the conveyancing at the time of purchase is worth a re-exploration.

Pausing there, my right hon. Friend presented to the House some pretty horrible and frightening figures. We are all conscious, particularly those of us who represent predominantly rural constituencies, of the fierce hit that the cost of living has had on many families, so we can only begin to wonder at the fear generated in the homes of the families and individuals who are being presented with these body-blow bills. The idea of their having to incur legal costs to try to seek a remedy, which is likely to be a long time coming, would not be a particularly welcome solution.

I have an invitation for my right hon. Friend to take up, together with her councillor colleague should she wish to. This is a rhetorical invitation; I think that she will bite my hand off. My noble friend Baroness Scott, to whom I have spoken, as it is her portfolio that would look at this, will convene a meeting in the Department to be attended by Aster and my right hon. Friend, picking up on the point that she alluded to in the letter of 4 September this year from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which he addressed to the chief executive of the Aster Group.

Again just pausing there, I am not entirely sure this is still the situation, but I know that at the time when I introduced my Adjournment debate, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North referenced, the chief executive of the Aster Group was the highest paid chief executive in the housing association sector. It is not just our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who is taking a personal interest in how the organisation continues to deliver its responsibilities; so too is my noble Friend Baroness Scott and so am I, because what the constituents of my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North have been presented with is indefensible and, frankly, bizarre.

From what my right hon. Friend has told the House in her powerful and persuasive speech, it seems that the housing association has spent little if any money investing in these local sewage plants, has understood the need now for investment—in some sort of a Damascene conversion to the need for housing providers to invest in maintenance and other repairs—realises that the costs are eye-wateringly high, and decides to reduce them for tenants and to pile on the costs to those who have merely, through the sweat of their brow and hard work, striven successfully to exercise their right to buy their former council house. And they are now being clobbered with above-inflation costs, subsidising those—one can see the argument for this, potentially—in the social rented market, and the housing association is then having the magnanimity, in this almost-upon-us season of good will, of defraying the costs until death. That seems to me not exactly in the spirit that we would expect people to be operating in.

My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—no Adjournment debate would be complete without his presence—hit on an important point that occasionally this House has overlooked: the general transition over time of housing associations. When housing stock was transferred from local authorities, most if not all of the housing department went into that organisation, often a new organisation, and they took with them the mindset of supporting some of our most vulnerable constituents and the mindset of our public sector housing. Over time those people have retired and over time housing associations have grown very big; that does give them resilience in a fluctuating market, but it also means quite a lot of that local knowledge and empathy and understanding has been lost, and they are now operating in exactly the same sphere as our major private house builders. That is producing a change of ethos; my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North has brought this situation to the House, and I have to say that that is not a change for the better.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

It is great to see my hon. Friend at the Dispatch Box for the first time and I congratulate him. I am grateful to my constituency neighbour my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for raising this issue and I have the same issue in the village of Hatherden in my constituency and want to make two points about what my hon. Friend the Minister was saying.

What was of course lost in the transfer he was talking about was councillors and the sensitivity that local councils would have to their residents in the way we are trying to give effect to this evening; that has been the biggest disconnection in housing. Also, one of the arguments that is put—I have had this with other issues of maintenance of stock in my constituency, where Aster is a large landlord—is a purely mathematical one: the housing association says, “You’re right, we haven’t really maintained this for 20 years, but we also haven’t charged you for it for 20 years so all we are doing is catching up on the charges,” and it fails to reflect on the economic hit to residents when an accumulation of charges is levied in one big blow.

[Simon Hoare]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Whether Aster and others presuppose that merely the fact that a family or an individual has recognised that right to purchase their home suddenly makes them as rich as Croesus, I am not entirely sure. However, we can only imagine the very real anxiety that seeing these sorts of bills creates—particularly when this issue has come as a bolt from the blue, as I understood my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North to say. People were being told that everything was fine, that those local sewage works were absolutely up to scratch and that one could sell ones home in perfect confidence that there would be no extraordinary item for potential new purchasers to pick up.

Maybe it is a lack of investment, coupled with misleading those former tenants, that Aster will be questioned about at the departmental meeting—and they will attend; of that I am absolutely certain. We will make them attend to talk to Ministers and to make clear what they are going to do, because their current suggested modus operandi is neither sufficient nor acceptable.

Although it is in the future, I also point my right hon. Friend and her constituents to the leasehold and freehold Bill, which will be published later this month. That Bill is intended to drive up transparency of the estate management charges that homeowners have to pay, as well as giving homeowners the right to challenge the reasonableness—that is the key word, because after the Wednesbury case, reasonableness has a status in law—of those charges in the appropriate tribunal, which of course in England is the first-tier tribunal. The Bill will also include measures to help leaseholders to challenge service charges, including improved transparency requirements and scrapping the presumption that leaseholders should pay their landlord’s legal costs when challenging poor practice.

This Government are committed to providing the framework, but it is vital that potential homeowners have access to the right information before they buy. That information should, of course, be set out as part of the conveyancing process. I mentioned at the top of my remarks that, if a current homeowner such as those identified by my right hon. Friend is unhappy with the service they have received from the conveyancer or their solicitor, and the internal complaints process cannot resolve the issue, the legal ombudsman may be able to help.

In conclusion, I thank my right hon. Friend again for raising this issue in her inimitable style. The House always listens to her, because when she speaks she has something to say. She has spoken on behalf of her constituents very clearly and the Secretary of State, the Department and I share her concerns. She was right to quote directly from the Secretary of State’s letter to Aster of just a few months ago. My Department stands ready to work with her to ensure that her constituents, as well as those of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset, are not—and here I will close by using the word my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North used in her speech—rinsed.

Question put and agreed to.

Heritage Pubs

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

If only you had known, Mr Vickers, how long I have waited to hear that word, and then find myself rising to speak. It is about eight and a half years since I was elected in 2015, so it really is a pleasure for me to say “It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship” this afternoon. First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) for raising this issue, which is important for him, his constituents and the wider community, and I compliment him on the measured way in which he did it. There is an irony in a teetotaller replying to a debate on heritage pubs and, having filled out quite a few forms with on ethics over the last few days as part of the ministerial process, finding the word “crooked” in the title of my first Westminster Hall debate did make me a little apprehensive.

To start, my hon. Friend suggested some potential legislative changes, or, certainly, those that may require investigation. My door, and the door of the Department, is open for him to come in at any time, and we can further those conversations. As the debate has shown, the issue is important on many levels. I was struck when my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell) said—I hope I quote him correctly—that these “are not just community hubs, they are the community”. How right he is. His rightness was, I suppose, only echoed by the rectitude of his constituents in returning him in the recent by-election, on which I congratulate him as a Conservative to a Conservative by-election winner. We have had not had many opportunities to say that in recent times, a trend that I believe will change pretty quickly.

Of course, no Westminster Hall debate would be complete without my friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who I thought would have been so relieved to have seen me out of the chairmanship of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that he would not have wanted to hear my voice again. But here he is, and it is always a pleasure to see him. It is little bit like Christmas cake, I suppose—even if one does not like it, you do not really feel that Christmas is complete without a Christmas cake on the tea table. No debate in this place is complete without my friend the hon. Member for Strangford.

Before I forget, my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North asked for the date for the implementation of the building preservation notice. That falls within the bailiwick of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. We will inquire of ministerial colleagues about that, and I will write to my hon. Friend to make sure that he has an answer as to when that will come into effect.

I join my hon. Friend in thanking those campaigners, who are feeling such a huge sense of loss at this tragedy. It is a tragedy to lose such an important local asset. For many, it will feel like a bereavement: a loved building in a community has been suddenly taken away in circumstances that one can only describe as suspicious. They will be feeling that locally, so I join my hon. Friend in congratulating them for all their efforts, and I also congratulate him for corralling them in making those efforts to ensure that, although there is no way to turn the clock back, we try to identify ways whereby the opportunities for these sorts of events to happen—because one can never say that they will never happen—is militated against. My hon. Friend will understand that a live investigation is ongoing, and it would be remiss of me to say anything that may in any way prejudice that investigation—campaigners would be furious with me were I to do so. I think that the debate has reflected that.

The building preservation notice is, of course, part of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, which provides opportunities for councils to issue notices. Those preservation notices are in place for six months, and that is an important protection, particularly if a listing application is run alongside or in tandem with the notice. Like a lot of these things, they exist, but we often forget that they exist. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the opportunity to place on the record, once again, that the preservation notice exists.

The point about demolition is important. The demolition of a pub has a very particular status within the planning process. The demolition of a pub without planning permission so to do is considered, for the purposes of the planning system, to be development, and councils have an existing power to enforce a total rebuild. There is also the opportunity for fining if they refuse to comply with the enforcement notice, and that fining is unlimited. Certainly, my ministerial colleague, the Minister of State, pointed out to me that a building in the City of Westminster was demolished without the relevant consents, and the city council successfully enforced that it should be rebuilt brick for brick. So, in the case of that developer and those who seek to circumvent or circumnavigate our rules, undermining them for sharp practice, there are powers that can be used, and I would urge all local authorities to use them.

Many of the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North raised in his speech are, of course, slightly tripartite in nature. Very often, we feel that life would be much easier if one Department had sole responsibility. Many of the issues that my hon. Friend mentioned obviously touch on policies within my Department, but also touch on policies within the Home Office, and he referenced the police, and on what I suppose many campaigners would say is the slightly—let me put it diplomatically—eccentric requirement that, once initial investigations have been undertaken, the site that has been investigated has to be handed back to the freeholder. I hope that I will not prejudice the investigation when I say that it would not take Hercule Poirot to raise an eyebrow with regards to the rapidity of the arrival on site of bulldozers, almost before the last embers of the fire had died out; I believe in serendipity, sometimes, but even that belief can be stretched beyond breaking point.

I have spoken to ministerial colleagues in my Department, and it is the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) who will lead on this; I am replying to today’s debate because he had previous duties. We are happy to take the lead as a Department and to organise a tripartite discussion between us, the Home Office and DCMS to try to work out whether we can iron out any wrinkles or make any tweaks to make the process a little easier to understand and implement.

I will say a few words on pubs and change of use. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), was right and sensible to talk about the change in our high streets, and the change in demand for pubs and how and where we spend our leisure time. When people seek a change of use for a public house, it is to be expected that most local authorities, certainly in my experience, will ask for a number of reports to justify a positive determination of that application. They will certainly take into account the number of operational pubs in the area. They will seek verified reports of a sincere marketing campaign, where that pub asset has been advertised—has it been in the trade press or the local press, and so on? Were they seeking realistic offers, or were they trying to price it so far outside the market to effectively arrive at a position where they could not sell it as a going concern because they had been asking such a grossly inflated price?

If the applicant for the change of use does not satisfy any of those key tests—which, of themselves, provide a certain degree of comfort to residents and safeguards for those who use the assets—by definition, the presumption of a change of use is not to be given. As we know, no system is perfect, and it depends upon thorough analysis and the potential for buying in professional third-party advice to peer review those marketing documents. However, it is not an easy thing to do.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North has made a number of policy suggestions, and we will reflect on them. It is important to note, however, that there is always a temptation for Ministers to promise the Earth, as though with a stroke of a ministerial pen all problems will be erased and nothing bad will happen. Will buildings burn down? Yes, of course. We are not going to be able to eradicate that, but we need to make sure that the investigatory powers are there.

We also need to be careful, because there is a fine balance to strike—sometimes it would require the judgment of Solomon to do it—in the operation of the market. A freeholder can legitimately dispose of an asset, for a continuation of use within the prescribed use class or for a change of use, or to move it on to a further use if that building is deemed redundant. At the heart of what was said by my hon. Friends the Members for Dudley North and for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and indeed the shadow Minister, is that the community’s requirements and desires need to be taken into account as part of the evaluation process. As we know, so much of our high street and leisure time is changing. However, I suggest—I hope uncontroversially—that nobody wants to see, merely for the sake of retention, buildings retained that will fall into a state of disrepair and decay, and which are of no asset whatsoever to our high streets and communities and will often have a negative societal impact during that period of degradation.

I will be careful on listing because that falls within the purview of DCMS. It is an important point. It involves a process, and there are always going to be ways of speeding up that process to give greater clarity and certainty. I take the shadow Minister’s point on the need for a clearer definition of what we actually mean by a heritage pub. We have made great progress in the creation of assets of community value. They have made a significant contribution since they were introduced in 2011. Are they perfect? Is the mechanism un-clunky in all respects? Of course not. Could it be reformed or improved? Most definitely. That may well form the basis of conversations to be had with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North as we move forward.

In conclusion, this is a serious issue. My late father always used to say, “If you’re going to cheat, cheat fair.” I know that that sounds like a contradiction in terms, but most of our communities and constituents shy away from what looks to be sharp practice—something underhand, something designed specifically to frustrate and undermine a process of transparency and accountability. While none of us would resile from the human desire to generate a profit, sometimes that sharp practice, merely in the pursuit of profit, falls under that old phrase, the “unacceptable face of capitalism”, which you and I will remember, Mr Vickers, from the comments of previous politicians on a number of points.

I share the concerns, anxiety and upset of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North and his constituents about this serious issue. I reassert what I said at the start: we stand ready to help and to do what we can, between the three Departments, to try to ensure that we can limit, as much as we possibly can, these circumstances happening again. Unfortunately, however, the circumstances that he set out at the start of his speech mean that people will not see the return of the Crooked House as they knew and loved it. I read history at university; there are some buildings that speak of history and times, and one could only envisage the times that a pub from 1765 has seen, the trials and tribulations that it has survived and the conversations that it has eavesdropped upon. It is a huge and serious loss. We shall let the investigatory authorities do their job, but we stand ready to help my hon. Friend and other communities to ensure that such important community assets have the strongest protections that we can possibly derive.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy]

The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) put forward a clever argument, but many of us see through it to the real motivation. He himself said that he supports part of the BDS campaign.

The issue of timing is interesting. I am not sure whether we are being asked to wait until Hamas give us permission to bring the Bill back. Should we wait for their decision to end the violence, so that we are then able to bring this forward? People advanced the same arguments that they are advancing today before the massacre, so there will never be a good time to bring the legislation forward if we follow that line.

The right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and I have disagreed on some things, but I respect her very much. She has been very brave in lots of the things that she has done in recent years, but I think that it was beneath her to accuse people who support the legislation of driving antisemitism. That was an unfortunate slip, because it is a fact that the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies support the legislation. She may be right that others in the Jewish community do not, but it is a fact that leadership groups within the community support the legislation.

Why now? For me, it was going down to see one of the marches two weeks ago. I do not want to call them marches for peace, because they were not; they were marches filled with hate. There were people there enjoying what happened in Israel. I saw many of them holding deeply antisemitic signs, many of which called for a boycott of the Israeli state. That said to me that this is a moment when we have to grasp this issue, which has been a poisonous part of political discourse on the middle east for so long. If not now, then when? There will never be a perfect time.

As I said in my intervention, even before the Israeli Government had acted in any way in Gaza in self-defence, BDS campaigners were outside the Israeli embassy, after 1,400 Israelis had been murdered—the worst murder of Jews since the holocaust. What were those campaigners doing? They were not there expressing sympathy for what had just happened; they were demanding that people boycott the state of Israel. This is a pernicious, nasty, antisemitic campaign, and there is no pretending otherwise, as indeed some people who oppose the Bill will agree.

The metrics are clear: BDS activities drive antisemitism. That is a fact, and we are all in agreement on that. On the pretence that there are lots of other countries at which this is aimed, let us be honest: only Israel is the focus of BDS activities. That is where the action in local government and the Welsh Government has been. It has all been about Israel. Let us be honest: for some of the people arguing against the legislation, it will always be about Israel. Whatever has happened, they are always here with words against Israel, holding Israel to different standards. It is the same people; they just find a different argument. It is the same on every issue related to the middle east. They are always here, some of them in this House, and it is always about the behaviour of the state of Israel.

I find it a really bizarre claim that because some people might react unpleasantly, or potentially violently, to us banning a campaign that all of us who have spoken so far—well, maybe not all of us—agree is antisemitic, that might inflame community tensions. What we are saying there, in effect, is that the elected House of Commons of the United Kingdom should not act because some people might not like it and might get violent. A country that follows that line of argument is a country that is lost. We agree that this is antisemitic and it should not matter, therefore, whether some people who might not like our approach might react. They have been reacting fairly unpleasantly already—we have all seen the marches—so I just do not buy that argument.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

I have a huge amount of affection for my hon. Friend and understanding of what he is saying. I ask him to give me his view on the following, which relates to my concern. I take everything that he is saying, but at a time when our country can play a pivotal role in trying to de-escalate and find a peaceful solution to the horror unravelling in the middle east, what assessment has he made of the damage that could arise from a claim of partiality being levelled against the Government for bringing this Bill forward at this time?

[Andrew Percy]

My hon. Friend said he had affection for me. Not many people say that, so I welcome it and I will be framing that part of Hansard. However, I will just push back on the point he makes. How is impartiality impacted by outlawing something that all of us agree is antisemitic? Who sits on the Palestinian BDS National Committee? It is Hamas and Islamic Jihad. So are we saying that we should not ban this antisemitic campaign because some people might not like that. We can push that argument quickly back in the other direction.

I went over my time on the last occasion, so I am going to stay absolutely within my time now, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will end with a powerful quote in The Jewish Chronicle today from its former editor Stephen Pollard. He said:

“You might think that now of all times, when the world has witnessed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, there would be a clamour, a rush, even a demand for the BDS Bill to be passed. Now of all times, surely, is the time to stand up and say we see where Jew hate leads.”

That is the best argument for this legislation and for why now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The shared prosperity fund is vital for many people, as it replaces EU funds. Last week, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee heard from First Steps Women’s Centre, Women’s Support Network, Mencap and the Kilcooley Women’s Centre, among others, about their huge budget problems, particularly given the lack of a functioning Executive. Can the Secretary of State update us?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend has been vigilant on behalf of communities in Northern Ireland. We will make a statement later this week. The Minister for Levelling Up, my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Dehenna Davison), and I will do everything we can to ensure continuity of funding for those services.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Simon Hoare Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

Because so much of the Bill focuses on England only, I will concentrate my remarks on amendment 14. The fact that this amendment has to be tabled at all shows that the Government cannot, and do not expect to, meet their own expectations raised in the Bill. There is nothing more dangerous than raising expectations that will not be met.

This is not just a Bill in the usual sense; levelling up is not a run-of-the-mill promise that can easily be broken and forgotten. According to the Government, the very concept of levelling up is a flagship policy—a policy designed to change the face of the UK, genuinely to seek to spread prosperity and opportunity, and to make our communities better right across the board. Anyone who has such expectations based on what the Government have said about the Bill and its aims will, I fear, be disappointed. The very fact that amendment 14 exists illustrates that they will be disappointed. It is not credible that a Government so in love with austerity can be trusted to level up in any meaningful and sustainable way. Growth in the UK has been fatally undermined by both incompetence and Brexit. That is why amendment 14 matters and why we in the SNP support it.

In the absence of growth and grown-up and frank conversations about the damage of Brexit, we have instead vague missions, with no real plans for delivery—missions that are, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, of dubious quality. Yet still the Government have reserved to themselves the power to change the goalposts. That demonstrates that the Government are not even clear about how they will measure the success or the progress of the very missions that they have set themselves.

An annual report can apparently make everything all right, but it simply will not be enough to keep the Government on track to achieve their objectives. There is also a lack of ownership and accountability for each of the 12 levelling-up missions by individual Government Departments. None of this is news to the Government, of course, which is why they have retained that authority to move the goalposts and change their own targets if they are not going to be met. This is like someone marking their own homework and reserving the right to change the pass mark of the test that they have set themselves. That does not sound like a Government who are confident about their own delivery, even though we are talking about a flagship policy.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady honestly think that there is something fundamentally wrong in a Government Department saying that it will have measures and targets, that it will review, and that it may recalibrate and tweak in order to reflect circumstances over a period of time? Governments do not straitjacket themselves. There has to be flexibility, particularly when taxpayers’ money is being deployed.

[Patricia Gibson]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is not about flexibility; it is about credibility. There is nothing wrong with the aims as articulated by the UK Government, but a Government cannot set themselves a task, call it a flagship policy and then reserve the right to move the goalposts as and when they fail to make progress. That is an important point.

The hon. Gentleman brings me to another very important matter. On the delivery of levelling up, what of the bids that were announced as being successful this time last year? We are in a different situation now, because the costs of labour and resources are being impacted by inflationary pressures. With regard to infrastructure projects, for example, road stone inflation is currently running at around 35%. This means that, in order to continue to support the levelling-up projects to which they have committed funds, the UK Government must increase the awards already made to take account of inflation, or councils must make up the difference because of the impact of inflation, which is difficult as council resources are already very stretched, or projects that were envisaged and costed last year are significantly scaled back. If it is the latter, that is very serious, because even successful levelling-up bids cannot have the impact that was first envisaged when the bids were made and approved. It is a mess.

There is also a significant impact on projects currently awaiting approval as they will be similarly hit with soaring inflation. I am very keen to find out how this will be dealt with. If this is not taken into account, bids already approved are hamstrung and cannot have the impact envisaged, which means that levelling up, as set out in the Bill, will amount to even less than it did before, with its vague missions and moving goalposts. It is no wonder that the Government want the ability to move the goalposts.

How ironic that, after more than a decade of Tory misrule and austerity, the UK is in a worse position than it should be, facing the worst downturn of any advanced economy in the world. No eurozone country is expected to decline as much as the UK, and, as a whole, the eurozone is expected to grow—so much for levelling up. In this context, marking their own homework and permitting changes to the mission, progress and methodology start to make the Government look more than a little suspicious. They could, of course, support amendment 14 and put all those suspicions to bed.

We are supposed to be persuaded simply by the mere passing of a Bill, vague and lacking in credibility as it is, that this Government can and will deliver levelling up. It is almost Orwellian. At the very point that we have a weakened economy, crumbling exports, rising food prices, rising energy prices, challenges with our fuel supply, and with the Government’s own forecasts predicting worse to come, the Secretary of State has the power to change the mission and progress of levelling up. That does not look like a Government who are confident and certain that they will actually deliver the meaningful levelling up that they say they want to deliver. However, if they support amendment 14, they could commit themselves in a way that would be far more credible.