DRAFT COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE LEVY (AMENDMENT) (ENGLAND) (NO. 2) REGULATIONS 2020
Steve McCabe Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Christopher Pincher
The hon. Gentleman knows full well that Wales has been unable to build more council homes in a year than there are members of a Welsh rugby team, so we will not take too many lectures from the Labour party about building homes.
The hon. Gentleman talks about affordable homes, but let me remind him of the affordable homes programme that we announced only last month. We announced £12.3 billion of funding to build affordable homes in our country, which is the largest such cash injection for 15 years—and that is on top of the last affordable homes cash injection. We estimate that, economic conditions allowing, that will build 180,000 new homes, the majority of which will be for discounted or social rent. We have taken a firm stand to build the right homes that our people want and need.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned section 106. He will know that over 80% of local authorities and developers say that the present system is too opaque and too slow, and does not deliver the infrastructure and affordable homes that are required. That is one of the reasons why, in our “Planning for the future” White Paper, we are consulting on a change to the developer contribution levy: from a split between CIL and section 106, to a simple single infrastructure levy that might be set locally. I encourage him and his colleagues to look at that White Paper and the consultation, and to submit their thoughts accordingly.
I am confident that, as a result of the consultation that we undertook earlier this year, which received a great deal of feedback and closed on 1 May, in which 77% of respondents said that these proposals will bring forward more First Homes—they are right—
Christopher Pincher
I am also confident that the proposals that we are considering today are right. I encourage the Committee to support them, and I discourage the Opposition from setting their face against the right to home ownership.
The Chair
Does the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) wish to make a speech?
Planning and House Building
Steve McCabe Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
The latest Government figures show that about 2.5 million planning approvals have been granted by councils since 2009-10, but only about 1.5 million have been actioned, so I am not sure that councils are the problem. In my constituency, the lack of action to tackle developers who breach planning laws is a major concern: 97% of residents in my local survey want a quicker and easier system to address that. They also want a right of appeal on applications that have a major impact on the character of their area and change of use applications.
Raising the minimum number of houses before a developer contribution applies will not improve the supply of affordable housing. Affordable housing need does vary. It is a major issue in Birmingham, and I feel that thresholds would be better determined locally based on local needs.
The abolition of section 106 payments could rob local communities of benefits that they derive from new developments. Government statistics released in November last year showed that nearly half of all affordable homes in England delivered in 2018-19 were financed or part-financed through section 106 agreements. We need to know that the infrastructure levy will be at least as good as the system that it is replacing.
Like the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney), I have concerns about proposals to allow additional storeys. I am not clear whether that will apply to student accommodation, but I say to the Minister that there is already an issue in my constituency with landlords who build unsuitable extensions. They are basically seeking to cram in as many rooms as possible, and I am really worried about the safety implications of this proposal.
Finally, reducing the planning timescale from 16 weeks to eight weeks will reduce the time for people to marshal objections to unwelcome proposals. In fact, moving all the notifications online will further curtail local awareness of proposals, so I wonder whether the Minister wants to look at that again.
Post Office and Horizon Software
Steve McCabe Excerpts(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Karl Turner
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: alarm bells must have been ringing. I am not saying that my legal advice at the time was bad advice; I think it was perfectly good, considering the weight of the evidence and the instructions I was receiving. However, somewhere in the Post Office, someone must have been saying, “Hang on a minute. We get maybe two or three allegations of wrongdoing per month or year”—I do not know what the figures might be—“but all of a sudden, we have 550 thieving, dishonest sub-postmasters who have never had so much as a parking ticket in their lives,” as Janet Skinner said to me. It is utterly deplorable.
For me, the alarm bell rang in 2015 when “Panorama” did its documentary, which was chilling. My blood ran cold, because I had to remind myself what advice I had given and check with myself whether everything had been absolutely right in that regard. Since I have been involved with this matter, I have been contacted by a sub-postmaster who got the opportunity to not be prosecuted by paying the Post Office back; he had to sell his house to do so. He has made the important point that the only people he could turn to were those in the National Federation of SubPostmasters.
That sub-postmaster agreed to do an interview in a spare bedroom of his own home. He says in his email that he was shocked to witness the investigating officer, when speaking with the NFSP representative, telling him to “fucking shut up”. At the time, he thought for that reason that the NFSP representative was on his side, but he now thinks that it was all a scam—that the representative was pretending to be interested, to be befriending him, and to be representing him in that interview.
Karl Turner
Thank you, Mr McCabe; I will finish now. That sub-postmaster is now wondering whether what he experienced was all part of the scam. Given what has now been found in these proceedings, I wonder that as well.
People have to be compensated properly. Lawyers must be paid. This was an incredibly costly litigation—a David and Goliath situation in which people needed to make representations in proceedings before courts. The Government must step in immediately, pay the legal costs on behalf of those victims, and get them the money they so desperately deserve.
Steve McCabe (in the Chair)
I am going to have to impose a six-minute limit on speeches if we are to get everybody else in.
Ian Paisley
The hon. Member and I are on the same page. This has got to be sorted out and a payment has got to be made. Ultimately, the right person and the right corporation have to be held responsible and accountable for their actions. If individuals have done even some of the things that the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire recounted to the House on behalf of his constituent—my goodness! Four or five people in the basement of that room should be taken to court and held accountable for their actions. We need to face this issue honestly and openly.
I call on the Government to have some transparency. Let the public be the judge and jury. Let us set out with transparency the amount of money that was supposed to be paid, and who is getting what of that money. If it means shaming certain people for walking away with their pockets stuffed full because they represented a case—they are entitled to their payments, but postmasters get absolutely zilch in some circumstances—that should be exposed. I hope it is exposed. I call on the Minister to ensure that we have that transparency, because of what has now happened.
Steve McCabe (in the Chair)
I call Duncan Baker. Mr Baker, thank you for notifying me of your interests. Will you repeat the information for the record?
Andrew Bridgen
I appreciate the experience that my hon. Friend brings to this debate. Through our investigations years ago, we discovered that the Horizon system had a suspense account in it. It was a flawless system, yet it had a suspense account, where unallocated funds ended up throughout the whole system. The surplus—and it was a surplus—ran to hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, and after three years it was returned to the profit and loss account.
Duncan Baker
To date, my constituent has had no money back, like many others. They have had no indication of when the money is coming back and we are sceptical about how much they will get back.
Financial compensation is just one issue. The mental strain and loss of earnings should also be taken extremely seriously. There is the humiliation of walking down the street and being accused of stealing, having done nothing wrong. We are a fair society and it is our responsibility to ensure that those people are paid back in full.
I totally agree that the £58 million that was put to one side will no doubt be hoovered up by lawyers. What will be left for the real victims? That is not right. The Government must intervene and force the Post Office to make good the losses that those postmasters have suffered, in full. The board of the Post Office is accountable for this fiasco. Action must be taken against it. The issue is most definitely worthy of a public inquiry to uncover the extent of the wrongdoing that has occurred. We need transparency and a fair analysis.
As far as I am concerned, the Post Office knew that Horizon had bugs, errors and defects. It was told about that and chose to ignore it. Multiple accounts of losses should ring alarm bells in any organisation, but the Post Office was more concerned with its reputation and so individuals were accused of stealing, false accounting and fraud. Their names have to be cleared. The criminal records of those jailed must be overturned.
My constituents, who cannot bring themselves to talk about this, still feel the shame of being accused and nothing will repair the damage of losing their livelihood. However, I want to say, from my personal experience of being a sub-postmaster, that the post office is an invaluable place on our dwindling high streets. It is a hub for people to go to that offers incredible services. Post office workers do an incredible job. It is hard; there are many transactions to master. They do a superb job. The people accused should be properly recompensed, supported and entirely vindicated.