Tenant Fees Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 5th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I rise not only to endorse the changes made by the Government, but to support the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) and to welcome the Bill. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee heard wise evidence and counsel from various groups, including landlords’ organisations and local authorities, and it is quite clear that there has been a bit of a wild west for many years in certain parts of country. I am proud to say that I have some excellent, responsible agents in my constituency, but there are the less scrupulous exceptions for whom greater regulation is really needed, so the Bill is timely. I have lived and rented in France, where it was evident just how much tighter and more balanced the legislation was.

To echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby, this is really about rebalancing the relationship between landlord, agent and tenant to make it much more transparent and much fairer. For many years tenants have felt disempowered in that relationship, and over the past 20 years we have seen significant growth in the proportion of people renting privately. That proportion has doubled, and in some parts of the country, such as the north-east, it has increased by 200%. It is important that we get to grips with this, and the Bill moves us a long way in doing that.

In the past week I spoke to a student in my constituency who is facing tenant fees of £595 for one year. In some cases we are witnessing extortion, particularly in sectors with high churn, typically with one-year tenancies. We could have gone further, but I welcome the main part of the Bill.

As has been said in the Chamber, and also by organisations such as Shelter, Citizens Advice and Which?, the default fees could have been more clearly and more extensively defined. As the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said, what is reasonable is open to interpretation. We have seen extreme cases involving replacement key costs, for example. I support amendment 3, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby, in those circumstances.

The level of the deposit cap was widely raised with the Select Committee by landlords and others. I would have preferred a four-week maximum, but I understand how we got to where we are. Deposit caps are a particular issue for high-churn tenancies. The idea of passporting, as proposed by the Minister, is a welcome move.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Does he agree with the observation, which has also been made by bodies such as Shelter, that an impact of high deposits is increased homelessness? Homelessness has tripled in my area of the south lakes in the past year, despite our building more council houses. A six-week limit would mean an average deposit of £1,100, which would make a rental property unaffordable for many people.

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid and pertinent point. High deposits are very much part of the cause of homelessness in many areas, because people feel financially and socially excluded from the private rented sector. As I alluded to at the beginning of my speech, high deposits have made renting privately much more difficult. In the same period we have seen a 20% reduction in social rented properties, which are critical.

I will move on because of time. On the issue of compliance, the Select Committee heard how few authorities, whether it be because of less appetite or because they just do not have the enforcement officers, follow through on enforcement. As we have heard, 93% of authorities have not taken enforcement action against rogue landlords. Of course the shining exception is Newham, which, as the Select Committee heard, accounts for half those enforcement cases.

I urge the Minister to reconsider Labour amendments 1 and 2. If £30,000 is seen as too high a maximum, there should be flexibility for authorities to introduce a more appropriate figure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby said—the hon. Member for Harrow East mentioned that £5,000 is a cost of doing business. That is how this was all done in the past, and we have to break that for the future because of the growth and importance of the private rental sector.

I support and welcome the Bill, but I would just ask for tighter regulation of default fees.

Govia Thameslink Franchise

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

We have focused compensation, as we did with the Southern compensation that resulted from the industrial action 18 months or so ago, on passengers who have been most severely affected. Although Southern passengers have experienced certain knock-on effects, they have not been as affected by disruption as those on the main Thameslink services and Great Northern services following the introduction of the timetable on 20 May.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

My constituents stand in strong solidarity with, and have great sympathy for, the passengers of Govia Thameslink. Will the Minister make a statement on Arriva Northern Rail’s now tedious and predictable ongoing failure to serve Cumbria, in particular? Having cancelled every single train in June, four days ago Arriva Northern cancelled 33 trains on the Furness, lakes and coastal lines on one day. Given that the chaos predates the new timetable, the company cannot blame it. Will the Minister help us out by explaining precisely how dreadful Arriva Northern needs to be before he will get his act together, remove its franchise and give us back our trains? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Somebody says, “Irrelevant.” Well, I exercised latitude. I think that there may be a diversionary route. The link between Cumbria and Thameslink—if it exists—is tangential, but the hon. Gentleman has deployed such intellectual dexterity as he possesses, which I am sure is very considerable, to render his question orderly, in a manner of speaking.

Rail Services: Cumbria

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of rail services in Cumbria.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Cheryl. I will try to make my speech a little shorter than it would have been, to allow time for the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who shares my deep concerns on this issue.

The Lakes line, between Oxenholme and Windermere in my constituency, may be only a short, 12-mile stretch of railway, but when it comes to significance, it punches far above its length. The Lake district is in its first full year of being a world heritage site, meaning many thousands more tourists, at least, visiting our part of the world. The Lakes line is essential to those visitors accessing the astounding natural beauty of the national park and surrounding areas and the wonderful tourism industry that provides such a breadth of experiences for locals and visitors alike. Our tourism industry generates £3 billion a year, supports 60,000 jobs and is vital to our local economy, but the Lakes line service is not only used by tourists. It is also a key part of the lives of many locals. It is used by hundreds of commuting schoolchildren and workers and is a means of accessing vital services—or at least that is how it used to be. Over the past few months, that has all changed.

When 200 of us walked in protest along the length of the Lakes line 10 days ago, what had been a bustling line was deserted. There were no people at the stations and no trains on the tracks. And let us not fall into the trap of believing that the new timetables are entirely to blame for this catastrophe. Services on the Furness line and the Lakes line have been consistently failing and regularly cancelled ever since Northern took over the two lines in April 2016. This April alone saw 160 cancellations just on the Lakes line. By itself, that substandard provision would be totally unacceptable, but Northern has taken underperformance to new heights.

Like so many others in Cumbria, I was horrified to hear Northern’s announcement on Monday 4 June that all trains on the Lakes line were to be completely suspended—a train line with no trains. The Northern franchise is huge, covering all the local and commuter services in the north-east, Yorkshire and almost all the north-west of England, yet since the introduction of Northern’s interim timetable on 11 June, one in five of all the cancellations on the entire huge network has been on the relatively small Lakes line. Indeed, it is the only line in the country on which services have been completely suspended. That is beyond unsatisfactory; it is completely unacceptable.

However, Northern has not stopped there. We learned on Friday that Arriva Northern had extended the suspension by a further two weeks, to 2 July. That was possible only because the Government had rubber-stamped its request to extend that appalling suspension. A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said that it did not object to that “operational decision”, despite the fact that the Secretary of State himself had assured me that he was

“not prepared to accept more than the current two weeks”

and that he had been

“clear to Arriva that doing this over the long term is simply unacceptable”.—[Official Report, 4 June 2018; Vol. 642, c. 58.]

Those are the Secretary of State’s own words, on the record, from the statement in the House of Commons on 4 June—words that he repeated to me and the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness when we met him that evening. It sounds very much to me, and to many of us, as though the Secretary of State said one thing to the House on that Monday and in practice did the opposite on Friday.

This calamity could not have come at a worse time. The cancellations have occurred during the Easter holidays and through the May half-term, and they are now hitting the local economy during the early summer season. There are fears that the substandard or non-existent provision could stretch into the summer holidays.

Let me gently remind the Minister that we are not a dispensable backwater. After London, we are Britain’s second biggest visitor destination. Our contribution to the UK economy is huge and our contribution to the broader British brand is unrivalled. The lack of trains has already had a catastrophic impact on the people of Cumbria, and the toll that it will inevitably take on the local economy could be enormous. Over the past few weeks, local young people taking their A-level and GCSE exams have found themselves stranded or late to school. People have missed hospital appointments and benefits assessments, while others have been regularly late to work. One woman I spoke to is having to move house from Staveley to Kendal just so that her kids can get to and from school every day and she is not blighted by the worry of her 12-year-old child being stranded in town and unable to get home.

Northern has not only failed to do its job, but completely undermined local confidence in this stretch of railway. My constituents are voting with their feet, and the sight of deserted train platforms along the line is now all too familiar. The replacement bus services are barely used by locals at all. Tourists use the service only because they see no alternative.

However, Northern’s utter failure to do its job and provide adequate train services in Cumbria is not limited to the Lakes line. Over the past few months, the Lakes, Furness and Cumbrian coast lines have all experienced shocking services.

[Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)]

There are also concerns about staffing levels at Northern. It is short of train crew to cover the new Cumbrian Coast timetable, and the Northern control centres are so overstretched that the routes in Cumbria seem to have fallen right to the bottom of its list of priorities. Over the past month, there have been daily cancellations of trains through Workington, including the last train of the day, which is a huge inconvenience and runs the risk of stranding people miles away from home, with no idea of how to get back. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the situation is simply unsustainable and that Northern is badly letting down thousands of people on a daily basis?

[Tim Farron]

I completely agree with everything that the hon. Lady has said. It feels to me very much as though all the lines in Cumbria are afterthoughts for Northern, given its huge empire. Many of the staffing problems would have been completely foreseeable and predictable by competent management who were planning for the future and had Cumbria’s interests at heart, so the hon. Lady is absolutely right to say what she has said.

As I said, over the past few months the Lakes, Furness and Cumbrian Coast lines have all experienced shocking services. My constituents who use the stations at Arnside, Grange-over-Sands, Kents Bank and Cark have experienced service equally dreadful to that experienced by those who use Oxenholme, Kendal, Burneside, Staveley and Windermere. That is not the result of accidental oversight; it has been caused by a series of appalling decisions by both Northern and the Government.

There seem to be three main failings that must be identified and fixed. First, the Government’s choice to cancel electrification of the Lakes line last year has very clearly contributed to the mess that we are in today. Northern took on the line on the understanding—this is the only excuse I will allow the company—that it would soon be running electric trains, and it planned and ordered on that basis. Because of the Government’s decision to cancel electrification, on the basis of inaccurate figures that must now be revisited, Northern were forced quickly to borrow from Scotland old diesel trains that their drivers were not trained to run.

Secondly, the Government awarded the Lakes line and Furness line franchises to Arriva Northern from April 2016. This was an unfolding disaster from day one, given the removal of good services from TransPennine and the introduction of substandard stock and service from Northern. The Minister should undo that mistake today and take the Furness and Lakes lines off Northern. It has clearly breached the terms of its contract: it is contracted to run trains and it has failed to do so.

Thirdly, we have seen incompetence from Northern and inertia from the Government. The fact that no statement was made to Parliament on the crisis until 4 June, despite months of poor performance and despite many of us raising the matter in the weeks and months beforehand—I raised it at Prime Minister’s questions and at Transport questions weeks before it came to the House of the Government’s own volition—leaves many of us questioning the Government’s commitment to those of us in the far north-west.

When the Secretary of State did finally make a statement to the House, it was in part to explain that he had permitted Northern not only to cancel trains, but to cancel an entire line for what turned out to be a month. That cancellation is as unprecedented as it is unacceptable.

In the last few days, a number of us have chosen to prove that we could and would do what the Government and Northern rail could or would not. On Sunday, thanks to the Lakes line rail user group, West Coast Railways and many other volunteers, we began a temporary and limited, but reliable and glorious, service on the Lakes line. The Lakelander has been successfully running on that line for the last four days, and it has kept to time.

Many in Government and the rail industry have helped us—they know who they are, and they probably would not thank me if I named them—but many have not been so helpful. As we have gone through the process of reintroducing trains to England’s most picturesque railway line, we have seen from the inside the lack of co-ordination and can-do spirit in some parts of Government and the rail industry. Never have I seen so much buck-passing or excuse-making as I have in the last few days. Despite that, we now have a limited but excellent service on the Lakes line—a heritage operator on a commuter route.

I do not need to tell hon. Members that that is not a long-term solution, so I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm what action he plans to take. Will he remove the Lakes and Furness lines from Northern as a matter of urgency and run those services directly from the Department until a suitable operator can be identified with the necessary resources, competence and commitment that those two superb lines deserve? The Secretary of State told me and the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness that he would look at that option two weeks ago, so what progress have the Government made?

Will the Minister look again at the case for the electrification of the Lakes line? We now know that the Secretary of State cancelled the electrification last year based on figures that were ludicrously inaccurate. The model that he threw out was based on a service with trains running on at least two tracks, at 125 mph and at intervals of less than two minutes. I respectfully remind the Minister that a brief look at the Lakes line demonstrates that we require none of those things. As a result of using that inaccurate model, it was assumed that the electrification would cost more than double what it would cost to electrify the line in reality. Given the enormous damage done to the reputation of the Lakes line by Northern and the Government, does the Minister agree that the best way to show ongoing commitment to it would be to keep the Government’s initial promise to electrify the line?

Will the Minister fulfil the promise made to me by the Secretary of State in yesterday’s debate to ensure funding to support a marketing campaign to repair and boost the reputation of the Lakes line and of the wider Cumbrian economy? I have forwarded a formal bid for that package to him. I am grateful to Cumbria Tourism, which I asked to draft that proposal and which came up with an excellent bid. I understand that the Minister spoke to the chief executive of Cumbria Tourism this morning, and I am grateful to him for that, so I hope that he will be able to announce today that he will endorse that bid.

Given the chaos on our railways, will the Minister clarify his and the Secretary of State’s powers? On the east coast main line, it appears that the Government have the power to remove a franchise from an operator because the shareholders deem it unprofitable. However, Northern, which has demonstrated an inability to run a basic train service, still retains its franchise. Why has the Secretary of State not intervened? Is it because he does not have the power? In that case, when will the Government seek such powers from Parliament? I, for one, would be happy to vote to grant them. Or is it that he has those powers but has chosen not to use them, in which case he has quite some explaining to do to the people of Cumbria?

It appears that the Government are prepared to take a line away from a rail company when shareholders are losing money, but when passengers are left stranded and are forced to miss work and school, they simply look the other way. That raises the question: what is the purpose of the railways? Are they a public service that underpins our economy, or simply an opportunity for private profit at public expense?

In arranging the Lakes line temporary shuttle service over the last few days, it has become clear that when there is a commitment to a railway line, a passion to serve local people and a determination to succeed, anything is possible. The question is: is the Northern franchise not simply too big and too unwieldy for its own good? Would it not be better for the Cumbrian lines to be taken out of the franchise altogether and run as a micro-franchise so that the people who run our lines are also the people who are committed to them?

I was walking with my children along the old railway line at Sandside between Milnthorpe and Arnside last week. We talked about what had happened to that old line—why it had been closed, the tracks removed and the viaduct dismantled. The Beeching axe fell more than half a century ago on lines that the industry had given up on. It is painfully clear to all of us that Northern has given up on Cumbria. For the sake of everyone who relies on the Lakes and Furness lines, from local students and commuters to our millions of visitors, I call on the Minister to give Northern its marching orders. The travellers of Cumbria are at the end of their tether and, frankly, so am I.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (in the Chair)]

With permission of the hon. Member who moved the motion, I call John Woodcock for a brief contribution.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Joseph Johnson)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on securing this debate, which gives us the chance to discuss the Lakes line and Northern in some detail. That is important at this time of significant disruption to passenger services, which affects his constituents and those of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), who also made some powerful points. Let me not forget the points made by the hon. Member for Workington (Sue Hayman) on behalf of her constituents.

I want to remind all hon. Members that the Department’s overriding priority is to restore the reliability of the service across the network. The Secretary of State has left franchise owners, including Northern, under no illusion that they must urgently improve their operational performance. We are also seeking to ensure that we learn all the lessons of why we are in this position and of what has happened since the introduction of the timetable on 20 May, so we have commissioned an independent report by Stephen Glaister, the chair of the Office of Rail and Road.

On Northern’s performance, passengers have experienced unacceptable disruption to their journeys on parts of the network, particularly on the Lakes line. There is a very long way to go until performance reaches what anyone would regard as a reasonable level, but, as I said yesterday, there are signs of improvement. We are starting to turn a corner. The introduction of a temporary timetable by Northern on 4 June will start to rebuild passengers’ trust. The first signs are promising. Industry figures show that over the first two weeks of the reduced timetable, 80% of trains arrived on time and 4% of trains were cancelled or arrived significantly late. That compares to the previous two-week period when 66% of trains arrived on time and an average of 12% of trains were cancelled or significantly late. That is clearly not yet good enough by any stretch; I am not by any means suggesting that. What is important is that we build on that improvement and ensure that over the coming weeks Northern makes further progress towards restoring journeys and reducing disruption as rapidly as possible. Northern plans to run that timetable until the end of July, when it will review progress and hopes to significantly increase the number of timetabled services while continuing to ensure increasing stability.

On the Lakes line, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale has said, Northern took the decision to implement an interim timetable from the morning of 4 June and, within that timetable, to effect a temporary suspension of all its services on the Lakes line. That was an operational decision taken by Northern and accepted by Transport for the North, which co-manages the franchise along with the Department for Transport, as the best temporary solution for passengers. That gave the operator greater flexibility to allocate work and training, and it concentrates resources on providing a more resilient train service on wider parts of the network, while providing Lakes line passengers with a more reliable service.

[Tim Farron]

The Minister says that Transport for the North and the Department for Transport share the franchise. Can he clarify that the Department was asked for and granted permission to extend the suspension of services on the Lakes line?

[Joseph Johnson]

Yes, I can confirm that the franchise is co-managed by Transport for the North, which represents the 19 local transport authorities and local businesses, and the Department for Transport, through the Rail North Partnership. The Rail North Partnership accepted Northern’s operational decision, and the Department for Transport did not accept the decision that went to the Transport for the North board and to the Department for Transport for approval.

The Transport Secretary has been very clear that the line must be open as soon as possible, and Northern is working to keep customers on the move, especially with the tourist season soon reaching its busiest time. From 11 June, the bus service was increased to a pattern of three buses an hour, compared with the usual hourly train service. As well as Northern, both Transport for the North and Transport Focus have been working to obtain feedback from passengers about the replacement bus service. I understand that there has been recognition that the bus service is regarded as acceptable.

I am aware that an open-access operator, West Coast Railways, has agreed access with Network Rail and holds a valid safety certificate with the Office of Rail and Road, permitting it to run services. I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale on his efforts in galvanising services along the route. In the meantime, the Rail North Partnership and the Department have focused on the introduction of full scheduled Northern services. I am pleased to note the announcement yesterday of a shuttle service between Oxenholme and Windermere offering 12 services daily to commence from 2 July. Northern has consulted Cumbria County Council, the Rail North Partnership and Transport for the North on the details of that shuttle service, which will be an important next step for the resumption of high-quality services in the Lakes area.

On why problems happened and what is being done about them, as hon. Members know, Northern has faced a shortage in the availability of drivers with appropriate route and traction knowledge in various locations, which has, unfortunately, led to far more delays and cancellations to train services. As a result of the delay to electrification schemes in the north-west, Northern is currently undertaking a significant training plan for drivers. That training is planned to continue until the end of July. Northern has also worked hard with ASLEF regarding the situation around rest day working and is hopeful of finding a longer-term resolution that will improve performance. Once the problems are resolved, we will have a much better service for passengers. I understand that that is small comfort to them when things are not working as they should, but once we are through this difficult period, we will have a better railway at the end of it, particularly once all the new trains start to arrive later this year.

On compensation, we are clear that passengers on the lines that have been severely affected will receive additional compensation. My Department is working closely with Network Rail, train operators and stakeholders to introduce a special compensation scheme as soon as possible. We have already recommended to the board of Transport for the North that passengers who buy weekly, monthly or annual tickets on Northern and TPE-affected routes should be eligible to claim up to four weeks’ compensation. We are inviting Transport for the North to work with the operators on the detail of the scheme, which will be announced by the operators in due course so that passengers make compensation claims from early July. I hope that Transport for the North’s board will be able to confirm the final details of the compensation scheme by the time of its next board meeting on 28 June, so that payments can begin to flow in July.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale asked about support for the northern economy. We are looking at options to support the Northern economy further, and we expect Northern to fund a marketing campaign encouraging travel to affected areas by train, including the Lakes line when it resumes operation by Northern.

The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness asked structural questions about the shape of the franchise and its future. I understand that passengers have been frustrated by the changes that have happened since services were transferred from TPE to Northern a couple of years ago. The rolling stock is not as good, and reliability has suffered in a way that is not acceptable. There was also understandable disappointment that the Lakes line will not be electrified as previously planned.

[Tim Farron]

To press the Minister on that point, I spoke to Mark Carne a couple of weeks ago and he said he would look again at electrification of the Lakes line. Admittedly, that was before I criticised his award of a CBE, but I hope that he does not take that personally. I would be grateful if the Minister paid serious attention to the possibility of reopening that case, given the evidence I put forward in my speech.

[Joseph Johnson]

We are looking very carefully at how we can deliver the passenger benefits that electrification would have delivered along the Lakes line. We are continually assessing projects to ensure they offer the best approach. Technology, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is advancing very quickly, and the Government are committed to using the most suitable, practical and affordable approach to modernising each part of the network. Bi-mode trains and other technologies mean that we do not need to electrify every bit of every line to achieve significant improvements, and we will electrify lines only where it delivers a genuine benefit to passengers.

Northern will begin work to explore the possibility of deploying alternative-fuel trains on the route by 2021. It will be a trial to pilot trains capable of using the electrified mainline to Manchester airport and then switching to battery power sources on the Lakes line. Until that happens, the Secretary of State has committed to new trains operating on that line from 2019, subject to the business case.

All stations on the Northern network will benefit from a £38 million investment in bringing stations up to standard, delivering new platform seating, replacement shelters, new waiting rooms and toilets and customer information screens. That will be delivered by the station improvement fund and will also include ticket machines, real-time information and help points at every station with at least 10 passengers using it every day. There will be an additional £9 million investment in making stations more inclusive and accessible.

The Department, working through the Rail North Partnership, is putting in place an action plan for Northern, which includes improving driver rostering to get more trains running now, increasing driver training on new routes, additional contingency drivers and management presence at key locations in Manchester and putting extra peak services in the timetable along the Bolton corridor. Northern has also announced that, until the end of July, it will run fewer services than were originally planned, per the May timetable, to give passengers greater certainty and to increase opportunities for driver training. That temporary measure is necessary to stabilise the service, enabling improvements to be introduced.

I hope that I have reassured hon. Members of the seriousness with which the Government are taking the disruption facing passengers. We are taking action to resolve the problems as quickly as possible, to compensate passengers and to learn the lessons that will help prevent such problems happening in future.

Question put and agreed to.

Rating (Property in Common Occupation) and Council Tax (Empty Dwellings) Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

This Bill, above all, promotes fairness; it promotes fairness for hard-working business rate payers hit by a tax hike that they could not have anticipated—the so-called staircase tax—and fairness for those who struggle to find somewhere to live while properties lie empty for years. That was why we moved quickly to introduce the Bill and ensure that ratepayers, in particular, receive the urgent help that it will provide. I thank hon. Members on both sides of the House for their contributions and support in helping us to achieve this aim.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The Minister is making important points and the Bill does some important things. However, it could do something important that it does not—it does not allow local authorities, such as his and mine, in very rural areas to vary council tax on second homes. He will be aware that in the Yorkshire dales and the Lake district, vast percentages of communities are empty most of the year round because homes are not lived in. That undermines schools, public transport and the sustainability of such communities. Will the Government listen to local authorities and local communities and allow council tax to be raised to tackle the problem of excessive second-home ownership?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, for his intervention. He is right to point out the issue of second homes in rural areas, which he and I have local familiarity with. I gently disagree when he says that nothing is being done. As he will be aware, the Government introduced a stamp duty surcharge for second homes. Much of the funds raised from that have gone to schemes, perhaps in his constituency and certainly in mine, in areas with high second-home ownership—for example, in Hudswell in Richmondshire, where community land trusts have been funded to create affordable housing for local occupancy. Beyond that, local plans, which no doubt will be discussed in the forthcoming debate, also allow local communities to have control over who is living in new build properties.

Work is being done, and all that followed the work done by the coalition Government to remove the automatic discount for second homes. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that that was in place for many years. The coalition Government removed the necessity for the discount to apply, and now the vast majority of second homes are not eligible for a council tax discount, but he is right to point out the issue. The Department is looking more broadly at the loophole with regard to business rates applying to second homes and them then qualifying for an exemption through small business rates relief. This has been raised by hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) and others from Cornwall, so the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) can rest assured that I am keeping an eye on this issue.

I return to the Bill, which deals with empty homes. I thank our partners in the rating sector for their invaluable help with the draft provisions, together with the very detailed and technical work that was done by officials, to whom I pay thanks. This has helped us to bring effective legislation to the House that navigates the intricacies of ratings law.

I also pay tribute to the work of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. Not only did its comments on the definition of a void find their way to the language in the final Bill, but I noted the points raised on Second Reading by the Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). He is not in his place, but I thank him and assure him that I look forward to working with him in future to ensure that Bills from my Department and in my brief go through the adequate legislative scrutiny process that we were fortunate to enjoy doing with the Committee. Lastly, I thank the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon) for his input and constructive attitude in the Bill Committee. I very much look forward to working with him on future local government measures.

In conclusion, this Bill delivers on our commitment to fairness and supports those in our country who want to build a better life. It is a Bill for those looking for a place to call home. It is a Bill for small businesses. It is a Bill that I hope we can all welcome, and I commend it to the House.