Rural Councils: Funding

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is an absolute honour to serve under your stewardship this morning, Mrs Latham. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who made a very good speech. It is great that he introduced this topic for us to coalesce around, although I will say something that right hon. and hon. Members might not like to hear: I have analysed the 6,366 words that the Chancellor used in his autumn statement last week, and not a single one of them was the word “rural”. That might be an accidental and pedantic omission, or it might tell us more than the Chancellor intended. It certainly rings bells with rural communities in Westmorland, who feel ignored and taken for granted.

I want to make two or three quick points about the formula for funding rural councils. First, authorities such as mine are inadequately funded to take account of the number of temporary residents in our communities. Some 227,000 people live in the area administered by Westmorland and Furness Council, and we have something like 20 million visitors to the lakes and dales every year. Some stay overnight, but most come as day visitors. The pressure they put on the roads and other parts of our infrastructure is significant. Every single one of them is welcome, but it seems wrong that we are not in any way compensated, particularly with highways funding, to acknowledge the fact that we are the biggest visitor destination in the country outside London. I congratulate the council on doing its job and making a methodical, good effort to tackle the state of our roads, but it is not fair that it is not funded for the people who visit.

Secondly, others have mentioned sparsity. I have a mere 130 schools in my constituency, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), but they cover a huge area, with many primary schools with fewer than 20 children and many high schools with fewer than 200. Of course it is more expensive to provide services in such dispersed areas, and sparsity is not a sufficient part of the funding formula. All that is against the backdrop of unfair funding for rural councils in general. On average, a person living in a rural community such as mine receives £105 less in central Government funding than their urban counterpart, and pays £104 more in council tax.

I want to make two points about second homes. First, the people who are lucky and well off enough to have a second home in a community such as mine can come and buy a home in Ambleside, Grasmere or Appleby, and they may turn it into a holiday let for a few weeks a year. They can therefore not pay any council tax, and because they are a small business they pay no business tax either. That means that people on very low incomes in Appleby, Kendal, Ambleside, Windermere and so on are subsidising wealthy people to have a second, third, fourth or fifth home in our communities.

I am pleased that the Government have said that they will allow councils to double council tax for second homes. That is good news. Westmorland and Furness Council reckons that will bring in an extra £10 million to help local residents. The council, which plans to start this scheme in April, has done its duty by giving second home owners the necessary 12 months’ notice. My question is: have the Government got their house in order? Will they be permitting councils to double tax on second homes from April 2024? If they fail to do that, will they compensate the councils that were planning to make use of this new and welcome power?

Let us talk briefly about social care. Rural councils get an average of 14% less funding for social care than urban councils. However, in many rural areas—certainly mine—the number of older people who require that care is much greater. The average age of my constituents is 10 years above the national average. Our area also has a complete crisis in affordable housing for both private and social rented homes, with average house prices about 12 times the average wages. So where do the workforce live? As a consequence of the housing crisis and our older population, we have a serious care crisis in our area. Earlier this year, 32% of our hospital beds were occupied by people who were fit to leave hospital but could not receive a care package. Why? Because there are not enough homes for the people who work in social care. We are not paying those people enough money. The Government have made promises before but have failed to act, letting down our old people and our rural communities.

Let us talk briefly about transport poverty, which is a huge issue that we all have in common in our rural communities. The £2 bus fare is very welcome, but it is of no use whatsoever if we have no bus. We need to fund our younger people to get them into further education—sixth forms and apprenticeship posts—but we need to make sure that there are working buses to do that. One reason that is not the case now is that the Government have not devolved the powers that they devolve to urban areas to rural ones. Why will they not allow communities like ours to have full devolution so we can have our own bus companies and fund rural bus services? They will only allow that for urban areas that have a Mayor, and that is disadvantaging rural communities. I hope the Minister will answer that.

Housing in Tourist Destinations

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is an honour to serve under your guidance this afternoon, Sir Charles. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) for bringing a really important debate to this place.

The value of tourism is enormous. I am proud to represent the Lake district, the Yorkshire and Westmorland dales and many other beautiful places that do not happen, for the time being, to be in a national park. We are proud of the fact that there are 18 million visitors to our area every year, that 60,000 jobs in Cumbria are created and sustained by tourism and that there is a £3.5 billion economy. There is much to be proud of, and we also take seriously our role as curators and stewards of this beautiful landscape that millions of people come to visit—it is a privilege for us to take on that role.

However, as right hon. Members and hon. Members have pointed out, we cannot ignore the damaging impact that the lack of regulation has on our housing sector. A consequence is the simple fact that, in our communities, the average house prices are 12 times the average incomes, which is the highest rate in the north of England. During the pandemic, 80% of house sales were to the second home market. Over 50% of the homes in the town of Coniston are not lived in full time and, in the villages in the Langdales—Chapel Stile and Elterwater—over 80% of homes are not lived in.

We have seen the number of short-term lets grow significantly, particularly over the last three years, as well as the eating up of homes that were lived in by the workforce. The Government rightly brought in the moratorium on evictions during the pandemic. They then ended it a year later, and within a matter of weeks, we saw an explosion of people being expelled and evicted from their homes under section 21, with those homes becoming Airbnbs. In the first year following the ending of the eviction ban, there was a 32% increase in the number of holiday lets in South Lakeland alone. A massive number became even more massive, and those were homes that people had been living in.

We have seen section 21 being used by landlords to move from long-term let to short-term let. I am very encouraged that Sykes Cottages has agreed that it will take no properties on to its books that have been made available because somebody was evicted in that way. Airbnb and other platforms have not said that, and I challenge them to follow that example.

The human impact has been massive, with families being uprooted and divided. I am thinking of a couple in Ambleside: he was a chef and she was a teaching assistant, and they had two kids—one was in school and one in nursery. They were evicted from their home; their home became an Airbnb; they had to leave the whole area; their kids were taken out of school; and they have to give up their work and find something else in an entirely different place.

As for the impact on hospitality and tourism, 63% of hospitality and tourism businesses in Cumbria cannot meet the capacity of the demand they have, because they simply do not have the staff to do so.

In the care sector, more than around a third of the beds in our hospitals are full of people we cannot get out of hospitals and into care because there are not the carers. Why is that? Because there is nowhere for the carers to live. The knock-on effect on our hospitals, A&Es, ambulance response times and every part of our health service is huge and tangible.

People who have been offered decent jobs in health and education in our communities have to give back their word once they have checked out the local housing market. I was at the wonderful St Martin and St Mary Primary School in Windemere, headed by the fantastic Mr Towe and his great team. They have lost two to three classes because of a reduction in the number of people who live in those communities full time, and they are not the only school that has faced that impact.

The new builds that we see are not really affordable, so what are the answers? We talk about affordable housing, but “affordable housing” often means 80% of the market value. Well, that is great: a £400,000 home rather than a £500,000 home—a fat lot of good that is to my communities. What must we do? We must have the new planning categories, including the one that the Government have promised in order to make short-term lets a separate category of planning use, giving councils and national parks the power to maintain homes for local people. Like other Members on both sides, I want them to crack on and do what they promised by bringing in the new category of planning use.

I also want the Government to do what they have so far failed to agree to do, which is to make second homes a separate category of planning use. I urge the Government to give national parks and local authorities the enforcement power to make sure that they can retain homes for local communities and local families. When we build new homes, let us give our national parks and councils the powers to enforce and to ensure that every single home that is built is affordable for local people and people who will live locally.

We have to remember that these beautiful places exist in a broken housing market, and that we will see ourselves with broken communities as a consequence of that broken market. We lose our young people, and the most tragic thing is that only the very few wealthiest can return. I urge the Minister to act now to save communities like mine.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing (Lee Rowley)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on securing this important debate. I know that colleagues in Cornwall and Devon have returned to this issue time and time again and that there are very strong views about it. As clear advocates of their constituencies, they have highlighted the issues they see in their individual areas. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay for all the work he has done with colleagues, both today and more broadly, to highlight this issue.

The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) talked about the role of Housing Minister being sponsored by a certain company, and I liked the role so much that I came back a second time. I recall some of the discussions I had when I was first in this position, and the issue before us was one of the bigger ones raised by colleagues who are in the room today. In my first debate back in this role, it is a pleasure to be able to talk about it and to understand the continuing challenges faced in not just the south-west but other parts of the country. Colleagues have seen first hand, and have heard from constituents about, the benefits of tourism but also the challenges that come with it. I pay tribute to all the work they do.

As my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) rightly highlighted, there is a balance to strike. First, in responding on behalf of the Government, I acknowledge, as all hon. Members have done, the benefits of tourism. It is an economic, social and cultural asset, and it is hugely valuable for parts of the country such as not only Cornwall and Devon, but mine in North East Derbyshire. It employs 1.7 million people and contributed nearly £74 billion, pre-pandemic. Up to one in five jobs in Cornwall is supported by it, and that is one of the reasons why we need to get this right—so that people who work in the sector can live. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) highlighted the staffing challenges.

To enjoy the tourism offer, people need somewhere to stay and to rest. This is not a new issue, but it has come into sharper relief in the past 10 or 15 years, particularly with the rise in digital platforms and the sharing economy. That change has accentuated the offer in many parts of the country, but it has also created significant challenges, which were outlined.

Tourism has brought benefits, but we know and have heard about the challenges and the impact on communities, including the growing number of lets, which limits the availability of housing for people permanently resident in the community, and the reduction in the permanent population. That translates into problems for families and neighbourhoods, and issues with public services. Those are problems of popularity, of desire, and of people wanting to experience and enjoy the benefits of such areas, but as colleagues have indicated, they are still problems, on which it is reasonable and proportionate to take action.

As I am sure hon. Members will appreciate, the same issues do not apply in all parts of the country. We have to be cautious in how we approach this issue, to ensure that we deal appropriately with the different challenges and opportunities found in the south-west and in the city of Chester, which the hon. Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) highlighted. Areas such as mine might not face the same kind of tourist issues as other areas, despite it being even prettier than Cornwall, Devon, and Strangford—a point that I will take up separately with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

Hon. Friends and colleagues have asked me to talk about our work in Government, but it has been described already, so I will not go through it in extraordinary detail. As has been outlined, my colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport have consulted on a registration scheme that we intend to introduce under the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, which received Royal Assent a short time ago. That is a tool to provide local authorities with stronger evidence. It was consulted on earlier this year, with more than 2,500 responses received. We are part of the way through analysing those receipts, and the Government will respond as soon as we can. I assure the House that I have heard what Members say about the importance of moving quickly, and I will pass that back to colleagues in my Department, and in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

[Tim Farron]

Will the Minister give way?

[Lee Rowley]

I am usually delighted to give way, but given the limited time, I will demur in this instance. On the consultation on use-class changes and short-term lets, I have heard clearly that there is a desire for clarity and speed. We are moving as quickly as we can. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) highlighted the Scottish example, which I will refrain from commenting on, apart from to emphasise that it took four years and a delay to get to that point. I do not anticipate ours being a four-year journey, but we need to ensure that we do this correctly, and work through the issue in the depth that it deserves. I assure hon. Members that we will try to do that in the time we have available. Given that I have made up a little time, I am happy to hear the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).

[Tim Farron]

The Minister is a good man. During my enjoyable time on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill Committee, his predecessor guaranteed to me that the change in planning use class for short-term lets would come in this April. Can he deliver on that promise?

[Lee Rowley]

I am happy to talk about that separately. I will try to move that as quickly as I can, recognising that we have had a large number of consultation responses, which we are working through as quickly as we can.

In the few minutes I have left, I turn to some of the points made. My hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay, who secured the debate, raised a concern about the implications for parish councils. I am grateful to him for doing so, both in the debate and a short time before. I spoke with officials in advance of the debate, and we are unsure about some of the challenges that are experienced. I am very happy to receive direct information on that from the parish council in Mevagissey—I tried to pronounce that; I hope that gives me some credit. If the parish council gets a power of competence, as it can, it should be able to spend the money that it talks about in a more flexible way. I am happy to speak to my hon. Friend about that, if that is helpful.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon rightly talked about balance, and the importance of the broader tourist ecosystem, as did my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon. The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) talked about a taskforce, but I think we have clarity about the challenges, at least as far as I can see from this initial debate with colleagues who are impacted by tourism. The need now is to move at the greatest pace to hopefully bring in measures that we have said we are looking at.

My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) highlighted some of the more extreme instances of these issues; in particular, she mentioned the single child in Portloe, who is now in school. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford for the Northern Ireland perspective, as ever. This is day 11 in this job, and I have not yet spoken specifically to colleagues in Northern Ireland, but I look forward to doing so through our inter-ministerial groups.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) talked about the importance of building housing, and the opportunities to build it in the right place. That is absolutely at the core of what we are trying to do in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities: to build more housing, but in the right place. Where there are opportunities in rural areas as well as urban ones, we should take them.

Finally, given the comments from the hon. Members for Ellesmere Port and Neston, and for City of Chester, let me gently ensure some balance in this debate, in the short time that I have left. I understand that we have challenges around housing, but taking a broader perspective, home ownership has started to rise again in this country for the first time in many years. It is important for that to be recognised and anticipated. Three of the years with the greatest house building in this country have been in the last five years. We also have the largest number of first-time buyers in many years. There is always more to do—I would not want to suggest otherwise, particularly in this debate, when there are specific, localised issues that need to be dealt with—but that needs to be placed in the wider context of the progress that is being made.

I conclude by saying again how grateful I am for the opportunity to debate this important issue, and I recognise the challenge in individual areas. We have to get the balance right, and recognise that there are many different circumstances, as well as areas that are impacted and those that are not. The impact may be felt in differently in different parts of the country. I acknowledge and recognise the points made, the challenge that has been set for us to move as quickly as possible, and the opportunity to make progress on this issue, for the benefit of all the areas represented in the debate.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which gives me an opportunity to apologise to the House, on behalf of the Government, my Department and in particular myself, for the delay in responding to a number of Select Committee reports that have been put forward. The Chairman of the Select Committee knows that I hold him and his Committee in the highest regard. I deeply regret the delays in responding to the many excellent reports that the Select Committee has put forward. The reasons for that relate to policy discussions within Government. We wanted to make sure that we had a clear and settled position in response, but that does not excuse us of the need to do better. I have discussed with Ministers and others in the Department the vital importance of responding quickly and showing respect for this House, so may I again apologise to my hon. Friend and to the Chairman of the Select Committee?

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

The delay has cost hundreds of families in my constituency their homes. Section 21 evictions have been carried out on so many families, as the sector has moved into the Airbnb short-term let market. Will the Secretary of State apologise to those families? Will he also very quickly bring in the change of use designations that I know he is considering, to ensure that short-term lets and also second homes are separate categories of planning use, so that we can protect our lakes and dales communities and ensure that they can survive?

[Michael Gove]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have an enormous amount of respect for the work that he does in this area. I would draw a distinction between the response to the Select Committee’s report and the bringing forward of legislation, but he is absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that we need to consider—and we are—our responses to the consultations on registration and on changes to planning use requirements in the short-term let market. We hope to come forward shortly with our response to those consultations. I should also say that I had the opportunity last week to talk to the founder of Airbnb, and I outlined concerns very similar to those that the hon. Gentleman has outlined.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The Father of the House makes a very important point. Of course, his beautiful constituency—situated as it is between the sea and areas of outstanding natural beauty—has already seen significant development and we do need to ensure that settlements have the green belts around them protected.

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

On developing brownfield sites, will the Secretary of State consider giving powers to councils such as Westmorland and Furness, and to planning authorities such as those in the Yorkshire dales and the Lake district, to ensure exclusive provision for affordable and social rented housing so that we do not see communities such as ours dying out because all the houses built end up being sold for second homes?

[Michael Gove]

From his perspective as an assiduous constituency Member, the hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, but may I commiserate with him? At the recent Liberal Democrat conference, I am afraid he was defeated, and his party adopted a housing policy that he describes as Thatcherite. It is a source of sadness to me to be outflanked on the right by the Liberal Democrats, but may I welcome more defections to the Thatcherite cause from those who once embraced my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) as one of their own?

Nutrient Neutrality: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I am aware that my hon. Friend represents an area with acute environmental sensitivities and he is right to raise those concerns on the Floor of the House. We work across Government not only to tackle the storm overflow issue to which he refers, but to find a way to allow house building and other types of building that is much needed to drive jobs and investment, and to support businesses in his constituency, without that having a weakening effect on our environment.

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

I wonder if I could pick up on something the Minister said a moment ago. Natural England is not a Government partner; it is a Government agency. So far as this issue is concerned, it is literally the Government. This rule has existed since 2019 and the Government’s guidance on it has indeed got in the way of genuinely affordable, environmentally sustainable housing schemes in the Lake District and, I am sure, elsewhere. The answer was not to scrap it but to change the guidance to make it more intelligent, so that we protect our waterways and our landscapes from pollution without preventing vital development. Why did the Government spend four years dithering before panicking, overreacting and then acting in line with their own nature by damaging British nature?

[Rachel Maclean]

The hon. Gentleman makes his points in his usual way, but without confronting the reality of the situation that affects his constituents. Of course Natural England is a Government partner and a Government body. We work in partnership with Natural England. We work constructively with it to tackle these complex legal issues. I am sure he would be the first to jump up and complain if we took action too quickly without considering the consequences. As it is, what we are doing is a sensible, proportionate measure to allow much needed development in the Lake District: homes for his constituents that have the planning permission to be built—finally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

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

In Westmorland and Lonsdale, average house prices are 12 times average household incomes. The danger we have is that when we see houses developed, we are meeting demand, but not need. Should the Government not give us far greater planning controls, so that we can ensure that we do not see 100 homes built that are a waste of bricks going into the second home market? Instead, we should ensure that they are affordable homes, socially rented for local families.

[Rachel Maclean]

Local authorities have a huge amount of freedom. They have been given the tools by the Government through legislation, through developer contribution powers and through Homes England grants to deliver affordable homes. The hon. Member will also know about the wider work we are doing on second homes to enable local authorities to raise council tax. I hope he can see that the direction of travel will help alleviate some of the pressures he has highlighted.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 5th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I can think of few things I would enjoy more. I always enjoy visiting Peterborough, which gives me an opportunity not only to work with my hon. Friend, who is such an effective advocate for Peterborough, but to meet the stellar council leader Wayne Fitzgerald, who did so well in the recent local elections—a vote of confidence in Conservative leadership in Peterborough.

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

One of the clearest examples that rural communities are in desperate need of levelling up is the shocking state of bus services and the decline in access to them. The £2 fare is very welcome, but it is of no use to people who live in a community with no bus service. In the next few weeks, we face the withdrawal of the 530 Cartmel Peninsula service and the S1 Sedbergh to Kendal service. What funding and additional powers can the Secretary of State promise to the new Westmorland and Furness Council to make sure such communities retain their buses and that less well-served areas get new services?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that bus services are vital, not least for rural communities such as those he represents. I would like to talk to him and to Westmorland and Furness Council, which is relatively newly formed and Lib Dem-led—at the moment. I am looking forward to talking about what we can do to provide, with the Department for Transport, suitable services for his constituents.

Short-term Holiday Lets: Planning

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Westminster Hall

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

It is an honour to serve under your tutelage and guidance, Dame Caroline. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) for securing the debate and leading with a very thoughtful introduction. Without wasting time, I endorse all the wise procedural questions he asked the Minister, who can take them from me as well.

We are talking about the problem of short-term lets. Representing the lakes, dales and other beautiful parts of Cumbria, I want to say clearly that we value the tourism economy. It is of massive significance, with 20 million visitors a year and 60,000 jobs in the sector. It is not just about the economy; we believe we have a duty to steward that beautiful part of the world for others to visit.

We are a national park where people can visit the Brathay outdoor education centre on Sunday, or the Outward Bound Trust centre at Ullswater. We live in a place that we want people to visit. It is a privilege to do that and to look after them. We are not denying that holiday lets are an important part of the tourism economy. There needs to be visitor accommodation, and that includes Airbnb, which is a neutral platform. The rules within which it operates are the problem.

We have to accept that, in my part of the world and that of many others in the Chamber today, there is not just a housing crisis, but a catastrophe. There are three principal causes: a lack of genuinely affordable homes being built; excessive numbers of second homes gobbling up full-time residential accommodation; and a short-term rented sector that has gobbled up the long-term private rented sector.

The register looks like an important step in tackling issues to do with standards and quality but clearly, as alluded to by the hon. Member for Torbay, it is a potential window to creating a separate category of planning use, which is necessary if we are to allow authorities such as the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales and Westmorland and Furness local authority the opportunity to regulate and keep a high minimum of long-term properties available for local people to live in.

The pandemic saw lots of things change. One was the stamp duty holiday, introduced by the now Prime Minister when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, which saw a massive boost in the number of second homes. Of all house sales in that period, 80% went to the second-home market in my part of the world. We saw an enormous increase of long-term rented properties collapsing principally into Airbnb, largely because the Government did not scrap section 21 evictions at the time they said they would.

The consequences are huge and human. I think of the couple with two small children in Ambleside, she a teaching assistant and he a chef. They were evicted from their flat because the landlord wanted to go to Airbnb. They had literally nowhere else to go, so the children were out of school, a teaching assistant was lost to the local primary school and a chef lost to a local hotel. They had to move 25 miles away and out of the area.

In Sedbergh, a relatively small town in the dales at the end of my constituency, 25 households were evicted at the same time—all chasing zero homes available for long-term rent. I think of a mum and her 15-year-old son, who lived their entire lives in a village just outside Grange before they were evicted. Again, there was nowhere they could remain within the community. When people are evicted, there is nowhere else to go.

I have some quick figures. There are 232 long-term rental properties available in the whole of the county of Cumbria, and there are 8,384 short-term lets, of which 75% are Airbnbs. When someone is kicked out of their home because their landlord wants to turn it into a short-term let, there is literally nowhere they can go in their community. The consequences are vast: hollowed-out communities, schools with falling rolls—many really good schools have seen 20% to 30% of their rolls disappear in two or three years—and a national park that only very wealthy and privileged people can afford to visit and stay in. It is devastating for our economy, too: 83% of hospitality and tourism businesses in Cumbria report that they have difficulty in recruiting staff. Some 63% are operating below capacity and are unable to meet demand because they cannot recruit the staff. That is for the tourism economy, which is worth £3.5 billion a year in the lakes and the dales of Cumbria. We are under-meeting the demand that exists because of a lack of staffing, as there is nowhere for people to live.

It is not just the tourism economy that is affected, but the care sector and other professions. At one stage, earlier this year, 32% of hospital beds in Morecambe bay were blocked. Why? The bottom line is that we cannot get people out of hospital because there are not enough carers. Why? Because there is nowhere for them to live.

What the Government are proposing may be locking the stable door after the horses have bolted, but I am glad that at least they are thinking of doing that. I am optimistic about a better and fairer housing market in the lakes, the dales and elsewhere in Cumbria, but it will need ambitious regulation. Part of my frustration is that this catastrophe is avoidable and obviously fixable. Short-term lets need to be a separate category of planning use so that local authorities can ensure that there are enough homes, not just in national parks but in places such as Grange, Kendal and Appleby.

The Government also need to tackle the number of second homes, although they show no intention of doing so. Why is a separate category of planning use not being considered for second homes? It is good that the Government have allowed local authorities to double the council tax on second homes, and we in Westmorland and Furness are gladly doing that. We also need to tackle the issue of new homes being affordable, which does not mean £300,000 a year. It requires giving not just national parks, but authorities outside them, the ability to say, “The only things you can build here have got to be affordable and available for local people.”

The housing catastrophe can be overturned, but with the Government planning to think about tackling only one of its three causes, those of us in Cumbria and communities like ours will remain of the view that this Government do not understand much, do not care much either, and are rather taking us all for granted.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, which goes to the heart of what the Budget addresses. It is the case that there is a productivity challenge that has bedevilled Governments of different colours for years now in this country. Whether Labour Governments, coalition Governments or Conservative Governments, we have all in different ways recognised that productivity has been too low in too many parts of the economy, particularly the overlooked and undervalued communities of the north, the midlands, and indeed south Wales.

But that is what this Budget addresses directly, through a series of labour market and supply-side interventions that are explicitly designed to raise the trend rate of growth of the British economy. We have welfare reform to support those who have been disengaged from the labour market. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has introduced a groundbreaking White Paper to help those people—they may be struggling with mental health or other difficulties—who need to be re-engaged with care and thought, so that they can again contribute to the economy and enjoy pride and purpose in their lives, as well as contribute to growth.

It is also the case that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and the Minister for Children and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), have brought in groundbreaking childcare reforms. These reforms are a win-win-win. They ensure that men and women can return to the workforce at an earlier stage to contribute economically, they ensure that children can have the best care and support, so that they can arrive at school ready to learn, and they contribute to making sure that we are both family-friendly and pro-growth. These are exactly the sort of supply-side interventions that will contribute to not just a growing economy, but a fairer society.

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

Like the two gentlemen on the Front Benches, I was also the future once. The point that the Secretary of State makes about labour market reforms is extremely important; in the lakes and dales of Cumbria, 63% of our employers are operating below capacity because there are not enough workers in the area. The big problem for us, which I know the Secretary of State is seeking to tackle, is the collapse of the long-term private rented sector into Airbnb. Could he give me some assurance of when this Government will change planning law to allow communities such as mine to control our housing stock, so that there are enough homes affordable and available for local families and local workers?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point: whatever our other disagreements, he is absolutely right to focus on that issue, as so many others have done. Of course we want to have a labour market that works, and of course we want to have a tourism sector that works, but there is a problem in the private rented sector, particularly in beautiful parts of our country such as those he represents, where homes are being turned into Airbnbs and holiday lets in a way that impedes the capacity of young workers to find a place where they can stay in the locale that they love and contribute to the economy of which they wish to be part. We will be bringing forward some planning changes to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which are intended to ensure that we have restrictions on the way in which dwelling homes can be turned into Airbnbs. I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman and other colleagues, including my hon. Friends the Members for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) and for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), to make sure that those reforms will work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

May I return the compliment to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and say what a pleasure it is to face him? That was a typically eloquent and entertaining speech, and he has a very happy future in opposition on the Tory rubber chicken fundraising circuit.

The defining questions at the heart of the Budget are these. Does it show a proper understanding of what is really going on in the country? Does it have the right priorities in facing that reality? Does it have a long-term plan that can tackle the deep-seated challenges the country faces?

I want to start with the alternate reality that the Chancellor described six days ago. He told us that “the plan is working.” Many will have heard that and thought to themselves, as they struggle to pay their bills and as their wages stagnate, “What planet are these people living on?” They are right to think that. The Office for Budget Responsibility says that we are in the midst of the biggest fall in living standards on record. Not a mention of that in the Chancellor’s pantomime speech. That record goes back 70 years. How can that be a plan that is working?

The Budget came a week after Which? said that one in seven people in our country are skipping meals because they cannot afford to eat, and six in 10 are cutting back on essentials, selling items or dipping into savings. How can that be a plan that is working? The OBR says that even by 2028 we will not get back to the living standards we had before the pandemic. How can that be a plan that is working?

Finally, and most damningly, the Resolution Foundation shows that even by 2024 wages will still be lower than they were in 2010. Let us just take in the scale of that failure. For all the boasts, all the promises and all the hype we have heard from the Government Benches at multiple Budgets over the last decade or more, people will be worse off at the next election than they were when the Tories came to power 13 long years ago. Because I am a bit of a nerd—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Only a bit, thank you very much. I asked the Library when it last happened that a party in power had wages lower at the end of its time in office—

[Tim Farron]

Under Labour!

[Edward Miliband]

The hon. Gentleman is wrong. If he can be patient, I will give him the answer. First, the Library staff told me, “Well, certainly not under any Government since the second world war.” I asked them to go back further, and they went back to the first world war, but they said, “No, not since the first world war.” They had to go all the way back to 1855 to find that happening—before the foundation of the Labour party, I say to the hon. Gentleman. For all the enormous challenges that Governments have faced over 168 years, this Government stand out for their failure to deliver what I think all sides can agree the British people have the right to expect—rising standards of living. Throw in the highest tax burden since the 1950s, public services that are crumbling in so many areas and debt that is up, and it is no wonder that the British people are asking what they have to show for 13 years of this lot. They are being paid less and taxed more for worse quality services. Conservative Members may not like it, but it is the truth—it is their record, it is their legacy.

That takes me to the second part of my speech. Why has this happened? It is because the Government have had the wrong priorities and they have failed on growth. Let us talk about the priorities in this Budget. I welcome the fact that the Government followed our plan to stop energy bills rising even further. But let us be clear—I think this feeling is shared on both sides of the House—that £2,500 energy bills are not a cause for celebration. They are double what they were 18 months ago. The energy bills crisis is absolutely not over for families and businesses up and down this country.

Of course, when we proposed the windfall tax the Government resisted it tooth and nail. Then they were dragged kicking and screaming to do it. But here’s the thing: as they did so, they introduced a massive tax break for the very fossil fuel companies whose windfalls of war they were supposed to be taxing. It was not mentioned in the Budget, it was not even in the published OBR documents—it was in an annex—that the total cost of that loophole is £11.4 billion over the coming years. That is a tax break for companies making record profits and paying out record amounts in dividends and share buy-backs—a tax break not available to any other sector of the economy, including renewables. Think how those billions of pounds could have helped to tackle the cost of living crisis. By the Government’s choices we know their priorities, and it is not the British people.

Let us take the issue of the abolition of the pension tax relief lifetime allowance, on which we will force a vote this evening. It may interest the House to hear what a former Chancellor said about why we have a lifetime allowance. He said that

“we must demonstrate that we are all in this together. When looking for savings, I think that it is fair to look at the tax relief that we give to the top 1%.”—[Official Report, 5 December 2012; Vol. 554, c. 878.]

Who was that? Not Gordon Brown. Not Alistair Darling. It was George Osborne, in the autumn statement of 2012. Remember him? But we do not need to go back that far. I have been doing my research. What about the Budget of March 2021? I wonder who was Chancellor then—he might have gone on to higher things. The then Chancellor froze the lifetime pensions allowance for five years and said:

“It is a tax policy that is progressive and fair”.—[Official Report, 3 March 2021; Vol. 690, c. 256.]

That was the current Prime Minister. Let me explain why he said that. The reason we have a lifetime limit on tax-free pension saving is to provide some cap on the amount of pensions tax relief for the most wealthy in our society. The average pension pot in this country is £60,000. The change the Chancellor is making to abolish the lifetime limit of over £1 million is therefore about people with a pension pot 17 times the average. The Minister nods from a sedentary position—[Interruption.] He says it is all surgeons: I will come to that in a moment.

According to the Resolution Foundation, this change will give a benefit of almost £250,000 to someone with a £2 million pension. If Members vote for this Budget measure tonight, they will be voting for a tax cut of almost £250,000 for people with a £2 million pension pot. That might be the right priority for the Government: it is not the right priority for us.

The Minister for Health and Secondary Care claims, and the Chancellor says, that they are doing this for the doctors. But according to the Resolution Foundation, five in six people with the largest pension pots, who will benefit from this change, are not doctors. They are not in medicine at all. In fact—get this—one in five of the people who will benefit are in banking and finance and nothing to do with the medical profession. There could have been a bespoke scheme at a fraction of the cost, just like there is for the judges.

We have been told by Treasury Ministers that this is the “politics of envy”. No, it is not, it is about fairness. Even George Osborne agrees with that, and when you are beaten by George Osborne on fairness, you know you are losing the argument. The other argument that Government Members have been making is that Labour is somehow creating problems by opposing this measure. Let us get this straight: the Government come along with a £1 billion tax cut for the very richest in our society when everyone is struggling and they blame us! The truth is that it says so much about them, because here’s the thing: they did not even get that it would be controversial. That is how out of touch they are.

There should have been different tax choices in the Budget to fund our schools, cut NHS waiting lists and level up our country. The Government could have ended non-dom status, but they will not do that. They could have ended the tax breaks for private schools to help fund our state schools, but they will not do that either. In preparing for this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, I came across a brilliant article for that proposal set out in 2017 in The Times, entitled “Put VAT on school fees”. It was written by a participant in today’s debate and I think it is worth quoting. The author said this:

“to my continuing surprise, we still consider the education of the children of plutocrats and oligarchs to be a charitable activity.”

I am not sure that we on the Opposition Front Bench would go that far, but there you go. [Laughter.] He went on to say:

“The prime minister, quite rightly, wants to end burning injustice...We could scarcely find a better way of doing that than ending tax advantages for the global super-rich and instead extending them to the vulnerable and voiceless. What better way to make next month’s budget a budget for social justice?”

Now, the House may be wondering who wrote that article. It was none other than the Levelling Up Secretary! I am a generous person, so I will give way to him and he can tell us whether he still believes what he wrote six years ago. Does he agree with himself? Why so uncharacteristically bashful? Why this sudden bout of monastic silence? It is so uncharacteristic. I would love for him to tell us: did he make the argument in Government in the run-up to the Budget, or did he just not bother to make the argument because he did not think he had a hope of persuading the people in charge? I think it is probably the latter, because, let us be honest, there is zero evidence that this Government will make the necessary choices. He knows it and the country knows it. The Government have the wrong priorities, which is why people are sick and tired of them.

Let us talk about the third part of the Budget, because it does not just have the wrong priorities for now, but for the future too. I want to come on to the energy transformation that the country needs. If we want to get energy bills down, there is a simple answer: going all in on a green energy sprint. We know that wind and solar are many times cheaper than fossil fuels, but the problem is that we have a Government who do not get it. The Levelling Up Secretary is a case in point. When he should be blocking coalmines he waves them through, as he has done in Cumbria. By the way, it will interest the House to know that he said it is carbon neutral, good for the climate and good for the environment. People may wonder. We have been going around the world lecturing people about getting off coal, so how have we suddenly got a coalmine that is good for the environment? Well, the answer is that in the calculations he made, he does not count the burning of the coal, just the mining of it. That is like saying tobacco does not damage your health if you do not take into account the smoking of it. He can correct me if I am wrong, but that is correct, isn’t it? Yes, it is correct.

The Levelling Up Secretary should support onshore wind, but he blocks it. The onshore wind ban is very important. It is symbolic. The Government have their fifth energy re-set coming next week, I believe, so I look forward to that. It is the fifth one in two and a half years—a sure sign that the policy is not going well. The onshore wind ban brought in by David Cameron raised bills—this is really important—by £160 for every family in the country. It did seem like good news, because the Levelling Up Secretary made some positive noises and promised things would change in December, but all the evidence is that yet again the Government will resile from taking the right position. This month, RenewableUK expressed its bitter disappointment, saying that

“Ministers are doing almost nothing to lift the draconian ban”.

The Energy Secretary, who is not here, calls onshore wind an “eyesore”. It makes me nostalgic, believe it or not, for the brief period when the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) was Business Secretary. He was an unlikely climate warrior but his proposal to bring onshore wind rules in line with other infrastructure was better than the position under the current Government. It is harder today to build an onshore wind farm—a unique category in the planning system in England, whereby, basically, if one person objects, it cannot be built—than it is to build an incinerator. That does not make any sense. Why not go for the proposal from the right hon. Member for North East Somerset? That is my injunction to the Secretary of State.

The Government have failed not just on onshore wind, but on energy efficiency. In 2010 there were 1.7 million home upgrades. Last year there were 128,000, and there was no new money in the Budget. At that rate, it will take a century to bring all homes up to an energy performance certificate C rating.

But the biggest long-term failure of the Budget is the lack of a coherent plan to compete with President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. This is really serious. Talk to any business today and they will say that this is a massive competitive challenge for the UK. On offshore wind, we are doing well on generation—lots of people say that it was started by the last Labour Government—but not on delivering the jobs in offshore wind. Denmark has three times as many jobs in wind energy as us, with about a tenth of the population. Then look at other areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) spoke eloquently about steel: there are already 23 clean steel demonstration plants across Europe. How many are there in the UK? None. Across Europe, 40 gigafactories are expected to open by 2030. In the UK only one is certain. Alarmingly—this is the consequence of the onshore wind policy—the number of jobs in solar and onshore wind has actually fallen over the last five years in Britain because of the blockages in the system. That is why the Institute of Directors said just days before the Budget:

“The UK deserves nothing less than its own version of the Inflation Reduction Act”.

And the CBI pointed out our failure on spending.

I was very disappointed by the Budget. It was the moment to turn it around. It turns out there was no new money for carbon capture, but the promise of £1 billion some time in the future. I am old enough to remember when there was a £1 billion carbon capture and storage plan. It was announced 15 years ago by the last Labour Government, but was cancelled by this Government. The other boast was a reheated announcement of a competition for small modular reactors. We are in favour of new nuclear, but a reannouncement from 2015 will not make it happen.

There was warm praise for Lord Heseltine, which I agree with. I remember Lord Heseltine saying he would intervene before breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then wake up the next morning and intervene again before breakfast. That is not the character of this Government. What was the Government’s reaction to President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act? The Energy Secretary called it “dangerous”, the Business Secretary said it was “protectionist”, and the Chancellor did not support it. As if crying foul is going to stop the race. It will not stop the race; it will leave us behind. I do not believe that the Government get what a modern industrial policy looks like. We needed a new national wealth fund to invest in the industries of the future. We needed GB Energy, a proper publicly owned energy generation company, to invest in all forms of low carbon generation. We need a sprint for zero-carbon power by 2030. We need a plan to insulate 19 million cold, draughty homes. We got none of that from this Budget, but that is what a Labour Government would do.

In their failure to grasp the future, the Government show why it is high time they were consigned to the past. After 13 years of their failure, the last thing we need is another five years. They have the wrong priorities. They have no proper plan for the future. They cannot provide the leadership the country needs. It is time for change.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The Government have taken a number of actions on flood and waste water management, which we have increased through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. We will respond in due course to the consultation that the hon. Lady talked about.

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

Happy new year, Mr Speaker.

Reference to high quality housing is often a shorthand for reference to expensive housing, yet in my community nearly 6,000 people are on the council house waiting list, so we desperately need affordable homes that are of high quality. Will the Minister agree to change planning law so that councils such as mine in Cumbria and in our national parks have the power to enforce 100% affordability, so that we build to meet need not just demand?

[Lucy Frazer]

I have had a number of conversations with the hon. Gentleman, and he knows that we are taking steps to help improve and build homes in his area. Not only do we have the £11.5 billion fund, but we have taken steps on the issue of second homes that he and other hon. Members on both sides of the House have raised with me, so that we ensure that people who live in particular areas continue to live there and use their services.