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.

Levelling Up, Housing and Communities

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Ministerial Corrections

The following is an extract from Report stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill on 13 December 2022.

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

I am very grateful to the Minister for taking an intervention and for the time she gave me last week to discuss this matter. Can she clarify whether it is now the Government’s intention to make short-term lets a separate category of planning use following the consultation? If so, when would that come in? Will she also ensure that planning departments have the resources to enforce that?

[Lucy Frazer]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for speaking on this issue and indeed other issues on this topic. We are committing to consulting on the issue. We propose to consult early in the new year. Following that consultation, we hope to bring in some legislation, if that is the result of the consultation. There is a very tight timetable both for that and the registration scheme, and the registration scheme will be coming through in autumn.

[Official Report, 13 December 2022, Vol. 724, c. 960.]

Letter of correction from the Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the right hon. and learned Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer):

An error has been identified in the response given to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) on Report stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill.

The correct response should have been:

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I am happy to discuss that issue further with my right hon. Friend. As I mentioned, we are very concerned about build-out to increase the number of homes, and I know that the Secretary of State feels strongly about quality.

The second set of measures that we are introducing by way of amendments relates to infrastructure, because put simply, we cannot have houses without services to support them. Through the Bill, we will replace the existing system with an infrastructure levy—a non-negotiable liability for the developer based on the value of the development. Our plan is to implement the levy in stages so that we can adapt it according to the latest data and the latest evidence.

Thirdly, we are protecting the environment. On top of our environmental assessment reforms, new clauses 77 to 79 will support the Government’s efforts to protect and enhance our natural environment. We are creating an obligation on water companies to go further to address nutrient pollution and clean up our rivers. That will unlock thousands of new homes, complemented by new wetland and woodland areas, improving people’s access to green space and delivering new habitats for nature. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), for her support and to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for working with us so closely to achieve these ends.

Fourthly, we recognise that some areas—Devon and Cornwall, for example—have particular problems with short-term lets, which, while attractive as a tourist industry, mean that large parts of an area have limited long-term residents, creating a real problem for local services. I am grateful to a number of colleagues for highlighting and campaigning on that. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for North Devon, for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) and for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) as well as others for the work that they have done. As a result of the points that they have raised, we intend to deliver a new registration scheme for short-term lets, starting with a further consultation on the exact design of the scheme, which will launch before the summer recess.

We will go even further by also consulting on a change to the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 to enable local areas to better control changes of use to short-term lets, if they wish. Furthermore, the consultation on changes to use classes and the introduction of national permitted development rights to enable change of use where there is no local issue will be launched early next year.

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

I am very grateful to the Minister for taking an intervention and for the time she gave me last week to discuss this matter. Can she clarify whether it is now the Government’s intention to make short-term lets a separate category of planning use following the consultation? If so, when would that come in? Will she also ensure that planning departments have the resources to enforce that?

[Lucy Frazer]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for speaking on this issue and indeed other issues on this topic. We are committing to consulting on the issue. We propose to consult early in the new year. Following that consultation, we hope to bring in some legislation, if that is the result of the consultation. There is a very tight timetable both for that and the registration scheme, and the registration scheme will be coming through in autumn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

I rise to talk specifically about new clauses 3 and 5, but first I should make a point on the broader housing issue. My constituency is the smallest borough in my county, and it is the most densely populated part of my county. It was never realistic for the centrally designed targets to apply to an area where we were being asked to increase the housing stock by about 25% to 30%. I praise Ministers for reaching what I believe to be a sensible compromise.

I am very much in favour of new homes in my constituency—I have argued for a number of new developments, and I continue to do so—but house building cannot be simply unrestricted. It cannot be at the level that a formula requires; we must apply common sense. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), in negotiation with the Secretary of State, have come up with a sensible way forward that will deliver extra housing—I passionately believe that we have to have extra homes in my constituency—but in a sustainable way. We must remember that the national planning policy framework requires us to strike the right balance between three things: building new houses, looking after the local economy and looking after the local environment. I believe that what we have on the table now will deliver that.

I turn to the new clauses. On solar power, I have a simple message for Ministers. I cannot understand why we have not reached a point where it is mandatory to put solar panels on the roof of every new building in this country. Although I do not think new clause 3 will take us through the Division Lobbies tonight, I strongly urge Ministers to work across Government to deliver that. When I was Secretary of State for Transport, I argued that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities should insert a requirement for a charging point in every house with off-street parking. I still believe that, but there is really no reason at all not to have solar panels on the roof of every property, whether or not it has parking space. It should be a central part of our future strategy, and I strongly urge Ministers to adopt it.

New clause 5, which I have personally pushed forward, is what I describe as “the hedgehog amendment”—I speak as the parliamentary species champion for the hedgehog—but it is much broader than that. It is about saying that it is simply wrong for a developer to be able to acquire a site and clear it without doing a proper holistic survey of the ecology on that site. It is absolutely vital that, as we are a Government who believe in strengthening biodiversity safeguards in this country, there should be tight rules for developers. They are obliged to do surveys for the presence of bats and newts, but there are a whole range of other vulnerable species that do not fall under that requirement. I want to see very clear legal rules that say, “You buy a site, you survey what is there. If you identify vulnerable species on the site, you have a duty of care to those vulnerable species to relocate them and provide alternative habitats.”

The Government have done good things on biodiversity net gain, but I want to see a situation where a vulnerable species on a site is not likely to be cleared away by a bulldozer. That does happen—there was an horrendous case in the west country recently. About 20 hedgehogs were killed by the reckless clearance of a site. We have all seen it in our constituencies. Developers do it to create the sense of, “Well, it’s a wasted site anyway. We cannot use it again, so you should give us consent to build houses on it.” My new clause provides a way to ensure that does not happen.

I want to pay tribute to the Minister. We have had some very constructive dialogue on this issue and I know she is pretty sympathetic to the aims I have put forward. What I ask of her today—I think she may have a clear sense of how we can go forward—is, in her closing remarks, to set a direction for the Government that will provide the actual protections I am seeking, which will reinforce the work we have already done to protect biodiversity and ensure the particular ability of developers to come in and clear a site is absolutely precluded in law. I wait with interest to hear what the Minister says in winding up. I praise her for what she has done so far on housing and on many other aspects to the Bill. I hope she will also be able to deal with this aspect, the biodiversity issue, in her remarks and as we go forward.

[Tim Farron]

There are a number of amendments in my name, but given the time we have I will focus on housing, including existing stock and new stock. Let me start by talking about new stock.

New clause 44 and amendment 22, in my name, would give local authorities, particularly in national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty such as my own in Cumbria, the power to enforce 100% affordability in new developments. I am fed up of developments in my community where we have to build, say, 100 houses to get 30 affordables. That is 70 homes that are fundamentally a waste of bricks. We are building homes for demand, but not for need. We have thousands of people on the council house waiting list. Homes will, of course, fly off the shelves for handsome prices in a place like Cumbria, but they are houses we do not need. They do not add to our infrastructure and in many ways they undermine it by becoming more holiday lets or second homes. Give us that power, as local communities.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I want to be absolutely clear that home ownership does all kinds of things for building personal pride and communal satisfaction. I imagine he owns his own home. Does he want more people to own their own home, or does he want more people to rent?

[Tim Farron]

I want more people to be able to have a home in the first place. In defending people’s right to have a second home, which we will come on to in a moment, we must remember that people’s right to a first home is even more important. The millions of people who have no home at all to call their own, and are desperately waiting on long waiting lists, are up against many people who have more than one home. That is an injustice that needs to be addressed. This particular set of amendments would give local authorities in communities such as Cumbria the ability to say to developers, “You may build here, but what you build must be sustainable, affordable and available for local people so there is a workforce and a local community.”

I want to move on to existing stock, and in particular to the comments made by the Minister earlier. My new clause 121 would make sure there is a separate planning category for short-term lets. That matters: because of the Government’s failure to scrap section 21 evictions, as they promised to do, over the past two years the long-term rented sector has collapsed. That has led to the expulsion of thousands of people from my community. There has been a 32% rise in holiday lets in just one year, and that is in the Lake district where there were already a huge number of them. Those houses are coming from local people evicted so their landlord can go to a short-term let, normally Airbnb, and therefore cash in, and there are no other places for those people to go and live so their kids are uprooted from the local school, and they have to give up their jobs and move many miles away, robbing our communities of life and of a workforce.

[Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman and I share similar constituency issues: in North Norfolk I have huge numbers of second homes and holiday properties, too. I know he has tabled his own amendments, but the Government have a very sensible amendment as well; does he not agree that we should back their amendment to start addressing the issue of people being turfed out of their homes because a landlord can earn five, six or seven times more by changing from a monthly let to a weekly holiday rental with not as much security? The right thing to do is to back the Government and try and help on this matter.

[Tim Farron]

I recently had a conversation with the Minister and am absolutely of the view that while Government amendment 119 does not go as far as mine, it is a step in the right direction. There is a sense of locking the stable door while the horses are well over the horizon—that is my great fear—but I will not seek to press my amendment to a Division, because I am going to trust the Government to do what they say they are going to do: to make sure there is a consultation and that they look at having new separate categories of planning use for short-term lets.

That matters in our communities where the workforce has been decimated because of the collapse of the long-term private rented sector into Airbnb. As a result, 63% of hospitality and tourism businesses in Cumbria are working below capacity; they are not meeting the demand that is there because there simply is not a workforce. We have over 30% of the beds in our hospitals in Cumbria blocked because there are not enough social care workers as there is nowhere for them to live, resulting in a gluing-up impact on our health service. There is an urgent need to take action, therefore. It should have been taken two years ago: the Government should have abolished section 21 evictions, as they promised, but it is better to do something now than not do it at all, so I am happy to accept Government amendment 119 and will not press mine. We will wait and see, and hold the Government to account to make sure they keep the promise they made.

We in the lakes and dales are proud to be a place that welcomes visitors and are proud of the fact that people choose to have holidays with us, and indeed have second homes. We must be very careful not to demonise people who we are delighted to welcome to come and visit us, but, as I alluded to earlier, if it is sometimes a battle between defending someone’s right to have a second home and defending families’ right to have a first, we must be on the side of the latter. We must be on the side of people in local communities who are squeezed out because of this. Some 20 million people visit the lakes every year, and we are proud that the tourism industry generates £3.5 billion in revenue for our local economy. We do not want to push people away, but we do want to secure the communities that underpin that economy.

That is why I will seek, with your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, to move new clause 120 in my name, because the Government are not choosing to do anything adequate about second home ownership in this Bill. Over the last two years, 80% of all house sales in my communities have been into the second home market—people who buy a home and do not live in it. For instance, 50% of properties in Coniston are empty as second homes, as are 83% of properties in Elterwater. The impact on those communities and dozens of others around Cumbria is that we get lost communities. Without a full-time permanent population of sufficient size, communities lose their school, their pub, their bus service, their GP service, their post office, and the life of those communities. It is astonishing that despite being offered many opportunities in the Bill Committee and today the Government have not tackled this blight on our rural communities.

I plead with Conservative MPs, and particularly those in rural communities, to do the right thing by those communities and stand up for them by giving Cumbria and other parts of the country that are affected by second home ownership the right to control their housing stock. Give us that control and allow us to preserve the communities of the lakes, the dales and the rest of rural Britain. Please back new clause 120.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Frazer]

I will take interventions at the end if I have time.

As with any other developments, Members of Parliament and members of the public will be able to request that a DLUHC Minister call in a specific scheme if they wish, and their views will be given appropriate weight.

I turn to the important matter of short-term lets. I particularly praise, as I did at the outset, the work of my hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and for St Ives (Derek Thomas). My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) made an excellent point, because this is not the first time that we have taken action on these issues. We are already taking action: we introduced higher rates of stamp duty land tax for those purchasing additional properties in 2016, and a new SDLT surcharge for UK non-residents in 2021. Through this Bill, we are giving councils the power to introduce a discretionary council tax premium of up to 100% on second homes, and we will allow them to introduce an empty homes council tax premium of up to 100% after 12 months. We need to build more homes, increase supply and increase affordable housing in various areas. I am very pleased to have worked with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), and we are taking welcome steps.

[Tim Farron]

rose—

[Lucy Frazer]

I am going to press on, because so many Members have raised points for me to respond to, and I would like to ensure that I cover them all.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell mentioned the work that we need to do on solar panels. My hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle said that his campaigning had been to no avail. I want to reassure him that that is absolutely not the case. The work that he has done—whether in the Westminster Hall debate, or by writing extensively—has meant that the Government have taken significant steps in this area. From 2025, the future homes standard will ensure that new homes produce at least 75% less CO₂ emissions than those built to the 2013 standards. This represents a considerable improvement in energy efficiency standards for new homes. We have introduced an uplift in standards, which came into force in June, and the uplift already requires new homes to be built in such a way that they produce 30% less CO₂ emissions than those built to the previous standards.

The performance standards in the uplift have been set in such a way as to ensure that the vast majority of developers will either need to put solar panels on new homes or use other low-carbon technology such as heat pumps. So my hon. Friend’s work has not been in vain, and I am happy to continue to engage with him on this important area.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives raised with me helicopters in his constituency, and has tabled an amendment on the issue. I am pleased to have discussed this matter with him. As the amendment would apply nationally, requiring notification and approval for all applicants and local planning authorities, we consider that this would be onerous and disproportionate. There is the possibility of making an article 4 direction. I appreciate that his local authority has not taken that course, but I am happy to arrange a meeting between my officials and the local planning authority to discuss the matter further.

I have already mentioned the considerable work that my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) has done on custom build and self-build. The Government strongly believe that self-build and custom-build housing can play a crucial role as part of a wider package of measures to boost home ownership and diversify the housing market, as well as helping to deliver the homes that people want. We will look to see whether we can further tighten up any legislation, taking on board his thoughts and comments.

An amendment was tabled in relation to childcare. I disagree with the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who said that the Government were not on the side of those who support childcare. The Government introduced tax-free childcare of up to 30 hours because we believe that it is right that those who have children can go to work and support their children. I would like to clarify what has been said—my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) understood what I was saying from the Dispatch Box. The position is that childcare facilities—that is buildings—including those that are not attached to schools, are included within the meaning of “infrastructure” and can therefore be funded through the levy. In addition, the Bill already includes a power to regulate to allow for the funding of services such as childcare. It is in proposed new section 204N(5), in paragraph 1 of schedule 11.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) asked about section 103 contributions and where they continue to apply, of course nothing has changed. The Government are keen to ensure that we support childcare services, and this Bill does that.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ben Bradley]

As I just said, as far as I can see, the provision is already there and therefore the new clause is unnecessary. Our conversations about devolution within the region have revolved massively around adult skills. In the future, I would like to see Government further devolve powers in related areas, particularly around provision delivered by such organisations as the Department for Work and Pensions, so that there will be a chance to engage in employability conversations and boost basic skills. I look forward to conversations about that in the future.

From conversations with officials and Ministers, it is clear that once we have the framework and structure, we can come back and talk about new things we would like to see devolved down to our region. That is an example of an area where Whitehall struggles to join things up and where such matters can fall through the gaps in a siloed system. One of my favourite examples of that is youth work, which sits across about six Departments so a joined-up strategy is difficult to achieve. If we can devolve such matters to a regional level, we will be able to share budgets and strategies and do things more effectively. I hope we will be able to have those conversations with Government in the future.

My final point is about flexibility in local budgets. I had the honour of hosting the local government Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), in Nottinghamshire a few weeks ago. We went into great detail about the council budget, the opportunities and risks of it, and some of the things that could be done that do not cost the Government any money. In the spirit of empowering local leaders and devolving powers to local areas, it is key to give them more flexibility over existing budgets.

If I had the same budget in my local authority but all the rules and ringfences about what I could spend it on were removed, I would have a surplus and I would not have a problem. The lack of flexibility in the system means that I can spend the budget only on certain things that are not always the priority. There is a good opportunity, whether in the upcoming local government settlement or in the 2023 devolution deals and beyond, to genuinely empower local council leaders to be able to take decisions on funding key priorities.

I will point to one example. In common with many people, I have a bus service improvement fund in Nottinghamshire County Council that allows me to build bus lanes. At the same time, I have a shortfall in the funding that I need to keep the buses running. I could end up in a scenario where I have to build bus lanes, but I have no buses to run in them, even though the money is already in my bank account and if I were allowed to do so, I could spend it on keeping the buses. That is just one example, and there are many more. Flexibility and empowerment of local councils and leaders is hugely important. I am pleased that the Government have committed to that through devolution, but there is more that could be done to support the sustainability of local councils too.

In conclusion, the timescales of the Bill are hugely important. It needs to be completed on time in the spring or early summer if we are to pass statutory instruments and stick to timetables and targets for elections in 2024. I urge the Government to push the Bill through and ensure that we meet those timescales, otherwise my region will be stranded: the deal will be done, the structures will be in place and everything will be ready to go, but we will have to wait another year for another set of elections. That seems arbitrary and would be incredibly frustrating. We are at the front of the queue and we just want to be let in the door. I trust that the Government will recognise the importance of delivering on those commitments. I look forward, of course, to speaking to the Minister in due course about the success of Mansfield’s levelling-up fund bid—she may hear that from a few hon. Members in this debate—so there are many conversations still to have.

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

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate and to have heard the contributions so far, and an even greater pleasure to have been involved in all but two of the 27 Committee sittings—I missed them for the Westmorland county show, which is permissible in my opinion. I confess that I have not sat on a Committee for many years and I genuinely enjoyed it, which may be a peculiar thing to say. I enjoyed the civility of it, the way that we could go through the Bill line by line, and the fact that we could disagree—we disagreed pretty much politely throughout.

As has been observed by other hon. Members, the turnover of the ministerial team was rather like Mark E Smith’s The Fall—the Secretary of State was Mark E Smith in that characterisation, although even Mark E Smith never managed to sack himself. The turnover was remarkable, but all the Ministers were pleasant and well engaged, so I enjoyed the process.

The Bill is complex—there is a lot of it and a lot of detail—but I would argue that some of it is totally unnecessary, because levelling up the country needs not legislation but will. The phrase “levelling up” recognises that some regions of the United Kingdom, particularly in England, are behind others. Generally speaking, only London and the south-east tend to make a positive net contribution to GDP. The eastern region’s contribution is occasionally fractionally positive, but the rest of us technically make a negative contribution. That is not our fault; it is because of the way this country operates as a unipolar country, where all the resources are centred on London and its environs.

There is absolutely a need to level up, in the phrase that the Government have chosen, but the action seems starkly missing. Let us be honest: as we go through the process of public services and public spending cuts now, there is no doubt that the poorest regions of the country that are most in need of levelling up will, as always, be hardest hit, because those are the communities in which people most need public services. In my view, therefore, much of the Bill—for all that it has been a joy to discuss—is navel contemplation over action.

The part of the Bill that we are discussing that relates to devolution and the settlements and deals for local communities is thoroughly patronising. We are not actually being offered devolution at all, are we? We are being offered delegation. I am pleased to support new clause 71 in the name of the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), whose kind words about my former and current colleagues are genuinely well received and I am grateful on their and my behalf. He talked about the importance of Cornwall being able to choose its own destiny, which I fully support and which, surely, is what we want for everywhere else as well if we believe in devolution and empowering local communities.

The various Ministers who we spoke to in Committee consistently reinforced the position that level 3, the highest tier of devolution, will be available only to those communities that choose a Mayor. That is not devolution but delegation to neaten up the system for the benefit of the Government rather than to empower local communities. If rural and diverse communities such as Cumbria, which is not dissimilar to Cornwall, decide that they want devolution, but do not want to choose the model the Government tell them to have, who the heck are the Conservative Government in Westminster to dictate either to Cornwall or Cumbria that it must have such a system? We would like devolution—we demand devolution—and we demand not to be told the format that it must take. An obsession with symmetry is typical of all parties that end up in office—sometimes.

[Ben Bradley]

Does the hon. Member not accept that, if we allow every area to dictate the way it has devolution in the way it would like to have it, we would end up with a ridiculous hotchpotch of systems across the country that makes no coherent sense? Our system of local government and local governance is already incredibly mixed and complicated, and surely this is a chance to have some consistency across the board so that his area, just like my area, can have a positive and consistent relationship with Government and equal access to Government.

[Tim Farron]

I see the point, and I understand that the hon. Gentleman is a local government leader himself. Nevertheless, that is what people would say if they were sitting in Westminster, because it is neat and useful for them. The reality is that, in Cumbria, Cornwall, Northumberland or Shropshire, having the ability to choose our own style of government might be complicated for the Government, but it is not complicated for us. Do we believe in devolution, or do we want the Government to have things just as they want?

I feel—I fear, even—that what we are seeing is not devolution, but delegation. The Government are seeking neatness and convenience for their own sake, rather than the empowerment of communities. It is an obsession with symmetry, rather than the empowerment of such communities. With the exception of the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth and perhaps one or two others, the Government are playing to their stereotype of being out of touch with local communities. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you will allow me, I will play to my stereotype and talk about electoral reform. You would be very disappointed if I did not.

New clause 45 offers local authorities the opportunity to choose their own electoral system. Unsurprisingly—I will absolutely stagger you now, Mr Deputy Speaker, and predict this—a commitment to electoral reform will be in the next Liberal Democrat manifesto. There, I have said it. The point is that communities should be allowed to choose, and since the last election the Government have removed the ability to use the supplementary vote—not an electoral system I favour, but nevertheless one fairer than first past the post—for mayoral elections and police and crime commissioner elections, which I think removes choice from local communities.

I would also suggest this in support of my amendment. The Government choosing to make a change to the electoral system, as they have done in local government, without reference to a referendum is an interesting precedent for what might happen under a future Government. It is a precedent the Government will wish they had never set, because if a party or parties go into a future election committing to electoral reform in their manifestos and find itself or themselves in government, we now have the precedent that electoral reform can be delivered without reference to a referendum. The Government will rue the day, and they might rue it soon.

New clause 45 gives local authorities the opportunity to choose to elect their mayors, councillors and police and crime commissioners in the way they choose. If this really was a levelling-up and devolution Bill, of course the Government would permit local authorities to do that. They do not need to approve of what a local government area does, within obvious parameters, to be able to permit them to have that power.

I want to move on to new clause 46, in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), which, with your permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will seek to push to a vote. It is on the reform of the business rates system, to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) has already rightly and powerfully made reference. Business rates are an outdated and completely counterproductive system of taxation. They are harmful for our high streets and the economy because they directly tax investment in structures and equipment, rather than taxing profits or the fixed stock of land.

The 2019 Conservative manifesto committed to doing exactly what I am suggesting and proposing that the Government should do, so they should have no problem whatsoever in adopting new clause 46. It should be a piece of cake for them to do so, because in their manifesto they pledged to

“cut the burden of tax on business by reducing business rates. This will be done via a fundamental review of the system.”

Where is it? My amendment gives them the opportunity to do just that. This is the opportunity for them to show that they meant what they had in their manifesto.

Since the 2019 election, the Government have repeatedly tinkered with business rates but failed to bring forward that fundamental review. We often approve of that tinkering, but the fact that they are constantly tinkering is a living admission that the system is broken, so let us fix it. The fact is, business rates do not reflect the value of properties, particularly in the north and the midlands—areas outside of London and the south-east—and do active damage to our high streets, which are already under enough pressure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dehenna Davison]

While I understand the intention behind the new clause, we consider it unnecessary on the basis that a review has been concluded only recently, and we have put in place an incredibly robust support package.

[Tim Farron]

I am grateful to the Minister for what she is saying. To add to what my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire said, there may be much to commend that particular part of the autumn statement, but is the very package not an admission that the system is broken? Tinkering on the edges will not help. Surely it needs full reform and replacement if we are to support our town and village centres.

[Dehenna Davison]

I am grateful to the hon. Member, and indeed all colleagues who have engaged with us on business rates reform. I will not go over arguments that I have already made. We will not accept the new clause, but I hope that hon. Members recognise that we are very much committed to ensuring that business rates are not an impediment to businesses investing in and residing within our high streets.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale also spoke to new clause 45 on electoral system reform. It was no surprise to hear the Lib Dems talking about electoral reform, and I do not want to rehash debates from Committee. I know that he and his party are passionate about this subject, but he will not be surprised to learn that the Government will not accept the new clause.

Turning to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), I want to put on record my sincere praise for her campaigning on the repeal of the Vagrancy Act. She is so passionate on this issue and I am grateful to her for her positive engagement. I look forward to working with her as this progresses. On her new clause 4, I have to admit that I would not want to make a commitment today, but I am keen to work with her to understand the issue of local voting rights in her constituency more fully. I would love to get a meeting in with her in due course to see whether this is something that we can review.

The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) made an impassioned case on an issue on which I know she is very passionate. It was great to find agreement with her, as we both believe in devolving power to a local level to tackle local challenges. In the White Paper we set out a skills mission which set a target to increase the number of people completing high-quality skills training in every area of the UK by 200,000, with 80,000 more people competing skills training in the lowest skilled areas of the UK. The White Paper also highlighted the importance of the Government’s net zero target in helping to achieve that mission. The Government’s net zero strategy also makes a commitment to ensuring that the skills system is incentivised and equipped to deliver the skills necessary for the transition to net zero, as well as a commitment to growing post-16 training programmes such as green skills boot camps, apprenticeships and T-Levels. We will not be accepting the hon. Member’s amendment today, but I hope she recognises that there is a commitment from the Government, through the White Paper and other strategies, to ensure that we hit those net zero targets.

I want to make two quick final points. First, I want to say how grateful I am to my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) for her positive engagement on the issue of council tax for houses of multiple occupancy. We have reached a good position and I look forward to working with her and her constituent Mr Brewer throughout the consultation and beyond to ensure that we get it right.

Finally, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) raised points on the standards board and compulsory purchase orders, but I want to latch on to something he said about his belief in devolution—something that he and we in the Government absolutely share. He talked about brownfield land, and he will know about the brownfield land release fund, which has been so crucial in helping to support and regenerate brownfield areas. I would be happy to engage with him and I look forward to working with him and the Committee in my wider ministerial role.

In closing, I hope that hon. Members can see from the amendments that the Government have tabled today that we have listened to the concerns that have been raised since the Bill was introduced and that we are determined that the Bill will make a tangible difference in communities up and down the country.

Question put and agreed to.

New clause 61 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.



New Clause 62

Functions in respect of key route network roads

(1) The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 is amended as follows.

(2) In section 104, in subsection (10), for “An” substitute “Except as provided for by section 107ZA(7), an”.

(3) In section 107D, in subsection (9), for “An” substitute “Except as provided for by section 107ZA(7), an”.

(4) After section 107 insert—

“Combined authorities: key route network roads

107ZA Designation of key route network roads

(1) A combined authority may designate a highway or proposed highway in its area as a key route network road, or remove its designation as a key route network road, with the consent of—

(a) each constituent council in whose area the highway or proposed highway is, and

(b) in the case of a mayoral combined authority, the mayor.

(2) The Secretary of State may designate a highway or proposed highway in the area of a combined authority as a key route network road, or remove its designation as a key route network road, if requested to do so by—

(a) the combined authority,

(b) the mayor (if any) of the combined authority, or

(c) a constituent council.

(3) A designation or removal under this section must be in writing and must state when it comes into effect.

(4) The Secretary of State must send a copy of a designation or removal under subsection (2) to the combined authority in question at least 7 days before the date on which it comes into effect.

(5) A combined authority must publish each designation or removal under this section of a key route network road within its area before the date on which it comes into effect.

(6) A combined authority that has key route network roads in its area must keep a list or map (or both) accessible to the public showing those roads.

(7) The requirements in section 104(10) and section 107D(9)(a) do not apply to provision under section 104(1)(d) and section 107D(1) contained in the same instrument so far as that provision—

(a) confers a power of direction on an existing mayoral combined authority regarding the exercise of an eligible power in respect of key route network roads in the area of that combined authority,

(b) provides for that power of direction to be exercisable only by the mayor of the combined authority, and

(c) is made with the consent of the mayor after the mayor has consulted the constituent councils.

(8) When a mayor consents under subsection (7)(c), the mayor must give the Secretary of State—

(a) a statement by the mayor that all of the constituent councils agree to the making of the order, or

(b) if the mayor is unable to make that statement, the reasons why the mayor considers the order should be made even though not all of the constituent councils agree to it being made.

(9) In this section—

“constituent council” has the meaning given in section 104(11);

“eligible power” has the meaning given by section 88(2) of the Local Transport Act 2008;

“key route network road” means a highway or proposed highway designated for the time being under this section as a key route network road;

“proposed highway” means land on which, in accordance with plans made by a highway authority, that authority are for the time being constructing or intending to construct a highway shown in the plans.””—(Dehenna Davison.)

This new clause provides for designation of “key route network roads” in combined authorities and makes provision about consent requirements for orders that both confer a power of direction concerning such roads and make the power exercisable only by the mayor. It will be inserted after clause 58.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 65

Participation of police and crime commissioners at certain local authority committees

In section 102(9) of the Local Government Act 1972 (appointment of committees), for “to which the commissioner is appointed in accordance with this section”, substitute “described in subsection (6)”.”—(Dehenna Davison.)

This new clause makes clear that the restriction in section 102(9) of the Local Government Act 1972 applies only to participation at meetings of the committees described in section 102(6) of that Act. The new clause will be inserted after clause 68.

Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

New Clause 41

Duty to provide sufficient resources to Combined Authorities and Combined County Authorities

“(1) This section applies where the Government has committed funding to a Combined Authority or a Combined County Authority in order to deliver a specific project.

(2) The Secretary of State must provide commensurate financial resources to a Combined Authority or a Combined County Authority to enable the delivery of the project mentioned in subsection (1) as agreed in full.

(3) The Secretary of States must, by regulations, amend the value of this funding to reflect inflation.”—(Alex Norris.)

This new clause would commit the Government to fully funding combined authority and combined county authority projects they have committed to in the case that costs rise due to inflation.

Brought up, and read the First time.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Levelling Up Rural Britain

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), who set out an important case.

It is to be blessed to live in a community such as Cumbria and Westmorland, and to enjoy the beautiful scenery of South Lakeland, Eden, the dales and the Lake district. It is something I feel hugely privileged to be able to enjoy. Nevertheless, it is important to say—it is a bit of a cliché—“You cannot eat the view.” Many people in our communities are struggling, now more than ever, to make ends meet. Public services are struggling to do the same because, as we know, in rural communities public services cost more money to run. We are running them over much larger areas, serving a smaller number of people. It is clear that this Government, in terms of the funding given to our rural communities, do not yet get that in any practical way. Those living in communities such as Cumbria feel overlooked and taken for granted by this Government and that must end. The Rural Services Network looked at the Government’s own metrics for levelling up and applied them region by region. It noted that, on the Government’s own metrics, rural England is the poorest region of England.

Let us start on housing. In my community, over the past two years, the number of holiday lets has increased by more than a third. We can see a clearing out of the long-term private rented sector, which means that families and individuals are being not just evicted from their homes, but ejected from their communities. That means hundreds and hundreds of people who are coming to me for help are unable to work and have to take their children out of school. They move out of the area altogether. Without action to tackle excessive second home ownership and excessive numbers of holiday lets in communities such as ours, the community will cease to exist.

We have a bed-blocking rate of 32% in our local hospital trust at present, because the places where care workers would have been able to live are no longer available or affordable for them. So it is more than high time that the Government accept amendments I introduced in the Bill Committee, and will put again on the Floor of this House, for local authorities and national parks to have powers to decide that second homes, holiday lets and domestic residences are three separate categories of planning use to control and preserve homes for local people and families. Words will not cut it—action is what is needed.

On health, in our community in South Lakeland, we have seen a 16% reduction and in Eden a 17% reduction in the number of GPs serving in the last six years. When we see huge waiting times for people to see a GP, that is not the fault of GPs—let us not level it at their door. It may be the fault of the Government, who removed the minimum practice income guarantee, which makes surgeries such as the Central Lakes surgery in Ambleside and Hawkshead unsustainable, with GPs handing back their contract. Unless the Government consider proposals such as mine for the sustainable small surgeries fund that will allow small surgeries to survive, we will see more and more GPs leaving our area and more and more rural communities without a GP.

There is not a single NHS dentist place in the whole of Cumbria at this moment. Only a third of adults and barely a half of children have seen a dentist in the last two years. It is obvious that the unit of dental activity treadmill that is applied is pushing dentists out of the NHS, particularly in rural communities such as mine.

On cancer services, in South Lakeland, 41% of people with a cancer diagnosis are not getting treatment for more than two months, and in Eden in the north of Cumbria 59% of people with a cancer diagnosis are not being seen within 62 days. That is in no small part down to the Government’s failure to invest in the diagnostics and treatment needed. We have been asking for years for a satellite radiotherapy unit at the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal that would meet those people’s needs and save lives. The Government could easily provide that. Levelling up means nothing if it does not deliver services that will save the lives of the people who live in rural communities.

On transport, in rural communities, one of the features that unites us is that there are huge distances between where people live, work and study and the services they use. It just takes a long time. Therefore, it is all the more important that the Government take action to ensure that we do not have failing rail services. One of the reasons many of us are still here at this time on a Wednesday is that we could not reasonably get home because of the failure of west coast rail, the Avanti service, at present.

Let us look at what levelling up means for rural stations. The footfall for rural stations such as Staveley, Grange, Windermere, Oxenholme and Penrith, Appleby, and Cark and Cartmel is relatively small and, therefore, funding is hard to get hold of. Staveley station has 28 steps to get up to it. It is totally and utterly inaccessible for anyone with a pram or disability, yet no form of funding pot that exists already will ever give a station of that kind the funding needed to make it accessible to the people who live close by. Levelling up means the Government recognising that they have to provide funding for those kinds of services, or else we will not get them.

Let us think of the threat to our ticket offices at Oxenholme, Penrith on the main line and places such as Grange, Windermere and Appleby. Those are vital ticket offices for the people who use those stations, yet because they are relatively small and because the Department for Transport continues to give sanction to the rail companies to look at scaling back those ticket offices, they are under threat. If the Government were committed to levelling up rural communities, they would recognise that communities such as ours are a special case and put an end to that.

I will say something about farming. The movement towards the environmental land management scheme is a positive thing, or at least the aim is. But the fact that only 1% of farmers have the sustainable farming incentive so far shows that the transition is bogged down and is forcing farmers out of the industry altogether. That is why the Government need to plough ahead with ELMS but make it fair and accessible to everyone, ensuring that active farmers get the money, not wealthy landowners who do not farm. They must ensure that we do not have a situation where people lose their basic payment before they get the new payment.

It is a wonderful thing to be a farmer. What do they do every morning? They wake up and have on their to-do list to feed the country and save the planet. What an awesome task it is that we give our farmers. We should be grateful to them, yet the Government’s botching of the transition to the new system and their signing of unfair trade deals that throw our farmers under the bus show how little they value our farmers.

Finally, rural schools are smaller. Their budgets are smaller to start off with and the unfunded pay rises and unfunded increases in energy costs mean that every single one of the schools I have spoken to in my constituency over the last week are planning staff reductions. That will only hurt our children. The Government do not understand that they need to support rural school funding, and it is only the children who will suffer.

We have fewer than half a million full-time residents in Cumbria, and more than 20 million visitors. We are not funded to pay for the services that those visitors use. We are delighted that the visitors come, but if levelling up is to mean anything, the Government must respect places such as Westmorland, the lakes and dales—the whole of Cumbria—so that we have the resources to meet the needs of the community that lives there full time and those who visit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am delighted, and I will recommend that a friend of mine submits evidence to the Committee. I will refer to his work later.

The Government need to empower and support farmers to undertake a wide range of practical routine tasks that are currently the responsibility of national agencies but that those agencies are unable to deliver because they do not have local expertise and knowledge. For example, the Environment Agency used to clear watercourses annually on lowland floodplains, but it has now abandoned the practice, resulting in disastrous flooding on what is often the most productive agricultural land in the UK. Farmers could be paid to do the work, subject to effective regulation.

Local groups should also be encouraged to take charge and work in collaboration with each other, and with the appropriate central and regional authorities. For example, the encouragement of wildlife is frequently focused on transforming, flooding or wilding separate individual locations. It would be far more effective to recruit farmers and landowners across an area to collaborate on creating wildlife oases linked by wooded, hedged or specially planted corridors, for which they could be appropriately reimbursed.

Now is the time to improve the policy delivery process by harnessing local knowledge and ability in conjunction with scientific expertise, bringing them together with the responsible Government bodies. The top of the civil service should work on enhancing cross-departmental governance processes in Whitehall, including by repairing Whitehall’s broken policy and strategy-making mechanisms. I can vouch that permanent secretaries are keen on this.

From the bottom up, we need to encourage pilot projects that, if successful, can be scaled up and applied nationwide, appropriately amended to local conditions. One such pilot is being developed in south Cumbria, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), by local farmer and businessman John Geldard, whom the hon. Gentleman is giving appropriate support. Mr Geldard is best known for championing the sale of high-quality local produce in supermarkets. Spurred on by the damage done by Storm Desmond, by the pandemic and by the current inflationary economic threat, Mr Geldard has built a multiskilled team that is now addressing a range of challenges with increasing success. As part of this project, for example, he has a senior policeman improving local policing.

[Tim Farron]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this point. The area Mr Geldard farms in the Lyth valley is often subject to flooding, which is a reminder that sometimes we need to invest in infrastructure to allow good-quality agricultural land to operate as good-quality agricultural land, otherwise we will not be able to feed ourselves as a country or to do the good work that is needed on biodiversity, of which Mr Geldard is such a good example.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman.

The policing initiative is being led by a retired local police officer, and it is transforming the countryside’s ability to police itself and to deal with rural crime more effectively. I have been trialling such initiatives in my constituency, too.

We are not scrapping all the regulations. Of course, there has to be regulation. Some of the rhetoric has been overtaken by politics. Our population may be overwhelmingly urban, but England and the whole UK sees its countryside as its shire, embodying an ideal of harmony between humankind and nature. This national feeling is a force to be reckoned with, and Governments who trifle with it do so at their peril.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point.

I have only three and a half minutes left, so I will try to address a number of the points that have been highlighted by colleagues. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), along with my hon. Friends the Members for Witney (Robert Courts), for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates), for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson) and for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), among others, raised the point about connectivity, be it of the physical kind, in terms of buses and public transport, or the virtual kind, in terms of broadband. They are absolutely right to advocate on the challenges that this brings. We all know that there have been challenges associated with buses in the past few years. When the level of decrease of passenger use is so profound as it has been with covid, of course we want to try to work through how we can support rural communities. That is no different in my constituency. We have to try to look at the innovative solutions that my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch highlighted with regards to a demand response to travel, while also ensuring that people have good quality bus services over the long term.

I had the pleasure of discussing many of these things with the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), along with the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris)—the representative of that rural idyll—during the Committee stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale made some strong points about the importance of skills, which is the subject of one of the missions in our White Paper, demonstrating our commitment to that and highlighting the importance of trying to make progress on public transport connectivity and accessibility.

[Tim Farron]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Lee Rowley]

Sadly, I will not as I have further points to cover.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) mentioned funding formulas. Although I am only 10 days into the job, I am very happy to talk to more colleagues about local government finance in general. I am keen to understand, to learn and to take the expertise that the all-party group and others have demonstrated over so many years to assist me in my role in the months ahead. He is absolutely right to raise the issue of park homes, as it is so important to many of us with rural and semi-rural constituencies.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) highlighted the importance of trying to get some of these points right both in terms of application processes to make applications for improvements and of making sure that central Government evaluate those in a way that works. His points on that were very strong. The triple tag team of my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and for West Dorset (Chris Loder) made some very good points about the importance of enabling the input of the private sector, about ensuring that we have parish and town councils that work for the communities that they serve and also about negative revenue support grant. I have heard all of those points and would be happy to talk to my colleagues about them. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), who is an important and doughty campaigner, made a strong point about trains in his area, particularly about the Avanti Service.

My hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), for Buckingham (Greg Smith), and for Devizes (Danny Kruger) demonstrated the importance of tourism and hospitality and the importance of consideration of communities when large infrastructure projects take place in local areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes highlighted the immense importance from a rural perspective of remembering the long-term history and the reasons why these communities have developed in the way they have. As he said, the recollection and the acknowledgement of that history is so important in helping us to understand how we develop policy in the future.

In the moment that I have left, I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions today. It has been an incredibly interesting and important debate, which demonstrates our ability to have a nuanced, detailed and open conversation about the challenges and opportunities that face our rural communities. By doing that, we have the opportunity to make progress in the long-term to support these communities as we develop in the decades ahead.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Twenty Seventh sitting)

Tim Farron Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

This is a really important new clause. York’s housing market has been completely skewed by this new insurgent enterprise, which is significantly affecting not just people’s housing but their health. The mental stress for communities is significant. Families are having to move away from the places where they grew up, and businesses are having to close. The situation is urgent. I hope that the Minister will use this Bill to bring forward much-needed legislation. I hope he will talk to colleagues in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport about the review it has carried out, and listen to our communities. This is a big issue for Members from right across the House. We have had so many debates about it; it is time to move forward. It is time to license, so that we can build real communities again.

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

I want to say a big thank you for your role in chairing many sittings of this Committee, Mrs Murray. I also thank the Clerks, who have supported you and all of us.

Earlier this week, we offered Government Members the opportunity to vote to enable local authorities to compel developers to build only affordable housing for a period of time, and they rejected that. Now, the hon. Member for York Central has put forward a very reasonable and timely suggestion about how we might do something about the stock that we have. If they will not do one or other, what is meant to happen to our housing stock? The reality for communities such as mine in Cumbria is that the evaporation of the long-term housing rental market has led to enormous hardship. It is a catastrophe.

It was a problem before the pandemic, but the combination of the stamp duty cut, introduced by the last Chancellor but three at the beginning of the pandemic, and a failure to acknowledge the consequences of the staycation boom, meant an absolute avalanche of full-time residential property going into either the second home market or the short-term rental market. That has had absolutely devastating consequences.

The fact that the Government have not kept their manifesto promise to scrap section 21 evictions means that there is literally an open door for any landlord to get rid of the people they have in those homes, and those homes then go into short-term holiday let usage. In South Lakeland, in my constituency, in one year we saw a 32% rise in the number of holiday lets. As hon. Members can image, South Lakeland had tonnes to start off with, so that is a vast number. Where did they come from? They were not new build properties, but existing homes that were lived in by families and others who have now been evicted, not just from those homes but from those communities.

I do not want to make any assumptions, but I imagine that in a community such as yours, Mrs Murray, the situation is similar and you have lost some of the full-time population. What then happens to the working-age population? I can think of successful primary schools that have lost 20% to 40% of their pupils for that reason in the last two years.

Cumbria Tourism undertook a survey of its member organisations and businesses, which work throughout the lakes, dales and other parts of Cumbria, and found that some 63% could not work at capacity over the last year because they did not have the staff to do the job. The lack of affordable housing kills economies as well as ruining family life and undoing the fabric of our communities, including schools, churches, pubs, businesses and bus services, the demand for which dries up.

The situation is catastrophic. If the Government will not accept the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for York Central, the amendment I proposed or any of the other amendments that have been proposed, what are they going to do about the crisis in our existing housing stock in communities such as those in York, Cumbria and many other areas of the country? They might nod and show their concern, but they must act. This is an absolute emergency, so act. This is something they could do, so why would they not do it?

[Dehenna Davison]

I am incredibly grateful to the hon. Member for York Central for raising the issue so passionately. I know she is deeply concerned about it and has been campaigning incredibly hard on it throughout her time in Parliament. I note she mentioned her private Member’s Bill. I have already offered to engage with her on issues that we have discussed previously in Committee, and I am happy to engage with her on that as well.

Online platforms have enabled greater choice in accommodation for holidaymakers and have brought benefits to the tourism sector. On the one hand, it is an incredible compliment to a place to see a lot of Airbnb rental properties popping up, as the area becomes a tourism hotspot and a lot of people want to visit incredible places such as York and Cumbria, but unfortunately we know the issues that can come with that as well.

The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale mentioned local school numbers declining and local shops and pubs seeing their year-round trade turning to seasonal trade, which is not something they necessarily expected or planned for. Many hon. Members from across the House are familiar with such arguments and have raised them in debates. I have had particular representations from hon. Members from Cornwall and Devon, who I know face similar issues.

The hon. Member for York Central mentioned illegal activity and gave examples from her constituency. That is another area where it is crucial that we get our policy right. That is why DCMS launched the call for evidence on this topic, which she made reference to, as an important first step in understanding how we can continue to reap the benefits of short-term lets, while also protecting holidaymakers and local interests.

The Government are now carefully analysing over 4,000 responses to this exercise. What local people and affected stakeholders have said will help to inform the development of evidence-based and proportionate policy proposals. Accepting this amendment before we have analysed those responses would pre-empt the necessary policy development needed. We plan to publish our response to the consultation in the usual way. We want to make sure we get the policy right because we recognise that there are so many issues related to it.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Twenty Sixth sitting)

Tim Farron Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Rachael Maskell]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

We are a sick nation physically. Our health outcomes are regressing and we are sinking into a mental health quagmire. Levelling up has to address this agenda, or else it has no purpose. The new clause recognises the inequality and demands change. It should be welcome and should integrated into the Bill, not least with the health disparities White Paper scrapped. If we have poor planning, residential or economic, people’s health is impacted. If we have poor transport planning, pollution reduces their life expectancy. If someone has a cold, damp house or faces housing insecurity, they will have poor educational outcomes and a poor job, poor pay and poor prospects, and they will get trapped in a cycle. Levelling up should break them free of that.

In his 2010 “Fair Society, Healthy Lives” review, Professor Sir Michael Marmot understood this. It is his life’s work to consider how planning, transport, environment and housing must come together to address wider health determinants. The new clause seeks to heed his work and to act. Planning has the most significant role to play, yet it does not have statutory engagement with this agenda. We urgently need to address inequality and shape sustainable, thriving and healthy places for physical activity and mental wellbeing—natural places for walking, cycling and wheeling that have clean air and that are accessible. Although there is an existing legal duty on local authorities and the Secretary of State to improve public health in England, there are no corresponding legal duties to reduce health inequalities and improve wellbeing in local authorities, but they are the delivery vehicle of this agenda.

A health inequalities and wellbeing improvement plan must integrate health, planning, transport, environment and housing to address social determinants. Let us make one. Delivering 20-minute neighbourhoods would not only change the way we live our lives, but build community for all, creating, as a planning purpose, opportunities for active travel and natural space, enhancing wellbeing and economic output, and levelling up. Building in natural green and blue spaces is therefore vital to the planning and levelling-up agendas.

We have talked for years—decades—but talking does not make anything happen. We need action, infrastructure, obligations and a further levelling-up mission. Let us legislate and support the new clause.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance today, Mr Hollobone. On this last day of the Committee, I want to put on record my thanks to the Clerk here and those who are not present for their work and support throughout the Committee. I also thank colleagues on both sides. Although I have been disappointed that the Government have not accepted amendments from the Opposition or from their own Back Benchers, I have nevertheless appreciated the courtesy with which that has been done. I have enjoyed this time on the Committee with all Members present—I genuinely mean that.

I have a few words to say on the new clause. Health inequalities are hugely significant for levelling up, and I want to pick just two issues that affect rural communities—not just mine, but others too. I will start with GPs. In my constituency alone there has been a 17% drop in the number of GPs in the past five and a half years—that is more than one in six GPs gone—and the average GP there serves 403 more patients than they did in 2016. Any Government criticism or implied criticism of GPs not seeing people quickly enough needs to be seen in that context. Let us support our GPs with the resources they need, rather than lambasting them.

It is worth pointing out that that period coincides with the time since the Government got rid of the minimum practice income guarantee, and I am going to argue that those things are connected. The minimum practice income guarantee was money that supported small, often rural, surgeries to ensure they were sustainable. Its removal has led to the closure of a number of surgeries, including the current threat to the Ambleside and Hawkshead surgeries in my constituency. A new small surgeries strategic rural fund could support those surgeries, make sure we do not lose more and bring some back.

The second issue is about cancer. In the north of Cumbria, 59% of people with a cancer diagnosis are not seen within two months of their diagnosis—they are not being treated for the first time for more than 62 days after diagnosis. In the south of Cumbria, the figure is 41%. Either way, that is outrageous. People are dying unnecessarily.

There are a whole range of reasons for that. One is the lack of easy access to radiotherapy. According to the Government’s national radiotherapy advisory group, any patient who has to travel more than 45 minutes one way for radiotherapy treatment is in receipt of “bad practice”. That information was published a few years ago now, but it still absolutely stands, clinically and in every other way. There is not a single person living in my constituency who can get to treatment within 45 minutes—not one. Mobile or satellite units at places such as Kendal and Penrith are absolutely essential. If we are going to tackle levelling up and health inequalities between rural areas and others, we need to ensure that small rural surgeries are properly funded and that there are satellite radiotherapy units.

[Dehenna Davison]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for York Central for raising this incredibly important issue. All hon. Members will agree that it is vital that we safeguard the health and wellbeing of our nation. The Health Secretary talked about the ABCD of national priorities—ambulances, backlogs, care, and doctors and dentistry—and giving her time to tackle them is incredibly important. That is why the Government have introduced a new approach to co-ordinating local efforts to improve health outcomes, and why we have already set clear expectations through planning policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

I am sure the residents of York will heed the Minister’s advice in May and ensure that they have a council that engages with them and listens to their needs. While we wait for that event, I think it is clear that, across the planning system, communities may have a voice but they do not have the power to influence decisions. We need to ensure greater democratisation of our planning system, which should be about people and communities, and their homes, futures and jobs. At the moment, the planning system is insufficient in helping people to level up, which is what the Bill is all about.

The Minister has heard my arguments, and I am sure that we will debate this further, but I trust that, in the interim between this stage and Report, he will give further consideration to how that balance can be tipped more towards communities, ensuring that they have a proper say, so that that the Bill does not become another developers’ charter under which developers hold all the cards and all the power. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 51

Disposal of land held by public bodies

“(1) The Local Government Act 1972 is amended in accordance with subsections (2) and (3).

(2) In section 123 (disposal of land by principal councils), after subsection (2) insert—

‘(2ZA) But the Secretary of State must give consent if the disposal is in accordance with section [Disposal of land held by public bodies] of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2022.’

(3) In section 127(3) (disposal of land held by parishes and communities), after ‘(2A)’ insert ‘, (2ZA)’.

(4) The National Health Service Act 2006 is amended in accordance with subsection (5).

(5) After section 211 (acquisition, use and maintenance of property) insert—

‘211A Disposal of land held by NHS bodies

Any power granted by this Act to an NHS body to dispose of land is exercisable in accordance with section [Disposal of land held by public bodies] of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2022 as if the NHS body were a local authority.’

(6) Subject to subsection (8), a disposal of land is in accordance with this section if it is in accordance with the Local Government Act 1972 General Disposal Consent (England) 2003 published in Department for Communities and Local Government Circular 06/03, as amended by subsection (7).

(7) Those amendments to the Local Government Act 1972 General Disposal Consent (England) 2003 are—

(a) after paragraph 1 insert—

‘(1A) This consent also applies to any NHS body in England as if it were a local authority in accordance with section 211A of the National Health Service Act 2006;’;

(b) in paragraph 2(b), for ‘£2,000,000 (two million pounds)’ substitute ‘£3,000,000 (three million pounds) or 40% of the unrestricted market value, whichever is greater’;

(c) for paragraph 3(1)(vii) substitute—

‘(viii) a Police and Crime Commissioner established under the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011;’;

(d) for paragraph 3(1)(ix) substitute—

‘(ix) the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime;’;

(e) for paragraph 3(1)(x) substitute—

‘(x) the London Fire Commissioner;’;

(f) after paragraph 3(1)(xii) insert—

‘(xiii) a combined authority;

(xiv) a mayoral combined authority;

(xv) the Greater London Authority;

(xvi) any successor body established by or under an Act of Parliament to any body listed in this sub-paragraph.’.”

(8) The Secretary of State may, to reflect inflation, further amend the cash value that the difference between the unrestricted value of the land to be disposed of and the consideration for the disposal must not exceed.—(Tim Farron.)

This new clause would bring an amended and updated version of the Local Government Act 1972 General Disposal Consent (England) 2003 into primary legislation, extends its application to NHS bodies and clarifies that the Consent applies to Police and Crime Commissioners, MOPAC and the London Fire Commissioner.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Tim Farron]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 51 addresses an outdated element and we hope that the Government will take it on board. Land and property sold by local authorities, the NHS, the fire brigade and police forces should, where possible, be prioritised for public services and social and affordable housing, which benefit the local communities that those buildings previously served. As things stand, however, the law is ambiguous and outdated when it comes to the sale of publicly owned assets below what is known as “best value”, which is defined as the market value—the highest price achievable on the open market.

This situation has been illuminated by the case of Teddington police station, a publicly owned asset in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), where local residents have thrown their support behind a bid to turn what is now a disused building into affordable housing and new premises for a GP’s surgery, so that the building can keep serving the local community.

The Mayor of London has consistently argued that he has a statutory duty to achieve best value and is minded to favour the highest bidder. That is likely to be a property developer with deep pockets looking to turn the former Teddington police station into luxury flats. The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime is currently seeking legal advice, for which we are grateful, on whether they can legally sell the site for less than its maximum market value where it achieves social value, following a campaign led by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham.

Doubt has arisen, because the original law allowing the sale of public sector assets below market value is obsolete. It includes public authorities that have long since ceased to exist, but not their successors—their current equivalents. It allows a difference of price of £2 million, a sum that has not increased with inflation over the past two decades, or almost two decades. It is long overdue an update and an upgrade.

So, the new clause would be that much-needed update, ensuring that local authorities and other public bodies can once again place the good of local communities at the heart of the process when selling off assets. The new clause seeks to do four things. First, it would include new local authorities created since 2003, such as police and crime commissioners and indeed the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, and it makes it clear that any future iterations of those authorities would also be covered.

Secondly, the new clause would expand the list of public authorities to include the NHS, combined authorities and the Greater London Authority. Thirdly, it would increase the maximum difference in value that a public authority can accept for a bid that benefits the local community, raising it from £2 million to £3 million, to account for inflation since 2003. Finally, it would introduce a percentage value difference in addition to the cash value, to level up across the board and take variations of land prices across England and Wales into account.

This seems a wise and timely new clause, which we hope the Government will accept, and I commend it to the Committee.

[Rachael Maskell]

I, too, want to support the new clause and briefly draw attention to the way that we need to ensure that public land is used for public good. Whether it has been NHS Property Services, which has been selling off land to private developers, or Network Rail, which has been using its land to maximise capital receipts, or the Ministry of Defence selling off much of its estate, which we know has not gone well for the Government, we need to ensure that this type of land is used to build the homes that people need now and in the future. I can cite many examples of places in York where it feels that the city is, bit by bit, being sold off—not for the public benefit, but for the benefit of developers. That is why I will support this new clause today.

[Lee Rowley]

I thank the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale and for York Central for expressing their views on this new clause.

The legislative framework governing the disposal of surplus land is, as the hon. Gentleman outlined, a long-standing one and it is designed to protect taxpayers’ money. The starting point is that land should generally be disposed of at the best price that is reasonably obtainable. However, as he also indicated, there are on occasions the opportunity to dispose of land for less than its maximum value where that creates wider public benefits, such as facilitating community projects. Therefore, it is possible, with the Secretary of State’s consent, for local authorities to dispose of land at less than best consideration in some circumstances.

As the hon. Gentleman also indicated, a general consent is in place for disposals where there would be a loss of value of up to £2 million, and in those cases it is at the discretion of local authorities, and above this threshold—as he also indicated, because he is seeking to change it—disposals require a specific application to the Secretary of State for consent. The legislative framework is designed for local authorities and other locally accountable bodies. It already includes the fire commissioner, and other bodies are accountable in different ways to different regimes.

So, while I completely appreciate the sentiment that the hon. Gentleman expressed, and I have read the correspondence from the hon. Member for Twickenham—although I cannot comment on individual cases, I know that she is making a very clear case regarding a particular instance within her Twickenham constituency—I ask him whether he would be prepared to withdraw the new clause. I know that it seeks to offer solutions.

As a new Minister, I would be interested to understand in more detail from the hon. Member for Twickenham the specific problems that she sees, and while I cannot give her any guarantees, if she wants to write to me with that detail I will happily read it and go through it in more detail. However, at this time I ask him whether he would consider withdrawing the new clause.

[Tim Farron]

I appreciate the Minister’s response. I am also grateful for the remarks from the hon. Member for York Central. This is a huge issue for all of us and there is much public land, particularly in a community such as mine, with multiple local authorities and, indeed, predecessor local authorities, national parks and all the other parts of the public sector that are present. Sometimes, that land becomes available and there are opportunities for us to make good public use of those other properties in ways that get far more lasting value to the community than a slightly inflated cash value upfront that could then be spent filling a black hole, no doubt, for next year’s budget.

I will not press this to a vote, as the Minister asks, but I encourage him to engage with my hon. Friend. If I could push him, I am sure she would be very grateful to have a sit down with him to talk through the issue to see whether he could provide additional guidance. All we are really asking for here is that the Government update the list of what counts as a public body and accept that there has been some inflation since 2003. They are not big asks, and I ask that the Government take those things into account. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 56

Annual pubs reports

“(1) Each tier 2 local authority in England must produce an Annual Pubs Report.

(2) A report under this section must consider the latest trends in pubs and on-licensed establishments across the authority.

(3) The Secretary of State may by guidance suggest the contents of such reports.

(4) Central government must provide funding to local authorities to cover the costs of this new responsibility.”—(Alex Norris.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

One area of consensus that we have definitely been able to build over the last one day short of four months of the Bill—not that I am counting—is a belief that pubs are a core part of our communities and a general sadness about the trend of loss of those community assets in all sorts of communities, whether rural, urban or suburban. That is not least because they are attractive for a change of use—it being easier for a shop to set up and get an alcohol licence on the site of a former pub. That has happened up and down the country and we all have examples of that. It seems there is a never-ending loss of traditional pubs and we know that loss is felt deeply by our constituents. As well as affecting the social wellbeing and social interest of affected communities, studies have also shown that pubs are important in bringing people together, tackling loneliness and reducing social isolation. That, I would argue, is more important than ever.

We should take great comfort from the fact that up and down the country micropubs are fighting back, often in places that we would not necessarily have thought of. That may be part of the reimagining of retail premises in the future, and it is a good thing. However, we know that the experience of the environment in which those micropubs may seek to set up or communities may seek to stop the closure of an existing pub is not consistent, and some local authorities are much better at creating an economic, administrative and social environment where pubs are valued as a community amenity.

We are posed with a challenge of what we can do. This is a matter for local leadership, but what do we do to encourage all local authorities to adopt good practice and play an active role? That is what I have attempted to do with new clause 56, by requiring the production of an annual pubs report, which would set out how a council’s policies and strategies deliver a good environment for local pubs to operate in. In that regard, a benchmark would be set against which the success and failings of those policies could be measured and assessed.

The report could include an obligation to publish information on licensing, planning, local plans and enforcement, heritage and tourism, community engagement and assets of community values, and much more, all in a single overarching policy. I hope it would encourage local authorities to look at their pubs environment in a more holistic way and take the chance to identify pub deserts and reflect on licensing and planning trends and practices. The report would also inform the citizen and Government at a national level by allowing comparisons and aggregate understanding. I hope that is of interest to the Government. It may be that primary legislation is not the mechanism for this, but I am interested in the Minister’s views about what we might be able to do.

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[Tim Farron]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The crises we are going through at the moment—the political one in this place, the cost of living crisis, and even the appalling Russian-inspired war in Ukraine—are secondary compared to the threat of climate change to our species and way of life. The buildings we live, study and work in are the single biggest contributors to greenhouse gases in this country and in others. The role of central and local government in ensuring we minimise and reduce to zero carbon emissions from our buildings and in particular from our homes, existing and new, has to be an absolute imperative.

The Government’s failure to tackle this in any meaningful way over the last few years does not only have lasting and terrifying climate consequences; it also has consequences today, as people are feeling in their pockets the cost of paying for energy bills. The Government through programmes have sought to champion our existing building stock. The green homes grant, for instance, was meant to help 600,000 homes and would on today’s prices have saved £1,800 a year, but 600,000 homes were not helped—only 43,000 were. That lack of ambition in central Government’s plans to insulate the stock that already exists is matched by a lack of ambition out there in the country when it comes to new builds.

Most local authorities, certainly ours in Cumbria, are determined to ensure that new builds are built with zero-carbon specification, yet they are not allowed to. If they seek to enforce zero-carbon homes when it comes to insultation, heat pumps, solar panels or a variety of other mechanisms that will ensure there is literally a zero carbon footprint from that property, the developers can object if they think they will incur an unreasonable expense, and the council or planning authority are powerless to do anything about it. It is incredibly frustrating.

This new clause is significant, as it will genuinely empower local authorities to do the right things, which they desperately want to. It breaks the heart of councils of all political parties when they see what they need to do and are not allowed to enforce it. The clause will allow them to do the right things, and more importantly even, it will do something to reduce energy costs and make a meaningful contribution to the battle against climate change. This is a really important clause, so I will seek to push it to a vote, because I think the Government have had plenty of time to take action of their own initiative over the last few years. I commend the new clause to the Committee.

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for outlining the new clause. I am afraid the Government will not be able to accept it, so we will no doubt have a Division in a moment, although I ask him to consider not pushing it to a vote. If he wishes to do so, that is of course his right.

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Although I completely understand the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments and applaud him for pushing us to move as fast as possible, it is reasonable and proportionate that the building sector and construction sector have the opportunity both to comment on how we do that, which is what a consultation will seek to do in due course, and to amend their working practices in order to get to a place where they are able to adhere to the standards in a way that ensures that we address the hon. Gentleman’s points and can continue to build the houses that we all want to see, so that our constituents can have good roofs over their heads. I understand his point but ask him to withdraw the new clause. If he does not, I look forward to the Division.

[Tim Farron]

I thank the Minister for his comment, which were a clear commitment to cut no carbon. Refusing local communities the right to make decisions themselves and to have agency does not fit with anything that the Government claim about devolution and empowering local communities. I hear and respect what the Minister says, but I wish to put the new clause to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

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Brought up, and read the First time.

[Tim Farron]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

In the least surprising development of this entire Committee, I will talk about electoral reform, which, on the day after the centenary of Lloyd George’s leaving office, seems like the entirely right and appropriate thing to do. If only he had done it when he had the chance.

This is a serious point about devolution. The reality is that we have been permitted over the past few years to have different electoral systems, such as the supplementary vote used for electing Mayors and police and crime commissioners. In Scotland, the single transferable vote operates successfully for local government, and Northern Ireland has its own separate arrangements. If we trust local people, and if the Bill is about devolving power to local communities, it seems entirely reasonable to suggest that the Government allow local authorities to choose from a range of reasonable options the system that they deploy—and to do nothing more than use the system that the Conservative party normally uses for electing its leader. I point out that I am moving the new clause only because the Government chose recently to remove the supplementary vote from the election of Mayors and police and crime commissioners.

Before I shut up and sit down, I wish to reflect on the fact that in the past couple of years the Government have demonstrated an interesting example of changing the electoral system without a referendum. That makes one think, does it not? If the party or parties who form the next Government have a commitment to electoral reform in their manifestos, there is no need for a referendum. It is a precedent that the Government may wish they had not set.

[Dehenna Davison]

If it is no surprise to the Committee that the hon. Gentleman brings up electoral reform, it will be no surprise to him that I stand to ask him kindly to withdraw his new clause, because the Government absolutely cannot accept it. We are all clear about the merits of first past the post as a robust and secure way to elect representatives. It is well understood by voters and provides for strong and clear local accountability, with a clear link between elected representatives and those who vote for them, in a manner that other voting systems may not.

It is important that the voting system is clearly understood by electors and they have confidence in it. We have spoken a lot in Committee about local confidence in local politics. Ensuring confidence in the voting system is paramount. Having different systems for neighbouring areas risks confusion for electors. We are a very mobile population: we could work in one area and have family in another. That confusion could be a real risk and could weaken public confidence in the local electoral process.

There is also the risk of political manipulation. For example, the current controlling group on the council could seek to choose and implement a system that it believes would favour it. Although I accept that there could be various safeguards to mitigate that risk, I do not consider that it could be entirely removed.

Elections are the foundation of local democracy, which is central to our values and to our being a free society; we should protect and nurture it. I could talk about this all day, but I will not detain the Committee any further. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the new clause.

[Tim Farron]

I will not press the new clause to a vote, but I will comment on the irony of the Minister saying that parties should not support electoral systems that advantage them, and of suggesting that there is some kind of automatic stability and clarity about Governments that are elected via first past the post. It is all going swimmingly at the moment.

There is this idea that there may be confusion between different systems. As a Cumbrian, I can completely cope with the fact that the Scots, just over the border, have a totally different electoral system for local and parliamentary elections. My Conservative friends in Westmorland and Eden are perfectly capable of voting by alternative vote for their leader and by first past the post for their Member of Parliament or councillor. The arguments made by the Minister do not hold water, but I will not trouble the Committee by pushing the new clause to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 65

Review into business rates system

“(1) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must undertake a review of the business rates system.

(2) The review must consider the extent to which the business rates system—

(a) is achieving its objectives,

(b) is conducive to the achievement of the levelling-up and regeneration objectives of this Act.

(3) The review must consider whether alternatives of local business taxation would be more likely to achieve the objectives in subsections (2)(a) and (b).

(4) The review must in particular consider the effects of business rates and alternative local business taxation systems on—

(a) high streets, and

(b) rural areas.

(5) The review must consider the merits of devolving more control over local business taxation to local authorities.

(6) The Chancellor of the Exchequer must lay a report of the review before parliament before the end of the period of one year beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”—(Tim Farron.)

This new clause would require the Secretary of State to review the business rates system.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Tim Farron]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

Me again—sorry. The Government have made quite a thing recently about their investment zones, which are interesting. We talked about them earlier in Committee. One idea behind them is that they create a low-tax environment, which misses the major point that faces most of Britain and certainly the whole of the north of England: business rates are the high tax that destroys high streets, puts off entrepreneurs, snuffs out young and small businesses and damages local economies, rural and urban alike.

New clause 65 would require a review of the business rates system to ensure that business rates are reformed and, indeed, replaced. They are harmful to our economy. They directly tax capital investment in structures and equipment, rather than taxing the profit of a fixed stock of land. We should abolish the business rates system and replace it with a commercial landowner levy, shifting the burden of taxation from tenant to landowners. That would benefit deprived communities in particular. In terms of business rates, the whole of the north is over-rated—I should be very careful: it is over-business rated. It is not over-rated; it is of course the best part of planet Earth.

Kendal, Windermere, Penrith and communities throughout Cumbria are thriving compared with many places—we are lucky to have so many independents—but the gaps that we have in our high street we have in large part because business rates are totally unfit for purpose. They are a drag on investment and snuff out entrepreneurial zeal. If the Government really wanted to create investment zones, they would create them on every high street in the country by scrapping or reforming business rates.

[Dehenna Davison]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, about which we have all had local businesses, shop owners, shop workers and other constituents contact us. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Government reported on the business rates review, which was published with the 2021 autumn Budget. We will respond to the ongoing technical consultation in due course. At the Budget we also set out a range of measures to reduce the burden of business rates on all firms, including freezing the business rates multiplier, new support for businesses that are improving and greening their properties and additional support for high street businesses. It was a package worth more than £7 billion to businesses over the next five years.

I will keep this relatively brief. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s intention, but I suggest that the provision is unnecessary. Should the Government wish to undertake a further review of business rates, we would not require legislation to do so. I fear that putting that requirement into primary legislation would be unduly restrictive, create unhelpful bureaucracy and actually slow the possible rate of change.

[Tim Farron]

The Government do not need legislation to do most of what is in the Bill—just get on with it. Levelling up is something they can just crack on with. Business rates are a massive drag on investment in our high streets. If I heard in what the Minister said any commitment to look at that seriously, so that the obvious burden was addressed, those with the wealth to pay business-related taxes pay more, and communities in the north of England as well as those struggling in the south paid a fairer and lower rate through a new system, I would be prepared to withdraw the motion. On the condition the Government are seriously looking at that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 66

Disability accessibility standards for railway stations

“(1) The Secretary of State must take all reasonable steps to ensure that railway stations in England—

(a) provide step-free access from street to train, and

(b) meet in full and as soon as possible the disability access standards in the Design Standards for Accessible Railway Stations Code of Practice published by the Department for Transport and Transport Scotland in March 2015.

(2) Any requirements made in conjunction with that duty may not make any exemptions or concessions for small or remote stations.

(3) In undertaking the duty in subsection (1) the Secretary of State may—

(a) make an application to the Office of Rail and Road under section 16A (provision, improvement and development of railway facilities) of the Railways Act 1993;

(b) revise the code of practice under section 71B (code of practice for protection of interests of rail users who are disabled) of the Railways Act 1993;

(c) amend the contractual conditions of any licenced railway operator;

(d) instruct Network Rail to take any action the Secretary of State considers necessary in connection to the duty.

(4) The Secretary of State must report annually to Parliament on performance against the duty.” —(Tim Farron.)

This new clause places a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that railway stations meet disability access standards.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Tim Farron]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

This is the last provision of a suite from me, and it is really important to me as a person with members of their family who have disabilities and as someone who many years ago worked for Lancaster University in a role supporting students with a range of disabilities.

At the time that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 came into force, one of the glaring errors was that many older buildings were allowed to continue to be thoroughly inaccessible. I am particularly concerned about railway stations, of which there are many in my community. We are blessed with the Settle to Carlisle line; the Lakes line; the Furness line; and, of course, the main line through Oxenholme to Penrith and beyond. I am deeply concerned that there are stations throughout our country, but particularly in my community, that are not just slightly inaccessible but totally inaccessible.

In particular, I am concerned about Staveley station, which is on the Lakes line from Oxenholme to Windermere. Staveley is the first village in the Lake district. It is a beautiful and vibrant place, with a young community. It is a community that, often, lives there but works elsewhere. There are 41 steps up to Staveley station. There is zero accessibility, not just for people with a disability but for people with pushchairs or anybody who has any baggage with them. That is outrageous.

Because Staveley is a relatively small station, the Government’s schemes and funds such as Access for All, as well as those of previous Governments, were never in a million years going to give it any money. In the end, it is outrageous that one of our railway stations—I could also mention Arnside in my constituency and Ulverston in the constituency of my neighbour, the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell)—has serious accessibility problems. It is outrageous that just because these are not huge main line stations they are inaccessible for many people in our community.

New clause 66 seeks to prevent the kind of bidding game that we will always lose because the station is too small. It makes it compulsory for there to be direct decent access to railway stations for people with disabilities and other mobility issues.

[Lee Rowley]

I thank the hon. Member for tabling the new clause. I completely accept that access to railway stations—and his particular point about smaller railway stations—is hugely important, and over a long period of time we absolutely must seek to improve accessibility where we are able to do so.

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[Tim Farron]

This issue is within the scope of the Bill, as the Minister rightly said. It may be a transport matter, but it is a Department for Transport matter that will not see a resolution for my constituency or for any other small station of the sort I mentioned. Unless the Access for All fund is quadrupled in size, the chances of a small Lake district station, with a well-above-average number of people using it who have disabilities and are older, ever getting the kind of support it needs is close to zero. It will take legislation to get this moving forward, just as the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 did in the first place for many places. This is of huge concern to me: I have no confidence that the Government will tackle this issue in a way that reaches small stations that are totally inaccessible. It is important that the Government are held to account, so I wish to press the new clause to a vote.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Twenty Fifth sitting)

Tim Farron Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

The new clause is tabled in my name and that of hon. Friends and hon. Members right across the House. Time and again, we have heard from the many Ministers who have sat opposite us during our short time considering the Bill that the Government are committed and serious about levelling up, yet time and again, when the Opposition have suggested amendments to support and strengthen those aims, the Government have voted against them. I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to new clause 8, as it will actually help the Government.

The Government have struggled to define what levelling up means and, consequently, how its success can be measured. In fact, in their own technical annex to the White Paper, when addressing how they will measure boosts in productivity, pay, jobs and living standards—especially in areas where they are lagging—the Government state that further work needs to be undertaken to refine the metric. I humbly suggest that new clause 8 does just that.

Legislating for a reporting mechanism that is linked to a revival in manufacturing will focus the efforts of this and any future Government into job and skills creation, as well as the promotion of the UK as a manufacturing powerhouse once again. For too long our economy has been reliant on the service sector, where jobs can often be low paid and insecure, especially in coastal communities such as mine—coastal communities, towns and cities that were once the manufacturing hubs of the UK.

In the last 12 years we have seen a marked increase in low rates of economic growth, leading to stagnation in productivity and living standards. That is felt most starkly in the north-east, where Hartlepool, Redcar, Cleveland, Darlington, Newcastle, South Tyneside and Sunderland have all seen significantly decreased manufacturing outputs compared with 2010. The consequence has been an over 50% decrease in apprenticeships in engineering and manufacturing technologies in every single north-east local authority since 2010. Manufacturing makes up only approximately 9% of UK output, compared with 17% in the early ’90s. In other countries, such as Germany, Japan, Switzerland and South Korea, it is nearly as high as 25%.

The UK brand is still powerful; we have the skills and talents to be making and doing so much more. I do not have all the answers, and I know it can be difficult to create the right environment for manufacturing to thrive, but there are plenty of people smarter than me out there who have thought it through and do have the answers. What we need is a Government who are willing to listen to them, and to be held accountable for any action they take. New clause 8 would do that.

I suspect that the Minister will try to explain why the Government do not support the new clause. I suspect that she will explain that there is already provision for measuring and monitoring the missions in the Bill. However, new clause 8 goes further than that: it cuts across nearly every one of the levelling up missions but, more than that, it targets them directly at the very areas that the Bill claims it wants to level up. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views on the new clause.

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

It is an honour to serve under your guidance, Sir Mark. I am in full agreement with the hon. Member for South Shields, and I am pleased to be a signatory to the new clause, which gives the Government the opportunity to place real, measurable metrics at the heart of levelling up. It would ensure that we tackle some of the myths about growth, which is a word bandied around an awful lot in this place. Many of us think that so much of what the Government mean by “growth” is just consumer spending on the basis of credit and, therefore, does not really add anything long term to our economy.

The new clause gives the Government the opportunity to have measurables for this country to level up in a way that sees us restore manufacturing and skills to the heart of our economy, ensuring that we have growth that is not only real and sustainable, but distributed equally across the country. It would ensure that the Government can be held to account on whether they achieve that or not.

--- Later in debate ---

This is the first time I have spoken in Committee since the new Ministers took their place, so I welcome them. I am grateful for the time they and their predecessors—and their predecessors, and their predecessors—have given to debate some of these issues with colleagues who have concerns. I will be so bold as to say that they saved the best until last. I hope that, as we head out of Committee, the Government will look towards Report and bring something back then. As I have said before in Committee, given the commitments made in the Conservative party leadership campaign over the summer, the Bill will, by definition, have to undergo some pretty mighty changes before it re-emerges on Report. We need to find a way of sending the signal to our farmers and to everyone in this country who needs the food that our farmers produce that food security is important, that we can lock it into the planning system and that we can ensure it is considered as a material concern whenever development comes forward on our agricultural land.

[Tim Farron]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Buckingham on bringing forward these important new clauses. I agree with an awful lot of what he said. Undoubtably, food security is something that our country has overlooked hugely in recent decades, to our great cost. By some metrics, we produce only about 55% of the food we eat. That is not just a dangerous position to be in given the global situation, but it is morally questionable. As a first-world nation, we will go out and find the food we need, and we will inflate prices on the commodities markets, which will end up increasing prices for the poorest people in the world. On that level, we have a moral requirement to make good use of the land we have to produce food to feed ourselves so that we are not literally starving other people around the world.

It is worth pointing out that 70% of England’s land and about 72% of the United Kingdom’s land is agricultural. If we are serious about tackling global carbon emissions and improving biodiversity, we have to start with those working in farming. Anyone who thinks we can improve our environment without keeping people farming to deliver those environmental policies is not living in the real world.

The other thing that makes the new clauses attractive to me is that they refer to the responsibilities not just of planning authorities, but of Ministers. When it comes to planning authorities, a requirement to look at the impact of any proposal on food production and farming may sometimes mean that we protect land and do not allow development. It may also sometimes mean that we permit development, in order to allow, for example, diversification. Some level of renewable energy on farm sites is something that farmers actively want, to help shore up their businesses. I agree that we do not want to see whole farms handed over to solar, but many farmers would like the option to use renewables for environmental reasons and to cross-subsidise and diversify their business. Also, sometimes we simply need labour in those communities, and we may need to build some houses to ensure that we have sustainable farming.

I wish that the provisions of these important new clauses were already in law, because they would stop the Government botching the transition from the common agricultural policy, which was far from perfect, to the new ELM scheme. That will see farmers lose 20% of their income by the end of this year, with very little to replace it. Fewer than 2% of the 1,000 farmers in my patch—13 of them—have signed up for the new sustainable farming incentive. The botching of the transition means that farmers will lose their income, and so far they have very little to compensate for it.

However, to botch the unbotching is almost inexcusable. In the last few weeks, the Government have signalled that they might be ready to rip up ELMS altogether, after farmers have spent two years preparing for it. We see foolishness upon foolishness, all of which puts our farmers in a desperate position. They have never been more angry with the Government of the day—and we do not have time to go into the damage being done to our farming community by trade deals. We desperately need to remember, at the heart of policy making, nationally and locally, the importance of farmers and farming to food production and the environment. If the hon. Member for Buckingham were to press the new clauses to a vote, he could count me on his side—I would vote with him.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham for his introduction to the new clauses and for the work he is doing on this important policy area. We absolutely accept the challenge that he puts to us. He made strong points about the importance of balancing competing demands, all of which are important in isolation and need to be thought through and integrated as best as possible, while recognising that it is sometimes not possible to do everything. The point of Government, both local and national, is to try to ensure that that balance is struck in the best possible way.

I hesitate to go too much into an agricultural discussion, although the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale was keen to move into that space, but I acknowledge the points that have been made. It is critical that we continue to have food security in the United Kingdom, that consumers have access to good quality, healthy and sustainable food and that domestic producers have a viable business in the long run. Although I do not want to trade figures, the figures I have in front of me state that we produce about 60% of what we eat, and we produce roughly 70% to 75% of what we can produce in this country. Given the problem of dates, times and the like, I recognise that those things move around, although they seem to have been relatively static over the last 20 years. Therefore—to my hon. Friend’s point—the question is whether the planning system needs further content and signals so that it is clear that these things can be weighed up more clearly.

At the current time, things are going on elsewhere in Government, particularly around the Agriculture Act, which my hon. Friend referenced. The Act commits the Secretary of State to have regard to the need to encourage the production of food by producers in England and for that production to be done in an environmentally sustainable way. Also in the Agriculture Act is a legal obligation to produce an assessment of food security once every three years. I hope that goes some way towards reassuring my hon. Friend, although I acknowledge that he is also interested specifically in the planning element.

This might be one of the statements that I make regularly over the next few minutes or so, but I am happy to talk to my hon. Friend in more detail about the underlying intent and calls behind his new clause. However, at the current time, I ask him to withdraw it in lieu of further discussions and debate outside after our sitting.

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[Rachael Maskell]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Mark. I add my support for these measures, because it is incredibly important that power be given back to people in communities. On many occasions, I have seen developers across York move into a space and determine the future of a community without engaging it, even if only in a consultative way. Occasionally, the community may be lucky enough to meet the partners cursorily, yet those developers will derive serious profit from the land. Also, what they place on the land will have huge implications for local housing prices and economic opportunities for the community, but the community is completely disregarded.

That feeds into a wider agenda around people identifying with their place. Across society, we are wrestling with that issue, and with people having a franchise in place. People are feeling more and more disconnected from their locality. It is crucial that we find a way, across communities, to rebalance people’s right to steer through a mechanism. In debate on my earlier amendments, I talked about deliberative democracy. The community should absolutely be involved in processes before they get to a certain point. It is far better to prevent an incident than to try to recover once it has happened. It is important to find a way to give people franchise over their community, particularly when we contrast the harm that could be done with the profit that developing companies and landowners will reap. This huge extraction economy, as I have been calling it, is playing off the localism that people want in their vicinity, and causing a lot of stress and tension, because while it benefit others, it causes the community harm. A community right of appeal will start to tilt the balance back towards local people, which is absolutely essential.

[Tim Farron]

This important new clause gets to the heart of a historical imbalance, injustice and inequity in the planning system. Developers, who tend to have significantly more resources than those who question or oppose a development, have the right to appeal against the local authority or national park that turned down their planning permission, and they have the resources to see that through; but what happens if a community that has opposed a development loses? It may have opposed not development, but the nature of the development proposed. In my constituency, we are very often happy with the number of houses proposed, but outraged that none of the houses is affordable to local people.

The ability to challenge a developer and a decision seems to be at the heart of democracy. To really level up, we must not just level up geographically, but level out the imbalance of power between developers, many of which have substantial resources, and local communities, who, generally speaking, do not.

The new clause is a sensible move in the direction of winning people’s consent to the planning system, so that communities do not feel that things are being done to them. If levelling up is to mean anything, and if devolution is to mean anything, the Government should surely want to embrace proposals such as this.

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[Greg Smith]

There is clearly a game afoot, whereby many developers up and down the land acquire planning permission, but do not build out what they have received planning permission for. I stand to be corrected, but I believe that around a million homes that have planning permission are not being built out. New clause 18 would shut down some of the loopholes that are exploited; for example, if a trench is dug, or a single pipe is laid, or something very superficial to the development is started, that can satisfy the planning authorities that the development has started, even though not a single brick may follow, or certainly not in the timeframe the community expects.

Particularly pertinent is the ability under new clause 20 for a planning authority to revoke or modify planning permission where the development has not been built, or started. The community is expecting 10, 50, 1,000 houses or whatever, but the developer is simply playing a game, in order to increase the land value for resale later, or because they want to sit on the permission and distort property values in the a particular area, or for some other reason.

In our planning system, there should be an presumption that once a developer has been granted planning permission, they need to build the development. There will always be reasons why a development might not start immediately—force majeure or whatever—and we need to be conscious of that, but if a developer has been given planning permission, they should build or face a penalty. New clause 21 goes that little bit further: it would make council tax payable on sites that have been granted planning permission. That would give the developer a financial incentive, shall we say, to get on with the development, because if they are attracting council tax on each new home given planning permission, that will quickly rack up, certainly in many parts of the country, to many thousands of pounds per housing unit per year.

The new clauses are designed to get the planning system to work as it is meant to do. It is about ensuring that planning permission means something. When it is granted, communities that have consented to it should see the product—the homes and the commercial developments—that they want.

[Tim Farron]

These interesting new clauses highlight two issues about which I am particularly concerned—issues to which the hon. Gentleman alluded. They are very helpful new clauses, and I am grateful to him for tabling them. He is right that, over the past decade, roughly a million properties granted planning permission have not been built. That tells us something. When the Government consider growth and the need for new developments, they think they just need to loosen planning regulations. Well, the answer to that is that 1 million new homes have obtained planning permission but have not been built. Let us focus on making sure that those developments get delivered, rather than on reducing the regulations, because that tends to lead to the wrong sort of homes in the wrong sort of places.

Another issue affects tens of thousands—but not a million—houses. It is when developments begin but are not completed. That may be for a range of reasons, such as genuine business failure. It may also be due to a disreputable developer; we have seen plenty of those. I think of one in my constituency, a serial bankrupt, and it seems obvious to me that in their case, we are talking about a deliberate business tactic. Developments are either completely or partially abandoned. That is a waste of time and money, and it creates eyesores for communities, when the development could have provided nice, decent homes for people to live in.

Would the Government consider going further than the new clauses suggest and applying existing legislation, namely empty dwelling management orders? They allow local authorities to commandeer empty properties after a period. It should be noted, however, that the period is seven years, which is far too long, but we should be able to commandeer developments that were begun but not completed for public use and public good. I can think of one house in the Kendal Parks area of Kendal that has been uncompleted for 20 years. It is an eyesore, and damaging to the local community. It could be a decent home for someone. I can also think of a whole development in Burton-in-Kendal that has been poorly managed and has fallen out of the hands of one set of owners into those of another. The ability of local authorities to commandeer properties for the public good would be of huge benefit, not just to my community but to every Committee member’s community.

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale for his comments, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham for tabling the new clauses.

I accept that this is another area of policy that is difficult and challenging and that a balance needs to be struck. I completely understand the concerns that have been raised. In order not to detain the Committee, and without offering any guarantees, I would be keen to continue the conversation outside the realms of the Committee to consider and reflect on the points made by those who have spoken. I am happy to discuss that in advance of further stages of the Bill, should my hon. Friend be content to do that.

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[Tim Farron]

The two new clauses are about trusting local communities. We are not saying that every meeting must be held virtually, but that local authorities—in this case, planning authorities—should have the power to do so, and for good reason. My preference is for in-person meetings, but for the reasons that have been set out, especially by the hon. Member for Buckingham, local authorities should have that power.

Every part of my patch is parish. There are 67 parishes, and some of them are bigger than most Members’ constituencies and have not very many people living in them. To get from one end of the Lakes parish to the other, people have to pass three or four lakes. We should consider the age profile of some of the members of the parish councils and the distances involved. I said earlier that it rarely rains in the lakes, but occasionally it might. It certainly gets dark at certain times of the year. On a wet November night, holding a meeting on screen rather than physically is probably safer and better for everybody. Let us trust communities to make those choices on the go, and not impose.

The pandemic has been a traumatic and formative experience for us as a culture, as a society and as representatives of the people. We have learned many lessons, and some of them we should carry on with. I was disheartened and disappointed that some members of the Government seemed to be almost determined, as a point of principle, to close down any virtual operation of democracy during the pandemic—never mind at the end of it. It is encouraging to hear a cross-party outbreak of common sense today. It would be great if the Government listened.

[Dehenna Davison]

As a millennial Minister who is used to swiping and not to turning pages, Members might expect me to say that I prefer virtual meetings, but actually I do not. In-person meetings and the social element are important, yet we saw the value of virtual meetings during the pandemic, at the time when we needed them most. Hon. Members will remember the powers granted through the Coronavirus Act 2020, which allowed local authorities flexibility on remote and hybrid meetings, in certain circumstances. They will also know that those regulations expired back in May 2021. Since that date, all council meetings have had to be in person. The new clauses lean into the terms of those previous provisions and seek to replicate them on a permanent basis, but only for planning committees. I heard the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield.

Looking beyond the circumstances of the pandemic, the Government considered that there may be benefits to permanent provisions for remote meetings, and that local councils may be keen to have the flexibility to use that provision as they see fit. I have been lobbied by a lot of my local parish councillors on the benefits that remote meetings can bring.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield highlighted, the Government conducted call for evidence last year to test the views of those who had participated in and experienced councils’ remote meetings to inform our decision on this matter. I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, and the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale for their points on trust in local governance and local planning, which we all agree is paramount. Increasing participation is only ever a good thing.

The Department has considered the responses to the call for evidence and we have been weighing the benefits, which hon. Members have highlighted, against views that physical attendance remains important to deliver good governance and democratic accountability. I take on board the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield about the investment in the technology that a lot of local authorities had made, which must also be taken into account.

I genuinely thank my hon. Friends for tabling the new clause, but we need to first consider the call for evidence. We will issue our response, which will set out the Government’s intentions. I ask for a tiny bit more patience and for the new clause to be withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill (Twenty Fourth sitting)

Tim Farron Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 18th October 2022 Public Bill Committees

[Alex Norris]

A highway is part of the public realm. Every publicly maintainable highway is, under section 263 of the Highways Act 1980, vested in the highway authority. Pavement licences and the granting of public space to be used by private business must therefore strike the balance between commerce and the community.

Let us consider a very foreseeable example. Let us suppose that a large, national chain of pubs with an extensive frontage on a street—perhaps a pedestrianised street—seeks a licence for the use of that street for seats and tables. That, in and of itself, is a good thing. I love a decent pub garden. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich always complains that I make him stand outside. I hate being inside in a pub; I like being outside, and I suspect that there are a significant number of like-minded people who may wish to vote with their feet, so it is good that we are offering this facility. However, we should understand that it may well be a highly lucrative endeavour for the business. The business increases its capacity to trade, particularly in summer. We know that some of the very big chains can increase turnover by significant sums in this way.

At the moment, the local authority can charge a fee for the pavement licence. This Bill amends the fee from £100 per application under the 2020 Act to £500 for a new application and £350 thereafter for repeat applications. We say that this is a step in the right direction, but it is not likely to do much more than meet some of the administrative, monitoring and enforcement costs. Of course the public, under this process, lose their right of access to the area and, unless they are customers of the licensee, they do not gain any benefit from it, but, as I said, the licensee can derive significant benefit, so we have to try to find a balance, which is what I am seeking to do in amendments 204 and 205.

We know that things are tough enough, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses—often the local independents that populate much of our high streets—so I have removed them from this proposal by using the 250-staff threshold that the Government used with regard to calories on menus. I think that that is where I divined that they draw the line for small and medium-sized businesses. I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether she felt that that was not the case, because I am seeking to target the proposal particularly on larger companies, which perhaps can afford to pay a bit more.

It is incumbent on us to drive a hard bargain for our constituents and for a fair deal for this use of space, because the local authority will retain its obligation to cleanse, drain and maintain the street. Indeed, with more outside activity, the need for that could grow. It is important that those costs are reflected. Even when the licence is granted, the authority does not just offload its duties and obligations in this respect. Therefore these amendments would secure for the local authority a share in profits arising.

It is probably important to say at this point that these are probing amendments. There might be a different mechanism by which we could secure this outcome. If the Minister is minded that way, I certainly would be too, so I am interested in her views. I think that, in this process, a balance has to be found between private enterprise and the public interest and I do not think that we have quite found it yet, although what is in the Bill is a welcome move in that direction. I just wonder whether we can go a little further.

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

It is a continuing pleasure to serve under your guidance this morning, Mr Hollobone.

The amendment moved by the official Opposition gives us something to consider. For someone who represents an area such as Cumbria, where it is always sunny and al fresco dining can therefore happen at any time throughout the year, it is hugely significant. One of the learnings in the development of the pandemic that could have a positive ongoing legacy is the move towards dining and drinking outside, and making better use of the public realm. That is a positive thing.

Let us remember that pubs in particular have never been under more pressure than they are now. We lose many every week, with people losing their livelihood and communities the thing that holds them together. It is deeply troubling to see that happen. We should allow smaller pubs especially to gain the full benefit of anything that they can from the provisions allowing use of the pavement and parts of the highway to expand capacity and therefore increase profit.

I agree, however, that with larger employers and businesses we absolutely need to ensure shared benefit from the development for two reasons. First, we are giving local authorities more responsibilities. Planning departments—we have discussed this throughout the Bill—have an enormous role to play in ensuring that communities have genuine power. If we are devolving power to communities, we have to allow planning departments that work on behalf of those communities the resources—the scope—to be able to enforce their rules. This is an additional responsibility, so we should enable additional finance to go to the planning authorities to make sure that they can uphold the rules, protect the community and ensure that the costs to the local authority, the community and the council tax payer for highways, refuse collection and other things are borne jointly.

Secondly, many people will observe that throughout there has been a disconnect between the interests of the local authority and the business community. The proposed measure would integrate them—the fact that there is joint benefit shows that it is in the interests of the council tax payer and the business rate payer to do the same thing. Organised synergy is almost a consequence of the two amendments, which is why they are important. I hope that the Government will take them seriously.

[Dehenna Davison]

The thing that is most wonderful about today is that only seven minutes into the Committee’s sitting, we have found some cross-party agreement, which is on the quality and value of a good pub garden. I hope that at some point we can share a pint in one, when the Bill Committee is over.

Clearly, in my last few trips, I have been in Cumbria on those incredibly rare rainy days, but the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale made a good point that pub and hospitality businesses are under pressure. According to our most recent stats, 73% of hospitality firms have outstanding debt as a result of the pandemic, so at this point we really do not want to put additional undue pressure on businesses.

In developing the proposals to make the streamlined pavement licensing process permanent, we have worked closely with local authorities, business, leaders of the hospitality sector and the community. That is why we are increasing the fee cap from £100. We will take detailed analysis of the actual cost to create a sustainable process, which will cover the cost to local authorities of processing, monitoring and enforcing the powers, while remaining affordable and consistent for businesses around the country. Businesses have seen inflated fees reaching thousands of pounds per application under the previous process.

Local authorities maintain flexibility to set fees at any level under the fee cap, to respond to local circumstances. For example, we have seen some areas make licences completely free in order to support their local high street. At a time of rising costs, we are not seeking to impose additional charges on business, in particular given that the hospitality industry was one of the hardest hit by the pandemic. On that basis, I ask the hon. Member for Nottingham North to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

We are extremely concerned about the implications of this clause, and the explanation just given by the Minister does not reassure me one bit. Clause 187 is a placeholder clause that allows for a substantive clause to be introduced via Government amendment at a later stage in the Bill’s passage. Its effect is to disregard the full repeal of the Vagrancy Act 1824 that the House approved via amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

There are two fundamental problems with the clause. First, in approving section 81 of the 2022 Act, the House made it clear that it wished the Vagrancy Act to be repealed in full, so that homelessness would no longer be criminalised. It did not seek to qualify the effect of that measure by stipulating that the repeal of the 1824 Act should be delayed until replacement legislation was brought forward, which appears to be the Government’s intention in inserting this placeholder clause in the Bill. The House voted purely and simply for repeal in full.

Secondly, precisely because clause 187 is a placeholder clause, we have absolutely no idea as we debate it today what the “suitable replacement legislation” will look like. It could include positive measures that featured in the consultation that the Minister mentioned, which was launched in April, such as multi-agency outreach, but there is a clear risk that any replacement regime introduced via the powers provided for by this clause could once again criminalise people who are begging or sleeping rough. We take the view that replacement legislation is not required at all. Existing legislation—including the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and the Fraud Act 2006—already provides the police with sufficient powers to tackle harmful types of begging, harassment, antisocial behaviour and exploitative activity. By expressly allowing for the reintroduction of criminal offences or civil penalties for conduct that is the same or similar to that under sections 3 and 4 of the Vagrancy Act, clause 187 enables the effective re-criminalisation of homelessness and rough sleeping, with all the damaging and counterproductive implications that that entails.

As the Minister has recognised, the Vagrancy Act is an embarrassing remnant of Georgian England’s approach to the poor and destitute. It deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history in its entirety, rather than being surreptitiously restored in a modern form to enable the criminalisation of rough sleeping or passive begging. As I said, the House made its views on this matter clear during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, but if the Minister is in any doubt about the strength of feeling on this issue, she need only look at the long list of names of Members from her own Benches who have signed amendment 1, in the name of the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken).

We do not intend to oppose clause 187 today, but if the Government do not voluntarily withdraw it from the Bill, we will work with Members from across the House to ensure that it is removed on Report. I hope that the Minister can give some indication today that that will not be necessary, and that the Government will reconsider their position.

[Tim Farron]

Likewise, I am appalled and deeply troubled by this provision. Clause 187 feels gratuitous—unnecessary. As we have heard, plenty of provisions already exist to allow the police to deal with antisocial behaviour that could be associated with rough sleeping and people who are begging. This clause feels unnecessary and counterproductive. Above all, it feels like an act of bad faith, given what the Government have committed to doing—both from the Treasury Bench in the Commons and from the Dispatch Box in the other place.

Tomorrow, we will either celebrate or mourn the 100th anniversary of the last Liberal leaving No. 10 —notwithstanding the current sleeper agent, obviously. The legislation that is brought back to life by this clause was nearly 100 years old, and out of date, back then, but even saying that is not going far enough, because if something is morally wrong, it is morally wrong no matter how old it is—whether it is 200, 100 or new, and whether it is from Georgian England, Lloyd George, or the current era. It is morally wrong to criminalise people for being homeless. It is pointless as well.

I have spent a number of nights over the years raising money for our local homelessness charity, Manna House in Kendal. We do a night sleeping rough in January up at Kendal castle. Some of the people who work with Manna House have slept rough in reality—in many cases for years. As we went through the difficulties of one night out in the open, the casual way they would speak about their experience on the street I found more chilling than the night air. It was not just the poverty, the hardship, the hunger and the cold; it was the sense of shame, the sense of not being fully human. A Crisis poll of people who are street homeless found that 56% felt that laws that criminalise them added to that sense of shame.

People who are in desperate housing need, and are on the street, need more than just a roof over their head—though they need that. They need sustained help in rebuildibng their life. Often there are addiction and other mental health issues that partner their homelessness, and may even have fuelled it. The last thing that they need is to be criminalised. There is no value to society in doing so. All that happens is that they are displaced to somewhere else. Instead, our society should be compelled to do something to meet their needs.