Stamp Duty Land Tax (Reduction) Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th January 2023 Commons Chamber

Government amendments 13 and 14 amend clause 2 to rename the Bill the Stamp Duty Land Tax (Temporary Relief) Bill to reflect the sunset clause that will now end on 31 March 2025. The Bill comes into force on Royal Assent, but applies in relation to transactions with an effective date on or after 23 September 2022 until 31 March 2025. As a result of the resolution passed by the House of Commons under the Provisional Collection of Taxes Act 1968, the Bill’s provisions have been in force since 23 September 2022. Our constituents who have bought a home in the last few months have had the benefit of those reductions. We very much look forward to supporting homeowners, including first-time buyers, in the coming two years with the Bill.

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

Sir Roger, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

The Government’s proposal in the Bill will do some marginal good, reducing the cost of buying for some people. The danger is that it meets the needs of a very small number of people. The overwhelming majority of people living in my constituency who cannot afford a home are not in the waiting room, shall we say, to be able to access a new home on the basis of this change. If we think, for example, that £250,000 constitutes the price of an affordable home, we are not in touch with reality—certainly not in the Lake district and the rest of Cumbria. I do not propose to vote against the Government’s proposal, because I can see how it could do some good at the margins, but if we were really bothered about the fact that most people cannot afford to be a first-time buyer with a home of their own, we would be tackling the lack of development of new council homes, social rented homes across the board and shared ownership, and we would be looking at making better use of the current stock.

The reality is that whatever benefit the stamp duty cut might have brought to families has already been quashed and exceeded by the additional cost they will have to bear through mortgage interest rate increases resulting from the Government’s failures. I am told that in the financial markets, those who are in the know refer to the increased mortgage costs, which dwarf any benefit that the stamp duty may bring to new homeowners, as the moron premium—I promise you that those are not my words, Sir Roger. That is the consequence of a very foolish decision that this Government made just a few months ago.

That is not to say that there is no benefit in what the Government are choosing to do. However, my new clause 3, which—with your permission, Sir Roger—I shall move today, would give the Government the opportunity to recognise that there are unintended consequences. We know that because they have already happened. We all remember that in July 2020, when the current Prime Minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer, there was a stamp duty holiday for purchasers of properties of a value of up to £500,000. The impact on the Lake district was instant and catastrophic: 80% of all new house sales in our community were in the second home market. Some 84% of properties in Elterwater, and more than 50% of properties in Coniston, are not lived in. Communities that were already on the margins might have lost enough full-time occupants that they cannot sustain a local school, post office or bus route or have any community life whatever.

There have also been consequences for our workforce. We are all rightly focused on the impact of the massive pressures on our health and social care services; in the lakes, they are under even more pressure because the homes that care workers and health workers once lived in are no longer available to them. That possibility has been wiped out, partly because of a well-intended but poorly informed decision that the current Prime Minister made as Chancellor in July 2020. We have learned that lesson, so there is no excuse for the Government to act without thinking about the unintended consequences and making some attempt to mitigate them.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)]

I agree fully about areas of high housing pressure where people in local communities cannot buy their own home. May I commend to the hon. Gentleman what we have done in Wales? The Welsh Government have brought in a land transaction tax to replace stamp duty, which is a devolved matter, as the Minister said. Under that system, anybody who buys a second or third home pays a premium on that tax, which comes out of the first property as a disincentive to buying more than one home. Furthermore, in areas of high housing pressure, local councils can choose to treble council tax; indeed, my county council, Carmarthenshire, has announced that it will double council tax on second homes.

[Tim Farron]

Yes. Most of our good ideas were somebody else’s first, so there is no harm whatever in looking at what devolved Administrations such as the Welsh Senedd Government have done. There are positives there from which we could learn, but it is also good to learn from our own mistakes—and the Government made a well-intentioned mistake two and a half years ago, with a very damaging impact on the lakes, on many other rural parts of England and across the United Kingdom.

Let me ram home what that means. It robs us of the life of our communities and the services on which we rely, but it also robs us of a workforce. That means fewer people working not only in social care or health, but in our hospitality and tourism industry. The lakes are the second biggest visitor destination in the country, with 20 million visitors a year, but with a very small population. The workforce that services all the folks here and the many others who holiday in the lakes have nowhere to live any more. We are in the terrible situation of facing a recession nationally but, bizarrely, having more tourist demand in the lakes than we can meet. We cannot meet that demand because we do not have the workforce, and one reason is that the Government have been negligent in providing and ensuring enough affordable homes for people in our communities.

I support the Opposition amendments that would ensure that the stamp duty cut is not available for the purposes of buying a second home; I think that is wise. My new clause 3 would place a responsibility on the Secretary of State to look every year at the policy’s impact on the number of second homes bought, not just in communities like mine but across the country.

The Government know what is happening. The evidence is before their eyes: their temporary stamp duty cut in 2020, a well-intentioned attempt to boost the economy at the beginning of the pandemic, had the immediately negative consequence of hollowing out communities in my area in Cumbria and in Northumberland, the west country and other parts of the UK. I am not theorising; it has already happened. My communities were badly hit by a well-intentioned but foolish Government policy. Why would the Government not accept new clause 3, which would allow them to do something about a policy that is positive on the whole, but that they know has a negative consequence on communities such as mine?

We will not vote against the Bill. We recognise that it does some good, although we think it is a bad use of public money. We could do so much more with that money by investing it in affordable homes for local families, ensuring more council homes and making sure that we tackle inequalities in rural communities in particular. We reckon that there is a marginal benefit from the Government’s policy, but there is a disbenefit for communities such as mine. Will the Minister take new clause 3 on board and agree simply to review the situation year on year, to prevent communities such as mine in the lakes, the dales and the rest of Cumbria from being hollowed out? Otherwise, they will be turned into ghost towns, their workforces will be eradicated and no young people will be able to set up a home there—all because of a decision with an unintended consequence of which the Government cannot now claim to be unaware.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

It is an honour and a delight to follow my hon. Friends the Members for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) and for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope). May I say at the outset that I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that you should be Sir Nigel, Mr Evans? If I call you Sir Nigel, will I have as much time to speak as my hon. Friend?

It is a pleasure to speak because, as the chair of the Back-Bench Treasury committee, I have done a lot of work on stamp duty policy, and I have had a slightly perverse interest in stamp duty for the last decade or so and written various policy papers and research reports on it. We all support raising the level of home ownership. In fact, rates of home ownership started to decline under the previous Labour Government. There is a home ownership gap of about 5 million people who want to own their own home but cannot. I will support all measures—well, pretty much all measures—to increase home ownership. Clearly, we are teetering on the brink of recession and need to promote economic growth, so I very strongly support the broad thrust of the Bill in cutting stamp duty to help people get on to and up the property ladder and to stimulate economic growth. I have some reservations about the proposal being temporary and about it applying to second properties.

I will address some of the key themes of stamp duty policy. We have heard various calls today—not least from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch—to abolish stamp duty outright, and in fact, I have called for that before. But it is not just Conservative MPs who think that stamp duty should be abolished outright; the Institute for Fiscal Studies, on whose advisory council I sit, talked in its magisterial work on taxation policy—the Mirrlees review—about all the damage of stamp duty and called for it to be abolished.

Lord Macpherson, a former permanent secretary at the Treasury, gave evidence fairly recently to the Treasury Committee, on which I sit, about tax policy. He highlighted all the damage that stamp duty did to the economy, for many of the reasons that my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for South Thanet (Craig Mackinlay) set out earlier. Lord Macpherson certainly would not be sad to see its demise.

I want to raise a slightly more nuanced point than the outright abolition of stamp duty, which would lead to a big problem with revenue, as it raised £14 billion last year in total—about £4 billion for commercial property and £10 billion for residential. That would be a hole. My more nuanced argument is that people buying houses to live in are overtaxed, but people buying properties either as second homes or for investment are undertaxed. Exactly 10 years ago, in 2013, I wrote a paper arguing for a higher rate of stamp duty for people who are buying homes not to live in. Fundamentally, homes are for living in. Two years later, the Government introduced that policy. It is now the additional premium. I do not think the Government introduced it in the right way and there are all sorts of problems with it, but I will not go into detail on that now. The stamp duty regime at least recognises the difference between people buying properties for investment or as second homes as opposed to people buying properties to live in as their homes. That tilts the property market in favour of those buying homes to live in, which is welcome.

[Tim Farron]

I apologise for intervening on the hon. Gentleman in his good, interesting speech. He said that it is possible for stamp duty purposes to distinguish between a second home and a first home. That means it would clearly be possible to distinguish between second homes and first homes for planning purposes, which would give local authorities the power to ensure that they protect a minimum number of homes for local families. I gave the Government the opportunity just before Christmas to vote for an amendment to do that—why does he think they did not do so?

[Anthony Browne]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. I must admit I do not know the reasons behind that, but it clearly is possible, at least from a taxation point of view, to distinguish between homes for investment and homes for living in. From a planning point of view, there are probably other considerations.

[Tim Farron]

It is political will, I would say.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Farron]

To follow up on that, is it not right to say that people who have second homes pay additional council tax only if those homes are empty and unfurnished, so a very small percentage of those who have second homes will be affected? Does the Minister understand the evidence that the 2020 stamp duty cut fuelled a second home boom? On that basis, why has she done nothing to listen to rural communities such as mine about that and to mitigate it in some way by accepting my amendment or that of the Opposition?

[Victoria Atkins]

If I have understood the hon. Gentleman correctly, he has misunderstood the measures in the Bill, which introduces a premium on second homes of up to 100% and a strengthening of the existing premium on empty homes. I appreciate his point about empty homes, if people are moving or returning to their second homes, but that is not the scenario everywhere—indeed, in my constituency, I can think of examples where that is not the case. We are trying to use practical measures so that local communities can decide how to deal with it through council tax.

I was talking about complexity. We want to ensure that the system is as simple as possible for taxpayers, which is why we have the consistency of rate bands between the standard rate and the rate for additional dwellings.

Amendment (b), which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, seeks to extend the period from 31 March 2025 to 31 March 2028. It is important that the Government maintain a commitment to fiscal responsibility and that requires difficult decisions, as I have set out. The Chancellor was clear about that in the autumn statement, and I hope that the ministerial team have been clear about that when we have spoken at the Dispatch Box. The Government will continue to take difficult decisions to get the public finances on a sound footing and to get debt falling in the medium term.

We therefore announced that the stamp duty cut will end in March 2025 as part of that commitment. It will remain in place until then to support the property market through what we all acknowledge are difficult times. We believe that we have struck the right balance between ensuring support for the jobs and businesses associated with the housing market and the Exchequer cost.

The remaining amendments tabled by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee refer to reports and reviews, if I may summarise them in that way. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire reiterated, it is a fundamental principle that we are loth to include reporting and reviewing requirements in primary legislation. In any event, we do not believe it to be necessary, because the Government already publish a wealth of data on those matters. For example, HMRC publishes data on property transactions and stamp duty land tax receipts, including data on the use of first-time buyers’ relief. To help hon. Members to understand what that means for our constituents who are first-time buyers, the Bill will mean that they can access up to £8,750 in relief. It is a great shame that Opposition Members propose to vote against that relief.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities also publishes the English housing survey. Data on property prices, including at a local level, is published through the Land Registry. The Government published a summary of the measure’s impacts, including on the Exchequer, in November’s autumn statement. I hope that hon. Members who have asked for that data and those reviews will look at that wealth of information and draw their own conclusions.

I thank hon. Members for this debate, which I very much welcome, but I commend the Bill to the Committee. I particularly commend the Government amendments to enable first-time buyers in our constituencies to get on to the housing ladder, and to help other constituents move up the housing ladder and continue to thrive in our country in the next couple of years.

Autumn Statement Resolutions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

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

It is euphemistic to talk about us facing a crisis in this country: what we are talking about is families who simply cannot afford to feed their children; people who cannot afford the mortgage or the rent and who see food prices going up and cannot see how on earth they will make ends meet; and businesses that cannot find the staff they need or that are being forced out of business because of ludicrous costs.

As the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) mentioned, it would be ludicrous to pretend that this crisis has nothing to do with the pandemic, Putin’s evil actions in Ukraine and other global issues. However, it would be equally ludicrous not to say that this Government have made things significantly worse in the last few weeks. Surely the first principle of being in government is to do no harm, yet harm has indeed been done. This debate is exhibit A. We were not meant to have this extra Budget. This is a Conservative Government seeking to mitigate the damage done by a Conservative Government.

It is people of my age or even older—there are many in this House who are not that age—who remember inflation being a major issue in this country. It erodes people’s ability to get by and causes enormous poverty. We recall that the headline inflation rate may be around 10%, but for those on the lowest incomes, inflation is about 16%. Can Members imagine what it means for someone to lose a sixth of their ability to survive when they are already poor to start off with? All of us in this House have seen the flourishing, if that is the right word, of food banks and warm banks in our constituencies. I see the outstanding Christians Against Poverty, which works in nearly every community in this country, being burdened—it is their choice and their joy to do it—with so many more cases of intractable poverty and debt than it has ever dealt with before.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted in his statement last week that we are in recession. If we are in recession, it is the wrong time to start cutting public spending, especially given that, as the Treasury Committee Chair, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) said in her wise speech earlier—I did not agree with all of it, but I did with much of it—if 80% of the inflationary pressure we are facing is external, it is not public spending in this country that is the trigger anyway. What better way to make a bad situation worse—this Government are brilliant at making bad situations worse—than to decide to compound the problem by saying, “Inflation? Let’s have stagnation, too. Let’s have stagflation. Let’s exacerbate the recession while not tackling inflation”? It is unwise in the extreme.

In the moments available to me, I want to speak about some key issues that matter very much to me and my communities. Probably everybody in this House has either suffered themselves or experienced a loved one having to live with, and sometimes dying from cancer. Half of us will have cancer at some point in our lives. The UK is suffering from a calamitous cancer backlog. In our communities in south Cumbria, 42% of those diagnosed with cancer are waiting two months or more for their first treatment. In north Cumbria, 63% of people are waiting two months or more for their first treatment. We know that for every four weeks we delay treatment, there is a 10% reduction in someone’s chances of surviving. People are dying, and the consequences are not only appalling for the economy, but for those who are directly affected.

Why in this autumn statement was there no mention of tackling a cancer backlog that is literally killing people by the week in my communities and in communities across the country? Things could have been done not in terms of a workforce review, but with an immediate plan. How about altering the pensions situation so that we make sure we make best use of doctors, maximising the time they have available and not pushing them into early retirement when they would happily be working to clear that backlog and save lives?

We hear from the Government that we are going to have a war on pen pushers, but it is administrators who take the burden off clinicians so that they can treat people. We need more administrators so that we can make best use of the clinicians we have now, so that they can treat more people more quickly and save lives. What about immediate investment in IT so that we can treat people remotely? It is possible to do that, particularly with radiotherapy. Imaging and treatment can be done remotely and the impact the workforce has could be maximised—we could get more out of the workforce and save more lives in the process.

Where is the cancer plan? Where is the investment in infrastructure? Some 50% of people with cancer will need or benefit from radiotherapy, yet we spend 5% of the cancer budget on radiotherapy. It is a colossal waste. It is relatively cheap to fix, and the Government are doing little or nothing about it. In communities such as mine in Westmorland, people are making maybe two or three-hour round trips to get daily radiotherapy for weeks on end. The Government’s own national Radiotherapy Advisory Group says that it is bad practice for anyone to have to travel more than 45 minutes. Nobody in my constituency lives within 45 minutes of that treatment. These failures to invest are costing lives and are relatively easily fixable, if only the Government would invest in the technology, trust the science and listen to the workforce.

It is worth also talking about the impact in rural communities of the Government’s failure to fund general practice. I have a petition later on, so I will leave that for later. However, the minimum practice income guarantee, which this Government scrapped a few years ago, gave a solid basis for necessarily small rural surgeries to be sustainable. They removed it and—surprise, surprise—we have seen the collapse of surgeries such as those in Ambleside and Hawkshead; in Bowness a few years ago, although we have managed to rescue that one; and more recently in Brough. That is not acceptable. These are things that the Government could fix.

On care, the Dilnot review and the solutions to the care crisis have been kicked over for yet another couple of years. People talk about “difficult decisions”. Difficult for whom? Difficult not for the Government but for the millions of people who suffer because of a lack of care and the impact of the care crisis on the rest of the health service. In the hospitals serving my communities in Cumbria, bed blocking was at 32%. That is caused by a lack of investment in care because dealing with it is delayed every single time there is any kind of bump in the road. The impact, of course, is that A&Es are clogged up, ambulance response times are longer, and people die because the Government will not tackle the problem when the chance to do so is in front of them.

I have a couple of quick words to say about farming. In answer to a question of mine, the Minister for Farming, the right hon. Member for Sherwood (Mark Spencer), revealed just today that 24% of the £3 billion that the Government said was ringfenced for farming in this country has not been spent. Think of what farming delivers for this country in food, environmental protection, biodiversity, and the protection of our larger communities from flooding. Yet the Government, who promised to ringfence that money, have betrayed farmers in failing to do so. The Government’s failure to invest in farming and keep that promise has massively undermined the country’s ability to feed ourselves and look after our environment. We know that in just a few days’ time in December, we will see a 20% cut in the basic payment to farmers, but only 2% of farmers are in the new sustainable farming incentive scheme. The Government’s botching of that scheme is costing our countryside and costing Britain.

Finally, the protection of school budgets was a headline announcement in the Budget, but the damage has been done, so it is a sleight of hand. Most headteachers in Cumbria will say that they are cutting staff numbers. Why? Because of unfunded pay rises and the unfunded bills rises that came through last year. Yes, teachers deserve a pay rise and that is right, but it is wrong that headteachers have to cut jobs to pay for them because the Government would not fund them.

We saw recklessness at the end of September, and now we have seen panic-stricken overreaction in November. Both those reactions were unwise, foolish and inexcusable for the damage, harm and pain that they have caused families and businesses in Westmorland and across the country. That is why this Government must go for the good of the country.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (Reduction) Bill

Tim Farron Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

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

The housing crisis in this country is huge, and it is more than just an issue of supply. In my community, as I mentioned in the previous debate, a catastrophe has emerged over the past two years. I have never seen such appalling need. The average house price in my constituency is something like 12 times the average household income. The simple fact is that any benefit from this Bill will help, if we are lucky, a fraction of 1% of people who want to buy a house but are currently unable to do so.

This Bill is not a very good use of public money when we are in the throes of a Conservative Government heroically seeking to do their best to counter the impact of a Conservative Budget. This Bill is a surviving element of that disastrous Budget. It does not seem to be the best use of money, given that the majority of beneficiaries will be wealthy people who do not need a stamp duty cut. What it will do, as we said in the previous debate, is fuel a second home boom that is already causing a huge amount of damage to communities like mine.

I asked myself why this Bill is one of the few survivors of the disastrous mini-Budget. I can only conclude that it is because the people who are damaged and offended by it live in rural communities, so the Government feel that they can take them for granted. I put it on the record that these people will not be taken for granted. Again, the average house price in my community is spiralling towards £300,000, but people’s incomes are significantly less than £30,000 per household, never mind per individual. When there are things the Government could do to address the affordable housing crisis, it is all the more frustrating to see such a blunderbuss waste of public money.

The Government are talking about changing planning law so that developers do not need to provide affordable housing in developments smaller than 50 homes. Well, most developments in communities such as mine are smaller than 50 homes, so there will be a carte blanche for developers never to build another affordable home in the lakes and the dales, or in communities not dissimilar to yours, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I gave the Government an opportunity in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill Committee, which they refused to take, to give themselves and planning authorities the power, in extreme circumstances—those of us living in national parks absolutely are in extreme circumstances—to say that only affordable housing can be built in new developments. Even under existing rules, developers wriggle out of their affordability requirements and obligations by using viability assessments. They go to the development site and say, “I found a few more rocks than I was expecting. I therefore cannot afford even the 35% affordable homes that we were going to build.” Again “affordable” has a rather broad definition.

The Government could be doing a whole range of things with both new stock and existing stock. Why will they not accept the proposal I made in this place and in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill Committee, and will be making again, to change planning law so that second homes and holiday lets become separate categories of planning use? We could then keep a lid on the number of second homes and holiday lets in communities like mine.

It is very hard to support a proposal that is the sole straggling survivor of a disastrous mini-Budget when one suspects that the only reason it has survived is because the people hurt by it are living in communities that the Government think they can take for granted. Well, they cannot and must not be allowed to take them for granted. I am sure we will see a revised fiscal programme from the Government in the next few days, so we wait to see what it contains. I do not understand why they are clinging on to this proposal, which will do such little good even for those it helps and such harm to those it harms, when they have the chance to think again. I strongly urge them to do just that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We now come to the wind-ups. I call the shadow Minister, Tulip Siddiq.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (Reduction)

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2022 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move amendment (a), Leave out paragraph 3.

I appreciate the contribution from the Minister. The amendment, which is supported by right hon. and hon. Friends, concerns a particular element of the proposal which is of great concern not just to me but to many Members on both sides of the House and from different parts of the country. It is, I expect, the unintended consequence of the proposal on communities already suffering under the weight of excessive second home ownership and the explosion of Airbnbs eating up the long-term rented market. There is obviously a debate to be had, which we will have next, about the proposal itself, the stamp duty cut, for which there are arguments that I fully understand. What I am concerned about is that the cut will apply to all properties, including to people buying their second, third, 22nd or 23rd home. My concern is not because I am consumed by the politics of envy, but because I am consumed with concern for my community and many others like it.

Since the pandemic, we have seen the explosion of a problem that was already difficult to start with: the rising proportion of second homes in communities such as mine. The former Chancellor and soon to be new Prime Minister—I congratulate him—my constituency neighbour, the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak), made an error at the beginning of the pandemic when he created the temporary stamp duty holiday. The immediate result was that in the first few months of the pandemic 80% of all house sales in my constituency, and in communities like it, were in the second home market. I hope and assume that was not the intention of the former Chancellor and soon-to-be Prime Minister, but that was the consequence. Furthermore, we saw a 32% increase in the number of holiday lets during the pandemic, up from a huge number to start off with in the lakes and the dales. That is the collapse of the long-term private rented market into the Airbnb market.

I will be trying, by various means, to get the Government to bring in new categories of planning use to control excessive second home ownership and the collapse of the long-term private rented sector into the Airbnb sector. My aim today is to stop the Government making it any worse. If my amendment is not agreed to, the Government’s proposal in the next debate will be to do some good things, but also to accidentally do some bad things. That bad thing will be to add fuel to the fire of the explosion of excessive second home ownership in places such as the lakes and the dales, Cornwall, Northumberland, the Peak district and every other part of our country of a similar kind.

What an explosion of second home ownership of this kind means is that our communities are robbed of their full-time population. We see people forced out, unable to find or afford a home where they can raise their family. We then see footfall and demand for local services, such as the local pub, the local post office, bus services and local schools, massively reduced as a consequence. We see schools closed and communities hollowed out. Not only is it awful, upsetting and utterly regrettable to see families forced out of the places they were raised—I deal with these cases, case by case, and see people in extreme housing need because our existing housing stock has been gobbled up by second homes and holiday lets—but we also see a material impact on our economy and the consequences for our workforce.

At the moment, Morecambe Bay hospitals have 25% of all beds blocked. Why? Because social care is in crisis. Why? Because there is nowhere available for anybody who works in social care to be able to live in our communities. I can tell the Minister that 63% of all hospitality and tourism businesses in the lakes last year had to operate below capacity. Why? Because they could not find the staff. Why? Because there is nowhere for those people to live.

A housing crisis that already existed before the pandemic has become a catastrophe, in part because of an error made by the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) at the beginning of the pandemic. He created a stamp duty holiday that created that boom. My amendment gives the Government the ability to do good without accidentally doing terrific harm to areas such as the lakes and the dales. It is an opportunity for the Government to prove that they do not take rural communities for granted. I hope that the Minister will hear what I have to say and act accordingly.

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[Richard Fuller]

I am always happy to engage with colleagues across the House. As I was saying, the Government have taken meaningful action on a range of issues, most recently through the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which will introduce a council tax second homes premium.

[Tim Farron]

I am grateful to the Minister for the tone of his response, but I am disappointed that it looks as though he will not accept my amendment, not least because it lays the ground to take seriously the points made by the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) about proactively tackling excessive second-home ownership and holiday lets. We need to do something now at least to not make the situation worse, and I fear that, unamended, the Minister’s proposals will make things worse. We have been trying to amend the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill in Committee so that there are measures that can control, through planning, the number of second homes and holiday lets in communities such as mine, but we have had no success so far. Will he meet me and others who are concerned to look at how we can table amendments and make proposals through the Treasury that would make a material difference to communities such as mine?

Economic Update

Tim Farron Excerpts

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I hear my hon. Friend. The hospitality industry is incredibly important to our economy. I have two things to say. As he knows, we are reviewing the whole structure of alcohol duties, and as part of that process we will be keeping the levels of duty under constant review.

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

We have had many U-turns, but there is one that the Chancellor has not made that is massively relevant to Cumbria and other rural communities. The cut in stamp duty will help nearly nobody who can currently not afford a home to be able to afford one. What it will do is add fuel to the fire of a second home ownership and Airbnb disaster in areas such as the lakes and the dales. Does he understand the damage that excessive second home ownership and Airbnb do to communities such as mine and other parts of the country? Will he think again and do something to support our communities and stop the housing catastrophe?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I entirely understand the concerns about second home ownership, and the Government have been looking at that policy in enormous detail over recent months. However, I gently say to the hon. Member that it would be wrong to be dismissive of the concerns of young people desperately trying to get onto the housing ladder, and the help that we are giving them with the stamp duty reforms will make a significant difference.

The Growth Plan

Tim Farron Excerpts

Friday 23rd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The childcare issue has been raised many times and I am looking forward to a subsequent statement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education. That is clearly an issue that can unlock growth and enable people to go out and earn money to protect their families. That is really important.

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

Surely the Chancellor understands that the cut in stamp duty will do nothing to help 99% of people who cannot quite afford their own homes? It will do huge amounts to incentivise people who want second, third, fourth or fifth homes in my constituency in Cumbria or in other rural parts of Britain. Does he not realise the damage that excessive second home ownership and non-permanently-occupied dwellings do to communities such as mine and those in Cornwall, Northumberland and the rest of the country? Will he listen to rural Britain, stop backing second home owners and back our communities instead?

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Helen Whately]

I commend my hon. Friend for his campaign in his local high streets and for the work he is doing with local businesses. I agree with him on the importance of high streets and the businesses on them, which is why we are supporting high street businesses with our 50% business rate cut for thousands of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses; our freeze to the business rates multiplier; and funding through the community renewal fund, towns fund and levelling-up fund.

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

I hope the Minister is aware that one problem facing small and medium-sized employers in Cumbria and elsewhere, certainly in rural Britain, is a serious lack of workforce. Cumbria Tourism reported that 63% of its members last year had to operate below capacity because they could not find sufficient staff to keep going and so they missed out on vital demand. Does she agree that the two key areas are a lack of affordable housing so that people can live close to the place where they need to work in rural communities, and the fact that the Government have yet to come up with adequate visa provisions to allow employers to supplement a local workforce with an overseas one? What action will she take to support small and medium-sized businesses, especially in hospitality, in Cumbria and elsewhere?

[Helen Whately]

There was a great deal in that question, but broadly it was about access to the workforce for businesses. We have a really successful story on jobs, with record numbers of people in payroll employment, but I also hear about the work that businesses are doing to fill vacancies. We are supporting businesses, for instance, with our successful Way to Work scheme and the investment we are making in people’s skills to ensure that they align to the vacancies that employers are looking to fill.

Cost of Living: Fiscal Approach

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on his excellent opening remarks and on securing this debate.

There is a tide of poverty, terrifyingly large, growing in every single community in our country. I wonder what the point of this place is if we do not seek to meet the needs of people who literally cannot see how they can put food on the table for their children, pay their bills or pay their rent or mortgage. It is a crisis like no other facing this country.

I will focus my remarks on how that tide of poverty is affecting rural communities such as mine in Cumbria and elsewhere in the country. In my constituency, we have incredibly low unemployment—very low. Pretty much everybody I know, particularly those on low wages, are working multiple jobs. The idea that they can do extra hours or get a better-paid job is a colossal insult to them, as they work tirelessly to provide for their families. The massive majority of people in receipt of universal credit in our communities in Westmoreland, South Lakeland and Eden are in work. They work incredibly hard, but their wages do not keep pace with the rapidly rising cost of living.

The cost of living in an area such as our is exacerbated by the cost of housing. The average house price in my constituency is about £270,000 and the average household income is about £26,000. Do the maths: nobody on an average income can afford anything like an average home in our community. There is extra pressure, because the pandemic has massively increased the housing need in our area. We have seen the absolute evaporation of the long-term private rented market into the holiday let market. In my community, there has been a 32% rise in one year in the number of homes going into the holiday let sector. What were those holiday lets beforehand? They were people’s homes—family homes. People were evicted via section 21s—something the Government said they would abolish in their manifesto—and the availability of properties for those families to live in was diminished.

In parts of Devon, there has been a 70% reduction in the availability of long-term lets that are affordable to local families. It feels like the lakeland clearances are going on in our community. In Ambleside, a couple, both of whom worked, with children in the local school, were given their marching orders—they were evicted via section 21 from the rented property they had lived in for several years. There was nowhere else available in their community to rent, as everything else had gone to Airbnb or become a second home, so they had to give up their jobs, their children had to be removed from their school, and the family had to move to the next county in order to start all over again. It is miserable, and the consequence for our economy is huge.

What does it mean for our workforce? In the dales town of Sedbergh, which is a relatively small place, with fewer than 2,000 houses, there were 103 job vacancies as of last week because there is nowhere affordable for anybody on a modest, moderate, average or low income to rent, never mind buy—that is for the birds in the current era. That impacts on business. Some of the poorest people I know in communities such as mine run their own businesses. They pay and keep their staff—they cannot recruit enough staff—and they pay themselves less than the minimum wage. They live on next to nothing; they live in poverty.

Another huge problem that affects rural communities such as mine is fuel costs. Many of my constituents are not on the mains, so there are no energy price caps, no matter how high and ridiculous the prices are for people who run their property off liquid gas or oil. If someone wants to get the bus just one way from Kendal to Ambleside to get to their job, they have to spend more than an hour’s pay. Likewise, fuel costs are much more impactful when people have to travel miles and miles. My hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) also mentioned the huge impact on the care sector. We cannot recruit people to care for people in their homes.

We cannot miss the impact that the Government’s fiscal policies are having on farming. This year the Government are taking 20% of farm incomes without replacing them for 98% of the farmers in my community. That has an impact on rural poverty in communities such as mine throughout Cumbria. It also impacts on our ability as a country to produce food, and that means rising food prices for everybody else. It is morally wrong and incredibly stupid.

Of course the Government should be taxing the energy companies and redistributing that money to ensure that people are not in penury. Of course they should be cutting VAT to help people. The bottom line is that press releases will not pay bills. The Government need to act now.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

I will now impose a four-minute limit on Back Benchers, and I will call the SNP spokesman no later than 3.41 pm.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Farron Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

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

After London, the Lake district is the most popular visitor destination in the United Kingdom, with 19 million visitors a year, yet its only direct rail link has a single track from the main line at Oxenholme to Windermere, known as the Lakes line. There is a proposal on the table to effectively dual that line by means of a passing loop at Burneside. Will the Minister agree to meet me and folks from the local authority to ensure that—no pun intended—we can fast-track the dualling of the Lakes line?

[Mr Speaker]

Tell him yes!

Financial Statement

Tim Farron Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and puts the point eloquently: the best way to help people is to get them into work. That is why we are creating record numbers of jobs and then making sure that not only are those jobs well paid, but people keep more of the money they earn. That is the approach of this Conservative Government.

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

There appears to be no plan from the Chancellor, glossy or otherwise, for farming and food security. Is he aware that hundreds and hundreds of farmers are leaving the industry because of the botching of the transition from the old basic payment scheme to the new system? If he were to peg the basic payment scheme at its current rate, rather than halving it over the next two years, he would at least give time for farmers to be able to catch up and get into the new schemes. As it stands, farmers are leaving the industry just at the moment when we are facing an international food security crisis. Will he rethink and back British farmers?

[Rishi Sunak]

As the hon. Gentleman knows well, given that we are constituency neighbours, I also represent plenty of farmers and I listen to their concerns. The Agriculture Secretary is doing an excellent job of transitioning from the old system to the new. The overall funding for farming has been protected by this Government and the same level of funding is available, as we promised it would be. I want to see more British food grown here and to see us supporting British food—of course I do, and I think the British public will as well.