Northern Ireland Budget Bill

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 30th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I am informed that officials have been making preparations to facilitate its introduction. I can confirm that a draft Bill exists and has been translated into the Westminster format, and NIO officials continue to work closely with officials in the Department for Communities and the Cabinet Office to make further progress towards introduction. I have spoken to the permanent secretary in the Department of Finance in Northern Ireland, and I know that she is extremely enthusiastic to see this through, as we are. I regret that I cannot give an absolute guarantee of an exact time when this will happen. The hon. Member for Belfast East will know why that is the case, but I am clear that the good will and the commitment are there, because we recognise the fundamental importance of the issue raised and the ramifications of the existing classifications.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I want to repeat something I raised earlier. I do not necessarily expect the Minister to give a response in this debate, but perhaps we could get some kind of response today. Once again, this relates to the situation of the victims of institutional abuse. If we are not going to see the Historical Institutional Abuse (Northern Ireland) Bill brought through the House of Commons, is there any capacity in the Consolidated Fund to make some form of payment, to at least acknowledge the fact that those victims of institutional abuse exist and that they suffered? It would be, we could say, a down payment. Is there legal capacity for the Secretary of State, the NIO or the Northern Ireland civil service to authorise that kind of payment?

[Mr Hurd]

I thank the shadow Secretary of State for his question. He asked about that on Second Reading, and I apologise for not having the time to respond directly. On his broader question, I can confirm that this budget is putting on a sound legal basis the draft budget debated earlier for this financial year. The short answer to his question is that it does not include provisions for the implementation of the Stormont House agreement institutions, and it does not include consideration of the consequences of implementing the Historical Institutional Abuse (Northern Ireland) Bill. I wholly agree, as I know the Secretary of State would, that that Bill must be a priority for Governments of any colour. The hon. Gentleman asked for some creativity or flexibility in terms of a down payment. I am not authorised to put something definitive on the record, but I know that the Secretary of State and the team have heard that and will look to discuss it with the Northern Ireland civil service. I do not have a black and white answer to that question, but it is certainly noted.

I want to acknowledge the point made about the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley is right: the PSNI is a success story, and we cannot afford for it to go backwards. As a former Minister for police in England and Wales and a former Minister for the fire service, I found myself largely in agreement with the sentiments he expressed about the need to ensure that the police service has the resources it needs and about the challenges of the recruitment process in the modern age.

Grenfell Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of his statement.

Anybody who has dealt with people who have gone through this kind of tragedy is bound to have compassion and real empathy, and the Secretary of State is absolutely right to demand that from all the agencies involved. However, what has been absolutely lacking is the fire and zeal that that compassion and empathy should have delivered, both in the Secretary of State’s office and in the local authority that has so abysmally failed the survivors of Grenfell Tower.

We are now nine months on from this tragedy. Two hundred and nine families needed rehousing. Had the Secretary of State come to the House at the very beginning of this process and told us that, nine months on, only 62 of those families would have been permanently rehoused, he would have been laughed out of this Chamber, and rightly so.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

It’s their choice.

[Tony Lloyd]

The hon. Lady mutters, “It’s their choice.” If we offer people a decent choice, they will move into the permanent homes they want. Nobody wants to be in emergency accommodation with their children. Eighty-two families are in emergency accommodation. This is a shameful record, nine months on.

In December, the Secretary of State told the House:

“I have been very clear with the council that I expect it to do whatever is necessary to help people into suitable homes as swiftly as possible. I am confident that the council is capable of that”.—[Official Report, 18 December 2017; Vol. 633, c. 773.]

Frankly, none of us can have confidence in this council. It has continued the litany of failure that it began those nine months ago, and indeed before, in the lead-up to the tragedy. When the Secretary of State’s promise that everyone would be rehoused within the year prior to the anniversary of the tragedy gave some hope to the survivors of Grenfell Tower. He has abysmally failed in that promise. He now has to say what he intends to do to make sure that he can give a reasonable timescale that gives reasonable hope to the many people who are still waiting for some good news out of the tragedy those nine months ago. I have to ask him a serious question: does he really have confidence in the council to deliver? If so, that confidence has so far been sadly misplaced. At what point will he step up and take responsibility, given that ultimately he is the Secretary of State with responsibility for housing and for relations with that failing council? Both for the nation as a whole and for the survivors of Grenfell Tower, it is time to see legitimate progress. This is simply not an acceptable record.

I turn now to some of the wider issues where we are still waiting for answers. The Secretary of State has been asked about the timescale with regard to the other local authority tower blocks. Only seven of the 300-plus tower blocks that were identified as having combustible material and as not meeting modern-day building regulations have been re-clad. When can he give us some sense of progress where we can see some real change taking place? He has legitimately made the point that at each of those affected blocks there are, for example, fire marshals to ensure public safety. That is a sensible precaution, but obviously what is really sensible is making sure that re-cladding is delivered where appropriate. In that context, he still has not answered the question as to when he will respond to the 41 local authorities that have asked for financial assistance to complete that task. I hope he can give us some idea of when progress will take place.

I have to raise again with the Secretary of State the question of private tower blocks. It is quite clear that the Government simply do not know which private blocks are affected, potentially putting their residents and tenants at risk. Of course, if we do not know which blocks have combustible material, that means that we do not know whether they have the fire marshals and alternative precautions that will keep people safe, at least on a temporary basis.

Last week the Secretary of State came to the House to tell us about the failure of the fire doors at Grenfell. I understand that, of the fire door samples tested this week, at least one of the three that failed came from blocks other than Grenfell Tower, which means that there is still a risk out there. Can the Secretary of State satisfy us that he knows where those defective doors are? That information needs to be put in the public domain and we need to do something about it.

Finally, developers are still building and they need to know when and how they can do so in a way consistent with public safety. We are not there yet. Nine months on from the tragedy, there has been a failure to protect the interests of the survivors of Grenfell Tower; a failure to ensure that structures are in place to guarantee that other tower blocks can be declared safe; and a failure to ensure that we can face the future in the knowledge that developers are building in a way consistent with public safety. The Secretary of State has to give certainty to the people who deserve it. This is not about Members in this Chamber or even the people of this country in general. The survivors of Grenfell Tower deserve an awful lot better, and he has to stand up and take responsibility.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I am happy to respond to the points he raised.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to question, as the taskforce has done in its second report, the speed of rehousing. However, it is appropriate to remind the House that, right from the start, the intention of the council and everyone involved is, rightly, to treat every individual as just that—an individual. If the objective from day one had been to get people out of hotels and into homes without listening to their needs, that clearly would have been wrong. It has been right at every step to work with each one of the households affected. For example, when numerous households said that they would like to take the opportunity to split, particularly if they had different generations in homes, we listened to them. There were 151 homes lost in the fire, but 208 households need to be rehoused because the council rightly listened to the needs of the families.

I will not go through all the numbers, but of the 208 households who need rehousing, 22 have not accepted any offer of temporary or permanent accommodation, despite the fact that more than 300 properties of all different sizes and in different locations are now available for those families. There are 22 who have yet to accept an offer. I hope the hon. Gentleman understands that many of those families are still very traumatised and that some are not in a position to even want to make a decision about leaving the hotel. I hope he agrees that in such situations no family should be forced into accommodation they are not comfortable with. However, I accept his wider point about treating the issue with the urgency it deserves, which is why I hope that when the council responds to the taskforce report, it will accept all its recommendations on rehousing and all the other issues.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether I have confidence in the council. Yes, I do have confidence in the council. I would like to see more. I agree with the taskforce recommendations. I still feel that it was right to intervene when I did and to have the taskforce go in and provide scrutiny.

On the building safety programme, we believe that there are 301 tall residential towers over 18 metres high whose ACM cladding does not meet building regulations. Immediate interim measures have been taken in every single one of those buildings, to ensure that the residents feel safe. All those measures have been taken in consultation with the local fire service, to make sure that there is proper expert advice, and it is accepted that they are appropriate measures. Of those buildings, 130 are in the private sector. Local authorities are the primary bodies responsible for seeing whether there are any more such buildings in the private sector in their respective areas. We have provided them with a tremendous amount of support, including an additional £1 million, which we recently released at their request, and we continue to work with them. Of the 158 buildings in the social sector, remediation work has begun on 92 of them—58%—and the work has been completed on seven.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman respects the fact that, once a building has been identified, it takes time to take down the cladding and replace it appropriately, but we are supporting local authorities in doing that work, including where they need financial flexibility and support. We have been approached by 41 local authorities so far. Interestingly, only 13 of those 41 authorities have reported that they have residential towers with ACM cladding that they are trying to remedy. Understandably, however, other issues have come up, such as a demand for sprinklers and other forms of action. In each of those cases, we have said to the local authorities that it is right for them to determine, with professional advice, what essential work they need to do, and we will work with them on financial flexibilities if that is required.

The hon. Gentleman asked about fire doors, and that work continues. As he knows, we are working with the independent expert panel, the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Government’s scientific advisers. There has been testing, including visual inspections, and the testing in labs continues. The independent experts are still advising us that there is a low risk to public safety—at this point, they feel that there is no systemic risk—but their work continues, as does the assessment work.

Lastly, the hon. Gentleman asked about building regulations. He rightly said that developments of course continue as we speak, and we need to make sure that there is full confidence in the building regulations system. That is exactly why a report is being prepared independently by Dame Judith Hackitt. All the recommendations in her interim report have been accepted, and each of them is being implemented. We await her final report, which I think will bring much more clarity to this area.

Draft Insolvency of Registered Providers of Social Housing Regulations 2018

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2018 General Committees

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

May I, too, say what a joy it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans?

I reflected, as the Minister was speaking, that it is always good to be a lucky politician. The Minister will probably count himself as lucky. All his predecessors in the housing brief did not have the advantage of serving in a Government that have at last stumbled on the political importance of housing. In that sense, we all enjoyed the romantic introduction to what could otherwise have been a technical but important speech.

This is an important issue, and I reassure hon. Members—as much those on my own side as the Government’s—that we will certainly not seek to divide the Committee on this occasion. Nevertheless, I will probe some of the issues that the Minister raised. While the draft regulations are technical and sensible, we need to know that they will actually do the job that we and the Minister want them to do.

In that context, the Minister rightly raised something that the Department tells us in the impact assessment: that a failure to protect the social housing assets of an insolvent provider would mean that tenants were at risk of losing their homes or having their rents increased to market levels; that much-needed affordable housing would be lost; and that the taxpayers’ investment, through affordable housing grant, could be lost. We agree with the ambition to avoid that situation. In fairness, as was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse and the hon. Member for Harrow East, the protection of tenants is fundamental in this.

In that context, will the Minister clarify the operation of objective 1 on financial stewardship and objective 2 on the protection of tenants’ rights? It is right and proper that we have those two objectives, but my concern is that if objective 1 takes precedence over objective 2, and if realising market value, possibly for taxpayers but certainly for creditors, becomes the dominant issue under it, how will we operationalise objective 2—the protection of tenants’ rights and the transfer of any assets to another social housing provider? That will be the nub of the statutory instrument when it comes into operation. That is a technical point, but it would be helpful if the Minister talked us through exactly what that means.

Under any sensible structure, one of the duties placed on lenders is that they operate due diligence. Those lending to one of the companies caught under the statutory instrument have an obligation to protect their shareholders and owners—that is a legal duty—and to ensure that the housing company operates in a prudent fashion. Of course, the more we insure lenders against risk, the less due diligence is part of their motivating force, so it is important that creditors know they are responsible for ensuring that their lending to housing companies is prudent. I hope the Minister will comment on that.

My third point is perhaps the most important. When Cosmopolitan Housing Group almost failed in 2012, the regulator acted promptly and in a way that secured advantage both to the public weal and to the tenants of Cosmopolitan, who were transferred to the Sanctuary Housing Trust. That is the way the system ought to operate, and I congratulate those who were involved with it at the time. The best thing in such a situation is to ensure that we do not repeat Cosmopolitan’s journey to self-destruction.

In 2014, Altair published a report, which was commissioned by the Minister’s Department, looking at the lessons to be learned from Cosmopolitan, and it asked how we prevent housing associations from operating in an imprudent way that puts their organisation, and more importantly their tenants and public assets, at risk. That would potentially lead to the use of powers in this statutory instrument. Of course, we do not actually want the statutory instrument ever to be brought into operation. We want prevention, rather than remedy.

Altair’s report came to a number of conclusions about how the regulator and the boards of housing companies should operate, and about what duties should be imposed on those companies. My question to the Minister—he may not have chapter and verse on this—is, how far can we be assured that the governance regime that let people down in the Cosmopolitan situation is not being replicated by housing associations up and down the country? That touches on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse made. One of the drivers of this problem, to the cost of my erstwhile constituents, is housing associations that see their corporate objective to be growth, rather than growth that is consistent with their original purpose, which is to provide social and affordable housing for their tenants. We need to guard against such wrong ambitions, and we need to ensure that corporate structure and governance of housing associations is secure enough to guarantee that we protect tenants’ rights and public assets.

[Sir Oliver Letwin (West Dorset) (Con)]

I am following the hon. Gentleman entirely. Does he agree that the biggest exposure is one that the report does not dwell on—I am not quite sure why not—which is that housing associations that match liabilities to rent are doing so on the basis of an unusually low interest environment? They have quite large roll-overs of their debt, which occur at various times. One could imagine not just one, but a swathe of housing associations, if they have not managed their financing portfolios correctly, hitting a moment when interest rates, for some reason or other, rise unexpectedly. I am quite worried—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is—that that is not one of the things on which the regulator for social housing appears to be focusing at the moment.

[Tony Lloyd]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a very important point, because that is where risk comes in. Frankly, not every housing association has the same depth of experience as the right hon. Gentleman on these issues. There has to be the capacity to ensure that the regulator is in a position to secure the public interest against precisely that.

There is another risk. Although the right hon. Gentleman is right that borrowing against rental income is one form of exposure, a lot of housing associations have been asked to put themselves in this position. They accept that, in order to advance the interests of the housing association, they will build for sale and invest part of those proceeds in social housing. That is a legitimate and necessary operation for housing associations, but, of course, it is a different kind of risk from those that housing associations have been asked to consider in the past. Some will absorb the new culture well, but some may not. The question of financial risk is very real and that emphasises the point I was trying to make to the Minister. Given that prevention is better than remedy, we need guarantees that the regulator has absorbed the lessons of Cosmopolitan a few years back. In fairness, the regulator performed well at the time. However, having absorbed those lessons, we now know that across the whole piece of the housing association family we are measuring risk and are in a position to blow that early whistle, where appropriate.

There are three issues, essentially, for the Minister to address. First, how does objective 2—the transfer to another social housing landlord—operate with respect to the duties under objective 1? Secondly, how can we guarantee that tenants maintain tenancy rights, in terms both of the rent they pay and of the longevity of tenancies and so on? How do we guarantee that financial risk is being properly measured to prevent the need to use these regulations? Thirdly, the issue of due diligence is important. I look forward with interest to hearing the Minister’s comments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

We have had a good debate with some interesting technical interventions, and I am grateful to hear from hon. Members with a great deal longer experience of the sector than I have. The hon. Member for Rochdale made some kind remarks at the beginning and I appreciate his support of the regulations. He asked three specific questions, which I will endeavour to answer as best I can.

First, the hon. Gentleman asked how objective 1 and objective 2, as I described in the regulations, interact. Objective 1 is to rescue the business and service the creditors. Objective 2 is to look after housing, including social tenants. It is right that in one sense, the overriding objective 1 takes precedence over objective 2, because it is an insolvency proceeding. As a result, the housing administrator cannot do anything that results in a worse distribution to the creditors.

In all cases to date, the creditors have recognised that it was of the best value to them to save the properties in the sector. Having a social housing regulator and a specific regime for insolvency proceedings in the sector ensures that objective 2 shapes and influences the way in which objective 1 is delivered, which will provide materially greater protection for social tenants. If I understood correctly, that was key to what the hon. Gentleman was getting at.

The hon. Gentleman asked about lenders’ responsibility and due diligence, which is an important point. It is crucial that lenders take the initiative and ensure that their due diligence is in place, not only in relation to commercial transactions but in the social housing sector.

There has been a swathe of new regulation since the financial crash. I do not think it is a zero-sum game—I know the hon. Gentleman was not suggesting it was—and we need to do both. The protections in relation to due diligence and the regulation of lenders are in place, and lenders support the extension of the 2016 Act through the regulations. We can do both of those things, and that will create an increased tier of protection for tenants.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the lessons learned from Cosmopolitan, and the previous report commissioned by my Department. The Cosmopolitan Housing Group was a large private registered provider of social housing. It owned or was managing more than 13,000 homes in the north-west. It had serious financial difficulties, as described by the hon. Gentleman, in part as a result of its involvement in non-social housing activity. None the less, the regulator at the time, the Homes and Communities Agency, carried out intensive regulatory engagement with Cosmopolitan to resolve the situation. That engagement concluded with Cosmopolitan being taken over by Sanctuary Housing, which was a large and more financially robust provider. The specific situation was dealt with, and afterwards, in terms of the lessons learned—the crux of what the hon. Gentleman was getting at—the Homes and Communities Agency carried out an independent review of its handling of the Cosmopolitan case. As best as possible in the aftermath of such a financial challenge, lessons have been learned. I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman that prevention is better than cure, and that is what the regulations will help achieve.

[Tony Lloyd]

Can we be clear, though? In the end, it is the regulator who acts as the public eyes and ears with respect to the housing associations, to make sure that their behaviour is consistent with common sense and prudence. Are we certain that the regulator has the capacity to do that? That is not a malicious question. These are new duties on the regulator, but the general duty to cover the extraordinary range of different types of housing associations is a real one. It is important that we know that the regulator has both the competence and the capacity. I am confident in the competence, but I do not know about the capacity.

[Dominic Raab]

That is a perfectly legitimate question. Of course, the regulations are partly about making sure that the regulator has the capacity and the legal powers to deal with the whole sector. I hope that was addressed in my opening remarks.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse spoke about the history of housing associations in his constituency with great knowledge and insight. He also spoke about the pressures on rent. I accept that, particularly in London and urban areas. In the past year, we have seen 217,000 new homes delivered, which is the highest number in all but one of the past 30 years. That is important not just if someone wants to own their own home, but because supply is a key factor in bringing down the affordability of rent. There is other proposed legislation coming down the pipeline on the quality of rented accommodation as well.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether this is a protective measure. It is. It cannot be entirely dislocated from what is happening in the social sector and the evolution of that sector, so I suppose it is a response to both the regulatory gap and the evolving nature of the sector, making sure that as it grows and the structure of the sector changes, and we see the dividends in terms of supply and the economies of scale that build up, we also make sure that we have a careful safety net in place. Hopefully that is the right balance and the prudent course to take.

In conclusion, I say again that we imagine that the occasions when this legislation would be necessary, if ever, will be very rare. The introduction of the regime reflects the nature and the scale of the sector, which has changed and will continue to change. It is not a commentary on the state of the sector as it currently stands. Housing associations continue to be key partners in fixing the broken housing market that this Government are absolutely dedicated to addressing. It is right that we ensure the regulator has the tools and the capacity to do the job to maintain lender confidence and to protect tenants as far as possible should a potential insolvency occur.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Insolvency of Registered Providers of Social Housing Regulations 2018.

Local Infrastructure (East Midlands)

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) on securing an interesting debate that has covered a huge range—from Sandy Lane all the way through to Crossrail and investment in St Pancras. There have been important contributions across the piece on which I will comment as I go along.

Housing has shot up the political agenda dramatically. My own party has been banging the drum for some time, but it is good that the Government are beginning to talk about the fundamental importance of housing both as a social and an economic driver. That must be welcomed. However, we are still not where we ought to be: intelligent public policy, mixed with the private sector and working with local government. The hon. Member for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer) has already mentioned the importance of local government in the mix.

We ought to have a policy of housing replacement. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire referred to the fact that in the east midlands there is a higher rate of housing formation than in most other parts of the country, but it will still take 135 years for it to replace its existing housing stocks. Houses that were built 50 years ago will not last the next 85 years, so we have to do massively better.

We need a mix of housing, but we do not have that in the east midlands. Of the roughly 15,000 new homes built in 2015-16, the overwhelming majority, 12,500, were built by the private sector for owner occupation. Some 2,000 were built by housing associations, but they are often for sale as well. Only 200 were built by local authorities. That does not provide the housing mix that allows people to be properly housed.

In Derby, for example, the average house price is just short of £170,000. Someone needs an income of £37,000 to £40,000 to service such a purchase, and that is above the levels of income typical in large parts of the east midlands. We know there will always be a need for social rented accommodation and we must see local authorities as part of that mix. I endorse the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) about the need to look at the right to buy and how councils build houses that simply disappear from the stock. We must at least see adequate replacement.

We must recognise that houses are people’s homes in their own communities. That emphasises the importance of infrastructure. If we do not integrate the planning process and make infrastructure an integral part of planning for people’s homes, then we miss a huge trick. That means public involvement because only the public sector can have such a planning framework. However, there are problems with that.

People who know my background are aware that I spent time working on the devolution agenda in a very practical way. I profoundly believe that there should be devolution from central Government, who have been far too centralising. Frankly, Government Department does not talk to Government Department; it is much easier at the level of a Northamptonshire or Derbyshire local authority.

For the sake of brevity, I will not name every east midlands county. Localism is important for coherent planning. It is possible to integrate, although I recognise there are difficulties and different arm wrestles between counties and districts. I will not get into the local government reorganisation debate, but devolution is fundamental to the delivery of good infrastructure. We are not there yet across the country.

We must also recognise that the Government are preoccupied with London. I disagree with the right hon. Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin). Crossrail might be necessary for London, but London should not get the lion’s share of investment too often, whether it is for transport or across the piece. Of course the national capital is economically important, but we do not have a balance. It is not reasonable for public infrastructure investment in the east midlands to be only half that of London. In terms of economic investment, for example, it is only a third of that that goes into the national capital. That is not efficient for the nation’s economy.

Hon. Members have rightly emphasised the importance of the industrial traditions of the east midlands. I have studied and worked in the east midlands, so I am well aware of both the challenges and the opportunities. To liberate the capacity of that industry, we need public investment on a more equitable footing. The Government have to begin to rethink their allocation processes. Interestingly, in the week when the Government re-committed to Crossrail 2, they announced that the electrification of the midland line would not go ahead. That was a symbolic and interesting commentary on the Government’s priorities.

[Sir Patrick McLoughlin]

From the hon. Gentleman’s previous experience in Manchester, he will know that HS2 and the whole concept of the Northern powerhouse, which was pushed heavily by the previous Chancellor, are very important. In the hon. Gentleman’s area, there will be one of the biggest upgrades of Northern Rail in the next eight or nine months, with brand new rolling stock—something that was completely missed out when the last franchise was awarded under the previous Labour Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Lloyd]

Today’s debate is not about the north of England, but clearly I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned. However, I do not just live in the Greater Manchester area; as I travel around, I recognise that we have a long way to go. I recently travelled between Manchester and Nottingham, and the journey was frankly worse than many decades ago, when I lived in Nottingham as a young man. We have to do better. [Interruption.] It was many decades ago—hon. Members can check the record. The investment in St Pancras is welcome, but it has not been mirrored by the same kind of investment in Nottingham station. It is not of the same quality as our London stations.

Another issue is the atomisation of local government. I was talking to the deputy leader of Derby City Council recently, and he made the point that the building control and planning departments in his city council have been eroded over recent years, and that is typical of every local authority across the country. I welcome the fact that there will now be an increase in fees in this area, but the skills infrastructure in our local authorities has declined, and it will take time to rebuild that. We need to recognise that if infrastructure is destroyed, it takes time to rebuild it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield made the point that we have the same issue with the skills mix in the construction industry. In the east midlands, we simply do not have the skilled workers for the great leap forward that we need. Those are major issues that we have to look at. Another issue that the Government have to address on infrastructure investment—this is another point that the deputy leader in Derby made to me—is that when Derby, for example, is trying to match its schools with its housing developments, because all new schools have to be academies and therefore delivered outside the local authority framework, a much more complicated balancing act is now needed to incentivise local people to look at section 106 funding to erect the structure for a new school to be built. That is not the right way to plan. We need better mechanics for our planning.

Statistics on the level of infrastructure may be misleading, but they are an important comparator. As a nation, we do not invest in our infrastructure. The World Economic Forum said recently that when it comes to infrastructure quality we have slipped from 16th place to 24th between 2006 and today. That is a major issue if we are to attract the inward investment into the east midlands and other parts of the country. Even the Government’s present plans for infrastructure spending—about 2.8% of GDP—are below the OECD’s recommended level of 3.5% internationally. We are falling behind even now, as the economic tide has changed after the global crisis. We are still lagging behind the levels of infrastructure spending that we need.

Within that, the east midlands does badly. Hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber representing communities in the east midlands should be jumping up and down on that issue. The spend on transport infrastructure in the east midlands is some 49% of the national average. That is a long way short of what the east midlands needs for the local schemes that Government Members have talked about. The spend on health is only 79% of the national average; on schools, it is some 78%. At important levels, the east midlands is sliding behind what the nation as a whole can deliver. Hon. Members ought to be concerned about that.

East Midlands Councils, in its committee report, said:

“The recent trend has worsened…and in summary, Government statistics demonstrate that in 2015-16, the East Midlands has…The lowest level of public expenditure on ‘economic affairs’…The lowest level of public expenditure on transport, in total and per head…The lowest level of public expenditure on rail per head…The 3rd lowest on health care…The 3rd lowest on education…The 3rd lowest total of public expenditure on services, in total and per head.”

Frankly, if I were an east midlands MP I would be saying to the Minister, “It’s not good enough. What are you going to do about it?”

The fundamental issue, which comes back to the important speech made by the hon. Member for Northampton South, is that central Government will never provide the joined-up structures that we need to deliver the infrastructure development that will liberate the houses of the future. With no disrespect to the Minister, he covers a huge range of issues. A Treasury Minister probably ought to be responding to today’s debate, if we are to see real join-up in central Government. We also have to give our local communities, through their local elected representatives, the capacity for strategic planning both to build housing consistent with local communities, and to plan public infrastructure, so that schools, hospitals, health services, roads, and transport systems are provided for those houses and those communities.

This is a very important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire on securing it.

Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [Lords]

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I think that I can probably say without contradiction from the Chair that this has been a wide-ranging debate. Nevertheless, it has been an important one. I congratulate hon. Members on both sides of the House who have contributed. We heard excellent speeches from the hon. Members for Clacton (Giles Watling), for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands), for Witney (Robert Courts), for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) and for Northampton South (Andrew Lewer), from my hon. Friends the Members for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) and for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), and from the two Front Benchers: the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn).

I say kindly to the Minister that we need some assurances that what the Government claim that the Bill will do is actually what it will do. This will be an important point to consider in Committee. Before we start proceedings in Committee, I hope that she will write to me and my colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench so that we can ensure that we understand exactly the legal implications of the Bill.

There is a recognition across the House that we have a duty not only to do everything we can to stamp out domestic abuse and violence—of course we must do that—but to recognise that stamping it out may be an ideal. There will still be victims, so we must do everything we can to support them against the perpetrators by preventing those perpetrators from operating, and by ensuring that there are no artificial impediments to people moving out of and away from situations that put them in danger.

Two women are killed every week in this country as a result of domestic abuse. Throughout my life I have met many people who have told me the most horrendous stories about being trapped in domestic violence. I particularly think of a woman who was into her 70s and had been married for many decades before finally summoning up whatever it took to break the bonds of that relationship. We have to ensure that we do not place artificial barriers in the way of people leaving such situations.

I think that there is a common view across the House on the very real issue of training, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North. When I was police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester, every frontline officer there was retrained to recognise domestic abuse. That had previously not been done properly, and that was not only because there was sometimes a lack of empathy or ambition. People simply did not always recognise what abuse was all about or what they as individuals could do to combat it. Training people within the framework of housing is of fundamental importance to ensuring that we have the cultural capacity to help victims of domestic abuse.

The hon. Member for Northampton South made an important point about barriers. It may be a small thing for a Member of Parliament to pay for a letter from a solicitor, a doctor or whoever it might be, but somebody who is fleeing domestic abuse may simply have no capacity to find the resources to pay for a letter of evidence, which can become a barrier in its own right. We need to look at such issues, so the hon. Gentleman was absolutely right to make that point.

I want to press the Minister to comment on a few matters in her response, although we will need to return to a number of these points in Committee. I begin with the important point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) about people who move across boundaries. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby mentioned women being asked to travel from Birmingham to find a place in a refuge in Manchester. It might on occasion be a good thing for women to break ties, and that can be a perfectly sensible opportunity to do so, but I have known of cases in which women have been asked to travel many miles not because they need to break those chains, but because no alternative refuge space is available. If women in such circumstances do not have their rights guaranteed under the Bill, frankly we will not have moved the situation on for that subset of domestic abuse victims. I would be grateful if the Minister would write to us to clarify how a different local authority is caught by this legislation, as that is not automatically obvious from the Bill. It is important that we have certainty about what its words will actually mean when tested, for example in a court of law.

I want to make a fundamental point: even now, at a time when there are secure tenancies—when the situation is as it was before the amendments through which the Government sought to get rid of the old-style secure tenancies—a significant number of women leaving refuges are moved into continued temporary accommodation. It is an interesting but shocking statistic that 22% of women who arrived in refuges in a particular year had a secure tenancy on arrival, but only 13% had a secure tenancy on departure. We need to reflect on that because it means that, even before this legal change, the situation does not guarantee that people leaving secure tenancies move back into those secure tenancies. The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North referred to the Scottish context, and it is worth our thinking about that. I am very supportive of the Scottish Government’s position—I think that this is also the position in Wales—of maintaining the old-style secure tenancies, but if the system is not working even now, because those in flight from domestic abuse do not move from secure tenancy to secure tenancy, we have a systemic problem that we need to look at.

Of course, not every person leaving a secure tenancy will qualify for an offer of rehousing by an appropriate housing authority. I want to give the Minister the opportunity to pause for thought on this point. Will she be clear about whether the offer by a housing association is covered by the Bill? It is clear from the Department’s explanatory notes that somebody moving from a secure tenancy within a housing association to a local authority tenancy would be offered an old-style secure tenancy, but it is not obvious that somebody leaving an old-style secure tenancy of any kind who is offered rehousing by a housing association would automatically qualify for an old-style secure tenancy. This is not a matter of trivia; it is an important issue. Of course, not everybody who moves as a result of domestic abuse will find themselves in a position to be offered a tenancy at all, and we must look at whether this is still a continuing barrier.

The Government were dragged into this situation—I say that kindly—having made a mistake in the original legislation. They faced defeat in Committee at that time because of a combination of their own Back Benchers and, of course, the Labour Opposition. The Government rightly recognised that they had to do something, and it has taken two years for the Bill to come forward. We obviously welcome the Bill, but it is important that we make sure that what it is claimed that it will do will really happen in practice.

Building Safety

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement.

Nine months on, we all still live with the human tragedy of Grenfell and the realisation that we saw the systemic failure of our system of building checks and controls. We must keep that in mind because, as the Secretary of State said—I will always endorse these words—public safety has to be paramount. That also means, however, that there has to be transparency, accountability and a driving sense of urgency.

I welcome the transparency of the Secretary of State’s making this statement at the earliest possible stage. It is right and proper that this information is in the public domain, so I thank him. I think he would agree that if the Opposition demand accountability and that the Government demonstrate a sense of urgency, that can never be open to the charge of political point scoring.

I add my thanks for the work of the Metropolitan police. The Secretary of State told us that the “Metropolitan police considered that this test result might have wider implications for public safety” and consequently alerted the Department. I was a little surprised when he said that there is “no evidence that this is a systemic issue.” I was astounded when he went on to say: “Data from between 2009 and 2017 shows that fire does not generally spread beyond the room of origin.” That may be true, but we know that that was exactly what did happen in Grenfell Tower—the fire spread and spread and spread. We cannot have any sense of complacency.

The Secretary of State says that this issue is not “systemic”, but what assessment has been made of how many buildings might be affected? How many individual flats—how many people—have fire doors that simply do not do the job? If he does not already know those numbers—I suspect it is too early to know—what steps is he taking to ascertain them? This is the point at which the words “this is not systemic” begin to sound a little incredible. There may be a systemic problem, and we have to begin to recognise that if this is a wide-scale issue, we have that systemic problem.

We need a real sense of urgency on this, as indeed we do regarding other aspects of building control. Tower block residents up and down the country are entitled to know—not simply post Grenfell—the scale of the issues. I must say to the Secretary of State that that sense of urgency has not always been apparent in all the Government’s actions. Earlier this week, he was a little embarrassed when he was not able to answer a question that was put to him at Question Time about how many tower blocks are unsafe post Grenfell. He was not able to say how many private tower blocks up and down the country have the same aluminium composite material cladding that was used on Grenfell. We now need some urgency in providing those answers and bringing the information before the House. I hope that he can tell us when he will have that information and when we can begin to give people a sense of reassurance.

In a recent written answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), the shadow Housing Minister, the Department confirmed that no funding had yet been provided to any of the 41 local authorities that had contacted it. We were told at Question Time that no funding requests had been refused, but that is not quite the full truth if the reality is that no funding request had actually been acceded to. Again, perhaps the Secretary of State can update us and tell us when the local authorities, which really do want to get on with this work, will see the assistance from central Government to which he committed nearly nine months ago.

The upshot of all of this is that, nine months on, only seven of more than 300 tower blocks that had been identified as having dangerous cladding have had that cladding removed and replaced with something more acceptable. I must say to the Secretary of State that, nine months on, that is simply not good enough.

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and I am very happy to answer all the points that he has made.

The hon. Gentleman rightly said—of course we all agree with this—that public safety is the No. 1 issue and is absolutely paramount in every way. He will know that ever since the tragedy, as well as through the police investigation and the work that is being done through the public inquiry, there have been lessons for public safety. He will remember that, right from the start, the expert panel was convened to provide the immediate emergency advice that was necessary, and that advice went out widely to the owners of both social and private sector buildings. The testing regime—the initial sample testing and then the large-scale testing—was set up, as was the independent review, which is now being carried out by Dame Judith Hackitt. I was quite deliberate in wanting to see an interim report so that we could act on some of the early lessons. I remind the hon. Gentleman that Dame Judith Hackitt’s interim report included a number of recommendations, which we have accepted, and we have now started to implement every single one of them. She is now working on her final report, which is due, as planned, in the spring. Again, that reflects our sense of urgency.

Once the expert panel and the police are comfortable that information can be publicly shared, it is right that we are transparent as quickly as possible. That is necessary to create public trust and to ensure that no one comes under any undue stress. Throughout the whole process, we have correctly been led by the experts—the expert panel and all the industry advisers who have been put in place—as well as by the work that has been done by the police.

Let me give the hon. Gentleman a bit more information about that. As well as the independent expert panel, the Government have consulted the National Fire Chiefs Council, the Government’s chief scientific advisers, the police, of course, and the London Fire Brigade. As a result, the expert panel has concluded that, so far, the risk to public safety remains low, that there is no change to fire safety advice, and that a programme of additional testing has to be commissioned to determine the root cause of the failed test. Such additional testing is required; it is going on now. As I said, it must be thorough and done at pace, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that we should not rush it, meaning that we get either wrong or inappropriate results. It should be done properly. It should be led by the experts and only on their advice. That is exactly why I said in my statement that there is no evidence of a systemic problem—it is the advice of the experts so far. We are correctly taking their advice while we continue with further tests at pace.

The hon. Gentleman seemed to suggest that work was not being done at pace or urgently. I refute that. We have rightly worked as urgently as possible every step of the way, whether that is on today’s information or other information that has come to light since the fire. That includes work on the remediation of existing buildings with ACM cladding. So far, 301 buildings have been identified: 158 social buildings; 13 in the public sector; and 130 in the private sector. Almost 60% have begun the remediation work and, as the hon. Gentleman said, seven have completed that work. Public safety is paramount, so in every single case, interim steps were taken and measures were put in place immediately, with expert advice, often from the local fire brigade. Those measures remain in place. People can be comfortable that every measure is being taken to ensure that they remain safe.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

It is good news that Help to Buy has helped more homes to get built. It has contributed to about 14% of new build since 2015. I personally share some of the hon. Gentleman’s concerns about executive pay, but I gently remind him that it was this Government who introduced the corporate governance reforms in August, including to make sure that there is greater transparency and greater shareholder grip over directors’ pay.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that some 10% of those on the Help to Buy scheme earn over £80,000 a year. Even in London, they are people who can afford to buy without this taxpayer subsidy. In the light of the Secretary of State’s earlier comments about responsibility to the taxpayer, will he contrast the poorest homeowners who will lose help with mortgage interest with these heavily subsidised, well-off people up and down the country?

[Dominic Raab]

I think that some factual clarification would help the hon. Gentleman, because four out of five of those benefiting from Help to Buy have been first-time buyers, and three out of five households benefiting from Help to Buy had combined incomes of £50,000 or less. We are on their side; it is a shame that Labour is not.

Fire Safety and Cladding

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter, and the fact that you managed to allow 19 people to contribute to this debate is significant. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed). He spoke only briefly today, but I know the assiduous work that he has put into this issue over a long time. His constituents should be proud of what he is trying to achieve. This has been a rightly challenging debate, and I hope that the Minister will take that on board. He is relatively new in office and has the capacity to begin to effect a change and recognise that this challenge is legitimate. This is not moral panic or outrage; this is a basic safety case that we must take on board.

Many years ago we had a major fire in Manchester—the Woolworths fire—and those of us of an older disposition, like myself, remember it well. People died and as a result the law was changed and polyurethane foam was banned for use in domestic furniture. We must be prepared to be radical if we are to make our safety case. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) made a point about fire marshals. It is good to see those marshals, but they cannot be a permanent solution—it is a short-term safety case. We must look towards the longer term, which is about ensuring that those buildings are safe from fire as far as is humanly possible. That will mean the removal of existing cladding where that is inappropriate, and its replacement with more suitable materials.

I want to begin by talking about the question of responsibility, which has engaged Members from all parts of the Chamber. It is important to say that leaseholders cannot seriously be expected to foot these enormous bills. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) who quoted from the Minister’s letter, which used words identical to those of the Secretary of State in a letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North. I say this kindly to the Minister, but it is not enough to write that

“I believe that the morally right thing is for the building owner to take responsibility for meeting the cost of remediation”.

The Minister is a lawyer, so he will know that moral rectitude will not stand up in court or pay the leaseholders’ bills. I am not sure whether this still applies, but in the early moments of the situation with Citiscape, the freeholder was saying to leaseholders that unless they were prepared individually and collectively to agree to pay for the remedial works, no remedial work would take place. That is not moral responsibility; that is an outrage. We collectively have to do something about it.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

On this issue of moral and legal responsibility, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we can learn lessons from the private rented sector? It has taken legal measures to force landlords to bring properties up to basic safety standards, with fire alarms and improved insulation for energy-poor households. Does he agree that in this matter, moral responsibility will not work? Legislation from the Government is needed to sort the problem out.

[Tony Lloyd]

I hope the Minister is listening, because that demand is coming from all parts of the House. At this level, the matter is not party political; we have a recognition that we need the Government to act as the Government. They are the only responsible agency that can begin to show the determination.

We cannot wait for the courts. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North said that the property managers had referred the Citiscape case to the first-tier tribunal, but as a lawyer the Minister knows that the matter could be with the courts not for weeks and months, but years—it could be years before we get resolution. We cannot wait for some sedentary legal process; we need action to determine where the responsibility lies.

I have great sympathy with the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) made: that it is unreasonable for social landlords, whether they are local authorities or housing associations, to have to pick up the tab. That would mean we were saying to a subset of British society—tenants of a particular landlord—that they will pay for the cost of remediation, when the responsibility does not lie with the tenants or the social landlords any more than it lies with the leaseholders.

Importantly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich said, the responsibility comes back to failures of Governments of all descriptions. The reality is that the failure is recognisable here and now, and the responsibility has to be picked up here and now. It is incumbent on the Government to ensure that the matter is resolved. It is not about moral responsibility, but practical action that says to leaseholders, “You will not have to face bills of £40,000-plus.” That is what the amount is in some cases, and frankly people cannot afford that.

Has the Minister had any contact with the insurance industry? That is not about the responsibility for paying for the work that needs to be done, but about whether it will be prepared to insure buildings in the longer term. It would be significant if the insurance industry walked away from insuring buildings that we know have difficulties. We have to sort out the question of responsibility. In the end, that falls on the Government because of the past failure of the regulatory system.

We need to look at some of the wider issues that have emerged. This month the Peabody Trust found that one of the cladding materials it was using to replace the Grenfell tower cladding—Xtratherm—is no longer an acceptable material, as it is flammable. Peabody faces the bizarre situation of having to remove things that it used to replace what it had already removed. Who picks up the consequences of that? In the end, we have got to give people living in our tower blocks some certainty that their homes are safe, and that brings us to the question of how quickly we will see removal and replacement. Fire marshals are useful, but removal and replacement has to be part of where we move to.

Do we now have absolute accuracy about which materials are potentially affected? Do we have absolute accuracy about the number of tower blocks that may be affected across the country? That basic information will determine whether we can move forward. I may be wrong, but I am not certain that the Ministry has knowledge of all the private buildings out there that may be affected. That is a significant challenge. It means that people are living in blocks and do not know that they may be affected. Indeed, there may be private owners who do not know that their property is affected.

We have got to begin to go beyond the question of the building regulations and bringing them up to standard. A report said:

“Advice from the independent expert advisory panel set up to ensure buildings are safe and published by MHCLG in December 2017 tells building owners they can still rely on desktop assessments.”

It is not enough for the Ministry to say that to the world. Desktop assessments are only credible in this country; I understand that they would not be allowed anywhere else in Europe. Also, the building regulations are only advisory. We cannot have a situation where people can pick and choose which bits of the regulations they apply.

We have to move on to something that takes us away from the failures of the past. As some of my hon. Friends have said, we need transparency about what has happened to know what the technical specifications should be. We need to ensure that we do not have this conflict where the Building Research Establishment is taking money from its clients to be part of the testing process. We have got to ensure that the regulations are fit and proper for the future.

This has been an important debate. When we look to the longer term, the question of cost arises. A number of Members—I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North raised this issue with the Secretary of State—have asked whether the cost could be removed from recladding. While there may be legal issues around European legislation, the Government can get around that by simply putting that 20% back into the pot where remedial work is taking place. Government can do that.

I come back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) made. When the Government can return hundreds of millions of pounds to the Exchequer, the money is there to do this kind of remedial work. We owe it not simply to those who died in Grenfell tower, but to all those living in tower blocks to say that the time has come for the Government to act. Only the Government can act. We look to the Minister to say now how they will act.

Social Housing and Regeneration: Earl’s Court and West Kensington

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). He made a powerful speech that was clearly embedded in the needs of the people he represents, some of whom have come here today to hear the debate and others of whom will want to know the outcome. I say kindly to the Minister that there is a real expectation that today we begin to move the long-running saga of Capco’s plan forward in a way that is acceptable to the local residents.

If I may, I will set the debate in a wider context, going back to before the Grenfell fire. It has been recognised that the policy of owner occupation being the only viable form of tenancy, which was driven during the bulk of the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition and in the early days of the present Government, had to change, in the face of the reality of what modern Britain is all about. It is worth putting on record some of the national statistics that are part of the process faced by people in this part of London. Since 2010, there has been a 50% increase in the number of people who are unintentionally homeless and are deemed to be a priority, people who desperately need rehousing and regarding whom our local authorities have a duty to respond. The local authorities find that extremely difficult of course, because of the lack of available properties.

Those who present themselves to local authorities as unintentionally homeless are only part of the picture. Many families and individuals are in inadequate, overcrowded housing, perhaps living with parents or other relatives. We know that the need for affordable social homes is massively greater than that illustrated by the unintentionally homeless figures. It is a scandal that some 120,000 children nationwide are in temporary accommodation—and the number is growing. In London in particular, in recent years there has been a tripling in the number of people described as rough sleepers, people who have been abandoned by our society in many ways.

That is all part of the background. So why is this? It is because policies dictated to take out social housing—affordable housing for people who need it—have been massively detrimental. That is what the ideologues my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith talked about earlier wanted to achieve. Since 2010, we have seen a 174,000 reduction in the number of council properties nationwide. According to the Chartered Institute of Housing, 150,000 social housing units have been lost, and it is predicted that a further 80,000 will go between now and 2020. At the same time, in 2010 there were 40,000 social housing starts and in the most recent year the figure was down to 1,000. Frankly, this is a crisis that has been made at political policy level, because of incompetence and the unacceptability of developers taking control of our planning process.

Something has gone drastically wrong, and the situation in Earl’s Court and West Kensington fits into that national pattern. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith made the point forcefully that there is something fundamentally wrong when developers can sweat assets that are people’s homes, land on which perfectly adequate estates and communities make their lives. That is not sweating assets; it is prostituting national resources in the interests of developer profit and it cannot be acceptable. Nor can it be acceptable that simply because the market is turning and Capco no longer sees the development as viable we now have the possibility of a change of policy. The policy should never have been allowed in the first place, putting, as it does, people’s lives and homes at risk.

Everything I know of the situation my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith has talked about says that this is a collection of viable estates of popular homes. I understand there are very few voids, empty properties—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith confirms that—and that they are properties that are not so old and not really in enormous need of repair. With that background, the idea of destroying those homes simply to allow the sweating of assets—in fact, to allow people to make enormous amounts of money—does not fit in with the social values we ought to espouse. Even the Government have now begun to espouse those values, as they talk in a slightly more nuanced language about the need to develop more affordable social housing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith made some important points about the situation that would be unacceptable anywhere. “Like for like” should be the minimum requirement of any transfer for individuals. It is not like for like when we know that people who have substantial properties will be offered properties with minimum space standards—whatever that means. In fact, it increasingly means much reduced standards and therefore a lower quality of life. My hon. Friend talked about people possibly seeing a tripling of service charges to £3,500 a year, and that is not a small amount of money. It would have a significant impact on people’s incomes, and it simply is not sustainable. Given that background, there is something fundamentally wrong with the model. Residents are rightly looking not only to the local authority—it now has a different political complexion and a different view of the situation—but to central Government to see what they can do to alter the situation.

My hon. Friend asked for specific things from the Minister. The Minister should look at the capacity of the right to transfer. If that issue has been on his predecessor’s desk for two years, it needs to be brought to a conclusion. I hope today he can begin to move that process on. My hon. Friend also talked about the need for the provision of affordable housing. There is something fundamentally wrong in the design of a new area that is supposed to have some 7,500 properties when the number of affordable homes would be less than the number being taken out. In the world in which we now live, the proportion of affordable homes should be significantly in excess of replacement. It should make some real impact on the dire need for social homes—affordable social homes at that—in London in particular. I hope the Minister will comment on what that means for future developments such as this and what the Government can do to begin to bring pressure to bear on Capco.

In conclusion, my hon. Friend has brought a shocking story to the House. The support that my hon. Friends the Members for Kensington (Emma Dent Coad) and for Westminster North (Ms Buck) have brought is important. I congratulate the residents of the area. Their 10-year fight is not yet over, but had they not been prepared to stand up to Capco and the developers, the issue most certainly would have been finished long ago with them in massively inferior conditions to what they now have. I hope that where we are today promises something better for the future.

We look to the Minister for a credible response. The saga is complicated because a lot of the control rests with the developer, but the developer is now on the ropes. I hope he accepts that it should not depend on changing market conditions for us to have a more rational housing policy that says that the rights of existing viable communities should not be wiped out simply to sweat those assets to make more money. The Government’s changing attitude says that that is the wrong situation for us to be in, and I hope the Minister will confirm that.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

I know that in responding to the debate the Minister will allow a couple of minutes for Mr Slaughter to wind up.

Warwick District Council: New Offices

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western]

The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. At a time when local authorities are restructuring under the pressure of budgetary restraint, that could be an option, but there are other options, such as moving into vacant buildings that the authority owns. He is right to highlight that point, and I will come on to develop it.

How can a council that is likely to impose a 3% council tax increase in April, alongside other council tax increases that will mean a total rise of perhaps 7% to 8% for council tax payers, justify using scarce resources to build itself a shiny new office? Its sister county council has the necessary vacant space and is closing much-valued children’s centres, claiming that that is not what councils should be doing and that they should simply contract out delivery services. The council’s justifications include the fact that the offices are just 500 metres closer to the town centre and that they might be more economical to run. It claims that the move will be cost-neutral and could save £300,000 a year, but given my recent experience of its projects, including leisure centres, that will be wide of the mark.

There are three main issues: the development lacks provision for affordable housing, which is so desperately needed in the area; it is the wrong priority at a time of austerity; and it will disrupt car parking in Leamington town centre, and ultimately the viability of town centre businesses. In essence, it is the wrong development at the wrong time in the wrong place.

I want to touch on the issue of affordable homes. Some people may believe that the new office is critical at a time of economic austerity, and that the arguments of better heating and efficiency justify the £10 million spent, but then we discover that the council office project is being funded by the disposal of its current site for the exclusive development of private housing. In fact, the planning applications for the Riverside House and Covent Garden sites total more than 200 dwellings, but none of them will be council, social or affordable—zero council, zero social and zero affordable housing.

Remember that the two applications were made by the council for the council. What about the council’s own policy—the policy it wrote itself and specified in its own local plan—that 40% of properties on large new housing developments should be affordable housing? To be clear, large is anything greater than 10, so given that there will be 170 and 44 on the two sites, they comfortably qualify. It is clear that with these applications —approval has been outlined—the council is failing to meet its own standards for affordable housing, which it seeks to place on other developers. What sort of precedent is that setting?

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The offices are a local issue, but the use of land for housing is a national issue—the use of land at premium prices that prevents the development of affordable housing has to be a national issue. Will the Minister have a serious look at that to see whether the local plan, which requires 40% affordable homes, can be enforced by central Government? We need to think of that as national public policy.

[Matt Western]

I thank my hon. Friend, who makes the point so well, as ever. Currently, in Warwick district—I am sure there are other examples around the country—only 27% of housing plans that have been approved are for affordable housing. The council itself is approving 0% affordable housing, so there is a much wider implication for the principle and for necessary housing, as he said.

If the council applied its own policy to those developments, Leamington would gain 86 affordable homes, which would make a huge difference to families in dire need of homes below market prices. Those who heard my maiden speech will be aware that there are about 2,400 people on the housing waiting list in Warwick district, that there are 700 statutory homeless people, and that there has been a 50% increase in rough sleeping in recent years. For young people, the situation is particularly dire. In 2015, Shelter found that 31% of working young adults in the area live with their parents, compared with a 25% average in England.

Some might simply excuse the council for ignoring social and affordable housing and accept the argument that it is not viable to include them, but that is missing the point. The new office development is not necessary, and it is only that that is disguising the council’s claim about why it is not building the much-needed affordable housing on the two sites. In its outline planning application, the council managed to wriggle out of the 40% requirement for affordable housing by securing viability—that great “v” word—appraisals that say that the developments would not be viable if they provided any affordable housing. Furthermore, the council is refusing to release the details of those viability assessments on the grounds that they contain commercially sensitive information, partly because the developments are a joint venture with a private company, which ignores the public interest in the investment in new buildings.

The council claims in the viability assessments that the capital receipts gained from the housing developments are required to fund the building of the new offices, but if it did not have the capacity to provide any affordable housing, it should never have proposed its new office plan in the first place. There is also the broader issue that the viability assessments allow developers to avoid requirements for affordable housing across the board. That policy was introduced in 2012 as part of the national planning policy framework, which has been disastrous for the supply of affordable housing, contributing to the housing crisis, and which should be dropped. When housebuilders such as Persimmon claim that developments are not viable, but the chief executive is pocketing a £130 million bonus, something is not right.

There is clearly a fundamental issue with a local authority being both applicant and jury. The planning committee is supposed to be quasi-judicial, but it is evident, as in this case, that planning officers lean on it to ensure that an application gets passed. How can the planning department “recommend approval” to its own committee on its own project? Let us be honest: that is not quasi-judicial.

The third report of the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life—the committee advises the Prime Minister on the standards to be expected of those in public office—stated:

“We have particular concerns about…local authorities granting themselves planning permission…and we believe that there should be greater openness in the planning process.”

Warwick District Council has done exactly what the Nolan committee advised that local authorities should not do. In a case of commercial confidentiality, the failure to deliver affordable housing should preclude such exemption from public scrutiny. The council’s proposals, which fail residents in the area who are in desperate need of more affordable housing, should be dropped.

The people of Warwick district, in common with all communities, have been battered by a programme of Government austerity these past seven years, and local services are being cut. Communities are losing children’s centres, social care is at a crisis point and all services are suffering from the cuts. It is no wonder that, in such a challenging environment, many people tell me how surprised they are that the district council is proposing to build a new office.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Lloyd]

I endorse strongly what the Minister is saying. Hearing the northern chimes of Rochdale town hall on the BBC would enlighten the world about the beauties of the north.

[Jake Berry]

We are as one on that—“bong” is all I can say.

We also heard from the hon. Member for Peterborough (Fiona Onasanya), who raised important issues in her constituency, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), who has great experience as a former deputy leader of West Oxfordshire District Council. In his time there he was always involved in saving the local authority money, not for the sake of it or from any ideologically driven point of view, but so that he and his colleagues in the local government family of West Oxfordshire could invest in public services and public service delivery.

Before I move on to the main part of my speech, I will take the opportunity, on behalf of all hon. Members present, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in particular and me, to put on record our thanks to all councillors in our local government family who, regardless of political persuasion, work so hard to serve the communities that they represent.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington is aware that the Secretary of State has a quasi-judicial role in any planning applications in the United Kingdom. It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the merits of Warwick’s local plan or to discuss in detail the application that he mentioned specifically. Equally, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on what is essentially a local decision by Warwick council to relocate its offices. However, I am aware that that is part of a wider efficiency plan that includes a review of council assets. Local authorities are right to manage their own assets and expenditure responsibly in a democratically accountable way. Warwick District Council is a stable, well-managed, fiscally prudent, Conservative-controlled council that has achieved a surplus on its general fund revenue budget in each of the past six years and is projected to do so again in this financial year, which shows that it has a history of taking difficult decisions to better serve the people in Warwick, as a prudent local authority.

The hon. Gentleman raised concerns about affordable housing provision. I will set out our national policy on this issue and what our national planning policy framework does to encourage the delivery of affordable housing. I will touch on parking facilities and how the framework promotes sustainable transport solutions. I will also say a bit about how we require local authorities to make sure that the money they expend is spent well and that they take prudent investment decisions.

The Government’s priority is to boost housing supply and to build more affordable homes, supporting the different needs of a wide range of people. That is why the Prime Minister recently announced an additional £2 billion of funding for affordable housing, increasing the affordable homes programme in the 2016 to 2021 budget to more than £9 billion, to deliver a wide range of affordable housing, including social rent homes, by March 2021. The new funding will support councils and housing associations to build more genuinely affordable homes in areas of acute affordability pressure, where families are struggling with the cost of rent and some families may be at risk of homelessness.

The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of homelessness and families waiting on the list during his maiden speech; it is absolutely right and appropriate that in this House we focus on what is a hugely important issue for us all as constituency MPs and for the Government. Our expanding programme will provide a wide range of homes to meet the housing needs of a range of people in different circumstances and different housing markets. Further details on how social rent will be prioritised in the areas of greatest need will be published shortly. The Government have also confirmed plans to create a stable environment by setting long-term rent deals for councils and housing associations in England from 2020. Increases will be limited to the consumer prices index plus 1% for the next five years until 2020.

On our national planning policy, our housing White Paper shows that the Government are strongly committed to a plan-led system, where new homes are provided through up-to-date local plans prepared in consultation with local people. The giveaway about local plans is in their title: they should be local, widely consulted on and driven by local authorities, not by Government. The White Paper also includes proposals for local authorities to have clear policies for addressing the housing needs of particular groups. As part of that, we expect local authorities to identify their affordable housing need. As always, we expect them to make a planning judgment—as they do now—to understand how many affordable homes should be built in their local planning area.

As I started out by saying, it is up to local authorities to determine how their own affordable housing policy is applied, and to determine their own planning applications in line with their own view. Planning law requires that applications for planning permission must be determined in accordance with the development plan, unless material considerations indicate otherwise. Viability is a material consideration. Different sites have different costs, and it might be appropriate for local authorities to seek different levels of local planning applications, including affordable housing, in certain circumstances.