Leaseholders: Fire Safety Costs
(Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
What steps he is taking to support leaseholders with high costs
of interim fire safety measures pending permanent remediation.
The Minister for Housing ()
In beginning, may I wish you, Mr Speaker, all Members of the
House and its staff, and, of course, my right hon. Friend the
Member for Romsey and Southampton North () a very happy new year?
We have announced a new £30 million fund to help end the scandal
of excessive waking watch costs. This will fund the installation
of alarm systems in buildings with unsafe cladding, reducing or
removing the dependence on costly interim measures such as a
waking watch. We estimate that that will save residents a
combined £3 million each month. Alongside that, we continue to
prioritise the removal of unsafe cladding and have committed
funds to help make homes safer, faster.
[V]
Sleep deprivation is recognised as a form of torture. People
living in buildings with unsafe cladding are being tortured:
physically, due to a lack of sleep, as they live in fear;
financially, as they cannot sell their homes and are forced to
pay for waking watches; and mentally, as they live in limbo. When
does my right hon. Friend expect that torture to end?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend; she has campaigned long
and hard for her constituents, and has raised this issue with me
outside the Chamber as well as within it. We all appreciate the
terrible challenges and suffering that many people around our
country face on this issue. That is why we want the residents of
blocks that are enduring a waking watch to get the benefits of
our changes as soon as possible. We expect the £30 million fund
to be open this month, with the aim of providing funding for the
installation of alarms as quickly as possible. I think we all
agree that the best way of making buildings safe is to speed up
remediation, and that is what our policies intend.
Local Authority Funding
(Bosworth) (Con)
What plans the Government have to increase funding for local
authorities in 2021.
(Beaconsfield) (Con)
What plans the Government have to increase funding for local
authorities in 2021.
The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government ()
We are increasing funding for councils in 2021-22. Through the
local government finance settlement, we are making an extra £2.2
billion available to councils, with an average cash increase of
4.5%—a real-terms increase. We have also announced £3 billion of
covid-19 support for next year, taking our total direct support
for local government in responding to the pandemic to more than
£10 billion.
Dr Evans [V]
I am grateful to the Minister for the announcement of the extra
cash, particularly the covid cash, in these difficult times. He
will know from our many meetings in the year since I was elected
about my concern on fairer funding for Leicestershire. If
Leicestershire were funded at the same level as London, it would
receive an extra £374 per resident. Will he update me on the
formula that underpins the structure and whether there will be a
review? Is this likely to change? If so, when?
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and the way in which he
has consistently and constructively raised this issue with me and
Ministers in our Department. Leicestershire will see an increase
of 5.5% in its core spending power next year and receive more
than £11.5 million to deal with covid pressures. The Government
certainly agree that we need an updated and fairer method for
distributing funds within local government. I hope he understands
that this year we have had to focus on supporting councils
through the pandemic, but once this is over we will revisit our
shared priority of funding reform. In the meantime, we have
substantially increased the rural services delivery grant to £85
million, its highest level ever, which will support the delivery
of services in places such as Leicestershire. I am, of course,
happy to continue meeting him in the weeks ahead.
[V]
May I thank the Minister for his covid cash for councils? Will he
confirm that the Government will ensure that councils have the
financial support they need to respond to covid-19 and support
their local communities? In places such as Bucks, particularly,
our council is doing a fantastic job but there is a lot of
concern about whether it will have the financial support to carry
on throughout the pandemic and make sure that care is taken of
all the residents.
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is right to say that
councils have done an incredible job in responding to the
pandemic. We have provided an unprecedented package of
covid-related support for councils, which is now worth £10
billion over this year and next year. It includes £1 billion of
unring-fenced funding, as well as support with lost income from
tax, sales, fees and charges. Buckinghamshire will benefit from
more than £54 million of covid support this year and £11 million
for next year. Councils are the unsung heroes of the response to
this pandemic and we are standing squarely behind them.
(Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
May I take this opportunity to congratulate Christina McAnea on
being elected the general secretary of Unison? It is Britain’s
biggest trade union and of course has many members who work in
local government.
Let me turn to the Minister. How is it fair to force councils to
choose between hiking up council tax for hard-working families
during the worst recession in 300 years, or cutting social care
for older parents and grandparents during an unprecedented global
health pandemic?
It is hard to take lectures from the Labour party about raising
council tax when Labour doubled council tax while in office and
has trebled council tax in Wales. If the hon. Gentleman wants to
speak about raising council tax, he should start by speaking to
the Mayor of London, who is proposing a 9.5% increase in council
tax for next year. We are ensuring that local government has the
resources it needs to emerge stronger from the pandemic. That is
why we are putting in an extra £2.2 billion next year. We are
also giving councils the flexibility to defer any increases in
council tax next year if they believe that is right for their
community. If the Opposition Front-Bench team looked at the
detail of what we are proposing, they would see that we have
provided £670 million to help councils to support people who are
least able to pay council tax. There is of course one council
that will definitely be raising council tax next year, and that
is Croydon, because of its completely disastrous management of
its finances.
High Street Regeneration
(Bracknell) (Con)
What plans he has to support the regeneration of high streets.
(East Surrey) (Con)
What plans he has to support the regeneration of high streets.
(Meon
Valley) (Con)
What plans he has to support the regeneration of high streets.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local
Government ()
The Government’s priority throughout the pandemic has been to
protect lives and livelihoods, with substantial support flowing
to high street businesses through business grants, the paying of
people’s wages and tax deferrals. Just last week, the Chancellor
announced an additional £4.6 billion in new lockdown grants to
support businesses and protect jobs. I was pleased that on Boxing
day we allocated £830 million from our future high streets fund
to 72 areas to transform underused town centres into the vibrant
places to live, work and visit that we all want to see after the
pandemic.
Online sellers, global giants and supermarkets have enjoyed a
virtual monopoly since the pandemic started, whereas small
businesses in Bracknell, Crowthorne, Sandhurst and beyond are
often on their knees. What is my hon. Friend going to do to
address this growing imbalance?
That idea lies very much behind the comprehensive package of
support that the Chancellor has made available, with £200 billion
specifically targeted at supporting small businesses on the high
street. It is also why we have brought forward the further top-up
grants, worth up to £9,000, to help small businesses through this
next—and hopefully final—phase of the pandemic. We will of course
continue to review the situation. Such concerns lie at the heart
of our plans through the towns fund, the high streets fund and
now the future levelling-up fund.
[V]
Just before Christmas I met businesses on the Oxted high street.
Even with the unprecedented Government support that the Secretary
of State has laid out, it has been a difficult and anxious year
for them, with many going above and beyond for their customers.
Surrey County Council and the Surrey economic growth board, on
which I serve, are doing important work to revitalise and
transform our high streets; will the Secretary of State meet us
so that we can share our ideas on how we can best support such
hard-working family businesses?
I praise my hon. Friend for her hard work to support Oxted high
street in Surrey and the work of her local councils. The truth is
that the pandemic has not so much changed things but magnified
and accelerated enormous market forces that were evident even
before the pandemic. There will now be a very significant role
for local councils in bringing forward imaginative plans to bring
private and public sector investment back to the high streets
over the course of the year, and to make good use of the
licensing and planning reforms that we have already brought
forward and that we will bring forward more of in future. I would
be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to hear her plans for Oxted.
Mrs Drummond [V]
Waterlooville town centre in my constituency was struggling as a
shopping centre even before the pandemic, and is now really
suffering, with closed shops and a lack of investment. There is a
vision for the town centre, but we need money to develop it. Will
my right hon. Friend point out a fund of money that I could
approach to make this happen?
As I said, I was delighted to announce over the Christmas period
the 72 places that have benefited from the future high streets
fund, but I appreciate that hundreds of high streets throughout
the country will be thinking about their own futures. We will
very shortly bring forward the levelling-up fund, from which all
parts of the country, including my hon. Friend’s in Hampshire,
will have the opportunity to benefit. I also direct my hon.
Friend to look at the planning reforms that we have brought
forward, because it is not simply about more public investment;
we also want to support entrepreneurs, small businesspeople and
small builders through the right to regenerate, the changes to
the use-class orders and the new licensing arrangements—such as
the ability to have markets, keep marquees outside pubs and have
more tables and chairs outdoors—that I would like to be put on a
permanent footing so that the al fresco dining we saw in the
summer can be replicated this year.
Mr Speaker
And hopefully Chorley will be included in the Secretary of
State’s high streets fund.
Mr Speaker
And hopefully Chorley will be on the Secretary of State’s high
street fund.
(Croydon North) (Lab/Co-op)
As we have been hearing, high streets are struggling like never
before. When will the Government level the playing field on
business rates between high street retailers and online
businesses, so that they can compete on equal terms?
The Chancellor announced earlier in the year an unprecedented
business rates holiday, which is benefiting thousands of
businesses the length and breadth of the country, and he will be
considering what further steps are necessary. I know that he is
making a statement later today, and we will bring forward a
Budget in March. We all want to support small independent
businesses on our high streets, which is precisely why I
encourage the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues to support the
planning reforms that we have already introduced, such as the
ability to build upwards, to bring more homes on to the high
street and to turn a derelict or empty property in a town centre
into something more useful for the future. Those are the ways
that we attract private sector investment and enable small
builders and entrepreneurs in Croydon, in Newark and in all parts
of the country to face the future with confidence.
Private Rented Sector
(Stockport) (Lab)
What steps he is taking to improve security of tenure in the
private rented sector.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing,
Communities and Local Government ()
The Government are committed to enhancing renters’ security by
abolishing no-fault evictions. During the covid-19 pandemic, our
collective efforts have been focused on protecting people during
the outbreak. This has included introducing longer notice periods
and preventing evictions at the height of the pandemic on public
health grounds. We will introduce a renters’ reform Bill very
soon.
I thank the Minister for her response. Hundreds of thousands of
people are at risk of being evicted when the ban is lifted. The
covid crisis has highlighted underlying problems in the private
rented sector, including families being forced into expensive and
insecure housing. Local organisations in my constituency,
including Stockport Tenants Union and ACORN, have long campaigned
to end section 21 evictions, but when will the Minister deliver
her manifesto commitment to do the same?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We are committed to
abolishing no-fault evictions under section 21. Obviously, we
have already taken some action. Last week, for example, my right
hon. Friend the Secretary of State increased the ban on evictions
for a further six weeks. We have also introduced six months’
notice, which means that people who receive an order now will
find that it will not go through the courts until July. We are
committed to making sure that we protect anybody who is suffering
homelessness. That has been borne out by the level of investment
that we have put into the sector during the pandemic. We will
keep all these measures under review.
(Bristol West) (Lab) [V]
Millions of hard-working people are excluded from every covid
scheme—newly self-employed or employed, small business owners,
people with mixed employment, even some on maternity or paternity
leave who have lost work because of covid but have little or no
Government support. The Government’s own stats show that hundreds
of thousands have fallen behind on rent. A loophole in the new
evictions rules means that anyone with more than six months in
arrears is at risk of eviction. When the Secretary of State said
that no one should lose their home because of coronavirus, did he
or did he not mean that?
I regret that the hon. Lady does not recognise the unprecedented
steps that this Government have taken in an unprecedented global
pandemic to support renters and people experiencing homelessness
and rough sleeping. Our data show that our measures to protect
renters are working. We have had a 54% reduction in households
owed a homelessness duty to the end of an assured tenancy from
April to June compared with January to March. Ministry of Justice
stats show no possessions recorded between April and September.
We have put a ban on evictions, given a six-month notice period,
extended buy-to-let mortgage holidays, provided £700 million to
support rough sleepers and those at risk of homelessness,
provided 3,300 next steps accommodation, given £6.4 billion to
local authorities to deal with the impact of covid, helped 29,000
people with Everyone In, and saw 19,000 move on to settled
protection. The list goes on and on. We know that people are
experiencing hardship in these times, and this Government will
continue to review and take the necessary action to ensure people
in this country are protected.
Covid-19: Local Authority Income
(Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
What support the Government are providing to help local
authorities experiencing a reduction in income as a result of the
covid-19 outbreak.
The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government ()
We are providing councils with comprehensive support for income
lost due to the pandemic. We are extending the existing
compensation scheme for lost sales, fees and charges income into
2021-22, and we have already paid councils £528 million under
this scheme. We have introduced a local tax guarantee scheme for
this financial year that provides 75% of irrecoverable losses in
business rates and council tax, worth an estimated £800 million.
We are also allowing councils to phase recovery of collection
fund deficits over three years.
Dr Spencer
I very much welcome the incredible financial support provided to
local authorities, particularly through the national leisure
recovery fund. Does my hon. Friend agree that supporting council
provision of health and leisure centres is vital in helping us to
keep healthy and to support our mental wellbeing? Will he look at
the situation in my local authorities, Runnymede and Elmbridge
borough councils, and their individual leisure operator contracts
and according liabilities, where those are in excess of the
support provided by the scheme?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Leisure services play a vital
role in helping people to be active, supporting physical and
mental health, and bringing a wider range of community and
wellbeing benefits. I can confirm that Runnymede and Elmbridge
have each lodged an expression of interest as the first necessary
step in the application process for the national leisure recovery
fund; I believe that they will have submitted their completed
applications before the deadline of 15 January. It is also worth
noting that councils may be eligible for support from the sales,
fees and charges scheme, which was recently extended into the
first three months of 2021-22, but I am always more than happy to
meet him to discuss this matter in more detail.
Leaseholders: Fire Safety Costs
(Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
What steps his Department is taking to ensure that leaseholders
are not held responsible for the costs of remediating dangerous
cladding.
The Minister for Housing ()
We expect—and we are right to expect—developers, investors and
building owners who have the means to pay to cover remediation
costs themselves without passing on costs to leaseholders. In
cases where this may not be possible and where there may be wider
costs related to historical defects, we are keenly aware that
leaseholders can face unforeseen costs. That is why we have
introduced funding schemes, providing £1.6 billion to accelerate
the pace of work and meet the costs of remediating high-risk and
the most expensive defects. We are accelerating the work on a
long-term solution, and are working to announce the findings of
that as soon as possible.
[V]
The Government have always been right to say that leaseholders
should not bear the costs of a scandal for which they bore no
responsibility. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister confirm
that it will be wholly—[Inaudible]—for them to be expected to
meet the costs by way of a loan scheme supported by the
Government, as is reported in some of the press? That would not
be consistent with the Government’s policy or the Government’s
word, would it?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend; he was breaking up a little, but
I think we got the gist of his question. We have always been
clear that it is unacceptable for leaseholders to have to worry
about fixing the costs of historical safety defects in their
buildings that they did not cause. I fully understand the anxiety
that they must all feel, particularly given the compounding
challenges of the pandemic. That is why we are determined to
remove the barriers to fixing those historical defects and to
identify clear financial solutions to help protect those
leaseholders while also, of course, protecting the taxpayer. We
will update the House with further measures as soon as possible.
Mr Speaker
Let us head to the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local
Government Committee, in Yorkshire, .
(Sheffield South
East) (Lab) [V]
Thank you, Mr Speaker—happy new year to you. I am sure it would
be remiss of me if I did not say that your local constituency
football team have made rather a good start to this year.
In saying happy new year to the Minister as well, I am sure he
would want it to be a happy new year for all leaseholders, but he
did not really answer the question from the hon. Member for
Bromley and Chislehurst (
). Even if a loan scheme were introduced to cover the
costs of these defects, and even if it was a very low-interest
scheme, that would still be a capital charge on properties—a
capital charge that would be a considerable financial burden on
leaseholders, would put many of them into negative equity, and
would mean that their properties were unsaleable. Will the
Minister accept that a loan scheme that puts an additional debt
on leaseholders is not a fair way out of this problem and that he
should instead look to the industry and to Government to cover
the cost of putting these defects right?
The Chair of the Select Committee is absolutely right—we should
look to developers and to building owners to remedy the defects
in their buildings. We have made available to owners who are not
able to remedy those defects quickly and effectively £1.6 billion
in order to remedy those defects. As I said in my earlier answer,
we do not want and we do not expect hard-pressed leaseholders to
bear unfair costs of defects for which they are not responsible.
That is why we are working quickly to bring forward a long-term
solution to ensure that costs are met, that defects are remedied,
and that the position that leaseholders find themselves in is
remedied too.
(Weaver Vale)
(Lab) [V]
A belated happy new year to you, Mr Speaker.
Clauses 88 and 89 of the Government’s proposed Building Safety
Bill will impose a charge on leaseholders, not developers and not
the industry. Ministers now refer to “affordable” cost and a
30-year loan on top of current debts, including for waking watch,
which we still have no remedy to. Adding insult to injury,
Ministers are trying to gag recipients of the building safety
fund from speaking to the media. That is just not going to
happen. Have Ministers learned nothing about transparency from
the Grenfell inquiry? Is it not about time that Ministers stepped
in and made sure that the developer community shoulder their
responsibility for this mess?
The Government have stepped in: they have spent £1.6 billion of
public money on remediating the most difficult and challenging
buildings that require help and support. We have made a further
£30 million available for waking watch. The Building Safety Bill
to which the hon. Gentleman refers—one of the most significant
pieces of legislation in this Parliament —will be brought forward
to make sure that building defects such as we have seen are
things of the past. In the meantime, we will work at pace to find
solutions that resolve the question of building defects such that
we do not see hard-pressed leaseholders enduring difficult,
unforeseen and unfair taxes. If those leaseholders wish to step
forward and make comments themselves, who am I to say that they
should not? We live in a free country; let them speak.
Waking Watch Relief Fund
(Richmond Park) (LD)
What plans he has for the allocation of the recently announced
waking watch relief fund.
The Minister for Housing ()
We expect that the £30 million fund will be open this month, as I
said earlier, with the aim to start providing funding for the
installation of alarms as quickly as possible. We will work with
local authorities and fire and rescue services on the delivery of
the fund, and we expect to publish a prospectus with further
information on the additional eligibility criteria and evidence
requirements as soon as possible.
[V]
Residents of Royal Quarter, Kingston in my constituency have
contacted me to say that their building has been assessed as
having dangerous cladding, but they cannot apply to the waking
watch fund, as their building is less than 18 metres tall.
Leaving leaseholders to pick up the tab for remediating cladding
means that many buildings will not be made safe in the near
future. Will the Government commit to funding the remediation of
cladding on all buildings as soon as possible, to ensure that
they can be made safe, and then claim the money back from those
responsible?
I am obliged to the hon. Lady for her question. In our response
to this challenge, we have been guided by Dame Judith Hackitt,
who advised that we should focus our attention specifically on
buildings that are over 18 metres, and that is what we have done.
We believe that the £30 million that we have made available will
go a long way to helping with the waking watch challenges of many
of those buildings. It still remains the responsibility of
developers and owners to make safe the buildings that they own or
are responsible for and to resolve the defects in them. That is
the point I have made from this Dispatch Box before and which I
make again today, and it is the point that the building safety
Bill will help to remedy.
Local Government Powers
(Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
What steps he is taking to deliver more powers to local
government bodies.
The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government ()
We are committed to levelling up across the United Kingdom by
devolving directly to local areas, which understand the needs in
their community and are best placed to take decisions over
investments to drive economic growth and deliver services for
their communities. From May this year, 41% of people in England
will be living in areas with directly elected regional mayors,
and we intend to bring forward the devolution and local recovery
White Paper in due course.
I welcome the answer from the Minister. It is important that
local government has the powers to deliver quality services, but
unfortunately in Scotland the SNP Scottish Government have been
grabbing powers back from local authorities for years. Does the
Minister agree that we need to see Governments of all levels
working together to ensure that British people get access to the
services they deserve?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that devolution should be
about delivering services that work for local people, which is
why we are committed to devolution. We will need, at all levels
of government across the country, to work together to achieve
that and the best possible services for residents. We intend to
bring forward the devolution and local recovery White Paper in
due course, which will detail how we will partner with places
across the UK to build a sustainable recovery. I can absolutely
assure him that this Conservative Government will continue to set
the pace on devolution.
House Building
(Gainsborough) (Con)
What steps his Department is taking to promote house building.
(Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
What steps his Department is taking to promote house building.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local
Government ()
The Government care deeply about building more homes and
delivered more than 243,000 last year, the highest level for more
than 30 years. We have gone to great lengths to keep the whole
industry open during the pandemic, sustaining hundreds of
thousands of people’s jobs and livelihoods, while continuing to
stimulate the market through our stamp duty cut. Covid will
impact starts significantly, so we are taking steps to sustain
activity, including delivering up to 180,000 homes through our
£12 billion investment in affordable homes, the biggest
investment of its kind for a decade.
There are about 100 small rural villages in my Gainsborough
constituency, and I doubt there has been any building of social
housing in any of them over the past 40 years. It is virtually
impossible for young couples, who often do precisely the jobs we
want in rural areas, to buy into villages. We do not want our
English villages filled with people like me; we want young
people. [Interruption.] That is the truth. Will the Secretary of
State do a massive campaign, like the Macmillan campaign at the
beginning of the 1950s, to build social housing and rent to buy
in our rural villages in England?
Like my right hon. Friend, I want to see more homes of all kinds
built in all parts of the country, and I want to deliver as many
social and affordable homes as we possibly can. I was delighted
that the Chancellor gave us the funding for the £12 billion
affordable homes programme, which as I say is the largest for a
decade. It has a target to deliver 10% of those homes in rural
areas, so it should support his community in Lincolnshire.
To answer the broader question, rural areas need to consider how
they can bring forward more land in the plan-making process in
their neighbourhood plans for homes of all kinds. The current
planning system permits local communities to choose the type of
homes that they want, so when they allocate sites, they can say
that they should be affordable homes, through which they can
support the next generation. I do not think any village in this
country should be deemed to be set in aspic. Organic growth has
happened throughout the generations and can and should happen in
the future.
My constituents particularly welcome my right hon. Friend’s
recent announcements in respect of improving the circumstances of
leaseholders and ensuring that overly tall buildings are not
permitted to blight local neighbourhoods. When can we expect to
see the benefit of those measures being implemented?
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work he has done in this
area, along with a number of his colleagues representing London
constituencies. I have corresponded with the Mayor of London,
directing him that in the forthcoming London plan there now be a
tall buildings policy for London, which will ensure that every
borough can determine if and where tall buildings should be
built. We have no objection to tall buildings. London needs more
housing, and that includes good-quality tall buildings, but it is
fair for communities to decide where that should be focused. It
may be in areas where there are existing clusters of tall
buildings, such as Nine Elms or Canary Wharf, or it might be
around transport infrastructure in other parts of the city, but
we should be able to protect the character and feel of outer
London and those parts of the suburbs that my hon. Friend
represents, which deserve that added level of protection.
(Bristol West) (Lab) [V]
Hard-working young people saving up for their own home have been
let down by successive Tory Governments, and this Government are
missing their own target of increasing to 300,000 the number of
homes built per year by the mid-2020s. The stamp duty holiday
pushed prices out of reach of first-time buyers, and the first
homes scheme built literally no homes. So what does the Secretary
of State say to the young people whose dream of home ownership he
has so badly let down?
Let us remember that the last Labour Government left house
building in this country at its lowest ever level in
peacetime—the lowest since the 1920s. The statistics that we
published at the end of last year show that this Government are
building more homes than any Government has built for almost 40
years, and were it not for covid, we would have built more homes
than any Government since that in which Harold Macmillan was
Housing Secretary many years ago.
We will keep on building more homes. We will keep on investing in
homes through the affordable homes programme and more investment
in brownfield land, and we will keep on bringing forward
ambitious planning reforms to free up the planning system, to
support small builders and entrepreneurs and to create and
sustain jobs for the brickies, the plumbers and the self-employed
people the length and breadth of the country who need a
Conservative Government to be on their side. I would respectfully
ask the hon. Lady to back us. She and her colleagues have voted
against every single one of those measures since the pandemic.
People across this country need those measures to get this
country building and support jobs.
Housing Development Levies
Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)
What progress he is making on reforming levies on housing
development.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local
Government ()
Contributions from housing developers see around £7 billion a
year invested back into communities, building more homes and
vital infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, and helping
to deliver more than 30,000 affordable homes last year. But, as
my hon. Friend has raised with me a number of times, the system
is still too long-winded and complex. To fix that, we will
introduce a flat rate, non-negotiable single infrastructure levy.
As set out in the “Planning for the future” White Paper, that
will accelerate house building, aim to raise more revenue than
under the current process and deliver at least as many on-site
affordable homes. We will publish more details on this soon.
Neil O’Brien [V]
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as well as raising more for
the infrastructure that is needed to support new housing, more of
the cost should be borne by developers rather than taxpayers, and
that we should give more power, freedom and flexibility to local
councils about how they spend those revenues in line with local
priorities?
The current system is not successful. It leads to long-winded
wrangling. It places the cards in the hands of big developers,
rather than local councils, communities and, in particular, small
developers, who find it too costly and complex to navigate. The
new infrastructure levy will be simpler and more certain and, as
my hon. Friend says, it will do two important things. First, it
will raise a larger amount of money, capturing more of the uplift
in land values, so that more money can be put at the disposal of
local communities. Secondly, it will give greater freedom to
local councils to decide how they choose to spend that, so that
development can benefit communities in flexible ways.
Housing Need and Planning Reform
(Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
What recent discussions he has had with the Office for National
Statistics on housing need and planning reforms.
The Minister for Housing ()
We regularly engage with the ONS on many issues, including the
role of household projections within the local housing need
standard method. The hon. Gentleman may also be interested to
learn that, alongside the planning reform White Paper, Ministers
and officials have hosted and attended a very large number of
consultation events. We are always interested in working with
stakeholders and experts on proposals, and we welcome the
expertise that the ONS brings.
Like communities up and down the country, the people of Warwick
and Leamington are extremely concerned about overdevelopment and,
in villages such as Bishop’s Tachbrook, urban sprawl. When we
look at the numbers from the district plan, we see 932 homes
supposed to be built per year and the Government’s figure from
their “malgorithm” is 910 homes per year, whereas the ONS
estimates 623 properties a year and, likewise, Lichfields 627.
There seems to be a huge disparity between the figures from the
ONS and Lichfields versus those of the Government. Will the
Minister agree to meet me to discuss and explain the reasons for
that because, on the face of it, the figures do not stack up?
I am always happy, of course, to meet the hon. Gentleman,
although he may be misinformed in so far as I think the local
housing need for his own constituency and local authority is 627
a year, not the 910 that was projected in the Lichfields
projections in the middle of last year. However, I am always very
happy to meet him, and I am sure at that time he will be very
keen also to put on record his great pleasure in receiving £10
million in future high streets funding for Leamington, because
his Boxing day tweet, in which he seemed to rubbish this
spending, did smack a little of “Bah, humbug!” It seems that
Ebenezer Scrooge does not live simply in the mind of Charles
Dickens; he is alive and well, and living somewhere in Warwick.
Mr Speaker
I will not mention Chorley, but just keep it in mind.
Regeneration: Towns and Cities
(Stoke-on-Trent South) (Con)
What steps he is taking to enable regeneration in towns and
cities.
(Aylesbury) (Con)
What steps he is taking to enable regeneration in towns and
cities.
(Fylde)
(Con)
What steps he is taking to enable regeneration in towns and
cities.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local
Government ()
While we look to the future with optimism as our vaccine
programme continues to make progress, we know that covid-19 has
meant an unprecedented challenge for towns and high streets. That
is why, last month, I announced a new urban centre recovery
taskforce, bringing together local leaders and industry experts
to help our cities and towns to adapt and take advantage of the
new opportunities that may follow. This builds on our wider
planning reforms, giving shop owners the flexibility to change
the use of their property and to rebuild vacant properties as
homes. All this comes on top of our £3.6 billion towns fund, the
£4 billion levelling up fund and the new brownfield funding, all
of which will ensure that towns have the investment they need to
prosper.
I welcome the recently announced levelling up and brownfield
funds. As we did not benefit in Stoke-on-Trent previously from
similar funds, will my right hon. Friend do everything possible
to ensure that we do not miss out this time on much-needed
funding for towns such as Longton and Fenton in my constituency
and for our entire city?
We will be publishing very soon the prospectus on the
levelling-up fund, and that will give an opportunity for all
parts of the country to benefit from this additional funding,
including the community that my hon. Friend represents in
Stoke-on-Trent. We also, as a result of his assiduous lobbying,
have brought forward further funding for the remediation of
brownfield land. Stoke-on-Trent has an excellent track record of
developing new homes, but it does face significant challenges
with the cost of remediation and the viability of those homes, so
I hope Stoke-on-Trent will benefit from that funding as well.
[V]
Tremendous strides have been made in Aylesbury over the past year
with the council and the town centre management team working
incredibly hard, despite coronavirus, to make the town a place in
which people want to live, work, shop, visit and invest.
Proposals for the regeneration of the Market Square and Kingsbury
Square will give a much-needed boost to the street scene, so
could my right hon. Friend outline how the Government will assist
ambitious local authorities such as Buckinghamshire Council to
make plans for regeneration in Aylesbury a reality?
I am very pleased to hear that Aylesbury has made such progress
with its regeneration plans, which will complement
Buckinghamshire’s ambitious garden town project—to which we have
already allocated over £172 million—to unlock 10,000 homes. My
hon. Friend is right to say that this year a priority postcode
for every single council in the country, including his own, must
be how they can help their town centre to thrive, not just today
but well into the future. That will include ambitious plans to
turn underutilised retail into work spaces and homes, and trying
to attract private sector investment by making full use of the
planning reforms that we have brought forward, with a more
flexible, more certain and more responsive system to make
regeneration a reality.
(Fylde) (Con)
[V]
I am delighted that high streets across the north-west will
benefit from the future high street fund, including Kirkham in my
constituency. However, seaside resorts such as St Anne’s that are
already in need of regeneration have been particularly hard hit
by the pandemic, so what plans does the Department have to
support the regeneration of this Lancashire coastal gem?
I was very pleased to announce last month that Kirkham will
benefit from our future high streets fund, receiving over £6
million, which will go a long way to support its ambitious plans.
Not only that, but my hon. Friend’s constituents will no doubt
benefit, in part at least, from the £39.5 million that we have
awarded to nearby Blackpool, which will help to revitalise the
town and fund several projects, including modernising the
illuminations, so that they can be brighter than ever later this
year. He is right that as a seaside town St Anne’s faces some
very significant challenges, which he and I have spoken about in
the past. We have provided over £230 million of support to other
coastal towns in England through the coastal communities fund,
and coastal communities will be very much in our thoughts in the
£4 billion levelling-up fund and also as part of the UK shared
prosperity fund, both of which we will be publishing prospectuses
for very soon.
Topical Questions
(Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local
Government ()
Over Christmas the Government announced the 72 recipients of our
£830 million future high streets fund competition, enabling the
delivery by councils of ambitious plans for regeneration.
Councils are once again critical to the covid-19 pandemic, and
our focus in the coming weeks will be on ensuring that they play
a full and supportive role in the vaccination programme,
especially ensuring that the hardest to reach in each of their
communities are protected and vaccinated.
The work that communities have done in protecting some of the
most vulnerable in society—rough sleepers—has truly been
first-class. Last week, I announced the next phase of our
strategy, which has been widely praised as one of the most
successful of its kind in the world, and which has already
committed over £700 million in the past year to supporting rough
sleepers and the homeless.
The Prime Minister and I have been clear that central to this
Government’s mission is the Conservative party’s promise of home
ownership, helping more people to achieve the dream of owning
their own home. Our landmark leasehold reforms are the next step
in that great tradition. We are putting an end to practices that
for far too long have soured the dream of home ownership for
millions, and preparing the way for a better system altogether
with the active promotion of commonhold.
[V]
Notwithstanding what the Secretary of State has just said about
our councils being at the frontline of this pandemic, in addition
to general grants Bucks council has received £200 million across
25 specific grants as at the end of the last year, but they are
subject, I am afraid, to myriad conditions. For example, it has
been told that the contain outbreak management fund cannot be
used to support local businesses. Surely the Secretary of State
can see that it would be better to give our councils the freedom
and flexibility to deploy those grants in a way that best meets
the needs of their communities, as, after all, they are really
facing the danger we all fear?
My right hon. Friend raises an important point. Local councils
have done a fantastic job, but they have limited capacity and in
many cases they are close to the limit of that capacity. We are
very aware of that. I am urging my colleagues in Cabinet and
across Government to prioritise carefully their asks of local
government, to ensure that the schemes they bring forward are as
simple as possible to reduce the burden on local councils. My
long-standing view is that we should be providing funding in
almost every case to local councils on an un-ring-fenced basis.
That is certainly the way we have proceeded in general throughout
the pandemic. We have provided £54 million of un-ring-fenced
funding to her local council on top of, as she said, a whole
range of schemes to support local businesses and the care sector.
(Bradford West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has taken the extraordinary decision not
to challenge the opening of a new deep coal mine in Cumbria. In
the year the UK is hosting COP26, we need to show an example to
the rest of the world. The application is of national, even
global, importance and demands his intervention. Will he now
commit to block this disastrous application? If he will not, will
he tell the House how he expects anyone to take the Government
seriously ever again on tackling climate change?
I cannot comment on an individual application, other than to say
that a decision not to call in an application is not a decision
on the merits of a particular case. It is a decision on whether
it meets the bar to bring in a case and have it heard on a
national scale, or whether, in the opinion of the Secretary of
State, it is better left to local democratically elected
councillors, in this case in Cumbria. It is those councillors who
will now make the decision. The national planning policy
framework presents a balanced judgment that they will have to
make, balancing our national presumption against new coal with
any particular benefits that a project might bring to that
community in terms of jobs, skills and economic benefit. That is
a decision that in this case will be made by the democratically
elected members on Cumbria County Council.
(Glasgow East) (SNP)
In November, the Secretary of State promised me that more details
about the replacement of EU structural funds would be revealed in
the spending review. They weren’t. The Scottish Government and
councils have been left in the dark about the future of the UK
shared prosperity fund. Why did the Secretary of State break his
promise in November, and where is the so-called respect agenda
for devolved nations?
The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. We said at the spending review
that we are bringing forward not just the UK shared prosperity
fund but £220 million of additional funding on top of that to
support local communities in all parts of the country, including
Scotland. We will shortly be publishing the prospectus. I hope he
will now take this occasion to welcome the fact that not only
will Scottish residents and businesses receive as much funding as
they would have received had we stayed in the European Union, but
£220 million more than that. We are more than meeting our
commitment to his electors in Scotland.
I am glad the Secretary of State has touched on that, because
Scotland’s share of the measly £220 million of transition funding
to replace structural funds will be £18 million. If Scotland was
an independent member of the European Union, it could expect to
receive over £121 million at the very least. How can he claim
that the shared prosperity fund is replacing lost EU funds when
Scotland is receiving less than a sixth of what it would if it
had stayed in the European Union?
The hon. Gentleman needs to do his sums again, if he is fully
abreast of what is happening. The EU structural funds will
continue for the coming year at the level they would have been at
had we remained a member. The Chancellor has chosen, in addition
to that funding, to add £220 million more. The hon. Gentleman
does not know the proportion of that going to Scotland, because
we will publish that in the prospectus. The figure he quotes is
the one set by the European Union, so his objection is to the way
in which the European Union chooses to divide up its structural
funds to support local communities, not to the way that this
Government can. Fortunately, as a result of leaving the European
Union we can make our own decisions in the weeks and months
ahead.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con) [V]
The £6.2 million future high streets fund is a welcome boost for
Ashfield. Along with the towns fund of up to a third of £50
million for our area, this investment shows a real commitment to
level up in red wall seats like mine. However, the forgotten town
of Eastwood in my constituency has been left behind for years
under successive Labour MPs and Labour councils. Will my right
hon. Friend therefore please meet me to discuss once again how
Eastwood can be included in the next round of funding?
My hon. Friend has already secured, as he says, the town deal for
Ashfield, and the good news over the Christmas period is that it
will also benefit from the high streets fund. We have been
supporting Eastwood under this Government. The redevelopment of
Mushroom Farm has received £160,000 for new commercial space for
small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurs in his
constituency, but I would be very happy to meet him and see what
more we might be able to do, so that all the investment that we
have brought to Ashfield is also spread to Eastwood.
Mr Speaker
I bet they have been kept in the dark.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East)
(SNP) [V]
Can the Secretary of State confirm that his new Everyone In
policy announced last week includes people with no recourse to
public funds, without exceptions or caveats? And will he listen
to calls from the Local Government Association and others for no
recourse to public funds conditions to be suspended so that
everyone who is vulnerable can access help?
We have been very clear that the further work that we are doing
now, building on the hugely successful Everyone In scheme, will
be available to all individuals. Councils need to apply the law
and that means making an individual assessment, but the unique
circumstances of winter and the pandemic will mean that councils
will use that to support more people off the streets and,
importantly, to view this as a moment not just to support them
now, but to get them GP-registered so that, in due course, they
can be vaccinated, so we lead the world in supporting this
vulnerable group and ensuring that they are fully vaccinated.
(Rother
Valley) (Con) [V]
Not too long ago, the Secretary of State met me on Dinnington
High Street to discuss help for smaller towns, and especially
help for Dinnington. The towns fund, which is an excellent
initiative that will help to rejuvenate many town centres, does
not benefit smaller towns such as those in Rother Valley. What
plans does he have to introduce a similar scheme that will
benefit the likes of Dinnington, Maltby, Aston and Thurcroft, so
that our towns in Rother Valley can also be revived?
I do remember that visit to Dinnington when my hon. Friend was a
candidate, and I was delighted that he was later elected. He has
assiduously made the point that we need to think about smaller
towns and larger villages in the preparation of our plans,
whether that is the levelling-up fund or the UK shared prosperity
fund. I appreciate that in places such as south Yorkshire and
Nottinghamshire, there are small communities, perhaps ex-steel
and ex-coalfield communities, where the need is great and where
we need to ensure that investment arrives. That will very much be
in our minds as we prepare the prospectus for the levelling-up
fund.
(Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op) [V]
More than three years after Grenfell, thousands of worried
tenants go to sleep every night in buildings clad with flammable
material. Will the Minister confirm when he expects all flammable
cladding will be removed from residential properties?
The Minister for Housing ()
I am obliged to the hon. Lady for her question. I know that she
campaigns hard for her constituents on this issue. On 21
January—in a little under two weeks’ time—we will be able to
release the latest figures on the remediation of aluminium
composite material cladding. We believe that, by that time, we
should show that around 95% of the buildings identified at the
start of last year—having such safety defects—will have had their
work either completed or it will be under way. We are absolutely
committed to resolving this issue for leaseholders. That is why
we are accelerating the work to find a package that will ensure
that they are not left disadvantaged.
(South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]
Despite the best efforts of local authority inclusion officers,
there continues to be a crisis in the education of Traveller
children, with around a third of Traveller children in my area
not getting a proper education. The planning system has to bear
some responsibility for that. As the Department reviews this
policy, will it look at a more integrated approach where children
generally go to school on a regular basis and get a better
education? Will that be factored in to future planning policy as
the Department reviews this area?
My hon. Friend is one of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful
Members of the House on this subject, which he and I have
discussed many times. Fewer than one in five children from a
Gypsy, Roma or Traveller background meets the expected standard
for English and maths at GCSE. I am firmly committed to
delivering a cross-Government strategy to improve life chances in
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and, as my hon. Friend
says, to encourage greater integration, particularly in
education. In the depths of the pandemic, my Department has
invested £400,000 in education and training programmes for GRT
children, so that they can receive extra tuition and catch up on
lost learning.
(Lancaster
and Fleetwood) (Lab) [V]
In November, the Public Accounts Committee published a damning
report on the towns fund, stating that the selection process was
not impartial and was almost certainly subject to political
interference from Ministers. Wyre Council’s strong bid for the
future high streets funding for Fleetwood, which I supported, was
rejected last month. Was that selection process, which saw
Fleetwood’s town centre miss out, also not impartial?
The hon. Lady misrepresents even what the Public Accounts
Committee had to say about the towns fund; I urge her to re-read
what it said and not to be so liberal with her language. I can
assure her that the high streets fund used a 100% competitive
process, and Ministers had no say in choosing the places
selected.
If fault lies anywhere, I am afraid it lies with the hon. Lady’s
local council, because despite our giving it hundreds of
thousands of pounds to produce plans, and despite the no doubt
great need in the community, it failed to put forward proposals
that met the Treasury’s basic benefit-cost ratio value-for-money
standard. That is a great pity. The people of her local community
have missed out, but if the blame lies anywhere, it lies with her
local council.
