Tower Blocks: Cladding

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, mentioned the fact that the Prime Minister has not honoured his promise so far on this issue. Is there anybody in government or in the wider Conservative Party who can either make the Prime Minister honour his promises or stop him making any further false promises?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I simply do not accept that personal attack on the Prime Minister. This is a Prime Minister who has committed an unprecedented sum of money. Let us remember that, when I took office, only £600 million had been committed to the remediation of unsafe cladding. In the first Budget in his time as Prime Minister, £1 billion was committed—and now a further £3.5 billion. This is a Prime Minister committed to ensuring that the tragedy of Grenfell Tower never happens again.

Leaseholders and Property Management Companies

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, the Government have already put an unprecedented sum of money—over £5 billion—on the table to support the remediation of unsafe cladding. We made it very clear that the steps that we are taking can be covered without statutory intervention.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as in the register. If a company knowingly supplies substandard goods and dozens of people die because of it, but the company walks away with billions of pounds of profit without renovating or replacing all the other substandard products that they have already put in place, is that just good business practice?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

Clearly not, my Lords.

Planning: Net Zero Emissions Targets

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 19th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, national planning policy statements are a matter for the relevant Secretary of State, but I would point out that Project Speed is at the moment reviewing national infrastructure planning reform and ensuring that we build projects faster, better and, of course, greener.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, it is obvious to me from my own experience as a councillor, and from speaking to planning experts and local planning inspectorates, that they just do not have good enough, strong enough guidance from the Government. I accept what the Minister says about the review but, quite honestly, writing better information for planning inspectorates is vital. We are going to be very embarrassed at COP 26 if we do not get to grips with this.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, we believe that the current National Planning Policy Framework is clear on how planning plays an important part, but we will look to ensure that the guidance is optimised for our planning inspectors, who play an important role in ensuring that we reach the net-zero economy that we all want.

Non-Domestic Rating (Lists) (No. 2) Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 18th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome both these pieces of legislation. They seem an odd coupling, though, so I hope that the Minister will manage to separate out all the comments on the two. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

First, I want to talk about taxing online businesses. They were already outdoing physical businesses before the pandemic, but now, our rapid transition to a digital life over the past 12 months has concentrated commerce into a very small number of online businesses while small high street businesses are really struggling—much more than they did before. It is obvious that we need some sort of online sales tax so that online businesses do not have unfair tax advantages relative to physical businesses. The revenue should go to the local authority of the delivery address. It is a real pity that the Bill does not include such a measure, because this is an opportunity not to moan but to encourage local businesses, which is what we should be doing.

It is good that the Government are finally delivering on their promise to scrap business rates for public toilets. Public toilets are important for everyone but they are especially important for people who might need to use the bathroom more due to age, illness, disability and a whole host of other reasons. Should we be doing more to support their provision? Rather than just scrapping business rates, we could employ a negative rate so that public toilets could earn a rebate based on their rateable value. Businesses and premises that allow the public to use their toilet for free—that is, without needing to buy anything—would therefore benefit. The Explanatory Notes give the example of a toilet in a library premises not being eligible for the zero rate. This is a missed opportunity to encourage more premises to make their toilets readily available to the public. Of course, if, like the Victorians, we were prepared to build new public toilets—or even open the Victorian ones—we would not need to do this.

Finally, I shall talk more broadly about the old system of land taxation. It is a long-standing and fundamental policy for the Green Party that all land should be subject to a land value tax, which would share the unearned value of land use among the community. A policy of taxing land value would act as an incentive to encourage good stewardship and to reduce corporate land ownership—and, of course, the practice of land banking. It would encourage the best use of all land, compatible with the agreed permitted use, encouraging urban land to be used to its full extent and discouraging land ownership for investment purposes only.

A policy of taxing land value would bring many benefits to a large majority of the population, whether urban or rural, including owner-occupiers in small or medium plots and those who do not own land. Taxing land value thus contributes to the creation of a decentralised and sustainable society. Eliminating speculation in land and stabilising prices should make land more available at cheaper prices, enabling more workers’ co-operatives, small-scale enterprises and other community ventures to flourish.

The key difference of a land value tax compared to business rates and council tax is that the tax is levied on the unimproved value of the land itself, not the rentable value of the buildings placed on that land. The level at which the tax would be levied would be based on the full value of the current permitted use of the land, so permitted use would mean, for example, that the taxable value of land deemed by the community to have special amenity or habitat value would inhibit use for a possible greater financial return. When it is considered desirable to change the use through the land use planning framework, this new permitted use would then form the basis of the assessment, so communities would be able to keep what they see as valuable land, which might be open space or habitat for animals, without incurring huge costs.

I would love to hear the Minister’s views on land value tax and for him to take the issue away to explore further with officials. We should be taking a much deeper, longer-term look at reforming the whole of land taxes in this country. This is perhaps not the moment—but if not now, when?

Housing: Leasehold

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 5th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I assure my noble friend that some of the “fleecehold” practices that we have seen around ground rent escalations are absolutely abhorrent. That is one of the things that the Competition and Markets Authority is looking at, and I take my noble friend’s point very seriously indeed.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, can the Minister confirm two things: first, that reform of leasehold means moving towards commonhold, and secondly, that the reforms will exempt community land trusts, which use this system in a very productive way?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I will not make such a statement today in the House but a statement will be made very shortly. Community land trusts are a separate policy matter. I agree with the noble Baroness that community land trusts are a way forward—not always the right way but one way to use land for the benefit of a particular community.

National Planning Policy Statements: Climate Change

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that the climate change strategy team has read every single report on the matter and recognises the importance of having clear planks to be able to achieve the target. Obviously, at the moment those are the national carbon budgets, the net-zero target strategy and, of course, the 10-point plan.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, this is such a wonderful, wide open Question that it is very difficult to know where to go for an answer, but let me try a very small point. The Government seem to be doing a slight U-turn on onshore wind farms, which have quite harsh rules at the moment within planning documents. Is there going to be a new document for onshore wind?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I am not going to take the prompt from the noble Baroness. We need to write to her on the matter, because I do not want to make policy on the hoof.

Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2020

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I have an unstable connection so I may not be with you for very long. However, I welcome the noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Lancaster, whose maiden speeches were excellent. Their characters shone through, and I look forward to meeting them both. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord German, on moving this Motion. He has reflected a lot of universal concerns, one of which he called the “balance of power”.

The Government’s White Paper proposes a total overhaul of the English planning system, which will require primary legislation, but they have now brought in these piecemeal regulations which themselves make huge changes to the planning system. They really should have brought them as part of primary legislation that could be fully considered, rather than rushing them through as secondary legislation.

In the planning White Paper, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government said:

“We will build environmentally friendly homes that will not need to be expensively retrofitted in the future, homes with green spaces and new parks at close hand, where tree lined streets are the norm and where neighbours are not strangers.”


Yet nothing in these regulations delivers on those green ambitions. The Government have missed a huge opportunity to require people to bring their homes up to modern high standards of energy efficiency and thermal comfort when adding new storeys to their home. Obviously, the best and most cost-effective time to do that is when other major works are being done—so it is absurd that the Government are not tying these two things together. They really must put green, carbon-neutral, planet-positive development at the heart of their plans—and at the moment they really are not.

I recognise that there is a green benefit to increasing housing density by adding new storeys to existing houses. It is better to use the footprint of an existing home to protect the green belt and nature, but—and it is a very big but—adding two storeys to many homes, particularly in a rural setting, will have a huge impact on the neighbours. Residents will be incredibly shocked and distraught if they suddenly find that they have a loss of amenity—of a view, of privacy or of sunlight. This will not go down well with people. Have the Government really thought it through? Are they prepared to let residents suffer as a result of this policy?

Business and Planning Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 14th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has covered the issue in an extremely lyrical way, so I will keep my remarks short. We all know how hard the arts scene and theatres have been hit by this health crisis. Amendment 51 is a thoughtful contribution to easing some of that burden and allowing the arts to make their own socially distanced recovery. Imagine a summer of outdoor performances and displays—hoping the weather is good—reconnecting communities safely. Physical distancing does not mean we have to be socially and emotionally distant. It would be wonderful if the Government could facilitate this amendment; they would be rightly celebrated for doing so. I am sure that the Minister is a keen supporter of the arts and so will look favourably on this amendment.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hunt for introducing his amendment so skilfully and lyrically, as was just said by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. I welcome the measures that the Government have taken to enable open-air theatres to resume their operations. Mind you, unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, I would not say this would be in good weather only. Perhaps, like me, she would enjoy the Minack Theatre in Cornwall, which goes on regardless of the interesting weather around it—and the audiences love it the same.

When my right honourable friend Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, announced last Thursday that live performances could go ahead outside—“plays and music”, he said—he referred to the Minack Theatre. That press release refers to guidance, and the Minister will know that I am keen to ensure that guidance is as clear and timely as possible. It was timely, because the Minack Theatre immediately put its new programme up on its website. That is entirely within the guidance that has been published so far, which means advance purchase online and social distancing. Their productions include “Great Expectations”. My right honourable friend Oliver Dowden referred to plays, but “Great Expectations” will be interesting because it is presented by just one performer. That will be testing.

My request to the Minister is to ensure that the Government continue to talk closely to organisations presenting outside events because, by their very nature, they have had to scramble and work hard to make these performances available to the public. They are professional people, who want to do the best they can for their arts and their communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Balfe (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I want to mention one particular amendment—Amendment 61, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hain—and then make some general comments. The planning pipeline problem has been with us for as long as I have been in politics. When I saw this amendment, I reflected that as long ago as 1975, I was invited by the then Environment Secretary, Mr Tony Crosland, to join a working party he had set up to deal with the planning pipeline. Unless we pass something like Amendment 61, we are never going to get on top of it because getting planning consent is not regarded by many developers as anything to do with getting the buildings up; it is to do with getting yourself a nice comfortable pipeline so that you can choose from a number of planning consents as to the way you can make the most money or the way in which you can manage to get your planning consent redesigned so that, as my noble friend Lord Blencathra said, 20 houses becomes 40 houses. I do not expect that the Minister will accept Amendment 61, but I hope that he will accept that it is vital to get to grips with the planning pipeline. That will involve a method of revoking consents, which is absolutely essential in getting these houses built that this country needs so badly.

I said that I would also make a general point. Nearly all the amendments in this group are about maintaining standards. It is very important that we do not get carried away with Bills like this to a point where we are getting rid of the standards that we have looked for and developed over so many years. Most of the standards, whether they be on animal protection, noise or the timing of developments, have been hard won and hard fought for. I hope that, in our general philosophical approach to this matter, we do not let standards be weakened out of panic. Of course we want to get the economy going again, but we do not want to do that by sacrificing all the gains we made in the past. Overall, without speaking specifically about any other amendments, I hope that the general thrust, which is the protection of rights already won, will be at the heart of the Government’s response to this set of amendments.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb [V]]

My Lords, having listened to the speeches of other noble Lords, I am beginning to wish that I had signed more amendments in this group. The noble Lord, Lord Hain, for example, on land banking, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall, both made excellent points, and I wish I had been involved in that.

I want to speak about construction permits, because the conditions that are placed on them at the moment are subject to a lengthy and intensive consultation and decision-making process. The conditions try to strike a balance between the competing interests of developing land and protecting the community and the wildlife around the development. I am deeply concerned that Clause 16 will throw much of that balance out of the window in favour of long construction days with little regard for the impact on the community—their rest, their sleep and their mental welfare—and on wildlife. Construction hours can already be long and noisy, routinely running from 8 am to 6 pm, especially at a time when large numbers of people are staying at home and, in the summer months, may have windows open or be outside. Therefore, extending construction hours will create an unacceptable noise burden for too many people.

I am also concerned about the impact that extended construction hours will have on the construction workers, many of whom are self-employed. What will the Government do to ensure that extended hours do not create unsafe working conditions or lead to other detriment for those workers? There might be limited situations in which extending construction hours is warranted, but generally Clause 16 is far too broad and will cause far too much disruption for local residents near noisy building sites.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, has withdrawn from the list of speakers, so I call the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock.

Business and Planning Bill

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 13th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Holmes, Lord Blencathra and Lord Cormack, on their amendments. This is a difficult area. On the one hand, we want to proceed quickly as these are temporary measures and we want to make good and recoup some of the losses that the hospitality industry has suffered. On the other, we want to allow access for those who are visually or otherwise impaired, or who are wheelchair users. When he sums up on this group of amendments, will my noble friend clarify how the Government imagine that the guidelines will be fit for purpose in this regard? Although I can see that there is an argument for consultation, does my noble friend not agree that that could potentially delay the coming into force of these arrangements?

I bow to the good will and common sense of the restauranteurs and bar owners who will seek to use a pavement area only if it is physically safe for the category that falls within the remit of these amendments. It is up to them, working with the environmental health officers and the police, to make sure that these provisions are enforceable.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my colleague the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the LGA. This is an interesting section of amendments, because this is something we should be doing all the time. We should not have to insert it into legislation: it should be automatic. We have not only a considerable number of disabled people in our society but an ageing population. Speaking as someone who is ageing, I would like to think that such care and planning always happens, particularly with legislation of this kind. Even when it is temporary, it still matters.

It is obvious to us all that coronavirus has put life on hold. It has also given us a chance to change established ways of working. I note that many noble Lords have been talking about getting back to normal, but I argue that normal is not a particularly good place to return to. We should be thinking about how to make things better and not just repeating mistakes made in the past couple of hundred years. Increasingly, of course, given the changes in our population, we need to ensure that we are not imposing disabilities on people who are very active but have sight or movement problems.

The Bill should require that a minimum safe pavement area be left accessible—that is obvious—so that street furniture does not force pedestrians to walk in the road. That safe pavement space could vary depending on how busy the route is. Some high streets, for example, may have no safe encroachment area, which will cause large numbers of people to get too close together, but others might only require a metre or the 500 cm that the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, spoke about—his was a pretty good speech. In any event, the Bill is currently deficient as it does nothing to address that issue, and the likely problems are obvious. Some councils have taken the opportunity during the coronavirus pandemic to close some streets to traffic and open them to pedestrians. That is obviously a wonderful way forward.

Consultation definitely needs to be improved for the emergency licensing regime. The measures proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, would maintain rapid licensing while helping to ensure that those who may be impacted can have their say and adapt the licensing accordingly. A system of appeal or reconsideration should be included in the Bill. It is natural that some mistakes will be made with such a rapid decision-making process, so it would be a good idea to include a provision that would remove these measures quickly as well. Judicial review should not be the only option to put things right. It is very cumbersome and slow.

Tucked into this group is Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which would allow licences for pavement spaces outside empty premises. That would be a worthy improvement to the Bill, making better use of empty premises and their adjacent pavements. It is a simple amendment and I hope that the Minister can accept it.

Covid-19: Local Government Finance

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh]

My Lords, there is no doubt that there is pressure on the funding of our cultural institutions, but we must recognise that there has already been a commitment of £27 billion to local areas to support councils and their communities, including the £3.2 billion to deal with demand pressures. I recognise the important role played by cultural institutions in supporting many in our communities.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

One option for the Government to see their way clearly through this financial crisis would be to undertake an equality impact assessment of taking no action—that is, assessed the risk of a sudden halt in services to vulnerable groups. That would make it quite clear that it is more expensive to do nothing.

[Lord Greenhalgh]

My Lords, I have made clear that this is far from a do-nothing Government. In just two months we have already provided £3.2 billion—an extraordinary sum—to deal with the demand pressures of Covid-19. I have also made quite clear that an announcement will be forthcoming in a few days to provide the support that councils need for the rest of the financial year.