Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Grand Committee

Frankly, I have no confidence that a single government department, be it Defra or anything else, with all the ongoing pressures, will necessarily keep its eye on this particular ball. In the committee that I chaired back in 2019, we advocated a national spatial plan or framework. We have waited a long time for something to happen. The Government are now committing to the production of one, which we welcome. I believe, however, that these amendments will ensure that it is prepared in such a way that it will deliver what is needed now and for years to come.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I am afraid that you have the understudy. As a former leader of a city council, I have followed the Bill very closely. I am delighted to make a contribution, even if it is in the last minute of the game. I thank my noble friend Lady Young, the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for their detailed and careful consideration of these issues—land is, indeed, a finite resource—and how these might be incorporated into the Bill, as well as for their long-standing championing of the issues of shared land use. These challenges are of incorporating the needs of competing demands, alongside ensuring proper protections for the environment and that consideration is given for access to green space and all the benefits that that brings to people and communities.

It continues to be a disappointment that no progress has been made on a land use framework in spite of ministerial promises, which have been reiterated by both noble Lords in the earlier part of this debate, and to hear that the Government seem to be rolling back from a land use framework that addresses all the issues flagged up in your Lordships’ Select Committee, including planning, development, housing, infrastructure, energy and transport. If these issues are not addressed in a land use framework, it will be seriously incomplete, which will undermine its ability to ensure that our scarce land use resources are able to deliver for all the policy areas covered by the levelling-up Bill.

The introduction of this Bill, with its intention to reshape the planning framework—I have had plenty of headaches about planning in my time in local government—and to deliver on cross-departmental and multifunctional land uses, seems like an opportunity too good to miss. I hope that the Minister will give careful consideration to using this legislation to give some impetus to the introduction of a land use framework, and that all the hard work that has gone into the Bill from all sides of the House will lead to a satisfactory conclusion in an extremely important area.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 504F in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, would introduce a legal duty for the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to lay a land use framework for England before Parliament no later than one year following the passage of the Bill and would also define content and scope.

The Government agree with the principle and recognise the need for the land use framework, which is why we committed in the food strategy to publish one this year, earlier than this amendment would require. The Secretary of State for Defra reiterated this commitment in the environmental improvement plan in January this year. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, has been unduly pessimistic: there is progress on the work on the land use framework. It is under way and will build on the insights presented by the Land Use in England Committee in its recent report. The noble Baroness and others are right to focus on multifunctional land use. That will be critical in delivering on this Government’s ambitious plans.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, also asked for clarity on the progress of government work. I can reassure her and the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, that several government departments have targets with land use implications. We are working with them all to understand and take account of their land use expectations. As well as Defra, this includes the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, the Department for Levelling Up and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. I hope that provides some reassurance.

Amendment 504G introduces a legal duty on the Secretary of State to establish a land use commission as an independent arm’s-length body reporting to the Cabinet Office. The amendment builds on the work of the House of Lords Land Use in England Committee, as has been said, which recommended this in its final report. The Government accept some of the reasoning behind the proposals for a land use commission, including there being significant opportunities for government departments to collaborate on research, analysis and policy development on land use.

In the Government’s response to this recommendation in the committee’s report, they do not agree that a separate commission is necessary. This is because many of the potential benefits of a commission are achievable with improvements in collaboration on land use between the different departments. This improvement is already under way through the preparation of the land use framework.

The noble Baroness, Lady Young, mentioned the different experience of Scotland. While the department agrees that there are strong similarities, there are differences between the biophysical, cultural and ownership characteristics of land in England and Scotland and a number of important matters for land use, such as planning, are devolved. While we want to learn from the experience of the devolved Governments in land use, we do not think that we will share all the same issues and solutions.

As I think my noble friend Lord Benyon mentioned at the Dispatch Box this week, the cost of a land use commission would be somewhere between the Scottish Land Commission’s £1.5 million and the Climate Change Committee’s £4.5 million. I hope this provides sufficient reassurance.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, asked about planning system additions. The Government’s response to the House of Lords Land Use in England Committee report stated:

“We agree with the suggestion that the framework should not replace the planning system, which is the main mechanism through which development is considered strategically”.


With those few comments, I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, will feel able to withdraw this amendment and not move the other.

Higher-Risk Buildings (Key Building Information etc.) (England) Regulations 2023

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group. I also had a previous role for a decade, some years ago, as bursar of two Cambridge colleges. My questions for the Minister today are about the practical delivery of these regulations and how they will work.

The definitions in the regulations appear reassuring, but I want to ask how the systems between the accountable person, or AP, and the principal accountable person, or PAP, will work. What and where are the levels of signing off on buildings? This returns to an issue I raised three weeks ago, on 21 February, when we looked at the regulations setting out the definition of a high-rise building in Grand Committee. If there are 13,000 existing high-risk, high-rise buildings and the sections of the regulations are under prescribed key building information in two of these regulations, and are covered in Regulations 4 to 24, can the Minister confirm that the size of the directorate, and the level of qualified staff with the regulator, will be able to respond knowledgably to this deluge of information that the APs or PAPs will have to provide?

In the Commons, when asked about resource for the regulator, the Minister said:

“Of course we want to make sure that the regulator is properly resourced in order to fulfil its vital functions and, again, I will follow up with further information in writing.”—[Official Report, Commons, Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee, 22/2/23; col. 6.]


Given that that was three weeks ago and the deadline for starting to provide that information is moving pretty rapidly forwards for developers, leaseholders and commonholders, it is particularly important that the Secretary of State has set those deadlines. I do not disagree with them, by the way; it is vital that this is tackled. When will that information be available, because it is really important to make it work in practice?

Secondly, how does the key information in these regulations relate to the information that will still need to be sent to building control in local authorities to ensure that the building, remediation or adaptation processes are happening correctly? While there will be some overlap of information, it will not all be the same, and nor should it be. This is particularly relevant to Dame Judith’s wanting to ensure that running all the way through is that golden thread of key common information. I cannot see anywhere in these regulations what local authorities will get, either through building control or, at an earlier stage, planning applications. If an interested member of the public—perhaps not even a leaseholder but a tenant—were trying to find out if the work had been carried out appropriately, would they be able to do so? Would the information held by the regulator, supplied by the AP and PAP, also be replicated locally? Can the Minister confirm that that information will be held by local authorities, because it is vital?

Paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum says,

“the Regulator can carry out an initial triage of the potential risk levels in the existing 13,000 higher-risk residential buildings. The Regulator will require building assessment certificate applications as a priority for the buildings where, based on the information provided and other sources of intelligence from other regulators, the Regulator assesses the building’s potential for a building safety risk materialising to be higher than others.”

My question to the Minister on this point goes back to the timescale to get that information from what amounts to a standing start.

I will not go on to what I will say later on the Statement that is coming before your Lordships’ House, but I think that we are coming to a real crunch time of deadlines, to which we are rightly committed, for individuals who may be an AP or a PAP but are not the individuals responsible for the remediation or adaptations required. If there is a delay by the people who are or should be doing or identifying that remediation, the AP would be the person responsible—including criminally—if things are not provided. I am grateful to the Minister for setting out how she saw some of that working; my concern is whether all the different parties understand that. Do tenants, leaseholders and management agents, who may or may not be APs, all understand where those boundaries lie? Will the regulator in particular have resources available for this urgent and essential triage to be carried out?

I am also grateful to the Minister for her reference to fire safety; as she knows, it is something in which I am particularly interested. If the detail is not available to commonhold owners and APs, how does holding that set of information work? Will building control have sight of it, or will it be under the fire safety order and therefore fire services will have it? I am not even going near PEEPs today, or whatever they will be called in future, but I am raising these issues because I am concerned that people who live in these high-risk, high- rise buildings are still extremely concerned.

These Benches think that these regulations are a step forward. We hope that that golden thread that Dame Judith asked for is evident to everybody who needs to take part in this process and that those who are not responsible for delivering the change, but may have some regulatory responsibilities, do not end up paying the price should developers not do the job that they are required to do.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I note my membership of the LGA as a vice-president, which is noted in my details. I thank the Minister for her introduction to this statutory instrument.

We understand that these regulations have two key purposes. They specify what information must be provided to the Building Safety Regulator on higher-risk buildings and which parts of a building certain individuals are responsible for. We believe that this is part of the implementation of the Hackitt review of building safety, which recommended a new regulatory regime to improve accountability after the dangerous and destructive mistakes of the past, notwithstanding the tragedy at Grenfell which is still unresolved in so many areas after such a long time.

Labour welcomes these regulations and sees the instrument as uncontroversial, but we would like the Minister to offer greater clarity on the new building safety regime, especially for those with new responsibilities. I pose the following questions to the Minister; if an answer cannot be produced at this time, I would welcome a written response in due course. Given that the related consultation was in summer 2022, has the department engaged with relevant groups since then? Are the Government monitoring the new building safety requirements being introduced by the Mayor of London, such as for all planning applications for new buildings above 30 metres, which must now have second staircases before going to the Greater London Authority for final sign-off?

These fire safety measures have been brought in with immediate effect in London. This follows the Government’s launch of a consultation in December last year on requiring developers to include second staircases in blocks above 30 metres, which I believe is around 10 storeys high. This move has long been called for by the RIBA despite not being a recommendation in the Hackitt review, so is this monitoring taking place and will the Government extend these measures elsewhere? Furthermore, will the Minister update the Committee on the implementation of the Higher-Risk Buildings (Descriptions and Supplementary Provisions) Regulations 2023, laid in Parliament on 19 December 2022, which define higher-risk buildings?

My final question is about timescales and the mandatory information that duty holders will be required to provide to the new regulator, which must be submitted within 28 days of an application to register. The Government have announced that the registration of existing buildings is expected to begin next month. What will they do if there is non-compliance? Is there a plan in the department to tackle these organisations and companies? We need to know what the penalties will be and how these regulations will be enforced by the Government.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank both noble Lords for their input. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, in particular because I know that this issue, especially PEEPs, is a huge passion of hers. When she last caught me in the corridor, I went back and started to chase, but huge pressure is being put on the Home Office—as she knows, this is a Home Office issue. We will get an answer; I will make sure that I keep niggling away because this is important. For me, although quite a lot of this legislation is going well, this is the one thing that seems to be holding us back, as something that came out of the inquiry’s first report. We will keep working on it.

The noble Baroness brought up a number of things. I was scribbling away; I will have to go through Hansard and will write if I have missed anything. One of the first issues was about funding. The Building Safety Regulator will work with local regulator partners, including building control and fire and rescue, to deliver the new regime; obviously, it cannot do it on its own. It is important that they are not in silos and work together. We are working particularly closely with the Building Safety Regulator to ensure that the skills capacity and training are in place for it to deliver these programmes. That means quite a lot of recruitment because, as has rightly been said, this is a lot of work.

On 9 March, the Government gave £42 million grant funding to support the recruitment and training of building control and fire inspectors working with the Building Safety Regulator. The Government absolutely understand that this cannot be done for nothing; if we want more and better regulators and inspectors, we need to recruit and train them. That will cost money, and the Government are putting money in for that to be performed effectively. That was the first point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am not aware that that is how it is envisaged. I have not had any conversations about how the regulator will work with local authorities, but it is an interesting concept. I will take it back and find out for the noble Baroness how that golden thread is being joined up.

There was a query about paragraph 7.3 on the timescale of information. I do not have 7.3 here with me so I do not have the answer to that; I will have to write. On communications, of course communications are important, particularly to the almost silent people—the residents, agents and people who will talk to residents. For me, it is important that the department does some of that communicating about how the new regime will work. I am sure that we will because we have done an awful lot on the ombudsman service and such things. The new regulator has various roles and responsibilities and I would hope that the department will do this. I will probably get told off for saying that but, as a Minister, I think it very important that the people most affected—the residents—understand how that is going to work. I do not have anything else here but I will look again to make sure that there is nothing further.

I move on to the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, and thank her for her support. Indeed, I thank both noble Baronesses for their support for these regulations; they are important. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, wanted to know how the regime is being phased in. The Building Safety Regulator was established in shadow form within the Health and Safety Executive in January 2020. The statutory functions of the Building Safety Regulator are being phased in and are planned to be fully established by April 2024.

The Building Safety Regulator is already working and engaging with residents, building owners, the industry and professionals about how the regime will operate, so by the time we get to next April everybody should understand—this comes back to the communications issue—how the system works, and it should be up and running very quickly.

There was a question on how these regulations relate to information required as part of building control under local authorities. We have answered that, I think, but I will write on it because I do not think even the officials know. We will work on that one.

Regulations will be laid around October that will make clear what information will be in that golden thread during building control and later held by accountable persons in occupation. There will be further regulations this autumn that I think will probably answer some of the questions, if not all of them, but I will make sure that we answer the questions and let the Committee know what those regulations will include. They are a bit further along the line. We talked about the timeline for the scheme and I think it is important.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, asked what happens if someone does not register their building. The regulator will undertake further investigations and cross-check against information held by government to identify any high-risk buildings that have not been registered. Where a resident has concerns that their building does not appear to be on the public register, there will be mechanisms for that resident to report that directly to the regulator, so it can investigate. So there will be two ways: there will be cross-checking by the regulator and also it is important that anybody who checks up and sees that their building is not on the register can get in touch with the regulator as soon as possible.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for that answer but, on the point that the resident can inform the regulator, I would like the Minister and the department to be mindful of consequences for that resident. We hear dreadful stories these days of difficult landlords and so on. I would like my concern about that noted and the department to look carefully at it, because it is very difficult for individual tenants to report in that way.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

We know that. Perhaps the type of landlord who does not register might be the type who could cause trouble. However, there is surely a way in which someone can remain anonymous with the regulator when checking. The regulator will pursue principal accountable persons who fail to come forward with information when it wants them to provide the information it requires. From October 2023, the regulator will be able to take enforcement action against principal accountable persons who fail to register their occupied higher-risk buildings. If found guilty, the penalty could be an unlimited fine or up to two years’ imprisonment. The noble Baroness might remember that, when the Bill went through, they were considered quite high tariffs.

I was asked how the regulator will make sure that all principal accountable persons come forward as well as fill in the forms. Over the next few months, the regulator will be leading a communications campaign and will be engaging with the sector with targeted messages to ensure that principal accountable persons are aware of the requirement for them to register their building and to come forward as that accountable person.

Lastly, the scope regulations, which were laid just before Christmas on 19 December, will come into force on 6 April. I perhaps have not answered all noble Lords’ questions because I was scribbling them down very fast, but I will look through Hansard and we will answer any that I have not answered.

Again, I thank the noble Baronesses for supporting the principle behind these regulations. They clarify the parts of a building for which individual accountable persons are responsible and set out the high-level information that must be provided to the Building Safety Regulator. Together, these measures support the Building Safety Regulator in creating a new, proportionate building safety regime that protects the safety of residents in higher-risk buildings.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Friday 10th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I echo the warm words of the Minister about Baroness Boothroyd. I remember that her comments to me after my maiden speech were very warm and supportive. I also look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Lampard, in the House today.

I have great pleasure in opening the debate for the Opposition Front Bench on such an important topic, celebrating such an auspicious day in our international calendar. The campaign theme is Embrace Equity this year, and focusing on gender equity needs to be a part of every society’s DNA. It means creating a fair and equal world. The topic of this debate, education, could not be closer to my heart: I worked at the chalkface in schools, from Brixton to Brynmawr and Newport to Pontypridd, for almost 35 years. My contribution does not come from an ideological viewpoint or from a theoretical perspective, as welcome as these are, but is based on direct experience of five lessons a day, five days a week, for three academic terms a year.

Throughout those decades, I experienced many changes within and outside the curriculum and to the place of women and girls, both as teachers and learners. When I began my career, it was unusual to see a woman head teacher of a secondary school or girls studying science and technology beyond GCSE—or O-level, as it was in those days. Much has changed in those intervening years and both areas are now much better represented but, indeed, more needs to be done.

Research shows that, across the UK, women currently make up 47% of employees in male-dominated STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—with a quarter of the jobs in mathematical sciences and 13% in engineering positions. However, the lack of female role models in STEM is a key reason why girls do not pursue a career in the sector. Just 42% of girls said they would consider a STEM-related career, but this rose to 60% if they had confidence that men and women were equally employed in those professions.

That is why I was so pleased to see the Minister in the Welsh Government, Vaughan Gething, launching a scheme for STEM subjects just this time last year, when he said that Wales’s programme for government looked to celebrate diversity and move to eliminate inequality in all its forms, including by increasing diversity in STEM by seeking out participation from underrepresented groups to build and develop a world in which studying and working in science are open to all. Our innovators and leaders of tomorrow are sitting in our classrooms, colleges and universities of today. We need to embrace and empower women and girls to see themselves as those leaders of tomorrow.

Wales launched its new 13-18 curriculum last autumn. It is now quite distinct from England and it is inclusive, giving all learners a broad and balanced learning pathway. The four purposes of the curriculum are the shared vision and aspiration for every child and young person to become: an ambitious, capable learner, ready to learn throughout their life; an enterprising, creative contributor, ready to play a full part in life and work; an ethical, informed citizen, ready to take part in the world; and a healthy, confident individual, ready to lead a fulfilling life as a valued member of society. The curriculum also covers human rights and diversity, respecting differences and experiences in skills, and careers and the workplace.

In fulfilling these aims, high expectations are set for all, promoting individual and national well-being, tackling ignorance and misinformation, and encouraging critical and civic engagement. It is not simply what is taught but how it is taught and, crucially, why it is taught. This development will contribute to Wales’s goals as a nation as set out in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. It is also an important vehicle for embedding the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Turning to the economic place of women in our society, it is well documented that women often earn less and are more likely to work in insecure jobs, often in the informal sector and with less access to social protections. They also run most single-parent households, which further limits their capacity to absorb economic shocks. It is crucial therefore that women’s voices are at the core of policy development and decision-making. The participation of women and girls is both necessary and vital, at every level and in every arena: central, devolved and local government, or within the community and the wider business arena. Without equal participation, responses will be less effective at meeting their needs and lead to negative consequences.

The empowerment of women is key. I am pleased that Governments in Wales and Scotland have incorporated the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into legal frameworks and the school curricula. I would urge the UK Government to do the same for England.

Alongside my work in the classroom over many years, encouraging my pupils to be their best selves, I have always engaged in mentoring programmes in the Labour and Co-operative Party and in other organisations, such as Equal Power Equal Voice. It runs mentoring programmes to increase diversity of representation in public and political life. Across Wales—indeed, across the UK—there exists a massive social and intellectual capital that is untapped and excluded from our public and political systems. The Equal Power Equal Voice programme aims to help bridge that gap, to get more diverse representation in politics and public life by strengthening the knowledge and skills of those who aspire to be there, while learning from and being supported by those who have achieved positions of power.

I have greatly enjoyed my involvement in those schemes and have achieved some very good outcomes. I note for the record that during our time together a recent mentee of mine, who had no prior political experience, became a list candidate for the 2021 Senedd elections. In 2022, she was elected for the first time to a Welsh council, subsequently becoming the leader as control changed from Tory to Labour. I am glad to have played a small part in her personal and political development, so here is to Councillor Mary Ann Brocklesby and the tremendous changes she is bringing.

Other examples may not be as meteoric, but I am pleased to have helped many women take their first steps into public life. Indeed, after I became the first woman leader of Newport City Council, my successor, Councillor Jane Mudd, and her deputy, Councillor Deborah Davies, maintained the positive representation and the gender balance of the Labour group. Both Newport Members of Parliament are women and one of the two members of the Senedd are female, so women are indeed around the top table in my home city.

I am sorry that one of Wales’s most eminent women is not in her place today due to illness. It would be totally remiss of me not to mention my noble friend Lady Gale, who has done so much in our party to bring the issue of women’s political representation to the fore and has ensured that we have opportunities to stand for election at all levels. The twinning mechanism she brought in for the first Assembly elections in 1999 was nothing short of a masterstroke. It ensured a 50% selection of women candidates, making the Welsh Assembly a ground-breaker in equal representation. That legacy has endured to the present day thanks to my noble friend Lady Gale’s determination and the charter for women that she developed. She changed the perception of women in power in Wales and beyond for ever.

So, what can we do? We need to actively support and embrace equity within our own spheres of influence. We need to challenge gender stereotypes, call out discrimination, draw attention to bias and seek out inclusion. When we embrace equity, we embrace diversity; we embrace inclusion. We embrace equity to forge harmony and unity, and to help drive success for all. Equality is the goal and equity is the means to get there.

Housing (Built Environment Committee Report)

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Tuesday 8th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, for his detailed introduction of this important report; I also thank the members and former chair of the committee.

What was discovered? A UK housing market in which

“too many people are living in expensive, unsuitable, poor quality homes.”

To meet future housing demand, the report’s recommendations focused on seven areas, many of which have been mentioned time and again in this House in various debates. Planning reform, social housing provision and skills shortages were all deemed failures over the past 12 years of Tory Governments, whoever was in charge.

Government choices over those 12 years have broken our housing system, allowing developers to maximise profits, as noted by the previous speaker, and build housing for investment rather than good-quality, safe, secure and affordable homes. They have broken the link between work and affordable, secure housing for many renters and first-time buyers. The Government built only 5,955 social rent homes in 2020—a 12% decrease on the previous year and an 85% decrease from 11 years ago.

The scale of the housing crisis means that we need a bold new approach that underlines the importance of housing as a human right and the bedrock of stable, secure family life, giving people a stake in their communities and societies and supporting opportunity and aspiration. Indeed, that is the first layer of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Labour reforms would allow communities to build the right homes in the right places and at prices that local people can afford. We would rebalance power between developers and communities by reforming arcane purchasing powers to stop speculators reaping all the rewards and closing the loopholes that developers use to wriggle out of affordable housing commitments. We would ensure that local councils have stronger powers to deliver the affordable housing that their communities need, not the housing that will make the most profit for developers.

Labour would give first-time buyers first chances on new homes and stop foreign buyers buying up homes off plan, before local people can get a look-in. We would set out an ambition to re-establish the link between genuinely affordable housing and average earnings, bringing affordable rents and the dream of homeownership closer for those locked out of the system today.

There are nearly 1 million more people in the private rental sector than there were when the Government came to power in 2010. Too many people are stuck in a system with no power to challenge rogue landlords, no savings to get on the housing ladder and housing that falls below acceptable standards. All those renters need a deal that gives them the security and dignity they deserve. Some 800,000 fewer households of people under the age of 45 now own their home.

The Government’s current proposal to extend the right to buy will only worsen the chronic shortage of affordable homes; it does nothing to fix the lack of social housing and is totally lacking in ambition for millions stranded in the private rental sector. In England, 190,000 homes have been lost since the Tories came to power in 2010. That number is equivalent to all the homes in Bristol. Ministers have failed to deliver the promised replacement for homes sold through right to buy. Less than 5% of the stock has been replaced. Now, for the third time in seven years, Ministers are promising expansion of right to buy into housing associations, with no plan to increase the number of new social homes or genuinely affordable homes to buy. This will lead only to more people unable to secure a home.

One major reform in the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill relates to scrapping Section 106 agreements, which have been talked about several times this evening, and replacing them with a new national infrastructure levy. I assure noble Lords that, during my tenure as leader of Newport City Council—I am sure the Minister also experienced this when she was a council leader—every negotiation on a Section 106 agreement was hard-fought, as developers employed expensive legal experts to deviate from these agreements wherever they can. Doing away with Section 106 would be completely disastrous to ensuring that developers deliver a proportion of affordable and social housing within new developments, because the proposed levy would replace this delivery mechanism, with revenues going to local authorities to build infrastructure as well as housing. Local authorities would therefore take both the financial risk and responsibility. In the current financial and political climate, that is another unaffordable option for local government.

But Labour has a plan. We will build more affordable houses, linking the definition of affordable to local wages for the first time. We will build more social homes and give first-time buyers first chances. We are going to rebuild our social housing stock and bring homes back into the ownership of local councils and communities, with home ownership opened up to millions more. We will tilt the balance of power back to private renters through a powerful new renters’ charter and a new decent homes standard, written into law. The charter will have far-reaching consequences for those in rented accommodation, including by ending Section 21 evictions, reducing eviction powers for landlords whose tenants are in arrears, introducing four-month notice periods, creating a national register of landlords and initiating a legally binding decent homes standard in the private rental sector.

We will close the loopholes developers exploit to avoid building more affordable housing and put an end to the outrageous practice of foreign buyers purchasing swathes of new housing developments off plan, before local people can even see them. We have an ambition to re-establish the link between genuinely affordable housing and average earnings, bringing affordable rents and home ownership closer for those locked out of the system.

I conclude by asking the Minister the following questions, some of which my noble friend Lord Grocott and others addressed earlier. While building more homes is essential to address the housing crisis, supply alone will not fix the affordability crisis, which is as much a part of the housing crisis as pure numbers. Last year, there were fewer than 7,000 social homes built in England. What plans do the Government have to increase social housebuilding? What does the Minister believe is an acceptable number of social homes to build each year, and will the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill deliver this?

Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [HL]

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, and look forward to hearing his maiden speech shortly.

Before that, Labour welcomes the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill, which introduces long-overdue changes to the social housing regulation regime, five years on from the Grenfell Tower tragedy. However, we regret that what is essentially narrow and largely uncontroversial legislation has taken so long to materialise. Fire safety concerns raised by Grenfell residents had been ignored by their landlord. Residents complained of not being heard and of being treated with indifference. Therefore, we call from this side of the Chamber for higher standards for social tenants. We are extremely disappointed that the Bill does not go far enough in putting tenants at the heart of regulation and governance. The Grenfell tragedy shows that tenants can never again have so little power over their homes.

However, we must set the context in arriving at a judgment on the Bill. There are many social landlords who routinely fall well short on repairs and maintenance and could do far better. However, social landlords do not operate in a vacuum. Years of funding cuts to local authority budgets, as well as the four years during which a Conservative Government imposed a 1% social rent cut on them, have inevitably taken their toll, with the pandemic adding to the problems of housing revenue accounts.

Another major factor is the lack of affordable social housing, which has been exacerbated during 12 years of Tory rule. Successive Governments have not only singularly failed to build the social homes we need over that period but have overseen their loss on an unprecedented scale; 134,483 social homes for rent were either sold or demolished without direct replacement between 2010 and 2021. That is an average net loss of over 12,000 desperately needed, genuinely affordable homes a year.

Unfortunately, the Government’s headline proposals of rating your landlord and allowing a 250-person panel to meet three times a year with Ministers are not the powers residents need. The panel will exist only to scrutinise the measures being proposed in the legislation and will not be able to consider other pertinent issues, such as waiting lists, stigma, rent increases, allocation and housing supply. We need the Government instead to bring forward proper proposals to give tenants more power to take action in both social and private rented sectors. They should look towards the work of the last Labour Government, who introduced the decent homes standard, making available £22 billion of public investment in decent homes and improving the housing conditions of over 1.4 million council homes. By 2009, 86% of all council and housing association homes were brought up to a decent standard.

I reiterate that we support many of the measures in the Bill. However, given the scale of the problem that we know exists in regulating social housing, we want the Government to go further in key respects so that standards in social housing can markedly and rapidly improve and tenants’ complaints can be dealt with quickly and efficiently.

We have concerns about the ability of the Regulator of Social Housing to respond in practice to the volume of individual tenant complaints it is likely to receive and whether it will be inadequately resourced to perform its new role vis-à-vis inspections. We will therefore seek to amend the Bill to allow the regulator to retain the proceeds of any fines levied to help fund its work. We want to see the regulator given more teeth than the Bill currently proposes. We will seek to give it a range of wider powers, including the ability to order compensation for tenants.

Even with an enhanced role, armed with greater powers to regulate consumer standards in social housing, the regulator cannot be the sole redress for tenants. We will seek to have the Bill do more for tenants to enforce repairs themselves. We believe it does not go far enough on a national voice for tenants. At a minimum, the work of the residents’ panel could be shaped more directly by tenants themselves. We will seek to ensure that it can be—for example, by enabling its agenda and terms to be developed via tenant input.

An advisory panel with tenants represented on it will be established by the Bill, but to consider only

“information and advice to the regulator about, or on matters connected with, the regulator’s functions”.

This is not a new idea. In the aftermath of Grenfell, the Government and tenants drew up plans to set up A Voice for Tenants, a national tenant group to work with government on issues affecting those in social housing. To the frustration of tenant bodies involved, it never progressed.

Another possible issue is that the Regulator of Social Housing relies on registered providers to let their tenants know of ways to complain, which means that the worst providers are likely to be the ones to inform their tenants of their rights, and therefore potentially reduce complaints. The White Paper committed to routine inspections only for the largest registered providers—those of more than 1,000 homes—every four years.

Beyond this, there is nothing in the Bill on how tenant voice and engagement will work in practice at the local level. It would allow, but not force, the regulator to set standards relating to the information landlords provide to tenants. Examples are mentioned in the draft regulations.

Safety is the greatest of concerns. The Bill would add generic safety to the regulator’s fundamental objectives. This means that the regulator can now set a standard on safety and enforce against it. The Bill further introduces a new requirement for social landlords to appoint a named individual responsible for health and safety. A separate regulator, the Health and Safety Executive, will also regulate all buildings’ safety when the new regime comes into force.

Currently, fines for non-compliance are capped at £5,000. The Bill proposes giving the regulator the power to issue unlimited fines. Larger fines could be a crucial deterrent to bad practice, enforcing the law against poorly performing landlords and disincentivising the poor treatment of tenants, but questions remain about what the fines would mean in practice, particularly in terms of housing associations passing the cost back to tenants.

The Bill also proposes enabling the regulator to enter and inspect properties with only 48 hours’ notice, down from 28 days, which is a significant change. However, short notice inspections need to be carefully thought through. Finally, the Bill proposes enabling the regulator to make emergency repairs where there is a serious risk. The White Paper stated that the Government were

“determined to increase the supply of new and beautiful social homes”,

yet the Bill is silent on the issues of supply.

I leave my final comments to echo those of David Renard, the Conservative leader of Swindon Borough Council and housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association:

“As well as improving existing homes, the social housing supply is not sufficient to meeting the current housing demand, which is why we want to see long-term plans to give councils powers to build 100,000 high-quality, climate-friendly social homes a year, including reform of the Right to Buy scheme, which has made it difficult for councils to build replacement homes at the rate at which they are sold.”

Sewel Convention

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the number of occasions that legislative consent has been rejected by the devolved legislatures since December 2019; whether they still intend to abide by the Sewel Convention; and if so, what steps they are taking to ensure that consent is secured to legislation in future.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

The UK Government have legislated without consent on 11 occasions since December 2019, most of which relate to our exit from the European Union. These were not decisions that we took lightly, but we considered them necessary to implement the referendum result in exceptional circumstances. We are fully committed to the Sewel convention and will of course continue to seek legislative consent, take on board views and work with the devolved Administrations on future Bills.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

I am glad that the Minister noted that the Government fully support the Sewel convention, because Minister for the Economy, Vaughan Gething, confirmed in writing last week to the UK Government that the Welsh Government are unable to endorse the approach the UK Government are taking on the shared prosperity fund. They will not deploy their own resources to implement UK Government programmes in Wales, as they have been doing with EU funding for 22 years; they consider them to be flawed and undermining of the devolution settlement. Does the Minister therefore agree with me that last week’s latest development is a further significant undermining of the Sewel convention?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

Unsurprisingly, I do not agree with that. We will of course continue to seek legislative consent, take on board views and work with the devolved Administrations, but the legislative consent process did not change and never was intended to change the sovereignty of this Parliament.

Shared Prosperity Fund

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what recent discussions they have had with the First Minister of Wales about the shared prosperity fund.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

In the UK shared prosperity fund pre-launch guidance, the UK Government stated the ambition to work with the Welsh Government and we remain committed to this. The Secretary of State and First Minister have discussed the UK shared prosperity fund alongside our wider levelling-up agenda. We remain open to further engagement at ministerial and official level.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

There is a broken promise to replace EU funds for Wales and it is set to cost the country £1 billion over the next three years, so I ask the UK Government to co-operate fully with the Welsh Government to redress this huge deficit and treat this matter with urgency and the respect that it deserves from one Government to another. Could the Minister bring regular updates to the House on the content and progress of such discussions of the shared prosperity fund and, indeed, any related matters of funding for Wales?

Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I was reminding the Grand Committee that we have 29 million houses in the country and one of the least energy-efficient housing stocks in Europe. Half of them were built before 1956, and a fifth of them before 1919—I am a proud owner of one of them, which operates off oil heating because it is off the grid, like many.

As we all know, we have a huge challenge at the moment with heating bills. The message from the Climate Change Committee, which looked at this recently and produced its report a couple of weeks ago, was to plead with the Government to get on with it. The task is huge and we need to get on with it now. There was a government commitment of, I think, £8.26 billion for 2026. I should be interested to hear how much we have actually managed to spend of that; most of the public money is obviously going on social housing.

We should not just spend money on big nuclear power stations—I shall try not to get into that argument. Of the estimated £18 billion of private and public money that is actually required each year up to 2050 to get through this problem, there is £5 billion per annum savings on it. It is around that.

My colleagues and friends in Denmark have the same energy price increases. Are they concerned about it? Not particularly, because the bills are so low. Why is that? Because of the energy performance of buildings in Scandinavia.

I plead with the Minister to push very strongly to get back to the zero-carbon homes target—I should be interested to understand whether the 2025 deadline for heat pumps in new homes will be a legal requirement—and get on with the programme.

That is a more incoherent speech from me than normal, but this is an important issue and one which I recognise is not easy to solve.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot argue with much of what the noble Lord just said on energy performance and energy efficiency. I visited Sweden a number of years ago and was impressed by the way Scandinavians do so much right.

We know about the statutory instrument and about the fees and charges. The reduction in fees is clearly welcome and the Official Opposition support these changes.

I have just a couple of questions for the Minister. Since these regulations relate to England and Wales only, what recent discussions has the department held with the devolved Government of Scotland and the devolved Administration of Northern Ireland on related fees? Can the Minister explain the difference in fees between the two classes of data registration covering domestic and non-domestic properties? Finally, given that fees charged for data registrations in England and Wales were last adjusted nearly a year ago, why are they being changed again?

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (Repeal of EU Restrictions in Devolution Acts etc.) Regulations 2022

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and to note that four of the six Members in this Room are from Wales. It is noteworthy that there is nobody from Northern Ireland or Scotland here. Before referring to Wales, I want to ask whether there is any substantive difference in the provisions that are being made for Northern Ireland from those being made for Wales and Scotland, and between Wales and Scotland, or is it a uniform approach for all three? Circumstances and challenges are different in Northern Ireland, as we all know.

Regarding Wales, at First Reading of the Bill, it seemed that there were powers coming back to Wales—but perhaps the Minister can clarify that there are no additional powers coming back to Wales. They are coming back to the UK, and they may be handled in a way which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, mentioned, may or may not go down well in the devolved Governments. That brings us to the very serious point of how we oversee the working of these regulations to see that there is proper co-operation between the devolved Governments and Westminster. It is in everybody’s interests, and very often is a matter of talking early with each other, rather than waiting for something to arise.

I have seen in the context of the work of the Select Committee dealing with EU business relationships that notification goes to Cardiff often very late in the day. Ministers can then rightly respond, “Yes, we have contacted Cardiff”, but they have not given a reasonable amount of time to get a meaningful response back. I hope that will be taken on board, and that mechanisms can be developed jointly between the Government and the Parliaments in Westminster and Cardiff so that there is a proper, constructive relationship, and that, when there is a need to harmonise things, it can be done by voluntary agreement rather than imposing things from the centre.

Having said that, these sorts of regulations obviously have to come forward and one accepts that they must be enacted.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, as we have heard, this instrument will remove the Government’s powers to temporarily freeze devolved legislative competence, which were previously introduced while the UK common frameworks were finalised. The intention was that they would be used only in exceptional circumstances. I am pleased that the powers were never used. Since they were always intended to be time limited, they are now being removed.

The Minister said during the debate in the other place that the removal of these powers is

“a reflection of the huge progress that the Government have made with the devolved Governments in developing new common frameworks.”

I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Andrews for her chairing of that committee, at which I spoke a few months ago. In the Commons, Labour’s Front Bench welcomed the removal of these powers, saying that

“these were seen as valuable safeguards at the time to ensure orderly transition, but the moment for that has certainly passed.”—[Official Report, Commons, Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee, 3/3/22; col. 4.]

Like other noble Lords today, I continue to urge the UK Government to work in partnership with the devolved Governments, which of course have their own elected mandates. It is positive to build and strengthen the union, not undermine it.

Picking up on the point from the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, I was at a meeting earlier today with the Minister for Local Government in the Welsh Government, Rebecca. She noted that the Welsh Government had not heard of the £150 council tax rebate announced by the UK Government; they were getting questions about it but had not been informed. Those niceties would take only a phone call—from Minister to Minister would be good, but so would senior official to senior official. In this day and age of communication, that should not be a problem.

I will ask two questions in conclusion. Can the Minister foresee any future situations in which these powers would be reintroduced? Does he believe that any consequential legislation is needed to fully repeal these powers? Diolch yn fawr.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their attention to these regulations. I think there is great unanimity that we are where we are and that we need to tidy these matters up in the way that noble Lords have outlined. It is quite clear that there is cross-party support for the removal of these regulations.

We have had a short but very helpful debate, with rousing voices from Wales. Under normal circumstances we would probably have heard from my noble friend Lord Caine, who has great experience on Northern Ireland matters; I am the understudy and will try to do my best in that regard. I have certainly learned a great deal from my discussions. In fact, I had tea with the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, to learn more about common frameworks, which I had not really heard of until I became a Minister at the department that has now taken over this responsibility, with the arrival of my right honourable friend Michael Gove as Secretary of State.

I will do my best to answer the questions—they were asked because noble Lords want some answers. To answer the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, there are no plans for these powers to be replaced. They are not being replaced; that is a tick.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, on common frameworks and our approach to them, we are committed to transparency in the frameworks programme and will continue to work with Parliament to inform it of significant developments beyond the point at which Section 12 powers are repealed. The devolved legislatures have also shown an interest in being kept up to date with the common framework developments, and we are working closely together with the devolved Governments on the form that future reporting on frameworks might take—so there is that commitment, and we need to make sure that we deliver against it. I am sure that noble Lords will hold this Government’s feet to the fire in that regard.

The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, wanted to know about any difference in approach between Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. There is essentially a uniform approach across all devolved Administrations, but I was struck by something that the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, said. We need to get devolution right, because we all have a shared interest in a strong union through effective devolution. I know that, working together, we can always have that in mind in ensuring that for the devolved Governments or Administrations—to talk about Northern Ireland in particular—this works alongside the strengthening of our overall union as four nations and one United Kingdom.

I have done my best to address the points raised, and I am happy to talk about them, if I have not done so, outside this forum. For the reasons set out, I commend the regulations to the Grand Committee.

Combined Authorities (Borrowing) Regulations 2022

Baroness Wilcox of Newport Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations were laid before this House on 31 January 2022. The other place approved them on 14 March 2022. If approved by this House and made, they will implement a commitment made by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, my noble friend Lord Hammond, back in 2016 to extend the borrowing powers of mayoral combined authorities that have agreed debt caps with HM Treasury, which is reflected in the devolution deals that North of Tyne, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire have agreed with government.

This extension is another important step towards empowering these mayoral combined authorities to invest in infrastructure while giving local leaders the tools needed to stimulate local economic growth, increase productivity and seize levelling-up opportunities available to their areas. In the levelling-up White Paper we set out plans to transform the fortunes of places across the UK by spreading growth and prosperity in areas that feel as though Westminster has forgotten about them. That paper sets out a series of long-term missions that put us on a trajectory towards that goal, including giving every part of England that wants one a devolution deal by 2030.

Devolution is a central part of our levelling-up agenda and we want to give areas the powers they need, along with a simplified, long-term funding settlement. We are committed not only to extending devolution to new areas but to deepening it in areas that already have devolved powers. The regulations we are discussing today will live up to that ambition: deepening devolution in North of Tyne, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire in line with commitments we have already given, by providing new and deeper powers to the local leaders so that they can act more flexibly and innovatively to respond to local need and be held to account by local citizens.

Put simply, these new powers will allow these three combined authorities to borrow not only for their transport functions but for any of the other functions conferred on them as a result of their bespoke devolution deals. These areas will be able to make the most of new opportunities by borrowing for their investment programmes, delivering improved public services and greater prosperity for their areas. At the moment, the legislation in place allows combined authorities to borrow only for transport or, where the mayor is also the police and crime commissioner, for such purposes. The primary legislation also provides that the Secretary of State may, by regulations, confer the ability to borrow for additional functions.

The draft regulations specifically provide that the three named combined authorities can borrow for all their functions other than transport, which is, of course, already covered by the existing primary legislation. Each of the three mayoral combined authorities and each of their constituent authorities—15 in total—has given consent to these regulations. If Parliament approves these regulations and they are made, then North of Tyne, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire mayoral combined authorities will be able to borrow for all their functions. I should say that, through regulations made four years ago, this is already the case for the six other mayoral combined authorities of Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, West Midlands, West of England, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, and Tees Valley. It is also the position for the generality of local authorities, which are empowered to borrow for all their functions.

In the same way as a local authority, combined authorities are subject to the requirements for borrowing provided in the Local Government Act 2003. The prudential borrowing regime requires that an authority can borrow lawfully only if it can demonstrate that servicing and repayments of debt are affordable. As such, this gives the necessary assurance that the proposed borrowing powers will be used appropriately. I add that, in the case of combined authorities, this ability to borrow is also subject to a debt cap agreed with the Treasury. Each agreed debt cap specifies the ceiling for the mayoral combined authority’s debt for 2021-22. Debt caps for future years are currently being agreed with all nine mayoral combined authorities.

These regulations fulfil our existing promise to deepen the devolution deals of these three combined authorities and extend their borrowing powers to bring them in line with the six other mayoral combined authorities. With this extension, they will be able to borrow to make investments in infrastructure that are essential to an area’s ambition for growth. We firmly believe they will also lay the groundwork for further levelling up in these areas. I commend these regulations to the Committee.

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords, this instrument implements a 2016 commitment to extend the borrowing powers of mayoral combined authorities. As the Minister noted, it reflects devolution deals agreed with the Government for North of Tyne, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire.

During the debate in the other place, the Minister said that this is

“another important step towards empowering mayoral combined authorities to invest in the right infrastructure while giving local leaders the tools needed to stimulate local economic growth, increase productivity and seize the levelling-up opportunities available to their areas.”—[Official Report, Commons, Seventh Delegated Legislation Committee, 9/3/22; col. 3.]

Labour colleagues in the other place welcomed the instrument and reminded the Government that Labour mayors had indeed been calling for this change.

I politely and respectfully ask that the Minister recommends to his colleagues in the Department for Education that they trust the judgments of the MCAs when finalising the skills Bill that is about to return to your Lordships’ House.

I have two short questions for the Minister on this business. Do the Government intend to extend these borrowing powers in further devolution deals? What steps will they take to monitor levels of borrowing?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, that was a very short and knowledgeable debate. I make the general observation that we are both former local authority leaders. We are the most centrally taxed nation in western Europe, but we also hold the least amount of debt below the level of national debt. That is the policy background for all this. Essentially, this moves to a level playing field for all mayoral combined authorities.

I have just been given a helpful note to say that we are negotiating deals, so the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, are in play and will be part of the negotiations with all the mayoral combined authorities. We all know that the reality is that the levers required to change places often require thinking about local taxation that is appropriate to a local place, but also about borrowing. If you get that right, you can borrow in a way that provides a real dividend for local areas. Those flexibilities are part of what makes local government function more effectively. This is a step in the right direction and I am sure that more will follow.