Short-term Lettings

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Anderson of Swansea

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

Of course there is a case for clear regulation, but does the Minister agree that Airbnb and others, since they are popular, are meeting a gap in the market?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord on that. It is nevertheless important, as he acknowledged, that they satisfy certain conditions. Those that join the Short Term Accommodation Association sign up to a code of conduct. That has been circulated to all houses in Westminster, with which it has a particularly close association. It is the aim of the Short Term Accommodation Association to roll that out nationally.

Brexit: Welsh Economy

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Anderson of Swansea

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, that is a constructive and useful suggestion; I shall take it back. It would be very useful in relation to Wales. The Secretary of State will obviously want to consider it.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister give an assurance that Wales will be fully compensated for the loss of Objective 1 status and the regional benefits that go with it?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right about the importance of cohesion funding. As things stand, there is no guarantee that Wales will qualify for Objective 1 funding in the next round —in many ways, one hopes that it does not; it is not a badge of pride. In relation to the future of cohesion funding, he will be aware that the shared prosperity fund is being discussed on a UK basis, with full consultation with Wales to ensure that Welsh interests are properly protected.

Update on Grenfell Response and Building Safety

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Anderson of Swansea

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, a minor correction: the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is right that I referred to a letter but it was sent by the Secretary of State. However, I will endeavour to ensure that either the letter, or the relevant part of it, if it contains other sensitive matters, is circulated. I will seek to include that in the circular letter I am sending round.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, as a resident and former councillor in north Kensington, I join the Minister, my noble friend Lord Kennedy and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in paying tribute to the resilience and courage of the local community. My question relates to rehousing locally. Do residents have a right to be rehoused locally? What does local mean in this context, recognising that Grenfell Tower is fairly close to the north of the borough, so one should not look only at north Kensington? It is close to other boroughs and north of the Harrow road and clearly there are areas ripe for development north of the canal, so what does local rehousing mean in this context? Is it agreed that families with children in school seem to have a higher right than individuals who may be more mobile?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, very much for his usual characteristic, constructive approach in seeking to address this as representatives across the board. On locality, we have said that we will rehouse affected families from Grenfell Tower and Grenfell Walk in either the borough of Kensington and Chelsea or in an adjoining borough, so we have widened the issue in the way he suggests. However, I come back to the point that families are able to say that a particular home is not suitable. They will no doubt want to take their children’s education into consideration. We have also sought to provide a means of concentrating on bereaved families as the first set of families we want to rehouse. However, we are obviously taking into account as many of the factors that the noble Lord raised as possible to make sure that we deal with needs as they arise.

Wales Bill

Debate between Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and Lord Anderson of Swansea

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

There may or may not be validity in what the noble Lord is saying. Some people may vote positively for a candidate while others, knowing certain candidates, will vote against. It is not a question of either/or.

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

This comes back to the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord German where the candidates’ names are on the list. I should like to see the evidence that people are voting against candidates; none has been brought forward that I have seen.

When the last Labour Government introduced the ban on dual candidacy in the Government of Wales Act 2006, Ministers claimed to have done so as a result of the general public’s “considerable dissatisfaction” with dual candidacy. I have heard it suggested again today that an overwhelming majority of people are against it. Let us look at the two surveys referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Gale. I turn first to the Government’s Green Paper. It was suggested by the shadow Secretary of State in another place that an overwhelming majority of respondents to the consultation were opposed, but in fact the summary of responses published by the Wales Office in 2012 notes only a small majority—in fact, it was a majority of one.

Let us look at those who actually submitted to the consultation. The majority in favour of removing the ban were Labour AMs with responses written in remarkably similar language. I would ask noble Lords to look a little more closely at the evidence before they assert, as was done in another place, that an overwhelming majority of respondents thought that it was right to have the ban. Frankly, that is not the case. It is true that the 2006 paper produced by the Bevan Foundation found that a small majority did consider it to be unfair, but the foundation went on to say that any change should be “based on sound evidence”.

Perhaps I may take noble Lords with me to look at some of the evidence. Independent bodies such as the Electoral Commission have disputed the change. They have suggested in evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee that the view is clear that prohibiting dual candidacy in Wales is not something that they are in favour of and is not supported by evidence as necessary. It seems to me that no evidence has been brought forward since then that suggests that such a change is necessary.

An acknowledged expert on this issue is Professor Roger Scully—who has already been mentioned—from Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre. I do not know his politics, but I know that he does not vote for the Conservative Party. He said:

“No substantial independent evidence was produced at the time of the GOWA”—

the Government of Wales Act 2006—

“(or, to my knowledge, has been produced subsequently) of significant public concern about dual candidacy. The claims made about dual candidacy ‘devaluing the integrity of the electoral system’, and ‘acting as a disincentive to vote’ therefore remain wholly unsupported by solid evidence”.

It is a fact, and one recognised by the Arbuthnott commission established by the last Labour Government, that dual candidacy is a feature of mixed-member proportional electoral systems the world over; yet of all the countries that use this system, it is only Wales that has such a ban.

That brings me to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. Taiwan, which I believe he mentioned, Thailand and Ukraine all have a different system where they have two completely separate lists that do not interact; so it does not apply in the same way. In New Zealand, whose system he also recommended, the Electoral Commission has urged against introducing such a ban, so there is very little evidence elsewhere out there that this ban is desirable.

I come to a point that has not been touched on—rather significantly—that, apparently, at the same time as we were saying that this ban was so necessary for Wales when it was introduced for Wales at Westminster, for some strange reason it was not introduced in relation to the Greater London Assembly or to Scotland. At the time, of course, both bodies had regional members who represented the Labour Party, whereas in Wales there were no regional members for the Labour Party. Cynics might suggest that there is something to read into that, but we have not heard any mention of why the ban is only something that is right for Wales, but not right for Scotland or Greater London.