Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Shipley]

10: Clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(2A) A statement of levelling-up missions must include an assessment of geographical disparities in the United Kingdom, broken down by local authority and, wherever possible, by postcode area.(2B) An assessment of geographical disparities must consider—(a) levels of public spending, both capital and revenue,(b) levels of private sector inward investment,(c) levels of disposable household income,(d) levels of employment, unemployment, and economic inactivity,(e) levels of home ownership,(f) levels of educational attainment,(g) numbers of young people not in education, employment or training,(h) levels of child poverty,(i) success in reducing health inequalities,(j) the availability and cost of public transport, and(k) levels of fuel poverty.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would define criteria that could be used to evaluate the success or otherwise of levelling up policies that aim to address geographical disparities

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, this could be a brief debate on this group of amendments. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, in her conclusions on missions and metrics—and I shall come back to that in a moment. I also agree entirely with what the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said a moment ago. I hope I quote him correctly, but I think he said, “The Bill will be useful if it forces a focus on the means of delivering levelling up”. That was particularly helpful, because it is really what these amendments in this small group are about.

In moving Amendment 10, I shall speak also to Amendment 58, to which I have added my name, and I want to support Amendment 48. There has been a lengthy debate on missions and metrics, the existing and the new ones. When I read the White Paper and then the Bill for the first time, particularly the missions and metrics, I concluded that we had to start with how outcomes would be evaluated. The metrics as set out will in most cases be impossible to interpret in the context of levelling up because they cover too large a spatial area. We need to know what exactly needs levelling up and where.

As an example, I take bus services, in the context of services in the past year being cut by 10% across the country. Yet in the document about measuring the progress in levelling up, in figure 16 there are mentions of buses—but it always assumes that there is a bus. It is about whether the bus is running late or not and whether you can get to work by bus on time, whereas the issue is actually whether there is a bus at all that will get, for example, a student in a school doing a T-level to the employer providing the 20% of work experience required for that T-level.

I concluded very early on in considering the Bill that we have to define the Bill’s use of the words “geographical” as well as “disparities”. A lot has been said about “disparities”, so I shall concentrate on “geographical”. Many statistics exist now, but not all the statistics that we would like to have. Some of those statistics that are available now are national, while some are regional and some are local, depending on which body produces them. I propose that we need to assess outcomes with independent assessment of what happens at a very local level, hence my suggestion of using area postcodes—or the first few digits, such as in mine, which are NE3. You cannot get it down to a street level, I concede, and I also concede that another way of addressing the issue is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, said, by doing it by council area and council ward. You could do it by council ward: 40 years ago we were doing assessments and metrics of this kind at a ward level in Newcastle upon Tyne. Most local authorities were able to produce evidence like that.

We have to be much clearer about how we are going to assess outcomes, for we have to do outcomes—it cannot just be about missions. How else will we know that levelling up is actually happening? I have a proposal for the Minister, which is what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, ended up saying. The Government should take back all the missions and metrics that they have put in the Bill’s documentation and then add to it everything that has been recorded in Hansard in all the excellent contributions that have been made. Then they need to reissue all those missions and metrics by the time we reach Report, which, because of recess dates, will be some weeks hence. I have absolutely no doubt that the department can easily do it in the time before we get to Report. I beg to move.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My Lords, it is rather a shame that this Bill appears to have become a bit of a Christmas tree Bill, with everything hung on it. As my noble friend Lady Hayman has said, in truth it is three Bills—a levelling-up Bill, a planning Bill and a structure of local government or devolution Bill. In truth, it would have been better had it come forward in that way.

If the Bill is to be true to its title as a levelling-up Bill, it must surely take the serious aspects of regional disparities as essential to making the Bill work. The amendments in this group—I support the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, as well—are tabled to ensure that the geographical differences between communities are properly assessed so that a baseline can be established and success then measured. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds said that without evaluative processes in the Bill they are just aspirations, and I agree. We can have as many dreams as we want about what might happen but, if we do not actually say where we are trying to get to, it is like setting out on a journey without a destination in mind. You do not know where you are going to end up, and that is really key.

The evidence on disparities between and within communities in the UK is irrefutable. The Government’s own figures show that 37% of disposable household income in the UK went to just one-fifth of individuals with the highest incomes, while only 8% went to those with the lowest. The Equality Trust has demonstrated just how unequally wealth is spread across the UK, with the south-east having median household wealth that is well over twice that in the north of England. It is true to say that some of this is driven by property wealth, but with the north-east, Wales, Yorkshire and the Humber and the east and West Midlands at less than half the wealth of London and the south-east, the impact on economic opportunities is stark. The Equality Trust research states that the UK has the highest level of income inequality than any other European country other than Italy.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds referred to the need to have discrete attention paid to the most serious causes of inequality, which is absolutely correct. We had a debate under the previous group of amendments around health inequalities. Those key areas of disparity between our regions are stark. The Health Foundation shows, for example, that a 60 year- old woman in the poorest areas of England has a level of diagnosed illness equivalent to that of a 76 year-old woman in the wealthier areas. Children in poorer areas are much more likely to be living with conditions such as asthma and epilepsy and, as they get into their 20s, with chronic pain, anxiety and depression—and for the over-30s in those areas there is the prevalence of diabetes, COPD and cardiovascular disease. There are demographic differences, too, with people from ethnic backgrounds all having higher levels of long-term illness.

We have already commented on the missing health disparities White Paper. It is terrible that that has been scrapped, because it would have made the assessment of levelling-up needs in relation to health far easier. We need to find out from the Minister what has happened to that health disparities White Paper. We will continue to support work which means that the Bill will show how levelling up will tackle health inequalities.

There are many areas of disparity. I shall also speak about educational attainment. While educational attainment in London and the south-east outstrips much of the rest of England, evidence from the Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that a 16 year-old’s family income was more than four times as strong a predictor of GCSE attainment than their local authority of residence. Both the Sutton Trust and the Education Policy Institute have raised concerns that the pandemic has seen a widening of that educational attainment gap and that that has a lifelong impact on young people. I noted the Minister’s comments on this, but it is hard to see how the current lack of a fair funding system and the regressive nature of council tax will not continue to build in the inequalities that disadvantage those young people. As an example, I was very pleased to see that the Mayor of London used the increase in business rates he had had, which most areas of the country may not benefit from, to provide free school meals for all primary schoolchildren just this week.

As well as disparities between regions, it is important that the Bill recognises that there are also stark contrasts within areas. My noble friend Lady Hayman’s amendment refers to this. Even in London we have the classic examples of increasing levels of inequality as you go along the route of underground lines. This means that, on all measures—economic, health, education and well-being—there are great disparities. If we take the line between Kensington and Barking and Dagenham, we can see that the disparity grows as we go along that route. Similar disparities apply all across the south-east. Even in my own area, the county council division I represent has a difference of nine years in life expectancy from another area in my borough which is just three miles away. These differences are very stark.

I was very pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talk about bus services. The lack of bus transport in some parts of our country is a real issue, and it affects particular groups of people who do not have access to other forms of transport—to name some, the elderly, students and those on low incomes. It effectively places them under a curfew and stops them having access to all the opportunities of work, school, college, hospital and health access, and social and welfare opportunities that they could take advantage of. It is a really big issue, depending on where you are.

I loved my noble friend Lady Hayman’s example of one bus a week. Obviously, in Cumbria, two buses a week would get us closer to London services, and that shows the difficulty with using faulty metrics: it is not helping anybody much to have two buses a week. I remember discovering, on my early visits to the Local Government Association here in London, that there was a bus literally every three minutes between Victoria and Westminster, which takes about 10 minutes to walk, if you can walk it. It was a revelation to me. Even 28 miles away, where I live, that is not the case. There are big differences and regional inequalities in those services.

I listened with interest to the powerful speeches earlier on housing, another area of inequalities between our regions, but I fear we would probably be here even later into the night if I started on housing. I shall just say that the Housing First provision we have made in my own area—where we put a roof over the head of someone who is street homeless first, in purpose-built accommodation, and then provide a package of complex-needs support—is making a real difference. That probably cannot be done everywhere, but these things make a difference and start tackling the real inequalities between our areas.

I hope the examples I have used, on the economy, health and education, demonstrate how important it is to be able to effectively measure the progress of levelling up if we are to be able to truly demonstrate its impact. The amendments in this group are key to ensuring that the Bill recognises the importance of the evaluation process, including the independent oversight which has been the subject of previous discussions in our first session on the Bill. I hope we can persuade the Minister—I know she has a lot to think about on the Bill—to reconsider some of those issues. If the Bill is truly to meet the aspirations of its title as a levelling-up Bill, we need to think about how we tackle those regional disparities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I do not know whether it has any views on it at the moment, but I will ask that question.

Alongside this, my department has also established a new deep-dive team, to take a new place-based approach to policy-making. This is quite important. This team gets to know specific places. To date, these places have included Blackpool and Grimsby. It combines the granular data that we are beginning to put together with local knowledge, to identify a set of policy interventions to make a noticeable difference to the people living there.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Taylor of Stevenage and Lady Young of Old Scone, brought up individuals. We go down to council wards, but there are people. We are talking about people. The levelling-up White Paper is a plan for everyone. The focus is on the left-behind places, but the ultimate goal of levelling-up policies is to improve the living standards and quality of life of the people living in those places. This means that where individuals with certain protected characteristics are disproportionately affected, they will benefit from the whole levelling-up programme policies and systems change. For example, some ethnic minority groups have, on average, poorer health outcomes. They are more likely to be living in non-decent homes. By aiming to reduce these disparities across the UK and in places where they are most stark, levelling up will have a positive impact on the places and, as importantly, on the people.

There were a number of questions or comments on the levelling-up fund, which I would suggest are probably for the sixth group of amendments. However, I will answer a couple of them; they were all more or less the same views. The levelling-up fund index identifies those places in greatest need, as we have heard, of this type of investment. In this round 2, 66% of funding has gone to category 1. Those are the places of greatest need. Over rounds 1 and 2, 69% of funding has gone to category 1. I can also say that in investment per head of population, the highest investment went to Wales, followed by the north-west and then the north-east. The money is going to the right places but that is just as an aside because this will come up again in group six.

This approach, set out in the Bill, sets a clear, uncluttered and long-lasting framework for measuring the progress of levelling-up missions. I hope that this provides the noble Lord sufficient assurance to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I am very grateful for the Minister’s response, but the more I learn, the more worried I get. I have learned tonight that the independent assessors have met several times. I have not seen any public report about what they are doing. Parliament has a role in this. It is reasonable in the context of this Bill proceeding that more information is provided to us.

We have learned that we have a spatial data unit in the department, and that we have a deep-dive team, but what this team is doing is ill defined. I have said several times in this Chamber that you cannot run England, with its 56 million people, out of London. It is simply too much. Therefore, the question will be: what exactly is the spatial data unit doing and what exactly is the deep-dive team doing? To whom are those bodies speaking at a local level so that they are properly informed?

I was encouraged that the Minister did talk about councils and council wards. I was aiming at postcode areas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, was aiming at councils and council wards, so at least we have some progress. There is an offer of a teach-in. A seminar, at the very least, has become fundamental. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said, how about the Government starting by publishing the gaps in social care? I had not realised that those gaps have not been published, even though they are available.

There is a fundamental set of issues here about the public’s right to know. If this is a Bill which is levelling up, surely the metrics of that must be discussed by us before it gets very much further. So I repeat my suggestion that the Minister takes all the missions and metrics away, takes account of everything that noble Lords have said in this Chamber in the two days in Committee so far, and rewrites the missions and the metrics so that we can produce the outcomes that a levelling-up Bill should be producing. Having said that, I will come back to this on Report.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

On the deep-dive teams, of course they are working with local people. I have said that this combines the granular data that we have with local knowledge, and works with local organisations, local councils and other organisations in areas to identify those interventions. Surely this is what your Lordships would want a good Government to do.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

I would be very happy with that, but I did not know about, and I think that no one else in this Chamber was aware of, the deep-dive team. That raises another set of questions. Perhaps the Minister can write to us about this, explaining exactly what this deep-dive team is doing and where it is working. I have a fear that we are going to see the regional directors for levelling up appointed at some point. There has been mention of having regional directors. Can you imagine in a country of 56 million people having regional directors for levelling up? It is an absurdity as a concept. I hope that the Minister is willing to tell us that this will not be actioned. That was reported in the i newspaper about 10 days ago. However, somebody has decided where the deep dives are taking place. It may well be that all kinds of bodies are being talked to, but this information needs to be more publicly shared. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 10 withdrawn.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for tabling this amendment because it gives us the opportunity to pinpoint the tension at the heart of the levelling-up agenda. As the impact assessment reminds us, the problem it claims to address concerns unequal shares and opportunities, and levelling up

“is a mission to challenge, and change, that unfairness.”

It means

“giving everyone the opportunity to flourish”

and to have

“longer and more fulfilling lives”,

together with

“sustained rises in living standards and well-being”

for people everywhere. In fact, this is a statement about people, not places, as reflected in some of the missions. Yet the impact assessment states that achieving the aims of levelling up

“requires us to end the geographical inequality which is such a striking feature of the UK.”

The Minister’s levelling-up letter explains that the missions are necessarily spatial—but why are they purely spatial and geographical when inequalities of income and wealth between individuals are also striking features of the UK? A report published by the Social Market Foundation, called Beyond Levelling Up and written by a former senior adviser to recent Conservative Chancellors, argues that this approach to levelling up

“avoids the question of whether we think the gap between rich and poor is acceptable, and whether we are comfortable with the current levels of income and wealth accruing to the richest in society.”

I will leave those in poverty until a later amendment. To make matters worse, ONS data shows that inequality has worsened since he wrote the report, and it is worse still if we use alternative measures on inequality.

I ask the Minister if she thinks the gap between rich and poor is acceptable. How does she think that the levelling-up agenda’s ambitions can be achieved without addressing that gap between rich and poor?

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I declare, for Committee stage as a whole, that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a vice-president of the National Energy Action advisory board.

I thank my noble friend Lady Pinnock for raising this issue; it is very important that we have a shared understanding of what we mean by levelling up. For me, I think it is the second option she gave, which is narrowing the gap. If we were to compare ourselves with Germany, we would find that there is a constitutional requirement in Germany for the 16 Länder to support each other, and the outcomes are assessed in terms of how well off the Länder are and using the many criteria we will be debating later today—there are so many criteria you can use. However, it is important that we understand the Government’s precise objectives with the Bill.

Local Councils: 2023-24 Budgets

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, there are also some councils doing extremely well in keeping services running. We continue to monitor the sector’s finances and stand ready to speak to any council and support it if it has concerns about its ability to manage its finances or faces pressures that it has not planned for. We are working with local authorities to do that so that they do not get to the point of an S114.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, when will the review of business rates take place?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I do not have a date for that.

Levelling Up: Funding Allocation

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords—

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords—

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I agree strongly with what the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, said in her comments on housing. As my noble friend Lady Thornhill said, levelling up is a herculean task that we should all get behind. I therefore welcome the Bill, in so far as it could start to spread power away from Whitehall if properly implemented and expanded, and could help to drive further regeneration and more skilled jobs. However, I fear that the Bill as it stands will not achieve the Government’s stated levelling-up objective to

“grow the economy in the places that need it most”.

It will need substantial amendment to do that. There is at least to be a statutory requirement to report on progress with the 12 levelling-up missions, and I welcome that. But I hope the Minister can confirm that it will include the scale of private sector investment into those areas.

The three things that most people want from a Government are a decent home, a secure job paying a fair income and a rewarding education, and yet the number of households renting in England and Wales has doubled over the last 20 years, as revealed in the 2021 census. Inflation today is reducing the value of pay. The cost of childcare is too high for many families. ONS data has shown recently that disadvantaged pupils in schools in the north do less well than their peers in the south. Transport poverty is growing in rural areas as public transport services are cut. Local authorities are being forced to bid for extra money for key public services because the money is no longer in their baseline. This is not levelling up.

The levelling-up Bill is effectively a planning Bill. On housing, the test for the Government is whether it leads to the building of more homes, particularly homes for social rent. The Bill may help, but we will need to examine the detail of the infrastructure levy to assess that further. As our briefing from Shelter has said,

“the current planning system prioritises maximum delivery of unaffordable homes that can be sold to the highest bidder, instead of well-planned developments with homes that people can genuinely afford.”

As we have heard, there is currently a consultation on national planning policy. It ends in early March. Will the Government give us feedback before Report? We should have it.

Part 2 of the Bill is highly centralist. It does not offer devolution; it offers delegation and decentralisation, in which mayors and combined authorities compete against each other to win support from Ministers and the Treasury. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all have devolved powers, but the Bill will not treat the constituent parts of England in the same way, and I do not understand why. England needs greater fiscal devolution. No Government can run England, with its population of 56 million people, out of Whitehall, and yet England will continue to be run out of Whitehall if the Bill is enacted in its current form.

We need to provide proper empowerment to the geographical areas of England, following the example of the Basque country in Spain, where public and private sectors have worked in partnership with trade unions and the voluntary sector to drive prosperity in their region. It could be done in the UK as we build capacity, but it will not happen with the degree of centralised control by Whitehall that the Bill proposes. Strangely, the Bill is far too centralist even at a local level, so we should look very carefully in Committee at the powers that will lie in the hands of mayors and at how mayors will be scrutinised on the decisions they take. There is an assembly in London but there is no such structure elsewhere in England—why is that?

I accept that the Government cannot do everything, but they can drive more and better jobs, build homes that people can afford to live in, do more in education and training, deliver better transport, and lead proper devolution throughout England with greater fiscal powers to generate growth beyond the limited financial powers planned by the Bill.

Non-Domestic Rating (Chargeable Amounts) (England) Regulations 2022

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing forward the regulations this afternoon. If I understood correctly, she said that the burden would be placed on the general ratepayers, which means that the electors would have to pay 3.4p per elector. Obviously this is a time of great concern for local residents and local electors, so they are going to look very closely at any increase on their council tax bills. To what extent can she justify this?

I echo some of the points made by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, particularly the timescale for those who are going to face lower bills. That is to be welcomed, but could my noble friend say more about the timescale and how it is justified?

Presumably, there will be winners and losers. Can my noble friend say that there will be no pubs, clubs or restaurants in England that will face an increase in rateable value? If there is to be an increase, what is the timescale for it to be rolled out?

With those few remarks, I welcome the regulations, but I have a number of concerns and I look forward to hearing my noble friend’s response.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my vice-presidency of the Local Government Association. I too welcome the regulations, with some caveats. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, that they are welcome and long overdue, and I agree with many of the points that he made, not least on the need for the reform of the business rates system. I am looking forward to hearing the Minister’s reply to his specific points.

The Government have made the right decision to press ahead now with implementing the revaluation because it reflects changes in market value since 2015, a period now of eight years. The decisions on the transitional relief scheme seem appropriate since they will give targeted support for the next five years to those businesses facing increases in their bills, in very difficult economic circumstances; they will freeze the multipliers in 2023-24; they will give extra, specific help to the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors; they will provide extra protection for small businesses that have lost rates relief because their property has been revalued upwards; and, as the Minister said, they will give some 300,000 businesses entitled to reductions an immediate and full implementation of the fall in their bill by ending the policy of downward caps. Welcome though all that is, it represents a temporary fix to a system that has not been working well and needs reform, as the noble Earl said.

The Government have brought forward the next revaluation to 1 April 2026, just over three years away. In my view that is the right timing because rental values, and thus rateable values, over the next three years may face pressures, given the overall state of the economy. It will also present an opportunity to take further account of online retailing. As part of this revaluation, total business rates paid by the retail sector will fall by 20% but the bills of large distribution warehouses will go up by 27%. That is welcome. As the letter dated 16 December from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury says:

“It is right that those sectors that have seen significant growth since 2015 pay their fair share of the tax burden.”


I agree, but the question remains: are they paying their fair share?

I have concluded that we still need a review of the business rates system. I hope that during our debates on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill we can examine how that might be approached, because we need more control of business taxation at a local level. I hope we will discuss how that might be done.

[Lord Thurlow (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a former chartered surveyor, and one who worked in the dark ages in the world of rating. As a former chartered surveyor, I opened the statutory instrument with interest and excitement, and, as we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, found it was full of what I thought was trigonometry: pages 4 to 26 were theorems, fractions and things that I certainly did not understand. But the objective of the regulations is clear, and I support them.

The position of non-domestic rates has become, I am afraid, a shambles over a number of years. A failure of the authorities to remain abreast of trends in rental value—rateable value should be based on the revaluations in the commercial property markets—has led to a gross imbalance between sectors and, in some cases, competing users within single sectors. That is gross unfairness. This certainly applies to hospitality and leisure sectors, and, in some cases, competing uses, with traditional retail perhaps being most affected.

For several years now, the Government have failed in their promise to address the unfairness in commercial rates to deal with the likes of Amazon, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and to allow our high street retailers to compete with these big-box retailers. They have a much lower cost of delivery model, and that cost is further increased by the rateable value system. Although we have heard that a 40% increase in industrial and warehouse rates, and a 20% reduction for retail, are proposed, this is de minimis in real terms—it is tiny, and it is not a percentage on like-for-like terms. A 40% increase in industrial rents of £10 a foot and a 20% reduction in the rent of zone A shops of £150 a foot are absolutely not comparable. That needs to be spelled out and made clear, and the Government need to do a great deal more very soon. This injustice continues to be kicked into the long grass at the expense of our high streets, and the important social benefits that they provide continue to decline.

This statutory instrument accelerates the reduction across the piece in non-domestic rates and feathers the increases for those suffering an increase over several years—both of these are to be welcomed. Similarly, freezing the rate poundage is also to be welcomed. The current levels of approximately 50p in the pound are the absolute maximum that businesses can stand. I support this statutory instrument and request that the Minister confirms that there is to be comprehensive rating reform very soon, as earlier speakers have requested.

Constitutional Commission

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for enabling us to have this debate. I agree with him about the need to set up a commission and consider options for a new constitutional relationship for the four nations of the United Kingdom. I want to add to that list the urgent need for a devolution settlement for the regions and sub-regions of England. Doing that requires a commission.

As my noble friend Lady Humphreys has just said, there has never been a place for England in the devolution process and there needs to be one. In three of the countries, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we currently have a block grant system, and we need a block grant system for the regions and sub-regions of England, to be controlled and managed more locally. To do that requires a commission to examine the options. You cannot run England out of Whitehall; it is simply too big. All the key decisions impacting on England are taken in Whitehall on a hub-and-spoke model in which Whitehall is the hub and elected mayors of combined authorities become the spokes. They compete with each other for resources at a time when budgets are being cut.

My attention was drawn to a report from March this year by the Institute for Government on the theory and practice of the Barnett formula. I will quote two paragraphs from it.

“Our view is that, in principle, Barnett should be replaced by a system that shares out resources in line with a clearly stated set of funding principles, applied consistently and transparently to devolved governments across the UK and to the cities and regions of England”.


I agree entirely. We have now reached a point where this has become essential. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, referred to the shared prosperity fund and the figure of—I think I quote him rightly—£770 million lost to Wales as part of the loss of direct European funding. Of course, that has impacted on England. It would be helpful if the Government wrote to Members taking part in this short debate to explain what has happened to the loss of ERDF and ESF funding because it is very serious for the rest of the UK and, in respect of what I am trying to argue, for the regions and sub-regions of England. They have also all lost the six-year programming they had from European structural funding.

I am very concerned about how decisions are made in Whitehall. On the shared prosperity fund, yesterday the Public Accounts Committee said clearly that the total sum is lower than the European funding produced by the ERDF and ESF, so some facts and figures from the Government would be helpful. The Public Accounts Committee criticised the ill thought-out levelling-up plans through the allocation of funding yesterday, saying they were “unsatisfactory”. One reason for that is the excessive central control exercised by the Government.

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

Perhaps the noble Lord could come to a close. We are very short of time today.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

I am sorry; we have no clocks in front of us—that is the problem. In conclusion, the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, talked of the stark political differences there are now. He talked of the clawing-back of devolved powers and he is absolutely right. That commission is needed more urgently than it has been for many years.

Social Homes for Rent

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Shipley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they plan to increase the number of social homes for rent.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and remind the House of my interests in the register.

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

The provision of affordable housing is a central pillar of the Government’s plan to level up the country, which is why we are investing £11.5 billion in affordable homes over the next five years. Our affordable homes programme, which began last year, aims to deliver 32,000 homes for social rent—double that of the previous programme.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

The Minister talks about 32,000 homes for social rent, yet 1.2 million households in this country are on council house waiting lists. The Government recently published their levelling up White Paper, which has 12 missions. Not one of those missions talks about affordable or social housing for rent. Can the Minister explain why?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

We have a commitment here, specifically within the affordable homes programme, to build more homes for social rent. We have also introduced a number of mechanisms that enable councils to build again. A generation of councils has not built any homes, or very few, but we have seen far more in the last decade. The levelling-up missions are clear, but we also have very clear missions to build more homes of all types and tenures.

Cumbria (Structural Changes) Order 2022

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Jopling (Con)]

My Lords, there are good many issues on which I have sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Liddle. I am bound to say, however, that I have played no part whatever in the evolution of this scheme and was intrigued to see the decision the Minister has come to. Like the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, I have always been an enthusiast for unitary authorities, and I am glad to see that that is coming to Cumbria.

I have a good deal of experience of Cumbria. I went to school there and represented Westmorland and then Westmorland and Lonsdale for 33 years, and like the noble Lord’s wife—perhaps she is not former—I am a former deputy lieutenant of Cumbria. Therefore, I believe I have some locus to speak in this debate.

I am bound to say that if we are going to split Cumbria in two, having a compartmentalisation of east and west seems logical. In the west of the county, the barrier from the coast to Dunmail Raise and Shap Fell is a very real barrier with the mountains. I can see the logic of that. The eastern part of Cumbria as it is now, with the M6 motorway, is much more accessible than the western part, therefore I can see the logic of an east/west divide.

What I really wanted to say is that I am delighted to see the proposal to reintroduce the name of Westmorland. I can remember my dismay when the county of Westmorland disappeared following the 1972 Act. In fact, one of the few things of Westmorland that continued was because of something that happened immediately after the 1972 Act. A celebrated historian from Appleby approached me and said: “Don’t you think that the tragedy of losing the name Westmorland could be revived by renaming Appleby as Appleby-in-Westmorland?” I remember putting an Early Day Motion down in another place and gathering a great many signatures around the bars and restaurants at the other end of this building. In the end, Peter Walker, who was then the Secretary of State, agreed that we should rename the ancient capital of Westmorland as it is now well known.

I have one or two queries over this. When he introduced this provision, the Minister said that there would be no change with regard to the lord-lieutenant. If we are going to have two county councils, and if it should become desirable to have two lords-lieutenant—and I cannot see why it should not—what is the procedure to create new lords-lieutenants? Can he tell us? He may not have it, although I see that he has just been handed a piece of paper. Clearly, Her Majesty has to come into this but, at the moment, there has been an informal convention in Cumbria, or there was one in my time, that the lieutenancy tended to alternate between north and south of Shap Fell. As the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, said, there is great diversity in Cumbria, and I have always noticed the diversity between those who live north and those who live south of Shap Fell. They are very different communities in all sorts of ways. Perhaps the Minister cannot tell me immediately what the procedure would be for allowing there to be a lord-lieutenant for each of the new counties.

Finally, I want to ask another question. When Peter Walker introduced the 1972 Act, which did away with the historic county of Westmorland, which was exactly what my old constituency used to be, there was a threat to some of the old traditions. I am thinking particularly of the mayoralty of Kendal, a historic borough with a mayor, historic connections to Catherine Parr and Henry VIII, a whole regalia and a number of things that surround the mayoralty. That was threatened and, again, a number of us who represented areas similar to the one that I had in Kendal formed up to Peter Walker and insisted that those old historic traditions would continue. I hope that the Minister can tell us that there will be no change whatever with regard to the mayoralty of Kendal. Of course, Kendal has been part of South Lakeland District Council for all those years, and that was really the way we got around it.

As I say, I have played no part in the arguments over the creation of these two new authorities, and I wish them well.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

It has been very interesting to listen to the noble Lords, Lord Henley, Lord Liddle and Lord Jopling, giving to the Committee the benefit of their personal experience and opinion on what should happen. I shall try to avoid taking a perspective about Cumbria from my vantage point on the east of the Pennines. It suspect is a complicated matter. Cumbria is a very large county, geographically, and has a substantial population, and it has a diversity to which I think the noble Lord, Lord Jopling, referred, which is extremely important. I hope that when he replies, the Minister will give specific answers to the points raised by those noble Lords who reside in the county of Cumbria or have represented it and know it, and others will be following to talk about that.

Building Safety Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 21st February 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I support both amendments in this group so helpfully introduced by my noble friend Lord Stunell. We heard in our debate on the previous group of amendments about the wide range of safety concerns, from fire and flood to methods of construction and fitting out, which mean that some buildings are at risk. I should declare my interest as the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group, and I thank the many Fire Ministers who have appeared before it, including the current Minister and indeed a previous Minister, who spoke just now.

I support the ideas about the golden thread as outlined by my noble friend Lord Stunell. Amendment 3 does that. Frankly, I thank him for owning up to the fact that he did not do this when he was a Minister. The all-party group has, over the years, argued for this policy to be part of the fire safety protocol.

The amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and supported by my noble friend Lady Pinnock, have a key safety issue: the power to prevent a developer’s ability to pick their own regulator. It is right that it is the public building regulator, the Local Authority Building Control, that is the sole regulator.

The bonfire of regulations just over a decade ago has meant that this field has become murky and filled with a lot of organisations that may indeed have close relationships. There was one day when the all-party group heard from a whistleblower who told us that, in the past, there has been unacceptable practice when the developer or owner of a building has had the ability to pick and choose the inspector, in this case, but it could have been a regulator. Fire safety inspectors were booked to come and check the fire safety doors—the front doors of flats and those on the stairwells—and that they were still the right ones that would manage the 40-minute fire safety tests. The managing agents for the building asked for a delay of a week, which was granted. The whistleblower said that it had been noticed by a number of residents that a series of doors were removed and replaced with other doors during that week—which of course passed all the tests—and, the week after the inspection, all the old doors were put back.

There has to be a mechanism for a regulator to start picking up on, and being concerned, when organisations are not playing by the rules. Those alarm bells can best be raised by the independent Local Authority Building Control.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 135 in my name, which was referred to a moment ago by my noble friend Lord Stunell, and which I intend as a probing amendment. I should say that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

I raised this issue at Second Reading, as the Minister will recall, and the question of whether permitted development rights would continue as now when this Bill is enacted, in respect of the conversion of office blocks to residential accommodation of any height. Amendment 135 seeks to clarify the matter. It says that

“Nothing in the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 … permits development which would convert offices to residential accommodation if such development is contrary to the provisions of this Act.”


I am grateful to the Public Bill Office for the help in drafting those words.

I simply say to the Minister that I hope he will clarify that this is government policy. If it is, that fact should be in the Bill to avoid any doubt. I look forward to the Minister’s assurance, because it would be inappropriate—as my noble friend Lord Stunell said—if a different set of rules were to apply to a conversion from office to residential than would apply to a residential block always designated as that. This amendment aims to clarify that the permitted development route cannot be used where it would be contrary to the provisions of this Act. I hope the Minister will agree that this is a very important issue.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I will look briefly first at Amendment 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. As we know, the proposed building safety regulator will be responsible for implementing and enforcing the new regime and will monitor the safety and performance of all buildings, with the aims of securing the safety of people in or about buildings and improving standards. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, went into a lot of detail and clearly laid out all the reasons behind his amendment, so I will not go over the ground that he has covered.

I just make the point that amendments have been made to the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act to reflect this, so the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, would also bring those necessary powers contained in the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act into this Bill and would, as the noble Lord said, be in accordance with the recommendations of the Hackitt report. This seems a practical and sensible approach.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in his Amendment 135, raises the issue of office to residential conversions, which are being actively encouraged by the Government. We need to consider any associated building safety issues with that policy. The noble Lord asked the Minister for clarification on this, and I think that this clarification is important so that we all know exactly what implications there will be. I will be interested in the Minister’s response to that.

I have a number of amendments in this group. I will first speak to Amendments 11 and 43 in my name—I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her support on them. Combined, they will ensure that the more stringent building safety framework applies not just to buildings over 18 metres but to those under that, where they are multiple occupancy dwellings. We believe the Building Safety Bill, in its original draft and as amended in Committee in the other place, fails robustly to confirm whether the gateway system will apply to buildings under 18 metres where there are multiple occupancy dwellings. This will create a two-tier system where buildings below 18 metres will face less rigorous safety regulations than those over 18 metres.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

Can the Minister give us clarification on Amendment 135? He said that new homes and buildings are covered by existing legislation and will be covered by this Bill when it becomes an Act, but does the wording “new homes and buildings” include the conversion of offices, which are old buildings, to residential? I understand that this is a complex area but I wonder whether the Minister is willing to write on this point so that it is on the record.

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving me that get-out. He is absolutely right that this is a complicated matter. You often have an old office building from which you create a new residential dwelling. We will check whether that is included in the purview of this Bill, and I will write to the noble Lord on that matter.