Nutrient Neutrality: Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that. I understand her concerns, but this has been quite a complex issue to deal with. But it is an important issue; we need these measures to unblock housing, as well as other developments such as hotels and care homes, which connect to standard wastewater treatment works. This also covers, by the way, septic tanks. We need this; it has been complex and we have taken a little time to ensure to ensure that we are putting in the mitigation to deal with the environmental issues—not as a sticking plaster, as nutrient neutrality was, but at source. We have a Bill that is about levelling up; I think it is important that that Bill is used for this important issue. I am sorry; we will give noble Lords the required time, as we promised with the childcare amendments, to discuss this fully and I am sure we will get through the rest of the Bill in the time allowed.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership, but also as a director of Wessex Strategic, which has an interest in housebuilding—so I have a foot in both camps here. But I am very clear about which side I am on, and hats off to the Office for Environmental Protection for actually saying very robustly how this proposed change of legislation really stands as a regress of environmental law.

As chair of a local nature partnership—and my colleagues throughout England will have a similar issue—I can say that we are at the moment trying to persuade stakeholders to contribute to local nature recovery strategies. These are absolutely core in terms of what it says on the tin: nature recovery. That is on the Defra side, yet here in terms of levelling up we have the Government saying, “We’re not interested in that agenda; we actually want to change and regress environmental legislation”. So my question to the Minister is a very practical one: how do I and my colleagues as chairs of local nature partnerships persuade stakeholders —farmers, housebuilders, businesses and communities—to take local nature recovery strategies seriously when the Government are giving a completely different view on nature recovery?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I think you explain to people that we are building houses that people will need in the areas that that particular group works in, and that we do not accept that this constitutes a regression in environmental outcomes. The packages of environmental measures, backed by significant additional investment, will more than offset the very small amount of additional nutrient discharge attributable to those 100,000 houses. They should carry on the great work that they are doing. We should be building out those houses and at the same time investing in making sure that we are dealing with the environmental outcomes at source.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 18th July 2023 Lords Chamber

The purpose of this Bill is levelling up areas and communities across the country. Restricting to the nth degree what can be built or done in national parks and AONBs would negate the purpose of the Bill. It would result in the depopulation of these areas as jobs disappear, and whole communities could suffer. Residents and businesses cannot thrive in aspic.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I could just respond briefly on the Cornwall point. There is a big issue with those SSSIs and a number of issues with farmers, although I think the Farmers Weekly article somewhat exaggerates the position. However, the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership, which I chair, has a number of board members from the farming community and we are looking at this. Certainly, Natural England could have handled the situation better, but I do not think it is quite as terminal as the noble Lord suggests.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords—

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 11th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)]

I will add one sentence in support of the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. It is critical that we tie the funding of levelling up to the missions, not only for transparency but to work together as a union. I will return to this when we come to government Amendment 9.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I have worked in various guises on trying to preserve the sea link between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly for some 25 years now. The Isles of Scilly Steamship Company is trying to undermine what is absolutely essential but has not been able to happen over 25 years: private funding of that ferry service. I believe that this cannot happen at the moment. Never mind the fares for the future: fiscally, it will not work as a scheme. That means that the money will be lost and, after 25 years, the “Scillonian” will not be replaced and those islanders and their economy will be cut off from the mainland. That is why this amendment is important, and I too hugely thank the Government for the generosity and understanding that they have shown to the islands and west Cornwall in terms of the levelling-up funding.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my relevant interests: I am a councillor on Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. This group of amendments focuses on the areas that have benefited, or not, from the initial round of the levelling-up fund. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, there are many examples of levelling-up funds failing to reach those parts that the Government’s own White Paper assesses as being in need of targeted funding over a sustained period.

Throughout our considerations of the Bill, I have said that this vast tome, the levelling up White Paper, should be at the heart of what we are discussing and what the legislation should be doing. As I said in Committee and at Second Reading, it seems to me that the Government have lost their way. The White Paper is not perfect, but it makes a good start in setting out what levelling up should be about. One of the phrases in it is that levelling up should be “broad, deep and long-term”—I agree. Experience of previous iterations of levelling up, from city challenge to neighbourhood renewal and several other policy interventions in between, has demonstrated that scattering plugs of funding is not sufficient to ensure that communities that have not shared in the nation’s prosperity begin to do so. The cycle is not broken without dedicated and long-term investment; that is what the White Paper says. The fundamental approach currently being pursued is inadequate to meet that challenge.

The Government have so far distributed funding via a bidding culture, which, as many noble Lords will know, the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands has criticised, calling it a “begging bowl culture”. Such a bidding culture is also costly, in time and money, and leads to many more losers than winners. One example, which I think I have given before, is a major city in Yorkshire investing a six-figure sum in its bid for levelling-up funds only to receive a big fat zero. It seems to me that this process needs a fundamental rethink. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, was right to use the example of the House of Commons Select Committee on this very issue, but the National Audit Office has also raised concerns about the use of levelling-up funds and how the bidding culture has worked —or not.

If the Government were serious about levelling up, only those areas that are amply described in the levelling up White Paper would qualify for funding. The Minister may be able to tell us whether only those areas described in the White Paper will qualify for funding. If not, we are moving away from the purpose of levelling up.

The second element of change needs to be for local authorities. Those that qualify via the assessment and the metrics in the White Paper should be asked to produce plans that tackle the inequalities at the heart of their communities in a sustained way—that is what the White Paper says needs to be done. It would mean more emphasis, for example, on skills, access to employment, and barriers, such as lack of childcare and transport. However, given what the Minister said in Committee, I am not sure whether the Government are ready for such big changes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, is right to pursue making the use of levelling-up funding more transparent and, as Amendment 3 says, ensuring that the funding is linked to the missions. For me, at the heart of levelling-up and regeneration legislation should be linking funding to the missions. If they are not linked, I do not know what the purpose of this Bill is.

At this point, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, raises a good example of what happens when there is an inequality of immense proportions. My noble friend Lord Teverson supported him in that, and he was right to do so. There are countless examples of such disparities across the country, which the levelling-up fund should be dealing with.

These amendments are fundamental to the effective levelling up of the many parts of this country that have suffered inequalities—some of considerable proportion compared with the rest of the country—over many years. If the noble Baroness wishes to move her amendment to a vote and divide the House, we on these Benches will support her.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, local nature recovery strategies are one of the triumphs of the Government’s Environment Act, which I welcomed at the time, as did the whole House. We wanted to ensure that they had a little bit more edge and power than they had when that Bill went through this House. We now have the chance.

Local nature recovery strategies are not a nice to have; they are essential. They are essential not only for nature and the environment but for the future of our economy, which is supported by so many of the ecosystems that I am sure the Minister, given his ministerial experience, is more aware of than I am. This is something that is vital, rather than, as I said, a nice to have. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, was right when she said that we have a problem here if the thousands of people who will be involved in writing these strategies are not convinced that any notice will be taken of their words.

However, I have some really good news here as chair of the local nature partnership in Cornwall and Scilly. Cornwall—not Scilly, although we are now involving Scilly in the final plan—was involved in a pilot local nature recovery strategy, along with four other areas. This was not seen by the various parties in Cornwall as being a pain to do, as something that the local authority and the local nature partnership had to urge, nudge and cajole them to do. It was something that people genuinely wanted to be involved with. The consultation exercise spread right across all sorts of organisations, individuals and households.

A strategy came out that was welcomed and that everybody wanted to happen. The great thing was that it was local. The Cornish aspects were particularly around things such as Cornish hedges, which are very different from other hedges elsewhere in the country. We also involve marine because, for a peninsula such as Cornwall, marine is so important. I was disappointed that the guidance that has come out does not mention marine. Marine is essential. It is part of the same ecosystems for those areas which are coastal.

My message is short: these local nature recovery strategies are vital to our future. We have, as we all know, one of the most nature-depleted areas in the UK. Even Cornwall, the environment of which is loved, has the same problems of retreating nature. This is the chance to have the turnaround in the environmental improvement plan. It is completely within the Government’s strategy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, said, the UK was at COP 15 in Montreal last year. We signed up to the global target of 30% being managed for nature. That is a UK target as well, as put out by the Government. Many local authorities, including in the south-west, have taken that target as well.

I urge the Government to take this step of ensuring that these plans really mean something. Let the thousands of people who will be involved and who will volunteer to participate know that not only will their voices be heard but their policies will be implemented.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, we have had some very powerful speeches in support of incorporating local nature recovery plans into the planning system. I wholeheartedly agree with my noble friends Lady Parminter and Lord Teverson, and others such as the noble Baronesses, Lady Willis of Summertown and Lady Jones of Whitchurch. They made powerful speeches, so I do not need to add to their arguments.

However, I want to make two points, the first of which is the importance of stitching together different strategies across different government departments. This, in essence, is what Amendment 184ZA is about—that what was agreed in the Environment Act must be incorporated where it matters: in local plans and national development management planning.

Secondly, the Environment Act currently requires local plans and local planning authorities to achieve a 10% biodiversity net gain in any planning application, but it is not that straightforward. If the applicant is unable to improve the site on which it is developing by a 10% net gain—and a recent application I had resulted in a minus 19% biodiversity figure—the next option in the cascade of biodiversity options is for the applicant to purchase a nearby greenfield site and improve the biodiversity there. If that does not work, you get to commuted sums, whereby the applicant has to provide a sum of money for the local authority to improve biodiversity somewhere else entirely. To me, that is not what biodiversity net gain should be about.

As I have declared on many occasions, I am a councillor in Kirklees. Recently, I had a major application in my ward, and the applicant was unable to pursue any of those options. The commuted sum was for somewhere else entirely, and biodiversity was depleted in the area applied for. That is why these local nature recovery strategies are so important: they put that at the heart of local planning policies and outcomes, so that applications cannot fob off a lack of biodiversity net gain into some other part of a council district.

This amendment has my wholehearted support, and I hope that my noble friend will bring it back on Report if the Government will not accede to it now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I have been listening to an excellent debate, and I just want to say one thing that relates to Amendment 484 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, and others. I just hope that, when my noble friend is responding or takes some of these very important points away, he responds not simply to the question of what is required in Building Regulations but what is achievable in terms of the sustainable framework for buildings. I declare a registered interest as counsel to Low Associates, which, between 2018 and 2020 was working with the European Commission on Level(s), which is a European Commission sustainable framework for buildings.

Such certification schemes exist. In this country, we have the Building Research Establishment’s environmental assessment method; the Americans have Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design; in France, they have gone further and legislated in RE 2020. The point I want to make is that, yes, we should focus on what is needed in order to secure an assessment of whole life-cycle carbon emissions in a building, but actually that is not enough, in my view. We should be increasingly looking at greenhouse gas emissions in total, at a circular economy and the reuse and recycling of materials, including in the demolition of buildings or the repurposing of buildings. We should be looking at water use and water resources. And we can put these, as many organisations increasingly do in certification schemes, in formats that are also very relevant to the performance assessment, including the cost assessment, of buildings, for those who have to invest in buildings, and indeed, in the public sector for those whose job it is to procure buildings.

We have structures that are available. We can see both voluntary schemes and—in the case of France and one or two others—legislative schemes that can focus on the broader environmental, health-related and social objectives of our buildings. These schemes recognise that, across Europe, 36% of greenhouse gas emissions are derived from our building stock. We have to deal with this; it is a central part of our environmental objectives. I hope Ministers are looking at both the statutory minimum requirements and a certification process that encourages the whole industry to move to a higher level of performance.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, yesterday I had the privilege of walking along a body of water called Frenchman’s Creek, which—some noble Lords may know—was made famous by the novel of Daphne du Maurier. I was walking through what is one of the remains of the UK’s temperate rainforest. I was in a green space, and I was next to a blue space, which fed out into the Helford River, which went out into the channel. You could see the ocean beyond that. That is why I support Amendment 241, in particular. This amendment is all about giving everybody access to those green and blue spaces, which is a privilege I have, living in the far south-west of this nation. I was walking, but I might have been running or cycling, although I do not think I would have been wheeling. All those types of exercise are absolutely vital to everybody.

To me, the theme of this debate has been that if we really want to level up, as my noble friend Lord Stunell mentioned, health and life expectancy are fundamental to that. That is why I support Amendment 241 and many others here as well. I hope that the Government will be able to positively respond to that.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a very important discussion—a very long discussion—with an awful lot for the Minister to consider, both in his summing up and afterwards. It has been important because it is about how our planning system affects our health. It has also brought some specific tangible changes which could be prioritised to make a difference, and which are currently ignored in the Bill and in the National Planning Policy Framework review. This is despite the fact that there are not just missions on decent homes but missions on narrowing the gap of healthy life expectancy and on improving well-being. If this is a levelling-up Bill, these threads need to go through it. The planning section is an important area whereby we can make changes to health and well-being. I think the link to planning is particularly relevant when you look at homes, home standards and the standards of our future homes. The amendments here address these gaps. If we are genuinely going to make a difference here, we have to put people right at the centre of our planning system.

First, I will look at the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp. I have an amendment in this group to probe the supply of healthy homes, but the debate around the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and that of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, have clearly covered what my amendment was looking to probe, in a far more effective way. As has already been said, we need to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, on his tenacity and refusal to give up on the fact that people’s health and well-being need to be put right at the heart of how we regulate the built environment. We should also congratulate the Town and Country Planning Association and its campaign to do the same. This is a very important issue.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Lord Teverson Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I have to admit that I was quite favourable to the White Paper that came out about a year ago. I thought it was absolutely honest: when you read it through, you looked at all the objectives, missions and everything else, and thought, “Yeah, absolutely—these are the sorts of things that need to be done and, frankly, it will take at least two decades to get back to where we needed to be.” The 2030 date suggested by that White Paper was maybe rather optimistic.

However, there was an area I was particularly disappointed by, and on which the White Paper was quite up-front. It rightly went through the different types of capital this nation has, and which needs to be spread evenly and developed across the country: physical, intangible, financial, institutional, social and human. But the one it left out, as many Members will have noticed, was natural capital. The irony of this Bill is that that is still effectively forgotten in the practical application. It is even more ironic because the Prime Minister, Mr Sunak, was Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Treasury published the Dasgupta review. That review was one of the most fantastic in describing the importance of natural capital, particularly for this nation, which, as we have already heard, is more nature-depleted than almost any other in the developed world. I want to concentrate on that issue.

Outside this House, one of my roles is chair of the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. I am very proud to do this as part of the regional nature recovery process, and we were very pleased to be chosen by Defra as one of five pilot studies for local nature recovery strategies. When we went through the Environment Bill at some length in this House, real congratulations were due to the Government for including local nature recovery strategies in that legislation. We put down an amendment saying that, for this to really work, it has to tie up with a planning system; otherwise, it will be meaningless.

I say to the Minister—I know she is not a Defra Minister—that, when putting that plan together for the Cornwall pilot, there was a strong response from the community. In fact, Defra congratulated us on our community engagement. As my noble friend Lady Parminter said, the local nature partnership and Cornwall Council put the map together, and we felt we had a document that was really important for the future of biodiversity and nature recovery.

The pilot was completed almost a year ago now, yet Defra has not put out the guidelines so that the rest of England’s communities can roll out their own strategies. It is really important to make those strategies meaningful to those communities, so that they know that something will follow from them. The way to do that, exactly as my noble friend Lady Parminter said, is to make it a statutory document that has to be taken into consideration in planning decisions and local plans. That is my one big ask of the Minister: take advantage of something that has been a government success, and that can really make a big difference, and tie the two together. If we can do that, perhaps the Dasgupta review—which the then Chancellor, now the Prime Minister, has perhaps conveniently forgotten—can deliver and be a success for all our regions in England.

South-west of England: Levelling up

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 7th April 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I congratulate Bishop Robert—the right reverend Prelate—on securing this debate, which is really important. I absolutely agree with his theme that we think so much about the levelling-up agenda as being north versus south—or, indeed, on occasions, as has been shown factually in terms of government funding programmes over the years, urban versus rural. Of course, the south-west is important in its rural population and its rural contribution culturally and economically.

If noble Lords will forgive me, I will talk mainly about Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, and the shared prosperity fund. What I say is not a criticism of the Government; one of the things I want to succeed is the shared prosperity fund. There are a number of questions here that I will go through and I would be happy to have those answered subsequent to the debate rather than necessarily here today.

Nearly everything that I talk about will also be relevant to the rest of the greater south-west. It is perhaps symbolic that all the speakers in this debate are lined up on the same side of the argument, apart from the Minister—

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

We have someone here who was leader of Wiltshire County Council for 16 years. Take that one away.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I apologise. But we have a unity here.

In Cornwall, our earnings are some 20%—one-fifth—less than the national average. Our GDP is 30% less than the national average. It is interesting that if you look at the contours of productivity, as you move further south-west, productivity goes down significantly east to west. Is that inevitable? I look across to the Republic of Ireland, which used to be one of the tigers of the European economy. It is still more affluent than many parts of the UK. That remoteness is not something that we should take for granted; actually, it causes those differences. Of course, exactly as the right reverend Prelate said, house prices go in the opposite direction. They are high and largely unaffordable for the resident population.

We are still unclear how the shared prosperity fund will operate. We have a framework there. We understand it is going to be £2.6 billion over three years. The promise by the Government—certainly the Prime Minister—has been that the funding that Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly had under European programmes will be replicated. I ask for confirmation that, in that first period of three years, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly will have something like £300 million in funding, and that over the seven years—it was a seven-year programme in European days—it will be something like £700 million.

One of the positives about seven-year programmes was that you could plan over that time. Three years is a lot more difficult. Perhaps we could have an assurance that we will not have a programme that starts late and has to spend by the end of year 3, meaning that those projects are short-term and not optimal. I think the Minister would understand that issue.

I also understand that the programmes will be primarily revenue-based. Yet when we come to productivity—I will say more on this later—yes, it is around skills, which I will also come on to, but it is also around investment. A lot of that needs to be capital expenditure rather than just revenue. Will the Government recognise that as that programme proceeds?

I also understand that in the first year 20% of the funding for shared prosperity will go towards a fund called Multiply, which is all about adult numeracy and language. Excellent though that is, it means that there will not be any skills element in the first year, meaning there is a gap between the ESF programmes we have at the moment and skills-based programmes we might have in future after the first year.

One of the great frustrations of European funding was that it took two years to agree the programmes between local authorities, Whitehall and Brussels. It is absolutely essential that these programmes start on time. They need to be agreed and then roll out as soon as the money is available on projects that are not too short term. I ask the Minister: will there be flexibility for the whole south-west—whether Cornwall, Devon or Dorset—as it understands its own needs best? Will that delegation of decision-making downwards, which was sometimes also absent in European programmes, be improved?

Lastly, I want to talk about productivity for 15 seconds. This is a practical thing. Whenever companies I know have applied for European funding in the past it has all been “Jobs, jobs, jobs”. The problem is not jobs; the problem is productivity, careers and decently paid jobs. I ask the Minister that, when people have to fill forms out, they are not just around jobs; they are around productivity and quality. We as the south-west and as Cornwall want to contribute to the rest of the United Kingdom. Please let us do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Exeter on securing this debate. He was known as Robert Atwell when he was chaplain during my early years as an undergraduate. He looked a lot younger then—but then, so did I. I used to row, which you cannot believe, given the physique I have now. He said, “You got on the first boat, in your first term!” As a Roman Catholic, he got me into the chapel and made it very much part of college life. That is what he has brought to his current job. He really cares about his region, and it comes through palpably. He has raised a lot of very important issues.

I take issue with the idea that the Government do not have the credentials to speak for the south-west. Here today we have the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, a former cabinet member for Burnley. We also have with us a very distinguished leader for six years of Somerset County Council, which is a pretty good innings for the Liberal Democrats. But the Government Whip here has been—

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I said that the speakers were on this side. I was not in any way—

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

Fair enough, but the Government Whip here, my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook, was for 16 years—not just six—leader of Wiltshire Council.

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

Lord Teverson 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?

Queen’s Speech

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Nature Partnership. I am also a director of Aldustria, of Wessex Investors and its associate companies, and of the Green Purposes Company, where I am also a trustee.

I want to talk mainly about the environmental side of things but I was particularly struck by what the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said in his maiden speech: that we must never take democracy for granted. He illustrated that, if I am correct, by referring to his uncle, who lost his life on the beaches of Normandy. I want to restate that because we have in this Queen’s Speech a piece of legislation—the electoral integrity Bill—that takes not just a page but a whole chapter out of the Republicans’ playbook in the southern United States, which is around restrictions of the franchise. That Bill crosses the red line in terms of restricting the franchise in this country and I hope either that the Government will withdraw it or that we will defeat it on Second Reading in this House. I feel that strongly about it and the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, is absolutely right about defending democracy. This House must make sure that that is done.

I come back to the environment. COP 26 is coming up later this year, as we know. I used to be in corporate business; it was tough but somehow predictable. It had its systems that worked. I went through processes, either with people who reported to me or the board that I reported to, where we would set a strategy; we then had budgets and then we had to do stuff—we actually had to make it happen. In this topsy-turvy world of Parliament, it somehow does not work that way. We might say, “Right, we’re going to set a target”, and then that we will do strategies. The timetables that were absolutely rigid in corporate life sort of slip in the parliamentary sense. One thing I would never have said in a board meeting was: “Never mind about that—just look at my past performance. Look how well I’ve done in the past.” If I had said that in one of my board meetings, those there would have looked at me with incredulity. They would have said: “How naive are you, Robin? Forget that—it’s not about the past. That’s banked, so it’s about what you do in the future.”

In this country we have a great track record, yes, through various Governments. What we do not have is a plan to meet those targets that are some way in the future and which we need to meet. What are we waiting for at the moment? We are waiting for a hydrogen strategy and for Her Majesty’s Treasury’s review of net zero. We are waiting for the heating and building strategy and for the transport decarbonisation strategy, which I am sure my esteemed colleague and noble friend Lady Randerson will talk about later on. My noble friend Lord Bradshaw already did. We do not know when those strategies are going to arrive and yet we have six months until we are on the international stage in Glasgow, at COP 26, to lead the rest of the globe in meeting this crisis. I ask the Ministers and the Government: when are the strategies going to be delivered, let alone the actions? We need them.

When it comes to biodiversity, we are waiting for a nature strategy. I congratulate the Treasury on the Dasgupta report, but when will we have a government response to that? There is the 25-year environment plan that Michael Gove brought forward: I would give it 10 out of 10, except that the National Audit Office gave it a scathing report last year. Regarding COP 15 in China, I can get nothing out of the Government about who is going to represent us at that conference to ensure that we approach the biodiversity crisis in the same way as we intend to approach the climate one.

In my last few seconds, I want to talk about one other area: the marine. I am absolutely delighted that the Government have chosen to bring the noble Lord, Lord Benyon, back into Defra. It is absolutely excellent. He had a report, I think it was last year, about higher-level marine conservation areas. When is that going to be implemented? I hope that he will do so. We are great at putting protection around our overseas territories—I think there are 40 million square kilometres of marine zones—but what about our own coastline? We need to have that right as well, so what about protection for those areas? Lastly, Defra has had a consultation out on remote electronic monitoring. When are we going to hear the answers?

Marine, biodiversity and climate change are all key areas. Let us get on and do stuff.

Mobile Homes (Requirement for Manager of Site to be Fit and Proper Person) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 3rd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Teverson (LD) [V]]

My Lords, we very much welcome this secondary legislation, but all Governments have always been rather behind the curve on this issue which, when many of us were elected representatives, appeared on our desks all too often. Although I very much welcome it personally, many residents who have suffered previously from the actions of site owners feel as cynical as the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, described. They feel very strongly that these organisations —the managers and companies that are the rogues—often find their way around these regulations. Having said that, I shall come on to enforcement later.

We have to remember that this is not just a minority interest: there are some 85,000 households in park homes on more than 2,000 sites and, as the Minister has rightly said, they are older, less well-off, more vulnerable people. The problem is that the power in this area is very asymmetric, not least, often, when satisfied residents find that the ownership of their site has been transferred and there is a whole regime change, not just in the legal landlord but in the tone and the way that those sites are managed. The key issue is that of circumvention, either by having different site managers come in, or indeed by changing the ownership of the company that legally owns the sites. These are methods that have been used in the past to get around similar regulations.

As I understand it, having read the regulations, it is either/or—either the site manager or the owner has to be approved in this way, not both. It seems to me very important that, never mind the site manager, the owning company or person also needs to be approved: it needs to be a dual process and I understand that that is not the case at the moment. As the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Berkeley, said only too well, the key issue here is one of enforcement: many residents on rogue sites at the moment feel that local authorities have just not had the resources or perhaps even the wish to get heavily involved with these companies and actually implement the legislation. I welcome very much the Minister restating that fines will be unlimited in this area, but they have to be imposed. Until they are and those fines stop being part of the cost of operating these sites, the abuses will continue.

I have a number of other questions. I am pleased that so-called grandfather rights do not apply here and that all existing site owners have to be registered; I welcome that very much. Are the Government looking further at the 10% commission fee on the sale of mobile homes or park homes on these sites, which is still highly contentious? Will the Government liaise closely with local authorities on implementation of these regulations? I think it is important that we share information, as the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, said very strongly and correctly. There is ample scope here for one authority approving an owner while others do not, and a risk that that will discourage councils from not approving particular individuals.

As for fines, this again leads into the judicial process, but it is very important that they are at a level that actually deter once enforcement takes place. Lastly, some site owners are foreign companies and I presume—I would be interested to hear from the Minister—that they will have to comply equally. What legal measures can be taken against them if they do not comply? That is important.

We very much welcome these regulations but the key thing, as all Members have said, is that they need to be enforced. The fines need to be substantial, not just operating costs on business. We need this to be a turning point for some 85,000 households, with all of them feeling secure in their form of living and their residences.

UK Shared Prosperity Fund

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Thursday 21st May 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Teverson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they intend to publish their proposals for the roll out of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The Question was considered in a Virtual Proceeding via video call.

[The Minister of State, Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Greenhalgh) (Con)]

The Government recognise the importance of bringing clarity on the UK shared prosperity fund. Decisions on its design will need to be taken after a cross-government spending review. In the meantime, we will continue to work closely with regional partners while developing policy.

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that Answer, although it is rather disappointing. This is urgent. In their manifesto, the Government made a commitment to launch this fund. Time is running out on EU funding, and we need this funding to bring up regions in the post-Covid-19 recovery. Can the Minister give some feeling about when this scheme will be announced in detail so that people can prepare for it locally and regionally? Can he confirm that the amounts available to regions will be the same as they would have been under European funding?

[Lord Greenhalgh]

Yes, I can give the noble Lord an assurance that the amount of funding will be at least at the same level as all the European structural funds it replaces. I cannot say any more about the timing, and I refer to my previous point about the importance of the comprehensive spending review.