Draft Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 General Committees

[The Chair]

We all know the rules about social distancing, and you are all sitting perfectly satisfactorily, so I will not bore you by repeating them.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.

It is an ineffable pleasure to serve under your chairman-ship, Mr Gray. The draft regulations were laid before the House on 22 February, under paragraph 12(1) of schedule 7 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. They will be debated and moved in the House of Lords as parliamentary time allows. Mirroring legislation is being prepared for data registered against properties in Northern Ireland, and that will be presented to the Assembly later in March. Scotland operates its own energy performance of buildings register, and is not covered by the draft regulations.

This is a straightforward statutory instrument relating to the statutory fees that are charged when data is registered for energy performance certificates, display energy certificates and air conditioning inspection reports for properties in England and Wales. Fees are applied to two classes of data registration, covering domestic and non-domestic properties. The draft regulations propose to reduce fees from £1.86 to £1.64 when data is lodged for domestic properties, and from £9.84 to £1.89 for non-domestic properties.

The Committee may recall that the fees charged for data registrations in England and Wales were last adjusted three years ago. They were amended by statutory instruments on six occasions between 2012 and 2018. The Committee will also, I am sure, recall that the United Kingdom has set a target in law to bring its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 to help tackle climate change.

Heating and powering buildings accounts for some 40% of the United Kingdom’s total energy usage, so we must ensure that buildings are constructed to high standards of energy efficiency. The energy performance of buildings registers are a key tool in promoting energy efficiency, providing valuable information about the energy performance of buildings and encouraging homeowners, and commercial building owners and occupiers, to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings.

An energy performance certificate is needed whenever a property is built, sold or let, and must be ordered before a property is marketed for sale or rent. At a glance, a consumer searching for a new home or commercial premises—as the cap fits—may determine how efficient a property might be, while an owner may consider the recommendations as to how they might improve the energy efficiency of their property.

Historically, energy performance of buildings regulations were part of the energy performance of buildings directive. We retained the regulations after we left the European Union, as they contribute to our target of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. They set out the Secretary of State’s obligation to maintain a register of data so that energy performance certificates, display energy certificates and air conditioning inspection reports can be recorded in a readily accessible format and made available to the public.

Regulation 28 of those regulations sets out a power to levy fees to maintain registers. Officials in my Department calculate the appropriate level of fees each year and, on that basis, propose costs of service divided by a forecast number of data lodgements expected to provide the charge. A reduction in fees is possible now, because the Government have invested in new cloud-based digital platforms and moved away from the fixed hardware model that has been in place for the past 13 years. That will ensure that energy performance of buildings—and the register thereof—is user-centred and fit for the future.

The new fee rates set out in this draft instrument will allow the costs of operating the energy performance of buildings register service to continue to be met without profiteering or allowing lodgement fees to subsidise a loss. In other words, the charge will not cost the lodger more than it should, and it will not cost the taxpayer anything at all. Costs of the service have been calculated in line with Government policy and tested with the Treasury and stakeholders in the property energy profession.

The draft regulations serve a very specific purpose: to reduce the statutory fees that are charged when data is registered for domestic and non-domestic energy performance certificates, display energy certificates and air conditioning inspection reports. Over the two classes of fee, reducing domestic data registration fees represents a 12% saving, while reducing non-domestic data registration fees is an 81% saving. I hope that the Committee will agree that these are sensible measures, which will afford the lodger some saving and cost the taxpayer nothing, so I commend them to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged for your indulgence, Mr Gray, and to the shadow Minister for his support for this—as he rightly said—uncontroversial measure. The hon. Gentleman made a couple of comments about the Government’s policy on greening our economy and greening homes to meet our net zero carbon agenda, so I will spend one minute responding to those, Mr Gray.

[The Chair]

No more than.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman recognises what the Government are doing. Perhaps I might point him with some advantage to the work that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is doing with the green homes grant, which will retrofit more than 600,000 properties in the country over the next several years to ensure that they are far more energy-efficient and therefore far less costly to the dwellers in them, because energy will be saved in houses and far less will have to be spent by the homeowners on their energy bills.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the future homes standard, which we are introducing in 2025. Homes built after that point will be at least 75% more carbon-efficient than present homes. That is a fine objective, which will be met, because by that time we will have ensured that the sector, with the skills to support it, will be ready to implement the changes necessary to meet the objectives.

In the meantime, we are uplifting the performance requirements of homes by 31%, which will go a significant way to preparing the industry for the future homes standard, while ensuring that we also reduce our carbon footprint as quickly as the economy allows. With that, Mr Gray, I am grateful for your indulgence.

Question put and agreed to.

Fire Safety Remediation: Leaseholders

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 1st March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

May I, last if not least, wish you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and all other Members of the House a very happy St David’s Day? I am grateful to the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan) for bringing this important topic to the House and to the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for the eloquent and passionate way in which he spoke on behalf of his constituents. I should like to thank other Members of the House who are not here this evening, such as my hon. Friends the Members for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) and for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), both of whom have spoken up, championing their constituents—something that all Members of Parliament do and should do on this issue.

Building safety is a matter of great significance to residents, not just in the Portsmouth South constituency but across the country. The Government’s aim has always been to protect residents in high-rise blocks of flats without imposing burdensome costs on leaseholders. As Members are aware, last month the Government announced a clear five-point plan that will remove unsafe cladding, provide certainty for leaseholders, and ensure that industry takes the responsibility that it should for its past mistakes. Crucially, our plan also brings us one step closer to creating a world-class building safety regime. Integral to its success is finishing the job of removing unsafe cladding.

As I have a little bit of time, perhaps it would be helpful for me to set out some context and remind the House of where we have come from. Following the terrible tragedy of the Grenfell fire, the expert advice that the Government received identified aluminium composite cladding—the type found on the tower—as posing the most severe safety risk on high-rise residential buildings. That is why the Government committed £600 million to accelerate the removal and replacement of unsafe ACM cladding on high-rise residential buildings, and that work is now nearing completion. Almost 95% of all high-rise buildings identified at the beginning of last year with ACM cladding have now been remediated or have workers on site and works under way.

However, we recognised then and we recognise now that other forms of unsafe cladding, while less dangerous than ACM, should never have been allowed to be used in the construction of high-rise buildings and will need to be remediated too. As the hon. Member for Portsmouth South pointed out, although many building owners have acted to make these buildings safe—Barratt is one example of a developer that has done so; there are many others—some owners and developers have not. Put simply, too many building owners and managing agents in the private sector have been slow in getting remediation work started.

That is why we introduced the £1 billion building safety fund, to remediate high-rise residential buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding as soon as possible and to shield leaseholders from the costs associated with those works. Additionally, as the House knows, last month, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced £3.5 billion in additional funding for the removal and replacement of unsafe cladding on high-rise residential buildings over 18 metres, or approximately six storeys, in England. We have always been clear, though, that public funding does not absolve the industry from taking responsibility for its own failures. In many cases, we have seen developers and building owners rightly correcting the defects they have created. Indeed, they have done so in more than half the high-rise private sector buildings with unsafe ACM cladding.

The position of the Government remains, as hon. Members would expect, that developers, investors and building owners who have the means to pay should do so. They should do the right thing and cover the costs of remediation of other unsafe cladding without passing on the costs to leaseholders However, in many moving cases—the hon. Member for Portsmouth South mentioned a number—it is clear that building owners or their management agents have passed on significant remediation costs to leaseholders without any regard to the affordability of those measures.

The Secretary of State knows, as does Lord Greenhalgh, who leads on this area for the Government, that residents are extremely worried by the situations in which they find themselves. They are worried that the safety of their home is in jeopardy, and their life savings with it. Lord Greenhalgh has had many meetings with cladding campaigners. Indeed, he only recently spoke to the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety and leasehold and commonhold reform. He and the Government are absolutely clear that this distressing situation is completely unacceptable, and we are bringing it to a swift end by ensuring that leaseholders are no longer hit with such bills.

Under our risk-based approach, as identified by the report of Dame Judith Hackitt, the Government funding will focus on high-rise buildings, which is where the independent advisory panel has been clear that the highest risk lies. It is long-standing expert independent advice that height is a central factor in assessing risk. The National Fire Chiefs Council says so, the Building Research Establishment says so, and the independent panel says so. Taller buildings house more people, and when combined with combustible cladding, they are the least likely to be safely evacuated. This means that the overall risk from fire is greater than in lower-rise buildings—sometimes four times greater. That is why we are ensuring that these buildings are remediated, and we have provided grants to get this done quickly. It is right that the Government should prioritise action on high-rise buildings.

For buildings between 11 metres and 18 metres, the risk profile is different, as has been mentioned by the hon. Members for Portsmouth South and for Reading East. Those buildings will not always require the same level of remediation when risks are identified. Although those buildings do not carry the same inherent risk as buildings over 18 metres, we want to ensure that their residents are also given peace of mind and financial certainty. That is why we have said that leaseholders in buildings between 11 and 18 metres will be able to access a generous long-term low-interest Government-backed finance scheme for the removal of dangerous cladding. That finance scheme will not affect their credit rating. It will not follow them round for life. If they sell their property, it will remain with the property. It will not be, as it were, an addition to their mortgage. It will effectively be a safety charge on the building.

As part of the financing scheme, leaseholder payments towards such remediation costs will be capped at a maximum of £50 a month for work that could potentially run into tens of thousands of pounds. We think that this is a fair solution that will provide the support that leaseholders expect, restore confidence in the risk and lending sectors and restore proportionate risk and value assessments so that value can be properly re-ascribed to these properties, while not unfairly burdening taxpayers, many of whom are not homeowners themselves. They are also the covid nurses doing a double shift in the hospital and the shelf stackers in the Tesco Metro in Reading or Portsmouth. We have to be conscious that it is taxpayers’ money that we are disbursing, and we must be careful and sensible with it.

As the Secretary of State laid out in his statement to the House, the Government will ensure that the largest property owners also make a fair contribution to this remediation programme. A developer levy will be introduced and targeted at developers seeking permission to develop certain high-rise buildings in England. Industry must take collective responsibility for the historical building safety defects that it created, and our levy will help to ensure that it does. We will also introduce a new tax for British residential property development to make sure that the largest property developers make a fair contribution towards remediation.

Taken together, these measures will raise at least £2 billion over the next 10 years, fixing unsafe buildings and ensuring that those with the broadest shoulders bear the greatest burden. Our plan unequivocally makes homes safer and frees those who did the right thing, saving for years to get on to the property ladder to enjoy the homes in which they have invested so much. We are continuing to work at pace to make sure that these schemes protect leaseholders, prioritising affordability, transparency and empowerment while accelerating remediation.

The hon. Member for Reading East asked how we would ensure that those on low incomes are protected when they have to pay up to £50 a month. We are alive to the challenges that some people may face, and that is why, when we publish the mechanism for the financing scheme, we need to strike the right balance between the longevity and affordability of payments.

The hon. Member for Portsmouth South asked some specific questions about the building safety fund, so perhaps I could spend a moment or two advising the House on that. The House will know that we have allocated £1 billion during this financial year for the building safety fund, designed specifically to remediate high-rise buildings of unsafe non-ACM cladding. Almost 900 decisions have now been made and over 500 registered buildings are now proceeding with a full application. So far, nearly £160 million has been allocated for use, but the House will know—I have mentioned it myself at the Dispatch Box, as has my right hon Friend the Secretary of State—that, despite clear requirements of building owners in relation to the building safety fund, all too many were unable to properly complete the application process so that the Government could properly assess the eligibility of those applications. Some 2,820 registrations to the fund were made and over 1,000 did not provide such supporting information, such as the height of the building that was applicable and the template lease agreements that apply. In some cases in Portsmouth, EWS1 forms were submitted suggesting that no remediation was necessary.

We have worked closely with the building owners and their agents to address this challenge. We have extended the timeframe for application to the end of June this year. I am confident that the money will be allocated—the works must begin by September this year—and that this fund, taken together with the £3.5 billion that we have also made available for the remediation of high-rise properties with unsafe cladding, will ensure that the work is done effectively and that those people can live safely and surely in their homes once again. I should say, however, that all registrants should continue to ensure that everything is done in the meantime to maximise the pace of remediation and continue to make progress with their applications to the fund, because we want this work to get on and complete as quickly as possible.

The hon. Gentleman also mentioned the interim measures that we have put in place. I should remind him of one of the reasons why we have introduced the waking watch fund of £30 million to support those high-rise properties that have a waking watch, where costs are being passed on by owners to their leaseholders. We have introduced that fund to make sure that those in the greatest need are supported, but the best way to end waking watches is to get on and remediate those buildings. That is the message that we have impressed time and again on building owners and their agents. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does exactly the same.

Ultimately, all these measures are designed to ensure that the remediation of unsafe buildings happens as soon as possible while protecting leaseholders from unfair, unaffordable costs. As I have said, we have made good progress on remediation. We have taken enforcement action with the joint inspection team, which we support and fund, helping local authorities and fire and rescue services around the country to undertake a number of important actions in which building owners have been fined or named and shamed. That work has contributed to the pressure that we have exerted, and we are now seeing the results.

We will continue to advance EWS1 applications to the building safety fund to the next stage so that we can finish the remaining remediation works, and we are doing that as quickly as we can. We have appointed specialist consultants further to increase the pace of remediation and get the job done. We have also spent £700,000 on the recruitment of 2,000 fire risk assessors. One hundred are being trained and put into the field every month to ensure that proper fire risk assessments can be made of buildings, to ensure that the proper costs to remediate them can be associated with them and work can begin.

Our plan means that building owners, developers and management agents take responsibility for fixing the problems that they created. The Fire Safety Bill that we introduced will strengthen enforcement action in cases in which they do not do so. We debated that Bill and its remaining provisions last week. The House will know that we could not accept the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends the Members for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith) and for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland). Their intent was good, decent and honourable, but the amendments did not provide sufficient regulatory underpinning to the Bill to protect the Government and the taxpayer from potential court action by landlords and freeholders, which would have stopped the progress of the Bill. I hope that the House will understand why the amendments, although well intentioned, were so defective that the Government could not accept them.

We will soon introduce the Building Safety Bill, which makes a once-in-a-generation change to the building safety regime. It will help to place even greater accountability on those responsible for these buildings so that no resident is asked to fix a problem that they did not cause at a price that they cannot afford. We will fulfil our pledge to bring about the lasting change that we need so that confidence in our building safety regime is fully restored.

Many of the challenges that we have spoken about today —the hon. Members for Portsmouth South and for Reading East, and Conservative colleagues speak about them so forcefully—and beyond it have been allowed to build up over decades and by successive Governments. That is why we must tackle those failures once and for all, righting the wrongs of the past while delivering a fairer deal for taxpayers, who have had to foot so much of the bill, and for leaseholders, because they have a right to expect that and they deserve nothing less.

Question put and agreed to.

Bailiff Enforcement Regulations: Extension

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Written Statements

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I wish to update the House on the Government’s continuing commitment to protecting tenants over the national lockdown period, while ensuring landlords can access justice in the most serious cases.

Preventing the enforcement of evictions against residential tenants

The Government laid a statutory instrument on 19 February which extends existing protections for renters by continuing to prevent enforcement agents—bailiffs— from attending residential premises to enforce a writ or warrant of possession except in the most serious circumstances. This measure will continue to protect public health by preventing people being evicted from their homes by enforcement agents, at a time when the risk of virus transmission remains high, and to avoid placing additional burdens on the NHS and local authorities.

Exemptions continue to be in place for the most serious cases that present the most strain on landlords and on local communities. These circumstances are illegal occupation, false statement, antisocial behaviour, perpetrators of domestic abuse in the social sector, where a property is unoccupied following death of a tenant and serious rent arrears of six months’ rent or more. The SI applies to England only and expires on 31 March 2021. Given that 14 days’ notice is required before an eviction can take place, no evictions are expected before 14 April except in the most serious circumstances.

Wider measures

The requirement on landlords to provide tenants with six months’ notice before starting formal possession proceedings continues to apply in all but the most serious cases until at least 31 March 2021. This means that most renters served notice today can stay in their homes until August 2021, with time to find alternative support or accommodation. We will keep these measures under review.

Most tenants are continuing to pay their rent as normal. However, we recognise that a small proportion are experiencing trouble paying their rent. The Government have put in place a significant financial package to support them.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has offered support for businesses to pay staff salaries, enabling people to continue to pay their rent and has been extended until April 2021. The Self- Employment Income Support Scheme is also available.

In addition, the Government have put in place an unprecedented amount of financial support to ensure tenants can continue to pay their rent. Notably, we have increased the local housing allowance rate (LHA) to the 30th percentile. The increased LHA rates are expected to provide 1.5 million claimants with around £600 per year of housing support more than they would otherwise have received. This measure maintains that significant increase for all rates, by protecting the rates at the current levels in cash terms in 2021-22, even in areas where the 30th percentile of local rents has gone down. This continued investment in LHA will support claimants in the private rented sector to manage housing costs. We have also increased Universal Credit and Working Tax Credit by up to £1,040 for the year. We spend around £30 billion a year on housing benefits—and spend more than any other OECD country as a proportion of GDP on housing support—2018 data.

Guidance

We have updated our guidance to support landlords and tenants in the social and private rented sectors navigate the possessions process, which can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/understanding-the-possession-action-process-guidance-for-landlords-and-tenants.

We have also recently updated our covid-19 renting guidance for landlords, tenants and local authorities to ensure it reflects the latest information. It can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-and-renting-guidance-for-landlords-tenants-and-local-authorities/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-for-landlords-and-tenants.

[HCWS793]

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

What progress he has made on the design of the loan scheme to fund the removal of cladding on buildings under 18 metres in height.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

Hundreds of thousands of leaseholders will be protected from the cost of replacing unsafe cladding. Funding will be targeted at the highest-risk buildings in line with long-standing independent expert advice and evidence, while lower-rise buildings with a lower risk profile will gain new protection from the costs of cladding removal through the long-term, low-interest, Government-backed finance scheme through which leaseholders will pay no more than £50 per month. We will publish more details on how the scheme will work as soon as we are in a position to do so.

[Mr Betts [V]]

I thank the Minister for his answer; I look forward to more details. In the meantime, will he confirm that the loan will be a charge on the freeholder, that there will be no addition to the debt of any individual leaseholder, and that it will not affect the valuation of leasehold properties? On the money that is to be raised from the levy and financial contributions, will that be in addition to the £3.5 billion that the Government have announced, or will it go to offset the amount of the £3.5 billion that the Government will have to find?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the Chairman of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee for his question. We certainly do not wish for any costs to follow the leaseholder through their life, so he is certainly right to assume that the charge will be applied to the building and not to the leaseholder and that, therefore, their credit rating will not be affected by it. He also asked about how the funding mechanism will work. The Chancellor will say more about that at the Budget, so I do not think I should say any more at this point, but we certainly want to ensure that leaseholders are appropriately and properly protected from unforeseen and unfair costs.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab) [V]]

I remind the Minister that, 17 times from the Dispatch Box, the Government have made a commitment to leaseholders that they will not pay. The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government announced last week that funding for cladding removal would not include buildings under 18 metres and that those in homes below 18 metres would be forced into life-changing debts to pay for a problem that they did not cause. But 18 metres is a “crude” height limit that

“does not reflect the complexity of the challenge at hand.”—[Official Report, 20 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 24.]

Those are not my words, Mr Speaker, but the words of the Secretary of State last year, so what has changed?

[Christopher Pincher]

The 18-metre threshold is well established as a reasonable threshold for assessing risk. It has featured in statutory guidance since at least the 1970s. It is used by the National Fire Chiefs Council in its operational guidance; it is used by the Building Research Establishment; it was used by the independent expert panel; and it was used by Dame Judith Hackitt, who, I remind the hon. Lady, said only yesterday in The Sunday Telegraph that our proposals are “sensible”. I hope that, with this advantage, she will read what Dame Judith has said and perhaps reflect on the question that she has asked.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Frankly, I do not think that will be of any comfort to the leaseholders, who were told that they would not be asked to pay and are still living in buildings with flammable cladding and other fire risks. The Housing Minister says that he is taking a risk-based approach, but in the papers today it is alleged that a senior civil servant said in 2018 that the real reason for 18 metres was

“because we haven’t got time to come up with a better number.”

That was two years ago. Whatever the reason, why have the Government not used the time for a proper system of risk prioritisation or even responded to their own call for evidence, which closed a year ago this week?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady. We have looked very closely at the evidence, and have always been guided by safety. Safety is our paramount concern. As I say, the Building Research Establishment, the National Fire Chiefs Council, the independent expert panel and Dame Judith herself all say that 18 metres is an appropriate trigger properly to assess the highest risk. Such buildings are four times more likely to result in injury or fatality if they suffer a fire than lower-rise buildings. We have also introduced—as the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), has rightly identified—a mechanism to ensure that people living in lower-rise buildings are able to take advantage of finance to ensure that their homes are remediated, so that the value is properly reascribed to them and those people can get on with living their lives.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to reform planning rules in England.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

We are transforming the planning system through recently announced changes and ambitious long-term reports. Our White Paper, published in August last year, proposes a comprehensive reform of the old planning system. We have also recently published changes to the calculation of local housing need, to enable more homes to come forward where we need them most, and the new national model design code, which will help to drive up the quality of new development.

[Jason McCartney [V]]

Labour-run Kirklees Council’s local plan keeps seeing unsustainable housing developments being approved on greenfield sites, with shoddy build quality, flooding issues, and the allocated section 106 funding—supposedly for community infrastructure—just not coming through for those communities. What would the Minister say to my constituents, who are totally fed up with the shambolic planning situation under Kirklees Council?

[Christopher Pincher]

I would simply say this: if my hon. Friend’s constituents are totally fed up with their shambolic council, they should totally get rid of their shambolic council at the local elections. If they want a party and a Government who will ensure that we have the best planning system that the hon. Gentleman wants—one that will ensure we introduce a raft of measures to drive better design and better quality, to minimise flood risk and to provide the real infrastructure that local communities want—they should vote accordingly at the local elections, and I suggest that they vote Conservative.

[Mr Speaker]

Thank goodness we are not having a political broadcast, as we now move to the shadow Minister in Yorkshire, Naz Shah.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab) [V]]

Cumbria County Council has been hemmed in by the planning system over the application for the west Cumbria coalmine, which it will likely be forced to pass to avoid the threat of legal costs. This is despite the environmental damage and the small number of unsustainable jobs that the mine will create. Leaving aside fixing the flaws in a system that allows for the opening of a polluting coalmine in the year that the UK hosts COP26, will the Secretary of State now do the right thing on this issue of national—if not global—importance, block this application and work with his colleagues in the Cabinet to provide the long-term, secure and green jobs that west Cumbrians deserve instead?

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Lady and the House know full well that our green credentials are second to none. The hon. Lady also knows that I will not and cannot comment on an individual planning application. What I can say is that there is a high bar to be passed for a local decision to be assessed by the Secretary of State. We believe—the law believes—that it is always best to leave local communities to make decisions for themselves, and that is what we have done in this case.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to promote home ownership.

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

There is a shared desire in Parliament to ensure that absolutely everyone in our society lives somewhere decent, safe and secure. We are united in that commitment, and our thoughts naturally turn to the still unimaginable tragedy of Grenfell Tower. It should not have taken such a deadly fire, with such a terrible loss of life and suffering, for us to face up to the failures of building safety that have built up over decades under successive Governments. We are determined to do our duty by those whose lives were changed forever that night, right the wrongs of the past, and bring about the biggest improvement to building safety in a generation.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will know that cladding issues affect thousands of my constituents, as do the wider issues of fire safety and building safety. Will he make clear when the legislation will come forward on both fire safety and building safety? Will he also give us an update on the EWS1 forms? He told the House in November that there had been negotiations, through the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, with lenders, but many of my constituents say that they are still facing serious issues in acquiring those forms.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I shall certainly address the fire safety and building safety legislation as I advance through my remarks. With respect to the EWS1 forms, he will know that RICS has undertaken a consultation on the reform proposals, which ought to reduce some of the burden that some people face. That consultation closed on 26 January, and we await its results, but certainly as a result of the negotiations that we undertook with the industry and with RICS, some 450,000 people who might otherwise have been affected by the EWS1 forms are no longer obliged to complete them.

We know that, through no fault of their own, many leaseholders have found themselves in a most challenging, difficult and, indeed, agonising situation. Their situation is undoubtedly a complex one. Its roots extend over many years, and there are no easy answers.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that leaseholders will not be gagged by confidentiality clauses in any remediation contracts?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that question. He is absolutely right. Leaseholders will in no way be gagged by the standard contractual obligations between Government and applicants for Government moneys for remediation. We have written to anybody that has applied to the scheme to make it clear that if people wish to make comments about policy or about their own remediation situation, they should be allowed to do so. I say to my hon. Friend that should anybody from petty officialdom suggest that his or any other constituents do not speak out, they offer that petty official a good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon gesture in response.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Will the Minister give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I will make some progress; I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later on.

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and to outline the decisive action that we are undertaking to remove unsafe cladding, to strengthen the regulations and to support leaseholders. We established our building safety programme within days of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Its aim has always been to ensure that residents in high-rise blocks of flats are safe now and in the future. We have worked intensively and extensively to ensure that buildings with dangerous cladding are made safe as quickly as possible and, backed by £600 million of Government funding, real strides have been made in removing this unsafe aluminium composite material—ACM—cladding. Last year, despite the pressures of covid-19, more high rises with ACM cladding were made safe—either their works were begun or they were made safe—than in any previous year, which is nearly double the number in the previous year, 2019. Last month, we reached a major milestone. All high-rise social sector buildings have either had their unsafe ACM cladding replaced or seen the work get under way.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

My constituents in Ipswich are very pleased that they will be eligible for the waking watch relief fund, but it is only £30 million and many are concerned that it simply will not go far enough in addressing all buildings that need a new fire alarm system. What would the Minister say in response to their concerns?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend, who I know is a doughty campaigner for his constituents in Ipswich. I shall be addressing the issue of the waking watch and the support measures that we are putting in place as I move through my remarks.

I should also say that around 95% of all high-rise ACM buildings identified before the beginning of last year, across both the public and private sectors, are either fully remediated or have seen work commence on site. Indeed, all the buildings with unsafe ACM cladding in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) constituency have at least seen works start, if they are not already fully completed. These figures bear testament to the progress that we have made, the pressure that we have successfully exerted and the action that we have taken over the last three and a half years to get this job done. Where funding alone has not been enough to increase the pace of remediation, the Government have not hesitated to direct expert support to projects. Where building owners have still failed to take action despite that support, we have backed robust enforcement measures, spurring them to act without delay. Indeed, there have been 57 enforcement actions so far, 19 of which have been supported by the Government’s joint inspection team.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will give way very briefly, and then I must make some progress.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I am very grateful the Minister. He refers to building owners. Clearly, where there is a contractual obligation for building owners to remediate, that is absolutely right, but does he accept that lots of building owners have no contractual obligation—no legal obligation—to carry out that work? At Nova House in Slough, for example, the building owner simply gave it back to the local authority, which then issued service charges to the residents because there was no contractual obligation for anybody else to do the work. Perhaps we need to look at a wider community, rather than just building owners, to provide a funding solution for this problem.

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend puts his finger on the nub of the matter, which is the complexity of the situation with which we and those people who find themselves in this difficult situation have to grapple, and that is what the Government are doing.

The Government initially focused our efforts on ACM cladding of the type used on Grenfell Tower because it poses the most severe safety risk on high-rise residential buildings, but we recognise that other forms of unsafe cladding, although less dangerous than ACM, should never have been used. Although many building owners have taken action, some have not. Too many building owners and managing agents in the private sector have been slow in getting remediation work started, which is why we introduced the £1 billion building safety fund to remediate high-rise residential buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding as soon as possible and protect the leaseholders from burdensome costs.

We received 2,840 registrations for the fund, and have been able to make eligibility decisions on a significant number of them that were fully completed. It is disappointing that, despite our requirements having been made clear from the outset, many building owners have been unable to provide the basic information needed to advance works, including information such as the height of their building, the EWS systems on their walls and even sample lease agreements. We have been engaging with registrants and the industry bodies to understand the challenges they have in meeting the deadlines, and have set a new deadline of June based on what we now know about the registrants and their readiness to be able to deliver.

Building owners should be in no doubt: it is vital that dangerous cladding is removed as fast as possible, and the Government will not tolerate unnecessary delays. If they can collect the service charges, they can get the remediation on their buildings done. That applies just as much to small blocks of flats as it does to large ones, and we have given clear expert advice on a range of safety issues for buildings of all heights. Public funding has rightly been focused on remediating unsafe cladding on high-rise buildings of 18 metres-plus. That reflects the exceptional fire risk that certain cladding products pose at that height, as Dame Judith Hackitt observed in her report into fire safety. However, our guidance is unambiguous in stating that building safety is the responsibility of building owners, irrespective of whether their buildings are above or below 18 metres in height. The Government will continue to ensure that building owners—the ones who are ultimately responsible for making sure that these homes are safe—do the right thing.

We have targeted remediation funding where it is needed most: removing and replacing cladding on high-rise residential buildings. Interim safety measures such as waking watch have in many cases been used to ensure that the safety of residents in buildings with unsafe cladding is maintained. However, we are clear that waking watch regimes should only ever be used in the short term, because they are an entirely inadequate substitute for remediation. Some building owners have been using them for too long and have been passing on costs, which are unsustainable to leaseholders and residents, adding to the emotional distress and financial strain that they already suffer. We have been clear that that behaviour is unacceptable and cannot continue, which is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced in December a £30 million fund to pay for the costs of installing alarm systems in buildings with unsafe cladding, thereby reducing the need for a waking watch. The fund is available across England. It is now open and I encourage those eligible not to delay but to start their applications now, so that we can urgently distribute the payments.

It is wrong and unjust for leaseholders to have to shoulder unfair costs to fix historical safety defects that they did not cause. That is why the Government have already set aside £1.6 billion in funding for cladding remediation. The funding was put in place precisely to ensure that the most dangerous types of cladding were removed as quickly as possible without imposing crippling bills on leaseholders. However, public funding does not absolve industry from taking the responsibility for the failures that led to unsafe cladding in the first place by putting materials on buildings that should not have been there.

We have seen many developers and building owners rightly taking responsibility for correcting those defects. They have done so in more than half of the high-rise private sector buildings with unsafe cladding. We absolutely expect developers, investors and building owners who have the means to pay to do the right thing and cover the costs of remediation of other unsafe cladding themselves without passing on the cost to leaseholders. However, in many cases, building owners or their managing agents have simply passed on significant remediation costs to leaseholders without regard to the affordability of those measures. That is why we have been accelerating the work to develop a financial solution to protect leaseholders from such costs. There is no quick fix. If there were, we would have done it long ago. It is complex and it involves many parties: leaseholders with different leases, developers, warranty holders, the insurance industry, the mortgage lenders, and the owners themselves. We have to find a solution that is right and proper, that demands of owners and developers that they put right the problems and defects they caused, that is fair to leaseholders who should not have to carry unfair costs for problems that they did not cause or envisage, and that is fair to the taxpayer, who is already shouldering a significant burden in remediating many buildings.

I can assure hon. Members that we will be making a further announcement on this important work “very shortly”, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said at PMQs last week. We must recognise that Government funding alone cannot solve some of the deep-rooted issues surrounding building safety. As Dame Judith Hackitt concluded in her review, it is vital that we reform the entire building safety regime, and that means a fundamental change in the regulatory framework, in industry and in its culture.

We are committed to bringing forward the most significant building reform in almost 40 years, with two landmark pieces of legislation: the forthcoming Building Safety Bill that will create a more accountable system, and the Fire Safety Bill, currently before the House, which clarifies the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Taken together, these measures will improve the safety of residents in blocks of flats of all heights.

It may be worthwhile if, before I conclude, I commented on some of the amendments tabled to the Fire Safety Bill, particularly those by my hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Royston Smith), who is in his place. We fully understand what our hon. Friends are attempting to achieve in their amendments. We entirely understand that they want to remove or reduce the burden on leaseholders, and we wish to do the same. However, having looked at their amendments closely, it is clear to us that their scope, as currently drafted, would mean they would apply only to residents and leaseholders who have had a fire risk assessment undertaken, and not to residents who have suffered an incident or had works done for any other reason.  Nor are the amendments drafted in such a way as to allow them to be introduced without significant change to the Bill, both to the primary legislation and to the secondary legislation that must follow. As a result, the amendments would significantly impair the Bill’s progress through the House—they would delay it—and so, having looked carefully at my hon. Friends’ amendments, I encourage them to withdraw them.

The Building Safety Bill is the best mechanism to achieve my hon. Friends’ aims, which are to introduce a new and stronger regulatory regime for building safety in buildings of 18 metres or more in height, and for all construction products. The Bill will establish a new building safety regulator in the Health and Safety Executive, sitting at the heart of the reformed building programme. It will place clear legal duties on those who build and manage buildings in scope of the new regime to manage any risks that they create and, crucially, it will enable the regulator to enforce those laws.

In conclusion, high-rise buildings in this country should never have been fitted with dangerous or unsafe cladding. Successive Governments have failed to confront this issue, but it is this Government who are resolving it once and for all, making homes safer and protecting the residents from crippling costs, and at a pace that the severity of the situation demands. That is what we have already achieved: almost 95% of buildings identified at the beginning of last year with unsafe ACM cladding have now completed or are in the process of completing their remediation; we are advancing applications for the building safety fund; we are appointing specialist consultants to increase the pace of remediation; and we are introducing our additional landmark legislation. We will not let up. This work will be going on long after this Opposition day is over and long after the Leader of the Opposition has issued his tweet. We will not let even the pandemic, which is affecting our country and the world, slow us down. We will work to restore the inalienable right of everyone in this country to live somewhere that is decent, secure and, above all, safe—a place that they can rightly and proudly call home.

Local Plans: House Building

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Written Statements

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

The country needs more, better and greener homes in the right places.

This Government’s ambition is to deliver 300,000 homes per year by the mid-2020s and one million homes over this Parliament. Increasing the number of up-to-date local plans across England is central to achieving that goal. Local plans not only unlock land for development and ensure that the right number of new homes are being built in the right places, they also provide local communities with an opportunity to have their say on how their local areas will change over the coming years, and how the local environment can be protected and enhanced.

Some 91% of local planning authorities have now adopted a local plan, but we know that many of them are not being kept up to date. In March 2020, the Government set a clear deadline of December 2023 for all authorities to have up-to-date local plans in place.

It is critical that work should continue to advance local plans through to adoption by the end of 2023 to help ensure that the economy can rebound strongly from the covid-19 pandemic. Completing local plans will help to ensure that we can build back better and continue to deliver the homes that are needed across England.

To support this, we recently rolled forward temporary changes that we made over the summer to ensure the planning system continues to operate effectively during the pandemic. In addition, we announced changes to the methodology for assessing local housing need and published the 2020 housing delivery test measurement. This should help to provide greater certainty for authorities who are currently preparing local plans. The Government recently issued a formal direction in relation to South Oxfordshire District Council’s local plan to ensure it continued to adoption. Where necessary, we remain committed to using all powers available to Government in order to ensure that progress on plan making is maintained.

We also want to see neighbourhood plans continue to make progress with the support of local planning authorities, to give more communities a greater role in shaping the development and growth of their local areas.

The “Planning for the future” White Paper consultation closed in October. The White Paper sets out proposals to deliver a significantly simpler, faster and more predictable system. These proposals will need further development. Authorities should not use this period as a reason to delay plan-making activities. Authorities who have an up-to-date plan in place will be in the best possible position to adapt to the new plan-making system.

I will consider contacting those authorities where delays to plan-making have occurred to discuss the reasons why this has happened and actions to be undertaken.

This written ministerial statement only covers England.

[HCWS720]

Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to support leaseholders with high costs of interim fire safety measures pending permanent remediation.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

In beginning, may I wish you, Mr Speaker, all Members of the House and its staff, and, of course, my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) a very happy new year?

We have announced a new £30 million fund to help end the scandal of excessive waking watch costs. This will fund the installation of alarm systems in buildings with unsafe cladding, reducing or removing the dependence on costly interim measures such as a waking watch. We estimate that that will save residents a combined £3 million each month. Alongside that, we continue to prioritise the removal of unsafe cladding and have committed funds to help make homes safer, faster.

[Caroline Nokes [V]]

Sleep deprivation is recognised as a form of torture. People living in buildings with unsafe cladding are being tortured: physically, due to a lack of sleep, as they live in fear; financially, as they cannot sell their homes and are forced to pay for waking watches; and mentally, as they live in limbo. When does my right hon. Friend expect that torture to end?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend; she has campaigned long and hard for her constituents, and has raised this issue with me outside the Chamber as well as within it. We all appreciate the terrible challenges and suffering that many people around our country face on this issue. That is why we want the residents of blocks that are enduring a waking watch to get the benefits of our changes as soon as possible. We expect the £30 million fund to be open this month, with the aim of providing funding for the installation of alarms as quickly as possible. I think we all agree that the best way of making buildings safe is to speed up remediation, and that is what our policies intend.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

What plans the Government have to increase funding for local authorities in 2021.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

What steps his Department is taking to ensure that leaseholders are not held responsible for the costs of remediating dangerous cladding.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

We expect—and we are right to expect—developers, investors and building owners who have the means to pay to cover remediation costs themselves without passing on costs to leaseholders. In cases where this may not be possible and where there may be wider costs related to historical defects, we are keenly aware that leaseholders can face unforeseen costs. That is why we have introduced funding schemes, providing £1.6 billion to accelerate the pace of work and meet the costs of remediating high-risk and the most expensive defects. We are accelerating the work on a long-term solution, and are working to announce the findings of that as soon as possible.

[Sir Robert Neill [V]]

The Government have always been right to say that leaseholders should not bear the costs of a scandal for which they bore no responsibility. Will my right hon. Friend the Minister confirm that it will be wholly—[Inaudible]—for them to be expected to meet the costs by way of a loan scheme supported by the Government, as is reported in some of the press? That would not be consistent with the Government’s policy or the Government’s word, would it?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend; he was breaking up a little, but I think we got the gist of his question. We have always been clear that it is unacceptable for leaseholders to have to worry about fixing the costs of historical safety defects in their buildings that they did not cause. I fully understand the anxiety that they must all feel, particularly given the compounding challenges of the pandemic. That is why we are determined to remove the barriers to fixing those historical defects and to identify clear financial solutions to help protect those leaseholders while also, of course, protecting the taxpayer. We will update the House with further measures as soon as possible.

[Mr Speaker]

Let us head to the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, in Yorkshire, Clive Betts.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab) [V]]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—happy new year to you. I am sure it would be remiss of me if I did not say that your local constituency football team have made rather a good start to this year.

In saying happy new year to the Minister as well, I am sure he would want it to be a happy new year for all leaseholders, but he did not really answer the question from the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill). Even if a loan scheme were introduced to cover the costs of these defects, and even if it was a very low-interest scheme, that would still be a capital charge on properties—a capital charge that would be a considerable financial burden on leaseholders, would put many of them into negative equity, and would mean that their properties were unsaleable. Will the Minister accept that a loan scheme that puts an additional debt on leaseholders is not a fair way out of this problem and that he should instead look to the industry and to Government to cover the cost of putting these defects right?

[Christopher Pincher]

The Chair of the Select Committee is absolutely right—we should look to developers and to building owners to remedy the defects in their buildings. We have made available to owners who are not able to remedy those defects quickly and effectively £1.6 billion in order to remedy those defects. As I said in my earlier answer, we do not want and we do not expect hard-pressed leaseholders to bear unfair costs of defects for which they are not responsible. That is why we are working quickly to bring forward a long-term solution to ensure that costs are met, that defects are remedied, and that the position that leaseholders find themselves in is remedied too.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) [V]]

A belated happy new year to you, Mr Speaker.

Clauses 88 and 89 of the Government’s proposed Building Safety Bill will impose a charge on leaseholders, not developers and not the industry. Ministers now refer to “affordable” cost and a 30-year loan on top of current debts, including for waking watch, which we still have no remedy to. Adding insult to injury, Ministers are trying to gag recipients of the building safety fund from speaking to the media. That is just not going to happen. Have Ministers learned nothing about transparency from the Grenfell inquiry? Is it not about time that Ministers stepped in and made sure that the developer community shoulder their responsibility for this mess?

[Christopher Pincher]

The Government have stepped in: they have spent £1.6 billion of public money on remediating the most difficult and challenging buildings that require help and support. We have made a further £30 million available for waking watch. The Building Safety Bill to which the hon. Gentleman refers—one of the most significant pieces of legislation in this Parliament —will be brought forward to make sure that building defects such as we have seen are things of the past. In the meantime, we will work at pace to find solutions that resolve the question of building defects such that we do not see hard-pressed leaseholders enduring difficult, unforeseen and unfair taxes. If those leaseholders wish to step forward and make comments themselves, who am I to say that they should not? We live in a free country; let them speak.

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

What plans he has for the allocation of the recently announced waking watch relief fund.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

We expect that the £30 million fund will be open this month, as I said earlier, with the aim to start providing funding for the installation of alarms as quickly as possible. We will work with local authorities and fire and rescue services on the delivery of the fund, and we expect to publish a prospectus with further information on the additional eligibility criteria and evidence requirements as soon as possible.

[Sarah Olney [V]]

Residents of Royal Quarter, Kingston in my constituency have contacted me to say that their building has been assessed as having dangerous cladding, but they cannot apply to the waking watch fund, as their building is less than 18 metres tall. Leaving leaseholders to pick up the tab for remediating cladding means that many buildings will not be made safe in the near future. Will the Government commit to funding the remediation of cladding on all buildings as soon as possible, to ensure that they can be made safe, and then claim the money back from those responsible?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady for her question. In our response to this challenge, we have been guided by Dame Judith Hackitt, who advised that we should focus our attention specifically on buildings that are over 18 metres, and that is what we have done. We believe that the £30 million that we have made available will go a long way to helping with the waking watch challenges of many of those buildings. It still remains the responsibility of developers and owners to make safe the buildings that they own or are responsible for and to resolve the defects in them. That is the point I have made from this Dispatch Box before and which I make again today, and it is the point that the building safety Bill will help to remedy.

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to deliver more powers to local government bodies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

What recent discussions he has had with the Office for National Statistics on housing need and planning reforms.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

We regularly engage with the ONS on many issues, including the role of household projections within the local housing need standard method. The hon. Gentleman may also be interested to learn that, alongside the planning reform White Paper, Ministers and officials have hosted and attended a very large number of consultation events. We are always interested in working with stakeholders and experts on proposals, and we welcome the expertise that the ONS brings.

[Matt Western]

Like communities up and down the country, the people of Warwick and Leamington are extremely concerned about overdevelopment and, in villages such as Bishop’s Tachbrook, urban sprawl. When we look at the numbers from the district plan, we see 932 homes supposed to be built per year and the Government’s figure from their “malgorithm” is 910 homes per year, whereas the ONS estimates 623 properties a year and, likewise, Lichfields 627. There seems to be a huge disparity between the figures from the ONS and Lichfields versus those of the Government. Will the Minister agree to meet me to discuss and explain the reasons for that because, on the face of it, the figures do not stack up?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am always happy, of course, to meet the hon. Gentleman, although he may be misinformed in so far as I think the local housing need for his own constituency and local authority is 627 a year, not the 910 that was projected in the Lichfields projections in the middle of last year. However, I am always very happy to meet him, and I am sure at that time he will be very keen also to put on record his great pleasure in receiving £10 million in future high streets funding for Leamington, because his Boxing day tweet, in which he seemed to rubbish this spending, did smack a little of “Bah, humbug!” It seems that Ebenezer Scrooge does not live simply in the mind of Charles Dickens; he is alive and well, and living somewhere in Warwick.

[Mr Speaker]

I will not mention Chorley, but just keep it in mind.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady for her question. I know that she campaigns hard for her constituents on this issue. On 21 January—in a little under two weeks’ time—we will be able to release the latest figures on the remediation of aluminium composite material cladding. We believe that, by that time, we should show that around 95% of the buildings identified at the start of last year—having such safety defects—will have had their work either completed or it will be under way. We are absolutely committed to resolving this issue for leaseholders. That is why we are accelerating the work to find a package that will ensure that they are not left disadvantaged.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con) [V]]

Despite the best efforts of local authority inclusion officers, there continues to be a crisis in the education of Traveller children, with around a third of Traveller children in my area not getting a proper education. The planning system has to bear some responsibility for that. As the Department reviews this policy, will it look at a more integrated approach where children generally go to school on a regular basis and get a better education? Will that be factored in to future planning policy as the Department reviews this area?

Planning for the Future

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I shall do my utmost to respond to this wide-ranging debate in nine minutes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on securing this debate. For her, Christmas has come early, as it has for other right hon. and hon. Members around the Chamber who have been able to express themselves eloquently and passionately on a matter that should concern us all. I will try to address all the points raised by colleagues.

I shall begin by trying to clear up a misunderstanding that has been abroad in this debate and has also been around for some time, which is about what happens to the existing planning system. What we are trying to do through the proposals that we have tabled is to create a quicker, more transparent planning system. When applications that vary from the local plan are made, however, they will still need to be made through the present planning application process. In conservation and protected areas, all applications will require a bespoke approach through the present planning system, so it does not go away. We simply want a quicker and faster process that we can also apply. I hope that clears up that particular matter.

Two consultations were launched on 6 August. The first, on the local housing need calculation, closed on 1 October, and the second, on the broader, more forward-looking reforms in our White Paper, closed on 29 October. We received 2,500 responses to the local housing need calculation and some 44,000 to the White Paper. The local housing need calculation was all about making sure that we address the issue of affordability, which we know is a challenge in many communities around our country where housing is simply too expensive for many people to achieve. We all recognise that we need to do something about that.

We also need to make sure that we regenerate our communities and level up, and ensure the best use of brownfield. Those are considerations in our local housing need calculation. We also, to address the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and others, need to be very clear about the challenge of building tall buildings in places that do not have them and do not want them because they are simply not appropriate.

It is not for me to try to play Santa Claus in this debate. My ministerial portfolio does not include responsibility for the festive season, but I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be able to say something soon about local housing need. This debate is focused particularly on the White Paper on planning reform. I am sure all of us will recognise that with so many responses to the consultation, it will take us a while to work through them. We want to do that because it is a genuine consultation, as I have said to colleagues across the Chamber on numerous occasions.

The consultation was not the end of the process of working through our reform proposals; it is the beginning. Through the first several months of next year, we will need to kick off workstreams on specific themes that develop out of the consultation, and to refine our proposals such that they are good and tight for the legislation that must and will come. That will enable us to table a Bill to deliver quickly the planning reforms we want, begin the systemic and cultural change necessary in our planning system, and ensure that the proposals are embedded, with public consent, as quickly as possible.

When I became the Minister with responsibility for housing and planning, I learned how long it took to implement the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which we rely on for the majority of our planning decisions. I assumed that by 1948 everything was working effectively and quickly and everybody knew what to do. In fact, that particular Act was not fully enforced until the early 1960s. The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 took 14 or 15 years to fully roll out. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 and the Localism Act 2011 have still not been fully implemented. My point is that we need to approach this with care, think through our proposals with as much consensus as possible, and ready all the stakeholders in the planning process so that we can effect that cultural and systemic shift. That is our approach and it will remain as such over the coming weeks and months.

We all agree that we must reform our planning system. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) was kind in her remarks: she said that the Government have done very well in building new homes for people over several years. Our target is to build 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of this decade. That is a manifesto commitment that we will deliver.

The fact is that our present local planning system accounts for only 178,000 new homes a year, so the system must improve. Organisations as disparate as Crisis and KPMG all say that we need to build more than 250,000 homes a year if we are going to meet our needs. Therefore, a system that takes seven years to adopt a local plan, and which can take a further five years to develop large-scale housing and the infrastructure that supports it, is simply not going to build the homes we need.

[Rachael Maskell]

York has not had a local plan for over 50 years, so we have other difficulties. Does the Minister recognise that it is not just about quantum? Tenure of housing is also important and needs to match the need that is out there.

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. It is for local councils and local authorities to determine what sorts of housing they need in their local communities. The whole point of our proposal is to give local authorities and communities much more power to design their communities strategically and holistically, so that they can say where they want homes to be built; the types of homes they want them to be; what they are going to look like; what sort of infrastructure is going to support them; and what the building requirement controls will be.

We want to make sure that we build more affordable housing. Members will know that our affordable homes programme injects £12.2 billion of funds into affordable housing, which is the biggest cash injection in 50 years. More than 50% of the properties that will be built under that programme in the next five years will be for affordable or social rent. Some 32,000 of them will be for social rent—double the number built under the previous programme and substantially more than the number of council houses built in Wales last year. Only 12 council houses were built in Labour-run Wales in 2019. Thanks to its approach to council housing, the Labour party cannot even house a Welsh rugby team in Wales, so we will take no lectures from the Opposition about our approach to affordable housing.

In the short time I have left, let me say a word about the environment, because it is important. Through the Environment Bill, we want to make sure that we offer a net gain in biodiversity. That will form the basis of our approach to housing proposals, as adumbrated in our White Paper, including the future homes standard, which will drive a 75% improvement in carbon emissions from our new housing stock. The green homes grant will invest in and retrofit about 600,000 homes around our country, ensuring that they are more fuel efficient and effective in delivering for their residents.

We are determined to make our proposals work and to ensure that all our colleagues around the House of Commons, of whatever stripe, as well as other stakeholders, understand and support them, whether they be planning professionals, local councillors, local communities with neighbourhood plans—which I am keen to build into our process—or developers, big or small. We are determined to make sure that these plans have the wholehearted support of all those involved in them, because only through that mechanism can we make them work.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Ms Olney, you have one minute to respond.

Dark Skies

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) on securing this debate and on making such eloquent and passionate arguments, as he ever does, in support of dark skies. I am also impressed by his ability to weave into his speech historical references such as “The Lion in Winter”, about King Henry II and his powerful reign. I suspect that although we might see dark skies again, we shall never see the like of Henry II again. I congratulate Chris Cook, my hon. Friend’s researcher, on all the efforts that he has undertaken on my hon. Friend’s behalf.

I am also grateful to the other hon. and right hon. Members who have taken the time and, so to speak, seen the light in coming to this debate to speak on behalf of their constituents, and to the all-party group for the important work it is doing to preserve our dark skies. We share a common goal in wanting to limit the effect of light pollution from artificial light on our dark landscape. I therefore welcome the initiative taken by my hon. Friend and his noble Friend Lord Rees, the Astronomer Royal, in working to reconnect people with the wonder of the dark skies, as well as with a wide range of other benefits to society and the environment that flow from his endeavours.

Of course, when used wisely, artificial light can extend opportunities for sport and recreation, and it can enhance security and safety in and around our homes and on our roads. However, as Members have rightly pointed out, when it is used unwisely, artificial light can be a real nuisance, becoming pollution that undermines our enjoyment of the countryside and especially of our night skies. My hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs has rightly pointed out that we cannot overlook how much energy is wasted by unnecessary lighting, as we work together on achieving our climate change net zero goals. That point was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), and I hope that the highways authorities around our country will take note.

I am aware of the effect that poorly located artificial light can have, not just on residents but on wildlife, not least in its capacity to interrupt their nocturnal habits. Any of us who has tried to get a good night’s sleep with a bright street light shining through their bedroom window will understand what I am talking about. In fact, if I may deviate slightly, one of my proudest achievements in my 10 years as the Member of Parliament for Tamworth is not having tried to fix the NHS or improve the schools or the road system of my town; it has been to get a street lamp moved so that a little old lady living next to the Belgrave Lakes could get a decent night’s sleep. She knows what I am talking about, and I think that we in this House also know what I am talking about. The same applies to ecosystems and protected species. There is increasing evidence that lighting can also have far-reaching effects on biodiversity and nature. The Government recognise these issues and are taking action.

I know that my hon. Friend appreciates, as we all do, that there are complexities surrounding the policy and legislation that govern artificial light. Responsibility for its monitoring and regulation crosses several Departments and also falls to local authorities. Our intention has been to utilise the planning system to get the lighting right from the outset. Local planning authorities can require applicants to submit a lighting strategy with their planning application, and they can consider on a case-by-case basis what conditions are appropriate.

I have no doubt that my hon. Friend’s all-party group will make an important and valuable contribution to the current work on our planning reforms, and I am grateful to the group for so ably and clearly setting out its 10 dark sky policies for Government. I believe that planning control can and should be a key determinant in this, with support from organisations such as the all-party group. That is why we have taken action to ensure that light pollution is addressed through the planning system.

[Tim Farron]

The Minister is making a good case, and it is important that we hear what the Government intend to do when it comes to working with the planning guidance. Does he agree that planning authorities—particularly cash-strapped national parks—will always worry about the potential of losing an appeal, at great cost to them and the local community, and that they will need real confidence and support from the Government to allow them to say a flat no to developers who seek to bring about developments that threaten our dark skies?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He will know that five of our parks have committed to conserving dark skies. We said in the “Planning for the future” White Paper that we would undertake a comprehensive review of the skills and resources that local planning authorities require to do the work. The consideration of the White Paper is under way, as he will know, and I will say a little more about that in a moment. I am sure such considerations will be given very careful thought as we work through the review process.

The national planning policy framework, which was updated last year and now includes the paragraph to which my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs referred, makes it clear that planning policies and decisions should limit the effect of light pollution on local amenity, dark landscapes and nature conservation, including where there may be effects on wildlife and ecosystems. It is supported by guidance; it emphasises the importance of getting the right light in the right place at the right time; and it helps local planners and developers to design in ways of avoiding glare and intrusion.

My department has worked closely with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), to revise and reinforce the planning practice guidance on light pollution that we published last year. That guidance encourages local planning authorities to engage with all relevant bodies and interested parties, whether statutory or not, who may feel that they are affected by a particular development proposal. It should not just be a case of rounding up the usual suspects, so to speak.

Our guidance emphasises the importance of getting it right from the outset, because lighting schemes can be costly and difficult to change. Fitting things is expensive, but retrofitting them is even more expensive. That approach will help to ensure that lighting design is carefully considered at the outset, to avoid harsh glare and obtrusive effects and to help to safeguard our environment. Our policy remains that organisations that wish to be more engaged in the planning process should liaise directly with local planning authorities on the types of planning application on which they want to comment.

Conversely, we encourage local planning authorities to produce and publish locally specific lists of non-statutory consultees, thereby helping applicants to refine their proposals in a way that can balance the needs of the built environment with wider considerations. I suspect that there will be a role for Members of Parliament, including members of the APPG, in that regard. It is important to remember that being a statutory consultee does not give any organisation a right of veto over a planning proposal or decision. This ultimately rests with the local planning authority as the decision maker in the first instance. As we move to our new upfront planning system that places much greater emphasis on holistic and strategic design, I suspect that there will be opportunities for such stakeholders to have and to play an important role.

One of the key proposals in our “Planning for the future” White Paper is bringing forward a quicker and simpler framework for assessing environmental effects—one that does not compromise environmental standards and, indeed, encourages opportunities for environmental enhancements to be identified and pursued early in the development process. We have received a significant number of responses in consulting on our proposals, and we will respond in due course once we have processed them all. We have had over 44,000 consultation responses, so I am sure that the House, and particularly the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs, will understand if it takes us a little time to get through them all.

I should briefly describe some of the other approaches being taken to tackle light pollution, given its potential significant effect not just on rural areas but on our towns and cities too. Street lighting is an important issue and it needs to be considered carefully when balancing the competing priorities of maintaining road safety and avoiding light pollution. The Department for Transport is therefore encouraging all local authorities to replace their street lighting, wherever feasible, with more modern technology such as LED lighting units, as such alternatives can greatly reduce the amount of glare emitted. I am aware that action is being taken by Highways England on replacing poorly performing lighting—I have seen quite a lot of that as I drive up and down the M40—and that these initiatives are supported by those with interest in preserving our dark skies, such as the CPRE and the British Astronomical Society.

We also recognise that wildlife species can have heightened sensitivity to light, being affected by even very low levels in a number of different ways. This is especially important where habitats support nocturnal animals, insects and protected species such as bats. My colleagues at DEFRA have recently published and contributed to assessments of the effect of artificial light on insects, and wider biodiversity work, to ensure that the Government continue to address the key drivers of biodiversity loss. Indeed, an objective of the Environment Bill, which is before the House, is a biodiversity net gain.

I am all too aware that common causes of complaints to local authorities include domestic shop or office exterior security lights, illuminated advertising and floodlighting, so these installations may require particular attention. Similarly, insensitively positioned decorative lighting, particularly in rural areas, can be a cause for concern. It is therefore essential that such situations are prevented from occurring right from the outset, as pursuing remedies through the statutory nuisance regime or other legal avenues can add further stress to individuals and incur heavy costs. Planning committees should look closely at that when considering the strategic design of their town centres and their built environment.

On behalf of the Government, I should like to add my congratulations to those received by both the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors on being named international dark sky reserves just last week.

In conclusion, I again thank and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs on all his work and diligence in this area, and I also congratulate fellow Members across the House on speaking with such passion and on the strong arguments that they advanced in support of this new all-party group’s objectives. I look forward to working with the group and with Members of all stripes, from all parts of the House, on this important issue as we advance planning proposals.

Question put and agreed to.

North Staffordshire Potteries Towns: Levelling Up

Christopher Pincher Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. It is a great pleasure to respond to the eloquent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) and by those colleagues from around Staffordshire. It is a particular pleasure to supplant my hon, Friend the Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government, who was gazetted to respond to the debate. Because he was not able to be here, it gives me the rare opportunity of a journey home on a Tuesday afternoon and to be among friends and colleagues who are among some of the best Members of Parliament in our House of Commons. They represent the most dynamic, most determined and most go-ahead county in the country. I should, of course, declare an interest: I am a Member of Parliament for Staffordshire.

It was pleasing to hear the fine speeches of my colleagues and of the commitment of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South to securing the best possible future for Stoke-on-Trent and north Staffordshire. I assure him it is entirely the ambition of the Government to achieve his ends. Levelling up is central to our agenda. That is why we have set out a clear commitment to unlocking economic prosperity across all areas of our country. Levelling up is about providing the momentum to address the sorts of long-standing regional inequalities that we have heard mentioned by colleagues around the Chamber and to provide the means to pursue life chances that have been previously out of touch for so many.

Last week, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a new £4 billion levelling-up fund that has been discussed today. That will supersede the existing local growth fund streams with something like £600 million being available next year across England. I will say a word or two about that in a moment.

To help people to prepare for the introduction of the UK Shared Prosperity fund—a point raised by Members across the Chamber and, by the way, we are a big-hearted county and are pleased to welcome interlopers from West Yorkshire such as the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and to hear their points about northern counties—we will next year provide £220 million to support communities across the UK to pilot programmes and new approaches. The UK-wide investment framework will be announced in 2021 and that will confirm the multi-year funding profiles in the next spending review. These deliverables are hugely important in Stoke-on-Trent and north Staffordshire to address the barriers to growth and to harness the energy and enthusiasm that local leaders and Members of Parliament have to unlock the ambitious opportunities for the local area and ensure a strong economic recovery from covid-19.

I am pleased that two towns in north Staffordshire were invited to submit proposals for town deals as part of our £3.6 billion towns fund. It is key to our levelling-up agenda and those landmark deals will see millions invested in projects across the country. Kidsgrove submitted its town investment plan in October; it is currently being assessed by officials. Newcastle-under-Lyme is due to submit its town investment plan in January next year. If that is successful, those areas will have the opportunity to invest in their local economies at this critical time. I wish all power to their elbow in those endeavours.



I am particularly pleased that the town deal boards in Kidsgrove and Newcastle-under-Lyme are working closely with members of their local community, alongside businesses, investors and local government, to achieve that end. They will bring forward a competitive round of the Towns fund in due course, and will also welcome further proposals from all local authorities to transform our towns and high streets.

On the issue of high streets, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), the need for regeneration is particularly evident. High streets in our country have seen considerable declines in the last decade, and have certainly been affected by covid-19. Our Future High Streets fund is designed to revitalise and reimagine the important roles these places have. We want to help high streets to adapt and evolve, and also to remain vibrant and safe places at the heart of our local communities. We hope to make announcements of the successful submissions before the end of the year, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme will be eagerly awaiting that announcement.

A number of hon. and right hon. Members raised the issue of the levelling-up fund, which was announced at the spending review by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) mentioned the fund with all his usual enthusiasm and determination, but I caution him for being occasionally just a little too modest. To describe investment in Stoke-on-Trent as a risk is overly modest. We regard investment in Stoke-on-Trent as an opportunity—an opportunity to be harnessed. I hope that, through the levelling-up fund and the six hundred millions that will be made available through it, there will be opportunities to be had for cities such as Stoke-on-Trent.

This is a cross-departmental fund that will invest in local infrastructure. It will have a visible effect on people and their communities, and will support local recovery in high-value projects such as bypasses, road schemes and railway station upgrades—the sorts of things mentioned by a number of colleagues—as well as upgrades to town centres, community infrastructure and also local arts and culture. The fund will be open to all local areas in England and will prioritise bids to drive growth and regeneration in places that need it: the sorts of places that have seen particular challenges, and areas that have received less Government investment in recent and past years. I hope that my colleagues around north Staffordshire will be pricking up their ears at those points.

The £100 million brownfield regeneration fund that we are making available was also mentioned. We have already invested £400 million in mayoral combined authorities, which will unlock something like 26,000 new homes. I rather hope that the £100 million that we are making available—which will be spread in places other than mayoral combined authorities—will also have the same salutary effect. I certainly heard what my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North and others said about the 20 sites and 80 acres of available land in Stoke-on-Trent North. I will be keeping my eye on Stoke and north Staffordshire to that end.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) made the important point about business certainty. That is on the mind of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and all Ministers, as we look to emerge from the pandemic crisis. They will want to look carefully to give businesses as much notice as possible of changes to the tiering system, but they will of course also want to look at the most up-to-date evidence available on which to base their decisions. They have to balance the data with the lead time, to give businesses the right sort of notice. I am sure that they will have both considerations on their minds.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands also encouraged me to lobby the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to speak favourably of the funding formula and the way value for money is considered. I say to her, and to hon. Members around the Chamber, that not all good ideas start in the Treasury, but good ideas can end there if the Treasury do not like them. However, to the best of my ability, I will always endeavour to represent to the Chancellor my local interest and that of my colleagues and friends in Staffordshire, in order to make sure the right and best decisions are made in the interests of our constituents, as well as the interests of all hon. Members’ constituents around the country.

It is probably worth me saying a word about the business support we have provided to Stoke-on-Trent during the pandemic. Something like £13.9 million has gone to support businesses that closed between 5 November and 2 December, on top of the £120 billion of funding that has been made available to businesses. I probably do not have enough time to go through this topic in detail, but let me say that the Government are committed to doing whatever it takes to support businesses big and small around our country to get through and recover from this pandemic. The sooner a business can get back to work, the sooner people can get back to their normal lives, and the sooner we can recover from this pandemic and get our economy back on the road.

I was particularly struck by what all colleagues said about the ceramic valley. I am aware of the fantastic progress being made in the ceramic valley enterprise zone. The successful regeneration of long-abandoned sites such as Tunstall Arrow, Highgate and Ravensdale is a great success story and has created something like 900 new jobs. I know that local councils, the local enterprise partnership and Members of Parliament have been working in harmony to maximise the potential of that enterprise zone, and I certainly hope to play my part in encouraging that still further. I am also conscious that, as this century develops, we want to make sure that places such as Staffordshire and Stoke are tech hubs. Stoke might not be in a valley, but it is certainly a city that can be on a hill, as an exemplar of what can be done with technological advancement. We started 100 years ago as anthracite Staffordshire; now we are becoming silicon, with silicon Stoke at the heart of that great advance, and the Government will continue to support those advances to the best of their energies and endeavours.

My hon. Friends also mentioned transport. The Department for Transport is responsible for the Transforming Cities fund: a crucial £29 million’s worth of investment, which can do so much to change the way in which the transport infrastructure of Stoke and, indeed, north Staffordshire is designed. I believe that an announcement on that is imminent. It would be entirely wrong of me to speak for my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), but I am sure he will be looking closely and favourably at that bid, and I trust that my hon. Friends and colleagues from Staffordshire will hear more about it soon.

I should also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South on his doughty campaign in favour of Fenton. I hear entirely what he says about its importance, and I will carry his remarks to my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Transport. It may be that Fenton was forgotten by Arnold Bennett, but my hon. Friend has certainly not forgotten it, and nor have I.

In conclusion, British prosperity will be sustained by those who capture and capitalise on those opportunities to level up their communities, deliver enduring change, and develop sustainability. The pottery towns of Stoke-on-Trent and north Staffordshire are places where such people exist, and we must capitalise on their resources and revitalise their area.