Second Homes and Holiday Lets: Rural Communities

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Tim Farron]

The hon. Lady makes a great point and I am grateful for her intervention. It is not just a rural issue, although it may predominantly be rural. York is clearly a good example of somewhere that suffers in a different way. I will come to the issue of holiday lets and some of the answers in a moment. It will rob communities of their very life if we do not intervene. I am not someone who is anti-market—I am anti-broken market, and this is a broken market. This is our opportunity to do something about it.

Excessive second home ownership is a colossal problem in our communities. The purpose of this debate is to shake the Government out of their demonstrable and inexcusable inaction and to take the action required to save our communities.

The crisis has become a catastrophe, and it is not just about second homes. Holiday lets are an important part of our tourism economy. In the Lake district, we argue and believe that we are the most visited part of Britain outside London. Our tourism economy is worth more than £3 billion a year and employs 60,000 people—comfortably Cumbria’s biggest employer. It is a vibrant industry and, by its very nature, a joyful one; I am proud to be a voice for Cumbria tourism in this place. Those 60,000 people working in hospitality and tourism need to live somewhere. Some 80% of the entire working-age population of the Lake district already works in hospitality and tourism. We need to increase the number of working-age people who can afford to live and raise a family in our communities, yet the absolute opposite is happening at a rate of knots.

During the pandemic, in South Lakeland alone—just one district that makes up part of the Lake district—there was a 32% rise in one year in the number of holiday lets. I assure the Minister that those were not new builds; they were not magicked out of thin air. Those new holiday lets emerged in 2021 following the lifting of the covid eviction ban. That is not to blame the ban; it was a good idea, and it had to come to an end at some point. My point is that that rise was over a tiny period of time: less than 12 months, in reality. The fact is that this time last year those new holiday lets were someone’s home.

In Sedbergh, Kirkby Lonsdale, Kendal, Windermere, Staveley, Ambleside, Coniston, Grasmere, Grange and throughout Cumbria, I have met people who have been evicted from their homes under a section 21 eviction order—which, incidentally, this Government promised to ban in their last manifesto.

Among the hundreds evicted, I think of the couple with two small children in Ambleside, who struggled to pay £800 a month for their flat above a shop in town; they were evicted last spring only to find the home they had lived in for years on Airbnb for £1,200 a week. I think of the mum near Grange, whose teenage son had lived in their rented home his whole life; they were evicted only to see their property on Airbnb a few days later for over £1,000 a week. I think of the tradesman from Sedbergh, who had served the community for 15 years; a few days after he was evicted, his former home was also on Airbnb for £1,000 a week. There are hundreds more individuals and families in the same situation right across rural Cumbria.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Back in 2018, I did some work with Gordon Marsden, the then MP for Blackpool South, looking at Airbnb and the issues of the sharing economy for the all-party parliamentary group for hospitality and tourism. We came up with a recommendation for a statutory registrations scheme for all accommodation providers. Is that something the hon. Gentleman has considered?

[Tim Farron]

I have, and I will come to some suggestions in a moment, including on how we might tackle the issue—to put it neutrally—of Airbnb. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and the need for such a scheme is huge. Undoubtedly, the ease with which people can turn a home into a holiday let is part of the problem. The consequences are phenomenal. The people I am speaking about are real human beings; I could pick dozens and dozens more to talk about. What it means for them is that they have to leave the area. This is no less than a Lakeland clearance: whole communities ejected from the places where they were raised, where they had chosen to raise their families, or where they had set down roots to live, work and contribute to our economy.

Will the Minister accept that this is both morally abhorrent and economically stupid? We have businesses in Cumbria that, having survived covid so far, are now reducing their opening hours or closing all together because they cannot find staff anymore. We have people isolated and vulnerable because they cannot find care staff. There are friends of mine in that situation, in part because the local workforce has been effectively cleared out and expelled. In each case I mentioned earlier—in Sedbergh, Ambleside and Grange—the people could not find anywhere else to live in those communities or in the wider community. They have had to uproot and move away all together. How is the economy of Britain’s second biggest tourism destination expected to deliver for Britain’s wider economy without anybody to staff it?

What about the children who have to move away, and are forced to move school, and leave behind friends and support networks? What about those left behind in our dwindling communities, whose schools are now threatened with closure? I have spoken to MPs, not just those who are here and for whose presence I am massively grateful, but from rural communities right across this House. Most of those, particularly in England and Wales, are from the Conservative party. There is a kind of private agreement that this is a catastrophe. They see it in their own constituencies: the collapse of affordable, available housing for local communities is killing towns and villages in Cornwall, Northumberland, Shropshire, Devon, Somerset, North Yorkshire, the highlands of Scotland and rural Wales, as well as in my home of Cumbria.

Our rural communities want two things from the Minister today: first, a sign that he understands that this catastrophe is happening; and secondly, a commitment not to wait for the planning Bill, but to act radically and to act right now.

Building Safety Bill

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab) [V]]

The Bill is both welcome in that we have waited for it for so long and totally unwelcome in that we all know it will not solve so many of the problems. On behalf of so many of my constituents who have been locked in an absolute nightmare, I am incandescent with rage about the Government’s utter hopelessness, and I am not the only one.

MPs across the House will have had the same conversations and same site visits. A couple of years ago, for me it was Berkeley Homes and its hugely expensive properties in the centre of Cambridge. They were lovely looking properties but catastrophically poorly constructed—so much so that they literally had to be taken apart. As that was done, it revealed the slapdash built on the cavalier. There were joists hanging in the air not connected to anything, pipes not connected, and waste water expected to run uphill. When exasperated purchasers looked to those who had made a fortune out of them to offer some help, they were met with a wall of denial and obfuscation—the only reliably sound wall. What about the National House Building Council and other organisations supposedly there to provide redress? They were partners in crime. Unbelievable, one might have thought. Where was the local building control? That had been outsourced, too. Rip-off Tory Britain, complete with massive bungs from those developers.

We used to think that other countries had corrupt systems. I am afraid that is what we have here—a corrupt, broken system. The question is: do the measures in the Bill give any hope for the future? The new homes ombudsman has been awaited for almost as long as I have been in this place—goodness knows how many times it has been promised—and if it is finally going to happen, that is good, but there is nothing here to address past failures.

I named one developer in Cambridge, but frankly I could name most of them. Barratt, Countryside, Bovis—it is a lost list of shame. Twice in the past few weeks I have been in Trumpington with distraught residents looking at sloppy work and areas left unfinished. The skate park got the developer its planning permission, but now the kids have to scramble over fences and fight through weedy undergrowth and past dead trees—they were never watered—to get to it. No one ever takes responsibility because everything is subcontracted. How convenient. The only problem is that the unfortunate residents cannot subcontract living there. Maybe we should arrange a house swap with some of those who have made such rich pickings.

There is so much more to be said, but let me make one observation raised by the Local Government Association on the provision for duty holders to choose their building control regulator. As the LGA says:

“By requiring regulators to remain in competition with ‘approved inspectors’ for the majority of buildings, the Bill leaves in place one of the root causes of the current crisis.”

Absolutely it does that. It beggars belief that that should be allowed to continue. The LGA goes on:

“Compliance with regulation cannot be a commodity and local authority building control should not be left to tackle non-compliance in buildings over 18m while simultaneously having to compete with private businesses for work in out of scope buildings, often owned by the same developers.”

Let us think about compliance with regulations as a commodity—it really is absurd. I want independence. It really is not complicated. The fact that the Conservative party cannot grasp that simple fact goes to the heart of why it is totally unfit to be in charge.

Planning

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, Mrs Cummins, to serve with you in the chair. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on securing this debate. I agree with his opening comments on the broken housing system and the stranglehold of the volume house buildings.

It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby). It was east Devon where Labour secured a memorable by-election win last week. I congratulate councillor Jake Bonetta and the Labour team. It is, perhaps, wins such as these that are sending a shudder through the Government at the moment. Perhaps this is why the Prime Minister today ignored the unveiling of the hugely important national food strategy, in favour of trying to reassure Conservative MPs in the south that planning changes are not the political dynamite they fear. However, he has a job on, because if the mantra is “build, build, build”, and one characterises those who care about our countryside as newt counters, then one can hardly be surprised when they turn away to people who take a more considered view. It is not only in Devon: many newspaper columns have been written about the battle going on in Horsham, where the legendary Knepp estate fears that Horsham District Council will approve thousands of homes, while the council says that central Government have put it in this position.

We all agree that there is a problem with the current system, but many of us are deeply suspicious of the suggestions put forward in the planning White Paper last year, not least when one sees the level of donations made by developers to the Conservative party. According to The Times, the developer behind the plan at Knepp, Thakeham, has donated more than £600,000 to the Conservatives since 2017. “Build, build, build”—it is not hard to see why. Be in no doubt that I want people housed, I want affordable homes, I want council homes and I want homes of high environmental quality, none of which has been achieved by this Government.

There is much more to be said about planning and housing than can be said in three minutes, but I will highlight one glaring contradiction in Government policy that remains unresolved. I have challenged Ministers on this repeatedly and will try again today. In the Government’s much-delayed but initially worthy Environment Act 2020, there are good proposals to secure biodiversity net gain. They may not be as ambitious as some of us would like, and we have raised some practical concerns, but the principle is right and we support it. However, no one on the Government side has been able to explain how to get biodiversity net gain in a zonal planning system. When challenged, they evade the question. I do not blame them, because there is no obvious answer.

That is not me saying that; it is the planning experts. I refer to an excellent piece in The Planner last summer by Huw Morris, who asked how individual schemes will be environmentally assessed to provide the mitigation. They will not, will they, Minister? That is one reason why Conservative MPs are right to be worried. People in England want homes, and homes for their children, but they want our precious land protected too. I just say: beware the Prime Minister’s bulldozer—it is out of control and it is coming for some green space near you.

Planning Decisions: Local Involvement

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I hope that my hon. Friend’s council does listen, and I also hope, for that matter, that the Greater Manchester Mayor listens. We have given them £75 million of public funds to invest in brownfield remediation. Let him use it effectively for his constituents in Greater Manchester.

Individual planning applications can take up to five years to determine, in addition to plans potentially taking up to seven years. The system is not fast enough and it is not consistent, nor is it clear or engaging enough. We are committed to improving the system, because our reforms will protect our valuable and beautiful green spaces, with vital protections for the green belt.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The Government’s Environment Bill rightly protects environmental net gain. How can that possibly work within a zonal planning system?

[Christopher Pincher]

We are determined to bake in biodiversity net gain of 10%. We are determined to look at recovery networks and also to ensure that we introduce a future homes standard. We will make sure that, baked into these plans and beyond, the environment comes first and foremost. I shall say a few more words about that in a moment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I very much enjoyed visiting East Devon during the general election campaign, and I look forward to seeing Exmouth’s application in due course. As I said then, Exmouth is exactly the sort of town that we want to benefit from the town regeneration funds that we have made available. I am pleased to tell my hon. Friend that we are driving forward our plans to boost town centre regeneration in every corner of the country. The levelling-up fund and the UK shared prosperity fund will build on the work of the future high streets fund and the towns fund, and the prospectuses for those will be published very soon. I hope East Devon District Council will work with him to grasp this opportunity and put in good proposals that we can consider carefully.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab) [V]]

Census 2021 is due in just a few weeks’ time, at a time when cities such as Cambridge would normally be packed with students, researchers and visitors. In the middle of a pandemic, does the Secretary of State really think we will get accurate figures? Remember that these figures are going to be used for the next 10 years.

[Luke Hall]

Of course, we are working closely with the Cabinet Office on the delivery of the elections and the census. We have provided extra funds to make sure they can be delivered safely, and we have published guidance alongside that as well. We have also committed, for the coming year, £11 billion directly to councils since the start of the pandemic, of which Cambridge City Council has so far received more than £5.4 million. On top of that, it will have the additional funding to help it deliver elections, and its share of the £1.55 billion that we have announced to help with covid-related pressures next year, including election pressures.

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

For some hours now, we have been hearing accounts of those whose lives have been ruined by an appalling situation caused by a mixture of deregulation by Government, the greed of some developers and their failure to take responsibility and then continued inaction by Government to address the situation.

In my almost six years as an MP in a city that has seen much new house building, these failures are, sadly, all too common. It is not just the cladding issue, serious though that is, but the abuse of leasehold that sees people trapped with unexpected and inexplicable charges and the frankly dreadful standards of some construction. I was staggered to visit a very expensive property in the centre of the city a few years ago which had to be completely rebuilt twice because of basic and fundamental errors in construction, causing huge heartache and distress to the owners, made worse by the almost sure knowledge that adjoining properties were likely to be no better, but their owners could not face the huge battle to try to get redress. All this came against a backdrop of huge profits and fantastic so-called bonuses for individuals at the top of some of these companies. It also came against a backdrop of deregulation of building control and inspection that creates the perfect environment for such abuse to flourish, and all this under the watch, or lack of it, of a Government happy to take political donations from these people. Frankly, it stinks. People in that sector need to think very hard about their responsibility.

We have heard much about the cladding issue and we know that it has left people marooned and trapped, unable to sell, unable to move, their lives put on hold, often with a spectre of endless bills to pay, for faults not of their making. In Cambridge, I have had numerous representations from residents of the Kaleidoscope estate who rightly tell of their own circumstances. There are the young mums whose dream homes have turned into a nightmare. Sadly, it is not the only development. There is the flagship Belvedere that has been a problem since Grenfell; Pym Court; and the Grand Central development. I am afraid that I do not have time to list all the problems, but the problems have been made worse by the abject failure of the NHBC guarantee and the consistent failure of developers to take responsibility. If it were not for Brexit and covid, my guess is that this national scandal would have got the attention it deserved earlier. The leader writer in The Sunday Times had it right yesterday, when they said:

“Those who created this problem—the builders and their suppliers, some of whom have shown a blatant disregard for public safety—should be made to pay for it. The blameless leaseholders should not. The government has to use its muscle, and not be influenced by whether some of these businesses are Tory donors. If not, more than 4.5 million affected leaseholders will know exactly who to blame.”

That is not Labour speaking; that is The Sunday Times. Today is the start of shining the light on those who are responsible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Esther McVey]

What we all know is that, for a long period, demand has outstripped supply. That is why this Government are building more homes, with more homes built in the last year than in the last 30 years. We have delivered 1.5 million more homes since 2010, and we will continue to do that. Of course, we have also brought in initiatives for rough sleeping and homeless people. We have to be fully aware of that, and this Conservative Government are doing a lot more to help those people.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

6. What recent discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on the effect of reductions in funding for local government on levels of crime and disorder.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

This Department has ongoing discussions with the Home Office on multiple issues, including tackling crime. The provisional local government finance settlement confirmed an increase of £2.9 billion in resources for local government this year. This Government are also providing targeted funding support for partnership working between the police, councils and other partners.

[Daniel Zeichner]

The front five pages of the Cambridge News today detail a series of knife crime incidents, drug dealing and general social disorder, which is causing huge concern to my constituents. When I talk to the police about it, they tell me that one of the key reasons is the cuts to all those preventive, early intervention services that have happened over the last few years. Can the Government today please look again at those cuts to local government? They are not cost-effective; they are costing us more and causing huge crime levels and misery.

[Luke Hall]

I genuinely thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. I know that he raises crime in his constituency regularly in the House, including in his Westminster Hall debate late last year. The real-terms increase in the funding settlement for next year does recognise the critical services that councils are delivering, including keeping communities safe. As part of the Government’s drive to recruit 20,000 police officers across the country, 62 are already being recruited in his force area. I am very happy to work with him and discuss it with him in the weeks ahead.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Or even to his.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

Many will have been surprised by the Secretary of State’s complacent comments earlier about Sure Start centres. He will have seen the Action for Children report, which shows a 20% fall in usage, hitting the most vulnerable hardest. Does he understand that not only is that reprehensible, but that it costs us more in the long run?

[James Brokenshire]

The hon. Gentleman will have noted the figures I gave regarding the improved quality of a number of providers and, indeed, of children leaving reception with good levels of development. Obviously, local councils determine how they prioritise their resources, but it is important to look at the evidence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am interested to hear that response from the Scottish National party. I hope that it will be able to guarantee that all moneys that have been given to Scotland are actually being spent on Brexit preparations. As I understand it, no guarantees on funding have been given to councils. The hon. Gentleman will know that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has been in contact with the Electoral Commission in relation to those preparations, but I hope that we will be able to avoid holding European elections.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I hear what the Secretary of State says, but when I talk to my local councils, they seem to have an endless stream of directives coming from the centre but very little guidance as to what to do if significant numbers of their staff suddenly decide to go. What contingency preparations are the Government making to support local councils in the care sector, for instance, if those people suddenly are not here next week?

[James Brokenshire]

I hope I can give the hon. Gentleman an assurance in relation to the regular and detailed contact we have had with local councils through the ministerial delivery board, which I chair, and through representatives of local government. We also have regular contact with the nine chief executives around the country. We are giving clear advice to assure EU workers of their ability to stay and information on the settled status scheme that the Home Office has put together.

Oral Answers to Questions

Daniel Zeichner Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

We are already taking such steps. On 18 October, we convened a meeting between leaders and chief executives of the Northamptonshire councils and representatives of the local health services to start discussions on how, in future, adult social care may be best provided and integrated with health.

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

The ill-fated regional fire control centre in Cambridgeshire continues to stand empty, costing £2 million a year. We keep being told that it has been let or that it is about to be sold. When is the Minister going to get a grip?

[James Brokenshire]

Fire control now resides within the responsibilities of the Home Office, but I will certainly look into the hon. Gentleman’s points in relation to ensuring good value for money.