Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting)
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
Q
Jack Airey: The existing framework for doing that is the section 106 system and the community infrastructure levy system. I am not sure whether the CIL applies in Dartford, but in my mind that provides a fairly effective method of doing this in a way that does not make development totally unviable, while extracting enough value to provide some contribution to the community. I do not think there is anything in the Bill that really focuses on this—I could be proven wrong—but I think the existing system works okay.
It is really difficult to do this and it does not always work. Rightly, communities always want the right amount of infrastructure. This might relate to other comments I might make: we rely on the planning system to do so much heavy lifting to deliver all sorts of things that everyone wants, and we try to prioritise everything and end up prioritising nothing. We could have a system where we extracted more from developer contributions and that went to community infrastructure, but that would come with a trade-off, probably around provision of affordable housing and things like that. That would be a sensible debate to have if that is what your constituents want, but it is also quite difficult politically.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Q
Some of the large energy infrastructure projects have described having large pipelines of potential projects, some of which were very speculative and others of which were quite close to the spades in the ground stage. How can we ensure that what emerges from the Bill guarantees meaningful and proper consultation, so that the receiving community really understands what the impact will be and, where there may be local objections, people have a really detailed understanding of what the benefits will be in order to persuade them to be more supportive of the proposals?
Jack Airey: Is your question specific to nationally significant infrastructure projects, or does it relate to the TCPA as well?
David Simmonds
I think it covers both, but each of those things is addressed separately in the Bill.
Jack Airey: It goes back to my initial point that community participation in the planning process is so low, and you often only hear about the negative parts. If we could boost that a bit—in truth, I am not sure how you do that in a way that is not totally burdensome on local authorities, because often people have better things to do than go to a town hall on a Tuesday evening. Raising that is a difficult but necessary thing to do. That is how you begin to spell out not just the negatives but the benefits of development on the local planning system side.
On the NSIP reforms, I know you will hear later from Catherine Howard, who is much more of an expert on this than I am. It looks like a wholly positive thing to me. The Government press release talked about saving around 12 months off an NSIP development consent order process, which is a hugely positive thing.
Sam Richards: I agree with Jack. Dare I say it, I think there is a role here for elected representatives in making the case when we need to build things. I know it is hard, not least when development is poorly planned or ugly, and of course when there is local opposition it is often tempting to row in on the side of those who are opposing development, but there is a job to do here. Fundamentally, we have not built sufficient infrastructure for decades and, as a result, we have the highest industrial energy costs in the world. London has the most expensive housing in Europe. We have not built the infrastructure we need for decades. It is incumbent on all of us, including our elected representatives, to make the case for the building that we need.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
Q
Jack Airey: I think what I said is that the system for securing and spending developer contributions is okay. I do not think the wider planning system is okay. In terms of how you can improve it, a lot of the measures in the Bill are very worth while, and a lot of the changes in the NPPF are incredibly worth while. There are many more things that the Government can do, especially on the national development management policies.
Sam Richards: The system is fundamentally broken. I am sure your constituents are furious that their energy bills are through the roof and they cannot afford the rent, and they are right to be so.
Olly Glover
Please expand.
Rachel Hallos: I am not convinced that there is clarity on the balance and calculations. If you take such land out of production, what imbalance does that create with production elsewhere? If you move environmental goods from one area of land on to another, what imbalance is being created there? If we are going to go down an accounting route, what is the cost-benefit of doing it—whether it is food production, homes or environment? I am not sure that is in the Bill, and I think it needs to be to make sure that the right decisions are being taken in the right places.
As an organisation representing farmers, and as a farmer myself, I know that what we do on our land is a long process, whether it is producing food or managing the land for environmental goods. This is not a quick fix; we cannot move a dial and have something change overnight. We need to make sure that the right decisions are being taken in the right places, and we also need to recompense the people who are taken along with it as they go.
Paul Miner: We broadly agree with Rachel. Overall, the Bill needs to strike a better balance between the various objectives that the planning system seeks to fulfil. It is not just about facilitating development but about mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well as helping to secure nature recovery. We think that the Bill can do more to give the wider public and ourselves confidence that, in future, we will get better plans and decisions that will look to achieve a vision for getting more sustainable development, as well as meeting our climate change targets and our very ambitious nature conservation targets.
One element that has not come up in questioning so far, which we are particularly keen to raise, is clause 22 on householder payments for electricity transmission lines. We do not think that making payments to householders is the way to go. Instead, we should really focus on building on the good practice that we already have for onshore wind farms, where we consult and involve communities in community benefit schemes, and also look to achieve community benefit schemes that help communities, in turn, address climate change, get more rooftop solar on people’s homes in rural areas and improve the energy efficiency of rural housing. It seems to us that giving payments to householders completely goes against working in any kind of public interest, and we urge parliamentarians to look at that clause of the Bill again.
David Simmonds
Q
I am interested in your view on whether the Bill sufficiently addresses the balance between green belt and agricultural use. What improvements would you want to see on compulsory purchase processes to ensure that landowners in those locations have appropriate recourse? Also, where it is clear that the land in question provides a broader public benefit, as opposed to simply being a business standing on its own, how can we ensure that the broader public benefit can be accounted for in the reckoning up of the value of that land?
Rachel Hallos: It is almost like having ransom strips next to urban conurbations. That green belt gets sucked into that urban conurbation and, all of a sudden, it becomes a brown belt—I think “grey belt” was also considered at one stage. The reality is, when you are in that situation—I can completely understand, although some of my members would not; that is the leadership role that we have to take—that that land is of national benefit through development. That is because it increases the size of the town, the infrastructure—the whole thing. On what the Bill needs to do, again it goes back to doing the number crunching. What is the long-term benefit of this?
We also have to remember that when we compulsorily purchase land from a farmer who is running their business and living there, they have every right to make a decision to restart their business elsewhere. What if the land value goes up and they are being paid just the flat agricultural rate? Everybody wants that land, because guess what? Everybody wants land right now. Everybody wants land for everything, so land prices are creeping up anyway. There is then artificial inflation of the land price in that area because everybody is after it.
That bit also needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to recompensing anybody who has land taken away from them. It is a complicated formula, but the Bill really does need to look at that if we are to go anywhere near rebuilding confidence and trust between the agricultural community and Government. Especially if we put it in the package of everything else that is going on, we are very much in danger of having it go “bang” again. This has to stop. We all have to get on with life. We all have to get on with what we do—produce food, infrastructure or growth for the country.
Paul Miner: Green belt is a planning policy, but as you have rightly pointed out, green-belt land often has a wide range of public benefits and meanings for people who live in the towns and cities that the green belts surround. We strongly support the Bill’s provision for spatial development strategies, because you need effective strategic planning in order for green-belt policy to work effectively.
Also, from our perspective, we should not just be looking at how the planning policy should work. If we accept that the vast majority of green-belt land will not become grey belt in the future but will remain designated green belts, we need to think about how we can better manage that land. That is why it is really important that in spatial development strategies and in the Government’s land use framework, we have policies for improving the management of green-belt land. Until now, green-belt land has been relatively poorly served by successive Governments’ environmental land management schemes. There is relatively low take-up in green-belt areas. We urge the Government, as part of the land use framework but also with spatial development strategies, to seek to improve the quality of green belts for nature and for climate.
Rachel Hallos: May I add one last thing to that? Sorry to be rude. When it comes to the spatial development strategies, LNRSs and all the different things that are going on and are being consulted on at the moment, there is no legal requirement to consult the land manager. That worries me. It is just wrong.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Rachel Hallos: It is bigger than just this Bill on CPOs. There is a mistrust. There is a concern that people are not taking food production or agriculture seriously. This is what it is encapsulated in, but the CPO element for me is that people have felt the pain of badly delivered CPOs, through High Speed 2 in particular; other things have gone on in this country. That has lingered really heavily, so when you start mentioning compulsory purchase to any land manager or landowner, it sends shivers down their spine.
We are concerned that disregarding a hope value puts landowners and farmers in that tailspin again, so where do we go from here? How do we deal with this? We have found that especially with our members and HS2—I will keep referring to HS2 because it has been an absolute nightmare, and it is still a nightmare. They are still waiting for the final, agreed payment in many cases, so that they can start getting on with their life. That is the concern when it comes to the hope value.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
Q
Councillor Clewer: I agree that there are areas at the moment where planning simply delays or blocks infrastructure provision. That needs changing; I absolutely agree with that. I suspect people will judge the extent to which it needs changing based on where they live and the specific infrastructure that they are facing, but I think that that needs unblocking.
You need to be very careful with the assumption that the Bill will build more houses. It will not build more houses. The Bill, and the reforms that we have seen to the NPPF, will see more planning permissions. I have 18,837 extant planning permissions in Wiltshire at the moment. Developers told me that they could build only about 6,000 the last time I asked them, which strangely enough was just under the four-year housing land supply under the last Government. I am sure that if I asked them today, they would say that they could build just about 8,000.
I have 2,400 houses south of Trowbridge that have been stuck, failing to get the section 106 agreement signed, for something like 14 years. There has to be something in the Bill that forces building. If we are to issue planning, it has to come with the actual development. We have to compel. If developers have signed a commitment that they will complete houses on whatever basis and have fallen behind, they need to start paying the council tax on them or something. At the moment, the Bill is not going to do that, I am afraid. I do not see anything in it that will actually achieve that.
Councillor Hug: I support Richard’s point about working for more “use it or lose it” powers to ensure that planning permission does not just go on the books to raise land value and not do much else, although I note the points about hope value and everything. We recognise that there is a whole heap of challenges to delivery that sit outside the scope of the Bill.
On the Bill, we support the Government’s general principles about clarification and simplification. We recognise that the strong national growth and infrastructure demands open up some of the opportunities for green energy and all sorts of other things that we are calling for in local government.
I want to draw attention to the work being done on planning fees. Ensuring that local authorities have the best possible remuneration for the work to make sure they are covering their costs fully is key to making the system work well to deliver the outcomes that you are looking for. But we recognise that that alone will not deal with it, so we have to look at how we can further strengthen the planning workforce. Again, that is about making sure that the language does not say that the planning system or the planners are the problem. We want people to go into the industry and we want them to do it, but the planning fee stuff is helpful in supporting that.
We support the principles, but the key thing is to ensure that the local authorities retain a voice in what goes forward and work with the Government on some of the practical things such as the scheme of delegations.
Councillor Wright: I think we have got close to it. As we said, we have nothing against the professional training of planning committees so that the industry knows what it is dealing with and so that the idea that we do not know what we are doing on planning committees cannot be used to beat us over the head all the time. In my district, similarly to Richard’s, 11,500 permissions were put in place between 2016 and 2024 and 5,500 were built out. There is no excuse for the rest not to be built.
Unfortunately, the proposals that have been put forward do not include anything at all to mandate that builders will build. There is a proposal over CPO powers, and the missing thing that we would like to see is “build it or lose it”. If there is an allocated site and they have permissions, but they simply do not build on it, give us the CPO powers so we can CPO that. That would help to build houses, because we could then start to control the destiny of those sites. At the moment, there are some really useful things that could have been in the Bill that are missing.
Councillor Clewer: But CPO it at agricultural value.
Councillor Wright: Yes: agricultural value, not hope value.
Councillor Hug: I very much support the planning training. The LGA supports the approach to hope value that the Government are taking. The CPO power is particularly being deployed in urban settings around land assembly, which is the intent behind the Bill.
David Simmonds
Q
Secondly, coming back to the point about strategic infrastructure projects, one of the issues is that local authorities have a lot of obligations, particularly under environmental law, whereby they have a specific legal duty around issues like air quality. Effectively excluding them from the decision-making process or even a failure to intervene in the process would leave them open to legal challenge. Air quality is a good example: I know from my experience at Heathrow airport that there was a local authority fine of £300 million per annum for the level of air quality breaches caused by Heathrow airport, through which we would have been judicially reviewed by ClientEarth had we not judicially reviewed central Government over their proposals to expand that.
Can you think of some other areas, around either environmental or other legal obligations, that are imposed on local authorities where the role you play in either the development and consent order process or those national strategic infrastructure projects is arising not simply out of local politics but because of legal obligations to your residents that you have to fulfil?
Councillor Wright: With regard to nationally significant infrastructure projects, for instance, I was thinking about the fact that we are responsible for the environmental impact assessments. I worry at times that we do not have enough weight with those when it comes to the actual decision making.
One example, which we are testing at the moment, relates to battery storage—a new thing that is exciting lots of people—and whether we can predict not just the here and now, but what would happen in the event of a problem. If we are going to have a huge array of batteries on what was good agricultural land suddenly blighting the landscape, we could ensure that the industry is not allowed to use a type of battery that is more prone to cause huge environmental issues if it catches fire, when there are already good batteries that could be used. But it comes down to a financial decision. In some places, we would actually like more weight to be given to the powers that we already have, but quite often, as you say, we find ourselves guarding the place but not being able to make the decisions that would avoid the need for guards in the first place.
Councillor Hug: My concern is not about gold plating. It is about the question whether local authorities across the country have the capacity on their planning teams to deal with the range and breadth of the requirements that are placed on them. That is one reason why local government reform is in the air, but I would also welcome some movement on fees. We have to make sure that planning is seen as a field that people want to go into, to help unlock these things, rather than these people being seen purely as the blockers. Ultimately, part of the blockage is that the system is not working effectively. The question is how we can work with local authorities to deliver not only training to communities, but greater support to the officer core so that they can move stuff through as quickly as possible.
Councillor Clewer: I do not think we gold plate our local plans. There are many councils that want to go beyond existing guidance, particularly on net zero, for example. That is mostly to stop expensive retrofitting in future and make people’s bills cheaper. There are areas where councils will want to go beyond existing national policy, but every example I can think of was done for a very good reason and will end up with broad public support.
On the bigger issue of legislation, yes, there are some real challenges. Some environmental legislation can be significantly challenging when you want to see building or when you are looking to find a way to mitigate or even unlock. For example, I have a brownfield site in Trowbridge where they need to leave a bat corridor by a train line. How on earth that makes sense I honestly do not know, but it is making the viability of the site really challenging. Some sort of off-site provision would be far more appropriate: it would be far better for the bats and would help to unlock development.
There are also problems around highways issues, for example. Whether it be for economic development or building land, there is an inability for us to work properly with National Highways to deal with motorway junctions, or the A36 in my case. The constraints that that places on us can be real blockers to our desire to build in areas that would be sensible, as opposed to in areas where developers are putting forward planning permissions.
Lastly, it would be really nice if we could tell developers where they should be building, rather than developers saying, “This bit of land? We can’t build on it yet,” when we know full well that we will get a speculative application the moment the local plan is through for that bit of land as well, having just fought the contentious bit of land.
Amanda Martin
Q
Councillor Hug: The LGA broadly supports the new powers. Obviously we are looking to find ways to ensure that local authorities can take advantage of those new powers when they come in. That goes back to helping councils to be more entrepreneurial about unlocking land and giving them the support that they need to do that. Whether it is in Portsmouth—a place I know well; I was born there—or to a certain extent in parts of my patch, these are important tools in the arsenal, but it is also about unlocking those conversations. Having that on the books should hopefully enable those conversations to happen, because ultimately you want to come to an agreement with a partner to avoid having to use legal powers. It will help to unlock those conversations. It is still not going to be a magic wand, and I am not going to be able to walk down my high street and say, “That, that and that,” and suddenly unlock all these things. There are processes in place to prevent this being misused. We strongly welcome the intention to go into this space and the proposals in front of us.
Councillor Clewer: If you look at the points about London and land assembly, they make a great deal of sense to me. Please be careful, however, with the assumption that brownfield land will be made viable simply through compulsory purchase. The problem with most brownfield development is a viability one. By the time you have demolished what is on it and then remediated the land, the net value of that land is negative.
There is no point in a council compulsorily purchasing something that then has negative value for the council. That will just bankrupt councils. If we are going to unlock brownfield, something more significant has to be done, either to use some sort of brownfield development fund—that feels a bit wrong, but it is a way you could look at it—or to compel developers to deal with brownfield before they are allowed to build on greenfield. We would suddenly see town centres all over the country being redeveloped if developers were not allowed to build on the greenfield until they had built on the brownfield.
Councillor Wright: I will not repeat any points. Brownfield, for instance, in a rural area could be something that had glass houses on it. It could be a site that has no connectivity whatever to any settlement and has no services, and still be brownfield land. It would potentially come under CPO. At DCN, we think that there should be a subsection to CPO, and not just concentrating on land. If we want to look at regeneration and the issues in town centres, where there are vacant properties and areas blighted by crime or that just need added value, at the moment the CPO process is still a little too legal-heavy. The route to appeal, which a lot of it will go through, takes far too long. Perhaps there is a role going forward with mayoral authorities for that to be the appeal route. If we could see a system that shortens the CPO process for regen of property in town centres, different from land assembly, that would be useful.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
The Opposition broadly support the Government’s proposals in the plan for neighbourhoods, which carries on the excellent work started under the previous Government. However, how will the proposals to diversify the base of consultees to prioritise the voice of trade unions—which, by definition, are found mainly in large public sector and corporate organisations—not drown out the voice of the small businesses on which our town centres depend?
Alex Norris
I am grateful for the opportunity to remind the House, and the hon. Gentleman and his Front-Bench colleagues, that they of course wanted the predecessor programme to the plan for neighbourhoods, but did not provide any money for it. That was a slight oversight, which we have been able to address in order to keep the promises that they made but would have had to break. On the point about trade union boards, I can understand why Opposition colleagues do not want the voices of millions of ordinary people in the room when decisions are made; they never do, and they never will. However, trade unions are not in competition with small businesses—far from it. There is room for both in the discussions, and both will add lots to those discussions.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
I agree with the Minister that the Government have changed how growth is happening in local government, because apart from the massive growth in the numbers of people rough sleeping and the massive growth in piles of rubbish uncollected in Birmingham, there is little evidence of economic growth at the local level. Does the Minister acknowledge that when we compare band D equivalents, Conservative councils consistently charge much lower council tax than Labour or Lib Dem ones? The best way for our constituents to ensure local growth is to vote Conservative at the council elections.
Alex Norris
I have been there. It is horrible in opposition. It gets to the point where, a couple of hours before orals, someone tells you that have to ask the clip question on council tax. All I will say to the hon. Gentleman is that I know that the people of our country are smart enough to decide which of us they would rather.
Political Donations
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
This is the second time in a few weeks that we have debated this issue. I am aware that we are likely to be interrupted shortly for multiple votes, but I will do my best to make some progress in responding to the many and varied points that have been made.
The debate about political financing always feels like an equal opportunity debate: we can all find something in other political parties’ financial arrangements that we would like to criticise and call into question. However, the high degree of cross-party commitment—and the fact that Governments of all parties over the years have passed legislation to ensure a high degree of security in UK political financing—demonstrates that our politics, on the whole and by any international comparison, is pretty clean. Members have raised a number of points, however, that have been widely debated and that are worth our consideration, and that I know the Government are already looking at.
The first point that is important to highlight is that foreign donations to political parties in the UK are already illegal. It is also illegal for foreign citizens to channel their own money through UK sources. Although we have heard a great deal of political debate about donations, prompted by Mr Musk and his comments, it is clear that if a UK company acted as an agent for a donation by a foreign company, that would be an impermissible donation under current laws. If a person or an organisation makes a donation on behalf of another without disclosing who that donation is from, that is also against our laws as they currently stand. The key thing is to make sure that we have effective measures in place for the enforcement of those rules.
A number of Members referred to the role of the Electoral Commission. It is important that we reflect that more recent legislation is based on the original Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, which was passed by a previous Labour Government. I draw the attention of Members who have criticised more recent legislative developments to the words of a then Labour Minister when that legislation passed through the House. With respect to the Committee that designed the legislation, he said:
“The Neill committee made clear its view that prosecutions in respect of breaches of the law relating to controls on donations and election expenses should be placed in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions and should not be the concern of the commission…the commission does not have that power... the commission will be an enforcement authority but not a prosecuting authority.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 November 2000; Vol. 619, c. 631-632.]
There had clearly been some drift over time, whereby there was a lack of clarity as to who was responsible. Given, in particular, the significant civil penalties that can be levied by the commission, there was a requirement for absolute clarity that prosecutions for breaches of the law were a matter for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, since any objection to those would likely end in a judicial review anyway. That is something that all Members should welcome in terms of bringing clarity to the process.
I have a few brief questions for the Minister, which will reflect what we debated previously on the Floor of the House. First, it is clear that, contrary to the points that have been made, taxation has never been a basis for suffrage in the UK, and a number of situations relating to that have been clarified in recent caselaw. Students, for example, are exempt from paying council tax, but none the less have a vote in local elections where they reside. There are also expats from the UK who have paid no taxes for a long time but have the right to vote, while others pay significant UK taxes on investments, pensions and other assets held in the UK and do not have a vote. As such, it is important to recognise that although those who pay taxes in the UK have a significant connection to this country, that is not the only basis on which people may exercise a vote.
The last Government, in the previous Parliament, made a commitment during the passage of the National Security Act 2023 to enhance powers so that regulators, law enforcement and security services could share information with political parties. That was, in part, designed to help avoiding a repeat of the situation in which the Labour party found itself taking £700,000 from Chinese spies. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that those commitments are delivered, so that our political parties can access that information when risks are identified?
Will the Minister close the loophole that was created by the Labour Welsh Government and the SNP Scottish Government, which for the first time allows Russian, Chinese and Iranian citizens who are resident in Wales and Scotland to donate to UK-wide political parties and campaigns, when those donations would otherwise be banned? Will she tell us why China is not to be included in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme? I appreciate that the Government are seeking to enhance relationships with China, but that does create a significance risk of foreign interference. Will she say on record, as she previously did in the House, that she accepts that UK politicians are low risk, and that—although there are significant rules in the politically-exposed persons agenda, which has had a impact on the ability of parliamentarians from both sides of the House and their families to access financial services—no significant risk has materialised?
Finally, will the Minister commit to ensure that there will be the fullest possible consultation with all political parties and wider stakeholders on any planned changes to political finance law? There is a long-standing precedent that, when Governments of any party seek to change such law, they engage with the widest possible group of stakeholders. However, thus far, there have been no discussions with the parliamentary parties panel, no formal consultations with parties, nor any discussions on Privy Council terms about what those changes may be. It would be helpful for the Minister to confirm from the Dispatch Box whether that will happen as it always has in the past.
It is clear that to address the concerns that many Members have set out, there needs to be a reflection on not only the influence of political financial donations but the impact of benefits in kind. For example, technology companies seek to use algorithms hosted, based and written outside of the UK to influence where the eyes of UK residents and voters fall when engaging with the political system. We know that that creates a significant risk that needs to be addressed. I thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for introducing this debate, and it is a pleasure, once again, to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris.
Local Government Finances: London
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve once again under your chairmanship, Ms Lewell. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) on securing, with cross-party support, a very wide-ranging debate. My starting point, having served 12 years as a London councillor under the last Labour Government and then 12 years as a London councillor under the previous coalition and Conservative Government, is that he should be careful what he wishes for when he has a debate on this subject.
We can already see a pattern beginning to reassert itself in the finances of our local authorities in London and in local government generally. What sound like significant increases are announced, but while one hand gives, the other takes away. Extra funding that has been announced, for the most part comprises maximum possible rises in council tax, very large increases in business rates, and an assumption that local authorities will raise the maximum possible fees and charges from their residents, which is then deducted from any central Government support. We can see the imposition of that in decisions large and small. On the smaller side, we have had representations from London Councils about the impact of ringfenced grant funding to tackle homelessness, which reduces the freedom and flexibility of local authorities in the capital to deploy those resources to keep people off the streets. On a much more macro scale, we have the national insurance contributions rise, which, after additional Government support, leaves local authorities in England over £1 billion net worse off than before the Budget was announced.
Many of us will have served through many years when there were announcements, such as significant rises in the single regeneration budget, and the establishment of the dedicated schools grant under the last Labour Government. However, as Members who experienced those announcements will know, that approach of starting with a standard spending assessment and then damping any increase that it could give rise to, especially impacting on outer London boroughs with a very significant level of social need, has had a significant long-term impact. If there is an apology to be made from the Opposition about our approach to finances in local government, it is that we did not go as far as we would have wished to, as set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), in redressing some of those imbalances.
The very first council meeting I attended as a member of the public was the last one at which a Labour council ever set a budget in Hillingdon. An 18% council tax rise hit local residents, and the council made £40 million—then around 10% of its budget—in unspecified savings. Let us not succumb to any fiction that somehow we are entering a gilded age for the local authorities of our capital city. And of course, it comes at a time when we know that the pressures on local authorities are rising sharply. According to the charity St Mungo’s, there has been a 29% increase in rough sleeping in the capital compared with the equivalent period under the last Conservative Government. A huge impact on our economy—not just the business rate rises, but the loss of confidence and the lack of investment.
Many Members have spoken eloquently about the pressures around homelessness—the shortage of housing. We have all been ambitious about that, but it is very striking if we look simply at the numbers. The serving Mayor, Sir Sadiq, was set a target by the last Government of around 100,000 new affordable homes. He set himself a target of 52,000—around half what central Government said he should be able to deliver. He actually delivered 35,000 new affordable homes. In total, in equivalent periods, the current Mayor has delivered 65,000 affordable homes, compared with 90,000 under his Conservative predecessor.
Although we all share the ambition, we need the shared starting point as well, of recognising the challenges, including the impact of damping and the inner/outer London inequality. Those things have existed in our funding formula for a very long time, and they are part of a complex set of interactions that arise from not just the current Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, but the Department for Education, the Department of Health and Social Care, the Department for Transport and the Home Office. Many, many London local authorities are supporting significant numbers of asylum seekers. Hillingdon has the highest number of asylum seekers per capita of any local authority in the whole country—a cost not currently funded at all by central Government, but contributing very significantly to the numbers of people needing to be housed and children to be cared for. That complex picture needs to be taken into account when we debate this issue.
I have some asks and some requests to put to the Minister. Like others, I thank London Councils for its excellent work to consider not just the big picture of the quantum of financing, but the things that could be done, such as removing some of the ringfences that the Government have imposed on how those resources are deployed. The first ask is that, as the Government proceed with their processes on devolution, we look at a true shared decision-making arrangement. There is a risk that the devolution settlement will leave London as the only major devolved area with no formal agreement between the Mayor and the boroughs on shared decision making. We see much of that tension around housing.
I ask the Government once again to look at a process around fairer funding, which has been worked on in the past, to begin to address the inequality of funding between inner and outer London. We know the origins of that lie in assumptions that are made about deprivation, but it manifests in almost every area of local government finance in London.
We still see relatively very large amounts of grant going into inner-London local authorities with low-level council tax, which are also often the ones that are most able to raise revenue in other ways. If we compare parking revenue accounts, for example, London borough of Bexley raises £6 million a year and Hillingdon raises £3.8 million a year, all of which can contribute, to a limited extent, to things such as environmental and road improvements. The London borough of Westminster raises £70 million a year—a net contribution of over £40 million just for environmental projects alone. The capacity of local authorities in London to raise revenue is hugely variable, and not just about the costs imposed by the demographics. We need to make sure that we take that fully into account.
I know that the Minister has been asked for this before on the Floor of the House, so I want to ask him to reconsider the position around national insurance contributions. We have just had an emergency Budget, and have been through a period of six months where it has become clear that the sums do not add up, but its impact—driving up the cost of children’s and adult’s social care, as well as every other part of public service in the capital—has been absolutely enormous. We have had representations from every single London borough about the impact of that. There were promises made that that would be mitigated, and we need to see them fulfilled.
Let me finish with an important point. It seems to me that all Members here, on a cross-party basis, have done their best to speak up from east to west, from inner to outer, for the interests of residents in the capital. We know that those challenges will be significant. I say gently to my neighbour, the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales), the rises in charges are 5%, not exponential.
Danny Beales
Does the hon. Gentleman welcome the significant uplift in public health funding from this Government? Or the fact that there is a third more homelessness funding, a significant and additional uplift in local government funding and millions more to be spent on potholes, one of the biggest levels in London? I could go on. That is a significant increase compared with what happened under the last Government, of which he was part. At the same time, our council is increasing council tax for many people, introducing a garden tax and making significant increases in fees and charges, as well as cutting council tax support to many. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is an acceptable record?
David Simmonds
I think I will probably avoid descending too much into parochial politics, but it is important to recognise that I will have to pay the garden tax—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman will—because I live in the London borough of Hillingdon.
All our local authorities are facing elements of those challenges, and are addressing them as best they can. London local authorities have demonstrated probably the greatest financial resilience of any group of local authorities in the country. We have seen a considerable increase in balances held by local authorities across the capital, but that masks significant variations. In particular, significant financial pressures are being created in outer London, partly because of the significant numbers of unfunded costs around things such as asylum and the long-term impact of the very rapid rise in rough sleeping. Set that alongside the fact that the long-standing structural underfunding leaves them less able to deal with the impact of a massive increase in national insurance contributions and the devastating impact of the Budget on the local economy and its ability to pay those taxes, all of which support local services. Let us take all those things into account, and come out of this with a new funding settlement for London. I ask the Minister to give us an undertaking that this will not be one of those settlements where a Government simply give with one hand and take with the other.
Emma Lewell (in the Chair)
I remind the Minister it would be decent of him to leave two minutes at the end for the Member leading the debate to wind up.
Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Local Authorities (Changes to Years of Ordinary Elections) (England) Order 2025 (S.I. 2025, No.137).
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Hobhouse. The postponement or cancellation of local elections in pursuit of local government reorganisation is a subject that has been much debated on the Floor of the House, and indeed, is a debate that has played out in the media. The Opposition have some concerns about the decision being made, and I will briefly summarise the reasons for that.
As Ministers have said repeatedly, the practice has been to postpone and cancel local elections where doing so is necessary to facilitate the reorganisation of local government. The practice has applied since the Local Government Act 2000, and it has been followed by Governments of all parties. We have concerns, however, about the messages that have gone out suggesting that these elections are merely to be postponed, and indeed, that is the substance of the Government’s proposals.
We know that the intention, as has clearly been set out—this was certainly our intention in government when dealing with this matter—is not merely a postponement for a 12-month period but that these elections will be cancelled, so that new local authority structures can come into being. We would not elect a council that is about to be abolished in 12 months’ time, but we might hold elections for the new local authorities that would come into being, and the new elected mayors who would serve those local government areas.
Clearly, that process is one in which there needs to be a degree of input, perhaps from the boundary commissioners or the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, in order to ensure that effective democratic representation is in place before those elections occur. That practice was followed, for example, with the reorganisation of the Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire councils during the previous Parliament.
At present, there is a lack of a clear timetable for local authorities. Members of Parliament and local residents in those areas have expressed concern that, while they understand the rationale for reorganisation, they want to know confidently when they will have the opportunity to cast a ballot to shape the political direction of their new local government representation.
The Opposition have set out a degree of concern that, contrary to previous practice—where local authorities were invited, if they felt it appropriate, to bring forward proposals—in this case, the drive for the proposals comes from Whitehall and the Ministry, and it is to a template that has been set out by Government on the likely size and population of the local authorities.
We are concerned that there is not a clear plan for how the reorganisation of local government will interact with other legislation that either has been passed or is making its way through Parliament, including the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which began its passage last week, and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. All of that will have a significant impact on the organisational role of local authorities. Other legislation, particularly the envisaged wholesale reorganisation of planning in England, will also require significant input from local authorities if it is to work effectively. That lack of clarity is a significant concern to us.
Finally, I have two questions that I am sure the Minister will be able to answer, the first of which is about the treatment of vacancies that arise. The order sets out a process whereby elections that have already arisen, but which would have normally been postponed until the occurrence of the regular cycle of elections, will be required to be held between the order coming into force and a date in May. However, given that the postponement is part of an undoubtedly longer period, one issue that clearly arises is that it is likely to lead in due course to the cancellation of those elections, so how will vacancies be treated beyond that period? I am sure that the Minister has an answer, but it would be helpful to know what will happen if local authority by-elections cannot go ahead outside the period that is specified in the statutory instrument.
The second issue is the specific decision that the statutory instrument envisages for Thurrock, where elections are postponed until 2030. Clearly, that is a long time, and it would be helpful if the Minister set out the thinking behind that particular decision. What are the benefits to the residents of Thurrock of having those elections postponed until 2030?
David Simmonds
I will not detain the Committee for long. There has been quite a rich debate—unusually so for a Delegated Legislation Committee—a lot of which has focused on some of the politics and the structures around local government reorganisation. I think the intervention from the right hon. Member for Oxford East was a good illustration of that. The proposed footprint for the new local authorities has been a key subject of debate, and we know that the Treasury clearly has one view about that, and I suspect that the Ministry has a slightly different one.
Certainly, historically, 300,000 was seen as about a reasonable minimum, broadly reflecting the size of London boroughs, for example, which are unitary authorities; but clearly a move to a larger footprint is an opportunity to spread the overheads over a greater population area. However, it remains a significant challenge for authorities that are coming forward, where they may be happy to consider a footprint of 300,000 but 500,000 does not work for them, and the Government and the Minister will have some significant challenges taking that forward, with his task of unitising local government in England by the end of the Parliament.
Turning to the specifics of the instrument before us and how we got here, again I have some sympathy with the Minister’s point that the invitation was sent out, and it was very clear from the outset that the first step was an invitation for those who were willing; but for those who were not initially willing there would be a statutory invitation—an invitation you can’t refuse—to come forward with proposals for local government. I think that justifies the concern expressed by a number of Members that there is a significant top-down element to this.
However, in order to deliver that process, the key thing that we are—and remain—concerned about is that, in this case, the Minister is a little bit boxed in by the legislation that says that this instrument will postpone these elections. He took us through a list of actions by previous Governments such circumstances, and described, in all of those examples, that those were about the cancellation of those elections—those elections would not take place any longer. This instrument merely postpones these elections. I think it is the clear understanding of all the local authorities on this list that they will not hold elections to their local authorities ever again because they are about to be abolished through the process of local government reorganisation. Exactly as the Minister has described, cancellation is about those elections never being held again because some new local government structure will come into being at some point.
However, the instrument says to all those local authorities that their local elections are expected to go ahead on the due date in 2026—that the election is merely postponed in Essex and the other local authorities listed. While I absolutely support colleagues in local government who have said, “We accept that this is going to be done to us whether we like it or not—we need to make the best of this opportunity,” and there is logic in coming forward in the first tranche, the legal implication of what we are being asked to decide is that those elections will take place, but at a point when the abolition of those local authorities is even closer than it is today. That does not seem to be a good choice for us to make.
There should be a clear and structured plan, so that residents understand not just that they are losing the right to vote that they had hoped to have in Essex, or wherever it may be, this year, but that elections will take place to those new structures; so that they can see that they will have the opportunity both to exercise the democratic right that they enjoy and to shape the new structures as they come into being. Those are the reasons that we find ourselves here today.
Question put.
Construction Standards: New Build Homes
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve with you once again, Ms Jardine. I, too, add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh) on securing the debate.
I was reflecting, as we watched House staff go about their business, that Hansard will record all the words that have been spoken by Members in this debate. Indeed, they will mirror some of the historical records of ancient Rome and ancient China, when politicians complained about the quality of the construction of the Great Wall and many iconic buildings, and reflected on what could be done to ensure that buildings were constructed to the standard needed.
Of course, for each new generation the specific challenges change. We have different aspirations for the standard of our homes, as well as different technology and construction methods, and we need to ensure that what is built is fit for purpose. Although its focus has been on new homes, the debate has been wide ranging, touching on elements of housing tenure and the implications for the ability of occupiers to get change dealt with, the complications of the legal situation around warranties and insurances, and the challenges reflected in the ability or otherwise of local authorities to address complaints when they are brought forward.
The hon. Member for Newbury (Mr Dillon) started out talking about tenant satisfaction. It is striking that, on the whole, people in the UK describe a high level of satisfaction with their accommodation, private renters being the most satisfied. Beneath that, however, as the hon. Gentleman set out, there are a number of challenges.
I encourage the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest to make contact with my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier)—a forest theme seems to be emerging among Members raising this issue—who has a private Member’s Bill specifically on consumer protection for those who commission building work. That would begin to address in law many of the issues that have been raised this evening. Indeed, earlier today I informed a group of housing associations about the need to appoint a clerk of works for new developments—someone who is there every single day, monitoring on their behalf exactly what is being constructed, in order to ensure that the kind of problems that Members across the Chamber have described are not present when they come to undertake the landlord role in those properties.
The Federation of Master Builders has a number of proposals to ensure that the construction industry in the UK adopts significantly higher standards, not only building on the experience of other countries but reflecting the particular circumstances of the UK housing market.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
Talking about future-proofing our homes, a key things we could do with an ageing population is to ensure that all new homes are built to higher accessibility and adaptability standards. The previous Government consulted on that, but never implemented anything. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that was a lost opportunity? By not implementing M4(2) standards, many new homes have been built that do not meet those higher standards.
David Simmonds
I would not describe that as a lost opportunity, but it is an opportunity that we need to consider. We recognise that we have a new Government with aspirations for housing. We had a Government who, despite all the challenges, set themselves a target of about 1 million homes and came very close to delivering on that during the life of the previous Parliament, but as I frequently point out in debates, we need to ensure that we are not simply thinking about the numbers of units. The 1.5 million target is not something we can achieve by packing the highest number of properties—studio flats—into various locations. We need to think about the nature of the homes and the type of housing that communities need, and about how a more nuanced approach can ensure that we build homes that support our housing market. For example, people may wish to downsize or to move because of disability, and to find accommodation that is fit for purpose in their local area.
A number of Members touched on the role that building control services play in signing off developments to assure that they are fit for purpose. All the debate, as reflected on by Members across the House, has demonstrated the complexity of this issue: fire safety is considered through the lens of one set of legislation; building control is about fitness of construction standards; the local authority has its planning responsibilities to ensure that what is built is what has planning consent; and, too, there is the insurance industry, which in essence is a private market that decides for itself what it considers fit to be an insurable and occupiable property. That has enormous influence.
In my constituency, I have the former Royal Air Force Lime Grove development constructed by Taylor Wimpey, where I have been engaging with constituents since I was first elected. That has been a very slow process, not least because things such as drainage have been built well below the standard required and can only be rectified if we are prepared to demolish all the homes that sit on top of that drainage. Those kinds of challenges are enormously complicated.
I place on the record my thanks to my hon. Friends the Members for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) and for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), and the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for the points they made. They described from their personal experience how they engaged with developments that took place in their constituencies in different ways—to enable new occupiers to bring to wider public attention the concerns that they identified, to hold local authorities to account for failure or lack of action, to deal with issues that were patently obvious and needed to be addressed, and to deal with some of the legal complexities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk described. It is all very well having a contract and legal rights in theory, but if those rights cannot be enforced, they do not lead down a useful path.
If we were in government, we would be taking forward these matters, but as we are in opposition, we are challenging the Government to consider them. I will make a few brief points in that respect. A number of Members have highlighted adoptable standards as a significant issue that needs addressing. In encouraging new planning applications to be delivered, I encourage the Government to consider how we will ensure that adoptable standards are complied with. Members on all sides have raised a number of examples of subsequent landlords, such as FirstPort, whose management of the sites has been completely inadequate and compounds the other problems that have been described.
Finally, as we consider the learning from the Grenfell report, which highlights just how complex these projects are to manage, can we ensure that the learning described by the hon. Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm), where the private sector and the local authority worked well together to bring innovation to bear and to ensure higher standards, is put into the structures of our legal approaches when it comes to all the different issues around development, housing, planning and building control described by Members across the Chamber this evening?
Point of Order
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier today, David Lawrence, a former Labour parliamentary candidate, put out a public statement saying that he was pleased to be
“invited to No. 10 for a preview of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill”,
a landmark piece of legislation yet to see the light of day in this House, despite a number of statements from Ministers about how significant and important it would be. May I seek your guidance on how we can ensure that important legislation deserving the scrutiny of Parliament is first seen in this House, not shared offline with Labour parliamentary candidates?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. I am sure that his comments have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench.
Political Finance Rules
David Simmonds Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
I will start with a confession: I am one of the readers of The Guardian on the Conservative Benches, and I pay tribute to the helpful article it published today with the latest update of what has been happening in the world of political donations. It illustrates that, despite the increase in spending limits set out in the previous Parliament, the spend at the last general election reduced as political parties on all sides reined in their spending.
The article also sets out in some detail the fundraising efforts of the parties in the Chamber and helps to put some of the figures quoted in public debates into context. While there may be those promising to donate $100 million to British political parties, the party in question managed to raise �280,000 over that quarter, which is approximately an eighth of the funds raised by my party and a bit less than a quarter of the funds raised by the Labour party over the same period. As a dedicated fan of Private Eye, it is clear to me that the transparency brought by the reporting of these donations is enormously helpful; indeed, it has led to many of the contributions to the debate.
On the whole, the debate has been positive, by and large avoiding much of the casting of aspersions we often see and focusing on the practicalities. I have some brief points to make and then some questions to put to the Minister that are very much about the practicalities of taking forward the work that is under way.
First, there is the need to respond as political parties and a state to the evolving roster of challenges that we face. We know that practices are being imported from the United States, such as the funding of issue-based campaigns, which have enormous political impact, including on the election of politicians, but are not donations to specific political parties. The Opposition would clearly be keen to work with the Government to ensure that donations for a political purpose�without being to a political party�are open to the appropriate level of scrutiny.
A loophole has recently been created by the decision of Labour in Wales and the SNP in Scotland to extend the franchise to a greater proportion of foreign citizens, allowing them to vote in British elections, because the principle that underpins reporting is that people can donate to a political party only in an election where they are also able to vote. The fact that two areas of our country have different rules on that enables such citizens to donate to those parties, because the political parties there operate nationally. That is a loophole and an issue that I hope the Government will be addressing.
Political finance is seen not just in the form of donation to political parties but in the lobbying, to which a number of hon. Members referred, the trips and the research input. In the last Parliament, there was the lobbying scandal that revolved around a Chinese spy donating about �700,000 to Labour party organisations. That is reflected in the challenge that has come from Opposition Members to the Government�s position on the Chinese embassy. While the Government may feel that it is a legitimate foreign policy objective to cosy up to China, many members across parties express the view that the influence of China in British politics is a significant concern.
Let me put some questions to the Minister. First, why have the Government chosen to abandon the commitment made by Parliament and the last Government in the National Security Act 2023 to enhance the powers so that regulators, law enforcement and security services could share information with political parties? That process would have specifically helped to avoid the kind of situation that occurred with Labour�s Chinese spy problem, by enabling parties to be more informed about who the individuals are who are coming forward.
Will the Government take steps to close the loophole created by the Labour Welsh Government and the SNP Scottish Government that, for the first time, allowed Russian, Chinese and Iranian citizens resident in those countries to donate to UK-wide politicians and political parties? Why has the Minister chosen not to include China in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme? While we recognise that the Government are pursuing greater trade with China, which is a legitimate political expectation, is that not a green light to the Chinese Communist party to enhance the degree of influence it seeks to transact in British politics?
Does the Minister and do the Government accept that UK politicians themselves are low risk? It is important that we are here having this debate and seeking the highest possible standards. In the past, we saw gold-plating, with the politically exposed persons rules that saw parliamentarians on all sides of the Chamber being deprived of access to basic financial services. Does the Minister believe that we need to remove the risk of genuine, legitimate UK politicians being debanked because of their political views?
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, in the context of the need to maintain consensus, why are the Government failing to consult the political parties on their plans for changes to political finance law, contrary to the precedent set by past Administrations of all parties? Does the Minister accept the long-standing convention that the Government of the day do not unilaterally seek to impose measures affecting political finance to their own partisan advantage? Will she undertake that there will be discussions with the Parliamentary Parties Panel and that there will be formal consultation with the parties? Will there be discussions through the so-called usual channels or on Privy Council terms? That way, we can ensure that in the context of electoral law that is complex�and for good reason: to protect the integrity of our democracy�we can retain cross-party confidence that those rules are not being used by the Government in pursuit of their own political advantage.
Plan for Neighbourhoods
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Much in this statement builds on the work of the previous Government, and we share the new Government’s ambitions for the growth and renewal of our neighbourhoods and high streets, which are so fundamental to our constituents’ quality of life. As the Minister knows, there is a history behind this statement that links back to the desire of all our constituents to have a proper say in the development of their home area. In a country that is as grossly centralised, by democratic standards, as the UK, that local voice is vital.
EU cohesion funds, which were the predecessor of the UK shared prosperity fund, were directly accountable to both the UK Government and local representatives. In the short timeframe in which the previous Government’s levelling-up strategy was in effect, it sought to bring to bear a wide variety of national resources on exactly the challenges that the Minister referred to in his statement. There was a £2.6 billion fund allocated for regeneration and communities; the £4.8 billion levelling-up fund, which was specifically designed to support treasured assets such as pubs and theatres, where there was strong community support; and the £1.5 billion long-term plan for tax. We know that local leaders welcomed that investment, and many Members across the House spoke very warmly of the benefits to their constituents, so the challenge to the Government today is to set out how this very small and limited project sits against that much broader levelling-up ambition and, in particular, where it sits against the £3.6 billion towns fund set out under the previous Government.
The House will acknowledge that this statement comes at a time when this Government’s financial decisions are bearing down very heavily on our communities. The massive rise in national insurance contributions, the increases in business rates on pubs, retail businesses and hospitality, the changes to business property relief and the multibillion-pound funding gap that opened up in council budgets as a result of the Government’s Budget last October all weigh very heavily in the balance against this modest announcement. That leaves aside the impact of the loss of things such as the rural services grant and the community ownership fund, which were specifically targeted at delivering support to communities that needed it.
While we welcome this rebadging and rehashing of a scheme that we progressed when we were in office and its allocation to largely the same list of recipients, we have some questions to put to the Minister. The first is about the accountability of the proposed neighbourhood boards. It is a significant concern that the Minister finds time to say that the boards will include trade union representatives, but not to mention the democratically elected representatives of those local communities—a trend that sits alongside the changes in the proposed planning White Paper. Local democracy is vital if these boards are to work effectively.
The second question is about the lack of a clear purpose for these resources. While it sounds like a positive thing to broaden the range of areas in which they can be spent, it is a serious concern that the Government again choose refurbishment and modernisation of social housing, which is already allocated for in other areas of local government funding. It begs the question of whether these funds will, in fact, go towards making up shortfalls that the Budget created in other areas of Government spending.
Finally, there is real concern that broadening the criteria, and choosing to use generalised national statistics rather than local understanding of need to decide how to allocate funding, will mean that the resource is allocated in a way that simply does not reflect needs and local circumstances. A bidding process allows local authorities—which lead and represent their areas, and can identify particular needs—to come forward to Government and present a plan. The process of allocation that is being suggested creates a serious risk that those who can do the most to regenerate and benefit our high streets and communities will lose out in favour of those who are simply able to meet the criteria of Whitehall box-ticking.
Alex Norris
I am grateful to the Opposition spokesperson for those questions. He is right to say that this plan builds on the previous long-term plan for towns commitment, which is why we thought it prudent to retain the same recipient areas. That promise has been made, and it should be kept. However, when I entered the Department on my first day in government, and talked to civil servants, it was astonishing to find out that the programme—a £1.5 billion commitment made by the previous Government—was unfunded. It was funded through a reserve that had been spent three times over. That is simply no way to run a country. I am very pleased that we have been able to keep that commitment to those communities, because goodness knows there would have been disappointment had we not.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the plan’s place in the wider environment. Of course, we committed to the transition year of shared prosperity funding in the Budget. We are now in a spending review period, and as I said in my statement, we are committed to getting communities the tools and resources that they need in order to shape place.
To respond to the hon. Gentleman’s questions on accountability, of course local councillors are still involved. We are talking about changes to broaden neighbourhood boards. We want local councillors to be involved; we would like local Members of Parliament to be involved; and in the areas where they exist, we would like devolved representatives to be involved. However, we think that the voices of people who work in the communities are also valuable, and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman does not.
The hon. Gentleman talked about a lack of clear purpose. I think this is where we are in different spaces, because I believe in freedom to make decisions locally. I believe that expertise is held locally; the wisdom about communities across this country is held by the local community, rather than the Minister. That might perhaps be revelatory for a Minister to say. I believe that changing a community—whether through what we call local growth, levelling up, or any of the other things that it has been called over the past 60 years—is an inside job, best done by local communities, and that my role as Minister and our role as Government is to get communities the tools and resources that they need. We differ on that point.
Even the previous Government moved away from their affection for the bidding process by the end of the last Parliament. They understood that it did not work—that a debilitating beauty parade that pits communities against each other was not a very good way of getting money to those communities. However, another point of difference is that I believe in a longer-term allocative settlement that is more flexible and guided by people locally, whereas the Opposition believe in shorter-term bidding and central prescription.
Oral Answers to Questions
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David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
We know that through the section 106 agreement progress, the planning system is very good at levying funds for new NHS facilities, but NHS Property Services has not always been effective at building those facilities out on time. What assurance can the Secretary of State give the House that across Government there will be an appropriate focus on ensuring that NHS Property Services delivers the facilities that planning has secured?
Angela Rayner
The shadow Minister is absolutely right—it was his Government who did not do enough in this area. We have said that we will strengthen section 106 planning obligations, and we have also set up a unit within my Department to ensure that we hold developers to account and work across Government to ensure that infrastructure is built.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) has highlighted, simply putting people out of their homes is not a solution to fuel poverty. Given that the figures very clearly show that the cost of the upgrades in many cases massively exceeds the financial benefit to either the tenant or the landlord, can the Minister give the House her personal assurance that this objective is realistic and achievable?
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
We note that the Government have chosen not to take forward the Grenfell report recommendation relating to certification bodies on materials safety. Given the previous Minister’s failure to reply to my questions on the new use of European standards in respect of fire performance, will the new Minister assure the House that we can be absolutely confident that the fire safety performance regulations in place are clear, robust and effective?
Alex Norris
They will be all those things; I believe that is a shared goal. For clarity, we are taking forward the recommendations. As we stated last week, we do not think that the testing houses ought to be under the purview of a single construction regulator, as that would mean that the regulator would essentially mark its own homework if there was a problem. I know Opposition Members have a problem with this, and I am more than happy to speak about it in greater detail.
We are looking very closely at European standards, as the hon. Gentleman will have seen in the “Construction Products Reform” Green Paper. Alignment with those European standards is probably a desirable goal, but that is subject to the ongoing consultation. We are very clear that the current regime does not cover enough construction products. There is not enough transparency or accountability when things go wrong. Our desire, as has been expressed from the Dispatch Box, is for a very high standards regime, and I look forward to working with Opposition Members in service of that shared goal.