High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill
Justin Madders Excerpts(1 day, 18 hours ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to respond to the debate and we have heard a number of interesting and broad perspectives from Members of all parties. I thank the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) for tabling the Bill and for working constructively with Members from across the House, with the many stakeholders who inevitably had a view and with the Department so that the Bill gained Government support. He described high streets as the beating heart of our communities, and that was an absolutely apposite description. I agreed when he talked about Members of Parliament having a leadership role in guiding their communities and making sure that they are fit for the future, and he drew attention to a very sensible amendment that added greater flexibility so that a collection of streets, rather than one street, could be determined by a local authority as a high street.
Recalling what the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) said about the historical elements of high streets, I want to reflect on my own town centre in Ellesmere Port, which is, of course, the one I know best. The original town centre was somewhere different to where it is today. It has been moving westwards and southwards over the years, but a number of important historic buildings remain in the older parts of the town that need a focus as well.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South also made an important point about how antisocial behaviour can be a blight on town centres and the important role of the police and other authorities in tackling it. He mentioned gating off alleyways, which has been a successful policy in my constituency. There is also a worry that it tends to move challenges and problems around rather than dealing with them entirely, but that is why enforcement is so important in such matters. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke gave an important perspective and articulated well the importance of crime prevention in making sure our high streets are attractive and welcoming places for people to visit.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon) gave us a glowing gallop through her part of the world and spoke with great local knowledge and pride about North Shields. She was right that the key to all this is how we bring communities together. Her particular point about how town centres used to be the place where people would see friends once a week on a Saturday afternoon speaks to the challenge. Of course, thanks to the internet and mobile phones, we can pretty much speak to anyone we want to at any point, at any time of the day, from anywhere in the world, so the importance of that central meeting point in a community has diminished in recent years. My hon. Friend also spoke glowingly about the work her council does, and I think most councils work well within their limitations in trying to breathe life into their high streets.
Councils certainly have an important role as, for want of a better description, anchor tenants in the town centre. My council has made a strategic decision to base its headquarters for the whole of Cheshire West in Ellesmere Port, which has resulted in a certain critical mass of people coming into the town. My hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside also talked about the importance of public toilets. We sometimes overlook that, but we need to be confident that there is somewhere we can escape to in an emergency. It is also important to pay tribute to the council workers whose job it is to make sure that those toilets are clean and in good working order, because, as we know, from time to time they can attract the wrong sort of attention. It is important that we acknowledge the role of the entire public sector in making sure that our town centres are clean and inviting places. I know that my community in particular has a has a lot of respect for Bernie, who spends every day trundling up and down Ellesmere Port high street, making sure that the streets are clean and tidy. He is well respected and admired for that because, rain or shine, he is always there doing that important role.
The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) gave an important perspective when he talked about the impact of the withdrawal of banks from many communities. I congratulate him on his success bringing back some of that facility. I am afraid there has been a national exodus from the high street. I have spoken on other occasions about the importance of having a physical presence for important services such as banking, because some people will not want to or be able to deal with a computer. When talking about financial transactions, the security of a face-to-face interaction is important to people.
The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken), perhaps understandably, had a different perspective about the importance of international shoppers to the high streets in her constituency. She identified a shared problem of all high streets: the rise of online shopping, which has made it much more of a challenge to attract people. It is great that we can now order anything we want at any time of day, and it will be on our doorstep probably the next day, but that has not come without downsides. That is why the hon. Lady’s point about a need for a broader approach to the high street was important, as was her discussion about residential and activity-based destinations. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke had a neat way of expressing that as experiences and entertainment—something that we all seek on a regular basis.
All Members spoke with great passion and sincerity about the challenges facing their high streets. It would be fair to say that there has been a decline in our town centres in recent years. Many are blighted by boarded-up outlets and pavements verging on empty. It is hard to escape a wider sense of malaise because, in many respects, town centres and high streets are the faces of the places that residents and visitors see on a daily basis. They are the individual identity of the area for those who work, socialise or shop there.
That importance has been reflected in studies conducted into the value of high streets to local people. Nationwide found in 2020 that more than seven in 10 people felt that their local high street was an important part of their community, but almost two thirds of people thought that high streets have been neglected and more than two thirds believed that they have fallen into decline. I am sure that those figures will be even higher in some constituencies.
Shop closures in recent years speak for themselves. The British Retail Consortium estimated last year that Britain had lost 6,000 retail outlets since 2018. That translates into vacancy rates that are unequally spread across the country and the type of shopping area. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) noted on Second Reading that the loss of shops was more pronounced in the north-east, where the vacancy rate is nearly a fifth, compared to a rate of one in 10 in the south of England.
A similar pattern is noticeable in the type of vacant shopping outlets. According to the Local Data Company, in the final quarter of 2023 high streets and shopping centres had vacancy rates of 14% and 17.9% respectively, yet retail parks had a vacancy rate of only 7.6%. That experience is mirrored in Ellesmere Port, where we have the high street, Port Arcades in the town centre, and we also have Cheshire Oaks as the out-of-town retail destination.
We have all seen the big names go and the shift away from in-person banking in our town centres, which has accelerated the decline that we all have been talking about. It is of note that the footfall in high streets last year was still 10% less than before the pandemic. That trend has a potential compounding effect on high streets and town centres, as the businesses that remain are harmed by the diversion of local people to alternative areas. It can be increasingly difficult on the back of that to attract new investment. There are huge challenges ahead to break the cycle of decline, and I see these trends in my constituency: where once we had a bustling town centre and big-name stores on every corner as well as an arcade full of shops, we now have far more empty shops and therefore fewer people coming to the town centre. What was once a lively place is now, sadly, looking a little empty.
People want to have pride in their towns and when they see boarded-up shops and empty streets they feel that something has gone amiss, so I can see the good intentions from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South in bringing this Bill forward. I think we all agree that something needs to be done to support our local communities and get them back to how we remember them—bustling, lively and full of energy and economic activity. However, the Bill also implicitly suggests the approach so far from the Government is not delivering the kind of changes we want. There is little indication that we are reversing the decline over recent years despite the many schemes launched by the Government —the strategy for high street regeneration, the future high streets fund, the high streets heritage action zones, the high streets task force, and most recently the long-term plan for towns and the high street accelerators. If all those schemes had been a success, we might not have needed this Bill now, but they are limited to specific areas or times and require competitive bidding processes, which, as the Public Accounts Committee has noted, have so far failed to deliver anything of note.
This Bill adopts a different approach, creating a duty on all local authorities to designate their high streets and create improvement plans, meaning in theory at least that all areas will be placed on an equal footing. These plans will set out proposals for the preservation and enhancement of designated high streets, with councils required to review them every five years and consider them when exercising planning functions. And as we heard from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South, this will be a rolling review, and that is right: we should not let these plans just remain in stasis, because the retail environment is challenging and ever-changing.
It is refreshing that it is recognised that local authorities are the best vehicle to make decisions about their local areas. However, more needs to be done to tackle the problems our high streets face, because after a high street is identified and an improvement plan is made there appears to be no mechanism for the allocation of resources to ensure these plans are implemented. Given that council budgets have been stretched to breaking point since 2010, I see little scope for any improvement in the foreseeable future.
It would be useful to understand when the Minister responds what steps will be taken to ensure that local authorities are supported to deliver on the ambitions that we all share to regenerate our high streets. He made the important point on Second Reading that these plans should not be left to gather dust on the shelf, so what mechanisms does he envisage being made available to ensure there is real delivery of these plans? I hope—perhaps he will be able to explain and answer this—that the delivery of the plans will not depend upon councils having successful bids from whatever the next iteration is of the levelling-up fund and that there will actually be five-year investment programmes set out from central Government to match the plans. The reality is that any Government focus, however small, on regenerating high streets is to be welcomed, but much more needs to be done.
The most effective way of delivering substantial improvement to our high streets and cities across the country is not just through plans dictated from central Government, but through devolution and local government liberation. This will hand authorities, who have a much better understanding of the conditions on the ground, the right tools to make the right interventions for their local area. We support this Bill, but we also recognise that much more needs to be done to deliver the change we all want to see.
Oral Answers to Questions
Justin Madders Excerpts(5 days, 18 hours ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is now approaching five years since the towns fund was launched, promising £3.6 billion of investment to level up the country. Most of it remains unspent, and the cross-party Public Accounts Committee has said that the Department for Levelling Up could not
“give any compelling examples of what had been delivered so far”.
That is a damning assessment of this five years of the fund, never mind after 14 years in power—so, Minister, why are this Government such a failure?
Jacob Young
I think that is quite poor, Mr Speaker. The hon. Gentleman’s constituency has itself benefited from £11.1 million of UK shared prosperity funding and £13.4 million from the levelling up fund. Next to him I see the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), whose constituency has benefited from £24.4 million from the towns fund. Oldham is also the recipient of £10.8 million from the future high streets fund. We are levelling up right across the country, including in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Teesworks Joint Venture
Justin Madders Excerpts(2 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for an advance copy of the statement, but we know that a draft of this report has been floating around the Department since November, so why has it only surfaced today? How is it that the media were reporting the outcome of the report this morning, when it was only released by the Department at 4.20 this afternoon? Although we have only been given just over an hour to consider the 75-page report before coming to the Dispatch Box, it is immediately clear why the Government waited until the last possible minute to release it, because it is damning.
The issue has always been one of value for money, and on that the report shows that taxpayers’ money was not being spent in the way the public should expect. Let me quote directly from the report:
“The governance and financial management arrangements are not of themselves sufficiently robust or transparent to evidence value for money.”
On transparency it states:
“We found evidence of inaccuracies and omissions in reports which undermines decisions”,
and
“We did not see sufficient information provided to the Board to allow them to provide effective challenge and undertake the level of due diligence expected of a commercial Board.”
It also states:
“There is no oversight of Teesworks Ltd, despite requests from various combined authority members and Committees”.
Finally it states that
“there is not a robustness within the system. Inappropriate decisions and a lack of transparency which fail to guard against allegations of wrongdoing are occurring, and the principles of spending public money are not being consistently observed.”
Those are not minor, trifling concerns; they reveal a systemic and flawed decision-making process that hinders transparency and fails to show value for money. This scandal has exposed gaps in accountability, and serious questions remain about the lack of local democratic scrutiny throughout the process. It is now clearer than ever that that needs to be investigated by the National Audit Office.
It was an astonishing decision in the first place for the Government to ignore the calls for a fully independent investigation into the serious allegations that have arisen, not just from Labour Members but from the Tees Valley Mayor in question, three Select Committee Chairs and Members across the House. Even the NAO said that it was “willing and able” to carry out the probe. Instead, the Government hand-picked a panel to investigate only the most serious allegations.
I will ask the Minister three questions, in the hope that we can finally begin to uncover the answers necessary to draw this saga to a close. First, will he now refer the situation to the National Audit Office, not only to give the people of Teesside answers but to give the public confidence that it will never be repeated again? Secondly, will he assure the House that no one was prevented from providing evidence to the inquiry as a result of non-disclosure agreements? Finally, can he tell the House with confidence that the Teesworks project represents value for money?
Earlier this month, the Secretary of State, in evidence to the Business and Trade Committee, said that he wanted people
“to make a judgment on the basis of the facts.”
Well, these are the facts: a publicly owned asset has been turned into a cash machine for private investors, earning them at least £124 million so far. That eye-watering return required no investment and involved no risk on the part of private investors, and nobody else was given the opportunity to participate in the venture. The report does not change those facts—indeed, it confirms them—and no amount of spin from Government Members will change that, no amount of bluster will make this a good deal for the taxpayer, and nothing said today will change the view still held by many that something is seriously wrong in the Tees Valley.
Lee Rowley
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his valiant attempt to try to move the discussion on. The basic facts are that Opposition Front-Bench Members asked for a review, and they got a review. They inferred that there were significant problems, and it has been proven comprehensively through an independent review that there was no corruption and there was no illegality.
The hon. Gentleman asked why the report only surfaced today. We received the final report last week. To support the transparency that hon. Members in the House seek, and the comprehensiveness they wish for, we have sought to get the report out as quickly as possible, and it is here today for people to comment on and to misrepresent if they so choose. It appears that some may choose to do so.
The hon. Gentleman quoted from the report. I am also happy to quote from the report. As I indicated in my statement, the serious allegations that were the genesis of the report have been proven to be incorrect. Where there are things that can be improved, that will happen, and the Mayor of Tees Valley has already indicated that he will do that. But it is important that we put this in context. The hon. Gentleman talked about governance, and at paragraph 22.3 the report says:
“The Board largely feel engaged and make unanimous decisions.”
At paragraph 11.3, it says:
“The Panel noted the largely positive assurances provided by internal audit.”
Paragraph 22.3 says that
“there is much that does follow due process”.
Most crucially, given that the whole challenge was about ensuring that the benefits of Teesworks come to the people of the north-east at the earliest possible opportunity, the report says clearly at paragraph 22.1 that
“much has been achieved in a relatively short space of time”.
That is thanks to the Mayor of the Tees Valley and the Conservatives in the north-east.
Oral Answers to Questions
Justin Madders Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
First, Mr Speaker, may I echo the comments made by the Secretary of State in relation to the late Tony Lloyd, who will be greatly missed in all parts of the House?
As we have heard from the shadow Secretary of State, the whole country has been levelled down since 2010 at an average rate of £10,200 per person. That is a damning indictment of this Government, but with about 1,300 projects funded by the future high streets fund, the towns deals and levelling-up funds, that decline should, in theory, not have happened. How many of those projects have now been completed and what evidence does the Department have that those projects have contributed to reducing regional inequalities?
Michael Gove
The evidence of the reduction in regional inequalities is perhaps most marked in Teesside and the Tees valley where the Conservative Mayor Ben Houchen has been responsible for overseeing an economic renaissance, renewed foreign direct investment, and improvements in public health and education. The message is clear: if we want levelling up to work, we need to elect Conservative mayors in May.
Oral Answers to Questions
Justin Madders Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
The Resolution Foundation’s report on economic stagnation, published today, shows how levelling up simply is not happening under this Government. One of the speakers at the event this morning was Andy Haldane, the chair of the Levelling Up Advisory Council, who said that greater financial devolution was needed in all areas, not just in the favoured few. It sounds like he has been taking inspiration from our proposed “take back control” Bill. Does the Minister agree with him that more economic devolution is needed in all areas of the UK?
Jacob Young
I do agree with him. That is why we are following our devolution framework, expanding devolution to more areas in the UK. Under the last Labour Government, the only area in England that had a devolution deal was London. Through devolution, we have been able to expand that offer to more than 60% of England. We have invested more than £13 billion of local growth funding into communities the length and breadth of the country, restoring pride and ensuring that we tackle regional inequality.
If the hon. Gentleman wants to see levelling up in action, he need only look at places such as Teesside, which was left behind under the last Labour Government. It is now being transformed through the UK’s largest freeport, Teesside airport and the Treasury in Darlington; town deals in Redcar, Middlesbrough, Thornaby, Darlington and Hartlepool; high street funding in Middlesbrough, Loftus and Stockton; and levelling-up funding for Eston and TS6, Hartlepool, Guisborough, Yarm, Eaglescliffe and Billingham. The Opposition are all talk; we are delivering levelling up in action.
Housing in Tourist Destinations
Justin Madders Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Charles. I start by congratulating the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double) on securing the debate. I also welcome the Housing Minister to his role. Reference has been made to the rapidity of changes in the identity of the Housing Minister. One wonders whether, with such a rapid turnover in the occupants of the Housing Department, it should be sponsored by Airbnb.
The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay set out very well the challenges facing his constituency: the pressure on the housing market, the issues with recruitment, and the stark disparity between the average house price and the average wage in Cornwall. He was right to welcome the increase in local housing allowance and to mention the pressure placed on parish councils—all local authorities will recognise that.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Samantha Dixon) showed what an excellent Member of Parliament she is and what an excellent council leader she was in bringing back council housing. She now has a third role as an excellent advocate for the Chester tourist board, because she spoke glowingly about the wonderful attractions in Chester. However, she really identified the nub of the issue, which is how right to buy has turned into private rented sector lets, which have turned into short-term lets. That is really at the root of the problems we are discussing. As an MP with a neighbouring constituency, I can see that the pressures Chester is experiencing are having an impact on the wider housing market.
The hon. Member for East Devon (Simon Jupp) spoke about the balance that needs to be struck between the competing demands in his area. That is absolutely the right way to look at this issue.
It was a pleasure to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). She spoke in stark terms about the pressures in York, with a 23% increase in house prices and the fourth highest rents in the country. However, she also talked about a £6 billion tax deficit—money that is not reaching the Exchequer—and I am sure my colleagues in the shadow Treasury team will be looking at that with interest. She also made the important point that this is a cross-departmental issue and that a taskforce approach should be considered. I will certainly take that point back to others in the team.
Cross-departmental approaches were also raised by the hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), so it is absolutely clear that there is more than one tool in the arsenal that we can use. She also mentioned the pressures this issue puts on education and dentistry, and I think we all recognise the pressures that those parts of the public sector face.
The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) talked about average house prices in his constituency being 12 times average incomes. I think we can all see why it is absolutely impossible for young people, in particular, to get on the housing ladder when they face these issues. The hon. Member was also right to raise the impact these issues have on recruitment in the hospitality and care sectors.
The hon. Members for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for St Ives (Derek Thomas) also all spoke with great passion and sincerity about the issues this subject brings up. To summarise the crux of those issues, it is clear that the housing problems in tourist hotspots have spiralled over the last decade and that the Government have not got a handle on the situation. As a result, local people are facing deep problems in accessing affordable housing.
Those who live year round in some of the most beautiful parts of the country are being squeezed out by the owners of second homes and the proliferation of short-term lets. People who have grown up in an area, who work there and who are the bedrock of the community now feel secondary to those who spend just a portion of their time there. I think we can all see how that direction of travel has hollowed out communities, and the consequences that can flow from that.
Having said that, as other Members have said, there is clearly a balance to be struck—one I think we all appreciate. Tourism is crucial to local economies, and indeed to regional and national economies, and many local communities rely on an influx of visitors to keep their economies going. In some places, tourism is the No.1 income generator, and we cannot ignore that. The availability of accommodation is also an important element in attracting people to visit a particular destination.
However, I reiterate that a balance has to be struck. For these destinations to thrive, there needs to be a community that underpins the hospitality at attractions; otherwise, who will be there to run the services that both visitors and locals rely on? Unfortunately, I think that that balance has got out of kilter in recent years, and the consequences that flow from that have been set out today.
Demand for housing has spiralled in many tourist destinations across the country. It was reported that, in the south-west alone, 3,000 new holiday and second homes were listed during the pandemic, while the number of homes listed for normal letting halved and rents increased significantly. In Wales during that period, there was a 5% increase in the number of holiday lets, with average rents rising from £155 to £181 a week. As a consequence, house prices in those areas have spiked.
The ONS reported in September 2021 that house prices were rising at three times the national rate in some of these areas—places such as Conwy, north Devon and Richmondshire have experienced increases of more than 20%, continuing trends that had begun in the pandemic. A report published today by the CPRE shows that demand for short-term lettings grew by 661% in Cornwall in the five years to September 2021, and by 1,231% in South Lakeland between 2016 and 2020. Nationally, the number of short-term lets has increased by more than 1,000% since 2015. This is not just one part of the country; it is north, south, east and west—every place that has significant tourism activity is seeing the same. For many people in many parts of the country, the cost of purchasing a home is already out of reach; in these tourist areas, that dream is even more unobtainable for too many people.
This issue stretches far beyond the challenge of actual home ownership. In Cornwall, for example, 15,000 families are on waiting lists for social housing, which, coincidentally, is the number of properties being marketed as holiday lets. In South Lakeland, roughly half the families in need of social housing could be accommodated in the properties that are made exclusively available for holiday lets. In Cumbria more widely, the 4% decline in privately rented properties has coincided with a 14% increase in social housing waiting lists since 2016. In Devon, it is clear that short-term lets are making problems worse, with 4,000 homes taken out of the private rented sector, but 11,000 added to the short-term lets sector since 2016. Those damning statistics lay bare the impact of what happens when the balance is out of kilter. Does the Minister accept that there is a clear link between the number of private rented properties and short-term lets?
It is beyond doubt that the deregulated nature of the short-term letting sector is deeply problematic. There needs to be an overhaul of the regulatory framework. We would also argue that there is now a watertight case for giving local authorities that are struggling to cope with this issue the necessary powers to protect the sustainability and cohesion of their communities.
Reforms have been attempted on a small scale, but nothing substantial has been done to get to grips with the problem. For example, Members have talked about the consultation conducted and completed in June, and I am sure all Members will want to hear from the Minister about when it will be published. But this piecemeal, foot-dragging approach is patently not enough to tackle the deep problems faced in our communities. The Government are still opposed to, for example, the introduction of a discretionary licensing scheme of the kind the Opposition have proposed on numerous occasions. We believe that such a scheme would be part of the solution to tackling this issue.
We welcome the consultation on the new planning use class, just as we welcome the commitment to introduce a new discretionary registration scheme. However, there is a sting in the tail—giving with one hand but taking away with the other—because the new consultation also invites views on introducing new permitted development rights that would in fact make it easier to convert dwelling houses into short-term lets. Perhaps the Minister can explain the rationale for including that in the consultation and how it will help with the problems we have been discussing. I encourage hon. Members to see what investors are saying about that part of the consultation. They are happy with the consultation overall because it is light-touch and it will make it incredibly attractive and easy for them to continue to convert properties into short-term lets.
The time has gone to recognise that this is an issue; the time has gone for sticking-plaster solutions. Communities urgently require a response that is up to the scale of the problem they face. We urge the Government to accelerate the introduction of the discretionary registration scheme and to legislate for the introduction of a new planning use class for short-term lets without delay. Nothing less than a full array of planning and non-planning tools is needed to appropriately regulate the number of short-term holiday lets. If this Government will not get on with it, they should step aside and leave it to a Government that will.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Minister Rowley, could you leave a minute at the end for Steve Double to wind up, please?
Levelling Up
Justin Madders Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I start by congratulating all those areas that have been successful in their bids—including Chorley, Mr Speaker. Commiserations to all those areas that have missed out once again, although the truth is that even the areas that have won will find that this money is a drop in the ocean, compared with the £15 billion cut from local government funding since 2010. Only six weeks ago there were reports that councils face a £3.5 billion shortfall in their budgets for this year alone. How does today’s announcement help them face that existential threat?
At least the Government appear to have finally accepted that local authorities were forced to spend disproportionate sums in previous rounds to get bids prepared, although we appear to have lurched from one extreme to the other: this time, councils have not been involved in any dialogue on the bids and were possibly not even aware that their bids were being considered. Will the Minister tell us what discussions have taken place with local authorities before decisions were made? Given that the proposals are approaching being a couple of years old, what assurances will he give us that they still reflect local priorities?
The Government’s methodology notes say the Department capped bids for regeneration projects outside priority areas by local authority and region. Did any projects that met the Department’s threshold not get funded for that reason, and which ones were they?
Please do tell us what on earth is meant by a “funding simplification doctrine”—is it an elaborate way of saying sorry? Does it apply to all Government spending decisions, or just to this Department because it has so patently failed to get a grip on spending that it has to have its own doctrine? Is it being done to address the concerns of the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee that billions of pounds are being wasted because the Department has engaged in a programme without any understanding of its impact? As the IPPR North said, levelling up has been a
“litany of missed deadlines, moving goalposts and dysfunction”
although, to be fair, it could have been talking about any Government project when it said that.
Does the Minister accept that the new approach announced today means that the concerns levelled against the Department are, in fact, valid? With this latest iteration, how does the Minister expect anyone to keep up with what this Government want when they flit around so much? The Prime Minister announced five new priorities this morning. Were the projects selected in line with those priorities, or will they all be changed again to reflect this week’s prime ministerial thinkin
Of course, where does this leave the hundreds of projects that still have not been successful? There was no mention of any future rounds in the statement; in fact, I think the Minister said that this was the final round of bidding, so where does that leave all the places that have been unsuccessful so far? What is the plan to address those communities that are crumbling and those high streets that are emptying? Is this the end of any hope of levelling up for them?
Even in those areas that have attracted funding, we know that these crumbs from the table are not enough to reverse 13 years of neglect. Streets that were once bursting with pride are shutting down, rents are rising, mortgages are soaring, and insecurity is still baked into the workplace. Tackling those things would be genuine levelling up, and Labour believes in giving those communities the power, resources and flexibility to tackle such issues in the way they think best. That is a true way of allowing people to take back control.
The statement offers no path ahead to deal with those issues; it just rearranges the deckchairs of what has gone before. We have been left with a failed experiment—an illusion that lasted as long as the press release. It has not gone unnoticed that the number of Conservative MPs standing down at the next election has gone past 50. They know that after 14 years of stagnation, they do not have a record to defend. They are not levelling up; they are giving up.
Jacob Young
The hon. Gentleman misjudged the mood of the House. He talks about local government finances. Last year, we gave local authorities an uplift of more than £5 billion. He asks whether any projects were axed by the methodology that we used—no, they were not. As I say, we set out the methodology online, and I will ensure that there is a copy in the House of Commons Library.
The hon. Gentleman asked what conversations there were with local authorities ahead of any announcement. We have area teams on the ground in all local authority areas, which confirmed with councils that projects were still a priority. They also confirmed with councils whether projects could still be delivered by the deadline. No projects were identified through those conversations that did not qualify this time around.
Further to that, the hon. Gentleman asked about funding simplification and why we are embarking on that. He mentioned the NAO’s concerns. Some of its concerns are legitimate, but we looked at its report and many of the figures dated from March. We have spent £1.5 billion on local places since March. We announced the funding simplification plan in July, in response to the commitment we made in the levelling-up White Paper to simplify the funding landscape.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman described £13 billion of levelling-up funding as “crumbs”. That says it all about the Labour party. It does not recognise the value of anything. We are investing £13 billion in local priorities, and Labour describes that as crumbs. I leave it to the House to determine what it thinks of that.
Heritage Pubs
Justin Madders Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) on securing the debate, and I commend him on his work campaigning on this issue after a pub in his constituency, The Crooked House, was demolished in a fire. That act sparked outrage not just across the country, but, apparently, internationally as well. His analysis of some of the difficulties and challenges that the sector faces were very much in line with our own. Certainly, some of the proposals deserve further consideration, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister on those specific points.
I also congratulate the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell) on following up a splendid maiden speech on Monday with another excellent speech. He articulated how important pubs are to the community and how they really encapsulate the history of a particular area. That is something we will no doubt be reflecting on today.
One of the main problems we face in this discussion is the lack of a clear definition of what a heritage pub actually is. We know that once they have that status, they are afforded protections to prevent them being demolished or having their character altered, but a very small number of pubs are afforded that most stringent grade I listed status. As recently as 2015, there were just 11 in England. Many historic buildings become non-designated heritage assets, which do not have statutory protections as designated heritage assets. They are therefore easier to alter or demolish. That means that many local pubs, including The Crooked House, are vulnerable to the wishes of developers or, indeed, vandalism.
As we know, there are some laws in place to protect pubs. Since 2017, planning permission has been a requirement for a change of use or demolition, meaning that there should be at least some chance for local communities to have a say. Of course, if planning permission was not sought, enforcement action is available, but, as we have heard, the issue with The Crooked House clearly showed that these laws are not always adhered to to the degree that we would like. CAMRA follows such issues closely, and it investigated 30 potentially unlawful conversions or demolitions between January and June this year. Although some had the relevant permissions, CAMRA reports that there are eight outstanding cases in England in which enforcement investigations are under way or local authorities have not yet confirmed that a planning permission exists.
CAMRA registered its concern that local authorities have not been able to take robust enforcement action, which allows developers to flout the protections in place. I want to be clear: I do not believe that that is a result of indifference from or neglect by local authorities but simply a reflection of the financial pressures they have faced since 2010, which have meant that undertaking some of these very time-consuming and technically detailed investigations has become more of a challenge.
Unfortunately, The Crooked House is just one of a number of historic pubs that, in recent times, have suffered from a devastating blaze. The Leopard in Stoke-on-Trent, which had already submitted plans for redevelopment, was another recent example, and Hardy’s Well pub in Manchester was another that suffered a similar fate. The former was frequented by Josiah Wedgwood, and the latter dated back to the 1830s, nearly two centuries ago.
Albeit to a much lesser degree, I have in my constituency an example of a historic, derelict pub that, I think, is on the danger list. It has been subject to fires in recent years—twice last December—as well as being vandalised and subject to fly-tipping. It is the Station Hotel in Ellesmere Port, and it is on the main route into the town centre so it is in a very noticeable part of our town. It is emblematic of the problems that our town centre and many town centres face. It was a magnificent building when it was first built; I was not alive at the time, but it boasted of having one of the longest bars in the country, if not the longest. That, in itself, is of historical note, but the pub is listed only locally and is not designated as a grade II listed building, so it does not have the degree of protection that I think the local community would like to see. Since the pub closed down, there have been a number of attempts to demolish it and redevelop the site, none of which have come to fruition. The worry is that, sadly, the next fire could be the last one, and a major part of our town’s history will be lost for ever.
It is not all doom and gloom, though. A more positive local example is The Grace Arms on the other side of the town centre. It is another iconic and historic local building that was earmarked for closing six years ago, but, after campaigning by local residents and me, the owners, Greene King, decided to keep it open. They have put significant investment into the pub, changing the offer but ensuring the building continues to be a significant landmark in the local area. That is something local residents have been very pleased to see.
More broadly, there is concern about the future of pubs as a whole. The numbers and characters of pubs have changed rather dramatically since the start of this century. Statistics collected by the British Beer and Pub Association show that there has been a steady decline in the number of pubs since 2000, from about 61,000 then to about 46,000 last year. Indeed, reports suggest that the number of pubs in England and Wales in June this year stood as low as 40,000.
We know that financial pressures have played a large role in that. Office for National Statistics data shows a correlation between pubs closing and general difficulties in the economy, and we know that there has been quite a squeeze in the cost of living in recent years. That, I am afraid, has accelerated the closure of pubs. Recent reports suggest that as many as two a day are closing. Figures recently published show that the number of pubs to have been either demolished or converted to other uses this year stood at 383 by the end of the second quarter of this year—almost the same number as closed in the entirety of 2022.
Hopes that there would be a recovery in pubs in 2019 were dashed by the covid crisis—we know the history—and now, the increase in the cost of living has made life much more difficult for people who want to run pubs. In general, those pubs that have thrived have changed in character—which probably should not be a surprise to us. One of the biggest changes has been to the size of pubs. There has been a large increase in the number of pubs that employ more than 25 staff, from 2,500 in 2001 to 4,600 in 2019. Given the overall reduction in pub numbers, that means we are certainly seeing a growth in the number of those larger pubs that we have never seen before.
It could be argued that the larger, ubiquitous national chains that we see in the pub sector possibly reflect wider changes in the hospitality sector. We should be mindful that these can create difficulty in the protection of the heritage status of pubs that we want to see. As hon. Members have mentioned, there has been a significant change in the number of pubs offering food. Indeed, the number of staff employed in pubs to serve food, compared with working behind the bar, has changed dramatically in recent years. That does not mean that the fabric and heritage of the pub needs to change; I think we can find a nice balance.
Overall, it is clear that the trends of decline we have witnessed are symptomatic of wider problems on our high streets. In many ways, they have been neglected: high streets are boarded up, and access to them is getting worse. Pubs are a major part of our local community. Many memories are formed there, and they are of course an important part of the local economy.
With the many challenges that the high street faces, we do not want to see any more loss than we have. We want to put local people in the driving seat. That is why Labour will be proposing a new community right to buy, giving local communities the opportunity to take control of pubs, community venues and, indeed, football clubs that come up for sale or fall into disrepair. That will go further than the current right to bid, and it will give communities first refusal on such assets when they come up to sell, including the right to buy them without competition. This is about allowing our communities to take back control of their environments, restoring civic pride, and ensuring that those iconic buildings, that we all know and love, can survive.
I absolutely understand this is part of a wider economic debate, and that there are real challenges. I hope the Minister will respond to some of my points. On that note, I welcome him to the Front Bench; I think this must be his first outing in the role.
Funding for Parks
Justin Madders Excerpts(6 months ago)
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Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Pritchard. I shall begin by welcoming the Minister. This is our first outing together. Maybe we will have a few more before we go our separate ways again, but I do not think this is something we will fall out about.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) on his excellent speech about the importance of parks. He articulated very well how important they are and how, during the pandemic, we all came to a greater understanding of their importance. He set out the historical context as well, with many wealthy benefactors often the progenitors of local parks. Local communities have worked together and, indeed, local authorities have also done a great deal of work over many years to secure and preserve those open spaces that otherwise might well have been concreted over.
I thank the right hon. Member for mentioning Birkenhead Park. It is not quite in my constituency, but it is not that far away. It would be remiss of me not to mention some of the excellent parks in Ellesmere Port and Neston. We have Whitby Park, Rivacre Valley, Stanney Wood and Lees Lane, which are all important open spaces. They are often kept going by friends groups and volunteers, who do a really important job in covering the sometimes difficult job of local authorities in maintaining those spaces to the levels we would like to see. The right hon. Member for Islington North has referred to that and I will come back to it shortly.
The right hon. Member referred to the Select Committee reports, and the 2017 report in particular clearly spells out the health and economic benefits that parks and open spaces can have. The report quoted studies that found that, every year,
“green spaces in England contribute £2.2 billion to public health.”
It was also mentioned that the UK Natural Environment Assessment found that caring for ecosystems had the potential—I use the word “potential” advisedly—to add £30 billion a year to the UK’s economy. The Select Committee also noted the benefits that accrued to local areas in terms of attracting investment and securing jobs, referring particularly to Edinburgh City Council’s social return investment model as proof of the basis for economic benefits and how it was concluded from that scheme in particular that every £1 invested in parks resulted in a £12 return in benefits delivered. That is not something that any of us can ignore.
Both the right hon. Member for Islington North and the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) have spelled out clearly that there are many positive impacts in our communities from parks and green spaces. It is perhaps counterintuitive, possibly disappointing and almost certainly frustrating that our general impression is that parks have been undervalued in the past decade.
The Association for Public Service Excellence noted in its “State of UK Public Parks 2021” report that in the past decade, funding for parks from local government has collapsed. It estimated that since 2010, parks have lost £690 million-worth of funding, with parks now making up less than 3% of local authority budgets on average. With constricted budgets, staff maintaining parks have also had to be cut, which is where the important work of friends groups comes in. The APSE survey found that 32% of local authorities have had to make frontline cuts to staff during this period. Sadly, those cuts were not even distributed evenly across the UK. We know that 87% of the UK’s most deprived councils have had their spending cut since 2010, compared with only 58% of those in the most affluent areas. Given what we know about the importance of parks in driving down health inequalities, the fact that that funding cut has disproportionately affected those areas with less economic power is a cause for double concern. We all know that the austerity enforced on local authorities since 2010 has had a huge impact on their ability to deliver. We know that their spending power fell by almost 20% between 2009-10 and 2019-20. Despite a partial recovery in recent times, spending power is still more than 10% below what it was before. That has resulted in many local authorities really struggling.
We know that there are huge, increased pressures on local authorities, particularly in children’s services and social care, and more pressure is on the way. It is not surprising, with the financial pressures faced by local authorities, that there is a temptation for them to monetise some of these assets a little more. I do not criticise them for that—we know that they are in a difficult position—but we must be alive to the risks that brings: restricting access to all, reducing the quality of the environment and ultimately undermining the very essence of what parks are meant to be there for. The right hon. Member for Islington North talked about how Finsbury Park can be out of action for several weeks at a time. I agree with him that there is no problem with using parks for these events if they raise funds, but a balance must be struck between the local authority’s ability to use the park for those events and the rights of other users to enjoy the benefits of the park.
One other way that the pressure on local authorities and open spaces has manifested itself is through the introduction of estate management fees, whereby management companies simply adopt the work that the local authorities used to undertake, leaving homeowners having to pay twice for exactly the same services. I have said before that unless we get a proper grip on estate management fees, they will become a new payment protection insurance scandal. What do we say to residents who pay additional fees but then see non-residents, who have not paid the fees to clean up and maintain the park, using their facilities? How long before residents demand that open spaces are open only to those who have paid management fees? Be in no doubt: this issue will continue to corrode community cohesion unless we find a compelling answer to these questions. The Minister knows that I will come back to this repeatedly, because I do not think that we have really understood the scale of the issue just yet.
The concerns articulated by the right hon. Member for Islington North about the need to protect and preserve our parks and open spaces are very much a live issue. I look forward to hearing the Government’s response from the Minister, particularly to the Select Committee recommendations that we have heard about.
Freehold Estate Management Fees
Justin Madders Excerpts(9 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered freehold estate management fees.
It is a great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair this afternoon, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate and also to the 14 MPs from across the House who enthusiastically wrote to me to support it. I suspect that the fact that they are, unfortunately, not all here is a function of its taking place on a Thursday afternoon. Like me, they have been contacted by constituents whose lives have been blighted by the often scandalous reality of unfair, unregulated estate management fees, and feel obliged to call on the Government to legislate robustly to correct this.
I will begin by outlining the crux of the problem for many freeholders in the UK who are trapped by such arrangements. It is becoming increasingly common in new housing developments for the shared areas that are built to remain unadopted by the local council. Instead, a management company takes responsibility for the shared areas outside the bricks and mortar of the owners’ homes, and the freeholders are required by law to pay annual charges for the upkeep of those areas. That could include anything, from the maintenance of garden areas to roads and footpaths. As I will come on to later in my speech, it can even include the sewerage connections of the properties in the development. Sometimes, the freeholders will also be the joint owners of the shared areas.
The commercial substance of these arrangements is that the freeholders sign up to a leasehold agreement, even if the legal form gives it a different name. It is in the nature of these agreements that the problems begin. A common practice, I found, is for brochures and contracts, or sales staff to refer to estate management charges as
“a small annual charge for grass-cutting or for the upkeep of the play area.”
In some cases, that description of the charges could not be further from the truth.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I have been pursuing this matter for some time. Indeed, I have described it as the new payment protection insurance, or PPI, because there are so many people who have been signed up to things that they did not know about. The similarities between that and the leasehold scandal are all too familiar. Does the hon. Member feel that there needs to be far greater candour and transparency from developers when they sell their properties?
Helen Morgan
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and I agree with him; that is one part of the solution to this problem.
From day one, homebuyers are being fleeced by the developer, given the reality of the charges they will face, and unfortunately, because they are often first-time buyers, they do not have the experience or knowledge to delve deeper into the charges during the conveyancing process.
These charges are usually uncapped and unregulated, with no means of redress for the buyer, which can be the beginning of a spiral of problems that freeholders in this position face. A common arrangement is that the management company is a zero-profit company that simply passes the cost of maintenance work to the freeholders. However, this work is subcontracted to a profit-making company; and I am sure it will come as no surprise to hear that, in these arrangements, the subcontractor is often connected to the original developer and makes exorbitant profits. The subcontractor does that by ensuring that the cost of the maintenance work is extortionate. To add insult to injury, although the freeholders are paying for the upkeep of the communal area, or the public area, or the roads, or the street lights, they do not receive a reduction in their council tax.
A stakeholder from the Cambridge Centre for Housing And Planning Research said in an interview that the reason why the number of freehold estates with estate rent charge requirements is increasing is that local authorities are not keen to adopt all communal areas and roads on estates. But in actual fact, local authorities are being incentivised to encourage these arrangements, because they raise council tax revenue without incurring any maintenance costs.
I will provide a few examples from my constituency to demonstrate the harm that these arrangements can cause when they have not been established in good faith. I have spoken on many occasions about the Brambles development in Whitchurch in my constituency, and I will mention it again today, because the circumstances are so appalling, and I believe they could and should have been avoided. The Brambles is a development of 14 houses built in 2016 by the developer Sherwood Homes Ltd, on land for which Shropshire Council had already granted planning permission for development. It was a condition of the planning permission that the road, footpath and drainage would all be complete before the houses were occupied. Unfortunately, despite that agreement, these elements were never fully completed, but building completion certificates were issued for the properties and they were subsequently sold and inhabited.
Once a number of the houses had been occupied, the drainage system failed, which led on some days to raw sewage backing up in residents’ gardens. Sherwood Homes Ltd had not taken out the section 104 agreement required in the planning permission, and not only was the arrangement dysfunctional, but the connection to the Welsh Water sewage network was illegal. In addition, neither the road lighting nor footpath was completed.
In December 2019, Sherwood Homes Ltd went bust, and Shropshire Council could not take planning enforcement action against the company. The residents of the Brambles, who were the successors in title to the private company that was established to manage the development, had been the subject of the enforcement process. The truly shocking reality is that they have been required to accept five-figure charges on their properties to rectify the £1 million issue of connecting the drainage to Welsh Water’s network. It is also worth noting that the saga has cost the rest of Shropshire’s taxpayers a considerable amount, because council officers have expended time and effort in attempting to rectify the situation.
Had the residents not been the owners of the shared areas, they would not have been liable. Perhaps if Shropshire Council had been expecting to bear the full costs of the clear-up, it would have taken out an injunction to prevent the final homes from being sold and occupied until the drainage was rectified, or indeed ensured that, in the first place, financial bonds had been in place under the section 104 agreements and the section 106 agreement for the drainage in the road.
That is the worst example, but it is not the only one that has come to my attention. Other cases from my constituency include a developer that is charging residents extortionate fees for the maintenance of a shared ground source heat pump, but has kept the Government’s renewable heat incentive by putting it in a private company. The developer runs the management company and has failed to hold an annual general meeting or provide detailed accounts for the residents.
In another example, there appears to be a total disregard of the Companies Act 2006. In this instance, once again the drainage and road are not at an acceptable standard, and the developer claims the management company is dormant, despite having contracted limited maintenance work to a third party. It has not held an AGM, and there is no opportunity for the homeowners to challenge the arrangement. The developer ignores all correspondence, and the homeowners do not have the resources to take him to court.
The problem is not unique to North Shropshire but impacts people across the UK. Indeed, since being granted this debate, I have been contacted by freeholders from across the country who have explained that they are being fleeced by management companies, having initially been told that they would simply have to pay for the upkeep of the grass. These people find themselves in an inescapable position. For many, there is no use turning to their original conveyancing solicitor for assistance, because that solicitor was recommended to them by the developer, which offered a discount if they used that solicitor. In addition, as I have mentioned, many homeowners are first-time buyers, and starting legal proceedings retrospectively is simply out of the question on a cost basis. As a result, freeholders are left with nowhere to turn, paying extortionate fees and with their dreams of a new home shattered.
It is important to note that the cost to the resident is not only financial. A support group called HorNet has explained to me that, on top of the burden of paying the fees, homeowners often come into dispute with other members of the public, who may abuse or damage the very infrastructure, such as the play equipment, that the homeowners are paying such huge annual fees to upkeep.
Justin Madders
The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. Constituents have told me that people who walk their dogs on the land for which they are paying an estate management charge should not be allowed to do so, because those people have come from another estate, where they are not paying the charge. This whole model is set up to be divisive and turn communities against each other, is it not?
Helen Morgan
The hon. Gentleman is exactly right, and that also raises questions of liability. HorNet describes one example in which it asked the local authority to comment on whether the local authority or the freeholders would be liable if a member of the public was injured on land maintained by the freeholders—for example, by falling off the play equipment used by the public. The council responded that it did not know. There is therefore an additional level of stress for these freeholders, as well as the potentially divisive elements that the hon. Gentleman raises.
As they stand, the agreements are a bit of a legislative desert, and they are a source of incredible stress and risk for residents. Frankly, they are a bit of a money-printing machine for unscrupulous developers that seek to exploit homebuyers. What is frustrating is that the Government have on numerous occasions considered that this area of legislation desperately needs reform, yet we have made no progress to protect freeholders from the situation.
In 2017, the Government launched a consultation to tackle unfair practices in the leasehold market and promised to legislate to ensure that freeholders would be able to access rights equivalent to leaseholders’ to challenge the reasonableness of such charges. In 2018 they launched another consultation, “Implementing reforms to the leasehold system in England”, which promised that the consultation requirements and obligations of the provider of services must be provided also to freeholders and that freeholders would have the ability to challenge the reasonableness of the payments at a first-tier tribunal.
In 2019 came the Government’s second report, “Implementing reforms to the leasehold system in England”, promising equal rights for leaseholders and freeholders when it came to challenging management fees. Those consultations and reports have been encouraging. Some 76% of those asked in 2019 agreed that freeholders should have the right to challenge such fees, but we have seen no progress at all in the legislation.
It is the responsibility of the Government to honour their promises made in 2017, 2018 and 2019. In March this year, when responding to a parliamentary question from the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), the Secretary of State promised to legislate on this issue “when parliamentary time allows”.
I do not think I need to make it any clearer to the Minister that the delay in legislating is directly affecting people stuck in freehold arrangements. It is unnerving to think about how much money they have been forced to pay to scandalous management companies because of those delays. From where we are today there is no end in sight for them. They are chained to these agreements. They cannot dispute the payments legally, nor sell their homes. They are truly trapped.
We have been promised by the Secretary of State that the leasehold reform Bill will be introduced after the King’s Speech. There remains an opportunity to ease the situation, as the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill passes through the other place. Could local authorities be encouraged to ensure that there is a plan for the adoption of roads, street lights and play areas, and that either section 106 or community infrastructure levy moneys are obtained from developers to ensure that they can be upkept in the future?
Could local authorities be given clear guidance to outline where a shared management company may not be a suitable solution; how planning conditions can be used to ensure that suitable financial bonds are in place for the adoption of drainage and roads and pavements; and how injunctions should be used where a significant failure emerges on a development, such as in the case of the Brambles, which I have outlined? Will the Government bring pressure to bear on the legal sector to ensure that there is no conflict of interest when a homeowner buys a house, and outlaw sweeteners promoting the use of a connected conveyancer?
When the leasehold reform Bill is introduced, will cost-effective legal remedies be made available to homeowners already trapped in these arrangements? For example, can they be released from their obligations if annual general meetings are not held, detailed accounts not laid or competitive quotes not obtained for maintenance work? Or could those arrangements be outlawed altogether?
I know the Government are keen to resolve the issue, so I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. I very much hope she will commit to working with MPs from across the House to ensure that our concerns are fully addressed in the leasehold reform Bill.