Property Service Charges

Justin Madders Excerpts

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul) on her excellent speech and on securing the debate. I state for the record that I am a patron of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, which does such good work in advising leaseholders.

It was eight years ago that I stood on the Opposition side of the Chamber and described the use of leasehold in new developments as the payment protection insurance of the house building industry. I am pleased to say that the previous Government eventually started to tackle that, and the current Government will hopefully complete that work soon so that we can finally condemn leasehold to the history books.

It was four years ago that I stood on the Opposition side of the Chamber and warned that estate management fees could replacement leasehold as the new PPI of the house building industry—or, as the indomitable women of the National Leasehold Campaign termed it, “fleecehold.” Now that has come to pass; it seems that just about every new development built in this country adopts the same exploitative model, and the public are rightly asking what we are going to do about it. The Minister has amassed great expertise in this area, and I know he is keen to crack on with reform.

There are a number of legal cases ongoing. I am pleased to see that the bogus argument about human rights has been dispatched by the High Court. However, there are a number of others where well-resourced freeholders are trying to preserve the status quo, and not every court is as wise as the High Court was in the human rights case. The Court of Appeal recently found in the Romney House case that where a tenant goes to the first-tier tribunal to challenge a service charge, the tribunal needs only to consider whether the process was reasonable, and not whether the charges themselves were reasonable. That is absurd, and has had the effect of requiring those leaseholders to pay for the refurbishment of a gym that they do not actually own. It is freeholders with their seemingly limitless resources that can challenge and delay actions by leaseholders to preserve their rotten system at every turn, so the sooner we implement the leasehold Act in full the better.

There is a clear warning here as to why we must crack on with tackling estate management fees more broadly. I look forward to the Government’s response to the consultation. When it comes to stopping any more estates being built in this way, and we must end this practice as a matter of urgency, I suggest, as the hon. Member did, that it will actually be much easier to do this than it has been for ending leasehold. I urge the Minister to send a clear instruction to local authorities that estate management arrangements will no longer be accepted in planning applications, and to legislate to ban them on any new developments if necessary. The longer we put off fixing that, the longer it will take to fix this mess.

I fear the Minister will be told that such a move would have an impact on the ambitious house building plans that we rightly have and would damage the housing market more generally, but were we not faced with the same arguments when we tried to abolish leasehold? After all, these developers do not have to pay a community sum to the local authority—indeed, they have an additional lucrative income stream—but despite those new income sources, it does not seem to have had any impact on the price they charge for people to buy their homes in the first place.

The reality is that an estate management company is nothing more than a calculation on a balance sheet. The developers have zero interest in keeping the verges neat and tidy after they have gone. If they can make the bottom line look more attractive by creating the management company, they will, and they keep getting away with it because we let them.

Of course, we must act to protect those already caught in this trap. It is also clear, as we have heard, that many people are not aware of the implications of an estate management company or how much it will cost them when they buy their home. Often, first-time buyers are excited by the prospect of owning a new home, and they place their trust in the system—the lenders, the developers, the lawyers—and the echoes of the leasehold scandal with this are loud. Glitzy sales staff paint a very different picture. They never set out the reality that, in addition to the significant commitment people are making when they buy a home, they are also agreeing to pay an unspecified sum to often unspecified recipients for as long as they stay in that home.

The mis-selling and failure to properly advise has all the hallmarks of the leasehold scandal. We should not be surprised by that because the same actors are involved in that industry as are involved in these rip-offs. An example of some of the novel ways that this financial trap can be described by sales staff came to my attention when constituents on a recently built estate all had the common explanation given to them that this service charge was for a storm drain, but that it would be paid off in a few years so they did not need to worry about it. Well, they are still paying it 15 years later. They are not even sure if there is a storm drain and, even if there is, who is actually responsible for it, and yet the invoices and threatening letters still come.

We also recently met interested parties on another new development where we were trying to clarify who was responsible for maintaining what and who they were accountable to. Because the estate had been developed over several years by different developers, about 10 different organisations were represented at that meeting. It is little wonder that we struggle for transparency with so many people involved.

The fundamental question from the homeowner is: why are we paying twice for the maintenance of open spaces, once through a management fee and once through council tax? We should start from the basic principle that the local council should be doing all the work and that estate management companies are an unnecessary tax on homeowners. How long will it be before we see a concerted campaign for people to get reductions on their council tax on the basis that they are being taxed twice? In the wrong hands, that sort of campaign could pit communities against one another.

Let us not forget that buying a home is the biggest single purchase people will ever make. We need far greater accountability for what developers say and what they build. Housing is of course a critical part of our infrastructure and a fundamental part of a person’s life, but it has been shown time and again that we cannot rely on the market alone to deliver that in a responsible way. Let us get control over these companies, empower homeowners and legislate if necessary so that this rotten, avaricious model becomes history, just like leasehold eventually will.

Pride in Place

Justin Madders Excerpts

Wednesday 15th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that issue. I am very happy to take it away, and to work with the Scotland Office to understand why the money has been blocked. We are really keen to move at pace. We want to get investment into our communities, and we want things to start happening, so if we can find ways to unblock the investment, we absolutely shall.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Bromborough) (Lab)]

May I welcome the Minister to her place, and say what an encouraging start this is? All the funding that my community is receiving is very welcome, and it is such a contrast to the previous regime’s approach, where we had the crumbs off the table, and a politically motivated process in which communities had to bid against each other in a system that was essentially rigged. It was always about what the Government wanted to spend the money on, not what communities decided their priorities were. Since the announcement of pride in place, I have had so many constituents come forward with great ideas. What assurances can the Minister give me that their voice will really count?

[Miatta Fahnbulleh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the difference in approach—both in allocation and in the power that we are genuinely trying to give communities—between this Government and the last Government. We are very clear that communities are in the driving seat. The Conservative party pointed out that things were being made “complex”, but I do not think they are. We are creating a route that allows communities to be in the driving seat; we have designed the programme with that intent. We have community delivery units that will be working on the ground alongside Members of Parliament to make sure that communities are genuinely driving and shaping this, and that we can unlock the huge potential to change our places.

Leaseholders and Freeholders

Justin Madders Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Liam Fox]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I will go on to set out just how horrendous some of those charges are and how it can be very difficult for my constituents to get legal redress. That is no doubt a situation that my hon. Friend the Minister has heard on a number of occasions.

We all understand that communal land must be managed for the benefit of all. No one disputes that, but it needs to be done in a way that is fair and equitable, predictable and transparent. The current position is none of those things.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that many of these arrangements were never made clear to people when they purchased their properties, and too often developers have taken a shortcut to create a secondary income stream, when actually they should be paying a lump sum to the local authority to take over those responsibilities. It is a double whammy for those who are on the end of it, is it not?

[Sir Liam Fox]

I swear there was no collusion here, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the hon. Gentleman takes me very neatly on to an even more horrendous example than the one I have already set out: fixed rent charges.

First, let me set out to the House the history by which property companies can fleece freeholders using this mechanism. Across the country as a whole rent charges are rare, but they do exist in parts of England, such as around Bath, Bristol and Manchester. A real problem can arise when a buyer or their conveyancing solicitor fails to spot their presence in the title deeds. Why? Because rent charges, which were introduced mainly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were put in place when landowners wanted to sell land at a reduced cost to a developer. They would sell the land on a freehold basis, but retain a legal interest in the land and charge an annual fee, or rent charge, which is in place for ever.

Historically, the rent charge was typically between £2 and £10, which was quite a lot in those days, but has been regarded as nominal in recent years. While many rent charges have fallen dormant, others have been bought up by property companies, which are now ruthlessly enforcing payment. The rent owner is entitled to recover any sums due, but does not have to send a reminder to the freeholder and, as I understand it, is legally entitled to impose a penalty after 40 days—when the account inevitably falls into arrears—usually by taking out a statutory lease on the home as security. That would then make the property almost impossible to sell unless the freeholder pays thousands to redeem the lease. That is outrageous.

Let me outline the issue in respect of Portishead. In 2011, solicitors acting on behalf of Crest Nicholson, the original landowner of the development, wrote to FirstPort—then known as Consort—advising it that the fixed rent charge should be reduced to £1. Although FirstPort shared that information with some residents and reduced the charge accordingly, it did not do that for all residents and continued to invoice some to the tune of between £100 and £150 per annum. Those residents were later refunded. After trying to renege on that agreement at the end of 2022, FirstPort informed residents in December 2023 that it again intended to start charging £100 to £150 per year for the fixed rent charge.

FirstPort has argued that, because no deed of variation was entered into to confirm the reduction, meaning that the agreement to reduce the fixed rent charge was not legally binding, it can effectively do what it likes. Needless to say, residents who were not advised in 2011 that they needed to enter into a deed of variation, or log the change with the Land Registry, are extremely unhappy. Recently, under pressure from residents, Crest Nicholson and myself, FirstPort agreed to keep the fixed rent charge to £1 per annum, provided that residents entered into a deed of variation.

It is instructive to see what Crest Nicholson has made of this debacle. On 9 February, it told me:

“Crest’s view is that the decision being taken by FirstPort to unilaterally reimpose the fixed rent charge of the properties at Port Marine is not only unfair but the underlying mechanism within the transfer is potentially open to challenge in the courts. This is because the annual charges they are proposing to claim (i.e. between £100 and £150) are not what a court would consider to be nominal amounts, a requirement for a fixed rent charge to be lawful under the Rentcharges Act 1977.”

Interestingly, Crest also told me:

“Many of the residents wrongly believe this money is being paid in exchange for FirstPort performing a service. FirstPort is already able to recover its costs for enforcing covenants from the variable element of the rent charge so FirstPort’s claim that this is its purpose is, at best questionable.”

Following a meeting that we had at the end of March, Crest Nicholson made it clear that it was no longer handing out contracts to FirstPort.

Let me turn to the question of the deed of variation. FirstPort initially quoted residents £300 plus VAT to enter into the deed of variation, offering that price as a discounted rate. In its letter to me on 7 March 2024, it stated that its

“legal fees for entering into any type of Deed of Variation would usually be £500 +VAT.”

In other words, this was a bargain that my constituents should jump at in order not be forced to pay £150 a year. They could pay FirstPort £500 as a one-off payment to prevent that from happening in the future. I think many of us would regard that as extortion. This whole saga has caused constituents a great deal of stress. Despite that, they have indicated that the £150 cost is tolerable—meaning they are willing, but not happy, to enter into the deed of variation and be done with the whole saga. FirstPort has set a deadline of 30 June 2024 for residents to enter into the deed of variation.

So, we have a variable service charge that can be raised and enforced without any clear and transparent links with the services being undertaken. Then, we have the truly horrendous situation in which rent charges, which have no relation whatsoever to any service being provided, can effectively be raised and applied through the threat of making properties unsellable, and the only means of escape is for residents to enter into deeds of variation at a price determined by—guess who—FirstPort. Let me be clear: I regard this as daylight robbery and a historical anomaly that has no place in our modern society. I am sure that FirstPort will not be the only property company up and down our country acting in this way. As the Minister’s Department introduces regulations following the passage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, and as it looks at leasehold reform, I ask my hon. Friend to see how quickly we can redress these wholly unacceptable positions and consign them to the dustbin of history, which is where they belong.

High Streets (Designation, Review and Improvement Plan) Bill

Justin Madders Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 26th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[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

Monday 22nd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[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

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[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

Monday 22nd January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow spokesperson.

[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

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[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

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[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

Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.