One Public Estate Programme

Kevin Foster Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Kevin Foster)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. At the start of my response to a debate, I usually say that I will allow a couple of minutes at the end for the Member who secured it to speak, but I suspect I will be able to allow slightly more than that on this occasion.

This debate has been marked more by quality than by quantity of speakers. The speech made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Leigh (Jo Platt), started so well. She made a point of saying that the scheme was a positive one, and that we share the goal of seeing the public sector work together. Few of us would think it was a good idea to spend money on bricks and mortar, rather than on delivering public services. Her speech went a bit awry after that, however.

Local councils have been doing a lot of these projects for some time, and we do not compel local councils to take part in them, as I will come on to say in a minute. The scheme that the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) has been particularly exercised about, which is being undertaken by his local district council, is not part of the One Public Estate programme. There is no compulsion to take part.

Some of the closing comments sit strangely with my memories of the period between 2008 and 2010, when I was the deputy leader of Coventry City Council and dealing with the Labour Government, which seemed equally keen on the idea that public land could be released. To be fair, the previous Labour council had released land to fund certain regeneration projects; we also saw that during preparations made by the then Department for Communities and Local Government, which sought to take about 20% out of local government funding following 2010. Most of us were not surprised when the spending review that was due in 2009 was kicked back to after the general election; we can all conclude the reasons for that.

I move on to the other contributions to the debate, and I have to start with the speech made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard). As always, he made a passionate pitch for my home town and birthplace of Plymouth. He is right to say that moving Government jobs out of London does not just have an economic impact; it is about a change of perception. A civil service that is almost entirely based in London and the south-east creates a perception about issues and about the rest of the country; it may not give the idea of one civil service for one United Kingdom.

Over many years, various organisations have operated successfully outside London and the south-east, including the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea. We can see the opportunity that Government hubs bring. For example, while some operations are already located in Cardiff, the Wales Office is looking at how it can be part of a hub opposite Cardiff station, to show that the Government are at the heart of Cardiff, not on an estate outside the city centre. That says a lot about our ambition as well; I expect it is an ambition that will be shared by Governments, whatever their colour, over the next 10 or 20 years. To be clear, such a Government will govern the whole Union, and not just run the whole nation from London.

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to cite the appetite of a skilled workforce in south Devon; it stretches into not just the PL postcodes but even into the TQ postcodes. He is right that, bluntly, the region offers the Government opportunities to get more money into delivery of service than into paying the exorbitant costs of property in central London.

In addition—this is a point that is sometimes forgotten—when Government buildings are released in London, within a short period of time there are usually more jobs and higher-than-average salaries being paid on that same footprint. Therefore, the process does not do London’s economy down; in many ways, it provides the opportunity that London’s private economy needs to grow, in the same way as public money benefits the regions. That is one thing that sometimes gets lost in the debate. Although there is the idea that jobs are going out of London, the space that is released normally provides an opportunity to create jobs in London.

Regarding the release of Ministry of Defence land, the hon. Gentleman cited Turnchapel—I am certainly looking forward to visiting it at some point, to see the automation there—and other places, such as Royal William Yard. My gran was a Stonehouse kid. Thirty years ago, Stonehouse was a shadow of what it had once been; it was a very sad place. Royal William Yard was coming to the end of its time as a victualing yard that was no longer needed by the Royal Navy. The release of Royal William Yard for redevelopment has not just led to its regeneration, but, as he will know, spurred a regeneration of the area around it. Gone are the days when semi-derelict industrial buildings made up the city’s red light district. Now the area is a real beacon of hope, aspiration and investment.

I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s concern about what will happen with Stonehouse barracks and, of course, the iconic Citadel. I think he will agree that although those facilities are historic and iconic, we would not want to run a modern war-fighting operation from them. As he mentioned, what our troops will accept in times of combat or conflict is very different from what we should expect them to put up with in times of peace. We are working to deliver a solution that works not only for the military but, as is the case with Royal William Yard, for the community that surrounds a base. Clearly, that is something that my colleagues in the MOD will only be too interested to continue talking to him about.

The hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), as always, made a passionate case for her city. She made the point that, with modern connections, York is now 90 minutes from London, so the argument that moving jobs out of London makes them remote is no longer valid.

Ultimately, it is for local councils to make local planning decisions. I am aware that the hon. Lady is not the biggest fan of her local council; having listened to a number of her speeches over the last couple of years, I think it is fair to say that. She can use that point to challenge her local council both here and locally, and ultimately it is for local voters to make their decisions based on what they think of their local council.

I heard what the hon. Lady said about the hospital site that she referred to. I am happy to look at the site further to see how we can ensure that Government Departments work together. The goal of One Public Estate is to treat the public estate as one public estate, and not for different Departments to reach conflicting outcomes. The site that she mentions is probably one for us to look at, perhaps after this debate and perhaps with my colleague the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden) —he is the Minister for implementation—who has direct responsibility for this policy area. If there are challenges, we can consider them. As the hon. Lady said, in this instance the sale has already been made and that is probably the end of that, but we can perhaps consider this issue for the future. We are keen that Government Departments view themselves as part of a whole, not just as individual operations.

I come now to the main part of my speech. I thank the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington for securing this debate on One Public Estate and giving hon. Members the opportunity to reflect on this vital programme. I particularly liked the fact that he gave the example of Devon and Cornwall, where we have the joint response hub. That project is about not just bringing different services together, but considering how they can work together with co-responders, and particularly looking at areas where the police and the fire service struggle. For example, the fire service struggles to recruit retained firefighters, which might have been easier 40 or 50 years ago but is now harder because of changes in employment patterns and in how people live their lives. That project considers how such services can work together and deliver a better outcome for all three emergency services, including ambulances, by uniting and working together.

As the hon. Gentleman touched on, that project combining police and the fire service saves £500,000 a year on running costs and it has released two sites for redevelopment. However, it has also enabled the emergency services to reach more people within their target response times. The process is not just about delivering a financial output; it is also about delivering better public services.

As has been made clear, One Public Estate has successfully forged new partnerships across the public sector, showing that collaboration is the key to achieving success. The strapline for the latest Government estate strategy is

“a public estate for public benefit”.

This programme demonstrates how property can be a catalyst for achieving a wide range of benefits, including housing, jobs and more integrated public services.

As I mentioned a moment ago, I am aware of the hon. Gentleman’s campaign against Warwick District Council’s plans to build new offices alongside a new multi-storey car park and apartments, and to redevelop its current Riverside House site for private housing. I also recall him raising the issue in a previous Westminster Hall debate, in January 2018; on that occasion, if I recall correctly, I sat in the Parliamentary Private Secretary’s spot. In that debate, he said that One Public Estate was

“a genuine and sincere ambition to get authorities around the table to review all public assets and decide how they can best be used for the future delivery of services.”—[Official Report, 10 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 109WH.]

The hon. Gentleman is right that One Public Estate has brought hundreds of public sector partners to the table. He is also right that partners review all public assets to identify opportunities to deliver additional new homes, jobs and efficiency savings, and that communities across the country are enjoying the benefits of this programme, which uses partnerships to yield greater results.

Currently, One Public Estate is supporting five projects in the Connecting Warwickshire One Public Estate Partnership. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, Riverside House was not put forward as part of the partnership’s proposals to One Public Estate. As I have touched on, One Public Estate is not a compulsory scheme for local councils. It is also important to note that the programme has never sought to override local or national statutory duties, governance or requirements. The programme is designed to have the flexibility to support proposals from partnerships within a broad set of programme objectives. One Public Estate’s ability to tailor solutions that work for all partners involved is central to its success.

One Public Estate is about helping partnerships to thrive, but it is also a partnership itself, between the Office of Government Property in the Cabinet Office and the Local Government Association. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, it began in 2013 as a pilot in 12 areas, testing a fairly novel idea for Government—working collectively on property. We set out to discover whether laying the groundwork for collaboration, and providing seed funding and practical advice for public sector partners, would unlock significant additional benefits for both local communities and the taxpayer. That has clearly been the case—each year the programme has grown, as organisations have seen what can be achieved, formed new partnerships and put forward ambitious proposals.

Central to the One Public Estate approach is its focus on partnership. As has been referred to, it is a partnership between central and local government, whereby the Office of Government Property and the LGA act together as neutral brokers among partners. Regional programme managers in the team also provide support and challenge. Those joining the programme must also form their own cross-public sector partnership, bringing together central and local government, alongside other national and local partners, including the NHS, the police, the fire service, local enterprise partnerships and others. Thirdly, projects must be delivered in partnership by multiple public sector partners.

The formula is already reaping rewards. Today, as the hon. Gentleman highlighted, One Public Estate collaborates with over 95% of English local authorities, 13 major Government Departments, and hundreds of wider public sector partners, working in 78 official partnerships. Together, these partnerships are delivering over 600 projects across England, ranging from co-locating services, so that they are under one roof, to releasing surplus land for housing and town centre regeneration.

These organisations have come together to achieve more than they could alone, and to make better use of the public estate for public benefit. So far, the programme has generated £163 million in capital receipts, saved taxpayers £24 million in running costs, created 5,745 new jobs and released land for 3,336 new homes.

However, that is just the beginning, especially when it comes to housing, which is the Government’s top domestic priority. The problem of insufficient housing in this country is not a recent one; it goes back decades and involves numerous contributing factors. We could debate the origins of the housing shortage for hours, with each one of us arguing about our own party’s record, but today I will speak about a few of the ways in which this Government have acted to address this crucial issue through One Public Estate.

With housing, One Public Estate helps to create a pipeline of land, de-risking projects and making them investment-ready. The projects may then secure finance from Government housing initiatives, such as the accelerated construction programme or the housing infrastructure fund, or from other sources.

One Public Estate also plays its part in promoting modern methods of construction to local authorities and across Government, and furthering knowledge of this emerging market. It has organised factory site visits, facilitated meetings between One Public Estate partners and offsite providers, partnered with the University of Liverpool to examine the barriers, and co-sponsored the offsite village at the Chartered Institute of Housing’s 2018 conference, to further public sector knowledge of this emerging market. The programme has also allocated funding to partnerships to take forward vital research on modern methods of construction in delivering housing targets.

In 2017, the programme partnered with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to deliver the £45 million local authority land release fund. This capital funding, coupled with One Public Estate’s regionally-based team providing practical support, is supporting councils to unlock land for an additional 7,000 homes.

I have seen the impact of this programme at first hand. In Torbay, three projects successfully gained nearly £4 million of funding from the land release fund and, between them, Victoria Square, Preston Down Road and Collaton St Mary will see hundreds of houses built, with some available for social rent. I want to be clear that the percentage of affordable housing on each site is a matter for the local council, with its plans and its planning consents. As with any other site, it will have to make its own local determination about what the challenges are, for example if a site is contaminated. This is about supporting local councils in delivering their ambitions, not the Government directing, top down.

Interestingly, One Public Estate is also supporting the development of plans for a new health hub in Paignton, providing a modern, purpose-built facility better able to meet the needs of the local community and releasing surplus land for enhanced public and community use. It is remarkably similar to the project cited by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport and, hopefully, in the spirit of things, there can be learning between the two. The project in Paignton is looking to release a hub that is currently based in the much-loved Victorian hospital there. I have spoken in support of the building several times, but it was constructed just after the era of Queen Victoria and is not the place for 21st-century medicine to be well provided.

[Luke Pollard]

In a health hub, we bring together different strands that come from very different funding streams—not only from the Department of Health and Social Care, but from social care providers and from across the Government estate—and it might be worth looking at whether there is a better formula or model that can encourage that great collaboration. At the moment, it works in some places, where partners are working together already, but not in others, where there is a greater distance. I think there is a model of best practice that could be encouraged, and I ask the Minister to look at that.

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive and instructive intervention. Because we have an integrated care organisation in Torbay, one of the advantages is that there is no difference between the local authority’s budget and the NHS budget for social care, but I agree that there is a need to look at how we can bring partners together. A particular issue is where there are not just NHS and local authority services but GPs who are independent businesses—the great compromise from 1948—who then have to decide whether to move their service, potentially from a building of which they have the freehold and in which they feel very confident. Even if the GPs accept that the building is not the place in which to be delivering the best examples of 21st-century medicine—for example, if it is a converted house that does not have a lift to the first floor, restricting the ability of an increasingly elderly population to access all the services provided—it is about the certainty that can be provided when they take the leap and come into a building of which they are a tenant or a leaseholder, rather than a freeholder.

Again, it is about being clear about the partnership approach and ensuring that the building is not seen as belonging to the council, in Torbay’s case, or to the NHS, in Plymouth’s, but is seen as one that all partners have a shared interest in, with the main goal being a better service for the public and for those who access the services, and providing a sustainable future.

The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington mentioned that One Public Estate has invested £665,000 to support the Connecting Warwickshire Partnership in his area to deliver five projects across health, regeneration and housing agendas: the co-location of services in Warwick town centre, the regeneration of Nuneaton town centre, a review of service provision from the site of the George Eliot Hospital, the transformation of Rugby town centre, and the development of a strategic housing pipeline to deliver affordable homes in north Warwickshire, utilising offsite modular construction. The Connecting Warwickshire Partnership expects the five projects to generate £35 million of capital receipts, cut running costs by £2 million, release land for about 1,000 homes and create 500 jobs.

Another example is in Brent, where One Public Estate is bringing together Brent Council, London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust, the University of Westminster and social housing provider Network Homes to redevelop the Northwick Park area, creating jobs and delivering affordable homes, including, crucially, given the comments made about key workers in this debate, for NHS staff. One Public Estate revived an earlier proposal to develop the hospital site in isolation, and provided support and challenge that could result in 1,600 homes, which is about double the number planned by the partners operating alone.

The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington touched on the project in Rutland, where One Public Estate has awarded £175,000 and facilitated a memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Defence and Rutland County Council to develop 300 hectares of surplus land at St George’s barracks into a new garden village, including delivering up to 3,000 homes by 2032. It is right that we work in partnership with the local council.

Perhaps where I differ from the hon. Gentleman is that although I support the move to remove some of the caps—over the past few years we have started to see a slow revival in the building of council homes, compared with the period between 1997 and 2010—I do not necessarily think that it is for the Government to dictate that that construction should be the sort of mass-build estates we saw in the past. That is a choice for local councils, but certainly from my own experience in local government it is better when we have mixed communities rather than going back to the days when we built an estate on the edge of town as our pure provision of social housing.

[Rachael Maskell]

Is not the problem that local authorities may have their plans—it is absolutely right that they lead—but there is a collision course with the national determination of Departments? That is the piece that needs to be fixed.

[Kevin Foster]

My response to the hon. Lady’s point is that I am certainly happy to look at the instance in her constituency of what I think was described as NHS Property Services operating to one timetable and One Public Estate operating to another. As I say though, One Public Estate is about co-operation rather than necessarily about the Government looking to direct that a council must be part of it, as we touched on with the Warwick District Council project—that is not part of One Public Estate. Speaking as someone who believes quite a lot in local government, I would be loth for this to go down the path of direction from the centre.

[Rachael Maskell]

The other determinant, of course, is finances. Although Government Departments are trying to reap as much resource from the land as they possibly can, and that is why it is being handed over to developers, local authorities are really cash-strapped in how they can develop that land. Will the Minister also look at that collision course, when he goes back to the Department?

[Kevin Foster]

We have given a range of flexibility to local authorities to look at how they can develop, but ultimately they can act as a bank. My own local council is helping to bring forward a significant development, admittedly on private land but with clear guarantees and protections around the taxpayer interest in lending the money and actually making a profit. There are opportunities for local authorities to take forward developments; it is for each of them in each instance to decide whether they wish to use those opportunities. Regarding the idea that the programme is motivated purely by the need to make savings, I touch first on the fact that a plan was being formulated under the last Labour Government to make significant cuts to local government funding post-2010 and, secondly, on how the programme is helping to bolster local government finances by delivering the ability to work together with a view to saving money. Therefore, I do not necessarily recognise that the two are in conflict; in fact, the picture is quite the opposite.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kevin Foster]

I have given way twice to the hon. Lady, so I will do so again very briefly, but I will make this the last time.

[Rachael Maskell]

The point I was making is that Government Departments are taking that resource into their national funds—into their own budgets—as opposed to delivering benefit to local communities. There are, therefore, different interests at play when it comes to the resourcing of developments.

[Kevin Foster]

The Government are spending significant amounts via, for example, the housing infrastructure fund, to which eligible sites can bid, and the land release fund. I have touched on how the latter is releasing local authority land where authorities do not have the potential resource, or where it would be uneconomical for them to develop it on their own. In the Paignton example, the fund is paying to put a sewer into a site that would have been too expensive to bring forward, or where social housing would have been taken out to fund the infrastructure.

The idea that money disappears off into a central hole is not accurate, but we hope that One Public Estate encourages the parties to work together for the wider financial benefit of the public sector. In many instances, that will mean delivering a co-operative plan in the long-term interest of the Government Department concerned. Again, I or the Minister with responsibility for implementation, my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere, will happily meet to discuss the target timeline of NHS Property Services versus the timeline of the One Public Estate bid, and see whether we can make some progress on that issue in future developments.

The programme’s original aim was to deliver 45 co-locations for the NHS, the police and the fire service by 2020. Today, the Government estate strategy hopes to quadruple that goal, setting bold new ambitions to facilitate 200 co-locations by 2020 and 250 by 2022. We can therefore see that One Public Estate is already delivering. Partnerships with projects under way expect to generate £615 million in capital receipts and £158 million in running cost savings, create 44,000 jobs, and release land for 25,000 homes by 2020. That is a tremendous amount of success in a relatively short time. In February, my colleague the Minister with responsibility for implementation announced the outcome of the programme’s seventh application round, a total of £15 million in funding. That is expected to support a further 10,000 new homes and 14,000 jobs over the next five years.

Since it began in 2013, One Public Estate has awarded £60 million to support projects and partnerships. The programme does not fully fund schemes; however, it facilitates laying the groundwork for future projects through feasibility studies, options appraisals and master planning. It can also help projects deliver at a faster pace by funding dedicated programme management. At the same time, and as we have touched on, we recognise our investment can bring about significant savings for some authorities, so we have introduced an element of repayable grants. In phase 7, which was the most recent, about £3.5 million of the £15 million funding available was awarded as repayable grants. Those will be repaid within a three-year period and, crucially, reinvested to enhance the future impact of the One Public Estate programme.

I again commend the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington on having secured a debate on the One Public Estate programme. As we have discussed, that programme has developed rapidly and is already having a significant impact on collaboration across the public sector. I particularly thank the Local Government Association for their excellent partnership with my Department in leading the programme, and pay tribute to the 95% of local authorities and many other partners that have chosen to take part in the programme. I am sure that Members will join me in wishing the partnerships well as they collaborate to deliver new homes, jobs, and improvements to public services in communities.

For many of us, the greatest reward in many communities will be seeing people achieve the desire that the Government regard as a key ambition for so many: owning their own home—having a place that they call home and that is theirs for as long as they wish it to be. That will remain a firm aspiration of this Government. Of course, we will support the development of social housing and deliver as much as we can, but none of us should ignore the fact that many people still hold the core aspiration of owning their own home. Too many people feel that aspiration slipping away from them, and we want to see it brought back to them, so they can enjoy it in the same way as their parents did.