Police Grant

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Wednesday 22nd February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My right hon. Friend makes a good point. I assure him that we are looking at all those factors as we work through the process. It is so important that the police chief constables, the police and crime commissioners and other parties are doing solid work on the ground to ensure that the process is fully informed. I have no doubt that we will be debating that in the House in due course.

Police and crime commissioners and chief constables are already collaborating to make savings and pool resources to improve effectiveness, without sacrificing local accountability and identity. That is a credit to them.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a cogent case, as he usually does. I encourage him to proceed in the way in which he has outlined because my local constabulary, Cambridgeshire, is working on things such as firearms, forensics, dogs and homicide, and it has become much more efficient. For example, the tragic Joanna Dennehy murders of two or three years ago would not have been solved as expeditiously as they were without cross-county collaboration between several police forces.

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend is right. I met his chief constable and police and crime commissioner only this week and they showed me some of the excellent work being done there. It is one of the forces that is really driving forward and working to make sure that it delivers on the opportunities that the Act gives it to bring together the fire service and police force to create even further efficiencies and, importantly, better outcomes for residents in future.

Housing and Planning Bill

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

Let me begin by informing the House that I am placing in the Library today the Department's analysis of the application of Standing Order 83O in respect of the Lords amendments.

We find ourselves here again, and, enjoyable as that may be, and while I thank those in the other place for not insisting on their amendments relating to a number of issues, I am very surprised that they have chosen again to oppose one of our most important manifesto commitments, namely the commitment to ensure that more homes are built: homes that we need, and homes that young people are crying out for. Last week we heard from many Members, in the Chamber, about the people who had asked them when starter homes would be available. We need to get on with helping those people to fulfil their dreams and get on to the home ownership ladder. Some 86% of our population want to be given a chance to do that.

Lords amendment 10B allows local authorities to meet their starter home requirement with other low-cost home ownership products. The amendment would again totally undermine our manifesto commitment to build 200,000 starter homes by 2020.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend, like me, struggling to remember a case in which a policy that was the subject of a clear manifesto commitment, and had received the assent of the elected House by more than 100 votes, was struck down and circumscribed by the unelected, unaccountable panjandrums in the House of Lords?

[Brandon Lewis]

I have certainly not heard the position put so eloquently before. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am used to seeing the Labour party trying to stop people’s aspiration to own their homes, but it is beyond astonishing that the upper House should try to amend a measure that has received such a clear message of support from this elected Chamber, and in respect of which we have an election mandate to help young people.

If Lords amendment 10B were passed, the requirement for starter homes would become something entirely different: at best, the amendment shows a lack of understanding, and at worst it seeks to wreck important Government policy. That is unacceptable, not only to me but, I trust, to the House of Commons. The Joint Committee on Conventions made its view clear in its 2006 report “Conventions of the UK Parliament”, which states:

“A manifesto Bill is not subject to ‘wrecking amendments’ which change the Government's manifesto intention as proposed in the Bill.”

The noble Lords have done this not once, but twice. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson)—whose party, I note, was successful last Thursday—we sent a clear message, with an overwhelming majority, to the other place last week. We want our young people to have the chance of full home ownership, allowing them to move onwards and upwards over time. That is what the starter homes policy is all about, and we have a clear manifesto mandate to deliver it.

Enterprise Bill [Lords]

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Wednesday 9th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mrs Trevelyan) makes a strong point, and she has been consistent on this matter. She makes a clear, passionate and strong point on the importance of family values and of our social fabric. If she will bear with me, I will touch on that matter in just a moment.

I would say to Opposition Members that we need to think about where we are with Sunday trading. Let us be very clear: none of us would put up with a Government banning cinemas from opening on Wednesday evenings, so why on earth would we put up with a Government telling us when we can and cannot open our businesses and run our shops, and telling us how we should be spending our time if we want to go shopping on a Sunday?

[Mr Jackson]

The Minister is fielding a difficult case very well. He is an excellent Minister with whom I have had the great honour to serve on the Housing and Planning Bill Committee. However, on the specific issue of employment rights, he will know that as a result of work commissioned by the Christian Institute, John Bowers QC said on 25 February that he considered the Government’s proposals for employment rights “inordinately complex”, and that they would offer

“no protection from detriment or dismissal for people who object to working on Sundays during the opt-out notice period.”

That is the issue, and that is what the best legal brains have told us about the Government’s proposal.

[Brandon Lewis]

I have a similar admiration for my hon. Friend. He is a fantastic colleague to work with at all times, but I disagree with him on this matter. We know what the Government lawyers have outlined, and the strengthening of rights as set out in our amendments goes beyond anything that Labour did while it was in government to increase workers’ protection. This is an important part of the package. Inconsistency from the parties on the Opposition Benches is one thing, but killing off jobs is entirely another. Given Labour’s unemployment record and its Maoist take on economics, however, I should perhaps not be surprised. The SNP and Labour did not even raise an amendment or a vote on this issue in Committee.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend has a wealth of experience in this field, and, as always, he speaks with great common sense and logic. Local authorities should be using the powers that they have. By far the majority of landlords provide a good service, but authorities should be using those powers to crack down on the rogue landlords whom all of us, including good landlords, want to see driven out of the system.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

May I commend the Government for taking the toughest action on rogue landlords in a generation in the Housing and Planning Bill? On the provision of private sector rented housing, will the Minister give me an undertaking that he will continue to work, on a cross-party basis if necessary, to develop residential estate investment trusts, on which there has been a commitment from both parties over the years, and work with the Treasury to bring forward proposals for private sector housing, particularly in areas with affordability issues?

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and we are working right across government on the institutional investments. I can tell the House that the estates regeneration panel that the Prime Minister has set up will be meeting for the first time tomorrow and will be looking at all these issues in that context as well.

Housing Benefit and Supported Housing

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

I think there was an intervention somewhere in that speech. The hon. Lady has experience of the excellent work that those organisations do, as do I—I was a trustee of a Foyer. That is why it is important that we ensure that we protect the most vulnerable in society.

[Mr Jackson]

Is not the difference between the two sides of the House the fact that we on the Government side have got 339,000 disabled people into work and off benefits, whereas in 2010 the Labour party, to its eternal shame, presided over a situation in which 70% of people on disability living allowance had never been systematically re-assessed? That is a shocking and disgraceful record.

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend highlights the difference between the two parties. We want to ensure that we get a deal that protects the most vulnerable in society, helps them out and gives them an aspirational opportunity to move forward in their lives while getting a right and proper deal for the hard-working taxpayer.

In the autumn statement we announced that social sector rents eligible for housing benefit will be limited to the level of the relevant local housing allowance rate, including the shared accommodation rate for single claimants under 35 who do not have dependent children. It will be effective from 1 April 2018, affecting all tenancies that commenced from 1 April 2016. I know that has raised some concerns, so let me be clear that we will always ensure appropriate protections for the most vulnerable in supported housing. We will work closely with the sector, through the supported housing review, to ensure that we do that in exactly the right way.

Housing

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 15th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

The right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne has put on record his views on home ownership and house building, certainly going back to 2005. Obviously, we have challenges going right across as our population grows.

Let me remind the House of the situation we inherited in 2010. Perhaps some of my hon. Friends who were not here before then will be interested to know about this. We inherited: a housing bubble that burst with devastating consequences; an industry in debt; sites mothballed; workers laid off; skills lost; a loss of 420,000 affordable homes; rocketing waiting lists; and collapsing right-to-buy sales. In their 13 years in office, the Labour Government built only one home for every 170 that were sold. There was a sustained fall in home ownership. To be fair, the right hon. Gentleman knows that very well, because he himself said,

“I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing”.

It was no coincidence that that disregard for aspiring home owners was matched by chaos in the regulation of lending, a planning system in disarray controlled from the centre, a post-war low in house building by councils and the lowest level of house building since the 1920s.

[Mr Jackson]

Is my hon. Friend as disappointed as I am that in the course of the 32-minute churlish whinge-athon by the Opposition spokesman, he could not even give this Government credit for using the Housing and Planning Bill to tackle slum landlords? The Labour Government did nothing about that in 13 years.

[Brandon Lewis]

Perhaps the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne has not been involved in the Bill’s progress in Committee, as I know my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) has been. That might be why, despite what is in the Opposition motion, he has oddly not picked up on the fact that we are going further to crack down on and drive out rogue landlords than any Government have done before. The previous Labour Government oversaw the lowest level of house building since the 1920s, with just 88,000 starts being overseen by the right hon. Members for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) and for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) and, of course, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne. That was their housing crisis, that was their record, and that is the state of affairs that the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne claims the public should prefer.

Housing and Planning Bill (Seventeenth sitting)

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Thursday 10th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Brandon Lewis]

I find myself in a worrying position, because I agree with the hon. Member for Harrow West on two clauses running. I am not sure where to go from there.

One of our biggest challenges to get the homes that we want built across our country is the skills shortage. When we talk to developers and housing associations, some will talk about access to finance and some will talk about access to land and the planning system, but they will all talk about the skills challenge. Putting this matter on the record is useful, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for making the point. The industry is fantastic to work in. To be part of an industry that creates a home for people in the future is a special thing to be able to do.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

I agree with both my hon. Friend and with the hon. Member for Harrow West. Does my hon. Friend think that registered providers—housing associations—have a vital role to play? I commend my local registered provider, Cross Keys Homes in Peterborough, that works with the Mears construction company to run an apprenticeship school. Apprentices go straight back into working for that housing association in its remedial work and new build.

Housing and Planning Bill (Fourteenth sitting)

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 8th December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jackson]

We already have a vast array of assessments and objective criteria by which we measure developments. We have the local plans, structure plans, site location plans and viability assessments. We have vacant building credit, for instance, which is now in court as the result of a legal case. We have plenty of opportunities for engagement, even without talking about neighbourhood plans. The idea that the first base of the Secretary of State is to intervene straightaway is nonsense.

Finally, it ill behoves being lectured on localism by a party responsible for home information packs, eco-towns and the disaster of regional special strategy with Prescott’s density and parking targets, which gave rise to some of the worst-quality housing we have seen in this country since the war.

[Brandon Lewis]

It has been enlightening to have effectively a second clause stand part debate on clause 102. The amendments clearly relate to clause 102, so I will respond to them in that context.

I was particularly taken by my hon. Friend’s comments about the Roman forts. I would encourage his father to visit the Caister Roman fort to see how we do it in Great Yarmouth and give us some views on how to get some development around that.

I was amused by the comments of the hon. Member for Bootle about a centralist approach, which I assume were tongue-in-cheek. In his opening remarks, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough perfectly summed up what the amendments do. Having been a councillor for 11 years under a Labour Government, I know what centralism in local authority planning terms feels like.

With the best will in the world, the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood miss a key point, which is that permission in principle is driven locally—planning permission in principle will come through decisions made by local people in their local communities. That is a fundamental fact. I know the hon. Lady was not here when we touched on that at the end of last week.

Amendment 285 would require the Secretary of State to set out in regulations that sufficient testing of a site must take place before permission in principle is granted. The regulations also set out that adequate funding is provided to carry that out. I will come back to that in detail in a moment.

I have two fundamental concerns about amendment 285. First, prescribing the particulars to be addressed when granting permission in principle builds unhelpful rigidity into the process. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South made the point very well. We have been clear that we consider the particulars to be granted permission in principle should be use, location and amount of development. The approach taken in the Bill is a prudent, balanced one that allows for the particulars to be set out in secondary legislation. It gives us the flexibility to ensure that permission in principle works as intended.

My second concern is the detailed nature of the issues that amendment 284 requires to be fully addressed at the permission in principle stage. We have been clear from the very beginning that, in order for the measures to deliver real change in unlocking sites and avoiding unnecessary costs, permission in principle should give up-front certainty on the core matters underpinning the basic suitability of a site, namely its use, location and amount of development, and allow matters of detail to be agreed subsequently, as we have outlined before.

Amendment 284 proposes that matters of detail, such as density, affordable housing provision, community and social infrastructure requirements, be settled at the permission in principle stage. Let me be clear that those are matters that should be addressed before development is allowed to proceed, and the local planning authority may well consider them when deciding whether to grant permission in principle. However, if we were to require those to be covered by permission in principle, far more detailed information and analysis would be required, which would entirely negate the value of the Government’s measures and effectively duplicate the existing outline planning application process. Matters such as affordable housing contribution and community infrastructure provision will be agreed and negotiated at the technical detail stage, in line with local and national policy.

On amendment 285, clause 102 will enable permission in principle to be granted when a site is allocated in qualifying documents. The Secretary of State will prescribe a qualifying document only if it has been through a suitably robust process, including public consultation and a site assessment. We intend to set out in secondary legislation that the qualifying documents will be local plans, neighbourhood plans and the brownfield register. Before allocating a site in a local plan, as I am sure Members will appreciate, local authorities already go through a detailed site investigation and assessment process as part of their strategic housing land availability assessment.

In the neighbourhood planning context, the neighbourhood planning qualifying body should carry out an appraisal of options and an assessment of individual sites if it intends to allocate sites for development. Any such appraisals carried out by qualifying bodies are subject to scrutiny by both the local planning authority and an independent examiner. Neighbourhood plans also go through a full referendum of the local community. That is absolute local power in the hands of local people—true localism.

Therefore, extremely robust testing already exists in plan-making processes, and the whole purpose of the permission in principle model is to draw on that and make the best use of all the local effort, detailed work and resource at the plan-making stage, so that we get back to what we should be aiming for, which is a plan-led system. As the Government’s measures propose to utilise existing plan-making processes, we do not anticipate additional burdens on local authorities.

Housing and Planning Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Jackson]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me, but I would not want to incur the wrath of our Chair on this occasion. That particular happy hunting ground and battle royal of pay to stay are before us in the future. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is arming himself metaphorically and intellectually for that battle but, for the time being, I decry this amendment. It is unnecessary. Checks and balances exist to make sure that the proper procedures are followed to ensure that there is no criminal activity, especially money laundering, in the right-to-buy process for housing associations.

[Brandon Lewis]

The voluntary right-to-buy deal sets out the work done jointly by the Government and the sector to develop an efficient implementation process. This process would include measures that exist in the current right-to-buy scheme, such as eligibility tests and measures to limit fraudulent purchases—not the least among all the points raised by my hon. Friends earlier.

In the hon. Lady’s closing remarks, she made what was almost an aside about checking whether extending right to buy is—I think I quote her correctly—a “waste of money”. I say to her that perhaps she should meet people such as Wendy, whom I met in Liverpool on Friday, and others who have been able to take advantage of right to buy over the past few decades and support the reinvigorated scheme. I am getting messages from people who look forward to being able to benefit from the extended right-to-buy scheme. They will tell the hon. Lady that home ownership is not by any means a waste of money, nor is the fact that the Government will make sure that housing associations receive the full market value to use to deliver new homes.

Housing and Planning Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Thursday 26th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Brandon Lewis]

As I have outlined, we want to ensure that the licence is granted only to a landlord who can demonstrate that they are a fit and proper person to operate a house in multiple occupation. To build on a good point raised by the hon. Member for Harrow West the other day, there was an example in my constituency over the summer when somebody contravened the law. I would make the case that that person should never have been allowed again to be a landlord in the first place, people having lost their lives when that person was previously a landlord. We all want to ensure that we do everything we can to stamp out the chance of that kind of individual ever being a landlord again.

If the hon. Member for Easington will bear with me, I want to go a bit further. Clause 85 includes two further safeguards by providing that in future a local authority would also be required to have regard to whether the landlord has leave to remain in the UK or is an undischarged bankrupt or is insolvent. The aim of the amendment is to ensure that local authorities fully consider the past behaviour of landlords and agents who apply for a licence.

The Government and I are extremely sympathetic to that aim. To do that, local authorities need access to information about the previous activities of the landlord and will need to share that information across local authority boundaries. The database will be an important step forward in sharing information about convictions for housing-related offences.

Having heard the strength of feeling in the Committee both today and previously, particularly on Tuesday, I want to look further at whether local authorities have access to the right information, beyond convictions, to enable them to make the right judgments about who is a fit and proper person to hold a licence. I hope that, with that assurance, the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead will agree to withdraw the amendment.

[Mr Jackson]

I would like to add briefly to the important point the Minister has made. Members of the Committee might have heard “World at One” a few weeks ago when it focused on high levels of immigration in the Peterborough constituency. They followed around a housing enforcement officer of 20 years’ experience, who found, in a two-bedroom house, a family comprising a mother on her own and eight children. That is pertinent because it is important to make the point that is no good for individual local authorities to collect those data if they do not cross-reference them with other regulatory and statutory bodies.

It is appalling not only that that mother was living with eight children in a slum, and a greedy, rapacious landlord was skimming money off the state and plunging them into misery; frankly, that lady should not have been in the country because she is a Slovak national. She was not exercising her EU free movement directive rights because she was not employed, self-employed, looking for work or a student. She should not have been in the UK accessing UK benefits. Over and above the housing issue, we need a much tougher and more robust regulatory framework to share information with organisations such as Border Force. I hope that we are able to do that in some way because, frankly, we want to drive some landlords out of the market, but we also want to ensure that the right people are in the country accessing the scarce public resources.

Housing and Planning Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

Q 112 Mr Fletcher, I assume that you are talking about developments such as the multi-family housing we see elsewhere in the world. I understand the point you are making. In that situation, I assume that the developers, knowing that they have to do their bit for the community as negotiated on affordable housing, would look to do what we see elsewhere: if they can make a case for an apartment block, for example, they might provide affordable housing or starter homes on a different site but in that area with the local authority.

Ian Fletcher: Absolutely, Minister. I said in my first remarks, I think, that I was talking specifically about the on-site requirement. I have no qualms about the other part of the Bill, which is about the duty of local authorities to provide starter homes.

[Mr Jackson]

Q 113 On paragraph 14 of your briefing—I am sure members have copies—about automatic planning permission, you make the case that this should move on from simply residential housing to multi-use sites, including leisure, retail, industrial, etc. How would that work? Surely that would be an overly permissive regime—to have that in the Bill and extend what is essentially a welcome proposal to drive the number of houses up to a free-for-all, having every economic activity on a brownfield site?

Ian Fletcher: That part of our brief is trying to express a concern that the permission that is granted in advance on the brownfield sites will drive a lot of those sites into housing use. That is, therefore, a concern in terms of ensuring that we have a balanced economy. We have evidence that illustrates that about 50%, I think, of local authorities and local plans are out of date with respect to things such as industrial uses. The local authorities that are particularly out of date are some of the places you would most expect to have expansion of industrial use places, such as the Thames valley and the northern powerhouse. We are just expressing a concern that this policy might drive more brownfield land into housing use at the expense of other uses.

Housing and Planning Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Brandon Lewis

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)]

May I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

May I also draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jackson]

Q 17 Obviously there is a predisposition in the Bill towards support for residential accommodation and housing in London and across the country. What impact do you think that might have, specifically in London, on commercial and business premises?

Richard Blakeway: I think that some of the issues in relation to the conversion of office to residential are actually outside the Bill. None the less, we very much welcome the Government’s agreement that there will be an exemption until May 2019 for some of the existing areas that we have sought exemptions for, such as the CAZ—the central activities zone—the Royal Docks enterprise zone, Tech City, and the northern part of the Isle of Dogs. We really welcome the Government’s move on that. Clearly, the article 4 measure allows those areas to formulate an application to extend the exemption beyond 2019 and there is obviously a window to do that.

[Brandon Lewis]

Q 18 May I take you back to the conversation a few minutes ago about starter homes? Are you able to give us an idea, even if it is a ballpark figure, of the average price paid by a first-time buyer for a home in London?

Richard Blakeway: A ballpark price would be about £290,000. I think that is based on CML data.