Lord Pickles
Main Page: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
1. What steps he is taking to promote refurbishment of empty and vacant homes.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
We have introduced a series of measures to get empty homes back into use, which are backed up by our commitment of £160 million of central Government funding. That is in contrast to the last Government’s pathfinder programme, which was more interested in bulldozing Victorian terraces than refurbishing empty homes.
Stuart Andrew
I am grateful for that answer. Constituents of mine in Pudsey are extremely concerned about the deluge of recent planning applications on greenfield and protected area of search—PAS—sites, given that as of October 2011 the number of empty properties in Leeds stood at nearly 14,000. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it would be better to bring those homes back into use than to destroy our green spaces?
Mr Pickles
I know my hon. Friend’s constituency well and am a frequent visitor there. He is right to point out the number of empty homes within the Leeds city boundaries, as it is one reason why we have been so keen to have the new homes bonus there, in order to bring long-term empty properties back into use. We would be doing well if we brought some of the fine architecture of Leeds—those wonderful terraced properties—back into use.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State congratulate Kettering borough council, of which I have the privilege to be a member, on its work with the Rockingham Forest Housing Association? They have recently spent about a third of a million pounds to bring three empty properties back into use, and now three families have homes that they did not have this time last year.
Mr Pickles
My hon. Friend illustrates my point. I hope those families enjoy their new property and will come to see it as something that a different Government were able to deliver in a different way.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
2. What steps he is taking to encourage use of empty shops not covered by the Portas pilot scheme or the high street innovation fund.
Mr Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)
16. What the percentage change was to average band D council tax bills in real terms in (a) England and (b) Gravesham constituency over financial years 2010-11 and 2011-12.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
Thanks to the council tax freeze, over the last two years, council tax bills have fallen by 1.4% in Gravesham and 4.4% across England in real terms. That is real help for families and pensioners with the cost of living.
Mr Holloway
I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. I will ask my question in a very calm manner. The majority of councils in Kent have frozen their council tax. Is he disappointed that in Gravesham it has risen by 3.48%, which is just below the 3.5% threshold for a referendum?
Mr Pickles
Gravesham has joined the small, select list of council tax dodgers. If it was felt that the council tax should go up, it would have been sensible to put it to the people of Gravesham, who no doubt would have given it their consideration.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
17. What steps his Department is taking to promote small wind turbines within the planning framework.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
On Thursday, I spoke to the Local Government Association annual conference. I announced our intention to make it easier for councils to abolish chief executive posts without having to hand out massive payouts, welcomed the £430 million in bids for the new weekly collection schemes, and noted the next stage of town hall transparency in which new rules will require councils to declare their trade union funding and their interests. In the interests of bipartisanship, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who courageously put down questions on council tax collection and exposed the inability of Labour councils to collect council tax.
Teresa Pearce
Shelter has advised me that my borough of Bexley has one of the highest proportions of home owners at risk of repossession in England. What funding and advice does the Secretary of State intend to give Bexley so that it can cope with that risk?
Mr Pickles
I am sure that the hon. Lady will recognise that repossessions are at their lowest since 2007. The most important thing that we can do to help people is to ensure that interest rates are kept at a reasonable level. That is what the Government have done. An increase of 1 percentage point would add £1,000 to the costs faced by her constituents and put more people at risk.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
T2. The Minister will be aware of the excellent representations by the Witham town centre team to bring a Portas pilot to Witham. Will he congratulate that team on their vision and, importantly, support them in bringing that vision to Witham town centre?
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Properly targeted and funded family intervention works, so why have the Government introduced a half-baked scheme based on research that fails to distinguish between poor families and those involved in antisocial behaviour? Why do they refuse to give details of their cost estimates on the spurious grounds that the spending of public money is commercially sensitive? Is it not because they want to disguise the fact that they have slashed services such as Sure Start and youth intervention programmes, which really make a difference, and the fact that councils will get back only a tiny fraction of the millions that they have already lost?
Mr Pickles
I would have thought the hon. Lady would have been a little bit more jolly, considering that I congratulated her on the great work that she has been doing on behalf of the Government.
I am very surprised at the hon. Lady, because we would not have been able to help troubled families without the intensive help of Labour councils. The big difference between what we are doing now and what she suggests is that we are allowing councils to come up with their own schemes and methodologies. All that we are interested in is the outputs. Frankly, she should congratulate all those who have worked hard, because we can now identify the correct families, three months ahead of when people expected us to be able to do so.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
T6. Has the Minister had a response from the UK Statistics Authority to the letter from the shadow Housing Minister, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), about net losses in social housing?
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
T8. One of my constituents recently asked our local planning department whether he needed planning permission to erect a shed for his mobility scooter. The planning officers refused to answer his question and insisted that he had to submit a form and pay a £75 fee to determine whether the shed was covered by permitted development rights, which it was. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is wrong for local authorities to charge for simply clarifying planning rules?
Mr Nicholas Brown (Newcastle upon Tyne East) (Lab)
The Minister will know that more rain fell on Newcastle upon Tyne and the surrounding areas in a few hours last Friday than would normally fall in the whole month of July. The resulting floods damaged businesses, people’s private homes and the transport infrastructure. Ministers will want to join me in thanking the local authority employees, who responded magnificently, and the emergency services more generally for their response. Will the Secretary of State look again at the Bellwin formula to see whether it works reasonably? It is an old formula, and possibly ripe for revision to deal with exceptional circumstances of that kind.
Mr Pickles
The right hon. Gentleman will be very familiar with Bellwin and the formula and he is right to praise the emergency services and local people. I have spoken to friends in the area, and I know the events were traumatic. I recall the enormous damage and wreckage—both physical and psychological—caused by a flash flood in my constituency a few years ago. The Government have not yet received an application under the Bellwin rules, but I can assure him that when it comes, we will look at it most sympathetically in terms of the formula.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
T10. A woefully inadequate number of new houses were built in Labour’s 13 years in government. What progress is being made on new houses in areas such as Hastings and Rye, so that young people have a chance of getting on the property ladder?
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement last Thursday that he will change the law in order to require councillors to declare union support and donations as pecuniary and therefore prejudicial interests. Did he receive representations from the Labour Front-Bench team against these proposals when the statutory instrument came in this month? If not, would their union paymasters be justified in thinking them asleep on the job?
Mr Pickles
This matter—not whether Labour has been asleep on the job but the amount of union involvement with councillors—is of enormous concern. We are taking the moderate and reasonable approach of saying, “We support unions and it is wonderful that they support the Labour party, but we would like to know and it should be a matter for public disclosure.” Given that it is so uncontroversial, I am sure it will receive support throughout the House.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
Is the Minister aware of the housing crisis throughout central London in the private rented sector, with rents rising well above inflation, housing benefit being capped or cut, and many families being evicted and communities broken up? Is it not time that we lifted the housing benefit level and introduced strict regulation of the private rented sector to preserve families and communities in the inner-city parts of the country?
Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)
Are the Government’s excellent proposals for troubled families being embraced by local authorities throughout the country?
Mr Pickles
I am delighted to report that all 152 principal local authorities signed up last month. I am also delighted at the amount of progress being made and delighted that at least some Opposition Members have been more than helpful. It is our first big chance to do something about this serious situation.