New Housing: Swift Bricks

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Caroline Lucas

Monday 10th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, as ever, Sir Edward, and to respond to this important debate on behalf of the Opposition. I thank Hannah Bourne-Taylor for creating the petition and the members of the public who signed it in such large numbers. It is unsurprising but nevertheless still heartening to see so many people mobilise against the decline of nature across these isles and in particular in defence of the swift.

I recognise, as several hon. Members have, the contribution made over many years by local swift conservation groups across the country. The various initiatives they have collectively developed and implemented have made a difference, and they deserve to be commended for their work. I thank the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for opening the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee and thank all hon. Members who have participated. It has been a debate defined by a series of passionate, thoughtful and informative contributions.

The debate has fallen to me to respond to as a member of the shadow Levelling Up, Housing and Communities team because it ostensibly relates to a technical planning matter. However, as the debate has made abundantly clear, the specific issue we are considering touches on a far broader range of concerns. As hon. Members have alluded to, when we weigh in our minds the case for specific measures such as swift bricks, context is everything. It is for that reason that Labour starts by recognising that the UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with analysis from the Natural History Museum suggesting that with an average of only 53% of our biodiversity left, the UK is in the bottom 10% of the world and the last in the G7 when it comes to the state of ecosystem biodiversity. It is unarguable that more must be done to protect and enhance our natural environment.

Labour fully appreciates how sharply breeding swift numbers across the country have declined over recent decades—as hon. Members have mentioned, they are now on the red list of birds of conservation concern in the UK. The precise reasons for the rapid decline of the species are complex. Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), have alluded to some of them, but the loss of available nesting sites, largely through home renovation, insulation and demolition without sufficient alternatives being created, is undoubtedly a significant contributory factor. In our view, it is essential that as part of efforts to increase biodiversity net gain, we drive up rates of swift brick installation in new build properties—not only in houses but, quite rightly, in other public buildings across the whole of England.

The question is therefore not whether the Government need to do more to halt and reverse the decline of the swift population in the UK, or whether swift bricks would make a significant difference to swift numbers and other red-listed species. This tension has featured throughout the debate. The question is rather whether it is necessary, in order to boost swift numbers in the UK, to mandate the incorporation of swift bricks into all new build properties, as opposed to taking steps to better encourage and incentivise their roll-out.

Our instinct when it comes to achieving biodiversity net gain, including the specific 10% BNG target in all new developments that will apply from November this year, is to allow for maximum local discretion. It is local communities and their representatives that are best placed to determine what specific measures are appropriate on any given development site. As such, we certainly have a degree of sympathy with the Government’s position that local authorities and developers should not be compelled to include swift bricks in every single housing unit that they respectively authorise or construct.

However—there definitely is a “however”—we are deeply concerned about current swift brick installation rates. To the best of my knowledge, no agreed estimate of the total number of swift bricks needed to restore the swift numbers lost over recent decades exists, although I know that some people have made estimates. But there is little doubt that the numbers currently being incorporated into new buildings each year are lower than they need to be if we are to address the decline of swift numbers in the UK. That is not to overlook the tangible progress that has been, and is being, made in various parts of the country. We appreciate that many local planning authorities and communities have already included specific provisions relating to swift bricks in their local development and neighbourhood plans and associated supplementary guidance. We recognise that many new residential developments across England are incorporating large numbers of swift bricks.

However, it is undeniably the case that those incentives remain the exception rather than the norm—not least because, as mentioned by the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), swift bricks and other species-based features are not explicitly included within the metric for calculating biodiversity net gain. The result is that swift brick coverage across the country, estimated at fewer than 20,000, remains far too limited at present.

Labour therefore takes the view that current national planning policy and guidance on the matter, which essentially amounts to listing swift bricks as one of the many small features that can measurably increase biodiversity and recommending them as part of best practice local design guides and codes, is insufficiently prescriptive. Although we do not believe that local discretion should be overridden lightly, we intend to reflect carefully on the arguments made in favour of making swift bricks mandatory in every new home built in England, and we certainly do not rule out such a measure in the future.

However, as things stand, we are absolutely convinced that there is a robust case for the Government to consider revising existing national planning policy and guidance in this area, at least to create a presumption in favour of incorporating swift brick provisions within local development and neighbourhood plans and associated guidance. Under such an arrangement, and with swift bricks properly scored on the BNG metric system, the onus would at least be on local authorities and developers to justify not installing swift bricks in each instance across specific sites.

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be making life so much more difficult for himself and for all of us. I honestly could not believe my ears when I heard him basically saying that he would not—yet, at least—support the position that swift bricks should be mandatory. It would save so much time rather than putting in place all these extra hoops. We know that this is urgent. We know that having a swift brick can do no harm even if a swift does not use it. We know that starlings might, or sparrows. I really do not understand where his reluctance is coming from.

[Matthew Pennycook]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but let me be clear—I hope I was clear enough: we certainly do not rule out mandation as a step in the future. As I said, my reluctance stems from the fact that our instinct when it comes to achieving biodiversity net gain is to allow for local discretion, and we do not think that should be overridden lightly.

Secondly—and I have heard some compelling arguments in the debate on this point—I want to be absolutely convinced on a practical level that there are no sites in buildings that will not be suitable for swift bricks, in the way that a mandatory system would not account for. That is why we think it is better to at least start in the way I have described. I take issue with the hon. Lady on the timeline. We could make both changes relatively easily; the NPPF is currently being consulted on, and the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill is stuck in the other place. We think it might be better to start, as a first step, by incorporating into national policy and guidance that presumption in favour of swift bricks, with a mandatory approach in reserve.

European Affairs

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Caroline Lucas

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention. We do need to be honest about this. An issue of this magnitude and importance is bound to create different views in all parties, but I would argue that the divisions on the Labour Benches are nothing like the fundamental divisions in the Cabinet and on the Government Benches. Certainly, the divisions on our side are not preventing legislation from being brought forward for us to vote on.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I just want to make a bit of progress, if that is okay.

The Prime Minister’s Mansion House speech on 2 March was as much an attempt to muffle those divisions as it was to provide clarity on the Government’s vision of the end-state relationship. To be fair, it was a more serious and detailed speech than those that had gone before, and it was pleasingly devoid of empty sloganeering. There was no repeat of earlier banalities such as “Brexit means Brexit” or “a red, white and blue Brexit”. At last, we heard a speech that started to engage with many of the hard truths about our departure from the EU. It stressed the need for compromise on all sides and conceded that inevitable trade-offs would have to be made if we were to avoid the hardest and most damaging of departures. As with her Florence speech in September last year, one wished that that content could have been delivered far earlier in the process. Had it been, I suspect that the country would have been in a better position today.

Judging by the raft of tortuous cherry and cake metaphors that we heard from the Government Benches in response to the Prime Minister’s statement on Monday, she might have succeeded in her immediate objective of holding together her deeply divided Government and party and in giving herself a small degree of room to manoeuvre in the months ahead. However, it is patently obvious that those divisions remain as deep as ever. That is blindingly obvious. If they had been healed, we would now be considering the Report stage of the Customs Bill or the trade Bill, rather than having a general debate such as this. Make no mistake, those divisions will have to be confronted, and the sensible majority in this House will have to be given the opportunity to shape the Brexit process sooner rather than later, not least because, although the Prime Minister’s speech was more realistic in important ways, it was still not realistic enough.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am going to make progress, as lots of people want to speak.

A sensible, pragmatic Government focused on the economic interests of the country would adjust their policy accordingly and consider the option of a new, comprehensive customs union along the lines that Labour has suggested. Importantly, so would any Government committed, as this Government are under the terms of the phase 1 agreement, to the avoidance of a hard border on the island of Ireland, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls—a border that is frictionless, not as frictionless as possible. Let us be clear: a border that has checks, even “very, very minimal” checks, as the Foreign Secretary suggested to a business audience last week, is still a border that would require some kind of infrastructure and patrols.

A version of the Canada-US border, which the Prime Minister suggested was being explored, is simply not good enough. The threat that such an outcome would pose to the politics, security and economy of the island of Ireland, as well as to the daily lives of citizens on both sides of the border, are obvious to most hon. Members.

We recognise that a new, comprehensive customs union, in itself, is not a complete solution to the Irish border issue. To obviate the need for physical infrastructure on and checks at that border and to uphold the Good Friday agreement in its entirety, in all three strands, full regulatory alignment in relation to all goods production and trade would be required. That alignment would, of course, have to be maintained over time as EU legislation evolved.

That is one of the reasons why we need to secure a new agreement that gives us the closest possible relationship with the single market: full access to European markets; no new impediments to trade; no drop in the rights, standards and protections built up over our 43 years as an EU member state; and no prospect of falling behind them in the future. We must recognise that our future economic relationship depends on maintaining a level playing field and the same standards that business wants.

But when it comes to goods, a conversation with the EU27 about full regulatory alignment, and the institutional mechanisms that might be required to facilitate such alignment, is not even possible when the Government have ruled out membership of a customs union. The idea that

“a comprehensive system of mutual recognition”

is an alternative solution—something that EU member states do not even expect of each other—is mistaken. There is no solution to the Irish border issue that does not involve some form of customs union. That is why the Government must reconsider their red line in this area. If they do not, it will be difficult to see what their solution to the Irish border issue—or, indeed, the issue of a customs border at Dover—might be. That matters because, although the Government may be able to fudge some of the difficult decisions for now, the issue of the Irish border issue can no longer be fudged.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Matthew Pennycook]

I am just coming to a close.

The draft withdrawal agreement merely needs to include a political declaration on the future relationship—that is, its broad outlines—with the details to be hammered out after the UK has left the EU.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Matthew Pennycook and Caroline Lucas

Committee: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case. Does he agree that if we are to have the deep and special relationship that Ministers say they want with the rest of the EU, we have no choice but to continue to harmonise our standards on employment rights, equality, and health and safety? Even if they were not good things to do in their own right, which they are, it will be crucial to keep those standards at the same level as the EU or higher if we are to have that kind of trading relationship.

[Matthew Pennycook]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. Of course we will need to do that, and businesses will have to comply with those standards. That is why we need to ensure that the EU and EU-derived rights we have are underpinned by an enhanced status. We will then need to move on to the conversation—which we will have to have—about how to stay in some form of regulatory alignment, if we want the type of deep and comprehensive deal that I think both sides envisage.