Building Safety Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

If I may, I will finish this point. I am also conscious of time, as many Members want to contribute to the debate.

Secondly, in the small number of cases where there are known to be concerns, these should be addressed primarily through risk management and mitigation.

Thirdly, there should be a clear route for residents and leaseholders to challenge costly remediation work, and to seek assurance that proposals are indeed proportionate and cost-effective.

Fourthly, the Government should work with the shadow building safety regulator to consider how to implement an audit process to check that fire risk assessments are following guidelines and not perpetuating the risk aversion that we are witnessing and which in some instances are taking unnecessary costs to leaseholders.

Finally, fire risk assessors and lenders should not presume that there is significant risk to life unless there is credible evidence to support that. This will ensure that they only respond to the evidence and adopt a far more proportionate and balanced approach.

This advice is supported by the National Fire Chiefs Council and the Institution of Fire Engineers. The Government support and will act on the recommendations. Delivering real change for leaseholders requires a concerted effort from all those actively involved in the market. The Government have in recent weeks been working intensively with lenders, valuers and fire experts in this regard. We welcome the expert advice and support the position that EWS1s should not be needed for buildings of less than 18 metres.

I am pleased that all major lenders have today welcomed this advice, with Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and others agreeing that the expert advice and Government statement should pave the way for EWS1 forms no longer to be required for buildings below 18 metres, which will further unlock the housing market.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will not.

I am extremely grateful to those in industry who have already engaged and shown the necessary leadership. This is a highly complex issue, but the Prime Minister and I expect that the appropriate next steps will be taken expediently. The market is shaped not only by the Government but by lenders, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the fire and rescue service, and fire experts. All of us need to act to achieve a market correction and relieve the pressure on homeowners. There can be no bystanders in this action. I am hopeful that other lenders will follow soon, and that RICS will rapidly reflect on the expert advice and update its guidance accordingly. This concerted cross-market approach will open up the housing market for the remaining affected leaseholders.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

The expert advice that I commissioned has concluded that there is no systemic risk to life from purpose-built flats in this country and in particular—this was the question that I asked of the experts—from those flats that are low and medium-rise, meaning those of 11 to 18 metres. The experts’ advice, following on from that, is that they do not see a need for lenders to ask for EWS1 forms in the ordinary course of business. They also recommend that fire risk assessments are conducted in the usual compliance cycle, rather than on demand, in order to satisfy a market transaction such as purchasing or remortgaging a property. They do not conclude—as one would not expect them to do—that all buildings below 18 metres are safe. One can never say that, and there will be buildings that need remediation below that level, but because there is no systemic risk and the number of buildings is likely to be very small, it is not appropriate, in their opinion, which the Government have accepted, that lenders and other parties in the market should act as if there was a widespread and systemic issue. That is a subtle but important change of tone and one that I hope will lead—the initial support of the lenders suggests that this will happen—to a significantly different housing market.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Robert Jenrick]

I will, and then I would like to conclude my remarks.

[Meg Hillier]

On first reading, there are bits of this written ministerial statement that are very welcome, but it raises many questions. I put on record my regret that we have only had this chance to digest it. The Public Accounts Committee and our sister Committee, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, have been looking at this issue, along with hon. Members in this House for several years. We have been making recommendations along these lines. Our constituents have been paying for safety works and dealing with the fear and anguish created by the very issues that our Committees have raised as problems. What the Secretary of State has come to the House with is a start, but why so late, when this issue has been raised by Members of this House and the Select Committee corridor for some time? I am just puzzled by the late timing.

[Robert Jenrick]

I do not agree with the hon. Lady in this regard. In the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy, advice was published by Government that sought to provide information to the market where there was a significant absence of expert opinion. The market in the years since then has reacted and taken what I have described as a safety-first approach.

In more recent times we have seen—Dame Judith Hackitt, our expert adviser, has used these words herself recently—extreme risk aversion, and that is leading to fear and anxiety above all for members of the public who have a sense of risk with respect to their homes that is not borne out by the evidence in terms of the number of fires or the likelihood of dying in a fire in a high-rise or a purpose-built flat. Secondly, that risk aversion is leading to other market participants, whether lenders, insurers, surveyors or assessors, seeking remediation of those buildings over and above what might seem to be absolutely necessary to achieve an acceptable level of life safety.

Earlier this year, as I have set out in my remarks today—Members will see this in the written ministerial statement, which merely summarises what I have already said to the House directly in somewhat more detail, which is why I chose to say it to the House directly, rather than simply via written ministerial statement—I asked a series of experts to conduct a serious review and analysis of this issue and to present their findings to me. That is what they have done today, and we are publishing them later. We have chosen to accept those and have worked very closely with as many market participants as we could, bearing in mind the market sensitivity of the issue.

I am pleased that a large number of those organisations have welcomed this step and have chosen in one form or another to support it. I do not want to overstate that, because this is a highly complex market and the Government are merely one player within it. It will now require all market participants to think carefully about what the consequences are for their own practices and organisations. I hope that in time they will strongly support the Government’s position, and that this will lead to a significant market correction to the benefit of all our constituents and the whole country.

I will conclude my remarks simply by noting a few other points within the written ministerial statement. With the Health and Safety Executive, we will explore ways to deliver a fire risk assessment audit process that ensures assessments are carried out in a risk-proportionate way, avoiding unnecessary and costly remediation works where they are absolutely not needed. We will explore options to provide a clear route for residents and leaseholders to challenge costly remediation work. That will be progressed alongside the steps we are taking to ensure a proportionate response to risk is embedded in the market, including: developing guidelines for fire risk assessors, such as, and principally, PAS 9980 and the withdrawal of the consolidated advice note; and launching a Government-backed professional indemnity insurance scheme for qualified professionals conducting external wall system fire risk assessments to help ensure there is sufficient capacity in the market to allow EWS1 forms to be completed in a timely manner, where they are necessary, and that those conducting them feel the confidence and security to be able to do so in the most sensible and proportionate manner.

Taken together, all these measures should provide a measure of reassurance to the market and to those living in blocks of flats of any height. I am hopeful that they will have a significant impact, but of course much depends on the willingness of the other market participants to show leadership and commitment and to work together through these complex challenges.

The fire at Grenfell tower was a terrible tragedy, and those who lost loved ones remain in our thoughts. The issues that became clear following the tragedy are multifaceted, and so our response must be as well. It is clear that the actions we have taken and will continue to take, and the world-class building safety regime delivered by this Bill, should deliver a robust but proportionate regime, meaning that people in this country should never feel unsafe in their home.

I commend this Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I welcome you to your position.

I must declare an interest in that I am a leaseholder in an affected block, although, happily for me and for my neighbours, the developer who built the block is footing the bill for everything. I am surrounded by scaffolding, and cladding is being removed at this moment.

The Bill is welcome, but it has taken a long time to get here, and, as others have said, it does not solve the problem completely. I want, in my brief remarks, to acknowledge and reflect everything that was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell). She summed up the challenges, while making it clear that for us this is not about scoring cheap party political points: we need to resolve the situation for all our constituents throughout the country. We recognise that legislation is one step along the way, four years on from the Grenfell disaster, but there is nevertheless a long gap—a long time lag—between legislation and action.

Let me give a recent example. The Public Accounts Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing, recently examined the work of the Office for Product Safety and Standards, which has only just assumed responsibility for product safety in this sphere and has not yet developed a methodology for its delivery. I am making no criticism of the OPSS, which has a job to do, but it has only just taken it on—and this is 2021, four years since the Grenfell disaster. That is an example of how a small delay in the Government can mean a very long delay for the thousands of our constituents who are really suffering.

The Government delay has further compounded the situation. From the beginning, a number of us have been talking about there being too few fire safety surveyors, and there has been confusion over the EWS1 forms. I have not enough time to go into the written ministerial statement, but I concur with what was said about that by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). The insurance and mortgage industries are adding to the costs and uncertainty by doing what they do, with no recognition from the Government that some of the statements they themselves have made have caused those problems, which they should have been better at predicting.

The pots of money are welcome, but they are smaller than what is needed. I think that the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), summed it up very well: we must get leaseholders off the hook, and then the Government must be very canny—and all of us will support them—in trying to secure the money from developers. We must also look at social housing. Support for today’s leasehold victims is at the cost of future housing for tenants and future leaseholders, at a time when housing supply is a Cinderella to the Government’s policy of fuelling demand.

Today’s extraordinary written statement came so late that I hope the Secretary of State will agree to appear before our sister Committee, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. There are important questions to be asked, and I think that all our inboxes will be flooded over the next few days. We still need skills to do this work, and I urge the Minister to look at delivering that as well as this legislation. We also need clarity on the levy, and on legal action, which is out of the price bracket of most of our constituents on top of the bills that they are already paying.

This situation needs to be tackled. The Bill is a start, but there are many people still living in limbo.

Greensill Capital

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend will appreciate the audit reforms that we are consulting on. It is absolutely right that the markets work when they are transparent and open, which is why we are determined to make sure that, in the light of recent failures, we get these audit reforms through, and I look forward to his contribution to that debate.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is incredibly sad and disappointing that, throughout this pandemic, we have seen too little transparency from Government about every aspect of how taxpayers’ money is being spent. The Government keep saying to the House, “Well, it was terribly difficult in those first two months.” We are now a year on, and we are still uncovering more. Is the Minister really satisfied that a six-week inquiry, dragged out as an announcement by the Prime Minister yesterday, is enough to shine sunlight on the millions of taxpayers’ money that has been given to organisations such as Greensill, backed by Government and therefore a loss to the taxpayer when things go wrong? Is six weeks enough, and will he commit to far more transparency, including, if necessary, calling witnesses before this House?

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Lady talks about two different things. There is a review into supply chain finance and the request from Greensill Capital, but there is also the wider view of how taxpayers’ money was spent when the Government were working about as close to real time as they will ever get to do. Business owners will understand the huge difference between the speed at which business and Government work. We will review how taxpayers’ money has been spent, but we will also make sure that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) said, we chase people who have used Government grants and support inappropriately.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend, who I know has been campaigning long and hard on this issue in Watford. As I have said, as a result of some considerable and lengthy negotiations with the financial services sector, we have agreed that EWS1 forms will not be necessary for buildings that are for sale that are not clad in the same way as some buildings that are in grave difficulty. That will help 450,000 people around the country, a number of whom I suspect will be my hon. Friend’s constituents. There is more work to do on this matter and we will continue to undertake it.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I need to declare my interest in that I am a leaseholder in an affected block, but in my case, my developer is paying for the full remediation works. The Minister must acknowledge that this is one of the biggest consumer and safety failures in a generation. For all that I chair the Public Accounts Committee—we have published a report on this issue—and I watch taxpayers’ money very closely, surely the Government need to step up, just as they did when the former Secretary of State signed a ministerial direction sanctioning the expenditure of millions of pounds because he knew that it would take too long to go through the legal process of tracking down the actual owners of buildings for the most dangerous cladding. The Government need to step up. We need 10 times the amount that has been pledged. Surely the Minister must recognise this. Too many leaseholders are trapped and will never be able to move.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, and I know that she is a very considerate and assiduous Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. The Government, though, have stepped up. It is why we put £600 million on the table to remediate ACM-clad buildings, and about 79% of those have now either completed or begun their remediation. Ninety-seven per cent. of social housing buildings have had that remediation completed. It is why we stepped up again with £1 billion through the building safety fund to remediate buildings that have other non-ACM-style dangerous cladding, but we must not absolve the developers and the owners of their responsibility to make sure that remediation takes place in the buildings for which they are responsible. We work with them to make sure that happens while we keep the general situation under review.

Covid-19 Lockdown: Homelessness and Rough Sleepers

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I will use my position to make sure that that money is being targeted at and provided in the areas where it is actually needed. This funding and this package is all about being able to target work intensively with local authorities. This is an offer to all Members who have a particular issue at a local level. I am always happy to take that up with local authorities and to have further discussions on their behalf.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Minister to her post. I think she is the 12th Minister in this position in the past decade. Her enthusiasm for the efficacy of Government policy would be infectious but for the detailed work on the Government’s housing policies we have been doing on the Public Accounts Committee, which I commend to her. We are talking a lot about rough sleeping today, but I have far more families who are hidden homeless, or two households in one. They are struggling through the pandemic. It is a public health issue and it is damaging our children. Will she consider talking to me and my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) about a housing market package to buy up hard-to-sell properties in the private sector and provide these people and rough sleepers with the Move On accommodation they so desperately need?

[Kelly Tolhurst]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and I am always happy to meet her to discuss particular issues affecting her area and to listen to ideas that Members think may or may not work in their local setting, but I have to reiterate that London has had significant support with the Next Steps accommodation. The exact focus of that is to move those individuals out of temporary emergency accommodation and into longer-term stability and pathways, delivering that security that those individuals and families need. I will happily meet her to discuss that further.

Business and Planning Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments & Ping Pong & Ping Pong: House of Commons
Tuesday 21st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I want to put on record how proud I am of the entrepreneurs in Hackney who have contributed so much to developing our night-time economy—often quite young people who have come up with interesting ideas about how to develop their premises and contribute to our economy. However, it does cost Hackney Council £1.5 million a year in extra cleaning to manage the night-time economy that we have fostered. In its original form, the Bill would have contributed to some of the behaviour we have seen in recent weeks and months in my borough. I never like to stand up here and say bad things about the constituency I represent, but we have seen some appalling behaviour—I will not repeat what I said last time.

The Minister talked about the thoughtfulness and involvement of hon. Members that has greatly improved the Bill. I say to the Government that, even in a pandemic, a little more time could create even better legislation. Given that we were in the pandemic and businesses were thinking about this much earlier, a little more time—a week, even—would have been better than the three days we originally had to consider the Bill. We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble, because there was agreement that we needed to support the hospitality industry, but there is also agreement across the House today—happily, we have seen some important changes—that we should support the residents, who will suffer if we do not get the balance right. In fact, the businesses in my area that have been there for a long time, living in most cases pretty harmoniously with residents, want to have that long-term relationship, so they were not all in favour of the original proposals. That could have been ameliorated if hon. Members had been involved at an earlier stage.

I particularly welcome and pay tribute to my colleagues in the other place on the limit on off-sales to 11 pm—I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan), who was the first to raise that issue in this House—and the limits on extensions to that. Off-sales cannot be a permanent free-for-all. Of course, if a local area decides that it works, it is at liberty to grant a licence in a particular area or a particular part of that area, but this freedom in licensing must not continue just because we have had it during a pandemic—it has to be down to local authorities that know their area, know their residents and know and support their businesses. The decision should never be taken away and made subject to a blanket permission from central Government. I welcome the intervention from their Lordships and I thank the Minister for accepting the amendments, so that we can move quickly on to support our businesses while ameliorating the impact on our residents.

Flammable Cladding Removal

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

It is beyond belief that it has been three years since that terrible night at Grenfell Tower. I want to begin by paying my respects to those who lost their lives, and we will remember them today in this debate. We are also incredibly grateful to their family members, their neighbours and the survivors for campaigning, despite all they went through, for the safety of properties that are clad with dangerous aluminium composite material and also of other properties that are a risk.

There are still an estimated 60,000 people living in homes with similar ACM cladding on the outside of their buildings, and many more living in buildings that are dangerous. According to the Fire Brigades Union, some 500,000 people are at risk from living in unsafe housing across the UK. Each night, they are going to bed, knowing that, if their building caught fire, it would spread quickly because of the flammable cladding, and they know, too, that their chances of survival are seriously lessened in that context. They know that progress to remove that cladding has been slow and has slowed further because of the pandemic. I have called for this debate because I think that it is vital that Ministers step up and make sure that the cladding and other dangerous materials on those blocks are removed as a matter of urgency.

It took a year for the Government to agree to fund the removal of ACM cladding in high-rise social housing blocks and then two years for private blocks and three years for others commitments to be made. That happened because of the actions of campaign groups such as Grenfell United, the UK Cladding Action Group and Inside Housing, as well as Members of Parliament and charities and housing organisations. It is not good enough that the Government have been forced kicking and screaming into doing these things, rather than taking responsibility, as was promised at the time of the fire. Although £1.6 billion of Government funding is welcome, they estimate themselves that between £3 billion and £3.5 billion is required to make all buildings safe.

Residents feel like prisoners in their homes. They cannot sell or remortgage their flats, and the external wall fire review and EWS1 form process is not sufficient, is costly and takes too long. They are trapped.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend raises an important point about the paperwork needed. Even many residents who live in homes that are not as unsafe as some others find that without that form they are unable to sell. One of the things the Public Accounts Committee picked up on in our recent hearing was that being unable to get professional indemnity insurance is a major brake. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to step in on this issue?

[Rushanara Ali]

Yes, absolutely, and I hope that the Minister will, along with his Treasury colleagues, look at this very quickly to resolve the matter, because it affects people who are trying to sell homes, as I have seen in my constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I will not dwell on any particular tower block or issue, but let me simply say that our intention is to make sure that leaseholders should not have to foot the bill; building owners and building managers and their agents should be looking after their buildings. That is why the Government have intervened with funding and specialist support, and we will not tolerate any further delays. Where building owners are failing to make acceptable progress, those responsible should expect local authorities and fire and rescue services to take tougher enforcement action.

By the end of May, of the 455 identified high-rise buildings with ACM cladding, 209 had either completed remediation or had their ACM cladding systems removed, while a further 86 had started remediation but not yet had ACM cladding removed. However, although there has been progress, there is much more to be done. We are under no illusion about that. For the removal of unsafe ACM cladding, we are aiming for all building owners to have works on site by the end of 2020, with completion of remedial works by the end of 2021. It is a challenge, but one that we are determined to meet.

Even with public funding available, the pace has been much too slow. We recognise that remediation is a complex undertaking and that every building is different; we also understand that building owners do not always have the requisite expertise or experience to advance the work. We have therefore recently appointed Faithful+Gould as specialist construction consultants to help responsible entities to increase capacity and capability and to support them directly through the remediation process. F+G is currently working with those buildings identified as most at risk of missing the end-of-year date. It is examining project plans and seeking ways to reduce timescales to mobilise projects.

Overall, the Government have set aside £1.6 billion in funding for the remediation of ACM and other types of unsafe cladding from high-rise residential buildings in the private and social housing sectors. We made that money available to support the remediation of unsafe cladding, and a large proportion of that support will protect leaseholders from costs. We recognise that there are wider remediation costs that will need to be met to ensure the safety of existing blocks of flats, but the public funding does not absolve the industry from taking responsibility for any failures that led to unsafe cladding materials being put on those buildings in the first place. We expect developers, investors and building owners who have the means to pay to take responsibility and cover the cost of remediation themselves, without passing on costs to leaseholders.

The Government have committed £600 million to remediate buildings in the public, social and private sectors and speed up the pace of remediation of ACM cladding. In the private sector, although some developers said that they would meet the costs, it became clear that a significant number of building owners could not or would not do so, and therefore funding needed to be made available to enable progress. That is why in May 2019 we announced that £200 million of funding would be available for ACM remediation in private sector buildings, and the fund was opened for applications in September that year. As of May 2020, the Department expects to pay for 94 projects in the private sector where the developer or building owner has not agreed to fund remediation work themselves. The owners of 84 private sector residential buildings have committed to funding the remediation works themselves, with a further 23 self- funded through accepted warranty claims. We are working with a handful of other buildings where a funding route has yet to be agreed. The availability of funding and a direct package of support for building owners means that there can be no excuses for further delays. For those who fail to make acceptable progress, tougher sanctions are coming, first through our Fire Safety Bill, currently before Parliament, and subsequently when our new building safety regime comes into place.

We have always acknowledged that there are materials other than ACM cladding that are of concern. We have been providing advice on their removal to building owners since 2017. The highest priority has been the removal of the type of ACM used on Grenfell Tower because it poses the most severe safety risk, but there are other unsafe cladding materials that must also be removed. That is why in March this year we announced an additional £1 billion of funding for the remediation of unsafe non-ACM cladding in the social and private residential sectors. We expect this funding to be fully committed by the end of March 2021. The new building safety fund will cover high-rise buildings with unsafe non-ACM cladding, such as some types of high-pressure laminate.

The issue of waking watch was raised by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow and by other hon. and right hon. Members. I know that leaseholders have concerns about costs of interim measures—costs that have been heightened due to the covid-19 emergency. These interim measures include waking watches. Waking watch is meant to be a short-term tool: it is no substitute for remediation. But the only way to remove the need for interim measures is to remove unsafe cladding as quickly as possible. That is why we are prioritising £1.6 billion of public subsidy on remediation of unsafe cladding. That said, my noble Friend Lord Greenhalgh, the Minister with responsibility for building safety, is investigating what we can do to reduce the cost of waking watch. This includes publishing data on the costs of waking watch to ensure greater transparency on costs. Moreover, the National Fire Chiefs Council is updating its guidance. We have asked the fire protection boards to advise fire and rescue services on how best to operationalise the revised guidance, including looking to measures such as installing building-wide fire alarm systems.

[Meg Hillier]

Will the Minister commit to looking at the issue of professional indemnity insurance? This does need a good political fix at the top.

Housing, Communities and Local Government: Departmental Spending

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It comes to something when the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee joins forces with my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, to ask for more money. It is perhaps not a surprise that his Committee would do that, but it is not something that the Public Accounts Committee does.

However, I echo everything my hon. Friend said and, given the time, will not repeat it, but we know that local government is actually very efficient at spending money, so I reiterate what he said to the Minister about being on his side on this. We have seen the Treasury first offer all the money, and then massively backtrack, so we have been playing this game of chase with the permanent secretary to get information about exactly and precisely which elements of spending will be refunded as a result of covid-19. I urge the Minister to look at the information that has been sent both jointly and separately to the two Committees and at what his permanent secretary has said to see whether he can push things a bit faster. We will be behind him in getting that detail from the Treasury, because we are very much on the same side on this.

In my role as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, we often look at where money is supposedly saved and efficiencies made, but the cost is often actually shunted to another part of the public sector. There is no more accurate description of that than when money is taken out of local government, because that shoves the cost somewhere else. If local government is doing its job properly and doing it well, that will often prevent further expenditure down the line by preventing problems that cost society, communities and the taxpayer a lot in the long term.

We know, given the current climate, that there is no long-term certainty over funding, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East said, and there is a gap of £1 billion on covid spending alone. There is real pressure right now. Budgets are being looked at and decisions are being made. A long time ago—25 years ago—I was a councillor making these very decisions about spending, and we would be looking now at cuts for the following year. That was under a Government of the same party as the Minister, albeit a long time ago, so I will forgive him that if he can get the money from the Treasury now. The concern is that such decisions will be irreversible.

We are also seeing challenges to commercial funding, with Luton Borough Council being a bad of example of a lot of money suddenly draining from a council budget because of Government policies that encouraged it to borrow more. The Public Accounts Committee has been looking at that and will be issuing a report next week. We have also seen new laws creating new burdens on local government. I have been quite vocal in my concerns about the Business and Planning Bill, which frees up licensing so much that it will cost councils a lot of money both to manage the licences and manage the resulting antisocial behaviour, and it will cause problems for the police. Those budgets will be stretched on top of this gap in funding, which represents a 40% cut over the past decade for my council.

Local government is on the ground, it knows its communities, and it has been effective at delivery. It has been a crucial partner in delivering on covid responses, and yet councils are not getting the funding. Some estimates suggest that eight out of 10 councils have been looking at section 114 notices, and we know that several councils are technically bankrupt now. We need a clear answer from the Minister today. This is an estimates day debate, not just a general debate, and we are looking at the budget and we want clear answers. We campaigned to get this discussion so that we could get answers in this way.

We want to know about the timing of any financial settlement, but I appreciate that the Minister may not be able to announce the spending review. We need to know the split of funding on the issues that my hon. Friend has already raised and where there will be a shortfall on certain types of income, particularly around council tax. We need to know what the Government are planning for the loss of commercial income, because that can be devastating for some councils.

I add, in my final few seconds, that the £1 billion to remediate cladding will be nowhere near enough, and we need clarity for the many homeowners in really difficult situations as to how they will be supported to live their lives and how councils will be supported to fund that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mr Simon Clarke)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) on securing today’s debate and I thank hon. Members across the House for their contributions. I entirely echo the tributes that have been paid to the hard work and sacrifice of local government officials and elected representatives around the country. It is a good chance to pay tribute to the frontline workers—the carers, the teachers, the mortuary staff, the social workers, the emergency planners, the refuse collectors and so many others who have done their utmost to make sure that our society continues to function at such a difficult time. Every tier of local government has come together to rise to the enormous challenges that covid-19 has created.

Time is very short, so I will be brief. From the outset of covid-19, the Government have said that we would ensure that councils have the resources that they need. We have already delivered a multibillion-pound infusion of support. Last week, we announced a further comprehensive package of support with several important components. First, we are providing a further £500 million of funding to cover additional local authority spending pressures. That means that since the crisis began, the total unring-fenced grant funding that has been provided to local authorities for their spending pressures now stands at £3.7 billion, and that is without including the £600 million that we provided for care homes to relieve the strain on social care services.

We have particularly asked councils to prioritise some core aspects of their work. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, pressed me for detail on this, and those are: adult social care, children’s services, public health services, fire and rescue services, household waste services, shielding the clinically vulnerable, homelessness and rough sleeping, domestic abuse and managing excess mortality. I am very happy to provide any further clarity that would be helpful—

[Meg Hillier]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

As time is extremely tight, I had better make progress.

We have provided in total almost £28 billion to local councils, businesses and communities to help to support them through the virus. That includes £300 million for the new test and trace service. Unlike the hon. Member for Blackburn (Kate Hollern), who spoke for the Opposition, I will not talk that down. I think it is making immense strides. I pay huge tribute to the work of Tom Riordan, the chief executive of Labour-controlled Leeds City Council, who has done a fantastic job in helping us to bring that tool together.

The second element of our comprehensive package is a specific mechanism to address councils’ income losses. That includes a co-payment scheme to cover irrecoverable losses from sales, fees and charges income in financial year 2020-21. That includes such things as car parking fees or revenue from cultural assets. The hon. Lady said that it is not defined, but it is not defined precisely to enable flexing according to the extent of those losses as they crystallise, so it is capable of being as generous as is required to meet the eventual losses that we face.

Through that co-payment scheme, the Government will cover 75% of losses beyond the first 5% of planned income. This will help to address the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) alluded to. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has committed to extending from one year to three years the period over which councils can manage shortfalls and local tax income relating to this year, as was specifically requested by the LGA.

The Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee referenced leisure centres. We are working with the Treasury and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on this issue. We recognise its complexities and I can assure him that we are very serious about tackling it. In the autumn spending review, the Government will agree an apportionment of irrecoverable council tax and business rate losses between central and local government for 2020 and 2021.

Taken together, the support offered here will safeguard a range of essential public services, from social care to public health, shielding the vulnerable and now helping to safely reopen our economy and wider society. There will always be scope for specific, bespoke discussions with individual councils that find themselves in difficulty. The shadow Minister referred to Luton Council and its airport. I can assure her that we are very aware of that issue and continue to work closely with them.

On the wider work we are doing, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor gave an excellent statement yesterday underscoring our commitment to saving jobs and boosting growth. Clearly, levelling up is a massive responsibility that the Government are intensely serious about. We heard several colleagues refer to the £3.6 billion towns fund, including the future high streets fund. Be that Barnstaple or Warrington, we want to make sure these funds are paid out quickly and help to make a real difference and deliver for our society. That comes on top of the £5 billion stimulus from the accelerated getting building fund that the Prime Minister announced last week.

We also want to work closely with council leaders from all political parties in delivering our ambitious devolution agenda. This is appropriate, given the hon. Members for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) and their role in this, as we have the parliamentary order coming up next week to unlock £900 million of investment for the Sheffield city region, which is great. We have also negotiated the £1.1 billion of investment for West Yorkshire announced at Budget. With West Yorkshire’s new Mayor in place, 41% of residents in England and 63% in the north of England will be served by directly elected city region Mayors.

I heard the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), and I look forward to meeting them to discuss the situation in Essex, but I can assure them that we will not be pressing ahead with proposals that do not command popular consent. That is always at the forefront of our mind.

On the comments from the SNP Front Bench, I can also confirm that we will publish our White Paper on devolution and local recovery in the autumn, which will address issues concerning the UK shared prosperity fund, which I should point out is our money, top-sliced and sent back to us by the EU. None the less, we will provide detail on that. Clearly, it is very important and he can rest assured we are working hard to work out how we can safely allocate that money, but we made a commitment in our manifesto at the general election that no part of the UK would receive less from the shared prosperity fund than they currently do under EU structural funds.

I am conscious that time is very tight, so I will conclude by pointing out that levelling up is not specific to the north and the midlands of England. I had good talks with my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) and we continue to look at his island deal. The whole country—all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom—should look forward to our work on levelling up. We are committed to making it happen and making it happen soon.

Business and Planning Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Committee stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 1st sitting & Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons & Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

I would like to move on briefly to address the issue of small, independent breweries. I would welcome similar support being made for these organisations. We know that a quarter of all small breweries currently have no way to sell directly to the public, and in this respect I agree with the points made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on Second Reading. I appreciate the point the Minister made in response to the hon. Member for Strangford’s intervention that as the hospitality sector—and the pub sector in particular—reopens, some of those breweries will find that they have customers again, but this is worth keeping under consideration, because if the pub trade has to go al fresco, it will be quite dependent on the weather, and some of those small breweries might find that their customers do not require quite as much towards the end of the summer or in the early autumn, and they might therefore want to sell directly again. It is a point well made that small breweries have seen their sales reduced by between 65% and 82% due to covid-19, and they have not received the same level of financial support as other businesses in the hospitality sector.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

As the MP for a constituency that has a lot of small breweries, I have some sympathy with this. I would not want to see more off sales in my constituency, but does the hon. Member not think the root of the problem is that these small breweries did not get support through the existing Government mechanisms, which went quite a long way but did not cover this sector?

[Ben Lake]

The hon. Lady makes a good point. A lot of these issues would have been circumnavigated if small breweries had been entitled to some of the support measures that were made available to other businesses in the hospitality sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ben Lake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. It is particularly the smaller independent breweries, where storage is perhaps even more of an issue, that will have had to dispose of a lot of their stock at considerable cost. Then there is the relative uncertainty as to when they might reopen and, indeed, how much beer to brew again. That is another problem that small breweries in my constituency have tried to tackle. I still think that might be a discussion to have. It is at least worth keeping the matter under review. I would welcome the Government being willing to do that.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned temporary events notices and licences. Another proposal would be to consider extending the authorisation of off sales to small breweries that do not hold a premises licence, but that are registered under the alcohol wholesaler registration scheme. That would be temporary and quite exceptional, but in these exceptional times there might be a case for it.

New clause 1 was tabled by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), and he may well speak to that at greater length in a moment, but I put on record my support for it. The Government need to recognise the need for sectoral flexibility as they review how to withdraw some of the support schemes and take stock of whether these measures, exceptional as they are, are working. Given the nature of the crisis we face, our focus must continue to be on protecting otherwise viable businesses and supporting employment, so I welcome new clause 1.

Finally, I turn to the provisions in the first part of the Bill relating to the consumption of food and drink outdoors. A few Members have referred to those provisions as ushering in an al fresco age, which I am sure we are all excited to see, weather permitting. That part of the Bill extends to Wales as well as England, but the wording of clause 1 has caused some confusion as to whether it will apply directly to Wales. In concluding my remarks, I ask the Minister to clarify in his summing up whether the provisions will apply to Wales directly. If not, is he content that the Welsh Senedd is empowered to introduce similar provisions to support bars and restaurants in Wales, so that we may also see an al fresco culture in Wales over the summer?

[Meg Hillier]

I rise to discuss new clause 6, which stands in my name. The Bill has been very rushed. It was announced on Thursday in the business of the House. We had to lay amendments by Friday, and I thank you, Dame Eleanor, for allowing a manuscript amendment today in order to get the new clause put forward.

As the Government rush into this legislation—I think there are questions about why that is—it is important that we make sure there are points of review and reflection about how well it is working. To put it more charitably, I am trying to save the Government from themselves. I think there is a lot of support across the House for the new clause, but in the very short time between Thursday and now, it has been hard to marshal all that and enable people to come and express their views.

The Minister may be able to answer this, but why has the Bill been quite so rushed, given that we have been in lockdown since 23 March and we knew that was coming for some time before then and given that we knew these sectors would be among the hardest hit? One would have thought that somebody in the Government would have been working up a Bill and stress-testing it before now, so that it was not such a surprise to Members of this House and sectors out there.

Local government has been caught rather by surprise. Of course it has been involved. I am not saying to the Minister that the Government have not spoken to local government. It would be extraordinary if he had come to the House from his Department and not done that. But there has not been enough detailed discussion about the impacts. We have heard, and I will not go into the detail again, about some of the impacts in constituencies such as mine and other urban constituencies with a high density of licensed premises, where antisocial behaviour has already been happening as a result.

We are already seeing problems, so there is a warning sign for the Government. The reality is that once off sales are allowed, as the hon. Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan said, at the same hours as on licensed premises—almost with a sweep of a pen, with a very short period for councils to object—we will see an awful lot more sales off the premises at all hours of the day and night. We also have the big issue about the resources involved from the police and local councils to police it.

It is easy to say, as the Minister did, that the police have certain powers and there are powers for local authorities, but the issue is the resourcing. We cannot just do all of that in one go. A lot of licences are being applied for. There are more than 1,300 licensed premises across my borough as a whole. How many licensing officers are needed to do that work? The police have other things to do with their time—certainly that is the case in my constituency, where they are dealing with serious crime issues, as well as antisocial behaviour and managing and policing social distancing and covid-19 regulations. There is a lot on everyone’s plate. We want to support businesses, but a three-month review after this has been in place would give the Government the chance to come back and either reassure us that it is all fine everywhere, or, if there are problems, look at ways of addressing that. The Minister has heard today from the Labour Front Benchers that there is strong support to get the economy going, and backing to make sure that businesses can survive the next period, as we still live in the pandemic. That is really important, certainly in a constituency such as mine with so many licensed premises, but we have to get that balance so that residents do not lose out.

This is a very mild amendment. Earlier, the Secretary of State rejected it because I had discussed a rolling amendment—I just say to the Minister that I had very little time to draft it and get advice about how to make it fit. I did not have time to discuss it in detail with the Government, otherwise I would have, and I know that other Members around the House agree with it.

I will not push the amendment to a vote today, but I am hoping that in the other place, they will have more time to think about, listen and reflect upon it, and that, in the meantime, the Government will also have time to reflect on it. Perhaps the Minister can give me some indication of whether this is something that the Government are willing to reflect on—to build in, simply, a three-month review point, so that three months after the Bill becomes an Act, the issue would come to the House again. A Minister would come to explain what is happening and we would have a debate about how this is working in our constituencies up and down the country, in the four nations of the UK, and we can make sure that we are getting it right. If there are problems then, the Government would have my backing to bring in certain powers to ensure that the antisocial behaviour that I fear this may herald is tackled, and I am sure that the Government would have the backing of other Members.

It would be helpful to hear from the Government about their thinking on this very mild amendment. We pushed for a review of the covid-19 legislation, which was pretty draconian. That was accepted by the Government and I propose this review in a similar spirit. I do not think that this will provide uncertainty for businesses. A review, when there has been such cross-party support in general for a proposal that supports businesses, is unlikely to completely reverse it, but it may allow for amelioration of some of the worst impacts if they materialise, as I fear they may in my constituency, or it may allow for different approaches to how the measures are applied in different nations of the UK, different regions or different cities.

They key thing is that if we have the review, it would give the Government and the House an option to look at this again. I think that something as draconian as this—the biggest change in licensing rules for decades—warrants a review. Some of these licences will be granted for a year if they pass through on the nod. A lot of them will go through very fast because of a lack of resources in local authorities. I urge the Minister to take my suggestion for this amendment constructively. I will not push it to a vote today because I recognise that, although the Bill is rushed, the amendment is also rushed. I hope, however, that the other place will consider it, that the Government will approach it thoughtfully and that when the Bill returns to this place, we can consider having a three-month review.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I shall speak to new clause 1, which I will not push to a Division because, for reasons mentioned by others—not least the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier)—I accept the premise of the Bill. It is about boosting the economy and creating flexibility so that people can begin to make a living again within the confines of the important safety restrictions that there are. However, I am very much looking to the Minister and the Government to be very clear that they will accept the terms and the general approach of my amendment, which seeks Government support for the hospitality and tourism industry beyond the current date set, which is the end of October, when the Government’s financial support schemes currently run out.

We welcome this Bill, rushed though it is, and understanding the necessity of that. We also welcome the support that the Government have given to the sector and the economy more widely. Undoubtedly the furlough scheme, the grant schemes and, more recently, after a lot of lobbying by myself and plenty of others, the discretionary schemes delivered through local authorities have helped to save thousands of companies from bankruptcy and protected millions of jobs. I am grateful to the Government for that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that point. I will address it, if I may, when I come to new clause 6, which the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) mentioned. To speak partly to his point, and in conclusion on this, the powers are subject to the affirmative procedure for draft regulations, which will enable Parliament to scrutinise thoroughly any relevant use of the powers, because the approval of both Houses will be needed. I therefore do not think that there is a need for new clause 4, and I would invite the Opposition to withdraw it.

With respect to new clause 5, again I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale for its tabling, because it provides an opportunity to give reassurance that local authorities will not be overburdened by the proposals in the Bill. This new clause would require the Secretary of State, following consultation with local planning authorities, to publish a report to provide an assessment of the costs to be incurred by local authorities as part of our proposed planning measures in the context of the covid-19 epidemic.

The applications relate to both the provision allowing for applications to extend construction working hours under clause 16 and the additional environmental approval process under clauses 17 and 18. Both the new forms of application will be free of charge to the applicant, which is to encourage developers to take advantage of the provisions in order to start or resume development as quickly as possible.

For three reasons, we do not consider the cost burden of either route to be particularly onerous on local planning authorities. First, each route deals with a single issue, and the onus is on the applicant to provide sufficient information. If insufficient information is provided by the developer, in the case of an additional environmental approval application or of an application for an extension to construction site working hours, the application will not count as having been made at all.

Secondly, as I said, the measures are temporary. This will therefore only be a short-term administrative burden over the course of this financial year. Thirdly, we do not expect individual authorities to face a deluge of applications under each route. For example, our analysis shows that by 1 August 546 planning permissions for major residential developments across the country would have lapsed since 23 March, an average of 1.5 permissions per authority. Cumulatively, it is important to the economy to see those progress, but for individual local planning authorities we do not believe that the effect will be particularly onerous. Again, I invite the Opposition to withdraw the clause.

I will speak briefly to new clause 6, as many Members are watching. I appreciate that some Members are concerned about the need to ensure that any changes made under the fast-track legislation are restricted to what is proportionate and necessary. Ensuring that measures are time-limited can be an effective way to do that, but a rolling review provision across the whole of Act is not the best approach in this case.

The first reason is that two provisions in the Bill are permanent; they would be jeopardised by a rolling review of the entire Bill. The second is that part of the reason for these measures is to give the business community, local authorities and Government agencies certainty about what they need to do with certain planning activities. A cliff edge 90-day end to the processes that they are undertaking would remove any chance of the certainty that they are looking for.

The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch has many ways in which she can advance her concerns. She can use Standing Orders, in which she is a seasoned expert, to look at SO 24 debates; she can encourage her Front Benchers to undertake Opposition debates, and she can use the Public Accounts Committee to undertake inquiries. There are many ways in which she can progress her concerns other than through new clause 6.

[Meg Hillier]

My drafting may not have been perfect; the Bill has been very rushed, so it was difficult to get it right. Can the Minister give me any comfort that, in his mind or the Government’s, there is scope to allow a three-month review point on the licensing element so that there is simply a review? Given the Government’s majority, they would have to agree to any change anyway, but a review point seems a sensible, proportionate measure so that we can all reflect on how this is working and pick up any issues. If he could give me an indication of whether that is something the Government might consider as the Bill goes through the other place, that would be very helpful.

[Christopher Pincher]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s concern and I understand why she raises those points. However, I simply reiterate that introducing a rolling review would kill certain aspects of the Bill and reduce the certainty and clarity that businesses and planners are looking for. It may also jeopardise the conclusion of the Bill before the summer recess, and we need to get it on the statute book so that businesses around our country can benefit from its provisions over the summer months.

Let me reiterate the importance of this Bill for our economy in these extraordinary times. As we emerge from this pandemic, we need to do all we can to support our economic recovery and help businesses adjust to a new and safe way of working. I therefore encourage the House to support amendment 3 tabled by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), and I encourage the proponents of all other amendments to withdraw them.

Draft Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 General Committees

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Nokes. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central, I warmly welcome the regulations. They are long overdue; it has taken a very long time to get here. It is shocking that in this country, tenants can still rent a property without any assurance about electrical safety.

My hon. Friend discussed the 400 fires that have occurred in private rented properties. I am particularly concerned about electric fan heaters. They are a major cause of fires, although they are not covered directly here. A few years ago, of 11 fires in the London area, three were down to fan heaters. That was not necessarily down to the landlord—I do not have the detail—but it goes to show what can happen if something goes badly wrong with an electrical appliance.

That brings me to the issue of PAT tests, which my hon. Friend raised. It is all very well having good wiring in a property—that is vital, of course—but if a single appliance has a problem, there can be a serious issue. In parts of the country where young professionals are passing through on short-term lets in single rooms in a property with shared electrical facilities, landlords are probably not checking every appliance. They are certainly not doing PAT tests; they are not required to. I urge the Minister—I know he is new in his post; I hope he stays a bit longer than any of his predecessors, which will not be difficult to achieve—to look at that issue and to respond to that serious point.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

The missing part in this is who is actually doing the testing. There seems to be a serious gap in the regulations on the requirement for that person to be professionally competent. There is talk about issuing guidelines and all the rest of it, but there is precious little detail.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He has read my mind—that is one of my other concerns. It is a really long-awaited measure and yet it is full of holes.

I am sorry, Ms Nokes—I should declare an interest. I let a property so I know a bit of what I speak. It is in the register of interests. I mentioned PAT tests. Good landlords should maintain high standards but, as my hon. Friend highlighted, finding someone with the right qualification to do this work and knowing that the recommendations they make are the right ones is a challenge. It is important. I hope the Minister, in guidance if not in the regulations at this late stage, will be able to look at the standards that electricians should be maintaining.

Even where someone has an electrician to visit a property or their home to have something done, standards change over time. Standards have changed even in the last decade or so. Perhaps the fuse box or other elements of electrical equipment may need to be altered. If that work is done piecemeal or by somebody with a lower qualification, there is a real concern.

The law did change—all electrical installations in any property, rented or otherwise, need to be done by a qualified electrician. For landlords, there is a public safety interest as well. It is not the same as in a private home. A landlord is acting to keep a place safe for a third party. It is important that we have slightly higher standards of inspection at that point.

The other issue I am concerned about is enforcement. In part 2, regulation 3(3)(c) says that the landlord is to

“supply a copy of the report”—

the one that my right hon. Friend and I were discussing—

“to the local housing authority within 7 days of receiving a request in writing for it from that authority”.

That is all very well, but given the squeeze on local authorities, highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central, and on environmental health, I cannot envisage that councils will have the resources to run around trying to find where landlords are and ask them whether their properties are safe. Of all the things that landlords do for tenants’ safety, electrical safety will be at the top of the list of importance.

Does the tenant therefore alert the local authority? In an ideal world, yes, but we all know that there are unscrupulous landlords who will inflict punishment on tenants for making a single complaint to the local authority—and anyway, that is reliant on the local authority having the resources to act in time and do something about it if it does not receive a report within seven days or considers it to be in some way inadequate. The enforcement element of the regulations is very light.

My hon. Friend also mentioned new burdens. I am sure the Minister will have done a new burdens assessment or required to see one on local government. This paragraph alone will provide a significant new burden, let alone the overall responsibility for ensuring that properties in an area are safe. At the same time, the Government have clamped down on local licensing regimes and refused to set in place even a basic national licensing programme.

Licensing can be another burden on local government, but basic modern safety standards for private rented housing are long overdue. I urge the Minister, early in his career with responsibility for housing—hopefully his career will be longer than his predecessors’—to look seriously at this issue. We have individual licensing schemes around the country that vary greatly, with no basic minimum standards other than those required by other parts of the law. We keep adding bits to legislation, like on a Christmas tree, without seeing coherently what should be at front and centre. A private let property is a home for the tenant living there, and they should be safe and secure at all times in the home in which they live. There are so many holes in the system.

I turn to the fine of up to £30,000. Is that how local government is expected to fund this measure? That will require local government to find some very bad transgressors quite quickly to get the money in to pay for staff time alone to ensure its implementation. We can all talk warm words about how vital it is to have this measure on the statute book, but how will it be delivered?

Finally, we are in the grip of a deadly killer in coronavirus, where households will self-isolate and professionals—however well qualified—will struggle to manage their workload; indeed, they may not want to leave their own homes. In part 3, regulation 5(2), on the duty of a private landlord to comply with a remedial notice, says:

“A private landlord is not to be taken to be in breach of the duty under paragraph (1) if the private landlord can show they have taken all reasonable steps to comply with that duty.”

Nothing should let an irresponsible landlord off the hook. However, given the timeframe involved, with the regulations coming into force in June for all new tenancies from July, and the severe restrictions on British society because of the coronavirus situation, it might be challenging for some good landlords—possibly bad ones, too—to comply. Will the Minister be crystal clear about whether “reasonable steps” will cover the serious state we are in now? Will he also make clear how he will ensure that unscrupulous landlords do not use that as a get-out clause for doing what is proper and right in the interests of private tenants?

[John Spellar]

May I probe the Minister a bit further about who will do inspections? I hope he may intervene to satisfy me on that. The regulations talk about a “qualified person” but the explanatory memorandum says that the Department decided

“not to introduce a mandatory competent person scheme”.

I would not argue that the Department should set up its own mandatory competence scheme, but they are already out there in the industry, in the same way as they are in the gas industry. It is not necessarily for the Department and the Minister to identify one particular qualifying organisation, but what I find slightly odd is the fact that they are not requiring that someone qualified under part P must have a qualification from the National Inspection Council for Electrical Installation Contracting or whoever in order to be able to undertake such work—as far as I recall, it is already required for certifying a new electrical installation. That is also a protection for the landlord against people who might purport to have such qualifications—unless they produce a fraudulent certificate, but that is a different danger and another issue. It would surely benefit the tenants and local authorities to have somebody sign off and give their registration number, which can be checked if there are subsequent problems.

[Meg Hillier]

My right hon. Friend raises a really important point. If we are trying to reduce the burden on local authorities while protecting tenants, a trusted trader scheme or a trusted inspection scheme can cut through some of the bureaucracy that local government may otherwise feel the need to introduce. Actually, local government does not have the resources to do that. Surely he would agree that that would be cost-effective to the taxpayer all round.

[John Spellar]

Very much so; it makes the local authorities’ job much easier. We already have a well-regulated scheme for training and for testing the competence of people working in the industry—for very good reasons, given the inherent dangers of electricity. As I said, I understand that people might produce fraudulent certificates and so on, but that can be dealt with in a different way. This approach would make it much easier for local authorities to say to a landlord, “Where’s your certificate?” and, if they have their suspicions, to check back on that or even to check on the individual. It cuts out a huge amount and does not require the Department, local authorities or consortiums of local authorities to pull that together.

If I may say bluntly to the Minister, this process seems to have a bit of a feel of, “We’re against the big state and bureaucracy.” This would cut bureaucracy, but we still have to cut through to the idea that having proper qualifications, regulation and checking is enormously important. It facilitates commerce, rather than inhibits it, but it also provides a lot of reassurance to all the parties involved.

[Luke Hall]

I am grateful for the contributions to the debate. I am certainly grateful for what sounds like support for the principle of introducing the regulations but, understandably, a number of questions have been raised.

All Opposition colleagues asked why this has taken so long. We wanted to introduce them early in this Parliament, having announced in July 2018 that we would introduce mandatory requirements. I hope all Members will appreciate that there have been parliamentary challenges on time over the past couple of years, but we have been using this time to work closely with experts in the sector, carefully considering some of the complex issues that we have talked about in the debate to ensure that what we are introducing is proportionate. Delivering the regulations early in this Parliament has been a priority.

We have heard a couple of questions about how landlords will know that an electrician is a qualified and competent person. We will ensure that landlords know that an electrician is a qualified and competent person. Before the regulations come into force, guidance on this specific issue will be published for landlords. I will make a note to ensure that the Members who have spoken in the debate are notified when that guidance is published.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank the Minister for alerting colleagues in the room—presumably others will pick this up—but we are now in mid-March. The regulations come into force in June, but landlords will want to make plans to get the tests done. When will the Minister provide that information? Will it be in time for landlords to know exactly who they should ask to do such work?

[Luke Hall]

I cannot give the hon. Member a specific date, but I will respond to her in writing on a number of the issues that she and others have raised. I will do my best to provide a date as soon as possible.

The right hon. Member for Warley mentioned the idea of competent person schemes and the principle of trusted trader schemes. We will be encouraging industry to establish competent person schemes but membership of them will not be compulsory, to ensure that there is no further pressure placed on industry nor burdens placed on inspectors or customers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Meg Hillier]

I thank the Minister for giving way again. I raised the issue of new burdens. We recognise that in certain parts of the country there are clusters of poor landlords, who need to be driven out. The challenge, though, is for local authorities, because they are going to have to pay up front for the inspections for the work before they get any money from the fines. Some of those landlords may well be the sort of fly-by-night people from whom it is very difficult to extract the fine at all, because they will find a way of dodging it by going bankrupt or whatever, or they often have properties in the name of other family members. How is the Minister going to make sure that local government can afford to get on with this job, and has he considered the new burdens?

[Luke Hall]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. The House has secured the most positive local government finance settlement for 10 years, a £2.9 billion increase in funding for local authorities. We are quite clear that that will not resolve all of the pressures on local authorities, but that settlement—a 4.4% real-terms increase in support for local government—has been welcomed by the sector, and we think they do have the resources they need. We accept that they are—

[Meg Hillier]

I apologise for intervening on the Minister again, but the new burdens rules are very clear. If there is a new requirement for local government to act, the Department has to make sure that the Treasury provides the necessary money to local government for at least 12 months after the new burden is introduced. If he cannot answer now, perhaps he could write to us with that information, but this is vitally important, particularly in areas with large swathes of unscrupulous landlords where it will be costly for the local authority to act when, quite rightly, they will want to do so.

As Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I must pick the Minister up on the fact that Minister after Minister stands at the Dispatch Box and tells us that local government has had its biggest financial settlement in cash terms for the past decade. That is because local authority funding has been cut back so ruthlessly over the past decade—by 40%, in my own local authority’s case—so that does not go anywhere near filling the gap. There is still a huge squeeze on local authorities, and they certainly do not have money swilling around to deal with this as a huge priority above everything else. Although it is vital that they deal with it, they are having to face Hobson’s choice, so will the Minister undertake to look at those new burden issues? I am sure it has been done already, but if he cannot tell me now, perhaps he could write to me.

[Luke Hall]

I will write to the hon. Lady with that information. She is right, by the way, that we do not think this latest settlement solves all the pressures that local government is facing. The Secretary of State made that very clear when we brought the settlement before the House a couple of weeks ago, so we completely appreciate that point. We do think, though, that it is the most positive settlement for a few years, and are pleased that it has been welcomed and supported by the whole House for the first time in a number of years. We will absolutely consider the points that the hon. Lady has made.

I am grateful that the Committee seems to support these vital regulations, and I will pick up on the points that have been raised. They will drive up standards and reduce injuries in the private rented sector, so I am grateful for the Committee’s support.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020.

Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

Of course, it is for local authorities to decide their individual local priorities, but my right hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that the real-terms increase in core spending power for councils up and down the country means that money can be invested in the services that local authorities need the most.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister said that councils are responsible for their own decisions. He is right on one level, but many local authorities are increasingly over-exposing themselves to certain commercial sectors—the Public Accounts Committee has examined this in depth—putting at risk council tax payers and the fabric of local government in their areas. He will know that some councils are at risk right now, so what is his Department doing to ensure that we are protecting council tax payers where local government is not doing so well?

[Luke Hall]

The hon. Lady raises a serious point about the effectiveness of some types of spending. We are working with the Treasury to review the Public Works Loan Board rates and flexibilities that local authorities have, and we will ensure that we keep her updated in due course on the progress of that review.