Renters (Reform) Bill

Debate between Michael Gove and Caroline Lucas

2nd reading
Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have an enormous amount of respect for the work that he does in this area. I would draw a distinction between the response to the Select Committee’s report and the bringing forward of legislation, but he is absolutely right to draw attention to the fact that we need to consider—and we are—our responses to the consultations on registration and on changes to planning use requirements in the short-term let market. We hope to come forward shortly with our response to those consultations. I should also say that I had the opportunity last week to talk to the founder of Airbnb, and I outlined concerns very similar to those that the hon. Gentleman has outlined.

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

rose—

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

There is plenty to welcome in this Bill, but it should have been an opportunity to increase minimum energy efficiency standards. When the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero last week tried to defend the scrapping of energy efficiency standards for the PRS, she essentially said, on the Floor of the House, that it was because they could cost property owners up to £15,000. The right hon. Gentleman will know that the regulations include a £10,000 cap, so the cost cannot possibly be £15,000; indeed, according to the Government’s own assessment, the average cost of upgrading homes to an energy performance certificate rating of C would be less than £5,000. Will he please correct the record, apologise on behalf of his colleague, who has misled the House, and put it on the record that it could not possibly cost £15,000? His own assessment suggests that it costs less than £5,000.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; no one could doubt her sincerity or her commitment to making sure that we improve the condition of homes and that we deal with energy efficiency. The first thing to say is that the cost will be determined in the market. The amount that an individual might have to pay can be capped by legislation, but the cost is a function of the market. The second thing that it is important to stress is that the decent homes standard, and indeed the work we are doing on retrofitting overall, will improve, and has improved, energy efficiency, but we need to balance the improvement of energy efficiency against the costs that individual landlords and tenants face in a cost-of-living time that is challenging.

Housing, Communities and Local Government

Debate between Michael Gove and Caroline Lucas

Monday 13th June 2022 Ministerial Corrections

[Caroline Lucas]

I wonder if there is a page missing in my copy of the Bill, because I was looking for the net zero test, which I am sure the Secretary of State would agree ought to be applied to all planning decisions, policies and procedures, yet it is conspicuous by its absence. Does he agree that if we are serious about using this Bill to really level up, then we need to have that net zero test? Can he commit to that now?

[Michael Gove]

I will say three things as briefly as I can. First, the national planning policy framework that will be published in July will say significantly more about how we can drive improved environmental outcomes. Secondly, there is in the Bill a new streamlined approach to ensuring that all development is in accordance with the highest environmental standards. Thirdly, as the hon. Lady knows, under the 25-year environment plan and with the creation of the Office for Environmental Protection, the non-regression principle is embedded in everything that we do. The leadership that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has shown, not least at COP26, in driving not just this country but the world towards net zero should reassure her on that front.

[Official Report, 8 June 2022, Vol. 715, c. 822.]

Letter of correction from the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove).

An error has been identified in my response to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas).

The correct response should have been:

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Debate between Michael Gove and Caroline Lucas

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. Of the more than 400 pages in the White Paper, page 238 is perhaps one of the most important, not least because it contains an image of what we can hope to see and what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care will be announcing, which is action to ensure that my right hon. Friend’s constituents get the state-of-the-art, 21st-century hospital that they deserve. That would not happen, I am afraid, under the Opposition, because it is only through the investment that we are putting in and the sound economy that has been created under my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s leadership that we are able to ensure that the citizens of Harlow get the hospitals that they need.

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

rose—

[Michael Gove]

I am always delighted to give way to the hon. Lady.

[Caroline Lucas]

I wonder if there is a page missing in my copy of the Bill, because I was looking for the net zero test, which I am sure the Secretary of State would agree ought to be applied to all planning decisions, policies and procedures, yet it is conspicuous by its absence. Does he agree that if we are serious about using this Bill to really level up, then we need to have that net zero test? Can he commit to that now?

[Michael Gove]

I will say three things as briefly as I can. First, the national planning policy framework that will be published in July will say significantly more about how we can drive improved environmental outcomes. Secondly, there is in the Bill a new streamlined approach to ensuring that all development is in accordance with the highest environmental standards. Thirdly, as the hon. Lady knows, under the 25-year environment plan and with the creation of the Office for Environmental Protection, the non-regression principle is embedded in everything that we do. The leadership that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has shown, not least at COP26, in driving not just this country but the world towards net zero should reassure her on that front.

Ministerial Code

Debate between Michael Gove and Caroline Lucas

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

My right hon. Friend is an officer and a gentleman, and he puts the point very well. There are tried and tested procedures and principles in order to make sure that Ministers and others in the House behave in an appropriate way. Judgments can be made, of course, by all of us in a democracy. His reading of the ministerial code this morning may be a prelude to his being appointed as a Minister in due course, but I cannot further speculate on these matters.

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

Contrary to what one Minister said at the weekend, concerns about the Prime Minister and the ministerial code are not “tittle-tattle”. People care deeply about this, which is why Peter Stefanovic’s video on the Prime Minister’s relationship with the truth has been viewed nearly 13 million times on social media. If the ministerial code says that any “inadvertent error” should be corrected at the earliest opportunity, what should be done about systematic deliberate errors? If, as seems to be the case with our archaic and dysfunctional rules, it is the Prime Minister himself who decides whether the ministerial code has been broken, should we really be trusting this one to mark his own homework, or should the whole system not be urgently revised?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady makes a number of important points. She is absolutely right that the public have a right to expect that those who are responsible for discharging Government duties and spending taxpayers’ money do so in a way that is consistent with the public’s values. She also makes a broader point about the need always to review the mechanisms of scrutiny to which Government are subject. As was pointed out by my hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose), there is an opportunity, with the appointment of a new independent adviser on ministerial interests, to look again at how that role and, indeed, perhaps other roles can be strengthened if necessary.