Draft Non-Domestic Rating (Designated Area) Regulations 2021

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd March 2021 General Committees

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Angela, and I thank the Minister for his opening speech.

Next week marks one year since the World Health Organisation declared the covid-19 outbreak a pandemic. Two weeks after that marks a key moment, when the Prime Minister told us to stay at home, save lives and protect the NHS. Nearly 123,000 people are no longer with us, we have the worst economic downturn for 300 years and we are bottom of the league in the G7. Our hope—our shining light—has been the effort of the global scientific community and our NHS, public health and local volunteers in the vaccine roll-out, which we all want to succeed.

Another symbol of hope and light has been the valiant effort of our councils, which have stepped up throughout and continue to do so. I am sure the Minister agrees with that. Whether it has been taking in homeless people and families, ensuring that the vulnerable in the community receive food parcels or helping businesses to operate safely, we have seen good practice across the country, on top of the bread-and-butter services of social care, bin and waste collection, dealing with potholes and many more community-focused services. But councils have done that while having £15 billion of central funding grants cut from their budgets over the last decade.

The pandemic has had a catastrophic impact on local authority finances, with costs rising as income has fallen. The Secretary of State said, at the outset of the pandemic, that whatever funding was needed for councils to get through to the other side would be provided by Government. That has simply not been the case. Now residents and councils face the imposition of the Chancellor’s council tax bombshell of 5%—a figure built into the Government’s spending power for local councils in order to fund vital services, such as adult social care.

[The Chair]

Order. I am sure some background information is required, and I have given the hon. Member a bit of leeway, but will he now address the statutory instrument under consideration?

[Mike Amesbury]

I will move on.

Can the Minister explain why his own council, South Gloucestershire, which is led by the Conservatives, has felt compelled to set the maximum 4.99% council tax rise? The statutory instrument, which we will support, should not be used as a poor substitute for the Secretary of State’s broken promise on funding councils properly.

Councils have endured cuts over the past decade. Giving councils and combined authorities the means to capture 100% of business rates is in principle a good thing, and the ability to drive growth, which the Minister referred to, make gains from inward investment and maximise services are devolution in action. However, it will not have escaped the Minister’s attention that business rates as they stand are putting a straitjacket on growth in our local high streets and our broader economy. Businesses are already disappearing, and many will not reopen beyond the pandemic. Business rates must be rapidly reformed.

On that note, I shall conclude with some questions to the Minister. What vital progress has been made in the business rates review? When can we expect a response to the consultation? When can our councils and businesses expect action?

Uber: Supreme Court Ruling

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

As I have said, we will look at employment conditions and ensure that employees can understand their status and tax payment conditions. There is a complication, in that the companies my hon. Friend mentioned each have different contracts, so it is important that we have something that looks at all those things in the round.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) [V]]

Does the Minister agree with the GMB union, which fought this legal battle for four years, that now is the time for Uber to face up to its legal and moral responsibilities, pay decent wages and give decent holidays to its employees? It truly is time to legislate, legislate, legislate, rather than look again.

[Paul Scully]

Uber has to respond to the Supreme Court’s judgment, which is final. We have talked about the fact that the gig economy offers individuals flexibility and provides opportunities for those who may not be able to work in more conventional ways, but we must make sure that they are protected and that we have a balance between flexibility and protecting employment rights.

Draft Northamptonshire (Structural Changes) (Supplementary Provision and Amendment) Order 2021

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 General Committees

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher.

I am happy to join the Minister in supporting the creation of the new unitary authorities. I put on record the Opposition’s thanks to the parliamentarians, councillors, officers, residents and indeed the trade unions for their work in going forward to that transition. It is not the most controversial matter before us today, but I have a few questions for the Minister.

We have been waiting quite some time for the publication of the devolution White Paper, which currently does not have a timetable for publication. Given during the pandemic we have seen the serious limitations of over-centralisation on full display, and the Government have worked in partnership with areas that have metro mayors and combined authorities, we have seen the power and benefits of the resources that have been transferred from Westminster to localities up and down the country. Devolution should therefore be a process built from the bottom up, which touches on some of the Minister’s comments about the consultation and the evolution of the unitary authority. The Government should not block or delay publication of the White Paper. It was in the Queen’s Speech and the Conservative manifesto, so I would certainly welcome an update.

I have a vested interest in my patch of Cheshire and Warrington, for which I have advocated devolution along with other parliamentarians and local council leaders. I would like to know how the Minister sees the overall devolution agenda progressing as we recover from the impact of the pandemic. Will the Government keep their promise to fully fund councils for the costs of the pandemic so that we do not see huge losses of services across the country, and so that we do indeed build better and fairer in the future? I thank the Minister for his comments today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Regional Growth and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

We have a clear commitment to give more power to local communities, providing opportunity across the country. We want to build on the more than 50% of the north now covered by our devolution deals, with a new deal in West Yorkshire signed in Parliament just last month. We welcomed the devolution proposal from Hull and East Yorkshire, and my Department will respond shortly, with a view to further formal engagement with councils following the local government elections. I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend to talk about this in greater depth.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

Last week, The Sunday Times revealed that property developers who have built flats covered in dangerous cladding have donated £2.5 million to the Conservative party since 2017. This comes after the 10 biggest house builders have made £15 billion in profit since the Grenfell Tower disaster, and of course, they have made a tidy sum during the covid-19 pandemic from a market boom fuelled by the stamp duty holiday. The Housing Secretary said he believes in the polluter pays principle. Why, then, are leaseholders still footing the bill for the building safety crisis?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Gentleman may have missed my statement to the House the other day in which I announced on behalf of the Chancellor that we will be bringing forward levies and taxes on the property development industry. [Interruption.] He suggests that they are too low, but he does not know what the scale of them is, and he will have to wait until my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announces them in due course. We will ensure that those who created this situation pay for it. I would add that many of these buildings—in fact, the lion’s share of them—were built under the last Labour Government, who did nothing to tackle this issue. We are clearing up the mess. We are bringing forward an entirely new building safety regime, which will be world class and ensure that people can always be safe and feel safe in their homes.

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

I welcome the new Minister, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), to his place. I look forward to working together constructively over the coming years.

As we have heard this afternoon, nearly four years on from the Grenfell fire in which 72 people tragically lost their lives, hundreds of thousands of people the length and breadth of our nations are living in buildings wrapped in flammable cladding, constructed without fire breaks and insulated with inappropriate materials, paying thousands for the round the clock waking watch schemes, with insurance premiums going through the roof. This is the nightmare that is the cladding scandal, a nightmare magnified by the need to seek sanctuary in our homes during the pandemic and successive lockdowns.

Listening to the debate today and the insightful contributions from 71 right hon. and hon. Members from across the House, two questions come to mind. First, are buildings and, very importantly, the people living in them markedly safer since Grenfell? The answer is clearly no. Secondly, has the Government’s response been extensive and at pace? Certainly not.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) highlighted the tragic case of Hayley. She had a dream of home ownership and she had a brand-new flat, and then: welcome to the nightmare that is the cladding scandal. She has now declared bankruptcy, and that point was highlighted by the BBC only yesterday.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves) referred to the heart-breaking case of a young couple in her constituency who are now unable to sell their flat and move on with their young family because they are trapped by the EWS chaos and the Government’s advice note 14. That affects 16% of households, and that needs to be fixed, certainly in substance. I hope the new Minister brings that to his post, rather than a ministerial press release.

The Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), rightly highlighted the nightmare of insurance premiums going up at astronomical rates. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) also referred to that. One such case in her constituency, Brindley House, has seen a 1,300% increase in insurance premiums. Only yesterday I had constituents in Weaver Vale contacting me about that issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg) referred to a 1,000% increase at The Decks in Runcorn. Those are some of the many aspects of the cladding crisis with which Members from all parts of the House are very familiar.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

A number of constituents have contacted me about the problems they have been facing having to pay for the removal of dangerous cladding. They have put their lives on hold. They have not been able to get out of dangerous relationships. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is down to the Government to take more action to ensure that those responsible actually pay for the removal of cladding?

[Mike Amesbury]

I agree with my hon. Friend. It certainly is time for the Government to get a grip. It would be remiss of me not to highlight and thank those campaigners who will keep on pressing for justice and change: Grenfell United, the End Our Cladding Scandal campaign, the all-party parliamentary group, the Select Committee, Inside Housing, The Sunday Times, the Mail and the Mirror. All have highlighted stories bringing alive in this Chamber and beyond the hundreds of thousands of voices of those trapped in thousands of buildings up and down this land.

Three and a half years on from Grenfell, the Government still do not know the number of buildings truly at risk, because they have failed to this day to draw up a risk register or a priority list, as our motion calls for today. Building safety needs to be turbocharged by a national cladding taskforce.

What created the building safety or cladding scandal in the first place? First, I suggest it was the regulatory regime of the past and, secondly, as highlighted by many Members, it was some in the industry whose purpose was to maximise profit margins to such an extent that the moral compass of humanity—the safety of people and their quality of life, or even the right to life itself—was not even an afterthought, as illustrated by the evidence presented so far to the Grenfell inquiry.

This crisis certainly is not the responsibility of innocent tenants or the millions of leaseholders now living in flats valued at zero, who are mortgage prisoners as a result of this scandal. That point has been made time and time again by Members from all parties today. Leaseholders cannot pay, and they should not pay. Our motion is a clarion call to all Members and would enshrine that principle in the building safety landscape.

The Government’s response so far to the crisis has been one of dither and delay. We have legislation coming down the line and a building safety fund as a reaction to determined campaigners and strong voices in Parliament, but the size and scope of the fund is nowhere near sufficient, and the remediation of buildings has been carried out at a snail’s pace. Despite the recent spin from Government Ministers, nearly 60% of private sector buildings identified with Grenfell-type cladding are still wrapped in ACM.

Turning to the building safety fund, 2,820 applications have been made, with only 405 proceeding with an application for funding so far. The funding will cover only around 600 buildings, and only those that are 18 metres or above—a system of first come, first served, with gagging orders and chaos hard-wired into it. I say to the Minister that nobody will be silenced; the chorus for justice will get louder and louder.

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank and commend my hon. Friend the shadow housing Secretary and, indeed, the Leader of the Opposition for having a clear plan, because at this point in time, the Government have not even ascertained the extent of the problem. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Prime Minister, who has been conspicuous by his absence, needs to issue a statement and show a clear plan, because this crippling cladding crisis is having a debilitating impact on millions of our constituents?

[Mike Amesbury]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I certainly do agree.

Over the past few months, Ministers have started publicly to row back on their previous promises to protect leaseholders from historical remediation costs—statements made at least 15 times in the public domain. They now refer to affordable, reasonable and fair costs, as pointed out by my hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee. At the same time, their appointed adviser, Michael Wade, has been devising yet another way to pile the costs on hard-pressed leaseholders, through a 30-year loan costing thousands of pounds a year—a mini mortgage on top of existing mortgages, waking watch, and astronomical insurance costs. Welcome to the cladding tax.

The draft Building Safety Bill even attempts to enshrine a building safety charge in law, through clauses 88 and 89. The proposal to impose a charge on leaseholders has met considerable opposition on both sides of this House, in the form of amendments to the Fire Safety Bill and undoubtedly to the Building Safety Bill in future. The Opposition will be supporting the McPartland amendment to the Fire Safety Bill.

Members across this House have the opportunity today to come together, stand up for their constituents who happen to be leaseholders, and protect them with deeds in the Division Lobby, not just words—to send a message to the Prime Minister and the Housing Secretary to change track, turbocharge building safety with a national cladding taskforce, fund works up front, and then recover from those who are responsible for this mess. The polluter pays. They should set a hard deadline of June 2022, and pursue those responsible relentlessly. This is the way that we create pace; this is the way that we protect the public purse and leaseholders; and this is the right thing to do: support this motion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

The Chair of the Select Committee is absolutely right—we should look to developers and to building owners to remedy the defects in their buildings. We have made available to owners who are not able to remedy those defects quickly and effectively £1.6 billion in order to remedy those defects. As I said in my earlier answer, we do not want and we do not expect hard-pressed leaseholders to bear unfair costs of defects for which they are not responsible. That is why we are working quickly to bring forward a long-term solution to ensure that costs are met, that defects are remedied, and that the position that leaseholders find themselves in is remedied too.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab) [V]]

A belated happy new year to you, Mr Speaker.

Clauses 88 and 89 of the Government’s proposed Building Safety Bill will impose a charge on leaseholders, not developers and not the industry. Ministers now refer to “affordable” cost and a 30-year loan on top of current debts, including for waking watch, which we still have no remedy to. Adding insult to injury, Ministers are trying to gag recipients of the building safety fund from speaking to the media. That is just not going to happen. Have Ministers learned nothing about transparency from the Grenfell inquiry? Is it not about time that Ministers stepped in and made sure that the developer community shoulder their responsibility for this mess?

[Christopher Pincher]

The Government have stepped in: they have spent £1.6 billion of public money on remediating the most difficult and challenging buildings that require help and support. We have made a further £30 million available for waking watch. The Building Safety Bill to which the hon. Gentleman refers—one of the most significant pieces of legislation in this Parliament —will be brought forward to make sure that building defects such as we have seen are things of the past. In the meantime, we will work at pace to find solutions that resolve the question of building defects such that we do not see hard-pressed leaseholders enduring difficult, unforeseen and unfair taxes. If those leaseholders wish to step forward and make comments themselves, who am I to say that they should not? We live in a free country; let them speak.

Planning for the Future

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this important debate and for putting net zero—there is a big gap—at the heart of her argument. I agree wholeheartedly with that.

I also thank the 11 Members or so who contributed—initially, 15 were down to speak, but it has been a case of shifting sands. I thank the right hon. Members for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), the hon. Members for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), for St Ives (Derek Thomas), for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall), for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), for Crewe and Nantwich (Dr Mullan), for Warrington South (Andy Carter), and for Kensington (Felicity Buchan), and I certainly cannot forget our colleagues from Cornwall. We have heard their powerful voices today, and they are clearly showing off about being in tier 1. It has been a powerful, informed discussion and debate.

The proposals in the White Paper come at a time when we hear much talk about building, not just to solve the housing crisis but as a way to boost the economy, create new sustainable jobs, help us to meet the net zero goals and, very importantly, respond to the covid crisis. Some of the proposals, at first glance, are reforms that we on the Labour Benches welcome and have called for in the past—timely local plans, moving from the analogue, paper-centric world to the digital world, while not excluding others, and improving the quality and design standards. Yet people do not have to scratch beneath the surface to discover that the very heart of the proposals—the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire referred to the details—is a huge shift of control and influence from communities and local democracy to well-resourced developers and Whitehall. People across the Chamber have certainly said that.

In reality the proposals do little to build back better, more beautiful, or greener. In many cases they do exactly the opposite—a point made powerfully by the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet. They create permitted development monstrosities, high rises, over-development, two-storey extensions on every house in suburbia, in every street, and give a green light, in many areas, to ghettos of houses in multiple occupation. We do not need more of those.

Coming on the back of a decade of austerity and the current economic crisis, the reforms are a further attack on councils. They strip away power and finance from local authorities and, with that, take away communities’ ability to have their voice heard throughout the planning process. That case was put forward powerfully by the hon. Member for Totnes.

The zonal approach of growth, renewal and protection is of particular concern. It risks creating a free-for-all in which well-resourced developers and associated lobbyists carve up our villages, towns and cities, creating further segregation, and encroaching on our green belt. The hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and I share a border, in Moore. My concern is that the approach will do nothing of the sort—it will just maintain the status quo. Undoubtedly we will have a debate about that locally, but we have a shared interest.

The vast majority of councillors throughout the land believe that the proposals are undemocratic, including 61% of Conservative councillors. More than 250,000 supporters of the countryside charity the Campaign to Protect Rural England argue the same. I think we have all been lobbied by them—rightly, along with the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Town and Country Planning Association, the Royal Institute of British Architects, Civic Voice, and many more in and beyond the housing sector. Only yesterday The Times reported that the Prime Minister stood up for his constituents and took advantage of the very right that he wants to abolish for others, opposing a development in his constituency using the current system. What role does the Minister believe residents and councillors should have throughout the planning process?

As has been argued in the Chamber today, good place-making must keep planning local, not developer-centric and certainly not based on a diktat from a Whitehall algorithm. That algorithm instructs local planning authorities to build 161% more homes in London and the south-east but 28% fewer homes overall in the north—pouring concrete over London and the south-east, while hollowing out the north. How does that fit with the Government’s levelling up agenda for communities in the midlands and the north?

Like organisations such as the Woodland Trust, I would also like to hear the Minister’s comments about environmental protections in this White Paper. It is not at all clear how the Government can reconcile the proposals in the Environment Bill, and the Prime Minister’s comments about “newt-counting” do not exactly instil confidence that the Government take ecological or environmental protection seriously.

There are still 1 million unbuilt housing permissions from the last 10 years; I think the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich made that point. Yet the White Paper does nothing to explain how we will ensure that developers either “use it or lose it”—that is, lose such permissions. Also, the lack of any mention of social housing in the White Paper means that we will remain over-reliant on private builders and market cycles to get homes built.

If we are serious about maximising housing delivery and meeting building targets, the Government need to stop ignoring the answer that is right in front of them and build a new generation of social housing—and, yes, make it net zero. Just 6,500 homes for social rent were built last year. The White Paper on social housing, which was published recently, has some good things in it, but the key thing that it was lacking was a plan to build more social homes.

The Local Government Association found that in the last five years 30,000 affordable homes would have gone unbuilt if the Government’s proposal to scrap section 106 for developments under 40 or 50 homes had been in place, which would have affected rural areas such as Cornwall; I have to mention Cornwall again. Can the Minister set out the evidence behind the proposal to scrap section 106?

I would also like to hear from the Minister about the new levy that is being proposed to replace section 106 and the community infrastructure levy. We have had very little detail about how this new levy would work. The current proposals seem to mean that councils would provide up-front cash, and yet they would really struggle to fund infrastructure. So, more detail on that would be very much appreciated. Why are the Government continuing with their absurd extensions to permitted development? They know very well that such extensions create bad homes and blight communities; we have all seen examples of those things in our own communities.

I am pleased that the Minister, responding to our prayer against the recent statutory instrument in this area and a potential Back-Bench rebellion, finally recognised that space and light are important for human habitation; there must be at least minimum amounts of both. I urge him to go further and adopt some of the principles in the Healthy Homes Bill, to give local communities a voice again on these matters.

Members from all parties do not want streets, villages, towns and cities to be littered with inappropriate two-storey extensions that pitch neighbour against neighbour, and nor do they want high streets to be hollowed out, with former shops being converted into HMOs and wheelie bins flowing into the streets of the towns and cities that we represent. There is nothing beautiful, and nothing greener or better, about that reality.

In conclusion, we cannot cheat our way out of the housing crisis; building healthy and sustainable homes should be the response to this pandemic. However, clear and measurable targets for net zero are currently missing from these proposals. We should put communities at the heart of good place-making, strengthening and resourcing our planning system, and extending local democracy, to build good-quality housing for all.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Before I ask the Minister to respond, Members should note that this debate will conclude at 4.12 pm. If the Minister keeps his response to about nine minutes, that will leave time for Ms Olney to respond as well.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his contribution and for his ongoing interest in and commitment to this very important area of work. As I said earlier, we do not want leaseholders to carry the burden of these costs. That is why we are working with Michael Wade, who has a 40-odd-year history in the insurance market, to find innovative solutions to what is a very complicated problem. It is why we have also put aside a significant amount of public money in this financial year to remediate the buildings that are most at risk where the owners have no other means of paying.

My hon. Friend also asks about waking watch. We have published data on the costs of waking watch so that leaseholders are able to see the relative differences in charges by waking watch providers. It is entirely wrong that some providers charge so much, and I would point leaseholders to that data so that they can better understand where they may get better service. They may also know that alarm systems can pay for themselves within seven weeks and obviate the need for waking watch.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s scrutiny report on the draft Building Safety Bill, published today, makes for powerful yet sobering reading, not just for Members across the Chamber but, importantly, for the hundreds of thousands of leaseholders that are trapped in this living nightmare, left to foot the cost of a broken building safety system that they did not create. Before this, we had another powerful HCLG Committee report, a Public Accounts Committee report and a National Audit Office report, which repeatedly made it clear that, well over three years on from Grenfell, where 72 people lost their lives, the Government need to step up and step in to make buildings safe with a greater sense of urgency.

There are too many aspects of the building safety crisis to mention: the cost of remediation being passed to leaseholders and, yes, the interim costs such as waking watch; the snail’s pace of the work; other safety issues, such as firebreaks and wooden balconies not covered by the funding; the lack of prioritisation according to risk other than simply the height of buildings; and the ongoing saga of the external wall survey forms, despite this weekend’s botched announcement by the Secretary of State. How many reports are we going to need?

By my count, the Government have promised 11 times in this Chamber and beyond that leaseholders should be protected from the cost of remediation. Now we witness Minister after Minister shifting sand, referring to “affordable” costs put on the shoulders of leaseholders and enshrining in the draft Building Safety Bill the building safety charge—clause 89, there in black and white for people to see. Will the Minister tell me and the House what additional invoice paid in 28 days he defines as “affordable” or, as referred to at the Dispatch Box today, “reasonable”? Please answer that question.

Finally, will the Minister explain why those companies and developers that knowingly engineered false test results for insulation and cladding products, then riddled thousands of homes with flammable materials, are getting away scot-free?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his questions. It is not true to say that leaseholders are being left to foot the bill. He and the House know full well that the taxpayer is spending £1.6 billion in this financial year to help remediate those buildings most at risk where the owners are unable to pay. Of course, those discussions across Government are ongoing. We keep the situation under review. However, I remind the House that it is not fair simply to place such a burden on the taxpayer. Developers and owners must step up and play their part.

The hon. Gentleman raised the question of the external wall system 1 form, which he knows is a form produced by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors; it is not a Government form. I am pleased that, as a result of the negotiations undertaken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and Lord Greenhalgh, the EWS1 form will no longer be necessary for those buildings that are not clad. The industry has made that clear. That will be to the benefit of something like 450,000 leaseholders. But there is more to do, and we will continue to do it.

The hon. Gentleman asked me what affordability is. It is a very subjective matter, because what is affordable to one person is not to another. We want to ensure that, as a result of the work that my noble Friend is doing with the financial services sector and the insurance sector, we come up with appropriate and innovative solutions to ensure that unfair costs do not fall on leaseholders for defects that may be identified down the line.

The hon. Gentleman also referred to commentary on lies told about fire safety tests. I entirely agree that that was wrong. It was outrageous. Where firms have been proven to lie, they must of course receive the full force of the law.

Draft Business and Planning Act 2020 (London Spatial Development Strategy) (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 General Committees

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve, once again, under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the Minister for his introductory remarks on this administrative statutory instrument. I am confident that the debate will not go on as long as a recent one on the Floor of the House.

As the Minister said, the regulations extend the duration of temporary provisions that were laid before the House earlier this year. They allow the Mayor of London to make copies of the spatial development strategy available at principal offices of the Greater London Authority. The provision of hard copies has become digital-centric in response to the ongoing pandemic, and that is entirely necessary.

There has been extensive consultation with stakeholders, and I share their welcome of the current provisions. I also welcome the reassurance that those who struggle with access to digital provision and the internet will have access to any relevant documentation. It is good that that access will be maintained.

The Opposition support the regulations, and I thank the Minister for his informative remarks.

Points of Order

Mike Amesbury Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the general election campaign, the Conservative party candidate for Weaver Vale shared an image on social media that referred to the significant investment going to Runcorn old town; it came from Conservative party headquarters. I would just like to clarify—and to ask for advice about how I do clarify—whether a mistake of geography actually benefited my good colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Halton (Derek Twigg)—it is actually in the constituency adjacent to mine.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising a point of order. As I have just said in reply to the previous point of order, what is said by hon. Members and the veracity of it or otherwise is not a matter for the Chair. What is said in election literature by candidates who do not subsequently become Members of Parliament is definitely not a matter for the Chair, which is a matter of some relief for any occupant of the Chair. The hon. Gentleman asks me how he can draw his point to a wider audience. I think he has just done so.