Assets of Community Value: Black Horse Pub

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am very glad that the subject of my first Adjournment debate is such a popular and important pub in the middle of Greenford, in the heart of my constituency. The Black Horse pub, which dates back as far as 1726, is a place where families, workers, and regulars from all parts of the local community come together. The pub sits in Oldfield Lane North alongside the Grand Union Canal, with the canal not only providing the setting for the beer garden, but bringing the pub extra customers who have moored their boats nearby. It hosts live music events, sporting events, quiz nights and fun days, and I have heard that it used to host a weekly karaoke night. I am told there are plans to bring the karaoke night back, and I hope very much to be there for that—parliamentary business allowing.

One reason I am telling the House about what the Black Horse has to offer is, of course, my wish to encourage people to visit it whenever they are in the area, but I also want to help the House to understand the role that it plays in the local community, and why there was such deep concern about rumours that its owners, Fuller’s, were considering selling it off. Just across the road from the Black Horse thousands of new flats are being built, so when rumours began to circulate that the pub’s owners might be considering selling it for housing, people feared the worst. I therefore wrote to Fuller’s in June last year to ask about its intentions, and I have to say that its response was concerning. That response stated:

“It has been interesting to see the development in Greenford and the recent sale of The Railway”,

another pub nearby. Fuller’s went on to say:

“if we can see a strong future, particularly around strong local community engagement, we like to invest for the long term. If not we do look at alternatives.”

Frankly, that reply sent alarm bells ringing, so I launched a petition to show Fuller’s how strongly people feel about the importance of protecting the Black Horse for the future. In less than a week, the petition had attracted well over 1,000 signatures, more than three quarters of which were from either the UB6 postcode area, where the Black Horse is located, or from one of the postcode areas immediately nearby. Fuller’s put out a press statement in response to the petition saying that, at the time, it had

“no plans to close it”,

but it did not go further in setting out its commitment to the pub, and the careful wording of its response did not provide the reassurance we sought.

It was clear that local people wanted greater protection for such an important local asset, so in March this year, I was very glad to call a public meeting in the pub to formally create the new Protect the Black Horse group. Over 80 people came to this meeting to agree the constitution for the new group, hold our first annual general meeting and appoint our management committee. This public meeting established Protect the Black Horse as a constituted, not-for-profit community group set up to support efforts to protect the pub. I am very pleased that today, in the Public Gallery of the House of Commons, are fellow members of the committee Sarita, Brian, Sindy, Mel and James.

Over the last six months, I and the other members of the committee have been working together to apply to Ealing Council to try to get the pub listed as an asset of community value. We know that being listed by the council as an asset of community value does not provide absolute protection for pubs, but it does mean that if Fuller’s tried to sell the Black Horse, we would be able to block it from doing so for six months. During that time, we would have the chance to put together a community bid to buy the pub instead. We also know that being listed as an asset of community value would help to keep the Black Horse as a pub, whoever owns it. That is because being listed as an asset of community value can be an important consideration in deciding planning applications, therefore making it harder for anyone to get permission to change it from a pub into flats.

I owe a great debt of thanks to the Co-operative party for all its support and advice in our efforts to make the asset of community value application as strong as possible. I also pay tribute to CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, for its invaluable advice. One of my first meetings as an MP, on an evening barely a month after I was elected, was in the Black Horse with the local West Middlesex branch of CAMRA, so we have long had a shared interest in protecting the future of this pub.

After our application to make the Black Horse an asset of community value had been submitted to Ealing Council, I became aware that the council had received a legal letter from Fuller’s lawyers, Freeths, objecting to what we were seeking to do. This 17-page legal letter pressed the council to consider the application invalid. The letter cautioned that

“listing of a property can have severe and far-reaching consequences for the owners of listed properties”.

It went on to warn—perhaps even, implicitly, to threaten—that the listing of a property as an asset of community value

“can also have serious consequences for listing councils, who are placed at risk of the requirement to compensate affected owners where an inappropriate nomination is accepted”.

However, we were not deterred. We pressed on, strengthened the application and waited for Ealing Council to come to its determination. I am very glad to report that, in August this year, Ealing Council took the excellent decision to approve the Black Horse’s listing as an asset of community value.

I mention the letter from Fuller’s lawyers, Freeths, for two reasons. First, I felt it was a rather heavy-handed and lengthy letter from a company that genuinely had no plans to sell the premises, so I consider the fact that it was sent to be some evidence of Fuller’s true intentions. Secondly, and more importantly for this debate, I aim to draw the Minister’s attention to the fact that some owners may try to deploy such legalistic tactics, perhaps in an attempt to discourage applicants and councils from pursuing potential listings as assets of community value.

This seems to be an approach that CAMRA is well aware of. In its guide to the asset of community value process, CAMRA points out that the process of nomination ought to be straightforward. It explains that

“Judges have confirmed that the legislation sets the bar very low in terms of what should be registered.”

However, CAMRA also recognises that the process can sometimes become less straightforward. In CAMRA’s view, in some cases this is a result of “pressures brought to bear” on councils by owners who have “reasons for resisting” asset of community value registration. I would welcome the Minister looking into the use of such heavy-handed legal approaches to try to undermine the asset of community value process and consider what steps the Government can take to discourage such tactics from being deployed in future.

I also encourage the Minister to consider other ways in which the process of protecting assets of community value can be strengthened, as my colleagues in the Opposition have suggested. At the moment, if the Black Horse were put up for sale, we in the community would only have a right to bid alongside others. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), the shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, has set out, we believe that there should be a new community right to buy, so that rather than being one bidder among others, the community would have first refusal on buying the asset. We also propose that such a move should sit alongside a doubling of the current six-month moratorium period on a sale to 12 months to help communities to find time to acquire finance.

Local people across the country want greater control over important local assets being sold off and lost to the community. Over the last year and a half, local people in Greenford have made their view clear that they want to protect the Black Horse from being sold off and turned into flats. The comments and actions of the pub’s owners have given us cause for concern, so I am grateful to Sarita, Brian, Sindy, Mel and James—my fellow members of the “Protect the Black Horse” committee—for their help in applying to Ealing Council to get the pub listed as an asset of community value.

We are glad to have been successful in getting the Black Horse listed, but our experience has exposed some of the difficulties that others may face in making a similar application. We are also aware of the limits to the protection that such a listing offers, so I urge the Government to give people in Greenford and across the country greater control over what happens to pubs and other important places in our local communities.

When the Minister responds, I would be grateful for his comments on the use of heavy-handed legal tactics, such as those I described, from asset owners, which are against the spirit of the asset of community value process. I would be grateful for an undertaking that he will consider the ways in which communities can be given greater control over important local assets in future. Finally, I would be grateful if he joined me in congratulating all those who have helped to get the Black Horse listed as an asset of community value. I hope to take the members of the Black Horse committee for a drink later to thank them for coming to the House of Commons for this debate. I close by making it clear that the Minister, and you, of course, Mr Deputy Speaker, are more than welcome to join us.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you very much.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)]

It is a pleasure to respond to the debate and I thank the hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray) for securing it. He raises a number of important issues that are particularly pertinent to local communities when they see up front the challenges of protecting assets and community places, which are important. “Assets” is an impersonal word to use, but these places are the hearts of communities where people have come for many centuries to congregate, talk, and exchange ideas and views. That is why hon. Members on both sides of the House would agree that pubs, although we cannot protect them in all instances or support everything that people would like to do, are an important part of the community.

What the hon. Gentleman and his fellow committee members have done is to be commended. I put on record my thanks to Sarita, Brian, Sindy, Mel and James—I am not technically supposed to turn away from the Dispatch Box, but I can see them in the Gallery—and everybody who has worked hard to ensure that the Black Horse can be put on the register. I hope that gives some peace of mind to the community in Ealing North and Greenford that the asset is here to stay and will remain an important part of the community in the years and decades to come.

We have brought forward changes in the last decade or so to recognise exactly the kind of points that the hon. Gentleman has made: pubs are important, they make a difference to our community and they are valued. All right hon. and hon. Members receive regular communication directly from CAMRA to highlight the importance of this agenda and these protections. CAMRA is also good at ensuring that local residents get in touch with us on a regular basis, often in the lead up to the Budget, to highlight the importance of pubs. We wholeheartedly agree with that.

Pre-covid, the rate of pub closures had happily started to slow and it looked like a stabilisation was occurring within the sector, but obviously there is more work to be done. From my experience in North East Derbyshire, I know that it is immensely sad when we see pubs leaving. Some 10, 20 or 30 years ago, many communities had many more pubs, but the number of pubs has slowly reduced. We need to see what we can do and where it is reasonable and proportionate to protect them, if communities wish to do that.

I am glad to hear that, in this particular instance, the group was able to use the assets of community value scheme. That was introduced in England in the Localism Act 2011 and provides, as the hon. Gentleman said, communities with a route to nominate any building or land that furthers social wellbeing in the interests of the community. We accept that community assets play a vital role in creating thriving neighbourhoods. I am grateful for the feedback that he has provided through the debate today.

On the experiences that the hon. Gentleman and his fellow committee members had, the good ones included the fact that the pub was able to reach the register. Some were less positive, or more concerning. I am sorry to hear about the potential challenges that were caused by the document that was received from the owners. Although, obviously, I have not seen the document myself, that does not sound within the spirit of the intention of the 2011 rules. I would be happy, on behalf of the Department, to receive any further information on that, so that we can consider what happened in this instance and look at that for the future.

The hon. Gentleman, rightly, pushed the Government with regards to where to strike the right balance to ensure that individual owners of property—the basic principle of capital—can do as they wish with that, within the law and the boundaries of what is acceptable, while still recognising that there are certain assets, certain uses of capital, that are particularly important for the community. That is why the Localism Act introduced the assets of community value scheme in 2011. I accept that there is a valid discussion to be had about the length of time for consideration and, equally, about exactly where we draw the lines on what should be done, how it should be done and in what order. The general view is that what we did 10 years ago was a big step forward in making sure that we can protect assets such as this, or give the opportunity for assets such as this to be protected. We know that it does not work in all circumstances. A couple of years ago, there was a public house in Eckington in my constituency which we were unable to save despite the community looking into that in detail.

I will certainly pass back the comments of the hon. Gentleman and his fellow committee members with regards to potential changes to the Localism Act. It is about striking the right balance. It is a difficult one to take an absolute view on, but I thank him and his colleagues for their representations. I will ensure that they are considered in the future, as and when and if we look into this policy area again.

I wish to touch on the slightly broader context and some of the things that the Government are doing to help when these type of instances arise. We know that assets of community value are increasingly being used, not just in Ealing, but across the country. One way in which we are trying to augment the approach—the hon. Gentleman requested that we look again at the criteria—is through things such as the community ownership fund. I know that that is appropriate in some circumstances, but I accept that it will not be appropriate in all circumstances. None the less, that is £150 million over the course of the last few years and in the coming years, and it is explicitly to support communities in saving assets at risk.

Since July 2021, community groups have been able to bid for up to £250,000 of match funding to help to buy or take over local assets at risk of closure. Of course, the owner has to be willing to enter into those kinds of discussions, which I accept is a challenge the hon. Gentleman has posed. Equally, I hope that those who have an interest in the matter and are following this debate recognise that the Government have taken another step forward in trying to support local communities to be able to take ownership. In the first bidding round, we have awarded more than £10 million to 38 bids from across the UK, from community centres and heritage buildings to pubs and sports clubs. The community ownership fund has, for example, enabled the Old Forge Community Benefit Society to raise funds to buy the Old Forge pub on the Knoydart peninsula in northern Scotland. The Old Forge reopened in March and will be run by the local community.

Right at the other end of the UK, the fund has enabled the Friends of the Newtown St Martin Pub in Cornwall to raise funds to save the Prince of Wales pub after it closed during lockdown. The pub’s reopening party was just last month, and I am told that it attracted huge crowds and that the pub has been well supported since. There are options not just to protect through the asset register, but to raise funding should sales come up. There are many other excellent examples of successful bids and I wish them all the best of luck.

To conclude, I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the matter, which is an incredibly important part of the community discussion. Pubs are an incredibly important part of community life and I absolutely concur with him that we should protect them where we are able to do so. I am grateful for his feedback. I will absolutely look further into the letter and the statements that he highlighted. I wish him and all members of the Save the Black Horse committee all the best in ensuring that the Black Horse, which has been part of the community for the last 350 years, is saved for another 350 years.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Thank you, James, for the offer of a pint, but with a heavy heart, I have to rush for a train.

Question put and agreed to.

Carbon Emissions (Buildings) Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Friday 25th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jerome Mayhew]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way a second time. On the question of steel, she is absolutely right. If enacted, the Bill would be a great opportunity for British steel. As she will know, about 50% of all steel used for construction in this country is imported. Given the additional carbon emissions that result from the transportation of a very heavy and bulky product, British Steel and steel producers in her constituency—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Could the hon. Gentleman please face the microphones when he speaks?

[Jerome Mayhew]

British Steel and other steel producers, including the one in my hon. Friend’s constituency, already have plans in place to reduce the carbon intensity of their products before 2035 and 2055 by as much as 80% by reusing scrap metal instead of exporting it abroad for reuse. Does she agree that the Bill gives impetus to this developing new sector in the steel industry, rather than restraining it?

[Holly Mumby-Croft]

I agree that we need to be extremely careful about the transportation of materials—my hon. Friend is absolutely right—but therein lies a challenge. To work through the restrictions in the Bill, we would need a level of confidence when we imported materials, be they steel or anything else. We would need confidence about how much carbon has gone into the steel; trust in the people who made it; and to know how far it has come, where the fuel for the ship has come from and how the steel in the ship was built. He is right that there are opportunities for steel, but if he is seeking to persuade me solely on the terms that he mentioned, he has not quite managed to do so.

That brings me to my next point: we need to discuss whether we have that level of assurance. Inevitably, many of the products that go into the buildings of the future will come from abroad, and we need to understand that. As always, companies in this country will play by the rules, but my hon. Friend knows that that is not always the case across the world.

Concrete is another sector that could face problems, if sustainability advantages are not weighted properly. I have a fantastic firm in my constituency, Techrete, which I am very proud of. It has contributed to a number of buildings across the country and the world. There have been 600 projects in the past 37 years, and I will draw your attention to a small number that you may have seen, Mr Deputy Speaker, because they are all quite close to where we are. The projects include King’s Cross station, the Olympic village and The Broadway on Victoria Street—if you walk out of here and look to your right, Mr Deputy Speaker, before you get to M&S, you will see that building. They also include Victoria Square, the Heathrow Express tunnel—we probably made the steel for the rails in that tunnel as well, and if we did, it will be the finest steel in the world—Wembley Park and University College London Hospital. On the South Bank, on the other side of the river, there are some buildings that we made, and there is also the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, Westfield shopping centre, the Imperial War Museum, St Bartholomew's Hospital, the V&A and the lettering at Arsenal.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Let us hear from the Minister now; there will be opportunities later for other Members to come in.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 23rd November 2022 Commons Chamber

Finally, if I went back to my constituents or, I suspect, those of any other Members in so-called levelling-up areas, and said, “Have you seen the benefits of levelling up in the last three years? Can you tell me the difference?”, I suspect the answer would probably be no, but no doubt the Minister will try to reassure us it is not.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Following the last speaker, we will move on to the ministerial response.

[Bob Seely]

I am going to speak to new clause 34, and may make some broader points, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) did—I thank her for her great work and leadership on this issue. There are many good ideas that we have been discussing on all sides of the House today, and it is great to see such a brilliant Minister in her role and dealing with this Bill. Indeed, quite a few Ministers have been dealing with it, but I am glad that the buck has stopped with her. I welcome all and any measures to support levelling up.

The Isle of Wight is rich in so many ways, but economically is not necessarily one of them. We have a wonderful sense of community and a wonderful quality of life, but if I can achieve one thing in this place, it is to improve Islanders’ life chances and opportunities. I am delighted that in the last five years the Government have been listening more than they have done previously. We have got £120 million of additional investment. There is £48 million for the NHS—the build at St Mary’s is due to start in the next two weeks—and £26 million to rebuild the Island line. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago I was at Ryde Pier with my little hard hat on—a Boris look-alike or whatever—because the rebuild of the railway pier is now happening as well.

The hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) asked what levelling up has done. Actually, we have got a 240-ton-lift crane in East Cowes for our shipyard, which will drive dozens of new jobs and apprenticeships in shipbuilding on the Isle of Wight. The clippers that we see going up and down the Thames are made on the Island. We have lots of great things, including in training for Isle of Wight College.

One of the many things said by the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), which really sticks with me is that, “Talent is shared out equality in our nation, but opportunity isn’t.” We feel that, in a poorer part of a rich area.

I turn to compulsory purchase. If we go to any town or city in this country, apart from brownfield—I will come to that—we see long-term empty, derelict buildings. In coastal areas, as the Minister will know—it is fantastic that she has agreed to come to the Island and we very much look forward to hosting her—that problem is especially acute, particularly with former hotels. In Sandown, which is a town with a really lovely, wonderful community, some of our most important and valuable sites have stood empty for years. The Grand hotel is owned by a developer who seems to be unwilling to develop his own properties. The technical ownership of the Ocean hotel seems to change every month as it is flipped through a series of highly questionable companies. It is one of the most important sites in Sandown, and it is derelict and vandalised. We need the compulsory purchase powers. I respect property rights, but actually we need those powers to be as strong as possible so that communities such as mine and the Isle of Wight Council can use them to do good.

I am going to try this argument: I want to be able to get the Isle of Wight Council to compulsory purchase from the Government. Camp Hill prison site—the third prison site on the Island—has been empty for nine years. For five years I have been asking for a decision on Camp Hill. The Government cannot decide whether they want to turn it back into a prison, give us the land, sell it privately and so on. If they can give us that land at a price that we can afford, we can do real good with it, and we can build homes.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet made the point that we want to propose good stuff. That is why, among 20 amendments and new clauses that we tabled, we have proposed new clause 34. There is an incredibly trite conversation around the issue, suggesting that those who object to top-down targets and the entirely depressing reliance on out-of-town, car-dependent housing estates plonked down in the middle of nowhere are somehow anti-young people or nimbys—a nimby is a local patriot, in my opinion—shouting, “No, no, no,” with their heads in the ground like ostriches. Actually, we are saying, “Yes, yes, yes” to so many ideas—we are trying to give the Government so many ideas—because we want planning and housing to be a success. We want to protect communities and, at the same time, we recognise that we need to build, but we want a system that is community-centred, environment-centred—environmentally friendly—and regeneration-centred.

When we have acre after acre of brownfield sites in towns and cities up and down the country, what on earth is the point of being reliant on developers lazily building on greenfield sites? That alienates older people in communities—they have their dog-walking routes and views ruined—yet so often, and especially in the home counties, those houses cannot be afforded by young people. All that happens is people move out of London. That is a problem in Essex, Kent and Hampshire. On the Island, the dynamic is slightly different because people retire to us, but either way, despite having increased our population by 50% in 50 years, one of the most depressing facts is that we still export our young people too often.

New clause 34, which would give us compulsory powers to act in the public good, is only one of a series of, I hope, good ideas supported by my right hon. Friend, me and many people. For example, I think that for new clause 21, on top-down targets, we have more than 55 colleagues. Regardless of what the Labour party does, we need to work together. We want to work together with the Government in a spirit of co-operation, but can they please trust us and listen to us?

Another example of a good idea, apart from new clause 34, is the new clause on having a “Use it or lose it” rule to stop planners land-banking. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that a fundamental problem is not that planners do not give out permissions—80% get passed—or that pesky nimbys stop everything, because we know that is a load of rubbish. The fundamental problem is that developers have a vested interest in only releasing land for housing slowly, because that keeps the value of land high, house prices high, share prices high and bosses’ bonuses high. I sound a bit like I should be on the Opposition Benches. I am a big fan of capitalism, but I want capitalism to work. I want the developer industry to serve the people of this country, not its bosses.

We will achieve that by getting a system that works, so we want a new clause for “Use it or lose it.” We want a new clause that says, “Okay, you will have a time here and if you do not build out, you’re paying council tax on that 200-house estate. If you haven’t built it, you’re still paying council tax come what may.” We want bigger sticks. We want some nice carrots for brownfield, but we want bigger sticks for developers, so that when someone gets a 1,000-acre site they actually have to do something with it, and they cannot just sit on it and inflate their share price.

We want what is in the public interest. As soon as some people become Ministers, they think they know best—I am sure that this Minister does not think that—and they want top-down stuff, because that is where they drive reform. However, we know that a community with a neighbourhood plan is more likely to welcome development. Why? Because they get to shape it. All the so-called nimbys actually think, “Okay, here’s a home for my kids, a home for my daughter and son-in-law, a home for my grandkids.” They buy into it.

That is why top-down targets fundamentally do not work. They create an incredibly divisive battle. The Government say, “You have to build this many houses.” We get ridiculous, absurd numbers for the Isle of Wight, considering that our indigenous population is meant to decline by 9,000 over the next 15 years. We get targets and local government is put under pressure. The developers then start plonking down greenfield permissions, because they cannot be bothered to look at brownfield sites, which alienates communities. It becomes fundamentally divisive and adversarial.

Changing economic incentives would revolutionise development in this country, so that it becomes a win-win for communities. We could create more disincentives for greenfield sites—a super-tax—so that every plot on a greenfield site has to pay twice the amount as those on a brownfield site. Some brownfield sites are dirtier than others, but if we had a tax that said, “Okay, you are giving up 1,000 acres of greenfield site in Cambridgeshire, Kent or Hampshire, but you are getting 2,000 acres of cleaned-up brownfield site” that would be a win. That is something we could accept. We need to think in much more creative terms and to move away from an adversarial system. That is why another amendment—along with new clause 34, which we love—asks the Government to look at the creation of incentives for brownfield and greater disincentives for greenfield.

Fundamentally, with the exception of one or two things, the Government are going in the right direction, but they need to go further. Another example is the new clause on character tests. Some shoddy developers have criminal records. They intimidate people, do not treat communities properly, never build out or build poorly. Why can that not be a reason to object? Do we not want to clean up the development industry? Do we not want socially responsible developers who do the right thing for their communities and actually make an effort? They can be rewarded by us supporting their development planning applications and we can stop people who want to build caravan parks in the wrong place but use loopholes. That is another of our amendments—it is a great amendment—which would do real good, so why are the Government not accepting it?

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet and I, the 55 colleagues who signed new clause 21 on top-down housing targets, and many others, including the—I think—30 colleagues who signed new clause 34 on compulsory purchase, all want to say yes to this stuff. We want our communities to feel that development works for them—that it works for the old and young folks in communities, that it works to regenerate and that it works to protect our environment, which is so important to our future and which helps the whole process of community-led regeneration. In that spirit, we tabled new clause 34 and all the other wonderful amendments, which we look forward to discussing with the Government when they come up with a second date. My plea is for the Government to work with us on this issue, because want to make this a win-win, not a lose-lose.

Social Housing Standards

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

As I mentioned briefly earlier, it does seem to me on the basis of the facts as they stand—and this has certainly been articulated very effectively by Awaab’s family’s solicitor—that the family were on the receiving end of prejudice. Whether it was unwitting or not, I cannot judge. Linked to that, as the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington mentioned, there is a significant problem with people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds not being treated, as they should be, with respect, and we do need to take that issue seriously. I am reassured that those who lead the social housing sector completely understand the need for the highest professional standards in this area.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, and for responding to questions for over an hour.

Bills Presented

Planning Application Fees Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Daisy Cooper, supported by Helen Morgan, presented a Bill to amend the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to enable local authorities [in England] to determine the fees to be paid in respect of applications and deemed applications for planning permission; to require local authorities to set the scale of fees with a view to ensuring that the costs of determining applications can be wholly funded by application fees; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the first time; to be read a Second time on Friday 24 March 2023, and to be printed (Bill 193).

Trade (Australia and New Zealand) (Parliamentary Approval) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Sarah Green presented a Bill to provide for the implementation of the United Kingdom’s free trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand to be subject to approval by resolution by each House of Parliament; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the first time; to be read a Second time on Friday 25 November, and to be printed (Bill 194).

Management of the Economy and Ministerial Severance Payments

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I am going to continue; I think I have been very generous with interventions.

The payments being discussed today exist because of the unpredictable nature of ministerial office. Unlike in other employment contexts, there are no periods of notice, no consultations and no redundancy arrangements. The statutory entitlement has existed for several decades and been implemented by all Governments over that period. Payments on ceasing office were made and accepted by outgoing Labour Ministers in the Blair and Brown years and by Liberal Democrat Ministers during the coalition Government.

The hon. Member for Wigan was asked a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) about the level of those payments, and she either did not know the answer or decided not to respond. So I will tell her—[Interruption.]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Lisa, please would you allow the Minister to give her speech in silence? I can hear you more than I can hear the Minister.

[Lucy Frazer]

As an example of the previous operation of this provision, the data published in 2010 indicated that severance payments made to Labour Ministers in that year amounted to £1 million. To ensure transparency, the details of these payments are published in the annual reports and accounts of Government Departments. It is important to point out that a Minister will be entitled to a payment on ceasing to hold office only when they in effect step away from Government and are not reappointed for a period of at least three weeks. Periods of continuous employment, where a Minister might move between roles during the same Administration, do not result in multiple payments.

In this context, I would like to draw Opposition Members’ attention to the fact that my right hon. Friends the Members for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng) served as Ministers for considerable amounts of time before they were made Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that they therefore have a statutory entitlement. Let me be clear that, although this is a statutory entitlement, that is not to say that Ministers are unable to waive such payments. That is not a matter for the Government; it is entirely a discretionary matter for the individuals concerned. The Government do not regard it as appropriate to make arbitrary demands of individuals in relation to their entitlements. While the Labour party seeks to make cheap political points by denigrating the former Prime Minister and Chancellor, from these Benches I would like to pay tribute to the public service of Ministers of the Crown across the board and as long-standing Members of Parliament.

[Anthony Browne]

I would like to thank my right hon. and learned Friend for making an excellent speech. The Opposition are trying to link economic performance with severance pay. I recall that, back in 2010, the last act of the last Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury was to leave a note saying:

“Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money.”

And what happened to severance pay then? As my right hon. and learned Friend has said, Labour Ministers took £1 million in severance pay. Also, the four leadership candidates for the Labour party, Ed Miliband, David Miliband, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham all took—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. You cannot mention current sitting Members by name. Anyway, I think the Minister has got the gist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I just inform the House that the amendment was not selected.

[David Linden]

What a shame.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Indeed. So there is no amendment and it is a straight vote on the motion.

[Patricia Gibson]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I regret that the amendment has not been selected.

The Government have brought us into this mess, inflicted financial harm and are thrashing around to try to fix it. It is a failure of the Labour party not to be able to take on, in England, these arguments. The Labour party is preparing for government, but it has been caught out, because its interim leader, who was intended to steady the ship, will now, by himself, by default, lead the party into the next election. This is a London-centric ostrich, in common with the Tories, who thinks he can dictate, in a deluded fashion, to Scotland just how much democracy it can have. I think he will find, when the votes are counted in Scotland, that that will not have worked very well for him.

The reality is that when Labour and the Tories dictate to Scotland at election time, they are, in effect, two baldy men fighting over a comb. The voters of Scotland are sick to death of being patronised and talked down to, with their right to choose their own path dismissed and ignored by those who set themselves above them as their betters. The UK is in a mess—it is broken. Scotland did not vote for this and the incompetence of this Government is having an impact on Scotland in a way that is undemocratic, because we did not vote for this. It will never vote for a Labour party that is trying to out-Tory the Tories to win Tory seats in England with a pretence that Brexit can be good for the UK and to impose it on Scotland despite the damage it is causing. Shame on you! A plague on both your houses. Scotland will choose her own path and we will extract ourselves from this sorry mess of Westminster. Scotland will choose her own path in spite of, and because of, this shower in Westminster.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

Implicit in the wording of this motion is a rebuke, and I start by accepting it; errors were made during the tenure of the former Prime Minister. But I take issue with the Opposition in three parts: first, on the suggestion that the mini-Budget is responsible for the economic situation in which we find ourselves; secondly, on the suggestion that my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) should be treated differently from any other Minister, current or historic, in this Parliament; and, thirdly, on a suggestion that was not really developed by the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) in her opening remarks, which is that my right hon. Friend should pay some sort of compensatory amount of £6,000 and that there should be some form of atonement. That theme has been heard more than once from those on the Opposition Benches. I think it was the voices on the left who said it was not enough that Tony Blair should take the country into war, but that he should stand trial and go to prison, and in this case people are saying that my right hon. Friend should pay some kind of reparations, of a figure that has no basis in reality. I refute that and I will set out why. I know that Opposition Members will react if I suggest that some of the economic predicament we find ourselves in is a result of external forces, but when I say that the Bank of England base rate has been climbing all through 2022, I challenge them to name a country in the G7 where the base rate has not been doing that, just as every country on mainland Europe has suffered a huge inflationary spike as a result of the war in Ukraine and the energy blockade that has been the decision of Vladimir Putin. I challenge them to name a country in western Europe that has not suffered those effects. I also respectfully remind the Opposition that the 10 years we have had of unprecedented low interest rates were part of a one-off sustained emergency response by the Bank of England to the 2008 financial crisis that happened on their watch, and I will come back to that.

I wish to talk for a moment about the ministerial severance package. I have looked at the legislative journey of the law that underpins it. When the Ministerial and other Pensions and Salaries Act 1991 went through the House, the Opposition did not vote against it. Section 4 of that Act said ministerial severance is paid irrespective of rank, length of service, performance in the role and the circumstances in which the Minister leaves. The Labour party did not complain when that was applied to more than 300 Ministers who served at one time or another under the Blair and Brown Governments, irrespective of their performance, even in the case of people such as Peter Mandelson, who got this twice in 24 months. When the last Labour Government saw fit—through the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act—to revisit the legislation in April 2010, six weeks before the general election, they made extensive changes to the terms of ministerial severance, but none to the qualifying criteria or the terms of repayment. There was no change even though the country was in the grip of the most serious economic crisis of my lifetime, even though there was, in the immortal words of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), “no money left”—he will never be allowed to forget that—and even though they were responsible for the catastrophic economic decision to sell off our gold reserves. That was presumably because they were lagging in the polls, they were six weeks away from a general election and they were all looking forward to receiving their own pay-outs, which they did.

We are, in this debate, talking about a former Prime Minister, but I cannot let the moment pass without saying a few words about the former Leader of the Opposition, who, when he departed office, was entitled to an almost identical amount of severance despite his having led the once great Labour party into a sewer of antisemitism. I was recalling some of the main acts of his tenure. In 2018, the former Member for Liverpool Wavertree was hounded out of a party that she described as “institutionally antisemitic”. The serious and systemic discrimination that certain Members endured—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Did you inform Jeremy Corbyn that you were going to make reference to him?

[Laura Farris]

I did not.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

In which case, can I ask you to move on then, please?

[Laura Farris]

I did not inform the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, but he has been referred to more than once.

I will confine my point to this: whatever the Opposition say about severance payments, it might be surprising to learn that the former Leader of the Opposition would have been entitled to exactly the same severance payment. The only reason he did not get it was that he was over the age of 65—it was timed out on age criteria—but I am not drawing an equivalence in any event.

Whatever mistakes were made by the former Prime Minister, and I conceded at the start that mistakes were made, the ambition was laudable—as, to be fair, it so often is for Leaders of whatever stripe when they are at the helm. She was seeking to create a rapidly growing economy for the good of the country, even if her execution in that ambition failed. It is an ambition that many of us on these Conservative Benches share, and it is an ambition that Opposition Members share, too, as shown by the wording of their next motion, which is all about economic growth. But Conservative Members do not spend our time calling for scalps, or jail sentences, or compensation, or unique terms because a politician has failed. Rather than wasting time seeking social media clips, we think government is about the serious endeavour of delivering for the British people and providing answers to the issues that matter.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

If we are to get everybody in and move on to the next debate at 4 pm, wind-ups will have to start at no later than 3.40 pm. If everybody stuck to about eight minutes without my putting the clock on, that would be helpful.

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[Paul Howell]

What do I think? I think it depends on the individual. The hon. Lady has chirped and talked—[Interruption.] Do you want to hear, or do you want to shut up?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Hold on.

[Paul Howell]

My apologies, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

We accept the apology, but, by the way, this is not a chat—this is a debate.

[Paul Howell]

My apologies. On the particular reference to the Prime Minister getting her severance and being in the job short-term, she was a Minister for many, many years, which drives the severance.

Going back to my final point, I have every confidence that the Chancellor and Prime Minister will do the right thing on Thursday. I look forward to the autumn statement.

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[Anthony Browne]

I do not know what is happening in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but nationally—I can provide him with a graph later—home ownership rates began going down a bit after 2010, but then they started going up again. They have had a bit of a wobble, but there have been a lot of economic things happening.

Given our economic track record versus the Labour party’s rhetoric, many constituents say to me when I knock on their doors and they are worried about the pandemic, the cost of living crisis and Ukraine, “Just imagine what would have happened if the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn had won in 2019.” Am I allowed to say that?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

No—first, you are not allowed to mention a sitting Member by name, and secondly, I gave an advisory time limit of eight minutes, so if the hon. Member could start to focus, it would be appreciated.

[Anthony Browne]

They say, “Just imagine what would have happened if Labour had won and the Labour party had been in power during the war in Ukraine and the pandemic.” It does not bear thinking about.

In my last few seconds, I will talk about the motion on severance pay. I am neither defending nor supporting it, but it is set out in legislation. That legislation has been there for 30 years, and the Labour party did not oppose or change that legislation when it was in power. It is up to the individuals whether they take it or not. I just point out that after the last Labour Government in 2010, Labour Ministers took £1 million-worth of severance pay.

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[Drew Hendry]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman makes his intervention, I want to say that the advisory time limit is eight minutes.

[Drew Hendry]

I will be brief. My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Earlier, he reflected on the cost for people and their households. How does he think that the vast payments that Ministers are walking away with after a matter of days resonate with people who are struggling to pay their bills?

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[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of the motion on the management of the economy. The mismanagement of the economy by the Conservative party and the inaction on runaway inflation and profiteering has meant that millions of people are struggling with the impacts of inflation on their household incomes. The Bank of England decision to raise interest rates, the biggest rise since 1989, is going to hit mortgage and private rental costs, with devastating impacts on so many people and communities, including mine. The rise will have an immediate effect on over 2 million people on a variable rate mortgage, and while more than 6 million on fixed-rate mortgages may be currently insulated, when their deal expires in the coming weeks and months they will be paying £500 more per month on average. Recent analysis from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reveals that nearly 2.5 million people with a mortgage are already in poverty. It also found an additional 400,000 people will be pulled into poverty over the coming year.

Even before the rate rise, the housing system was broken. Shelter has done a lot of research, and it shows that one in three adults in Britain are affected by what it calls housing’s “national emergency”, an apt description of the current situation in the housing sector. We have a severe shortage of affordable, accessible, habitable, safe and secure housing. Having worked for many years in the housing and homelessness service, including with Julian Trust night shelter in St Pauls in Bristol, Cyrenians in Bristol and then Shelter Cymru for a number of years, I have seen at first-hand the pain and suffering of people in desperate housing need—and it can affect anyone, including people sitting here in this Chamber today.

I recently held an appreciation event in my constituency office in Cynon Valley for the housing providers, including Llamau, Hafal and the local authority. They are absolutely terrified about the current situation in housing and the cost of living emergency.

One of the few benefits of frequently speaking last in debates in the Chamber is that I can listen intently to all the contributions. I want to take the opportunity to set the record straight on the current situation and where blame lies. The blame for the current economic crisis and the cost of living catastrophe lies solely with the Tory Government and their economic and ideological approach. While others were speaking, I was looking at some figures. The Office for National Statistics said that, by 2020, almost half the wealth in the United Kingdom was concentrated in the hands of the top 10% of households, while the bottom 50% had only 9%. It has been estimated that the utility companies will make in excess of £170 billion in the next two years, and bankers’ bonuses are absolutely extortionate. We are the fifth richest nation and yet we have some of the highest levels of inequality in the world. Shameful, it is. More than 330,000 deaths have been directly attributed to the austerity policies of the Tory Government. The eminent Professor Sir Michael Marmot recently called the impact of the cost of living catastrophe a “humanitarian crisis” that will lead to thousands more deaths. That is the reality of the situation that we are experiencing.

I return to the specifics of the motion. Housing is and must be regarded as a fundamental right. In Wales, the Welsh Government are trying to do things differently by reducing short-term evictions, and they have a commitment to end homelessness. However, the Welsh Government and other devolved nations and regions throughout the United Kingdom are constrained by the fact that the purse strings rest here in Westminster. More must be done by the UK Government. We need a mass-building programme for affordable, appropriate and climate-proofed housing. The Government must provide a fair, needs-based funding settlement to Wales and the devolved nations. The homelessness charity Crisis has called for an increase in housing benefits and for the Tory party’s commitment to end no-fault evictions to be honoured. London Renters Union is calling for a day of action to freeze rents and link local housing allowance to market rates. We must extend financial support for people struggling with mortgage payments.

Alongside increasing the supply of genuinely affordable housing and better support for those on low incomes, we must see: a strengthening of the social security system; social security benefits increasing in line with inflation; a continued commitment to increase the national living wage; inflation-proofed increases in wages; and employment rights protected and, indeed, improved. We should be introducing windfall taxes and a wealth tax. Tax Justice UK has estimated that £37 billion could be raised by introducing a wealth tax.

The Government are to blame and are allowing the Bank of England, through its independence, to hit living standards as it seeks to tackle inflation. I pose this question before the autumn statement: should the Bank be required in future to take account of the impact of its decisions on real incomes and on living standards measurements?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. The wind-ups are starting unusually early—there are reasons for that—so, before I call the Front Benchers, I will say that, whatever the agreed time limits were for wind-ups, you can both go longer, if you so wish.

Levelling Up Rural Britain

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Wind-ups will start no later than 26 minutes to 7, so the time limit for speeches is now six minutes.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the jazz odyssey that is three Dorset contributions on the bounce. May I take the House from the deep south up to rural Cumbria? I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for securing this vital debate. As we have heard, levelling up is not just about towns and cities; it has to include rural areas. Rural communities need support more than ever now; the cost of living crisis has become even more acute than when I raised the issue of levelling up rural Cumbria in an Adjournment debate a few months ago.

At the heart of the issue is the potential of our rural communities, which we can unlock if we level them up. The key theme is that rural areas are not London; Cumbria is not London. Their unique nature puts them on the front line of the cost of living crisis. We have spoken about people, households and businesses off grid. At home in Brampton I am on heating oil, and the £100 supplement does not even touch the sides, because people have to make minimum orders of sometimes 500 litres. I urge the Government to review that.

It is not just households that are off the grid but businesses as well. Hospitality and tourism are crucial to Cumbria and Penrith and the Border. I firmly believe that those businesses need the emergency support measures that this Government brought in during the pandemic. I am very pleased to be working with Eden District Council and supporting the levelling up bid for the Inspiring Eden Enterprise Hub near Penrith, which I hope the Government look at favourably.

As we have heard from many colleagues across the House, housing is pivotal for rural communities. That is very much the case in rural Cumbria; it is so important for families and young people to get homes and for those who work in agriculture, tourism and hospitality to be able to live in the areas where they work. We desperately need more accommodation in rural areas, and we need Government to look at amending planning processes to tackle the issue of second homes and short-term lets.

On agriculture, I am proud to stand up for our Cumbrian and British farmers, who are the best in the world and farm to the highest animal welfare standards. The agriculture sector is on the front line in the crisis of fuel, animal feed and fertiliser costs. We as a Government need to look favourably on our farmers who produce food for us, while also supporting our environment. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has been looking at that in its food security inquiry and, as we have heard, the ELMS transition inquiry. I firmly believe that the Government need to look at that, review the schemes and make sure that our hard-working farmers who produce fantastic food for us are supported.

We have heard much about connectivity. Transport links are vital in rural areas. We need to support railway development, such as the borders railway coming down through Longtown in my constituency and on to Carlisle, and reopen stations such as Gilsland. We need to improve the train services that come up to rural Cumbria. The Avanti West Coast service is in special measures now; it has been looked at and it has six months’ notice. I firmly believe that we need strong action on that.

We have heard about ticket offices. We must protect our ticket offices in stations such as Penrith and Appleby. We have heard a lot about buses as well. In rural parts of the world, volunteer groups often step up where there are gaps in provision, such as the Fellrunner service or the Border Rambler service. I urge central Government to work with local government to use moneys sensibly. I urge Cumbria County Council to review its decision and the new unitary authorities to look at using central Government moneys to subsidise rural bus routes. That is an important point.

Hon. Members have spoken about education. It is so important that young people post 16 are able to get to their next place of training or education. I have been working with communities in Alston to help provide that. I urge the sensible use of central Government moneys. I hope that local government can put in provision. I want policy change that mandates local authorities to provide post-16 transport for our young people. Education is pivotal in my part of the world. We have fantastic schools. I urge central Government to look at rebuilding some of our important rural schools. Ullswater Community College in Penrith in the heart of my constituency is in need of a radical rebuild.

We have heard much about virtual connectivity, and Project Gigabit and the shared rural network are welcome. We have rays of light in Cumbria with B4RN—Broadband for the Rural North—providing services and working with the Government vouchers. We need to support communities to stay connected, we need to support our local radio stations and we need to support the terrestrial TV that people rely on. I firmly believe that we need to have policies made in London that reflect rural areas. We need to allow rural parish councils to meet virtually or in hybrid format so that local democracy can take place in areas where there are challenges. I firmly believe that rural areas need to be looked out for. Cumbria is not the same as London.

--- Later in debate ---

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

It is always very good to be called last in debates because it means that I get to listen to everybody else’s speeches. I have enjoyed the debate enormously and it has been very edifying, particularly to listen to everybody boasting about how big and beautiful their constituency is. My Devizes constituency is as big and beautiful as any, but more importantly, I suggest that it is the oldest place in England—[Interruption.] My goodness me, 1066—in my part of Wiltshire, we were trading in the fourth millennium BC, as evidenced by recently discovered archaeology. In Amesbury near Stonehenge, there was the discovery of the body of an archer, who—carbon dating and testing demonstrates—came from somewhere in central Europe in about 2000 BC. They obviously had some freedom of movement arrangements, which some disapprove of. It did not turn out well for the Amesbury archer, who died near Salisbury.

I mention that because we have been an economic entrepôt since the dawn of time. Through the middle ages in particular, my part of Wiltshire was incredibly prosperous. The great wave of prosperity arose from the wool trade, particularly, and then by about 1800, when the town of Devizes was a very important centre of the wool trade, it started slowly to decline as industrialisation happened, as the Kennet and Avon canal that comes through the town was dug and as Brunel was building his railway out to Bristol. Those amazing industrial innovations were actually the harbinger of the economic decline of our area, as people moved from the land into the cities. However, even through the 19th century, all sorts of important innovations and technological developments happened in our area. I pay particular tribute to one of my favourite local firms, the agricultural engineers T. H. White, which has been going since 1832 and has a £100 million turnover. It is still based in Devizes and is still a family firm, employing people all over the country and, indeed, the world. I have seen some of its amazing agricultural machines in use in our area.

Places left behind by industrialisation are becoming viable again. Our rural economies are becoming viable and thriving. Brilliant companies are hidden up almost every farm track and in every little backwater. In all our towns and industrial estates, there are brilliant, modern, high-tech firms such as Varivane, which makes kit for the Royal Navy. Most of our frigates have been kitted out by this little firm on an industrial estate in Devizes.

The other day, I visited a firm just outside Marlborough called Design 360, which makes amazing writing. It is run by a man who noticed when he was growing up in the area that everything seemed to be made in China. He said, “Why does everything have to be made in China?” and dedicated himself to developing a business in Wiltshire that makes the best possible kit at good prices and employs local people.

We have all sorts of other amazing industries, particularly in the agritech space. We have artificial intelligence that can monitor a multitude of crops in a field, so we can get away from the monoculture model of farming and have a variety of crops being grown in the same place. The health of millions of plants is being monitored through AI. We have vertical farming industries and are developing proteins that can be a massive British export and feed the urban populations of the world.

It is not all high tech. We should not think of the rural economy of the future as being all about whizzy new technologies. Actually, the future could and should look much like the past. I particularly want to see a revival of local food processing. That should be one of our great ambitions in this space, because it feels all wrong that farmers have to send their produce miles away for processing. It disappears into other regions of the country, and if it comes back to Wiltshire at all, it is packaged by some other firm. Why should we not have shorter food journeys and good local processing, as other countries do?

I totally endorse everything that has been said about the importance of food security and about the opportunity that environmental land management schemes bring to enhance the production of food as part of our public goods regime. There is no conflict between supporting the environment and supporting growth, but we need to recognise that the production of food is farmers’ primary objective. I would say that food security is more important than enhancing global trade, so I would prioritise it over trade deals.

How can we help? I agree with everything that has been said about the importance of support with energy and about VAT and rates relief, particularly for pubs and brewers. I want to mention a few other things quickly, beginning with skills. We export too many young people. We have a culture of higher education; we should invest more in further education. Wiltshire College is a brilliant local institution. I would like to see more support there.

I echo everything that has been said about housing. We need more housing in our local villages. We should say no to the five-year land supply rule; every village should be able to build more houses without having to use that rule.

I turn to connectivity. We need more broadband. Thankfully, I am confident that we will get a railway station in Devizes. I agree about demand-responsive buses. We must say no to HGVs. I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith): we have to improve the situation.

Lastly, I turn to planning. I must mention a brilliant firm, Poulton Technologies, which is run by the Coplestone family. They want to build an amazing factory to create undersea technology for fixing pipes, but they cannot do it here. They are having to do it in Saudi Arabia, because the planning system does not allow the space in the UK. That is what we need.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We now come to the wind-ups.

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[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech from what I have heard.

We are losing pubs and shops in our rural areas. We have a fantastic community shop in the village of Barford and a community pub in Norton Lindsey, and they bring their communities together. When I saw the title of this debate, I was concerned it was about the prospect of Barford being literally levelled for a quarry—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. That is a long intervention. The hon. Gentleman may have been here earlier in the debate, but he certainly has not been here since I came into the Chair at half-past 5, so he is rather naughty.

[Alex Norris]

I agree with much of what my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) said, and it is why a community right to buy would add to the tools that enable communities to shape their future.

I understand the cynicism on the SNP Benches, but tackling regional inequality should be a national priority. People in our rural communities need to know that this place is delivering meaningful change across all our nations and regions. I do not think that case can be made at the moment, as is clear from the debate. They deserve better. We have made a series of suggestions, and I hope the Minister is minded to address them and the other points raised in this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lee Rowley]

Sadly, I will not as I have further points to cover.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) mentioned funding formulas. Although I am only 10 days into the job, I am very happy to talk to more colleagues about local government finance in general. I am keen to understand, to learn and to take the expertise that the all-party group and others have demonstrated over so many years to assist me in my role in the months ahead. He is absolutely right to raise the issue of park homes, as it is so important to many of us with rural and semi-rural constituencies.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) highlighted the importance of trying to get some of these points right both in terms of application processes to make applications for improvements and of making sure that central Government evaluate those in a way that works. His points on that were very strong. The triple tag team of my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Richard Drax), for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and for West Dorset (Chris Loder) made some very good points about the importance of enabling the input of the private sector, about ensuring that we have parish and town councils that work for the communities that they serve and also about negative revenue support grant. I have heard all of those points and would be happy to talk to my colleagues about them. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), who is an important and doughty campaigner, made a strong point about trains in his area, particularly about the Avanti Service.

My hon. Friends the Members for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), for Buckingham (Greg Smith), and for Devizes (Danny Kruger) demonstrated the importance of tourism and hospitality and the importance of consideration of communities when large infrastructure projects take place in local areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes highlighted the immense importance from a rural perspective of remembering the long-term history and the reasons why these communities have developed in the way they have. As he said, the recollection and the acknowledgement of that history is so important in helping us to understand how we develop policy in the future.

In the moment that I have left, I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions today. It has been an incredibly interesting and important debate, which demonstrates our ability to have a nuanced, detailed and open conversation about the challenges and opportunities that face our rural communities. By doing that, we have the opportunity to make progress in the long-term to support these communities as we develop in the decades ahead.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I call Selaine Saxby for her final words.

Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing this debate and extend my welcome to Emma Dent Coad, who I know is in the Public Gallery today.

I wish to open my contribution by paying tribute to the family and friends of the victims and survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire, the residents of north Kensington and members of the emergency services.

This week, as we know, marks five years since this horrific event—one of the worst disasters in modern times. The disaster unfolded in north Kensington and left the community traumatised and 72 people dead. We need truth and accountability to ensure justice for the 72 people who tragically died five years ago, and their families.

As with many of this Government’s policies, their response showed the disregard that they have for working class lives. We should never forget that the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) accused the 72 people who died at Grenfell of lacking common sense. The Grenfell Tower fire shows the way that working class communities are treated in this country. Residents had warned about health and safety issues for years, and were ignored. Grenfell Tower would not have happened to wealthy Londoners. It happened to mainly migrant and black Londoners and now, five years on, we have seen no accountability from those responsible for this horrific tragedy—or to call it what it was, social murder.

In the five years since Grenfell, the chief executives of the four biggest building companies linked to the fire have collectively received £50 million in pay, bonuses, shares and dividends—a point that was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter)—yet the people and families who still live in buildings with flammable cladding are being asked to pay for its removal themselves. That cannot be right. This Government are failing to protect people. Their own statistics show that less than 1% of those who have applied to the Government’s 2020 building safety fund for buildings 18 metres or higher have had their dangerous cladding removed. That is not just dangerous, but a disgraceful indictment of this Government. This disaster has shown us, in the worst possible way, the deadly nature of Britain’s housing stock—a housing stock built against a backdrop of deregulation, where a culture of chasing profits and cutting corners was, and still is, prioritised over building safety and people’s lives.

In this place today, we have to question how such a disaster was allowed to unfold, and remind ourselves that political rhetoric such as “cutting red tape” has real world consequences. Over the past 40 years, the dominant ideology of deregulation and allowing market forces to decide what is in the best interests of this country has not worked, with devastating consequences. At the forefront of this economic failure is the housing sector, with the fire at Grenfell Tower being the worst example of what happens when the interests of the market are put first and people’s lives a distant second. This is a rotten political culture that puts profit over people, that outsources work to companies that carry out these deadly construction decisions without oversight, that has a Government who are slashing local authority budgets, making them less able to monitor rogue landlords and homes that are unfit to live in, and that forces cuts on our emergency services. It is this rotten culture that leads to disasters like the Grenfell Tower fire.

I stand with the FBU in its call for the Grenfell inquiry to recommend reversing the disastrous deregulation that led to this fire, and insist on investment in our fire and rescue service and the implementation of the recommendations that have already been made. I also stand with the FBU and the victims and survivors in their call for contractors and senior politicians to be held accountable for the part that they played.

In the face of the injustice and struggle that has besieged the survivors and the family and friends of the victims at Grenfell Tower and the wider north Kensington community, I would like to pass on from the people of the Jarrow constituency our solidarity in their fight for justice. History will remember your strength and determination to make sure that such a disaster can never happen again.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

For the final Back-Bench contribution, I call Margaret Ferrier.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Burgon]

I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to this very important debate. I am glad that the Government have committed to an annual debate on this in Government time.

I hear the Minister say that he and the Government will take seriously every recommendation from the inquiry, but I would like the Government to commit to implement every single recommendation, not just to take them seriously. I would like the Government to revisit their decision and overturn their rejection of personal evacuation plans. I would like the Government to help all people hit by the cladding crisis and surely, as we have heard from other Members, the cladding companies should pay. We need a commitment that no one in this country will live in a fire-unsafe home, and we do need the urgent implementation of the Hillsborough law, because the duty of candour from public authorities is so important.

Along with other Members, I was on the very moving memorial walk the other night, and we sensed the unity. I want to pay tribute to Councillor Emma Dent Coad, who has continued to pursue this injustice and advocate for local residents in the community in which she lives.

I want to finish with two brief quotes. One is from the journalist Peter Apps, who wrote in a recent article:

“What has emerged is a profoundly depressing portrait of a private sector with a near psychopathic disregard for human life, and a public sector which exists to do little more than serve or imitate it.”

However, I want the final words of this debate, fittingly, to be from the families, the bereaved and the survivors of Grenfell United, who said:

“We must pave a new way forward. We must hold those responsible to account.”

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Our thoughts are with all those families affected by this awful tragedy, but particularly at this time.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Sharing Economy: Short-term Letting

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions Airbnb. In the town of Deal, which I represent, there is a particular problem of Airbnbs that are not registered. Does he agree that having a registration system for Airbnbs would be a sensible move to protect coastal communities and tourism in areas such as mine?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I was hugely generous, and so was the Front-Bench spokesman, in allowing that intervention, for obvious reasons.

[Jeff Smith]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. I will come on to registration, but clearly we do need to look at the options.

We have heard about the problems caused, with residents citing health and safety concerns where temporary residents are not familiar with or do not care about safety rules. There are issues with short-term rentals being used for parties, and we have heard about noise and antisocial behaviour. However, the longer-term concern, which I think is probably the more significant, is around the sustainability of communities when too many residential properties become short-term lets. I will talk about that in a second.

In London, as we have heard, the law currently allows short-term letting of residential properties for a maximum of 90 nights in a calendar year without planning permission. Since 2017, Airbnb has automatically limited entire home listings in Greater London to 90 nights per calendar year, to encourage compliance with that law. By February 2020 two similar platforms, HomeAway and TripAdvisor, had also implemented a cap. The Mayor of London has encouraged other platforms to do the same, but there are easy ways around those rules, as we heard earlier, and many properties are still being let out on a short-term basis for more than the permitted 90 nights. When the 90-night limit is exceeded illegally, the issues are compounded and likely to grow and grow.

Outside London, there is no specific limit on how long a property can be let out on a short-term basis, and it is up to local planning authorities to judge whether the letting amounts to a material change of use and requires planning permission. As well as the difficulties that we have talked about for residents, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North pointed out, the complaints about antisocial behaviour are putting pressure on local authorities and their resources, already overstretched following years of Tory and coalition Government cuts to local authorities. That puts huge pressure on local enforcement teams.

The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) is calling for the introduction of a licensing scheme, making it mandatory for anyone renting out their property on a short-term basis to have to register it. That would make it easier for local authorities to tackle some of those issues and the law-breaking that might arise. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North for her consistent campaigning on this issue and her work over a number of years, calling on the Government to give local councils more powers to manage how properties are used for short-term rentals. Those are all proposals that must be looked at seriously by the Government.

I know from my own constituency in south Manchester the problems that occur when houses become party let houses. It used to be in my area that it was only the student houses in multiple occupancy that became party houses and posed a real problem for long-term residents, but now a lot of our houses are let out by Airbnb and are causing real difficulties for the long-term residents with noise, litter and disturbance.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East talked about control zones. When I was a councillor in Manchester, we introduced an article 4 direction to limit the number of HMOs that could be permitted in an area, and that kind of innovative approach is something we need to look at. It would be interesting to see how the control zones in Edinburgh work and how we can learn from them.

As well as the kinds of problems that my constituency and other urban areas are experiencing, the prominence of second homes and short-term lets is causing a housing and public services crisis in popular tourist destinations across some of the more rural parts of the UK. Cornwall, Cumbria, Northumberland, the west country, Shropshire, parts of Yorkshire, the Scottish highlands, as we have heard, and rural Wales have all suffered. To thrive, communities need investment, employment opportunities and, in many cases, thriving tourism industries, but they also need affordable homes for local people. Accelerated by the pandemic, many of these areas have seen house prices soar and availability drop as wealthy outsiders buy up second homes, often for buy-to-let, and then they discover that owners can often get more money from a short-term let than from a long-term tenant.

Properties that were previously for permanent rental are being turned into Airbnb holiday lets, which impacts directly on the affordability and availability of local homes, particularly for local first-time buyers and private renters. It also means that houses are left empty for large chunks of the year, reducing permanent populations. That can have pretty disastrous impacts on the local community, such as: school closures, because families are forced out and schools become unsustainable; cuts to transport services and buses; and health and other services disappearing as demand drops.

It seems pretty clear that the Government need to explore whether and how local authorities can be provided the powers to tackle this issue. We have heard a few examples. We can introduce licensing regimes for second homes and short-term lets, we can consider giving councils greater discretion over council tax regimes and we can look at allowing local authorities to levy more premiums or surcharges on second homes and long-term empty properties, if they believe it is needed in their locality. Some local authorities are backing calls for more powers in planning to recognise short-term rentals as a different use class, meaning that people who want to use their home exclusively for Airbnb would need planning permission. Local authorities could control how their local areas operate in a number of ways.

It is welcome that the Government committed to launching a consultation on the introduction of a tourist accommodation registration scheme in England. So far, we have seen no sign of it. It was promised in early 2022. We are mid-June, so we have probably passed “early 2022”. I would be very happy if the Minister could confirm when the consultation will open and how long it will run for. While we continue to wait for it, I welcome the news that the Labour Mayor of London has just launched his own consultation on the issue. I encourage everyone in London affected by this issue to participate before the consultation closes on 4 July.

The rise of Airbnb is just one example of the emergence of the sharing economy. Many businesses have become everyday fixtures of our modern lives. At their best, these platforms can be about reducing waste, pooling space, skills and items, and making life easier and more sustainable, but it does not always work like that, and when it becomes commercial, it can cause difficulties. When Airbnb and similar websites first emerged, it was about individuals occasionally making a bit of extra income on their spare room or own property, but things are very different now. A large part of the short-term rental market is now a wholly commercial enterprise. Residential properties are being used as letting businesses without the required planning permission, local authority oversight or protections for neighbours and communities. We clearly need to respond now to that different context.

Let us learn from the examples we have heard about from abroad. Let us look at the changes in Scotland and elsewhere. Airbnb has said that it is willing to work with the Government on regulation to ease some of the challenges to which it is contributing. It published a healthy tourism commitment and the “Short-term Lets Registration White Paper”, which calls for the introduction of a simple nationwide registration scheme for the short-term lettings sector.

The willingness is there from stakeholders. The political imperative is there, I would argue, and the political consensus is there that we need to get a grip of this. The need is certainly there, as has been well articulated today. It is now time for the Government to act, to start to tackle this issue and to get the balance right for our communities.

Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Nigel Evans Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I remind everybody that if they have participated in the debate, they should be here for the wind-ups.

Consett Energy from Waste Plant

Nigel Evans Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)]

May I begin by echoing the opening comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) about the extraordinary address we received from President Zelensky earlier? That is one of the extraordinary moments I will take away from my time in this House, and we wish him and all the people of Ukraine the very best in their battle for freedom.

May I also congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and thank him for his contribution? My hon. Friend is a tireless campaigner for his constituents on this issue and so many others, from upgrading the A66 to Durham’s county of culture bid. I know he has been trying valiantly for a number of months to secure a debate on this issue, and I believe this could be 10th time lucky. That speaks to the importance of the matter to my hon. Friend and the local councillors he is championing, Michelle Watson and Angela Sterling for Delves Lane ward. It is abundantly clear that that there are strong views among some of his constituents about the merits of this proposed energy plant.

I should also say that Adjournment debates on such matters reflect how important it is that Members continue to hold the Government’s feet to the fire. Pressure from parliamentarians may not always be glamorous, but it is the cogs that make the wheels of Government and local government turn.

Without wishing to pour cold water over the entire debate, I must say from the outset that for propriety reasons I am unable to comment on the specifics of the proposal that is the subject of this debate. I know that an appeal against Durham County Council’s refusal of planning permission for the scheme has been lodged with the Planning Inspectorate, and there will now be a public inquiry into the proposal overseen by an independent planning inspector. It is also possible that if the appeal were recovered it would fall to myself or one of my ministerial colleagues in the Department to decide on the case. So for all those reasons I am afraid I must say that it is not appropriate for me to express any view as to the merits or otherwise of the specific scheme in my hon. Friend’s constituency.

However, given the subject matter of this debate it is worth my saying a bit about the principles that underpin and drive waste planning. The Government are clear that wherever possible waste should be reduced, if not fully prevented; but where prevention is not possible we must prioritise reuse and recycling over energy recovery or disposal to landfill. This sequential approach is at the heart of the Government waste policy, and that is reflected in planning policy requirements for plan making and decision making. In short, every paper bag, every glass bottle and every piece of scrap metal that is recycled is a small victory in our war against waste. That is one reason why the Government are committed to preserving material resources, promoting efficiency, and moving towards a greener, more circular economy.

Our resources and waste strategy sets out the Government’s bold ambition to properly manage residual waste in a way that maximises its value. It sets a clear target for 75% of packaging to be recycled by 2030, plus a 65% recycling rate for municipal solid waste. Crucially, this strategy also commits us to minimising any harm done to the environment as a result of managing waste.

This strategy is by no means the total sum of our actions. We are continuing to innovate and find new solutions to old problems in waste management, moving us towards a circular economy. They include a deposit return scheme for drinks containers, extended producer responsibility for packaging, and consistent recycling collections for all homes and businesses, as well as the plastic packaging tax.

On the specifics of planning decisions, councils are guided by the national planning policy for waste, which tasks them with meeting the needs of their areas in managing waste. This includes the need to undertake early and meaningful engagement with residents so that plans reflect as far as possible a collective vision and a set of agreed priorities when planning for sustainable waste management.

The ultimate responsibility for waste planning does sit with councils, and while decisions that they take must be informed by consultation, those are nevertheless their decisions to make. That underscores the importance of community campaigning and the vital role that local MPs such as my hon. Friend and the councillors whom I mentioned have in mobilising constituents for or against all forms of new development, including incinerators and waste plants. It would be nothing short of political suicide for any council to run roughshod over a community that is overwhelmingly against a new facility. Equally, if a council is deliberately hampering a development, the construction of new homes or vital infrastructure, the electorate can communicate its displeasure about that at the next set of local elections.

As my hon. Friend will know, my Department is committed to increasing community engagement with planning applications, digitising much of the old analogue systems and allowing people to see what development is proposed in their area at the touch of a smartphone. That will not just drive up resident engagement but make it easier for communities to voice their opposition or approval for something being built on or near the place that they call home.

Without making any prejudicial comments on the specifics of this live application, I can say that energy from waste is a proven technology and is established as the most common thermal treatment for residual waste—the kind that cannot otherwise be prevented, reused or recycled. While energy from waste plays a vital role in stopping unnecessary waste from reaching landfill, the Government’s view is that it should not be competing with greater efforts by the public to prevent waste, to reuse or to recycle.

In 2019, the incineration of municipal solid waste in energy from waste facilities accounted for more than 6 megatonnes of CO₂-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions, but, according to our best estimates, energy from waste—even in electricity-only mode—is still a better option for processing municipal waste than landfill in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. The Government also want to drive greater efficiency of energy from waste plants by encouraging better use of the heat that they produce in local developments. That brings the additional benefit of helping to reduce the carbon emissions that arise from heating our homes. As hon. Members will know, heat networks form a strategically important part of the Government’s plans to reduce carbon and cut heating bills for customers, both domestic and commercial.

When we discuss energy in waste, it is imperative to factor in the regulatory landscape. In October 2020, as part of the circular economy package, the Government legislated to include a permit condition for landfill and incineration operators. The permit meant that those operators cannot accept separately collected paper, metal, glass or plastic for landfill or incineration unless such items have gone through some form of treatment process first and unless there is no better environmental outcome. The condition came on top of existing permit measures that already prevent acceptance of material that is, to all intents and purposes, recyclable.

All energy from waste plants in England are regulated by the Environment Agency and must comply with robust emissions limits set in environmental legislation. As hon. Members might expect, the Environment Agency assesses the emissions from new energy generated by waste plants as part of its permitting process and consults the UK Health Security Agency on every application that it receives. Needless to say, the Environment Agency will never issue an environment permit if a proposed plant has a significant impact on the environment or if it may cause harm to human health.

I hope that, at this stage, my hon. Friend will understand why I need to refrain from touching on the specific circumstances of the matter that he raised, but I hope that my statement has given useful context and background to this important wider debate. I conclude by thanking him again for his thoughtful contribution, which has enriched this debate and provided plenty of food for thought for us in Government. It helps us to understand people’s strength of feeling on these individual applications. We are completely committed to reducing waste and supporting the development of the kind of circular economy that regenerates, recycles and reuses whenever possible. I thank him for bringing this issue to the attention of the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We come to the end of a truly historic and emotional day here at Westminster, with President Zelensky’s words still ringing in our ears and firmly in our hearts. We were privileged to hear President Zelensky’s address today and we stand with him and the very brave people of Ukraine.

Question put and agreed to.