Report stage in the Lords
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, Amendments 259, 269, 270, 301, 314 and 316 in the name of my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook will give childminders greater flexibility to expand and grow their businesses, and will remove barriers to registration. Childminders are important because they provide parents with childcare that is more affordable and flexible than other kinds of childcare provision. They follow the same requirements as nurseries to promote the learning and development of all children in their care, and they follow the same requirements for safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. Like nurseries, childminders are routinely inspected, with 97% of Ofsted-registered childminders judged “good” or “outstanding” at their last inspection. However, the number of childminders has more than halved over the past decade, which is reducing choice for parents, and addressing this decline is key to improving choice and affordability for parents. In March, the Government announced the biggest ever expansion in funded early education from April 2024, with 30 hours of free childcare for every child over the age of nine months with eligible working parents by September 2025. The Office for Budget Responsibility believes that this will have by far the largest impact on potential output in this Budget by increasing labour market participation of parents with young children. By 2027-28, the OBR expects around 60,000 to enter employment, working an average of around 16 hours a week, with an equivalent effect on total hours coming from mothers already in work. This will significantly increase demand for childcare places. Therefore, it is important that we have a vibrant sector where all providers are in a position to expand and grow their businesses to meet that additional demand. As such, it is even more important to maintain the number of existing childminders and increase the number of new childminders coming into the sector. These amendments are part of a suite of measures that the Government are introducing to encourage more people to become childminders and to support existing childminders—childminding is a predominantly female profession—by helping them to expand and to grow their businesses. Amendment 270 will increase the total number of people who can work together under a childminder’s registration from three to four. Amendments 259 and 269 will allow childminders on domestic premises to spend more of their time working on non-domestic premises, including an option for childminders to operate solely from non-domestic premises, such as a local community centre or village hall, by replacing the existing single childminder category with two new categories: childminders with domestic premises who provide at least some or all of their childminding on domestic premises, and childminders without domestic premises who provide all the childminding on non-domestic premises. Allowing childminders to work with more people means that they could care for more children, as regulations permit each childminder’s assistant to care for the same number of children as childminders, and thereby increase the number of places available to parents, or they could provide more one-to-one support to children who would benefit from a greater level of help or personal care, such as children with special educational needs or an education, health and care plan. Allowing childminders to operate from non-domestic premises for more of their time means that they could offer childcare on bigger premises, to work with more people and care for more children, or on premises that better meet the needs of the children whom they care for: for example, more indoor or outdoor space, better disabled access, and dedicated car parking for staff and parents. It would also allow childminders to operate from premises that may be more conveniently located for parents, such as closer to their home or work or close to the school of any older children, particularly if parents want their childminder to provide wraparound care for any of their school-age children too. Allowing a person to register as a childminder without domestic premises will support more people to become childminders by providing applicants with a route into the profession where the availability or suitability of their domestic premises may be their only barrier to entering the childminding profession—for example, where their domestic premises are too small or do not comply with health and safety regulations, such as fire safety and hygiene requirements, or where they cannot obtain permission from their landlord to operate a childminding business from their home.
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Baroness Pinnock (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- My Lords, at this stage—the beginning of another day on Report—I remind the House of my relevant interests as a councillor in Kirklees and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, who is standing in today for the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, to whom I wish godspeed and a full recovery. As the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said, childcare is facing a crisis of unaffordable provision. Many families are simply unable to bear the cost of full-time care, thus restricting parents to reduce their working hours; that has a knock-on effect on their household budgets and puts pressure on the family finances. The Government are bringing these amendments forward rather late in the day—during Report on the Bill, which we started in January—especially given the crisis in not only affordability but provision; as she said, there have been a large number of closures among childminding providers. Given that, we on these Benches support the government amendments because extending childminding to non-domestic settings would be sensible. However, I have a proviso here; I wonder whether the noble Baroness can respond to it. She has spoken about the regulations facing childminders being the same as those for nursery providers, but she has not spoken in full about the regulations affecting the building premises that may be used by childminders. Clearly, we want them to be appropriate to the age of the children using them. Children from the age of nine months to the toddler stage certainly need safe facilities and different ones from those for which a non-domestic setting might be built. I want to know from the noble Baroness that there will be clear, enforceable regulations around this. The great majority of childcare is provided by the private sector. Amendment 276 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would extend that to local authorities. We on these Benches support that extension as it will enable councils to fill the gaps in private provision, which are more likely to be in areas of higher deprivation and in the very communities that the Bill is ostensibly aimed at helping. With those remarks, we support the Government’s amendments and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock.
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Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)Crossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I will speak briefly, largely in relation to Labour’s amendment. As the noble Baroness may recall, some of us spoke about the provision of early years facilities in Committee. I want to return to that issue briefly to see whether we can tie up one or two loose ends. I am most grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Scott and Lady Barran, for the correspondence and meetings that we have had between Committee and Report. The meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, had the largest number of advisers in the smallest room that I have ever been in; that would not have been possible under Covid. The new DfE advice to local authorities, Securing Developer Contributions for Education, is a great improvement on its predecessor. It is much clearer and on several occasions makes clear and specific mention of early years provision. However, the response from the department of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, was slightly less clear. Given her background as an effective head of a local authority, I think she assumes that all local authorities are run as well and professionally as her one was. All I say is that the evidence from a range of local authorities is that their ability to provide early years facilities is not good. An article last week indicated that local authorities are sitting on a grand total of £3 billion of unused Section 106 money, £420 million of which is for education. It is somewhat disappointing that the LGA spokesman’s response to that said just that doing this is “a complex process” that takes a lot of time. I thought that was local government’s job. I have four specific questions for the Minister, of which I have given her advance warning. The first is: what we are going to do to monitor whether these funds are being used to expand childcare provision, because there is no central collection of data at the moment. Please can we do something about that? Secondly, there is an expectation, which is clear in the advice, that existing or new spare primary school capacity will be repurposed for early years services. How will guidance be flexible to ensure that, if there are changes in the birth rate, we do not end up with nurseries closing and have the same problem? Thirdly, how can we make sure that we are also looking at early years settings that are convenient for people’s work? It is one thing to have early years provision near where you live but, for many working women, it is far more useful and a more efficient use of their time to have early years provision near their place of work. Could the Government say whether they are aware of this potential issue and, if so, what they are doing to try to mitigate it? Lastly, how will the Government make sure that all local authorities can use this funding on new stand-alone provision if they deem it appropriate, without being reliant on private providers, which may or may not want to operate in the area? This applies to the new infrastructure levy but also to existing sources of funding. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
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Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)Green Party- Quote
- My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Russell, I should declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and of the NALC. With the greatest respect to the noble Lord, I point out that the impact of austerity and the slashing of central government funding to local government left departments utterly eviscerated and a lack of resources to take actions that may be desperate. I have two reasons for rising. One is to express the strongest possible Green support for the amendment in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Twycross, to allow local authorities to provide their own childcare services. These are public services in the community; having them under democratic control is surely an extremely good way to proceed. In noting that, I have a question to put to the Minister, which arises from issues that I have raised with her previously, on the involvement of private equity and the financial sector in childcare provision. It has been described as becoming a “playground for private equity”. In the last four years, investment funds have more than doubled their stake in Ofsted-registered nurseries. Now more than 1,000 are fully or partially owned by investment funds, which is 7.5% of all places—up from 4% in 2018. Those 81,500 places are being run for profit. We know from their involvement in the social care sector that those companies will have stripped out huge sums and introduced massive instability. We think of what happened with the collapse of Southern Cross and Four Seasons Health Care. Financial engineering is so often behind that. With that in mind, regarding government Amendment 259 on services in wholly non-domestic premises, the Minister talked about local community centres and village halls. Picking up the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, provided that they have the right facilities, I do not believe that anyone would have any objection to those kinds of premises. However, following the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, about places near where people work, I think it is possible to imagine that we might see private equity invest in building or repurposing a facility, so that it is designed for a lot of small groups of childminders to come together, with private equity and the financial sector sucking huge amounts of money out of that. Could the Minister, either now or perhaps in writing later, tell me what the provisions for non-domestic premises actually mean? If someone set up a for-profit setting, what kind of controls will there be to make that that is not exploitative of the childminders or the children and their parents?
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Baroness Twycross (Lab)Labour- Quote
- My Lords, I will speak to this group and to Amendment 276, in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman of Ullock. I thank the Minister for her time last week in explaining the government position. It was really appreciated, and I hope I can persuade her of the merits of Amendment 276 today.
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- Baroness Barran (Con)Conservative
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- I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I will try to pick up a few of the points raised in relation to the government amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, asked what else the Government are doing to support childminders. She will be aware that the Government have made a number of announcements in this regard. We have already boosted the funding rates paid to early years providers because we are keen to try to bolster the workforce ahead of the additional entitlements to working parents coming in. In the autumn, we will launch the childminder start-up grant, which is worth £1,200 for all childminders who have joined the profession since the Spring Budget. In August, we announced plans to consult on reducing registration times to around 10 weeks, and to ensure that childminders are paid monthly by local authorities. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about the suitability of premises, particularly for very young children. There will not be any change to the approval that childminders need to get from Ofsted, so they will continue to need to get Ofsted approval, either from Ofsted or their childminder agency, so that they can operate from non-domestic premises. The issues she raised about safety will be addressed by that route. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, raised the issue of private equity. I am not aware of private equity being an issue in the childminder area of the market. I hope the noble Baroness would agree that we need significant investment in this area and to bolster the numbers of childminders. Unlike the noble Baroness, we would hope that childminders can run profitable businesses, otherwise they will not be sustainable. Before I come to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for giving me sight of his questions. My department has liaised with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and prepared responses. I will provide detailed responses to him in writing. On the monitoring of developer contributions, the Bill aims to provide a flexible framework to allow infrastructure levy charging authorities to determine what their priorities for spending the levy are in each area. Of course, this can include capital funding for new childcare facilities. We already require local authorities to publish their infrastructure funding statements and set out how they use CIL and Section 106 funds. Under the infrastructure levy that will go further, as I think the noble Lord is aware—maybe we discussed it in the smallest room with the largest number of people. It will require them to set out infrastructure delivery strategies so that local authorities show how they propose to spend the levy revenues, as well as report on them. On the questions specifically for my department about the expectation as to whether spare school capacity would be repurposed for early years services, I can confirm that there is no government expectation that spare school capacity will be repurposed in this way, although local authorities can, of course, work with schools and academy trusts to consider this as an option and, again, include contingency plans if the space were to be required for school use again in the future. Many schools already include nurseries, and all new primary schools are expected to include a nursery ancillary to the main use of the site as a school. Developer contributions can be used to expand or create these facilities on school sites when necessary, although it is unlikely that developer contributions would be required for repurposed space within existing schools, as this is utilising existing educational infrastructure rather than creating new facilities. I will set all that out and respond to the noble Lord’s other questions in a letter. Amendment 276, tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, would remove any restrictions on local authorities providing childcare. Under the powers contained in the Childcare Act 2006, where local authorities identify a childcare need that cannot be met by other means or they deem more appropriate to provide themselves, they are already able to establish their own provision. As the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, mentioned, we discussed this when we met last week. We have endeavoured to speak to a number of local authorities to try to understand a bit better whether there is a real issue here. As I am sure the noble Baroness knows, almost 1% of providers overall are local authority-run outside maintained schools in the way that this amendment would allow for. From our conversations with local authorities, we know that this relates to both general—or what you might call universal—daycare and free entitlement provisions, such as is the case in Barking and Dagenham, but also applies where there is a particular need of specialist support for children with special educational needs, disabilities or complex medical needs, and my understanding is that that is the case in Durham. Obviously, we are grateful to all providers for the work that they do in this area. We found examples where both general provision and specialist provision exist. When we speak to local authorities—which obviously the department does very regularly—they are not telling us that they want to set up their own childcare provision and they are not raising concerns with us about the powers they currently have to do this. We are not aware of any local authorities which want to set up their own provision but have been unable to do so because of the current legislation, so we are really not clear what problem this amendment is seeking to resolve and are not convinced that it would make a material difference to childcare availability, which I know the noble Baronesses opposite and the Government are all concerned about. We do not believe that is the case in either a general sense or in relation to specialist cases, where local authorities play such a critical role in supporting vulnerable children. In addition, some of the most successful local authority-run provisions, such as maintained nursery schools, are unaffected by this legislation. The noble Baroness suggested that the Government do not trust local authorities, and I think used the words that we are “trying to tie their hands”. I would like to set the record straight: that is absolutely not the Government’s view. We believe that local authorities’ principal role is managing and shaping the overall childcare market in their area. The provisions in the Childcare Act help prevent an actual or perceived conflict of interest for local authorities as both market shapers and direct providers of childcare. I think the House is in wide agreement that childcare is an incredibly important subject, and that is why we are moving the government amendments today. We want to maintain parental choice by making childminding more attractive to existing childminders, by helping them to expand and grow their businesses, and by supporting more people to become childminders by removing barriers to registration. We have also consulted on changes to the early years foundation-stage framework that aim to reduce known burdens on providers and offer them more flexibility. Therefore, I wish to press the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook and I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, will not move her amendment when reached.
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The Earl of Lytton (CB)Crossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 260A in my name and to speak to Amendments 282J and 315B, which are linked to it. I first express my gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for her willingness to engage, and I wish her a speedy recovery and restoration to full health. However, I note with regret that a 35 or 40-minute slot is insufficient to cover the ground and that, given that the premise of my amendment has never been accepted, discussion of much of the detail has not been possible. I make it clear from the outset that I may wish to test the opinion of the House but, before deciding that, I particularly wish to consider and gauge the views of noble Lords on a matter that I believe to be of fundamental importance to the purposes of good government, justice, equality under the law and economic stability. I refer to a crib sheet, if I may call it that, which I submitted to the department. I hope that it reached the attention of the noble Earl, should he be responding to this. I apologise for the fact that it was not sent earlier, as I had intended, which is something to do with the stability of the electrical grid in my part of West Sussex during most of yesterday. I outlined in Committee the aims of these amendments, which have had the benefit of expert scrutiny by parliamentary counsel and construction councils, construction administrators, conveyancers, academics, property professionals and trade associations. There has been support from all these quarters. I am therefore satisfied that the amendments are technically competent, complementary to the measures already in the Building Safety Act 2022 and capable of implementation. In short, they aim to make the development and construction sector responsible for defects in buildings arising from poor building practices and to prevent the burden falling on innocent leaseholders in their homes or being funded by the taxpayer. I remind your Lordships of the basics of Amendment 260A; I will not go into detail. First, it is aimed at simplifying establishing initial liability without a lengthy legal process. This asks the question of whether there was a significant critical defect in the original construction and, if so, who was responsible for the works, and their route to compliance. Secondly, it aims to reduce the contested areas to one largely of quantum, via an adjudication process and the First-tier Tribunal. Thirdly, it aims thereby to cut costs and risk barriers to leaseholders in getting redress directly or indirectly. Finally, it provides a backstop levy where the defects are not a result of construction failure, or else where the developer or contractor no longer exists. The intention is that this should be wide and shallow, and encompass materials, manufacturers, warranty providers, approved inspectors, specifiers and so on, as well as contractors. My amendments mean that DLUHC would have to do things differently, but I weigh that against the current situation of allowing innocent homeowners to bear the brunt. Going forward, the incentive for housebuilders to cut corners must be replaced with an ongoing reminder to meet good construction practice at all times. The amendments also give exceptionally wide discretion to the Secretary of State in implementing proposals, subject to certain core principles. So, it is getting ahead of the process to claim, as some have, that these would not work. More to the point, my amendments would dismantle much of the complexity the Government have decided to put in place with their own remediation scheme under the BSA. I am returning to this theme because I am not satisfied with the government response I have received to date. My case rests on one of the most fundamental principles of humankind: that if someone does something wrong and it injures another, they should provide restitution. On 13 September last week we discussed amendments to the Bill on nutrient neutrality. There were outstanding speeches from these Benches, not least from the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, and a stellar contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Deben. In response, the Minister stated: “Another issue brought up by a number of noble Lords is that the developer should pay. The Government agree. It is essential that housebuilders contribute fairly, and we all agree with the principle that the polluter should pay”.—[Official Report, 13/9/23; col. 1060.] In the context of building safety, however, it appears that the Government do not accept that same principle—or, if they do, they think it stops short of protecting all innocent leaseholders or indeed of making developers and main contractors liable for the mistakes they made at the time of construction, at a point when they had full agency and control over the construction project. The ill effects, as we see them now, blight hundreds of thousands of leasehold homeowners who bought in good faith. I do not know the numbers but I believe there are more than 200,000, a figure that I have quoted before and the Government have not disputed. These people did not buy a product sold discounted “as seen” from a seconds rack but a full-value home, backed by warranties and certificates of every sort, covering many things that they could not possibly see or inspect for themselves. I took away from a meeting last week with the Minister and the Bill team that the Government believe it sufficient that the BSA has widened the Defective Premises Act so that leaseholders can better pursue big corporates, via their freeholder, for redress over demonstrable failings to construct buildings to the then regulatory standards. Further, the Government believe they should do so at their own risk and expense, and to bear the consequential costs in the meantime. They also believe it is in order for affected leaseholders who are deemed non-qualified to continue to live in potentially unsafe blocks, in a financial fix and under the cloud of remediation costs. When we discussed similar amendments to the Building Safety Act in 2022, speaker after speaker expressed a clear wish for focused, timely and effective action. As time goes by, there is a growing tally of enforced building evacuations—I believe there have been 27 since 2017—and a rising tide of leaseholders who are adversely affected. They have written to me in large numbers, some 250 since the middle of March, telling me of waking watch costs, enormous insurance rises, crippling remediation bills, properties that cannot be sold or refinanced, and lives upended. What should have been the security of their homes has turned into a financial and emotional prison. Just recently, some 51,000 people have signed a petition asking for something to be done. This is a problem that has not gone away. So complicated are the rules under the BSA—developed by our rather process-focused administration—that even lawyers and conveyancers cannot figure them out and are now distancing themselves from handling work involving affected flats. I refer to the rules on leaseholder qualification; landlord certification; estimating remedial costs in times of rapidly rising prices; ascertaining landlord worth; the pitfalls leading to exclusions; the roulette of getting any recovery from original contractors; the programme for remediation; and the sheer arbitrariness and lack of clarity of it all. My fear is that the financial standing of these assets is next in line. The Government assumed that landlords as building owners had the money and means to protect leaseholders. Some do but their respective interests do not coincide, and it is a moot point whether building owners are any more responsible for the construction defects in their buildings than the occupiers. The Government’s apparent predilection for charging owners with open-ended responsibilities without any clear route to cost recovery looks to me like a less than even-handed application of equality under the law. It is also perfectly clear to me that many freeholders do not have the assets to enable them to risk taking on contractors, while others may be minded to do a disappearing act or become insolvent. I know that the Government’s proceedings against Railpen in respect of Vista Tower in Stevenage—I am sure that the noble Baroness opposite will be familiar with that one—are still stuck in the courts. In reality, however, no block owner or leaseholder collective could possibly afford to mount such a case. Last Wednesday in the nutrient debate, if I can call it that, the Minister’s parting shot was that some £18 billion of added value to the economy was at stake, but that is not the only metric. The National Residential Landlords Association estimates—it is the only estimate that I know of—that there are 1.7 million non-qualifying leaseholders in existence. If just 10% of them are in buildings requiring significant remediation, which appears to be the general experience of building owners in terms of a percentage, even taking a well below average remediation and consequential cost per flat of, say, £20,000, that amounts to a staggering £34 billion write-down on the private sector alone, or nearly double what was bothering the Minister on Wednesday. Some observers put the damage north of £50 billion, and I can well believe it. Add in social housing and shared ownership, plus the potential sectoral damage in terms of market sentiment that I believe is now taking root, and potentially it is a lot more still. DLUHC’s own latest data shows that the building safety fund is still taking ages to process, approve and release funds—typically more than three years, in a time of rapid inflation in construction costs. It reveals that, as at the 14th of this month, there were 2,833 remediation resident registrations in relation to non-ACM—the cladding material—private sector blocks, of which only 49 have had their problems fixed. It seems that in all this the Government are not collecting the data, still less sharing it. I have asked how many properties of 11 metres and below there are which may be affected. The Government do not seem to know this; it follows that the data on impacts is effectively unknown. How then is policy made on this matter? I think everyone will agree that there has been a lot of time available to sort this out, so the process requires the turbocharging that my amendments would provide. I am aware that the Government’s objections to these amendments are many, but I do not believe they fully address the issues. There is a social evil taking root here, in that innocent consumers are paying heavily for the mistakes of producers. One criticism is that the amendments would require individual building assessments, and that that would slow the whole process—but how else does one identify or assess the essentially random nature of poor construction, other than on a per-building basis? Another is that there is not enough professional inspection capacity, but that applies whatever the total number of defects may be—unless, of course, the intention is simply to ignore some significant defects altogether. I am also told that it would overstretch limited departmental resources, but it is over six years since the awful tragedy of the Grenfell Tower, and it is the job of government to take necessary action, not to wring their hands. The Government say that my solution is too complex. I say that it is not half as complex as what they have already put in place—and remember, I am not asking for a taxpayer bailout. The levy provided for in these amendments would deal with any shortfalls. We clearly are not there yet. Conveyancing sources tell me that there is a growing trend at this very moment in contracts for sale of new flats, where there are now inserted clauses placing the entire onus for future defects on the buyer, on a “take it or leave it” basis. Meanwhile, I am not aware of any moves by the Government to remove the unfairness of excluding so many leaseholders from their scheme, or indeed of moves to put anything in place to tackle the building safety problems that I have identified.
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Lord Young of Cookham (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, it is pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. I pay tribute to him, not just for the professional expertise that he brings to the subject—something that none of us can match—but for his persistence in campaigning to rectify the injustice done to leaseholders. I shall speak to the amendments in my name but, before doing so, I want to say this: not all our debates in this House on the Bill have had a wide following in the outside world, but this one will. Hundreds of thousands of leaseholders are living in unsafe buildings, and they are looking to your Lordships’ House to deliver on the promises that the Government have made to them but which remain currently unfulfilled and which the amendments in this group seek to rectify. The End Our Cladding Scandal team have done a first-class job in briefing noble Lords. I compliment the Government on the measures they have taken to help people living in unsafe flats. They introduced the Building Safety Act, protecting many leaseholders from ruinous bills, they took aggressive action against 50 of the country’s biggest developers and secured binding legal commitments worth more than £2 billion to rectify their failings, and they set up the building safety fund to help to pay for remediation for orphan buildings. I welcome this and the patience with which my noble friend Lady Scott listened to my representations on this subject. But my noble friend the Minister will not expect a speech from me to be an unqualified paean of praise. What promises did the Government make at the outset, and have they been met? In his Statement in the other place on 10 January 2022, the Secretary of State said: “We will take action to end the scandal and protect leaseholders”. He went on to say: “We will make industry pay to fix all of the remaining problems and help to cover the range of costs facing leaseholders”. He then said there would be “statutory protection”, and he clarified what he meant by this: “First, we will make sure that we provide leaseholders with statutory protection—that is what we aim to do and we will work with colleagues across the House to ensure that that statutory protection extends to all the work required to make buildings safe”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/1/22; cols. 285-291.] Note that that commitment extends to all building work, not just cladding, and there was no qualification of the word “leaseholders”. These broad commitments were confirmed in a letter written to all noble Lords by my noble friend’s predecessor, my noble friend Lord Greenhalgh, on 20 January last year, entitled: “Introduction of the Building Safety Bill”. Under a section headed “Protecting Leaseholders from Unnecessary Costs”, it said: “The Secretary of State recently announced that leaseholders living in their homes should be protected from the costs of remediating historic building safety defects”— not just cladding but “building safety defects”. But the position now is that there are significant exclusions from those commitments: not all buildings are covered, not all building safety defects are covered and, crucially, not all leaseholders are protected. These amendments help to fulfil the Government’s earlier promises. One specific commitment given to me by the then Minister, no doubt in good faith, has been explicitly and inexcusably broken. During the passage of the Bill, I raised the question of leaseholders who had enfranchised and bought the freehold. I was assured that they would be treated as leaseholders and not as freeholders, and that they would get leaseholder protection under the Bill. My noble friend Lord Greenhalgh said: “They are effectively leaseholders that have enfranchised as opposed to freeholders. I hope that helps”.—[Official Report, 28/2/22; col. GC 262.] To avoid doubt, I was asked to read the Minister’s lips. But the Government resisted amendments that would have done just that, and leaseholders who have enfranchised are in a worse position than those who have not. Amendment 282ND addresses that unjustified distinction. It remains perverse that a Government who are about to introduce legislation to encourage enfranchisement, with the proposal that eventually all blocks should be enfranchised, should at the same time deliberately choose to disadvantage exactly those leaseholders in the Bill. The two principal exclusions from the commitment I referred to a moment ago are leaseholders who live in buildings fewer than 11 metres tall and non-qualifying leaseholders, a category of people that does not exist in Wales, where all leaseholders are qualifying leaseholders and protected. On buildings under 11 metres, the Government’s position is that residents should be able to leave the building in the case of fire without expensive remediation. This position is at odds with the position of the London Fire Brigade, whose statement said: “While we understand the approach of starting with tall buildings, LFB have always been clear that using building height as the only measure of risk is too restrictive and believe that there are other high risk buildings with vulnerable occupants that also need to be considered”. It concluded: “With regards to the remediation of buildings, we strongly assert that all buildings with serious fire safety defects should be remediated regardless of height”. That is an unequivocal professional rejection of a distinction made by the Government. There are countless examples of the problems that have resulted from this exclusion. I give just one. Leaseholders took over the freehold of their five-storey block in London because the developer, who had originally retained the freehold, went into liquidation. They thought that they were doing the right thing but, in their words, “It seems like we are being punished for this now”. The building has combustible insulation, combustible spandrel panels that extend the full height of the building, and vertically aligned timber balconies. Unless every leaseholder in the block can pay, at an estimated cost of over £30,000 per flat, the work cannot take place and leaseholders simply remain trapped in unsafe, unsellable flats. The 2011 fire at the retirement home Gibson Court in Surrey, where 87 year-old Irene Cockerton lost her life, makes very clear why fire safety issues in low-rise blocks can be life-critical, yet many retirement homes remain unremediated. Defective buildings of any height may require remediation if they have life-critical safety risks and, as Michael Gove himself acknowledged in the House of Commons on 14 March, of fire safety defects in buildings under 11 metres, “some will be life-critical”. Yet there is no requirement for responsible developers to remediate such life-critical safety defects, no access to government funding, no matter how high-risk the building is, and in a recent consultation on the issue DLUHC has even excluded freeholders of such buildings from the duty to try to pursue alternative cost recovery routes before charging leaseholders. These flats are unsaleable. The owners cannot afford to pay for remediation. In the view of the fire brigade, they are unsafe; in the views of insurers, they are uninsurable; and in the view of lenders, they are unmortgageable. This cannot be what the Government intended. The second exclusion is non-qualifying leaseholders. I have already mentioned enfranchised and resident-run buildings, which are excluded from the Building Safety Act 2022 cost protections. Any costs of remedial works required to those buildings will fall on the leaseholders, although they may be entitled to some help with the costs of cladding removal. The principal exclusions are the approximately 400,000 flats in mid or high-rise buildings owned by a non-qualifying leaseholder who owns or has an interest in three or more properties. The problem has a ripple effect—in any building that has but one non-qualifying leaseholder who cannot pay, remediation work to make all the homes safe may be delayed or unable to go ahead. The perverse consequence of this is that if you own a manor in the Cotswolds, plus a villa in Italy on Lake Garda and a luxury penthouse in central London worth £1.5 million, you qualify for protections under the Act. Yet if you and your partner own a small, terraced house and three small £100,000 buy-to-let apartments as part of your pension planning, only one of which has non-cladding fire safety issues, you may face bankruptcy. Amendments to change the exclusion of buy-to-let leaseholders were resisted by the Government as the Bill went through. Again, Amendment 282ND puts that right. The LUHC Committee, with its government majority, rightly noted last year: “Leaseholders are no more to blame for non-cladding defects than they are for faulty cladding on homes they bought in good faith. Buy-to-let landlords are no more to blame than other leaseholders for historic building safety defects, and landing them with potentially unaffordable bills will only slow down or prevent works to make buildings safe”. The unintended consequence of the Building Safety Act 2022 has created a two-tier system where leaseholders deemed qualifying will benefit from the protections, whereas those arbitrarily deemed non-qualifying have been left to fend for themselves. Shared-ownership leaseholders face even greater difficulties because of the nature of their leases. Without a truly comprehensive solution to all buildings, of all heights and tenures, uncertainty and a lack of confidence in the residential flat sales market are set to perpetuate. My amendments seek such a solution. I note in passing that a property’s non-qualifying status remains on the title in perpetuity. That means that any future purchaser—whether a first-time buyer, second-stepper or landlord investor—will be required to take on the risk of unlimited costs to fix safety defects that may not even yet have been identified. This renders non-qualifying leases effectively unsellable, regardless of the existence of known safety defects.
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- Baroness Pinnock (LD)Liberal Democrat
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- My Lords, building safety remediation comes back again. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for sharing their expert knowledge and understanding of the plight of leaseholders as a consequence of the building safety debacle exposed by the Grenfell Tower tragedy. The noble Earl has put a huge amount of time, energy and expertise into seeking an all-encompassing solution to the building safety scandal so tragically exposed by the Grenfell Tower fire six years ago. As has been said, hundreds of thousands of leaseholders have been financially penalised as a result, because the construction sector, developers, materials manufacturers and the Government have failed to take full responsibility for their failings. It is clear that leaseholders and tenants are the innocent victims. They must not be expected to pay. Yet despite the progress made by the Building Safety Act, that is what is happening to many leaseholders. They are paying eye-watering, vastly increased insurance bills, have waking watch requirements and are unable to sell and move. All that is on hold because of the omissions in the Building Safety Act. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who reminded us that, right at the start of this, the Secretary of State promised that there would be full protection for leaseholders. Unfortunately, that has not happened. We have before us, from both noble Lords, alternate ways of fulfilling that commitment made by the Government. The first is to go back to square one, which is basically the proposal from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and fulfil the polluter pays objective that no leaseholder or tenant, regardless of where they are or their circumstances—enfranchised tenant, tenant or leaseholder—should pay. That is morally right. There is debate on various aspects of the building safety scandal but that is what I have said from the start: innocent leaseholders and tenants should not be subject to payment for the failings of others. The second argument, from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham—and I have added my name to his amendments—is that making step-by-step improvements to the Building Safety Act may be more acceptable to the Government. In the end, the decision is not ours. The decision is the Government’s, and if we can persuade them to take another step forward to protect another group of leaseholders, that seems to me to be the practical way forward—as much as I admire what the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has done. I move to Amendment 282NF in my name. There is a large group of leaseholders who were specifically excluded: those who live in blocks of under 11 metres. One of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, seeks to include leaseholders in blocks of under 11 metres. However, I wanted it to be specifically drawn to the attention of the House, because it was wrong to exclude them on the grounds that the risk is less. Fire services across the country, not just the London fire service, say that the risk is unacceptable. These flats are covered with flammable cladding that was put there knowingly by materials manufacturers that knew it was flammable and that a fire in those flats would become enormous, as was the case at Grenfell, where it was minutes before the fire reached the top of the high block of flats. I want to draw attention to the plight of this particular group. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, who unfortunately is not well, for the meetings that I have had with her to discuss the plight of leaseholders who live in these blocks of under 11 metres. I thank the civil servants who accepted that there is a problem here. The trouble is that nothing has happened, and we need action to help these leaseholders. Insurance agents for the blocks under 11 metres still say that there is a risk, and insurance bills are therefore unacceptably high and unaffordable. We still hear from estate agents that the blocks will be more difficult to sell because of the risks of fire due to the cladding material. So my amendment asks for those blocks to be covered by the responsible actors scheme. Here we are again debating the building safety scandal. I ask that the Government accept Amendment 282C in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, as one more step towards dealing with the issues blighting the lives of many thousands of leaseholders. They cannot afford the bills that they are presented with and are unable to pay for the remediation—which is not theirs to pay. They do not even own the right to the bricks and mortar, yet they are being expected to pay for it—that in itself is wrong, but it will have to be covered by another Bill that we await from this Government. This is about whether we make another step in the right direction or go back to square one and try a big, all-encompassing solution to this situation. What we must do is give hope that all leaseholders who have been adversely affected by the building safety scandal will have their issues addressed by the Government, as the Secretary of State promised at the very outset of our debates on this problem. That is necessary, and the amendments today seek, in different ways, to deal with that. I want to hear from the Minister that the Government intend to deal with every leaseholder’s issues. It is not the leaseholders’ responsibility, and it was not of their doing; they have done everything right and nothing wrong, and should not be expected to pay.
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)Labour- Quote
- My Lords, I remind the House of my interests in the register as a serving councillor on Stevenage Borough Council and Hertfordshire County Council, a vice-president of the LGA and a vice-chair of the District Councils’ Network. I ask the Minister to convey our wishes too to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook; we wish her well for a speedy recovery. Her patience and willingness to collaborate on the Bill have been outstanding. With this Bill, we have an opportunity to put right some of the very difficult issues that have emerged from the awful tragedy of the Grenfell fire. In the six years since Grenfell, we have seen people left in the most dreadful limbo on this issue. The stress, fear and harm they have lived with on a daily basis are incalculable. They are not able to sleep for fear that their buildings are not safe; they are living in fear of the exorbitant costs of mediation measures; and they are unable to sell their properties or move away. For some, that has impacted their physical and mental health. In the most serious cases, leaseholders have faced bankruptcy. Their dreams of owning their own homes have transformed into the stuff of nightmares. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, mentioned the case of Vista Tower in Stevenage, which I know well. That demonstrates so many of the issues arising from the remediation we are talking about. I remind your Lordships’ House that nearly two-thirds of high-rise flats and a third of mid-rise flats still require an external wall safety form before any mortgages are even considered, so the issue is certainly far from being fixed. We welcome the comprehensive and detailed Amendment 260A from the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, particularly his strong focus on “polluter pays”—a principle that has had much attention during the passage of the Bill. As ever, he has a very thorough and conscientious approach in setting out a complete building safety remediation scheme. We acknowledge that his knowledge and expertise on and experience of such issues are recognised throughout your Lordships’ House, and I hope that, as we go through the following processes of remediation, the Government will continue to work with him and the cladding groups to advise on improving the remediation scheme that will comprehensively cover the remediation that people need.
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Earl Howe (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Scott said in Committee when the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, brought forward his now-rebranded “polluter pays” amendments, these issues have already been debated at length in this House—I address here Amendments 260A, 282J and 315B. I agree that too many developers and landlords are being too slow to remediate buildings for which they are responsible. However, the Government have not been idle in this space; blocks of flats are being made safer as we speak. Under the regulatory regime that the noble Earl wishes to scrap and replace, 96% of all high-rise buildings with unsafe “Grenfell-style” ACM cladding have been remediated or have remedial work under way. The leaseholder protections are showing real promise on the ground, so it would seem folly to scrap them and start again from scratch. Indeed, accepting these amendments would set back the progress of remediation by over a year as industry and leaseholders work to understand another new system, just as they are getting to grips with the Building Safety Act—the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, was quite right to express her doubts on that score. At various points, the noble Earl has talked about his scheme sitting alongside the existing protections, but I argue strongly to your Lordships that that would be a recipe for chaos and confusion. Please do not let us land ourselves with that. Secondly, many of your Lordships will have already taken part in debates on the regulations to give effect to our responsible actors scheme. That scheme, alongside our developer remediation contracts, requires eligible developers to fix the problems they have caused—I emphasise that clause: to fix the problems they have caused. Eligible developers who do not join the scheme and comply with its conditions will face prohibitions. In response to the concerns of the noble Earl that the non-qualifying leaseholders are stuck in unsafe flats, as I think he put it, that is simply not true. All principal residences over 11 metres are covered by the protections. Following on from that, he expressed concern that the leaseholder protections do not protect every leaseholder. I just remind him that the direct protections that we have put in place are only part of the Government’s overall scheme. I have already referred to the responsible actors scheme and the developer remediation contracts, and I also point to the more than £5 billion set aside to replace cladding. The new powers in the Act to seek remediation contribution orders against developers, or to pursue them under the Defective Premises Act, also provide valuable indirect protection. Non-qualifying leaseholders are able to seek a remediation contribution order from the tribunal against a developer or contractor in exactly the same way as qualifying leaseholders. Let us remember that, where a developer has signed the developer remediation contract, it will fund all necessary remediation work—both cladding and non-cladding-related—irrespective of whether individual leases in those buildings qualify. Those on the current list of developers are only the first to be pursued; we have committed to expanding that list now that the regulations have been brought forward. I make one further point. The noble Earl was concerned that the protections under the Building Safety Act remediation scheme will not apply to future buildings. The leaseholder protections address problems with buildings built poorly in the past. Part 3 of the Act raises standards for future buildings; we do not need a remediation scheme to reach into the future. All in all, I hope that, on reflection, the noble Earl will see fit to withdraw Amendment 260A and not move Amendments 282J or 315B. I turn next to Amendments 282C, 282ND and 315A in the name of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham. I must tell my noble friend—at the risk of him heaving a sigh—that that these issues are legally complex. What is more, unfortunately, his amendments will not address all those complexities. I can none the less reassure him and your Lordships that officials are working on producing a fix for the lease extension issue and that we will bring forward legislation as soon as possible. We are also considering carefully how we might address any unfairness produced by the issue of jointly owned properties, which my noble friend’s Amendment 282ND seeks to address. I am therefore not delivering a rebuff to my noble friend; I am simply urging him to understand that this is a set of issues that requires very careful legal dissection and working through, and that is what we are doing. Finally, Amendment 282NF, from the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and Amendment 309A in the names of my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, would require government to report on progress in remediating buildings under 11 metres and resident-owned buildings and to outline plans to expand the Cladding Safety Scheme. I listened to the views of the London Fire Brigade as reported by my noble friend; however, it is generally accepted that the life safety risk is proportional to the height of buildings. Lower-cost mitigations are usually more appropriate in low-rise buildings. Given the small number of buildings under 11 metres that are likely to need remediation, our assessment remains that extending the protections for leaseholders in the Building Safety Act or our remediation funds to buildings below 11 metres is neither necessary nor proportionate. Where work is necessary, we would always expect freeholders to seek to recover costs from those who were responsible for building unsafe homes, not innocent leaseholders. Therefore, we do not intend to expand the Cladding Safety Scheme to incorporate these buildings, nor will it be possible to report on progress. That said, I can assure the House that any resident whose landlord or building owner is proposing costly building safety remediation for a building under 11 metres should raise the matter with my department immediately, and we will investigate. Separately, the reporting that is already in place on the Responsible Actors Scheme will include progress made on all buildings in scope of that scheme, including any that are resident-owned. My noble friend Lord Young stated that resident-run buildings are excluded from the protections. They are not; the only buildings that are excluded from the protections as a class are those that are enfranchised, not those managed by residents. We have committed to consider this further and will bring proposals forward shortly. I hope that what I have said has demonstrated to noble Lords that there are misunderstandings running through the amendments in this group. I have tried to provide reassurance, which I hope will be sufficient for the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, to withdraw his amendment. I also hope that my noble friend Lord Young and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, will not see fit to press their amendments when they are reached.
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- The Earl of Lytton (CB)Crossbench
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- My Lords, first, I thank all noble Lords who spoke in our debate on these amendments. It has certainly given me considerable food for thought. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who went through all the promises that have been made but have not yet been dealt with one by one. I believe that the exclusions are down to the funding assumptions that the Government have made from inception. I go back to something called the consolidated advice note, which, as noble Lords may recall, rather put the cat among the pigeons in terms of how extensive the problem was. Then there was a subsequent attempt to row back, as it were, on the worst effect of that by virtue of the independent expert statement, which itself came 11 months after a disastrous fire concerning Richmond House in the London Borough of Merton. I think we can all see that a process of risk management and managing political exposure is involved here. Unfortunately, that does not cut the mustard for a lot of people will still be stuck, for what seems to me to be an indefinite period, with the problems that they have.
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Baroness Swinburne (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, I beg to move government Amendment 264 and will speak to Amendments 265 and 266, which the Government have tabled. They respond to the concerns raised about Clauses 223 and 224, which provide powers to replace the Health and Safety Executive as the building safety regulator. When the Government made the decision to locate the building safety regulator in the Health and Safety Executive in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy, this was rightly because of its outstanding reputation in ensuring rigorous safety standards. We continue to work closely with the Health and Safety Executive, and I take this opportunity to thank HSE colleagues for what they have already done to bring this regime to life. As we await the findings of the Grenfell inquiry, the Government recognise that we must provide a stronger, wider stewardship role to ensure that we regulate effectively across the whole built environment, with consideration and management of sustainability and quality sitting alongside the safety of buildings. The Government believe that these powers are a key part of ensuring that oversight of the built environment is delivered appropriately. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, who has tabled Amendments 265A, 267 and 268, and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for its scrutiny of the Bill. In response to the concerns raised by the committee and in earlier debate, the Government are making a number of changes to improve these measures. Amendment 264 restricts the powers in Clauses 223 and 224, so that they can be used only to transfer existing functions of the Health and Safety Executive in its role of building safety regulator, and specifically cannot be used to create additional functions or to amend the building safety functions as defined in the Building Safety Act 2022. I hope that this principle of the preservation of existing powers provides the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, with reassurance on the intentions of the Government. Amendment 265 limits the provision that can be amended, repealed or revoked by regulations under this clause to provision made by or under listed Acts, namely: the Building Safety Act 2022, the Building Act 1984, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004. Amendment 266 removes the ability to extend the sunsetting of the power to create a new regulator. These measures do not affect the timeline for the regulator’s important work. We expect the regime to be fully operational by April 2024, and are determined not to impact on that programme. Finally, I remind noble Lords that the powers in Clause 223 are all affirmative and so any future use will be subject to the consideration of Parliament. I beg to move.
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Lord Rooker (Lab)Labour- Quote
- My Lords, I rise to address the amendments in my name, Amendments 264A and 264B. These amendments raise an aspect of electricity supply which involves potentially dangerous network faults. I first declare an interest as probably the most out-of-date chartered engineer in Parliament, having been here full-time for 49 years, and a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. I still pay my subs after more than 60 years, and skim the technical journals. In April, I read in Engineering & Technology about concerns relating to the risks of neutral current diversion, known as NCD. The author was investigative journalist, Conor McGlone, who wrote of experts expressing concerns of the real risk of deadly gas explosions and fires in the UK due to a common fault on the electrical system. They claim that the fault is neither acknowledged by distribution network operators or the Health and Safety Executive. In short, and keeping off the detailed techy stuff, a neutral current diversion can occur when the combined protective earthing and neutral conductor fails. The current is then diverted by making a circuit via exposed metal workings on buildings including gas, water and oil pipes. In other words, electricity can flow through gas meters in these circumstances. NCDs are causing gas explosions. Gas meters are not designed to carry electricity and, if a current is diverted, creating heat due to the high resistance, an explosion can follow. The fault is such that, when changing gas meters, engineers attach jump leads between pipes because neutral current diversions are so prevalent and sparks can be created. After an explosion, of which there have been more in recent years, we are simply told: “possible gas leak”. In fact, a house in the Kingstanding part of my former constituency disappeared in such an explosion last year. One example given by Conor McGlone was when Gordon Mackenzie, formerly of SP Energy Networks, became aware of a resident’s coat falling on a gas meter and catching fire. He detected a 35-amp current flowing through the metallic gas service pipe entering the property, affecting 72 houses. There was nothing whatever to indicate a problem: no flickering lights, nothing. Neutral current diversions are not routinely considered after an explosion. Having read this, I therefore tabled some Written Questions, answered by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, on 2 May. I was informed that “no additional action is required by the regulator”— the Health and Safety Executive— “to manage this risk of neutral current diversion at the present time”. In other words: “We’ll keep it under review”. Now these can cause fires in ordinary domestic appliances due to the high resistance. Voltage surges occurred in properties without a gas supply. As a result of the Hansard reports of the Written Answers, I was contacted about the wider problem of safety checks and weaknesses in electrical regulation. I am informed that the charity Electrical Safety First and certification giant Bureau Veritas have both expressed more concern than the Health and Safety Executive, whose approach has been described as “nothing to see, move on”.
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Lord Stunell (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- My Lords, I first need to declare that I am shortly going to become a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I hope that will not distort my judgment too much. I welcome what the noble Baroness, Lady Swinburne, said on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook. I wish the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, a speedy recovery. I thank her and her officials for the help they gave in discussions over the last week or so. I welcome the Government’s amendments, but my welcome is muted. They cut back on the overreach of ministerial powers which was so endemic in the original proposition, but they do nothing to remedy the serious problems that remain with the provisions as they are at the moment. That is why the three amendments in my name have been tabled and are up for consideration in this group. The first serious problem is the impact this new legislation will have on the work of the Health and Safety Executive in bringing into force the new regime established only 12 months ago by the Building Safety Act 2022, which we are in the process of amending. That Act mandates the Health and Safety Executive to conduct the biggest shake-up of building safety in my lifetime, and the HSE has made a huge investment in new procedures, training and staffing to make the high-rise construction sector safe for the future. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Swinburne, referenced that. The main features of that building safety regime go live next month and, as she quite rightly said, are being introduced over the course of the next 12 or 15 months. It has not been an easy job and it has needed the full weight and heft of the Health and Safety Executive to ensure that progress was maintained and will be delivered on time—or almost on time; it has been delayed even so. The Minister’s explanation of the Government’s policy intentions, which is basically business as usual, just not with HSE, rather undermines the case for taking action now. It seems, from what she said and from what the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said in her briefing to me last week, that it really is the case that we are not going to change the reach, functions or structure of the regulator. If nothing can be added or subtracted without more primary legislation being enacted that is not in this legislation, what exactly are we trying to achieve by doing this? Is it just a change of brand name? That is what it seems to come down to. The HSE is much more than a trusted brand. It is a much-feared enforcer in the construction industry. It can prosecute firms and send bosses to prison. When the HSE says jump, they jump. It seems a strange moment for the Government to recommend to the House that it gives Whitehall the power to rebadge the regulator but say not to worry as everything else is being left unchanged. If you cast doubt on the continuing role and viability of the Health and Safety Executive when it comes to standards and enforcements, you will give the laggards of the construction industry the toehold they are looking for. They were lobbying for a slowdown before, and we can see what it will be like once the HSE is taken out of the equation. This proposal poses a real risk to the smooth and effective start-up to the vital new buildings safety regime, despite the assurances the noble Baroness gave a few moments ago. It will give a foothold for the naysayers and, dare I say it, the big donors to begin their fightback against the regulation and enforcement of this new regime. The second big problem is that it appears the Minister still has no idea what would replace the Health and Safety Executive. This legislation invites us to change horses in midstream, but there is no second horse. The one thing we know is that it will not be called the HSE. Maybe it could be called Tesco, or maybe a highly trusted brand of “Made in Whitehall” will be established to replace it. Whatever it is, we will not be able to see, measure, evaluate or amend it until a new regulator, yet to be imagined by Ministers, is delivered to us to sign off via the affirmative procedure. That is not good enough. It will give the lobbyists another slice of the cake as Ministers go through the process of drawing such a scheme up. The third serious issue is that, despite what the Minister said, Clause 223 allows Ministers to change fundamentally how the new regulator is structured and organised and can change the task currently entrusted to the Health and Safety Executive and its statutory committees that are a core part of its work. It specifically states that the Secretary of State can amend “governing procedures and arrangements (including the role and membership of committees and sub-committees)” It is absolutely not the case that the amendments the Government have brought forward today prevent that happening.
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- The Earl of Lytton (CB)Crossbench
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- My Lords, I added my name to Amendments 267 and 268 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. I think perhaps I should also have added it to Amendment 265A which he so ably introduced. There is very little that I can add to what he has said, so I will be brief. As the noble Lord said, this is do with reputation, the disruption of potential reorganisation, a loss of momentum—which I might call continuity—and, finally, whether this lays open the opportunity for diluting the process which we agreed in the Building Safety Act and which one believes is still important today. There are two things that I would like to point to. Part of the justification for what the Government seek to do seems to be a need to keep their options open, if I can put it that way, in relation to the awaited second Grenfell inquiry. Of course, we do not know when that will come in, but the fear seems to be that it will make recommendations that the Government will need to move resolutely to deal with. However, to try to foretell, forestall and provide for that by the process of taking the Building Safety Regulator function out of HSE and putting it in a place as yet unknown or undefined seems entirely premature. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, in the sense that does not aid the cohesion of the Building Safety Regulator function going forward. The second thing that concerns me is that we already have two standards for dealing with what might be described as a defect. One is specified in the Building Safety Act and the other, which is not worded the same, is the standard of remediation under the pledge that constructors will sign up to. There are concerns, in particular because, under remediation schemes to which a lot of firms have signed up, they will still be using their own approved inspectors to sign off that work. We know what has happened since approved inspectors were brought in under the Building Act 1984. It amounts to marking their own homework. While I am sure that in many instances that is being done diligently, we would not be where we are now had that been done effectively, conscientiously and objectively. There are concerns that the Government’s proposals here leave too much wiggle room. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, on all three of his amendments, which I think afford valuable safeguards that we should take real notice of.
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- Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)Labour
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- My Lords, before commenting on the specific amendments in this group, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, for responding so thoroughly to questions that were raised on this issue following our previous debate on this subject and the debate in July on the statutory instrument on the Building Safety Act. Amendment 264 clarifies that the functions of the new regulator are those of the Health and Safety Executive. This was one of the points on which we requested clarification. I hope the Minister can clarify in response to the points made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, what the new regulator will look like. My noble friend Lord Rooker’s amendments would introduce a requirement on the new regulator to report on electrical safety for tower blocks awaiting remediation. That seems a very reasonable step in the light of previous discussions, and we hope the Minister will confirm that this falls into the remit of the regulator. My noble friend also suggested, in his further amendment to Clause 223, that a new electrical safe register be introduced and, in particular, that electrical installations and testing be subject to the same level of rigour as gas installations. I cannot think of any reason why that should not be the case. I hope that, should she not clarify it today, the Minister will take that back to her department to be discussed with the new regulator. Concerns expressed in Amendments 265A, 267 and 268 are that provisions made under the Bill could be revoked by regulation. Amendments 265 and 266 perhaps deal partially with that, but they may not be strong enough to deal with the concerns about provisions in the Building Safety Act. We note Amendment 265A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, relating particularly to the potential for government to use regulations to amend the provisions of the Building Safety Act. We would be seriously concerned about that, so, if the noble Lord chooses to test the opinion of the House on that topic, he will have our support.
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- Baroness Swinburne (Con)Conservative
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- My Lords, I thank your Lordships for the points raised during the debate. I shall first address the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, and the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, in relation to Clauses 223 and 224. I want to make a clear and unequivocal commitment: this Government have no intention of using the powers in the Bill to amend the statutory committees set up under Sections 9 to 11 of the Building Safety Act 2022. The Building Safety Act already provides full and appropriate powers for the Secretary of State to make changes to those statutory committees, if needed, on the basis of a recommendation from the building safety regulator. It would be unnecessary for this Government or a future Government to attempt to use the powers under this Bill to alter or repeal the regulator’s statutory committees when good and appropriate powers exist for just that purpose. Any Minister not using these powers correctly could rightly expect to be asked to justify their use. I turn to Amendments 264A and 264B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, which raise the important matter of electrical safety. The Government take the issue of electrical safety very seriously, and we have already legislated to mandate electrical safety checks to protect residents in the private rented sector. The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations came into force in 2020. They require private landlords to have their electrical installations inspected and tested by a qualified and competent person at least every five years. As noted, we have already consulted on extending these requirements to the social housing sector, and have asked for evidence and views on whether owner-occupied leasehold properties within social housing blocks would also benefit from mandatory electrical installation checks. I am advised that the level of risk involved between gas and electrical work is not the same. With the benefit of circuit breakers and protective devices, an electrical system can be designed to shut down in milliseconds. An automated interruption of supply can disconnect an electric current and protect users from the risk of electric shock or fire. With regard to Section 21 of the Building Safety Act 2022, which the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, raised, I shall make some further comments. Specifically on Amendment 264A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, I ask the noble Lord to note that, under Section 21 of the Act, the regulator has a statutory duty to “carry out a cost-benefit analysis of making regular inspections of, and testing and reporting on, the condition of electrical installations in relevant buildings”. Our focus so far has been on the competence and supervision of the person carrying out electrical work as the appropriate way forward. I note the extensive technical analysis raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, relating to electrical safety. We will write to him once we have had an opportunity to consider this.
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- Lord Stunell (LD)Liberal Democrat
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- My Lords, I have been by no means persuaded by the Minister, who is contradicted by the words in the Government’s own Act and amendment. I seek leave to test the opinion of the House.
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)Labour- Quote
- My Lords, I seem to have a lot of paperwork on my lap but I will talk very briefly to Amendment 276. I thank the Minister, who is no longer in her place, for her response but, having listened to what she said, I am afraid that I would still like to test the opinion of the House on this matter.
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- Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)Labour
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- My Lords, the Vagrancy Act 1824 was initially intended to deal with injured ex-servicemen who had become homeless after the Napoleonic Wars. What was their crime after serving their country? I will quote from the Act. It was “endeavouring by the Exposure of Wounds or Deformities to obtain or gather Alms … or … procure charitable Contributions of any Nature of Kind, under any false or fraudulent Pretence”. This essentially means that ex-soldiers were begging, and the Act was brought in to stop it. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, committed to repealing the Vagrancy Act 1824 within 18 months in March 2022. In the debate on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in 2022, he said: “The Government agree that the Act is antiquated and no longer fit for purpose. That is why we have brought forward amendments in lieu to consign this outdated Hanoverian statute to history”—[Official Report, 22/3/22; col. 764.] “Hear, hear”, we all thought. My noble friend, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, noted in May this year that this Act, which refers to the homeless as “an idle and disorderly Person … deemed a Rogue and Vagabond” to be committed to the “House of Correction”, is still being used to criminalise “more than 1,000” homeless people a year. We are told that the 200 year-old Act cannot be repealed because there is nothing to take its place and that it is a slow and complex process to bring an alternative forward. I quote the Minister again from 2022. He said that “we must balance our role in providing essential support for the vulnerable with making sure that we do not weaken the ability of the police to protect communities who play an important role in local partnership approaches to reducing rough sleeping. We must ensure that the police have the tools that they need to effectively respond to behaviour that impacts negatively on communities and to protect all individuals”.—[Official Report, 22/3/22; col. 764.] I had a quick check on the College of Policing website. It shows more than 15 pieces of legislation which give police and councils the powers they need to tackle anti-social behaviour and aggressive begging. This includes the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, community protection notices, public space protection orders, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, rapid intervention for PSPOs and dispersal powers. In relation to begging, there is the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 1986. So, frankly, it is incredibly disappointing that, in spite of amendments put before the House to this Bill, the Government have refused to use the levelling-up Bill to confine the Vagrancy Act to history, where it belongs, before its 200th birthday. Fundamentally, this is a levelling-up Bill, and the treatment of vagrancy in our communities is a levelling-up issue. It is an issue that should not be the subject of legislation made nearly 200 years ago when the world, its values and our country were very different places. Incidentally, that was the year when New York’s Fifth Avenue opened for business and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony had its premiere in Vienna. Why do we still have on our statute book an Act that seeks to penalise the homeless against the measure of an Act forged in what was another world? Our Amendment 277 and its consequential Amendment 304A require a Minister to publish an impact assessment of the enforcements permitted in the Vagrancy Act against the Bill’s stated ambitions for levelling up. We hope that this will concentrate the Government’s mind on ensuring that street homeless people in Great Britain in 2023 will be treated with compassion and given the help they need to tackle the underlying issues that have led to their homelessness, and not confined to the punishment regime of an Act which has no place in modern Britain.
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- Baroness Pinnock (LD)Liberal Democrat
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- My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, has raised a fundamental issue of human rights and dignity. I am really surprised that the Government have so far failed to repeal the Vagrancy Act. It just needs to be deleted from the statute book. Perhaps the Minister can give us the assurance that it will be. If he cannot, and if the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, wishes to press her amendment to a vote, we will certainly be supporting it.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, I thank both noble Baronesses for their comments. I am pretty sure that that will be the only time I am mentioned in the same speech with Beethoven. In response to Amendment 277 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, I am still clear, as are the Government, that the Vagrancy Act is antiquated and not fit for purpose. I am happy to reassure the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Taylor, that we will repeal the Vagrancy Act at the earliest opportunity, once suitable replacement legislation has been brought forward. Given that we remain committed to repealing the Vagrancy Act, there is little value in carrying out an assessment of the kind described in the amendment. The House will have ample opportunity to debate the matter when further details on any new legislation are set out. Amendment 304A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, is on the timing of the statement of levelling-up missions. We have committed within the Bill to publish this within one month of Part 1 of the Act coming into force, which will be two months after Royal Assent. This is already an appropriate and prompt timescale, which includes time to collate materials and data across government departments before the publication and laying of the report. Reducing that time would be unnecessary and may undermine the purpose of the missions: to ensure focus on long-term policy goals. I hope that provides reassurance for the noble Baronesses and that Amendment 277 can be withdrawn, and the other amendment not moved.
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- Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)Labour
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- My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, for his response, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for her comments. The Minister repeated the assertion that the Vagrancy Act will be repealed at the earliest opportunity. I do not know quite what “earliest” means in the Government’s mind, but it is certainly longer than the amount of time it has taken since the original commitment to repeal the Act. The fact is that this Act is still being used to penalise homeless people every day in this country. I am not convinced that this is going to move quickly enough without some further steps being taken, so I would like to test the opinion of the House.
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Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)Non-affiliated- Quote
- My Lords, I will be brief. Amendment 278 is in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Willis, and the noble Lord, Lord Randall, neither of whom are able to be with us this evening. I declare an interest as a commissioner on the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission and as chair of the Woodland Trust. We are all waiting with bated breath for the land use framework that the Government say will burst forth in October or November. I use the words “burst forth” advisedly because we hear that there has been consultation across government but little consultation with anyone else, including the 140,000 people in this country who actually own the land. That is strange for a land use framework.
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- Baroness Pinnock (LD)Liberal Democrat
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- My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, is absolutely right to raise this as an important issue. Currently, planning, in the sense of local authority planning services and applications, depends on landowners bringing forward sites for housing or business use for inclusion in the local authority local plan; councils then make the decision as to which of those sites are in fact acceptable. That is not a strategic approach, which is exactly why she has brought this amendment forward. It draws attention to sites that are allegedly appropriate for development but it excludes the importance of nature recovery, ELMS and all the other issues—we discussed ancient woodlands at our last sitting on Report. It also fails to draw attention to the importance of watercourses as part of a planning process, which is of course why we had the debate on the previous day on Report on nutrient neutrality. The noble Baroness is right to draw our attention to this as an issue to which we ought to have a strategic approach. I will wait to hear the Minister’s response, but the Government ought to consider having an overview of how they expect land to be used, rather than just leave it to landowners to determine whether they have sites they wish to put forward for development.
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- Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)Labour
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- My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone for introducing her amendment and for bringing it back at this stage. Her Land Use in England Committee wrote an excellent report on this, Making the Most out of England’s Land, with a number of recommendations for the Government. As she said, the Government have said that they will look at this. The question is: when and how is that actually going to happen? She made a very important point about the fact that the Government are looking to focus very much from a Defra point of view, whereas actually, if we are to address the wider aspect of land use and tackle many of the conflicting priorities, it has to be done across parties and across departments to be genuinely effective. We have to work across the House and across all departments to come out with something that will actually make a difference. I confirm our full support for what my noble friend is trying to achieve with this, and I will be grateful if the Minister confirms that the Government are treating this as a priority, that we will see something sooner rather than later, and that the Government are also intending to work right across all departments and to work constructively across the House.
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- Earl Howe (Con)Conservative
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- My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Young, has once again highlighted the important issue of land use, and I am grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to set out the Government’s plans in this area. First, the Government agree with the intention behind the amendment. Major influences on the use of land must be considered in the round—that is completely accepted and indeed it is why Defra has been working closely with a number of other departments to develop the content of the land use framework for England, which will be published this year. The framework will provide a long-term perspective and, to pick up the point the noble Baroness made, it is supported by the latest advances in spatial data science. We have developed the evidence base needed to ensure that policy can make a virtue of the diversity of natural capital across the landscapes of England. That said, the Government’s view is that it is neither necessary nor sensible to specify the framework’s scope and purpose in legislation at this stage. There is a very simple reason for that: our work on the framework needs to be open to the latest evidence and insights and indeed, if necessary, to change as our understanding continues to develop. However, I reassure the noble Baroness that the principles she has highlighted are very much in our minds as we approach this important task and that we look forward to engaging with her, and indeed everyone else with an interest, in due course. I hope that, with those reassurances, she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
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- Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)Non-affiliated
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- My Lords, I thank the Minister for his answer. I am delighted to hear that the framework will emerge before the end of the year—I will hold him to that. We all wait to see what the Government come up with. My anxiety is that a set of principles launched on everybody is going to set up antibodies among landowners big and small, because they will not have been consulted on it and that is not the right foot to get off on, no matter how much consultation then follows. I look forward to seeing what the Government produce, and at this point I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
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- Baroness Pinnock (LD)Liberal Democrat
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- My Lords, I tabled a version of this amendment in Committee—which seems a very long time ago; I think it was in March—on the need for a register of school and hospital buildings which are in a state of disrepair, so that local residents know what the issues are and can hold the Government to account for putting right those buildings that they have to use. Little did I know at that stage about the huge, urgent issue that has emerged this summer around reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—concrete with air bubbles in it, as far as I can make out. According to the Department for Education, at least 147 schools in England have been affected by RAAC, but this number may grow as investigations continue. At least 27 NHS sites have been confirmed to have aerated concrete and I understand the NHS is conducting an urgent inquiry into the safety of the buildings. Thousands of patients and pupils are facing disruption as a result of this aerated concrete coming to the end of its life, which apparently means it could break and collapse the building at any moment. Very fortunately, so far no serious injuries have resulted from such collapses. We know the Department for Education was aware of the use of RAAC in schools that were built in the 1970s and 1980s. Its report from 2018 showed that as many as 400 schools per year could need their buildings repaired as a result of the use of this material. The 2021 spending review provided funding for just 50 of those per year. At the end of 2022, the Department for Education listed building failures as one of six key risks in its annual report. Similarly, as an FoI request from my party has shown, hospitals across the country are facing huge repair costs from chemical leaks and broken fire alarms—in one hospital, raw sewage was in patient areas. In my view, sewage seeping anywhere in a hospital is totally unacceptable. This followed on from a report from November last year that the repair bill for NHS hospitals in England alone has hit £10 billion. My amendment seeks, as a first step in tackling these issues, to get the information into the public domain. I will give one example of why this is important. School admission authorities are already being asked by parents having to choose a school for their children whether their preferred school is affected by a need for critical repairs which could disrupt their children’s education. School admissions are likely not to know, so it is really important that parents, in the case of schools, have the information to make choices about their children’s education. In the same way, NHS trusts should be able to make available similar information to patients where there is an ability to choose where an operation will take place.
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Lord Lucas (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, I have Amendment 282NE in this rather miscellaneous group. It is one of the joys of England that we have a lot of towns with houses that have no driveways but front gardens. We need to take care of that in the context of our policy for making everyone drive electric. As we have set things up at the moment, we have introduced an imperative that people should pave over their front garden and use it to park their car. If they do so, they will have a dedicated parking space and can charge from their own house, at the rate they are buying electricity in a deal they have made themselves rather than from some organisation doing it in the street. They also pay VAT at 5% rather than 15%. Zoopla says that, if you do that, you will increase the value of your house by at least 10%. It is both for people’s convenience and a necessity. If you get an electric car and rely on very thinly provided street parking, you may find that you have to park some long distance from your house and cannot be sure of being able to charge your car when you need to do so. We are creating an environment that will result, if we are not very careful, in our towns becoming much less charming and beautiful places because of our good ambition that more people have electric cars. I ask my noble friend to make it clear to local authorities that they can do something about this and do not have to give permission for a dropped kerb or paving over front gardens. They can wind this into an organised rollout of on-street charging and not let desecration happen by default.
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Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)Green Party- Quote
- My Lords, I will introduce my noble friend Lady Bennett’s Amendment 282NC, as she has been called away to “Gardeners’ Question Time”. Of course, I will vote to support Amendment 281. I will be very brief. This is a quite simple amendment based on a report from the New Economics Foundation entitled Losing Altitude: The Economics of Air Transport in Great Britain. It takes on the Conservatives, on their own ground, on questions of growth and economics. There are still arguments that airport facilities are needed for business travel, but it has declined by 50% in the past decades. All the infuriating by-products of air travel—the noise, disruption and pollution—are not actually worth while. The sector is one of the poorest job creators in the economy per pound of revenue. Automation and efficiency savings have meant that the rapid rise in passenger numbers between 2015 and 2019 was not enough to restore direct employment to its peak in 2007, plus wages are significantly lower in real terms than they were in 2006. That is obviously not for the top jobs; this is for the bulk of workers. Quite honestly, air travel just cannot be justified on any grounds anymore. The amendment proposed a review to examine the costs and benefits of planned expansion of the UK air transport sector. Quite honestly, it is not worth it.
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- Baroness Young of Old Scone (Lab)Non-affiliated
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- My Lords, I will talk briefly to Amendment 282F which is in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, and to which I have put my name. It is on the subject of allowing communities access to small areas of land that are available only on a temporary basis to foster schemes for growing vegetables, plants and flowers, not only to produce local food but to give multiple benefits to people’s health and mental health, and to community cohesion and engagement. In her absence, I thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for her session with me and the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, last week. We were disappointed that she saw this as a local and not a national issue. The problem with having this lodged at a local level is that these small, ad hoc community initiatives are, in many cases, very informal, and do not have a lot of oomph behind them in an understanding of how local government works or of who to talk to at local authority level. Indeed, there often is no one at local authority level for whom this would be a job. They falter, and then the lawyers get involved with the lease issue, if it gets to that point, at which stage these small community organisations collapse totally under the bureaucracy and strain of not having lawyers of similar firepower to the local authority. I was delighted to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, talk about “Gardeners’ Question Time”, which is taking place in the House this evening. A very famous television gardener tried to get one of these schemes going in Birmingham, with a very determined national public servant. After three years, even they could not make it happen. This simple amendment would require local authorities to identify those patches of land that they have, either in their own ownership or others that they know about, that are available for a defined short or medium term; people can grow a few things on them, have a good time and become cohesive communities. It would be a splendid idea if the Government were to accept this.
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Baroness Randerson (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, raised an interesting issue. I will briefly comment on it because, to me, it seems that the fundamental issue is not just a visual aspect; it is also the fact that by using paving on front gardens you greatly increase the risk of flooding, because the run-off from paved-over front gardens is a serious addition to flooding problems. The issue here is not just whether you have pretty flowers in your front garden. There are complex issues, such as those which the noble Lord referred to around access to home charging, which will be very important in the future. There are excellent porous products that can be used instead of hardstanding. If local authorities are to have a role, it ought to be in specifying to ensure that porous products are used, not just in front gardens but in the creation of any car parks, because they work perfectly well. I will briefly refer to the issue of aviation and the provision of airports. The concentration of so many large airports in the south-east of England is one of the most obvious manifestations of inequality in the UK, as well as making it extremely difficult to build modern public transport links to those airports to reduce their impact on the environment. The UK is generously supplied with airports, in comparison to most other countries. Many of them have spare capacity. I would urge that what needs to be done is to take these two factors together. Therefore, there is no justification for the expansion of airports in the south-east, and, in particular, no justification for expanding Heathrow for a third runway.
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- Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)Labour
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- My Lords, there are a number of quite disparate amendments in this group, so I will speak briefly to them. The first is Amendment 281 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, to which I added my name, on a register of disrepair in schools and hospitals. This raises a very serious issue. She introduced it very clearly and in detail, so I will not repeat what she said other than to endorse her remarks. We are completely behind her amendment and what she is trying to achieve with it. If the noble Baroness wants to test the opinion of the House, she will have our strong support. Turning to the other amendments, I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, is now in his place. His amendment, around creating a new partnership model for town centre investment zones, has not really been mentioned. We had quite a discussion about this in Committee, in which we expressed our support. I express that support again and urge the Government to work with the noble Lord on how this approach can be taken forward. We need to do something to support many of our town centres, and his suggestions are worth exploring. My noble friend Lady Young spoke to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, around local authorities publishing a list of publicly owned land which is suitable for community cultivation and environmental improvement. I totally support the principle of this; it seems like a sensible way forward to improve local growing and the environmental purposes of land. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, introduced the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, around reviewing the air transport sector. We must really think about our approach to this when we look at climate change. Obviously, we must support this important part of our economy. However, there is so much more to consider. I come back to this over and again: why is it so much cheaper to fly than it is to go by train? This has got to be at the core of how we approach this, particularly if you look at what the French Government have done regarding internal flights. It is something we must take a much stronger look at. Finally, I was going to make the same point as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about surface water flooding. If we are going to pave over more of our towns and cities, we are going to have more of a problem with surface water flooding—it is just a matter of fact. I support the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, to see what we can do to stop so many of the gardens in our towns and cities being paved over. It is not just about the aesthetics—although, obviously, they are lovely; there is a practical reason to consider this more carefully.
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- Earl Howe (Con)Conservative
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- My Lords, Amendment 281 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, considers the important issue of school and hospital safety. It would require the Government to keep a register of schools and hospitals in serious disrepair. Nothing is more important than the safety of pupils, patients and staff in schools and hospitals. That is, I am sure, common ground between us across the House; however, it is our belief that the amendment is unnecessary. Furthermore, we think that it would not, in practice, have the effect that the noble Baroness intends. The Government provide significant funding and support for the upkeep of schools and hospitals, including additional support where there are issues that cannot be fully managed locally.
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- Baroness Pinnock (LD)Liberal Democrat
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- My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Howe, for his extremely long, detailed and careful response to the issues I raised about the repair of schools and hospitals. I remind the noble Earl that the amendment refers only to setting up a register for buildings that suffer from serious disrepair, so it would not cover emergency water leaks or the like. The importance of a public open register is to enable transparency for all those who work in or use those buildings—patients, parents, pupils and all the staff who work in those buildings. Then, of course, it also enables accountability to those bodies responsible—in the end, the Government—for having full and timely repair processes for those public buildings. I am afraid that unfortunately, the noble Earl has not convinced me of the Government’s approach to school and hospital buildings that are in serious disrepair, so I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
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Lord Northbrook (Con)Non-affiliated- Quote
- My Lords, before I withdraw the amendment, I make a small request for a letter from the Minister. My noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook said at Report: “Legislating for information to be published on a specific platform, when it is routinely made available on local authorities’ websites, would remove their ability to publicise decisions at a local level.”—[Official Report, 6/9/23; col. 543.] However, these consents and notices are not routinely made available by my local borough, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea; they are kept secret and are not published anywhere on its website. I ask my noble friend the Minister to write to me to explain whether he agrees that they should be made available somewhere on an LPA’s website. If not, why not; and if so, what is the objection to having them on the planning website, rather than a separate register, which might be hard to find and the existence of which might even be unknown? After all, the planning website is what everyone looks up to see what conditions have been imposed on an applicant, and the idea that an LPA should be able to hide them on another part of its website is absurd.
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Lord Mawson (CB)Crossbench- Quote
- My Lords, I put these two amendments, Amendments 282A and 282B, down at Report because we were unable to debate them during Committee because of the timing of the debates. To save time, I have shared with the Minister and my sponsors the detailed speech I had prepared for Committee, with its reference to real projects my colleagues and I are working on and the disconnects we are experiencing in the machinery of the state as we seek to focus on delivering what the Government call levelling up—and I declare my interests. These imperfect amendments were put down simply to encourage a discussion with the Government about implementation and the delivery of their levelling-up agenda; they are not seeking to make a party-political point but to share practical experience on the ground. My colleagues and I have been working at the front edge inside the machinery of the state for 40 years. Our work began in a failing East End housing estate and is now expanding nationally. We are today operating in some of our most challenging communities across the country. We are sighted in granular detail on what is and is not happening on the ground, below all the processes and paperwork, and on the ability of the public sector to deliver whatever we mean by the levelling-up agenda. The machinery of the state is in considerable difficulty. It is a fact that any Government coming into power will have to grapple with: the inability of this public sector machinery to deliver in detail and in practice the democratic wishes of the people of this country. This is a serious matter. This is not just true regarding the levelling-up agenda. We have listened in recent debates in your Lordships’ House to speeches about this broken machinery when it comes to defence. I point noble Lords to the excellent speech on the challenges of defence procurement made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, before the recess. In recent months, we have also listened to debates on the broken machinery in the justice system, the police, the health service, et cetera. There is a serious problem here; we ignore it at our peril.
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Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson. I will reiterate two points very quickly, recognising the lateness of the hour. The first point is that implementation is not the boring, straightforward part after the smart policy people have done their work. Too often in government, that is how it is viewed. Implementation is really hard. My world of digital has taught us that thinking of implementation as something that comes after is the wrong way to do it; instead, you should think of things as entirely iterative. In an agile way, you should continually be testing and learning in a cross-disciplinary, user-focused way. That is what the digital world does every day, but it is also what brilliant regeneration work does every day. I hugely support the principles of these amendments, partly because of that first point and partly because I have also seen—in both the NHS and the Covid response—that it is only when we have all sectors of society working together on implementation that we get real change. We need the public, commercial, private and third sectors working collaboratively on the ground. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, has been doing this for 30 years in Bromley-by-Bow, but we saw it on the ground across the whole country in our much-vaunted vaccination programme. What was truly brilliant about it was the genuine local, cross-societal engagement in reaching the people who were most vulnerable and most in need of getting those first jabs. That was implementation at its very best. I have a simple question for my noble friend the Minister: if the Government will not accept these amendments, can she assure us that they really do appreciate how important implementation is? Also, if they do, how will she ensure that the good ideas in this Bill are not just passed on to someone else—that is, for someone else to think about how to do them—but are continually iterated so that we learn how they can best be implemented?
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Lord Lansley (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, I thoroughly agree with my noble friend Lady Harding of Winscombe about this. But this is not a fire-and-forget piece of legislation; in the levelling-up part, it has its own metrics. The metrics are all there in the White Paper. I want to add two requests. The first is that this is not good enough: we are two general elections away from 2030, when it is intended that these metrics are reported. That is too far away. We need a sense of what is being done, how it is being achieved and the progress being made. Secondly, we have talked a number of times about the advisory council on levelling up. We now know that it has a work plan and some of the subjects that it will address. Some will be very useful—for example, understanding precisely what the Government’s intentions are for investment zones would be useful to people in many parts of the country. In place of Andy Haldane giving interviews in which he says, “It’s all a mixed bag”, we actually want some of these subjects to be reported by the advisory council, transparently and openly. It is important that Ministers engage with the advisory councils, but they should not be purely internal. As the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, rightly said, they should enable those charged with levelling up across the country to see what the Government are doing, why they are doing it and what progress is being achieved. I hope that my noble friend will say more about the transparency of the advisory council.
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- Lord Rooker (Lab)Labour
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- My Lords, if nobody is getting up, I will just let the Minister and my Front Bench know that I agree with the content of all three speeches I have just listened to. My message to the Front Bench is that things have to be done differently. The noble Lord, Lord Mawson, did not just invent this system; it has virtually been his life’s work and it has been a success. It is not like the good old days and the bad old days; we have to learn lessons and do things differently. The present arrangements have not worked. In the last Labour Government we made mistakes, but we are in a different world now, by and large. There is going to be a general election, when there may or may not be a change of Government, but there ought to be a change in policy about the way that these issues are dealt with. They cannot all be one size fits all, which is the apparent view of the present Government, whether of the public or the private sector. Partnership, good leadership and a willingness to share responsibilities is the only way to success.
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- Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)Labour
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- My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and his fellow signatories to the amendments in this group. As we have heard, they refer to very important issues relating to how such a complex and far-reaching Bill should be implemented. There was much discussion earlier about the wasteful and partial way in which the levelling-up fund was implemented so that, instead of making a real contribution to levelling up, it became a beauty contest of who could spend the most on consultants to put their bids together. There is no better example of the rationale for close and careful consideration of how the Bill will work in practice. I hope the Government will pay close attention to the wording of these carefully considered amendments, to how they will ensure cross-departmental working—which is not a feature of this Government nor of past Governments—and to the committed devolution of powers and funding, which will be necessary to deliver any meaningful levelling up. But I fear that this might have to wait for the Labour Party’s “take back control” Bill.
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- Baroness Swinburne (Con)Conservative
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- My Lords, Amendments 282A and 282B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, raise the important matter of ensuring that the right approach is taken in giving effect to the changes that would be made by the Bill. I understand that he was unable to move his amendments in Committee, as he had intended, and my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook is grateful for the engagement that she had with him on them.
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- Lord Mawson (CB)Crossbench
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- My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in this debate and who have engaged with me as I put together these two amendments. I thank in particular the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, who was planning to speak in this debate but the change of date last week of the last day of Report prevented this. We would have benefited a great deal this evening from his vast experience in this area. I also thank the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett, Lord Scriven and Lord Young, who have engaged with me and supported my amendments. I thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and wish her a speedy recovery. I thank her for her responses and her resilience, having watched her over the months, in dealing with so many amendments in a challenging Bill. We are nearly there but I think that, when she is back, some of us should take the Front-Bench team out for a drink and buy them a whisky—they deserve it. These two amendments are not perfect, but they are an attempt to encourage this House, as part of the levelling-up process, to have a serious cross-party debate about the implementation of the Bill and the fitness for purpose of the machinery of the state. The issues facing this machinery are not new and they are not the fault of this Government. This out-of-date siloed machinery has been evolving and becoming less fit for purpose over several decades, and possibly longer. We have all heard the present state of play in recent debates in this Chamber, as I have said, not just about levelling up and regeneration but about the future of the NHS, the police, the justice system and so on. These systems are increasingly not working and are producing unhealthy cultures which are not fit for purpose. Tinkering with these systems at the edges and doing yet more research is not going to solve the problem. My two small amendments, Amendments 282A and 282B, will not change the world, but they are an attempt to recognise that, in the modern world, if you are to deliver real change and transformation on the ground in some of England’s most challenging communities, you cannot do that without a strong, healthy partnership on the front line, built on trust between the public, business and social sectors, and of course local communities. The future is all about integration and collaboration, not last-century theoretical debates about public versus private sector. The modern world that our children now live in learns by doing and practice, not through expensive research documents, written at 60,000 feet, that few read. This is why my colleagues and I, with our national business and public sector partners, and with the NHS and a number of local authorities, are starting to generate a practical response on the ground in challenging circumstances. Together, in some of our most challenged communities, we are starting to create what we call innovation platforms, focused on place, which bring together these partners and are focused on the delivery of practical projects on the ground. We are purposely creating a “learning by doing” environment; a culture focused on high-quality outcomes but which seeks to build trust and understanding across the silos. If we are going to spend hard-earned taxpayers’ money wisely, it is time as a nation to get more interested in implementation and practice than theory. We need to move beyond too-clever-by-half think tanks and once again get interested in practical people who do things and know how to deliver on the ground. These two amendments, which need more work, are a practical first attempt to find a way to move beyond the impasse at the centre of government systems and encourage this more practical and collaborative culture and approach on the front line. I am happy to meet the Minister and talk with her colleagues in government if there is interest, but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
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- Lord Young of Cookham (Con)Conservative
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- My Lords, I am grateful to all those who took part in the debate some hours ago about protecting leaseholders. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Howe for what he said—that proposals will be brought forward shortly to help those blocks that have enfranchised. My noble friend said that I would greet with a sigh his rejection of my amendment, and he was quite right. I say in return that his heart must have sunk when he read his brief and saw the less than convincing reply he had been equipped with to rebut my amendment. In a nutshell, the Government made a mistake when they drafted the Building Safety Act. Unwittingly, they have removed the protection that some leaseholders were entitled to. They have known for months that there has been this defect, and I do not accept that the defect is so complex that it cannot now be put right. That is what my amendment does. I seek leave to test the opinion of the House.
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Baroness Hayman (CB)Crossbench- Quote
- My Lords, in 2015 David Cameron’s Government dealt a hammer blow to the development of onshore wind power in England. They imposed an effective moratorium on new turbines and the renewal of old ones, cutting off this country’s supply of cheap, clean energy. My Amendment 282K seeks to reverse that damaging and irrational ban and create a level playing field for onshore wind compared with other renewable and low-carbon energy developments by reverting to the pre-2015 moratorium. I am grateful for the support of the noble Lords, Lord Deben and Lord Teverson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock. Removing planning barriers to onshore wind would not only help us achieve our net-zero targets; it would reduce bills, create jobs, boost the economy and increase energy security. The Government have at last acknowledged the need for action in this area and taken some baby steps aimed at easing planning barriers. I of course welcome the changes, particularly those enabling repowering and life-extension of existing sites, and I agree that community views and benefits are important factors. However, what has been done is simply not adequate to meet the scale of the challenge—a challenge that has been highlighted in numerous reports. The potential for onshore wind is substantial. Industry evidence shows that doubling onshore wind capacity in the UK by 2030 could reduce consumer bills by £16.3 billion, boost the economy by £45 billion a year and help create 27,000 skilled jobs. However, even with the Government’s proposed changes, we will still have a far more onerous and complex planning process for onshore wind projects compared with other renewables, and therefore major practical constraints to uptake. As I have said, this problem has been repeatedly brought to public attention. In April, the National Infrastructure Commission’s Infrastructure Progress Review emphasised that “the uncertainty around building onshore wind … in England has undercut the government’s commitment to deploy renewable generation”. The CCC’s 2023 progress report highlighted that the Government do not have a target for onshore wind capacity, even though it is a valuable part of the energy mix and a “required outcome” to achieve decarbonisation of the power sector by 2035. The Skidmore review asked specifically for a task force to support onshore wind. Industry has made it clear that government measures are inadequate. To quote RenewableUK, they “do not go far enough” and, as a result, will not encourage “investment into new onshore wind at the scale needed”. There is still ambiguity in the new wording of the National Planning Policy Framework, which maintains uncertainty, and, given the high capital costs of developments like this, the investment risk remains high and developers will inevitably be cautious. Ironically, politicians’ nervousness about, and sometimes antipathy to, backing onshore wind is not shared by the public. The Government’s recent community benefits consultation shows that 79% of people support the use of onshore wind, and earlier this month YouGov polling for the ECIU showed that 76% of the public said they would support new onshore wind in their own localities. I urge the Government to accept this amendment and create a level playing field for onshore wind. At the very least, I hope the Minister will recognise the need for clarity on the terminology used in the NPPF, and for a date for the publishing of the outcome of the developing local partnerships in England consultation. Most of all, given the widespread scepticism about their proposals working, we need a commitment that the Government will review and publish the impact of the changes proposed to see whether they do, in fact, lead to an increase in planning permissions, or whether—as I suspect, and I hope the House will agree—more needs to be done to allow onshore wind to play its part in levelling up, reducing bills, creating sustainable industry and jobs, and supplying the cheap, clean renewable energy that we need so badly. I beg to move.
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Lord Teverson (LD)Liberal Democrat- Quote
- I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on bringing forward this amendment, and on her fight for rationality in decarbonisation within the United Kingdom. When I get up in the morning in Cornwall, I look out of my window—quite often before I go running or whatever—and I can see some 30 wind turbines from my house. One is about just under a kilometre away, and from it I can see which way the wind is blowing and how strong it is. Most of all, what it genuinely portrays to me is a living countryside that is economically sustainable and which is part of the economic mix. That to me, down in the far south-west, is really important. People understand that, just as the noble Baroness has described. For me, there is an irony in government policy at the moment. Many Members here will recall, as distantly as 10 days ago, the results of round 5 of the contracts for difference for renewable energy. There were two results that were particularly interesting. One of them, which was given a lot of publicity, was that onshore wind had absolutely no take-up—a real disaster for the decarbonisation programme that the Government want to put forward. The area that was less talked about was the fact that, as part of this contracts for difference round, 1.5 gigawatts of onshore wind was actually agreed and promoted by the Government. However, none of that has come to England; it has all gone to Scotland and Wales. Because of the crazy planning system we have at the moment, England was excluded. I would like to understand from the Minister the rationale for that. The other important aspect of the contracts for difference round was that the strike price was around 50p per megawatt hour. That is a really low-cost renewable energy that we as a nation whose households have high energy bills really need. That is why these Benches strongly support this proposal—because it would lead to unequivocally moving back to a planning system where there is equal opportunity for onshore wind. It would also mean that the programme for decarbonisation at a low cost for British households could go ahead. We support the amendment.
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- Lord Rooker (Lab)Labour
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- I want to put on record that I support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and indeed the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, on this issue. The Government have to give an explanation. The experts say it is impossible to decarbonise our electricity supply by 2035. Labour has planned to do it by 2030, but if it is impossible to do it by 2035 then it is certainly impossible to do it by 2030. One has only to look at recent papers—for example, the one by Professor Dieter Helm, an expert. It lists completely all the points that we are going to miss. One of the missing ingredients is of course onshore wind. I have seen these huge onshore wind farms under construction in Shetland. It is true that they took rather longer in terms of planning applications that I thought they would—instead of eight years, I thought they would be pretty quick. The biggest problem will be that they are so big that the grid does not have the wires to get the power to the mainland. That is crazy. Then there is the matter of alternative jobs. I find the windmills magnificent, whether they are in the Lake District, Cornwall or anywhere else—they are not an eyesore—but where are they made? We are losing out on manufacturing. We are importing far too much because we do not have an energy plan. We have 20 bits of energy, but that is not an energy plan. Without one, we are going to be importing and importing, and we are going to lose the jobs that the green policies should give to our people.
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- Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)Labour
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- My Lords, we strongly support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in this amendment. It is important that we continue to discuss where our energy comes from, what kind of energy we want and how it is going to help us meet our net zero and low-carbon targets. Onshore wind has to be an important part of that. She is completely right to draw attention to the problems we have been facing in recent years in getting onshore wind built. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, talked about the issues of the results of round 5 recently. That puts a sharp focus on some of the issues we have had around wind farm development, whether offshore or onshore.
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- Earl Howe (Con)Conservative
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- My Lords, the debates that we have had on this subject are a reminder of the importance of onshore wind in meeting our net-zero and carbon budget ambitions. This amendment asks that we change national planning policy on onshore wind to bring forward more onshore wind installations in England. I am pleased to say that the Government have now done this. Updated policy, which took effect from 5 September, paves the way for more onshore wind projects to come online. It does so, first, by broadening the ways that suitable sites can be identified and, secondly, by ensuring that local councils look at the views of the whole community rather than a small minority when considering a planning application. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is concerned that this does not go far enough but we believe that it is an important and positive change. I fear I really must reject the term “baby steps”. We are committed to increasing the deployment of onshore wind energy and I can assure her that we will keep progress under review, taking into account not only feedback from stakeholders of whatever kind but available data on the schemes themselves, such as those published by the Renewable Energy Planning Database. The amendment would also remove the requirement for applicants to carry out mandatory pre-application consultation with those communities affected by development. I understand the argument that this requirement does not apply to most other schemes. However, we think that effective engagement is particularly important in this case, given the strength of feeling which onshore wind proposals can generate, and the opportunities which positive engagement can provide for improving understanding and identifying opportunities to address potential impacts on the local area. I do not like to sound a negative note on an issue like this but, should this amendment pass, it would for a period also create a policy gap for onshore wind. The foundation of the nationally significant infrastructure projects planning process is national policy statements, through which projects are examined against the national need case. Neither the current nor the draft renewable energy national policy statement covers onshore wind, due to it being consented through other routes. I say again that the Government consider that onshore wind has an important role to play in achieving net-zero targets and we will continue to promote and incentivise deployment across the UK. I am sympathetic to the intentions behind this amendment but I ask the noble Baroness to reflect, before deciding whether to divide the House, that this is an area where we are taking action, as I know she welcomes, and it is important that we give our policy changes the opportunity to work. As local decision-makers are now able to take a more balanced approach to onshore wind applications, and as we will keep progress under review, I hope that I have provided sufficient reassurance for her to feel able to withdraw her amendment.
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- Baroness Hayman (CB)Crossbench
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- My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his very considered view this evening and for the time that he and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, spent discussing this issue with me. I am afraid that I simply cannot accept his argument that what the Government have done is sufficient for the scale of the need. The scepticism that has greeted the Government’s proposals across the industry is such that I think it is really important that the other place has the chance to think again on this issue; they never really thought in terms of wind on the Energy Bill. It is important that they do soi in relation to this Bill, and I wish to test the opinion of the House.
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Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Moylan, who cannot be in his place, I beg to move the amendment.
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The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Morris of Bolton) (Con)Conservative- Quote
- My Lords, I have been asked by the Clerk of Legislation to inform the House of an error in the reprint of the Bill as amended in Committee, House of Lords Bill 142. At the end of Committee, government Amendment 504HA was applied to the Bill in the reprinted copy of the Bill when in fact it was not moved on the final day of the Bill’s consideration in Grand Committee on 24 May. As a result, what is now Clause 231, page 273, line 25, subsection (8)(l) was added in error to the Bill. No amendments on Report have been tabled for that line of the Bill. To remedy this, the Public Bill Office will correct the Bill when it is reprinted at the conclusion of Report, but for the sake of transparency the House is being notified now before it considers Clause 231. Clause 231: Regulations
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- Earl Howe (Con)Conservative
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- I beg to move. Amendment 307A (to Amendment 307)
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Lord Bach (Lab)Labour- Quote
- My Lords, I appreciate, of course, that these matters have already been debated on 13 July. However, because of the gap in time and, in my view, the considerable importance of the issues at stake, I intend to make a few short comments. The Mayor of the West Midlands wants to also be the police and crime commissioner. Clause 59 was put into the Bill solely to achieve that end. Now, he wants to be the police and crime commissioner straight away—before the election, which is due on 2 May next year. Thus, government Amendment 307 says that Clause 59 must come into effect on the day on which this Act is passed. This is in marked contrast to Clause 58 and Clauses 60 to 62, which do not come into force until two months after the Act is passed. Why the difference? The simple answer is so that the democratically elected and excellent police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands can be removed from office and the mayor take his place without any consultation. Clause 59 allows for no consultation, with either the constituent councils or the other local authorities involved. Again, this is in marked contrast to Clause 58, which demands consultation by statute. However, with a cynicism not worthy of a British Government, the Minister, whom we wish well, was obliged to say on Report: “Clause 59 maintains the triple-lock model … That triple lock is that … transfer … of powers needs local consent, the agreement of the Secretary of State and approval by Parliament”. Of course, the Secretary of State agrees—he has been hand in glove cooking this up for months with the mayor—and of course Parliament does not vote against statutory instruments, but what does “local consent” mean? It beggars belief that “consent” means, in this case, the consent of the mayor, the very guy who wants the job straight away. Listen to the words of the Minister, who said, “local consent will be given simply by the mayor”.—[Official Report, 13/7/23; col. 1916.] That is not consent; it is its exact opposite. It is Newspeak, and it is taking this House and the people of the West Midlands for idiots. The unseemly and unconsidered rush to remove the elected police and crime commissioner is quite unacceptable. My amendment, if passed, would stop that and insist that any such changeover, involving, as this does, the complex issues of funding, staffing and other matters, must be made properly for the sake of both good government and common sense. I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.
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