Gareth Thomas
MP for Harrow West · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Local councils such as Harrow need to invest more in youth facilities that divert young people away from crime. Some of the CCTV projects in my constituency that Harrow council has turned down—in Wealdstone, south Harrow and central Harrow—should get funding.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate and on the way in which he approached the subject. I join him and my hon.”
“I also want to suggest that the Metropolitan police does not get recognition across the whole of the UK for its hugely important work in tackling national and international crime, and that perhaps more recognition of that is required in the funding formula.”
“In particular, in Harrow, we recently saw enforcement teams contracted out to an organisation called Kingdom. The responsibility for that contract was with Harrow council. There was widespread criticism of the way some of the staff employed by Kingdom tried to levy fines on a number of young people in south Harrow, in my constituency.”
“One way we can further support the Metropolitan police is by allowing it to keep more of the proceeds from successful operations, such as recovering stolen funds hidden in bitcoin assets. I congratulate my hon.”
“Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has done a huge amount to try to redirect funding from other parts of his budget to minimise the impact of that cut.”
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“I very much enjoyed the speech by the hon. Member for Croydon South, but I want to take the Committee back to the issue that underpins some of the Government’s intentions in this part of the Bill: the price of land. The price of land in London is probably the single biggest constraint on housing development, and in particular helping small housing developers to enter the market. I therefore find myself torn on the question of permission in principle. I recognise that for some developers it is potentially a helpful tool, but I worry that it will exacerbate the rise in land values in certain places, notably London, where by any definition land prices are rising extremely fast.”
“You should be knighted for your service on this Committee, but I appreciate your guidance, Mr Gray. There is a general need to give would-be developers on a floodplain some sense of what might be acceptable so as not to exacerbate the flooding risks.”
“Finally, I come to the question of the re-election of the hon. Member for South Norfolk. I paraphrase it in those terms because he prayed in aid with enthusiasm tall buildings in central London. I worry that his constituents might not share his love of tall buildings. I see their virtue in places such as Croydon; I am not quite so enthusiastic about the prospect of having them in central Harrow, and nor are my constituents. I have to confess that I do not know, but I suspect that the constituents of South Norfolk would not be too enthusiastic about the prospect of 20-storey blocks of flats being part of developments there or in the surrounding area.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response. Ministers have occasionally said that they want to help small and medium-sized house builders to increase their market share. Giving those developers much more certainty about what would and would not be acceptable on a site would surely reduce their costs over time and increase their chances of accessing sites that they can afford. I would have thought that amendment 284 would appeal to the Government, given their enthusiasm for starter homes. Giving greater clarity to would-be developers about the proportion of starter homes required on a site as part of the suitable dwelling mix that a community might expect would surely both encourage the starter homes initiative that the Government want to push and give more certainty to developers.”
“Well, it is an important point, Mr Gray. I was not for a moment suggesting that the hon. Gentleman would be enthusiastic about a proposal for tall buildings, but there would be much less likelihood of his constituents being provoked by an application for an unnecessarily high development if the provisions in amendment 284 were on the statute book and would-be developers in South Norfolk knew that the community, South Norfolk Council and so on did not expect a development of more than, perhaps, 11 storeys, as I think he referred to in his Berlin example—”
“Oh, I beg his pardon: a development of four storeys, or even fewer. That would help to give some confidence to the community about potential developments. If the hon. Gentleman were to have the courage to resist the power of the Government Whips Office and back the amendment, I have no doubt that he would be smoothing the path a little to his re-election. The hon. Gentleman provokes me to speak about self-build and custom housebuilding—”
“Indeed, Mr Gray, this is within the context of the amendment. Paragraph (b) of amendment 284 would give local authorities and broader communities in South Norfolk, Harrow and Dulwich and West Norwood the opportunity to send a signal that they want more self-built or custom built properties on a particular site. I hope that the hon. Member for South Norfolk would want to see a housing co-operative designated on many of the sites. Paragraph (b) offers the hope that some local authorities might want to do even more on custom and self-build. In that spirit, I support the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood.”
“It is an excellent pub—Labour-supporting, which is an additional benefit that the Trinity brings—and I would not want to see it forced to stop allowing performances by local and other bands as a result of the pressure that may or may not come from those who move into homes where there were once offices.”
“The campaign was led by an excellent local resident, Bill Ashton, who was then the conductor for the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. He was rightly concerned to protect a local music venue, and he argued that very few such venues in outer London hosted jazz and ska nights. My worry is that, without the amendments, the environmental health concerns that my hon. Friend alluded to will continue to increase the pressure on licensing authorities to take away licences for music venues. The Trinity pub in my constituency is still very much going on. It has two floors and the upper floor often hosts small bands, or bands that have not yet made it. There are many offices within the vicinity of that pub.”
“I rise to support these new clauses. To me, they seem to make eminent sense. They are not an over-the-top provision and they are not creating a particularly onerous regulatory burden. However, they are seeking to re-establish a balance between, on the one side, the need and the appetite for new housing that all Committee members report and, on the other side, the need to maintain centres of cultural activity. My hon. Friend has just set out some of the rationale for these amendments. I want to draw the Committee’s attention to what motivates my support for the new clauses. I am motivated in part by the experience of one of the grassroots venues that has closed in my constituency. The Rayners pub used to host jazz and ska nights on a regular basis, and when it closed there was a long campaign to stop it being earmarked for development.”
“Friend rightly highlighted the fact that London has borne the brunt of the closure of music venues, but it is not only in London where music venues have closed; Birmingham and Manchester have seen small music venues closing, as have Edinburgh and Glasgow—of course, Scotland is outwith the scope of the Bill—and Bristol, Plymouth, Newport and Swindon have all seen important local music venues closing. We must do more to stop such local venues closing in future. As my hon. Friend has alluded to, it is clear that there is insufficient guidance for our planning authorities to stop the closure of music venues.”
“The pressure on music venues to close might not be there and there would be opportunities for more parts of our great capital city to benefit from the European city of culture and provide an additional range of cultural activity for people in the area. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham rightly dwelt on the Mayor of London’s music venue taskforce. I am not a huge fan of the current Mayor of London, but I give him credit when it is due on occasion. His taskforce has shone a spotlight on the closure of grassroots venues—a 35% decline, as my hon. Friend said, in the past eight years in London. That is deeply worrying and ought to be a wake-up call for us all, not only in this Committee but across London, to see what else we can do to make sure there is not pressure to lose such venues. My hon.”
“Again, I gently encourage the hon. Gentleman not to go for a long liquid lunch, but to be back promptly to be able to hear the Minister when he declaims on this subject. I am glad he is an enthusiast for the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, but it is not only jazz that might be affected in future; a host of other genres might also be affected. I hope the hon. Member for South Norfolk is not in a parochial phase, but that he might be willing to recognise that the idea of a European city of culture bid from outer London—something for which I have campaigned for some time—might benefit from the provisions in the amendment.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to resume where I left off, Mr Gray. I hope that Conservative Members, particularly the hon. Member for South Norfolk, have had a good lunch and continue to look forward with enthusiasm to the Minister’s response to the new clauses, not least out of concern for and interest in jazz at small venues, but also out of more general interest in the concerns of small music venues that may be at risk.”
“The industry points to a number of examples where this principle is already written into law. I am told it has been particularly successful in Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, and I think it is well worth looking at in the British context, not least given the sharp decline in music venues in London. On Thursday evening we will all go back and Government Members will celebrate the fact that the legislation has got through its Committee stage and that they have successfully resisted any temptation to engage with the Bill in a critical way. They might want to go out on the town to celebrate, and look for a music venue. Perhaps the hon. Member for Peterborough will want to go out to see an ABBA tribute band—he has the look of someone who likes that type of music—”
“The hon. Gentleman has, I am sure, secured the sympathy of the whole Committee. Anyone reading the extracts from Hansard of this section of the debate will be instantly sympathetic. As well as paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham for the way she introduced this debate, I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Michael Dagher), who has championed the new clauses and worked with a number of organisations within the music industry concerned about the impact of planning legislation on music venues. It is in part through his work, as well as the work of the industry itself, that the idea of trying to write into legislation the principle of an agent for change concept being established in planning law has come to fruition.”
“I am extremely grateful to you, Mr Gray, for your guidance, which further confirms my view that a knighthood should be pressing for you. My point is simply that there are many forms of music outwith those that attract large crowds that are performed in small music venues; those venues are under threat and we should do more to protect them. New clauses 19 and 20 wold give us the opportunity to make some progress in offering that kind of protection. The Minister for Housing and Planning is perhaps a fan of Duran Duran, again not necessarily a band that would perform—”
“Again, Mr Gray, I welcome that guidance. The particular benefit of new clause 19 is to place on anyone who wants to convert offices to other buildings in an area with a music venue nearby the duty to make clear the potential impact of the noise from that music venue. It is in that spirit that new clauses 19 and 20 are tabled—to bring the agent for change principle into UK law. They are entirely sensible provisions, and with that I urge the Committee to support new clauses 19 and 20.”
“The Minister has virtually answered my question. I was going to ask whether he would meet with a delegation, and he has said that he will. Will he commit telling us before Report stage whether he is minded to do anything else in planning law to help the music industry, which is worried about the future of some venues?”
“I am minded to support the Government amendments, particularly as it is the hon. Gentleman moving them rather than the Minister for Housing and Planning, but will he set out why he thinks they are needed? Compulsory purchase powers have existed for a long time, and I am not aware of a huge problem in terms of access in order to survey land. Why is it a problem now?”
“In the context of the former Harrow post office site, there is an additional complication. It is located next to the Metropolitan railway line. Indeed, it is very close to Harrow-on-the-Hill station, which suffers from the lack of a lift, making access extremely difficult. There has long been talk of a new access point through the former Harrow post office site to the Harrow-on-the-Hill station platforms. With the benefit of amendment 282, it might be easier for local planning officers, developers and even Transport for London surveyors to access the former post office site to examine what potential it might have for new access and a new position for the main parts of Harrow-on-the-Hill station.”
“I am grateful to you, Mr Gray, for allowing me to catch your eye. In April 2015 a series of Conservative MPs came to the constituency of Harrow West to support unsuccessfully their candidate. As they were leaving, some of them may well have paused for a cup of coffee at Harrow-on-the-Hill station—there is a very nice coffee shop there. Just around the corner, however, stands the former post office site, lying empty, as it has done for some 10 years. Why do I raise that? It is partly to begin to make clear the reason for my support for amendments 282 and 283. Both my hon. Friends have explained the need to accelerate situations in which a planning application or development has stalled and local authorities or developers might want access to information about the value of a site, what is on it and how it might be developed in future.”
“That is generous of my hon. Friend. It is a particular concern of my constituents, given the huge cuts to Transport for London grant, which might mean that access programmes that exist for other stations are cut, putting even further away the prospect of better access at Harrow-on-the-Hill station. If there were a way to secure some planning gain from the development at the Harrow post office site that might be invested in better access and it might be another route to achieving the objective that my constituents have had for a long time now, under both Mayors of London, which is to make Harrow-on-the-Hill a fully accessible station. I hope that the Minister will be particularly attracted to amendment 282. In that spirit, I support my hon. Friend’s amendment.”
“That word that has all sorts of connotations for different people. The clause might create a lot of case law, so this is an opportunity for the Minister to set out his definition of “reasonably necessary” and therefore to limit the possibility of misunderstandings in court when a warrant is being challenged by a potential developer. I ask my questions in the spirit of gentle inquiry and look forward to the Minister’s reply.”
“Will he set out examples of when NHS trusts or Departments have wanted or felt that they needed to use force, but had to back off because there is no provision in law to allow that, meaning that they either had not to go down the compulsory purchase order route, or had to find some other way of getting the information that they needed? It would also be helpful if the Minister gave some examples of what is meant by “to use force”. Are we talking about guns or wire cutters? It would be helpful if he could give examples of local authorities that have said to him, “We need the ability to use force to enter and survey land because otherwise we won’t be able to go ahead with a whole series of compulsory purchase orders that have been set out.” I worry that subsection (2) involves, once again, the word “reasonably” being written into law.”
“I am grateful to have caught your eye, Mr Gray. I rise in the context of one or two cases in which Hansard reports of proceedings have been used to help a judge to understand the motives behind measures, thus allowing them to make a judgment on a case before them. I also wish to ask the Minister a number of questions about this clause. When he introduced clauses 111 to 117, he described how several parts of government do not have the same opportunities as others to access, enter and survey land. If I remember his response to my intervention correctly, he referenced NHS trusts in particular, as well as one or two Departments. I wonder whether the situation is the same specifically with regard to clause 112, because it seems a little odd to include in the Bill a clause that authorises the use of force to enter and survey land.”
“The Minister has helpfully detailed the context in which a warrant might be issued and specified that he expects that the vast majority of efforts to enter and survey land will not require a warrant in the first place. However, to come back to the nub of my earlier comments, why is the power necessary? Have the Minister’s civil servants had to field a series of requests from local authorities or developers for these powers?”
“Does the Minister have fracking in mind? He shakes his head and looks pained—I recognise that that is a sensitive subject for Conservative Members—but does he envisage a warrant requiring the use of force being needed if protesters had barricaded themselves in, or if the person who owned the land did not want someone who had been given fracking consent to survey what may or may not be underneath the ground?”
“Even if those employed by Her Majesty did not co-operate, I struggle to understand why we would want to take action against staff employed to look after Crown land, or why the Minister thinks that a warrant authorising the use of force is necessary. Will the Minister set out in particular whether this measure covers Crown Estate land? Has he had any consultations with the Crown Estate itself about how clauses 111 to 116 apply to Crown Estate land under the terms of clause 117?”
“In the spirit of my contribution on clause 112, I want to ask some questions about clause 117. Why do we require a clause on the right to enter and survey Crown land? I struggle to understand why a warrant authorising the use of force might be necessary to enter and survey Crown land, so I would welcome the Minister’s setting out an example of why that might be necessary. I also struggle to understand why somebody who is, presumably, employed by the Queen might be at risk of committing an offence under clause 116 in relation to entering and surveying Crown land. Why on earth do we need to include Crown land under the Bill? One assumes that, as a general rule, Her Majesty and those who exercise control of her lands would work with Government Departments and developers to allow them to enter and survey land.”
“Is this not another example of the Conservative party’s regulatory zeal? Here are institutions in the private sector being told that nanny, in the form of the Minister, knows best.”
“Is not a further problem with the Conservatives’ plan to impose yet more red tape on businesses in the housing association world the risk of pay to stay leading in some cases to a higher housing benefit bill and increased homelessness?”
“I am sure my hon. Friend has seen the Chartered Institute of Housing’s briefing, so she will be aware that those in receipt of the Chancellor’s proposed living wage—say, those on the living wage in Burton or Peterborough—will by 2020 be earning more than the current threshold in the Bill for a high-value social tenant. Therefore, someone on the living wage will have to pay the higher rents. That is surely another sign of the madness of this provision.”
“Does my hon. Friend have any information about whether the Government intend to allow an appeals process under the scheme? I can imagine a situation in which a housing association approaches HMRC seeking information about the income of someone on a zero-hours contract, and HMRC simply provides income details for the last 12 months that it has available. However, that person’s income might be substantially less in the current rental year period than in the previous year, due to their zero-hours contract. A housing association would seek to charge a rent, and the tenant might want the right of appeal. Are we still in the dark as to whether such an appeals process will be available?”
“On a point of order, Mr Gray. May I just clarify for the record that I am equally proud of my Opposition colleagues who went through the opposite Lobby?”
“I would have more belief in the hon. Gentleman’s commitment that those high earners should pay more than lower earners if he was not such an enthusiast for cutting the taxes of the very richest people. However, I bring him back to the example that I gave in an earlier intervention. Evidence from the Chartered Institute for Housing shows that everyone who is paid the living wage—the Chancellor’s living wage—by 2020 will be hit by these pay-to-stay regulations. Does that example not trouble him in the slightest?”
“Given that there are a series of amendments to the clause, I do not want to detain the Committee unnecessarily with a clause stand part debate. In order not to do that, will the Minister reflect, while are we discussing exemptions, on whether tenants of housing co-operatives could be part of the exemptions he is looking at?”
“It seems likely that the Under-Secretary—the more considered, measured and helpful of the two Ministers we have had at our disposal thus far, although that may change—will respond to the debate. Will my hon. Friend seek to elicit from him a commitment that the detail he may be considering including in the regulations will be made available to the House before Report?”
“Those monitoring arrangements will inevitably create an additional burden, and at the moment small housing co-ops are struggling to see how they will be able to fund that. They also worry more generally for some of their members, who may face a sharp increase in the cost of staying in the housing co-operative, and therefore housing association, property. Rent arrears could also increase, which would be an additional cost. Because of the small nature of most housing co-ops, that would be difficult for them to bear. For those reasons, I urge the Under-Secretary to look even more seriously at the potential impact on small housing associations. I will write to him separately outside the Committee, but I hope he will undertake to look at that letter and representations on this provision from housing co-operatives.”
“They say that, because of the cut in rents being delivered in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, there is no additional funding that they will be able to get to deliver some of the other proposals in this Bill and cover the administrative costs they will face. The co-operatives are not, in the main, big housing associations with the scale to find efficiency savings naturally, not least because they do not usually have large numbers of staff or other resources. Much of the administration of housing co-ops is done on a voluntary basis, as part of the quid pro quo of being a part-owner of the housing co-operative. If pay to stay is introduced, Ministers will understandably want housing associations to have a series of monitoring arrangements in place.”
“We believe that they have their tenants’ best interests at heart and that they will use their discretion wisely.” ––[Official Report, Housing and Planning Public Bill Committee, 1 December 2015; c.376.] That was said in the context of other elements of the Bill, but surely it is equally appropriate in the context of pay to stay. The Under-Secretary of State made it clear that he will consider the issue of housing co-operatives in relation to the regulations, and I very much welcome that. However, I say to him that many co-operatives, particularly those in London, have made contact—for example, Vine Housing Co-operative and Coin Street Community Builders have been in touch with me, and Edward Henry House Co-operative has made representations to us.”
“I rise to support the amendment. In doing so, I shall focus on the representations made to me about the plight of small co-operative and community-led housing associations—a point I put to the Under-Secretary of State in a previous intervention. My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham is right to say that the focus of concern for housing co-operatives has been on the administrative costs of managing pay to stay and its impact on the functionality of co-operatives. I take at face value the words of the Minister for Housing and Planning on housing associations. On Tuesday, he said: “The Government trust housing associations to look after their tenants.”
“Not only will that have an impact on real people, but might it not also have an impact on the taxpayer? My hon. Friend may have seen the modelling by Sovereign Housing Association showing that a typical household of two adults earning £30,000 and two children in a three-bedroom house would be eligible for housing benefit in over half of local authorities. That figure rises to some 96% for residents paying affordable rent. For those paying a market rent, the figure would be 100%. It cannot be right that the taxpayer will have to pick up the mistakes of the policy as currently drafted.”
“We know from the way in which the Second Reading debate and, indeed, debates in Committee have proceeded that the Government are not remotely interested in helping those on low or middle incomes who, although they may aspire to own their own home, cannot afford to do so at the moment. Surely the Government being willing to help local councils to build more homes for social rent with the resources raised under pay to stay might be one way in which they could ameliorate some of that deserved criticism.”
“Might this not be a helpful moment for the hon. Member for South Norfolk to intervene to tell us what the leader of South Norfolk Council thinks of the provision?”
“A stand part debate on the clause is an opportunity for us to explore in a little more detail why there is a disparity between local authorities and housing associations over who gets to keep any additional income raised under the pay-to-stay policy. In essence, as the clause is drafted, housing associations get to keep any additional resources under pay to stay, but local authorities have to return them to the Chancellor. The question for Government Members to reflect on is why, say, South Norfolk Council should be treated differently from housing associations that operate in the South Norfolk area? Why should housing associations in Harrow retain some additional resources under pay to stay and yet Harrow Council will not be able to do so? I hope we will hear from the Committee’s answer to Robespierre.”
“I am always tempted to agree with the hon. Gentleman, who I have always thought should be on his party’s Front Bench—that would be only an improvement on what we see before us today. However, I am slightly surprised that he did not commit to ensuring that the Minister not only visits that self-build project as he should—one hopes that it is a housing co-operative—but sits down with the leader of South Norfolk Council to explain why he intends to discriminate against South Norfolk Council as opposed to South Norfolk’s housing associations. It seems to be a bizarre and arbitrary distinction to make.”
“Now that is good news. I hope that the details and minutes of that conversation will be published, because I was struck by the concern of the Local Government Association, sadly at the moment run by the Conservative party, and by its strong opposition to and concern about the distinction between housing associations, which will be able to receive the additional proceeds that might be generated under pay to stay, and local authorities, which will not be able to receive them. I do not know whether the leader of South Norfolk Council is an active player in the Local Government Association and we do not know whether the leader of the LGA took the opportunity yesterday to bend the ear of the Minister on—”
“I am very grateful for your protection, Mr Gray, from the hon. Member for South Norfolk. My second key point is that the failure to allow local authorities to keep any of the additional rent raised further undermines the housing revenue account self-financing settlement, which was supposed to free up local government housing from central Government control, and further reduces the chance of local authorities being able to contribute new house building to address our national crisis. That settlement will be further put at risk by the rent cuts being pushed through in the Welfare Reform and Work Bill and by the forced sell-off of homes that we have discussed already. I say gently to Government Members that I will have to be blown away by the oratory of the Minister not to want to press the matter.”
“My hon. Friend makes an important point, which further illustrates the need for the Minister to be particularly convincing in his response. Question put and agreed to. Clause 79 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill . Clauses 80 to 8 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill .”