Mr Clive Betts
MP for Sheffield South East · Labour · United Kingdom
“I wholeheartedly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, both its content and its tone. I would like to ask about his discussions with our colleagues and allies in other countries who are looking to implement similar sanctions.”
“I offer two congratulations: first, to my right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, the First Secretary, on her well-deserved promotion—I am sure she will do an excellent job. Secondly, I congratulate her and the Prime Minister for their real commitment to devolution, which I have wanted to see for an awfully long time.”
“I apologise for the fact that—as I have explained to you, Madam Deputy Speaker—I will have to leave straight after my question to chair Westminster Hall. I thank my right hon. Friend for doing this very challenging piece of work. I think that the theme of fairness, for the people who need benefits and for taxpayers, is right.”
“On the other hand, so many constituents with really serious conditions get turned down for PIP, and can get it only if they struggle through the appeal system, sometimes without any help at all. So the system is not fair to anyone at present.”
“When the previous Government let the contract, we were in a situation in which procurement could not properly take account of the past record of companies, and I understand that the Government have now changed that.”
“I will dive very deeply into the question, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Chair of the Committee sends his apologies for his absence; he is presently in a Committee meeting.”
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“There are so many issues in the housing field that need a specialism, and need quick decisions and quick resolution. A housing court would be one way of doing that and of trying to improve the process.”
“The Government have done absolutely nothing to rectify that injustice. Can we not see something on that again? I do not think that there is any great conflict across the House, or between anyone who has been involved in this matter. It is wrong—absolutely wrong. Solicitors should not be induced in this way to provide conveyancing to a purchaser, when the developer is recommending that solicitor. It simply is not right and it needs addressing. My final point is one that we raised on the private rented reforms that the Government will hopefully pursue —and hopefully this year coming, rather than waiting any longer with regard to section 21. We have called repeatedly for a housing court. I know the Secretary of State will explain again why he does not want to do that, but I think we ought to keep asking.”
“Currently, many leaseholders have no idea what the money is being spent on. There is no obligation on the freeholder to explain it and certainly no protection that funds have to be used for the purpose for which they are paid. On mis-selling, one of the big complaints we heard when we met leaseholders—this related to houses in particular; Persimmon Homes has been mentioned, but there were other developers too—was the fact that they were being sold a leasehold as though it was the same as a freehold. The solicitors were compliant in that, because they had been recommended by the developer. Often, a bonus was thrown in: “We’ll give you new carpets in the living room if you use that solicitor.” The Competition and Markets Authority investigated at our request and said there was mis-selling, but so far nothing has been done about it.”
“The Father of the House makes a very reasonable point. My point is simply that forfeiture is currently a blanket possibility that can apply to any breach of a lease, however minor, and non-payment of a very small amount could cost the leaseholder the total of the value of their property. That is what we have to stop. Why do freeholders not have to join a redress scheme? The Committee called for them to be included in the redress schemes. The Secretary of State is bringing in a number of redress schemes and ombudsmen extensions, so why can freeholders not be included? One of the big issues raised with us, where again there is a lack of transparency, is that many leaseholders have to pay into a reserve fund—a sinking fund—for their property. Can we not have some protection for those funds formally written into law?”
“That is an extremely good point. I do not think the Select Committee actually made that point, but it adds to its recommendations in a very thoughtful and helpful way. There are a lot of issues, and I am sure we will not resolve all of them in today’s debate, but they need to be addressed in Committee. There are reforms to the proposed legislation that could be made, most of them quite easily. The bigger issue of leasehold flats is for another day, but it ought to be kept on the agenda. I welcome what is in the Bill, which could be the basis for a much-improved piece of legislation. Perhaps we will see an improved Bill come back to us on report.”
“I thank the Minister for responding to that point. Will he look at strengthening the Bill to stop companies like Coppen Estates avoiding the legislation? Strengthening the legislation is fine, and so is changing the way that enfranchisement fees are calculated so that people get a better deal, but in the end, the freeholder has to respond, which Coppen Estates refuses to do. My constituents in the Flockton estate in Sheffield have tried and failed for years to get a response. How will the legislation be strengthened to ensure that such companies respond?”
“Does the Home Secretary agree that our constituents would expect that, before we vote on any measure in this House, we thoroughly understand what it is going to cost? In the end, it is not our money we are spending; it is their money. Coming back to a question that he did not answer before, will he give a figure for how much it will cost this Government—our constituents—for each asylum seeker sent to Rwanda for the whole five years they are there? If he will not give us a figure now, will he agree to give a figure before we are asked to vote on the Bill?”
“It is a manufacturer of plant that can produce green hydrogen, and it is already exporting that plant around Europe. There is a logic to linking up the refuelling stations that ITM Power could build with hydrogen buses in a city such as Sheffield. There need to be a number of buses to make it economical and cost-effective to have hydrogen refuelling stations. Joined-up government, with different Departments working together, would be really interesting and important.”
“Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for North Antrim (Ian Paisley)—is that the topography of Sheffield is very challenging for traditional electric vehicles. Because of the hills, their range is less than it would be in flatter topographies. Vehicles have to be recharged more often, and the work they can do to complete their route schedules is therefore not as good as it might be elsewhere. We have the possibility of hydrogen, which tends to allow for a much longer range. Wrightbus in Northern Ireland is already producing hydrogen vehicles for London, Aberdeen, Belfast and Dublin, showing the way forward. Very conveniently, in my constituency we also have ITM Power, which is the leading research organisation for green hydrogen in this country and one of the leading organisations in Europe.”
“Thank you, Mr Robertson. This is a really important debate, because nitrogen dioxide is poisonous—particularly to children, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) says. I congratulate him on raising this important issue. I am pleased that Tinsley Meadows Primary School was built by Sheffield City Council, relocating the original school away from the motorway because the very high NO 2 levels there were damaging to children’s health. One of the worst problems is that in inner-city areas, poorer communities often live close to major arterial roads. The roads running into the city of Sheffield are the ones where we tend to get the highest levels of pollution, so it is those communities who suffer most. A point that I particularly want to make—it was very helpful to have a lead-in from the hon.”
“It is happy to provide the refuelling capacity. It is happy to work with Government and bus companies. Let us have some joined-up thinking across Government and let us get things moving forward, not just for the clean air that we want for Sheffield, but as a major innovation and a major move forward for the use of hydrogen in buses in this country.”
“I agree with the hon. Member about joining up. Indeed, the Minister can happily say good things about ITM Power and what the Government want to do, because the Government launched their hydrogen strategy nationally at ITM Power a couple of years ago. The Energy Secretary and the Chancellor have both recently been to visit ITM Power to show the Government’s support. It is well renowned, and it shows the way forward for green hydrogen. That is the way we should be moving. I hope that the Minister will follow my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central in asking for more resources and more clean buses for Sheffield. When he is looking at new vehicles for Sheffield, I ask him seriously to look at the role that hydrogen buses can play and at how the Government can properly join this up. ITM wants to play a role.”
“I hope that the Minister will respond to this point as well. Given that the Government want to be technology-neutral, they ought to explore hydrogen as well as simple battery buses. Would Sheffield not be a very good place to expand their understanding of how hydrogen buses can work, because of the topography and ITM Power, and to try to roll out more hydrogen buses in a fleet, to see whether that delivers what everyone wants?”
“The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee has been taking evidence about local government finances. In the past two years, expenditure on homelessness and temporary accommodation has increased by 50%. The reality is that section 21 notices are a prime driver of that. The Renters (Reform) Bill will abolish section 21, but the Government have not yet announced a timetable for the legislation’s implementation or the abolition. The Government have said that we need court reform. I completely agree, but how was that helped by the Chancellor’s announcing in the autumn statement a freeze of the budget of the Ministry of Justice for the whole of the next Parliament?”
“The Government had a commitment in 2019 to deal with immigration. I have a simple question: why has it taken four years for them to recognise that they need a plan? Social care relies on workers from abroad, because there is no strategy in place for workforce, training or funding. So before the Minister agrees to increase the salary at which people can come from abroad to work as social care workers, will he agree to do a full impact assessment on what that would mean for the social care sector? What measures will be put in place to provide better salary and training for UK residents to take those jobs?”
“I read about it in the Financial Times on Saturday, and if the Financial Times can be told on Saturday, I am sure this House can be told today.”
“The Minister has said a lot about inputs, but what is important, in the end, is outputs and the changes that are made. Will the Minister say which indicators have shown a reduction in inequality between the south-east and the north since this funding began, and in particular whether the productivity gap has reduced at all? Finally, I am surprised there is no mention of the trailblazer projects in Manchester and Birmingham and their roll-out to the other mayoral combined authorities. I understand that they will be rolled out but with reduced powers for the rest of the combined authorities. Will the Minister tell us exactly what the situation is? Please do not ask us to wait for Wednesday’s statement.”
“This should be an opportunity for fans to celebrate and enjoy. I remember the 1996 Euros, when the Danish fans came to Sheffield and drank the city dry, without any problems or disorder whatsoever. Will the Minister give two commitments? First, will he engage with the Football Supporters’ Association in full planning for this? It needs to be involved because it has really good ideas and experience. Secondly, will he talk to the authorities about ticket pricing, so that those on low incomes, and particularly children, can get to the games and enjoy the events?”
“I think we all understand that there have to be steps towards an eventual conclusion, and we all want to see the fighting stop. The Labour amendment calls for a “cessation of fighting”, which presumably means a cessation of firing. What is the difference between a cessation of firing and a ceasefire?”
“My right hon. Friend is making a good point about housing costs and the shortage of housing in this country. Is it not therefore astounding that, given the climate we are in, there is not one single word about housing in the whole King’s Speech? There is not a single word about the shortage of housing or the rising costs of housing, no long-term proposals to build on this vague commitment of 300,000 homes, and no idea how to build them.”
“The Chancellor talks about what he sees as some successes. Why does he not address the problems of small modular reactors? Sheffield Forgemasters in my constituency could be building SMRs, but it has been waiting for months for the Government to make a decision on a go-ahead for the right techniques. ITM Power, which is a leader in green hydrogen, is building plant in Germany, which is spending £7 billion on it in the next few years, while in this country we are spending £1 billion, so we are losing the international race on that.”
“That is what we should be moving towards.”
“It is about getting a fairer distribution of funding and giving fans the legal right to be consulted on important things that affect their club; again, we will have to see the details. Finally, I completely condemn Hamas’s attack on innocent Israeli citizens, but I condemn just as strongly what Israel is now doing. The killing of innocent women, children and other civilians in Gaza is not acceptable and cannot continue as it is. I want to see a humanitarian pause and an end to the blockade to get aid into Gaza, and I want to see that as the basis for a ceasefire. A ceasefire cannot just be announced; both parties need to sit down and agree to one. That has to be done, and it has to be a stepping-stone to moving forward to a two-state solution: safety for Israel and a free Palestine, free of Israeli occupation.”
“GVA in our major cities is lower than the national average, which is completely different from what happens in Germany and France. We need to get the whole country and the whole economy growing but, again, there is no plan, no strategy and no long-term future for this country. There are one or two good things in the King’s Speech, and I welcome them. We have not yet seen the details of the leasehold reforms, but certainly stopping the building of new leasehold houses and allowing people more easily to purchase their freehold are good measures that we need to implement as soon as possible. Addressing the problems of service charges and outrageous permission fees also needs to be in the Bill. I also welcome the proposals on football regulation.”
“The Government should be encouraging that at national level, but there is nothing at all. There is no policy, no strategy and no plan for the future. Levelling up was not mentioned in the King’s Speech either. Germany saw the inequality across the country after reunification, so it had a 30-year programme. The inequality in this country is now as great as it was in Germany on reunification, yet all we have had is £4 billion in scattered pots of money for local authorities to bid for. There is no strategy and no long-term solutions. Levelling up, again, appears to have been forgotten but, if we are to get our economy growing as a whole, we have to address the disparities in gross value added, productivity and income levels between different parts of the country. Productivity in the north of England is now lower than in the Czech Republic.”
“That is due to section 21 notices, the local housing allowance freeze—many people cannot afford even to rent a home in the private sector—and the Government’s asylum policy, which is all over the place and is putting great pressure on local authorities in some parts of the country to house people while they are having their asylum position confirmed. We have a massive challenge, and there is nothing in the King’s Speech to deal with it. We ought to address how we build homes for the future. Four years ago, the Government had a working party on modern construction methods, but they have forgotten about it. They have given up. I went to visit Lighthouse, a firm in my constituency that has just taken on 100 workers. The firm has doubled in size and is venturing into modern methods of construction for social housing.”
“We will have to find more money at some point to build more social housing in this country, both to get the numbers we need and to get the numbers that people can afford, as people cannot afford to go into the market to buy in the current circumstances. So many people have to save for years, even beyond retirement, for a deposit on a home. Rising mortgage costs are certainly not helping. There was a promise to abolish section 21 notices in the private rented sector, but we are now told the Bill will wait until some future time—we do not know when—when the court system has been reformed. Yes, the court system needs to be reformed, and we ought to have a dedicated housing court, but the cost to local authorities of dealing with homelessness and temporary accommodation has risen by 50% in the last two years alone.”
“Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Sir Simon Clarke) that we are not building enough homes—that is true—but who has just changed the planning system to take away housing targets from local areas? We will never get to 300,000 unless each area has its own housing targets that add up to that number. A further problem is that we will never hit 300,000 through the private sector alone. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee produced a report four years ago saying that we need to provide at least 90,000 units of social housing through housing associations and councils. The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee is holding an inquiry now, and all the evidence shows that we simply do not have the resources. There is a challenge for both Front Benches.”
“I pay tribute to the outstanding speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Alistair Strathern). It was one of the very best maiden speeches I have heard in this House. It had humour and seriousness. He succinctly described his predecessor in a couple of sentences, and in one sentence he demonstrated his superior knowledge of football compared with the Foreign Secretary. Many people watching across the country will now be reflecting, “If that is the quality of representative we could get by voting for change, perhaps we will give it a go at the next general election, too.” Housing was not mentioned in the King’s Speech. We have a housing crisis in this country, and both sides of the House share an aspiration to build 300,000 homes a year. I agree with the right hon.”
“I apologise for being late to the debate—I was caught out by the earlier start. My hon. Friend is making a good point about the way in which football is often run by individuals who can, in the end, bring a whole club and its community down because of the way the club is managed. At Sheffield Wednesday, Dejphon Chansiri has put a lot of money into the club—great—but he has been saying recently that he may stop the funding, which is obviously a considerable threat. In the end, clubs are not just about the person who owns them, or the chairmen; they are about fans. Clubs belong to them, and they should have the right to be consulted right the way through on all those issues. We hope that the regulator, when it comes in, will have the powers to do precisely that.”
“I think the consultation with fans is absolutely at the heart of this. It was at the heart of the fan-led review, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for that. For the fans, it will be really important that the legislation specifies how fans groups will be appointed as part of the consultation, and it should not be left to the owners of clubs to decide which fans they want to talk to and which they do not, because that is at the heart of the current problems in many clubs.”
“Let me put this in context. In South Yorkshire, since 2010, bus passenger miles have dropped by 50%, which is a catastrophic fall in the use of our bus services. The cuts to services mean that many communities are now cut off completely. When the Government came to allocate the recent funding, which is welcome, did they take account of the fact that South Yorkshire had previously had no BSIP funding whatsoever? Adding the current funding to the previous funding, South Yorkshire has had far less per passenger head than other parts of the country. Why have the Government so discriminated against South Yorkshire and my constituents?”
“We raised the issue with our high commissioner in Ottawa, who was very supportive. She was amazed at what had happened, given the multicultural nature of Canada as an open and welcoming country. She has raised the matter with the Canadian Government and appreciates that I am raising it in Parliament, to try to ensure that no one is treated in this way in future. I look forward to any help that you can give in this matter, Mr Deputy Speaker.”
“At Montreal airport, the same issues were raised by Canadian immigration. At Toronto airport on the way back, my hon. Friend was again challenged. He got on his flight with assistance from our consul general, who was very helpful. My hon. Friend has received apologies from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Canadian Minister for Immigration and from Air Canada. However, given the racist and Islamophobic nature of these challenges, I believe that as well as writing to the Canadian high commissioner, which I will do, it is important to put these concerns on the parliamentary record. It was completely unacceptable for a Member of this House to be treated in this way. Because he was an MP, my hon. Friend was allowed on his flights; if, however, one of our constituents had been so challenged, they might have been refused.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you for this opportunity to raise a point of order about a serious incident affecting my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on a Select Committee visit to Canada last week. On checking in for their flight at Heathrow, all Committee members got through except my hon. Friend, who was delayed for questioning for a considerable period. He was told that this was because his name is Mohammad. He was asked whether he was carrying a knife or other offensive weapon; he was also asked where he was born. The questioning was undertaken by officials from Air Canada and, we believe, the Canadian Government, despite my hon. Friend having already been given a visa to enter Canada. After proving that he was an MP, with help from our Committee Clerk, he was eventually allowed through.”
“The court would be up and running, and be effective and efficient in dealing with cases in the future.”
“The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee raised the need for an effective and efficient court system to deal with such matters. Evictions will now have to go to court because they will not be automatic under section 21. Also, many more tenants may go to court over landlords refusing to do repairs, because they will no longer fear retaliatory evictions. Officials in the Department have suggested that the delays in implementing the Bill came about because of the need to reform the courts, and that that is down to the Select Committee. As I am sure the Secretary of State is aware, the Select Committee actually recommended a specialist housing court—we did that several years ago. If the Secretary of State had agreed to that at the time, there would no longer be any need for delay.”
“The Bill does not really deal with the issue of affordability at all. One of the big issues is the freezing of the local housing allowance: some 90% of properties in the private rented sector are not affordable with the amount of LHA that is payable. The Select Committee recommended that we go back to the 30% figure, as was previously the case, so could we push for that to happen? Currently, many people simply cannot afford anything at all in the private rented sector.”
“Coming back to the point about tenants on benefits, why can we not have a ban on landlords automatically prohibiting tenants on benefits from renting? Surely the Secretary of State should do that, and should indicate very quickly that he is prepared to accept that as an amendment to the Bill.”
“We welcome the Secretary of State’s saying that rent increases cannot take place more than once a year, but we have concerns about the overload on the tribunal system and the way that those arguments will be played out, often with the landlords having a great advantage. We are not quite sure why the Secretary of State is saying that a tenancy agreement could not have a yearly update of rents in line with inflation, with no need for argument. That is actually the case in many rent agreements now. While it has been difficult in the last couple of years with hyperinflation, historically—with inflation at about 2%—that has not been an issue and it gives some certainty to tenants. We are not sure, and we have not had an explanation, why the Government have ruled that out completely.”
“We have suggested some changes and some improvements, on which I think the Secretary of State will come back to us, to make sure that the property portal is comprehensive. It should cover things such as when the property last had a gas safety certificate and when the electrical systems in the house were properly inspected, and information of that kind, including whether it complies with the decent homes standard. All those things are important, and tenants should be able to access that quickly. The registers should be updated and digitised, which we are encouraging the Secretary of State to do. We hope he will come back positively on that. The cost for tenants is important.”
“That cannot be an excuse for delaying something that has already been delayed for far too long. I want to point out one or two other issues. I welcome the Secretary of State’s welcome for the work that the Select Committee has done, even though his response was a little late; I accept his apology for that. We said very clearly in our report that enforcement by local authorities will be absolutely key in making these changes work. There has to be proper funding for local authorities, as the Local Government Association has said today, to enable that work to be carried out properly. We want assurances from the Secretary of State on that as well. One of the really good ideas is the property portal, so that tenants and all of us know who the landlords are.”
“When a home is taken away, people have to move somewhere else, and their children have to uproot themselves from their school and be taken to another school. Members of the family who work may have to find another job somewhere else, because their home has moved and they can no longer get to their place of employment. That simply is not right in this day and age. We recognise as a Committee—I made this point in an intervention—that there will be added work for the justice system, because evictions will now require a decision from the courts and more tenants may feel empowered to go to the courts. I am really disappointed that the Secretary of State is not going to indicate when he thinks the reforms to the court system will be in place to allow the legislation to be enacted. I think we need assurances today about when that will be.”
“First, I put on record that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. Having considered the White Paper and then the Bill, the Select Committee welcomes in principle the proposal from the Government to abolish section 21. We heard evidence in a number of sessions from organisations such as Shelter, looking at the interests of tenants, and from the National Residential Landlords Association, and they all accepted that this was the right way to go and engaged constructively with the Select Committee on that. People’s homes can be taken away from them just like that when they have paid their rent and observed their tenancy conditions, and in principle that simply cannot be right.”
“Even if the Secretary of State cannot say so today, I hope he is encouraging those behind the scenes who can make the changes to make them in a proper and timely way. I have a couple of other points. Student housing is different. The difference in student housing has been recognised where it is purpose-built student housing in that it will be exempt from the ban on periodic tenancies. That is entirely sensible. Recently, we have seen some real pressures on student accommodation in some university cities. Last year, Manchester students were actually being encouraged to live in Liverpool, because there was not enough housing in Manchester for them. That is just one of a number of examples in relation to protecting the student market, including non-purpose-built accommodation.”
“I completely agree with those points, and I hope the Secretary of State responds positively to them. I think the situation is of real concern, and there is no reason why the ban cannot be enacted. I have already made the point about local housing allowance. It is not part of the Secretary of State’s Department, but it is part of Government policy. It is always going to be a challenge for tenants to pay their rent in the private rented sector given the rise in rents recently, but people on the lowest incomes and on benefits are now being excluded from most properties because they simply cannot afford it, because their local housing allowance has been frozen. The LHA needs to be lifted.”
“Why can we not have just one ombudsman covering the whole of that area? At least everyone could understand it, rather than having to think, “Which bit do I go to in order to get this grievance raised?” I hope the Secretary of State will reflect on that point, which was simply made, to ensure that the process of redressing grievances works better. Members of the Committee welcome the basic principle of the changes proposed by the Secretary of State, and we want them to be implemented as quickly as possible. We hope he will continue to listen to those recommendations that he has not yet indicated a willingness to accept.”
“I recognise that the Secretary of State has responded to the Committee’s report, and while not allowing a complete reversal to periodic tenancies for non-purpose built student accommodation, landlords will have the right to terminate the tenancy in line with the university year—I think that is the basis of the proposal he is suggesting. That might well be a good compromise to take things forward, and I am sure the details of that will be tested further in Committee. On the proposals for the ombudsman, the suggestion in an intervention from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) about having one housing ombudsman, and incorporating the private sector role into the social housing ombudsman role, is very sensible. Why do we need two separate schemes for letting agents?”
“The Minister’s children are in their 20s, but we want to make sure that they are not in their 30s before the Bill actually comes into effect, so will she give us a clear time when the courts will be ready for the Bill to be active in the Government’s view?”
“Can he tell us how many councils he thinks are now on the brink of section 114 notices, and what action he will take to help them in advance?”