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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“They have welcomed the £10 million extra for social care, and the city has tried to maintain spending on social care for the elderly, looked-after children and people with disabilities, as have most councils up and down the country, but we know that this is really a one-year settlement, for obvious reasons, and that next time we will probably be looking at a multi-year settlement. The hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) talked about the fair funding review, but that is not about an increased budget in total; it is just about redistribution. Somebody will lose out, unless the Government put more money in so that everybody gains. That will be the challenge that comes out of the review. There is also supposedly the retention of up to 75% of business rates, and maybe some impact from the business rates review itself—who knows?”
“The Secretary of State is right that the spending review is better for local government and that it gives a spending power increase of just over 2% in real terms—I think that was the figure given—but that has to be put in context: it is actually a 5% reduction from 2015-16 and a 20% reduction per head of population in real-terms spending power since 2010. Those are the figures the IFS has produced. Local government has received bigger spending cuts than any other part of the public sector, and we have all experienced that in our constituencies up and down the country, whether they be urban, rural, large city or small town; they have all been hit disproportionately by those cuts. At least we have some stability this year, as the financial officers in Sheffield have said. For the first time, they are not facing a package of cuts.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend. We need a separate funding stream for adult social care, as the two Select Committees recommended in the last Parliament. Also, my Select Committee recommended a review of council tax very much along the lines that the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) recommended, but the Government just dismissed it in their response and said they were not minded to do a review of any kind. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is disappointing?”
“I welcome the commitment both to HS2 and to Northern Powerhouse Rail, but in neither case did the Prime Minister mention Sheffield. Could he therefore confirm that the Sheffield loop will go ahead as planned in HS2, and that the Northern Powerhouse Rail improvements are about not just Manchester to Leeds but Manchester to Sheffield as well?”
“I am sure my hon. Friend has had a chance to read the Local Governance Research Unit’s excellent annual survey of local government finances, which shows that 10% of councils are worried that their resources will be insufficient to meet their statutory duties. We could reach that clear tipping point unless the Government act.”
“May I begin by thanking the Minister for his continued support for devolution to the Sheffield city region and south Yorkshire? I think we have just about got there. That is very welcome. The Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government has in the past commented on the fact that, so far, devolution has been about powers being transferred to mayoral combined authorities in certain areas. Initially, the Government were going to allow 100% business rate retention, which would have meant more money and more powers to local government across the country. Will the Government have another look at that proposal, to see whether all councils should now benefit from devolved powers?”
“I hope the Government are prepared to listen and to be much more radical than they have so far indicated they are going to be.”
“The real difficulty—and it is not something that anyone has an easy solution for—is that that is very difficult to do in this country because of the great inequalities we have here. In Sweden, people have a much greater ability to raise money at local level, and they can do that because the country as a whole is much more equal. The differences in wealth and resources between different parts of Sweden are much less than they are between different parts of this country. That is the challenge: how to devolve powers, but also the ability to raise money in a country where inequality is so great that raising money at local level results in a big difference in the amount that can be raised from any individual tax. I know that is a challenge, and it is a challenge that I hope the Select Committee will now take up with a report on devolution.”
“It is so complicated that I think the Government have to separate out the mechanism for the redistribution of money within local government, which is what they are now trying to do through business rates retention, and the incentives to local councils to encourage local economic development. The two are separate, and the Government must do that. In the end, there is a really big challenge when we come to devolution. I hope the Select Committee will go back to the inquiry on devolution that we started in the last Parliament. I am a passionate believer in more decisions being made at local level not just by councils, but by local communities. The real problem is that this should not just be about transferring powers down; it should be about transferring the ability to raise money and to make decisions at local level.”
“Social care would continue to be administered through local councils; this is not the centralisation of the social care system. There would be a move eventually—eventually, as money comes in—to having free personal social care. That was the cross-party recommendation, and I hope we can have cross-party discussions on that basis. I am certainly willing to enter into them, and I am sure that people across the House would do so if we look at this on that basis. I would say to the Government that we ought to be able to improve local taxation. They should have another look at the whole issue of council tax bands. I know revaluation is a really difficult issue, but they should have a look at some reforms. Business rates retention is desperately complicated.”
“We recommended a social care premium, and I still stand by that. We went for a citizens’ assembly and set one up—the first time for a Select Committee—and we were told, “We don’t mind paying more, but we want to know that that money goes into social care”. Let us make it clear: we did not recommend a private insurance scheme, where people only get out what they pay in. We recommended something very similar to the German system, where people pay a premium—it could simply be an increase on the national insurance premium, or it could be a completely separate premium that goes to something like a friendly society, which administers the money on behalf of the Government—but, whatever happens, that money has to be separate, accountable and shown to go into social care.”
“However, we cannot have fair funding for local government unless the totality of the funding is sufficient for all councils, and that is the reality. All the reports we did on the Select Committee have shown this gap of up to £10 billion, particularly on care services, by the end of the Parliament. This is about making sure that local government as a whole gets a fair deal, not just every individual council. If we are to sort that out, we have to say, as the joint report of the two Select Committees—the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee—did in the last Parliament, that we need a specific agreement and settlement for social care. We cannot continue to fund social care out of business rates and the council tax. It simply is not going to work.”
“I know that there is disagreement, and it depends which analysis we read, but that fair funding review has to recognise the issue of deprivation right across the formulas, including the foundation element. In the end, this is about distributing money according to need and the ability to raise money at a local level, and that has to be reflected in all elements of the fair funding review. Looking to the future, there seem to me to be some key issues that have to be addressed. First, local government needs the certainty of a three or four-year funding settlement. That was welcomed in the last Parliament, and we need it again. As I have said, we need a fair funding review that is genuinely fair.”
“We cannot continue to fund social care simply from a business rates increase based on CPI. It just does not add up, and the Government have to address that at some point. More money has been put in this year, which has been generally welcomed. Sheffield City Council told me that, for the first time in many years, it is not having to make in-year cuts because of the extra money that has come in. It had about £10 million extra for social services, which has taken the immediate pressures off. But looking ahead, the council does not have certainty. It was worried by the report that came out the other day indicating a possible £30 million cut as a result of the fair funding review.”
“The Select Committee made recommendations in 2019 on how to address that, and I am sorry that the Government did not feel able to accept them. Business rates are, again, determined by central Government, with no say at a local level. Last night, the Government changed the basis for calculating business rates increases from the retail price index to the consumer prices index. Do the Government really think that, in the longer term, business rates growing at 2% as the major funding source for local government can deal with the rising pressures on social care? It simply does not add up, and that message has come not from other Members of this House but from local councils—from the LGA and the County Councils Network. Paul Carter, when he was leader of Kent County Council, made this point powerfully to the Select Committee.”
“Spending on road safety, libraries, leisure, buses, housing and environmental services—things that are really important to the vast majority of our constituents—has been cut by 50% or more. As I have said before, there is a challenge to democratic accountability at a local level when, despite what the Minister said, people see their council tax rising every year, yet the services that most families who do not get social care use are being cut as they pay more for them. That is a fundamental challenge, and it has to be addressed; I will come on to how we might do that in a minute. I turn to the other problems, one of which is council tax. Council tax has not been revalued for 20 years. Its bands are fixed in concrete, and it is becoming increasingly regressive and out of touch.”
“Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) mentioned, that the biggest pressures now identified by councils are on children’s services, followed by services for the elderly. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, which I chair, published a number of reports in the last Parliament. We know that the funding gap could be up to £10 billion if it is not addressed by the end of this Parliament. We also know the impact of the attempt to prioritise social services. Council spending on social services has risen from 45% of total spending to 60% between 2000 and 2020, which has squeezed out spending for all other important services.”
“This is a very important debate because these services affect millions of our constituents up and down the country. The reality is that local government has had bigger cuts to its funding than any other part of the public sector since 2010, with a 50% cut in Government grant and, even by the Government’s figures, a 25% cut in spending power. No other part of the public sector has had that level of cuts. We know that the biggest cuts have fallen in the poorest areas in the north of the country. It will be interesting to see how the Government respond to the pressures on services in areas such as south Yorkshire and the north-east following the general election; perhaps they have a bigger interest in defending those areas in the future. Clearly there are massive pressures on social care. We know from the LGIU survey, which my hon.”
“Any successful peace plan is likely to need land swaps based on the 1967 borders, but does the Minister accept that those swaps have to be agreed by both parties? When looking at the map that is proposed for a Palestinian entity, does he not see fragmented bits of land, joined in some cases by a very narrow corridors? Does he not see a map that is completely unsustainable and one where those corridors could be cut at any time by Israel at a moment’s notice?”
“The Secretary of State referred to the local housing allowance. About a year ago, the National Audit Office did a damning report for the Public Accounts Committee, stating that the Government had done no proper analysis of the connection between their welfare reform policies and homelessness. Will he rectify that with his colleagues in the DWP and produce such an analysis for the House?”
“My right hon. Friend is making a valid point. I am sure he recognises that we tried to amend the Homelessness Reduction Bill in Committee to place a responsibility on other public agencies to address homelessness. What we got was a duty on them to refer people to housing departments, not to address it themselves.”
“Those are two proposals from Sheffield’s housing department for ways in which the Act, and its delivery, could be improved.”
“Those schemes must be applied for, monitored, and contracts drawn up. Indeed, the council is employing an officer just to do that applying and monitoring. Can we not change that and make it simpler? Secondly, because of the extra demand, and the extra requirement for temporary accommodation with the 56-day rule, in order to avoid increasing the number of families in bed and breakfasts, the local authority wants to build two new projects for temporary accommodation. I support that good and positive move, but Homes England’s policies are not flexible enough to recognise the difference in funding needs and requirements for temporary accommodation, compared with ordinary residential accommodation. Will the Secretary of State look again at that?”
“Indeed, I think Sheffield is now regarded as something of a model for how the Act should be implemented, and I receive virtually no complaints from constituents about homelessness—a real change from where we used to be. The Director of Housing and Neighbourhoods also told me that the council is having to take on more staff to deal with the 56-day extension to the prevention requirements in the Act, and to offer extra advice and assistance to people in non-priority categories. However, those staff are not covered by the extra money provided by the Government. She also said that, as opposed to previously when the supporting people programme provided all the money, the council now has to apply for a whole range of different funding streams to get the necessary resources to deliver on the Act.”
“They produced an Act that is good in so many respects, as it concentrates on the prevention of homelessness, while also dealing with the issues faced by those who are not a priority for housing provision, but who still need appropriate advice and assistance. I wish to consider how the Act might be made to work better. At the beginning of the process the Committee was concerned about a lack of funding, and the LGA still expresses those concerns. At Sheffield City Council, the Director of Housing and Neighbourhoods, Janet Sharpe, and cabinet member Paul Wood told me that generally speaking they have had good working relationships with Government officials.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) on their excellent maiden speeches. I am sure that the warm tributes they rightly paid to their predecessors were recognised by many Members across the House. The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 is the only Act to have involved pre-legislative scrutiny of a private Member’s Bill by a Select Committee, and the benefits of that were shown by the involvement not only of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who introduced the Bill, but by that of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, the Government, Crisis and the Local Government Association.”
“My hon. Friend raises an important point. I know that the Government are doing a review of those other materials. Are we not slightly uncomfortable about the fact that material that has now been banned from use on new buildings under Government regulations is still allowed on existing buildings? Materials that are not of limited combustibility cannot be put on new buildings, but such materials are still on existing buildings, and they pose a risk to residents.”
“Fire authorities also have conflicts of interest. They often set up their own trading arms and then mark their own homework. That has to stop as well, and the Committee was very clear on that.”
“That does not mean that every building should be inspected by a local authority-employed inspector, but the local authority should do the appointing so that there are no conflicts of interest, and that has to be resolved quickly. The Royal Riverside development in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) is a horrible case. The resident students had to be moved out by the council and the university. The building had been signed off as fit to live in, but there were fire doors missing and it had not had a fire risk assessment. A whole catalogue of problems meant that the building was a real fire risk, but it had been signed off by the building inspector, who could not have been to the site to check those things. It was proved later that he had not been to the site. This is simply not acceptable.”
“Such buildings include student accommodation, residential accommodation for the elderly, hotels, hospitals or nursing homes. The risk posed to each is different, and there must be specific regulations to deal with it. Any material of limited combustibility on those buildings, irrespective of their height, creates a greater risk. That is something else that the Government now have to address. The Select Committee also focused on an issue that came out of Dame Judith’s report—namely conflicts of interest, which often mean that the wrong things are done. I will highlight just two examples. The first involves building inspectors appointed by the developer who then sign off the work of the company that appointed them. Dame Judith was caustic about this practice, and she made it very clear that this has to end.”
“Experts tell me that zinc composite material is just as dangerous and combustible as aluminium composite material. High-pressure laminate material has been reviewed and tested. It is not allowed on new buildings but it can stay on existing buildings. As my hon. Friend said, there is also wood cladding material. If, eventually, the Treasury were asked to fund a scheme for those materials that is similar to that used for ACM, the bill would potentially run up to £3 billion. I suspect that is why Ministers cannot move faster at present. There is a real challenge there. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East rightly mentioned that this is not just about height. The focus has been on buildings that are more than six or 10 storeys, but buildings do not necessarily have to be high in order to be at potential major risk.”
“If the freehold has been sold to a company whose only source of income is ground rent, that company is unlikely to be able to fund the removal. That is a Catch-22 situation. If neither leaseholder nor the freeholder can pay for it, we are back with Government responsibility. That leads us to other forms of cladding. The Government have quite rightly banned the use of non-limited combustibility materials on new developments. However, certain cladding that cannot be put on new buildings is allowed to remain on existing buildings. There is something fundamentally wrong with that situation. I hope it does not take another disaster before the Government recognise that some of that other material has to come off as well. I know that the review is taking place.”
“There are still far too many buildings with ACM material on them, partly because, even though the Government brought in the ban, it took an awful long time to persuade the Treasury to come up with the funding to remove the material from social housing, and then to offer a financial assistance scheme to the private sector. There is a real issue that will affect any other Government action on leasehold properties. It is absolutely right that leaseholders are in no position to pay for cladding removal. In cases involving fairly recent developments, the property developer may still be the freeholder, so the ownership will not have changed and they might be in a financial position to pay for the cladding to be removed.”
“Most are welcome and I think there is cross-party agreement about the direction of travel. The cross-party concern on the Select Committee has been that while the Government’s response has ultimately moved in the right direction, they have not moved as quickly as they should have done. Many of the proposals that the Government are now considering implementing were recommended by the Select Committee some time ago. The cladding and aluminium composite material were a major factor in the Grenfell disaster. The Government moved very quickly to ban that material, and they were right to do so. The problem is that it has taken time to remove it from buildings.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) on an excellent opening contribution. It was serious, thoughtful and comprehensive. I am sure the Minister will respond accordingly, as my hon. Friend made some valid points. I begin by thanking hon. Members for re-electing me as Chair of the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government. I say that because I want to refer to the Committee’s work on these matters in the previous Parliament. It looked many times at post-Grenfell issues. Dame Judith Hackitt and Ministers appeared before the Committee, to discuss her excellent report and the Government’s response. I could not be in the House last Monday, but I read what the Secretary of State had to say on further Government proposals.”
“There are an awful lot of issues to examine; the Minister is probably grappling with some of them in her new post. There are major challenges. I look forward to the Minister, along with Dame Judith, attending the Select Committee before long, to see what progress has been made. Our job is to challenge and scrutinise the Government, and hopefully to push them to move a little quicker than they have moved in the past.”
“My hon. Friend has covered many points, and I will not go into all of them. He raised an important issue about not just how well buildings are built when it comes to fire safety, but about how they are managed and maintained afterwards. One of the strengths of Dame Judith’s report was that it looked at the whole life of buildings, including residents’ involvement in ensuring that they are properly informed about their buildings, and at how buildings are maintained and managed. It also looked at ensuring that a properly accountable person is in place to do that, so that the organisation has rules and procedures on whether doors should be changed to improve their fire resistance, whether they are being kept open, and whether they are being properly maintained. All of those issues are absolutely crucial to the safety of buildings.”
“The Select Committee recommended that in 2015, which was five years ago—we got there in the end. She can probably give a very simple answer on this point. She said that the work will be signed off by a “competent inspector”, but what does that mean? One of the problems with part P of the building regulations is that, although there is a competent person scheme, that does not mean, ironically, that a competent person has to do the work. It simply means that the company has to be part of a competent person scheme and that it has someone with the necessary qualification, but that someone does not necessarily have to be the person who does the work. Will the inspectors have a certificate to say they are competent, or will they simply be employed by a company that is part of the competent persons scheme? That is a really fundamental point.”
“I am disappointed that the Government did not accept the Select Committee’s recommendation that it should be down to the local authority to decide which areas should have licensing schemes. Why do the Government have to second-guess this? We said this should be a local authority decision. In the age of devolution and local democracy, let local authorities do it. As long as people can appeal to the Secretary of State if local authorities do not follow the proper process, the decision should be for the local authority and local community, and not something for Ministers to second-guess. The Minister kindly wrote to me about the Government’s right decision to bring in inspections every five years of electrical installations in private rented accommodation.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right to draw attention to that further conflict of interest. The National House Building Council refused to honour a warranty because the development had not been signed off by its own building inspector. That is in the small print of the warranty agreement. These fundamental problems need to be addressed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East has said, people in private sector accommodation face fire risks. Houses in multiple occupation have real challenges and difficulties. My hon. Friend drew attention to licensing schemes, which are really valid. It is not the licence itself that matters, but managing the licence and ensuring that proper inspections are done. Local authority resources are key, but local authorities often do not have the resources to do it properly.”
“The new homes ombudsman is an interesting idea, and we look forward to hearing from the Government about the timetable for that legislation. Will the ombudsman have teeth? If it finds one of those scandalous situations in which developers have built shoddy homes, will individuals be able to get compensation? Will the ombudsman be able to ensure that the compensation is paid?”
“I am disappointed that the Secretary of State could not come to the opening last Friday of the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre in my constituency, which is looking at linking research into the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases with physical activity, using new technologies including robots. I am pleased that he has contributed £14 million to this project. He has missed that opportunity, but may I invite him to come to the centre and to discuss how he can help to set up a centre for child health technology, again using innovative and technological solutions, towards which we will expect his contribution to be helpful?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this important issue. Does she agree that that could have been avoided had police advice been listened to? In the Parliament of 2010 to 2015, I went to see the Minister’s predecessor with the South Yorkshire police, who had said, “This arrangement is not safe.” Recently, Chief Inspector Darren Starkey of the South Yorkshire police wrote to me that “any stranded vehicle, in any live lane or carriageway on any motorway or other strategic road presents an immediate safety risk”, but that when there is a hard shoulder, those “risks are less than being in the live lane”.”
“What the Minister has said is interesting, but given all he has heard, does he accept that smart motorways, or all-lane running—whichever he wants to call it—are as safe as building an extra lane and having a permanent hard shoulder?”
“This may be a question more appropriately directed at the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who is sat next to the right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench, but he mentions Grenfell and dealing with fire safety issues. The problem is that, at present, there is a difference according to where you live. I know the Government are doing a review, but if leaseholders have a form of cladding that is not of limited combustibility but is not ACM cladding, basically there is no help for them. Many are living in flats that are now unsaleable. The Government really have to address that issue. I look forward to a commitment that that will be done, if not from him then from his colleague next to him.”
“The right hon. Gentleman denigrates the efforts, policies and achievements of the previous Labour Government on productivity. Will he therefore explain why productivity went up by over 2% under that Labour Government on a consistent basis? Since 2010, however, productivity has hardly risen at all.”
“The Government need to put their weight behind getting that work carried out. The second issue to address is what to do about other forms of cladding, such as zinc cladding and high-pressure laminate cladding, which many experts believe are as dangerous as ACM cladding. Although they will not be allowed on new buildings, they are still on existing buildings. Where leaseholders have this on their homes, they often find that they cannot sell those homes and are stuck in them. That is a real problem and the Government need to undertake a more comprehensive review of that issue.”
“The Select Committee’s report recommended action on all those challenges. It is much more difficult to deal with existing leases, and a draft Bill is therefore probably the right way forward to try to make sure that we get all the nuances and the details correct. Hopefully we can also do that on a cross-party basis. Finally, on the issue of cladding, there is a building safety Bill in the Queen’s Speech to implement the recommendations of the Grenfell inquiry and the Hackitt report, on which the Select Committee has had various hearings. There is still a challenge. The Government have put money in to deal with ACM—aluminium composite material—cladding, but there are still too many properties where, because of disputes between freeholders and leaseholders, the cladding has not been removed.”
“Landlords normally wait for the section 21 time to elapse before doing it, but if section 21 is not available, landlords need to have those powers. It is recognised in the Queen’s Speech, but we need a timetable for that to come into effect. Another issue is how we deal with the problems of leases. Reference was made to a draft Bill at Question Time yesterday, and I think that is probably the right way forward. I know it will take a bit longer, but there are some real challenges, not about how we stop leases on new houses and deal with the unfairness of leases on new flats, but about how we tackle the problems of existing leases, including the unfairness in how some of them have been sold, the unfair service charges and the difficulties people have in buying their freehold.”
“The first is the abolition of section 21 evictions. We know that evictions from private sector housing are a major cause of home- lessness in this country. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s inquiry into homelessness identified that as a problem. Equally, if we are to abolish section 21 evictions, we need to think about how we deal with rent increases without having an overbearing rent control regime. That is a big challenge, and it might be something the Select Committee will want to consider. We recognise the good intention, but we want to know how it will be delivered in practice. At the same time, we want to see legislation on housing courts so that there is an easier way for landlords to evict tenants who simply do not pay their rent.”