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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“I am trying to understand what the Minister actually does want. I am trying to work out whether starter homes will be built in addition to other homes that would have been built, or instead of them. The Select Committee unanimously agreed the following words: “Starter Homes should not be built at the expense of other forms of tenure; where the need exists, it is vital that homes for affordable rent are built to reflect local needs.” Will the Minister tell us whether the Bill as he would like it to be worded would make starter homes the priority and effectively push out and displace affordable homes for rent as part of the section 106 agreements?”
“I am still as confused as I was at the beginning of the debate and at the Select Committee hearings. The Minister has just made an entirely reasonable point. I thoroughly agree that it should be for local authorities to determine the composition of homes to be built as part of section 106 agreements in their areas. How does that square with a policy of giving priority to starter homes and building 200,000 of them irrespective of the consequences for the building of other sorts of housing?”
“The Communities and Local Government Committee took evidence from housing associations when the Government were planning to introduce this scheme for them, and we heard clear evidence that it would cost them more to administer the scheme than they would get in returns from extra rent. Will the Government present a clear analysis of the administration costs of this scheme, particularly for people on variable incomes whose income, and therefore rent, goes up and down each week? We would need enormous amounts of administration to go with this scheme.”
“The Minister has said on a number of occasions that the sale of the “higher-value council properties”, as this has now become, will pay for the replacement of the right-to-buy property sold by a housing association and this £1 billion remedial brownfield fund. The fact that he has said that with such assurance must imply that he has some figures and some workings out somewhere on which he has based those assertions. Would it not be helpful if he could produce those today?”
“The Government disagree with that figure, but will they say what they expect their policies to produce by the end of this Parliament?”
“Will it be a case of starter homes at all costs, or are we going to be in a position where affordable homes to rent can be part of the replacement situation, going back to “like-for-like”? The Chartered Institute of Housing produced evidence to the Select Committee in which it estimated that during the course of this Parliament there would be 300,000 fewer social homes to rent than there were at the beginning. The Minister likes to take credit for the previous coalition Government having built more council homes than were built under the Labour Government, but let us get to the point: during this Parliament, will there be 300,000 fewer social homes to rent, not just council homes but housing association properties, as the Chartered Institute of Housing has estimated?”
“What about areas of land in my constituency where there is no requirement for any affordable housing at present because the sites are not considered to be viable, yet viability is an important test under the national planning policy framework guidelines that local authorities have to work to? Will the Government insist that starter homes are built on a site where it is not currently considered viable to have any section 106 provision for affordable housing? How is that going to work—or will there be local discretion in that regard as well? We need some clarity. We also need clarity about the replacement of the higher-value council homes as to precisely what sort of homes they will be replaced with, how that will be defined, and what the negotiation process between Government and local authorities will look like.”
“When the Minister came before the Communities and Local Government Committee, he said that local authorities meeting developers to discuss section 106 agreements would have discretion over what mix of affordable housing would be built. Can we have some clarity on that? Will starter homes take absolute priority, with local authorities having no choice but to build them to hit the Government’s 200,000 target, and if there is a bit of money left, perhaps putting one or two affordable homes for rent on the site? Or will local authorities, as they are currently allowed to, come to their own view about section 106 agreements and about the right mix of affordable homes on the site, whether that means starter homes—now defined as affordable homes—homes to rent or shared ownership? What is actually going to be the case?”
“The Committee said: “The Department should publish a full impact assessment containing analysis in line with the guidance on policy appraisal in HM Treasury’s Green Book, to accompany the proposed secondary legislation”. When will we see the figures? We have not got them for the Bill. Will we have them before any secondary legislation comes before the House for approval? Will the Minister make a firm promise that that will be the case? He referred to further secondary legislation on higher-value council homes. Will these proposals be thoroughly and properly costed before we reach that point? This is a serious matter—the right of the House to have information before it passes legislation. Let me come now to starter homes. Again, it has been a little hard to understand how the Government’s policy will work.”
“If they are clear that that is what will happen, they must have the figures to have made their promises on. Or are they simply telling us they believe that that is how things will work out, but without any clear evidence to support that? That is a matter of great concern. It was a concern to the Select Committee, which, having heard the evidence, correctly said: “We have not seen evidence that the Government has fully costed the proposals and we call on it to do so as a matter of urgency.” That was agreed at the beginning of February; we are now three months further on, but we still have no figures. The Public Accounts Committee made exactly the same point in its report, and it seemed a very reasonable point, regardless of whether we think the PAC should look at policy before or after it is implemented.”
“The most astounding thing about the Government’s proposals is that we are expected to make decisions about them today without any idea of the costings. When the Minister came to the Communities and Local Government Committee, he said the Government would produce costings in due course—I think he actually said spring was the likely time. Well, here we are in the spring, and I have not seen any figures. It is astounding that we should hear from the Government over and over again that the sale of a, now, higher-value council home will pay for the replacement of that home, the replacement of a housing association property that is sold and the £1 billion fund for remedial work on brownfield land. If the Government are clear that that is what their policies will do, will they please show us the figures?”
“Gentleman will recognise, the Select Committee said very clearly: “Starter Homes should not be built at the expense of other forms of tenure…it is vital that homes for affordable rent are built to reflect local needs.””
“Tony Stacey, the chief executive of South Yorkshire Housing Association, told us that in much of the area where his association works it would not be possible to build back with the money that will be given from the sale of housing association property, and it was likely that the association would simply go and buy up another property in the private rented sector. That could happen as well, and it would not act on the housing stock. There will be very different policies in different areas. I would argue strongly, in relation to starter homes, that we should reflect that by enabling local authorities to come to different agreements that suit their local needs. As the hon.”
“We had evidence from various housing associations about how they were going to respond to the proposals. Some made it very clear that they felt they would gain fewer properties to rent under section 106 agreements than under the previous legislative arrangements. They also made it clear that given that there is now no money in the Government’s housing programme for the rest of this Parliament for any houses to rent, in terms of grant assistance, all the resources—the £8 billion—will go either to starter homes or to shared ownership. Many associations believe that they will be building fewer homes to rent on an affordable basis because of the combined effects of policy as a whole. That will vary from association to association.”
“It undermines the whole idea of a long-term commitment by people who are rooted in their areas and want to stay there because they enjoy living there, they have connections there, their kids go to school there, and that is where their home is.”
“Are we really going to end up with council estates where some homes will have been sold, but in different proportions in different areas, some of which will then have been sold on into the private rented sector, so that we have an increasing mixture of people on the lowest incomes and people there on only a short-term basis? By forcing their rents up, we will push out people on slightly higher incomes who may have a long-term commitment to the area and roots in the area. They may be the people who run the local housing association, the local residents group or the local community forums, and are really active there. Of course, the very same people will be the longer-term tenants who have a real interest in and long-term commitment to their area. What does this policy, and this mixture of policies, do for social cohesion?”
“However, the situation will be a bit strange in a street where two tenants are earning the same amount of money and paying similar rents, one in a housing association property and one in a council property, and one finds their rent going up and the other does not. Let us get away from the talk about subsidised council housing. There is no central Government subsidy to housing revenue accounts, so there is no subsidy to council tenants earning a little more than their neighbours next door, but what there will be, if this measure goes through, is a tax on those tenants, because the money will go not to the council but to the Treasury, and the Treasury levying a charge on a council tenant is a tax by any other name—of course it is. Let us put that together with the lifetime tenancy issue.”
“The whole issue of the right to buy for housing association tenants would not be a significant point of contention if the Government were not forcing the sale of local authority homes to pay for it—and we still have not had the figures to show how that would work. With regard to sorting out more flexibility on starter homes, I still do not know what their policy amounts to because of the lack of clarity that we have had. Finally, I want to raise two really worrying issues where the Select Committee did not come to a view—lifetime tenancies and pay to stay. We welcome the fact that pay to stay will be voluntary for housing associations.”
“Yes. It is interesting that my hon. Friend mentions the LGA, which argued very strongly, on a cross-party basis, that the policy of the right to buy for housing association tenants should not be funded by the sale of local authority assets. I will make sure that I get the Committee’s words right in quoting them to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). We said that “public policy should usually be funded by central Government, rather than through a levy on local authorities.” As usual, perhaps the Government ought to listen to the words of the Select Committee.”
“Potentially it does, because driving out all the people on slightly higher incomes and removing people who are potentially longer-term tenants creates a very different sort of community. We have to be very careful about that.”
“Not only will the right to buy remove social housing in those areas, but the sale of vacant higher-value council properties will remove social housing as well. It is likely that, in future, some communities will have no social housing to rent whatsoever, irrespective of people’s needs. That is the other conclusion, and it is very worrying indeed. In some communities, there will be no home available for those on low earnings or short-term tenancies who have a real housing need but who cannot afford to buy. That is another product of the Bill and I am against it. I hope that Members will support the Lords amendments to at least mitigate its worst impacts.”
“I would argue this: let us tackle the scarcity. Let us start a building programme of 100,000 social homes a year. That is the only way that we will hit the target of the quarter of a million homes this country will need. We have never built a quarter of a million homes without a massive social house building programme, and it is unlikely we will do so in future. I will make one more point about the mix of communities. In other communities where there is, at the very beginning, a limited number of social rented properties, the right to buy that has already happened, together with the proposed extension of the right to buy, will mean that those are exactly the same communities that have the higher-value council homes.”
“Is the hon. Gentleman therefore saying that pay to stay is intended to drive people out of social rented accommodation when they earn more than £40,000? Will they actually be priced out? He seems to be implying that if they live in social housing, there will not be enough social housing for other people, and that we therefore need to get them out of such properties so that poorer people can have them.”
“I want to know whether, in the context of the pilots, the Minister intends the alternative provider to do all the work and make the recommendation to the planning committee, or whether the alternative provider will make information available to council officers who will independently make a recommendation to the planning committee. I think that that is incredibly important. Will a councillor who receives an application and a recommendation receive the recommendation from a council officer who is independent, on the basis of advice from the alternative provider, or receive it directly from the alternative provider who is appointed by the applicant? That is a fundamental point, which has not been clarified even by the Lords amendments.”
“There is also a potential conflict of interests. The alternative provider in one council who advises the planning authority about a scheme could also be a consultant operating directly on behalf of someone in another authority making a very similar application in relation to a very similar scheme, and being paid for doing so. We should be very aware of that possible conflict of interests. The Lords amendments clearly state that the council—the planning authority—is ultimately responsible for making the decision, and nothing that the alternative provider does should bind the council.”
“In other words, the council which is ultimately responsible for making the decision—and that, I think, is what the Lords amendments further clarify—will have no role in deciding which organisation will be involved in the process of working with the applicant to decide, eventually, what the recommendation on the application is to be. There seems to be an idea that suddenly, at the end of the day, a recommendation comes out of thin air. It does not; it results from a very detailed process involving a major application, in which a planning officer and an applicant work through all the details of the scheme. The Bill, however, proposes that that should be done by an alternative provider appointed by the applicant. I think that that is a very strange process, and one that is difficult to justify.”
“I want to say a little about the “alternative provider” clauses and the relevant Lords amendment, which I understand that the Government will be accepting. I continue to be concerned about what I consider to be a most peculiar form of privatisation. Normally, in cases of privatisation, the council is able to choose the companies or organisations that will provide the service and put that service out to tender. In this case—very peculiarly—the applicant will decide who will conduct the process on behalf of the council and eventually, presumably, supply information and advice to the planning committee.”
“Will the Home Secretary therefore offer complete support to the PCC in South Yorkshire to take the force through a very difficult time, recognising that the complete command structure of the force will change, in one way or another, during the next year, and that it will need every bit of outside support it can get from the Home Secretary and others?”
“The inquest findings were very clear that on the day of the disaster, South Yorkshire police failed completely in a number of respects. Even more alarming, in some respects, were the attempts to cover up those failings afterwards. May I reflect on the comment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) that this is no reflection on the important work done by the ordinary community officers of South Yorkshire police on a day-to-day basis for the safety and security of my constituents and the residents of South Yorkshire?”
“On that point, we heard nothing yesterday from the Secretary of State, either at the meeting of the all-party group on steel and metal-related industries or in the Chamber, about what action the Government will take on energy costs and business rates—costs that are burdening the steel industry, and on which the Government could act, yet we have seen no sign at all that they will change their policies in these vital areas.”
“Does the Secretary of State accept that the support that the Government are giving our steel industry in respect of energy costs is only a fraction of the support that Germany and other countries are giving their steel industries? It will still leave our industry with much higher energy costs than those of other European Union countries. Is the Secretary of State not prepared to consider going further to help our industry when it is in such a difficult position?”
“I would like to take the Secretary of State up on that so that he can explain precisely how it will happen. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the other day that it is perfectly possible to compensate for the changes in small business rate relief at present, while there is grant in play, but that it will be nigh impossible to do that from 2020 onwards, when there will be no grant for the Government to use. Also, how, precisely, will the Secretary of State compensate for the change from RPI to CPI, given that that involves a variable that changes every year? How will the mechanism work?”
“I asked the Secretary of State about this issue in questions earlier. He said that the cost of small business rate relief in this Parliament would be funded by section 31 grants. Will he confirm that that grant will not come from any other part of local authorities’ budgets, and if it is not will he point out precisely where in the Red Book it says how that is funded?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State gave me a direct answer about where in the Red Book the cost of the compensation for local authorities will come from is specified. He referred to page 84, line 15. However, that deals with the cost of the loss for small business rate relief, and does not deal with the grant that will replace it. Whereabouts is the section 31 grant covered in the Red Book?”
“Will someone please show me where in the Red Book the section 31 grant is described as compensating local authorities?”
“I want to get beyond the Budget headlines, which often lead to cheers from the Government Benches, and instead consider some of the details and try to get some answers. I want to return to the point I raised in Communities and Local Government questions earlier, in an intervention on the Secretary of State and then in a point of order, because I still have not had an answer. The Government have said that local authorities will be compensated for the change to small business rates relief, which amounts to £1.7 billion in the next financial year—2017-18—and to similar amounts in years after. He said it was mentioned on page 84, line 15, of the Red Book, but that refers to the cost to the Government of the small business rates relief changes; it does not show how local authorities will be compensated for that loss by a section 31 grant.”
“What do the Government have to say about the Chartered Institute of Housing’s report stating that there will be 300,000 fewer social rented homes by the end of the Parliament than there were at the beginning? What about the evidence that St Mungo’s gave to the inquiry by the Communities and Local Government Committee the other day stating that, unless the Government changed the link to the local housing allowance, all its help and provision for homeless people will have been closed by the end of the Parliament? That is a situation that no one can tolerate.”
“In the last Parliament, the public health grant was initially—up to 2013—part of the health budget and ring-fenced accordingly, but it is now part of the local government budget, and already this financial year it has seen a one-off cut of £200 million. It is estimated that there will be £600 million more in real-terms cuts by 2020. Will the grant face any further cuts as a result of the Chancellor’s need to fill the £7.9 billion black hole? Finally, the Government have announced £115 million of help to tackle rough sleeping. It is a blot on our society and it is right that extra help is being given to deal with it, but to tackle homelessness properly—apart from the prevention at one end—we need more social housing to offer to homeless people.”
“Where is that left by the £3.5 billion of efficiency savings the Chancellor announced in his Budget and the £4.4 billion of extra savings that presumably have to be found now that the PIP cuts are not being carried through? In total, it would seem to amount to an extra £7.9 billion that he will have to find. Can we have a categorical assurance from Ministers that this will not affect the four-year settlement offered to local councils? I hope that it will not once again be a case of giving local authorities certainty for the Parliament, only to come back within a few months and ask for more cuts, which would put them in an impossible position. Moreover, are we going to see further cuts to the public health grant, which the Government have not preserved?”
“Their income would simply be cut, and there would be no means by which to compensate them because there would be no revenue support grant in existence. Local authorities’ devolved powers cannot be changed on a year-to-year basis. This does not just throw up the need in future to devolve receipt of business rates to local authorities; we also need seriously to consider devolving the right to set business rates and business rates assistance. If that is not done, this will be sham devolution, and it will raise the great risk of future Governments on a whim being able to change the system on which local authorities will rely for a good percentage of their income. This problem has to be thought through. I turn now to the four-year settlement that the Secretary of State rightly offered to local councils for the rest of the Parliament.”
“More worryingly, on the change between the retail prices index and the consumer prices index, which comes into force in 2020, how on earth will the Government find a mechanism by which to compensate authorities for that change, given that it will vary year on year? How will they do it, when the only way to provide compensation will be by changing the devolved powers available to local authorities, which cannot be done on a yearly basis? Will the Minister please provide the mechanism and explain it to us? There will be a fundamental problem here after 2020. If any future Government were to introduce the sorts of changes this Government have made to business rates, where would it leave local authorities?”
“Local authorities are entitled to absolute certainty. We can welcome the help for small businesses but not at the cost of local authorities and their services. If the Minister cannot explain this today, I hope that the Secretary of State, to whom I have written, can at least give us a written answer that can be made available to everyone else through the Library. The Secretary of State went on to say that after 2020, because no grant will be available, compensation will be provided by a reduction in devolved powers to local councils, so that they will not have as many things to spend their money on—money they now will not get through business rates relief. It is a bit disappointing that the Government’s way out is to reduce devolution. That does not seem to be consistent with their claim to be devolving more powers all the time.”
“Do local authorities not have a duty to have regard to the effect on equality in their area in terms of both race and religion when considering whether to buy goods from the illegal Israeli settlements? Can the Minister explain what he thinks the effect will be on race relations in my constituency, which has a large number of people of Muslim faith from a background of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Yemen, Somalia and Somaliland? What would be the impact on them if they saw their council tax being used to buy goods from the illegal Israeli settlements? How could that possibly be good for community relations? That is where the division is in this argument and the Minister must come clean about the Government’s objectives, how they assessed them and whether they think local authorities have the wider responsibility that I contend they have.”
“The Secretary of State has said that the actions of councils have caused community division. The Minister must say precisely what examples he has of that division. The Government have a responsibility not just for race relations but, under the Equality Act 2010, for equality impact assessments and public sector equality. The Act requires public authorities to have regard to a number of equality considerations affecting race, and also religion. The House of Commons Library has produced a good note, which says: “A Minister must assess the risk and extent of any adverse impact and the ways in which such risk may be eliminated before the adoption of a proposed policy and not merely as a ‘rearguard action’”. Have the Government done that? Where is the equality impact assessment?”
“I think local authorities were right then and I think there is a lot of shame on the Conservative Benches about the action that the then Conservative Government took in defence of the apartheid regime. There is a story about what happened. Shell took Leicester city council to court because it said that by refusing to allow it to compete for a tender, the council was losing out on a potentially cheaper contract. Shell won in court. Sheffield city council decided not to put Shell on the tender list for a contract because of its dealings with South Africa and justified that because it had wider responsibilities for good race relations and to take account of the views of its citizens. Shell did not take Sheffield city council to court because it was recognised that it had behaved legally in taking those views into account.”
“The last Labour Government brought in best value, which takes account of social and environmental matters, as the Government have confirmed. Does it in any way fetter the discretion of pension trustees to exercise their fiduciary duties, which go far wider than the narrow responsibility for public sector pensions? Will the Government confirm that the guidance for private businesses on their engagement with the settlements, on goods from the settlements, and on trade with the settlements, applies to public bodies as well? Can we have clarity on that? During the 1980s, some local authorities sought to sever links with firms that traded with South Africa.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) on securing this debate. I want to put on the record something that will appear in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests when it next comes out. I recently visited the west bank and Jerusalem, the trip being sponsored by the UK branch of Fatah. I want to emphasise some of the questions my hon. Friend asked. Does the guidance on pension investments and procurement change the law in any way? Does it in any way fetter local authorities’ decisions on best value in procurement? That is not simply about cheapness. We are not going back to the compulsory competitive tendering days.”
“We are back to the point about how to distinguish between one activity of an organisation and another when deciding whether to have a relationship with it. To go back to banks, for example, it was rightly decided not to have any dealings with Barclays back in the 1980s because of its particular link with South Africa. One could not distinguish between the money it lent to South African firms and the money that it lent to other firms. How then does the Minister distinguish between the activities of financial organisations now and their treatment of the settlements?”
“I rather like elephants, white or otherwise. Let us look at the building of phase 2 of HS2. The Secretary of State has said in the past that serious consideration would be given to the possibility of beginning construction on the northern part of phase 2 between Sheffield and Leeds in parallel with work on the southern part of that leg. How much serious consideration has been given to that, and is there a possibility that work between Sheffield and Leeds could begin before the very end of the project?”
“When my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) and I raised some time ago the need for a road tunnel between Sheffield and Manchester, many thought that we were just kite flying. Even when the Government agreed to carry out a review, some thought that it would be only a desktop study. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that road tunnel is a real possibility, and that it might even become a reality before some of us depart this world and fail to get the benefits of it?”