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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“It is another barrier for people who are in work and thinking about becoming a councillor. As well as that comment from Ministers, there was the comment from the chairman of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), on the “Today” programme when I was doing an interview in the studio. He came on and said, “Really, councillors shouldn’t be paid much, because they are volunteers; they are like scout leaders.” If councillors had been upset with the Government about other things, they were even more upset after that. I am thinking of the number of councillors who have made comments to me. The Minister has probably had similar comments from some of his colleagues in local government—he smiles at that—up and down the country. That comment really upset people.”
“We did not have before us the incredibly mean proposals about councillors’ pensions, which came after the Select Committee report. It is one thing to say to people, “Lose your family income or have less family income”—because it is family income, not just an individual’s income—“now as a councillor.” It is another to say, “Because you are off work and not able to pay into your pension scheme as much as you otherwise would have done, for ever and a day once you retire, your pension will be reduced as a result of the effort that you put in as a councillor—for being a councillor.” I just do not think that is fair. It is unreasonable. I can understand why the LGA and others have got very upset about that proposal. The Government could avoid that; they could row back from the proposal.”
“Ministers dismissed that and said, “The allowance is there. It gives people compensation.” It does not. We heard evidence from people on that. The reality for most councillors is that once they start getting better-paid jobs, the allowance does not cover their loss of earnings, let alone anything for all the work that they do at the weekend and in the evening, which comes out of their family time. I do not know why Ministers cannot be a bit more relaxed about saying, “This is reasonable.” It used to happen previously, before the allowance system was brought in. It was possible to award loss of earnings then. I certainly received such payments when I first went on a council and I think that such a system would be useful if councils wanted to adopt it. I say this to the Minister just in passing.”
“They can set up independent panels now to advise them, but we heard from one witness after another who said, “Yes, we had independent advice and a recommendation, but we felt we couldn’t accept it. It was all too difficult.” Why not at least give councillors the option to be able to delegate absolutely, just as MPs have done? We suggested one other power, which I do not think councillors have now, not merely to give an allowance, but to give a loss-of-earnings payment. It could be capped; it could be limited; it could be instead of part of the allowance, but I think that the public will get it. If someone loses money and can show that they have lost money by being away from work to do their council work, why should they not be recompensed for that in a specific way that I think the public could understand?”
“We said, “Look, Parliament has had this problem.” We had gone through all the traumas about how we fix our pay, so we said that the issue should be dealt with by an independent body. We said, “Set it up and then we have nothing more to do with the issue—hands off.” I think that the public understand that. Sometimes I think that Members of Parliament have a little difficulty understanding or appreciating it. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is not always everyone’s flavour of the month, but it is an important step for us to say, “We don’t decide our pay.” Why should councillors not be allowed to take that step if they want to do so?”
“We heard from councillors that they did not put up allowances because they were concerned about the public and press reaction, which is something that councillors have to live with, but we also heard that very often they did not put up allowances because there were enough people on the council who felt that they were okay. People with a private income or who were retired had no great incentive to put up the allowances. The people who were in work and relying on that money to replace lost earnings were in a minority, so they could not get an increase in allowances. We therefore made two recommendations to the Government, but Ministers dismissed them and I am very disappointed about that.”
“The hon. Gentleman virtually anticipates my next point, which is that we met young people who were happy in that situation. Perhaps they had just been to university and were used to living on student loans and earnings. They had moved on to being a councillor and, as a first step in life—perhaps they had got some part-time work as well—that was okay. However, once they started to get permanent employment and to move up the income scale, being on the council suddenly caused them significant loss and, if they had got into relationships and had children, the loss was very off-putting and became a barrier. We talked to people who had joined a council at a relatively young age and, when they got to 30, they did not stand again or perhaps they did two terms and then did not stand again. That was a very serious issue.”
“Is it not just a bit more complicated than that? The Committee heard evidence from people who worked and preferred evening meetings but also from women with child care responsibilities who said they would prefer to have meetings during the day. We also heard from people on county councils who had to drive for two hours to, and from, a meeting who said that they did not want to finish at 10 pm and then have to drive home. There are different problems for different people, and that is a challenge.”
“Generally, I find that I agree with the hon. Gentleman, apart from on pensions. If a councillor is not full-time but has to spend a day a week away from work—that is not unusual for many councillors—and therefore has to give up their pay from work and their pensionable element of that pay, they are effectively getting only 80% of their pension value for working for that week. Is it unreasonable to have a system that allows them to replace that element of lost pension provision by paying in to another scheme that simply reflects that situation and gives them that element, so that they do not lose out on pension for the time they have served on a local authority? Is that unreasonable?”
“Will the Minister address the issue that I raised at the end of my contribution about the lobbying Bill? It was not in the report because it was not an issue then. We want to know whether the proposals will restrict councils and councillors in their role. There is an exemption in schedule 1 for MPs so that we are not caught by the provisions, but there is not one for councillors, which gives the impression that councillors will be caught by it.”
“Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers)—he is not a member of the Select Committee, so I will probably refer to him in a cross-party way—made the point that if we are to move more powers down and have more responsibilities at local level, those powers in the end will be best exercised by those who are accountable to their communities because they are elected. That is a very important point: more powers at local level, but exercised by people who are elected and therefore ultimately accountable to their local communities. That is what councillors are, and that is why they are so important. Question put and agreed to.”
“That is reflected in the percentage of councillors who are retired and the fact that many people in work feel put off from doing council work or leave when they start to get more involved in their full-time job. There are still challenges around, and I hope that the Minister is at least up for an ongoing discussion about them, because we want to see the diversity in all our communities properly represented. I shall pick up one final point. I am committed, and the Select Committee has been whenever it has discussed it, to more devolution, more decentralisation and more localism—sending more powers down to local level. The hon.”
“Some do only a few hours a week and, on a smaller district council, do the job perfectly well, but an executive mayor or a leader of a major authority will be full time. The hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) made that clear from his experience. In that sense, it is the job that that person has, because they cannot have another job if they are full time. The issue is how we deal with people who are not full time, but are taking time off work. We cannot recompense people for the promotion that they might have had if they had not been on a council, but perhaps we can do a bit more to recompense people who have to take some time off work and do not get covered by the allowances. Clearly, that is a disincentive.”
“We may have further discussions about what more they can do to raise the issue with employer organisations and get the message across that they could be doing more to encourage that as well. There was a lot of discussion about remuneration. I am still not sure that I like the term “volunteer”. Of course all councillors volunteer; nobody presses them to do the job as part of a work programme. We are volunteers. We are all here because we want to be, but nobody calls us volunteers. Councillors are not volunteers in the sense that they should be doing it for free, as people might do as a scout leader. There is a difference, and I think that the Minister recognised that to a degree. Of course, most councillors are not full time.”
“General concerns were expressed about the lack of diversity and the need to address that. There was recognition that that is a responsibility for political parties, for councillors themselves, for the LGA—it is the responsibility of everyone involved in politics to raise the issue. Again, the Minister was supportive of that. It might be interesting to come back in four years’ time and see whether progress has been made after another cycle of council elections. That will be the test in the end of whether we have made progress—the next round of councillors who are elected. There was quite a lot of discussion about the barriers to becoming a councillor. Again, I was pleased by the Minister’s encouragement to employers to see that having councillors as employees is beneficial. That is important. Perhaps the Government could do a little more.”
“There are also changes in the way councillors themselves operate. Many of them are, as we saw in Sunderland, devolving more responsibilities and more budgetary control to local level within their councils. The Select Committee saw that as a very positive move. In this rapidly changing world, with the challenges that it presents, it is very important that councillors—not just the cabinet members, but all councillors—have the support necessary to enable them to do their jobs inside the council. I am talking about the admin support, the clerical support and the training that is necessary. That point has come across very strongly in the debate. It is one that the Select Committee highlighted and it has also received support from the Minister this afternoon.”
“I thank you, Mr Benton, and Mrs Brooke for the excellent way in which you have chaired the debate and kept things in order. We have had a very good debate—a very positive debate. Some differing views were expressed, but generally there was quite a lot of consensus about the fact that councillors play a vital role in delivering public services and are vital for the health of our democracy. It is also very important that councils are member driven and member led. There was a lot of consensus about that as well. There was consensus about the challenges facing councils and councillors today. It is a greatly changing world: changing in terms of the internal arrangements of councils, the financial framework within which they operate and the powers that are devolved to them—or, in some cases, taken away.”
“One of the most damning criticisms in the National Audit Office report relates to the lack of a proper fraud detection system as part of universal credit. When Lord Freud, the Minister with responsibility for welfare reform, came before the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government earlier this year, he said that a new fraud detection system would be put in place. Why did the Secretary of State allow this programme to run for so long without an adequate fraud detection system being part of it?”
“A real concern—we probably had as much evidence about this as about anything else in our inquiry—was the need to crack down on sharp practice by some letting agents.”
“We must ensure that the overall burden of costs shifts to unscrupulous landlords and we call for a review of the level of fines and consideration of the use of penalty charges as ways to improve standards and act against bad practice. In addition, we were concerned about public money, through the housing benefit system, being used effectively to subsidise landlords who do not meet legal requirements. We therefore propose that local authorities should be able to recoup housing benefit when landlords have been convicted of letting substandard property. To ensure we have a balance and that we are consistent, tenants should also have the right to reclaim rent paid in similar circumstances from their own resources.”
“We also say that councils should have the freedom they need to enforce standards and the law. First, they need more flexibility over the introduction of licensing schemes. We heard evidence that these are over-bureaucratic and restrictive in the way they can be used. Secondly, councils should have the power to require landlords to be part of an accreditation scheme. We saw an excellent scheme in operation in Leeds, but the landlords who were part of the scheme and tenants drew attention to the fact that those landlords who caused problems were generally not a member of the scheme. Such schemes should as far as possible be self-funding, with extra charges for those who do not comply.”
“We have seen what the Government have done to simplify planning regulation: why cannot they do the same thing in this case? That is an obvious question to ask the Government and the Minister for Housing, who I see in his place on the Government Front Bench. Once a new regulatory framework is in place, we need to publicise it. The Government should work with landlords, tenants and agents groups on a campaign to promote awareness of the new framework once it is produced. We call for a standard, easy-to-understand tenancy agreement on which all agreements should be based. Included with that should be a factsheet setting out clearly the respective rights and responsibilities of the tenant and landlord. We heard far too much evidence that people simply do not understand their rights and responsibilities.”
“We saw the advantages that a mature market brings for landlords and tenants: widespread understanding of rights, good-quality housing and a broad equilibrium of supply with demand. In England, in contrast, the rapid growth of the sector has left in its wake regulation and legislation that was introduced in response to problems from decades ago. Our report identified a number of areas in which we believe action is required. First, we call for better, simpler regulation—not more of it. More than 50 Acts of Parliament and 70 pieces of delegated legislation relate to the sector. The result is a bewildering array of regulation that few landlords or tenants have a hope of understanding. That needs to be consolidated in a much simpler, straightforward regulatory framework.”
“More households now rent privately than are in the social rented sector. Secondly, the sector is home to a growing range of people, including, increasingly, families with children. In view of that growth and the changing nature of the sector the Committee thought it was the right time to consider how the sector could better meet the needs of those who live in it. We make the point consistently that many landlords do an excellent job and our efforts should be targeted at the rogues who let substandard accommodation, often to those in real housing need. During our inquiry, we visited Germany. We are not calling for the German system to be adopted en bloc in this country but there are lessons to learn.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the publication of the First Report from the Communities and Local Government Committee, on Private rented sector, HC50. I am delighted to present the report of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government on the Floor of the House and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving me this opportunity, the first for our Committee. I thank all the Committee members for their unanimous support for the report, the Committee staff, particularly Kevin Maddison, for their excellent work, and our specialist adviser, Professor Christine Whitehead. Why did we carry out the inquiry? We had two main reasons. First, the private rented sector is growing. In 1999, fewer than 10% of households rented privately. By 2011-12, the figure was more than 17%.”
“We looked at the issue of tax evasion. Very often the tax authorities and councils operate in different worlds. We called for greater co-ordination between councils and the tax authorities, which could go a long way to cracking down on tax evasion, both capital gains tax and income tax. It would be especially effective in areas where a licensing or accreditation scheme was in place and details about the landlords were known. We call on the Government to promote a more joined-up approach to tackling tax evasion, which would benefit us all.”
“The Government need to look at how the housing benefit bill is spent in the private rented sector. There are obvious concerns in all parts of the House about the rising bill. We heard from Blackpool about how the market has failed there because housing benefit levels are set artificially high, as the calculation of local housing allowance, which determines benefit levels, includes surrounding rural areas where rents are higher. We heard wider concerns about the interaction between housing benefit and rents. Housing benefits can drive rents up across an area, which in turn leads to upward pressure on local housing allowances, creating a vicious circle and increasing costs for the taxpayer, who picks up the bill. We recommend that the Government conduct a wide-ranging review of the local housing allowance.”
“We also call for a requirement that all private rented properties be fitted with a working smoke alarm and a carbon monoxide detector with an audible alarm. Placing homeless households was another issue to which we gave consideration. Councils can now discharge their duty to homeless households by placing them in the private rented sector without their consent. When councils do this, they must ensure that the accommodation is suitable. As a matter of good practice, they should inspect properties before using them to house homeless families. We are aware that some councils are placing homeless households away from their local area. Where this is necessary, there should be a statutory duty of full discussion, including sharing appropriate information with the receiving authority and, of course, with the prospective tenant.”
“Too many letting agents seem to be hooked on getting repeat fees for short lets. They are almost like the football agent who benefits from constant transfers, rather than players staying at a club for a long period. In return for offering longer tenancies, landlords should be able to evict tenants who simply refuse to pay a lot more speedily. We looked at safety standards. Safety is absolutely paramount. Landlords who let out death traps must face the consequences. The gas safety regime has gone a long way to making homes safer, but electrical safety is still a blind spot. The Government should develop an electrical safety certificate for private rented properties. It would confirm that wiring had been checked and was in good order, and we think that the check should take place at least every five years.”
“That might be suitable for many mobile, younger people; it is certainly not adequate for the many families in the sector who want a secure home. One renter who came to give evidence to us told us that their 10-year-old daughter had already moved house seven times in her life. That is simply not acceptable. If families move home, it means moving school, and we need to tackle that sort of insecurity. We need to look at and remove the barriers, real and perceived, to longer tenancies. Limitations in mortgage conditions need to be lifted. We were encouraged by the news that Nationwide building society has begun to allow longer tenancies; we welcome that. We have to ensure that letting agents work with landlords and tenants to make sure that they are aware of the different options for tenancy length.”
“Wherever a property is advertised to let—in a window, on a website or in a newspaper—it should be accompanied by a full breakdown of the fees that a tenant is likely to have to pay. No more hooking the tenant with a property that they like, and then, once they are interested and are looking to sign the tenancy agreement, letting the hidden fees come out, little by little—drip, drip. We are talking about costs that the tenant never anticipated, and that can run into the hundreds of pounds. Also, there should certainly be no more charging the landlord and the tenant for the same service; that is completely and utterly unacceptable, and should be banned. An important step in bringing the market to maturity and aligning supply with demand would be to meet the clear need for longer tenancies. The common industry standard is six months.”
“Absolutely, and the hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point. In the report, we welcome the Government’s commitment to a redress scheme, and we hope that our report helps to shape it, but we felt that we could go a little further. On the exact point that he makes, it is quite surprising to people who look at the issue afresh that letting agents are subject to less regulation than estate agents. We believe that they could be put on exactly the same basis. A key point is that the Office of Fair Trading has powers to ban estate agents who behave badly; the same power should be introduced for letting agents. We also looked at the fees charged by letting agents and found that many of them were unreasonable and unclear. The first step has to be transparency.”
“I welcome my hon. Friend’s welcome for the report. He is right to make it clear that all members of the Committee signed up to the report, based on the evidence we heard. We very much hope that the Government are not only listening, but will respond positively.”
“We look forward to the Government’s response and hope that they will respond positively to our recommendations. Question put and agreed to .”
“The hon. Member is right. We concluded that rent control was not feasible. We were concerned that it could drive some good landlords out of the sector and deter new investment. We certainly agree with the Government that we need to get more investment in the sector. Where we looked at rents, it was in the context of housing benefit and landlords not getting away with receiving rent for substandard properties which they were prosecuted for. Renting can be an attractive alternative to owner occupation, but we need a mature market that meets many more renters’ needs. We need to drive bad landlords out of the sector altogether and to bring all property up to an acceptable standard. The Committee believes that the measures set out in our report will help to achieve this vision.”
“Has the Minister thought about what his reaction will be when a council announces that it cannot fulfil its statutory obligations with the resources available to it?”
“Q4. The Government have promised that by 2016 no one will have to pay more than £72,000 towards the cost of their personal care. I do not know whether the Prime Minister had a chance to read an article in Saturday’s Financial Times , but it said that the cap will be not on actual costs, but on eligible costs, which will not include people’s costs in meeting their moderate care needs or, indeed, all the costs they incurred in going into a private residential home. Is this not another example of the Prime Minister promising to do one thing when in reality he plans to do something completely different?”
“Does the Minister accept this basic fact: over the seven-year period of the spending review, comparing the last spending review round with the round to come, South Yorkshire will get less than half the previous amount, whereas Scotland and Wales will get 95% of the previous amount? Are not those facts true?”
“Not one mention was made of local councils in the statement or of the role they can play in helping to rebuild our infrastructure. Why does the Chief Secretary continue with the ridiculous mortgage guarantee scheme, which the Treasury Committee, the International Monetary Fund and the Governor of the Bank of England have all said is more likely to add to housing demand than increase housing supply? Why does he not use the billions of pounds available to allow local councils to build homes that people can afford to rent and put thousands of constructions workers back in work?”
“Does the Chancellor accept that, since the beginning of this Parliament, the cut in central Government grant to local authorities has been twice as great as the cut in funding for central Government Departments? With that in mind, will he take seriously the comments of the chair of the Conservative party that local councils can manage the cuts announced today without any reduction in front-line services?”
“I have met some of my constituents in Greasbro road in Tinsley in Sheffield, whose homes will be demolished by the scheme. They accept that to a degree, but they ask me whether it is reasonable that people who, for the greater good of the country, are moving out of a home that they do not want to leave will simply get 100% of the market value, plus home loss. Is there no room for the Secretary of State to be more generous and say to people, “You are doing something for the good of the country. Therefore, you should receive more than 100% of the market value”?”
“I would like to mention a point raised with the Secretary of State a while ago. Asking people to make a sacrifice for the good of the country—that is effectively what we are asking the people whose homes are to be demolished to do— and saying to them, “This is the value of your property now and you can have 10% extra for the loss of your home” is really not adequate compensation. We should be able to do a bit better than that for people who are being forced to move home through no fault of their own and no choice of their own.”
“It is important, when we compensate such industries, that we recognise the time that they will need to prepare for the changes that high-speed rail will force them to make. It is also important to ensure that we give the compensation in a way that does not allow a firm to take the money and run, taking the jobs elsewhere. The Government’s exceptional hardship scheme is a welcome step forward, in regard to compensating people for their homes. We need to recognise that there might be people who have to move house, for whatever reason, before the full compensation scheme comes into effect, as well as those who might want to move for family or other reasons.”
“We do not want to hear the argument in the future that, because we have high-speed rail, we will get no further investment in our transport infrastructure, and that everything will be for local councils to decide. Looking ahead to the tram-train project, we need to determine how to develop that means of transport. I am sure it will be a success, even though it has taken nearly 10 years to get this far. When it has been proved to be a success, we must immediately start planning how to use it as a way of linking the Sheffield city region into the station hub at Meadowhall. That would benefit the whole city region. I also want to mention compensation. There are industries in my constituency that will be affected by the project, including Outokumpu, a major steel works.”
“Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton said, the impacts will be different in different parts of the country, but the greatest benefits will tend to be in the city regions. We need to ensure that we get those benefits. I am therefore very pleased that Sheffield is on the route, and that there will be a station there. That has been welcomed by all parties in the city and by the public and private sectors. There is a difference of opinion on where the Sheffield station should be located. I understand the argument for having a loop into the city centre, but I equally accept that a station at Meadowhall in my constituency could have incredible benefits for the wider city region, provided the need for connectivity to the region is properly recognised.”
“The problem is that the scheme will take 20 years to build and then will—we hope—deliver benefits for the country for many years after that, and if we put minor changes of assumptions into any cost-benefit analysis we will come up with very different results. To some extent, this is an act of faith. Do we believe that investment in the infrastructure of this country over the long term is likely to be good for the economy? I do, and I believe that high-speed rail is part of that long-term investment. For the same reasons, it will be important to the rebalancing of our economy by concentrating on the major growth points, which will be our city regions in the midlands and the north. As my hon.”
“I, too, will support the Bill. I supported the Y route before it was the policy of the last Government, let alone of the parties in this Government, and argued strongly for it. I also agree with the comments made in the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), in which he recognised the importance of this scheme for our economy and the fact that over the years we have fallen behind our competitors in our investment in infrastructure. This is an important long-term investment for the country. Of course, different cost-benefit analyses will say different things.”
“I can understand that. I think that the right hon. Lady is making a wider point about the need to look at the whole compensation scheme, and I shall come to that in a second. Property owners in my constituency have not yet had any experience of the exceptional hardship scheme, but I wonder whether it could be widened to include those who want to move and make the same choices for their families as anyone else could make, but who are unable to do so while the potential blight from the high-speed line is hanging over them.”
“It would not have to be a percentage increase on the market value; a lump sum in excess of the market value would particularly help people in low-value properties who do not want to reach retirement age in 10 years’ time and find that they have to take out an extra mortgage that they cannot afford. I support the high-speed rail scheme wholeheartedly, and I support it coming to Sheffield, but let us see whether we can help those people who will be affected and make the benefits to the community more generally accessible.”
“Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood made the very reasonable point that if we were more generous, it would almost certainly speed up the process, so let us have a look at that. In particular, let us have a look at the circumstances of my constituents who live on Greasbro road, which is a very low-value area. It is next to an ex-steelworks and to the motorway, and many people would not choose to live there, but it is a friendly road where people know their neighbours and family members who live nearby. They are worried about moving, and they know that they will probably not be able to buy another house in the local area with the compensation they will get. They ask why they should be penalised and forced to move away from the community that they know. Something more than the market value of their homes would help those people.”