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 understand that point. I have a constituent who bought a small property as an investment with a view to putting down a deposit on another family home into which they were planning to move in a year’s time. They, too, have been caught by that provision. I made the point earlier to the Secretary of State and to my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) that if we are asking people to make sacrifices for the benefit of the country, they deserve compensation of more than 100% of the value of their homes. They would get 100% if they chose to sell, but they are not choosing to sell; they are having to move, and we need to be more generous. My hon.”
“May I return to a point the Minister did not answer a minute ago? Will he confirm that this change does not give a veto to local authorities and local communities over all wind farm applications? Will he confirm that what he has done is to put into the guidance matters to which the local authorities will now have to have regard in considering applications? These are in fact matters to which local authorities currently can have regard, and to which the best local authorities will already have regard.”
“Does the Minister accept that many of the families who have to pay extra council tax are the very same families who have to pay the bedroom tax? Many of those families will simply not be able to meet the extra demands placed on them. Given the limits faced by local authorities on the amount of the discretionary housing benefit they can award, does the Minister accept that local authorities and housing associations will eventually be placed in the inevitable position of having to take enforcement action against families whose only crime is that they simply cannot afford to pay?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for that answer, but will he confirm that three of the pathfinders are not going ahead precisely because the computer system is not ready? Will he also confirm that in the one pathfinder that is going ahead, the staff have one computer screen on which to record information, and the rest of the claimant information has be written down by pen on a notepad? That is the situation, is it not? How can the Secretary of State possibly come to this House and justify that as being satisfactory, after years of preparation?”
“Order. The debate can go on until 5.6 pm. I will call the Front-Bench spokespeople at 4.46 pm, and I think that three other hon. Members want to speak, so that gives them about seven minutes each if they split the time.”
“Do the Front-Bench speakers think that eight minutes is sufficient time for their winding-up speeches? [Interruption.] Okay. Dr Whitehead has four minutes.”
“I am still struggling with understanding why the Secretary of State is resisting amendment 7 and instead arguing in favour of article 4. He says the amendment’s scope is far too wide, but that article 4 is there to be used instead. Are there therefore certain circumstances in which authorities may want to opt out of permitted development rights under amendment 7, but would not be able to use article 4? If so, what are those circumstances?”
“The Secretary of State must clarify whether article 4 will achieve the same effect for local authorities as amendment 7, and, if not, what is the difference between them. If the same effect can be achieved under article 4 as under amendment 7, then why not retain amendment 7?”
“We should be concerned not only about the 10% that are turned down but would be accepted under permitted development rights, but those that are never submitted for planning permission because they are so awful that people know they would be turned down if they were submitted. On localist issues, what can be more local than an extension to a house? This has no national significance. The Planning Minister has accepted that it will not have any significant impact on economic growth in the country as a whole—it is a local matter. In that case, why not accept amendment 7? The Secretary of State has argued for the use of article 4 instead. Article 4 is time consuming, cumbersome, subject to challenge and potentially costly. It is really meant to be used as an exception rather than as a general rule.”
“The Select Committee looked at the Government’s proposals and we concluded that the case for the change to permitted development rights for domestic extensions has not been made. The Government’s impact assessment estimates costs of between £5 million and £100 million, which shows the lack of clarity in their thinking. The impact assessment made no estimate of the social and environmental impacts. Reference has been made to the 90% of proposals that currently gain planning permission, but of those some are changed because of representations on the consultation arrangements that are made as part of the planning consideration.”
“I thank the Minister for the letter she sent to me, as Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee. As she knows, we are conducting an inquiry into the private rented sector and are taking evidence on letting agents and proposals to change regulations in a number of areas, but I can assure her that we will, in particular, consider the details of the redress scheme and I hope therefore that we will be able to inform the Government before they consider their secondary legislation in detail.”
“I am sure the Minister is aware that, in principle, I am a supporter of individual voter registration, but I am concerned about the current low levels of voter registration. Will she therefore give an assurance that the steps taken with regard to data matching will ensure that there is no fall in the level of registration? Hopefully there will be an increase, but what will she do if it does not work out that way?”
“Les Sturch, the head of planning and development at Sheffield city council, has drawn to my attention what I assume is an unintended consequence of chapter 6, paragraph 47 of the national planning policy framework, which requires local authorities to identify in their local plans a five-year supply of sites that are deliverable and viable. The problem is that developers say that, in the current circumstances, most brownfield sites are not viable. That forces the local authority to go back and identify far more greenfield sites for development than the local community wants. That is happening all around the country. Will the Minister meet me and officers from Sheffield to discuss how that situation could risk completely undermining the Government’s “brownfield first” policy?”
“We can say, “Don Valley, you have performed a great service for our people in Sheffield. You have been a magnificent institution.” We now have to look to the future and see how improvements can be made on the site when the stadium is finally cleared.”
“There are great opportunities, with possibilities around the canal, where British Waterways has ideas that it was going to go ahead with before the recession in 2008. I pay tribute in passing to David Slater, a local businessman, who has been really active and keen, and who wants to see the area regenerated. The ending of Don Valley stadium will offer the opportunity to have that space. It is important that we use it constructively and keep the links with sport. We probably cannot do that without Government help. I know that the Minister cannot give a commitment this morning, but he should look at the regional growth fund and other potential sources, and recognise that this is a real opportunity for the council, with the Government, to take the area forward.”
“However, the fact that Sheffield has a can-do attitude is shown by Richard Caborn, the former Sports Minister, who still is very much my friend, and who is leading a group of people with the support of the council, the local enterprise partnership and the two universities, to look at bold and imaginative potential regeneration, involving rugby and other sports, the college, and a link-up with universities on sports medicine. With those sorts of things, we can really look to the future. It is not merely about combining sports, medicine and education together, but about that acting as another powerful vehicle for regeneration of the area. Work still needs to be done in this area, which is between the city centre and the much improved area around Meadowhall.”
“Given the council’s position, it is very difficult to see how we can justify—despite the stadium’s history, the attachment that I feel to it, and all the good things that it has done for Sheffield—keeping the Don Valley stadium. Of course, the rest of the World student games legacy will be there—the Lyceum theatre, the Arena, Ponds Forge, Hillsborough leisure centre, Graves tennis and leisure centre—for the future benefit of the people of Sheffield and the surrounding area, and for people nationally. It is important that we do not simply stand still. We can have our disagreements with the Minister about Government funding, and we will no doubt continue to. We can all hold our heads in our hands and say, “Woe is me. We can’t do much about it”.”
“I am sure that the Minister will tell us how awful that is—at least reflecting the views of the Secretary of State on matters so dear to his heart. However, the council has to do those things to balance its books. We all have our examples; I like the one about Windsor. There have been cuts of £200 a head for the people of Sheffield, but £40 a head for the people of Windsor. I know that historically, Windsor has had less grant, but it has also had fewer needs and more resources, which is why northern cities are getting bigger cuts—they have more grant to cut. Why? Historically, they have had greater needs. They still have greater needs and fewer resources, but they are still being penalised.”
“The games never had £650 million of debt—that includes a roll-up of interest and the two remortgages used for other purposes, not even for the facilities themselves. The Liberal Democrats were then in favour of Government cuts, which is forcing the council into its current financial position, and then they were in favour of keeping the stadium open, without saying what else they would cut instead. That is a pretty consistent position—for the Liberal Democrats—to be in over a period of years. That is the current situation for the council. The facts are clear: more than £200 million of cuts need to be made. There will be library closures and cuts to advice centres and early years provision. We are on alternate weekly collections for our refuse.”
“Those flats are still in use today, but that is the situation that we face. I will make a passing reference to the situation of the Liberal Democrats, which is even more convoluted than my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central gave them credit for. They voted in favour of the games to begin with. When the facilities, including the Don Valley stadium, were half built, they changed their mind and voted against them—what they were going to do with the half-built stadium I am not quite sure. They have since voted twice to remortgage the facilities and use the money on the remortgage for other things, and then blamed the cost of the games for £650 million of debt, which is nonsense.”
“Clearly, there is no sign or evidence that that is the case and that the Government want to come forward with assistance. Let us make this clear: unlike Manchester and the Commonwealth games, for which the Labour Government at the time provided an awful lot of support, Sheffield funded the World student games itself. All the costs have been borne by the people of Sheffield. Good facilities have been provided for our people, as well as national facilities, so we are truly a national and international sporting city. The £147 million was paid by the people of Sheffield. The only bit of Government support that we got—I gave him credit at the time, and have done since—was from the then Minister, David Trippier, who gave an urban development grant to help renovate the flats that formed the basis of the student village.”
“However, we have had Sheffield Eagles play there and Rotherham United for a period of time, which helped keep the club going, so the stadium has had other uses over the years. The reality is that it costs £700,000 a year to maintain the stadium, which still provides superb training facilities and a base for many community activities, but no longer gets major national or international events. At a time of real funding cuts for the local council in Sheffield, can we continue to afford a national and international venue, when national and international events do not come there? That is a major question. We have to say to both the Government and the national sporting bodies that if they want a national stadium to hold national and international events, there has to be national support for it.”
“At the time and before it was built, we talked to Sheffield football clubs about the potential for them to move into it afterwards. That is recorded in minutes that are now in the Sheffield archives. Sheffield Wednesday said from the beginning that it was not interested, but we talked to directors of Sheffield United, who expressed an initial interest, but eventually decided that it was not for them to continue and they wanted to redevelop Bramall Lane. That was entirely the proper decision for the football club to take, but it shows that we did not simply dismiss the possibilities for other uses at some stage in the future. It simply was not going to happen, and all the issues around the future of the athletics stadium in Manchester, and in relation to the Olympic stadium in London, showed that that is not an easy way forward.”
“It has seen world champions compete, and it has been home to Jessica Ennis, a local Sheffield girl. I was fortunate to be at the Olympics on the first day of her competition and saw what she had achieved, which was great. It was emotional, and when she came to thank the people of Sheffield she made it clear that she had not had to go abroad to access top-quality training facilities because they were available in Sheffield, and that she was proud to have used those facilities. We understand that, and I feel a personal attachment to the Don Valley stadium for a variety of reasons. Some people ask why we did not think in advance about whether the stadium would ultimately have sufficient use to justify its existence.”
“Sheffield city had gone through a horrendous time and had lost 40,000 steel engineering jobs in the Don valley alone, and that had a cataclysmic effect on the city, its industrial structure and its social life. Doing something new and showing that new things could be built on the rubble of the old steel works was extremely important in changing the city’s psychology and thinking about moving forward rather than reflecting on what had gone before in our proud history and heritage in steel engineering, although that is still alive with major companies and organisations such as the advanced manufacturing research centre keeping us at the forefront of new technology. Don Valley stadium is about not just sporting events, but physical and psychological regeneration. Don Valley has seen many great athletic events.”
“Ponds Forge international sports centre is visited by more than 1 million people a year and there are the Hillsborough leisure centre and the Graves tennis and leisure facility in Heeley. The Lyceum theatre in the city centre was also magnificently restored as part of the cultural events for the games. Some £147 million was spent not just on a one-off occasion, but for the people of Sheffield to enjoy, which they have done for the last 22 years. They have done so as spectators and participants, and just by looking at the stadium, because its architecture is magnificent. Don Valley was part of the city’s regeneration, and we must remember where we were at in the late 1980s when we thought about building sporting facilities for the event.”
“I have a plane to catch, and the timetable is too tight to allow me to stay to the end of the debate, but I will read with interest the Minister’s commitment of support at the end of the debate. I was at the opening of the World student games in 1991 when the Don Valley stadium had its finest among many fine moments. I was leader of the council and proud to welcome more than 6,000 young people from all over the world to our city to see the magnificent sporting facilities that we had built and which are still a benefit to the people of Sheffield today. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central said, it is not just the Don Valley stadium. The Arena is used regularly and attracts events from all around the world, bringing in an audience from the wider region.”
“It is a pleasure, Mr Leigh, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this important debate. I am pleased to see my fellow Sheffield MPs, my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith). My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) would have wanted to be here because he has a long-standing interest in the World student games and the legacy of sporting facilities in the city. The Sheffield approach is united, with perhaps the one exception that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central mentioned. I have apologised to you, Mr Leigh, because I must leave early, but I did not have a chance to apologise to the Minister in advance.”
“This question was raised with me by my constituent, Mr Leonard Jolicoeur. He asked whether it is true that someone who is of pensionable age when the new single-tier pension comes in and who has a small occupational pension and therefore does not receive pension credit will get the existing state pension, but that someone who is in exactly the same financial circumstances and becomes of pensionable age after the single-tier pension comes in will get the new single-tier pension, which is some £40 a week more. What can the Minister say to persuade my constituent that it is fair or reasonable for somebody who is in exactly the same financial circumstances as his neighbour to get £40 a week more than him?”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this very important debate. I think that she is aware that I have written to the chief constable of South Yorkshire police, David Crompton, about these matters. In his reply, he says: “Of main concern to the partnership”— the South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership— “is the anticipated 200% increase in risk of having stationary vehicles in live lanes, which by its very nature may result in collisions.” That is a very different situation from the one on the M42 that she has just referred to.”
“Thirdly, and finally, the Minister is probably aware of a report by the Highways Agency and Sheffield city council about pollution levels around the M1 in the Tinsley area. Surveys of nitrogen dioxide levels, arrived at as a result of EU directives and translated appropriately into UK law, which were carried out in that area showed that in virtually every instance levels were 25% to 50% higher than the maximum allowed in 2010. Anything that worsens those levels should not happen. I say again to the Minister that we are looking not merely for assurances that the scheme he is proposing will not worsen those levels, but for assurances that action will be taken to deal with the unacceptable pollution that already exists in this area.”
“Secondly, I think that the Minister is aware that I wrote to him about noise levels on the M1 in this area, particularly near Tinsley junior school, where on a hot summer’s day the windows cannot be opened because the noise from the motorway means that teachers cannot be heard by their pupils. That is unacceptable. The Minister said that he does not expect hard shoulder running to increase this problem. All I would say to him is that the problem is there anyway. I am looking for assurances that noise on the motorway, right next to Tinsley junior school, will be dealt with by the Government, irrespective of the hard shoulder running and particularly if the proposals go ahead.”
“I asked the Minister for permission beforehand, and I thank you, Sir Alan, for reminding me of that and for allowing me the opportunity to speak. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn). First, I quoted the chief constable’s letter, which indicates that he is concerned that the Highways Agency’s proposals are constrained by budgetary matters. It would be a matter of concern if the safety of people on the M1 around Sheffield was put at risk because of budgetary constraints. We are looking for absolute assurances from the Minister that the scheme will not go ahead until the chief constable in particular and the South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership in general are satisfied that there is no risk of a reduction in safety under the scheme.”
“I made my comments in light of a response that I received from the chief constable, in which he raised the possibility that budget constraints were causing the scheme to be produced in such a way that safety could be put at risk. I wrote to the Secretary of State about that, enclosing the chief constable’s letter, so perhaps the Minister will have an opportunity to respond to that point in due course.”
“It is with pleasure that I speak to the report produced by the Communities and Local Government Committee, “Financing of new housing supply”, which we published last May and to which the Government responded in July. Today provides an opportunity to consider the report’s recommendations and the Government’s response to them. I hope their response today will be more enthusiastic than the written response they gave in July. A new Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), is now in place, so he might manage to achieve that. We can also consider certain things that have happened since the report was produced about 10 months ago, and see how they may have changed our recommendations or, indeed, strengthened their case.”
“Members of the Committee recognised that we needed to be brave and think outside the box in coming to our conclusions. We made a number of proposals because we recognised that there was no silver bullet, magic solution or switch that could be flicked in Whitehall that would make everything okay the following day.”
“While we were conducting the inquiry into new housing supply, the Government produced their housing strategy for England. It contained measures that everyone could support, such as the release of public sector land. It also included the NewBuy scheme, on which we were promised an update after 12 months. I am not sure how much there is to update us on, but the Minister may be able to give us a few figures. The Committee concluded that we needed a long-term strategy. There is an issue with homes, but there is also the immediate issue of jobs and growth. The National Housing Federation gave us the interesting figures that every affordable home built in this country provides £108,000 in added value to the economy and creates 2.3 jobs. We should bear that in mind. We also concluded that we needed radical changes.”
“The number of private rented properties has been rising considerably and is now slightly greater than the number of social rented properties. We can also see the consequences of the failures over a long period and of the immediate problems of 2008 and beyond, including young people in particular being unable to afford a mortgage and increasing waiting lists for social housing. People with heart-rending stories who ought to be given a house immediately visit our surgeries every week, but they cannot all have priority because there are not enough homes to go round. Rents in the private sector are also rising. I will not say too much about the private rented sector today, because we are in the middle of a further inquiry into it and what we should do. We look forward to having Ministers before us at the end of that inquiry.”
“There were 115,620 housing completions, up 1% on the previous year, and 98,280 housing starts, an 11% reduction. Therefore, if our recommendations were correct a year ago, they are probably just as correct now. This is not a short-term problem. The report acknowledges that even at the height of building in the mid-2000s, we were building a maximum of only 170,000 homes a year, which was not sufficient, either. The private house-building industry has never managed to build more than 150,000 homes a year, so the likelihood of being able to rely on it to deliver the extra homes is probably very small indeed. We also know that historically, the percentage of owner-occupied properties has been falling since about 2002. That represents a change.”
“I thank the Minister for that and we look forward with anticipation to reading what he has to say. We will do so closely, and the Committee might give it further consideration. The report, which was signed up to by all members of the Committee on a cross-party basis, tried to consider the issues in the longer term. I am pleased to see in the Chamber several members of the Committee, both past and present, whom I hope will be able to catch your eye, Mr Deputy Speaker. We started off from the basic position that we have not been building enough homes in this country for a long time. The basic requirement is about 250,000 homes a year, based on household formation, plus an increasing number to make up for the backlog of past under-investment. Since the report was published, we have had the figures for housing starts in 2012.”
“Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), who came to the Select Committee a couple of weeks ago with Lord Taylor of Goss Moor, who was reviewing the supplementary planning guidance. At the top of their list of issues that were not addressed properly in the supplementary planning guidance was the need for a consistent measure of housing need that could be incorporated into local plans on a consistent basis. That will be a helpful move. It will take time for it to be effective, but there is a recognition that the abolition of regional spatial strategies and the total reliance on local plans has created a disconnect with the national targets.”
“The LGA also says that 87% of all the planning applications made last year were given permission. Planning is therefore not the problem. There is a potential long-term problem, which I have raised with Housing Ministers on a number of occasions, if local plans become the heart of the planning system, as they ought to be. Many local authorities ought to speed up the process of getting those plans in place, because they are a crucial part of the planning system. The problem is what we should do if the housing numbers in the local plans do not add up to a figure that meets the national housing requirements. I asked the previous Minister for Housing that question on a number of occasions and he never seemed to have an answer. I congratulate the new planning Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon.”
“The hon. Gentleman helpfully anticipates my next point. The Committee concentrated on funding issues because that was the remit of the report. However, we said in passing, as we did in our report on the national planning policy framework, that we did not believe there was evidence that planning was the obstacle to growth. We accepted the point, which the Local Government Association has made again recently, that there are 400,000 planning permissions for new homes that have not been activated. Getting at those is a major challenge that we should talk about. I do not believe that the measures in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill will deal with that problem, although that did not form part of our report because it has been published since our inquiry.”
“Everyone has said that such housing is an obvious form of investment, but sums have traditionally shown that investors believe they can get a 6% return, although they need 8%. There is therefore a gap, and evidence to the Committee suggested that that is why developments have tended not to happen. However, there is increasing evidence that developments are beginning. The Greater Manchester Pension Fund is working with Greater Manchester council to provide homes, and Aviva pension fund and Derwent Homes are coming forward with schemes. Places for People gave evidence to the Committee.”
“That is a real problem and will put pressure on green open spaces because developers will say, “These sites are much more attractive to develop in the current climate.” Ministers must address that problem in the planning system, or else Members will be knocking on ministerial doors and saying, “Why do I have to provide lots more housing sites in my constituency when so many sites have not been built on, even though they have planning permission or could get it if developers applied?” That is a longer-term problem. We recognised that public funding will, of course, be limited for the foreseeable future, so we looked at the private sector and markets to see what was available. There is a long-term problem.”
“That is not something the Select Committee looked at. I will pass it over to the Treasury Committee, just as Ministers pass matters over Treasury Ministers. There is, however, a worse problem in certain areas. I have been advised by Les Sturch, the director of planning at Sheffield council, but this is also happening in other councils. Because of market changes in housing, many developers are saying that although certain sites have—or could get—planning permission because the land is owned for housing in a local plan, they are not developable in economic terms. Local authorities therefore have to revisit their local plans and look for new housing sites in more favourable areas.”
“A housing investment bank could link up investors who might want to invest—including smaller investors—with borrowers and smaller schemes, and the risk could be spread across those schemes, thereby making the investment more attractive.”
“Absolutely, and I was going to welcome the Government’s consultation on relaxing restrictions on local authority pension funds to provide more scope to invest in infrastructure, particularly housing projects. That helpful move forward should be welcomed. The Committee also considered a bigger deal—a housing investment bank, for example, or an extension of the Green investment bank. Lots of good initiatives scattered around the country are beginning, but small projects often find it difficult to access institutional funds, and small pension funds do not want to get too heavily involved in lending to one particular scheme.”
“I am sure that the answer will form an interesting part of his response. Since then, the Future Homes Commission, which the Royal Institute of British Architects was instrumental in proposing, has had a similar idea: a £10 billion local housing development fund provided by 15 local authority pension funds. The Government told us in response that they would await the Montague report. Of course, Montague said that he did not believe that guarantees were appropriate because they distort the market. The Government have since introduced their £10 billion housing guarantee. They waited for Montague, heard what he said and promptly dismissed it. That is probably an unfair characterisation of the process.”
“Yes, and as well as individuals, some potential larger housing providers, which are going to talk to the Committee as part of our private sector inquiry, are anxious to access institutional investment. They want to build properties and manage them in the long term, which is an interesting way forward for the private rented sector. A housing investment bank could provide a significant push in that area. The Committee visited the Netherlands, which has a similar arrangement. Interestingly, their Government underwrite and guarantee funding that is raised and borrowed by their equivalent of housing associations, but it does not count as Government borrowing. The Government’s response to our proposal on some form of investment bank was that they would keep it under consideration. So, after a year, what has the Minister considered?”