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 also right that a fundamental principle of the proposals is that any reductions in spending should not reduce the ability of MPs to do their job and to hold the Executive to account. That has been a fundamental principle throughout the discussions of the Finance and Services Committee. I commend the way in which the Chair of the Finance and Services Committee has conducted this operation. The way in which he has led the discussions, involved members of the Committee, tried to reach consensus, and gone outside the Committee to try to engage Members in a number of forums, both collectively and individually, has been an excellent example. He has alluded to the fact that he has not always received a massive response to those attempts to engage and gain views, but he has certainly done his best to do so.”
“It is right that we are looking at a financial plan for the House that makes 17% savings. Given that all our constituents are seeing cuts to the public services that they receive, they would be incredulous if we said that we could not find any way to make savings in the way that this House operates. It is right that we are trying to do so. It is right that we are having this debate and that Members are being allowed to vote on how much money is spent on the administration of this House and in what way. Having been in this House for 20 years, it seems unbelievable that we have never had this opportunity before. It is right that we have it today and that we should have it in future years.”
“The Secretary of State said that one of the Government’s fundamental intentions is to transfer powers from unelected quangos to elected councils. Is the Planning Inspectorate an elected quango?”
“My right hon. Friend makes a good case against the Secretary of State taking from local authorities the power to determine planning applications. He has also pointed out that the applicant will lose the right to appeal. When this matter came before the Select Committee, the Minister with responsibility for planning accepted in effect that the consultation arrangements for local communities would not have to be the same as if the local authority was taking the decisions, but that the statutorily required level of consultation would apply, which could be somewhat less. Local communities could suffer in that way as well.”
“The hon. Lady is giving a thoughtful and careful critique of the Bill. Given that she will vote later not on the warm words of Ministers but on what is actually in the Bill, will she indicate what would cause her to support the Bill given her critique so far?”
“I am also concerned about the proposals to use telecommunications equipment in the national parks. Other hon. Members have already made those concerns clear and I support them. With this Bill, the Government are turning localism on its head. It is a fundamentally centralising measure. If the Government were able to argue that, pragmatically, it was worthwhile for them to go back on their principles because it would result in stimulating growth as intended, I would be able to understand. The likelihood, however, is that they will abandon their principles without achieving any extra growth whatsoever.”
“That is simply not acceptable. The danger is that if developers think they will get a better deal by delaying and going to the Planning Inspectorate once the Bill is enacted because fewer affordable homes will be required, the result of the measure will be the opposite of that intended. Ultimately, we could end up not only reducing the number of affordable houses being built, but, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) has said, reducing mixed communities, because those schemes will all end up being private and the extra £300 million to produce affordable houses will go elsewhere. That is not acceptable either. In some areas there will be no alternative sites, other than those that currently have planning permission to build affordable homes. That is the reality.”
“If the Government are concerned about the scale of some housing projects in various council areas, why do they not beef up the duty to co-operate, which is what the Select Committee asked them to do when we addressed these issues some time ago? This is about getting agreement for big schemes across authorities, so surely the duty to co-operate is the way forward, if it means anything at all. There is no evidence of a problem with section 106 agreements for affordable housing. The letter that the chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency wrote to me said that it was not an issue. Where is the evidence that there is a problem? Local authorities are renegotiating the agreements where appropriate and in line with local circumstances, but why determine the viability of individual schemes in different localities on a national basis?”
“However, Ministers now tell us—the planning Minister was clear, for example, on office development—that there will be no national policy statements. There will be no democratic say on how the schemes should be judged and no democratic involvement in the initial decision. Ministers might seek to defend that, but it is another fundamental change. Why—the Minister could not explain this—will business and commercial developments follow the route laid down by the Planning Act 2008, but housing will be subject to increased and enhanced call-in powers by the Secretary of State? Why is housing being treated separately?”
“Local authorities will still have some of the requirements, but no fees to pay for them. What a situation to get ourselves into! As for the nationally significant infrastructure projects, we do not know what they will be. We know that they will involve business and commercial developments, but we do not know whether that includes retail. It would be helpful if Ministers could tell us whether retail schemes are included and whether we are going to drive a coach and horses through local shopping centres without the local community having a say in such decisions. At present, national policy statements—I congratulate the Government on ensuring that they are now approved by Parliament—represent democratic accountability for such decisions.”
“In effect, clause 1 abolishes—this is an attack on the fundamentals of our planning system—the applicant’s right of appeal, which has always been at the heart of the planning system. Anyone who has a planning application turned down has a right of appeal to someone independent of the body that took the initial decision. As I said when I intervened on my right hon. Friend, the Minister had to accept that consultations on planning applications with the local community will now simply be those that are statutorily required. Most planning authorities go beyond that by calling public meetings, staging local exhibitions where people can see what an application means, and sending letters to far more people than statutorily required, but the Planning Inspectorate will not be required to do any of that.”
“We have some idea about the criteria, because the Minister mentioned the speed of applications and the number of decisions that will be overturned on appeal. He then recognised, however, that there were problems with the statistics on the planning performance agreements with individual applications, because they may be skewed in such a way that the Secretary of State would have to have even more powers to decide whether authorities were falling down on their set targets. I thought that the Government were against targets and central assessments, but how can the system be run as defined by clause 1 without centralised targets and centralised assessments? Surely they are inherent in what the Government now propose.”
“Friend the Member for Leeds Central alluded. We are in a peculiar situation. The Government have said that local plans should be at the heart of the planning system, but they are now proposing that local applications made by local developers should be judged against the local plan not by the local authority, but by the centralised Planning Inspectorate. That is a complete contradiction of the Government’s policies. We do not know how this system will operate or whether it will have any great impact. When the planning Minister gave evidence to the Committee, he said that it might only apply to a few cases for a short period. He did not anticipate many problems and thought that councils would up their game and respond, but we do not know what criteria they are supposed to be upping their game against.”
“I support that principle and some of the things that the Government have done. We then had guided localism, which is about giving powers to local communities and then telling them how to use them. For example, local authorities have the power to decide how often to empty their bins, but the Secretary of State knows best and will tell them how to do it. Now we have muscular localism, which is a wonderful phrase. The Secretary of State embodies it—it is his own and he has taken it to himself—and we are now able to see what it means. It is about giving powers to local communities, telling them how to use them and then, when they do not use them in the way in which the Secretary of State thinks they should, taking them back. For muscular localism, read centralism, with or without the cigar to which my right hon.”
“In his first appearance before the Communities and Local Government Committee, the planning Minister had a difficult job explaining why there were no criteria to justify so many of the measures and why there were still going to be consultations. I thank him for replying to us, as we requested, with the list of consultations on secondary legislation that the Government intend to undertake—there are rather a lot of them—in order to implement the measures that they think will stimulate growth in this country. I am not going to say that this is the end of the planning system as we know it, but clause 1 is a fundamental attack on localism. This goes to the heart of what the Government have been talking about for a long time. First we had localism, which is about transferring power to local communities.”
“What is the situation and why are we here today? My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) got it right. Over the summer, we could almost see the wringing of hands at No. 10 and No. 11 because the economy would not move. They were worried about why there was no growth, not sure what to do about it and looking for others to blame. We could almost hear the call to the Secretary of State: “Find me some initiatives. Anything will do, so long as we look as though we’re doing something.” They came up with what can best be described as a rag-bag of measures which have not been thought through. Ministers at the Department were then given the job this afternoon of trying to justify the measures with some sort of coherence, and to work out how to implement them.”
“When the Select Committee took evidence about the national planning policy framework, we could find no such evidence, and Ministers never brought forward any. If there is any, will someone please stand up and say so? We really need to put that argument to bed once and for all. We have heard that 87% of applications last year were approved and we know that 400,000 homes could be built on sites that already have planning permission. Those are the figures and that is the current situation. When Governments start to change, or even suggest changing, the planning system, there is always a danger that that in itself will create uncertainty, both for councils and for potential applicants, and that that uncertainty will create delay and have the opposite effect of the Government’s initial intention.”
“The Communities and Local Government Committee produced a report, which was agreed unanimously by its members, and the Government accepted nearly all its recommendations. There was a general welcome for the statement, both across the Chamber and by most outside organisations. Only a few weeks after that general agreement on the way forward for planning, we are talking about measures that were not even part of the consultation that took place over many months last year and the early part of this year. It seems that we are back to the old situation: when in doubt, blame the planners. It was interesting to listen to the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert). I think that he is right: there is simply no evidence for the claim that the planning system in this country is an obstacle to growth.”
“It is no surprise that we are talking today in this Chamber about growth, or rather the lack of growth, given the parlous state of the economy. Only today the Construction Products Association revealed that in the third quarter of this year, whatever slight improvement there might have been in the rest of the economy, construction activity declined again, in both the public and private sectors, and there is no expectation of any growth in the sector until 2014, despite all the Government initiatives and those that are proposed. What is more surprising, however, is that we are talking once again about planning. It is only a matter of weeks since we were here discussing the revised version of the national planning policy framework, which had been subject to months of consultation. To be fair to the Government, they had listened.”
“I note the Minister’s support for the concept of pooling. It is right that if local authorities choose to bring their capacities together, they should be allowed to do so. Does that not rather contrast, however, with the Government’s response to the Select Committee’s report on housing, in which we suggested that local authorities might be able to pool their capabilities to borrow under their housing revenue account—”
“My hon. Friend is making a very important point. This should not come as a surprise to the Government. The Communities and Local Government Committee inquiry reported in September 2011, and in the report we drew attention to the problems at that time with the time scale, the difficulties with implementation and the unintended consequences. We asked the Government to consider a delay in order to allow more time for everything to happen. Their only response has been to complicate matters even further with a £100 million offer right at the last minute and in the middle of a consultation process. Could there be a more cack-handed way of running a policy?”
“That is not the only complication, of course. An individual whose income has changed and who has difficulties will now face the problem of going to the local council offices to sort out their council tax benefit, then going to the Department for Work and Pensions—either at the office if they can get there, or online or over the telephone—to sort out their housing benefit changes. Will that not confuse things enormously for people who are already struggling with financial difficulties?”
“Given that the hon. Gentleman was previously the Minister in charge of the Bill, will he explain why, if it was a mature and sensible reflection, he did not have it a year ago? How can it possibly strike him as mature and sensible halfway through the period when local authorities are consulting on the policies they are trying to develop?”
“It is all down to local councils to decide, but one of the complications is that the Government are localising council tax benefit, but centralising housing benefit. Local councils can get no sensible decisions from the Department for Work and Pensions on whether an arrangement will be allowed whereby applicants can go to one point for information and advice about both benefits. Are the Government to sort out this problem between the two Departments?”
“My hon. Friend said that Sheffield city council was involved in a cover-up. I hope that he will reconsider that, because I have seen no evidence that anyone at Sheffield city council partook in any cover-up.”
“One of the fundamental problems that Taylor’s report identified was that although the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975 and the green guide, which clubs, local authorities and the police were meant to follow, required an overall capacity for a ground, there was no mandatory requirement for individual parts of the ground to have a special capacity limit—that simply was not a requirement. Furthermore, even if there was a capacity for individual parts of the ground, there was no requirement—this was a crucial problem at Hillsborough—to have mechanisms, electronic or otherwise, to count people into each individual pen. I went to football grounds all around the country and I found that, generally speaking, people went through a turnstile at one end of the ground and there was no counting mechanism for any individual part of that end.”
“Of course I am devastated that the disaster happened at my football club, but I do not believe it was down to a number of individuals believing the ground to be unsafe and carrying on regardless. The horrible truth is that Hillsborough was generally regarded as a safe ground, which was why it was selected, although it proved not to have been so in the event. Of course there should have been a safety certificate—there is no excuse for the failure to provide it—but the evidence was that one was being prepared, which would actually have justified the arrangements of the ground as they were.”
“I went to many grounds where there was crushing and problems, and so did other football fans. That was accepted as commonplace at the time; it was accepted that that was what happened at football matches. Of course it is wrong that that should have been the case, but that is what happened. Lord Justice Taylor said: “there have been many other occasions when overcrowding has led, at various grounds round the country, to a genuine apprehension of impending disaster through crushing, averted only by good fortune… So, although the operational errors on 15 April were special to one ground and one day, the lack of precautions against overcrowding was not unique. I do not believe that sufficient safety measures were being applied at all other grounds.” This was a problem of football generally.”
“As leader of the council at the time, I made it clear to all its officers that they were expected to co-operate thoroughly with Taylor’s investigations and inquiries, and to provide all evidence and information—clearly, they did that. Again, as has been identified, including by Taylor, there were failures by the advisory panel and as a result of the non-issuing of a safety certificate. I shall discuss that in a moment. We must place all this in the context of what football was like at the time. As a football fan, I went to every away ground. I had been to all 92 clubs—to every ground in the country—at one point. My hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) said that he had been at an incident at Sheffield Wednesday where there had been crushing and nobody seemed to act.”
“As she mentioned, Sheffield Wednesday football club is also a new organisation with new ownership. I agree with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) that there were failings, and he rightly identifies them and the panel draws people’s attention to them. However, Lord Justice Taylor also dealt with the issue of breakdown between police and club, and paragraph 166 of the interim report stated: “What is clear, however, is that de facto the police at Hillsborough had accepted responsibility for control of the pens at the Leppings Lane end.” That is the key issue—the control and responsibility were with the police and they failed absolutely on the day. In terms of Sheffield city council, I am pleased that the panel found absolutely no new evidence or information that had not been available to Lord Justice Taylor.”
“I think what they will do is concentrate on the key issues: the failure of police control and monitoring on the day, which is what Lord Justice Taylor found many years ago; the subsequent evidence coming out of the panel that there was an attempt at a cover-up, including changes to statements; and whether, as a result of those issues, criminal prosecutions or charges of misconduct should follow. I support the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) that although the police actions on the day were at the heart of this problem, the South Yorkshire police force is now a different organisation with a different culture. It is important that, as local Members, we support it in trying to maintain the trust and confidence of local people in its day-to-day policing activities.”
“I apologise to the House and to hon. Members for being late, but I was chairing a Select Committee and I did let Mr Speaker know. It is important that we get to the truth—the families have waited for far too long. I support the calls for a new inquest; clearly, the 3.15 pm cut-off was arbitrary and wrong. I do not believe that that inquest should take place in Sheffield, and I think that the Government ought to fund the cost of it. I support the further investigations by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and the Director of Public Prosecutions.”
“The question of timing is important and I hope that we can make arrangements so that all the necessary evidence can be taken account of properly and quickly. Twenty-three years is an awfully long time, so we ought to ensure that the final conclusions come as quickly as possible.”
“The only basis on which that could be said would be that, because of its layout, the Leppings Lane end was incapable of being successfully policed for this semi-final. I do not believe that to be so.” He is saying that despite all the failings—those of the council, of the club and of others—the key issue was that the ground could have been operated safely on that day but for a failure of police control. Along with the issues considered by the panel, that brings us back to the key questions: why have people not been held accountable for those failings, why was there an attempt at a cover-up afterwards and how will we deal with the issues to ensure justice for the families? They are the key points and if we focus on them and on the responsibilities and actions, we will, I hope, get to the truth.”
“That was what Lord Justice Taylor found and I do not think any different evidence was given to the panel. There was a complete failure of the system. Of course there should have been counting mechanisms, but grounds across the country did not have them at that time. It was the police’s responsibility to monitor the crowd and take precautionary action and they failed on that occasion. Lord Justice Taylor’s interim report was comprehensive. He said that it was the police’s responsibility to control and monitor the crowd. They failed in that respect, as he identifies in chapter 10. In chapter 17, he discusses the choice of Hillsborough as a ground and states: “However, it was not suggested that the choice of venue was causative of this disaster.”
“The problem was that the crushing at that time was regarded as due to the lateral movement of the crowds at the Leppings Lane end, so lateral barriers were put in place in response to that incident. They created the pens that caused the problem and that is the issue. The lateral barriers were a safety measure that proved to be a failure. Lord Justice Taylor stated—this confirms what the panel said—that the lack of counting mechanisms for individual parts of the Leppings Lane end meant that the responsibility rested with the police to see whether the pens were overfilling. The problem was that on the occasion of the Hillsborough disaster the police did not see the pens overfilling and opened the gates, which led to more people going into the central pen. They then did not respond to the further overcrowding.”
“I welcome the Secretary of State to his job. As he will know, I welcome the go-ahead for the tram train pilot project between Sheffield and Rotherham. The trams will not be delivered until 2015 and there will probably then be a couple years of evaluation. If the scheme is successful—I am sure that it will be—rolling it out will depend on having underused heavy rail lines that are electrified. Will he bear that in mind when considering future electrification?”
“Surely the Minister will have noticed the difference. Under the last Government, the poorest people of working age paid lower increases in council tax because of the operation of the council tax benefit system. Under this Government, the poorest people of working age will pay the highest increases in council tax because of this Government’s changes to the council tax benefit system. How can the Minister possibly describe this Pickles tax as fair?”
“I thank hon. Members for their co-operation and for ensuring that everyone got to speak. There are now 15 minutes for those on the Front Bench, then I will ask Mr Neil Parish to wind up.”
“I am sure the Prime Minister will agree that the shocking findings that he revealed in his excellent statement show how right it was to establish the panel, and how right the families’ campaign has been over the years. I was present at Hillsborough on that day, and I was also leader of Sheffield city council. It is therefore relevant for me to reiterate today an unreserved apology on behalf of the city council for its failings in that terrible tragedy. I revealed and released all my personal papers and documents to the panel, and I am sure the Prime Minister will join me in giving great credit to Ken Sutton and the panel’s support team for the helpful and professional way in which they have gone about their business. That contributed greatly to the production of this detailed and comprehensive report.”
“The key to several of our recommendations on gas is simply raising public awareness, whether about ensuring that an installer registered under the Gas Safe scheme is doing the work, the importance of notifying authorities to get approval under building regulations for the work or the potential for carbon monoxide poisoning, the silent killer. It is important that public awareness of those issues is raised. We mentioned them all and called on the Government to embark on more high-profile programmes and work with the industry to increase public awareness, and the Government accepted our recommendations.”
“In some ways, gas involves more complicated arrangements, because of the relationship between Gas Safe and building regulations. I will not try to explain it in detail during this debate, and I do not necessarily expect the Minister to do so either, but the arrangements are complicated. We received expert advice that despite the complications, by and large, the arrangements work reasonably well. The one difficulty—I will come to it when discussing our recommendations—is that if we as politicians have trouble getting our head around the relationship, heaven help the ordinary member of the public who is having work done in their home. By and large, individual householders put their trust in the person or organisation they employ to do the work, and assume that everything will be okay.”
“There are one or two details that I will address and an area of disagreement that I want to highlight, but by and large the Government’s response was positive. That has not necessarily been the case with all our reports, so this occasion will not quite be a baptism of fire for the Minister. I accept that this is a complicated policy area, and I do not necessarily expect him to be able to relate to every aspect in detail. When the Committee considered it, we found ourselves on a fairly short and sharp learning curve trying to get our head around the technical aspects. I will divide my remarks, as our recommendations and report are divided, into gas and electricity. They have common features, as do our recommendations, but equally, there are differences in how the two operate.”
“I have known him for many years and have engaged with him on a number of subjects, although not this particular one. I have a lot of respect for him, and I very much hope that we can continue to make progress on the matters before us as well as others. It is entirely appropriate at this stage to mention the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), who used to be the Minister dealing with this issue. He came to the Select Committee and gave us the Government’s response. I place on record our appreciation for his work in this area. I will not detain the House for long. Having taken evidence—our report is evidence-based—the Select Committee reached a consensus about the way forward, which is broadly reflected by the Government in their response.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady, and to introduce the report of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government on “Building Regulations applying to electrical and gas installation and repairs in dwellings”. It is hardly a short title to trip off the tongue or a subject to get the heart racing, but it is nevertheless an important subject for people’s safety in the home. We are trying to prevent householders from doing the wrong thing, particularly inadvertently, or creating serious difficulties for themselves. Before I proceed any further, I welcome the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) to his new position and congratulate him on his appointment. I look forward to many further opportunities for us to discuss this and other matters relevant to the Select Committee.”
“It is an additional complication to say that apart from solid fuel fires, where work happens in a house, air-tightness must be assessed, and only in those circumstances will a carbon monoxide alarm be deemed necessary. It is an undue complication. The public will much more easily understand that if they fit a new gas fire, they should install an alarm. The two go together. The cost of an alarm is a few pounds. On top of the cost of the gas fire and the fitting, that is a very small amount. The idea that that is somehow extra red tape and bureaucracy is not true. It is a very small additional safety measure that could save the lives of 15 people a year at the very least. It might save more, and it might stop other people from becoming injured. Will the Minister take another look at it?”
“The reality is that because it is a silent killer and because people, especially elderly people, often have other symptoms that might be deemed relevant to their death, carbon monoxide is not always identified as a problem when someone dies. There could be other deaths that should properly be attributed to carbon monoxide but are not recorded as such. Thousands of people are admitted to hospital each year—maybe only to accident and emergency—suffering the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. Again, they are not necessarily all identified as such at the time. That is an area of difference between the Government’s response and the Committee’s recommendations based on the evidence that we took. I know that the Minister is new in his post, and I do not expect a different answer from him today, but will he take another look?”
“The Government have accepted that carbon monoxide alarms should be fitted where new solid fuel appliances are fitted or where, as part of the green deal, a change in a property’s air-tightness is assessed by the installer of heating or energy efficiency systems, but not, as a general rule, where a new heating appliance such as a gas fire is fitted in a property. The Select Committee disagreed. We took evidence, and virtually all the evidence we had proposed that alarms be fitted whenever new relevant heating appliances were installed. Our evidence suggested that, as a minimum, 12 to 15 deaths a year are due to carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“I pay credit to my hon. Friend, who has been a long-term campaigner on the issue of carbon monoxide, the potential for problems and the need for alarms to be fitted. He has done that work over a number of years. He drew my attention to the issue well before we began the Select Committee report, and his credentials are unmatched by anyone else in the House. I was going to come to that point later, but I will raise it now, because it is important. It is the one clear issue of disagreement in the whole report.”
“The Committee was alarmed to hear that 50% of work on gas appliances in the home could be done illegally. That work might involve small jobs, or it might be that work is not registered or reported even when it is done to a proper standard, but that was a concern. We recognise that awareness campaigns, as well as the clampdown on the enforcement of building regulations, to which the Government agreed, are important.”