Category: Housing

  • Michael Gove – 2023 Speech on the Long Term Plan for Housing

    Michael Gove – 2023 Speech on the Long Term Plan for Housing

    The speech made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on 24 July 2023.

    Introduction

    We shape buildings, Winston Churchill argued, and then they shape us.

    The quality of the homes that we live in, the physical nature of our neighbourhoods, the design of our communities, determines so much. Our health, our happiness, our prosperity, our productivity – all depend on where we live.

    That is why housing policy – the building of new homes, the stewardship of existing properties, the planning of our towns, the fundamental landscape of our lives – requires long-term thinking. And a long-term plan.

    In the months that I have been in this role we have been developing, and implementing, just such a plan.

    Today I want to outline the ambitions that plan embodies. And the critical next steps that we need to take, over the years to come, to build a better Britain.

    A Britain with many more homes – an assured path to home ownership – and homes in the right places.

    Our long-term plan has 10 principles.

    The regeneration and renaissance of the hearts of 20 of our most important towns and cities.

    Supercharging Europe’s science capital.

    Building beautiful – and making architecture great again.

    Building great public services into the heart of every community.

    Communities taking back control of their future.

    Greener homes, greener landscapes and green belt protection.

    A new deal for tenants and landlords.

    Ensuring that every home is safe, decent and warm.

    Liberating leaseholders.

    And extending ownership to a new generation.

    Our long-term plan for housing comes at a critical moment for the housing market.

    We have a record of delivery.

    We have built more homes over our time in office than Labour did under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

    In this Parliament we have delivered the highest number of new homes in a year for 3 decades, and we’ve ensured the highest number of first time buyers in 2 decades. And we will meet our manifesto target of delivering 1 million new homes in this Parliament.

    Not only that but our £11.5 billion Affordable Homes Programme is delivering well over a hundred thousand affordable homes – and we are scaling up to deliver tens of thousands of new homes specifically for social rent.

    But we know that there are immediate challenges to future growth. Across the developed world, there are economic pressures.

    And there is therefore a need for radical action to unlock the supply of new homes.

    In every western country inflation is a barrier to building.

    Inflation has pushed up the price of materials, it has required interest rates to rise, it has squeezed access to credit and, with tight labour markets across the West, construction has everywhere become more difficult. But construction is more necessary than ever.

    So tackling inflation is critical to the implementation of our plan.

    The steps the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have taken to control public spending and borrowing, and our broader fiscal and monetary strategy, are working. Inflation is coming down.

    But we need to maintain that discipline.

    And underpinning our long-term plan for economic recovery is a long-term plan for housing.

    Regeneration of 20 places

    And the first, and most important, component of that plan is our programme of urban regeneration and a new inner city renaissance.

    Renaissance – because we want to ensure our cities have all the ingredients for success that we identified in our Levelling-Up White Paper last year as the Medici model.

    Beautiful homes, flourishing public spaces, cultural jewels, safe and orderly streets, space for trees and nature, centres of educational excellence, dynamic new businesses and excellent public services.

    In our White Paper we committed to the regeneration of 20 places across England as the core of our long-term plan for housing. And today I want to say more about how we are implementing our ambitions.

    We are unequivocally, unapologetically and intensively concentrating our biggest efforts in the hearts of our cities. Because that is the right thing to do economically, environmentally and culturally.

    As my colleague Neil O’Brien argued in his landmark study for the think tank Onward on housing – Green, Pleasant and Affordable – cities are where the demand for housing is greatest. It is better for the environment, the economy, for productivity and well-being if we use all of the levers that we have to promote urban regeneration – rather than swallowing up virgin land.

    That is why we will enable brownfield development rather than green belt erosion, sustainable growth rather than suburban sprawl.

    So the economic and environmental imperatives all point towards a move away from a land-hungry destruction of natural habitats in favour of a much more efficient regeneration of our cities.

    And in the UK we have been markedly inefficient in this regard. Inefficient in how we use land.

    In recent years the rates of housebuilding in rural areas have been greater than in urban areas. And in our cities, especially those outside London, the population densities are much lower than in comparable competitor Western nations.

    We occupy more land with fewer people.

    That approach has not only been inefficient in planning terms – it’s cost us in productivity.

    Failing to densify our inner cities means lower growth – with a 10% increase in our cities’ population potentially unlocking a £20 billion increase in UK GDP.

    Failing to densify means longer commutes, a longer wait for a plumber or ambulance, and more vehicle journeys leading to congestion and pollution. At present, only 40% of people living in our great cities can get into the city centre in 30 minutes by public transport, compared to over two thirds of the population in comparable European cities.

    And we would not only be more productive, we would have an enhanced quality of life. People living and working in close proximity to one another is a key feature of the most creative, productive and attractive cities in the world and in particular a feature of the most attractive parts of those cities.

    The heart of Gaudi’s Barcelona, the Haussmann-designed centre of Paris, the Nash terraces of Regent’s Park, the apartment blocks of Pimlico, Marylebone and Knightsbridge, Edinburgh’s New Town, the Upper West side of Manhattan or the centres of Boston or Austin, Texas – all are districts where what economists call the agglomeration effect – the mixing of talent and opportunity which sparks innovation and growth – is marked.

    Densification of our inner cities would not just enhance economic efficiency and free up leisure time – it would also help with climate change. Denser cities on the American eastern seaboard emit 50% less carbon than the suburban and exurban areas near them.

    That’s why we have been developing and implementing policies explicitly designed to support urban regeneration.

    We have given the metro mayors more powers, and resource, to build homes in our cities. We’ve allocated an extra £250 million to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and to the West Midlands.

    And we have shifted government funding to support housing delivery already – the money needed to assemble and then to remediate the land on which the private sector can then build – and this week a further £1 billion will be launched to make brownfield land fit for development in our cities and towns, including landmark investments in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.

    In addition the new Infrastructure Levy which we are legislating for in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will further incentivise that brownfield development.

    Developers aiming to build on greenfield sites will have to pay more – to provide for the new affordable housing and the infrastructure necessary in areas where there just aren’t the roads, GP surgeries, the schools and shops already in place.

    By contrast, in urban areas where the infrastructure already exists – and indeed in London, where school rolls are falling in the heart of the city – densification and growth can ensure existing public services thrive and remain sustainable.

    And to make it cheaper for development to deliver more affordable housing, more schools and hospitals – when it’s right for the community – our Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill will eliminate the “hope value” that landowners and property speculators try to extract from any sale.

    And we are already supporting gentle densification of existing areas of housing through our proposals for ‘street votes’ – where local communities can collectively decide to extend their homes to capture more value and to create more space for new householders or bigger families.

    We are also consulting on new and expanded Permitted Development Rights to maximise the potential of existing buildings for new homes.

    And as I look forward to publishing the updated National Planning Policy Framework a little bit later this year, we are looking at how we can support more development on small sites –

    To support more upward construction with existing beautiful street design.

    And we want to see agreed development and plans go ahead on locally agreed sites.

    We are then also tackling – at source – some of the reasons that have held back investment in the flats and the apartment blocks that help urban regeneration and densification.

    In the aftermath of the Grenfell fire, the market for many properties in our cities froze because of the fire-safety issues which had gone unaddressed for years. That meant that householders were in the terrible position where they could not sell their homes until they had a commitment that remediation would be undertaken.

    We took decisive steps to unfreeze the market, to protect leaseholders, to get developers to pay for that remediation and to prompt lenders to start offering mortgages on those properties once more.

    And today we are taking further steps by opening our new Cladding Safety Scheme – and also providing much-desired clarity to builders that 18m will be the threshold that we will introduce for new buildings requiring second staircases.

    And of course there will be transitional arrangements in place to make sure that there is no disruption to housing supply.

    All of these building safety measures have got a vital sector of our urban housing market moving again – and that lays the ground for the further expansion we now need.

    Because we know that there have, recently, been successful examples of the sort of urban regeneration that I’ve been envisaging. The wonderful King’s Cross redevelopment in London where we are today, the transformation of central Manchester, the riverside development in Newcastle.

    But as I’ve explained, we must now go much further.

    While some local leaders have set the pace in building homes in urban areas – with Andy Street in the West Midlands exceeding the numbers assessed as necessary for his authority – delivery elsewhere is behind where we need to be.

    London has a particularly poor record. The London Plan identified capacity for around 52,000 new homes annually – but in recent years London has been building as few as 30,000 homes a year.

    The mayor’s failure on housing, like his failure on crime and his failure on transport, undermines the vitality and attractiveness of our capital.

    And that holds back the whole country. I support the mayoral model. But I also will not hesitate to act in the national interest when politicians fail.

    The number of homes we need in London is only likely to rise beyond the 52,000 there is already provision for in the plan – but these homes are not being delivered. And the failure to turbocharge the redevelopment of inner city London is putting further pressure on the suburbs. If just 5% of the capital’s built-up area had the density of Maida Vale, it could host an additional 1.2 million people without the need to expand outwards.

    That is why we now need in London to emulate the ambitious approach that Margaret Thatcher and Michael Heseltine took to London Docklands.

    We are planning to intervene, using all the arms of government, to assemble land, provide infrastructure, set design principles, masterplan over many square miles and bring in the most ambitious players in the private sector, to transform landscapes which are ripe for renewal.

    Our ambition in London is a Docklands 2.0 – an eastward extension along the Thames of the original Heseltine vision. Taking in the regeneration of Charlton Riverside and Thamesmead in the south, and the area around Beckton and Silvertown to the north, tens of thousands of new homes can be created. Beautiful, well-connected homes and new landscaped parkland are integral to our vision – all sympathetic to London’s best traditions.

    We will look at how we can ensure better transport connections from east to west, to crowd in local and private investment, and we will build on the best evidence on how and where to invest ourselves in the future.

    Making sure we unlock all the potential of London’s urban centre – while also preserving the precious low-rise and richly green character of its suburbs such as Barnet and Bromley – is critical to the nation’s future success.

    And because it is a mission of national importance, I want to work with the Mayor to ensure we have a London Plan – a housing and development blueprint for the capital – worthy of the task.

    We can do it together. The Dockland 2.0 sites we have identified – and of course the new homes and investment we will also bring to Old Oak Common – are in line with the GLA’s own ambitions. But we owe it to Londoners, and to the nation’s economic well-being, to get this right. To regenerate inner and East London, while protecting the character of family life in the suburbs and our green spaces. Which is why I reserve the right to step in to reshape the London Plan if necessary and consider every tool in our armoury – including development corporations.

    And London will of course also see the benefits of this government’s decision to allow the Affordable Homes Programme to be directed towards regeneration for the first time – with up to £1 billion available in London alone – as part of a transformative reform that will change how we level up communities across the country.

    Because while London is the world’s most attractive capital for new investment, and a national asset beyond price, the country will only succeed if our other cities also secure the investment needed to raise their productivity faster. That is why, in our programme of 20 city-centre renewals, the Midlands, and particularly the North of England, are our future focus.

    In Leeds we will – over the next decade – bring comprehensive regeneration to the city centre, working with the local authority to build new homes in areas such as the South Bank, the Innovation Arc and Mabgate.

    We will work with the Department for Transport to unlock wider development on the land which is currently being safeguarded for transport projects – and we will also progress work on a mass transit system, providing better links within the city, and between Leeds, Bradford, and indeed Kirklees, through our £96 billion Integrated Rail Plan.

    And we will continue to support the rapid regeneration of Manchester with £150 million to unlock brownfield land, and a trailblazing £400 million devolved housing investment. We also have a new partnership with Great British Railways that will turbocharge travel on the newly integrated Bee Network, rolling out in full by 2030. We want to provide the modern homes and the rapid transport system that Manchester needs.

    It’s not just in Leeds and Manchester. In Sheffield and Wolverhampton we are already active, with £160 million of investment unlocking homes and wider regeneration – including the City Learning Quarter in Wolverhampton, where I will be later today and Castlegate in Sheffield.

    In the months ahead we will be working with other great cities to ensure we have the development vehicles and the ambition necessary for further regeneration.

    And in each case we want to use the planning and tax levers provided by our new Investment Zones to help drive activity, and we will work with the metro mayors to align the new housing we envisage with the wider economic development that they are helping to drive.

    And we will also ensure that new homes are built in line with the best urbanist principles of gentle densification. That means new urban quarters of terraced houses and thoughtful apartment blocks – the Haussmannian-style transformation of urban space.

    And this programme will make vividly real the vision in our Levelling Up White Paper – ensuring that cities outside London which are rich in talent but do not enjoy the same level of productivity as cities in other jurisdictions get the rich mix of financial, human, cultural and social capital which will drive growth.

    And it’s not just Manchester and Leeds, Sheffield and Wolverhampton, and existing great cities where we see opportunities opening in the North. Barrow in Cumbria is the home of engineering excellence, the site of significant new investment over the next four decades, and of course it will be building the submarines of the future through the historic AUKUS deal.

    We want Barrow to be a new powerhouse for the North – extending beyond its current boundaries with thousands of new homes and space for new businesses to benefit from the scientific and technical expertise already clustered there. The Cabinet Secretary will be in Barrow later this week, with an elite civil service team, to meet with local leaders and the superb local MP Simon Fell, to scope out the room for significant further expansion and investment.

    Because making the most of our science strengths is vital to Britain’s future. And of course the establishment of the new Department of Science, Innovation and Technology under Michelle Donelan, the new AI task force under Ian Hogarth, and the amazing life science breakthroughs that enabled the Vaccine Taskforce’s work during Covid – all of these are examples of how we lead the world in science, and all are essential to our future prosperity and well-being.

    Supercharging Europe’s science capital

    And we know that we have wonderful sites of scientific innovation across the country – in the West Midlands, in Liverpool, and in the North East – but of course nowhere is more central to our scientific leadership than Cambridge.

    Cambridge has been one of the intellectual centres of the world for eight centuries – the home of Newton, Widdowson, Rutherford, Crick, Watson, Franklin, Venki Ramakrishnan and Richard Henderson – the birthplace of generations of innovation. But Cambridge’s future potential has been circumscribed by a lack of new space for lab capacity and research activity. And also by the constraints on new housing which have priced new graduates out of the market and have also made attracting and retaining talent harder.

    While Cambridge’s growth has been held back, its rivals abroad have benefited. In 2021, Boston had 6 million square feet of lab space under development; in an average year, Cambridge and Oxford together managed just 300,000 square.

    In Cambridge today, you have to wait almost a year for the next available lab space: that is no way to incubate the dynamic technological innovators that we sorely need.

    So this government will now start to write the next, expansive, chapter in Cambridge’s story of scientific endeavour.

    We are going to develop a vision for Cambridge, a vision that will involve growing beautiful integrated neighbourhoods and healthy communities while supercharging innovation and protecting green spaces.

    I am delighted today to be able to appoint Peter Freeman – the Chair of Homes England and one of the country’s foremost delivery experts when it comes to new development – to lead this effort; under a Cambridge Delivery Group, backed by £5 million, to start this scoping work.

    In concert with national and local partners, Peter will be charged with crafting the detailed vision for Cambridge’s future.

    What it means for housing and for businesses – including those technology and life sciences firms.

    What it means for transport, critically what it means for water supply and for public services.

    And just as importantly what a new vision can offer for healthy living, for green spaces and for cultural institutions.

    I have asked Peter to advise me on what the right long-term delivery vehicle needs to look like as well, because I do not underestimate the scale of the task, and just as the Olympics succeeded thanks to the right leadership and structure, so too will delivery of this vision require the expertise, focus and momentum of a dedicated, freestanding organisation.

    One that can develop the masterplan, enforce high quality design standards, acquire land, approve planning and work with developers.

    It will be for Peter and his new team to take forward the vision for Cambridge, but I want to take a moment to paint a picture of the kind of evolution that we want to see in the city by 2040 – so that the scale of our intent is clear.

    First, imagine a major new quarter for the city, built in a way that is in-keeping with the beauty of the historic centre.

    One shaped by the principles of high-quality design, urban beauty and human-scale streetscapes – emulating the scale and quality of neighbourhoods such as Clifton in Bristol or Marylebone in London, and with a high proportion of affordable homes and other properties set aside for key workers and young academics.

    Then connect that new quarter to the rest of the city with a sustainable transport network that sees current congestion becoming a thing of the past, drawing on Cambridge’s existing strengths in promoting cycling and walking – allowing for faster and easier travel in and around the city, including to science and business parks.

    Then think about expanding existing commercial infrastructure so that the constraints that businesses currently face, including on lab capacity, are removed – supporting more jobs and more growth.

    Next: turn your mind’s eye to how the environment might look in which those living and working in Cambridge will spend their evenings and weekends – adding to Parker’s Piece, Jesus Green and the Botanic Garden a substantial new green space that rivals not just the Royal Parks of the capital but the best urban parks in the world.

    And in the wider region, we could support some of our most remarkable nature reserves, such as Wicken Fen, with what could become a new National Park. Finally, we can envisage new centres for culture – perhaps a natural history museum, or a genuinely world-class concert hall – proudly taking their place alongside some of Cambridge’s existing institutions such as the Fitzwilliam and the Scott Polar.

    That is the kind of Cambridge that I want to see come 2040. And under Peter’s leadership, the hard work to deliver against that ambition starts today.

    Building beautiful and making architecture great again

    But to achieve success in this vision of Cambridge – like everywhere else – we need homes that are accepted and wanted by their local communities. And core to that acceptance must be a new philosophy of community-led housing that is beautifully designed to match local character, has local input, and respects the local environment.

    That’s why we have established a powerful new body to drive building beautifully. The Office for Place – which will find its home in Stoke-on-Trent. This new body, led by the brilliant urbanist Nick Boys-Smith, will ensure that new places are created in accordance with the very best design principles. That we are place making and not just house building.

    For the first time, communities will be enabled to demand from developers what they find beautiful, and banish what they find ugly.

    And we will support the thoughtful stewardship and repurposing of existing buildings.

    As my department has demonstrated, it is both right environmentally and aesthetically to protect and preserve existing beautiful buildings and make it easier for their use to change and evolve.

    Communities taking back control of their future

    And we know that communities will welcome development when it is beautiful. I saw for myself in Poundbury the support that exists for the right sort of major development if it is properly master-planned and well-designed.

    And that is why I am so glad that the spirit of Poundbury is animating new garden towns and villages across the country – like the outstanding Welborne development in Hampshire, championed by my colleague Suella Braverman.

    Six thousand new homes delivered to a design blueprint shaped by the landscape architect Kim Wilkie and the aesthetic genius Ben Pentreath. It provides a model for the future. More garden towns and villages built on similar lines, master-planned to be communities that anyone would aspire to live in – that is critical to our future.

    And we will go further to empower communities to build beautiful in the places that they already love – supporting people to build homes themselves by scaling up the role of community land trusts and also making more resource available to support custom and self-built homes.

    We will also support communities to ensure that the beautiful new homes they want are delivered rapidly. Through the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill, we are simplifying and speeding up the process of updating local plans.

    But of course in order to do that, that means investing in quality planning. So today we are more than doubling our funding to bust planning backlogs with over £24 million of additional investment.

    And also we are creating a new “supersquad” of expert planners, backed by £13 million of new funding, to unblock major housing and infrastructure developments. This team will first land in Cambridge to turbocharge development that contributes to our vision for the city, but it will also look at sites across our 8 Investment Zones in England, to help provide high quality homes which complement the high-quality jobs that are being created.

    Ensuring every home is safe, decent, and warm

    As you can see, we believe in speed and scale. Speed and scale matter. But our pursuit of quantity must not involve, as I have always stressed, any compromise on quality.

    Too often in the past we have met housing targets but in the wrong way – ignoring the need for beautiful and well-constructed homes.

    Many of the homes that were built at speed, and on a significant scale in the fifties and sixties were brutalist blocks or soulless estates. Many are now unsafe, poorly insulated and prone to damp and mould, and are also alienating environments rather than loved neighbourhoods.

    We must learn the lessons from past failures as we build for the future. We must ensure that new builds are of the highest quality and also that renovation work proceeds apace in our existing housing stock, so that everyone can have a safe, decent and warm home that meets their family’s needs.

    So for new build homes we will roll out new design codes, and later this year we will consult on a universal Future Homes Standard – to deliver comfortable homes built to be zero-carbon: warm in the winter and cool in the summer.

    And we will continue of course to improve life for those in existing homes. We have reduced the number of non-decent homes by 2.5 million since 2010. But we must go further.

    We will now more rigorously hold social landlords to account for providing quality homes for their tenants and renovating the stock they have. Because the tragic death of Awaab Ishak demonstrated that we need to act and we in central government we need to regulate more robustly.

    Just last week our Social Housing Regulation Bill became law – and that requires social landlords to respond to serious hazards like damp and mould within new strict time limits. And of course we will penalise those social landlords who fail to make homes decent – with new unlimited fines for failing landlords, and the removal of house-building subsidies where social landlords are not keeping their existing stock in good repair.

    And of course we will update the Decent Homes Standard and apply it to private rented homes for the first time – tackling the fifth of homes which still do not meet basic standards of inhabitability.

    A new deal for landlords and tenants

    Through all of these interventions we recognise that a house is not just an asset to be traded but a home to be loved. Countries around the world have always recognised that thoughtful, focused, regulation is vital to ensure that everyone involved in the housing market benefits.

    That is why of course we have introduced legislation in the private rented sector to deliver a fairer deal for both landlords and tenants.

    For tenants, we will implement our manifesto commitment to end ‘no fault’ evictions – protecting those currently afraid to ask their landlord for basic repairs, for fear of losing their home.

    And we will also help landlords deal with tenants who abuse their position – expanding landlords’ ability to evict anti-social tenants, or those who wilfully refuse to pay rent. And a new Ombudsman will provide quicker, cheaper redress, alongside reformed court processes which ensure landlords can get their properties back quickly when they need them back.

    Liberating leaseholders

    Action again to get our housing market to work.

    But making the housing market work better will also require fundamental reforms to leasehold law. We want to ensure that those who have paid for their home by acquiring a leasehold can finally truly own their own home by becoming free of an outdated feudal regime which has been holding them back.

    So we will continue action on exploitative ground rents, expand leaseholder’ ability to enfranchise – and to take back control from distant freeholders we will reduce punitive legal service charges, reduce insurance costs – and improve transparency.

    All in new legislation to be in the King’s Speech.

    Extending ownership to a new generation

    And of course this new legislation, these changes to leasehold law will mean that true home ownership is extended to millions more. But it is also critical to our long-term housing plan to get many more people on a sustainable path to home ownership.

    Most recently of course we have backed existing buyers facing hardship. The Chancellor has worked with lenders to help owners facing temporary difficulties to stay in their homes, and he has extended mortgage interest support to help those who are most vulnerable and who need a helping hand.

    But through backing British first-time buyers across the country through the tax and planning system we are also planning to extend the ladder of opportunity to many more – by prioritising first time buyers for homes over those with multiple properties, over those seeking to convert family homes into holiday lets, and over speculative buyers who have been seeking to invest only to inflate property prices.

    We have helped already over three quarters of a million people to buy their first home since 2010 – through programmes including Help to Buy, Right to Buy and shared ownership and we will go further later this year.

    Conclusion

    All of the steps we are taking – on ownership, on leasehold reform, on decency, on beauty, on simplifying planning procedures, expanding planning capacity, and on regenerating and reviving our inner cities – are the components of a long term plan for safe, decent, warm and beautiful homes for all.

    In the weeks and months ahead we will be saying more, and delivering more.

    The comprehensive, and coherent, nature of our plan demonstrates a seriousness of intent in improving the supply of new homes – rather than an approach that returns to the failures of the past to encourage urban sprawl, to ignore environmental imperatives, to omit the need for new infrastructure, to avoid the rigorous work of thoughtful master-planning, to neglect the need for urban regeneration, to duck the leadership required to think big, and to forget the importance of beauty and community.

    These are policies that would encourage resistance to development, not incentivise it. They would weaken communities not strengthen them, and they would see the biggest economic prizes elude our grasp.

    That is why we are committed to a better way.

    Acting at every level – with a vision of national renewal – hundreds of thousands of new homes built from Barrow in Furness to Barking Riverside, Wolverhampton to West Yorkshire. Beautiful new neighbourhoods and thoughtfully-landscaped new quarters in our historic cities – proving to the world that the energy and ambition of our Victorian ancestors has now been superseded by a matchless modern spirit of endeavour.

    This is a plan to build a better Britain – and It is a plan we are determined to deliver.

    Thank you.

  • Julia Lopez – 2023 Statement on a Consultation on a Registration Scheme for Short-term Lets in England

    Julia Lopez – 2023 Statement on a Consultation on a Registration Scheme for Short-term Lets in England

    The statement made by Julia Lopez, the Minister of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 17 April 2023.

    The Government have published a consultation on a registration scheme for short-term lets in England, accompanied by the findings of a call for evidence held in 2022 on the development of a registration scheme.

    The short-term let sector has grown significantly over the last 10 to 15 years, with the emergence of the sharing economy and the growth of digital platforms at the heart of this change. Short-term lets are now a significant part of the UK’s visitor economy. They provide increased choice and flexibility for tourists and business travellers, and also those attending major sporting and cultural events.

    The Government recognise that this has brought a range of benefits, such as increased choice for consumers, and increased income for individual homeowners and to local economies through increased visitor spend.

    The Government want to ensure the country reaps these benefits and supports the visitor economy, while also protecting local communities and ensuring the availability of affordable housing to rent or buy.

    The Government have heard the concerns of local people in tourist hotspots that they are priced out of homes to rent or to buy and need housing that is more affordable so they can continue to work and live in the place they call home. The proposed planning changes would support sustainable communities, supporting local people and businesses and local services.

    The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committed to consult on a registration scheme for tourist accommodation in “The Tourism Recovery Plan”, published in June 2021. However, given the lack of available data on short-term lets in England, it was decided to first carry out a call for evidence to gather more information on the growth of the market and its impact, in order to inform the development of options for a public consultation.

    The call for evidence received almost 4,000 responses. Analysis of these responses showed that there is a need for a more consistent source of data on the number and location of short-term lets in England; and that while short-term lets create many benefits for a range of people and stakeholders, they also pose challenges for communities, particularly those located in tourism hotspots. The findings also indicated that there is broad support from across the sector for a registration scheme of short-term lets in England.

    Therefore, in December 2022, the Government committed to introduce a registration scheme in England via an amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill which is currently going through Parliament. This included holding a public consultation which would explore the options for how such a scheme would operate, which we have now published. Alongside the registration scheme, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has also published a separate consultation on the introduction of a planning use class for short-term lets and potential associated permitted development rights. We are also seeking views on whether it would be helpful to expressly provide a degree of flexibility for dwelling houses to be let out for 30, 60, or 90 nights in a calendar year before planning permission could be required. These changes will give local areas greater control where short-term lets are an issue and support sustainable communities. We have worked across government to ensure that the proposals are complementary and proportionate.

    The Government are consulting on three possible approaches for a registration scheme, as well as a range of more detailed questions on the design of the scheme:

    An opt-in scheme for local authorities, with the framework set nationally: this option is a targeted approach, recognising that any negative housing and community effects of short-term lets are felt more in some localities than others;

    an opt-in scheme for local authorities with the framework set nationally, and a review point to determine whether to expand the scheme to mandatory: as above, but with the flexibility to expand the scheme to cover all of England if there is a case to do so following an evaluation; and

    a mandatory national scheme, administered by one of: the English Tourist Board (VisitEngland), local authorities, or another competent authority: this option recognises the need for a level playing field in the guest accommodation sector across England.

    The registration scheme is intended to improve consistency in the application of health and safety regulations, helping to boost our international reputation and attract more international visitors by giving visible assurance that we have a high-quality and safe guest accommodation offer. It will also provide valuable data which will give local authorities information about which premises are being let out in their area, and help them to manage the housing market impact of high numbers of short-term lets, where this is an issue. This could help local authorities to apply and enforce the changes.

    Subject to the outcome of the consultation, the planning changes would be introduced through secondary legislation later in the year and would apply in England only. Both of these measures are focused on short-term lets, and therefore the planning changes and the register would not impact on hotels, hostels or B&Bs.

    The Government’s ambition has been, and will continue to be, to ensure that we reap the benefits of short-term and holiday lets sustainably, while also protecting the long-term interests of local communities and holidaymakers in England. The publication of the consultation on a registration scheme and the analysis of the call for evidence shows our commitment to this ambition, and our progress towards developing an effective and proportionate response to the sector’s concerns.

    I will place a copy of the call for evidence report and the consultation document in the Libraries of both Houses.

  • Michael Gove – 2023 Statement on Building Safety – Responsible Actors Scheme and Developer Remediation Contract

    Michael Gove – 2023 Statement on Building Safety – Responsible Actors Scheme and Developer Remediation Contract

    The statement made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on 24 March 2023.

    On 14 March, I announced that 39 developers had signed the developer remediation contract. By signing the contract, they made binding commitments to fix or pay to fix life-critical fire safety defects in all buildings in England over 11 metres that they had a role in developing or refurbishing over the past 30 years. This amounts to an irreversible commitment to making safe at least 1,100 buildings at a cost of over £2 billion.

    Update on responsible actors scheme

    Last week, I also told the House that there will be consequences for companies that do not sign the contract. I warned that they will be prohibited from commencing developments in England or gaining building control sign-off on their developments, unless they sign and adhere to the contract. I said that we would lay regulations this spring to establish a responsible actors scheme. The regulations will recognise the positive action of responsible developers and will make sure that eligible developers who do not sign and comply with the contract will be unable to be members of the scheme, and therefore be subject to prohibitions. I will lay regulations that will, with Parliament’s consent, bring the scheme into operation before the summer recess.

    Today, I am publishing the key features of the responsible actors scheme on gov.uk and placing a copy of the information in the libraries of both Houses. The key features document sets out how the scheme will work, the likely eligibility criteria and membership conditions for the first phase of the scheme, how developers will apply to join the scheme and the prohibitions that will be imposed on eligible developers that fail to sign the contract and comply with its terms.

    Developers who want to be part of the scheme will need to sign the developer remediation contract and comply with its terms. In its first phase, the scheme will focus on larger residential property developers and developers who developed multiple tall residential buildings known to have life-critical fire safety defects. Over time, I intend to expand the scheme to cover even more of those who developed unsafe 11 metre-plus residential buildings and should pay to fix them.

    Eligible developers will be invited to join the scheme by a statutory deadline or provide evidence that they do not in fact meet the eligibility criteria. Any eligible developer who chooses not to join the scheme, or who is expelled from the scheme as a result of a material or persistent breach of its conditions, will be added to a list of developers who will not be permitted to carry out major development or secure building control sign-offs.

    The message to those developers who have yet to sign the contract, their shareholders and investors could not be clearer. The responsible actors scheme is coming. Only developers who behave responsibly will be trusted to build the homes of the future. Any eligible developers who fail to do the right thing will need to find a new line of work.

    Update on signatories to the developer remediation contract

    At the time of my statement of 14 March, 11 developers had yet to sign. I named those companies and called on their directors to reflect on their future and do the right thing. Today, I can confirm that 4 of those 11 companies have since signed the contract: Ballymore, Lendlease, London Square and Telford Homes. The 7 developers who have yet to sign the contract are: Abbey Developments, Avant, Dandara, Emerson Group (Jones Homes), Galliard Homes, Inland Homes and Rydon Homes. Some of those companies have told us that they remain committed to protecting leaseholders and taxpayers from having to pay, and claim that they will sign the contract in coming days.

    As I made plain last week, I will write to local authorities and building inspectors to explain the consequences for those companies that remain non-signatories at the point that the regulations creating the responsible actors scheme come into force. I will suggest action that local authorities may want to take to be prepared for implementation of the scheme, to ensure that any companies that do not wish to act responsibly do not profit from that behaviour—and that the public is protected as a result.

    Given possible market sensitivities, I notified the London stock exchange about the key features document.

  • Ian Levy – 2023 Parliamentary Question on Homelessness Among Veterans

    Ian Levy – 2023 Parliamentary Question on Homelessness Among Veterans

    The parliamentary question asked by Ian Levy, the Conservative MP for Blyth Valley, in the House of Commons on 16 March 2023.

    Ian Levy (Blyth Valley) (Con)

    2. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to end homelessness among veterans. (904102)

    David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)

    13. What steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to end homelessness among veterans. (904118)

    The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Johnny Mercer)

    Research shows that only 0.7% of households who were homeless or at risk of homelessness in 2021 and 2022 had support needs as a result of having served in the armed forces, but we will end veteran homelessness this year via Op Fortitude. This new referral scheme will provide a central point for local authorities and charities to identify those in need and refer them to a network of support.

    Ian Levy

    I am aware that the Minister recently visited Forward Assist, where he met veterans from the north-east, including from Blyth and Cramlington in my constituency, and he knows the admirable work that it does helping veterans overcome challenges such as homelessness, mental health difficulties and social isolation. Will he join me in expressing gratitude to everyone at Forward Assist for its commendable efforts in assisting veterans as they transition back to civilian life?

    Johnny Mercer

    My hon. Friend is a huge champion of the charity Forward Assist, which has done incredible work over a long period. The Government and I are clear that there are two groups of veterans who are under- represented in this space. One is foreign and Commonwealth veterans, and the other is women. We are absolutely determined to correct that. I recognise that there are difficult issues, such as military sexual trauma. We launched the women’s strategy only 10 days ago, and I urge all female veterans to contribute to that so that we can make sure that their needs are met.

    David Duguid

    I thank the Minister for his response. Can he update the House on what this Government are doing across all nations of the United Kingdom to support veterans who are experiencing homelessness, including in Scotland?

    Johnny Mercer

    Op Fortitude was something we piloted at Christmas, and it will go live in the next six weeks. It is a single, defined pathway out of homelessness that local authorities will be able to refer into. It is backed up by £8.5 million, and it buys 910 supported housing placements. That is across the United Kingdom. We do not want to see any homeless veterans by the end of this year, and we will strain every sinew to make sure we achieve that goal.

    Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)

    Some 90% of veterans who try to claim personal independence payment for post-traumatic stress disorder have their applications rejected, according to armed forces charities. This is leaving veterans facing homelessness, being reliant on food banks and, in some cases, even considering suicide. Can the Minister explain why it is that veterans are being forced to rely on charities rather than being given the help that they need by this Government?

    Johnny Mercer

    That question might have been relevant six or seven years ago, but this Government have completely transformed how we deal with veterans, particularly vulnerable veterans, in this country, and recognise that there is a transition between charity and Government responsibility. If there are any individual cases, I am more than happy for the hon. Lady to refer them to me. There has never been better support for armed forces veterans in this country than that given today, and I am determined that all veterans will feel the benefit.

    Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)

    The Royal British Legion estimated in 2020 that there were up to 4,000 homeless veterans in the UK. In Scotland, there is a duty to find permanent accommodation for all unintentionally homeless applicants, including veterans. Will that exemplar be matched in England and an action group set up? What specifically are this Government doing to help eradicate homelessness, particularly with respect to ex-servicemen and women?

    Johnny Mercer

    I do not recognise those figures at all. There are homeless veterans in this country, including some who are involuntarily sleeping rough because of a lack of provision. We are ending that this year through clear homelessness pathways and through working with Riverside, Stoll and Alabaré and other brilliant service charities to make sure that there are no homeless veterans by the end of this year. Again, if there are any examples, I am more than happy for hon. Members to write to me and I will take up individual cases, but we will end it this year. I remind Members that, if we continue to go around saying that there are lots of homeless veterans when that is not the case, that will be self-defeating as we attempt to make this the best country in which to be a veteran.

  • Tom Hunt – 2023 Comments on Building Safety and Cardinal Lofts

    Tom Hunt – 2023 Comments on Building Safety and Cardinal Lofts

    The comments made by Tom Hunt, the Conservative MP for Ipswich, in the House of Commons on 14 March 2023.

    Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)

    The Secretary of State is well aware of the situation with Cardinal Lofts. Today at 10 minutes past two, a formal prohibition notice was served, so any remaining constituents of mine in that building will be obliged to leave. One of the worst things is the lack of timescale for how long my constituents will be in limbo. They cannot plan their lives—their lives are on hold. Will the Secretary of State work with me to try to get that certainty as soon as possible and look into compensation that goes beyond covering temporary accommodation? The extent to which their lives has been affected is unacceptable. He will also know that Railpen was aware of these issues for two years before it decided to take any action at all.

    Michael Gove

    My hon. Friend is right, and he has been a fantastic champion for the residents of Cardinal Lofts and other people affected by this. I think I am right in saying that Railpen is the ultimate owner of the freehold for this building. It is the pension fund for those who work in the rail sector. There are good trade unionists on the board of that pension fund to whom I appeal to show the same degree of energy in helping working people as my hon. Friend. While pension funds of course have fiduciary responsibilities and all the rest of it, it is vital that we do right by the residents of this building. I hope I will have the chance to visit Ipswich soon, to make good on that commitment.

  • Clive Betts – 2023 Speech on Building Safety

    Clive Betts – 2023 Speech on Building Safety

    The speech made by Clive Betts, the Labour MP for Sheffield South East, in the House of Commons on 14 March 2023.

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    I call the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee.

    Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)

    I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. Clearly, any progress in this matter is welcome for the leaseholders who are still sat there, wondering when something is going to happen to their unsafe homes. The Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), is coming to the Select Committee next Monday. I apologise in advance that, for personal reasons, I cannot be there, but I am sure the scrutiny will be just as effective under the oversight of the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).

    A number of issues have been raised with the Select Committee. First, in terms of the agreement that developers are signing, it was said to us that the remediation standards developers will have to work to will not be as strict as those under the Building Safety Act. Can the Secretary of State confirm whether that is true? Secondly, the Committee spoke to product manufacturers the other week, who said that they had had no contact with the Department for the last 12 months. Is that true, and if so, when will that contact be renewed, so that they can be held to account?

    Finally, the Minister says, “I’m going to look at this” every time I ask him. Kate Henderson of the National Housing Federation told the Committee on Monday that the cost of remediating these matters will be £6 billion for social housing providers. They have only had a tiny bit of money under the ACM cladding measures. Will the Secretary of State look at that again? Otherwise, there will be cutbacks to the house building programme that they all want to engage in.

    Michael Gove

    I thank the Chairman of the Select Committee for his questions. I note his apology for not being able to be there to cross examine my hon. Friend the Minister for local government and building safety next Monday. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) will do a brilliant job. They are the Morse and Lewis of—

    Mr Betts

    Which one’s which?

    Michael Gove

    Well, quite. I know that they will show endeavour in asking the right questions.

    On remediation standards, I do not believe it is the case that the developers are being held to any less high a standard than that which exists in the Building Safety Act, but I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman and others to identify any gap between what the Act makes provision for and anything that developers have committed to do.

    It is the case that I have not been in touch with the Construction Products Association as a corporate body for a while. We have been pursuing individual construction product companies, but of course, our actions have to take account of the actions of others who may be pursuing them for criminal activity and liability.

    On the hon. Gentleman’s point about the National Housing Federation, I have been in conversations with the Chancellor of the Exchequer about what more we can do to support the social housing sector. How richly those conversations bear fruit, we will have to see.

  • Chris Stephens – 2023 Speech on Building Safety

    Chris Stephens – 2023 Speech on Building Safety

    The speech made by Chris Stephens, the SNP spokesperson on Levelling Up, in the House of Commons on 14 March 2023.

    I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I have a couple of quick questions.

    On the developers who have not signed, the Secretary of State is obviously talking about the situation in England. Does he intend to share that information with the devolved Administrations? Those companies may have interests in devolved areas.

    What happens if a non-compliant building has defects that extend beyond fire performance matters? Further defects are often discovered only after the opening works have commenced and cladding has been removed—I am thinking particularly of acoustic and thermal non-compliance. Could the Secretary of State tell us which independent bodies will manage the work to identify such defects, and how will developers be held to account for them?

    Finally, what is the Secretary of State’s plan when owners and/or developers of non-compliant buildings cannot be traced?

    Michael Gove

    We will certainly share information with the devolved Administrations. As I mentioned briefly, we want to work with the Welsh Government, and indeed with the Scottish Government, to ensure that everyone is in a safe building and that businesses that are not operating in accordance with their responsibilities cannot wriggle out of their responsibilities. I look forward to working with the new First Minister—whoever she is—in due course to achieve progress.

    On non-compliant buildings, the hon. Gentleman is certainly right that, as we replace cladding, new faults are sometimes identified. Developers have a responsibility to deal with those if they were the original responsible actor. That brings me to his third question. Where it is not a developer who takes responsibility but a freeholder, our recovery strategy unit is working to identify all the freeholders responsible. It is only in the very last instance that leaseholders may be liable for costs, and even then, they are firmly capped under legislation that this House passed.

  • Lisa Nandy – 2023 Speech on Building Safety

    Lisa Nandy – 2023 Speech on Building Safety

    The speech made by Lisa Nandy, the Shadow Levelling Up Secretary, in the House of Commons on 14 March 2023.

    I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. We want to see every developer sign the remediation contract and urgently move to fix the unsafe buildings and free leaseholders who have been trapped for too long. Throughout this process, we have supported steps to speed that up and provide support to leaseholders. In that spirit, I welcome the statement and I do not doubt the Secretary of State’s sincerity in dealing with this problem, nor the deeply held convictions on all sides of the House.

    However, I fear that the collective will of this House to see that done is being damaged by what appears to be an increasingly dysfunctional approach from the Government. Last week the Secretary of State was on social media threatening major house builders with a nationwide ban if they failed to sign up to the contract within a matter of days. He is 100% right to say the developers should pay, but it undermines his case when his own Department had not even managed to send the contract to them.

    That really matters, because until builders sign, leaseholder groups remain in limbo. They need more than tough talk; they need clarity and competence. For the 10 developers who signed the initial pledge but not the contract, which as the Secretary of State rightly says includes Galliard Homes, Ballymore and—shamefully, given its role in Grenfell—Rydon Homes, will he be using the powers at his disposal to designate the developers who cannot be granted planning permission? Crucially, can he tell us from when?

    The Secretary of State is right to say this is a step forward, but there are many more steps to go. Leaseholders need not another deadline, but real action and hope on the horizon. Can he spell out exactly what this action will mean for developments that have already begun under those developers and that have already received planning consent? Will he be using the powers at his disposal to issue remediation orders to force them to fix their buildings in the meantime? Can he also tell us whether the 39 who have signed the contract will be obliged to fix all critical fire safety defects, as defined by the Building Safety Act 2022, and what will happen if they do not? There is a gap between the contract and the Act, and we need to make sure that the cost of that gap is not borne by leaseholders.

    The contract, the Secretary of State says, will cover over 1,000 buildings. Given that his own Department has estimated that there are between 6,000 and 9,000 unsafe 11 to 18-metre buildings alone, it clearly only deals with a fraction of the problem. How does he plan to assist leaseholders in buildings with defects that are outside the scope of the contract in getting them remediated? Remediation remains painfully slow—something he knows and has rightly acknowledged—but the contract stipulates only that repairs and remediation must be carried out

    “as soon as reasonably practicable”.

    Again, I push him for hard timescales and deadlines.

    On the issue of who is responsible, may I again ask the Secretary of State why British house builders are being asked to pay, while foreign developers and the companies that made the materials used in affected buildings are still not? That is a basic question of justice.

    We should all be moving heaven and earth to right this wrong, yet the House of Lords Committee that scrutinised amendments to the Building Safety (Leaseholder Protections) (England) Regulations 2022 found that that instrument contained an unintentional drafting error that excluded parent and sister companies from being considered as associated with the landlord. That meant that landlords could avoid the £2 million net worth threshold above which they must not pass on to leaseholders costs for repairing historical defects. Despite that error as a result of a mistake at the Secretary of State’s Department, no compensation has been forthcoming for leaseholders who have had to pay remediation costs, and no plans are in place to alert those leaseholders to the possibility of applying to a tribunal to seek cost recovery. What is the Department doing to identify affected leaseholders and inform them that an appeal route to recover costs is available to them?

    Finally, I say to the Secretary of State that there is, I think, cross-party agreement now that this is not the only issue for leaseholders. Leasehold is a feudal system that has no place in a modern society. It is time that we ended—abolished—the scandal of leasehold once and for all, and ended the misery for the far too many people who are trapped in that feudal system. Labour appreciates what he has done to move this desperate situation forward, but it remains in his gift to fix it once and for all, and we would fail in our duty if we did not take every opportunity to urge him to do so.

    Michael Gove

    I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the thoughtful and detailed way in which she has responded to the announcement, and for the support from her and colleagues across the House for the work that we have undertaken.

    The hon. Lady asks about contracts and the speed with which they have been signed. Again, just to inform her and the House, we ensured that developers were given a copy of the contract on 30 January, when it was published. A final version was sent to developers with minor alterations on 21 February. The execution version of the contract depended on the developers themselves providing the Department with a list of affected buildings, so it was the work of developers, not of the Department, that led to the late signing of contracts, but I am grateful to all who have now signed.

    The hon. Lady asks about the responsible actors scheme, when it will be implemented and the effect it will have. We will lay details of the responsible actors scheme next week. I want to allow some of the 11 who have not yet signed a little leeway to ensure that they live up to their responsibilities. The letters that I have written to the directors of the companies concerned will, I think, help to concentrate their minds to ensure that they have a chance to sign before we lay the responsible actors scheme details next week.

    The hon. Lady asks if the powers in the 2022 Act will be used for those who will not have signed by that time. They absolutely will. She asks if we will fix all critical features. All life-critical features in medium and high-rise buildings will be addressed by developers. It is the case that with buildings under 11 metres, there are some fire safety issues, but we have to look at them case by case—some will be life-critical; some will not. Our cladding safety scheme, which addresses mid-rise buildings specifically—those between 11 and 18 metres—should, I hope, deal with the delay, which she rightly points out, in dealing with the fire safety issue for that crucial section of our housing sector.

    The hon. Lady makes the point about foreign developers and the need to tackle them, and I quite agree with her. It is important that we use all the tools in our power, and we are exploring sanctions, criminal options and others. The one thing that I would say is that there is one jurisdiction—not a foreign jurisdiction but an adjacent one—where action has not been taken to deal with some of those responsible, and that, of course, is Wales. I ask her to work with me to ensure that the Welsh Labour Government take appropriate steps to deal with the situation in Wales. We stand ready to work with them and with all parties in that regard.

    The hon. Lady also asks about the need to abolish the invidious and feudal system of leasehold. As someone who was born in Scotland—mercifully, a country free from that system—I can say only that this is one area where I hope that England at last catches up with one part of the United Kingdom that is, in that respect at least, more progressive.

  • Michael Gove – 2023 Statement on Building Safety

    Michael Gove – 2023 Statement on Building Safety

    The statement made by Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, on 14 March 2023.

    With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to update the House on the progress the Government have made in securing commitments from developers to remediate properties with building safety defects. Last year, the major house builders signed a pledge to fix all the medium or high-rise buildings that they had built or refurbished that were unsafe. The developers also promised to reimburse the taxpayer for work already undertaken at Government expense.

    This Parliament has always been clear that those with ultimate responsibility for those buildings should bear the cost of remediation. Innocent leaseholders, who are neither responsible for safety defects nor equipped with the resources to fix the problem, should not be on the hook. Those who are responsible must pay. We have worked with developers to draw up a contract that gives direct effect to the pledge that they made. I was and remain grateful to those developers who have been so keen to live up to those obligations, and I am particularly grateful to Stewart Baseley of the Home Builders Federation for his skilful work in supporting the commitments made.

    We published the legal contract on 30 January this year, and I gave an initial cohort of developers six weeks to confirm that they accepted the list of buildings for which they take responsibility and then to sign the contract. That deadline expired yesterday. I can confirm that 39 developers have signed the contract. We have published a list of those developers on gov.uk and hard copies of the list have been shared with the Vote Office. By signing the contracts, those developers have committed to fixing at least 1,100 buildings. They will invest more than £2 billion in that work—money saved for the taxpayer and invested in giving leaseholders a brighter future. I thank those developers for their hard work and co-operation in helping us to right the wrongs of the past. They are making significant financial commitments and I am grateful to them.

    Leaseholders who have been waiting for work to be done to make their building safe will quite rightly want that work to start without delay. I know that those responsible developers who have signed the contract understand that expectation and will be in touch with leaseholders to set out the programme of expected works as soon as possible. I take the opportunity once again to apologise to those leaseholders and others who have waited so long for this work to be done. While there is still much to do, I hope today shows that their campaigning and that of so many hon. Members has not been in vain. While the overwhelming majority of major developers have signed, some regrettably have not. Parliament has made clear what that means, and so have I. Those companies will be out of the house building business in England entirely unless and until they change their course. Next week I will publish key features of our new responsible actors scheme, a means of ensuring that only those committed to building safety will be allowed to build in future.

    Those developers who have been invited to sign the remediation contract, but who have not agreed to live up to their responsibilities, will not be eligible to join the responsible actors scheme. They will not be able to commence new developments in England or receive building control approval for work already under way. The House should note that the companies invited to sign the remediation contract who have not yet lived up to their responsibilities are Abbey Developments, Avant, Ballymore, Dandara, Emerson Group (Jones Homes), Galliard Homes, Inland Homes, Lendlease, London Square, Rydon Homes and Telford Homes.

    While my officials remain in discussions with several who are making progress towards signing, I am concerned that some companies do not appreciate the grave nature of the responsibility they bear. I hope the directors of those firms will now exercise the same level of responsibility as the leaders of the building industry. The reluctance so far of some companies to sign up only underlines the need for the responsible actors scheme. It will ensure that there are consequences for developers who wish to be, at the moment, neither answerable nor accountable.

    I will take other steps to ensure that companies live up to their responsibilities. I will be writing to major investors in those firms to explain the commercial implications of their directors’ current decisions. I will write to local authorities and building inspectors to explain that those developers’ projects may not be started or signed off. I will notify public bodies to be prepared to reopen tender award processes or rerun competitions. House buyers will want to know what that means for them, and we will formally set out the risks involved in purchasing homes from companies that have chosen to ignore the prospect of prohibitions.

    I accept that the course of action that I have set out today is a significant intervention in the market for any Government, but the magnitude of the crisis that we faced and the depth of the suffering for all those affected clearly justified a radical approach. To their credit, the leaders of the development industry have willingly accepted the need for action. The vast majority of developers, as we should all appreciate, have made undertakings to the British public to put right the wrongs of the past. I am glad we can now work together with leaders in the industry on making sure that we deliver more safe, affordable, decent homes for the country.

    As those developers have rightly argued, we in Government will also do more to pursue freeholders who have yet to live up to their responsibilities and construction product manufacturers, who also bear heavy responsibility for unsafe buildings. I will have more to say on that in the days and weeks to come. For the many thousands of people whose lives have been blighted by the failure properly to address building safety in the past, today’s update brings us one more step closer to at last resolving the issue, and for that reason I commend the statement to the House.

  • Rachel Maclean – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

    Rachel Maclean – 2023 Speech on Brownfield Development and the Green Belt

    The speech made by Rachel Maclean, the Minister of State at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 9 February 2023.

    It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) for securing this debate, and for the interest it has generated from colleagues from across the House and across our United Kingdom—it would not be the same without our friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

    I also thank colleagues for their kind words about my role, and the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) for his words of welcome. I very much look forward to having many exchanges with him, and I stress the word “many”. I am sure they will all be polite and constructive, yet probing and robust when they need to be. He has definitely eased me in very well today, and in a very kind way, although no doubt that will not continue. However, we have enjoyed today.

    Let me start by saying that there is so much that we all agree on in this debate. We all agree that brownfield regeneration is absolutely vital. I again pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills for her tireless championing of this cause and her constructive engagement with the Government ahead of the Report stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill. In her customary way, which we all know well, she raises so many practical points that her communities and residents have raised with her. That is a reflection of how she champions her constituents and the Black Country values that she represents so well in this House, and we all benefit from that.

    We all know that redeveloping brownfield sites is not just better for the environment, but also holds the key to regenerating communities. The Government share my right hon. Friend’s view that, as I think every colleague has highlighted, we should do everything we can to protect our precious green-belt, greenfield, open-space and countryside land, while also making the best possible use of land that has already been developed—land that usually already benefits from mains drainage, power and road access.

    That is exactly why the Government have pursued an unambiguous “brownfield first” approach to development. Indeed, I am sure my right hon. Friend will have seen that we have announced £60 million to help councils to free up their brownfield sites for regeneration and new homes. That is part of a much bigger pot of money—catchily entitled the brownfield land release fund 2—that is worth £180 million overall. This £180 million-worth of grant funding will help to accelerate the release of land for roughly 17,600 new homes by 2020. The brownfield housing fund has already had a transformative effect on communities. Let me answer the challenge that the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich posed about how the funding is allocated across our country. In November ’22, we announced that 57% of brownfield land release funding was allocated outside London and the south-east, which is of course consistent with the Government’s levelling-up aspirations.

    My right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills will know about the incredible work done by our friend Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority. She also highlighted the work of Councillor Mike Bird, with whom she has worked closely. The West Midlands Combined Authority has been a trailblazer for brownfield redevelopment, using £153 million from the fund to unlock over 10,000 new homes on brownfield sites.

    She will know about projects such as the Lockside scheme, which will see 252 well-designed, high-quality homes built at the old Caparo Engineering site, and the transformation of the Harvestime bread factory, which has already delivered 88 much-needed new homes and a thriving community. An added benefit of that development is that it has tackled some of the crime and antisocial behaviour that used to be seen at the site.

    Colleagues raised a huge number of points; I will try to respond to them in turn, using the time I have available. The hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) gave us a fascinating insight into the civil war history of his constituency, and highlighted the similarity of the challenges facing us all, no matter which parts of our nation we represent. He asked about biodiversity and rare species on sites where development is proposed. He will know that we are putting the protection of habitats at the heart of the planning system, through the introduction of biodiversity net gain from November 2023; developers will need to assess the condition of the land they propose to develop and ensure there is better biodiversity value after development.

    I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) for all the work she has done throughout the passage of the Bill, under my predecessor, particularly with reference to new clause 21. She is working to rebalance the planning system and I listened carefully to all her comments. We should have a meeting to discuss the issues in a huge amount of detail, with the kind assistance of my officials, who have been working on this for a lot longer than the 48 hours I have had to do a massive reading sprint of all the comments and debates; we will do better justice to the issue by having a meeting. Although she said she would be obstinate, she was also incredibly polite, so I look forward to many future discussions with her.

    The hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) talked a lot about the brownfield remediation that is needed. The Government are reviewing the brownfield land planning system, and I am happy to write to her with more detail in response to some of her questions.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Greg Smith) referred to the importance of food production—the food and drink that is produced in his constituency, and across the country—which is considered in the national planning policy framework. Again, I listened to his comments. He will know that the consultation is under way, and I invite him to join the meeting with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet, or on another occasion when we can discuss the issues in more detail. I understand the frustration of some of his constituents.

    The hon. Member for Strangford reminded me of a very happy trip I made to the Mourne mountains and the beautiful scenery of Northern Ireland—[Interruption.] I do not want to interrupt his conversation, but he reminded me of the wonderful time I had. I went through his constituency to another part of beautiful Northern Ireland, so I have seen it for myself. Although the system in Northern Ireland is devolved, we have many similar challenges and we can all learn from working with each other.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) talked in favour of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill; I was grateful to hear his support. He talked about how it will regenerate high streets and communities, which we can all welcome. He highlights the importance of local plans to the quality of life of the people who already live there.

    Last but not least, I come to my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup). I well remember her long record of campaigning and how she started her journey to this House. I have no doubt that she will never give up, as she set out in her motto. I hope I can assist her campaign by promising to set up a meeting with her as soon as I can; I am looking to my very helpful officials, who no doubt are scrutinising the debate closely.

    I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills for securing this useful and constructive debate. Having been in the job for two days, it is an honour to be here discussing these issues that touch all our constituents, in every single community, no matter where we live. The Government have a mission to level up the United Kingdom and build beautiful homes in the places where people want to live. We all want homes to be available for our children—or in my case, my granddaughter. I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend; she talked about the excitement of first getting the keys to her new home, and that is the balance we seek to achieve in our work. We are thoroughly committed to working with all hon. Members across the House in that endeavour, and we will continue to build the right homes in the right places for the people who need them most.