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  • Rachael Maskell – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    Rachael Maskell – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    The speech made by Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). I sat on the levelling up Bill Committee, and seven Ministers served us during that time, so I share that frustration. We need a long-term strategy to ensure we address the housing crisis we face.

    I congratulate the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) on securing this important debate, which has caused hon. Members to stay behind on a Thursday because we care so passionately about housing. I also welcome the new Minister to her place. I trust she will produce the goods that we are all longing for: not just a fairer private rented sector and a 12-point plan, but the first step of a comprehensive strategy to address once and for all the housing crisis that we see.

    The private rented sector has now become the backstop to housing, as opposed to local authorities, which traditionally had that role. As a result, power has shifted from the state into the hands of private landlords, which is why we face some of these deep-seated crises. In York, 20.4% of people live in the private rented sector. I have looked at the number of class 1 measures that need to be taken because of a failure to keep those homes in good condition. A quarter of homes have trip hazards, poor wiring, mould, rodents—the list goes on. That is why today’s measures on raising those standards are so important. But that can be only a first step.

    Most landlords are there to serve a community in their own way, but also to realise the value of their estate and investment. Much extraction of property and money removes those opportunities from anybody else. For any tenant I speak to in the private rented sector, renting is not their choice. It is a matter of needing a home and for many people that home is not satisfactory for them. Since the year began, we have seen a plethora of section 21 notices; they are rising in number. I will talk about that because we are seeing a rise in costs and a decline in conditions. Looking at costs, my constituents spend 32% of their income on rent, which means that, with the cost of living crisis and energy costs, there is little left to start saving for that longed-for home. Property prices are rising in York at a rate that is running away from people, so they are trapped, with no assets, in the private rented sector. We must facilitate people’s ability to break out from that.

    Some costs fall heavily on people who receive local housing allowance. I really hope that the Minister will talk to colleagues about that—I appreciate that there is crossover of interest in housing—and how the broad rental market is evaluated. The average rental cost in York is £945 per calendar month, and yet someone would receive only £650 in their LHA for a two-bedded property. That gap means that people cannot afford to live in the private rented sector and have nowhere to go. Ultimately, we see that many people with the vital skills needed to ensure that our economy can function are leaving our city. There are deep-seated challenges because the rental market covers a much broader area than York, which has a particular hotspot in property expense.

    We also see people taking real advantage of section 21 notices because of the short-term holiday let market. The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) focused her speech on that, and I will do so, too, because it is hitting holiday hotspots across the country at such an alarming rate. Private landlords are flipping their properties over from the private rented sector to short-term holiday lets. In York, a landlord can get £700 from a property for a weekend. In the light of the measures spoken about by the hon. Member for Harrow East and the changes first in buy-to-let mortgages and then when George Osborne pulled back some tax advantages, landlords say that their margins are too tight to maintain their properties in the private rented sector so, to make any profit on their assets, they need to flip their properties.

    We have more than 2,000 short-term holiday lets just in my constituency and the surrounding area, which are hollowing out streets and communities. Ultimately, because of that market, people are being kicked out of their homes and having to leave the area and their jobs, and children are being taken out of school. That is why I have a private Member’s Bill—the Short-term and Holiday-let Accommodation (Licensing) Bill—before Parliament. I hope that the Department will work with me to bring it into being and regulate and license short-term holiday lets. It is due to have its Second Reading on 9 December, and it could transform our ability to regulate that market. That is where the inequality sits and where we need to see significant change.

    I welcome the measures in the White Paper for greater accountability and for greater power for tenants—something that has been so absent. That is why I very much hope to see those measures brought forward in a Bill at the earliest possible stage. An ombudsman is a way of bringing powers to book, but it needs to be properly resourced. If it is not, it will be ineffective in bringing about the changes that we need to see and to put curbs on landlords wanting to exploit the system.

    I turn to students. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown mentioned the challenges in student accommodation. I met York Residential Landlords Association to discuss the matter as well as the universities in York. Purpose-built student accommodation has an exemption and can issue just one-year tenancies to students. However, in the private rented sector, there is not that option. That will cause real challenge. Next year’s students are already seeking out their accommodation. Landlords are saying that if the legislation comes in, they will simply start looking for their accommodation during the exam period. That, clearly, would not be in anyone’s interests. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown came up with a really sensible and positive suggestion, and I hope the Minister can look at it, but we do need to solve this issue for the sake of students. I have 40,000 students in one form or another in York, so it is a major issue for us.

    I hope the Minister, in her time in the role, will look internationally at good practice, as there is much to learn from across the globe. In particular, I am attracted to measures taken in Finland where tenants are provided with resourcing, instead of just a local housing benefit, to start being able to access the property market themselves. It is an interesting model that should be considered as an opportunity.

    I concur with hon. Members from across the House on the need to build social homes. We really do have a crisis, and when there is a crisis urgent measures need to be taken. The problem with housing is that it is still seen as a short-term fix for developers trying to make their revenue. We have to think far more long-term about it. I urge the Minister to think about the opportunities her Government have to use public land for public good. I am talking about disposals of Ministry of Defence land, NHS property services, Network Rail and so on—significant estates. If we can build social housing and affordable housing on those estates, as opposed to housing to market, it could be a real game changer. The interest of the spending Department is to receive a capital receipt, but if we can find that as a mechanism to deliver the housing our communities need it could be really important.

    I will close on this point. When Nye Bevan sat where the Minister is and had the opportunity to deliver housing—I think we all recognise that he delivered more for social housing and more for housing in our country than any other Minister ever has, and I certainly pay tribute to him—he said that the only way to deliver the housing the country needed was to empower local authorities, municipal authorities, to have the authority to go ahead and build. He built and he delivered. I trust the Minister will, too.

  • Bob Blackman – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    Bob Blackman – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    The speech made by Bob Blackman, the Conservative MP for Harrow East, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    It is a pleasure to follow my co-chair on the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi). I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

    As my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) said, the private sector rental market in this country has expanded not just to cover what it was intended to provide—a way for people to let out houses as they choose—but to take into account what is needed for social rented housing. I will start with our biggest problem, which is that all political parties have failed for 30 years to build enough socially rented homes in this country. The reality is that we need to build 90,000 socially rented homes a year to provide what is required. At the moment, we expect the private rented sector to pick up that slack, so we have to then interfere with the market.

    I counsel my hon. Friend the new Minister to ensure that we do not look at the issue in a piecemeal way, because we need to reform the whole market, not just bits of it. As I have said on many occasions, the biggest cause of homelessness in this country is the end of a private sector tenancy through the serving of a section 21 notice. However, if someone gets a section 21 notice now, they can, thanks to the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, at least approach the local authority and seek help and assistance, whereas previously they could not.

    We have the challenge that, if all we do is abolish section 21, we will force private sector landlords to move to section 8 evictions and all that involves. The problem then is that it not only becomes an expensive process across the board, but lands the tenant, who is probably completely innocent, with county court judgments against their name, and when they go for another private sector tenancy, they get told, “Sorry, you’re a bad risk and we’re going to up the deposit or impose conditions on you to get the private sector tenancy.” That is wrong in principle. What we have to do is to look at the complete area of the market.

    One other issue, which my hon. Friend the Member for Dover mentioned, is the changes that have taken place in the promotion of the private rented sector by previous Governments. When Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he promoted the concept of buy to let, which has of course continued to expand across the piece. When George Osborne was Chancellor, he put brakes on the incentives to do that, which of course did not kick in for several years after he proposed them. The result is that many private sector landlords are leaving the market because it is no longer as profitable as it once was. Where do they go? They go to the Airbnb market or the completely unregulated sector, which my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) mentioned.

    The risk is that, unless we look at the whole ambit of this, all we will do is reduce the size of the sector, increase rents overall and make sure that tenants are put in a worse position than they were in the first place. So there has to be a complete revolution in this regard. I commend the White Paper for offering a menu of choices, but I think we still need to go further in looking at the entirety of the sector to prevent that from happening.

    The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) made the point about a landlord being able to sell a property with a sitting tenant. Why not? Many mortgage providers will now allow that to happen—not enough, I would accept, but many do. As we have heard, 94% of landlords have one or two properties, and they dominate the market. Most landlords want the position of having a good tenant, who pays their rent and does not misbehave. If that happens, why should they not continue on that basis?

    The model in this country is a six-month assured shorthold tenancy, with limitations on renewing that tenancy and, indeed, conditions on both sides that the landlord and the tenant should honour. My view has been this. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee—the predecessor to the current Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee—did an inquiry on this, and we recommended long-term tenancies of three years or more, so that people had security of tenure. A capability was enshrined within that about how rents could be increased—in other words, once per year and in line with inflation—so that both sides knew, with predictability, how that should be. That, to me, is a way forward.

    We also suggested having a specialist housing court. Rather than have the expensive processes we currently have, we could have a housing court that would concentrate purely on these subjects. We have to face up to the fact that, every single day in this country, there are 300,000 people sofa surfing who cannot get anywhere to live. Also, 7%, at least, of private sector tenants are in severe rent arrears. Some people say, “Well, 7% isn’t too bad”, but that means 300,000 people or families in severe rent arrears who face eviction through the courts at any one time.

    Unless we address this problem—I have warned successive Ministers, and we have mentioned how many Ministers we have had—we are going to face a homelessness crisis the like of which this country has never seen before. The reality is that the moratorium on evictions during the covid pandemic was the right thing to do—without question. There were people who could not afford to pay the rent during that time. Perhaps their jobs disappeared, or the benefits system did not catch up with them or they did not apply properly. Others just refused to pay because they knew they could get away with it. I have no sympathy for those people. I have several examples in my constituency where tenants just refuse to pay their landlords; from their perspective, they are reprehensible.

    As things have unwound and the economy is coming back into fruition, we are seeing rents and pressures on tenants rise, and a rush by certain unscrupulous landlords to try to increase rents dramatically before the renters’ reform Bill comes into play. We need measures immediately to counter those issues. I have a question for the Minister. I understand that she is new to the job, but there were strong rumours that the renters’ reform Bill would be delayed and postponed, and perhaps even kicked into the long grass. I hope that the Bill will be published and brought forward as rapidly as possible, with, if necessary—I do not normally agree with this—retrospective measures to prevent what could happen while the Bill completes its passage through Parliament; in other words, unscrupulous landlords evicting tenants or hiking their rents to get them out, and causing further problems. We must include within that Bill what to do for the entirety of the market: both the Airbnb market and short-term lets. If we do not, we will drive private sector landlords to the more profitable end of short-term lets without any regulation, and without anything to assist people who desperately need accommodation.

    I welcome my hon. Friend to the Front Bench. One quiz question I often have is, “How many Housing Ministers have we had since 1997?” I think we are up to 32 in 25 years. I am afraid that demonstrates the problem we have in this country: a lack of long-term planning in terms of the Ministers at the Department. I welcome the Minister to her position and hope she can give us some good news.

  • Florence Eshalomi – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    Florence Eshalomi – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    The speech made by Florence Eshalomi, the Labour MP for Vauxhall, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

    “Being a new and first time mum is hard and challenging without having your foundations stripped from you, evicted with no warning, in the middle of winter, when other rent is hard to secure”.

    Those are the words of my constituent Katherine, who gave birth to her baby boy in June. Last December, Katherine signed a two-year contract with her landlord, informing them that she wanted a longer contract to give herself stability during her pregnancy. Unfortunately, she received an email in October saying that the owner had noticed that market prices had increased a lot recently and would like to adjust the rent. After she explained the situation to the letting agent and landlord, however, she was told that the landlord was now moving back into the property—surprise, surprise—and there was no room for negotiation. That has left her and her young family without the security of a home and facing eviction just weeks before her child’s first Christmas.

    Sadly, having listened to other examples this afternoon, I know that Katherine is not alone in Vauxhall or across the country in facing the sharp end of our imbalanced rental market. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) outlined the similar situation of a young woman in her 30s who is hoping to start a family. Katherine has started her family, but now faces that difficulty in the rented sector.

    It cannot be right that tenants are expected to find thousands of pounds in moving costs in the space of just two months after a landlord serves a section 21 notice. It cannot be right that tenants, who are paying ever-increasing rents, are denied the most basic security of knowing whether they will have a roof over their head in a matter of weeks. It cannot be right that, during the sharpest cost of living crisis in decades, tenants are expected to bid extortionate amounts against each other to secure even the most basic of properties, as happened recently to a constituent in Clapham.

    My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) mentioned that rents in his constituency total about £600; in my constituency, the average rent for a one-bedroom flat starts at £2,000. A tenant recently contacted me to say that they had contacted an online letting agent to go and view a property, only to be informed that 35 people were already in the queue waiting to view and that they should expect to bid for the property.

    The Government announced an end to section 21 notices in April 2019. Since then, we have had four Prime Ministers and six housing Ministers, but not a single act to end section 21 notices. During his short period out of the role, the recently revived Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities reportedly urged the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss)—stay with me now—to stick to a commitment to ban section 21. I will be honest that I am glad to see him back in that role, because I think that he was making some headway in key areas on housing, including cladding. Now, however, I hope that he will put his money where his mouth is and bring forward a date for a renters reform Bill today.

    Rents in London have risen by an average of 15%, and across the country by an average of 11.8%. That is not sustainable for our constituents. Sadly, any reforms will come too late for my constituent Katherine in her current property. As the Government delay and dither, more people will be left in a desperate situation as a result of section 21 notices. It is within our grasp to fix this issue. I am grateful to the hon. Members for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) and for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) for raising the issue, but I hope that they will push their Ministers to make sure that we see reform come through now.

  • Selaine Saxby – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    Selaine Saxby – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    The speech made by Selaine Saxby, the Conservative MP for North Devon, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    I thank the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) for securing this important debate.

    Apparently I have mentioned this in the House before, but North Devon has a housing crisis. The enormous growth in short-term holiday lets and second homes has resulted in an unsustainable shortage of houses for local residents to live in. Matters are now at such a stage that many businesses and public services are simply unable to recruit and numerous businesses are unable to operate full time.

    Many will say, “Well, don’t you welcome your tourists?”. Indeed we do welcome our tourists, but we would like them also to eat in our local pubs and restaurants, which are unable to open full time because they cannot get staff, because there is nowhere for anyone to live.

    The private long-term rental sector across Devon has declined by more 50% in the last two years and by more than 60% in my own North Devon constituency. Unfortunately, Government policy has not helped. The changes to landlord tax relief made it preferential to have a short-term furnished holiday let rather than a long-term rental tenancy.

    Although the changes were introduced in 2017, they only became fully effective in 2020, when most of us were rather consumed with the pandemic, and came into effect at the same time that people were suddenly desperate to escape to wide-open spaces such as my beautiful constituency. Moreover, as soon as we were allowed to go on holiday, people rushed to North Devon and the prices paid for our holiday lets soared.

    In addition, the legislation we passed only last week to raise stamp duty thresholds still applies to second homes and holiday lets. That is more complicated, because we desperately need more people to become long-term landlords again—we must find a way to reverse the demise we have seen in that area. I recognise the challenges, but I hope that we will be able to consider how some of the policies designed to help people to get on to the property ladder are just facilitating more people’s buying second homes or short-term holiday lets that sit empty for half the year.

    The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s consultation on a registration scheme for second homes or short-term holiday lets is now complete, but we still have no date for when the results will be released, which leaves councils with few tools available to them to tackle the surge in properties that lie empty for months of the year, yet are still more profitable to their landlords than a long-term rental. We must ensure that there are change of use clauses for properties made into holiday lets. Those properties were built as homes and should be lived in. If they are a business, they should have to declare a change of use and be taxed accordingly.

    This situation is made even harder by the increased requirements on landlords with regard to energy performance certificates, with rural and coastal properties often requiring huge amounts of investment to achieve the necessary rating. That is resulting in even more rental properties being sold or converted to less regulated short-term holiday lets. While I agree that we must ensure properties do not leak, we need to recognise that rural housing stock is very different from urban housing stock and find other, more creative ways to tackle this, so that landlords do not take the logical way out of selling or moving on to a different type of tenancy.

    Swathes of long-term tenants in my constituency have found themselves evicted under section 21 notices, so that landlords could take advantage of the tax breaks available to them when their property is let out as a short-term holiday let. Post pandemic, a small two-bed long-term rental in my patch may cost £800 a month, whereas a short-term holiday let will cost at least that per week, and probably double.

    Because of the lack of rental properties in my patch, when people are evicted, there is simply nowhere to go. The council housing list is so long that people are being rehomed as far away as Bristol. Some families stay in the area for their children’s schooling, and we now have multiple children being bussed or taken by private taxi 10 to 15 miles each morning to their primary school. At a time when council resources are under pressure, we are adding layer upon layer of extra cost, simply because we do not have enough homes for people to live in.

    For tenants, section 21 notices have been horrific—we all have awful stories of people’s experiences—but not all landlords are bad. Many find themselves struggling to evict people who have not paid rent, for example, and section 21 notices are taking up to 18 months to get through the courts in my constituency. I hope that, as we see some progress in this area, landlords are not demonised, because we need more landlords to come forward, so that we can tackle this section of the market. It is the relationship between landlord and tenant that drives a successful rental relationship. Although we feel that that relationship is unbalanced at present, I hope we can support both sides of this delicate balance. We need to find a way to give security to tenants but also give landlords the ability to evict when they genuinely need to. The concern with some of the proposed legislation is that we are already seeing landlords choosing not to risk not being able to evict a tenant. When a landlord could have a short-term holiday let in my patch, why would they have a long-term rental?

    We need the housing stock we have to be better utilised and not sat empty for half the year, but I do not disagree that we need to build more homes. Over 16,000 people are currently on Devon’s housing lists, and even if those lists closed now, at the current rate of building, it would take over 32 years to clear the backlog. We need urgent intervention in the housing market in Devon and many other places around the coast. The demise of long-term rentals makes moving to remote, rural and coastal locations to work nearby impossible, and we have so many job vacancies that many companies are simply not operating at full capacity. If we want economic growth, we need workers who can live close to their place of work and find affordable accommodation.

    For communities to thrive, they need people living there all year round, so that we do not have the winter ghost towns that blight far too many of our popular tourist destinations. We warmly welcome tourists, but the balance between visitors and workers is now not there, and urgent intervention is needed. MPs in seats like mine have been raising these issues for years with multiple Ministers, and I hope that this Minister will remain in post long enough to deliver substantive change and find a way to reverse the demise of the long-term rental sector.

  • Navendu Mishra – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    Navendu Mishra – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    The speech made by Navendu Mishra, the Labour MP for Stockport, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    Thank you for calling me so early in the debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a very important issue in my constituency and across England. More than 7,000 households—households, not people—are on the waiting list at Stockport Homes, which is one of the main providers of housing in my constituency, and 11 million people rent privately in England. That underlines the importance of this debate, and I am grateful to my hon. and good Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for securing it.

    We heard about reforms the Government were going to bring in some three years ago; unfortunately, in the three long, hard years since, we have seen very little progress. I will describe two separate cases that have recently come into my inbox. The first involves a family of three—a single mother with two teenage children, one of whom has severe autism. They were served with a section 21 notice of no-fault eviction. The mother had always paid her rent and kept the house spotless, and the family had lived in the property for 12 years. When they were served the section 21 notice, the landlord said they wanted to sell, but my constituent suspects that the landlord was seeking a higher rent in the market.

    Sadly, the family were evicted. They were rehoused in a hotel outside the borough of Stockport, which caused massive problems for the family, including the 16-year-old son with a medical condition. The three of them were accommodated in a small hotel room, and Stockport Homes has had to extend the six-week period for hotel costs because the son is unable to cope with the trauma of moving into temporary accommodation before being rehomed. Stockport Homes is also paying the storage costs, which the family will have to reimburse, increasing the pressure on the family. The mother is flexible about where the family can be rehoused; she is just desperate for a permanent home. There has been a mental impact on the entire family, but particularly on the son who has autism. It is a serious case and I wanted to highlight it in the Chamber.

    The other case is also quite tragic. I was contacted by a recently bereaved constituent who was on a protected tenancy. Her private landlord’s agent had asked for her rent to be increased from £350 a month to £800 a month. She had been living in that one-bedroom flat with her late partner for 44 years on a protected tenancy, with very little upkeep and maintenance of the property undertaken. The valuation office was approached and the formal rent valuation process was gone through. The rent for the property was determined to be £450 a month, not £800 a month as the agent was demanding. This tenant was fortunate to have protected tenancy status at a time when she was most vulnerable, after the loss of her partner of 44 years. Sadly, most people are not so fortunate. Those are two serious cases, but I could go on. My inbox is filled with similar cases of people who are desperate to get housing.

    I am grateful to several organisations, but particularly Shelter, which provided an important briefing for the debate. Research from Shelter conducted in April 2022—three years after the Government first committed to scrapping section 21 no-fault evictions—shows us that every seven minutes a private renter is served with a section 21 notice and that more than 200,000 renters have been evicted in the three years since the Government first said they would scrap no-fault evictions. These figures are staggering and very worrying. Other colleagues have mentioned Generation Rent and other organisations, including Shelter, which conduct important research and act as a lifeline for many people in that desperate situation.

    While we are debating housing, I want to mention Mrs Sheila Bailey, a local councillor in my constituency who very sadly passed away recently, and highlight early-day motion 428, which I tabled in this House to pay tribute to her work. She was a champion for housing in particular, and played an important role in creating Viaduct Housing Partnership, a local housebuilder, when she was cabinet member for that portfolio.

    I know there are several other speakers, so I will not take much more time. I want to mention the inadequacy of local housing allowance. I have raised this matter on several occasions via both oral and written questions. According to the Office for National Statistics, the median rent for a one-bedroom flat in the private rented sector in Stockport borough is £600, yet, by the Government’s own admission in answers to written parliamentary questions I have tabled, in the two broad rental market areas that fall under that local authority, 71% and 52% of households respectively have a gap between local housing allowance rates and their rent. That needs to be looked at.

    I could say a lot more; a vast amount of casework comes through my office via letters, emails and telephone calls from people desperate to find housing in my borough. Stockport, I would say, is the best place to live out of the 10 boroughs in Greater Manchester—in fact, I would say it is the best place to live in England—but that means that the housing market is very competitive. People are facing hardship as it is because of the failed economic policies of this Government, but in addition, in Stockport, we have a problem where housing is in a dire state. We must ensure that people are not left behind.

    Lastly, I must mention Stockport Tenants Union, which was set up just over two years ago and provides support to people across the borough; Jonathan Billings, who is a long-standing campaigner against homelessness and has set up a charity named EGG, or Engage Grow Go; and the Wellspring in Stockport, which has been serving the local community for decades. My hon. Friend the shadow Minister will speak later on, but I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker), who has just been appointed to the role of shadow Minister for homelessness and rough sleeping.

    The Opposition are taking this issue very seriously. We cannot wait three more years for action, or even three more months—we must ensure that it is delivered quickly.

  • Natalie Elphicke – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    Natalie Elphicke – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    The speech made by Natalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    I thank my friend and co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for renters and rental reform, the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) for his opening speech.

    Housing is a long-standing interest of mine, and I draw Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

    Reforming the private rented sector is an important area of work for all Governments, and I and other Conservative Members signed up to that in the 2019 manifesto on which we were elected. The vehicle for that important pledge is the White Paper, “A fairer private rented sector”, which was published in June. There has been much change in the short time since the White Paper’s publication. I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) warmly to her place, and I hope she will not mind if I place on record my considerable regard for the work that her predecessor at the time of the White Paper’s publication, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), undertook.

    I wish to illustrate the pressures of capacity in the private rented sector by reference to my own constituency and across Kent, before turning to why these reforms are so important and need to be progressed urgently.

    Today, the Home Secretary is visiting Dover. The situation of housing people who have crossed the channel illegally in small boats is putting a huge strain on housing and local services. It is not unheard of for local people to be turfed out of accommodation by landlords who want higher rents. There are concerns that landlords are looking to cash in on lucrative, long-term Home Office contracts. That is why we must push forward on these reforms.

    It is a great pity that the Home Secretary had not planned her visit to Dover and to Kent so that she could meet Kent MPs and Kent council leaders to discuss at first hand the serious local impact on residents, including the struggle to access affordable private-rented housing. I hope that she can meet us urgently to discuss these issues. The extent of the issue was laid bare in a strongly worded letter to the Home Secretary from Kent council leaders yesterday. They said:

    “Put simply, Kent is at breaking point. Our public services, including health, social care and schools are already under extreme pressure. We have approaching 20,000 households on the waiting list for social housing, soaring costs, limited availability of private sector rented housing and temporary accommodation all fuelled by being in an expensive south-east London periphery, while having pockets of severe deprivation and low average earnings… Kent’s housing sector cannot absorb further asylum places on top of those existing burdens over and above local demand.”

    How does the concern expressed by the council leaders translate to my constituents on the ground? Let me give an example of its impact in my constituency. My constituent, who I shall refer to as Emily, is a mother with seven children. She was required to leave her privately rented property on no notice, under section 21, and there was no suitable accommodation. In the end, she was offered accommodation in Leeds, some 280 miles away. She has ended up living with her mother in a two-bedroom house, sleeping on the sofa and the floor. Her grandmother told me how upset she was that migrants were housed in four-star hotels while her granddaughter and great grandchildren faced these conditions and impossible choices.

    In an attempt to shut down debate, too often such concerns can be labelled as extreme or even racist. There is nothing extreme for a person to be concerned about their family; that is about as mainstream as it comes. In my area, inevitably, given the scale of the small boats crisis, it is the issue of accommodating migrants and asylum seekers that puts this additional strain on the private rented sector and services. In other areas, it might be holiday lets, Airbnbs or student accommodation. But the underlying point is the same: there needs to be reform of the sector, which needs to be implemented as set out in the White Paper, and consideration of all these different housing markets and drivers.

    Building on the White Paper, there is other work that could drive improvement and understanding of local market dynamics further, and that might require supplementary solutions—be that Airbnb registration or other measures. I would be happy to meet my hon friend the Minister to discuss this further.

    Pages 7 and 8 of the White Paper set out a 12-point plan of action for private renters. In effect, it is a 13-point plan, as page 8 references that this plan is a support for the journey to home ownership. I shall shortly be developing an argument for a 14th point to that plan: support on the journey to council housing and social housing.

    There are three types of housing tenure in England: owner occupation; social rented; and private renting, which is property owned by a person who is different from the tenant and let out at rates and on terms and conditions that are different from those that apply to registered social landlords.

    The private rented sector has grown rapidly in recent years. As it has become more dominant, it is inevitable that that has been at the expense of both the social rented and home ownership sectors. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and right into the early 2000s, the proportion of total housing in private rented stock was around 10%. Between 2008 and 2017, it mushroomed to more than 20% of all stock, before settling to its current level of around 18.5% of stock. That translates into a doubling from about 2 million to more than 4 million households in private rented homes.

    In the context of this debate, housing stability means that a person knows where they stand; that if they pay their rent or mortgage and they do not behave outrageously, they have the choice as to whether to stay in their home. That is not the case for private rented tenancies. The landlord chooses whether a person can stay or must leave, no matter how long they have been in a property or how good a tenant they have been. That is what these reforms are trying to address—otherwise, the expense, time, disruption, distress and uncertainty caused by a section 21 notice all falls on the tenant.

    Improving housing stability is at the heart of abolishing section 21 no-fault evictions. The reform is intended to take away the immediate day-to-day worry and concern for tenants that they will wake up one morning to a notice saying that they have to go. The longer-term solution is to introduce more affordable accommodation and council housing as well as promoting home ownership.

    Dover District Council is a Conservative council that is compassionate and active in many ways. It has embarked on a council house building programme to help prioritise local need. I wish to give a couple of examples. Walter Hammond Close is a development in Dover, which comprises 16 studio flats, all let at social rents, providing interim housing for local people facing homelessness. It complements the Elizabeth Carter Court project in Deal. Completed in August, it provides eight one-bedroom flats, which are also let at social rents, providing interim accommodation for local people facing homelessness. Those two excellent examples of the work being undertaken by the council are encouraging, but the council cannot build enough to keep up with demand. That is why we need a large-scale affordable and council housing programme across the country.

    Helping constituents with private-rented housing is a staple of our work as MPs. I want to refer to one of my constituents, who I shall call Natasha. Her granddad asked for my help. He said:

    “My granddaughter and her child have been given notice to quit by a private landlord in Dover and have been desperately looking for alternative accommodation without success… She has suffered domestic abuse, ensuing mental health difficulties”—

    for which she has had counselling and has recovered amazingly well. He went on to say that she lives in a property with a dangerous electricity system and that they had battled with the landlord about this for months. He said:

    “The current situation is that we are now 52 days away from Natasha’s eviction date, which, ironically, is Christmas day… Here is a young single mother and her two-year-old child who have been given the most awful situation to face when all they wanted to was…to live in a safe environment.”

    It is vital for Natasha and all the others in Dover and Deal and all over the country that these measures are brought forward into legislation promptly. I had been concerned that there had been some hesitation about this, so I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm when we can expect these measures to be brought forward.

    In Natasha’s case, as hon. Members will have heard, there was an electrical safety issue in her flat. She battled for months, but it did not get fixed. Natasha is now in flat two and her child is three. This is her current position:

    “The property is a privately rented flat. The area where she lives affects her three-year-old child’s health due to traffic fumes. He now has a constant cough. The area is overrun by rats, which can be heard scratching and scurrying in the walls of the property and can be seen in the surrounding areas.”

    I look forward to seeing how the proposals in the White Paper will help Natasha and the many other cases that fill my inbox and, I am sure, the inboxes of many other Members across the House.

    There is good intent in the ombudsman’s proposals for redress, but that redress needs to be extremely swift and enforcement robust. In order for that redress to happen, landlords need to be identifiable as well as accountable. At the present time, we do not know how many landlords there are. In addition to potential revenue loss to the Exchequer, this makes accountability and traceability of landlords very difficult and expensive for councils in instances where they wish to take public health or other enforcement action.

    I welcome the proposed measures for the property portal, but I ask the Minister to consider what steps may be taken to ensure that the information contained in it is validated as to ownership and management, and that it can support efforts to ensure that all taxes are paid where they are due, and that the new proposed ombudsman, local authorities and other enforcement agencies may be able to access the portal in order easily to fulfil their obligations.

    I wish to move on to the White Paper’s plan around rent management and challenging excessive rent rises. Even before the current cost of living crisis, rent levels were unaffordable for many. The Local Government Association’s view is that the best way to increase housing security is to address the unaffordability of housing, which is the key reason why people lose their tenancies and become homeless.

    I agree completely that affordability is a vital ingredient of a good home. In the longer term, there is a need to rebalance the housing market through a tenure strategy to make sure we balance affordable and council housing and increased home ownership alongside a reduction in the private rented sector, but in the near term, there is increasing pressure on rents, making them unaffordable and unsustainable for many.

    In the White Paper, the Government rule out rent controls to set rents at the outset of the tenancy. In recent weeks I have proposed controls to freeze current rents for up to the next two years, while the current economic pressures are expected to reach their peak. The proposal would comply with the premise set out in the White Paper because it affects only rent rises, not base rent levels. The measure would be deflationary, not inflationary, and would be to the wider benefit of everyone, including landlords.

    A case may be argued for managing rents more widely, but to some extent high rents are the symptom, not the cause. As the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown eloquently set out, the private rented sector has expanded to become all things to all people. It is providing both homes to those who can and should be home owners with a mortgage, and a roof over the head of those who have none, who should be in affordable housing.

    I understand that many landlords want to be compensated for any costs they pass on to tenants—indeed, some of them are very vocal on that subject—so the nature of the landlord and their relationship with the property is important. The UK landlord market is unusual compared with some other countries, dominated as it is by individuals, not by housing organisations and institutional landlords. The latest English private landlords survey shows that some 94% of landlords are individuals representing 84% of tenancies, so they are strongly dominant. About half of them are longer-term landlords of more than a decade. When people were asked to describe themselves as a landlord, over half said they considered their properties to be a long-term investment to contribute to their pension, and 27% said they considered them to be an investment for capital growth. So while for the tenant the property is their home, for the landlord it is first and foremost an investment, and as we all know, investments can go up and down.

    Just as there are longer-term structural issues around tenure, there are longer-term issues with savings and investment vehicles, including property. In that context, I ask the Minister to consider whether the financial management proposals on rents set out in the White Paper could be developed further, and whether there should be more robust measures to assist renters during this cost of living crisis. Communications I have received from landlords seem to suggest that they are unable to weather changing market conditions in the way that other businesses are expected to. The assumption seems to be that the tenant should bear all the financial costs and risk; otherwise, the landlord threatens to sell, even in a falling market.

    In that context, I ask the Minister what work has been undertaken to assess resilience to market changes in the landlord market with the mortgage lenders, as happens for individual owner occupiers, and whether stronger mortgage market regulation is needed for landlords with buy-to-let mortgages, to make sure they have sufficient planning and affordability to weather different market conditions. Is the Minister considering interest support or greater interest deductibility to support under-capitalised landlords in the near term? I would be grateful if she also considered whether such support could be linked to, for example, landlords committing to keep their rents in check during this cost of living crisis.

    There is strong evidence that the inherently insecure nature of the private rented sector has an adverse impact on people living under that type of tenure. There are measures in the White Paper that will incrementally move the private sector forward, and I welcome them. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend the Minister on this important aspect of her work.

  • Lloyd Russell-Moyle – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    Lloyd Russell-Moyle – 2022 Speech on the Private Rented Sector White Paper

    The speech made by Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    I beg to move,

    That this House has considered the White Paper A fairer private rented sector.

    I thank my co-chair of the all-party group on renters and rental reform, the hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), who is the co-lead sponsor of today’s debate, and the 30 other MPs from across the House who supported it. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for ensuring that we have such a timely debate on the matter. Of course, I direct Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and declare that I am the chair of that all-party group.

    Many commentators have said that the private rented sector is really three markets. The first is the luxury and high-end market, where people wish to pay high amounts for quality housing. To some extent, that market does not need the regulation we are discussing here. It will not be harmed by it, but this regulation is not aimed at it. The second is the market for people who are unable currently to buy a home or wish to have the flexibility of renting. This White Paper is about making their market a feasible, long-term, sensible one that they can live in. The third is for people who need social housing and often wider wraparound support. They should not really be in the private rented sector, as it will never be appropriate for them, but the White Paper still must protect them while we deal with the social housing problems that the Government, in the Bill they are bringing forward on Monday, recognise we need action on.

    The core of the debate is about how we create a private rented sector that is stable, affordable and safe, and where all parties have access to justice. I do not think that is a controversial thing. If it is not, the question is: how do we go about achieving those principles? It is not about whether those principles are desirable. Again, I believe there is broad consensus on the ways of doing it, most of which are laid out in the Government’s White Paper, “A fairer private rented sector”, published in June. It not only covers the points I have mentioned, but discusses information, enforcement, children and pets in the home, and giving people the protections they need.

    The chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association said, on the release of the White Paper, that the

    “headline commitments to strengthening possession grounds, speedier court processes and mediation are helpful”.

    The renters’ campaign group Generation Rent said:

    “This is a serious set of proposals that will help to raise standards in private rented homes and restore some balance to the relationship between tenants and landlords.”

    The charity Shelter said:

    “This White Paper promises people safety and security in their home”.

    I could go on with the countless other ringing endorsements of the White Paper and its proposals that are coming from across the sector, with everyone wanting to go further on one bit or another, but welcoming the core.

    That is why it came as such a shock to many of us when it was briefed to The Times at the beginning of last month that all of that was being dropped. In Prime Minister’s questions on the same day, the former Prime Minister—I know it is hard to keep up with which one we have at the moment, but I am referring to the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss)—recommitted to a ban on section 21, but the full status of the rest of those proposals remains unclear. I hope that the Minister will continue in the good vein that the Minister but one initiated. I put no blame on her immediate predecessor, who did not have the brief long enough to make a difference one way or another. This is about how we make the pledges that we all put in our manifesto a reality.

    Let me deal with the substance of this issue. I start with the root of so many of the problems in the private rented sector: the issue of people’s stability and security in their home. Section 21 provides the ability for a landlord to evict without any reason a person from their home—that structural power imbalance is hugely consequential and exists in almost no other form of contract that we have today.

    On safety standards, I know of many cases in which renters do not wish to complain about the condition of their property, through fear of revenge evictions. The law at the moment is not good enough on revenge evictions; it currently requires a council to have made an assessment that the home is unsafe or in poor condition, in accordance with the housing health and safety rating system, in order for someone then to have the protections from eviction. That sets the bar well beyond where it is practically useful if it is to protect a renter who complains about something such as a boiler not working or the windows jamming.

    On affordability, section 21 is creating a crisis that is spiralling out of control, where we see a wave of assured shorthold tenancies coming to an end and section 21 being used to get higher rents, pushing up inflation, to above 20% in some areas. I know of a schoolteacher who received a demand for a 40% rent increase at the end of their lease. Unable to pay, he is now sofa surfing and homeless. A school teacher who is working full time is homeless not through any fault of his own but due to the state of the housing market today.

    Shelter commissioned research to show that some 230,000 private tenants have been served with section 21 notices since the Government made their first pledge in 2019—that is one every seven minutes. But that does not even show the scale of the problem, because a notice is not usually required; knowing they have no rights, renters will often just leave when the landlord asks them to do so, at an inconvenience to themselves. Section 21 provides no real recourse, no appeal and no exemptions, and even if it did, we know that the current court system has delays coming out of its ears, so taking things to court will not be an answer to these problems.

    Last week, in preparation for this debate, I asked renters to get in touch with me with their stories. One of the many replies I received was from a young couple who said that before they moved in the landlord agreed to carry out a deep clean, but when they entered the flat they found that it had an insect infestation and it had not been cleaned for months. Both the agent and the landlord refused to do anything. Later, the couple found that two windows were broken and so they asked for repairs, but, again, there was a refusal to do anything. They contacted the council, but it did not carry out an in-person inspection—we all know the pressures on councils—and in the end, on the balance of things, it just accepted the landlord’s word against that of the tenants. At the first possible instance, in November 2021, the couple were issued with a section 21 notice. They had a three-month-old baby and they were homeless.

    I have countless other such examples, and I am sure many other Members do, so it is no wonder that the commitment to deal with this was a cross-party commitment in all manifestos, but we cannot allow the abolition of section 21 to be in name only. We must not allow the next crisis to be the use of section 8 evictions due to rent arrears. If we simply abolish section 21 but allow landlords to increase rents uncontrollably, we will create a loophole that a lorry could be driven through. If a renter complains about the state of a property and the owner wants them out, the owner will just raise the rent to £10,000 a month and evict the tenant. The current rental increase protections are inadequate for protecting renters. When I last looked, the only way to make an application to the tribunal was by fax. That is ridiculous.

    Potential economic evictions were foreseen by the Renters Reform Coalition, and I am pleased that the White Paper addresses the issue. It states:

    “We will only allow increases to rent once per year… We will end the use of rent review clauses, preventing… rent increases that are vague or may not reflect changes in the market price… where increases are disproportionate, we will make sure that tenants have the confidence to challenge unjustified rent increases through the First-tier Tribunal”.

    Those are the Government’s words. If that works, it will be a game changer for stability in the rental market. Personally, I would like the Government to take on more rental controls. I know that they have ruled that out, but I hope that others will press them on the matter. My friend the hon. Member for Dover will say more about rental controls. However, the proposal in the White Paper is a sensible compromise on which we can start to make progress.

    I note the concerns of the National Residential Landlords Association about moving from periodic tenancies and the effects on student housing. It points out that both landlords and students need to know that a property will be available many months ahead. I am sure that the Government are working on solutions to that perceived problem, but if I could offer one piece of advice, it would be, please leave the proposals in the White Paper as they are. More loopholes will be taken advantage of.

    I offer a solution. Dare I say that there should be an opportunity, if not a duty, for universities to house all their students who wish to be housed? Universities could engage in tenancies with the private rented sector. They would be permanent periodic tenancies, and universities could license rooms to their students. That would give the private rented sector the security it needs and students the wraparound support they often require. In our communities, we often hear complaints about people not coming forward. Such a solution would give universities the knowledge that their students were in safe and secure accommodation. It could also work for other institutions and would still mean that the decent homes standards that the White Paper requires had to be fulfilled in such accommodation.

    Security of tenancy is particularly urgent. We are facing a difficult time, with many landlords selling their properties. Mortgage rates are going up and many landlords may wish to leave the market. That is fine. Some say that landlords leaving the sector means that rental provision leaves the sector. However, for every landlord who leaves the sector, there is another homeowner or private rented landlord entering it. My fear, which is shared by many, is that turmoil in the housing market will mean that renters are evicted so that landlords can sell property to another buy-to-let landlord, who would often be more than willing to allow a renter who had been paying rent for a long time to stay there.

    The Government stated:

    “We encourage any landlord who wishes to sell their property to consider selling with sitting tenants, which may provide an easier and faster solution.”

    However, most mortgages do not allow that. I ask the Minister to sit down with mortgage providers and work out a way in which buy-to-let tenancies could facilitate that. It might mean a slightly higher premium in some circumstances or some conditions, but it needs to happen now.

    Ideally, we would have a system such as TUPE, whereby when an employer is taken over, the employees continue in employment. If a landlord is taken over, the tenants should continue to live in the property. We should aim for that. Of course, a new buyer might choose to move in and renovate the property. The existing clauses allow them to remove a tenant as they see fit.

    There is broad agreement on both side of the House and in the sector on access to justice. Unless we take enforcement and the ability to access redress seriously, this is all a waste of time. The rogue landlords list was set up in 2018 with a great deal of fanfare. It was meant to be a game changer. Earlier this year, the Government were asked how many landlords were on the list. The answer was 61. That makes a joke of the entire system. I could probably name more than 61 in my constituency, let alone the country. That is even more reason why the White Paper’s proposed property portal, which would require all landlords and properties to be registered, is the only way forward. I think that the Government have come to realise that. I genuinely believe that they have seen the error of their ways. That is why they talked about establishing an ombudsperson to

    “provide fair, impartial, and binding resolutions for many issues without resorting to court.”

    The White Paper goes on to say:

    “The Ombudsman will have powers to put things right for tenants, including compelling landlords to issue an apology, provide information, take remedial action, and/or pay compensation of up to £25,000.”

    That is spot on. It empowers renters and gives them a body to seek redress, but it also means that landlords know that there is a place where they will be fairly heard. That, combined with the removal of section 21, is a life changer for many. It will give people the ability to complain about poor housing.

    One person told me:

    “One electrician said that the wiring was the worst he had ever seen. The poor wiring led to us having a power cut, which was only repaired with a temporary fix. The landlord admitted that they were aware of the oven being faulty at the start of the tenancy but refused to fix or replace it.

    Our hot water didn’t work when we moved in—the landlord had a friend (who wasn’t a qualified gas safety engineer) disconnect our heating from the boiler without telling us. We had to call out emergency gas and electrical technicians to fix these issues and shortly after” —

    surprise, surprise—

    “we were served with a Section 21 notice.”

    If the Government enact their proposal, renters could go to the ombudsperson and get their home fixed to a decent standard, and they would not have to fear a section 21 eviction notice.

    It is vital to include deposit protection schemes in the responsibilities of the ombudsperson. Decisions about such schemes should be published on the property portal. At the moment, they are not and they are only sporadically enforced.

    Last year, the APPG heard from a young woman in her early 30s. She said that she was still sharing a house in an insecure renting arrangement, despite earning £35,000 a year. She spoke about wanting to start a family with her partner, but said that she could not because she could not provide a stable home. The system has robbed that young woman of the ability to start a family. The White Paper could not just address some of the imbalances in the system but restore dignity to millions of renters.

    As is customary, I will finish with some questions for the Minister. Will she commit to implementing all sections—that 12-point plan—of the White Paper? Does she recognise that the pledge to abolish section 21 is not about getting rid of a clause called section 21 but about providing stability, security, and justice in the housing market? Will she commit to introducing the draft legislation this year? If not, when will that happen? Will she commit, as I have asked, to meeting mortgage lenders to discuss buy-to-rent mortgages with sitting tenants?

  • Trudy Harrison – 2022 Speech on World Biosphere Day

    Trudy Harrison – 2022 Speech on World Biosphere Day

    The speech made by Trudy Harrison, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    Mr Deputy Speaker, I know, because we had a little chat earlier, that you share my enthusiasm for this debate, and I cannot imagine a better way to spend the end of the parliamentary day than celebrating the very first World Biosphere Day. Let me begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for securing this timely debate—because today is indeed the day—and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for playing his part today.

    As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon recognised, I have personal experience of North Devon thanks to her very generous invitation, when I was the cycling Minister last summer, to join her on a bike on the Tarka trail. So I have seen for myself the beauty of North Devon, and I absolutely appreciate why her area has secured UNESCO world biosphere status. The UNESCO biosphere programme began in 1971 and there are, as we have heard, seven accredited biosphere reserves in the UK. I would like to spend a little time highlighting the programme and its success, and also the importance of nature.

    It is incredibly important that we recognise that much global GDP—more than half, in fact—depends on biodiversity. Over $44 trillion is estimated to be moderately or highly dependent on biodiversity. The loss of tropical rainforests, the collapse of global pollinators and the reduction in marine fisheries would lead to a contraction of global GDP by 2.4% by 2030. That is exactly why we are acting locally and thinking globally. Central banks are directly exposed to nature risk. The Dutch and French central banks have found that 36% and 42% of their portfolios, respectively, are highly dependent on nature.

    What has occurred at the North Devon biosphere reserve in is only possible because of collaboration. There is very little that one person can achieve on their own, but I do want to join my hon. Friend with a special mention for Andy Bell, who has co-ordinated the North Devon biosphere reserve partnership. Since its designation 46 years ago—it is as old as me—the biosphere reserve has enabled the fantastic creation of four extra marine conservation zones. It has improved the water quality with habitat and on-farm actions in 34 catchments, planted over 60 hectares of woodland in partnership with landowners, created 20 hectares of saltmarsh, restored 1,500 hectares of culm grassland with the Devon Wildlife Trust and improved over 120 km of riverbank habitat.

    This absolutely demonstrates the value of the biosphere programme in bringing together a broad range of stakeholders with a shared endeavour to connect people with nature, and as a mechanism to leverage funding to deliver sustainable development at the catchment scale. It is all very much in line with the principles set out by the biosphere sustainable development aims. This is through nature conservation, with the protection of biodiversity and cultural diversity, and through scientific research, underpinning development through research, monitoring, education and training. We need sustainable development that is socially, culturally, economically and environmentally aligned, symbiotically supporting each other.

    The International Day for Biosphere Reserves is UNESCO’s invitation to take inspiration from the solutions already implemented in those areas, and to build genuinely sustainable development everywhere, with full respect for nature and the living world. I absolutely recognise the role that the Man and the Biosphere programme has played in achieving sustainable development goals, by sharing experiences and testing policies. That includes the sustainable management of biodiversity and natural resources, and mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

    I also wish to recognise our newer biosphere reserves. Those include the Brighton and Lewes Downs, known as the living coast biosphere reserve, which covers more than 390 square kilometres of land and sea, and—my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight is in his place—the Isle of Wight, which was awarded UNESCO biosphere status in 2019, and covers 914 square kilometres of land and sea. Both those areas are undertaking similar local engagement through their respective biosphere reserve partnerships, reflecting their distinct local terrestrial and marine ecosystems. My hon. Friend called on me to recognise further protections, and we are looking at that as part of what was set out in the Environment Act 2021 for how we protect land. I know that he has already had conversations with DEFRA and Natural England about national park status, and I look forward to engaging in conversations to support that.

    Bob Seely

    It is kind of the Minister to say that. I am talking about island park designation, not a national park—some of my farmers would be very concerned if they thought I am planning a national park behind their back. It is some kind of designation under the new planning system. I would love a national park, but I think that ship has sailed.

    Trudy Harrison

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification—island park designation, indeed—and I look forward to meeting him to discuss that in more detail.

    This is an intergovernmental science programme, and the key point is that we use our biosphere reserves to test our approaches for sustainable development in the real world. That is critical to inform initiatives such as local nature recovery strategies, which are a key tool to meet many of our environmental targets under the Environment Act 2021. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon said, a foundation of our new approach to sustainable development will be working with farmers and environmental land management.

    Those schemes will pay for more sustainable farming practices, and improve animal health and welfare. They will also bring environmental benefits, including landscape-scale environmental changes, which will be a crucial step towards achieving our 25-year environment plan and subsequent environmental commitments, and our net zero goals. That is why we are working extremely closely with farmers and other agricultural and environmental stakeholders to help shape the new schemes through our tests and trials, including the North Devon landscape pioneer, which took place in the North Devon biosphere reserve.

    One of the three main functions of biosphere reserves is the conservation of biodiversity. Under the Environment Act, we have committed to halting the decline in species abundance in England by 2030, and to setting at least one other long-term target for biodiversity. Those targets will drive wide-ranging actions to deliver nature recovery. Our three-pillar approach to restoring and improving biodiversity includes: restoring and creating habitat that is greater, bigger, better, and more joined-up; tackling pressures on species and their habitats, for example by addressing pollution—something I know my hon. Friend cares deeply about—and improving water quality; and taking further targeted action for specific, threatened species.

    We are already taking action through, for example, our nature for climate fund, which provides £750 million for the creation, restoration and management of woodland and peatland habitats, and our green recovery challenge fund, which is estimated to deliver 600,000 hectares of habitat creation and restoration within and outside protected sites.

    On the international front, the UK is committed to securing an ambitious outcome at COP15 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss globally by 2030. We will continue to champion the protection of at least 30% of land and sea globally and recognise that significantly increasing finance from all sources is absolutely needed to halt nature loss.

    At least £3 billion of the UK’s international climate finance will go towards solutions that protect and restore nature and biodiversity. We have launched a £500 million blue planet fund to support developing countries to protect the marine environment and develop sustainable marine economies.

    I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon once again for securing the debate, and for raising the profile of our biosphere reserves in facilitating sustainable development at the local, national and international scale, and thus their contribution to a wide range of Government objectives.

  • Bob Seely – 2022 Speech on World Biosphere Day

    Bob Seely – 2022 Speech on World Biosphere Day

    The speech made by Bob Seely, the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for letting me take part briefly in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) is in competition with me and a relatively select few to deliver more for her wonderful patch than we do for our respective patches. I hear nothing but amazing reports of the work that she is doing. Similarly, I try to deliver as much as I can for my folks on the Isle of Wight. We both care so much for our wonderful parts of the UK. I thank her and the Minister for letting me contribute to the debate.

    I agree with much of what my hon. Friend has said and I will stress two points. Before I do, our Island biosphere designation came quite late—we got it a few years ago after a campaign led by our area of outstanding natural beauty organisation—but I thank Joel Bateman, Councillor Jonathan Bacon and, more recently, Holly Jones and Natasha Dix for their impressive work in delivering that successful bid to UNESCO and since. There are 17 UNESCO sustainable development goals that we are trying to work into the Isle of Wight Council’s planning. We have lots of exciting projects, such as regenerative farming, carbon sequestration in soil and local agricultural, net zero homes, active travel and smart renewable grids that we are trying to do off the back of getting biosphere status.

    The first valuable point that my hon. Friend made that I want to stress is that there is no similar designation in British law that achieves the same effect. I am keen for the Government to take it on board that we have this valuable designation that combines the human world, the natural world and the maritime world. That is actually quite unique; there is nothing like it in UK law, but should there be? For example, 75% of the Isle of Wight comes under some form of UK designation: there are eight separate designations and 13 distinct areas. For an island of our size—it is only 15 miles by 30 miles —that is highly fragmented and somewhat over-complex, and creates a needless bureaucracy when it comes to nature protection and planning. I would love to know how the Government could incorporate and recognise biospheres within UK law. At the moment, we have a tapestry on the Island, but we need a blanket, which is the idea that the biosphere gives.

    My second pitch, in the brief time that I have, is that if the Government are going to bring in a Bill about protected landscapes, such as national parks and AONBs, which I hope they do, and if they are going to slightly fudge the difference between them and perhaps bring in new designations, one of the new designations could be a biosphere designation, which would give biospheres a status within UK law, or an island designation. If we are going to have city parks, why can we not have island parks? It is not a national park on an island but an island park that looks at human habitation, maritime protection and landscape protection as a single whole.

    I would argue that an island park designation for the Isle of Wight would have AONB status throughout. We have only a finite amount of land and we cannot keep giving it up endlessly to low-density, car-dependent, un-environmentally friendly greenfield developments; we need to use land better. We could have maritime and landscape protection, as highlighted by my hon. Friend, and we could use the island park designation to attract tourism and help with our identity, as the biosphere potentially does. We could perhaps get some targeted support for agriculture, because we do not have an abattoir on the Island, so all the livestock goes to the mainland for slaughter, which adds cost and inhibits the circular economy that we need. Those are some of the ideas that an island designation or a biosphere designation could provide.

    The biosphere is about human habitation, so we could also do a great deal with culture. The Isle of Wight was one of the most celebrated places in Victorian England with Tennyson, Keats and many others coming down to enjoy it and paint it. People fell in love with the place and sometimes used it as an escape from mainland Britain. Other people based themselves there, such as the Bonchurch school of artists and the Freshwater set with Julia Margaret Cameron. We also had—who wrote “Alice in Wonderland”?—Lewis Carroll, who used to hang around there back in the day hoping to catch a glimpse of Tennyson. We have had a phenomenal cultural input. Given the Island’s culture, together with its unique species and unique dinosaurs—we have more dinosaur finds than anywhere else in Europe, and in fact it is one of the leading dinosaur places in the world—and our landscape, there has to be a better way of recognising and protecting that. We could do so either by making biospheres part of UK law or, for the Island as a separate issue, having an island designation, which other islands—the Isles of Scilly, Arran in Scotland—could eventually share. It could be a very good idea to have some kind of island designation in UK law. I thank my hon. Friend so much for bringing forward this debate, and I look forward to what the Minister has to say.

  • Selaine Saxby – 2022 Speech on World Biosphere Day

    Selaine Saxby – 2022 Speech on World Biosphere Day

    The speech made by Selaine Saxby, the Conservative MP for North Devon, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.

    Today is World Biosphere Day, and as UNESCO has said:

    “With each passing year, the urgency of tackling environmental issues becomes clearer: we only have one planet, and it is in danger. Our relationship with nature and with other living beings needs a radical rethink in order to address these issues—we need to design and create a truly shared world.

    Biosphere reserves have shown that it is possible to live in this world while also establishing a sustainable and harmonious relationship with nature.

    The International Day for Biosphere Reserves is an invitation to take inspiration from the solutions already implemented in these spaces to build genuinely sustainable development everywhere, with full respect for nature and for the living world.”

    The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere programme was launched 50 years ago as an intergovernmental and interdisciplinary science programme to research and address the conflicts between humankind and the natural environment. Under the programme, living laboratories called biosphere reserves are designated by UNESCO at the request of member states, with the designations tending to be managed by local partnerships.

    There are 738 UNESCO biosphere reserves in the world, in 134 countries, and only seven of them are in the UK: Wester Ross, Galloway and Southern Ayrshire, the Dyfi valley, Brighton and Lewes Downs, Isle of Wight, Isle of Man and North Devon. We were lucky in North Devon to be home to the UK’s first ever biosphere reserve, launched in 1976—one of the first in the world—covering 5,000 sq km of land and sea and integrating land and marine management.

    Redefined in 2002, North Devon’s biosphere is this year celebrating its 20th birthday alongside this first International Day for Biosphere Reserves. Birthday congratulations are also due to south-west Scotland, on the 10th birthday of its two biospheres this year.

    North Devon’s biosphere is centred on Braunton Burrows, the largest sand dune system in England, which stretches into neighbouring constituencies. The Braunton Burrows core area consists of fixed and mobile sand dune systems; I feel most privileged to have been able to walk the area with a local warden and see the water germander in one of the only two locations it still survives in the UK.

    The boundaries of the reserve follow the edges of the conjoined catchment basin of the Rivers Taw and Torridge and stretch out to sea to include the island of Lundy. The biosphere reserve is primarily lowland farmland and comprises many protected sites, including 63 sites of special scientific interest, which protect habitats such as culm grassland and broad-leaved woodlands. It also includes Barnstaple and Ilfracombe in my North Devon constituency and stretches into neighbouring Bideford, Northam, and Okehampton.

    The biosphere links designations such as Dartmoor, Exmoor, North Devon area of outstanding natural beauty and Lundy and the land, sea and rivers between them. It is managed by a partnership of 34 organisations from national agencies, local government, non-governmental organisations and community groups. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their work and commitment. I am truly lucky to be able to call the biosphere home.

    UNESCO sets out three functions of a biosphere reserve: conservation, learning and research, and sustainable development. Biosphere reserves aim to create and maintain sustainable communities where people can live and work in an area of high environmental quality. These areas can then provide a blueprint for other areas to learn from. The reserve must be environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. To achieve that, the reserve oversees management of natural resources, initiatives to develop the local economy and an effort to reduce inequalities between people.

    The biosphere programme delivers policy testing for Government of integrated approaches to tackling environmental, economic and social issues. These living laboratories research the conflict between human activity and our natural environment. The programme’s remit includes several large-scale projects that have been developed through the partnership. A £1.8 million improvement project along the River Taw, funded by the Environment Agency, is designed to decrease polluted surface run-off from fields and urban areas into the river. The project will restore habitats and remove obstacles such as weirs that prevent animals from freely moving between sections of the river. It is hoped that the decrease in pollution will also increase beach quality in places such as Instow, which failed water quality tests in 2012—one of only 16 beaches in the south-west to fail.

    A nature improvement area proposed to protect and enhance the catchment of the River Torridge—home of Tarka the otter in Henry Williamson’s book of the same name—was chosen by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as one of 12 nationally important landscapes that will receive funding to restore and recreate ecosystems in the area. Other large projects work to use the natural environment to offset the negative impacts of human activities within the biosphere.

    The success of the last 46 years’ work shows that on land and sea, biospheres have driven a local nature recovery plan, and in our marine environments they have improved the levels of phosphates. This was the first work of its kind in the country. They have pioneered projects in the 25-year environmental plan, and as part of that they have developed natural capital strategies for the region, which are now in operation with the community renewal fund. Alongside new environmental land management scheme trials, this drive for nature encourages others. Today the National Trust has announced the largest grassland project, stretching from Woolacombe to Exmoor.

    The work of our North Devon biosphere also extends abroad, with partnerships in Kenya supporting biospheres there to deliver projects and working with European biospheres to co-ordinate a network of forests. In south-east Asia, work is being done on marine planning and conservation alongside community health. As UNESCO’s oldest intergovernmental scientific programme, our global biospheres are a testament to what we as a world can achieve when we work together. Working together is the only way we are going to combat the global climate crisis, and as we pass on the presidency for COP, 3 November should stand as a reminder of the importance of international collaboration.

    The path that biospheres have carved for the last 50 years shows that we can live in a sustainable way. It is not a choice between modern life or saving our planet; both can be achieved. It is up to us all to make it a reality. I thank Andy Bell for his tireless work for the biosphere and his help with the detail behind my speech. The Minister knows from her visit to my constituency how stunning our environment is, and I hope she will therefore support my battle against the disruption to our sand dunes caused by cabling from development projects for floating offshore wind that is too small to go to the main connection point. I also hope she will consider strengthening the protections for our biospheres and perhaps, as a special first birthday present for the International Day for Biosphere Reserves, give them formal status here in the UK.