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Tag: Westferry

  • Steve Reed – 2020 Comments on Labour Referring Robert Jenrick to Parliamentary Commissioner

    Steve Reed – 2020 Comments on Labour Referring Robert Jenrick to Parliamentary Commissioner

    Below is the text of the comments made by Steve Reed, the Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary, said in a statement on 26 June 2020.

    The Prime Minister can’t just sweep this issue under the carpet. There are still so many unanswered questions about Robert Jenrick’s unlawful attempt to help Richard Desmond dodge £150m in tax days before he made a generous donation to the Conservative Party.

    The Prime Minister has yet again shown woefully poor judgment by not referring clear breaches of the Ministerial Code to the Cabinet Secretary and he must now come clean himself about his own involvement in this case.

    The Government must publish all the remaining secret documents in this case to show the public what Mr Jenrick and the Prime Minister were really up to and prove that this is not the start of a new era of Tory sleaze.

  • Robert Jenrick – 2020 Letter and Documents Relating to Westferry Printworks

    Robert Jenrick – 2020 Letter and Documents Relating to Westferry Printworks

    Below is the text of the letter sent by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee on 24 June 2020.

    Letter

    Appendix with Documents Released

  • David Linden – 2020 Speech on Westferry Printworks Development

    David Linden – 2020 Speech on Westferry Printworks Development

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Linden, the SNP MP for Glasgow East, in the House of Commons on 24 June 2020.

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not intend to speak for more than about five or six minutes, if that is of help to the House.

    The seriousness of these allegations merits a high-profile and far-reaching investigation, so I thank the Opposition for tabling this motion on the Westferry scandal. In contrast, the Government appear to just hope that it will simply disappear. I am still not entirely clear from what the Secretary of State said whether the Government will oppose the motion in the Division Lobby tonight. The motion before us certainly has the full support of the SNP, and we will vote in favour of it if the Government are daft enough to push it to a Division, which I must suggest to them would not look good.

    I must confess that I do not like the all-too-frequent fixture in our politics of calling for ministerial resignations left, right and centre. However, in this case the conduct of the Secretary of State is seriously called into question when he himself has acknowledged that this decision was made unlawfully. In any other circumstance, this would already be difficult territory for the Secretary of State to try to wriggle off the hook, but the fact that this £1 billion housing development is linked to a Tory donor means it stinks—and it stinks, frankly, to high heavens.

    Put simply, this is a classic Tory sleaze scandal that involves money and the Conservatives scratching one another’s backs. For a minute, let us put to one side the fact that the development’s owner is Richard Desmond, a multibillionaire and former owner of the Daily Express, and look solely at the fact that the development was originally denied by the Planning Inspectorate for failing to deliver enough affordable housing. That should not be overlooked, because the Government’s record on building affordable housing, let alone social housing, is absolutely woeful. We respect the fact that the impartial Planning Inspectorate rejected the application on reasonable grounds. Most of us can follow the logic on that.

    Here is the nub of the matter, and why the Secretary of State’s position is so weak. The decision of the impartial Planning Inspectorate was overruled by the Secretary of State on 14 January, less than 24 hours before the introduction of a community infrastructure levy that would have cost the developer £40 million. Soon after the decision to approve the project was made, Richard Desmond makes a new £12,000 donation to the Conservative party. In the eyes of the public, the Secretary of State steps in and saves the developer £40 million in the community infrastructure levy, and then miraculously, the developer later makes a donation to the Conservative party. Surely no self-respecting Member of the House, not even the keenest December-intake Member, cannot see that that absolutely stinks.

    Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)

    Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

    David Linden

    I am very happy to, if the hon. Gentleman wants to defend this one.

    Kevin Hollinrake

    I do not think any self-respecting Member of this House should twist an argument like that. It did not save the developer £40 million. That money would have been taken directly off the allocation for affordable homes. Has the hon. Gentleman read the document? Has he read the inspector’s report? That is exactly what it says.

    David Linden

    I have, but part of the issue is that so few documents are in circulation. That is the whole point of the motion before the House and that is what we are calling for. If the hon. Gentleman wants people to read documents, he will be in the Lobby with us to make sure that those documents are published.

    To make matters worse, we have also learned that Mr Desmond, who is, let us not forget, a property developer, and the Secretary of State, who has a quasi-judicial role in the planning process, were sat together at a Tory fundraiser in November. This is the point that I was trying to intervene on the Secretary of State about earlier, because he glossed over that.

    “What I did was I showed him the video”.

    They are not my words but the words of Richard Desmond, who says that the Secretary of State watched a promotional video for the development of Westferry for three or four minutes and:

    “It’s quite long, so he got the gist.”

    In the course of the Secretary of State’s remarks, hon. Members were trying to intervene to ask whether he had watched the video, but I do not think that he was clear. I am happy to give way to him now if he wants to come to the Dispatch Box and put it on record that he did watch the video.

    Robert Jenrick

    As I have said repeatedly, I confirm that I was seated next to Mr Desmond. I did not expect to be seated beside him. He raised the application, as I said the last time that I came to the House on this matter. He said that he showed me part of the video and I do not recall exactly what happened, but he did bring out his iPhone and show me some images of the development. I was very clear the last time I came to the House that I informed the developer that it was not appropriate to discuss the matter and I could not comment on it, and I believe that Mr Desmond has confirmed that.

    David Linden

    I am grateful to the Secretary of State for the intervention. On that point, I give way to the shadow Secretary of State.

    Steve Reed

    I want to share a direct quote from Richard Desmond given to The Sunday Times about the video. These are his words: “What I did was I showed him the video because we’ve got a video of the site. He got the gist. He thanked me”.

    David Linden

    This is the very point. The shadow Secretary of State has hit the nail on the head, because that was wrong. The Secretary of State should have run for the hills, never touched the issue ever again and flagged the conflict of interest to his departmental officials.

    Wes Streeting

    I wanted to put this question to the Secretary of State, who said he did not know that he would be seated next to Mr Desmond. He said that at the Dispatch Box and I will take him at his word. Are we seriously meant to believe, however, that Mr Desmond did not know that he was going to be sat next to the Secretary of State? Having talked to people I know who worked in professional fundraising and political fundraising, the question of cash for access is crucial. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Conservative party should publish all correspondence with Mr Desmond and his associates about the booking of the table at the dinner, and Mr Desmond’s expectations as to whether he knew that he would be sat with the Secretary of State?

    David Linden

    I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Many of us, for very understandable reasons because of what is in “Erskine May” and the Standing Orders of this House, are trying very hard to stick to the rules in here, but the reality is that members of the public watching this debate on TV or reading it in Hansard will find it rather strange that a Conservative party fundraiser was organised and that the Secretary of State, who has a quasi-judicial role in the planning process, happened to be sat next to Mr Desmond.

    Wera Hobhouse

    Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the point I made earlier? For a local councillor on a planning committee, all red lights would have gone on to say, “This looks bad. I cannot take part in a decision when I have sat next to somebody who is putting in a very big planning application.”

    David Linden

    The hon. Lady is right. She refers to her experience in local government. It is clear that anybody in this House who has served as a councillor—I have not—would realise that this is something from which they must absolutely run for the hills and at least flag it to their departmental officials—and, presumably, their political advisers too.

    At that stage, without any shadow of a doubt, the Secretary of State’s position was compromised, but he ploughed on regardless. It was, I am afraid, a clear political decision that has directly enriched a Tory party donor and is worryingly close to being a textbook example of cash for favours.

    The Conservative party, however, does not appear to care. Let’s face it: why should we hold our breath? This, after all, is the party reportedly nominating Peter Cruddas, a man who resigned from the Conservatives as co-treasurer in 2012 following a cash-for-access scandal, for a peerage. The Conservatives do not seem to see anything problematic about rewarding someone who donated £50,000 to the Prime Minister’s leadership campaign and £3 million to the Tory party since 2007. Why on earth, then, would we expect them to hold the Housing Secretary to higher standards? I think, however, that Opposition Members will.

    Transparency is now imperative. It is important that the papers called for in today’s motion are released without delay and without obstruction. I am afraid I do not buy the point made by the Secretary of State that some papers would be published. If the Government want to publish the papers, they will not oppose the motion at four o’clock this afternoon. Anybody who hears Conservative Members yelling “No” tonight will find that there is something seriously to be hidden on their part and I do not think that that is a good look. If the documents released do reveal a direct link between the decision that the Secretary of State made and Mr Desmond’s donation to the Conservatives, then the Secretary of State must demit office.

    The Government need to accept that this scandal is not going to go away. We can all quite clearly see, without the need to take a day trip to Barnard Castle, that this episode further damages the credibility of a Government who are losing trust faster than Dominic Cummings can run out of Downing Street to escape for his Durham bolthole. A little over a decade ago, David Cameron said, “We’re all in this together”. Except we’re not, are we? Whether it is rewarding party donors with life peerages, a different set of rules for the Prime Minister’s special adviser or the Westferry Printworks scandal, time and again the Tories are proving that it is one rule for them and one rule for everybody else.

  • Robert Jenrick – 2020 Speech on Westferry Printworks Development

    Robert Jenrick – 2020 Speech on Westferry Printworks Development

    Below is the text of the speech made by Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, in the House of Commons on 24 June 2020.

    I welcome the opportunity to address the House today on this matter. I will write to the Chair of the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts)—

    Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    I will give way in a moment to the hon. Gentleman, but he could let me even begin my remarks, if he is truly interested in what I have to say. I will write to the Chair of the Select Committee outlining the timeline of events and the rationale for my decision making pertaining to the Westferry Printworks planning decision. Alongside this letter, and after a comprehensive review of what documents might be in scope of this motion and of the letter he sent me on behalf of his Select Committee, I will be releasing, later today, all relevant information relating to this planning matter, using the Freedom of Information Act as a benchmark. I recognise that there are higher standards of transparency expected in the quasi-judicial planning process, which is why I will also release discussions and correspondence that the Government would not normally release.

    These documents show that, contrary to the wild accusations and baseless innuendo propagated by the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) and restated today in a series of totally inaccurate statements and comments, this decision was taken with an open mind, on the merits of the case, after a thorough decision-making process. It was rooted in my long-standing and well documented view that we have a generational challenge as a country, which we need to meet and not shirk, to build more houses in all parts of this country and that whoever holds this office, whether it is me, another Member from my party or the hon. Gentleman, must make those tough decisions in order to build the homes that this country needs and to build a better future for the next generation.

    Mr Perkins

    The Secretary of State says that he is pleased to have this debate and started his speech by saying that he is going to release all of these documents. Why is he doing that today? He is releasing them because he has been forced to come here by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North. If the Secretary of State wanted some transparency, instead of having to have this dragged out of him, he would have done this weeks ago.

    Robert Jenrick

    The hon Gentleman is completely incorrect in that respect. First, a lot of documents are already in the public domain, and I will come on to discuss that. The reasons for my decision are set out clearly in the decision letter. From the comments that we have heard from the hon. Member for Croydon North, I suspect he has not taken the trouble to read it. The inspector’s report is already in the public domain, with the representations made by the parties. Since my receipt of the letter from the Chair of the Select Committee, we have undertaken the process I have just described, which, as Members can imagine, is not one that one does in a day or two. It has taken us time. As Members will see when I publish the documents later today, and in the letter I have written to the Chair of the Select Committee, we have taken that process very seriously, because transparency matters, openness matters and settling this matter matters, because I certainly do not want to be the subject of the innuendo and false accusations that the Opposition are choosing to peddle.

    Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)

    I thank the Secretary of State for committing to publish that document and send it to the Select Committee, although it might have been helpful if we had had it before the debate today. The Committee will obviously want to look at it and may then want to enter into further communication or, indeed, even talk to the Secretary of State about it. I ask him one thing: will the documentation that he sends to the Select Committee include everything that he said to the Cabinet Secretary following his investigations into the matter?

    Robert Jenrick

    It will include most of that information, subject only to the benchmark of the Freedom of Information Act, which I have just described. I think that is the right approach, and it is on the advice of my Department that I do that. If this debate truly is—I suspect it is not, because I suspect this debate is mainly motivated by party political considerations—concerned with the probity of the planning system, I am sure that the Chair of the Select Committee, for whom I have the greatest respect, would agree that it is absolutely right that we release documentation in accordance with the rules, bearing in mind that this is a live planning matter.

    Nick Smith rose—

    Robert Jenrick

    I will come back to the hon. Gentleman, but first let me make some progress.

    For the benefit of the House, I take this opportunity to outline the facts of the case. As Members will be aware, the Secretary of State’s role in deciding called-in planning applications and recovered appeals is very long established. The vast majority of planning decisions are rightly determined at a local level by local planning authorities. However, Parliament has created provision whereby a small proportion of cases are determined by Ministers. The cases that fall to Ministers are by their nature highly contentious, frequently very complex and sometimes very subjective. There is no escaping that reality. It is not unusual for Ministers to come to a different conclusion from that of a local authority. Nor is it unusual, as has been said, for Ministers to disagree with the recommendations of planning inspectors, and I say that with no disrespect to the brilliant men and women who work in the Planning Inspectorate. My predecessors from both sides of the House have done so on multiple occasions.

    Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    I will in just a moment, but I want to make a bit more progress, because it is important to set out the facts. In the past three years, 14 substantive decisions have been made by Ministers in disagreement with the recommendations of the inspector. Such applications cannot be easily compared and each case must be determined on its own merits, and that is what I have done in all cases since becoming Secretary of State, as the documents that I intend to publish will, I hope, demonstrate.

    Nick Smith

    Did the Secretary of State view the promotional video at the Conservative party fundraiser, and did he tell his officials in his Department the next day?

    Robert Jenrick

    I will come on to a description of those events in a moment, if I may, and answer the hon. Gentleman’s question at that point.

    Wera Hobhouse

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    I will just make some more progress, then I will come back to the hon. Lady.

    In July 2018, Westferry Developments submitted a planning application for a large development comprising 1,500 homes, including affordable homes, shops and office space. The case was with Tower Hamlets Council for eight months, and over that period, despite having five determination meetings arranged, it failed to make a decision. It is disappointing that the council failed to meet its statutory requirements, but it is not surprising. In the past five years, 30 planning applications have been decided at appeal because of non-determination by the council.

    The council had considerable time to process the application. Indeed, a meeting of the strategic development committee was cancelled in January 2019 due to lack of business. Is it fair to say that there is a lack of business when we are in a housing crisis and the council has applications such as this before it? Does the Labour party believe that is fair? In our system of law, justice delayed is justice denied, and that is what Tower Hamlets Council was trying to do here.

    Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    I will in a moment.

    This, I remind the House, is the council that has the highest housing deficit in England, according to the housing delivery test. Given Tower Hamlets’ failure to determine the case within the prescribed period, on 26 March, the developer exercised their right to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate and, after advice, my predecessor—not me, as has been said on many occasions by many individuals, including the hon. Member for Croydon North—took the decision to recover the appeal. All the parties were notified about this in a letter dated 10 April 2019.

    So before I give way to hon. Members, let us be clear. I did not call in this application; I was not the Secretary of State. The application was not called in; it came to the Department because of the failure of Tower Hamlets Council. Here we have a council, described by one of my predecessors as a “rotten borough”, failing time and again to make decisions and get houses built and a Mayor of London with a dire record on housing leaving us to step in and take the tough decisions that they refuse to make.

    Wes Streeting

    I wondered how long it would be before we got on to the deflections on to Tower Hamlets Council and the Mayor of London, but it is a fact, is it not, that the leader of the Conservative group on the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Councillor Andrew Wood, resigned from the Conservative party, not citing the Mayor of London or Labour Tower Hamlets Council, but citing the actions of the Conservative party and this decision, which he described as

    “so shocking I knew immediately that I had to resign.”

    Is that not a fact?

    Robert Jenrick

    It is not a deflection to talk about Tower Hamlets Council because in all likelihood this decision would never have been made by the Secretary of State if Tower Hamlets Council had met its statutory obligations and taken the decision. With respect to the councillor the hon. Gentleman mentions, who I do not know but with whom I have no issue, he was standing up for the concerns of his local residents. I return to the point that I made earlier that in my job it is essential to make—[Interruption.]

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)

    Order. Stop shouting at the Minister. It is not how we do things here.

    Robert Jenrick

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

    Rushanara Ali rose—

    Robert Jenrick

    I will give way to the hon. Lady, as she is one of the Tower Hamlets Members of Parliament, and then I will make some progress, if I may.

    Rushanara Ali

    What is rotten at the heart of this scandal is the Secretary of State’s behaviour. It is wrong for him to attack Tower Hamlets Council, which was negotiating a better deal for residents and trying to get more social housing. He should get his facts straight before he starts deflecting blame on to a council that has built houses under the last Conservative mayoralty, as well as the current mayoralty. He should sort out the rottenness at the heart of his Department and his Government.

    Robert Jenrick

    There is nothing rotten in my Department. I have some of the best officials in Whitehall, with whom I am extremely proud to work. The hon. Lady cannot have it both ways. If she disagrees with my decision, she should go back to Tower Hamlets Council and tell it to start making decisions itself, not frustrating planning applications so that they come to me and I and my predecessors and successors have to make the tough decisions.

    Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    I will give way to the hon. Lady, and then I must make progress.

    Apsana Begum

    Given that the Prime Minister pushed through the original scheme for the same developer when he was Mayor of London, does the Secretary of State feel that the documents on any involvement of No. 10, or any conversation about the Secretary of State’s decision to grant approval should also be published?

    Robert Jenrick

    I am publishing, as I have just said, in an almost unprecedented way, a very comprehensive set of documents, which I think Members on both sides of the House will be more than satisfied with.

    I would just politely note to the hon. Lady that her name did come up in the correspondence and advice that I received from officials; the names of MPs do come up when I take these decisions. I asked my officials, “Did the local Member of Parliament make any representations with respect to this application because I want to take into account the views of Members on all sides of this House?” As she will see in the documents, they advised me that the Member of Parliament made no representations. The Member of Parliament—in their words, I think, but I stand to be corrected—took no interest in the application, and neither did her predecessor, so she may be outraged today, but I suggest that Members on both sides of the House who care about contentious planning applications should make representations to the Secretary of State, because I am not a mind reader.

    Wera Hobhouse

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    Let me just make some progress, if I may.

    It is on public record that in November 2019, during the general election campaign, I was invited to a Conservative party event. This is not unusual for a Government Minister. I was seated next to Mr Desmond at the Conservative dinner, although, as I have said, I did not know the seating plan prior to arrival. I was not familiar with the majority of the table, but I understand that it included the editor of the Daily Mirror, the editor of the Express newspaper, executives from Northern & Shell and a former Conservative Member of Parliament. I had not planned to have any contact with Mr Desmond prior to the event. That was the first time I had ever met him.

    Wera Hobhouse

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    No.

    He raised the development and invited me on a site visit. I informed him that it would not be appropriate to discuss the matter, and the conversation moved on to other topics. After the event, we exchanged messages. Again, as the record will show, I advised him that I was unable to discuss the application or to pass comment. I informed my officials of my contact with Mr Desmond, and I will publish these messages for transparency. On advice from my officials, I declined the site visit. All decision makers in the planning process receive unsolicited representations from time to time. It would be perverse if any decision maker was barred from taking a decision because of unsolicited representations. Indeed, section 25 of the Localism Act 2011 clarified the law to protect against the overzealous application of the planning rules.

    Wera Hobhouse

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    Not at this time.

    Housing Secretaries of all parties naturally come into contact with those involved in housing, by which I do not simply mean developers; I mean councils, housing associations, builders and contractors. The key point is that the final decision is always made with an open mind based on the material considerations of the case.

    Wera Hobhouse

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    I will give way to the hon. Lady because she had been trying very hard.

    Wera Hobhouse

    I was a member of a local planning committee. There are strict rules and a code of conduct for councillors to declare either a private or a prejudicial interest, at which point they go out of the room and take no further part in the decision. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that a Secretary of State should live under different rules from local councillors?

    Robert Jenrick

    Of course not. It is extremely important that we maintain the probity of the planning system, and that is what I believe I have done in this case. The hon. Lady can be a judge of that, if she wishes, when she sees the documents.

    David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP) rose—

    Robert Jenrick

    If I may, I will make some progress. I am conscious that a lot of time is passing.

    In the same month, the planning inspector submitted his report to me recommending that the appeal be dismissed. As is usual, my officials reviewed the inspector’s report and prepared advice for me to consider. I reviewed this, along with advice on six other urgent planning cases, upon my return to the Department in December following the general election.

    Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    Not at this time. I need to make some progress.

    Upon reviewing the advice on Westferry, including the inspector’s recommendation, I requested further advice on key questions—for example, asking the Department to source images to understand the potential impact of the scheme on historic Greenwich. Having reviewed all the evidence and taken a further in-depth meeting with senior officials to discuss the case in the first week in January, I determined to allow the appeal and grant planning permission. As I have set out in the letter to the Select Committee Chair, in coming to the decision I considered the significant contribution of housing in a part of the country that is particularly unaffordable, including almost 300 affordable homes, as well as the significant economic benefits from the development, including the hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs that it would have created. The House should remember that we are talking about a large brownfield site in a part of London that already has a high number of tall buildings, so in many respects it is exactly the kind of location where we should be building homes if we are serious about tackling London’s housing needs.

    On 14 January, my full rationale was published in the usual way, through the decision letter, with the full inspector’s report. In this case, Tower Hamlets and the Mayor of London challenged the decision in court, as happens in many cases. The irony, of course, is that, as we have already discussed, they could have made the decision themselves but chose not to do so.

    On 21 May 2020, my Department proposed that the decision be quashed and redetermined by another Minister in the usual way. The other parties to the matter—Tower Hamlets Council, the Mayor of London and the developer—agreed and the court duly consented. My rationale was that although there was no actual bias whatsoever in the decision making for the application, inferences, even of the appearance of bias, could harm the integrity of the planning system. I did not want that to happen.

    Nick Smith

    Will the Secretary of State give way??

    Robert Jenrick

    I will give way one more time, but let me make this point first.

    I cannot say at this point which Minister will take this matter forward. We will ensure that it is someone who has no previous connection to the case or its parties, as we do in other instances. I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Croydon North to the fact that there are several planning Ministers in my Department, and although all actions go out in the name of the Secretary of State, by no means does the Secretary of State take all the decisions in the Department. For example, in the Sandown Park racecourse case to which he referred earlier, the decision was taken by another planning Minister and was one about which I knew none of the facts until it was incorrectly reported by The Times newspaper and propagated once again by the hon. Gentleman.

    Sarah Jones

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    No; I wish to make this point, because it is important. The hon. Member for Croydon North also propagated another inaccurate story that is more serious and disappointing, and that is the one in respect of the application to build a new holocaust memorial for the United Kingdom in the grounds of this building. There has been a suggestion that in that case I used my powers as Secretary of State to call in the application. That is incorrect. The Secretary of State is the applicant for the holocaust memorial, and there is a clear Chinese wall whereby another Minister in the Department who has no interest in that application takes the ultimate decision. That is exactly what we did in that case, so I strongly urge Members from all parties, as well as the media who have reported on that issue, to tread carefully. We should not bring something as important as our national holocaust memorial into this party political discussion.

    Tim Farron

    I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way; he is being very decent with his time.

    The Secretary of State has made the case that he felt the need to intervene in this case to deliver housing. Does he understand my frustration and the frustration of many other Members present? In my part of the world, we have London house prices without anything like London wages. We regularly look to his Department to intervene to help to deliver affordable houses, yet his Department allows developers to get away with viability assessments that get rid of affordable housing. I wish he was also tough in cases when it comes to the Lake District and other parts of the country.

    Robert Jenrick

    I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has asked to call in applications; he certainly has not come to see me about any applications during the past 12 months of my tenure, but I would happily meet him in the appropriate way if he wishes to do so. My record as Secretary of State is clear for all to see in the range of applications that I have considered and the difficult decisions that I have consistently made, which affect Members from all parties and their constituencies. If one does this job properly, one gets homes built. One does not necessarily make friends, and I make no apologies for that. Each decision must be made on its merits, but if we want to tackle the housing crisis, we need to build homes.

    Nick Smith

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Sarah Jones

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    Let me let me make some progress, because many other speakers wish to participate in this debate.

    Any accusation that my view on a highly complex and publicised development could have been swayed by an encounter with a developer is not just simply wrong, but actually outrageous.

    Who the applicant was is immaterial to my decision, as it always is, and always should be. I knew nothing of the donation that was made and would never have allowed it to influence my decision, even if I had known about it. However, I am not blind to the fact that things could and should have been done differently. On reflection, I should have handled the communication differently—[Interruption.] Let me make this point, please.

    It is unfortunate that some have sought partisan advantage in this, rather than having a serious discussion about Britain’s housing shortage. I stand by the decision that I made.

    I believe passionately that Britain needs to build houses and that is what we are doing. Indeed, the Government’s track record on housing delivery stands in stark contrast to that of the Opposition. Last year, we delivered 240,000 homes, more new homes than at any point in the past 30 years, taking the total delivered since 2010 to 1.5 million. By comparison, under Labour, house building fell to levels not seen since the 1920s, with the number of first-time buyers down by 50% and the number of socially rented homes down by 420,000.

    Nick Smith

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Sarah Jones

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    I have given way many times. I cannot be accused of not giving way—I have done it enough times. I need to make progress and I want to ensure others have their say.

    The only thing that went up under Labour was social housing waiting lists, so I will not take lessons from Labour on housing, particularly on affordable housing. This development was going to build 282 affordable homes. That is actually more affordable homes than the Labour Welsh Government has built as council houses in the whole of Wales in five years. Last year in Wales the Labour party only built 57 council houses—

    Sarah Jones

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    I am not giving way to the hon. Lady. I think I have made that perfectly—

    Sarah Jones rose—

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)

    Order. The hon. Lady must sit down. She cannot be standing up in the Chamber. If the Secretary of State wants to give way, he will give way, and she must not heckle.

    Robert Jenrick

    Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I do not think they actually want to hear an explanation.

    We only have to look to London, which faces some of the most acute housing pressures in the whole country, to see examples of what a lack of leadership and ambition means on the ground. Under the current Mayor of London, housing delivery has averaged just 37,000 a year, falling short of the existing London plan and well below the Mayor’s own assessment of housing need. The average price of a new build home in London has gone up by 12 times average earnings. The need for bold action was clear earlier this year, when I was left with no option but to directly intervene in the Mayor’s London plan. I do not apologise for doing that, for continuing to push for homes to be built in our capital city, as across the country, to meet our ambition as a Government to build 300,000 homes a year and to give young people, families and the most vulnerable people in our society the opportunity and security that previous generations enjoyed.

    In that endeavour, it is right that we seek to make the most of existing sites, particularly in urban areas, with jobs, transport links and other amenities close by—brownfield sites such as the one we are discussing today. That is why we as a Government and I as Secretary of State have consistently taken pro-regeneration decisions, in order to turn those sites into homes and into employment opportunities. This development would have done that, but every time a do-nothing Labour council and a do-nothing Labour Mayor plays politics with homes and jobs it is ultimately people who miss out. They miss out on homes and they miss out on jobs. That matters, because as we come out of covid and we are trying to recover our economy, we should be thinking about the brickies and the plumbers, the van drivers, the labourers—the people whose jobs and livelihoods depend on these projects. We will get building. We will build ourselves out of this crisis and create the jobs that we need in this country.

    I hope that the publication of these documents and my remarks today will go some way to putting an end to the innuendos and false accusations from the hon. Member for Croydon North. He might just address the big issues, upon which he has been conspicuously silent since taking office. His predecessor, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), used to raise rough sleeping, how we were responding to covid, and pressures on local council finances. He used to be constructive. He also used to probe and hold the Government to account. I cannot say the same for the hon. Member for Croydon North. He lives on his Twitter account, and he lives for smears and innuendos, not substance. He might speak to substance, not just party politics.

    Wes Streeting

    Will the Secretary of State give way?

    Robert Jenrick

    I will not; I am closing now.

    This Government are determined to build the homes the country needs. We are determined to end rough sleeping, as the House will see today from the announcement of more than £100 million of funding to help local councils to provide better quality accommodation for the 15,000 rough sleepers that we have helped off the streets and protected from covid as a result of the pandemic. We will continue to help renters by reforming their rights and ensuring that they weather the economic storms to come as a result of the pandemic. We will promote beautiful, well-designed new communities, working with the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission to radically change the way in which we consider our planning system.

    We will speed up and reform the planning system to get those homes built, to ensure that infrastructure is laid at pace and that developers, housing associations, councils and everyone who cares about the future of this country and the homes that people deserve to live in can move forward with confidence and certainty. And we will invest in more affordable homes through the largest affordable homes programme this country has seen in a decade, building hundreds of thousands of new homes of all types and tenures in all parts of the country, so that families in Tower Hamlets, in London and elsewhere in this country can live with dignity and security and pursue their dreams and the opportunity, which many of us in the House enjoy, to have a high-quality home of their own. That is what the British people expect, and that is what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I intend to deliver.

  • Steve Reed – 2020 Statement on Westferry Printworks Development

    Steve Reed – 2020 Statement on Westferry Printworks Development

    Below is the text of the statement made by Steve Reed, the Labour MP for Croydon North, in the House of Commons on 24 June 2020.

    I beg to move,

    That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, that she will be graciously pleased to give a direction to Her Ministers to provide all correspondence, including submissions and electronic communications, involving Ministers and Special Advisers pertaining to the Westferry Printworks Development and the subsequent decision by the Secretary of State to approve its planning application at appeal to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee.

    The Westferry case, and the role of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in it, has blown apart confidence in the planning system. The only way to put that right is for the Secretary of State to publish the evidence about what really happened. If he has done nothing wrong, he has nothing to fear. I hope that he will welcome this opportunity to restore trust in a sector that will be so critical in rebuilding Britain after the lockdown.

    In November last year, the Secretary of State attended an exclusive Conservative party fundraising dinner. He was seated next to Richard Desmond, the owner of Northern & Shell, and three of his senior executives. I understand that Mr Desmond’s lobbyists—a company called Thorncliffe—had been busy selling tickets to the event to people who wanted access to the Secretary of State.

    Northern & Shell is the applicant behind the Westferry Printworks development in Tower Hamlets, a highly controversial live planning application on which the Secretary of State was due to take a final decision. Ministers are not allowed to take planning decisions if they have been lobbied by the applicant. Under the ministerial code, Ministers are required not to place themselves under an obligation by, for instance, helping to raise funds from a donor who stands to benefit from the decisions they make, because it raises questions about cash for favours, which would be a serious abuse of power.

    Tower Hamlets Council was opposed to the Westferry scheme because it was oversized and lacked affordable housing, and the Secretary of State’s own planning inspector agreed with the council. However, on 14 January, just weeks after he had dined with Mr Desmond, the Secretary of State overruled them and forced the scheme through. He claims that he had no idea he would be sitting next to Mr Desmond and his senior executives.

    The Secretary of State has not yet told us whether Conservative party officials knew and whether they sold tickets on that basis, as Thorncliffe seems to believe they did; he has not explained why, since he admits that the meeting gives rise to apparent bias, he did not ask to be re-seated elsewhere as soon as he realised who he was sitting next to; and he has given no reason why he did not immediately recuse himself from any further involvement in the decision.

    The Secretary of State assured the House only last week that he did not discuss the scheme with Mr Desmond. Unfortunately for him, Mr Desmond says that they did. He has gone further and told us that the Secretary of State viewed a promotional video about the scheme on Mr Desmond’s phone—something the Secretary of State failed to mention to the House.

    It is very hard to imagine that the Westferry scheme did not crop up during the three hours or so that the Secretary of State must have been sitting next to the owner of Northern & Shell and three of his most senior executives. Viewing Mr Desmond’s video is not cutting off the discussion, as the Secretary of State told the House; it is the developer lobbying the Secretary of State, and apparently with some considerable success.

    The Secretary of State has still not confirmed when and how he notified officials in his Department about this encounter. Was it before he took the decision, or was it afterwards? What was their advice to him? It is hard to believe, if he was honest with them about viewing the video, that they did not advise him to recuse himself immediately—so did they, and did he overrule them so that he could do favours for a friend?

    The Secretary of State took his decision to approve the Westferry scheme on 14 January. That was one day before a new community infrastructure levy came into force. The timing of the Secretary of State’s decision saved Mr Desmond up to £50 million.

    Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)

    I think the hon. Gentleman may be unintentionally misleading the House on that point. It did not save the developers £50 million. If he reads the inspector’s report on this, he will see that it quite clearly says that the schedule 15 viability assessment can be rerun in the event that the appeal scheme becomes liable for community infrastructure levy. The report states:

    “The adjustment is likely to reduce the amount of affordable housing.”

    What the Secretary of State did was to make sure that the right proportion of affordable housing was delivered on that scheme. The hon. Gentleman is saying, quite wrongly, that that was not the reason. If he repeats that, or anyone else does, in this debate, they will therefore be intentionally misleading this House.

    Steve Reed

    I am going to come on to the issue of the proportion of affordable housing that was included in the scheme. The timing of the decision is a further issue on which I am seeking clarification from the Secretary of State. He could easily provide that if he published the documents behind it. I hope that he will, and that Conservative Members will all be voting for that when this debate concludes.

    Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)

    Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the Secretary of State’s behaviour, viability assessments are used by developers around the country to frustrate the affordable housing targets of local councils and planning authorities. South Lakeland District Council, Lake District National Park and Yorkshire Dales National Park do their best to provide affordable housing in a place where average house prices can be well in excess of a quarter of a million pounds, but viability assessments are often used to frustrate that process. Would it not be better if the Secretary of State were to stand up in the interests of affordable housing and not in the interests of the developer?

    Steve Reed

    The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point, and I agree with him. Indeed, the Secretary of State allowed the applicant to reduce the proportion of affordable and social housing in the scheme from the 35% supported by his own advisers to the 21% preferred by Mr Desmond. According to Tower Hamlets Council, that decision saved Mr Desmond a further £106 million. That is a considerable amount of money in total that the Secretary of State saved Mr Desmond—money that would have gone to fund things like schools, libraries, youth clubs or clinics in one of the most deprived communities anywhere in this country.

    Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)

    I represent one of the two Tower Hamlets constituencies. We have the highest child poverty rate in the country and the most overcrowding in the country. Denying that borough a combined total of £150 million is a disgrace. The Secretary of State ought to publish the documents and come clean today.

    Steve Reed

    I very much agree with my hon. Friend. If the Secretary of State will agree today to publish the documents, we can all see, with full transparency, what really went on. That is all we are seeking in this debate.

    Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)

    Is it not also the case that Labour-run Tower Hamlets Council has £567 million in usable reserves and is losing £3 million to £4 million a year in inflation because it is not spending the money it has got in the bank, which is just sitting there?

    Steve Reed

    I am afraid I do not know Tower Hamlets Council’s budget in sufficient detail, but I do know that councils across the country face a funding gap of around one fifth of their annual revenue budget because the Government have failed to deliver on their promise to fund councils to do whatever is necessary to get communities through this pandemic. That is another issue that I hope the Secretary of State will deal with.

    Several hon. Members rose—

    Steve Reed

    I would like to make a little progress, because an awful lot of Members—not just in the Chamber, but elsewhere—would like to contribute to the debate.

    The Secretary of State admitted last week that he was fully aware that his decision helped Mr Desmond avoid these charges. Why was it so important that this decision was rushed through on 14 January rather than, say, a day later or a week later? He has given no compelling reason for that, so suspicion arises that he was trying to do favours for a Conservative party donor.

    The Secretary of State’s own advisers from his Department believed the scheme was viable with the higher level of affordable housing, so on what specific grounds did he overrule professionals with relevant experience that far outweighs his own? Without a credible answer, the suspicion arises once again that the Secretary of State was bending over backwards to do favours for his billionaire dinner date.

    Barely two weeks after the Secretary of State forced the scheme through, in the teeth of opposition from his own advisers and the local council, the beneficiary, Mr Desmond, made a donation to the Conservative party—what an astonishing coincidence! The Secretary of State can see, as we all can, how that looks: cash for favours—mates’ rates on taxes for Tories that everyone else has to pay in full. Do this Government really believe that taxes are just for the little people? No one will believe a word they say on levelling up until the Secretary of State levels with the British people over why he helped a billionaire dodge millions of pounds in tax after they enjoyed dinner together at an exclusive Conservative party fundraising event.

    David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)

    Has the hon. Gentleman considered that the urgency partly arose from the fact that the period for determination of the application had expired in November 2018? The opportunity of these valuable homes had already been waiting more than a year for a decision in the hands of Labour Tower Hamlets Council.

    Steve Reed

    The issue in question is not that the Secretary of State called the planning decision in; it is what he did after he had called it in—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State will have a chance to respond. It is what happened when he took the determination, not the fact that he was taking it.

    Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)

    I understand that the Secretary of State has acknowledged the appearance of bias. My hon. Friend is making a compelling case. If, in fact, the Secretary of State is entirely innocent of everything that has been suggested, there is a simple way for this to be resolved, which is for him to provide complete transparency. If only he showed the documents, he could prove his own innocence, and we could all get on to other matters.

    Steve Reed

    I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. There is, of course, a very simple way for the Secretary of State to show that he did absolutely nothing wrong—it really could not be more straightforward. Officials in his Department will have kept meticulous records of the entire process: how and when he notified them about his dinner with Mr Desmond, and whether he told them that he had viewed the video; whether they advised him to recuse himself, and whether he overruled them; why he needed to take the decision in a way that helped Mr Desmond cut his tax bill; and what advice he received about the viability of the scheme with a higher level of affordable housing. It is all there. If he has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear. He can just publish it, and I urge him to do that.

    Kevin Hollinrake

    I think the hon. Gentleman is unintentionally risking the reputation of this House. Does he not accept the position that I stated earlier? It is not a question of saving the developer up to £50 million. As the inspector himself admitted, it is simply that a commensurate amount of money would have been reduced from the allocation of affordable housing. That is what would have happened. It was not going into the back pocket of the developer. The hon. Gentleman must accept that, or he risks the reputation of this House.

    Steve Reed

    The hon. Gentleman gives me the opportunity to repeat the same point: let us see the documentation from the Department and the advice that was given to the Secretary of State—openly, transparently, for everybody to see—and then we will know exactly whether what happened was in breach of the ministerial code of conduct and the planning code.

    Instead of being open and transparent, the Secretary of State has gone to great lengths to keep the documentation secret. Tower Hamlets Council took out a judicial review of his decision and was rewarded with a high-handed and arrogant letter from the Department accusing it of going on a fishing expedition, until someone realised that a judicial review would require the Secretary of State to release all the documentation and correspondence about the decision in open court for everyone to see. He then took an extraordinary step. Suddenly that “fishing expedition” did not look quite so speculative, because he quashed his own decision and declared it to be unlawful because of apparent bias. That is explosive. A leading planning barrister says that it is without precedent and raises questions about the integrity of the entire planning system. That prompts the question of what in the documentation is so embarrassing and so bad that it is better to admit taking a biased and unlawful decision than to publish the documents in open court.

    There is only one way to clear this up. Let us see the documents. Let us see that there was no breach of ministerial code. If the Secretary of State continues to refuse, let us have a full investigation by the Cabinet Secretary. Without it, there can be no trust in the Secretary of State or the planning system over which he presides. Without that trust, who on earth will believe that the Secretary of State has the credibility to take the numerous decisions that he makes every day, let alone reform the entire planning system, as he has said he wants to do?

    Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)

    Does my hon. Friend agree that we do not need a detailed chronology or to go over the books with a fine-toothed comb to realise that this is redolent of the stench of sleaze? It brought down the Major Government. The suggestion of unfair advantage to donors or supporters is sleaze writ large. The wheels are coming off this oven-ready Government.

    Steve Reed

    I very much hope that the Secretary of State will agree to publish the documentation, because if he is right, it will lay to rest the concerns that my hon. Friend has shared.

    Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)

    Does the hon. Gentleman accept that, in my experience, every letter that emanates from the Department goes with the consent of officials? Ministers cannot write in a personal capacity. My experience of those officials is that they are expert and meticulous. It is important to reflect that in the debate. Does he also accept that when an application is called in for non-determination, there is, for obvious reasons, pressure to move quickly to determine it? Does he accept that point at least?

    Steve Reed

    I respect the right hon. Gentleman’s experience in those matters, and of course there may well have been a need to move at speed. It is not so much the speed I am concerned about as what happened during that timeframe.

    Westferry is not the only example of that kind of behaviour by the Secretary of State. Similar allegations were reported yesterday in The Times about a case in Surrey. There are fresh allegations just today that when Westminster City Council’s planning officers twice recommended refusal of the Secretary of State’s plans to refurbish his London home, Conservative councillors called it in and overruled their own officials for him, but, to my knowledge, nothing about that relationship was disclosed in any register of interests.

    Westferry is not a one-off. It is part of a pattern of behaviour, and the questions do not stop with the Secretary of State. They reach right into No. 10 Downing Street to the Prime Minister. In his final days as Mayor of London, the Prime Minister pushed through an earlier version of the same development. He was photographed at numerous convivial meetings with Mr Desmond, but No. 10 has refused to answer perfectly legitimate questions about whether and how often the Prime Minister has met Mr Desmond since he took office and whether they discussed the scheme. We need to know.

    Will the Secretary of State tell us whether any other Ministers or their officials contacted him about the scheme before he took his unlawful decision? Did he disclose those contacts to his officials as he is required to do? Honesty is the best disinfectant for the very bad smell that hangs around this decision. Today, the credibility of the planning system and of this Secretary of State hangs in the balance. We cannot allow the planning system to be auctioned off at Conservative party fundraising dinners. There cannot be one rule for the Conservatives and their billionaire donors, and another rule for everyone else. So I say to the Secretary of State: it is time to come clean. Publish the documents. Let us see what he was really up to and let us see if we are staring into a new era of Tory sleaze.

  • Steve Reed – 2020 Comments on Westferry Scandal

    Steve Reed – 2020 Comments on Westferry Scandal

    Below is the text of the comments made by Steve Reed, the Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on 24 June 2020.

    These explosive new revelations show clear discrepancies between what the Secretary of State told the House of Commons and what appears in the official documents.

    The documents clearly show that Mr Jenrick did not notify officials immediately after his meeting with Mr Desmond; rather than “closing down” the discussion as he claims, he initiated contact with Mr Desmond by text message the following day; and it confirms that he rushed through the decision specifically to help the developer avoid a £30-50m levy payable to the local council for infrastructure in one of the poorest local authorities in England.

    The Housing Secretary needs to come to the House to explain these discrepancies as a matter of urgency: the public must be reassured that there is not one rule for the Conservatives and their wealthy donors and another rule for everyone else.