David Simmonds MP: speeches

Speeches

• 11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source

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  I would like to open by sharing the commitment of His Majesty’s official Opposition to supporting the Government in ensuring that, in particular, the legislation brought forward in the previous Parliament, broadly with cross-party support, to address the issues that the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali) and colleagues have outlined following the Grenfell fire, takes full effect through regulation and implementation across the sector. It is absolutely clear, as was stated by the Leader of the Opposition during the Prime Minister’s statement last week, that we share the Government’s determination to ensure that everybody in our country is able to feel safe in their home, and that risks, whether they are known or might emerge from the continuing research into this field, are properly addressed. We will do our very best to work with her and colleagues in a constructive manner to ensure that that happens. Today’s debate is also an opportunity to consider many of the broader issues around building safety that will come into play as we consider the Government’s plans to reform our planning system, increase our housing supply, bring in new forms of building into the United Kingdom and reform building regulations. A great deal of the report from Sir Martin into the Grenfell incident focuses on the role played by building regulations and their operation in the market for materials and design in the terrible disaster that took the lives of 72 people. However, we should not waste an opportunity to consider more broadly how other parts of our housing system and our planning system can ensure that risks that might emerge in the future are dealt with effectively. For example, we are aware when a planning application comes forward that the safety and resilience of a building is not simply down to its construction and materials; it is also affected by its location, its proximity to other sources of risk and its design from its very inception. They all have a part to play. We know from points that have been made in the past by Members from across the House about the role that housing plays in the context of public health that, in the capital, for example, air quality is often worse indoors than it is outdoors as a result of buildings designed with poor ventilation and poor mechanical systems. That creates a long-term health and safety burden for residents which can be alleviated by giving due consideration to better design and resilience at the initial stages. I encourage the Government to consider, as they embark on this process, how to manage some of the very complex interactions when seeking to improve the safety of buildings where there are freeholders, leaseholders and tenants all occupying some of the same space. I am aware, from experience in a local authority, that Hillingdon council had to go to court on 16 occasions to gain access to council properties to undertake basic maintenance and servicing work to installations against the will of the occupier, even though that work was being carried out at no cost to the tenant. That demonstrates some of the practical difficulties that that complex relationship can create in ensuring that local authorities and others are able to fulfil the duties that this House and the legislation place upon them. It is also clear, from both the Grenfell report and other research, that the drive towards building efficiency, in particular energy efficiency, has created a risk of a loss of focus on safety. We know that this has been part of a global move to recognise the need to address climate change through better quality insulation and the more efficient construction of buildings. Increasingly, we see buildings being brought forward with modular construction of different types. Hotels arrive in a shipping crate: pre-constructed rooms are simply stacked up and then given a brick skin. Frame-constructed homes are a significant part of the delivery of the housing market. These provide an opportunity to make the available funds go further and create more homes more quickly. That is extremely welcome, but we need to ensure that the risks that might be associated with some of those forms of construction, especially where they take place at scale, are properly considered. I would like to hear a little more from the Government in due course about how the broader context of building safety and resilience will take those matters into account.

• 11 Sept 2024 · Building Safety and Resilience · Hansard source

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  Given the broad cross-party consensus in the last Parliament about the importance of the new forms of legislation and the regulation that follows from it, I think we should seek to maintain that consensus as far as possible, but as somebody who in a previous life worked in banking and as a mortgage adviser, I know that the challenges around the mortgageability of properties, especially properties of novel construction, go back many decades. For instance, a very limited number of lenders will provide for properties located above shops, because of that particular sets of risks. EWS1 was a similar example; despite apparent clarity from Government, there clearly was a lot of debate within the sector and some lenders preferred to go belt and braces, demanding the provision of something that was not required by law or regulation before making a lending decision—and the then Government did significant work in the previous Parliament to bring clarity and address those problems. That is a helpful introduction to a point that I want to touch on briefly: the role of the insurance industry, both in the challenges that will follow from Grenfell and in the wider experience of our constituents. Many people find themselves significantly challenged because, owing to a lack of clarity or to uncertainty about the construction of their building, they face significant insurance costs, sometimes to the point where only one insurance provider is available. Others face very significantly increased costs because of the behaviour of a landlord who seeks to apportion the insurance costs across all the properties in their portfolio, rather than according to the risks of a specific property that a particular tenant or leaseholder inhabits. It would be helpful for the Government to give some consideration to how they can work with the insurance industry to ensure that those who are paying for insurance are paying a fair price and that it provides the necessary cover that mortgage lenders, for example, will expect. It is clear that, as well as the strong commitment we on the Opposition Benches can give to support the Government and the Minister in taking forward the regulations and ensuring that they address the concerns that have been expressed, we must also make the most of an opportunity to consider wider issues of building safety. In London, for example, there are significant numbers of Bison blocks, constructed with pre-stressed concrete—at the time, it was considered a wonder material and a means of delivering significant numbers of new homes efficiently and at a low cost—which have particular structural risks around them that local authorities across the capital and the wider country have had to address. We have also heard a little bit about the role of the fire service in carrying out inspections and prosecutions where properties are found not to meet the fire regulations. All those points are indicators of risk across the system, and there is an opportunity for Government to ensure that Ministers have a clear line of sight so that such indicators can be effectively addressed. If there is a role for we politicians to play in local government and here in Westminster, it is to ensure that all these other people are doing their job. I promise that the Opposition will support the Government as they seek to achieve that, and I hope that together we will be able to take this work forward effectively, so that all our constituents can sleep safely in their beds.

• 11 Sept 2024 · Planning Policy: Traveller Sites · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) on securing the debate. The contributions of all hon. Members have helped to illustrate both the complexity of this issue and its importance at community level. Every local authority has a quasi-judicial role as a planning authority, in that it has to follow planning law and the relevant statutes, and my hon. Friend and other hon. Members have called for everyone to be treated equally before the law for the purposes of the planning process. That is clearly a complex challenge for our local authorities, which also have various statutory duties as housing providers. When considering an application, the local authority has to ensure that planning law is fully upheld, but it also has a role in designating sites on which Traveller pitches and other development may take place. Most of us will have experience of that matter—the situation at Jackets Lane in my constituency is almost identical to that described by my hon. Friend. Like many Members, I am fortunate to have two local authorities with full housing revenue account, local authority-maintained Traveller pitches, as well as privately designated sites. However, it is understandable that, for the reasons outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas)—I have experienced this in my own home—the sites can cause a great deal of community concern, given some aspects of the behaviour of individuals associated them. We cannot simply say that the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community is one community. In my constituency, there are settled Travellers, who have chosen to occupy a bricks and mortar home and may require family members who are travelling to be able to stay close to them at certain times of year. There are people with much more ancient lifestyles, particularly among some of the Roma and traditional Gypsy community, whose requirements are very different. All our local authorities need to be flexible, and communities need to be aware of those distinctions, so that the responses that we put in place are appropriate. We all accept that provision will be inadequate for some individuals, and that there may not be a spot on a local authority-provided site when they arrive. Indeed, the behaviour of some, who may not even be UK residents but who can arrive in large numbers and undertake unlawful and illegal incursions, can significantly affect the reputation of other members of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community. My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton asked an important question in the context of parliamentary proceedings: how can something that is either unlawful or, in some cases, specifically illegal in planning law be rendered lawful by other considerations? If a property developer were to purchase the field and seek to build a mansion, there would be rigorous enforcement against them. If a developer sought to build family homes, or a care home, there would be rigorous enforcement against them. Why is it, therefore, that other elements of our law allow one individual to bypass the statutory planning process and rules, especially when the site may subsequently be sold to another occupier? How can we ensure that those elements do not create a back door to flouting the planning rules? I have personal experience of a developer who cited diplomatic immunity as a reason why the local authority could not carry out enforcement action against structures built on agricultural land. Given the enormous remediation costs associated with abuses of the planning process, it is not surprising that many local authorities are extremely concerned, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove, with his experience as a local authority leader, described. We can all think of examples. A site may be used for housing development after illegal occupation, or it may, for example, be used for waste disposal. Buckinghamshire council, on the border of my constituency, was faced with having to clean up a site that a group of Travellers had purchased from a farmer and then used to dispose of asbestos and hazardous waste, which was removed at enormous cost—a multimillion-pound cost—to the taxpayer. In all such cases, there is a common issue: the local authority’s inability to use swift and robust enforcement powers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton said, once a site is occupied and the use becomes established, it is very difficult to change that in the way the community would expect. During the recent general election campaign, I delivered leaflets to properties that formed part of an illegal encampment— because those individuals had been there for so long, they were on the electoral roll. Other residents in the community asked, “How is it that all these processes that are designed to make sure everyone follows the law can come together in a way that enables those rules to be flouted?” On behalf of the official Opposition, I extend an offer to the Minister, who has taken an incredibly constructive approach to all the issues in his portfolio. Members on both sides of this debate have made constructive contributions and have set out ideas about how we can more effectively address the broad sweep of concerns that arise from this issue. My constituents are affected by an unauthorised encampment in the Hog’s Back, and have expressed great frustration that the local authority planning notice that applies to the site has effectively been bypassed as the individuals have moved to another part of the site. Those kinds of things understandably create a public backlash, as people feel that the law is not working effectively and is not on their side. It is one thing for local authorities to have to resort to section 61 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to deal with illegal and unauthorised encampments that are causing a nuisance, but activity that can become established through the passage of time needs to be dealt with differently. I suggest to the Minister that, as we work together on that, we should also consider the operation of things such as the planning conditions that apply in national parks. My hon. Friend has the North Yorkshire Moors and the Yorkshire Dales national parks near his constituency. It is common to apply to national parks specific planning conditions that do not operate in other areas, such as conditions around the occupation of new homes by agricultural workers. Again, that provides scope for abuse of the planning system. For example, a developer could build a property purportedly for agricultural worker use and then say they wish to convert it to a holiday let or an extended family home. There is also the wider issue of ancillary uses, which my hon. Friend referred to. When a piece of land is in the green belt, perhaps with agricultural designation, there are always opportunities for a prospective applicant to say that they need a barn for their farming business or a sports pavilion because they hope to use the land for sporting activity. That potentially enables a property footprint to be established. In planning terms, conversion of that—legalisation of the occupation—follows later, to the dismay of local residents, who then question the effectiveness of the planning system. The scope for the use to become established and the property to be sold on for profit in a way that is not available to developers who seek to work within the system remains a significant cause for concern. I thank all Members who have contributed to this balanced debate, which has highlighted many angles to the way in which this policy interacts with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller and settled communities. I urge the Minister to make the best use possible of the expertise of Members across the House and ensure that, as we move to update planning law, we have effective enforcement powers in place so that all our residents—all our constituents—have confidence that they will be treated equally before the law in the way that Parliament expects.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Exempt Supported Accommodation · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) on securing today’s debate. I must draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests because, like the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan), I am also a member of the LGA’s parliamentary team of vice-presidents. I recall from my work on the Kerslake review into the governance of Birmingham city council that it has the highest proportion of residents needing to access social care during their lifetime of any local authority in England. The level of need is patently particularly acute, which is why one of the five pilots introduced following the “Supported housing: national statement of expectations” in October 2020 was in Birmingham. Anybody with local government experience will be familiar with these challenges, which go back many years. They often result from reforms, such as those in the 1980s with care in the community, those in the late 1990s with the fair access criteria, and the introduction of extra care housing supported living. They all had a high degree of cross-party support based on the idea of improving the level of independence and autonomy that could be provided to people who need extra support through a combination of housing and social care. All Members’ inboxes will contain at least some examples of concern about abuses in the market; some examples where the quality of care provided is not reaching the appropriate standard; and, of course, some examples where the quality of care is exceptional and supports our constituents to enjoy the fullest, most autonomous life and the greatest degree of independence in pursuing their interests. As we have heard, in response to the abuses that were identified in the market, my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), brought forward a private Member’s Bill, which was adopted by the Government and enjoyed cross-party support in the last Parliament, with a view to bringing a clear legislative and regulatory focus to the sector. As we know and have heard in the debate, the combination of challenges around resourcing the implementation of that measure—for example, the ability of local authorities to make good use of feedback from residents who may be extremely vulnerable, and ensuring that that new regulatory environment is enforceable when it sits outside of the planning system to a great degree, as the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston identified—remains significant. When we consider recent work, it seems that the Minister has a great deal to build on. As has been highlighted, there has been a good degree of cross-party support for improved measures to address the issue, and, following the publication of the “Supported housing: national statement of expectations” and the implementation of the five pilots, an evaluation was published in the last Parliament, around April 2022. A written ministerial statement from the then Minister, Eddie Hughes, set out the future plans and funding aimed at implementing the regulation that those pilots had identified as being necessary. That work led to and fed into the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 and interacted with the Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. The issue was also the subject of a Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee inquiry in 2021. The debate and discussion in Parliament has significance only in so far as it can be implemented at a local level. Both the Select Committee inquiry and the learning from those pilots was very clear that local authorities need to have sufficient resource and flexibility to implement it at a local level. I welcome the fact that, in the previous Parliament, the Government provided a £20 million fund to begin ensuring that all local authorities could learn from that and had a degree of resource. However, it is clear from the level of wider need, and in particular, from the emerging evidence of market abuse not just in this sector but in areas such as children’s homes and care homes, where significant rip-off fees are being charged by some providers for a service that is simply inadequate to meet the needs of those residents, that further work is needed. Clearly, the Minister has taken office at a time when the Department has accumulated a high degree of evidence as a result of the pilots, the debates and the work done in the previous Parliament. I hope that that will be enormously useful in ensuring that the expectations set out in that Parliament can be fulfilled. I would like to add my support on this matter. I do not think that this Minister is responsible for planning, but the point that was made about how we support the identification of exempt accommodation through the planning process is important. I think we all recognise that this is a marketplace in which we have a combination of local authority providers, private providers, charities and voluntary organisations, and we do not wish to place undue impediments in the way of those who wish to convert existing buildings—for example, houses in multiple occupation—to provide additional support to residents who may be able to make the most of it. At the same time, in all communities, in order to avoid the problems we have seen—with particular settings, for example, requiring a high degree of police and law enforcement input—there needs to be that earlier identification process. As the Government bring forward their proposed review of the planning system, I hope the Minister and her colleagues will give some consideration to how changing the use classes that relate to exempt accommodation or making that part of a wider review—for example, of change of use of residential accommodation to become children’s homes, houses in multiple occupation, care homes and so on—would enable the earlier identification of sites and input to be gathered from the likes of police and NHS services. That would then influence the planning committee in deciding whether a location was appropriate in order, for example, to avoid the clustering of problem locations. As we have seen in the past with local authorities at the coast, we may find a combination of bail hostels next to children’s homes next to asylum accommodation, all of which can create a very challenging social mix for a local authority and other local authority services to deal with. This has been a very helpful debate. I again congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston. I hope that the Minister will be able to build on the constructive work done in the last Parliament and that we will see that feed into a significant change in the experience of the most vulnerable people, who need to access exempt accommodation, but also in the communities in which it is located and their experience of it in the coming years.

• 2 Sept 2024 · Social Housing Supply · Hansard source

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  The previous Government made new measures available to local authorities to encourage borrowing against the housing revenue account to enable the creation of new council housing. What measures do the Government have in mind to increase the take-up of this approach by our local authorities?

• 2 Sept 2024 · Social Housing Supply · Hansard source

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  We share the ambition of seeing a big increase in the supply of housing, and of social housing in particular. Given that there are around 1.4 million new homes with planning consent already granted in this country, what process led the Government to prioritising the removal of green-belt protections rather than building the homes for which our councils have already given consent?

• 29 Jul 2024 · Public Spending: Inheritance · Hansard source

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  Thank you and welcome to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. The estimates day provisions presented by the Chancellor to the House last week included a capital departmental expenditure limit of £12.655 billion for the Department of Health and Social Care. We know that it included the funds for the new Hillingdon hospital, which was granted planning permission and where work has already started. Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer stand by what she told the House in the estimates day debate, on which we all relied when casting our vote? Can she therefore assure my constituents that that hospital project, which was fully budgeted for and where work has already started, will be delivered by this Government?

• 23 Jul 2024 · Immigration and Home Affairs · Hansard source

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  May I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests? It is a pleasure to participate in today’s debate on the King’s Speech and to follow the hon. Member for Glenrothes and Mid Fife (Richard Baker), who is one of many on both sides of the House who gave a warm and positive speech. We welcome that context because, although cross-party there will be much political debate about the contents of the King’s Speech, we all recognise that it is a privilege and an honour to be in this House and to participate in that debate on behalf of our constituents. I thank my constituents in Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner for returning me for my second term as a Member of Parliament. There were a number of things in the King’s Speech that they would wish me to draw attention to, such as the damaging impact of VAT on schools—the taxing of education is of huge concern in my constituency, which has many mainstream and special educational needs independent schools. They would also wish me to mention the loss of green-belt protection and the decision of an incoming Government to prioritise the deregulation of the green belt rather than building the 1.4 million homes that already have planning permission in our country. On the decision to press ahead with GB Energy, those of us with a background in local government know that it is a policy model that brought the cities of Nottingham and Bristol to the very edge of bankruptcy. We will hold the Government to account to ensure that GB Energy does not do to the United Kingdom what the decisions of those Labour councils to press ahead with those projects did to the capacity of local authorities to deliver vital public services, as well as increasing bills for vulnerable households. The main theme of today’s debate is immigration and home affairs. Having served briefly as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Ministry of Justice in the previous Parliament, I welcome the tone of many things that have been said about criminal justice. In particular, I hope to see the new Government continue the commitment, as previously set out, to sentencing reform. All of us, in all parties, wish to see fewer victims of crime. The previous Member for Cheltenham, who received a very warm tribute from his successor the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson), set out measures on the use of modern technology and tagging that aimed to ensure that we bring down the rate of reoffending which has long dogged the criminal justice system here in the UK. As a Member of Parliament who proudly represents a suburban constituency in London, I recognise that following the 2014 reforms on shoplifting, which were agreed in partnership with the retail sector, the police and the security industry, it is time to look again at how they work. We welcome the fact that, overall, there was a major reduction in serious crime in particular under the previous Government, but we will be holding the Government to account and Mayor Khan to account for the fact that his neglect of the suburbs has left many of our constituents concerned about the availability of police teams which in theory should be there but all too often seem to be abstracted for other duties. The measures to protect shopworkers need to be part of that context of the reform of how we deal with shoplifting to ensure that anyone who works in retail or owns a business in retail enjoys the protection from our police forces and our criminal law that they rightly deserve. On illegal migration, there is a lot of noise and fuss, but I hope the Government will continue patiently with the work done previously, in particular with the authorities in France. I have met the people doing that work, both here in the UK and on the French side, to bring to justice criminal gangs—the successful prosecutions achieved of those involved in setting up smuggling. I pay tribute to the work of the BBC in shedding light on the complexity of the international gangs, highlighting how often the kingpins seek to find refuge in places such as Iraq, where they are beyond the reach not just of the criminal law in the United Kingdom but in that of Europe too. I hope that when the Government set out that commitment we will see effective measures put in place. I say gently to the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who is no longer in his place, that we know from the extensive debates around the ECHR that it stands as no barrier whatever to the deportation of criminals and those who should not be here. We have successfully achieved that in respect of many, many countries. What we need to ensure is that people are no longer putting their lives at risk in the channel. I will finish with a brief word about the NHS. Those who visit Hillingdon hospital and Northwood and Pinner cottage hospital in my constituency will see that work is under way to deliver those projects. I can promise the Government that I will be holding them to account to ensure that those projects are completed.