Gideon Amos MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 20 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

  More

  The New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill—the sunshine Bill—received a sunny disposition from all sides of the House among the private Members’ Bills we debated on Friday. In the upcoming uprating of building regulations, will the Housing Minister confirm that solar generation will be part of the requirements for all new houses?

• 17 Jan 2025 · New Homes (Solar Generation) Bill · Hansard source

  More

  Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it was a shocking dereliction of duty when the previous Government cancelled the zero-carbon home programme, which would have allowed for the generation of around 3,000 MW if every house built since 2015 had had solar panels on it? Does he agree with my residents in Taunton and Wellington, who are aghast and want to see solar panels on the new houses being built in Comeytrowe, Staplegrove and Monkton Heathfield?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

  More

  I thank my hon. Friend for making an excellent point about the centrality of Somerset—in particular, the Minehead route just north of Taunton—to renewable energy. Does he accept that tidal range and tidal barrages and lagoons could make a significant contribution? As he pointed out so well, Swansea lagoon would have done up to 30 TWh, but we could do that across the UK. There could be tidal lagoons in Morecambe bay and in Cumbria, where one was proposed. That would bring investment to regions across the UK and not just benefit the south-west and Somerset.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Jardine, and to welcome you to your place. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing what we all surely agree is a really important debate. Many people do not support renewables. I guess they are not here today but we occasionally hear them in the Chamber, saying things like, “What are you going to do when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine?” We see the answer when we look out to the sea: the tide rises and falls twice a day, every day, 365 days a year, so we can build a future on renewable energy. We must do that if we are to achieve net zero and protect our planet. The Celtic sea has massive opportunities. I am going to discuss something that Members may not have expected: the maritime importance of Taunton, which is in the middle of Somerset. Taunton is the headquarters of the UK Hydrographic Office, which produces the Admiralty charts—famed throughout the world for being the biggest mapping system of the ocean floor around the world. It is the world leader and its charts are used by navies and merchant navies around the world. No one is quite sure why the office came to Taunton in Somerset, although it may be because it is not that near the coast; one story is that enemy bombers would therefore find it harder to find. We are very proud of that link, and of course we are only a few miles from the coasts to the north and to the south. As the county town of Somerset, we are an important regional centre. Under the previous Labour Government, we hosted the regional assembly in Taunton and the Government office for the south-west was in Taunton because we have an equidistant position in the greater south-west region. Our transport links are excellent—it takes 99 minutes to get to Paddington in the heart of London or 30 minutes in either direction to get to the heart of Bristol or of Exeter. All those reasons make it the ideal location for the south-west office of Great British Energy; I am almost certain that the Minister will announce that in his summing up. Seriously, it is an excellent location for regional centres. Taunton would be an ideal place to host many of the headquarters of the companies involved in the offshore industry. In the Celtic sea, we have the welcome 4.5 GW of offshore wind that has been announced. Sometimes people underestimate the scale of that; I always translate it into four and a half nuclear power stations being built in the Celtic sea—hopefully it will not take the 20 or 30 years that Hinkley seems to be taking. Generating that clean energy is vital. As well as offshore wind, I want to put in a word for tidal stream, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland and the hon. Members for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) have talked about eloquently. Tidal stream is vital—we need energy from all these sources—but tidal range is as well: it generates, project for project, hundreds of times more electricity, as shown in northern France with La Rance in Saint-Malo. That was built by de Gaulle and is still generating around 60 MW of energy. When I was working for the Government inspectorate, I was privileged to be the lead inspector on the Swansea tidal lagoon, which got its consent. In my view, it was a massive mistake of the previous Conservative Government not to fund that project; we could have had a new generation of tidal energy from this country. We have the second highest tidal range in the world—up and down by 9 metres at the maximum, which is second only to western Canada, where there is a thriving tidal range energy industry. We should be building on that for the future. Tidal range, tidal stream and offshore wind bring big opportunities to the south-west of England. Although I recognise that Members from Cornwall may be at the sharper end of the Celtic sea than us in Taunton, there are important benefits for the whole south-west in terms of upskilling, investment in skills training and the construction industry. The Great South West regional development agency has identified energy as a key driver of the south-west economy. Government support for skills, training and research projects could be absolutely crucial to the economy of the whole south-west, and particularly my part of Somerset, with University Centre Somerset and the UK Hydrographic Office working together in my constituency. There could be some really exciting projects, looking at Horizon funding as well as skills investment. I hope the Government will support those kinds of projects and applications. As well as getting support for skills, training and research, we need to bring the community with us. That means we need to give a lot more thought and attention to the compensation and the community support from these projects. We need reliable levels of community benefit from each project. There have been some advances on that from solar projects onshore, although my constituents in Ham would like to see more community benefit for the solar farm there. It is less developed with wind, and we need a reliable system in which communities that will be affected by offshore wind, because of the massive onshore infrastructure, know that they will benefit in some way from that project. The industry needs to be held to account so that it clearly meets established standards of community benefits. I hope that the Minister will say something about that in his summing up. We also need more sensible approaches to mitigation for the natural environment. Surely we cannot go on any longer with a system in which every offshore wind project comes up against a debate about whether it will kill 0.5 birds or 0.9 birds in the course of 20 years, and then people design an elaborate mitigation system for that one project. We know that we will be building offshore wind projects. We need to build them. We know what the impacts will be on wild birds and other natural species. Therefore, we need to put in the compensatory measures in advance in a strategic way. I know that the Crown Estate is beginning to look at strategic compensation, but it is far too late. We need to get on with this now. We know the impacts. We know that it is one of the biggest factors slowing down our offshore wind projects. We can look at the experience in Denmark. The Danes are building islands to support their offshore wind industry before it starts, so they know the compensation will be there. I would like to support the points that have been made on the need for a taskforce, which would certainly be important and should encompass skills, training and research in the whole offshore energy sector, and I urge the Government to recognise the regional powerhouse that the south-west can be and is in renewable energy. We have six energy NSIP DCOs—development consent orders for nationally significant infrastructure projects —across Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire, for example. It is a vital part of the UK economy, and Taunton lies right at the heart of it.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

  More

  On a point of order, Mr Betts. I place on record that although, since the general election, I do not work in renewables, I still own shares in a company that does.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Marine Renewables Industry · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman is criticising the lack of action on tidal, so can he explain why his Government cancelled the Swansea tidal lagoon?

• 14 Jan 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That definition needs to cover the breadth of agricultural workers, and I am sure the Minister has heard his point. Liberal Democrats have long argued for a licensing system and tougher planning controls for second homes, with a new use class to cover second homes and short-term lets. Both this and previous Governments have said that they would create a new use class, so I urge the Minister to say in today’s debate whether that will really happen. Without controls, there is a serious risk of second homes proliferating if landlords do not wish to be part of a more regulated private rented sector following the enactment of this Bill. Our new clause 2 would therefore require the Government to assess properly the growth in short-term lets, and I urge the Minister to do so. In fact, I am not sure why anyone would oppose that amendment. Finally, our amendment 3 would apply the Bill’s proposed decent homes standard to military service family accommodation. I am grateful to the Minister for taking the time to write to me on this, but the argument that a standard would not be suitable for service family accommodation does not stand up, because clause 98 allows the Secretary of State to establish whatever version of the decent homes standard they feel is appropriate. I do not think anyone across the House would understand why that should be different for service families. We will no doubt hear the Ministry of Defence say that 90% or more of service family accommodation already meets the decent homes standard so it is all okay, but in that case, why not make that claim evident by subjecting that accommodation to the decent homes standard in the Bill? To say that the recently published “Service Accommodation” report from the Defence Committee, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), says something different from the official reports would be a massive understatement. The Select Committee reported evidence from one service family, who said: “It is impossible to challenge the ‘Decent Homes Standard’ without paying for a survey yourself. It is widely accepted that each house has not been checked but either guessed or it is assumed that the standard of one house is the same as all in one area.” I therefore ask how sure we can be of the self-declared statistics from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, or were they from Annington homes? As another witness before the Select Committee said: “It is disingenuous for DIO to present glossy brochures about being ‘decent homes plus’ when they are anything but” and “it is clear that the DIO’s property frequently does not meet the standards.” Crucially, the witness added: “Moreover, there is no local authority”— or anyone else— “to hold them to account as would be the case for private and other local landlords.” That is exactly what amendment 3 would provide. In the Kerslake report, commissioned before the election by the now Secretary of State for Defence—a former Housing Minister—reports of damp, mould and, in other service accommodation, rat infestations abound. If all the witnesses and all these reports are wrong and the official figures are right, showing that over 90% of properties meet the decent homes standard, there is nothing for the MOD to fear in subjecting service accommodation to that assessment, just as social and private landlords will have to do under the Bill. The hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) got even the previous Government to come round to the idea, and the then Minister, the former Member for Redcar, said in this Chamber on 24 April last year that the Government: “intend to ensure that service accommodation meets the decent homes standard”. —[ Official Report , 24 April 2024; Vol. 748, c. 1029.] Service families such as those of 40 Commando Royal Marines, part of our Taunton and Wellington family community, make massive sacrifices for our country, and sometimes make the ultimate sacrifice. They deserve decent homes, and the MOD should be required to meet the standard, just as the Government are requiring that of other landlords. I am grateful to see support for amendment 3 from across the House. We will be voting for it this evening to support our service families, and I urge Members across the House to vote for it, too.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the Minister for his constructive work with the Liberal Democrats and other parties in Committee. For a generation cut off from the dream of home ownership who find that, after half a century of flogging off social houses and council houses—over 1.5 million have been lost since 1980—there are now basically none left, it is vital that we restore hope to millions who aspire to a decent home. As such, the Liberal Democrats support the key principle of this Bill, which is to bring an end to no-fault evictions. After the continual stop-start of the previous Government, giving tenants the security they deserve is long overdue. It is time to end once and for all the fear that any complaint from any tenant could be met with an instant eviction notice at any moment. Of course, landlords do not generally act in such a cavalier fashion; most are good landlords, and we value them and what they bring to the market. As such, to sustain a healthy private rented sector, we have tabled amendment 10, which would extend to off-street student rental landlords the same possession laws that apply to purpose-built student accommodation. Given that fully 31% of properties on the Accommodation for Students website are one or two-bedroom properties rather than houses in multiple occupancy, as Unipol and the Higher Education Policy Institute have pointed out, that is a big chunk of the market, and one that needs to be addressed. The need for more homes is why we have tabled amendment 2, which would particularly incentivise more build-to-rent accommodation. In Taunton and Wellington, our Lib Dem council has supported the delivery of tens of thousands of new homes; our population increased by 10% up to 2021. Our manifesto called for 150,000 social homes per year—I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests regarding my experience as a social landlord. We clearly set out the borrowing of £6 billion per year that would make that happen, unlike the Labour and Conservative manifestos, which included no numbers whatsoever for social housing. We need a lot of that build-to-rent accommodation also to be rent to own, so renters can accrue ownership of their own home. It is time to give a whole generation of young people who have been excluded that elusive first step on the housing ladder. Amendment 2 would therefore give a developer of build-to-rent housing the security of a fixed term of 24 months for the first tenancy. Since that was tabled, I have heard from the British Property Federation and others, and they have suggested that an initial fixed term of six months would enable them to secure the investment they need to build more and to get building. That would not undermine the general principle of moving to periodic tenancies, as build to rent is only 0.1% of the housing stock. We will not press amendment 2, but I genuinely urge the Government to take up the idea, run with it and generate more investment in new homes. Let me turn to the interests of tenants, which have been so overlooked for so long. My constituent and friend Mike Godleman, who was disabled, died while recovering from major surgery and under the threat of a no-fault eviction notice, for no reason he could possibly work out. In part in his memory, our new clause 23 would ensure that landlords of both private and social tenancies must give permission for home adaptations when a home assessment has been carried out. If rental bidding is to be outlawed, as the Minister said, it must not be replaced by bidding up rent in advance, so our new clause 1 would limit rent in advance to two months’ rent. In that respect, I welcome Government new clause 13. In-tenancy rent increases also need to be limited to protect tenants from exorbitant increases. The most sensible way to do this is set out in our amendment 1, which would peg increases to the Bank of England base rate. Property is a financial and investment asset, and landlords’ costs are more directly influenced by mortgage rates rather than by the general inflation and the cost of living. New clause 22, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), would require landlords to pay for alternative accommodation when dwellings are unfit for human habitation. Turning to the amendments proposed by other hon. Members, we support the proposed new clause 10 in the name of the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), which will prevent the guarantor from being liable on the death of a tenant, and we recognise that the Government have tabled new clause 15 to limit that liability, rather than end it altogether. We also support amendment 7 on the content that must be submitted for inclusion in the database. The database could be a very powerful instrument for tenants if it provides information, as I spoke about at some length in Committee. We also support new clause 6, which would give care leavers support through funding for a deposit when they move out of care. Both those amendments are in the name of the hon. Member for Liverpool Wavertree (Paula Barker). One of the biggest concerns to landlords, tenants and local communities in Taunton and Wellington, as it is in Cornwall, the lakes and other places, is that there is no control over the number of homes being turned into holiday lets and Airbnbs. This has prompted a significant increase to about 3,000 holiday homes in Somerset—a 33% increase in short-term rentals in the south-west since 2019. Visitors of course bring welcome investment, but in some areas second homes are pricing locals out of local markets.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

  More

  The Minister is generous in giving way. On the question of accommodation behind the wire, to clarify, amendment 3 deals with service family accommodation. Service family accommodation is generally not behind the wire; it is on the street, where councils can access it.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Renters’ Rights Bill · Hansard source

  More

  I am grateful to the Minister for his response on that issue. Will he comment on the question of a use class order for second homes?

• 9 Jan 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

  More

  Tara and Keith in my constituency have written to me about the appalling one-hour delays on First Bus’s 22 bus service. Lessons are being missed and a gentleman in my constituency missed a serious operation because of the appalling service. Will the Leader of the House arrange time to debate public transport in Somerset, including the need to reopen Wellington station on the same route as the 22 bus service?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

  More

  We do need to have a clear and effective deterrent. If we do not have properly working police forces and community policing, we will not get that. How we would fund that is something I will return to in my closing remarks. Everyone deserves decent accommodation. We must provide that, alongside a new generation of rent-to-own housing—so that people have a stake in the houses they live in, because they will ultimately own them—and more key worker accommodation. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) mentioned the experience in New York, where key worker accommodation for police officers and other community professionals in social housing areas had a massive impact. But that depended on resources being put into the police and public services on a big scale to make it work, and that would be needed here in the UK as well. Together, those things can create the stable, mixed communities that are the antidote to antisocial behaviour. Sadly, the sell-off of council housing over decades of different Conservative Administrations has left too many estates only for those with the most problems, and with fewer and fewer public services to support the families and communities who need them. If we add to that divisive rhetoric pitting one struggling family against another, in an argument about who deserves the home the most, and we have a race to the bottom for the community concerned. Instead, we should increase the pitiful level of social housing, inject proper community policing, invest in public services and let landlords use their legal powers strongly and appropriately, including through acceptable behaviour contracts, which were pioneered right back in 2003 in Somerset, Islington and other council areas. Together, those measures will prove the most effective way to tackle antisocial behaviour. Above all, we need to bring back proper community policing, after its total erosion under recent Conservative Governments, and have more bobbies on the beat. Our manifesto would fund and deliver that by investing in acceptable behaviour contracts; making youth diversion schemes a statutory duty, so that every part of the country has pre-charged diversion schemes for young people; freeing up existing officers’ time by creating an online crime agency; drawing up a national recruitment and retention strategy to tackle the shortage of detectives; and abolishing police and crime commissioners, instead investing the savings in frontline policing, including in tougher action on antisocial behaviour.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

  More

  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) on securing this important debate. Liberal Democrats believe that everyone deserves to feel safe in their own homes and walking down their own streets, but for too many that is not something they can rely on. Antisocial behaviour can have a devastating impact on individuals, families and neighbourhoods, causing distress to tenants and landlords. Police force freedom of information requests obtained by the Liberal Democrats last April found that under the previous Government, average police response times to antisocial behaviour incidents increased by 37% from 2021. Some forces took an average of 17.5 hours to attend, if they attended the scene at all. In some ways, that is unsurprising, given that under the last Government 4,500 police community support officers were taken off our streets from 2015 onwards. Only last April in my Taunton and Wellington constituency, we saw how the outgoing Conservative police and crime commissioner reduced PCSOs by a further 80 in Avon and Somerset, where only 19% of reported antisocial behaviour incidents are attended by the police. I am urging the chief constable to put more officers on the beat in Taunton town centre right now to tackle antisocial behaviour in that environment. Years of ineffective resourcing under previous Conservative Governments, particularly since 2015, have left police forces overstretched, ending the kind of community policing that is so valuable in tackling antisocial behaviour. The Liberal Democrats stand for bringing back proper community policing and for a tough, evidence-based and therefore effective approach to eradicating antisocial behaviour for the benefit of all decent, law-abiding residents and communities. Antisocial behaviour can include a range of nuisance and criminal behaviours that cause distress. Examples include noisy, abusive behaviour, vandalism, intimidation, drunkenness, littering, fly-tipping, drug use and excessively barking dogs. Whether someone’s actions can be classed as antisocial behaviour relies heavily on the impact it has on other people, so antisocial behaviour is a complex problem. It has many root causes, which means they all need to be tackled together to effectively address it. Landlords rightly have important powers to remove tenants who are genuinely damaging property or the surrounding community, and I refer the House to my experience as a social housing landlord, as declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. However, those powers cannot come at the price of putting all tenants at unjustified risk of eviction for no reason. That is why we have long campaigned for an end to no-fault evictions, and we welcome the Government’s legislation to bring that to reality in the Renters’ Rights Bill. We fought hard for a fair definition of antisocial behaviour during consideration of the Renters (Reform) Bill under the previous Government, and we will continue to defend tenants against unfair eviction, which itself can be a form of antisocial behaviour. Landlords, the police and local authorities rightly consider all the factors when deciding how best to deal with reports of antisocial behaviour. Each report is looked at individually, with consideration given to the suffering of the victims and the impact on the wider community, but just one such incident can lead to eviction from social housing—a form of “one strike and you’re out”, which is in place across the country. That is a vital tool, which landlords need and have, and the Liberal Democrats support it. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Mansfield (Steve Yemm) support a similar approach. Extending the one-strike approach we currently have to three strikes would simply be a soundbite and would make the law weaker, giving comfort and credence to the most antisocial culprits. The best deterrent would be to resource the powers and police forces we already have and to make them work. Simply evicting people on to the streets will not reduce the incidence of ASB—rather, it will move the antisocial behaviour from the house to the street, where all the evidence suggests it will only get worse. One cause of antisocial behaviour, according to studies such as that by Stansfield in the British Journal of Criminology, is housing instability itself. That is why social housing is critical, not just to provide homes for those who need them, but to create stable communities where people can thrive. Liberal Democrats are actively pushing for 150,000 new social homes per year to be built, which would not only reduce housing instability but ensure that there are enough homes for those who need them.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

  More

  The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. So many entrenched problems in families and communities need the support of public services and investment in them. If we systematically take away policing, social services support, and local authority support and housing officers, as we have seen with the shrinking of local government over recent years, it is hardly surprising that we get an increase in social problems—we are not investing early on to deal with them. Thank you, Ms McVey, for allowing me to contribute to this important debate.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

  More

  Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the Government are going to provide for the selling off of council houses, they should invest in replacing them, so that we do not have a massive loss of council housing in this country as we have had over the last few decades?

• 8 Jan 2025 · Heat Batteries: Decarbonising Homes · Hansard source

  More

  I thank the hon. Member for giving way; she has been very generous and has brought a genuinely important issue to the House. She mentioned the future homes standard. According to a calculation I carried out, if every new home built since 2015, when the Conservatives cancelled the zero-carbon homes programme, had solar panels on the roof, we would have saved around 30 MW of energy—enough to obviate the need for an entire gas-fired power station. As a complement to what she is arguing for, I hope that she would support solar panels on every new house. My constituents in Taunton and Wellington cannot understand why that is not already a regulation.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill · Hansard source

  More

  My hon. Friend is making an excellent and balanced case for protecting children. Many children with mental health problems and autism are educated at home because there is no realistic alternative. Does she agree that the Secretary of State should be encouraged to ensure that the support given to home-educating families under clause 25 includes free access to examinations, which can cost hundreds of pounds? Children are struggling to benefit from a good home education because of the cost. Does my hon. Friend support that idea?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Mental Health Services · Hansard source

  More

  Taunton and Wellington is a trailblazer in taking mental health from hospital to community and from sickness to prevention. The trust is the first in the country to merge mental health with the hospital trust. Will the Minister meet the trust and me to understand how successful that programme is, and to discuss the much needed maternity and paediatric unit at Musgrove Park hospital?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Mental Health Services · Hansard source

  More

  20. What steps his Department is taking to improve access to mental health services.