Vol. 801 Tuesday No. 25 11 February 2020 PARLIAMENTARYDEBATES (HANSARD) HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICIAL REPORT ORDEROFBUSINESS Questions Housing: New Homes...................................................................................................2143 Housing: Social Homes for Rent..................................................................................2146 Victorian Mills..............................................................................................................2148 Hate Crime: Anti-Semitism ..........................................................................................2150 Transport Infrastructure Statement......................................................................................................................2152 Fisheries Bill [HL] Second Reading.............................................................................................................2167 Wuhan Coronavirus Statement......................................................................................................................2225 Sentencing (Pre-consolidation Amendments) Bill [HL] (Law Commission Bill) Second Reading.............................................................................................................2234 Grand Committee Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (Commencement No. 14) Order 2019 .............................................................................GC 1 Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun Freezing Order 2020 ............................................GC 9 Public Bodies (Abolition of Public Works Loan Commissioners) Order 2019 .............GC 17 Scotland Act 1998 (Transfer of Functions to the Scottish Ministers etc.) Order 2020....GC 22 Northamptonshire (Structural Changes) Order 2019....................................................GC 28 Considered in Grand Committee Lords wishing to be supplied with these Daily Reports should give notice to this effect to the Printed Paper Office. No proofs of Daily Reports are provided. Corrections for the bound volume which Lords wish to suggest to the report of their speeches should be clearly indicated in a copy of the Daily Report, which, with the column numbers concerned shown on the front cover, should be sent to the Editor of Debates, House of Lords, within 14 days of the date of the Daily Report. This issue of the Official Report is also available on the Internet at https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2020-02-11 The first time a Member speaks to a new piece of parliamentary business, the following abbreviations are used to show their party affiliation: Abbreviation Party/Group CB Cross Bench Con Conservative DUP Democratic Unionist Party GP Green Party Ind Lab Independent Labour Ind LD Independent Liberal Democrat Ind SD Independent Social Democrat Ind UU Independent Ulster Unionist Lab Labour Lab Co-op Labour and Co-operative Party LD Liberal Democrat LD Ind Liberal Democrat Independent Non-afl Non-affiliated PC Plaid Cymru UKIP UK Independence Party UUP Ulster Unionist Party No party affiliation is given for Members serving the House in a formal capacity, the Lords spiritual, Members on leave of absence or Members who are otherwise disqualified from sitting in the House. © Parliamentary Copyright House of Lords 2020, this publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/. 2143 Oaths and Affirmations [11 FEBRUARY 2020] Housing: New Homes 2144 House of Lords Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op): My Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my registered Tuesday 11 February 2020 interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. What are the Government going to do 2.30 pm about the crisis of planning permissions being granted but not a brick being laid? At the last check, there were well over 250,000 applications with nothing Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Portsmouth. happening on those sites. If you have land and have received planning permission to build homes, but you Oaths and Affirmations do not take action, surely the Government should do something. If nothing has happened in 12 months, surely the Government should find somebody to build 2.35 pm houses on these big sites. Baroness Mobarik took the oath, and signed an undertaking to abide by the Code of Conduct. Baroness Berridge: The noble Lord is correct that, once planning permission is granted—which can take about two years—it is in everyone’s interests, including Housing: New Homes the developer and the local community, that the site is built on. Last year, we saw more than 375,000 grants Question of planning permission. The noble Lord is aware that in 2018 Sir Oliver Letwin was asked to review whether 2.37 pm there was a hold-up of what is called the build-out Asked by Baroness Neville-Rolfe rate. His main conclusion was about the absorption rate of bringing large numbers of units into the local Toask Her Majesty’sGovernment how they intend market. He recommended that we diversify the type of to further their aims of (1) building 300,000 new units on each site, so they can be put on the market in homes each year for the next five years, and (2) making smaller groups, appeal more widely and not affect the the planning system simpler. market price. Baroness Berridge (Con): My Lords, we have delivered Lord Krebs (CB): My Lords, the Minister will be more than 1.5 million new homes since 2010, with last aware that many new houses are being built in flood-risk year seeing over 241,000 net additions—the highest areas. Between 2001 and 2014, 250,000 new homes level delivered for over 30 years—but there is much more were built in such areas and currently the number to do. We will review everything from planning reforms being built in them is increasing year on year. Many of to housing zones, backed with more than £44 billion these houses are being built against Environment Agency of support, over five years. To make the planning advice. Although some are protected by hard flood process simpler, we will publish a planning White Paper defences, does the noble Baroness agree that two measures in due course. These actions, taken together, will see us should be crucial to all new building developments; deliver 300,000 homes yearly by the mid-2020s. namely, the installation of sustainable urban drainage systems and, secondly, the removal of the automatic right to connect to often overloaded Victorian drains? Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con): My noble friend’s Answer confirms that increasing the availability of housing is a complicated matter with many facets, two Baroness Berridge: The noble Lord is correct to of which I probed. It is vital to look forward, to have a raise this issue, given the effects of the recent storm. clear strategy and to deliver on it, and not to twist and Many communities are today living with the effects of turn. Does the Minister agree that policy on building flooding in their properties. However, it would be and planning needs to go with the grain of economics unrealistic to ban all development in flood-risk areas and take proper account of incentives to the private because around 10% of England and parts of London sector, including to smaller builders? Does she also are viewed as being at high risk. These decisions need agree that one important factor on which UK to be taken locally and carefully, and the Environment Governments will be judged is their success in meeting Agency is one of the statutory bodies that needs to be voters’ aspirations to own their own home? consulted on planning. Baroness Berridge: My noble friend is correct that Baroness Thornhill (LD): My Lords, one of the economics and the prompting that the Government tools the Government are using is the housing delivery can give this sector are important. That is why local test. I believe it is designed to put even more pressure authorities must now have a five-year land supply as on councils to deliver even more development and I part of their reporting requirements. Within that, they can see where the Government are coming from. However, have to identify small and medium-sized sites, because the regime is forcing councils in already built up and we have recently seen a decline in the number of small congested urban areas to accept applications for large and medium-sized enterprises. We need to encourage tower blocks ranging from 20 storeys to, in Croydon those businesses and make funding available to them, for example, 65 storeys in height. Do the Government because they are so important, particularly in training accept that these developments are very unpopular the next generation of the workforce and apprenticeships. with the public and do they recognise that these concerns 2145 Housing: New Homes [LORDS] Housing: Social Homes for Rent 2146 [BARONESS THORNHILL] Housing: Social Homes for Rent are justified? Such buildings will impact on the townscape Question and the built environment, and certainly on quality of life. The jury is still out on the quality of family life on the 61st floor of a major tower block. 2.46 pm Asked by Lord Shipley Baroness Berridge: The noble Baroness raises an To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans important issue that will be part of the planning they have to increase the number of social homes White Paper: how do we involve communities in the for rent. planning process and is guidance to consult before a planning application sufficient, or should there be Lord Shipley (LD): My Lords, I beg leave to