Budget Resolutions
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Budget Resolutions
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He should have listened to what I said in the previous 30 seconds. What I said was that we need to join the single market and negotiate a new customs union. I did not say that we need to rejoin the European Union. First, Liberal Democrats would fix the biggest brake on our economy: the botched Brexit deal. It has put up barriers for every business that trades with our largest market. Small firms in Maidenhead tell me that they now spend more time filling in forms than filling in orders. Some have simply given up trading with Europe altogether. That is lost trade, lost jobs and lost revenue. We would rip up the Government’s red lines and build a new growth and defence partnership with Europe, including the single market and a new customs union. We would grow our economy. According to independent research, those measures would bring in £27 billion a year in extra tax revenue by the end of the Parliament. We would give those proceeds back to the people who earned it by raising the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000 and raising the higher rate threshold to £56,000, taking 2.5 million of the lowest paid out of income tax altogether and putting £650 back in people’s pockets. It was the Liberal Democrats who raised the personal allowance before. We can do it again. That is how to cut taxes responsibly—we grow our way there.
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Budget Resolutions
I think the hon. Lady will find that there is an anomaly within the Chancellor’s proposals: a 54% tax rate for certain pensioners on certain incomes. I do not necessarily believe that a 54% tax rate for pensioners is the right thing to be doing. Secondly, Liberal Democrats would make fairer choices about who pays. This Budget goes back once again to savers. Tax on savings and property income go up by another two points. That is on top of the two points that were announced last year. The retired couple who have put money away all their lives and the family who are saving for their deposit will be taxed more. The Government are giving savers a little with one hand while taking with another. There is a fairer option, though. Because of the high interest rates and the way that the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme works, the Treasury is handing billions of pounds over to the big banks every year. That is a windfall that the banks did nothing to earn. It is a windfall that they keep, and businesses in our villages and towns are paying the price. Our plan to claw back some of that money would raise £5 billion a year on average. That has never been needed more. As UKHospitality confirms, the hospitality sector pays 82p in business taxes for every £1 it makes. That is the highest amount paid by a sector in our economy and double that of the banks. In my constituency, we have felt that more than ever. Last month, the Crown at Burchetts Green, ranked among the 50 best gastropubs in the country, closed its doors, with its owner blaming staff costs, rent, business rates and VAT. They said enough was enough. If a pub like that cannot make the numbers add up, what hope is there for cafés, restaurants and pubs across the country? That is why we would use some of the bank windfall tax to cut VAT for the hospitality sector, where it needs it most. The third thing we would do is take our security seriously.
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Budget Resolutions
Once again, the hon. Gentleman is confusing rejoining the single market and customs union with rejoining the European Union. I am glad that the Defence Secretary is in his place, because just days ago, he said that we need to be ready for war by 2030, within 1,000 days. I take that warning seriously, and I hope that his colleagues do, too. Yesterday, the Chancellor set the target for spending 3% of GDP on defence by 2030, and the plan to pay for that will come in next year’s spending review. The money needed for the issues and compromises that the Defence Secretary describes will not come until next year. No Government can meet a 1,000-day deadline on a funding plan that does not exist. That is why we Liberal Democrats have proposed defence bonds. Our plan would raise £20 billion over two years, ringfenced to rebuild our armed forces. That would start now, inside the Defence Secretary’s 1,000 days, and not after them.<span id="497" class="column-number" data-column-number="497"></span> Meanwhile, the Government are funding their defence investment plan by cutting budgets across Whitehall. Earlier this year, Departments were told to cut 1% from their capital budgets to pay for the first £10.3 billion of the DIP. For the remaining £5 billion, they must now find another 1% on top of that. As has already been mentioned, we do not know where the cuts will come from. Families right across the country want to know which capital projects are to be cut. Will it be the rebuilding of our crumbling schools or our leaking hospitals? Where will that money come from? We are asked to choose between security and growth, but we need both. The Government urgently need to make the case for defence bonds, so that we have the money to rebuild our defences as soon as possible. If we built that capacity alongside our European partners, every pound would go further, and support skilled jobs and British businesses in the supply chain. We have also set out how to keep that investment going for the long term: through the digital services tax. We would raise the tax from 2% to 10%, bringing in billions of pounds a year from the tech and social media giants by 2030. They are some of the most profitable companies in the world, and they should pay their fair share. Our plan shows how, and it is fully costed. Defence bonds will provide the money up front, and the higher digital services tax would sustain that amount year after year. Together, they would pay for us to expand British shipbuilding and build more frigates to protect our waters. Our European neighbours are investing billions in their defence industries, and Britain must be at the heart of that, not watching from the sidelines. We need our new growth and defence partnership with Europe—buying together, building together and defending our continent together—to ensure that British shipyards, engineers and factories win jobs and investments from European contracts. If we are shut out, those jobs go elsewhere. This Budget is a holding pattern Budget; it is not the growth Budget that we all needed. There is a better way: growth with Europe; fairer taxes that ask the big banks, rather than hard-pressed savers, to pay their share; lower bills for every household; and a serious plan for our security. That is what fiscal responsibility looks like. We need to grow our economy, cut people’s bills and cut people’s taxes.
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Topical Questions
The decision in July to abandon plans for changes to the remuneration of coastguards was widely welcomed, but that was over three months ago. Coastguards around the coastline tell me that there has been radio silence in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency since then. There are a number of whistleblowing complaints about the senior executive team that have simply not been addressed. When will we hear what the Government will do to fix our coastguards?
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Major Trauma Centres: Helipads
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this important debate, which is very timely because exactly this issue is affecting my local hospital. I want to tell Members about it, but I first want to set the scene by reiterating some of the things that other hon. Members across the House have already said. When someone is critically injured, every single minute—in fact, every single second—counts. Air ambulances, with an average journey time across the country of 17 minutes, can get patients seen by specialist doctors and nurses as quickly as possible. That is why it is critical that major trauma centres have helipads that are open 24/7.
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Major Trauma Centres: Helipads
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Air ambulances have specialist expertise on board, so they do not just provide transportation; they provide lifesaving interventions along the way. The advantage of the speed of an air ambulance can be completely lost if it cannot land on top of a hospital. Broomfield hospital, run by the Mid and South Essex foundation trust, is the main hospital that serves my <span id="231WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="231WH"></span>Chelmsford constituency—it is not in my constituency, but it is just outside it—and it has a helipad. I pay huge tribute to Essex and Herts Air Ambulance; the crews and the communities that fund it are doing absolutely phenomenal work. However, when I met representatives from the air ambulance, they told me that every day when they do their briefing to the crews, they hold their breath a little bit and roll their eyes, because they know the answer to the question, “Will Broomfield’s helipad be open for long today?” is usually no. Frustratingly, I have tried to persuade Mid and South Essex foundation trust to work with Essex and Herts Air Ambulance, Air Ambulances UK and the HELP Appeal to implement a solution—which does exist; it is just about getting the will for it—but I have met with so much reluctance from the hospital trust to do that or even to have meetings and listen to the problem. I get pushback and pushback, and it is incredibly frustrating. That is one of the reasons why we need to have national leadership on this issue. Although we can individually try to influence it, sometimes we just get pushback. I know that hospitals and hospital leaders are under lots of constraints, but the solution seems so obvious when we already have a helipad at Broomfield hospital. Yes, it needs upgrading, but there is a solution for that, and yes, it needs to be staffed, but there is a solution for that. Getting pushback from the hospital itself is incredibly frustrating. I should say that Broomfield hospital is a major trauma centre, and its helipad is listed in the APPG report as one that needs to be open 24/7—but it is not. The hospital also has a specialist burns unit, so it is part of the national asset list. Of course, with burns, like so many other things, the speed of treatment is incredibly important. When Essex and Herts Air Ambulance helicopters cannot land on top of the hospital, they have to go elsewhere. Their alternative landing site is Chelmer Valley high school, which is a few minutes down the road. There is a lot of traffic around the hospital a lot of the time, which adds to journey times, but landing there also means that an ordinary ambulance has to come to meet the helicopter. That takes up the time not just of an air ambulance, but of an ordinary road-based ambulance. There were 12 or maybe even 14 road-based ambulances queuing up at the A&E department at Broomfield hospital just a few days ago. Members will know that we are not awash with loads of ambulances. If an ambulance’s time is being taken up unnecessarily—or necessarily, as it turns out, but it should not be the case—by having to meet an air ambulance, then it is not available to do other work. That ambulance transfer is also estimated to cost anywhere between £200 and £600 per journey. That is crazy. We are throwing away money when, if we just got the helipad at Broomfield open 24/7, it would be so much better. Burns patients sometimes do not even end up coming to Chelmsford; they end up going to Thames Valley instead, which I find ridiculous. We also need to think about national security and the assets that are around London. Broomfield is not very far from our capital city. If there were a major incident in London, Broomfield hospital, just outside Chelmsford, would surely be one of the centres asked to respond, so having its helipad open would make so much sense.<span id="232WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="232WH"></span> Other hospitals in the east of England—I am an east of England MP—are also in the report, such as Addenbrooke’s, which has a red rating because it has serious problems with 24/7 access. It is the only major trauma centre for more than 6 million people, and yet new building on its own campus is set to make its helipad inoperable. How mad is that? We have invested in a helipad, and then we are saying, “Oh no, let’s just build some more houses around it and stop it operating.” That does not make any sense whatsoever. We have invested public funds in this, and we are wasting them. The scale of the problem is set out in the APPG report and by the hon. Member for Strangford, so I will not go through all of it. I know that others have highlighted rural issues, but this is not only a rural problem: none of the three London hospitals assessed has 24/7 helipad access. My word, what are we doing? Why does this access matter for patients? It matters a lot: a Kent, Surrey and Sussex study identified five extra survivors for every 100 patients treated at a hospital with a 24/7 helipad. That is a pretty good case for doing something about it, surely. We have talked about planning and the Government’s position, but we need central data so that we understand exactly what is going on. The APPG has actually done loads of the hard work, as has Air Ambulances UK. I want to massively thank the air ambulance crews, and the public for funding them. Members across the House have said that this should not be a matter of charitable funding alone. We do, but should not, rely on the charitable sector to step in all the time for these sorts of things. Yes, the sector can help, but it should be helped by Government as well. Air ambulances are obviously experiencing the increase in fuel prices, which is massively putting up their costs. London Air Ambulance’s fuel costs have gone up by 116%. That is huge and so difficult; think of the extra fundraising that needs to be done to cover it. We need to step in and make sure that all the fuel being used is taking patients directly to hospital, not elsewhere. What would the Liberal Democrats do? We would integrate air ambulances into the NHS emergency response through a national commissioning framework, while keeping their charitable fundraising status. That would expose and fix exactly the problems that I have mentioned. Of course, we also need to end ambulance handover delays, but helipad access is a very specific problem. I have some questions for the Minister. Will the Government collect and publish 24/7 helipad data for every trauma centre? Will hospital helipads be safeguarded in planning, like aerodromes are? Specifically, what is being done to keep Addenbrooke’s helipad operational? That is a really important question for the east of England in particular. Will the Minister help me get the helipad at Broomfield hospital open 24/7 as well? If she or one of her colleagues would be willing to meet me on that subject, I would be very grateful. Will the Government also publish how many air ambulances are at risk of closure or of cutting services because of the challenges they face? I want us to recognise that hospital helipads are absolute lifelines. Survival should not depend on whether a helipad happens to be open at that time of day, or on where people live, and yet that is what is happening at the moment. Patients—our constituents—deserve better.<span id="233WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="233WH"></span>
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Active Travel
I associate myself with your remarks, Mr Speaker, regarding the outgoing Clerk of the House, Tom Goldsmith. We have spent many an hour sitting in various meetings together, and I very much appreciate his wise words. E-bikes and e-scooters are an incredibly important part of active travel. My constituency has a trial of e-scooters that has been going on for several years. That is fabulous, but unfortunately it has led to a rise in illegal e-scooters. When I met Essex police recently, it told me that illegal e-scooters are difficult to intercept, but when it does confiscate them, they are difficult to store because of concerns about battery fires. The problem is that so many people, when they buy e-bikes or e-scooters, do not realise that it is illegal to ride them, and we really need to do something about that. It is the people who buy them who end up paying the price if they do not understand that they cannot use them, and Essex police has to pick up the pieces.
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Royal National Lifeboat Institution
Saving lives at sea is not a political choice but a moral duty that we are all proud that our RNLI has been undertaking for over 200 years. RNLI volunteers are infinitely more patriotic than those who seek to abuse them. Will the Minister share with us how he will better protect and afford safety to those valiant RNLI volunteers in places like Eastbourne and across the country so that they can continue their life-saving work?
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
It is a pleasure to serve on the Committee under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. New clause 1 would require a strategy for the provision of 150,000 new social homes a year in England, which is the Liberal Democrat target. We welcome the Government’s commitments so far to funding and supporting the delivery of social homes, which are of key importance—in fact, we welcome those proposals a lot more than some of the planning system proposals for private housing <span id="104" class="column-number" data-column-number="104"></span>development, but the focus of the new clause is on social homes. However, we need a significant target. So far, the Government have not set a statutory target, or indeed any clear target at all. The National Housing Federation and Shelter estimate that 90,000 more social homes are needed per year. Why did we go to 150,000? Because social homes should not be for just the most excluded, desperate and challenged in our society; they should be for working people in low-paid jobs.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I welcome the hon. Lady’s question about the details of Liberal Democrat policy, upon which I shall be delighted to expound. The challenge I was making is that the Government’s overall target for homes is mainly for private homes, so we have situations in Taunton where thousands of homes will be imposed on a community that will not be able to afford them or have any access to them. They will not be for local people. Those targets come alongside the planning reforms, which seem to celebrate a confrontational approach—I think the Labour party called it a “blockers versus builders” approach. The notion that that will somehow lead to more community acceptance of housing development is wrong-headed. That is why we believe that the overall housing target needs to be based on household projections, as it once was, rather than on the current standard method. However, we would stick rigidly to our target of 150,000 social homes.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
To be fair to Conservative Members, which is something I do not often say, they raised the point in earlier sittings that there is too little in the Bill to secure the delivery of social homes—the really affordable homes that we need to see. That is why our new clause 1, the very first amendment that we tabled, would insert such a target into the Bill. Let me return to the objective of the delivery of social homes. The Budget gave an extra £1.5 billion to the programme, which is incredibly welcome.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I almost echo the “Hear, hears”. However, that money would struggle to add about 1,000 social homes per year to the current 18,000, which is the closest thing to a target that we can divine from the Government’s policy announcements—about 18,000, 19,000 or maybe 20,000 a year. We need a whole lot more than that. The National Housing Federation and Shelter believe that we need at least 90,000 a year. The current level of ambition really is not high enough. I encourage the Government to focus their attention less on issuing thousands more planning permissions. We need planning permissions to keep coming through, but since we already have a million plots with planning permission not built for private housing, they should focus their attention instead on the delivery of social housing and on setting a target—if not this one, a target of some sort.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question, which anticipates the Liberal Democrats being in government and in a position to ensure delivery of housing. I point him to Eastleigh council, which has taken over a development of 2,000 homes not being delivered by its developer. It has made it a local authority development and is now driving it through. I recently went down to visit Liberal Democrat-run Cornwall council. The previous Liberal Democrat administration set up a housing company that is building 180,000 homes a year—sorry, I mean 180; I wish it were 180,000—and is using the profits from that to build social rent homes. I invite the hon. Gentleman to join me in my constituency, where we are building 400 council homes on the North Taunton estate and have retained our council housing stock. Sadly, because of right to buy, it is not the 30,000 units it used to be—it is now only 6,000 homes—but we are doing what we can. My colleagues in Somerset council are bringing new council houses to parts of Somerset for the first time in a generation. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at the activity of Liberal Democrat authorities on the ground. New clause 1 would set a target of 150,000 social homes a year, which would something for the Government to aspire to. If not that target, what target will the Government set and when? The new clause does not require that many to be built; it is not a money resolution. It would simply require the Government to publish a strategy for what would be required to reach the target. If the Government are serious about the housing crisis, they should have no objection to setting a target of this kind. In our manifesto, we set an allocation of £6 billion a year towards that achievement. I appreciate that it would take a number of years to reach 150,000.<span id="106" class="column-number" data-column-number="106"></span> In the interests of time, I will move on to new clause 4, concerning borrowing restrictions on local authorities. I will give some “Hear, hears” to the Government for the Prime Minister’s words about reviving council housing and delivering a lot more of it, though I fear there are more words than pounds in his pronouncement. Shelter has commissioned research from Savills examining the impact of the housing revenue account debt on councils’ ability to build new social homes. The research found that writing off HRA debt could unlock between 190,000 and 284,000 dwellings. Shelter also recently published research with Pragmatix Advisory that assesses the economic and financial case for cancelling HRA debt and investing in social housing. The central conclusion is that the policy would be compliant with the Government’s fiscal rules, while generating a substantial long-term economic benefit of £140 billion over a 60-year timeframe. My colleagues in Somerset council told me that if were not for the Government’s self-financing debt rules, they could build out another 630 council houses on top of the ones that I outlined to the hon. Member for Rugby. I appreciate that the costs of writing off that debt would be significant—I am sure that the Minister has made that point—but if the Government will not write off all that debt, will they write off some of it? In our manifesto, the Liberal Democrats put an extra £2 billion a year into this area. Will the Government put in £2 million to write off some HRA debt? It is important to get councils building again. Those that have their housing revenue account maxed out have the political will, and in many cases the experience, to do so, but they lack the necessary financial headroom. If we want to get councils building, we need to look seriously at the HRA debt.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
The hon. Gentleman is being generous with his time, as always. I welcome the Conservatives’ move towards “use it or lose it” permissions. I assume that they agree that “lose it” should mean the compulsory acquisition of sites that have not been built out within a reasonable period, as the Liberal Democrats argued during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025. Otherwise, what does “lose it” mean? How does it have effect?
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
We shall certainly be setting that out prior to going into government. The Minister makes an extensive argument that 150,000 is not the right target. Shelter and the National Housing Federation say that a minimum of 90,000 are needed per year. What is the Government’s target?
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
Simply put, a target of 150,000 homes per year would not be a meaningless review; it would set the target that, so far, the Government have not put in place. The Minister welcomes our encouragement to challenge them to go further on social housing, so we will do so by pressing this matter to a vote. I encourage the Government to come up with a target for the number of social homes that they intend to produce. <em>Question put,</em> That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I am grateful for the opportunity to move the new clause, which stands in my name and in the name of my Liberal Democrat colleagues. Regulatory inspection of housing associations is particular to where there has been bad practice or responses to tenants have been poor. I acknowledge that most housing associations do an excellent job and fulfil a vital role in delivering the social homes that we need. However, where they are particularly bad or fail to deliver an adequate level of service and repairs to tenants, the Regulator of Social Housing may eventually carry out an inspection, but only years after tenants have been disadvantaged and not served.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
The hon. Lady makes some excellent points<strong> </strong>about measures that we have supported; Awaab’s law is one of them, as is the Renters’ Rights Act 2025. We certainly welcome the new standards to which tenants will have access. The import of this new clause is that it would cover a much wider range of poor practice: across a whole estate, for example, rather than individual dwellings, or indeed across all of a registered provider’s homes. The regulator already inspects registered providers, but, as I say, its inspections tend to come after the scandal is all over—after things have been running for years and after tenants have complained, had recourse to complaints mechanisms and so on. Our new clause would allow tenants, where a reasonable percentage of them have signed up, to trigger an inspection by the regulator at an earlier stage. That would make it a proactive power of inspection, rather than making tenants wait until the end of the process for the regulator to look into it. Of course, there are details to be worked out, such as what we mean by an estate, which is why we made provision in the new clause for regulations, to be approved in this place, to set out those more detailed arrangements. Fundamentally, this is about giving social housing tenants an extra lever: a power to bring in the regulator, where that is justified, to carry out an inspection in a proactive way. It is a constructive new clause and is tabled for that purpose. I am delighted that the Conservatives have followed suit with something similar; we could even be persuaded to vote for their new clause in the unlikely event that the Committee does not agree to ours today. Our new clause stands on its own merits. It would give an extra lever to social housing tenants, some of whom are really badly served by their housing associations. I commend it to the Committee.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I wish to press new clause 3 to a vote. <em>Question put,</em> That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
The new clause stands in my name and in the name of my Liberal Democrat colleagues. The run-up to Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day is the appropriate time to consider and take account of the needs of service personnel and veterans under the Bill. About 3% of rough sleepers are veterans, according to the No Homeless Veterans campaign. Government research found that 2,180 veteran households were assessed as at risk of experiencing homelessness. One of the most significant reasons for that is post-traumatic stress disorder, which obviously affects many veterans, and one in three veterans are also disabled. The new clause would require the Secretary of State to review and report to Parliament on the provision of social housing for former members of the armed services. To anticipate the point that this is simply a review, surely no group can be more important to review the performance of social housing for than our veterans and those who have put their lives at risk for our country. I shall speak now to new clause 12, which also stands in my name and those of my Liberal Democrat colleagues, rather than having to sit down and stand up again—a great tradition in this House. New clause 12 is on reviewing access to social housing for rehabilitated offenders. There has been a staggering 26% year-on-year increase in the number of households requiring homelessness support due to leaving care, custody or hospital. When it comes to rehabilitated offenders, the last thing we want are offenders whose rehabilitation is not sustained or supported due to their having nowhere to live. One in 10 of those sleeping rough were recently discharged from an institution. That is a massive number. We need to do better by those who need that support. One in six prison leavers had no fixed abode on their first night in 2025-26. About 1,000 a month were released to rough sleeping in 2024-25, up about 40% in a year. I therefore respectfully submit both new clauses to the Committee for consideration.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
New clause 5 is not a burdensome amendment; it is a review of access to social housing for former service personnel. I hear what the Minister says about the Government keeping these matters under review, but surely a Social Housing Bill should commit to supporting our veterans and armed service community in this way. I will press the new clause to a vote. <em>Question put, </em>That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause relates to the requirement for wheelchair-accessible social housing. Social tenants are worse served now than they were in terms of access to wheelchair- <span id="124" class="column-number" data-column-number="124"></span>accessible housing. In 2022-23, a third of wheelchair users in the social sector were placed in homes that were neither accessible nor adapted, according to Age UK. The planning system is also something of a postcode lottery. Only 170 out of 311 local plans set targets for wheelchair user homes. Nationally, one wheelchair-accessible home is planned per 538 people; the south-west plans one per 810 people; London plans one per 210 people; and the north-west plans one per 2,006 people. The NPPF does not require any M4(3), which relates to homes that are wheelchair-accessible under the building regulations. It leaves it to local plans to assess need, and we have already seen how this is something of a lottery. London already has a 10% requirement in its local plan, which proves that 10% is achievable. The Minister may say that this is a matter for devolution, so that local communities rather than central Government can decide, and that councils are free to follow that example. However, we say that a minimum floor of 10% is reasonable, and it has been considered by a previous Government. We respectfully submit that 10% of new social housing should be wheelchair-accessible.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I hear what the Minister says, but we have had these expressions in guidance and policy before, and we are still a long way from having suitable provision for wheelchair-accessible homes. With the leave of the Committee, I will therefore press new clause 6 to a vote. <em>Question put</em>, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I appreciate that we are in the meat of the main new clauses that I and the Liberal Democrats have tabled, but this one is particularly important, given the experience we had in the summer. It is about the mitigation of overheating and cooling standards—the cool rule, as we would term it. The new clause would require that where passive measures are not sufficient to achieve a reasonable level of cooling in new social homes, there is active cooling to supplement that passive cooling, sufficient to achieve a temperature of around 21°C during periods of high external temperatures. We have had an extraordinary summer, have we not, Sir Roger? We witnessed five heatwaves. Cobra was convened. People died in overheated homes. We approved the Hazards in Social Housing (Prescribed Requirements) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 just last week, adding excess heat to the prescribed hazards that social landlords must address. The Bill is an opportunity to ensure that new homes do not end up in the same state as the homes that I have described. The initial responses to the requirement for active cooling are the energy considerations, and perhaps considerations relating to the urban heat island effect. When one examines both of those, it becomes absolutely apparent that we need active cooling in our homes, given the change in climate that we have had. On the energy consumption, let us remember that we paid, I think, £260 million to generators of solar and wind energy this year to turn off that generation of electricity and to stop using it. We have surplus electricity being generated, particularly in the hotter months in the summer, which we are not using and cannot use. In fact, there is an argument for electrification in a whole range of other fields as well, so that that electricity can be used and the renewables industry can be recompensed for generating it, and we are not using taxpayers’ money to turn off that ability to generate electricity. There is therefore no shortage of electricity for active cooling, which we desperately need in our homes.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I apologise for interrupting the Minister’s flow. To clarify, the new clause proposes active cooling only where that temperature cannot be achieved otherwise. The priority of passive measures would continue with this new clause.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
On new clause 7, the cool rule, I appreciate that, as the Minister points out, there is no prohibition on active cooling being used in new homes, but the fact is that we need to secure cooling. We cannot just leave it so that only the most luxury accommodation has cooling in the extremely hot summers that we are having. Just as we have habitable standards for space, daylight and heating, we need a statutory standard for cooling. If it does not come today, I believe it will come, so I wish to press new clause 7 to a vote. <em>Question put, </em>That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I am incredibly heartened by your experience of Parliament, Sir Roger, and your statement that you find it arcane. If you find it arcane, I can only imagine how those of us who came into the House only recently find it, so I appreciate your clarification. I will speak briefly on the new clause, really to highlight the frustration that many people feel when they see social housing quotas reduced. That frustration comes from seeing quotas promising a certain level of genuinely affordable housing for local people go through the planning system and be negotiated, only for the applicant to re-negotiate that consent, argue viability and, as frequently happens, remove all affordable housing. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) brought to my attention the example of an exception site that included around 40% social housing. The permission was in place, but as the Government’s new standard method renders nearly all authorities unable to meet their five-year housing supply, the Government’s inspector had no alternative but to remove all the social housing from that permission on appeal and revert it all to private housing. The Government’s new standard method has created a free-for-all. An exception site that was granted permission only because it would deliver social housing is now entirely private market housing, which local people in Cornwall will not be able to access or benefit from. I think communities are very frustrated at seeing such consents undermined at later stages. The new clause seeks to rectify that by preventing social housing numbers from being argued down, and I respectfully commend it to the Committee on that basis.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I am grateful to the Minister for engaging on all these amendments, including this one. My question is whether he and the Government recognise that, as in the example I cited, most authorities in southern England cannot meet the five-year housing supply because of the standard method, and that, as a result, social and affordable housing is being removed from planning permissions. Are the Government concerned about that? Are they doing any assessment of how much this is happening?
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
I appreciate the Minister’s correct analysis that there is a balance to be struck with individual sites, and I accept that. There is a direct link between the standard method and the loss of social housing. The standard method, having been introduced, means that most local plans now cannot meet their five-year housing supply, which means that most of them are no longer effective. Therefore, if a developer presents an inspector with a site that has both social housing and private housing, the inspector will be forced to conclude, on the section 73 application to amend the plan, that there is no longer an exception that justifies social housing, because all the sites have to come forward, and they all have to be market housing. That is the effect of imposing the standard method and rendering so many local plans no longer effective.
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Social Housing Bill (Third sitting)
That is very generous of the Minister, and I will take up the offer by writing to him with the appeal decision. That is now a completed decision, so it would not involve Ministers interfering in any way. He will be able to see the effect, and I think we need to understand how much that is happening across the country, if we are losing social homes all over. On that note, I will press new clause 10 to a vote. <em>Question put, </em>That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Fourth sitting)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. You mentioned the speed of our passage through the new clauses, Mr Western. I am not seeking to delay the Committee, but these matters are important. The new clauses are significant, as some on the Committee have acknowledged—when it comes to some of them, at least. Had I known that it was the Minister’s birthday, <span id="138" class="column-number" data-column-number="138"></span>I would have tabled even more new clauses as a birthday present; I feel that I have fallen short. I am sure I join the Committee in wishing him a happy birthday. New clause 11 would require local housing authorities to maintain and publish a register to record the dwellings sold under the right to buy against new housing provided, enabling public scrutiny of whether the authorities were failing to replenish lost stock. I know that the Government hope, as I do, that the Bill will reduce the loss of social or council housing stock, but hope on its own is not sufficient. We need proper recording of the changes to find out whether the Bill has the desired effect. If the reforms are working, the data will show it; if not, Parliament and the public will know and will have the opportunity to see the evidence for themselves and tackle the issue further. The new clause is sensible, and I present it to the Committee on that basis.
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Social Housing Bill (Fourth sitting)
As I did not say earlier, Mr Western, it is a pleasure to continue to serve on the Committee with you in the Chair. I thank the Minister for his reassurance about the collection of data, which is important. I hope that the Committee will be able to contain its excitement at the fact that I will not be pressing the new clause to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. <em>Clause, by leave, withdrawn</em>. New Clause 15 Duty to report: social housing acquisition fund “(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the passing of this Act, publish and lay before Parliament a report on the potential merits of establishing a fund to support the acquisition, by local housing authorities and registered providers, of social homes that would otherwise be disposed of on the open market.<span id="139" class="column-number" data-column-number="139"></span> (2) The report published under this section must include an assessment of whether such a fund could— (a) enable local authorities or registered providers to acquire social housing at a price reflective of their value when retained at social rent rather than their value on the open market; (b) the acquired homes to remain as social housing; and (c) contribute towards any works required to bring social housing due to be disposed of to the Decent Homes Standard.”—<em>(Gideon Amos.)</em> <em>Brought up, and read the First time.</em>
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Social Housing Bill (Fourth sitting)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
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Social Housing Bill (Fourth sitting)
It is a privilege to move my new clause 15, which would create a duty to report on a social housing acquisition fund. We are all aware of the number of disposals of social housing, for various reasons, by registered providers. However, councils are too often unable to step in and take up those units when they need to because of a lack of funding. The Local Government Association is promoting the concept of a fund that would enable them to do just that. The fund would offer a way to help councils and registered providers acquire homes at an agreed price and retain them at social rent without a sale price prescribed in statute. That would address the classification concern as to the public sector net debt facility, to which the Minister has referred. For the fund to be useful, councils would need to be able to move quickly enough to draw on it within the notification window. The retention of social homes in rural and coastal communities would be prioritised. I think it is acknowledged across the Committee that the isolated and small numbers of social homes in remote clusters in rural areas are particularly at risk of being disposed of; I am thinking, for example, of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) and that of my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), which also <span id="140" class="column-number" data-column-number="140"></span>covers the Isles of Scilly. Indeed, the same applies to bungalows, homes adapted for disabled people, larger homes and homes in areas of high need. The object of the fund is also to provide support for works, so that local authorities can carry out necessary works on acquisition. A notification period alone is not enough; the LGA has argued that giving councils notice of disposal is useful only if they have the financial means to act. The proposals specifically include support for improvement works, and particular priority is given to those irreplaceable homes that I have just set out. I commend the new clause to the Committee on the basis that it would safeguard against the disposal of social homes that are being lost throughout the country at the moment, particularly in rural and harder-to-serve areas.
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Social Housing Bill (Fourth sitting)
I appreciate the Minister’s response, but the fact is that we need a specific measure to prevent the disposals that are continuing around the country, particularly in rural areas. Without the specific measure of a fund, we will continue to lose social homes, particularly the ones that are most scarce, such as accessible homes, bungalows, those in rural areas. I will press new clause 15 to a Division. <em>Question put, </em>That the clause be read a Second time.