Showing every spoken contribution, including 142 under 12 words. Hide short remarks
I thank the hon. Member for his comments. He has rightly highlighted that solar farms can be combined with food production. There are studies showing that there are even ways in which crop yields can be increased. But would he therefore encourage the Government to be clearer in their national planning policy framework that if solar farm applications are being put forward, they should be combined with food growing as part of the application?
The Minister always engages in a collegiate manner, which I welcome. On rooftop solar, I am sure, despite the disagreements today, that we would all agree that more solar on rooftops is crucial for tackling the climate crisis energy bills. Could he therefore confirm that the future homes standard will require all new homes to include solar panels as standard?
<Question HRSContentId="{E8A7E031-117E-41A9-958C-0294C6328F47}">14. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{E1A3F000-6E72-411B-86B9-528DAA2C7845}">What steps she is taking to monitor and maintain standards of police conduct.</QuestionText> </Question>
<strong> </strong>I thank the Minister for her answers. We have seen a toxic culture in some police services, including WhatsApp messages that are racist, homophobic and sexist, displaying deep prejudice. Will she clarify when the multiple recommendations from the Home Office review into the process of police officer dismissals will be actioned, including changing the law so that those who fail re-vetting can be more simply dismissed?
I begin by welcoming this Bill on behalf of my Green colleagues. I would like to gently comment on the tone of some of this debate. I find myself on the Opposition Benches, <span id="102" class="column-number" data-column-number="102"></span>but that is not to say that I share the sentiments expressed by Conservative Members. In particular, it is a shame that we have seen some very polarised debate today. I want to challenge the rhetoric of, “It’s workers versus employers and unions versus small businesses.” That is both ahistorical and economically illiterate, frankly. It is ahistorical because if we did not have workers organising together to improve their conditions, we would still have children up chimneys and women being paid a small fraction of what men are paid for doing the same work. Such rhetoric is economically illiterate because inequality is bad for growth. It is not just me and Labour Members who say that; the International Monetary Fund has specified that inequality is bad for growth. Let us try to look for the common ground together, and to welcome measures that will improve work and the security of people who work. Let us recognise that, frankly, this Bill is long overdue, because we have seen the erosion of workers’ rights over decades. We are now in a position where work does not pay well enough for far too many people in our country, which is why we have so many people on in-work benefits. I really welcome the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who pointed out that there are much better labour relations in countries where there is a positive recognition that workers’ rights go along with improved economic growth. As a country, let us try to move towards that point. I want to briefly mention a few areas where I would like the Government to go further. The Bill’s failure to fully ban fire and rehire practices is inexplicable. It leaves a loophole or get-out clause that effectively condones this practice, and I do not think there can be any grounds for treating workers in purely transactional terms. Zero-hours contracts are a complex area. I know that some people welcome the opportunity to have zero-hours contracts, but this flies in the face of what the majority of the public wants. The current model leaves far too much power in the hands of employers. I want to briefly mention other aspects of equality. It is disappointing that this Bill does not uphold previous Labour pledges on mandatory disability and ethnicity pay gap reporting. It will lead to increased inequality between migrant workers and others, because it does not address the risks that migrant workers face when their visas are dependent on employers, and they may exit the country before they have had a chance to pursue their employment claims. I would like to see kinship care treated in the same way as adoption leave. The hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) talked about foster carers, too. In summary, I welcome this bill, but there are areas where I would like to see the Government go further to protect workers’ rights.
This week is Flood Action Week, an important opportunity to raise awareness of this crucial issue. This week, sadly, North Herefordshire has been subject to flooding: roads are closed, schools are closed and soil is washing off the fields into the roads and rivers. Unfortunately, climate change is making these events more frequent and more extreme. Does the Leader of the House agree that farmers are crucial partners in tackling flooding through natural flood management? Will she make time for a debate in Government time on the crucial issue of flood prevention and action?
On that point, will the shadow Minister give way?
The Darzi report made it very clear that our NHS is under- funded, overstretched and too hospital focused. That has also been a focus of today’s debate so far. I welcome what I heard from the Secretary of State, in last week’s debate on the Darzi report, about investment and reform, and a shift from hospital to community and from sickness to prevention. We all want those things, but they will not happen without more investment, and without a crucial reform in the way the NHS is funded. We have seen a drift towards an increasing focus on acute services and on hospital services at the expense of investment in preventive healthcare and the primary services that we all recognise are so needed, and that my constituents in North Herefordshire so desperately want. <span id="908" class="column-number" data-column-number="908"></span>They want to be able to see a GP, and they want to see the community frontline services that will save their health, and will save the NHS money, in the long run. Can the Minister assure me that she and her colleagues have been doing everything possible to urge the Chancellor to make available the billions of pounds of investment in the NHS that are necessary to bring us back up to scratch in comparison with our peers? Darzi said that we are underfunded in comparison with similar health services. Will she assure me that the Government are considering putting in place some sort of mechanism to protect funding for primary and community care, and indeed to ratchet it up over the years? The way things happen at the moment is that hospitals constantly overspend and those overspends are constantly plugged, which is why the money is going more and more into hospitals and less and less into primary care. Will we get the billions of pounds of investment in the Budget that we need, and will we get that protection and ratchet mechanism for primary care funding that is the only way to ensure that the extra doctors, extra appointments and so forth are delivered?
<Question HRSContentId="{2B3EEB2E-E8E2-4990-820D-783CB333BA4E}">Q4. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{1C328456-08EE-4882-AF86-764A46B21821}"></QuestionText>I associate the Green party with the Prime Minister’s tributes to Alex Salmond and Sir David Amess. Some 99.7% of new patients in the east of England are unable to find an NHS dentist—it is the worst-affected area in the country. My constituents want urgent action, so when will the Government begin the critical negotiations on dental contract reform so that no one in the 21st century has to pull out their own teeth? Will it be by the end of this year?</Question>
On pharmacies, a new report from Healthwatch England reveals a worrying picture of pharmacy closures and reduced hours hitting older people and rural communities the hardest. NHS Norfolk and Waveney integrated care board, which covers much of my constituency, has reported the highest number of hours lost per pharmacy. Does the hon. Lady agree that we urgently need a national evaluation of pharmacy funding, including the size, role mix and distribution of the pharmacy workforce?
The far-right Netanyahu Government continue to assert that they are complying with international law, when in fact they are acting without restraint. That is clear from the atrocities in northern Gaza, the Israeli settlement in the west bank, and completely inadequate evacuation orders issued to densely populated suburbs in Beirut. Will the Minister recognise that the UK is complicit in these war crimes due to the UK Government’s continued refusal to stop all arms sales to Israel?
I believe in taking a positive approach to politics. Not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good is a good principle, and in that spirit, I welcome the Bill. However, I must confess that it is a pretty lukewarm welcome, because this Bill is not a really significant or radical step. Effectively, it is a tweak. We could call it a bit of glorified admin, because it tidies up a thread that has been hanging since 1999. It does not tackle several of the other inequalities and inconsistencies in the composition of the House of Lords. Members across this House have highlighted some of those today, such as the presence of the bishops and the appointment of life peers, so while I welcome the Bill, there is huge room for improvement. House of Lords reform is absolutely long overdue. Three hours or so ago, somebody referenced Asquith in 1911; we have been waiting a really long time. When the Minister introduced the Bill several hours ago, he referenced the next steps in the reform process, and I very much hope we do not have to wait 25 years—or, indeed, 113 years —to find out what those next steps are. Reform is also widely supported, as the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Chris Curtis) just said, and it is essential to improve the functioning of our democracy. By the way, there are many other ways in which we could improve the functioning of our democracy, but let us focus on House of Lords reform today. When the Paymaster General introduced the Bill, he spoke about a matter of principle for a Government committed to fairness and equality. He described going step by step in the direction of reform. I challenge him to tell us what the next steps are, to show us his workings and his road map, and to assure us that we will not have to wait 25 or 113 years.
I will not give way, and I will explain why. Like many other Members, I have been waiting and bobbing for hours to have a chance to speak—apart <span id="789" class="column-number" data-column-number="789"></span>from the moment when I left for a prearranged meeting with the Speaker. Several Members on both sides of the House have intervened frequently, thus putting others further down the speaking list. I know that the hon. Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) would like to speak. We need to know the next steps in House of Lords reform. I agree that these are questions of principle. The issue is not the individuals who currently serve in the House of Lords, many of whom are hard-working and experienced, and bring a lot of expertise and effort. That is not the point. The point is that unelected lawmakers should not be a thing. People who make laws should be elected. That is what democracy is about. It is a fundamental principle, and I find it extraordinary that the Bill does not adopt it. The Government are sometimes a little selective in applying the principles for which they nail their colours to the mast. On the principle of unelected people not making laws, why do we still have bishops and life peers? There is no other walk of life in which someone would be appointed to a role for life. We should not have that in our Parliament. I challenge the Paymaster General to use the Government’s huge and disproportionate majority —disproportionate given that it is based on a minority of votes—to take forward the principles of fairness and equality, and to get rid of not just the unfair and unequal hereditary principle, but the unfair and unequal principle of representing certain religions and not others, or of representing any religion. I challenge the Government to get rid of the unfair and unequal principle of giving political appointees life peerages. Will the Paymaster General do that? Will he also set out steps for replacing the House of Lords with an elected house of citizens? Will he take steps to introduce a fair electoral system for this Parliament, so that every vote cast in this country has equal weight?
<Question HRSContentId="{1E757924-31FB-42C3-986C-85EDD98D2133}">T6. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{72A05E89-A663-4EE8-B790-7895080020BD}"></QuestionText>Has the Minister’s capital portfolio review properly considered the health, social and equalities aspects of value for money, and will it therefore recommend cancelling more road building schemes from the previous Government in favour of a real long-term boost to local authority active travel funding?</Question>
Many happy returns to the Leader of the House. This week, questions have been raised about whether Lord Walney is to be sacked as the Government’s anti-extremism adviser, amid concerns about his independence. I understand that a formal complaint will be lodged next week about paid roles that he held advising lobbyists for clients including fossil fuel and arms companies at the same time as he advised the Government that some peaceful climate protesters and anti-war protesters should be considered extremists. May we have a debate on whether we need to revisit the rules around when a Government adviser is formally described as independent, especially when the Government have said that they want to raise standards?
I endorse all my hon. Friend’s comments, particularly on the need for rent controls. In my constituency of Brighton, I have a very high population of renters, including myself. I have only ever been a private renter since leaving home over 30 years ago. My constituency has many young people and students renting, and my local Acorn branch and the National Union of Students have also raised the problems caused by well-off guarantors being required to secure a rented home. I have spoken with the NUS president about this. It fuels discrimination against working-class, estranged and international students, and fuels homelessness among students—
I congratulate the new Members who have made their maiden speeches on the interesting and important points raised. I should declare that I am a member of Acorn Community Union, which campaigns on renters’ rights. Indeed, I have personally campaigned on renters’ rights for a long time now. This welcome Bill is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to recognise the rights of the 11 million people living in the private rented sector to have a safe, decent and secure home. In the words of activist Kwajo Tweneboa, we are facing<span id="371" class="column-number" data-column-number="371"></span> “the biggest housing crisis since the Second World War”. We have a generation who will never be able to earn enough to have a mortgage and cannot even afford their rents now. The average rent in Bristol Central has hit nearly £1,800 a month, which is more than in several London boroughs, and a huge 47% of households in the constituency are in the private rented sector—that is 18,000 households. As the Secretary of State herself said, good landlords who are already acting fairly have nothing to fear from this Bill, but the rogue ones—like the landlord of my constituent who made countless reports of damp mould and leaks for months with no resolution until the ceiling fell in—need to be held to account. I really recognise the many good parts of the Bill, but I hope the Government will go further on three key issues: security of tenure, rent affordability and energy efficiency. On security of tenure, the extension of notice periods to four months for landlord sale and moving in is progress, but we must have clear evidence thresholds for those grounds of no-fault eviction and measures to ensure that the 12-month “no re-letting” period is not broken. We also need an automatic right of non-payment of rent in the final two months to compensate a tenant for the disruption of being forced to move home. The proposal to outlaw bidding wars is okay as far as it goes, but it is not likely to be effective in tackling rising rents. Landlords could still hike rents to kick people out, so we really need a cap on rent increases within tenancies, set at the lowest of either average wage growth or inflation. Rents in advance should be capped to one month—as a Labour Member suggested—to stop discrimination against people on low incomes. But rents are too high in the first place. To illustrate this point, if a 21-year-old living in Bristol rents a single room today at the average rate, they will have put £80,000 into their landlord’s bank account by the time they reach their 30th birthday. We need a system of rent controls, carefully introduced with local flexibility, aimed at bringing rents down relative to incomes, alongside a suite of policies to address the housing crisis, including a major increase in social housing and real support for community-led housing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry) makes a good point about guarantors, and I would also like to see that issue addressed in this Bill.<span id="372" class="column-number" data-column-number="372"></span> Citizens Advice reports that almost half of private renters are living in homes plagued with cold, damp or mould. Winter fuel bills are due to go up by 10%, and the winter fuel allowance is being cut for millions of pensioners. It is good to hear that the Government’s regulations will apply to social housing as well as private housing, but that commitment needs to be explicitly enshrined in this Bill, and let us get going on energy efficiency—there is no time for delay. There was a consultation on energy efficiency in the private rented sector in 2020, so let us not do another; let us just get on with it. We must properly fund our local councils, which will enforce these new rights. Councils that are on the brink of bankruptcy after 14 years of swingeing cuts will obviously struggle to deliver this part of the policy. We need a shift in how we think about renting. In policy and practice, we should move away from viewing housing as an asset—as an investment for the wealthy— and towards prioritising and valuing the right to a stable home. Almost every point of improvement that I have suggested today has been raised by members and ex-members of the Labour party, so I hope that the Secretary of State and the Minister will give them very serious consideration. This is such a welcome and important Bill. I hope it can be made even better to become truly transformative. My Green colleagues and I will be voting for the Renters’ Rights Bill tonight.
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Twigg. I thank the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) for securing this important debate. It is a pleasure to speak on this topic, as protecting and advocating for the voices of animals that cannot speak for themselves is hugely important to me both personally and politically. It is important personally because care for animals is one of the things that I can remember, back to my childhood, first caring about the most. As a 15-year-old, I took the decision not to consume any animal products, which I have stuck with ever since. Like other Members, I have a rescue cat, called Bella. Our relationships with our pets often open our hearts to how we think about other species. It is important politically because animal protection issues <span id="101WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="101WH"></span>are some of the top issues that I hear about from constituents in my inbox, as I am sure is the case for other Members. The British really are a nation of animal lovers. Of course, animal protection is core to Green philosophy and Green party politics. I join others in recognising the vital work done by the RSPCA over the 200 years since its formation in a London café. It is the first and oldest animal welfare charity to be founded, and as a nation of animal lovers we know that it has been keen to foster that reputation, as well as helping to care for the hundreds of thousands of animals each year that are abandoned, neglected, tortured, or harmed or which simply need rehoming. The RSPCA has also been key when it comes to securing some of the strongest animal protection laws in the world, and I pay tribute to its remarkable achievements in that respect. It is no exaggeration to say that without the RSPCA, animals in this country and worldwide today would be far less protected from cruelty. I thank everyone who has been part of that successful track record, from the early founders to the frontline inspectors and from the protection officers who make a tangible difference on a daily basis to those who successfully bring such a high number of prosecutions for breaking laws such as the Animal Welfare Act 2006. That work really matters, and I hope that the Government will continue actively to support it. Much has changed in the 200 years since the RSPCA was established, including the context in which it operates. For example, our understanding that suffering occurs when all types of animals are subject to testing has grown massively, and I very much hope that the RSPCA and the Government get behind promoting modern, more effective and cruelty-free methods of testing that do not involve animals. Our attitude towards animals has also changed: 61% of the British public feel some discomfort about the way animals are treated on farms, and factory farms in particular, according to research from this time last year by the Social Market Foundation. Sadly, though, animal exploitation continues, from the treatment of the 15 Gentoo penguins at Sea Life London Aquarium, which are currently kept in an enclosure with no natural light or fresh air and only six or seven feet of water in which to dive, to the continued use of greyhounds in racing, where dogs face the constant risk of injury or death. I am incredibly proud that compassion towards animals has always been core to the Green party, and that at our autumn conference we became the first party to pledge a ban on greyhound racing—a position that the RSPCA supports, as does the majority of the public. I invite the Minister to comment on the Government’s plans for ending cruelty to animals in so-called sport. Animal abuse is sadly endemic in considerable parts of our food and farming system. That includes the proliferation of huge chicken sheds, some holding tens of thousands of chickens in incredibly cruel, unnatural conditions, which is a big cause of the river pollution scandal. In my area in East Anglia, in Norfolk and Suffolk, we are seeing a proliferation of these huge industrial sheds, including in Methwold. The World Wildlife Fund has highlighted the real climate, environmental and animal welfare impacts of the project there, and suggested that it needs to be stopped due to the climate impact and the cumulative impact of the number of these projects, including on nutrient pollution <span id="102WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="102WH"></span>and water quality. I challenge the Government, and invite the Minister specifically, to comment on what will be done to address the proliferation of huge industrial chicken sheds and its huge impact on basic standards of animal welfare, as well as on environmental pollution and other issues affecting local communities. The RSPCA has sought to tackle the treatment of farmed animals specifically with the RSPCA Assured scheme, originally known as Freedom Food when it was created 30 years ago. The scheme seeks to hold certified producers to higher welfare standards than are required under UK law. However, as has been widely reported, it has fallen short of its own high standards, with concerns about overcrowding, poor hygiene and, in some cases, physical abuse of livestock by farm workers on certain farms. I therefore welcome the RSPCA’s decision to conduct an internal review of the scheme, which must be done to ensure that the RSPCA’s reputation is not used as a cover for such issues. I note that the president of the RSPCA, Chris Packham, and the vice-president, former Green MP Caroline Lucas, are closely monitoring the outcome of that review. As we get to the 200-year anniversary of the RSPCA and warmly welcome and congratulate it on its many achievements, I encourage the RSPCA and the Government to consider the ways in which we need to strengthen protection for animals going forward. That includes addressing the cruelty involved in the proliferation of huge industrial chicken sheds and their impact on the environment and animal protection; addressing the smuggling of puppies and kittens, as other Members have mentioned; introducing stronger regulation on breeders to ensure high welfare standards for dogs and cats; and, in particular, clamping down on the trend of breeding for extreme traits in dogs, which causes huge concerns in terms of breathing, walking and basic welfare standards. I would like the Minister to respond on that specifically. I also call on the Government to ban the manufacture and use of snares, and to address the cruelty that can occur with the use of animals in sport. Members may not be aware that there were 175 horse deaths on racecourses in 2023. The horseracing industry needs to show how it will stop deaths of horses on racetracks. We have come so far, haven’t we? We are a nation of animal lovers. We are proud of the RSPCA’s work to support particularly dogs, cats and other animals that are our beloved pets. Yet there is so much more to do, and I look forward to seeing the RSPCA being central to that work. I would welcome hearing from the Minister at the end of the debate about some of the specific animal abuse issues I have highlighted, which I know the British public want addressed.
The Minister says that he wants to be ambitious on animal protection and has asked us to watch this space, which we will do, given the cross-party interest in this roomin animal protection issues. He mentioned market forces and trends in animal welfare. May I highlight, therefore, that we are seeing a proliferation of huge industrial chicken sheds in Norfolk and Suffolk, and I am sure around the country? Tens of thousands of birds, and in some cases pigs, are kept in really unpleasant, cramped indoor conditions that are not consistent with welfare standards of the type that the Minister talks about. What action will the Government take to stop that trend? This is about animal protection, river pollution and environmental standards.
I very much hope the Secretary of State and his Ministers agree that if we are serious about energy security and net zero, we must be serious about energy efficiency. What steps are they taking, in addition to working on insulating existing homes, to ensure that the promised <span id="150" class="column-number" data-column-number="150"></span>1.5 million new homes are built to net zero standards, have solar panels on the roof, and are fully insulated so that every new home is a warm home?
<Question HRSContentId="{E154084C-0F4F-4EA8-8F1A-A8F0EDA65769}">10. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{B9833CBE-B81E-4B50-BBDB-EB32FD871E42}">What steps he is taking to ensure a just transition for workers in high-carbon sectors. </QuestionText></Question>
I thank the Minister for her response. Unfortunately, the unjust transitions we are seeing in Grangemouth and Port Talbot are a damning indictment of the lack of a proactive approach to a just transition <span id="151" class="column-number" data-column-number="151"></span>over the last few years. Tomorrow at the Treasury, over 50 major unions and climate groups will be calling for a new approach to the energy transition where, instead of just de-risking private profit, there is a governmental ringfenced funding package for North sea oil and gas workers, including help with skills and job creation. Will the Secretary of State or Ministers please meet the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure that those ringfenced funds are secure, so that we can stop betting on the industry to do the right thing?
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Mark. I thank my neighbour, the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato), for securing this important debate. Like other Members from around our region, my experience is that special educational needs are one of the biggest issues affecting my constituents. One constituent who came to my surgery recently told me that her young child, who does have an education, health and care plan, has been at home all year after leaving nursery, because there were no places available in a non-mainstream school. She said the system was hard to navigate, with little support given to families. Another constituent has found that her child must wait two years for an ADHD assessment—two years from the beginning to the end of their GCSE courses; two crucial years in that child’s life. Other constituents have been in touch about the difficulty of getting a place in a specialist school. Even an educational psychologist who works in this area every day and is used to navigating the relevant systems told me she has had a long struggle to get her child a placement in a suitable school and was only offered a placement after her previous MP got involved. The school is a long way from her rural village and her child has to make a long journey each way. In rural areas, long travel distances and the pressure on school transport budgets compound the topics we are discussing. What would help? We need a focus on faster initial diagnoses and then faster decisions on EHCPs. We need more specialist school places, clearly; better access to mental health and other support provision, whether that is for speech and language delay or ADHD; and more resource for special educational needs co-ordinators, who often have huge numbers of students to support. They need the time to be able to provide that pastoral and wellbeing support. There needs to be a streamlining of the current system, to make it easier and faster for parents and others to navigate. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response on this crucial topic.
On behalf of the Green party, I associate myself with the remarks made by the Prime Minister and others in the House in remembrance of all those who lost their lives and were taken hostage in the horrific terrorist attacks on 7 October <span id="35" class="column-number" data-column-number="35"></span>last year. One of those was Hayim Katsman, who was murdered by Hamas in Kibbutz Holit. His brother Noy had his words included in a collection of speeches and eulogies published today by Standing Together. Noy said this of Hayim: “I have no doubt that even in the face of Hamas’ people that murdered him, in the face of their extreme right wing beliefs, he would still call out against killing and violence of innocent people. Here, too, he would be empathetic to pain and oppression.” Those are powerful words. In that spirit, I express my continued and deep concern at the disproportionate response of Israel to the attacks on 7 October and the extent to which that has perpetuated pain, oppression and the killing of innocent people. In recent days, that response has resulted in an escalation of deadly violence. I welcome the Prime Minister’s words about commitment to de-escalation. Does he agree that an urgent ceasefire both between Israel and Hezbollah and in Gaza is essential to resolving the conflict?
<Question HRSContentId="{D92EF01B-9C7A-4DD5-A607-E59338A73E9B}">23. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{4AA5EC2F-DF5D-4C7A-AB10-390253DC59FF}">What her Department’s timetable is for responding to the recommendations on compensation made by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in his report on changes to women’s state pension age.</QuestionText> </Question>
I echo the sentiments of the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on this serious injustice, which is being compounded by the lack of swift action for redress. It really matters to all our constituents, including mine in Norfolk and Suffolk, where I have spoken to the local WASPI women group, which highlighted just how a big an impact it is having, including on women born in the 1950s who are struggling to make ends meet. Will the Minister please set out the timescale by which she will respond to the report and the action that will be taken?
As the Secretary of State will be aware, the vast majority of carbon capture and storage pilot and demonstration projects that have been commissioned worldwide have been cancelled or put on hold. I am concerned that the Government are putting so much money—£22 billion—into an unproven technology. I understand that the track 1 projects are about new gas power stations and blue hydrogen, about which the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) has already expressed concern because they are fossil fuel technologies. Will the Secretary of State rule out investing any of this £22 billion in new fossil fuels, locking the UK into new fossil fuel production? Will he instead consider a major scaling up of natural carbon capture through major investment in the restoration of woodlands, peatlands and wetlands?
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the new hon. Member for Basingstoke (Luke Murphy) and hear about his pride in his constituency. Our NHS provides amazing life-saving, dedicated care every day, but we also know that people are too often let down. Too many patients languish, often in pain, on long waiting lists. In rural constituencies such as mine, people often have to travel lengthy distances to access treatment. Lord Darzi points to systemic and chronic under-investment caused by austerity in funding and capital starvation. Resilience was stripped from the NHS before covid, and we owe it to those whose lives were lost or changed forever by the pandemic never to repeat these same mistakes and to do things differently. However, the Chancellor’s arguments about tough decisions and a black hole of £22 billion are alarmingly similar to those made by the previous Government. It is good to see the Chancellor signalling some movement on fiscal rules, and I hope this logic will apply to supporting our public services, which are a crucial investment in our future. Putting wellbeing at the heart of what we do should help us navigate how we support the NHS. Bad planning, poor housing, weak transport and divisive social policies have a huge impact on health outcomes, for example. So I welcome the Secretary of State’s comments and he has been bullish about reform, but he has not been specific about exactly what he means by private sector involvement in the delivery of NHS services. There are real reasons to keep delivery of the NHS public, and not to outsource it to private providers. The Secretary of State has made statements about using the private sector to reduce waiting lists, but he has not explained whether he considers this to be a short-term plan while the NHS is being rebuilt, or a permanent policy. Lord Darzi’s diagnosis was helpful and the emphasis on prevention is hugely welcome, but to deliver it we require bold action and investment.
I beg to move, That this House has considered environmental standards for new housing. I thank the Minister and all colleagues here for attending. This is the first time I have led a Westminster Hall debate, so please bear with me if I get the procedures wrong. We have lots of time today, so I welcome interventions and hope we can have a useful debate and conversation on this vital topic. I want to begin by saying that I recognise that there have been some warm words from the Government on this topic. I look forward to hearing more detail from the Minister today. I called for this debate because, although I have heard one or two warm words in the last two and a bit months, I have not heard any detail. In fact, I have been concerned about hearing nothing specific whatsoever in the Secretary of State’s speeches that I have listened to. The Government have made major commitments on building new housing and it is crucial to consider what type of housing, so I wish to start by outlining three reasons why I think this is a really important debate to have. First, it is absolutely topical. The Government, as we have heard on numerous occasions—indeed, just five minutes ago in the previous debate—have committed to building 1.5 million new houses over the next five years, but what sort of homes will they be? In the Green party we specify that we need to think about the right homes in the right place at the right price. Today I want to talk about what “right homes” means, because it is not just about quantity; it is also about quality and the need to think long term when new homes are built. The Climate Change Committee did a report on the UK’s housing stock in 2019. It estimated that in 2050 80% of houses in this country will be houses that are already built, so we clearly have a massive job to do when we think about environmental standards and retrofitting the buildings that we already have. However, I am concerned to discuss the 20% of houses that will be new, because the worst possible outcome could be that we build lots and lots of new houses but to poor standards, thus requiring the retrofitting of those houses, too, so let us focus on new build homes. The second reason why the debate is important is the scale of the issue relating to houses. Our built environment controls or influences roughly half of UK environmental impacts. Domestic housing accounted for more than a quarter of energy use in the UK in the last year for which we have statistics. Heating accounts for the largest single share of emissions from buildings. The fabric of buildings is crucial in controlling the impact of the housing and broader building sector on the natural environment and climate.<span id="396WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="396WH"></span> Thirdly, this topic is crucial because we have a massive win-win-win opportunity here. This is not just about reducing carbon emissions from housing, which is certainly very important and I will come on to that later. It is also about ensuring that new homes are warm, affordable to heat and not mouldy but great for people to live in. Just this week in the Chamber there was a debate about how people can stay warm in winter. We need to make sure that all new homes are built to the highest possible standards so that we do not have people shivering in their homes and choosing between heating and eating. Of course, this is a fantastic opportunity to give the economy a great big boost, creating thousands of high-skilled jobs. If we get this right, it will be a fantastic opportunity for economic renewal. We know that investing up front is much cheaper than having to retrofit later, so let us do this right from the start. I wrote to the Minister for Housing and Planning before the recess about the timing of the release of the future homes standard, which has been in the works for quite some time now—we were consulting on it back in 2019-20, and again in 2023-24. In his response to me, the Minister said that the Government will release it in due course. If he is able to do so, I would love the Minister to provide some clarification on the timetable for publication of the standard; it is supposed to start implementation next year, which is only three and a half months away, so time is of the essence. Of course, it is vital that the policy is right, and not just fast, but, as we have had so many years to develop it, I would hope that it could be published ASAP. This is not a new topic. One of the helpful briefings I read in preparation for this debate, from the House of Commons Library, which I recommend to everyone—it produces fantastic materials—reminded me that in 2006, the then Labour Government said that they would amend the building regulations to require all new homes to have net zero carbon emissions by 2016. Of course, that policy was scrapped by the Conservatives in 2015, but we are now eight years on from the point at which Labour previously thought that all new homes should be net zero carbon. This is the moment for the new Labour Government to fulfil that promise and put in place regulations to ensure that ambition will actually come to pass—better late than never. I will speak today about five key aspects of environmental standards for new housing: maximising energy efficiency; minimising embodied carbon; maximising on-site energy generation, particularly rooftop solar; maximising biodiversity in the construction of new homes; and maximising resilience against things like flooding and overheating, which will become more and more important as time goes by and climate change becomes a reality that hits us ever harder. The first aspect is maximising energy efficiency. To meet the Government’s own carbon targets, almost all buildings will need to fully decarbonise. It is not just me who says that—it was in the Government’s heat and buildings strategy back in 2021. That is what the future homes standard was supposed to ensure. However, the version of the future homes standard that is being consulted on is looking at a 75% improvement on 2013 levels by 2030, which is neither good enough nor strong enough. We need to get to all homes being net zero carbon as soon as possible.<span id="397WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="397WH"></span> I do not expect the Government to introduce measures whereby every single building has to be built to that standard in 2025, but the industry needs a glide path. We need the Government to set that strategy to provide a framework within which the industry can sort out supply chain issues, both in terms of materials and, crucially, through upskilling, so that we are building zero carbon houses, not ones that are just a bit more efficient than the previous ones. The previous Conservative Government were very pleased to talk at length—I wanted to say “to bang on”—about the fact that more houses are reaching EPC C standard than 15 years ago, and that is indeed true. However, virtually no houses are reaching EPC A or B; that figure has increased from 1% to 3% of houses over the past 15 years. Almost no new houses are being built to those really high standards, which is what we need. Of course, there are major problems with energy performance certificates and the standards assessment procedure that underpins them—I am not pretending that that does not need review, and I commend the moves that are being made in that direction. However, we need to recognise that, flawed as it might be as a metric, it is telling us something really quite serious and worrying, which is that housing quality is not increasing at anywhere close to the rate that it needs to. Key to reducing energy demand is fabric-first design. That needs to be absolutely integral to the future homes standard. It is deeply concerning that the previous Government claimed that the 2021 changes to building regulations were sufficient, and refused to tighten them any further. It is utterly wrong-headed. In making buildings more energy-efficient, fabric-first must be central. I would welcome a commitment from the Minister that fabric-first will be core to the future homes standard. I also ask the Minister to lift the restriction placed by the previous Government on local authorities setting higher standards for house building in their areas. I do not think that local authorities setting piecemeal higher standards is the way we will get to a decarbonised housing sector, but we should not hold them back from going further and faster while we wait for Government to show the necessary leadership on a national level. We have too much piecemeal policy on this, both between local authorities and between the four nations of the UK. We need to ensure that we are united in a race to the top for standards, not a race to the bottom.
Thank you, Mr Stringer, and I will compensate by being very brief in my response to the intervention by saying that I agree absolutely. I have talked about the need to maximise energy efficiency. Let me move on to my second point: the need to minimise embodied carbon. In the future homes standard, we have some discussion of minimising operational carbon emissions. There is concern here not just from me. Back in 2022, in its report on the sustainability of the built environment, the Environmental Audit Committee expressed real concern that “policy has focused entirely on operational emissions”, and that it does not require the embodied carbon cost of construction to be assessed or controlled in any way. The Royal Institute of British Architects is deeply concerned about this, as are others. In their response to the Environmental Audit Committee’s report, the previous Government recognised that embodied carbon can account for a very significant proportion of a building’s whole-life carbon emissions. They agreed that a standardised method was needed, and said that they would consult on embodied carbon. In a consultation from November 2023 to March 2024 on the future homes standard, the Government said that embodied carbon was outside the scope of consultation on the future homes standard, but that they would consult on it separately. Does the Minister agree that embodied carbon needs to be part of the future homes standard? We cannot talk only about operational and not embodied carbon. It has been left behind—effectively the poor relation—in the need to assess the carbon impact of new house building. This urgently needs to be rectified. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments and, I hope, assurance that as much attention will be paid to embodied carbon as to operational carbon, because it is so significant in the whole-life carbon costs of any new housing. I move on to my third point: maximising on-site energy generation. I have brought up this topic—the need to ensure that all new homes have solar panels—once or twice in the House already since I have been here. I would be delighted to be known as Mrs Solar Panel by the end of this Parliament. I would be even more delighted if, by the end of this year, we had the regulations necessary to ensure that every roof of a new home had solar panels on it because, frankly, that is what is colloquially known as a no-brainer. Solar panels are one of the things that residents brought up with me time and again on the doorstep. Constituents of all sorts of political background and none said to me things like, “Why are we still building houses and not putting solar panels on the roofs?” It is something with which people have a real, visceral connection. They see new houses going up around them that do not have solar panels on the roofs, and they know that we need to sort out energy generation. Let’s <span id="399WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="399WH"></span>ensure that we maximise use of these wonderful surfaces that are already there. This is a classic example of where it would be much cheaper to put that technology in place at the point of construction, rather than retrofitting it afterwards. I cannot help but conclude that it has not been done so far only because developers are resisting anything that might increase their costs. Developers are concerned only with the construction costs; we as lawmakers and as a Government should be concerned with the long-term social, public and environmental costs. Of course, this sort of investment pays for itself many times over during the lifetime of the technology. I warmly invite the Minister to confirm that his Government will bring forward measures to put solar panels on roofs as default, either within the future homes standard, the planning and infrastructure Bill or another appropriate legislative mechanism. My fourth point is about maximising biodiversity. In the words of the 2021 Dasgupta review, “Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature.” This Government have talked a great deal about growth. Unfortunately, the way we currently measure growth does not take account of the costs of the destruction of the natural assets we have. There have been some welcome moves towards recognition of the need to take account of impacts on biodiversity during construction, with the introduction of biodiversity net gain and so on, but so much more could be done. We could specify having bird and bat boxes for the 1.5 million new houses—wouldn’t it be wonderful to have 1.5 million new bird and bat boxes for the creatures with whom we share this beautiful natural environment? Ponds are good for drainage and for wildlife. Let us take into account lighting design and how light pollution impacts nature if we are building these 1.5 million new houses. We could specify hedgehog highways—little holes cut in fences so that hedgehogs can get from one garden to the next—as well as bee-friendly plants, green roofs and walls, trees, hedges and so on. We have a real opportunity. People are rightly concerned about the effects on the natural environment of the construction of lots of new homes. We certainly need new homes constructed—they should be affordable and accessible to the people who really need them—but let’s not make it an either/or. Let’s not plaster the country with tarmac in some places while keeping less and less space free for nature. Let’s ensure that whatever new housing we are building recognises that we can also create space for nature to live alongside us and to thrive in those areas, too. A classic example, and a personal favourite, is swift bricks. For just £30, we could put in place a swift brick in every new house to ensure that these beautiful creatures, whose populations have sadly declined by 60% over the past 30 years, can thrive again. I am not just saying this because both my sons grew up playing for Ledbury Swifts football club, meaning that these birds have a special place in my heart; they should have a special place in all our hearts. Let’s make sure that every new house has a swift brick. My fifth point is on maximising resilience. We must face up to the fact that the climate crisis means that some extremes of weather will be baked in. We must recognise that adaptation has to be part of what we do, as well as mitigation of the climate impact.<span id="400WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="400WH"></span> I have seen that very personally. I represent North Herefordshire, and in early 2020 Herefordshire was affected by the worst floods that we have had in 400 years of records. Last winter, we had the wettest 18 months on record in the UK. Such events have major impacts on people’s homes, and we have to take them into account when we build new homes. So, please, may we ensure that the future homes standard and the regulations that go alongside it recognise the reality of the need to be more resilient with issues such as flooding and overheating? Overheating does not occur much in my constituency, but it is certainly an issue in urban constituencies. Former office blocks are converted into housing through permitted development, but often that entails terrible conditions for the people who end up living in those places. Personally, I think that that should not be allowed to happen. Overheating is a significant issue in such buildings. Let us ensure that overheating and flooding are recognised in resilience planning in new housing. Finally, water scarcity and efficiency—it is not just energy that we need to use efficiently, but water. That was the topic of my doctorate, although not in this country. Let us ensure that we use these pure resources as carefully and efficiently as possible. Again, that needs to be built in, baked in, right at the start of building new houses. I have a present for the Minister to take away. A few years ago, in Herefordshire, we developed a thing called “Herefordshire Future Homes”, in which we assessed a whole range of building standards, because of the bewildering array of initiatives in place. The industry is now coalescing around the net zero housing standard, which is good news, but we also looked at things such as water efficiency, biodiversity and so on. I will give this document to the Minister after the debate to feed into his work. Let me remind the Minister what the Government could and should do. They could ensure that all new homes had ultra-high levels of energy efficiency and were built to an EPC A standard right now, with a glide path through to net zero housing standards as soon as possible. Let us resist the pressure from developers to water down the standards, and let us give local authorities the freedom they need to put in place higher standards initially. Let us incorporate embodied carbon in the future homes standard, and set regulations for whole-life carbon limits aligned with the industry’s building standard of net zero carbon. I have not mentioned this much, but waste and recycling in construction is a core and enormous part of our waste economy. There are significant opportunities for a more circular economy approach. Let us also specify that all new homes should have solar panels on top and swift bricks everywhere. Let us ensure that all new homes are climate change-resilient. Now is such an important opportunity for the Government to show leadership. As I said at the beginning of the debate, I confess to being somewhat frustrated that they have not taken the opportunity of their major, high-attention speeches on planning and infrastructure—nothing whatever about building quality. There is an opportunity to rectify that, and I would love to hear not only the Minister’s response, but even more, the Secretary of State integrating building quality into everything that she says about building new houses going forward. I look forward to the Minister’s response.<span id="401WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="401WH"></span>
I thank the Minister for his response and all colleagues for their very constructive contributions. I heard a lot of common ground from Liberal Democrat colleagues, and I welcome that. Indeed, there was an offer from my Conservative colleague, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), to work constructively wherever common ground can be found, so let us look for that, shall we? The Minister made a point on goal orientation versus activity orientation. I reassure him firmly that I am focused on outcomes and performance, not on performativity. That is compatible with a view that all new houses should have solar panels on the roof as a default. There may indeed be one or two cases where it is not appropriate, but it is not an either/or. He seemed to suggest that if we put solar panels on, we might miss out on insulation—I am paraphrasing slightly—but we ought to be doing both/and. It is about doing everything that we can to ensure that homes are as energy efficient as possible and, indeed, that they generate as much of their own energy as possible. Let us get all those i’s dotted and t’s crossed in the forthcoming future homes standards. On being goal-oriented, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner mentioned—though he did not use these exact words—post-occupancy evaluation. That is crucial. There is no use setting standards if we do not enforce them and evaluate whether a building has achieved them. I know that many in the sector are quite frustrated that developers may say they are building something to a certain standard, but unless it is evaluated according to how it operates in real life, we will not know. There is an urgent need for an independent inspectorate to make sure that buildings are performing as designed.<span id="411WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="411WH"></span> I will finish by reiterating a point that came out in my initial speech and in other contributions: this is about thinking for the long term, and it is about the triple win that I talked about. This is not just about environmental protection, vital though that is to tackle the climate and nature crises. It is about making sure that every new home built is a warm home, so that every person who moves into those homes can keep warm and healthy at an affordable cost—at the least cost possible. This is a social goal. It is also about recognising the opportunity that this sort of economic renewal policy offers the Government in order to achieve their goals of generating good jobs and so forth, and to strengthen the UK’s position in these crucial sectors. With the green new deal and the economic transformation that we need to see globally, let us take the opportunity and be at the forefront of this, using the Government’s excellent ambitions to build new homes as a chance to kick-start the industries <span id="412WH" class="column-number" data-column-number="412WH"></span>of the future, including construction. There are fantastic entities, such as the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering in Herefordshire with its centre for innovation in timber technology, which the Minister just referenced. There are lots of opportunities for innovation, so let us grab them with both hands. Let us build the homes that people deserve in this country and fix the problem of environmental standards for new housing having been too low for too long. This is the opportunity to change that. <em>Question put and agreed to.</em> <em>Resolved,</em> That this House has considered environmental standards for new housing.
<Question HRSContentId="{BFB0C51B-4C5A-493B-B146-FB086AF27006}">1. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{F5AEBB68-2C6D-4637-B96D-3E0594B9E8A2}">If she will make an assessment of the potential merits of extending the unduly lenient sentence scheme to include unduly severe sentences. </QuestionText></Question>
Since 4 July, more than 40 people have been jailed in the UK for peaceful acts of conscience: some for protesting climate breakdown, some for taking measures to stop violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. The UN special rapporteur, Michel Forst, has made public statements to the effect that these sentences violate international law and are not acceptable in a democracy. With our prisons in crisis and radical measures necessary, as we have seen with the release of prisoners this week, will the Attorney General issue guidance to judges to ensure that sentencing for peaceful protest is realigned with common sense, democratic principles and international law?
This morning I attended Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions, and I was surprised and somewhat confused to realise that only 40 minutes were allocated for them compared with the hour that is standard for other Departments. Why are this Government following what I understand was the convention under the previous Conservative Government of restricting the time allocated for EFRA questions, considering that it is such an important Department, covering everything from river pollution to farming support and the biodiversity crisis? Please would the Leader of the House consider expanding the time allocated to EFRA questions to the full hour?
<Question HRSContentId="{E40A61E2-688E-4CE5-AE31-4410738545E7}">T6. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{688A347A-B2A4-4361-A3B0-18F83EB7ECE0}"></QuestionText>Any cuts to the environmental land management scheme would be a blow to farmers and to the Government’s climate and nature recovery missions. The nature-friendly farming budget needs to be not just maintained but increased. Does the Secretary of State agree with the economic assessment made by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the National Trust and the Wildlife Trusts that the environmental land management budget will need to be increased to around £5.9 billion a year to meet the targets?</Question>
Will the Minister give way?
The inequality in funding between rural and urban bus services that the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) highlighted is of enormous concern to my constituents in North Herefordshire. Rural bus services need more support per head than urban ones; they are less commercially viable. Will the Minister commit to reversing that inequality?
<em>rose—</em>
<Question HRSContentId="{81487119-F85B-49D3-8E07-BC6DCB33E935}">T9. <QuestionText HRSContentId="{F50F81AB-3841-4A7D-B283-06CDF7F95D65}"></QuestionText>The harm done to families and women by incarcerating women is huge and made worse when they do not have safe homes after they leave. Some 47% of women are currently leaving prison without settled accommodation. This breaks up families and leaves them at risk of further exploitation and harm, often the same exploitation that led to their offending. Will Ministers tell the House what they are doing to ensure that every woman set to leave prison, including all those leaving early as a result of the Government’s reforms, is supported into safe and stable accommodation?</Question>