Queen’s Speech — House of Lords, 2022-05-11
Topic: Macroeconomics
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I, too, should remind the House that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association and I, too, look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford The context of this humble Address is important. We have a growing cost of living crisis, with 10% inflation forecast by the autumn. We have rising house prices, putting home ownership out of reach of yet more people; we have 8 million households facing fuel poverty; and we have the tax burden at its highest level since 1945. Bus services are being cut; 10 % of young people are not in education, employment or training; and cuts to council budgets over recent years have led to a serious deterioration in local public services. I would have expected far more in the humble Address about the Government’s plans to address that crisis. Simply saying that the Government are going to turbocharge the economy is not enough. Unless the Government are prepared to devolve real power to councils and combined authorities, as the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, pointed out, it will carry on failing to address the very substantial problems that our economy faces First, I shall make some remarks on transport. I was very pleased to hear from the Minister that the Government are planning a world-class transport system. I wonder whether she might inform us whether that includes the eastern leg of HS2 and HS3, which only a few months ago the Government decided not to proceed with. Nevertheless, there are some important initiatives to be proposed, particularly around electric vehicles and e-scooters, and we look forward very much to looking at the detail of those Bills in due course. I also welcome the plan for Great British Railways: a single strategic structure for our railway system. That has to be right—but will it be able to improve services, especially as short-term cuts are planned in many places because of the downturn in commuter markets? Given the provisions of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, what are the opportunities for that new body to work positively with combined authorities and counties to help them to deliver good-value services I hope that the legislation will include further powers of devolution for local and regional rail services, so that more passengers and places can benefit from the kind of transformation that occurred on Merseyrail and London Overground, following the transfer of control to Merseytravel and TfL respectively On buses, there is a structural weakness in the bus market, partly but not entirely because of Covid, leading to severe cuts in some places. From October onwards, there will be no further government support for buses. Although the Government are providing new funding to some areas, that funding is to pay for improvements and new services, not to underpin existing ones. Therefore, it is reasonable to ask what the Government’s plan is to maintain a basic level of public transport provision across the country to help deliver levelling up. What are the plans for the 45 areas in England which got no money to improve local bus services? Only 34 out of 79 did—and some, such as South Yorkshire and Liverpool City Region, are very substantial areas of our country. I continue to regret that the word "housing" does not appear in the department’s name, but I welcome the renters reform and social housing regulation Bills. It is right to abolish no-fault evictions; the Government promised that in their 2019 manifesto and, until Section 21 is repealed, renting families will live in fear that requests for repairs could be met with an eviction. I welcome, too, proposals to strengthen the role of the Housing Ombudsman and the regulator in the social housing regulation Bill But there is a missed opportunity to do something about social housing for rent. There is no mention of the need for this in the Queen’s Speech and we need far more. It is the context of these Bills the Government are proposing that should worry us. Average house prices are now £360,000—up £19,000 in the last two months. Owner occupation for the under-35s has dropped over the past 30 years from 70% to just 40%. Not enough new homes are being built—the Government know this—and more people are being forced into the private rented sector, which has almost doubled in size in the past decade. Rents are rising very quickly now because of rising demand, and local housing allowance surely needs to be increased. How much better it would be if the Government built more social homes to reduce spending on housing benefits. Only 5% of the council homes sold under right to buy have been replaced, and yet 1.2 million households—4.2 million people—currently need social housing in England and do not have it I welcome the concept of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and look forward to examining the detail. It is important and welcome to empower local leaders to regenerate their areas, but it takes time and substantial private sector commitment to places which are left behind. I welcome the proposed levy to replace Section 106 and the community infrastructure levy, and the fact that the new levy will be set locally and will be non-negotiable. I think that is good to see. It is helpful; it should deliver some extra resources to local authorities for their share in the costs of levelling up As the Secretary of State said on 9 February in a speech in Liverpool to the Convention of the North: "We simply can’t go on with the gulf between rich and poor … growing." He is right. But more recently, a few days ago, he said that rising prices were making the Government’s plans to reduce regional inequalities more difficult and more important. That is also, I guess, true. I say to the Minister that you do not level up places without levelling up people first. You have to have the education, further education and apprenticeship systems in place to help level up people. You do not level up by increasing taxation and reducing disposable incomes, as the Government have done The Government have committed that in eight years, by 2030, they will deliver levelling up across the 12 missions they announced in February. One solution to this problem that the Government have committed themselves to solving would be to devolve far more power than they seem to want to do. You cannot run England out of Whitehall. Problems need owning and solving at a regional and sub-regional level, and delivering 12 missions for levelling up, right across several Whitehall departments, sounds like mission impossible to me. As an example of the problem—there are many examples—in the first round of the levelling-up fund £1.7 billion was allocated to towns and cities across the UK. When "Panorama" recently sent freedom of information requests to 100 councils representing the most deprived areas in England, it found that 28 councils had all their bids rejected. This included 18 areas that were on the Government’s top priority list, including Knowsley and Blackpool. Meanwhile, 38 councils won all or some of the money they requested. So I ask the Minister: what help is Whitehall going to give to those towns it rejects? Can I ask the Minister, very specifically, why the Government refuse to give those applications they reject written feedback, preferring to give them only verbal feedback when bids have been turned down? It seems to me that the Government should be giving something in writing to those they say are not submitting adequately good bids. I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, that competition between local authorities these days is unhelpful, given the overall objective of levelling up. Anyway, what criteria are Whitehall departments actually using In conclusion, I now wish that we had the regional development agencies, although there were problems with them. It seems, from my reading, that, as part of the Government’s current planning, combined authorities will have some responsibility for transport and spatial planning. However, I also read that where devolved powers are going to counties, they will not have responsibilities for transport or spatial planning. So the question is: who has those powers? I think we know the answer. I hope, and I say this earnestly to the Minister, that when we get the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill from the other place we will have the time to examine this in detail. I fear that, unless we get this right, by 2030 not very much will have happened in the levelling-up agenda.