argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-22
Topic: Housing
Monroe Edward Palmer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Developers work by first applying for planning permission. We are saying that once they have the planning permission there has to be a period in which they start the work and then, being reasonable people, there is a period in which they have to complete that development. That was the seven years. It could be 10 years or whatever any of the Ministers want but I believe there has to be a dual requirement rather than the one the noble Lord suggests.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-22
Topic: Housing
Monroe Edward Palmer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the actual development has to take place with the original developer—but on the suggestion that the developer might change, which I think the noble Lord made, the planning permission goes with the site. Even if the developer changes, the restrictions or advantages are still there. The person who buys the site gets those benefits and restrictions with it.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-22
Topic: Housing
Monroe Edward Palmer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister for her reply. The facts of the matter are that, on large sites, developers, whoever they are, never—or so I am told by people in the industry—develop more than 100 to 150 per annum. There must be some way forward to encourage those developers to build more. The amendment might not be right as it is—I accept the points about five years and seven years—but it was tabled to try to highlight the issue. I actually wondered about years. There must be some way to make sure that developers do not only develop 100 to 150 units on large sites. The reason they do that is to keep up the price of those units. There must be some way to work with the Government to have some provision in the Bill to facilitate that. It may not be the amendment which is before us, but I will reconsider that for Report. At the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-22
Topic: Housing
Monroe Edward Palmer (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I rise on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Tope, who is no longer in his place because of the hour at which this amendment is being debated. Amendments 100ZAA and 100ZBB relate to a matter that has come up in previous discussions on this Bill. Clause 139 will allow the Secretary of State to designate a local planning authority for its poor performance in determining applications for categories of development described in the regulations, possibly including non-major development. If a local planning authority is designated, developers may then choose to make an application for development in the poorly performing authority area directly to the Secretary of State It is believed that in London the actual consideration should be made by the mayor rather than by the Secretary of State, because the Greater London Authority, as the Minister will know, has significant planning expertise, local knowledge and strong experience of PSI applications, making it a far better place to determine these applications than Whitehall. This change will probably take into account the mayor’s strategic planning role in the capital and the Government’s devolution agenda. So rather like a previous amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Tope, this amendment is saying that in developments of this nature the person best suited to decide would be the Mayor of London rather than the Secretary of State, which would fit in with the Government’s proposals for devolution and localism. I beg to move.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-22
Topic: Other
Matthew Owen John Taylor (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the Minister for her very positive response. I would have spoken to this amendment whether or not the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, was here. She mentioned some of the proposals, not least on garden villages, which is an approach that I have advocated. I resisted mentioning it myself at this late hour, but there will be other amendments where I may return to that issue, as this is a good example of where that might happen. I am delighted that she has indicated that she will look at this I agree with the reservations. I think the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, would have done so as well. The amendment was intended to allow this debate to take place. With the permission of the Committee, I would like to withdraw it.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-22
Topic: Other
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, unlike some of the younger people in this Chamber tonight, I have run out of energy, so I will simply move the first amendment in this group. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the amendments.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-22
Topic: Other
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am lost in admiration at the vigour and energy that the Minister still has at this time. Having said that, I am grateful for her full response and beg leave to withdraw the first amendment in the group.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-22
Topic: Housing
Matthew Owen John Taylor (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will speak briefly because we should all be in bed already, but I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. In the planning review that I conducted back in 2008, I specifically recommended both that planning departments should be able to charge a fee that met the costs and that they should be able to offer improved services, provided that developers met those costs. This is not about getting a better outcome for the developer by paying more; it is about getting a proper, quick delivery of services, which is in the interests of the whole community and not just those bringing forward development proposals It is nonsense that we see many schemes held up fundamentally because the local authorities cannot afford to deliver an adequate service. Developers are entirely frustrated by that. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake. I have spoken to many developers across the country, as well as many councils. There is no unwillingness to pay for a proper quality of service The one caveat that I have on this is for individual householders who may be bringing forward small-scale applications. It is of fundamental importance that the fees should remain accessible for people bringing forward a proposal for an extension of their home or whatever. I do not believe that the costs will be excessive there anyway, but if there is an area where we should worry, it is that. For any scale of development, it is a nonsense that planning departments simply cannot afford to process the applications properly and rapidly. It is not in anyone’s interest.
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-22
Topic: Immigration
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): If there was migration from Scotland as a result of higher tax rates, clearly the population ratio would change, and we are being told that there was much discussion around the concept of per capita. How would the United Kingdom Government and the Scottish Government agree on how many of those who have left Scotland have left as a result of higher taxation as opposed to having to look after elderly parents?
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-22
Topic: Other
Archibald Kirkwood (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): That is an important group; I confess that I did not know that it met and dealt with those things. How do people find out about this? Are there minutes on websites of decisions taken? If people are trying to find out about this important work that the Minister is telling us about, how do we find out about it?
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-22
Topic: Other
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): On the important point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McCluskey, about having to table amendments again to maintain the sequence, and, indeed, in relation to the point made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, on the last group of amendments, perhaps the Minister will take this opportunity to clarify whether, when we come to Report, the order of consideration will be as in Committee; in other words, that Parts 2 and 3 will be taken at the end—I think next Monday is the day currently set down for that—and the other parts will be debated on Wednesday.
Scotland Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-22
Topic: Civil Rights
James Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, it certainly had not been my intention to take part but I do so given the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the contribution of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, because I took part in the debates in the other place on the 1998 legislation. Indeed, I tabled an amendment to devolve abortion—the argument being that abortion law is a matter of health and the criminal law, both of which are themselves devolved. It therefore seemed anomalous that abortion should not be. The noble and learned Lord may correct me if I am wrong but I think that prior to 1967, the criminal law in relation to abortion was different in Scotland from what it was in England. So there have been many years, probably decades, in which there were differences on different sides of the border Having spoken for the devolution of abortion in debates in the other place in 1998, I recall that when the then Secretary of State spoke, there was a conscious decision that the Government’s position was that abortion should not be devolved. So the late Donald Dewar spoke very coherently, as your Lordships would expect, putting the case for a continued reservation of abortion. However, when we came out of the Chamber later he said to me, "I’m glad you did not read my speech during the debates on the 1978 legislation". So before Committee on this Bill, I went back and looked at Donald Dewar’s speech when he advocated the devolution of abortion during the passage of the 1978 legislation. It made a compelling case for its devolution.
Strathclyde Review — House of Lords, 2016-01-13
Topic: Other
Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): If the Leader of the House is dismissing out of hand the idea of a Joint Committee, how can she guarantee that the two Houses will think about this problem together? Members on all sides of the House have said how essential this is. How will she ensure that that happens?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Rosalind Grender (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Have the Government made an estimate of the cost to a tenant? Since there is a cost of £5 million to the landlords—which is the Government’s estimate—what is the cost to tenants for pursuing this through the courts?
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, my purpose in moving this amendment is to raise a significant problem in some parts of the country. I am very aware that the kinds of areas I am talking about are very different from the areas that the Bill seems to be concentrating on—in London and the south-east and perhaps in similar areas. The sort of areas I am talking about are, for example, east Lancashire or west Cumbria, and lots of other places like them around England. It is a different world, but it is important The first point that I want to make is that there is not a housing market in this country that is the same everywhere. There are many different housing markets in different places which operate in different ways. The real problem that many of us have is that legislation is almost always on a one-size-fits-all basis and is written by people with what we would see to be a very south-east England viewpoint, although it is not just south-east England. I mention EDMOs—empty dwelling management orders—in this amendment but I want to talk particularly about the "et cetera" bit to mark the problem rather than just EDMOs. I will come to EDMOs towards the end.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, half of whose speech was exactly the one I made in listing some of the powers that local authorities have in order to deal with empty homes and reduce their number. She is exactly right that some of those powers, such as levying council tax on empty homes, have contributed to a substantial reduction However, the Minister did not home in on my specific point about the relatively small number of properties which have effectively been abandoned and made derelict. They are the rotten teeth of the terraced streets, which cause immense problems. I am sure noble Lords can imagine the social problems that kids get in, or the effects of broken water pipes on neighbours. These problems are quite apart from the fact that people do not want to live on a street facing an empty property and therefore do not buy property on those streets, which reduces property values. This is a major problem in some parts of the country. The point I was trying to make—I thought I made it fairly well, but perhaps the Minister will read what I said and decide whether she agrees with me—is that the existing powers are no longer sufficient for allowing local authorities to deal with these problems. The Minister mentioned improvement notices, which I deliberately did not include in order to keep my speech within 10 minutes. They are just the same. A council can make an improvement notice and if the owner does nothing do the work by default. It then has to put a charge on the property. Getting money back from people who have abandoned a property is not an easy thing to do and may well take many years, if it can be done at all. This is another example of a funding gap, where there is a cost to a local authority of using these powers in areas where the level of house prices and rents are low but the cost of the work is about the same as anywhere else in the country. In these areas, the cost of buying, doing work to and managing property is not matched by what the local authority can get in from selling, putting a charge on or renting the property. That is the difference. There is a gap and it is a serious problem, which applies to all of the different means that the Minister mentioned All I can ask is that the Minister and her colleagues look at this and write to me about how they think it may be solved. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Benjamin Stoneham (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am pleased to support my noble friend Lord Tope on these amendments, particularly the provisions that the noble Lords, Lord Best and Lord Kerslake, spoke to. I also have some sympathy for what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said about the need to widen the definition of these starter homes so that we look at alternative models of affordable homes that can be approved by the Secretary of State. We will debate later in Committee whether the starter homes initiative will lead to balanced and mixed communities, and the implications of that, about which I have severe doubts. We are also going to discuss the wider issue of the impact on social housing provision, and I declare an interest as chair of Housing & Care 21 This model of starter homes will not apply to huge areas of the country; people there will not be able to benefit, as the noble Lord, Lord Tope, explained. Although the main aim should be to build more homes, if we genuinely want to increase ownership we must look at more than one size fits all. The Government may find, if they concentrate overly on starter homes—I understand that they are doing that because it is a convenient target to get people moving—that the type of houses we are building in the long term become unsuitable There are two aspects of this that are quite an issue. Frankly, too many starter homes in one local market could cause market distortions, both initially, when they are trying to sell these homes, and at the end of the five years, when the purchaser can effectively take advantage of the discount. This concentration of building of starter homes will both put off lenders from lending on those houses in those areas and may well deter developers from developing sufficiently fast, as they would where they were developing more mixed tenures and different forms of owner-occupation. The communities themselves will be very unbalanced The amendment is an attempt to achieve greater diversity of products, which may make homes more affordable and achievable, and, by varying the nature of the home ownership, deter what could otherwise lead to quite severe distortions of the market. If we distort the market, we will put off developers and lenders, and end up not building as many homes as we need.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I have three questions for the Minister. They are not particularly related, but they are all part of the starter homes thing. First, I shall pick up what the noble Lord, Lord Horam, said. He caused my eyebrows to rise a little bit when he said that it is all about quantity of housing and not about tenure. I basically disagree with that, but perhaps I am a more ideological politician than the noble Lord.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Other
Graham Norman Tope (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I do not know exactly what is going on, but I recall starting very clearly by saying that I was speaking to all my amendments. In fact, I counted them off. If the Minister would include whatever it was that I must have forgotten to make specific reference to I would be very grateful—otherwise, we could start the debate all over again.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Anthony Robert Greaves (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I wonder if I can just tempt the Minister again to say perhaps that in many parts—or even most parts—of the country that is the case? Lack of supply is not the case in areas where the market has collapsed, and we need different policies to solve the problems we have got and provide people with good homes.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Graham Norman Tope (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken, and to the Minister who has done her very best to respond to what she rightly described as a very long debate. One feature of the debate was a pretty wide measure of agreement. We may all have our own particular favourites on the nature of housing tenure, but I do not think that any of us believes that any one form of housing tenure is a solution to the problem—manifestly it is not. The concern is that the Bill, with the references to starter homes coming right at the front of it, gives the impression that it is rather more important in the delivery that actually most of us believe there will be We would probably have had just as long a debate, but perhaps a slightly different one, if Clause 1 of Chapter 1 of Part 1 of a housing Bill had simply said, "The purpose of this Chapter is to promote the supply of decent homes in England". We may well have had a debate on how to do that, but there would have been even more measure of agreement I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for his free legal advice, and I note the value of that advice. I am grateful to the Minister, as I said, for listening very carefully to the debate. All I hope—I think on behalf of all of us who have spoken and listened to this—is that it is not just that the Minister has listened but that the Government will hear. Undoubtedly, we will return to this subject at the next stage of this Bill when we will be seeking to find an acceptable—acceptable to your Lordships’ House—change to the current wording of the Bill. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I support Amendment 37, to which my name is attached. I declare at the outset that I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I shall also speak to Amendment 47 and, in practice, several others The overriding concern in this group of amendments is that the Bill must be about renting as well as home ownership. That is why we have two separate groups—the last group looking at ownership and this one looking at all tenures. The principle is very simple. Renting must still be supported for lower-income households where it is not possible for them to buy their own property. I remind the House that there are some 1.3 million people on social housing waiting lists in this country. So I hope that the Minister will understand and accept that the Bill cannot just be about starter homes for owner occupation but must include social renting.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
John Warren Shipley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, this might help the Minister. I think it is the case that the Government’s figures on what is a median income, and therefore the affordability of a starter home, are different from the figures given by a number of the other agencies—for example, Shelter—that are giving evidence to those engaged in this debate. It would be very helpful if the Minister could, before Report, write to noble Lords who have been engaged in this debate with a clear explanation of the figures which the Government are using to sustain their case.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Rosalind Grender (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): Does the Minister dispute the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, gave, that in 2018 this will dramatically drop? The reason is that these were decisions of the coalition Government, and therefore there is a question mark over the continued commitment to these building levels under this Government.
Housing and Planning Bill — House of Lords, 2016-03-01
Topic: Housing
Robert Andrew Stunell (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): May I take the Minister a little further on the point that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, made? If there was a defect in the coalition Government’s housing policy, which I would be reluctant to concede, it would be that that Government failed in their first year to initiate a programme of social and public housing quickly enough. Will the Minister take back to the department the fear that I believe the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and I share, that that mistake is being repeated? No doubt in a period of time the Government will reflect that they need to restart that programme and ensure that it continues beyond 2018. It is a question of learning from experience, which I very much hope this Government and the Minister will be willing to do.
Immigration Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-01
Topic: Immigration
Brian Paddick (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence of Clarendon. Our Amendments 160 to 162 are technical in nature, and so was the Minister’s response, so I will read Hansard with interest. The major issue is with Clause 17, where the Minister has not answered our concerns. He talked about justification for this being where the police stop somebody and then a match is found against a Home Office record. That implies that the police would have to carry out an immigration check on the individual to establish whether an immigration offence had been committed. They are being pushed into proactively enforcing immigration law in a way that they have not previously.