14:04 Lucy Powell (Labour)

This Queen’s Speech doubles down on the Government’s failed ideology. It lays bare whose side they are on. Developers will have watched in glee—the planning Bill is a developer’s charter, with everything they could have wanted to maximise their profits off the back of communities and first-time buyers. We want more affordable home ownership in all parts of the country, but this approach will not deliver it. The issue is not whether developers are getting planning permission; they are. It is that they are not then building. Meanwhile, this Queen’s Speech says nothing on homelessness; nothing for renters living in overpriced, poor-quality homes, thousands of whom are on the brink of eviction; nothing on the social housing Bill promised after Grenfell; nothing for those stuck on council waiting lists because right-to-buy properties are not being replaced; and nothing to address the climate emergency after the Government’s flagship Green Homes grant was dropped. Those gaping holes speak volumes: millionaire developer donor mates dealt a winning hand; renters, leaseholders, first-time buyers and local communities dealt a busted flush. Far from a national mission to put homes for all first, we have more of the same.

This Queen’s Speech is a clear sign of a Government running out of steam, with low or no ambition for this country. Where we needed big, bold action and a mission of housing first, we have tinkering around the edges and a piecemeal approach that does not rise to the challenge. The Government could have given more people security of ownership, not overheated the market. They could have implemented a planning regime that creates places and builds communities, not a developers’ charter. They could have driven forward their long-delayed reforms of the private rented sector, abolishing section 21 and giving people security of tenure—a commitment that Labour reaffirms today. On the 100th anniversary of Becontree, the first and largest council estate in the UK, they could have invested in a new generation of council housing for the 21st century. They could have made homes fit for the future, with net zero standards and large-scale retrofitting creating tens of thousands of jobs. They could have kept the spirit of Everyone In and committed to ending homelessness. They could have reformed wholesale our feudal leasehold system, whereby millions of families face extortionate fees, poor service and poor contract terms, with little or no recourse. While the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill is welcome, it has to be the first step of wider reform and that cannot come soon enough. They could have done all this and more, but tellingly, they chose not to.

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14:20 Robert Jenrick (Conservative)

The other thing that the Bill will do is empower local people to set standards for beauty and design in their area through design codes that developers will have to abide by, putting beauty at the heart of our planning system for the first time, and embedding the work of the late Sir Roger Scruton and everyone who was involved in the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission in the planning system as a matter of law. There will also be a greater emphasis on better outcomes, rather than simply on process, to protect and enhance the environment. We will ensure that biodiversity net gain is met, we will ensure that all streets are lined with trees, and we will deliver on net zero homes as a matter of national priority.

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14:44 Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)

In the course of the new Parliament, the Scottish Government will put £1.6 billion into decarbonising how buildings are heated. Ambitiously, that equates to one third of all homes by 2030—a very important step in tackling climate change, since heating homes is a significant contributor to our emissions. Sadly, the UK Government are investing only one third of what has been invested in Scotland to decarbonise homes, which means that they are unlikely to meet their own targets to decarbonise homes by 2050.

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15:55 Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]

As in many other aspects of life, there are things that are missing, but the biggest challenge that we face in the long run, of course, is climate change. I listened carefully to the Secretary of State’s speech on housing. Of the 30 million houses in Britain today, most will still be around by 2050 when we have to be carbon neutral, but I did not hear any plan from him to fund the retrofitting of existing homes. In towns such as Rochdale, probably half the houses are pre-first world war terraced houses in need of retrofitting. Many of the post-first world war houses will be the same. There was nothing in the Gracious Speech or in the Secretary of State’s comments saying where the money will come from to make that kind of retrofitting difference. This is now a crisis.

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16:04 Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Labour)

As we come out of this pandemic, the Government will have missed a major opportunity: their own target to decarbonise by 2050. Even doing this by 2050 is not good enough, so why are there no specific measures in the Queen’s Speech about driving forward all our plans on protecting the environment? We have so little time and we should be doing so much more as a country.

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16:59 Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)

In trying to stay positive for as long as possible on the issue of the Gracious Speech, let me first acknowledge the work the Government are doing to prepare for COP26, which comes to the city of Glasgow later this year. There is a good positive working relationship between the Governments and the authorities in the city to get the event ready as we welcome the world to the finest city on these islands. All of us want to see it succeed, because the challenge we face is the biggest of our time.

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17:17 James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)

I am led to believe that up to 1 million homes across the UK are currently unoccupied. Councils must make the best use of them. Permissions for a further 1 million homes have already been granted too, so let us do this with a time limit. We also need extra protections for farmland, so let us please impose punitive and progressive taxes on those who seek to build on what is left of it in our constituencies. To be frank, the net zero argument is daft. If we concrete over trees, fields and hedgerows and then plant a few daisies, do not be surprised if the oxygen stops flowing.

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17:28 Derek Thomas (St Ives) (Con)

Today’s subject for debate is “Affordable and Safe Housing for All”. A significant measure of our commitment to build back better will be how well we have driven down the harmful emissions of the built environment. It was a Conservative Government who set in law the commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and only recently this Conservative Government strengthened that commitment with a pledge to reach a 78% reduction by 2035—just 14 years from now.

Housing accounts for 14% of total UK emissions, so I am glad to make the case in this debate for stepping up our efforts to drive harmful emissions from our homes. We must start by including in the planning White Paper tangible and ambitious measures to deliver environmentally friendly protections and climate change mitigation. They must be part of a legislative framework that determines the quality and efficiency of new homes. We need to strengthen energy efficiency standards and we certainly need to review how energy performance certificates are organised—if you have ever tried to get one, Madam Deputy Speaker, you will know that it is an absolute nightmare.

We need strong assessment of the environmental impacts of the built environment. We need to bolster the national planning policy framework and drive up the requirements for net-gain biodiversity. Basically, in my view, the build back better White Paper must in effect become the green Bill. The Government and the Queen’s Speech have set out a commitment to support growth through significant investment in infrastructure, skills and innovation, and to pursue growth that levels up every part of the UK to enable the transition to net zero. The Committee on Climate Change has already made its message clear, saying that

“the 2020s must be the decisive decade of progress and action on climate change”

“renovating and decarbonising the UK’s…homes.”

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17:44 Matt Western (Labour)

What pains me so greatly is that in this year of COP26, the Government lack ambition to build zero-carbon homes. We are five years on from 2016, the date by which the last Labour Government promised to introduce them. Five lost years, 1 million zero-carbon homes that would have been delivered by a Labour Government—just imagine.

I will leave for another day topics such as higher education, but in the few seconds that remain, let me highlight a few other major issues in the Queen’s Speech—a Queen’s Speech with barely a full sentence on social care, perhaps the greatest challenge of our times along with climate change, which received little more. That point brings me to the need for a network of 2 million electric vehicle charging points, as highlighted by the National Infrastructure Commission and Sir John Armitt. Today, we have just 23,000 public EV charging points.

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17:50 Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)

Housing is pivotal in any society at any time, but it is critical in one devastated by covid. As a coronavirus recession beckons and climate change threatens, it is more pivotal than ever. Housing is a devolved matter, but factors and levers remain reserved to Westminster and are therefore critical for the ability of the Scottish Government and Scottish local government to respond.

There are three clear reasons why housing is critical. First, homelessness, couch-surfing and overcrowding are all increasing. Secondly, construction and economic stimulus are essential to create jobs and boost business. Thirdly, with the increasing challenge of climate change threatening, we require to act; and not just prepare for COP26 as a conference, but prepare to act as a society.

That is not just about addressing the housing crisis that exists, even in my own constituency, which has seen an increase in population and a decrease in available stock; it is about creating, as President Obama said, shovel- ready projects so that we can keep people in work. We require to create jobs. We require to boost business. As COP26 beckons, we have to recognise that the purpose of building new houses is also to retrofit old ones at the same time. It is not just a matter of addressing fuel poverty, which remains a significant problem in Scotland, even as we are coming into better weather; it is also about ensuring that our properties are fit for purpose for achieving net zero, so that we can meet the challenge of climate change.

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18:23 Janet Daby (Labour)

This year’s Queen’s Speech is just more evidence of the Government’s refusal to carry out their duty of care for the country. What we have seen from the Government is 11 years of poverty-inducing policies, with cuts to public services and cuts to the third sector. We have seen, and are seeing, a rise in food banks, and that was the situation pre-pandemic. Post-pandemic—we are still going through it—things are even worse. Young people and families earning a decent wage cannot afford to buy their first home. New, wonderful green homes are needed, along with support to get on to the market. The Government must prioritise safety. Fixing the problems in housing from the fire safety scandal to the rise in homelessness, improving the quality of life and responding to the climate crisis are all part of building back better. I support the Labour amendments.

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18:26 Angela Richardson (Guildford) (Con)

I welcome the Government’s ambition to build homes, including affordable homes, to help first-time buyers and to enable extended families to live close to each other, strengthening our social fabric and allowing key workers to live near to their place of work. I welcome the commitment on locally decided design codes that builders will have to abide by, on tree-lined streets and on building net zero homes. Building back beautiful; building back greener.

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18:41 Steve Reed (Labour)

The Government have trumpeted the proposed planning reform Bill as a flagship in their legislative programme, but it is a flagship that may yet be scuppered in the docks, because it is nearly as unpopular on the Government Back Benches as it is on our side. There are certainly real problems with the current planning system that need to be addressed. We are not building the level of genuinely affordable housing the country needs, the Government abandoned the Labour Government’s target for net zero housing emissions by 2016, and public trust in planning is declining because the current process is neither fair nor particularly democratic. Communities are frustrated because they feel powerless to influence planning decisions that affect their own neighbourhoods.

The Government’s proposals on planning entrench sleaze. They are anti-democratic. They further undermine confidence in the planning system. They promote low-quality housing and fail to act on climate change. They do not deliver the level of affordable housing that this country so desperately needs. The Government must think again: if they persist in this brazen attempt to sell out communities to the wealthy developers who bankroll the Conservative party, they will deserve to reap the political whirlwind that will surely follow.

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