Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill

Given all the chuntering and chuckling among the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues, I did not catch the end of his intervention, but I can tell him that we have been calling for a long time for measures to make funds available to bring brownfield sites into use. I know that very well myself, as I represent a former mining community—[ Interruption. ] If he would just listen for a moment, he would hear that I am about to agree with him.

Representing a former mining community, I know how painful it is for people to see green spaces built on when brownfield sites cannot be used for lack of a small amount of investment to deal with contaminated land and other issues. I have no quibble with the hon. Gentleman about that, because those measures are welcome and important. But if he wants to challenge the last Labour Government about Gloucestershire, may I remind him that it has had £91.2 million taken out of its pocket by this Government? Perhaps he might have something to say to the Secretary of State about that.

We have debated the problems many times in this Chamber. The Secretary of State referred to the five Bills in the Queen’s Speech for which his Department is responsible. Luckily for him, he will be seeing a lot of me and my colleagues over the next few months. We will remind him that there are simple changes that he could make, such as stopping sharks from coming into our communities and milking the housing benefit system; housing people in supported exempt accommodation; or allowing communities to go to rack and ruin. He knows that, because we have debated the issue many, many times and he has heard about it from colleagues on both sides of the House. Can he explain why, with five Bills in the Queen’s Speech, the simple measure needed to tackle the problem has not found its way into a single one?

The Secretary of State proposes an infrastructure levy to replace section 106. I apologise if I have missed it, but there is no clarity in the Bill about whether that will raise more or less money than the current system. There is no clarity about whether it will boost affordable housing or whether affordable housing will continue to drop off a cliff. I will tell him why that matters: it potentially makes the difference to whether our kids can stay and raise families in the communities they were born into. We are entitled to know the answer, not after some horse-trading behind closed doors or on the back of an envelope once he has asked for our votes, but now, as we scrutinise the Bill.

Can the Secretary of State tell us what is in the Bill to stop his new system from allowing developers to create ghettos of poorer housing reserved for poorer people, while earmarking prime sites exclusively for wealthy buyers? What measures will he put in the Bill to prevent the new infrastructure levy from being used in that way? I can tell him that if he will not introduce those measures, we will.

Where are the Bill’s impact assessments? Where is the regional impact assessment? Where is the local impact assessment? The Secretary of State knows how important

it is to close the gaps between and within regions: it is so important to him that he proposes to write such objectives into law, with some caveats. The clue is in the name: it is the Department for Levelling Up, but it has not even bothered to assess the impact of its own legislation on regions of this country beyond London and the south-east. I would be pretty ashamed of that.

What I would be most ashamed of, however—bar none—is a measure that has been tucked away at the end of the Bill and that reverses the commitment made by the Government and this House to junk a Victorian piece of legislation that has no place in modern Britain. It is simply unacceptable to seek to criminalise people who find themselves homeless. This Government have presided over soaring numbers of people in temporary accommodation and B&Bs. Those numbers are up 37% on the past year, and even now the Local Government Association is concerned that there are Ukrainian refugees sleeping on the streets because the Homes for Ukraine scheme has broken down. They deserve help, not antiquated measures, a lack of thought or imagination, and harshly punitive principles tucked away at the end of this Bill. It cannot be right that we are saddled with a Government who are reaching back for inspiration not only from the 1980s, but now from the 1880s as well.

The Secretary of State will face problems with the Bill as it goes through the House; he knows as well as anyone that he is in for a bumpy ride ahead. I welcome what he said when he was challenged by the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) at the end of his speech, so I ask him to work with us to turn things around over the coming weeks and months. In every part of Britain, people are ambitious for themselves, their family, their communities and their country. They need a Government who match that ambition, so let us turn this Bill into a vehicle to match it.

We will fight tooth and nail for our communities at every stage of the Bill, to make good not just on the promises of the Secretary of State, but on the promise that they have and the promise of Britain. Our message to the Secretary of State is “You have acknowledged today that this is not good enough and that there is work to do, so join us and fight for our communities to make good on that promise.”