Lord Stunell: .... It rehashes announcements that have already been made. It glosses over failures of process and delivery, and it trumpets success when it is in full retreat. It starts with a boast about the £13 billion allocated to the levelling-up task, which is the same £13 billion that had already been announced five times before. But it overlooks what the National Audit Office said in its report...
Lord Stunell: ...The homes are now going on the open market. This is not in inner London; it is 100 miles away. In Southwold, the price/median earnings ratio of the affordable homes, at 80% of full price, is still 13:1, reduced from 17:1 for full-price homes. Obviously, that is completely out of the reach of those seeking an affordable home. I am sure that the Minister will know of similar circumstances in...
Lord Stunell: ..., Lady Taylor of Stevenage, said, as well as what my noble friend Lady Pinnock had to say about this. I need to start by saying that I worked in the architects’ department of a new town for 13 years and lived in that new town during its raw development stage. Noble Lords will not be surprised to hear me say that I believe that the development corporation model has a proven track record,...
Lord Stunell: ...friend Lord Foster tells me that, in Southwold, the affordability ratio is currently 17:1. That is outrageous. What happens to the affordability ratio if you take 20% off the price? It becomes 13:1. That does not make it affordable. Affordability defined like that is simply a poor joke. The second bottleneck is the provision of an affordable home for households whose income is below the...
Lord Stunell: .... In that light, I believe that this report is a very clear-headed and well-evidenced document that, as a committee member, I am very ready to endorse. I will not review the speeches made by the 13 contributors so far, particularly as nine of us have been on the committee and we have probably spoken quite enough to each other about this already. I will go straight to the Government’s...
Lord Stunell: ...important Bill. I cannot bring the same distinguished background and retrospective contributions of the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham, and Lord Blunkett, but I can claim to have worked for 13 years in the architects’ department of a new-town development corporation, and the principles which underline this Bill were very much in the minds of those of us who were designing and...
Lord Stunell: My Lords, Amendment 71, in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Wallace of Saltaire, relates to the implementation of Clause 13, which deals with the qualification for voting arrangements for overseas voters. It is my contention that this part of the Bill is technically flawed and, as drafted, will produce some strange and surely unintended consequences. We believe it essential that...
Lord Stunell: .... I hope that the Minister, if he is not able to answer today, would be prepared to write to provide a further explanation. I start by referring to some of the text of Clause 12. On page 14, line 13, under the new section “Extension of parliamentary franchise”, there are various conditions that a person has to satisfy. They have to be, “not subject to any legal incapacity to vote...
Lord Stunell: ...the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and my noble friend just pointed out—the Minister probably cannot hear me with my mask on, so I am sorry about that as well—it is six seconds per amendment against 13 per amendment on my part. I apologise for that. I will pick up on a couple of things. The Minister expressed regret that Scotland and Wales had opted out of the application of Clause 14 in...
Lord Stunell: ...surely not from Britain. This is not a minority view. The Conservative-led Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the other place said bluntly: “We recommend that Clauses 13 to 15 of the Bill are removed”. Those, of course, are the key clauses that would strike the fatal blow to the Electoral Commission’s independence. Of course, the Government will say that...
Lord Stunell: My Lords, in moving Amendments 18 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Parminter, I will also speak to Amendment 25. The whole of Clause 13 is somewhat out of place in the Bill. For the most part, the critics of the Bill, such as they have been, have looked at where it either goes slightly too far or does not go quite far enough. This clause does something completely different, which...
Andrew Stunell: ...the NPPF was introduced, it was discovered that only about a quarter of local authorities actually had a statutory plan, despite the requirement to have one? What did the Labour Government do in 13 years to ensure that local authorities complied with what he now asserts to be vital and necessary?
Andrew Stunell: ...right hon. Gentleman whether the criticism he is levelling at the coalition Government for failing to achieve what he sets out also applies to him and his Government, who failed to achieve it in 13 years. This Government believed—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I certainly did—that it was right for local authorities to proceed at their own pace. We provided a carrot,...
Andrew Stunell: May I add some grist to my hon. Friend’s mill by asking whether he agrees that it is astonishing that during 13 years in government the Labour party never found the time to impose VAT on the purchase of private jets? The coalition Government have introduced that.
Andrew Stunell: I start by making a declaration—not one that appears in my entry in the register but to say that I spent 13 years working in the architects department of a new town, putting up homes, factories and shops. It was very easy to do that because there was no local consultation, no involvement of local democracy, no hassle, and no localism. I want to hear a little from Labour Front Benchers about...
Andrew Stunell: ...the planning permission and other stuff in place, but the policy and the delivery of it are there. [Interruption.] I ask the groaners on the Opposition Benches: where was that policy during their 13 years? Some 400,000 homes were lost and no attempt whatever was made to replace them, leaving the waiting list at a record level. As the Secretary of State reported, it has now, thank goodness,...
Andrew Stunell: ...are made those involved are given serious professional support by the civil service in making presentations to the economic affairs committee and that the recommendations do not come in as item 13 on a busy day but get some serious consideration with proper ministerial input? There is no doubt that to do what has been asserted in the natural environment White Paper and subsequently by the...
Andrew Stunell: ...support her interpretation of events, but a minor reinforcement of the process by the setting up of an inter-ministerial group could be a further helpful step in the right direction. Recommendation 13 relates to CDC, which has had what might be called a chequered media profile, and I remember some discussions from when I was on the International Development Committee, as well as the media...
Andrew Stunell: ...with her ninth relationship manager in 16 years of banking with HSBC, although she has not heard from most of them in her time with the bank. What does HSBC have to say about that? A letter on 13 September stated that “in the North West region we are pleased to report that we have in the first six months of the year: agreed in excess of £657 million gross new lending to over 13,650...
Andrew Stunell: ...that concern. No one wants to see employees pressurised into making a choice that may not be in their own best interests.”––[Official Report, Growth and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee, 13 November 2012; c. 9, Q5.] In the light of my understanding of where the Minister wants the Bill to be, I have tabled two amendments that deal with two different situations, and I want briefly...