Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I am grateful to all those who took part in the debate some hours ago about protecting leaseholders. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Howe for what he said—that proposals will be brought forward shortly to help those blocks that have enfranchised. My noble friend said that I would greet with a sigh his rejection of my amendment, and he was quite right. I say in return that...
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, it is pleasure to follow the noble Earl, Lord Lytton. I pay tribute to him, not just for the professional expertise that he brings to the subject—something that none of us can match—but for his persistence in campaigning to rectify the injustice done to leaseholders. I shall speak to the amendments in my name but, before doing so, I want to say this: not all our debates in this...
Lord Young of Cookham: Before my noble friend sits down, he has said that this is a decision best taken locally. But that is not what the Local Government Association wants—it wants it to be taken nationally.
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I commend the speech of my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond. Obstructions on the pavement are an issue not just for those with a visual impairment but for a wide variety of other users of the pavement. He rightly calls for a better balance between the needs of business on the one hand and the needs of pedestrians on the other, and he deserves a sympathetic response from the...
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 235, which I proposed in Committee and to which the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has just spoken. Since Committee, the need for it has become more urgent, as reflected in the report of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Select Committee in July, which concluded: “The Government’s reforms to national planning policy will fail if local...
Lord Young of Cookham: To ask His Majesty’s Government in what year they expect to reach their target of building 300,000 new homes a year.
Lord Young of Cookham: I am grateful to my noble friend, but has she read the leader in last Saturday’s Times? It said of the Government’s housing target: “That goal has now been sacrificed on the altar of appeasing rural Conservative backbenchers fearful of a backlash in their green and pleasant constituencies”, and concluded: “The political calculations of the Tory party are in danger of strangling...
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 212 and 214 to 216 in my name. Earlier today, I spoke on what I regard as the most important clause in the Bill, and I will now speak briefly on what I regard as the least important clause, which is perhaps why there was a mass exodus before we reached this group. We return now to the subject of street votes, on which I expressed my views forcefully in...
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I welcome what my noble friend said on the Renters (Reform) Bill, but what action is being taken to address the delays in the courts that are asked to process cases relating to tenancies?
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, this has been a long and good debate, and I will not detain the House with a long summing up. I will deal first with the core defence that the Minister has just laid out, namely, that the way to get more houses is to have more up-to-date local plans. That argument was considered seriously by the Select Committee in the other place, which said this about what the Minister has just...
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 195 in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Lansley, the noble Lord, Lord Best, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. For me, this is the most important group of amendments in the whole Bill; they go the heart of the question of whether one of the basic responsibilities of government is to ensure that the nation is adequately housed. I hope that it is...
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 199 on cycling in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and I will follow briefly in his slipstream, if I may. I am grateful to the Minister for the Teams meeting that she held on this subject at the end of last month to find common ground. Throughout our debates on the Bill, the Government have suggested that our objectives could be better met...
Lord Young of Cookham: To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for making National Air Traffic Services liable to pay compensation to customers for operational failure.
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, last week 2,000 flights were cancelled because of NATS’s inability to process flight plans, and a quarter of a million passengers were grounded. When airlines are responsible for delays, they must pay compensation to the passenger and pay for alternative flights, accommodation and food. When NATS is responsible for delays, no compensation is payable at all—and, worse, the...
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I have added my name to the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, and commend his tenacity in pursuing this issue through his Private Members’ Bill and all the stages of this legislation. I shall add a short footnote to his speech. After the debate in Committee and the very helpful meeting that we had with Ministers, on 25 May the Minister wrote a comprehensive...
Lord Young of Cookham: I thank my noble friend for his reply and for the steps being taken. I also commend the citizens of Rhodes on the hospitality they have extended to British holidaymakers fleeing the fires. Looking ahead, some 30,000 holidaymakers have booked to go to Rhodes over the next few weeks. At the moment, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is not advising people not to travel. The...
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, today’s speech promised radical action to unlock the supply of new homes, which I am sure we all welcome. Can my noble friend say whether today’s announcement will involve any amendments to the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill currently before your Lordships’ House? If not, will the Government smile on some of my amendments that have the same objective?
Lord Young of Cookham: To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to reduce absenteeism in schools.
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend’s voice has recovered. Last autumn, two years after the lockdown ended, a quarter of children were persistently absent from school—double the rate before lockdown. That means that 2 million children are persistently absent from school, falling behind on education, missing out on social education with their friends and running the risk of...
Lord Young of Cookham: My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 96 and 98 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Lansley. In answering a question last week, the Minister, my noble friend Lady Scott, said that the levelling-up Bill was a large one; she gave that as a reason for dropping the repeal of the Vagrancy Act. My amendment directly addresses that concern by deleting eight pages from the Bill: those...