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Address in Reply to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to introduce this debate today on our policies for our communities and our regions across the United Kingdom. Perhaps I may say how much I and, I am sure, the whole House is looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rana, who has contributed so much to economic life of Northern Ireland. Our debate today offers the opportunity to discuss the future of our communities. It is a future which is based on a heritage which has as much to do with rural life and landscape as with our historic pride in our great cities. It is a future that reflects and takes forward the spirit which in the past inspired the desire to build homes for people of ordinary means as part of policies to build communities rich in aspirations, skills and employment. We must now plan to meet today's housing needs while ensuring that we meet our responsibilities to manage the impact on the environment at both a global and local level. We are facing new challenges that are reshaping the environmental, social and, indeed, the political geography of the United Kingdom. Deep-rooted social and economic inequalities still define many of our communities. Our task is to revive and regenerate those communities. But at the same time 24 May 2005 : Column 359 we must respond to the challenges that come from prosperity and growth in other parts of our country. Therefore, three themes dominate my speech, which focus the principles and the policies set out in the Queen's Speech. The first is creating opportunities so that everyone has the opportunity to succeed, whatever their background, wherever they live. The second is giving people a greater say in determining the things that matter to them. The third is creating stronger communities based on a sense of belonging and respect for others. Let me begin with opportunity. At the beginning of the year the ODPM launched its two five-year plans setting out how we will deliver homes for all and sustainable communities that value people, enhance places and deliver prosperity. Each of those themes are interdependent. Sustainable communities are those that have a sense and, indeed, a spirit of place, which make them a joy to live and to work in, because they can sustain the elements of a good life, now and in the future. At the heart of such communities, and, indeed, of extending opportunity in so many ways, is creating the opportunity to live in a decent and affordable home. At the beginning of this century we face an unprecedented challenge. The number of new homes being built has simply not kept pace with rising demand. Over the past five years alone around 500,000 new households have formed in southern England; just 350,000 new homes have been built. At the same time in parts of the north and the Midlands there are too many homes and a failing housing market. Therefore, we have four tasks: to tackle the housing shortages, particularly in London and the south-east, to ensure that owning their own home does not become a distant dream for many young people; to create new opportunities for people in all communities to own their own homes and to provide decent homes; to bring life back to those parts of the country which are suffering from the decay and the visible decline of our communities; and to give everyone the chance to live in places in which they can take a real pride in belonging because they are clean, safe and a pleasure to live in. That is the task which the Deputy Prime Minister embraced when he launched the Sustainable Communities Plan at the beginning of 2003. Through the plan, to meet demand, we intend to deliver 1.1 million additional homes in London and the wider south-east to 2016. By 2008, we will also have invested about £850 million in the Thames Gateway. It is a visionary scheme, making best use of brownfield sites. It will shift the focus of development and regeneration to the east of London. The Sustainable Communities Plan also identified three other growth areas in the wider south-east. I am pleased to say that progress has already been excellent, with a rise of more than 10 per cent in new homes completed between 2004 and 2005 in London and the south-east. I stress that more of these homes have been built on previously developed land than 24 May 2005 : Column 360 ever before and they have been built at higher densities. This has minimised the effect on the environment. Enabling people to get on the housing ladder in the first place is essential. Therefore, we are currently consulting on proposals to introduce simpler, fairer home ownership. Our proposed new extended homebuy scheme will enable people who cannot raise a mortgage to cover the full cost of a home to become home owners. Under our proposals by 2010, up to 100,000 key workers, social tenants and other first-time buyers will have received help to buy a share of a home on the open market, or of a new home built with public subsidy; and social tenants will have new opportunities to buy a share of their home at a discount if they cannot afford (or do not have) the right to buy or acquire. Enabling young people to stay in rural communities with their families to continue the traditional work of those communities is equally important. Therefore, for our rural areas we have also made an important commitment in our manifesto to set up a commission for rural affordable housing. ODPM and Defra will continue to work closely together to make sure that a choice of affordable housing is available and retained for future generations in rural communities. To revive declining areas—another challenge—we have set up nine housing market renewal pathfinders to take forward the long-term improvement of housing quality and choice in some of our weakest housing markets in the north and the Midlands. That is not wholesale demolition but making sure that local people have a wider choice of property to create more mixed and more sustainable communities. That is why our housing market renewal funding will also support around 20,000 refurbishments and 3,000 new and better homes. However, I am sure your Lordships will agree that creating opportunity is not just about building houses. We will learn from the lessons of the past. If communities are to thrive and sustain themselves, they must meet all of people's needs. We must not repeat past mistakes. We will not recreate the soulless estates that quickly degenerate into places where your Lordships and I would not want to live. We will provide for good local shops for people who cannot or do not wish to shop in out-of-town centres, facilities that young people want to use, whether those are skateboard facilities or Internet cafes, good health services, decent schools, jobs and safe and green space for members of the community to get to know each other. We know that effective transport links are particularly central to our plans in the south-east, so there is a hybrid Bill before Parliament to deliver Crossrail which will significantly improve travel into and across the centre of London. It will be a catalyst for regeneration to the east of the City of London, particularly in the Thames Gateway and the Lea Valley. It is estimated that Crossrail will enable or attract up to 110,000 jobs as a result of regeneration activity in the areas served by the route. Strong communities are inclusive communities where everyone has an equal value. Therefore, the Government, working through our Social Exclusion Unit, are determined to tackle the geography of disadvantage so that people are not condemned to poverty by accident of birth. We simply cannot afford the costs of social exclusion. We see those costs not just in unemployment, homelessness and rootlessness, but also in our prisons and in disorder on our streets. In recent years we have begun to reverse some of the most deep-rooted and powerful determinants of social exclusion, such as child poverty, long-term unemployment and rough sleepers. I am particularly proud that we have achieved a 70 per cent reduction in rough sleeping since 1997 and that last year we ended the scandal of homeless families with children living for long periods in poor quality bed and breakfast accommodation. In 88 of our most disadvantaged communities and neighbourhoods real progress is being made through the programmes of the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit. We are seeing employment rates and educational standards rising faster than the national average. This is supported by major investment, with over £2 billion for the 39 New Deal for Communities Partnerships, and a total of £1.85 billion of non-ring-fenced additional funding for the 88 most deprived areas through the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund. Our commitment to renewal is not just restricted to urban areas and the built environment. My noble friend Lord Bach will refer later more to the natural environment and to farming issues which are so important to our country. However, I draw the attention of noble Lords to the very positive prospects for our rural communities that will be offered by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill, which was published last Thursday. We will also introduce a Bill on the management of common land. One of the greatest weapons that we have to combat social exclusion wherever it occurs and to stimulate renewal is to give people more control over their own lives. In all our communities, both urban and rural, at the national, regional or local level the Government are committed to giving people more say in the way places are run. In Wales the Government are committed to developing democratic devolution by creating a stronger Assembly with enhanced legislative powers, a reformed structure and an electoral system to make the exercise of Assembly responsibilities clearer and more accountable to the public. The Government recognise the importance of working in partnership with the National Assembly to deliver good government for Wales under the current devolution settlement. Other Wales-only legislation to be introduced in this Session is the Transport (Wales) Bill and the Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill. We will also publish a draft Tourism Accommodation Registration (Wales) Bill for pre-legislative scrutiny. Those will allow the Assembly Government to take forward their policies in those areas. In Scotland, the Scottish settlement is stable and is working well; there are no plans to revisit it. Devolution has brought far greater political accountability for many issues in Scotland, and it has enabled the people of Scotland to fashion distinctive solutions to many of the issues that touch their lives. In the Northern Ireland context, devolving power is one of the pillars of the Good Friday Agreement. The Government's ultimate goal is to achieve the restoration of an inclusive, power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland, and we continue to work hard towards that goal. The Secretary of State has set out a clear objective; there must be an end to paramilitary activity and criminality on one hand; and on the other hand we need to see unionist participation in an inclusive government. The people of Northern Ireland want devolution, not direct rule from Westminster. Until that is achieved, Ministers will exercise their responsibilities for good government in Northern Ireland. Moving from the national to the regional level, we are tackling the regional economic disparities that hold some of our regions back from fulfilling their great potential. The regional development agencies will be the economic powerhouses for the future of the regions. They will be assisted in this by the strengthened government offices for the regions and by the regional assemblies, which provide a strong voice for the regions. Recognising the needs of rural England, we are also devolving to the regions decisions and funding for rural regeneration. We have increased Defra's contribution to the RDA "single pot" from £45 million to £77 million, and we have given the agencies a clearer remit to tackle rural issues. Moving from the regional level to the local level, we aim to celebrate, recognise and build on how local government connects with local people and how people can best have an influence over what happens in their local community. That is the starting point for our programme to modernise the role of local government, which we have called local:vision. Local authorities have an essential leadership role to play, including a new role for councillors in championing their communities and greater discretion on models of local governance and leadership, including the possibility of mayors with extra powers in our big cities. Our aim is to reduce bureaucracy, streamline inspection and give greater power to those who use services. Let me give one significant example—our recent announcement of a further 40 pilot areas for local area agreements, which represent a move away from "Whitehall knows best". The existing 20 local area agreements are already reducing bureaucracy to make sure that money goes to where it is intended as effectively as possible. Closely linked to those agreements, we are supporting Rural Pathfinders which, with local authorities taking a lead role, are identifying opportunities to improve service delivery at the local level. We have to learn from what is happening in local areas in providing the best. We will take forward our manifesto commitments by giving parish council wardens, such as those working for local authorities, the power to issue penalty notices for disorder, noise, graffiti, and throwing fireworks. Local people will be able to take on what we have called "neighbours from hell" by triggering action by councils and the police, and we will extend the right to establish parish councils to communities in London. We will also allocate £1 million to promote parish plans, and Defra will offer continuing support for their development. People want a greater say, quite rightly, in how the planning system can help to make their locality a better place to live. Through the provision of last year's Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act, planning authorities are tasked with giving the local community more of a say in their local planning system. At the heart of our reforms is a more democratic and accessible approach to shaping the appearance of our communities. We must not forget that we belong as much to a global community as to a local community. There is no more critical global issue than climate change. Our goals are ambitious and challenging, and we are offering world leadership. In 2000, the Government published the UK climate change programme, which set out our domestic goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010. That commitment goes far beyond our Kyoto obligation. The climate change programme included innovative measures such as a national emissions trading scheme, the climate change levy and climate change agreements, which were all designed to enable emissions to be reduced in a flexible and cost-effective way. We are the first country to structure road taxes based explicitly on the levels of carbon emitted. The civil aviation Bill in this Parliament will provide explicit powers for airport charges to be linked to local emissions and enable airports where controls do not already exist to implement measures to deal with aircraft noise. We are also currently reviewing the climate change programme and examining ways to get back on track to achieve our targets. We also need to improve the sustainability of our buildings. Our voluntary code for sustainable buildings will set new goals for the resource efficiency of new homes, and from April 2006 all new homes receiving government funding will meet the code for sustainable buildings. People are also deeply concerned about the quality of their local environment. They want to take pride in their streets, their shopping centres, their parks and green spaces. We have put nurturing respect for others at the heart of the agenda; respect that can be encouraged by giving priority to the quality of family life, the quality of life on our doorstep, the quality of life of our natural environment and the quality of design of buildings and open space. We must tackle the issues that concern people; issues of crime and anti-social behaviour. That is why we will do more to ensure that our communities are cleaner and safer. But let us look at some brute facts: roughly 10 people die every day on our roads, and three children are killed on the roads each week. That should be headline news every day. The Road Safety Bill allows for grants for demonstration projects to find new ways for local authorities to improve that situation. It provides for tougher, more appropriate penalties for road traffic offences. Alongside more effective enforcement by police and other agencies, that will contribute to our target of a 40 per cent reduction by 2010 in the numbers of people killed or seriously injured against the 1994–98 average. That is an ambitious programme, and we do not apologise for it. It is set out in three government departments' five-year and longer-term plans. At the heart of this agenda of creating opportunity and of involving people in determining the future of their own communities, is a commitment to civic action in its wider sense. We have a uniquely beautiful and diverse country; we have the ability to create a new and humane vision to match our great heritage. We have people with matchless values and skills and pride in neighbourhood; we have a belief in the values of community and we have experience of how that can be nourished. The ambitious programme is fit for purpose; it is fit for the challenges of a new century, and we look forward to working with your Lordships to deliver the legislation that is needed to make it happen.