Alex Norris MP: speeches

Speeches

• 20 Jan 2025 · High Street Rental Auctions · Hansard source

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  I am sad to hear about Crewe’s experience, but I know it is shared up and down the country. Crewe has a proud record in the retail space and I believe it can have that again, but as my hon. Friend says, the right tools and powers must be assembled to make that happen. I would be very happy to meet him. He is slightly unkind, because he knows that Crewe town centre was the site of my biggest personal and professional embarrassment, some 17 years ago. Provided I am still allowed back in, I will very gladly meet my hon. Friend.

• 20 Jan 2025 · High Street Rental Auctions · Hansard source

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  I am very excited that high street rental auctions are capturing the imagination of local communities and colleagues in this place. A common view for all of us is that vacant shops are a blight and that high street rental auctions are a great tool with which to tackle them. We are working with some early adopters, but I encourage all local authorities to come forward and be active in this space. As of 15 January, we have made a £1.5 million fund available to support the delivery of those powers across the country.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Local Growth Funding · Hansard source

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  I am sorry to hear that. For our part, the UK Government are working closely with local partners and the Scottish Government to deliver the Ayrshire growth deal, which, as my hon. Friend says, is worth over a quarter of a billion pounds. As part of that, we are supporting a programme review so that, if any strategic changes are needed to ensure that the originally envisaged benefits are realised, they are made. On the message that she asks for, we need to move at pace, exactly as the Government have committed to do, so that the people of Ayrshire get what was promised.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Local Growth Funding · Hansard source

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  I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation. This Government’s decisions—whether on the support going into rural communities and rural policing, or the different business rates reductions—show that we want to support businesses in those communities to thrive, and we will continue to do so.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Local Growth Funding · Hansard source

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  As has been a theme of earlier questions, revitalising our high streets is a priority for this Government. We have announced a number of measures, including permanently lowering business rate multipliers for retail, hospitality and leisure properties from 2026-27, introducing high street rental auctions and providing additional funding to tackle retail crime, all of which will support businesses and our high streets.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Local Growth Funding · Hansard source

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  Local growth funding is crucial to our growth mission and to tackling regional inequalities. The Government will set out a refreshed approach to local growth funding at the multiyear spending review in the spring. That will end the beauty parades and short-term decision making and put local communities in charge of their own destiny, just as we committed to at the general election.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Local Growth Funding · Hansard source

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  I have no doubt that the Opposition will have all the information they need to scrutinise the Government of the day—we always provide that with full transparency. What I will not accept is that the sand our economy was built on after the past four years, under the Conservative Government of the shadow Minister and the shadow Secretary of State, is somehow this Government’s failure. In reality, the hon. Gentlemen knows, exactly as we do, that we are fixing the mess that they left. Of course, they will have the chance to oppose us along the way, but we will get on with delivering for the British people, and they will get on with carping from the sidelines. I know where I would rather be.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Local Growth Funding · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his kind points. I have a strong personal enthusiasm for Northern Ireland—its potential is huge. I speak frequently to Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive and will continue to do so. As part of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister’s reset of our relationship with the devolved Administrations, we meet them regularly and plan together so that our investments and their investments get the best value. I will continue to do that, and I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman as well.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend alluded to, RAAC is a devolved matter. The responsibility for ensuring that buildings are safe is, of course, that of the owner, but we keep RAAC under active consideration in case any support is needed.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I would be very happy to take that meeting. We approach buildings under 11 metres on a case-by-case basis to seek a solution. I am happy to do so with my hon. Friend.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The community ownership fund came to an end with its round in December; the previous Government, of course, left no future funding for it. The hon. Lady knows that we have made a significant commitment around the community right to buy and a significant commitment around local growth funding. Future ownership funds will be a matter for the multi-year spending review in the spring.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman will know that these decisions are taken on a case-by-case basis, generally depending on the extent of damage from floods. We will look at that closely. I would be willing to talk to him to ensure that the accountability is there.

• 20 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Sadly, I hear these stories across the country as well. The reality is that the best step that can be taken is for the developer to enter into the cladding safety scheme, to get the building remediated and to get the costs removed. In the meantime, we have made money available through the waking watch replacement fund, so that that particularly expensive way of keeping a building safe can be replaced. There are ways of tackling the pain in the short term, but the reality is that the only solution is the remediation of buildings, and that is why we are pushing on so hard through our remediation acceleration plan.

• 20 Jan 2025 · UK Shared Prosperity Fund: Northern Ireland · Hansard source

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  We inherited a situation in which the previous Government had not made any money available for that work. I have no doubt that the transition year creates significant challenges for local organisations. I have visited the hon. Gentleman in South Antrim before and met representatives of some organisations, and I would be delighted to do so again.

• 20 Jan 2025 · UK Shared Prosperity Fund: Northern Ireland · Hansard source

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  The UK shared prosperity fund supports people, businesses and communities across Northern Ireland, and is an important part of this Government’s local growth funding. The Department is committed to evaluating the impact of the fund, including in Northern Ireland. The UKSPF evaluation strategy is a publicly available document setting out our approach, and the Department is committed to publishing ongoing evaluation findings, as they become available.

• 20 Jan 2025 · UK Shared Prosperity Fund: Northern Ireland · Hansard source

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  I know that local authorities from Northern Ireland to Cornwall are interested to know their allocations, information about which was made available to them in recent weeks, and that some have concerns about making spending commitments. The money is there and has been committed, but my officials are working—they have had conversations directly about Cornwall—to ensure that local authorities have the confidence to make those commitments, so that we do not see 90-day redundancy notices.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Parking: Town Centres · Hansard source

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  That is a really important challenge. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley finished by saying that the issue is not peripheral, and that we need to address broader matters in terms of parking, town centre vibrancy and having a more planned approach to what the future could look like. Doubtless, there would need to be support from the Government of the day, and that message was heard very clearly. My hon. Friend made an important point, similar to the one that my hon. Friend the Member for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy (Melanie Ward) just made, about the reasons for the decline in our high streets and town centres—those obvious changing patterns of behaviour. Colleagues could easily order a book, probably several, in the time I am speaking—I am sure they would not—and that is different and is not going to go away. Times have been hard for people. Austerity has been a really difficult period for our communities and people are still struggling with the money in their pockets. All that contributes to challenges, so it behoves us to try to drive footfall and to use any levers we have to do so. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley said, parking is an important one. In her contribution, the voices of her constituents, be they businesses, long-term residents, students or leisure centre users, came into this Chamber. I hope they see that their views are being echoed, expressed and taken seriously in this place. I want to cover some of the points that my hon. Friend made, and I do not want to miss out the final contribution, from my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle). Like others, I have seen the coverage of Dudley council’s decision to scrap two hours of free parking, and I recognise the pain, the impact on motorists and the disappointment for residents and visitors that that has caused. I have seen the rally and I was sad to hear from my hon. Friend that there is a sense that the consultation was not done properly because that is an important part of conducting a process properly, even if the results are disappointing. Parking, together with effective public transport and decent active travel, is essential to the resilience of our towns and cities. However, as has been said, the provision of accessible and affordable parking is particularly important outside the major metropolitan cities and in rural communities. Where public transport is limited, people need their cars—as my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan) said.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Parking: Town Centres · Hansard source

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  I absolutely agree. It is at the heart of this Government’s approach to give communities tools to change places, and I will go through some of those at the end. There is a financial aspect to that, but there also a power aspect about shaping the things that shape the community. The debate gets to the heart of that, because parking is one of the major levers that a community has. The important point is that it is the community’s lever. Yes, it is held by the local authority, but it is the community’s lever. Fundamentally, responsibility for parking provision in town centres rests with the relevant local authority under the Traffic Management Act 2004. The accompanying statutory guidance clearly sets out that parking policies have to be proportionate and have to support town centre prosperity, and that it is for local authorities to decide how parking should support that—whether it should be free, whether it should be tariffed and for how long. Local authorities are best placed to do that, through their local transport plans and their local insight. They have to find a balance between residents, local businesses, those who live and work in an amenity and of course access for emergency services. Under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, local authorities can set their own parking tariffs. I think almost everybody will at some point set tariffs, certainly in a busy area, but they must be proportionate and should not be set at unreasonable levels. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley emphasised that the point of local parking policies is not to be revenue raisers or indeed cash cows. How a surplus is spent is prescribed under section 55 of the 1984 Act, which requires any surplus raised from parking schemes to go back into local authority-funded transport or environmental schemes—back into communities, as my hon. Friend said. Colleagues need to keep a discerning eye on that to ensure that that is really taking place, and that, crucially, communities have a voice. I and other colleagues in the Chamber have been council members. I remember wrestling with the problem of how to create that convection in Nottingham. We do not want people to come to a town centre and park there all day for work and then go home again and not contribute to the local economy. We want a turnover, but we want incentivisation as well. Colleagues have talked about the effectiveness of providing a free hour in pulling people through. There are very good examples of where that has worked. The challenge for me and for local authority colleagues who are listening to this debate is that, yes, this is a local authority function, but local authorities are their community. All our local authorities should ensure that their policies reflect the wishes and interests of the local community and that they are getting the public into the conversation—I was challenged to do this when I was a member of my local authority and I challenge mine to do so now. Local authorities must also get business into that conversation. I was surprised to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley that local businesses clearly do not feel that that has happened.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Parking: Town Centres · Hansard source

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  That is a really important intervention. I wonder whether, looking back on some of those decisions on out-of-town retail, communities would make the same decisions now as they did at the time. It is clear from my hon. Friend’s intervention that parking is a driving factor in success. To some degree the public are telling us what they want to see and we really ought to listen to them. My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley talked about broader support, particularly around vacancy. I encourage colleagues to support their local authorities in promoting the new high street rental auctions to bring those vacant units back into use. I also point to our work on safety in town centres. If we are driving footfall, people will only come, or come a second time, if they feel that they are safe. Footfall alone promotes community safety because energy and people being present deter crime and antisocial behaviour. Nevertheless, our commitment to 13,000 more police and police community support officers will have town centres at its heart, so there is that visible presence and our town centres are places where people feel safe to park their cars and shop. I want to address the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton North East about parent and child parking bays. There is no current legislative requirement in this space. I am conscious that my hon. Friend has a ten-minute rule Bill designed to change this. In the interests, as she says, of challenging colleagues—particularly male colleagues—to come up with solutions, there is a possible workaround solution using the current legislative framework. Authorities can make parking provisions for specific road users, whether residents or blue badge users—we have many examples in our own communities. Under current rules, it would be feasible for a local authority to make specific on-street bays permit holder only, and to include a permanent identifier on that sign—again, we see those in our resident schemes and in our communities—but then issue those permits only to pregnant women or parents with children. Authorities would have to justify reserving those spaces—I think my hon. Friend probably did that for them—and find a decent way to publicise where those bays are located. I expect it would probably be about those being in the right place. That is something that colleagues can raise with local authorities. It is a bit of a workaround, but in the spirit of meeting her challenge to be being solutions focused, it would be one option. I thank her for her contribution. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley again for securing this important debate. She set out clearly some of the challenges that face our town centres. At the heart of it comes footfall, and at the heart of footfall is that lever of available and affordable parking facilities. Local authorities have leadership, responsibility and stewardship of local transport plans, but fundamentally that is for the community, and should be something that reflects the needs of local residents and local businesses. Clearly, that is not happening here, and that is why my hon. Friend had to take the significant step of bringing this from the high street in Dudley all the way to Parliament. She was right to do so. It is hugely important that the communities in Dudley, Kirkcaldy, Ilford, Bolton, Southend, and all the other places we have heard from today, are heard. The subject is clearly important throughout the country and I am grateful to colleagues for raising it. Question put and agreed to.

• 14 Jan 2025 · Parking: Town Centres · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Sonia Kumar) for securing this important debate and for the powerful case that she made. It is one of the great joys of being the Minister responsible for high streets and town centres that I get to attend these debates where people talk about their communities. It is always interesting to hear the commonalities, differences, and challenges they are facing, though I might say with a degree of mischief that it is not often that such debates inspire such coverage of all the nations and regions of the UK as we have today. That is a sign that my hon. Friend is in exactly the right space.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  I could talk all day about Clement Attlee. His policies and politics were rooted in organising in the east end of London. We often forget this, but—well, the hon. Gentleman is no stranger to internal Labour party dynamics. Clement Attlee was a man of exceptional privilege, but he chose to go to the places where life was hardest. He looked at the living conditions of individuals in the east end of London and non-judgmentally sought to change them. He understood that some people had substance abuse issues—they manifested perhaps a little differently compared with today, but it is the same principle—and others had mental health or physical health issues. There was domestic abuse. We are talking about the 1930s, but it is not so different nearly 100 years on. He sought to change those things, but he never sought to divide people into worthy and unworthy people. He would never write people off. There is an important conversation at the nub of this debate: what is too much? Where is the line? What is tough love? What is an effective way of changing things? The hon. Gentleman talked about not caring where those who are evicted go. I do care, and I will address that point in a little while. There is a balance.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. Christmas may be over, but I have been visited by the ghost of Christmas future, who has shown me what my life might look like in 2030. I have to say that I would be amazed if I am still a Minister in 2030, but it would be a privilege to have had a long career serving my country. I would love that. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for securing this debate. I am in this Chamber a lot, as are a lot of other hon. Members here, and my favourite debates are not the ones in which individuals bring up very interesting issues that they are interested in— I have done that myself with things that I have a long, enduring interest in—but those that are really rooted in the lives of our constituents. This is one of those. Colleagues of different political persuasions from different parts of the UK have the same challenge, and we get a lot of correspondence about it in our mailbags. More importantly, people in our communities deal with it every day. They do the decent thing—they go to work, work hard and bring their kids up—and they do not want much other than to be able to get on with a quiet life, but they have to go home to disturbance, noise, aggression, smell or whatever it is. It is so unfair and unjust that they have to live their lives that way. It is right that the Government and the Parliament of the day believe that this issue is important and that we have a role in changing it. Antisocial behaviour is not merely a nuisance but has devastating personal consequences. It corrodes people’s freedom, makes them not want to leave the house, damages their mental health and ultimately undermines their sense of home. That is why tackling antisocial behaviour is an important priority for this Government through our safer streets mission. We have committed on the record to put thousands of neighbourhood police and police community support officers into local communities so that residents have a named officer to turn to when things go wrong. Hon. Members have talked about the existing powers, which we think need to be augmented through respect orders. We need tough sanctions and proper penalties. Crucially—this is a significant gap at the moment—we need serious and growing penalties for those who persistently offend. The hon. Member for Ashfield said that social housing is a gem, and I agree. The bedrock of my community is good, decent homes where people can grow up, go to work, thrive and live their lives. It makes it doubly painful when a small number of individuals who have this gem—this thing that many others on the waiting list would be desperate to secure—choose to perpetrate antisocial behaviour and make their neighbours’ lives a misery. It is a double insult. I will address his three strikes point a little later, but I will give a clear response on that. The hon. Member also talked about the important relationship between central Government, local government, the providers and the police. This is an all-sector approach to try to tackle these individuals and to assemble the right powers, whether through tenancies, the effectiveness of the courts, or providers themselves doing their jobs. Those are points that I will cover. Any debate that starts with Clement Attlee is a good debate. If we look around the country we can see the impact of his Labour Government and subsequent Labour Governments. Whether it is social housing, our national health service or the minimum wage, we built the basic standards that make people’s lives better and help them thrive. This Government will govern in that spirit, and I look forward to the support of the hon. Members for Ashfield and for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice).

• 8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  I totally agree with that. To continue the New York example, I think of Red Hook and the courts there: the idea was that they would not just nick people for low-level crimes, but get them through court very quickly and ensure that there were sanctions, as a proper deterrent. Sadly, we are very long way from that. One of my biggest challenges with constituents is that they fear there is no point in staying in the game with the courts system, because they are already getting hearing dates for 2026. That is a real challenge at the root of justice in this country. The issue starts with social housing providers. We would always want any issues to be nipped in the bud. If someone has done something that they should not have—had a loud party or left a bicycle in the way—then the necessary interaction should be quite an easy one, and there should be a resolution and no recurrence. That reduces antisocial behaviour. We want to see providers do that and they ought to do that. Similarly, it is right that, when preventive measures fail, landlords can move decisively and quickly to tackle tenants who persistently abuse their tenancies. There are a range of powers already on the statute book, including eviction, but again, as we know from colleagues, that process does not feel like it always works. We have had conversations with social landlords. Of course, we would emphasise that they can apply to a court to remove tenants who carry out antisocial behaviour, but the process can be very difficult. I will talk shortly about how that might be made better. It starts at allocation. There is a little bit of conversation about who gets access to social housing. Local authorities, including my own, can and do deprioritise tenants who have a history of bad behaviour. The majority—we believe it is about 75%—of local authorities undertake antisocial behaviour or other criminal behaviour-type tests ahead of allocating a social home. I suspect that colleagues may be interested in checking with their local authority whether they are in the three quarters or the quarter, because that is the front door to ensuring that those who have behaved badly in the past do not get access and the opportunity to do it again. When it comes to eviction, there are powers at the moment—the Housing Act 1985 and the Housing Act 1988—but it is difficult. The hon. Member for Boston and Skegness suggested that there should perhaps not be more legislation, but our plan is for more legislation in this space. Through the Renters Rights’ Bill, we will enable housing association landlords to make a claim to a court for repossession immediately in the most serious cases, rather than having to provide a notice period, with all the harm that can happen in those cases. We will also amend the matters that judges must consider when deciding whether to award possession under the discretionary ground. This is very important—to give judges particular regard to whether tenants have engaged with efforts to resolve their behaviour and the impact on other tenants. Often, as we know from our casework, they simply do not answer letters or let the housing patch manager in. That will be a factor in the future, which is very welcome. On the point about not being interested where people go, I am interested in that—not least because, as the crow flies, Kirkby to Bulwell is about eight or nine miles. One way or the other, either people being booted out of houses in my constituency end up in that of the hon. Member for Ashfield, or vice versa. That is why we should take an interest. If we can help people to resolve mental health issues, we should do that. If we can help people to address substance abuse issues, we should do that. We cannot pretend that, if we evict them from their housing, they suddenly will not be a problem elsewhere. I do not think that is the case, which is why we must take an interest and want to reduce reoffending and improve and promote rehabilitation. My particular issue with the three strikes point is the rigidity. I would be very clear with my local authority that, if someone set their neighbour’s car on fire or attacked them, or was the organiser and perpetrator of a drugs network from their social house, one strike should be plenty. I would also say that, in a case where perhaps a lone parent is doing the best they can do, and they have a child who is clearly struggling and showing bad behaviours, I would try to solve that problem before thinking that shifting them out of their house would help rather than hinder. The three strikes system is not flexible enough, and I fear it is at risk of being weaponised. We will have situations where we see both neighbours in the constituency surgery. If there is a hard and fast rule, and someone knows they only have to get three complaints found against their neighbour and they are out, it might promote that type of activity.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  That is why we are making changes within the Renters’ Rights Bill. In those cases, the neighbours must tear their hair out and wonder what has to happen for the right thing to be done. I am conscious of the time remaining, but I wanted to mention our approach to antisocial behaviour and policing more generally, because we must have neighbourhood police back on the street. We have lost neighbourhood policing in this country. The shadow Minister talked about the importance of tackling low-level crime. We have essentially decriminalised retail crime in this country. We have seen an explosion in it, with all that misery. We must have the proper policing resource to get into that space. That is why the Prime Minister announced on 5 December, through our plan for change, our zero-tolerance approach to antisocial behaviour and, critically, our 13,000 more police and police community support officers. They are named contacts, working on antisocial behaviour action plans with local communities and using new tools, such as the respect orders, to ensure that individuals doing the wrong thing are tackled about their behaviour. There is a straight line across that. After 13 years of talking to people about problems with their neighbours, my first question—I really cross my fingers behind my back—is whether their neighbour is a private or a social housing tenant. It is much easier with a social housing tenant, because there tend to be behaviour contracts and a legislative framework. If I have to chase a private landlord who might not live in Nottingham—I cannot believe anyone would not, but if not, or if they lived in Derby, for example—or even in Britain, that becomes really hard. We need broader tools that go beyond the ones with which we could work with social housing providers. That will be in our crime and policing Bill in this Session. To conclude, I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield for securing this important debate and all hon. Members for their contributions to it. We are alive to the issue, and that is why we are acting through the Renters Rights’ Bill and have the policing and crime Bill to come. We are interested in hearing people’s ideas. We will always engage with them properly. I have given a sense today of the direction in which we are going, and I look forward to working with colleagues in the future.

• 8 Jan 2025 · Social Housing Tenants: Antisocial Behaviour · Hansard source

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  I totally agree with that, and I have that conversation with my constituents. I was the shadow Policing Minister before the election, and I saw the Policing Minister and Home Secretary at the time, both of whom I hold in high regard, tearing their hair out over this question. As the hon. Gentleman says, we have employed more police officers than ever before; we have cut them and then we have added them back. Why are people not happier? The reality is that the funding mechanism squeezed out civilian staff, so that we now have 10,000 fewer police officers in frontline roles. There have never been more police officers—6,000 in this case—sat behind desks, doing things that they were not trained for and that their skills are wasted on. We have to change that, and getting 13,000 more police and police community support officers is part of our neighbourhood policing guarantee.