Speeches by Pennycook.

“I struggle with your assertion that Natural England would make that judgment without availing themselves of and finding out, on the basis of scientific evidence, as we have clarified through one of our amendments—”

“No, we are moving away. In some ways, I struggle to see how people fail to grasp this. What we are doing here is to move away, very deliberately, from an approach that is based on site-by-site assessment and obligations, to a more strategic approach. It is Natural England’s job to put that plan forward and the Secretar…”

“As I said—to re-emphasise my previous point—it is for Natural England to make a judgment, across the EDP area, on the basis of scientific evidence. I refer to some of the amendments that I have already spoken about.”

“The negative effect in what respect?”

“I am more than happy to. There is the £14 million it has been allocated to start things up and the fact that the scheme runs on a cost recovery basis as it begins to get up and running. We can go into all of the resourcing questions, but at the heart of who we are asking to make these judgments about what the appropria…”

“It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. Alongside our commitment to delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation, the Government are determined to drive a transformational and lasting change in the safety and quality of social housing. By ensuring that ten…”

“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) (Amendment) (Extension to the Social Rented Sector) Regulations 2025.”

“It would not be a debate of any kind with my hon. Friend present were he not to take the opportunity to get Harlow on the record. He is a doughty champion for his constituency and I recognise the concern that he raises. The importance of these regulations is that requirements that already apply to the private rented se…”

“I thank the shadow Minister for his broad support for the regulations and their intention, and for his questions. Again, before I address his specific points, I express my gratitude to Awaab’s family for their tireless campaigning in reaching this point—and, it should be said, to all the organisations and campaigners t…”

“If I understand what you are driving at, I think it is less whether they are able to apply into the funds and more inherent problems about land values and viability, which may be ruling out some of the specific projects people are applying for from accessing those funds. Each bid has to be taken as to whether it offers…”

“Forgive me for saying, but you are conflating two entirely separate issues. We were clear in the November WMS that we would look to consult on the 2024 Act’s provisions on service charges and legal costs, bringing those into force as quickly as possible thereafter. The reason we are consulting is that, as you will see …”

“I would say generally, Chair, as you would expect, with a Government who are determined to fix our broken housing market, of course we are going to reflect on incidents such as this. You will see, for example, in the long-term housing strategy that is forthcoming, precisely the ways in which we want to address aspects …”

“Could I bring Jo and Will in on civil service involvement first?”

“What do I say to that question? It would be our intention to avoid making any announcements immediately before the recess. On the other hand, I have been pressed on several occasions during this Committee to get on with it. If there are sensible changes that we can bring forward when Parliament is sitting, rather than …”

“There are probably two things to say here, and I will bring Will in on this point. We made significant changes to the NPPF last year. We are not going to revisit any of the key changes that we made then. There is an exercise in terms of bringing forward this new suite of national policies for decision making about thei…”

“It is not the case that non-mayoral areas cannot access grant funding through programmes such as the brownfield, infrastructure and land fund or the housing infrastructure fund. They do have access to apply for those. It will obviously depend on whether the particular application in question is judged to be value for m…”

“I am not able to share my thinking today. We did commit to consult on national policies for decision making this year. We will do so. Going back to our original conversation about the various elements that get us to that 1.5 million new homes target, we think this, again, is another reform that will be incredibly impac…”

“I think we said by the summer. There will be a slight delay to that. There is good reason for that, in terms of awaiting the outcome of the hearing. The hearing is a serious matter, but, as I say, I want leaseholders to know that, while they are not represented in the hearing personally, and I know lots of leasehold gr…”

“We do intend to consult on valuation rates. It is really important—again, there was extensive debate on this in the Bill Committee when I was the shadow Minister scrutinising the legislation—that we get these rates right. They are used to calculate the cost of enfranchisement premiums, and they will determine how much …”

“No, I do not in any way take issue and I am not surprised by the lack of trust. You are absolutely right that leaseholders have been let down on multiple occasions by previous Governments who committed to far-reaching reform and then did not enact it. Leaseholders should judge us by our works at the end of this Parliam…”