Speeches by Pennycook.

“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…”

“I would not fundamentally—let me phrase it differently. I am not going to sit here and propose a new height threshold for the BSR. We inherited many regulations across the board from the previous Government. Our focus is ensuring that the BSR is operating effectively. As I say, it is balancing that requirement to ensur…”

“It is a good question. You are right to draw attention to the fact that the Building Safety Regulator, to the extent that it is impacting on the supply of new high-rise buildings across the country, is affecting particular parts of the country more acutely than others, for obvious reasons. There are usually more high-r…”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“I would strongly take issue with your assertion that we are not giving equal focus to quality and safety as we are to supply. I think the actions we have taken to date would attest to that. We are consulting on minimum energy efficiency standards and an upgraded and modernised decent homes standard. We are laying the r…”

“Our feedback from the sector is that, if local authorities knew that they were not going to lose these units from their stock, they would have much more of an incentive to build more.”

“To that point, the further reforms we are proposing to right to buy are set out in detail in the written ministerial statement I issued to the House recently. They are part of how we will ensure that we are net positive on social rented housing supply and in a sustainable way, absolutely. They will help better protect …”

“We are doing things differently, Chair. I think I have evidenced that we are doing things differently.”

“This is precisely why we have taken a sequenced approach to implementing Awaab’s law, to ensure that the sector can manage it and that, for example, responding to Awaab’s law cases does not completely consume the repairs and maintenance departments of all local authorities. We are confident that the sector can implemen…”

“The whole point of Awaab’s law is that, if landlords do not meet these requirements, residents will be able to hold them to account by taking legal action through the courts. It imposes a very hard fixed time period for responses to hazards such as damp and mould. This is a significant intervention. We have laid the re…”

“You tempt me into giving you a timeline and I cannot give you one. We want to see those locations made public, and the Government’s response and how we intend to proceed made public, as soon as possible. We have no reason to hold back.”

“We are planning to release it with a government response alongside, and we will do that in a sensible timeframe after the report is delivered to us.”

“What is my definition of British summer? Is there not a well‑understood, well‑recognised definition of summer? I would have hoped so. I understand the appetite for seeing the report delivered to the Department, Mr Curtis, but I cannot give you a commitment here today that Sir Michael will deliver it on Mo…”

“We are expecting them, as we have consistently said, to submit their final report in the summer.”

“No.”

“Yes, as an example of a local authority that is not taking the West Berkshire approach to reimburse residents.”

“You are right that some councils have given refunds. West Berkshire is a good example of one that has chosen to take that path. There are two things to say. First, a series of households across the country have been very badly hit by this. It is very clear to us that the CIL regulations in question are not intended to …”

“That was a series of very pertinent but, in some ways, technical questions. Starting with CIL, it is a discretionary charge locally led by local planning authorities. That is why the main data is locally driven and published, including through the legal requirements that are in place to publish infrastructure funding s…”

“I would add to that in the sense of reinforcing what Will said, in that every planning application decision is a decision by the decision maker, or PINS on appeal, as to planning judgment in the round, based on material considerations where national policy has significant weight. The other thing I would add is—and we t…”