Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
160-179)
RT HON
HAZEL BLEARS
MP, RT HON
MARGARET BECKETT
MP AND RT
HON JOHN
HEALEY MP
27 OCTOBER 2008
Q160 Mr Betts: Can I just raise one
issue which I raised with the permanent secretary last week which
you might look at in the shorter term because it is fairly immediate?
In many of the Decent Homes programmes if the heating system is
working and not about to break down then it has not been replaced
for obvious reasons. The difficulty is that if you have a heating
system which is 15 years old you are probably actually burning
a lot more money than you need compared with a brand new heating
system. Someone who was a private tenant or owner/occupier who
was a pensioner on DLA could go to Warm Front and get a grant
probably for the total cost of that replacement. Someone in social
housing—an ALMO tenant like my constituents—has not
got an option, they have simply got to stick with the old heating
system until it breaks down. Is that something we could have a
look at in the shorter term, bearing in mind the real problem
of energy prices that people are facing at present?
Margaret Beckett: I hear what
you say and I am very mindful of the fact that there is this apparent
inequity and in particular that some of those who may be experiencing
it are among some of the most vulnerable.
Q161 Mr Betts: Absolutely.
Margaret Beckett: It is not an
easy problem to resolve as I am sure the Committee is well aware.
Mr Betts: Could we at least have an indication
that someone will look at it because I think there are many people
who simply do not understand this winter that while they are having
to put up with an old antiquated heating system the person next
door, if they live in a council house who have bought their house
or who has now become a private tenant as someone who previously
bought, can actually get access to funding to get the heating
replaced. People do not understand it on grounds of fairness and
equity.
Q162 John Cummings: Can you at least
indicate why there is this problem?
Margaret Beckett: It is quite
simply that it is a totally different set of funding. Local authorities
are funded to do Decent Homes and all of that and the Warm Front
budget is specifically a separate budget geared to the private
sector.
Q163 John Cummings: I understand
that, but where does the difficulty lie? Where does the equity
lie?
Margaret Beckett: That is a different
matter. There is a lack of equity from the point of view of the
individual I accept. However, as I think this Committee will be
very conscious, there is funding for what local authorities do
and for Decent Homes and the Warm Front programme is a totally
different set of circumstances for those who do not have access
to those funds which come via local authorities.
Q164 John Cummings: I am sure you
are aware, Minister, that we have some very long-standing, excellent
council properties where they are still waiting. Where is the
equity in it? When are the people in command going to get their
heads together and recognise where the problem is and correct
it?
Margaret Beckett: Well, £29
billion has been spent on local authority and social housing in
order to bring it up to scratch and some £40 billion in total
we expect to be committed. Unfortunately it takes time.
Chair: Jim, would you like to move onto
Home Information Packs?
Q165 Mr Dobbin: Controversial when
they were introduced, does the Department think Home Information
Packs have been successful?
Margaret Beckett: As a matter
of fact, given all the abuse that Home Information Packs have
faced, yes I do think they have been much more successful than
anyone is giving them credit for. That does not mean that they
are fulfilling their potential and as I expect the Committee is
aware we did consult over the summer whether there are improvements
we can make in the fairly short term through the provision of
a property information questionnaire and we shall be looking at
that. However, the evidence seems to suggest that they have not,
as had originally been predicted, distorted the housing market;
they have resulted in the reduction in the cost of searches; they
have resulted in many cases in a reduction in the time that is
taken for that chunk of preparatory work before a house sale takes
place. So I do think that even given their limitations they have
had somewhat of a beneficial impact, certainly far more than any
of us predicted. I fully accept that they are perhaps not the
perfect vehicle one might wish to see.
Q166 Chair: Given the huge changes
that have occurred in the housing market due to the other factors
we all know about, how is it possible to come to any conclusion
one way or the other as to whether Home Information Packs affect
the housing market? They must be an incredibly minor factor compared
with the credit crunch.
Margaret Beckett: That is precisely
the point. We have had a couple of independent assessments from
outside the Department totally and insofar as there is evidence
it is, as you say, an absolute drop in the ocean; they do not
affect the housing market. However, there is also a certain amount
of evidence first of all that they have begun to cut short search
time, they have assisted in getting people to gather information
and, although it is very early days of course, there is some evidence
in the private sector that some providers are actually looking
themselves to make this a feature of the offer that they make
to their customers and looking to build on HIPs in terms of the
package of support that they offer to individual customers. It
is turning into something with a little bit of innovation around
it but I completely accept, compared to the other changes that
are happening in the housing market, it is minuscule.
Q167 Anne Main: Can I pick you up
on this, Minister, because in a really hard-pressed housing market
we are talking about £300 which is added to the cost of buying
and selling houses because most buyers are sellers as discussed
last time. There has been £4.9 million spent marketing this
because people are not even aware of them; £300 spent and
we were told last week about a £30 approximate saving. It
does not seem a good deal at all for anyone involved as a hard
pressed buyer or seller at the moment in the housing market. Why
do we not just scrap them? Given that we have heard that the stamp
duty holiday is not really going to be a holiday for anyone because
nobody is buying and selling anything, why do we not scrap the
HIPs as well?
Margaret Beckett: First of all
because they are a potential measure of real consumer protection,
although I accept they are not working to the full extent that
they could. Secondly because a saving is still a saving and thirdly
because the bulk of the cost is the Energy Performance Certificate
which people are required by law to have. The rest of it is cost
they would be incurring anyway. So if we abandoned HIPs tomorrow
it would not save very much even on any individual transaction.
In the longer term I think they have more potential.
Q168 Anne Main: One of the biggest
concerns given that there has been one sale per month in some
areas is that HIPs will be bought and actually become outdated
before a buyer ever goes through the door of a potential property
he wishes to buy.
Margaret Beckett: I do accept
that that is an area of concern. As I am sure the Committee is
aware, once a HIP has been prepared of course that remains valid
while that house is on the market. It is only after some time
that the question of it having to be updated will come into play.
Of course that is an issue that we are looking at with the relevant
authorities.
Q169 Anne Main: In a stagnant housing
market is there not an argument to suspend HIPs?
Margaret Beckett: No, I do not
think there is any point in suspending HIPs. From the point of
view of the housing market as a whole they have almost no impact.
Their potential, as the housing market improves particularly,
is to give the kind of package of consumer information and support
that I would have thought any of us would want. It is a horrendous
thing. I think probably most people round this table have bought
a house at least once in their lives; it is a nightmare for very
many people. It is the biggest purchase they will ever make and
the consumer bodies actually do believe that this has good potential.
I do not think this is the time to abandon it.
Anne Main: I do not think they said that
last week. They said to us that actually it did not influence
decisions: 76% said that a HIP made no impact on a decision to
buy. I would suggest, Minister, that your optimism is not shared.
Chair: Can we move onto flooding?
Q170 Mr Dobbin: Yes, I think we have
saturated that. Flooding and the trauma that goes with flooding
is a great concern and we have had some severe flooding across
the country. My own constituency suffered two severe bouts over
14 months but it is in a flood plain. Do you regret not having
introduced stricter controls in building in the flood plains much
earlier?
Hazel Blears: That probably covers
all of our responsibilities in these terms. I think what we have
tried to do with our planning policy guidance is to be more aware
of the risks of flooding than we were previously. I think everybody
accepts with the way that the climate is changing the issue of
flooding is going to become more of a problem as the years go
by and therefore what we have to ensure is that when we are looking
at planning policies we are actually making the right decisions.
That does not mean that we never build on the flood plain because
if we were to do that I think ten per cent of the country's houses
are already on flood plains, so we cannot be in a position where
we have a simple blanket ban. However PPG 25 that now covers this
area says that in the first instance we should try to avoid building
on the flood plains. If we have to do that then there has to be
a rigorous examination by the Environment Agency of what the risks
are and the planning decision is only taken in the full knowledge
of those circumstances. What we are trying to do when planners
are thinking about these issues, when developers are thinking
about these issues, is that we get a risk assessment approach
recognising that we do need these new homes and we have to build
them somewhere in the country; we want to minimise the prospect
of people going through the kind of trauma you have talked about
in relation to their homes.
Q171 Mr Dobbin: Was the Department
shocked when the Pitt Review highlighted the fact that many people
did not even know they were living on a flood plain?
Hazel Blears: I think it has been
quite a serious issue and in a way it goes back a little bit to
the Home Information Packs and whether or not you have a flood
search when you are thinking about purchasing a home. In previous
years it has not really been that much of a relevant consideration.
I remember when I was doing conveyancing for people a long time
ago before I came to this House, quite often if you were in an
area of former coal mining you would do a coal mining search as
a matter of course. I think that flood searches have not necessarily
been in people's minds to the extent that probably in the future
they are going to need to be. Increasingly I think people are
undertaking flood searches as part of this property information
questionnaire to be able to see what is the risk, have places
been flooded previously and therefore again they can make informed
decisions in the full knowledge of the situation in their area.
I think it is a relatively new phenomenon; we have always had
some flooding but I think probably it is a problem that is going
to be with us more extensively and more regularly in future years.
John Healey: Our experience of
last summer's floods suggested that two-thirds of the flooding
last summer was actually surface run-off which is not easily predicted,
was often in areas which had not experienced floods before and
not necessarily in flood plains. Our ability to understand the
nature of flood catchment areas and river catchment areas, our
ability also to invest in defences is partly the answer for the
future, but clearly we are looking at the potential for less stable
more severe weather conditions. I think there are a number of
lessons which the work that Sir Michael Pitt has done helped draw
out that the Government will be responding to fully very shortly.
Q172 Mr Dobbin: So in actual fact
here is a use for the Home Information Packs. Are you actually
saying that this kind of information concerning the risks of flooding
might well be included in the HIPs?
Hazel Blears: I think it is certainly
something to consider because when people are making these decisions—as
Margaret said probably the biggest investment that they make in
their lives—then I think access to the fullest possible
information is important for them to be able to make an informed
decision about that going forward. How we might formalise that
obviously is a matter for consideration. As I say, in the past
it was only areas we knew there was a problem, such as coal mining
areas where you would do a coal mining search. It is again a matter
of risk. You do not want people to be undertaking unnecessary
searches because we then end up with the criticism that we are
asking people to pay extra money for something that is not of
real value to them. We need to get it right and proportionate
and I think if a place has been flooded on several previous occasions
then they need to know those circumstances.
Q173 Mr Dobbin: How successful do
you think the Department's coordination across government was
in handling the flood episode? Are there lessons to be learned?
John Healey: Pitt's view was that
the collaboration led by the team we rapidly set up in DCLG across
government departments, but also with agencies at a regional level
and with local authorities, was part of the reason that he felt
and some local authorities felt that the period of necessary support
during the early days and then continuing through the recovery
period was well managed, it was well coordinated and we were ready
to respond rapidly and the additional funding that we put in place
for local authorities leading that front line recovery effort
was flexible enough that the very different circumstances in different
areas could be dealt with without us prescribing necessarily exactly
how the money needed to be spent.
Q174 Mr Betts: In terms of the issues
of coordination and trying to stop flooding, I think we generally
support Pitt's approach. The Environment Agency has a strategic
role, the local authorities have a particular role in their own
areas and hopefully government can get public bodies to work together.
My concern is—and I have a particular constituency issue
here—how then do we make sure that bodies like Yorkshire
Water also come and play their part? I have constituents in Woodhouse
Lane in Beighton who did not just get flooded once last year,
they got flooded twice in three weeks, the second time they had
sewerage as well as water. Yorkshire Water, despite the local
authority saying they thought they ought to take action for the
future, absolutely refused to accept any responsibility or any
liability; they blamed the Environment Agency and the local authority
and although they accepted it was their sewage they say it was
not their fault that it got there. How do we make sure that bodies
like Yorkshire Water actually comply with government requirements?
John Healey: In two ways: the
first has already happened in light of the lessons that we and
everybody has been able to draw from last summer and that is it
is clear that water companies and gas and electricity companies
do have certain duties as responders in emergencies. They also
have certain duties under the Civil Contingencies Act and their
role within the planning forums regionally and locally to put
in place proper protection that means that if there is any threat
in a locale then they are part of not just preparing for that
but responding to it. I think that is much clearer. We saw both
in the concern over tidal surges in East Anglia in November a
readiness to respond and action from some of the utilities that
I do not think we saw in the summer as a result of the lessons
we learned. We saw some of the same improved preparation and readiness
to respond very recently in the North East when parts of Northumberland
were flooded as well. I think those are the improvements that
we have seen since last summer. The final part of this is that
you are quite right to say that we need to make it much clearer
who is responsible for what. The proposed Floods and Water Bill
will give us the primary legislation to set up that framework
to give the Environment Agency a stronger strategic overview,
to give local authorities also the powers that they may need to
make sure that many of the maintenance works are properly carried
out and recover the funds for that in local areas, again drawing
very much from the lessons of last summer. As I said to the Committee
a moment ago, two-thirds of our problems were caused by surface
run-off and heavy rainfall simply overwhelming the drainage systems.
Q175 Mr Dobbin: I was going to bring
up the very issue that Clive has just raised because I think,
as local members of Parliament, we probably have experienced much
of this and I could not get sense out of any of the agencies whether
it be the Environment Agency or the utilities or the local authority
until I got them all in the same room. When I got them all in
the same room they could not point their finger at each other.
I think that really highlights what needs to come out of this
whole flooding issue. The other problem really was the lack of
regulation on new developments, building small developments feeding
into the existing drainage system which cannot take the volume.
So there are areas there that need to be addressed by all of this
as well. My view is that planning departments should also have—I
suppose we are moving towards that—planning experts in climate
change so that they are able to make risk assessments on new developments
and all sorts of things.
Hazel Blears: I think this is
a very relevant point that you make. I think we need to be better
at looking ahead and anticipating some of the changes that are
going to happen as a result of climate change. This affects every
bit of our business, to be honest, whether it is planning, local
government, housing, whatever we are doing. One of the measures
that has recently been brought forward is to make sure that when
people concrete over their front gardens they actually use materials
that are permeable so that water can get through. We had a really
big problem with people just concreting over their hard standing
in order to park their cars and that meant that you got excess
surface run-off water because the water did not have anywhere
to go to. So it is thinking through new approaches through the
planning system. That is a simple example but I think we need
to be much more aware of the implications of climate change for
every bit of business that we do.
Q176 Mr Dobbin: I have a couple of
questions on funding. The Audit Commission analysis of the flooding
was made available to local authorities. Does the Department agree
with the outcomes of the Audit Commission's report on the planning
issues?
John Healey: It depends which
bits of the Audit Commission's report that you point to, to be
quite honest. It was a useful report, it looked at a limited number
of the authorities most hit at the time. It said that the cost
to those authorities was high but manageable not least because
government had put in a substantial level of assistance and they
had made the provision necessary in terms of contingencies and
reserves. It also seemed to suggest that somehow there needed
to be a single scheme for helping with the costs that local authorities
might incur in dealing with floods or recovering from floods.
I do not accept that and did not accept it at the time. I think
our experience and our track record over the last year have demonstrated
that because the impact and what is necessary to deal with the
emergency and recovery is so different in different areas, the
risk of having a single scheme I think introduces an inflexibility
into it and one only needs to look at the two areas either side
of my own local authority in Rotherham, all of us were hit in
South Yorkshire. There were a lot of homes and schools flooded
in areas of Doncaster so there was a lot of money from our Department
and from the schools department but nothing from the Department
for Transport, whereas on the other side in Sheffield where they
also had homes that were hit and a limited number of schools that
were hit there was money from both, but there was also a requirement
for roads and bridges from the Department for Transport which
totalled about £9.5 million. You have to be able to respond
as a government to the very different circumstances and costs
that local authorities are part of dealing with.
Q177 Mr Dobbin: So you disagree with
the Audit Commission's point of view but is it the Department's
intention to make their scheme clear?
John Healey: The short answer
is yes, there is more that we can do and we are preparing some
work because Pitt encouraged us to do this, to make the principles
of how government may respond in these sorts of circumstances.
The Audit Commission's report which was in January this year might
have led some to suggest that what you needed was a single scheme
and our experience of dealing with last summer's floods suggests
that that would be too inflexible and risk not giving local authorities
in local areas the sort of support they may need to recover fully.
Chair: Can we move onto the Fire and
Rescue Service, Andrew?
Q178 Andrew George: I just have one
question before that. I am still not clear as to whether you have
accepted the Pitt recommendation that developers should meet the
full costs of building and maintaining the defences necessary
in order to protect new properties which are built in areas which
are bound to be subject to flood risk.
Hazel Blears: Obviously we will
be responding to all the recommendations in the Pitt report in
full and there are still discussions going on in relation to some
of those recommendations, not least the points raised by Mr Dobbin
in terms of making sure the system for payment is simpler; I thought
that was a very good point. In terms of PPS 25 I think we have
actually struck the right balance in that it is a much tougher
planning regime than was previously the case; it acknowledges
much more explicitly the dangers of flood risk and seeks to get
development in the right place. The first point in PPS 25 is that
you do not build in places that are likely to be flooded. If you
have to, then you have to have a very rigorous assessment from
the Environment Agency and my personal experience of the Agency
is that they are very determined to play a significant role in
these decisions. The aim is to protect people as far as we can
but I think, Mr George, you would also admit that in this country,
because of our geography and our demographics, simply to say that
we never ever build another property in a place that could be
flooded would be unrealistic. What we have to try to do is minimise
people's exposure to that. In relation to the specific recommendations
we will be responding very shortly.
John Healey: Could I just say
that this Committee has always been very interested in the progress
of getting families that were flooded back into their homes and
I said I would try to keep the Committee up-to-date on that. We
are doing some further work at the moment with the ABI and local
authorities to try to get to the bottom of the figures that we
last collected. I hope to publish those soon; I will let the Committee
have that information directly. What we can say is that we estimate
of those flooded last summer around about a thousand are not yet
fully back into their own homes. That is around one in twenty
of the 17,000 that were forced out of their homes last summer.
That compares, 15 months on, relatively well with our experience
in Carlisle on a much smaller scale where one in ten were not
back even after 18 months.
Q179 Andrew George: Moving onto FiReControl,
one of the aims was to make a major saving; to what extent will
that saving be achieved?
Hazel Blears: There were a number
of aims of FiReControl one of them was to make savings in the
original estimates. I think the overriding aim of FiReControl
was to institute a major change from 47 separate control centres
to nine regional control centres and primarily to increase resilience
of those control centres and, in particular, to try to face some
of the difficulties we have just been discussing: the response
of fire and rescue to floods, to major industrial accidents like
Bunsfield, to terrorism attacks that we have experienced. The
primary motivation of the FiReControl programme was not simply
to save money; the primary motivation was to have a much better
system than enables all the control centres to interact with each
other and provide a national resilience system for the whole of
the country. Having said that, Mr George, you are right in that
the initial business case that came forward in July 2007 predicated
£23 million of savings and our latest business case which
has come forward in July this year estimates around £7.7
million of savings, so those savings have gone down but that was
never the primary purpose. I can go on and give you a lot more
numbers because, like Margaret here, my head is full of numbers
on FiReControl as well. Some of those savings are national savings;
some of them are regional. You are absolutely right that the original
assumptions that were made about the savings, as in a lot of these
cases, once tested those assumptions have not proved to be what
was initially said and in fact they are now some way from that.
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