Clive Betts (10045)
This page contains possible times in debates that Clive Betts may have disclosed an interest.
This match is loose and is likely to include false positives.
2024-01-31: Match score 75%
I also declare my interest as vice-president of the Local Government Association
2024-01-31: Match score 67%
I am listening to the Minister reading out a list of the things that the commission is obliged to do by law anyway, so why he has to restate them in this paper, I do not know. The clear advice to the Committee and to the Speaker’s Committee was that if certain items were identified as priorities for the commission, other things would per se be of lesser priority. For example, overseas voter registration is a priority, but the registration of voters in this country, where 8 million people are not on the register, is not listed as a priority. This skews the work of the Electoral Commission, whether the Minister likes it or not.
2023-10-23: Match score 66%
One of the really good ideas is the property portal, so that tenants and all of us know who the landlords are. We have suggested some changes and some improvements, on which I think the Secretary of State will come back to us, to make sure that the property portal is comprehensive. It should cover things such as when the property last had a gas safety certificate and when the electrical systems in the house were properly inspected, and information of that kind, including whether it complies with the decent homes standard. All those things are important, and tenants should be able to access that quickly. The registers should be updated and digitised, which we are encouraging the Secretary of State to do. We hope he will come back positively on that.
2024-02-07: Match score 65%
Let me begin by thanking a few people. The shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), referred to the report “Financial distress in local authorities”, which the Select Committee published last week and on which I made a statement in the House last Thursday. I want to thank the staff of the Committee and our special advisers for all the work that they did in helping to put the report together: it was much appreciated. I also want to thank the Local Government Association—I declare my interest as a vice-president—for all that it does for local government throughout the year, and for helping us and advising us on the challenges that local government is facing, not least with regard to finances.
2024-07-17: Match score 62%
As my hon. Friend is aware, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee published a report in the last Parliament proposing exactly that. We went to look at the system in Canada, which gets near to 97% or 98% registration accuracy. Some 8 million people could not vote in our election because they were not on the electoral register. We need to address that.
2023-12-11: Match score 61%
Returning to onerous ground rents, the Select Committee took counsel’s opinion, which was quite interesting, and made recommendations in paragraphs 114 to 116 of our report. There were two clear arguments why removing onerous ground rents from leases retrospectively was completely compatible with the European convention on human rights. The first, which most of us may not have thought about, is that controlling or changing rent is not confiscation of property but control of its use, so it does not conflict with the article on removing people’s property rights. Secondly, the convention includes a justification where the proposal has a wider beneficial impact on society, which can be offset against any impact on the property owner. Counsel’s opinion was that it was therefore perfectly justifiable under the European convention to remove onerous ground rents on existing properties.