Live webchat with Grant Shapps, local government and housing minister, Tues 7 Dec, 2.30pm - 3.30pm

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're very pleased that our webchat guest on Tues 7 Dec is local government and housing minister Grant Shapps. He has recently been in the news over homeowners' rights and the government's social housing policy.

On Mon 6 Dec, he's setting out how the government intends to put more power into the hands of local councillors. Part of this is that the govt wants to encourage women, particularly mothers of school-age children, to consider becoming councillors. Grant would like to know what you think about becoming a local councillor? Are there any obstacles to you doing so? If you're already a councillor, what are your experiences, and what do you think are the opportunities for women in local government?

Grant is the MP for Welwyn Hatfield, he's married with three children - a boy aged nine and six-year-old twins.

Hope you can join him on Tues, 1.30pm-2.30pm. But if you can't and you have a question or comment, please post it here.

I know, Hully. I know. It's just so bloody depressing, isn't it?

Still, the Localisation Bill will be their monkey's paw won't it? Or at least, I fervently hope so.

Rotten boroughs, the undeserving poor. We really are being governed by the New Victorians, aren't we? But without their social conscience or thirst for improvement.

Yes, Thank you very much, Justine - and Geraldine. It was good to get him on here. And Geraldine, how you managed to type that email from him earlier, I'll never know. I really don't think it helped him get off on the right foot...

NotAnother. It was my first real webchat and, don't know about you but I just couldn't keep up with the soundbites. It's a shame as I'd have so much more respect for him if he'd really answered as a human being, rather than all these vague wafts of manifestoguff.

And Policywonk, if you ever do want to plan our campaign for local councillorship throw shoes at our MPs/eat cake , do PM me.

Pleeese tell us, Geraldine, just how round and wide your eyes were as you posted his pre-chat missive, and whether you muttered anything about there being 'tears before bedtime mark my words'.

Well, I bet he enjoyed that immensely, and Tory HQ will be sending loads more victims ministers to discuss policy with us. :)

Such a shame I couldn't be there to laugh at chat with him personally.

GS: 'Thanks for your question. The answer is that we won't be deleting the green belt from here in Whitehall any more. We think that Instead we're going to leave these matters in local hands and in rural areas people will be able to make their own decisions about whether a few more homes in their own village would be a better use of space.'

Translation: 'We don't want to take the flak for unpopular decisions, so we're going to throw you to the dogs (developers) and watch them tear you and your community apart.'

There are some decisions that need a longer perspective than someone in the village shop thinking that some new homes will be good for business.

GS: 'They'll have to have a refendum about it and can only go ahead if they secure the support of other villagers.'

Translation: See above

GS: 'Also the developments will be small scale in nature.'

Says who? What real safeguards are there?

This is another thread, I know.

Feel really sad now. Thing is, mustn't let him split up the existing tenants from the prospective ones with his bogus reassurances. We are all in this together, and we do need to stick together.

Thanks for responding only you didn't quite make it clear whether you wish to keep prices stable and high or make them more rational?

I take it you really mean that you do wish to keep them artificially high because that looks like what you said

however if you control reckless lending and correct the need to be 37 (as per your post etc etc) then something has to give and it looks like it's going to be house prices.

High house prices help no one you know they create an illusion of wealth whilst transferring money from poor to rich and young to old

OK
I have a question for some on here.

Surely a cap on HB wont affect social tenants? The current LHA level is pretty generous, as others have posted there are landlords on here whose business model is based on charging exactly what the cap is and very profitable it is too in a lot of areas.
How would you overcome this?

Would it help to pay the rent direct to the landlords thereby 'encouraging' more to consider DSS tenants? Could even be tied in to the state of the property then too

I am concerned about devolving local green belt planning I'm sure lots of people on here know of instances where the local council approved some dodgy and unpopular housing schemes.

How would you deal with our local case where local councillors have suddenly decided to create priority school admission areas which magically include their house? difficult one surely having such a potentially huge financial conflict of interest should mean that they can't partake in that decision?

Well no surprises that Mr Shapps didn't answer my question or address any of the concerns in my pre-amble...

madamimadam - love your description of the Localism Bill as the ConDems "monkey's paw". I hope so too. They have been blaming the delay on the release of the details on the parliamentary timetable but my guess is there's a battle raging in Whitehall as beleaguered civil servants try to tell their political masters that their proposals are contradictory, won't translate into robust legislation, and are quite simply mad in many respects.

Take the bits so far released about Planning:

"Householders! No more need to apply for planning permission to build your ugly extension! You go right ahead and build whatever you like!"

"Neighbours! No more need to go through the planning system to object to ugly extensions! You can just stop them by complaining!"

Erm...

ilovecrisps - yes your councillors need to declare a personal and prejudicial interest if they are going to personally benefit from any decisions like the one you cite, and they should not take part in any debate, or the subsequent vote. One of my colleagues has recently had to absent themselves from votes concerning the possible closure of a nursery attended by their child.

If you think your councillors are not behaving in a transparent and honest manner, you should take this up with the Standards & Complaints department of your local authority and make a formal complaint. This kind of bent, self-serving behaviour gives us all a bad name.

PS I have to confess to pmsl when Grant (or his aide) said "Hi ilovecrisps"

Ah, Planning, as soon as I posted that I thought 'No-one else is going to have read it. And Mr S's aide will think Saki's a drink.' I do wonder how much longer the govt can spout this claptrap about getting us all involved in politics when people up and down the country at this very moment are 'putting change in their hands' protesting about tuition fees.

The planning points you've mentioned sound bananas. It's going to be a real mess, isn't it? I don't envy you one bit

He should have taken up your suggestion about 'democracy leave', too. If his proposals had an ounce of sincerity, they'd go for that.

And I really, really wish they did want to improve our local communities. Might as well wish for the moon on a stick.

"OK have a question for some on here.

Surely a cap on HB wont affect social tenants? The current LHA level is pretty generous, as others have posted there are landlords on here whose business model is based on charging exactly what the cap is and very profitable it is too in a lot of areas.
How would you overcome this?

Would it help to pay the rent direct to the landlords thereby 'encouraging' more to consider DSS tenants? Could even be tied in to the state of the property then too"

The LHA level is currently set at 50% of median rents. This is to be downgraded to 30%. In London (not all of London, but a lot, and certainly central), this will mean that the LHA falls well below private rents, thus making HB tenants even less attractive than now.

This, coupled with the change in legislation so that HB is paid to the tenant and therefore there are frequently large arrears accrued, makes them singulalry unattractive to private landlords, most of whom are individuals with a few properties who cannot afford arrears and less than market rents as they have mortgages, service charges and other associated costs.

Add into the mix that once tenants fall into arrears the procedure to get them out is complex and lengthy, and the backlogue of London courts means the process can take over six months, and that when eventually you do have them evicted you will never recover the moiney because they don't have it - and you will see why private landlords are so reluctant.

If rent is paid direct (and bear in mind that you don't get deposits from HB either), then at the very least they need to match private rents.

The tories are hoping that landlords will drop rents, but they won't. The rental market is growing, because no one can afford to buy, and there are always renters for central London.

The reason they have delayed the introduction of the cap is because Tory mps in poorer London boroughs suddenly realsied they were to get an unwelcome and un vote winning influx of displaced Londoners..Plus the slightly unedifying spectacle of pensioners chucked on the street.

Shame Grant Shapps didn't feel able to address ThePlanningCommittee's post of 07-Dec-10 00:25:55. It was infinitely more informative and convincing on the subject of the role of councillor than anything he posted this afternoon, and it speaks volumes that he didn't touch it.

Hully - bang on. Not just an "un-vote-winning" influx of displaced Londoners, but displaced Londoners who are highly unlikely to vote Tory. Watch out for your seats, boys!

madamimadam - I know Saki isn't just a drink I had actually forgotten how chilling "The Monkey's Paw" is - a most appropriate analogy for 'Localism'.

The planning stuff in the LB (what we know of it so far) is just fucking mad to be honest - officers who have been working really hard over the past 2 years to produce a good Local Development Framework (aka City Plan) are now faced with having to come up with potentially scores of "Neighbourhood Plans" (around 50 in my unitary) on a vastly reduced budget. Mmm, that's gonna be great for productivity and cohesive, robust policy

Glad you liked my suggestion about "democracy leave" - life is hard enough to juggle for most people without having to factor in evening meetings. Plus there's the simple fact that everyone is more tired and less able to think well after a long day. No wonder council meetings can be fractious and result in poor decision making. Local democracy needs to be professionalised, for the benefit of both elected representatives and members of the public alike.

Re-reading this thread, I'm actually gobsmacked about some of the total bullshit uttered by Mr Shapps on the reality of being a councillor, eg:

"Councillors can do their work on quite a flexible basis" - yes, in the evenings and at weekends - how super for family life

"Legislation only requires that a councillor attend one meeting every six months" - yes, but the reality is that most councillors sit on policy committees and have at least one meeting every week - or at the very least, around 8 Full Council meetings a year (where all members are expected to attend) - believe me, residents and officers get pissed off very quickly if councillors are repeatedly absent from timetabled meetings. Indeed, by-elections have been known to be called...

"In terms of childcare, allowances for carers are available when councillors attend meetings" - not true for all meetings, and notoriously difficult to claim.

"Being a councillor is a great job for somebody who wants to read their correspondence in the morning, organise their thoughts in the afternoon and fire off some e-mails as and when they want" - what, like retired people and millionaires and that?

"In terms of poor pay - it's important to remember that being a councillor is not a job, it's a vocation. There's no salary, but there are allowances to compensate people for their time. If you saw my mailbag, you'd know that many people are amazed that councillors get paid at all, and think those that do get paid too much. While the levels of allowances should be realistic, we also acknowledge that councillors can't be expected to work for nothing. That work is valued." - hahahahahahahhahaaaaaaa Listen Grant, being a Nun is a 'vocation'. Being a councillor is basically being a punch-bag for angry residents, for less than minimum wage. With no real powers to do anything to help. Especially not now your government has slashed our finances.

Grant, love, you are living in cloud cuckoo land. I note from your biog that you were never a councillor yourself (unlike Mr Pickles). I sincerely hope that between the Student Fees vote on Thursday and the car-crash that is your Localism Bill, your government falls and we return to the polls ASAP. Byeeeeeeee!

Thank you ZephirineDrouhin

absolutely, zephirine

Do you think it would be an idea to round up all the outstanding questions so that Mr S's aide can answer them? Or would that be a waste of time for me to do that?

But yes, Planning's comment at 00:25, would be the place to start, Mr S/MrS's aide.

Right off to bed, to sleep all the more soundly for being so throughly reassured here today

Wow. Having now read through the whole 9 pages, I can see I didn't miss much. I could easily have gotten all that info off a pamphlet instead. That was a jumbled mix of standard, pat answers that often didn't even address the questions to which it was supposedly responding. I am disappointed, but hardly surprised.

Just once I'd like to see someone in government come on here and actually just answer our questions and be a normal person, not spouting the party line the whole time.

sigh... what a waste of time....

Triggles - I agree that Grant's sesh today was "MN by proxy" ie he had a gaggle of aides doing it for him.

In fairness to MNHQ though, other live chats with politicians have been genuinely "real time". IMO it's pretty symptomatic of the current govt's attitude that pat answers, written by poorly-paid interns, are preferable to genuine debate and engagement.

Can MNHQ organise a real live (not intern-aided) chat with 'Dave' or 'Nick' in the New Year... please...?

madamimadam - would be great if you can round up some of the unanswered qs for GS. While I would always do everything I can to encourage more women to get involved with the democratic / electoral process, to me GS's cant needs challenging as it's based on the assumption that being a councillor is easy. It's not. How can we make this better?

Sorry for all the long posts this evening, but I am pretty about this.

sorry TPC, wasn't trashing mumsnet... agree it seems to be standard policy of the current government to trot out standard answers instead of actually listening and discussing things.

No probs Triggles - I know you weren't dissing MN. It's not their fault or yours if politicians choose to be deliberately evasive or obtuse (or to employ less-than-minimum-wage labour to trot out their tired lines).

As someone who's in politics - albeit at a local level - I can completely understand how people feel like they're being just bullshitted repeatedly

Personally this is not my style and not why I stood for local election.

ThePlanningCommittee - you don't fancy being Prime Minister, do you?

You'd get paid a tad more than the minimum wage, and I'd vote for you! We need more of your type of politicians, and less of Grant's.

'His' answer to me started with a whole long preamble that bore no relation to anything I'd written, and then neatly sidestepped most of the questions I had actually asked, substituting a few random figures for overall analysis. :(