Time to end the second homes’ scam

Over the last decade particularly, there has been a robust discussion about what level of council tax should be incurred by second homes.

Naturally, second home owners have argued that a second home should have a discounted council tax because it is only being used for part of the time and the occupants are highly unlikely to be using the majority of the services – adult social care and children’s services – which are responsible for the bulk of council expenditure.

Others argue that second homes are actually used for most of the year – if not bY the owner, then by families and friends and through holiday lets – and that there is no justification for any reduction.

At the moment, in England, councils can offer a second homes' discount of up to 50 if no one lives in the property on a permanent basis. This depends entirely on the policy of the local authority where the holiday home or second home is located. [There are some exceptions relating to individuals who are required to live elsewhere because of their job or if the second home is a pitch with a caravan on it or a mooring occupied by a boat.]

However, the debate has become more heated and complex because the purchase of dwellings as second homes, particularly in tourist areas including the Peak District, has made owner-occupation quite unaffordable for local working families.

Many local people have argued that the predominance of second homes has destroyed the local economy and infrastructure; there are few resident children to go to local schools and there has been a collapse in the use of local shops, pubs and post offices making them uneconomic. There has, therefore, been pressure for council tax on second homes to be set at premium levels to discourage second home ownership in those areas.

Then, last November, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said he would give local councils the power to charge up to 100pc extra for council tax on unoccupied homes, up from 50% extra since April 2013. This reversed the direction set by the previous coalition government which had cut the powers for councils to tackle empty homes in their areas.

But, something else has been going on. Letting properties for holidays can be seen as running a business. And, if the business is small enough, it not only doesn’t require council tax to be paid on the property, it is also eligible for 100% tax relief on business rates.

There has been a dramatic increase in the number of second homes that have been registered as small businesses, thus avoiding all local taxes and making absolutely no contribution to the cost of local services (like highways maintenance, refuse collection, planning, parks and libraries) that all the visitors are using. Second home owners can do this if they state that the property is available for letting for 140 days per annum. It is clear that, in many cases, there is little letting at all, and certainly not to the extent intended by the legislation.

The issue is not dividing on party political lines. Some of the strongest complainants about the current situation are local and national elected Conservatives.

Lord Deben (the former Conservative Secretary of State for the Environment, John Selwyn Gummer) thinks that

‘…some second home owners are telling a very direct lie. They have no intention of running a business. It is something that angers people when their neighbours are not paying their way. It is very simple to change.’

Property consultants are complaining that businesses are picking up the bill for this scam. According to Colliers International

‘Second homeowners are being subsidised by ‘many millions of pounds’ at the expense of firms paying full business rates’

and say that system is ‘unfair’, as it gives these holiday homeowners a ‘windfall’ of millions of pounds in tax relief.

This week, in answer to my written parliamentary question*, local government minister Rishi Sunak confirmed that there are now more than 47,000 properties which have been designated as holiday lets meaning they are excluded from paying council tax but on which business rates should normally be paid. However, the 100% Small Business Rate Relief means that most are paying nothing at all. This could be costing councils up to £80 million per annum in lost council tax income.

This isn’t fair to local families who are paying their council taxes. Neither is it fair to other businesses. The reality is that councils are being short-changed and this scam is distorting the proposals for the devolution of the business rate.

Six months ago, Mr Sunak said the situation was being investigated. Now, in response to my written question, the Minister has acknowledged the scale of the problem but just says “…the Government takes any concerns about possible council tax avoidance seriously, and is considering whether the criteria under which holiday lets are valued for business rates are appropriate.”

Let’s be clear. The time for investigation is long gone.

It’s now time to act to end this scam.

*http://www.parliament.uk/writtenanswers

Tackling anti-social behaviour

Your data privacy is important

Technological change in the last fifty years has transformed our social and economic relations more than the whole of history which preceded it. You only need to consider some of the tools we use throughout the day – for instance, mobile phones, access to the internet – and then reflect on how different our lives today would be like without them.

The digital era has not just brought new opportunities and new ways of doing things and an ability to do some things we simply couldn’t do before, it has also brought new threats to our civil liberties and opportunities for the less scrupulous to try to take advantage of us.

Hardly a week goes by now, when most households don’t experience some sort of attempted scam through text, e-mail or phone call, all centred around disclosure of your personal data. And, certainly, police forces throughout the world are struggling to address both the scale and nature of this new criminality.

One significant aspect of crime prevention – and it goes hand in hand with our privacy rights – is the backdrop of data protection legislation. At its very heart is the principle that personal data we disclose to another party for one purpose should not be disclosed to other parties without our consent.

Over the years, the Information Commissioner – responsible for securing compliance with legislation and initiating investigations and action in the event of failure – has got better at identifying and tackling those individuals and companies which break the law. But, as technology developed, so the legal protections need to be updated.

UK law in this regard is based in the 1998 Data Protection Act. In recent weeks, many of the protections have been overtaken by the European General Data Protection (GDPR) provisions. The former has a penalty cap of £500,000 whereas, under GDPR the fines’ cap is Eu20m or 4% of global turnover.

GDPR was the reason why we all recently received communications, from just about every organisation and company with which we have some relation, asking us to confirm or update our agreements to the use of our data for the future.

All that provides a background to today’s reports by the Information Commissioner^1 2 in to events at the time of the EU Referendum and the US Presidential Election which confirms that, amongst other things, the ICO:

• has fined Facebook £500,000 – just over five minutes’ Facebook revenue - for data breaches under the 1998 Act (and it could have been up to £1.4bn under the GDPR). (Facebook was fined £95m in 2017, and Google was fined £2.1bn by the EU in 2017)
• it is bringing criminal proceedings against some companies and individuals
• has stopped some companies from processing data about UK citizens
• has written to the UK's 11 main political parties compelling them to have their data protection practices audited
• has served enforcement notices on and is continuing investigations in to a number of data-broking companies
• is undertaking an investigation into allegations that an insurance services company illegally shared customer data with a Leave.EU group and used its call centre staff to make campaign calls
• is probing data misuse by various organisations, including a university department, the official Remain campaign - Britain Stronger In Europe - and a data broker

The ICO expects its next report to be complete by the end of October.

One thing that I have noticed is that a number of the prominent individuals (company directors, funders, managers and senior staff, campaigners) identified in the ICO investigations to date were also prominent in campaigns and in funding and managing organisations against bio-metric, secure identity cards in the UK, which would have assisted in protecting our data, managing our borders, and in ensuring that only UK citizens entitled to receive particular services did actually receive them.

I hope our investigative media does a lot more to highlight the hypocrisy of those who campaigned against secure ID cards, whilst apparently having little regard for the law to protect our data as they pursued their personal and commercial objectives.

¹ https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/2259371/investigation-into-data-analytics-for-political-purposes-update.pdf

² https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/2259369/democracy-disrupted-110718.pdf

What a shambles

Within 36 hours of Mrs May proclaiming Cabinet unity on her Brexit plans, her Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, has described the process and the outcome as ‘like polishing a txxd’ and her Brexit Secretary, David ‘Bulldog’ Davis has resigned as he believed the plans were fundamentally flawed.

In truth, they’re both right. And that was inevitably the outcome of trying to manage the contradictions of the fundamentalist Brexiteers, who made so many completely unachievable promises, and the soft Brexiteers who know that without a deal with the EU, the UK’s economic prospects are, at best, challenging and, most likely, awful and fundamentally damaging.

At least David Davis has had the guts to resign. Although, in truth, this is mainly because his own negotiating strategy had been completely useless. This lead Mrs May to take over his responsibilities last week, including taking the key civil servants out of the Brexit Department and putting them directly under her control in No 10.

Meanwhile, the ever-opportunist Boris Johnson, whose whole political strategy has been solely driven by his own ambitions to be prime minister, has declared himself officially fully supporting Mrs May’s plans whilst, at the same time, leaking stories to the media of him describing the plans as useless. Nothing new there.

It is a shambles and, at this rate, we’re heading for an even bigger shambles economically.

So, perhaps now is the time just to take stock of the last 8 years of Conservative government with a few facts:

• Wages are lower in real terms than in 2010 and are falling
• The gap between lower and higher earners is increasing. FTSE100 CEOs are now paid 160 times average earnings.
• 3 million people, that’s 1 in 10 of the workforce, are now in insecure jobs (no guaranteed hours or employment rights) and the number is rising with 883,000 already being on zero-hours’ contracts
• The poorest 10% pay 42% of their income in taxes, whilst the richest 10% pay 34%
• 30% of British children now live in poverty, the highest since 2010, and the number is rising
• Almost 60% of those living in poverty are in working households. It’s little surprise that nearly 1.4 million foodbank parcels were distributed last year.

The Conservatives have led us in to this mess and there is no sign of their having any strategy or policies to get us out of it.

What a shambles.

The Brexiteers’ Business Britain

Do you remember Boris Johnson’s promise of an extra £350m a week for the NHS if we leave the EU? Yes, that promise posted all over the side of a red double-decker bus.

Well, having tried running the NHS in to the ground, creating such a public backlash that Mrs May has had to do a U-turn and promised to increase NHS funding by about £350m a week, you would have thought that the Brexiteers would have been celebrating their promise coming true, wouldn’t you?

Except, no. We learn that the £350 million is to be funded half by taxes and half by borrowing. What about the Brexit bonus, you ask. Well, it’s now been confirmed that even if the UK gets everything it has been demanding – fat chance! – there won’t be any Brexit bonus for at least a decade.

Then, do you remember the Brexiteers claims that there would be scores of countries queueing up to do new trade deals with the UK after we quit the EU at enormous benefit to British business and jobs in Britain?

But now we know that there aren’t scores of countries queueing up to do deals. Actually, there are a few countries who are prepared to do deals…but only if Britain concedes to concessions which fly in the face of other promises (for example, amongst other things, India says that it wants a massive increase in UK visas for its citizens) or concessions with massive implications for the UK economy (for example, New Zealand wants open access for its lamb and dairy products, which would in one stroke destroy Welsh agriculture).

And what does British business think about the prospects? Not much.

Investment in British car factories fell steadily after 2016 and by nearly 50% in the past six months. When Airbus said it was now actively considering moving airplane wing production out of the UK and on to mainland EU, Jeremy Hunt, the Conservative Health Secretary, said the government should ignore the concerns, and Boris Johnson said “Fxxx business.” How asinine can you get? Remember that Airbus employs 14,000 workers directly and supports another 110,000 in other businesses and generates £1.7bn in tax each year.

And do you remember the Brexiteers’ promises of cutting business regulation and bureaucracy? They would never answer the direct question about which regulations and which bureaucracy, but now an investigation and report from Nottingham University tells us precisely what they meant.

It is exampled in that burgeoning new industry, seemingly cropping up on every vacant space in the country. Mrs Thatcher had us all taking in each other’s washing to grow the economy. The Brexiteers have found the solution to economic growth and Britain’s business future in…car washes.

The investigators discovered that there are up to 20,000 hand car washes, most unregulated. A two-year study found not one car wash paying the national minimum wage. Tax evasion by hand car washes is costing the Treasury between £500 million and £1 billion a year. Some staff have their passports seized while others are effectively in modern slavery.

Welcome to the Brexiteers’ Britain.

Let’s commit to a civilised society

Ensuring that senior citizens and adults with chronic disabilities and illnesses are supported and cared for is one hallmark of a civilised society. Unfortunately, right now, each and every day, we are moving further and further away from matching that ambition.

I’ve written and spoken many times about the short- and long-term challenges for adult social care and the impact on individuals and their families, friends and carers.

I am the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee [HoCoLoGo Comm]. Sarah Wollaston is a Conservative MP and a GP and Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee [HSC Comm] Committees.

Because we believed this was so serious, our committees got together, determined to investigate and make informed and evidenced recommendations about the future of personal adult social care.

Governments have commissioned report after report, and made promise after promise, about the need to implement new policies and funding arrangements to address the growing chasm between the need for care and the resources to fund it.

Each and every promise was broken.

We end up with hospital bed-blocking, chaos in Accident and Emergency departments, 500,000 fewer people receiving support than just 5 years ago, councils being told to implement year-on-year inflation-busting council tax increases to plug some of the gap, and all-purpose councils now spending more than 50% of their budgets on adult social care.

We’ve had nothing but dither and delay.

The latest promise of a government report and action in the Autumn is one that must be met.

But, if any issue needed an all-party review, which engaged citizens in the debate, then adult social care is that issue. We knew that the matter was so serious that people expect all parties to put away sectarian interests, be open and transparent about the challenges and to stop shrouding their deliberations in secrecy.

That is why MPs of all parties on our committees decided to tackle the issue in an open way, putting aside party interests, inviting evidence and contributions from all interested parties and the public at large, and hold public evidence and scrutiny sessions. We even established a Citizens’ Assembly to consider the issues and report to us

If anyone ever wanted an example of everyone working together in the public interest, this report is it.

And, that’s why we have no reservation in asking the government, opposition parties and the public to take seriously what we are saying and what we are recommending.

This is about how we support and care for our grand-parents, our parents, brothers, sisters and cousins and, eventually, about how each and every one of us is cared for.

Doing nothing is not an option.

Every alternative we have considered has advantages and disadvantages.

We were very conscious about the need to be fair between individuals and between generations.

We believe that the six principles for funding social care have captured the correct balance between competing interests:

* Providing high quality care

* Considering working age adults as well as older people

* Ensuring fairness on the ‘who and how’ we pay for social care, including between the generations

* Aspiring over time towards universal access to personal care free at the point of delivery

* Risk pooling - protecting people from catastrophic costs, and protecting a greater portion of their savings and assets

* ‘Earmarking’ of contributions to maintain public support.

You can’t pick and choose the bits you like and reject the rest.

This is a complete package of recommendations which addresses both today’s acute problems and the challenges for many years to come.

I want you to read our report and to tell me what you think.

You can find the report, including an executive summary, at

https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/housing-communities-and-local-government-committee/

Search me

When we give the police the power to search premises in pursuit of criminal investigations, the law has to strike a balance between the powers of the state and the rights of individuals.

On such an important issue, you might think that the law would be simple and clear, easily understood by judges, the police and the public.

So, let’s start with a quick quiz:

• How many statutory powers are there to issue a search warrant?

1. Between 1 and 50
2. Between 51 and 100
3. Between 101 and 150
4. Between 151 and 200

• Since 2010, how many judicial reviews have there been in England relating to the issue of a search warrant or conduct of the search?

1. Between 1 and 15
2. Between 16 and 30
3. Between 31 and 45
4. Between 46 and 60

• Which kinds of materials may not be searched for under section 8 of PACE or most other powers?

1. materials subject to legal privilege; for example, communications between a lawyer and a client
2. medical and counselling records and confidential journalistic material
3. confidential business records and non-confidential journalistic material
4. all of these – a), b) and c)

Well done if you got all of them right…without cheating!

The answers are

• (4)¹
• (4)²
• (4)³

The answers tell us that the law is far from clear and simple. It also isn’t understood by many of those who have to issue a warrant, or undertake searches, or be the occupier when the police (or others) come knocking.

That’s why, with all party support, the Home Office asked the Law Commission⁴ in December 2016 to identify and address problems with the law governing search warrants and to produce reforms which will clarify and rationalise the law.

Since then, the Commission has undertaken wide consultations on all the issues surrounding search warrants. It concluded that:

• the current system for granting warrants is too complicated
• there is a risk applications are not prepared properly or given sufficient scrutiny.
• investigations may be significantly hindered as search warrants do not reflect the modern world in which the internet and digital sources have a significant role
• the law around search warrants should be modernised with more protections put in place to protect individuals’ rights

As a result, the Commission proposed modernising the powers available to authorities under search warrants and bringing in extra protections for the public. In particular, the Commission proposed more protections should be put in place to protect individuals’ rights so that people know that a search under a warrant is limited to what is necessary and proportionate.⁵

Their proposals include:

• exempting confidential journalistic material and medical records from searches under warrant
• bringing in procedural safeguards and requiring judicial authorisation for late night or early morning searches
• introducing a requirement to record and publish statistics to monitor the use of search warrants
• introducing safeguards whenever electronic devices are seized under a search warrant so that devices are examined and returned swiftly
• a new procedure to challenge defective search warrants which would avoid the cost and delay of judicial review
• clarifying forms and amending guidance to make clear what duties investigators must follow when applying for search warrants
• making search warrant powers more consistent so investigators know what powers they have and when they can use them
• a new mechanism in large-scale investigations to require assistance with the identification and segregation of privileged material to prevent the law being used as a delaying tactic
• allowing more agencies with enforcement powers to apply for a search warrant, rather than going through the police as a third party

An area of particular concern is the lack of clarity surrounding how the law treats electronic information. Problems arise because of:

• the enormous volumes of electronic information that can now be stored on devices, and
• the location of the material, which may be stored remotely abroad albeit accessible from the premises

Consultation on the Commission’s proposals will now run until 5 September 2018.

What is worrying is that the government is already indicating that time will not be found in the parliamentary diary to take forward the legislative changes that would be necessary to implement the proposals.

Why? Brexit, of course.

Meanwhile, we will leave everyone in a state of confusion and continue to waste millions of pounds.

It’s just another of those Brexit costs that you weren’t told about.

¹ The Law Commission identified 176 search warrant provisions, which are listed in Appendix 1 of its consultation paper. This list does not include warrants to enter premises (“entry warrants”) and warrants to enter and inspect premises (“inspection warrants”).

² There have been more than 50, with millions spent by public bodies in damages and legal fees.

³ Law Commission Search Warrants Summary Para 120

⁴ The Law Commission is the statutory independent body created by the Law Commissions Act 1965 to keep the law of England and Wales under review and to recommend reform where it is needed. The aim of the Commission is to ensure that the law is fair, modern, simple and cost effective. Since then, more than two-thirds of all reports have been accepted or implemented in whole or in part.

⁵ https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/search-warrants/

Getting closer to a ban

I have been a long-time campaigner for the introduction of a ban on ivory sales.

Around 20,000 elephants a year are still being slaughtered due to the global demand for ivory, an average of around 55 a day. The number of elephants in the wild has declined by almost a third in the last decade.. There are now approximately 415,000 African elephants - a 20% reduction over the last 10 years, mainly due to poaching.

The UK isn’t one of the countries of most concern about the global illegal ivory trade. But, there is evidence that the, currently legal, UK ivory market is being used to launder illegal ivory, and ivory in the UK is both legally and illegally shipped to other countries.

I thought we would finally achieve a ban on ivory sales after the three biggest UK political parties promised one in their 2010 election manifestos. What could possibly hold this up?

Well, we all found out. David Cameron and Nick Clegg made all sorts of promises – on student fees, house-building, the NHS and many more – and broke most of them, including the commitment on ivory. So, we carried on campaigning for the ban. Despite repeating the promise in his 2015 manifesto, David Cameron’s Conservative government still failed to act.

And then, being frustrated about the failure to make progress, things got even worse. Mrs May’s Conservatives dropped the promise altogether from their 2017 manifesto.

So, we’ve carried on campaigning and, finally, after China decided to close its domestic ivory market last year, this government has brought a Bill before the UK Parliament.

It isn’t perfect and I hope that it will be amended and improved, in particular to ensure that evaders face civil and criminal penalties, including imprisonment as well as heavy fines. There also needs to be action to tackle illegal ivory dealing on the internet.

Once the Bill becomes law, it will give the UK more credibility in trying to persuade other countries with a history of ivory trade – especially in south-east Asia: Thailand, Vietnam, Japan, Laos and Myanmar – to close their domestic ivory markets.

When an international ban is in place, the decline in the number of elephants in the wild may be halted.

Red light means Stop!

Sometimes, it’s difficult to believe just how stupid or malign some people can be.

Over the last 10 years, there have been more than 14,000 reported incidents of someone directing a laser light at aircraft pilots in the UK. The only good news is that the number of aircraft incidents reported last year (989) to the Civil Aviation Authority was nearly 50% lower than the peak number in 2011.

Research shows that most attacks took place during take-off and landing, or against hovering police helicopters, and are carried out using cheap, high-powered handheld devices that are readily available on the internet. The attacks can distract pilots and flight crew, obscure instruments and dials, and cause short-lived ‘flash’ blindness or even permanent eye damage. The potential for catastrophic accidents with significant loss of life, as well as life-changing effects on individuals are obvious.

And the problems are not just in the skies. There are too many reports of laser lights being pointed at the drivers of trains and of vehicles on our roads.

Although It has been clear for some time that the police do not have the powers to effectively tackle and investigate the inappropriate use of laser devices, there have been a number of false starts for legislative change. However, last December, the government published a Laser Misuse (Vehicles) Bill.

As you might imagine, there are some tricky lines to be drawn between civil liberties and criminal action, between activities which may be described as ‘not unreasonable’ and behaviours which are reckless or malign. Everyone knows what is right and what is wrong, but defining that clearly in law is not always easy. Unsurprisingly, there have been some robust debates on where those lines are to be drawn and on the definitions of various words and phrases such as actions ‘likely to dazzle or distract’.

Following amendments in the House of Lords, the Bill It makes it clear that the offence can be committed against any ‘vehicle’, which “would apply to all forms of vehicles, including aircraft, road vehicles, trains, trams, ships, hovercrafts, invalid carriages, and cycles”…and even horse-drawn vehicles.

If found guilty, on summary conviction, you can be sent to prison for up to a year. If found guilty in the Crown Court, you could be sent down for up to five years. The Act comes into effect on July 10^th.

Let’s hope that we see much less stupidity and malign behaviour in the future.

Our NHS safe in Conservative hands?

Draw your own conclusions from the latest government statistics.

Accident and Emergency (A&E):

• Last year 2.5 million people waited over four hours in A&E, up from 350,000 in 2009/10.
• Just 76.4% of patients at major A&E departments were treated within the 4 hour target in March - well below the 95% standard. This was the worst performance since records began.

Trolley waits:

• 613,957 people waited over 4 hours on trolleys in 2017/18, up from 61,696 in 2009/10.
• 3440 people waited over 12 hours on trolleys in 2017/18, up from 123 in 2011/12.
• 353 patients waited over 12 hours on trolleys in April 2018 and 48,002 patients waited over 4 hours on trolleys, the worst figures ever for the month of April.

Ambulances

• Ambulance crews in England had to look after 186,000 patients, either in the back of their vehicle or in a hospital corridor, for more than least 30 minutes (Nov 2017 – March 2018)
• Nearly 600,000 ambulance arrivals had delays of more than 15 minutes in handing a patient over to hospital A&E staff (Jan-March 2018), when no handover should take this long.

18 week waits

• Waiting lists are now more than 4 million, up from 2.5million in 2010.
• Cancellation of elective operations has seen waiting lists rise by 5% since last year.
• More than 2000 patients had waited more than one year for treatment (Feb 2108).
• 454,342 patients were waiting longer than 18 weeks for elective treatment (Feb 2018).
• The 18 week target for planned treatment has now not been met in two years.

Cancer

• 26,693 people waited over 62 days for cancer treatment in 2017, twice the rate in 2010 when the total was 13,354
• One patient waited 541 days for treatment following a GP referral against a target of 62 days.
• Two-thirds of NHS trusts had at least one patient waiting over six months and 69% had longer waits than in 2010.

Hospital alerts

• The number of hospitals operating at the highest emergency alert level has nearly doubled in the last year.
• More than half of NHS Acute Trusts in England declared emergency measures - an Operational Pressures Escalation Level 4 (OPEL 4), equivalent to the old 'black alerts' - on at least one day (Dec 2017 - March 2018).