Tackling Islamophobia

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

As I have raised in this House multiple times, I have received Islamophobic abuse since being elected. For example, just this week I posted on social media a video of my comments about migrant survivors of domestic abuse during the debate on the Victims and Prisoners Bill. I will not read the worst responses I received, which contain swearing, but here are some of the others:

“You was given a job in England UK to help England, all you care about is your own, feel free to leave at any point. What about all the immigrants raping our children you deluded fool.”

“Ban all Muslim MPs. They represent Muslims not the native. Their Loyalty is to their own.”

“This is not Islamabad!”

“Deport.”

“You are a traitor and will be prosecuted in 2028.”

“If England doesn’t kick you and every other ungrateful foreign beggar out very soon there will be no England anymore.”

“You’ll be much happier in a Muslim country Begum.”

“People like you should be expelled from parliament. The only people you represent are foreign nationals.”

“That’s the problem with Islam. Women are treated as second class by the men. You need to recognise the truth about this primitive religion.”

“Muslims don’t have beautiful clothes, only ugly headscarves! There is no invention, only destruction!”

I want to make it clear to the House that those are just examples of the regular, almost daily abuse that I have had to learn to cope with, and they are from just my most recent social media post. I also receive threats online, via voicemail and email, and by letter. The situation is escalating, exacerbated by those trying to capitalise on current events by spreading their hate and division, and I now face a heightened and very serious risk to my safety.

It is important to recognise that what I am experiencing as the first hijab-wearing MP reflects a growing current within society. The data shows that Muslims are the largest target of religiously motivated hate crimes. Following the 7 October Hamas attacks, which resulted in around 1,200 Israeli deaths, including those of civilians and children, and the subsequent Israeli military assault, which has killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, including civilians and children, hate crime against both Jews and Muslims has risen dramatically in Europe. In the UK, Tell MAMA has reported a 600% increase in attacks on Muslims, including attacks and hostility against individuals and mosques, with children targeted at school, death threats and physical attacks.

Islamophobic hate crimes not only affect the victim but send reverberations through communities, as they reinforce established patterns of bias, prejudice and discrimination. Islam and Muslims have increasingly been seen as culturally dangerous and threatening to the British way of life. We are constantly scapegoated and misrepresented, and labelled both deviant and evil. Being called a supporter of terrorism or a terrorist, or being held responsible as a group for terrorism, is a common theme. The reality is that Islamophobia is widespread and relates to whole structures of discrimination. The socioeconomic discrimination and inequality that Muslims face makes us the most economically disadvantaged faith group in the UK.

At the same time, Muslims face institutional discrimination. For some time it has been widely understood, including by the United Nations, that approaches to counter-terrorism are modelled on Islamophobic stereotypes, policies and political structures, but Government documents leaked in November 2023 revealed that officials had drawn up controversial proposals to broaden the definition of extremism even further, to include organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain—yet this Government will not even recognise Islamophobia. When Muslims are the target of hate, the Government are silent. They allow social media to perpetuate narratives of terrorism about Muslims, while failing to call out those who misrepresent and generalise about Muslims. More than that, they recklessly stoke the hate by peddling their so-called culture wars against the British people, pandering to a culture that tells people it is acceptable to discriminate against, to persecute and to abuse Muslims.

Across Europe, the situation is alarming, with the threat of the far right on the rise, including the re-emergence of far-right parties and politicians such as Geert Wilders. Whether in India, France, China or Iran, I believe it should be up to women to choose what they wear. No state and no man should have the right to overrule that. This September marked a year since the murder of Mahsa Amini in Iran. When she was murdered, the Prime Minister was right to describe the Iranian regime’s attacks on women protesting for their right to not wear the hijab as abhorrent, but the Government are silent about the outlawing of Muslim women’s right to wear the abaya in France. And where is the Government’s outrage at the fact that government offices across Europe can now ban employees from wearing religious symbols such as headscarves in the interests of so-called neutrality, after a court was asked to rule on the case of a Muslim employee in Belgium who was told that she could not wear a headscarf at work? I am concerned and alarmed by that, because it could exacerbate the marginalisation of Muslims at a time when Islamophobia is already on the rise.

The constituency that I represent has a long and proud history of migration and anti-racism, whether that was our Jewish communities and allies opposing fascists at the battle of Cable Street in 1936 or our Bangladeshi communities leading the anti-fascist mobilisation in 1978 after the murder of Altab Ali. We are one of the most culturally diverse areas in the UK, and we are damned proud of it. We will always stand together, multiracial, of all faiths and none, against division and intolerance.

Leaseholders and Managing Agents

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Tuesday 28th February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

In the interest of time, I will keep my remarks short and go straight into an example.

In the first quarter of 2022, one of my constituents paid just under a whopping £1,000 in electricity bills for a one-bedroom flat. She is obviously extremely concerned about how she will afford her bills when the energy price cap rises again in April. The electricity account is held by the freeholder of the building, which is a private company, and it is a commercial account. My constituent, who is a leaseholder, wishes to change her account type—indeed, she says that the majority of the units are residential anyway—but she is facing difficulties.

In particular, the energy provider has said it cannot have direct relationships with the leaseholders unless individual meters are installed. The managing agent has confirmed that the cost of installing individual meters would be passed on to the leaseholders and would be around £1,000 or £2,000. However, building-wide energy efficiency improvements are generally understood to be the freeholder’s responsibility. As a leaseholder, my constituent can make some energy efficiency improvements to her home, but at the very least she needs permission from the freeholder for major works.

Again, the leaseholder is trapped in this bureaucratic quagmire between an opaque rock and an even more oppressive hard place, thwarted by complex buck-passing that ends up with them being financially liable or financially disadvantaged, without rights or agency. That is because, essentially, a residential building of leaseholders is run almost entirely at the landlord’s discretion. I understand that leaseholders can dispute decisions and costs, which can amount to millions of pounds, but they will never get their legal costs paid, even if they are successful. On the other hand, the landlord almost always gets their legal costs paid as administrative charges under the lease. I repeat that the system does not work for residents.

Appointed managing agents have failed significantly, over and over again, to point out building defects in new blocks of flats. The truth is that there is a clear commercial incentive for building defects not to be highlighted. Indeed, if one were cynical, one might believe that a prime task of a developer-appointed manager is to ensure that the defects of a building are not revealed within the timescale of the warranty, after which date the cost can be placed on leaseholders’ shoulders.

In my constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, people view the Westferry Printworks debacle and the history of controversy as illustrating systemic priorities that lie in serving billionaires rather than the interests of local people. I appeal to the Government to put local people in need at the heart of their planning and housing agenda, and once and for all to end the scandal of leasehold for millions who have bought their home but do not feel like they own it.

Private Rented Sector Housing

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this debate and on a very powerful speech, setting out the conditions as he sees them in his own constituency.

I have the largest private rented sector in Britain in my borough, including some of the most high-end private accommodation it is possible to find—the luxury penthouses, the oligarch properties—but also some of the worst conditions. I am going to make three points of slightly different lengths, but my first is to beware the tyranny of the average. I urge the Minister to reflect on that point, because we know that over the decades there has been a steady overall improvement in the condition of property, including in the private rented sector. However, beneath that, we have a huge and arguably growing problem that is concentrated in particular sectors.

That problem was very well set out in Julie Rugg’s report three years or so ago, in which she looked at the sub-markets in the private rented sector. She rightly reflected on the fact that there are particular groups of people without power, including purchasing power—those who are dependent on housing benefit to rent their property—but also other kinds of power: those who do not have settled immigration status; those who have been homeless; the very young; the students; the old; and, in particular, those with disabilities. When the Minister responds and whenever we talk about this issue, it needs to be properly reflected that there is not a single sector, even allowing for geographical variations.

Secondly, I will touch briefly on the issue of enforcement. Although we will rightly hear from a number of colleagues, including the Front Benchers, about the need to move ahead with the overdue legislation to strengthen renters’ rights, those rights will mean very little unless we are sure that we have enforcement capacity—two kinds of enforcement capacity, in particular.

The first is the enforcement carried out by local authorities, particularly through their environmental health departments. Although I do not have time to reflect on this at length, we know from the work of the National Residential Landlords Association, and my own series of freedom of information inquiries to local authorities over the course of the past 10 years, that most local authorities do not enforce, or do so informally. Some of that informal enforcement will be fine, but it is untrackable—it is not monitored.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that what is needed is a centralised national landlord register that ensures accountability, so that tenants know before moving in whether their landlords have been compliant, especially in relation to health and safety?

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Before the hon. Lady continues, it might be helpful to say that she is rushing, but she does not need to: every speaker can have six or seven minutes if they want, rather than four or five.

Building Safety Bill

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 19th January 2022 Commons Chamber

In looking to the future—we recognise that the new regulator will have to move in a considered way, and it is important that the highest-risk buildings are considered first—we believe that, eventually, there ought to be a requirement to consider extending the scope of regulation. Where a building has within it vulnerable people, who will take longer to get out of the building in the event of a fire, or where the means of access and egress are limited—as in the proposal to build a 50-storey tower block with one means of fire escape, which fortunately was withdrawn the other day from a local planning committee—that factor ought to be taken into account when extending the scope of the new regulatory regime to other buildings in the future. Again, we are not saying it has to be done today or tomorrow; we are merely saying that that issue should inform future decisions about extending the scope of the new and important building safety regulatory regime. I would hope that the Government will eventually give approval to those approaches, if not today. We will not push the amendments to a vote, but at least we have put the issue back on the agenda for future consideration.

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in support of amendment 73, tabled my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), and amendment 1, tabled by the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous). The Bill renames “private approved inspectors” “building control approvers”. Not just amendment 73 has touched on the issue; other Members have done that through other new clauses and amendments. I wish to express my support for the Fire Brigades Union’s opposition to those private inspectors, which, as it argues, undermine professional local authority building control and weaken building safety regulation.

Amendment 1 is about the Building Safety Regulator. Again, I share the alarm expressed by the Fire Brigades Union that the Building Safety Regulator would be permitted to seek private sector involvement if the fire authority cannot assist. Surely it is obvious why private firms cannot be given licence to sign off on fire safety matters relating to higher-risk buildings. Fire safety is a matter for professional firefighters, not profiteers, and it is not clear how the new Building Regulations Advisory Committee will be constituted. I would be grateful if the Minister could say more about that.

Many of us would like to see the Government re-establish a statutory fire safety advisory body, with guaranteed representation for trade unions and residents. As the Bill progresses, I would like to see legislation and provision that apply to all residential buildings above 11 metres in height, an idea that has been echoed by Members of all parties. Any new regime should apply to other multi-occupancy institutional or residential buildings, which was also touched on in various amendments.

It would be helpful to hear from the Minister whether the Government have any plans to introduce a threshold height at which two staircases are required in order to provide means of both resident escape and firefighter entry. As he will no doubt be aware, concerns were raised that the plans for Ballymore’s proposed 51-storey development in Cuba Street in my constituency included only a single fire escape for a building that would have been two and half times the height of Grenfell tower.

Elsewhere in my constituency, the recent fire at Ballymore’s New Providence Wharf, where the fire spread between multiple floors and the ventilation system failed, led to smoke spreading throughout the building. That demonstrates the potential shortcomings of relying on stay put evacuation policies, so it would be helpful to know whether the Government have any plans to commit to addressing that in the Bill.

[Andy Slaughter]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that she has done to draw wider attention to the Ballymore application, and indeed it has now been withdrawn. That is happening everywhere, however: on the border of my constituency, one over 50-storey block is already under construction and three others are in planning with, again, one staircase each. It is ridiculous to say that the stay put policy is the answer to that, because post Grenfell, people will not stay put and we understand exactly why.

[Apsana Begum]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point strongly. I share his concern that there is too much of a free pass in that situation and such buildings should just not be allowed to be presented. On his point, the Cuba Street development has been withdrawn for now, but it is only paused. It will come back and there is no guarantee that all the problems will be addressed, so it would be helpful to know whether the Government have any plans to address that issue and, if not, whether they will commit to a national independent review of stay put policies, particularly given that the Cuba Street proposal was allowed under existing building regulations.

At present, there are insufficient fire safety inspectors after decades of cuts and increased workloads. It is urgent that the fire and rescue service is properly funded and resourced, because people have a right to be safe in their own homes. The Bill is a small step forward, but it does not resolve the overall building safety crisis across the UK. In the words of the Fire Brigades Union, it is at best

“a sticking plaster over a gaping wound unless the whole regime rebuild around need rather than profit.”

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)]

I rise to speak in support of new clauses 1, 2, 15, 16 and 23. The events at Grenfell Tower were devastating, with the tragic loss of 72 lives, which shocked us all. Words will never adequately describe the pain felt by the families and friends of the victims. Later, though, as light was shed on the extensive preventable failings that led to the disaster, justifiable anger followed.

I am glad to see the Bill progress through this place, but it should not have taken almost five years. I welcome the Secretary of State’s recent announcement that leaseholders in England will not face the astronomical costs of remediating unsafe cladding. I am pleased that the Government have taken a moral stance on the issue.

Unfortunately, there are still gaps that must be plugged, and I hope that the Minister’s promise of statutory protection against all building safety defects will materialise. For my constituents, I hope that the Government will engage in a constructive dialogue with the Scottish Government to ensure that leaseholder protection can be extended across the UK fully funded.

There is still a glaring lack of clarity and the Government must facilitate funding being available across the devolved Administrations to achieve an equal standing. Although much of the Bill has limited territorial extent, there are some key areas that apply across the UK and in Scotland, such as the testing and inspection of construction products.

Early last year, it was announced that the independent panel on the safety of construction materials would review the testing system and how it can be strengthened so that product safety confidence can be restored. The industry is still awaiting the report’s publication, which prompts the question of how we can fully scrutinise the Bill’s measures without knowing what the review found. Can the Minister provide a definitive date for when it will be available? Will he also provide an update on the establishment of a national regulator for construction products?

As it stands, there are a limited number of private product testing companies, and fewer still of the accredited bodies’ testing sites, which means limited access to the furnaces that are used to test all combustible building materials and products. Subsequently, there are huge delays in products moving through the testing system.

Some companies are reporting delays of up to six months to test their products. The accredited sites are managed by private sector companies, and as demand increases and supply decreases, the price set by those bodies climbs. Concerns have been raised that that model incentivises the maximising of profit over the quality of testing.

The Government must also be cautious not to create widespread quality disparity between existing buildings and new ones of any height. While preservation of life is of course the most key consideration, the lifespan of buildings must be protected too. Buildings such as schools, hospitals and care homes, which hon. Members have mentioned, should have a mandatory requirement for sprinklers. By making such buildings as safe and resilient as possible, human life is protected, yes, but many other things too. Schools are pillars of the community. Where do those students go to learn if their school burns down, or for a hospital, where do the patients go? What delays will essential services suffer?

The Bill is a mammoth piece of legislation and it is easy to look at each single part in turn to make it digestible, but a key finding in Dame Judith Hackitt’s review was that there needs to be a holistic, whole-building approach to fire safety. We ought to apply that principle here and take a whole-Bill approach, to truly understand how it will work in practice.

Residential Leaseholders and Interim Fire Safety Costs

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) on bringing this important debate.

As the cladding scandal rolls on, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Government are not concerned enough with the physical safety or financial security of my constituents who are living every single day in unsafe housing. The Government’s position on the waking watch measures are just one example of that. Committing to the use of waking watches, as the National Fire Chiefs Council suggests, would mean committing to temporary measures that would go on indefinitely. In its written submission to the Public Bill Committee on the Fire Safety Bill, the Fire Brigades Union stated that it was unable to support the use of waking watches in that way, for fear that it would become

“a de facto permanent state of affairs.”

Temporary measures such as those have been in place since the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017. The word “temporary” is losing its meaning and I would be grateful if the Minister would address that in his response, because constituents are now faced with bankruptcy, with the cost of waking watches placed at their door.

The other matter I would like to raise is the overwhelming financial burden being placed on leaseholders who are also legally freeholders. I draw on the example of the Limehouse West estate in my constituency, to bring the matter to the Minister’s attention. Limehouse West was owned by the Canal & River Trust until November 2019, when about 60% of the leaseholders got together to buy the freehold. They did that for a number of reasons. They wanted to take charge of their estate, as the Canal & River Trust was extremely slow to respond and do anything around the estate, and my constituents did not want to pay the ground rent.

In the context of the ongoing cladding scandal, for those constituents, being their own freeholders included some benefits. There was no risk of the Canal & River Trust choosing wildly expensive or unnecessary remedial works and then saddling leaseholders with costs, or the Canal & River Trust doing nothing for years and the flats staying almost unsellable while waiting for the EWS1 certificates.

Many of my constituents on that estate are both freeholder and leaseholder. The Government say that leaseholders should not have to pay a penny. Who pays for any cladding and remediation works at Limehouse West and similar estates in my constituency, including for interim measures? If it is the freeholders, 60% of my constituents on that estate will bear the cost of the work that will benefit all of them, without any means of recovering those costs. Many of my constituents who are freeholders-leaseholders feel that it is very unfair. If it is the original developers who should pay, there is the difficult legal problem of making this happen. In the case of the estate, the developer is the absolutely awful Bellway, which tells me that it will not pay for something that was completed over 20 years ago.

I would be grateful if the Minister could help distinguish where leaseholders are also freeholders in response to the costs of interim measures and the wider costs of remediation works. Does he believe there should be parity between the burden placed on freeholders-leaseholders and leaseholders only where the freehold has been bought out by a party that is not related to the original developer in any way? I really believe that the building industry should have to take a greater burden, but in the absence of that, it would be great to get clarification from the Minister.

Coronavirus: Supporting Businesses and Individuals

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab) [V]]

Before the pandemic, a decade of austerity left far too many trapped in low-paid, insecure work and consistently failed by the social security system. The failing economic system has been further exposed throughout the coronavirus pandemic, which produced a policy that led to 3 million people being left out of economic support. That is simply unacceptable.

We are at a critical juncture in the pandemic and the Government’s stop-start approach has meant that many businesses are now being forced to make tough decisions about their future. In my constituency, Chrisp Street market, Watney market and surrounding businesses are key to our local economy. Indeed, given the close proximity in which they operate, their sustainability is tied together. Despite that, market traders were slow to receive any support from the Government in the last financial year. To make matters worse, many small and independent businesses could not access grants and relief measures because of the premises criterion, whereby because they did not pay business relief directly, they were left out of support. It took months for the Government to begin to address that.

Conservative Members are quick to claim that every single business has had some form of support in the pandemic, but that is simply not true, and too many have spent 2020 in turmoil. Perhaps the Minister can today outline how markets, traders and small independent businesses will be supported towards long-term and sustainable economic recovery.

Economic measures are vital for businesses, but they are also vital to protect individuals. Under this Government, in the pandemic, unemployment is spiralling out of control. Just today, Office for National Statistics figures confirmed yet again that the economic impact of the pandemic continues to feed on inequality, with people living in more deprived areas experiencing mortality rates more than double those in less deprived areas. Unemployment is higher among ethnic minority communities: 13.8% among black people compared with 4.5% among their white counterparts; and 10.6% for ethnic minority women.

If the Government’s economic support measures are sufficient, why are there such glaring disparities in pandemic unemployment? If the economic measures are so satisfactory, why does there need to be 18 food banks—18—in my borough, trying to keep households afloat with the bare necessities? The answer is simple. The Government’s support measures are insufficient, unfair and inconsistent. At this critical juncture, the Government must do better.

Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab) [V]]

The topic of this debate is an incredibly pressing one, and I am glad to have the opportunity to speak because it affects so many of my constituents. The ongoing scandal surrounding the replacement of cladding has two main components to which I would like to draw attention by using an example in Poplar and Limehouse: building safety and remedial costs.

New Providence Wharf in my constituency is a development owned by Ballymore housing. The building is covered in ACM cladding—the same sort of flammable cladding that was wrapped around Grenfell Tower. Representatives of the residents’ association at New Providence Wharf have been in touch with me for some time now, but the most recent update I had from them is perhaps the most shocking. Currently living surrounded by flammable cladding, these constituents have told me that remedial work on the building has now been pushed back to May. Those who bought properties in developments such as New Providence Wharf in good faith now find themselves in a nightmare scenario. These leaseholders bought a property under the reasonable assumption that it was safe to live in, but not only are they now struggling to sell or remortgage their homes, they have been left stranded, having to foot the bill for remedial works.

The recent update I have received about New Providence Wharf is that the remediation costs are set to be between £12.5 million and £25 million. These are astronomical figures to fall on the shoulders of those living in the development. With only £5,000 offered by Ballymore, this could mean that each leaseholder would have to pay up to £50,000 in remedial costs. How can this possibly go on?



That is just one example from my constituency of the effects that this scandal is having on so many people’s lives. Residents in dangerous developments right across my constituency are not being supported by their building owners. At New Festival Quarter, leaseholders are being left in the dark about how safe their building is; at Indescon Square, residents have been charged hundreds of thousands of pounds by Galliard Homes for the cost of inspection works; and at New Atlas Wharf—constructed by Britain’s most profitable housebuilder, Persimmon—residents are facing costs of up to £66,000 per flat. But, of course, in this whole debacle buck passing has been the order of the day. The unsafe conditions that such residents are living in will only be made worse by the trajectory of outsourcing and deregulation that the Government continue to follow as they attempt to avoid culpability for the poor housing conditions that so many in this country face.

It is a disgrace that anyone should be living in the same cladding that we all saw burning on Grenfell Tower. Safe housing should not be a privilege for the few; it should be a basic right. The Government need to front up to the mistakes made in the past and work quickly to undo them. The onus must not in any way fall on those currently living in flammable buildings through no fault of their own.

Covid-19: Funding for Local Authorities

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for securing a debate on this topic, the impact of which is felt by our constituents deeply. As a Member in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, she is right to highlight that the area has the highest rates of child poverty in the country.

The covid-19 crisis has emphasised starkly the importance of local services in making sure the essentials of life are never denied to people because of their circumstances. As has been argued by others, at the core of the issue is the need for sustainable core funding for local government—a need that is urgent and critical, and yet this year’s spending review will not be comprehensive. The multi-year review that we were originally promised is unlikely to deliver funding for local services at the level required, nor is it likely to recognise the role of Government investment, public ownership, in-sourcing and care in what must be a green sustainable recovery that delivers for people. On top of that, there is a public sector pay freeze looming for public sector workers who have kept the country running throughout the pandemic.

People all over the UK are being let down by patchy support measures that result in unfairness, injustice and hardship. That is despite people continuing to work hard, whether it is from home, in cramped conditions with limited equipment, balancing paid work with caring responsibilities; being forced to work in unsafe conditions without the protections needed; or supporting others around them unpaid. The challenges in my borough cannot be underestimated. We have the fastest-growing population in the country—it has doubled in the past 30 years and is projected to grow by a further 67,000 in the next 10. As demand increases, funding reduces.

Universal basic services, of which local services are a cornerstone, was an idea at the heart of the 2019 Labour party manifesto that I was elected on. It was not only about protecting the free services that we have; it was a vision to extend the services that we should all have access to, from free travel on buses for the under-25s and full-fibre broadband free for all, to free school meals for primary school children. In health, it filled the gaps in hospital car parking and dental care. In social care, it addressed the crisis by pledging free personal social care. Despite the barrage of criticisms by the right-wing media during the election, that never sounded like a wish list to me, but rather the foundation for a decent life for everybody in the 21st century. It is an idea that has underpinned our treasured public and local services ever since Beveridge argued for the state provision of national minimums for essentials.

Collectively provided services such as our schools, libraries and parks do not just bind us together as a society; they transform lives. Events this year have made that truth even more clear. Yet just today, a report by Victim Support further emphasised the need for victims of domestic abuse, who are in urgent need of additional support as the country looks ahead to months more of lockdown restrictions. It is overwhelmingly obvious that years of cuts and a failure to invest in services made the UK extremely ill prepared to deal with a large-scale health risk to our community. Further cuts on the horizon to services such as special educational needs support, adult social care, library services and leisure centres, to name just a few of the areas that I am being contacted about by constituents, will have a disastrous impact on local people and communities that were already vulnerable before the pandemic.

Planning and House Building

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak in this important debate. The “Planning for the Future” White Paper states that it plans for local communities to have control over where development goes and what it looks like, in its plan to build the homes this country needs. I wholeheartedly agree that local communities should have a great deal more agency regarding building developments in their area. However, given the recent activity in my constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, I very much doubt the Government’s credentials in this field.

The controversy surrounding the Westferry Printworks development in my constituency illustrates that this Government’s priorities lie in serving billionaires rather than the interests of local people. I believe that viability assessments must be undertaken centrally, and published, for sites on which affordable housing is contested. By allowing private companies to undertake their own assessments, controversies such as that of Westferry Printworks become built into our housing system.

In a BBC report, one of my constituents was quoted as feeling “cheated” and described local people as losing out as a result of the Westferry Printworks development. That controversy is indicative of a failing housing system—a system that has led many in my constituency to live through the covid-19 pandemic in overcrowded housing.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Apsana Begum]

I will not.

Some of my constituents now face the threat of homelessness with the evictions ban lifted. One fifth of residents in my borough are paid less than the living wage of £13,650 a year. We have one of the highest average rents in London, while at the same time having some of the highest levels of poverty in the entire country. Clearly, the combination of high rents and low wages is toxic. With the Government’s already patchy pandemic support being withdrawn, we are facing the possibility of mass homelessness this winter.

It is therefore shocking that now, of all times, our Government plan to further empower private property developers, instead of turning their efforts to building social housing to deal with a winter homelessness crisis that is around the corner. Since the Prime Minister was elected, the Conservative party has received £11 million in donations from property developers. This White Paper is evidence of the influence such developers have bought themselves from our Government, with many referring to the Government’s planning reforms as a developers’ charter.

For many, job security has been hit hard by the covid-19 pandemic. With the Chancellor’s financial support being gradually withdrawn, many are facing a winter of uncertainty. To illustrate the point, it has been reported that there are now more food banks in the UK than McDonald’s restaurants. That statistic is an indictment of the lack of care that our Conservative Government have for so many in our society. Can the Minister explain what adjustments will be made to proposed housing reforms to combat the oncoming homelessness crisis that we may face?

Algorithms used by the Government have been in the news for negative reasons recently. The A-levels fiasco illustrates the flagrant lack of regard the Government have for the welfare of those living in less affluent areas. This White Paper sets out the use of a new algorithm and compulsory standardisation methodology that will dictate the allocation of new housing across local authorities. The planning and development consultancy Lichfields has reported that the algorithm will result in greater levels of planning allocation in rural areas as compared with built-up metropolitan areas. With areas such as Tower Hamlets facing some of the greatest housing poverty in the UK, the algorithm looks set to be another design to further engrain the social inequalities we face in this country.

Town and Country Planning

Apsana Begum Excerpts

Wednesday 30th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate, secured by my Front-Bench colleagues.

As others have laid out, the regulations have been subject to widespread criticism. The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee raised concerns that they would result in a lighter touch prior approval process and that the changes could lead to the construction of low-quality housing. In fact, there has been report after report, piece after piece of evidence, in that regard. Even the Government’s own research, published in July, shows that permitted development rights lead to lower quality development and worrying impacts on space and overcrowding. It noted that only 22.1% of dwelling units created in this way would meet the nationally prescribed space standards, compared with 73.4% of units created through full planning permission. Furthermore, in January, the Local Government Association found that thousands of affordable homes had been lost through permitted development rights. It called for permitted development rules to be scrapped and for local communities to have a vital say on new developments in their area.

It is obvious that the consequence of removing the requirement for planning permission results in the removal of the requirement for affordable housing at the worst possible time—all in the name of the Government’s planning reforms, which have already been aptly described as a developers’ charter. Many are concerned about the watering down of what some perceive to be already limited requirements for developers to build affordable housing, known as section 106 requirements. The housing and homelessness charity Shelter points out that the majority of social homes being built now are being built under those requirements and warns that we desperately need to build more social homes, not to put the already pitiful trickle at risk.

What the Government call red tape is what housing experts recognise as important protections against unsafe and low-quality housing. Will the Minister explain why he has seen fit to pursue measures, such as the regulations before us today, that are likely to result in poorer quality housing and a reduction in affordable housing?

It is no surprise that the planning reforms were announced just weeks after the controversy surrounding the Westferry Printworks development in my constituency, which many saw as further evidence that the Government are more interested in serving billionaires than the interests of local people. Tax haven-using Northern & Shell’s ongoing clash with Tower Hamlets council has shown that the system is not fit for purpose and that we need more transparency and accountability in planning processes, not the deregulation that the measures today represent.

Although approval for the Westferry Printworks development has been withdrawn, I understand the case remains live and is to be decided soon. Will the Minister commit to publishing viability assessments in future relevant cases where affordable housing and site values are contested? Will he commit to do so for the Westferry Printworks development before the case is decided by another Minister, and confirm that he will not simply let companies do their own viability assessments, untested?

Local people really need assurances. Many people in Poplar and Limehouse cannot understand why luxury development after luxury development continues to pop up, given the local housing crisis and the fact that the borough is so overcrowded and densely populated. It is utterly incomprehensible that, at this juncture in time, the Government are further empowering developers at the expense of local people.

When will the Government ensure that developers make their buildings safe, given that there are still 300 high-rise residential and publicly owned buildings with unsafe cladding, including in my borough, and not offload costs unfairly on to residents and leaseholders? Perhaps the Minister can explain how on earth recent history has led to the decision that further deregulation of the housing sector is needed, along with less scrutiny of developers. I would also like the Minister to explain to me how these regulations will impact on the BAME community in particular.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I need to ask the hon. Lady to bring her remarks to a close now, I am afraid.