Decent Homes

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Jeremy Corbyn

Thursday 27th January 2011 Westminster Hall

[Kate Hoey]

I want to go further. If a person is handy and can do a bit of plumbing, why can we not let them move in and fix things up themselves? For the first six months, they could live rent-free or pay a reduced rent, which is what the GLC used to do. If the flats are used, more rent comes into the borough thereby giving councils more money. If we leave the homes empty, no one is paying rent. I feel strongly about that.

Finally, housing associations have become more and more like the old style, one-size-fits-all council, which we have tried to get away from. I was very supportive of the tenants who wanted Hyde Housing to take over a great deal of the housing stock in Stockwell, but we have recently experienced the most appalling problems with that organisation. When it finally realised that things were going wrong, representatives came down and were responsive to the tenants. The chief executive has now gone, which may be why things have changed.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Does my hon. Friend not think that there is an issue surrounding the governance, accountability and democracy of housing associations? They started out as smallish local, social organisations, but they have become very large housing companies that often seem more interested in private development than in their primary function.

[Kate Hoey]

I agree. There have been so many mergers that I give up on the names and what they call themselves now. They have definitely moved away from being small and really local—they try to close their local housing offices as soon as possible once they have taken over.

On my hon. Friend’s point about leaseholder charges, some people have been ripped off for years by housing associations. In the case of Hyde Housing, it was only because a group of residents got together and spent hours and hours looking at the issue in detail in order to prove their case that it accepted that case, apologised and will pay the money back. In my area, the most success, in terms of the management and the residents’ enjoyment of it, has come from successful, small TMOs. They have really worked. They have been given the power and more control. One of them, Holland Rise and Whitebeam Close, has taken over the concierge system and is running it brilliantly. The staff like being there now—they feel that they are involved in the estate and know the residents. In the past, Lambeth council ran the concierge system for all the blocks, and the TMO had to put up with its management and style.

I will probably get into trouble with my councillors for what I have said, but some good things are happening in Lambeth. The issue is about investment and money, but it is also about more than that. I support the Government’s proposed changes in relation to rents and councils being able to control that money. However, we must make sure that there is a mechanism that ensures that that money is spent properly. Local is best, but local councils do not always do the right thing with the money.

UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Jeremy Corbyn

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am delighted that we are at last having a debate on the situation in Afghanistan and the deployment of British troops there. It does not reflect well on Parliament, our parliamentary structures or our democracy that the vote at 6 o’clock will be the first substantive vote by Members of Parliament on whether British troops ought to be deployed in Afghanistan. It does not do much for the role of Parliament that there has been insufficient scrutiny of this endeavour other than the quite correct memorials that have been read out to those soldiers who have tragically lost their lives in this conflict.

In preparation for this debate, I had a look at Hansard from 2001. During the relevant 2001 debate, the then Secretary of State for Defence, Geoffrey Hoon, said that he would set out the aims of the mission. He said:

“We aim to do everything possible to eliminate the threat posed by international terrorism, to deter states from supporting, harbouring, or acting complicitly with international terrorist groups, to reintegrate Afghanistan as a responsible member of the international community and to end its self-imposed isolation.”—[Official Report, 1 November 2001; Vol. 373, c. 1014.]

He went on to say that other aims included capturing Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. Well, the campaign has not been particularly successful on either the latter two aims or the earlier part.

At the end of that debate, the then Member for Linlithgow, Tam Dalyell, asked for a vote on a procedural motion and 13 Members voted against the proposal. There were four tellers, all of whom were against—one of them was my hon. and good Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who was, bizarrely, a teller for the other side—to ensure that a vote was recorded in the House on that occasion. It does not look good if a country and a democracy is so determined to go to war but those who are prosecuting the war do not want a vote in the House on the matter. I hope that those who support the war tonight will put up tellers to ensure that those of us who do not support either the amendment moved by the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) or the substantive question are able to record our votes against it on behalf, we believe, of large numbers of people in our constituencies and in the wider country.

The war came about after 9/11, which was obviously appalling, awful and wrong. Whichever way one looks at 9/11, there was nothing right about it—it was dreadful—but was it right, sensible or intelligent of the then President Bush to respond by leading us into a war in Afghanistan that has now lasted for almost twice as long as the second world war or the first world war? We are moving into the 10th year of the conflict in Afghanistan, and although President Obama talks about coming out within two or three years, I have a feeling that if the military is allowed to have its way we will still be there in five years’ time or perhaps for even longer than that. The strategy does not seem to involve anything other than continuing the occupation of that country.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

We have been told many times that one reason why we are in Afghanistan is to make us feel safer here and to protect us in our communities. Do we mix with different people from Opposition and Government Front Benchers? Does my hon. Friend get many people in his constituency coming up to him and saying, “Thank goodness we are in Afghanistan because we feel so much safer from terrorism now”? I do not.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I live in and represent an inner-city area, and I have to say in all honesty that not one person in my community—not once, on any occasion—has come up to me and said that. Indeed, there is a sense of grievance among the Muslim community in Britain, partly because of this war but partly because of the substantial amounts of anti-terror legislation that have been a product of the war. They feel much less secure than they did in the past and much more isolated from the rest of the community. We should bear it in mind that foreign policy is not conducted in isolation and its effects are not felt in isolation.