Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

11. What assessment he has made of the effect on the economy of the risk of the UK leaving the EU without an agreement.

[The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sajid Javid)]

We would prefer to leave with a deal, and we continue to work energetically and determinedly to get a better deal, but the Government are turbo charging their preparations to ensure we are ready to leave without a deal on 31 October. All necessary funds have been made available. The fundamentals of the British economy are strong: real wages are growing; employment is at a record high; and unemployment is at an historic low.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Hayes]

There is evidence of a rise in short positions being taken out against the pound. Is the Chancellor confident that the hedge funds taking those short positions, some of which donated to the Prime Minister’s leadership campaign and the Conservative party, have no inside information about the planning or timing of a no-deal Brexit?

[Sajid Javid]

That is such a ridiculous suggestion it does not deserve an answer.

Windrush Compensation Scheme

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Will the Home Office fund independent legal advice for those Windrush citizens who may not be able to navigate the Home Office website system or who may feel entirely unable directly to approach a Department that has so comprehensively breached their trust?

[Sajid Javid]

As I mentioned earlier, we have tried to make it as simple as we can to navigate, with guidance and a freephone number. If anyone finds themselves in that circumstance, I suggest that the first thing they do is call the freephone number.

Knife Crime

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that issue. He has referred to the report just last week of the Children’s Commissioner, who is on the serious violence taskforce. I very much welcomed her report. She is absolutely right to look at this whole issue of vulnerable children who have been drawn into these gangs. Hon. Members have talked about the pupil referral units in that regard as well. There are some very sensible recommendations in the report and we will be working with her and others to see what more can be done.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The past two years have seen six tragic knife murders in my constituency, including, in the past month, the murders of Dennis Anderson in East Dulwich and Glendon Spence, who died after being chased into a youth centre in Brixton. For every tragic victim, there are countless families who are living in daily fear. One mother told me recently of her teenage son. She said:

“I pray when he leaves the house and I don’t breathe until he is home again.”

The public health approach cannot be implemented by public services—whether health, education, police, social services, youth services or housing—which have been decimated by nine years of austerity. When will the Secretary of State commit to not just piecemeal pockets of limited funding, but a reversal of the devastation of our public services, which is resulting in our communities living in fear?

[Sajid Javid]

What I have outlined today, or summarised again for the House, are what I think are some very significant increases in resourcing: the increase in police resourcing, the largest since 2010, and the record amount invested in youth intervention, including the £200 million endowment fund. Those are very significant investments. I am not suggesting for a second that the hon. Lady cannot be right that more resources might be needed. If that is absolutely necessary, of course, that is what will happen, but it would be wrong to say that they are piecemeal resources and in some way insignificant.

Windrush Scheme

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Every one of those cases already has to be reviewed by a Minister.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I have written extensively to the Immigration Minister and to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions about my constituent, a Windrush citizen, who has been denied attendance allowance because she was not in the country during the assessment period. The only reason why she was not in the country was the illegal action of the British Government. Will the Home Secretary now accept that a lack of joined-up working between Government Departments on the Windrush scheme is compounding, increasing and prolonging the injustice that the Windrush citizens are suffering?

[Sajid Javid]

We work closely with the Department for Work and Pensions, and the hon. Lady gives an example of why that is absolutely necessary. If she wants to give me further details of her constituent’s case, we will look into it as a matter of priority.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Monday 21st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I can tell my hon. Friend that, first, the pilot will test the effectiveness of our immigration system, alleviating seasonal labour shortages during peak periods of production while ensuring that there is a minimal impact on local communities. We will fully assess the outcome of the pilot, but I am happy to give him the assurance that he seeks.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is impossible to consider the future of the immigration system without considering the injustices that the immigration system has meted out in the past. In relation to the compensation scheme for Windrush citizens who have been unjustly and unlawfully treated by the Home Office, is the Home Secretary aware of reports that unscrupulous law firms are approaching Windrush victims and seeking to represent them in relation to the compensation scheme on the basis of a commission rate of more than 25% of the compensation awarded? Will he condemn that utterly predatory and exploitative practice and take steps to ensure that 100% of the compensation awarded by that scheme, when it is finalised, will go to the victims, who have already suffered enough?

[Sajid Javid]

It is very important that we have a fair compensation scheme in place. The work that Martin Forde, QC, has done independently is excellent; we will announce more on that soon. I join the hon. Lady in condemning those unscrupulous firms that are thinking only about lining their pockets, and not about the victims.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

16. What steps he is taking to provide compensation to Windrush migrants.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sajid Javid)]

I am committed to establishing a compensation scheme as quickly and as carefully as possible to help address what has gone wrong. The design of the scheme is naturally complex. I am therefore determined that we get it right and that we properly listen to those affected before taking final decisions on the design.

[Helen Hayes]

The Windrush scandal and the Government’s wider hostile environment policy have created an urgent need for independent advice for Windrush citizens seeking to confirm their status and access compensation. As there is no trust in the Home Office, the Black Cultural Archives in my constituency has for several months been running legal advice clinics for Windrush citizens, staffed by volunteer lawyers. They have seen hundreds of people and there remains unmet need. This essential work should not fall to volunteers. Does the Home Secretary recognise the need for independent advice from trusted organisations such as the Black Cultural Archives, and will he provide funding to enable independent advice to be available to everyone who needs it?

[Sajid Javid]

When I became Home Secretary, I said it was my first priority to help those affected by the Windrush situation. That is why one of the first things we did was properly staff the taskforce, and over 100 officials now work on it, ensuring that people are listened to and that applications are processed quickly. More than 2,000 applications have already been processed, most of them in a single day. Last week, we announced that some 584 applications for citizenship have been granted. I think we are dealing with this appropriately. I am always happy to listen to fresh ideas, but I think this is being taken very seriously by the Government.

Windrush

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend about the need to clearly articulate the distinction between those such as the Windrush generation, who have every right to be here and need to be helped in every way with this difficult situation, and the need to maintain a strong, compliant environment to ensure that our immigration rules are followed by everyone.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

My constituent, Gretel Gocan, had lived in the UK for 30 years when she was wrongly denied re-entry after visiting Jamaica for a family funeral several years ago. Arrangements are now being made for Gretel to return home to the UK. Her health is fragile and her family would like her to be able to travel this week, but they are struggling to raise the £972 cost of the flight. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the travel costs of repatriating Windrush citizens who have wrongfully been denied entry to the UK will be met by the Government so that Gretel’s family can bring her home this week?

[Sajid Javid]

If the hon. Lady sends me details of that particular case, I will take a closer look at it.

Local Government Funding

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I will give way in a moment.

It has taken titanic efforts to turn the situation round and rebuild our economy, with both central and local government having to find new ways of delivering essential services while delivering value for money. The country cannot afford a return to Labour’s ways of spend, borrow and bust.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

rose—

[Sajid Javid]

Perhaps this is another hon. Lady who wants to apologise.

[Helen Hayes]

I was not planning to intervene on the Secretary of State, as I am hoping to speak later, but the hon. Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) talked about Labour’s proposals for a land value tax, and I want to correct the record on that. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee is currently undertaking a cross-party inquiry into the merits of the land value tax, which has been tried and tested in many European countries and which has many variants. I hope that the Secretary of State will take seriously the recommendations of the Select Committee when we report in due course.

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady gives me the opportunity to highlight Labour’s tax plans once again. She says that Labour is not considering a land value tax, but perhaps she is not aware of what Councillor Sharon Taylor of the Local Government Association Labour group said just a few days ago, on 20 March. She said that she would like to see increased freedoms for councils from day one of Labour Government and that this should include

“the ability to look at local taxes such as land value tax”

and a tourism tax. Labour’s plans are all about tax, tax, tax. That is the only thing it knows.

There is no doubt that local authorities are stepping up to the challenges that they face and demonstrating real ambition and creativity to drive efficiencies at the same time as protecting frontline services. Let me share a few examples with the House. Suffolk County Council has used advanced technology to understand what is behind the service pressures generated by troubled families. Since that work began, the council has saved some £10 million and increased the capacity of its system to focus on priority cases. South Cambridgeshire has set up its own housing company to provide innovative solutions to meet local housing need. The company will expand its portfolio of properties, investing approximately £100 million over the next five years. This will generate an additional £600,000 per annum for the council.

Many councils have taken a more radical approach to restructuring to do better for their communities. The benefits can be enormous when local areas look beyond lines on a map and party differences and find new ways to work together. That is what Suffolk Coastal and Waveney district councils have done to create a new district council: East Suffolk. That culmination of years of collaboration is expected to yield annual savings of more than £2 million. There are also mergers of Forest Heath and St Edmundsbury to form West Suffolk, which is estimated to generate a saving of over £500,000 each year, and of West Somerset and Taunton Deane to form Somerset West and Taunton, which will lead to transformational change and annual savings of some £3 million.

Building Safety

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I can assure my right hon. Friend that even when building work is carried out under permitted development rights, it still needs to be subject to building regulations, including all those around safety. There is no way that any builder can avoid that. I hope that that gives some reassurance to her residents. The building regulations are still very much in place, even when work is done under permitted development rights.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The Grenfell Tower fire laid bare profound injustices at the heart of the UK housing system, and every revelation from the investigation makes that picture starker and clearer. So far, the Government have not made available a single penny of new Government money for essential works to respond to and mitigate the risks revealed as a consequence of Grenfell. Unless the Government do so, they are simply meting out further injustice to leaseholders, who will face very large bills, and tenants, who will see much-needed major works pushed back. Will the Secretary of State take the opportunity of this latest revelation to commit new Government resources to address the impact of Grenfell Tower on fire safety across the country, and to right the wrongs at the heart of the UK housing system?

[Sajid Javid]

I would say two things. With regard to local authorities, we have made it very clear that we will provide them with the financial flexibility, if they need it, to do any necessary fire safety work. That has been clear from the start. On wider issues of social housing and some of the wider lessons to learn from this terrible tragedy, that is exactly why we will have a Green Paper. We are going through the process that has been put in place, and we will publish the Green Paper in due course after proper consultation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

We want to help all councils meet their local housing need, and that includes helping with their plans as they develop them, but also giving them more options other than looking at the green belt, as we did in the recent draft plan that was published earlier this month, and helping with infrastructure, which means the £5 billion housing infrastructure fund.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The previous Conservative Mayor of London set up the London housing bank, a loan scheme so restrictive that housing providers could not borrow from it. Will the Secretary of State explain why, instead of responding to requests from the current Mayor of London over the past 18 months to remove some of the restrictions on this scheme to enable much-needed affordable homes to be built, he has decided to withdraw the funding for affordable homes altogether? Will he also explain how it is that the first the Mayor’s office heard of this was via an article in The Huffington Post?

[Sajid Javid]

We all want more affordable homes, including of course in our capital city, and that is why over £3 billion was given to London for affordable housing in the spring Budget. It was the biggest ever settlement, and it was welcomed by the Mayor. Yet despite that, we have seen a fall in affordable housing delivery under Sadiq Khan. That is not acceptable: he needs to do much better.

Grenfell Tower

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Thursday 19th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My Department, which has been leading the Government effort, has been heavily involved right from day one of this tragedy, as have several councils—not just the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. London boroughs came together quickly under what is a called a gold command, and all councils have been involved in working with and listening to the victims. Over the summer, a majority of the victims came together to set up Grenfell United under their own initiative, and there have been regular meetings with the group’s committee. I met the group at a meeting to which every survivor was invited, and the victims Minister and the Prime Minister have also met the group.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I was troubled to hear the Secretary of State tell the Communities and Local Government Committee that councils would be expected to reprioritise in order to complete essential fire safety works post-Grenfell. Will he confirm whether it is my constituents living in temporary accommodation and desperately waiting for a new home or those waiting for much-needed major works who should be reprioritised? Can he not see that, unless the Government provide grant funding for essential fire safety works, the long-term impact of the tragedy across the country will be a deepening of the housing crisis? We owe it to the victims and survivors to do better than that.

Local Housing Need

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I can assure my hon. Friend that we have been absolutely clear, and I am happy to be clear again: green belt rightly has a significant amount of protection in planning policy. What we have said today, and what we have put in the White Paper, changes absolutely none of that. We are committed to maintaining those protections; existing protections will in no way change. As I made clear in the statement and in my response to the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), when the new housing assessment is done, one constraint for local authorities could well be green belt. For others, it could be national parks or areas of outstanding natural beauty. It could be a combination of them. Some might apply to a single local authority. One of our building priorities has always been to prioritise brownfield land, and that does not change.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has made a statement today that acknowledges the depth of the housing crisis and the broken nature of housing supply in the UK. Throughout the passage of the Homelessness Reduction Bill last year, Ministers consistently claimed that they would need to fund the implementation of the Act for only two years, because the Act would solve homelessness within that time. A National Audit Office report this year makes it clear that the homelessness crisis is deepening and that the Government’s light-touch approach is simply inadequate to the task. Will the Secretary of State now commit to proper and continuing funding for the implementation of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, so that councils have the resources that they need now to support everyone who requires help with their housing?

[Sajid Javid]

I am proud of the Government’s support for the Homelessness Reduction Act. When it comes into force, it will help in many ways and make a big difference, but it will do so alongside all the other measures the Government are rightly taking to tackle homelessness. We are committed to spending £550 million for the five years to 2020. That commitment stays, but we are always looking to see what more we can do. That is why, in our recent election manifesto, we committed to Housing First pilots.

Grenfell Tower Fire/Fire Safety

Debate between Helen Hayes and Sajid Javid

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary and his Department are speaking to not just the manufacturer of the fridge-freezer concerned with regard to Grenfell Tower but a number of other manufacturers of white goods, some of which already have products on recall. The pace of recall is, frankly, far too slow, and my right hon. Friend is taking that very seriously.

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

Between 2010 and 2015, the Department for Communities and Local Government reduced its staff capacity by a higher proportion than any other Department—almost 40%. As a member of the Communities and Local Government Committee in the previous Parliament, I saw that in many areas the Department is clearly very stretched. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the number of staff in the Department is being increased, so that it can co-ordinate the national response to all aspects of the Grenfell Tower tragedy in an efficient and timely manner, including providing emergency support to any council that requests it?

[Sajid Javid]

Yes, it is being increased.