Chinese Embassy Development
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 week, 2 days ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The noble Lord raises a number of points and I have heard him speak many times on these issues to my colleagues from the FCDO. The Government stand firm on human rights, including against China’s repression of the people of Xinjiang and Tibet. Members of the Government have raised human rights with President Xi and members of the Chinese Government. We continue to co-ordinate efforts with our international partners to hold China to account.
On the issue of Jimmy Lai, I know this question has been answered before in your Lordships’ House, but we continue to call on the Hong Kong authorities to end their politically motivated prosecution and release Jimmy Lai. The Prime Minister raised his case with President Xi at the G20, and the Foreign Secretary raised it most recently with Foreign Minister Wang Yi in April. The Prime Minister is following Jimmy Lai’s trial closely, and the Minister for the Indo-Pacific remains in regular contact with Mr Lai’s son and last met him on 28 April.
In relation to the noble Lord’s question, which I believe was about representations, representations can be made in the normal way to the Secretary of State or the planning casework unit in MHCLG. All material planning considerations will be taken into account in determining the case. If any noble Lords wish to do so, they should be directed to the Secretary of State or the planning casework team.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has rightly outlined some of the concerns regarding the Chinese Communist regime and the way that it treats its nationals, let alone its international activities. However, international relations between states have never implied approval of those states, or indeed of their domestic regimes. They are about relations between states and that implies embassies as well. The fact is that big states have big embassies—for example, look at the US embassy south of the river. China is a big state; that is a fact. Can we dial down the rhetoric a bit?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am not sure that was really a question, but I say to the noble Lord that the Government take a consistent long-term and strategic approach to managing the United Kingdom’s relations with China, which are firmly rooted in our national interest.
Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019
Lord Spellar Excerpts(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
It is very important that local areas can determine that themselves. It is not the Government’s intention to impose that on local areas, because it may vary across an area. It is very important that local areas can determine that themselves and fit it around their overall local transport strategy—that is key. There is a great difference between local authority car parking, where the money might be recycled into local services, and private parking. Sometimes there are agreements between the private parking companies, sometimes there are not. This is a matter for local determination.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a previous Transport Minister and pay tribute to the work of colleagues such as the noble Lords, Lord Kirkhope and Lord Brennan, in introducing and working with legislation. I make it clear to the Minister that companies have been stringing the Government along for many years and we are getting bogged down in process, but their business model totally depends on access to the DVLA register. It is only permissive for the Government to provide that information, to get them out of GDPR. Why do we not make it clear to the industry that we are going to get this solved, otherwise we will shut off access and its business will collapse straight away?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I would not take quite such a harsh view as my noble friend. On how the Government respond to the industry, there is a big industry here and we know that, as a result of the national code having to be withdrawn, it produced an update to the industry code, so the industry is trying to do something towards regulating itself, which we should commend. We will take account of that industry code when we draw up the national code to deliver better protections for motorists. My noble friend is quite right that we must make sure that the worst practices are dealt with, and the code will aim to make sure that they are.
Birmingham: Waste Collection
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
As I said before, Birmingham faces a specific set of circumstances here. Unite is striking against Birmingham City Council’s decision to reform the unfair staffing structures, and we have to think about the 7,000 women employees of Birmingham who were effectively underpaid. That is what the whole situation that Birmingham has faced has been designed to resolve. Many other councils across the country have already dealt with equal pay issues. They go back a long way in Birmingham and are now in the process of being resolved. I pay tribute to Birmingham City Council and the commissioners supporting it for getting on with delivering this pay structure review so that they can reform it for the future. All councils have had to face this challenge. Most have done so, and we will be keeping a careful eye as we go through the reorganisation programme to make sure it does not impact further on councils that are involved in that process.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, I commend the Minister and her colleagues on the work they have been undertaking to get this dispute resolved, which is causing huge distress to the citizens of Birmingham. Does she share my surprise at the posturing of the Opposition Benches when it was the failure of the previous Conservative-Liberal Democrat management in Birmingham to deal with the equal pay issue that led to case after case at a cost of considerable billions to the citizens of Birmingham and left the current administration a toxic legacy which they are trying to resolve?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My noble friend is, of course, quite right to say that the leadership of the council until 2012 left not only the toxic legacy of not sorting out the equal pay issue but £1 billion-worth of debt, which is part of the issue that Birmingham is now having to deal with alongside the cuts to funding it had before. We are under no illusion about the financial issues facing councils, and we are determined to make progress on the inheritance we have been left. As he said, we continue to support the leader and his team in Birmingham, both directly and through the commissioners, to move the council on from those historic issues. Indeed, we have provided an increase in core spending of up to 9.8% for Birmingham for 2025-26. As we go through the spending review, we continue to look at how we might redress the long-standing deficit in funding that councils such as Birmingham have faced.
Birmingham City Council
Lord Spellar Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I described my commitment to audit in an answer to an earlier question. Audit is part of that, and so is the collaboration that local government is now pulling together to drive the route towards these new unitary authorities, which will serve them well as they go through the process. We absolutely have to make sure that audit function is in place and sound, because that is the public’s reassurance that their council is not only financially stable but making good use of public money. That is why it should be considered as part of the English devolution Bill.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, I take my noble friend back to the comments of my noble friend Lord Snape—who, like me, represented the Borough of Sandwell—and the root cause of this problem: the failure of the Conservative/Lib Dem alliance running Birmingham City Council to deal with the equal pay issue. Sandwell Council borrowed the money from central government, paid it back within seven years and resolved the problem. That is the fundamental root, and my noble friend may wish to remind the Opposition Benches of that. With regard to picketing at the depots, has she had the opportunity to remind the chief constable of the West Midlands of the code of practice under the trade union and labour relations Act for the conduct of picketing, and is she satisfied that West Midlands Police are enforcing the law?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for that reminder that there is not a one-party state in Birmingham; other councils have been involved in failing to tackle the equal pay issue over many years. He is quite right to say that for most councils this was a very thorny issue. It came with a great deal of negotiation needed, and quite often with a huge price tag attached. So I do not underestimate the difficulty in dealing with it, but many other councils bit the bullet and got on with it. That was not tackled in Birmingham.
I have not had any conversations with the chief constable of West Midlands Police, but I am sure that the declaration of the major incident will make sure that all agencies in Birmingham are brought in to help support the council and the commissioners and to help to restore what we all want to see: the people of Birmingham being able to get their pride in their city back, and the commissioners and the leadership of the council being able to continue to move Birmingham forward to be the city we all know it can be for the future, right at the heart of the Midlands, delivering growth for the country and being the kind of wonderful place that it is for the people of Birmingham to continue to live in.
Car Parking Companies
Lord Spellar Excerpts(4 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Spellar
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to regulate car parking companies with regard to the charges that they can impose on motorists.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, we understand the frustrations and complexities that motorists face in dealing with private parking, so we are exploring all possible ways to give motorists the best protection and support. We want to strike a balance between ensuring that parking charges and debt recovery fees are at a reasonable level and allowing parking operators to manage car parks effectively. We are planning to launch a consultation—I am not going to say “in due course”—during this year, which will include options for capping charges and debt recovery fees.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that reply. She will be aware that the legislation to regulate the behaviour of parking companies was passed by Parliament in 2019, yet because of obstruction by the industry it is still not in force and motorists are still being hit with excessive and unfair charges. Does she accept that the industry’s business model depends on access to the Government’s DVLA database? Unless companies are prepared to co-operate, should they not be cut off from access to that system? That may rather get their attention and co-operation.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for the non-controversial Question of the day and for all the campaigning he has done on this issue; I know it is a great frustration to so many people. The problem was that, when the code was laid in 2022 as a result of the 2019 Act, there was a legal challenge and it had to be withdrawn. We are going out to consultation again, to make sure that we do the consultation properly and thoroughly. We will bring forward a further code of practice in due course, once that consultation has been done properly. I understand the point my noble friend is making. If he wants to put in a submission to the consultation, we would be very pleased to hear it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for Housing, Planning and Building Safety (Lee Rowley)
My hon. Friend has been a long-standing campaigner for balance within coastal communities. I know that both she and colleagues from the south-west and elsewhere are very keen to see some of the reforms that the Government are introducing on short-term lets and the changes to the planning system.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Citizens’ Assemblies and Local Democracy
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Debbie Abrahams
I was not specifically aware of the citizens’ assembly in Northern Ireland, although I am aware of many across our nation states and in other countries. They are seen as a mechanism by which elected representatives can maintain contact with their constituents on various policy issues throughout a political cycle.
Polling from the Institute for Government recently showed that two thirds of constituents do not think that the current Government behave to high ethical standards. Likewise, polling from the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition found that two thirds of voters believe that UK politics is becoming more corrupt. We know that when socio- economic inequalities are narrow, trust between different communities and groups increases, and the reverse is true when the inequalities widen. Of course, that is the situation we find ourselves in at the moment.
There are other good reasons for greater public engagement and deliberative policymaking, including through citizens’ assemblies. Before I was elected to this place, I served as a public health consultant and academic. My work was focused on tackling health inequalities and their main determinants—inequalities in income, wealth and power. It may surprise hon. Members to hear that there is an independent and universal effect on our health and wellbeing that relates to our status in a hierarchy. The process of engaging people in decision making and sharing that power has a positive impact on their health and wellbeing, in addition to leading to the development of better politics based on lived experience and consensus.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
How does a few people sitting in a citizens’ assembly enhance the involvement of the public? Is it not in fact completely undemocratic and contrary to the involvement of the public, who have the right to elect and unelect us?
Debbie Abrahams
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I will explain more about how it adds to and does not detract from the role of elected representatives, and the benefits of that.
The European values study and the world values survey have tracked changes in individuals’ perceptions of freedom and control over time. Worryingly, they found that low perceptions of freedom and control were associated with rising populist support. When people do not feel engaged in society and their local community, decisions are made about them without them. When politicians do not have their interests at heart, not only do they lose faith in democracy and seek political extremes, but it has an impact on their health. That is why citizens’ assemblies and active participative policy- making in general are important. By engaging with and empowering people on the issues that matter to them all year round, we help to give them more control over their lives and a far greater stake in our society.
John Spellar
Essentially, having a few people in a citizens’ assembly does not involve the public. The public will get involved this year in a general election; that is how the public get involved and engaged. They may feel that the results of that election are not reflective, because the great and the good and financial sources may influence things more than they should, but none of that affects the general public. The latest referendum in Ireland might demonstrate that.
Debbie Abrahams
Again, I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I am afraid that the evidence does not bear that out. It does not replace the role of elected representatives, as he seems to suggest, but enhances it. I urge him to listen to what I am saying; I am happy to supply evidence of the evaluations of the benefits.
There may be questions about—even some resistance to—the notion of citizens’ assemblies because of the Burkean belief that policymaking is a job for elected representatives. Let me be clear that citizens’ assemblies do not replace the ultimate decision-making role of elected representatives: they enhance it by providing considered evidence and recommendations to inform that decision making.
Very briefly, citizens’ assemblies are representative groups of people, selected at random through the lottery principle. They are tasked with examining an issue in depth and making recommendations. Such assemblies have been used by many policymakers in the UK and elsewhere to assist in policy decision making. An evaluation is taking place in a swathe of the democracies that constitute the OECD, because of the value that has been seen. Citizens’ assemblies have been used by Governments in their policymaking, and have even formed part of some countries’ constitutions—for example, Ireland has that important role as part of its constitution. Famously, Ireland used citizens’ assemblies to examine delicate and sensitive matters such as abortion and same-sex marriage.
Debbie Abrahams
The last one they used it in was about 10 years ago, and we had an in-depth analysis from the people who ran that about two years ago.
In 2018, two Select Committees undertook a citizens’ assembly on social care, and in 2019-20, six Select Committees commissioned one to look at climate change. I was an official observer of that process. I was so impressed with how it was organised, from the selection of citizens and facilitation of the evidence sessions to the consensus on the development of recommendations. The interviews I did with participants were incredibly powerful, and everyone seemed to get so much out of it.
I have long been convinced of the importance of participative, deliberative decision making in policy development and reviews, and I believe that citizens’ assemblies could be an incredibly powerful tool for that. However, as a politician who believes passionately in evidence-based policy, the evidence from the recent evaluation of citizens’ assemblies, including an independent evaluation of the climate assembly pilot, is also encouraging. The “Evaluation of Climate Assembly UK” report states:
“Our overriding conclusion is that CAUK was a highly valuable process that enabled a diverse group of UK citizens to engage in parliamentary scrutiny of government on climate policy in an informed and meaningful manner. The case demonstrates a significant step forward in the UK Parliament’s public engagement strategy and based on our evidence, they should seek to establish more citizens’ assemblies in the future to feed into the scrutiny work of their select committee process.”
I hope that as we move towards the general election, we discuss not only what our policies will be but how we will develop and review them with people locally and nationally.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz, and to reply to the debate ably introduced by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams).
Let me begin, as I always like to, by trying to find a point of agreement with whoever has raised the debate. The hon. Lady is right to talk about the importance of trust in politics and engagement in our political processes. Like all advanced, mature western democracies, we are living in difficult times. With social media, conspiracy theories, different people with competing views, the rise of populism and an uncertain world with many big geopolitical and environmental questions, no wonder a lot of people feel disconnected and discombobulated.
Public engagement is key. One of the strengths of our country, as the inbox of any right hon. or hon. Member will attest, is that we have very vibrant lobbying, including from the third sector, on a whole range of issues. I have been doing this job for eight and a half years and am still surprised by some of the groups out there that wish, perfectly properly, to make their views on certain issues known to their Members of Parliament .
We have vibrant, open and democratic political parties. Our advice surgeries are a wonderful opportunity to provide mini citizens’ assemblies, effectively, at which individuals or groups of constituents can come and talk to us about issues that are important to them.
I think we occasionally underplay our power to convene. We can convene all sorts of public or private meetings in our constituencies and invite people, either on a select list or via open invitation. I have done something very similar on environmental and climate change issues: I issued an open invitation and a whole raft of people in my constituency came, across the age groups. They certainly improved my knowledge and understanding of the issues. I hope also to hear, from the political perspective, some of the checks and balances and some of the challenges that the democratic process throws up.
There are ways currently being deployed to maximise public engagement and therefore, hopefully, to grow and inculcate trust. However, I do not subscribe, and nor do the Government, to the hon. Lady’s argument. She has put forward a perfectly respectable argument, and she has evidenced it as she has seen fit, but it is a question of judgment. As we all know, to govern is to choose, and often there are competing options. I do not think that we would address some of the fundamental problems that she set out at the opening of her speech by defaulting to the creation of citizens’ assemblies.
The right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) almost gave my speech for me.
Simon Hoare
Almost as if the right hon. Gentleman had been pre-timed, he is on his feet. I give way.
John Spellar
The Minister rightly says that the essence of exercises such as citizens’ assemblies is that they will deal with a narrow issue. The Government then have to choose between priorities: that is where essential political decisions get taken. There is then the opportunity for the British public to decide whether they like the direction of travel. Does he agree that we need to listen to campaigning groups, which play an important part in our democracy, but that ultimately it is the broader public who have to decide?
Simon Hoare
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. One of the great strengths of single-issue pressure groups is that they bring a whole wealth and range of in-depth knowledge on a particular system or issue. The downside is that a single-issue pressure group or campaigner does not look at the larger picture or take the balance. It does not have to govern by choosing. I have seen a lot of evidence to suggest that membership of single-issue pressure groups has gone up, but the mixed potpourri—the Woolworths pick ’n’ mix—of joining a political party, where people have to give and take and trim and tack, has proven less popular, particularly among younger people.
Simon Hoare
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We do ourselves no service, as a group of people called to this particular strand of vocational public service, if we try to set ourselves apart like plaster saints who are in some way separate and uncontactable. I agree that we have to be within our communities. I usually have a citizens’ assembly when I drop my kids off at primary school or when I am in the queue at the supermarket or the petrol station: “Hello, Simon! How are you? While I’ve got you, can I talk to you about this, that and the other?” That is what an engaged Member of Parliament does.
I hear what the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth says, but it is the ballot box that creates the forum for those citizens’ assemblies, a representative democracy. We cannot have elections every six months, every year or whatever—as often as we may change our socks or our stance on a particular issue—but that is how this country selects its representatives to take decisions.
One thing I have yet to be convinced about, with regard to the efficacy of citizens’ assemblies, is selection through a random postcode lottery, as the hon. Lady set out. They hear evidence from experts; who appoints and defines who these experts are is a moot point, but let us just work on the principle for the moment. They give up a lot of their time, they take evidence, they come to a conclusion, and in coming to that conclusion they will probably find themselves operating in exactly the same way that we do: “I’ll give way on that point; you’ll give way on this point. We will find a compromise.”
It may work once, but I can just imagine somebody saying, “There has been a citizens’ assembly in my constituency and they have decided this, and they want me to vote this way or do this thing.” That may be a luxury of opposition—something I hope I never get a taste of, but who knows?—or it may come from somebody on the Government Benches. The right hon. Member for Warley is a seasoned former Whip for his party. I am not entirely sure what our Whips offices would say collectively to the idea, but they might well say, “Well that is all fantastically interesting, but the party policy is X. You availed yourself of the benefit of standing for party X, Y or Z, and you will have to follow the Whip.”
If we go back to those people who gave their time willingly at a citizens’ assembly and say, “I hear exactly what you said, and thank you for all your effort, but you cannot mandate me to do anything. I am perfectly free to do as I will, but my Whips have told me that that freedom is fettered and I have to do this, that or the other,” I am not entirely sure that the dynamic of citizens’ assemblies would create a self-perpetuating success story. The cold reality of the delivery of governing to choose, or choosing to govern, would hit the slightly abstract, theoretical way in which a citizens’ assembly might be run.
John Spellar
The Minister is identifying another part of the problem. First, Governments have to govern broadly and make trade-offs all the time. Secondly, those who attend citizens’ assemblies, and spend their weekends and everything else, are almost by definition not representative in the sense that we are. What makes us representative is that we are elected, but that does not make us normal in that sense. What it means is that ordinary citizens have other priorities, which is a very good and sensible thing. It does not mean that those who are prepared to participate are necessarily representative of the broader public.
Simon Hoare
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I would add that another thing they are not is accountable. We are accountable: we are accountable in a society with a free press and media, and we are accountable through the ballot box. We can hold surgeries where people come to see us and ask, “Why did you vote for that and against the other?” and so on. It is about not just the representation element, but the accountability.
As somebody who started as a grassroots member of a political party and got involved in politics by joining an action group to save a field at the rear of a cathedral that somebody wanted to convert into a car park, I am hugely in favour of the power of the citizen to get involved and effect change. It is demonstrable and clear, certainly to my mind, because I am a product of it. As MPs, let us facilitate and empower more people. Let us convene more discussions locally to get people involved so that they can see the merits of this place and so that once again, or continuingly, they can see the House of Commons, their council chamber and other forums where elected people serve as their true, real, legitimate and representative citizens’ assembly.
Question put and agreed to.
Revised National Planning Framework
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Dame Maria Miller
I am sure the hon. Gentleman’s point has been heard loud and clear by the Minister. He is right that those are essential services on which all our residents now rely.
The updated NPPF deliberately does not provide an exhaustive list of the applicable exceptional circumstances. The NPPF now shows that exceptional circumstances are not to be drawn narrowly, which was too often asserted in the past by local authorities who readily chose to interpret them from case law alone. It is now clear that local authorities, including mine in Basingstoke, are able to set out their case for exceptional circumstances for a large number of reasons.
In Basingstoke, that could be the age demographics of our town. We are the most rapidly ageing population in Hampshire, with the number of over-65s growing by 77% in the last decade. The primary and most compelling factor that makes Basingstoke and Deane an outlier is our extraordinary levels of historic house building. At the start of the second world war, our population was just 13,000. By 1961, it had grown to 25,000. Today, our population is 186,000, so we have grown from 13,000 to 186,000 in less than a lifetime. Put another way, our population is now almost 1,500 times greater than it was in the second world war. Those are exceptional circumstances that have a clear bearing on the capacity of my community to absorb future high levels of house building.
Not only is such accelerated house building affecting our natural environment, especially our unique and irreplaceable north-flowing salmonoid chalk stream; it is also putting an unsustainable strain on public services, particularly our local roads and the NHS. The Government have invested record sums in my community, but we are fast feeling maxed out. There is to be a brand-new hospital, but not until 2032, and £60 million is expected on road improvements, but there is now no additional capacity technically possible.
Residents are clear about this. Thousands want to cut house building levels. They are living in a constant building site with more than 1,000 new homes being built every year, green space disappearing every day, and road works trying to squeeze the last ounce of capacity out of every road and junction. Enough is enough. Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council published its local plan, which clings to the now outdated policy of standard method as its end point, as if it continued to be set in stone. As a result, the draft plan fails to slow down house building, ratchets up building rates over time to dizzying levels and completely fails to reflect our exceptional circumstances, which I have just outlined.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. People also have to live in those communities and be entertained. Does she agree that music venues are enormously important for the cultural talent pipeline? The agent of change principle sought to protect those venues from neighbouring development. That is why it was incorporated into the planning policy guidance. Does she therefore agree that this now needs to be enshrined in law to strengthen the protection for music venues and for our musicians of the future?
Dame Maria Miller
The right hon. Gentleman may not know this, but I am the mother of two musicians and I would have to agree with him—for fear of the consequences if I did not. I hope that the Minister has listened to him as well, as he makes a valid point.
I know from conversations that I have had on the doorsteps in Basingstoke for many years that excessive house building is the No. 1 issue for many residents. It is so disappointing that the borough council has not yet exercised its new powers, especially given all the hard work that the Minister has put into changing the NPPF to better accommodate places with exceptional circumstances, such as Basingstoke.
Some of my councillors have supported a short-term approach, bagging the reduction in the five-year land supply to four years, but surely they should also share my concern that they could easily see further manipulation of developments being carried forward to make that apparent gain evaporate quite quickly. What we need is the long-term solution, not a quick fix.
None the less, I am an optimist. Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council started its public consultation on 22 January and it will run until 4 March, so that residents who are interested in the local plan and in house building levels can take part, and also perhaps support my petition at the same time, calling on the council to use its new powers to make the case for cutting house building levels to the planning inspector. Nothing is guaranteed; that is obvious. Evidence must be presented, and the case—the case that is right for the community—also has to be made. And what is right for the community is certainly not continuing house building at the current level.
I hope to embolden Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council to make changes. I hope the Minister can answer a couple of questions to help them on their way. First, will the planning inspector be expecting new interpretations of “exceptional circumstance” following the recent changes to the NPPF? Too often in the past I have been told that it applies only to the greenbelt. My reading is that that is no longer the case. Does he expect every local authority to at least acknowledge the new NPPF policies in their local plan? And would he share the surprise of local residents if any local authority were to completely ignore the new NPPF policies and act as if no changes had been made at all?
Nothing is more important to me than ensuring that everyone in my constituency has a place to live in—an affordable home. It is the Conservatives who have made sure that, in my constituency, affordable homes make up 40% of all new homes. However, Basingstoke has for decades being making up for the lack of house building elsewhere—in London, throughout the south-east and beyond. The Government changes to the NPPF mean that now our local planning authority, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, can take responsibility for ensuring that its house building plans reflect the exceptional circumstances that I have outlined in Basingstoke, and indeed in neighbouring Oakley and other surrounding villages, where the vast majority of house building has taken place. The council must look again at its plans, which were drawn up before these important new Government policies were launched, and do what is right. I believe what is right is to cut house building to a level that is appropriate for our community, taking into account the sort of nuanced circumstances that the Secretary of State talked about when he launched those new policies.
Lee Rowley
I am absolutely certain that there will be more cases for exceptional circumstances put forward in the future, and I encourage councils to consider them if they believe that they apply. Logically, I would then expect more cases for exceptional circumstances to be accepted by the Planning Inspectorate, although that will also be for the inspectorate to determine on a case-by-case basis. It is the Government’s intention to indicate that cases for exceptional circumstances can be made, that local authorities should weigh up making them and that, if they feel that they have a strong case through the Planning Inspectorate process, they do so for the good of the communities they seek to serve.
Secondly, the revised NPPF now sets out that there may be situations where higher urban densities would be wholly out of character with the existing area, and that that could be a strong reason why significantly uplifting densities would be inappropriate. Thirdly, our changes to the five-year housing land supply policy mean that up-to-date local plans should no longer have to demonstrate a five-year housing land supply. My right hon. Friend has articulated some of that already, and the considerations going on within her Hampshire constituency, but there is additional flexibility where local authorities are doing the right thing in getting their plans in place and making sure they are retained.
As someone representing a constituency that has suffered from planning issues over many decades, I recognise there is always difficulty around planning in individual local areas. I understand that, and it is one of the reasons why I am so keen to send a message that, while we are clear that we need more houses in this country—we absolutely do—they have to go in the right places. It would be incorrect, wrong and irresponsible of us to say “no more housing” when we need people to get on the housing ladder. We value the benefits to our society that a property-owning democracy brings and we celebrate every first-time buyer who gets on the ladder, because that opens up to them the opportunities that gaining and accreting capital provide.
At the same time, however, we have to accept that not every area, every place or every landscape is appropriate for building on. It is the responsibility of local councils to make sure that they are weighing that up properly, getting ahead of what will always be challenging decisions and having the conversations they need to have with local communities at the earliest possible stage.
Once again, I thank my right hon. Friend for securing this debate. She ended with three questions, and I want to touch on those before I conclude.
John Spellar
This is not just a question of housing; it is also about public and private facilities and a community. As I indicated in my intervention on the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller), part of that is about entertainment and social areas, particularly music venues, which are still under pressure. I do not expect an answer tonight, but will the Minister take away the issue of enshrining in legislation some strength for local authorities to protect not only local amenities, but the pipeline of talent for our enormously important cultural industries?
Lee Rowley
I will certainly take that point away, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will accept that there always a balance about what to put in primary legislation. The law cannot mandate virtue, and we have to find ways to ensure that our statute book does not get too big and unwieldy—there is an argument that we are already heading in that direction after 30, 40 or 50 years of incessant legislating. However, I recognise the important point he makes and I will certainly give it further consideration, although I hope he hears my reticence to state automatically that legislation is always required in all cases.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke asked three questions at the end of her speech. I hope that I have covered the question of exceptional circumstances to some extent. It is absolutely the case that local authorities should put such cases forward where reasonable and proportionate, and where they have a clear case. I would expect more exceptional circumstance cases to be made, and it is for the Planning Inspectorate to determine their outcome based on the merits or otherwise of their individual circumstances.
Antisemitic Offences
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Nicola Richards
The hon. Lady is right. We see some great examples of communities working together. A few months ago, I visited the Jewish community in Birmingham, who told us about the support they had had from the mosque in Birmingham and faith leaders across the board. This by no means describes everything that is happening at the moment, but there are plenty of examples. We have a chance on Thursday to debate some of the more positive aspects of community relationships, but sadly today’s focus is on what is going wrong at the moment.
Across the UK, in the days following Hamas’s barbaric massacre on 7 October to 13 December, the Community Security Trust recorded 2,098 antisemitic incidents. That figure is expected to rise and 2023 is expected to be the year in which the highest ever number of antisemitic incidents was recorded in the UK. The figure of 2,098 dwarfed the 800 or so incidents recorded up until 7 October and was the highest ever number reported to the CST across any similar period, even during other conflicts in the middle east. To clarify, that is 2,098 incidents of antisemitism as a result of a massacre of innocent Jewish men, women and children in Israel. The impact of this is massive and should not be underestimated.
Whereas the police require only for victims to say that they have been the target of a hate crime, the CST requires evidence of antisemitism. The CST logged at least another 1,288 incidents, which have not been classed as antisemitic. Those include criminal acts affecting Jewish people and property, suspicious behaviour near Jewish locations and anti-Israel activity that is not directed at the Jewish community or does not use antisemitic language. Many of those potential incidents involve suspicious or hostile activity at Jewish locations.
The 2,098 incidents included hateful comments, threats of violence and death threats. Among them were 95 assaults, 165 direct threats, 127 instances of damage and desecration of Jewish property, and 1,677 incidents of abusive behaviour. One hundred and thirty-three incidents related to schools and included the abuse of schoolchildren and teachers; I will talk about universities later.
Meanwhile, some of the focal points of the recent rise remain a source of concern. Rallies have taken place across our nation weekly. Of course people have a legitimate right to protest, but that is not the same as feeling free to support terrorist groups or attack Jewish people. The Select Committee on Home Affairs recently investigated the protests, and I think that it will be helpful to highlight some of the contributions from the CST’s Dr Dave Rich.
Dr Rich explained that 7 October left the Jewish community in the UK “completely traumatised and grief-stricken”. He explained that within 24 hours of that largest murderous assault on Jews since the holocaust, the first pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel demonstrations were beginning—some of them while the attack was still continuing. The protests appeared supportive of the barbarism: for example, the announcement on Facebook about one such march called the attack “heroic”. More people have been on these marches than there are Jews in Britain. The CST has had impact statements from British Jews explaining that they feel unsafe living in this country and are changing dates of hospital appointments, forbidding their children to get on the train, and so on.
There have been some 300 arrests at protests—instances where the police have identified, located and arrested someone. There have been antisemitic placards and expressions of support for terrorism, which the organisers are not doing enough to stamp out. Their communications about a rally must include warnings not to engage in antisemitic conduct or support for terrorism, and the communications of the police during the rally must prioritise accuracy over speed. It would be helpful if my hon. Friend the Minister set out what the Government are doing to ensure that the rallies are not hotbeds of antisemitism, and how much it has cost to police them effectively.
Social media platforms must act too. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has been holding meetings with the companies, asking them to set out their actions and policies. Despite that, the companies are failing in their duty of care to the users. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue found a fifty-fold increase in antisemitic comments on YouTube immediately after the 7 October attack. It found a major rise in threats made against Jewish institutions and individuals, as well as posts on X supporting and glorifying Hamas’s terror attacks. By 12 October, this content had been viewed more than 16 million times on the platform. TikTok has insufficient systems for monitoring live-streamed content, including antisemitism voiced at rallies. The Antisemitism Policy Trust and the Woolf Institute have already demonstrated a number of trends across social media platforms, including antisemitic supply rather than demand on Instagram. There are two antisemitic tweets for every Jewish person in the UK per year on X. It would be helpful if the Minister set out in detail the work that Ofcom is doing in relation to not just the platforms that I have mentioned but small, high-risk platforms such as 8kun and Rumble, both generally and specifically with regard to hate being spread by technology systems during the current middle east conflict.
The situation on university campuses, no doubt compounded by social media, is dire. Since the 7 October attacks, antisemitism on campus has risen sixfold, with 157 recorded incidents according to the CST. Jewish students have been the victims of death threats, physical assaults and violent abuse. There has been explicit support for Hamas and calls for an intifada. The Union of Jewish Students has provided examples, including a student in Scotland being pelted with eggs, graffiti on a poster in Manchester encouraging students to kill more Jews, and participants in an online lecture at Queen Mary University of London joking about Hitler’s gas bill and about getting a Hitler reboot card. The result is that some students remove visible signs of their Jewish identity, while others simply avoid campus altogether.
The Union of Jewish Students has been running training for thousands of union officials up and down the country. Are Government willing to support that effort? Last year, we witnessed what many had hoped would not be possible: three grown adults unable to clarify whether calling for the genocide of Jews was problematic, arguing that it depended on context. Those were not uneducated women; they were university leaders, and not just any university leaders; they were leaders of some of the most respected universities not just in the US, but in the world.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for for introducing this very important debate, as we see the oldest hatred in the world resurfacing so badly. Should we also deal with the argument about free speech? Free speech and discussion is vital in a democratic society but, in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes of the US Supreme Court, it is not
“the right to shout fire in a crowded theatre”.
Words have consequences. Should not universities and public authorities be cracking down on this and taking determined action?
Nicola Richards
I totally agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Just in the past few days, I have been alarmed by the responses I have received on Twitter, having reported an antisemitic incident to the police, and by the support for Hamas, but also by the number of people who do not understand why hate speech, tweets and what they call freedom of speech are being reported to the police. They do not understand the consequences. The statistics I have read out today about the number of Jews living in the UK and the number of antisemitic tweets—two antisemitic tweets per year for every Jewish person in the UK—show why it is important to crack down on it.
Since 7 October, the call for an “intifada until victory” has been plastered up and down campuses, and a model motion calling for that was passed at University College London and the University of East Anglia students’ union. Does the Minister agree that motions passed that call for an “intifada until victory” are disturbing, and that calls to globalise the intifada are extremely worrying? Perhaps we could have some clarity on the legality of the term in those contexts. Will he say something about the role of the prevent duty in relation to speakers and other activity on campus? Will he make it clear that support for Hamas, whether voiced by individual students or groups such as the Socialist Workers party, must be investigated by the police, because support for proscribed terrorist organisations, including Hamas, is illegal?
As we begin 2024, let us be clear. Policing must be robust, with zero tolerance. Sentencing must not be lenient. Education must be improved and widespread. Relevant authorities, whether they be universities, councils or companies, need to work to support Jewish colleagues, employees or students, and ensure that they recognise their duty of care.
This is my message to those engaged in antisemitism in response to a conflict in a place they are unlikely to have visited or know much about. Last week, I met people my age who had survived a massacre at a music festival purely because of their immense courage and chance. I met heartbroken but determined families of hostages and people killed. I witnessed a nation still overcome with grief. For those who diminish what happened on 7 October—or worse, seek to justify it—I hope they will never witness what those strong and brave people did. I watched 47 minutes of the gleeful spree and slaughter by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as civilians. Nothing will erase those images from my mind: the look of fear in their eyes that I did not know was possible. Nothing will ever be the same again for Jewish people around the world following that dreadful day in October last year, so have some humanity, recognise the impact of your language and ask yourself what you stand for.
Antisemitism is centuries old, but it still persists. It does not give up, so neither should we. We must remain unwavering and uncompromising in our efforts to challenge it, and I thank all colleagues present for doing so. I hope this debate will play its part in doing that.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lord Spellar Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
My I help out the Secretary of State? He is aware of the Grove Lane site on the Sandwell-Birmingham border, in which the West Midlands Combined Authority and its Mayor are also interested. It is opposite the new Midland Metropolitan University Hospital site and it is an ideal brownfield site for housing. Will his Department get on with it?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who refers to the Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority, the only metro Mayor to significantly exceed housing targets in the delivery of new homes. He is that rare thing: a Labour MP who welcomes house building in his own constituency. Of course I will support him.