Lord Pickles
Main Page: Lord Pickles (Conservative - Life peer)(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
5. What recent steps his Department has taken to facilitate holocaust survivors in sharing their testimony in communities throughout the UK.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
Hearing survivors’ stories is one of the best ways for communities to remember the obscenity of the holocaust. That is why we have given over £1.8 million to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, so that those stories can be preserved and shared more widely.
Richard Harrington
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. I hope he will join me in commending the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, of which I am a trustee. We must commend its work in enabling holocaust survivors to share their stories with more than 70,000 young people every year. Does my right hon. Friend also accept that there will be a big challenge ahead in regard to passing on what happened during the holocaust when there are no more survivors around to communicate that message?
Mr Pickles
Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. I believe that the trust is doing a series of films, and organising events, where the children of holocaust survivors are taking up witness. One of the most effective things I have ever seen was a film where the daughter of a holocaust survivor took up her father’s testimony. When he was a child, his mother had said, as her final parting to him, “I have lived a long life. You’ve barely started. Do what you need to survive.” It occurred to me that not only was the voice of the father being heard; we were also hearing the voice of a grandmother whom the daughter had never met. That is the final victory over Hitler and over the obscenity of Nazism.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I agree with everything that the hon. Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) has just said about the Holocaust Educational Trust. Will the Secretary of State continue a close working relationship with the trust and with Karen Pollock in the future, because for many decades they have done exactly the sort of work mentioned in the question on the Order Paper?
Mr Pickles
I am happy to give that assurance. Karen Pollock has done a remarkable job in casting fresh light on not only the holocaust that took place in Europe, but on Cambodia and Rwanda. One of the key focuses of the Prime Minister’s holocaust commission will be to ensure that what happened in the holocaust is not forgotten when survivors are no longer able to give personal testimony.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
6. What assessment he has made of recent trends in the level of private rents.
Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)
13. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the troubled families unit since its creation.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
Thanks to the help of local government and the personal commitment of right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, we are on track. In November, 18 months into our three-year programme, I announced that over half of the 120,000 families were being worked with and that over 22,000 had been turned around. I hope shortly to be able to give an update, which I think will show even more spectacular figures.
Mike Thornton
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. I am sure he will be pleased to know that the initiative has been actively and successfully embraced in Eastleigh, with Eastleigh borough council and Hampshire county council working together to transform people’s lives. However, I have heard that some councils are using it as a box-ticking exercise. How can the Department ensure that local councils are genuinely changing lives, not just filling in the appropriate forms?
Mr Pickles
There is a robust system in place for verification and checking. Both councils’ internal audits and my Department carry out spot checks, but the hard truth is that there is no reason to do this, because it offers no advantage to a council. In fact, doing it will effectively cost councils more money. In the long term it will save them money, but it means that they have to give an extra commitment. I think it is the commitment we have seen from local authorities that we should be celebrating.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State clarify whether a family can be considered “turned around” if they are still committing crimes or engaging in antisocial behaviour?
Mr Pickles
The short answer is no. We went about it in a very straightforward way and so have some very straightforward criteria. Basically, the kids must be in school, and for three terms, which is why there is a bit of a lag, and somebody must be on the road to work, in the same way that they will be within a programme, and the incidence of antisocial behaviour on the estate must have been reduced measurably.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
Although most of the families on the estate that I grew up on were hard-working and decent people, the odd one or two troubled families caused problems for the rest of the estate. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this initiative, which helps to get children back into school and parents into work, is helping not only the family concerned, but the wider community?
Mr Pickles
Sure, and the important thing is that we have one social worker dealing with one family as a whole, not a series of social workers dealing with different members of the family. That has been very impressive. I have toured the country and seen a number of the schemes in action, and I have been very pleased with the level of co-operation.
Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I fear that the Secretary of State is in denial, because his programme actually causes a reduction, not a cessation, in the problems for which the families have been put on the programme. Is it not the truth that many of the families that he says have been turned around are still truanting and engaging in antisocial behaviour? How on earth does he justify the fact that many local authorities are failing to monitor those families after they come off the programme? Is it not the truth that he is scared of real scrutiny of the claims he makes?
Mr Pickles
I invite the hon. Lady to come to my office and talk with Louise Casey. I do not think there is a scintilla of truth in anything the hon. Lady said, and I greatly regret the breach in bipartisanship towards the programme. Our books are open, so she should come in to see them. I have to tell her, in the nicest possible way, that she should put up or shut up.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
14. What assessment he has made of changes in demand for larger social homes since April 2013.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
T2.
If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Eric Pickles)
I would like to make a very brief statement about a recent development regarding my Department and officials at the European Union. The previous Labour Government signed up to a petty EU regulation that forced my Department and other Departments to fly the European flag outside our buildings. I can announce today that we have renegotiated this, and the burdensome law on flying the EU flag has now gone. This small step shows that our nation can and should claim powers back from Brussels. I apologise to you, Mr Speaker, for not flying the flag of Buckingham yesterday to celebrate your birthday. I hope you had a good day.
Mr Pickles
The hon. Gentleman is very good at smearing. This was properly conducted and, frankly, what a member of a company does in their spare time is not a matter of concern. I regularly deal with Labour councillors on a commercial basis and, frankly, I regard his attempt at smearing as pathetic.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
T3. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Enfield council’s proposal to use its public health budget for enhanced gritting is a gross misuse of public funds—the more so because in Enfield borough there is a 12-year life expectancy difference within less than 1 mile?
Mr Pickles
I am very surprised to hear that. I know my hon. Friend takes a great interest as a co-chair of the all-party group on primary care and public health. That issue goes to the very heart of whether we trust local government. A number of us have wanted the removal of ring-fencing, but using on gritting what should be used on public health is frankly ridiculous, and it brings local government into disrepute.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
Last year, the Prime Minister was reported to have abandoned his support for new towns and garden cities. Last week, however, the Housing Minister said he was not aware of any report which was supposed to have been published, while the Deputy Prime Minister revealed that there is a prospectus and said that the Government should be honest about their plans to build new garden cities. Yesterday, the Secretary of State confirmed that there is a report, but that it seems to have nothing to do with his Department. Given that he is supposed to be in charge of housing and planning, why has he not asked to see a copy?
Mr Pickles
Of course there are reports. A report commissioned by the previous Government wanted to impose five garden cities, and when that failed, there was a report for 10 garden cities, but the truth is that Labour failed to build. We have been very straightforward about it: through local development growth, we will do our best to help those communities that want to have a garden city or volunteer for a garden city. Within my Department, there are certainly no plans to build on the floodplain or to increase London sprawl.
Hilary Benn
This is what the Secretary of State said yesterday. He said that
“I am told by my department that this report”—
confirming its existence—
“does not come from my department.”
He should clear it up by publishing the prospectus now.
Since the Secretary of State and I agree that identifying sites for new garden cities must be locally led, will he tell the House whether Yalding in Kent, Gerrards Cross in Buckinghamshire or any council in Oxfordshire has come forward to express interest in providing such a site? If not, will he confirm to the House that his officials are not currently looking at any of those areas as potential sites?
Mr Pickles
The only person who I think is looking at those as potential sites is Michael Lyons, who is working for the Labour party on these matters. Just to be absolutely clear, I cannot rule out some ambitious civil servant re-heating and re-badging an old Labour scheme to bring it to us. I want to be absolutely clear: no one is going to be forced to have a garden city against their will. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is a little confused. He seems to be mixing up a prospectus with this report, whether it exists or not, but the prospectus with regard to the local growth fund—an extra £1 billion has been put in—will of course be published in the spring.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
T4. The Minister will be aware of last week’s article in The Daily Telegraph alleging a major relaxation of planning laws. This has caused some concern in my constituency, where substantial housing growth is already planned. What reassurance can he give my constituents that we will not have some planning free-for-all?
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
T8. I am working hard to promote right to buy in Stevenage, with some success. Sadly, Stevenage borough council does not support hard-working families in buying their own council homes. Will the Secretary of State consider making Stevenage a pilot area and contacting directly all tenants who are eligible to take up right to buy?
Mr Pickles
I will happily talk to my hon. Friend about that idea. I am shocked to hear that Stevenage is not playing its full part. Under right to buy, we will ensure that there are replacements on a one-for-one basis. Essentially, what Stevenage is doing is shooting itself in the foot.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
T10. A disabled constituent of mine lives with her husband in a two-bedroom property. The second bedroom is used as a lockable safe room because her husband’s mental health condition leads him to become violent. She manages thanks to the discretionary housing payment, which is by definition discretionary and temporary. Why is she not exempt from the hideous bedroom tax, given her circumstances?
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
T9. The Stanmore estate in Winchester was one of the first council estates in the country and was built in the post-great war building boom. Thanks to the changes to housing finance, Winchester city council is investing £60 million over the next 10 years to build 400 new council homes. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is very good for my constituents and that it is a genuinely affordable housing scheme?
Mr Pickles
I congratulate my hon. Friend and the local authority. There is a certain irony in the fact that the two Administrations of the past 40 years who have built the greatest number of council homes are Margaret Thatcher’s Administration and this Administration. In the past few years, we have built more council houses than the Labour party built in 13 years.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
The Government give private landlords £9.5 billion every year through housing benefit, and yet they spend only £1.1 billion on building affordable homes. If they spent all that money on affordable homes, they could build 600,000 homes every year. Why does not the Minister stop picking on and vilifying low-income tenants, and call time on profiteering landlords by capping rents and using the savings in housing benefit to build more council houses?
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that Cherwell district council is willing to discuss with him the possibility of Bicester becoming a new garden city? Work has started on the eco town and the redundant Ministry of Defence land. It is probably one of the largest house building areas in south-east England, and we are certainly willing to enter into constructive dialogue about a new garden city with the Secretary of State.
Mr Pickles
Once I have been spared from my duties in the Chamber, I intend to go to the Tea Room where I shall expect an orderly queue of hon. Members lining up to volunteer.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
In a recent debate the Secretary of State told me that in England landlords did not refuse housing to people on housing benefit, yet a big landlord was reported in the press as saying that he was moving completely out of letting to housing benefit tenants. Will the Secretary of State now carry out a proper inquiry so that he can give a clear answer to the point I raised in that debate?
Mr Pickles
With all respect to the hon. Lady, she was making exactly the same point about an article that had been in the Daily Mail that very weekend. I pointed out, with enormous respect, that there are a lot more private landlords than just that particular gentleman, and I do not think he represents anything that speaks of the sector as a whole. The short answer is no.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Did the Secretary of State see last week’s report that showed that local authorities have lost £51 million over three years in overpayments to staff, with £16.7 million still to be recovered? Does he agree that local authorities need to raise their game in that area?
Mr Pickles
I am sure that is right. The amount available through preventing fraud, overpayment and mistakes is something we expect local authorities to tackle, just as we expect them to tackle their growing balance problem.