Commission on Antisemitism Report

Debate between Lord Pickles and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Thursday 17th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I know that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is looking very closely at all issues. I am sure she will have taken comments yesterday into consideration as she considers how to address these issues. The noble Lord is quite right that, as we saw an increase of 113% in the UK of hate crimes targeting Jews in the last year compared with the previous year, we need to make sure that that underlying current of antisemitism is tackled wherever it appears.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and Dame Penny Mordaunt on this excellent report. Its strength is that it is practical, and it gives a very clear steer to the Government on things that could be achieved relatively quickly. I will concentrate on recommendation 5, on the teaching of antisemitism and dealing with antisemitism in schools. A lot of teachers are, frankly, frightened of dealing with this. They feel intimidated and unsupported, and those who have been prepared to try have often been shouted down by hotheads in the community. There are a number of really good studies out there, and I commend the work of UCL and Education Scotland to the Minister. If they took those practical things, I think it would be possible. I ask for the Government to do their best to roll out those reforms in the coming academic year.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite right that education sits right at the heart of this. To noble Lords who may not have had time to read the report yet, I commend these examples: Maccabi GB delivering training on contemporary antisemitism across the entirety of English football, which I think is a very clear example; and the agreement between the diocese of Winchester and the local Jewish community to teach primary school teachers how to avoid passing on antisemitism and anti-Jewish tropes in their lessons. These are wonderful examples, as are those quoted by the noble Lord. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister for Education will take those on board and think about how we address this in future. There is also a role for local government here, of course, in promoting this issue, in training and support to schools.

Building Homes

Debate between Lord Pickles and Baroness Taylor of Stevenage

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, not just for his question but for his long-term championing of housing in this Chamber. I look forward to working with him, particularly on the provision of some of the specialist housing which I know is of great interest to him.

In terms of restocking—or should it be restaffing?—planning departments, there are plans to allow full cost recovery on residential applications, which is one part in the detail of the Statement today and is really encouraging. We have plans to increase the number of planners. I know that planners take a long time to train and are experts in what they do, so it is not an overnight job, but we are determined to strengthen planning departments, which are responsible for the whole of this process.

On development corporations, further announcements are coming forward tomorrow on the issue of new towns, but I take the noble Lord’s point on the wider aspects of development corporations. With his permission, I will take that back, give it some further consideration and respond to him in writing. But I think he will be interested to hear the announcements on new towns tomorrow.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, there is a lot in this Statement to welcome. I agree with the noble Baroness on the need to look at the green belt and at grey areas in particular. I attempted to do this 14 years ago but was stopped by the tsunami to save our green belt. We need a proper understanding of the green belt, recognising that there are plenty of brownfield sites within the green belt and greenfield sites in the brown belt, so this kind of rationalisation is necessary. I also very much welcome the commitment to council housing. It must be of some embarrassment to Labour that the Blair-Brown years never reached the number of council houses that Baroness Thatcher built or, indeed, the level built during the Cameron to Sunak years.

I make two suggestions about where we could speed up the process. I am pleased that the Minister wants to speed up planning applications, but the delay is actually at the other end in implementing the conditions. She should look very hard at that. My second suggestion is that, given that it will take some time to get this in place, the Government should look at ways of encouraging, either fiscally or through planning policy, off-site construction. That is the best way to get more houses that are better, more environmentally friendly and more secure in terms of power. Doing that requires a fair amount of investment from developers, but it would be able to give the numbers that the noble Baroness is looking for.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, for his comments and suggestions, which were helpful as ever, and I look forward to working with him as we go through this programme. I am passionate about council housing, having grown up in a council house—it was actually a development corporation house, to be clear—and I want to see that programme develop. I thank the noble Lord for his suggestions and look forward to moving the whole programme forward.

I will just make a correction on the affordable homes programme. Let me clarify that the Government have committed today to bring forward details of future government investment in social and affordable housing at the spending review, enabling providers to plan for the future as they help to deliver the biggest increase in affordable housing in a generation. I might have muddled my wording slightly on that, so that is just for clarification.