Unsafe Cladding: Protecting Tenants and Leaseholders

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman).

In June 2019, Samuel Garside House, a block of flats in Barking, was consumed in a wild inferno, going up in flames in seven minutes. It is a miracle that because the fire occurred in daylight, nobody died, but many residents, mainly leaseholders, lost all their possessions. In Barking, leaseholders are families who a generation ago would have been housed by the council, but with the shocking lack of affordable social housing, their only option is to stretch their finances to the absolute limit by buying a lease. They live on the edge from one pay cheque to the next, and they cannot even afford household contents insurance. They, and thousands of others in my constituency, certainly cannot afford to pay for putting right the mistakes of others. They are locked into an absolute nightmare in unsafe homes, unable to sell, unable to remortgage, and facing mounting bills to fix a crisis they did not create. The Government’s response today had little basis in reality. They have, in truth, shunted this into the “too difficult to tackle” box and abandoned leaseholders,

In three minutes I have three issues. First, the Government must act to protect all multi-occupancy buildings. Fire does not discriminate between one height and another. Samuel Garside was below 18 metres but it was a lethal fire trap. Arbitrary height thresholds do not work. All leaseholders must be covered and existing buildings must also be remediated.

Secondly, I have spent months of research trying to identify the owners of blocks in Barking. Ownership is often hidden. The properties are sometimes held through companies located in tax havens. Freeholders who make easy money by charging a ground rent are getting away scot-free. Freeholders must contribute towards the massive remediation costs, alongside developers, contractors, suppliers and regulators.

Thirdly, the Government must solve the spiralling cost of building insurance. Some are struggling to find any insurance cover at all. Residents of one block are facing a 900% hike in their building insurance. The Association of British Insurers told me that the Government are simply not engaging in a realistic dialogue to produce a scheme where risks are shared between the taxpayer and insurance companies. They have done so on covid issues but they have singularly failed where people are living in danger in their own homes.

I have not forgotten my constituents, but the Government have failed them. Those living in the Ropeworks, Academy Central, Spring Place, Samuel Garside, Central House, Benedicts Wharf, Rivermill Lofts, 360 Barking and Spectrum Building are all being left behind, abandoned by a Government refusing to—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I call Royston Smith.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab) [V]]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) on his very good contribution. It seems incomprehensible that so many people were complicit by their action or inaction in the uniquely horrific extermination of 6 million Jews, yet the holocaust is not an isolated genocide. Today, Uyghurs and Rohingyas are living through the nightmare of persecution, segregation, imprisonment and murder. Only by acting together, confronting prejudice and hate and being the light in the darkness can we conquer this evil.

I recently read my grandfather’s diaries, written when he escaped to Britain from Austria. Old and ill, he was interned in Huyton because he was deemed an enemy alien. His diaries reveal the trauma, the constant worry about relatives and the challenges faced by refugees. An eternal optimist, his diaries also describe the talent imprisoned with him—musicians, artists and academics—and that made me realise how many brilliant philosophers, musicians and scientists were lost because they were murdered by the Nazis.

As holocaust survivors inevitably die, it falls to us to keep the knowledge of what happened alive. My grandmother’s letter, written nine days before she was killed, in which she says twice, “Don’t forget me completely”, sealed my determination to fight racism and antisemitism wherever and whenever I meet it.

When I was first an MP, I was a Labour MP who happened to be Jewish, but when antisemitism moved to the mainstream of my party, I became a Jewish Labour MP—my identity interwoven with my work. The last five years have been difficult, long and lonely. I did enjoy support from the brave activists in the Jewish Labour Movement and from those colleagues who did call out antisemitism, and I will never forget the friendship and support between the four Jewish Labour women: Louise Ellman, Ruth Smeeth, Luciana Berger and myself. It was the women who stood together, worked together and simply would not give up. The tragedy is that they are no longer MPs. I salute their brave contribution, and I miss them.

A year has made a huge difference. By his actions, our party’s new leader is demonstrating zero tolerance of Jew hate, not just suspending and expelling individuals but transforming our culture and re-establishing trust with the Jewish community, who were hurt and genuinely frightened. As a party, we are finally focused on eliminating antisemitism, responding to the shameful findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission report and restoring our core values.

The history of the Jews and our knowledge of present day genocides tells us that if we ignore prejudice and hate, it can deepen and destroy. I came into politics to fight racism, so I will always do all I can to nurture the light and conquer the darkness.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and I hope that it is one of the points that is explored during the debate, but if he will forgive me, I would like to get on with my speech.

As Primo Levi said, monsters do exist in our world, but they are too few to be truly dangerous; more dangerous are those who are willing to follow their evil without asking questions. It is our job in this place to ensure that those questions are asked, and clearly we need to do more.

Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust has suggested that the recent rises in antisemitism are not just about attitudes to Jewish people but are the results of our society weakening as a whole. Extremist movements in the UK and abroad have given confidence to those that previously hid in the shadows. Antisemitism always flourishes when extremism takes hold, and our current times are no different. This is a problem that all British society must confront, and it demands leadership that is prepared to turn its back on inequality and division. Prejudice and hatred of Jewish people has no place whatsoever in society, and every one of us has a responsibility to ensure that it is never allowed to fester again.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I want to raise an issue around social media and the way that it has been exploited by, I am afraid, the hard left in what I would call almost holocaust weaponisation. The hard left are trying to close down any constructive debate that we can have on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are trying to fuel modern antisemitism and trying to silence many Jews in public life. I regularly receive images which, for example, have piles of dead bodies from Nazi death camps, and swastikas alongside Israeli flags. I am likened to SS guards, and I have seen online remarks calling for a final solution to my sort of politics. Does my hon. Friend agree that the internet remains an under-regulated and unchecked medium in which these attitudes can grow? Does she agree that we should be taking action both to regulate better and check better what is allowed on social media?

[Cat Smith]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising that incredibly valid and painful point with regard to social media companies. I pay tribute to her work on always challenging antisemitism wherever it raises its head, even when it can be very uncomfortable to do so. She raises topics around the way in which social media companies seem to be given a free rein and how it is so hard to remove these pieces of hate from many platforms. That is worthy of a debate in this House in its own right as a single issue.

Members of the Jewish community are on the receiving end of this hate, but today’s debate is a chance for us to acknowledge that they cannot be left to tackle this problem alone. We need to be vigilant, because the events that led to the holocaust appeared, not as a single grotesque event, but through the normalisation and mainstreaming of hatred, inequality and intolerance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Percy]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady—I would say my hon. Friend—who has been incredibly brave in calling out antisemitism herself, as well as the subject of antisemitism. I pay tribute to her work as vice-chair of our APPG and entirely agree with her. There might be an opportunity to address some of this through the online harms Bill, but it is time that we updated our electoral law to ensure that tougher measures are in place. It has been a very long time since there was a full root-and-branch review of this country’s electoral law, and we should absolutely carry that out.

I want to move on from the party political problems by just saying that I agree entirely with the Jewish Labour Movement that it is wholly inappropriate that somebody has been nominated by the Labour party—it was, at least, reported this weekend that they had been nominated—to serve in the House of Lords when they are at the centre of allegations of covering up antisemitism and intervening in antisemitism inquiries within that party. I know that many Labour Members share that view, principally because the Labour party has a proud history of fighting all forms of racism.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his newly acquired position as chair of the APPG and look forward to working with him on it. I share his feelings about the nomination to the House of Lords. Does he agree that we will totally abolish antisemitism from the mainstream of all political parties only if the collective leadership of those parties really shows a zero-tolerance approach in not just their words but their actions?

[Andrew Percy]

I cannot disagree with a word that the right hon. Lady says. As she has powerfully outlined in previous debates, she has been on the receiving end of vile antisemitic abuse. This does come from the leadership down. Leadership is needed from all of us, but there should be no doubt about the position of our political leaders.

That is why I agree with the Minister’s comments and urge colleagues to sign up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition. The APPG sat in Portcullis House for a very long time yesterday to encourage colleagues to sign up. Many still have not done so, but I ask them please to sign up to the IHRA definition, because that is one way in which all of us can demonstrate leadership and show our commitment to zero tolerance of antisemitism.

Of course, antisemitism and antisemitic tropes were the beating heart of Nazism, yet in the past few years there has been a resurgence of holocaust denial, and the holocaust has been distorted and denigrated. Sadly, the context is worsening, particularly online. An American study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that fake news is 70% more likely to be shared on social media than a true story. The Antisemitism Policy Trust and the Community Security Trust have found that the number of searches for “holocaust hoax” on Holocaust Memorial Day is 30% above the average for the rest of the year. If someone types the words “Jew joke” into Google, they will find some of the most shocking and disgusting antisemitic, holocaust-minimising and racist bile they can find. This all occurs in an online space that impacts on our real world, and a particular concern at the moment is seen in the use of gaming, with gamers targeted as a route into antisemitism. That surprised me, but perhaps it does make sense, and we have to do a lot about that.

As the Institute for Jewish Policy Research has shown, the chances are that while only 2.5% of the public may be what we would understand as antisemites, one antisemitic opinion is likely to be held by some 30% of the public. Therefore, the chances of encountering antisemitism in this country are relatively high. That is not to say that 30% of people in this country are antisemitic—of course not—but it is certainly the case that we hear casual things such as, “But of course the Jews do seem to be very wealthy.” The people who say such things would not consider themselves antisemitic, but they will use such a trope. They casually throw it in without, as I say, considering themselves to be antisemitic.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I start by picking up where the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) left off: like her, I have been to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, many times over the past few years. It has been a very moving experience, which I shall never forget, no matter how many times I go back. Two things stand out in my memory. The first is the objectivity of the displays—they do not try to dress up the holocaust; they explain it as it is. The second is the timeline there—it illustrates not just what happened when the second world war started, but the timeline before that and the sort of words and feelings that started the whole process that led to the holocaust. The purpose of Yad Vashem is a noble one: to keep alive the memory of what happened and to remember the individuals who died and were murdered in the holocaust. In other words, it links history and memory.

We have also mentioned that this is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I have been to Auschwitz on a number of occasions, too, and its grim state provides a very good reminder of the terrible atrocities that took place there. For me, however, the most important concentration camp that I have been to is outside Lublin, in eastern Poland. Why was it so memorable? Because when I went there on a glorious spring day, there were lots of flowers around in the concentration camp. Those flowers were growing because they were built on the bodies of people who had been cremated and murdered in that concentration camp. It was an irony that we still had the glory and beauty of those flowers against such a terrible atrocity.

I am a trustee of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, which is responsible for running the event, and we have heard that this year, it has a theme—“stand together”. The trust asked us to identify an individual that we could mention during the debate, but I am not going to do that. Instead, I am going to put on this yarmulke in order to remember the 6 million Jews who were killed during the second world war. It is important that we do that, but it is important, too, that we recognise that other genocides have occurred, apart from the holocaust. There have been genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful statement and I congratulate him on it. Today is the day when the issue of the Rohingya Muslims and whether there is a genocide is being considered by the International Court of Justice. It is sobering thought that that judgment is happening on the day that we are debating the holocaust. Does he agree that lessons are not always learnt? I hope that the ICJ comes to a sensible judgment and that that influences what happens in Myanmar and the treatment of the Rohingya Muslims.

[John Howell]

I completely agree. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust uses the definition that genocides are those that have been declared by the United Nations, so the quicker that that moves on—so we can see what happened there—and the judgment is made, the sooner we can include Burma in the list of places where genocides have occurred.

In addition to the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it is also the 25th anniversary of the genocide in Bosnia, and we should remember that as we go through Holocaust Memorial Day. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust sets out to bring together thousands of people across the UK, who participate in different programmes, many of which are originated by communities and schools. They all participate in remembering, and tens of thousands of activities take place during the day. It also organises the UK ceremony that takes place next week, to which I hope a number of Members here have been invited, because it is a great thing to do. Sadly, I will be away at the Council of Europe, where I expect we will have our memorial to those who were killed in the concentration camp near Strasbourg, which we went to see last year.

Finally, the words of Sir Nicholas Winton, who rescued almost 700 children from Nazi-occupied Europe, should be taken to heart when we think back to the holocaust:

“Don’t be content in your life just to do no wrong, be prepared every day to try and do some good.”

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Grenfell Tower Inquiry’s Phase 1 Report.

It is now over two and a half years since the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower, and I believe I speak for all Members of this House when I say that we once again offer the 72 victims, the bereaved, the survivors and everyone affected our profound condolences. They remain in our thoughts and prayers. They seek answers, accountability, justice and action to ensure that this terrible tragedy is never repeated. That is why yesterday I set out our immediate plans to improve building safety in this country. Getting this right is a priority for this new Government and the Prime Minister, and it is something that I will personally be taking forward at pace.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so early in his speech. He refers to the statement he made yesterday. I welcome the decision in that statement to consult on ensuring that building regulations are relevant to buildings of a lower height, but he talked about that being relevant to new buildings and not to existing buildings. He will know from the fire at Samuel Garside House in my constituency that that was an existing building, and that it went up in just six minutes. If the fire had happened in the middle of night, it could have led to huge loss of life. Fortunately it did not, but I ask him to consider whether the regulations should not also be relevant to existing buildings, as well as to new buildings of a lower height.

[Robert Jenrick]

I will come to that issue in a moment. The right hon. Lady and I have worked together on this and she has been a strong advocate for her constituents after the fire in Barking.

The announcement we made yesterday goes further. It says that we will be working with experts to develop a far more sophisticated measure of safety in buildings than simply the crude one of height alone that has existed for decades in this country. Once we have arrived at that, it will inform all the actions that building owners will have to take. It is the responsibility of building owners to take a view of building safety through an independent assessment of risk in that building that bears in mind all the characteristics of the building, whether it be the height, the residents in the building, the fire safety system or—as with the fire in Barking—balconies and other materials that are used on the building.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady makes several important points. Much of the work of the social housing White Paper will apply to private leaseholders, and of course we have a separate stream of work on reforming leasehold. We have already said we will shortly publish a draft Bill on leasehold reform, and we await the further reports from the Law Commission and then in time from the Competition and Markets Authority on leasehold, which will inform our work and I hope lead to significant legislation to reform the leasehold market later in this Parliament.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again. As he will remember, one of the issues that arose from the fire in Barking was the fact that none of the leaseholders had household insurance, so when they lost all the contents of their homes or the contents were damaged they had no recourse to insurance to replace them. Is he giving any consideration, in any of these reforms, to introducing a system whereby not only is building insurance imposed on leaseholders—presumably in social housing that would be covered by the local authorities—but victims of fires do not end up losing all their belongings and having no money with which to replace them? These are people on the edge who really are finding it hard to manage.

[Robert Jenrick]

I did look into that issue when the right hon. Lady raised it after the fire in Barking. I am acutely aware of the number of individuals who do not have household insurance—that was brought home to me after the floods in Doncaster last year, when we encountered many households that did not have it. I do not think that it is for the state to intervene—I am not sure how practical it would be for household insurance to be provided centrally, regardless of the value of the contents of individuals’ homes—but I am happy to think again, and to speak to the right hon. Lady if that would be helpful.

My Department continues to hold regular meetings with the crucial stakeholders, including Grenfell United, to discuss our emerging proposals, and to ensure that the reform we are introducing is what is needed to deliver meaningful change. I am grateful for their engagement and commitment. It was at their request that we did not rush to publish the social housing White Paper, but are continuing to work with them to ensure that they will—I hope—be able to support it in due course. I will report back to the House shortly with our conclusions.

We know that for the families, the relatives and the survivors, change cannot come quickly enough, and we know that there is still a huge amount to do. We have heard that already, in the opening of this debate. The recent fire in Barking and the fire in Bolton at the end of last year only serve to remind us of the urgency with which we must act, and will continue to guide our work.

Phase 1 of the inquiry was just the first part of a complex process to uncover the truth of what happened. Next week, phase 2 hearings will begin as the work of the inquiry continues. Those hearings will help us to understand how the building was so dangerously exposed to the risk of fire. I have no doubt that Sir Martin will leave no stone unturned in his work. There will be tough questions for those involved in the refurbishment of the tower, and for the manufacturers of the materials used; but there will also be questions for central and local government to respond to, and I will support the work of the inquiry in any way I can.

We also continue to work alongside others to bring about changes that will protect the public, and I will ensure that further updates on the steps taken to implement the chairman’s recommendations are shared with the House at the earliest opportunity.

Grenfell: Government Response

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I would be very interested to hear any further details from the hon. Gentleman in relation to cases he is pointing to. I know the Minister for Housing has had regular surgeries with a number of the families involved about the decision process and the support they are receiving, and indeed from the taskforce itself with the challenge and the information it gives me. I would be very pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman and talk to him about those cases. He is right: it is hugely humbling to meet the survivors and the bereaved, and see the dignity and humility that they show. I think many of us who were at the Speaker’s reception earlier today will have felt that very keenly, with the profound impact it certainly had on me and I know on others in this House, too.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

Mr Speaker, I am sorry I could not join your Speaker’s reception today, because I was with those of my constituents in Barking—on Barking riverside—who are the survivors and victims of the terrible fire that took place yesterday. I hope you will give me a little leeway in what I have to say.

The pictures on the estate are horrific. Thankfully, nobody died, but had that fire taken place at night, I think people would have died. Literally the whole building was engulfed in flames within six minutes. The residents I met have lost their homes, their possessions, children’s toys, family photos and personal mementoes, and what I came across in my meetings this morning was trauma, grief and anger.

These are early days and it is appropriate that a proper investigation takes place, but let me raise three issues with the Secretary of State that arose out of my visit this morning. First, it absolutely shocked me that the fire alarms that should have been in place and operating were not working and that there were no sprinklers in this block of flats, because they were not considered necessary. This is a block of flats that was built only seven years ago.

Secondly, timber was used, and it was used really in a decorative way. Allegedly—and this is so shocking—that timber had not been treated. What I have been told is that the regulations are such that, because the building was only a six-storey building and therefore not 18 metres or higher, there was no necessity to have that sort of regulation. That is shocking. How on earth can that be possible in this day and age?

Thirdly, I want to talk about who is responsible. When we walk on to an estate like that, there is a freeholder, a developer, a builder and subcontractors, while the developer sells on to other people and there are then leaseholders and people in buy-to-let. There are myriad people who have a role to play there, and nobody is accountable. Everybody I talked to today on that side of the fence wanted to pass the buck and pass on responsibility.

I have to say to the Secretary of State that, at the end of the day, when lives are at risk he has to be responsible, and he has to empower local authorities, through him, to take responsibility. We are talking about protecting our people—the most important duty we have as elected representatives. It is no good passing the buck to other authorities. I hear what the Secretary of State says, and he does talk a lot of words. I urge him to recognise that now is the time for action. Two years on from Grenfell, we should not have had another fire.

[James Brokenshire]

I thank the right hon. Lady for what she has said and the points that she has made on behalf of her constituents. I do not know whether she heard it, but I indicated at the start of my statement that I would be visiting Barking later this evening. Certainly, I would like to speak to her after the formalities here today, to co-ordinate and to hear some of the feedback that she has represented on the Floor of the House this afternoon.

There are two elements that the right hon. Lady highlighted to do with fire alarms and the nature of the timber used on the balconies. This is still subject to investigation and review of precisely what went on, but I can assure her that I have asked the Building Research Establishment to provide technical expertise on investigating the reasons for the speed of the fire’s spread. The expert panel will be asked to issue further guidance urgently, and the wider circumstances will be looked at in our review of wider building safety. She makes the point powerfully about responsibility—having one person clearly responsible for the management and safety of a building—which is at the heart of Judith Hackitt’s review. That is precisely what is at the heart of the reforms, and I look forward to continuing the discussion with the right hon. Lady.

Antisemitism in Modern Society

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Wednesday 20th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I rise to speak feeling a mixture of anger and anguish: anger at the shocking increase in antisemitic incidents in our country, and anger at the abject failure of the Labour leadership to root out the cancer of antisemitism within our party; anguish because of the stuff of antisemitism, whether online, verbal or physical, constitutes an unspeakably dreadful stain on our society, and anguish because my colleagues, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) and the right hon. Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan), both of whom have dedicated themselves to fighting antisemitism, feel that they can no longer stay in the Labour party and work with Labour MPs, both Jews and non-Jews, to eradicate antisemitism from our party.

It just beggars belief that on the very day the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree chose to leave the Labour party Derek Hatton was readmitted. This is a slight deviation, but I knew Derek Hatton in the 1980s. A leading member of Militant, he holds bigoted views and never believed in consistency between what he said and what he did. I remember a meeting of rate-capped councils when he harangued the leader of one council who had told us his council was going to set a rate that night. Hatton accused the man of betraying the working classes by complying with the law. I was fed up with his hypocrisy, because that was precisely what Hatton had done the previous year. When I told him to be quiet, he turned on me and shouted, “If it’s too hot for you Margaret, get back in the kitchen.”

To return to the debate, I never ever thought that my Jewish identity would be central to my political work. I have always been secular. I arrived as an immigrant with my family at the age of four. We were not active in the Jewish community, although all our family friends were also Jewish refugees. But like so many other Jews, I lost family in the holocaust. In recent years, as my sisters trawled through family letters and diaries, that family history became more vivid and poignant for me. I read a letter from my aunt—after fleeing, she found herself in France—that she sent to Marshal Pétain, pleading with him to release her husband who had been taken from their home in the Ardèche:

“He is only a number to you. He is everything to me.”

Her husband, my uncle, was later murdered in Auschwitz.

At Auschwitz, years later, I walked into a room filled with luggage and was confronted with a battered suitcase bearing his initials. I read my grandfather’s diaries and heard the despair he expressed as he visited his parents’ graves in Vienna for the last time before fleeing the Nazis. And most painful of all, I read my grandmother’s last letter, written to her son, my uncle, nine days before she was shot in a trench outside a concentration camp, in which she twice says, “Don’t forget me completely.”

Stamping out antisemitism matters. We must never shirk our shared responsibility to prevent such horrors from happening again. We ignore the present increase in antisemitism incidents at our peril: a 16% rise, as others have said; the third year in a row that figures have reached an all-time high; a 54% increase in just one year in antisemitic abuse on social media. Complacency, denial, the shifting of blame on to others—all that is unacceptable.

This is not about weaponising racism for political advantage, an accusation that makes me profoundly angry. Likewise, for some people to claim that those fighting antisemitism are simply protecting the Netanyahu regime in Israel is deeply insulting and utterly wrong. I often criticise the actions of successive Israeli Governments where I feel that is justified, but legitimate criticism of a foreign Government should never morph into racist abuse against all Jews, as it too often does.

The increase in antisemitism comes from both the left and the right. On the right, CST analysis tells us that one in four of the incidents of recorded abuse involved language used by the far right, but under the leadership of my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), a platform has also been given for antisemitism, which was always present on the hard-left fringes, but has now moved into the mainstream of my party. That is why we have experienced a surge in abuse against us—abuse particularly targeted against female Jewish MPs.

I have seen the internal Labour party documents leaked to LBC that formed the agenda for one single meeting of the group tasked with investigating allegations of antisemitic abuse, and I congratulate LBC on doggedly pursuing this story. There are 47 antisemitic allegations in these documents against Labour party members. The evidence of abuse is shocking. I quote:

“He needs to check out the love fest between the Zionists and the Nazis.

People are finding out how much power Jews have. They seem to have a lot of power over the main opposition party. Might they rebel if…the reason they didn’t get a job or a home was because a Jew got it.

You are paid by Israel to destabilise UK Labour.

A Zionist plot to oust Jeremy Corbyn.

A swastika is appropriate as Israel is a fascist state.”

Some of the abuse is directed at Members of this House. LBC gave the file to Mak Chishty, who ran the hate crime unit for the Metropolitan police until 2017. He identified 17 cases that he judged were “race hate incidents” and four cases that crossed the threshold for criminal investigation. It took three months for the Crown Prosecution Service to give the police the go-ahead just for a criminal investigation. Will the Government urgently inquire into why this delay occurred and will they also provide me with written assurance that the delay will not result in cases being dropped because they run out of time?

The documents leaked to LBC covered less than 50 cases. The Labour party has received hundreds and hundreds of complaints, yet only 12 individuals have been expelled from the party since April. I could have identified more than that from the one set of papers I saw. This tells me that the leader of the Labour party is not demanding zero tolerance of antisemitism in our ranks. Until he does, I and other members of the party will continue to call it out fearlessly, loudly and persistently.

Trust between the leader, his staff, Labour headquarters and Back-Bench Labour MPs has now broken down completely. I have absolutely no confidence in the integrity of the data that the party has provided concerning its progress. I submitted a dossier of abusive communications. The only communication that I have received back is a letter from a party member—about whom I had complained —in which he says of my complaint:

“I can’t tell you how pathetic I think this is of you, going crying to the complaints department when someone says they don’t like you.”

He had accused me of “hysterically abusing Corbyn” to advance my own agenda and had said that Jewish people in this country are not victims of anything and that I was a nasty, dishonest person. The level of care provided to MPs by the party is so pathetic that the only response one gets to complaining about antisemitic abuse is further abuse from the culprit.

This week, two Labour MPs quit the Labour party, mainly because they think the party is institutionally antisemitic. I understand and respect their decision and mourn their departure. I joined the Labour party 56 years ago because it was the natural home for Jews, with its proud tradition of fighting racism, promoting equality and fostering tolerance. I do not yet want to give up the fight for the heart and soul of a party I have worked for and with throughout my adult life. The leader of the Labour party must really listen, must really understand and must really change. If he does not do so, he will be culpable for sabotaging the values that led to the creation of the Labour party and responsible for the withering away of a once great political force.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Budget Resolutions

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

This Budget reflects traditional Tory values that will deepen poverty and inequality and do nothing for struggling families. I will provide three examples: the Government chose to put more money into mending potholes than they granted to our cash-starved schools; they chose to prioritise the motorist over a sustainable future for our planet; and they chose to give away more in tax to those who need it least and ignored those who need most support. Labour should have no truck with that approach. We should pledge to reverse the tax and benefit changes.

Regrettably, most politicians shy away from an honest conversation about the need to raise enough money through tax to fund good-quality public services. We cannot keep promising excellent schools, effective policing and compassionate care if we refuse to raise the necessary money through taxation. We cannot keep pretending that punishing the wealthy is the solution to underfunding. We need to demonstrate value for money. We need a fair system in which big corporations do not get away with paying minimal tax on their profits. We also need a truthful conversation with voters about how much we need to raise in tax to fund public services.

I regret that the Government have not used the Budget to build on Parliament’s determination to have greater transparency in British tax havens, so that we know who owns what and where. Following the money is an essential tool to help ensure that everybody pays their fair share. MPs welcomed the Government’s concession on British overseas territories. However, we must now deal with the anomaly of Britain’s Crown dependencies. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and I visited Guernsey and the Isle of Man and held positive discussions with elected politicians, and we will soon visit Jersey. Our purpose is persuade the Crown dependencies to co-operate with the UK and agree to publish public registers. Should they not co-operate, however, Parliament must use its powers to insist that they do so. Parliament expressed its views on this issue clearly. We must now ensure consistency and transparency in all UK jurisdictions.

Finally, I had hoped to welcome the digital services tax, but the Government’s proposal is little more than a public relations stunt. The Red Book projects that it will be 2022-23 before we raise just £400 million from this tax. A recent Tax Watch report calculated that in 2017, Google, which paid only £49 million in corporation tax, should have contributed £356 million, and that Facebook, which paid only £16 million, should have paid £127.5 million. Just two companies, Google and Facebook, should have paid £480 million in 2017, far exceeding the £400 million the Government estimate they will get some five years down the line from all large digital corporations. Hardware companies such as Apple and Microsoft will not be covered by the tax. Video and audio platforms, such as Netflix and Spotify, will not be caught either. Airbnb and Uber will argue that their marketplaces are not online. Even Google and Facebook will be able to exclude some of their profits.

The tax gives us far too little, far too late. It is an exercise in media management designed to persuade taxpayers that we are all treated equally. It leaves undisturbed the continuing scandal of billions lost to the public purse by the deliberate actions of giant global digital companies. This behaviour is an enduring outrage, and we on the Labour Benches will continue to argue for fair taxation.

Anti-Semitism

Baroness Hodge of Barking Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I was born in Egypt in the last year of the second world war as Jews were being exterminated in Hitler’s gas chambers. I grew up thinking that we would never forget, yet more than 70 years later here we are debating the issue. Anti-Semitism exists across Europe and across the political spectrum, but I never ever thought that I would experience significant anti-Semitism as a member of the Labour party. I have and it has left me feeling an outsider in the party of which I have been a member for more than 50 years.

I am a Jew. My upbringing has been entirely secular. I have never practised Jewish religious traditions. Neither of my two husbands were Jews. I am a consistent critic of the Governments of Israel. None the less, my Jewish heritage is central to my being.

Recently, my sisters trawled through the correspondence and diaries of my family who came from Germany and Austria. My grandmother, in her early fifties, thought that she was too old to be harmed by the Nazis, but we have the last letter that she wrote to her son, my uncle, in 1941, nine days before she was forcibly taken to a concentration camp in Lithuania and shot and killed in a trench outside the gates. In her letter she said twice, “Don’t completely forget me.” In a postscript she wrote:

“Thinking about you will help me to endure what is coming...I am sceptical that we shall ever meet again. Who knows when I can even write to you again.”

My uncle on my father’s side spent much of the war in the Ardèche before he was finally deported and killed in Auschwitz. When I visited Auschwitz, I saw the suitcases of those murdered in the gas chambers and was confronted by a battered brown suitcase with my uncle’s initials on it. That moment was utterly chilling for me. All of that is my heritage. It is what I am today. I cannot forget. It is one reason why I joined the Labour party in the 1960s. Labour was the party that fought racism and intolerance. It was the party that defended minorities. It was the natural home for Jews who had been subject to inhumane acts for no other reason than their race, their ethnicity and their religion.

It has been truly shocking to receive vicious anti-Semitic tweets from right-wing extremists, but also from the left. My inbox is nothing compared to those of some of my hon. Friends, but there is a surge of anti-Semitism on the left. In part, it has always been there. There are those who see every Jew as a paid-up member of the Netanyahu fan club, who cannot make a distinction between being a Jew and voicing support for Israel as a place for Jews to live safely, who consider “Zionist” a term of abuse, who deny the holocaust and who hate Jews.

I have never felt as nervous and frightened at being a Jew as I feel today. It feels as if my party has given permission for anti-Semitism to go unchallenged. Anti-Semitism is making me an outsider in my Labour party. To that I simply say, enough is enough.