Antisemitic Attacks

Debate between Baroness Hodge of Barking and Robert Jenrick

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I, for one, never thought that I would see banners being held aloft on the streets of London, apparently with impunity, saying, “Death to Jews”, or individuals being able to drive for some time through neighbourhoods, broadcasting the kind of antisemitic bile that we saw over the weekend. That is disgraceful. It is wrong and we need to ensure that our police services are equipped to take action quickly and robustly when this happens again in the future. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will speak again to her counterparts so that they can ensure that where such instances arise in the future, action is taken as fast as possible, as we would expect with regard to any other racist or intimidatory incident.

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

May I thank you, Mr Speaker, and the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for securing this urgent question? Like others, seeing racist posters, swastikas, a rabbi attacked and a racist convoy going through north London, I could see that the message was one of hate and, often, misogyny. This House is sending out a very strong message today denouncing this vile racism. But our message cannot just be for today. Tragically, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not go away, and we must be able to debate and disagree without Jew hate or Islamophobia taking over. What action is the Secretary of State taking beyond today, and beyond the brilliant work that the Holocaust Educational Trust is doing with young people, to inform and educate communities throughout Britain, including elected representatives, so that a discussion on an international conflict does not morph into a national expression of hate?

[Robert Jenrick]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her remarks and, of course, for her own record of standing up to antisemitism in the past. She is right to say that this is, sadly, just one of a number of incidents, and past incidents of this nature have flared up at the same time as conflict in the middle east. In 2014, for example, there was a significant spike in antisemitic incidents. Many members of the Jewish community are fearful that we will see a similar situation now. Indeed, some have said to me that there is greater intensity today than there was back then, perhaps fuelled by the rise of social media.

We need to ensure that we are rooting out antisemitism and doing so through education, working with all parts of society. That is one of the reasons that the Prime Minister and I have appointed Sara Khan as our independent adviser, who will tackle extremism of any kind and ensure that it cannot exist with impunity in plain sight. All parts of Government and civil society must play their part in that—not just central Government and local authorities, but charities, schools and faith groups the length and breadth of the country.

Building Safety

Debate between Baroness Hodge of Barking and Robert Jenrick

Wednesday 10th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

The levy and the tax that I have announced today and that my right hon Friend the Chancellor and I will be setting out more details on ensure that the industry pays its fair share, in addition to it stepping up and paying for the remediation of buildings for which it has responsibility. It has to be said that there is no simple solution to this. Many of the builders and developers who constructed these buildings are long gone—they have gone into administration or they are shell companies offshore. This is not a simple challenge to fix, as some have suggested, but I hope the measures that we have taken today will go a long way.

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

A number of Members have said that getting any money out of Government has proved painfully slow, so leaseholders today are facing extra costs for insurance while their buildings remain unsafe. Building insurance at the Ropeworks in Barking rocketed from £70,000 to £650,000 —a 900% hike in just two years. The Association of British Insurers has told me that Ministers have refused to engage to find an urgent, practical way forward now. Will the Minister assure us today that the Government will immediately engage with all insurers, take on some of that short-term risk, so that leaseholders can buy affordable cover until their buildings are made safe?

[Robert Jenrick]

I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady for the work that she has done. She and I have worked together since the terrible fire that her constituents suffered in Barking. She is right to raise the issue of insurance, as other Members of the House have done already. There is a challenge here, because, as with the lenders, the insurers are faced with assessing a new and heightened level of risk. None the less the Association of British Insurers now needs to step up and take a proportionate risk-based approach. As I have said repeatedly, the risk to life in buildings is, mercifully, very low, with the tragic exception of the events of 2017. Insurers should be pricing that risk correctly and not passing on those costs or even profiteering on the backs of the leaseholders. Both myself and my hon. Friend Lord Greenhalgh who leads on building safety have engaged repeatedly with insurers and we will do so again.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Phase 1 Report

Debate between Baroness Hodge of Barking and Robert Jenrick

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.