Brexit Deal: Referendum

Debate between Rupa Huq and Rachael Maskell

Monday 11th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell]

I will just make a few opening remarks, if I may. The referendum asked only one question: “Do you want to leave the European Union?” It did not ask about the single market, the agencies or the customs union. In fact, I recall a time when the Prime Minister was not even clear about the status of the customs union after the referendum, so there was clearly not a comprehensive, in-depth understanding of what leaving the European Union actually meant; everybody interpreted it in a different way.

I think all of us in this room, if we are honest, have gone on a journey since the referendum. We have learned a lot more and we are gathering a lot more information about what is to come. When someone says, as the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) did, that the people voted to leave, I say, well, they did, but only by a very narrow margin—3.7%. My interpretation of the result is that the country was divided, and therefore that every time the people who voted to remain hear that this is the will of the people, their views are being completely ignored. The reality is that it was the will of half the people who voted. We also know that only 72% of the people eligible to vote did so, and, as we have heard, with demographic changes, more people today would be able to vote, so it is not the will of the people, it is the will of some of the people, half the people, at a point in time.

To predicate the whole future of our country on that point in time, in the way the Government are, is really divisive. That is what we have seen: a really divided agenda moving forward. That is what I want to address. The most important thing now is pulling our country together. The rhetoric is being put out more and more; half of the people are hearing that their votes and their views do not matter any more, because we are going off this cliff edge come what may. We really need to respect everybody, and we need to find a way of pulling people together.

There was some hope in the statement on Friday morning, because it talked about things perhaps not changing so dramatically. We know that where there are polarised views, we have to find a mechanism to bring people together. The statement, in paragraph 49, said:

“In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union”.

It is clear where we are heading: after 18 months of further division and pain, we are actually heading to a bit of a convergence of views. That is really important, and it is why Labour set out right from the beginning that we believe in staying in the customs union and single market throughout the transition, and then seeing where we end up after that.

The reality is that we will of course have to be close to the European Union because we will continue to trade; we will obviously have to trade within their rules, and that is the way it will continue. This nonsense that we have to go to a completely polarised position does not work. However, we have already had 18 months in which the pain of the process has been deeply divisive, as I have mentioned, but also deeply damaging to our economy.

For me, the headline in the Budget was the £65 billion loss as the economy has contracted. We heard about the additional £3 billion being put into this process and we have heard of the £36 billion or £39 billion bill to leave the European Union. How much will all these new agencies cost to set up? How much will these trade deals cost us? The real cost is not before us, and it is absolutely essential that we have a better understanding of the impact of leaving the European Union. To keep that information covert, as opposed to sharing it, means that Parliament cannot scrutinise it. Nor can the people of this country; it is about their hard-earned money, which they pay through taxes. It is vital that they have a real understanding of where we are heading.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a persuasive speech about how the referendum was really a snapshot in time. I wonder if she has seen the demographic figures showing that by 2022, at the next scheduled election, there will be more than 3 million extra voters aged 18 to 22 who were unable to vote in the referendum. That is the danger. I do not want to be as crude as to say, “Where there’s death, there’s hope in politics,” but we know there is a younger generation who were denied the vote. Our party thought that 16-year-olds should have had a vote. In time, they will be in the ascendant, and there is a strong case for reviewing that decision. Does she agree?

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend makes a really good point. The reality is that it is not only the age demographic that is changing; opinion is also changing, as we heard through the Survation poll. We expect that to continue, because the myths about Europe are being dispelled as there is more debate and discussion, and people are facing the reality and the sheer cost of what is to come.

We need to make sense of the process. If, in trying to honour the majority of people who voted in the referendum, things are not working in the way that the Government first set out in their ambition, I have no issue with them saying, “Look, we’ve tried. We’ve gone through a negotiating process, but in the best interests of our country, our economy, jobs and the protections we have fought hard and worked for over the years, we are better having a stronger relationship with Europe than walking away altogether.” We need to be pragmatic, as opposed to just following a political narrative that is wearing really thin throughout the country. Otherwise, it is a complete insult to the people who put thought into their vote on 23 June.

In my own city of York, we had a 58% remain vote, but in York Central—the constituency I represent—two thirds of people voted to remain. They did that because of the impact analysis they did. I have gone round before and after the referendum talking to our major industries, to see what the impact is. Let us look at tourism. We were told that Britain would really benefit from tourism; more people would come into the UK because the pound was weaker and therefore we would see a real boom. When I talk to the industry, they say they cannot cope with Brexit. People who previously supported Brexit are saying that it is deeply damaging. We are losing all the labour in the tourism industry, and as a result, businesses are closing. York has a big tourism footprint. We cannot get enough chefs, and we cannot get cleaners for our hotels, and it is deeply damaging on that front.

The universities are a large part of our economy, too, and they are in a desperate state because they have no certainty over future funding, which is their lifeblood. Things are getting really tough. I meet with the vice-chancellors, and they are deeply concerned about where we are going. They are forming relationships for the future, but with the uncertainty about the future, they are not clear where they will take them.

I have not heard language colleges debated. On Friday I met with the language colleges in York—it is a major industry in the city—and they say that all the trade is moving over to the Republic of Ireland, and therefore they are not able to recruit the students they need. Businesses are divesting and moving their headquarters to Ireland and the EU. Of course, that is not just happening in York. It is happening across the UK.

I have had many discussions about the dependency of our NHS on EU labour. People have choices, and they are choosing not to come. I heard on Thursday night how the hospital, after much effort, was able to recruit more than 40 Spanish nurses. Only three now remain. It is not going to be able to repeat that. We know that patient safety is being put at risk as a result of the numbers falling. This is a real challenge for our local economy. When I met with CBI members in the region, they said that 42% of business investments are now not in the UK, but have gone to elsewhere in the EU. That is why Labour has emphasised the importance of a jobs- first Brexit the whole way. We know that good-quality jobs are disappearing, and York has faced that challenge. As we have heard, we have lost the European Medicines Agency, and we are losing our influence and job opportunities as a result.

I want to come on to the issue of how we bring the country together. The reality is that we are still incredibly polarised and split. I have not heard anything from the Government about trying to bring the country together, as well as the people who have polarised views. Just to say, “You voted at a point in time and that’s it, we’re moving on,” is incredibly damaging, and we need to try to adjust that agenda. I did not hear anything from the hon. Member for Cleethorpes about a way forward for the 30% of people who voted remain in his constituency, and about how he would bring them back to the table.

We need a wider conversation with the people of the country. It is intense in Parliament, and it is more intense in Government, by all reports, but the people of the country voted on 23 June, and quite frankly their views have been ignored. There has not been national engagement and a capturing of people’s views as they have shifted. Polling has been done, and we are doing work in our constituencies, but there is not that inclusivity of people across the country. It is essential to look at how we can capture people’s views. Having a referendum that seeks to know the views of the people of our country and to ask much broader questions would help to formulate our future direction.

We have to recognise that we are at a unique point in our history, and we must dig deeper into what the real concerns are. I know that people voted leave for many different reasons. In the north of England, many people felt that for decades, they have been in economic recession, and people have been poor. Because Europe did not answer those questions, they thought, “Well, clearly it’s failing us,” so they voted to leave. They perhaps did not see the failure that is to come down the track, of being outside the EU.

At the time of the vote on article 50, I was serving in the shadow DEFRA team. Many people wanted to leave not the single market, but the common agricultural policy. People had different views on what they wanted to do. There was concern about the immigration issues that were being ramped up by the far right. It is absolutely right that we defeat those views, but we also have to look at a very failed immigration policy in our country. It has failed because Government took away the funding to support people who were placed in many of the poorest areas, and therefore there was a real challenge in those communities. The Government have completely failed when it comes to exploitative agency labour, which has removed jobs and opportunities from local people. All sorts of issues have to be addressed.

Because all the Government’s time is subsumed in Brexit, I have not seen them address the real concerns of people who voted to leave. We have huge inequality. We heard in the Joseph Rowntree Foundation report last week that 13.9 million people in our country are living in poverty. We heard about the rise of older people in poverty, but also children in poverty. We also had the Social Mobility Commission report, which shows a regression in social mobility in our country. Of course, many of the people who voted to leave are trapped in poverty, without opportunities in life. We are not seeing the Government really addressing the concerns that people voted about on 23 June. That is why it is really important that we go back, to understand formally what those are. I hear this debate in the House time and time again. People are being ignored, and our democracy is failing them.

One of the last points I want to make is about the end of the process. If we had confidence that there was going to be a meaningful vote in Parliament, we would be able to represent our constituents’ views well. My biggest concern is that the vote will just be whipped through and hon. Members will vote along party lines, and ultimately the people of this country will be ignored—because of the political narrative in the House and out in the media, as opposed to their status at the end of this process, no matter what economic situation we find ourselves in—because it is about saving the skin of the Government when we get to that point, rather than finding a different way forward.

[Sir David Crausby in the Chair]

On referendums, we have all had our experiences and I am sure that we would never want to repeat them, but we need to find a way to include the people of our country in this process. I suggest a general election.

Housing Supply

Debate between Rupa Huq and Rachael Maskell

Thursday 13th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone, in a debate that is important for my constituency. I welcome the Minister to his place and trust that we can have a constructive relationship in working around the housing crisis in the city of York.

After 60 years without a local plan, the Tory and Lib Dem parties in coalition on City of York Council have proved that political expediency is far more important to them than addressing the needs of my community. That has an impact not only on the housing crisis and people desperately needing a home they can afford to live in, but on our public services and the local economy, because local businesses are also feeling the heat.

On Monday, the council’s local plan working group approved a plan, after a further two years of delay, to focus on high-density, luxury developments in Labour areas of the city and to minimise development in the Tory and Lib Dem areas. That strategy will fail to deliver the minimum number of affordable units needed in York, as the coalition has taken the absolute minimalist approach to development and will not even meet its quota for affordable homes. The local plan does not build on the evidence presented by independent experts to build the right number of homes and the mix of housing desperately needed in York, and it will not meet York’s requirements for social housing, which is now at such a premium.

Owing to issues in the local economy, the city is not working; the local economy is struggling. Public services—I can name the healthcare sector and the NHS—are struggling to recruit the staff needed to support the city, because people simply cannot afford to live in York. York has many brownfield sites to develop. They are not ready for immediate development, because they need to go through a decontamination process, which we all understand takes time. However, housing on those sites and, in particular, the York Central site, with which I am sure the Minister is familiar, will be completely unaffordable for local people, because the City of York councillors have determined that the homes will be luxury apartments, which our city does not need. People who are already struggling to find and afford a home they can call their own will be unable to access that housing.

In fact, people on low incomes in York now have to find 8.9 times their salary for the cheapest properties in the city. That is out of their reach, so they are either leaving the city altogether, creating the crisis that we are seeing in many sectors, or having to rent privately. In York, 26% of housing is now in the private rented sector. The cost of renting a two-bedroom property is £838, and renting a three-bedroom property costs more than £1,000. The average cost of a house to buy is more than £300,000. The Minister can already see that York is becoming inaccessible for local people. The average wage in York is just over £22,000—it is a low-wage city because of the decline in its industrial base. There is an economic challenge as well as a housing challenge, which means that our city is altogether challenged. That is why I appeal to the Minister to look at how we can put solutions in place.

[Dr Huq]

I wonder whether my hon. Friend has had a similar experience to me. The cost of private rent is punitive, and buying is even worse. I do a lot of school assemblies, and every school I go to says that it has recruitment problems because people cannot afford to stay in west London. The schools can get good trainee teachers in their 20s, but the minute those people want to put down roots, they are off to Milton Keynes, Slough or wherever the nearest affordable place is, which creates an uneven age structure in the teaching staff and messes everything up.

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In teaching and right across our public services, it is a real challenge for public servants to be able to live in these premium spots to provide the vital services for the next generation. That is the position particularly in our schools, but also across our health and care services and other vital services.

In York, there is a real shortage of the housing required. In 2015-16 alone, York suffered a 52% fall in affordable units delivered. The need is getting greater and access is getting further away. Over the past five years, house prices have increased by 27.6%. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) is right to highlight the real issues with access to housing, but for my constituents it is only a dream.

In the council’s debate on Monday, the Tory and Lib Dem councillors did not mention social housing once, yet 1,600 people are on the waiting list. I have met many of them, and they are living in very cramped conditions. Just last week a constituent told me that they were sleeping on the settee and their child on the floor in their parents’ house because they cannot access housing of their own. They are being moved from their accommodation and have nowhere to go, but the council cannot provide any housing for them. There will be a challenge in meeting people’s needs, particularly the educational needs of their children, as a result of the housing situation. Whether we are talking about damp accommodation, which I come across, overcrowded accommodation or the rising number of homeless people in York, we must address the need for a supply of social housing and not just what is called affordable, because for people in York a quarter of a million pounds is totally unaffordable.

We will see this problem increase. Universal credit is being introduced this week, which will have an impact. There is also a real challenge with the amount of housing allowance that people get, because for the broad rental market area the calculation is based on an area broader than just York itself, so the amount of financial support that some families can get comes in under the rate they should get.

Bizarrely, the site of Imphal barracks was included in the local plan. Under this Government, Imphal barracks is due to close in 2031. There is a 15-year window for the local plan, so the window will close well before 2031 and that site should not be in the plan, because no housing will be put on it before the end of the local plan era. But the council saw that as a way of boosting the numbers—it is a false way. Those homes cannot be counted, so our housing crisis will be even greater.

The so-called local plan will be a total disaster for our city, but it is also an absolute scandal. I am talking about its focus on all these high-value, luxury apartments, which our city does not want or need. Where they have been developed in our city, they are used as assets. People do not live in those homes but just purchase them as an investment, or they are used just for holidays and race days or weekends. We hear about the story in London, but that practice is becoming more and more prevalent in York. That will not address the needs and the crisis that people are having to face in their own housing situation in York.

I would say that we are seeing an experiment in social cleansing—if not social cleansing itself—in what is happening in the development of York. This is the wrong kind of housing, in the wrong place, and it does not address local needs. We need social housing and truly affordable housing to meet the needs of our community, but it is at a level far lower than that which the Government have set. The local plan is the worst example of political manipulation at the cost of ordinary people I can think of, and the Government should not even allow it to hit their desk.

In the light of recent events, which have shown the needs of the poorest in our society being totally ignored by the elite, it is time for the Housing Minister to decide which side he is on. I have raised these issues with his predecessors on many occasions, but we have not been able to make any advance. That is why I trust that this Minister will be able to offer some hope to people in my constituency.

The people who live in my community need homes. That is basic. They are not looking for more; just homes where they can live and raise their families. I trust that these appalling proposals will be rejected, and that the needs of my constituents, our public services and my local economy will be met through a proper proposal for the housing that York needs.