Fire Safety Bill

Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab) [V]]

I am pleased that the Fire Safety Bill is finally being debated in the House, nearly three years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy. I remember that awful tragedy very well. I carried out the Grenfell community engagement on behalf of the Mayor of London. I would like to use this opportunity to pay tribute to the brave emergency service workers who attended the fire. I must also pay tribute to the amazing communities that offered help to the people affected on that tragic night and afterwards, as they began to rebuild their lives. I ask that we hold the 72 victims in our thoughts and remember the human costs involved when the right measures are not taken to protect people.

People in tower blocks have lived in fear since the Grenfell tragedy and continue to do so today. Constituents have contacted me about being trapped in unsafe homes, unable to seek alternative accommodation or to pay for safety upgrades to their buildings out of their own pockets. They will be relieved to hear of these legislative changes. To put into perspective why we need them so urgently, I will read a message from one of my constituents who is concerned about the safety of a nearby tower block in the borough:

“The tower blocks have been found to be clad in combustible material and the landlord is currently unwilling to pay for the replacement. It would cost almost £40,000 per flat to replace—which individual homeowners are unlikely to be able to afford. They have already been hit with higher service charges to pay for patrols. Over two years after the Grenfell Tower tragedy, people are still living in fear and unable to get on with their lives due to being unable to sell their properties.”

The constituent goes on to make a very worthy point—it is one that in the conscience of most people would not have to be made, but the fact that it does explains why we urgently need the Bill. They said:

“Homeowners should not be expected to foot the bill for decisions made by governments who set the building standards. As homeowners cannot afford to fund the replacement of the cladding, the necessary building work will not happen and people will continue to live in unsafe properties risking another tragedy. These building works should be funded by the government as a matter of urgency and the liability for the costs agreed between the government and builders.”

Legislative change to ensure that building owners take responsibility for the safety of their tenants is necessary because, as we are seeing, when a loophole exists, someone will exploit it, despite the risk posed to residents.

I must also take this opportunity to raise concerns about the practicalities of the Bill. It is important that we make these legislative changes, but it is equally important that they can be acted on. The Local Government Association has raised concerns about disparities between the fire safety order’s concept of a responsible person, and the proposals for an accountable person and a building safety manager in the Government’s response to the “Building a Safer Future” consultation. Clear guidance must be issued on who is responsible for carrying out essential fire safety checks or we face the risk of some continuing to avoid their responsibility to their tenants. Local authorities and fire services must also be supported financially and logistically in ensuring that these checks can be carried out. Councils with large stocks of social housing have a duty to ensure the safety of a large number of tenants, and even before the introduction of this legislation have raised concerns that there is a chronic shortage of fire engineering expertise in the UK. The Government should act now to set up degree, conversion and apprentice schemes to address this.

I hope that the Government will take steps to ensure that no tragedy like Grenfell Tower can be allowed to happen again, and that, after nearly three years, residents in tower blocks can feel safe in their own homes.

Deportation Flight to Jamaica

Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

It does have to be said that the majority of deportations are to the EEA, and, as I touched on in my initial answer, we deport criminals who meet the thresholds regularly every week to a range of countries. As we keep on saying—I will say it again—it is the criminality, not the nationality that determines the outcome in each case.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

One of the individuals facing deportation tomorrow came to the UK aged five. He committed a crime aged 17 and did the time many, many years ago. Is it fair to punish people for mistakes they have already paid for?

[Kevin Foster]

When Parliament passed the UK Borders Act 2007, under the proposals of the then Government it would have considered whether it is appropriate to apply deportation orders to those who are serious or persistent offenders as part of the penalty for the crime. I believe the vast majority of the public think that is right.

Windrush Compensation Scheme (Expenditure) Bill

Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Money resolution & Programme motion
Monday 10th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the comments made during the urgent question by the Minister. The facts have been provided. I say again that if individuals wish to make representations to the Minister about cases in their constituencies, they are very welcome to do so.

On the Windrush compensation scheme, simplicity and ease of use has been at the forefront of designing it. Requirements for evidence have been designed to be straightforward and easy to understand and, most importantly, not too onerous for the claimant. Our priority has also been to ensure that payments are made as quickly as possible. The first payment was made in July, within four months of the scheme being launched, and the Government want to ensure that all those who have suffered come forward and apply for compensation.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Priti Patel]

No, I will not give way.

As mentioned earlier, the Home Office is extending the length of the scheme by two years, so people will be able to submit claims up to 2 April 2023.

I have outlined some positive steps, but we need to ensure that the scheme is underpinned by the necessary financial parliamentary authority, which is exactly what the Bill is designed to provide. Payments are currently made under the ministerial direction that was issued in July last year, but the Bill offers Parliament the opportunity to give its legislative authority for expenditure under the compensation scheme. Details of the scheme are set out in the non-statutory scheme rules, which give us freedom to amend the scheme swiftly where required. That freedom proved useful last October when, following feedback from stakeholders and claimants, the scheme was amended to allow a broader range of immigration fees to be refunded.

For the scheme to be effective, it is vital that awareness is raised, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) pointed out, and that everyone who has suffered is given a fair chance to claim. Through the Windrush stakeholder advisory group, the Government are overseeing how to reach those who have been affected and hurt. There is no simple or straightforward way in which that hurt can be repaired or that trust rebuilt. It is a sorry fact that there are still members of the Windrush generation who do not have the documentation that they need. Some will not even know that they are entitled to apply for compensation. Others have been put off by false claims that funding for the scheme is capped at £200 million, or have been subject to much misinformation about the scheme, which of course needs to be addressed. We will of course work to correct those inaccuracies, rebuild trust through the advisory group and provide the compensation and justice that people deserve. The role of the stakeholder advisory group is to do exactly that and to find the best links to get back into the affected communities. In addition to that, the Home Office has, as I have already indicated, attended and hosted more than 30 engagement events to promote the scheme, and would welcome interest from Members who wish to support community events in their own constituencies.

No compensation can ever hope to undo the injustice of someone being told that they are not welcome in their homeland. Nothing that we can do or say can ever wipe out the hurt and loss that should never have been suffered in the first place, but we hope that the Windrush compensation scheme can go some way towards easing the financial burden endured as a result, and that we can begin to do justice to those who have contributed much to our country. The United Kingdom is making a start on a new era of openness, and it is a home to everyone with the talent and tenacity to contribute to national life. It is only right that we do everything in our power to redress this historic injustice, so I hope that Members from all parties will take an important step forward in doing so and join me in giving the Bill the support that it needs. I commend the Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the new hon. Member for Delyn (Rob Roberts).

As others have said, the Windrush scandal—it is a scandal—has been a shameful blot on our country, and an indictment of our policies and culture over many years. I accept that it has not just occurred under this Government, although it has been exacerbated in recent years by the hostile environment. When the Minister closes the debate, it would be very welcome indeed to those watching our debate from outside this place for that to be recognised. I do not think it was in the opening remarks by the Home Secretary.

I represent one of the largest Caribbean communities in the country, focused particularly in Moss Side and Hulme in my constituency. I had been dealing with a number of Windrush cases a long time before the scandal appeared on the public’s radar through the campaigning of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and those on the Labour Front Bench, and brilliant journalists such as Amelia Gentleman and others. As the scandal broke into the public domain, I decided to hold a number of open surgeries, which I advertised on local radio and elsewhere. At the first surgery, we were absolutely inundated with cases. We were there for over five hours. In total, I have taken on over 70 cases in the past two years.

There are some really heartbreaking stories from the people who have come to see me. Many brought with them their original passports. I have taken many photographs of the passports with which they arrived in this country in the ’60s and ’70s. They were British passports and that goes to the heart of the conversation we are having. All their passports said on them, “British passport”. The passports may have also said Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago, but they were British citizens who were answering a call to come and work and establish their lives here in this country because we needed them to do that. At the heart of everything we are discussing today and will discuss in the coming months, we have to remember that they have always been British citizens. We cannot, therefore, operate a kind of contemporary or retrospective view on their contribution or status at that time. I will come on to say a bit more about that.

A number of the people I have met over the past year or two through those surgeries have still not actually dared yet to regularise their status here. They are still operating on a Jamaican passport because they are scared to death. They are later in life. They have operated under the radar.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the majority of those individuals are deeply depressed and traumatised by the experiences they have gone through, and that the Home Office should work with the NHS to provide mental health support for them? Does she agree that the Minister should work with other Ministers to develop a cross-party approach to consider how they can provide mental health support to those victims who have been impacted by the hostile policy?

[Lucy Powell]

My new hon. Friend makes a very good point. That very much reflects my experiences of trying to coach and support people, navigating them through what are for many very difficult and uncharted waters. The original Windrush generation—I will come on to their descendants in a minute—are very isolated. If it were not for support networks, for example churches, they would have very little in the way of support services. They are very scared about coming forward.

As I said, it is really important that we recognise that the Windrush generation and their descendants are, and always were, British citizens, and that we are leaving so many people effectively stateless and feeling unwelcome in this country. I could go through many cases with the Minister—I have raised many cases here—but I will not because a lot of other people want to speak. However, the sorts of situations that I have come across include people not being allowed back into the country for one, two or three years, with them, in the meantime, losing their job and their social housing, which meant that their children also lost their homes. I met an individual who had a refusal to have their status regularised in the mid-’80s—I think it was an administrative error at the time—which frightened them so much that they have lived under the radar ever since, never having a job, never accessing public services and never having a home. They have been living among their family networks for their entire life—this is somebody who is now in their 60s. As well as those types of situations, others have been well rehearsed in the media, such as where people have served in the British Army, or worked as nurses or public servants, and have found themselves on the wrong end of this shameful, shameful situation.

As others have said, including the Home Secretary, no amount of money can compensate for the loss of life, livelihood and dignity—of people’s whole lives. People have never gone on holiday, and people have lost their home, status and dignity. However, that does not mean that we should not properly compensate them, nor does it mean that, just because no amount of money can compensate them, paltry amounts will do. We need to give people justice and be seen to be giving them justice, and I will say a bit about what that might look like.

The purpose of the compensation scheme has to be, at its core, about restoring trust, undoing some of the damage that has been done and properly compensating people for their losses. It is difficult to see how the scheme, as designed, will help to do those things. The Home Secretary has said that these cases are complicated and of course they are, but the scheme’s design has made them much more complicated than they need to be. People do not have the time, the support and, in most cases, the documentation that is being asked of them.

How do we put a price on many of the things that they have lost? How do we put a price on someone not having had a holiday for 30 years, even though they are a working person? How do we put a price on someone not seeing a family member for 30 years because they live in fear of going on holiday? How do we put a price on someone not getting healthcare 20 years ago when they were poorly and that having had a detrimental effect on their life ever since? These things are hard to put a price on. As others have said, there is an undeniable fear of the Home Office, so many people do not want to come forward and make themselves known to it. A lot more needs to be done to overcome that.

I have a few asks of the Minister on the compensation scheme, and then I will talk about a couple of other things before I finish. Others have talked about the timeline. I welcome that it has been extended by two years, but that still makes it shorter than the amount of time that people had to claim for payment protection insurance compensation. If that is our benchmark, which seems a perfectly good one, we are failing on that. People should have longer to claim for this than they had for PPI.

The documentation has to be made a lot simpler. There will have to be a certain amount of discretion. It is about people looking at an application with common sense and judging it based on the evidence that is before them. As others have said, we need more support services. If it is not legal aid, which I think there is a strong case for, let us at least put some money into the support and advice services that can help people. Can we look again at some flat rates—some amounts of money—for things that we cannot put a price on, so that we can get proper compensation?

There are a couple of other things about the scheme, which I have raised and will continue to raise, even though I know that this is not a particularly popular cause. On proving good character, if we are agreeing as a House tonight that people were British citizens when they arrived, and that their descendants were also British citizens when they arrived, we cannot then apply the legislation from 2006 and 2009 about whether people meet a good character test or not. They are British citizens or they are not. As the Minister will know, I have dealt with a number of cases of people who have had convictions, and I know that Ministers have the discretion to let them apply under the terms of the Windrush scheme.

Automated Facial Recognition Surveillance

Abena Oppong-Asare Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

It is definitely the case that in a world where identification technology of all types is accelerating, one of the challenges we face is the preservation of our privacy, and there have been many debates in this House and in the public realm about how we do that. We believe that we have a good, strong and transparent framework in which data can be gathered legally but then kept private, and through which individuals can seek their own privacy by way of the deletion or amendment of data. As I said earlier, we are the guardians of the system. This House is the crucible in which the decisions are made, so we must look sharp about it and not assume that these technological developments are outwith our control.

[Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Congratulations on your election to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Has the Minister seen the concerns raised by the think-tank Future Advocacy that the deployment of this technology may infringe upon the rights of Muslim women who wear the niqab, and wider concerns about technology being less accurate, particularly with women and ethnic minorities?

[Kit Malthouse]

I understand that that specific issue has been raised with the Metropolitan police, and they have made it clear that nobody will be required to remove their niqab or other facial coverings. It is worth remembering what the police are seeking to do with this deployment. They are looking for wanted criminals, suspects in crimes, and possibly missing persons. When the system makes a match, it is then for a human being to decide whether intervention is proportionate or not. It is not a kind of conveyor belt. Human judgment is still required, as it will always be in sensitive and proportionate policing.