EU Structural Funds: Least Developed Regions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) on securing this important debate. I am pleased to see Members here from all parties and from every corner of the United Kingdom, especially from communities in our least developed regions, such as those in South Yorkshire, where I am proud to serve as Mayor and MP. Such communities are among the hardest hit by austerity, by stalled economic growth, and by the failure of successive Governments to address widening regional inequalities.

The stark truth is that, from 2020 onwards, funding allocated to regions by the EU will come to an end, and 2021 marks the end of the Government’s local growth fund programme. Taken together, those funds have been the glue holding together many of our communities. What replaces those funds must replace them on the basis of what would have been received had the referendum result been different. The creation of a shared prosperity fund provides a vital opportunity to do things differently. To heal the divisions in our country and to turn the dial in those least developed regions, we must think and do differently.

The UK has one of the most centralised political systems in the world, with the inevitable consequence that some of the decisions taken by Westminster and Whitehall, however well-intentioned, do not reflect the needs or opportunities of local areas. Those living in the UK’s least developed regions are feeling the impact of the equality gap, which grows ever wider. I am hugely positive about our collective ability in the north of England to make real progress, provided that we have the right powers underpinned by the right resources. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) mentioned the Power Up The North campaign, and increasingly there seems to be a growing recognition that the answers to the many challenges that we face do not lie in Westminster or Whitehall.

In the final minute that I have available to me, I will rattle through the four principles that I have set out for the shared prosperity fund.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Dan Jarvis]

I will not; I have very little time.

First, the annual budget for the shared prosperity fund should be no less in real terms than both the EU and local growth funding streams that it replaces. Secondly, there should be no competitive bidding element. Thirdly, the fund must be fully devolved to the areas that have in place robust, democratically accountable governance models. Finally, the funding must be stretched over multiple years, beyond the vagaries of spending reviews and parliamentary cycles.

If we want to create a country that works for everybody, let us take the opportunity to be bold, and let us make sure that the shared prosperity fund does what it says on the tin and enables all of our communities to share and prosper in our country’s economic growth.

House Building Targets

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my hon. Friend’s constituency, Goodwin Community Housing is a great example of brownfield sites being used to build modern, modular, low-carbon housing. Does she agree that we need to see that model of housing develop if we are to meet our housing targets using brownfield sites?

[Emma Hardy]

I completely agree, and I look forward to going to see those properties on Friday.

We have a problem with landlords not implementing their permissions in full, and with one landowner in particular. The problem is not just that sites are not being developed, but that landlords are failing to manage their responsibilities for them. There are patches of land across the city—I will talk about the details in a moment—that are being left to go to ruin, and landlords are not taking full responsibly for health and safety.

The Lord Line building is a site of personal significance to the people of Hull, as it is one of the last buildings relating to Hull’s fishing heritage. It is the site of the dock where the fishing boats used to come in and out of when we were the capital city of the UK for the fishing trade, but it has been left to go to ruin. Youths go in there for reasons that I do not want to elaborate on here. We can see from the discarded needles, the bricks thrown from the top of the building, and the fire engines that attend the site regularly that it is not being properly safeguarded or protected. There will end up being a tragedy there, because people keep going to that building and it is not being looked after.

The owner of that land also owned the former Rank Hovis Clarence Mill on St Peter Street. They pledged to clear the building and promised a Radisson Blu hotel in its place. The demolition and clearing work still had not started by 2015, and in 2017 the permission expired and was not renewed. They bought the Heaven & Hell nightclub in March 2011. They said that they were going to put a £15 million development called Manor Cube on the site, and stated that the building work on the hotel would be completed by July 2013, but by that time no work had been completed.

The Lord Line building has been left to go to rack and ruin, causing great upset in the fishing community in Hull. The company—Manor Properties—seems to have a habit of promising pie-in-the-sky, wonderful, big dreams to the people of Hull, while letting the areas go to ruin.

There are a few points where I feel the Minister can tighten up the existing legislation to prevent this from happening again. We could have enhanced compulsory purchase orders where a site is allocated and consent is not implemented in full. Those powers could enable the local authority to acquire the site at 50% of its market value, provided that it commences development within 12 months of acquisition and at least 50% of the development is completed within three years. I know that the council would develop that land, but it does not have the power to purchase it. If a section 15 notice has to be served due to a lack of maintenance and dereliction on a site, allowing it to be acquired at 40% of its market value could also help the development.

The Minister should also focus public sector funding on unlocking those sites by providing additional grants and loans. The rules are set up to prevent the council from being able to compulsorily purchase the sites, but when people come into my city on the A63, they see this abandoned building on the way in. That is not the advertisement that I want for my city. People walking around the centre see patches of land that have been left or underdeveloped. The Minister could change that by just tightening up a few bits of legislation.

Removing VAT for any conversion works undertaken to properties’ heritage action zones would also help us. The Minister should change the rules about what constitutes a material start, to prevent landowners from undertaking minor works.

Permitted Development and Shale Gas Exploration

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

As the House will know, my constituency of Arundel and South Downs is the most beautiful in England— 250 square miles of Sussex countryside, with no large towns but only small villages and small market towns. Half of it is in the protected landscape of the South Downs national park.

Nevertheless, there is oil extraction in my constituency, and it is entirely uncontroversial. There are small oil wells, and I have never received any complaint about them. I assume that oil tankers visit regularly to take the oil off site, but because the wells are located sensibly the public do not get excited about them. My neighbour’s constituency of Chichester has an oil well in the national park itself. It is similarly uncontroversial because it is near a main road, not a community.

Public interest in the proposed fracking in West Sussex takes two forms. There is concern about below-the-ground activity: will it have an impact on local water sources, for instance? Then there is concern about the above-the-ground activity: what will the exploratory drilling and then any potential further drilling mean for future traffic movements that will affect neighbourhoods? My experience is that communities get particularly exercised about proposals when they fear that the countryside in which they live is about to become industrialised and that there will suddenly be significant lorry movements through otherwise quiet country lanes and villages—not just during the exploratory period, but potentially afterwards, if large sources are discovered.

It fell to West Sussex County Council, as the responsible local authority, to assess whether one proposal for exploratory drilling, near Wisborough Green, a beautiful village in my constituency, was appropriate. The council looked at the proposed traffic movements down very narrow lanes and was very unhappy about the impact. Ultimately, the council, taking no view on the merits of fracking or drilling otherwise and not having a policy of animus against the extraction of the mineral, nevertheless thought that the lorry movements were inappropriate. It rightly reflected the concerns of the local community.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Traffic is a concern not only at drilling sites: the Knostrop treatment works in Leeds is one of only three places licensed to treat fracking waste water, which would discharge into the River Aire. There is concern there about not only traffic movement, but discharge into local rivers. There is an issue not just at drilling sites but also at treatment works.

[Nick Herbert]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. There are, of course, wider environmental objections; those might be addressed separately by suitable, strong regulation. My concern is whether it is appropriate for exploratory drilling and potential subsequent extraction of shale gas to be allowed by permitted development. I do not oppose permitted development rights in principle; it is sometimes appropriate for such rights to be applied. I support the application of those rights for the conversion of office buildings to residential premises because that has produced a large amount of housing that would not have been available otherwise.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I hope we are not just “considering” Holocaust Memorial Day, with our antiquated practices in this place, but endorsing it.

I pay tribute to my team of Danny Stone, Amy Wagner and Ally Routledge, who put together the Sara conference in November—“Sara” after the Nazi name forced on Jewish women in 1938 to show that they were Jewish. That conference looked at misogyny and anti- semitism; I bring to the House just one nugget from it. In this country, in the past year, there were 170,000 anti- semitic internet searches. Since last year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, searches on “Holocaust hoax” are up 30,000. We have talked in previous debates about holocaust denial. Let me put another term on the record, because it is the pertinent one in this country for some at the moment—holocaust revisionism. Some people want to twist and turn what happened for their own ends; they would like to give some lip service, but only some, while twisting the facts and minimising the consequences and the implications.

We have seen it in the past few days, with the TV personality, Rachel Riley, and the abuse that she has received from many for standing up to antisemitism, in this week. Well, I stand, and I hope we all stand, with Rachel Riley, recognising the bravery of that young woman—one amongst many, one of the better known, and therefore the more abused—for standing up against modern antisemitism.

My parents died very young, but I only ever saw them both angry once. That was in 1972, seeing the television footage of Israeli athletes being murdered in Munich. That meant so much, in terms of understanding the realities of the Jewish people at the time. That was the only time I ever saw my parents angry together in their lives but, if they were alive today, that would not have been the only time that they were angry. Holocaust revisionism is the current-day plague that we have to challenge and fight, rather than the ignorant and thick holocaust deniers of the past, who were quite easy to challenge. There are far too many around.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[John Mann]

If I may, I will continue.

The problem is not just a British one, and we do not like talking about some of these things, but I am quite hard-nosed about some things now. When I went around Majdanek, I observed it in detail. In an hour, at every major exhibit and in the gas chambers, one could go around without even realising that the Jewish people were the target of the Nazis in the holocaust. I went to the cathedral, up the tower, and I did not need binoculars—one can see Majdanek from the centre of Lublin now, as people could at the time. Yet there is still not a single reference in the exhibitions to the fact that the target there—the mass murders—were primarily the local and Polish Jewish population.

Holocaust revisionism—it is a problem all over Europe, it is a problem in my political party, it is a problem in this country and it is a problem that we are not facing up to sufficiently robustly or successfully. That is why Rachel Riley gets all the crap that she gets at the moment. Holocaust revisionism is not understanding the realities of what happened and what that means today. That is why I am angry. I endorse, as I am sure we all endorse, Holocaust Memorial Day today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate today in advance of Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) for securing the debate, with others, and for his extremely moving opening speech.

The theme this year is Torn from Home, providing the chance to think about the impact that the holocaust and genocide has on those wrenched from the place they call home for fear of threat and persecution, and I wanted, in this year in which we are urged to be louder in the face of the rise in antisemitism, to use my contribution to pay tribute to my constituent Renate Collins. I am hugely privileged to have Renate as a constituent; she is an amazing woman who works tirelessly with groups and schools and at events to share her family’s story to ensure that such things never happen again. I am very grateful to her for the work she does and would like to put her story on the record today.

Renate was one of the last children to be put on the Kindertransport which brought some 10,000 young Jewish children to Britain from Germany, Austria, the former Czechoslovakia, Poland and elsewhere. On 30 June 1939 her train was the last to leave Prague before the Nazi invasion. She was just five years old when her mother and family doctor put her on the train, her mother and father not knowing if they would see her again. Renate had a high temperature and chicken pox so her mother was reluctant to put her on the train, but the doctor said, “If you don’t put Renate on this train, she will never go.”

Renate, at just five and with her hair in pigtails, had no idea where she was going, thinking that she might have been going on holiday. Yet her two-day journey through Holland and London brought her to Porth and the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). Here she lived with Reverend Fred Coppleston and his wife Arianwen and was brought up as their own. She arrived in Britain with her visa bearing a Third Reich stamp with swastika and spoke just two words of English: “yes” and “no.”

Before going, her mother helped her write letters to the family she was travelling to. With the innocence only a child could have in such grave circumstances, she had written to the Welsh family:

“I hope there is no spinach in England. But I do hope there are many ice creams over there as I am terribly fond of it, and can be, throughout a whole day, the best girl in the world if I get plenty of it...I am thanking you for all you are going to do for me, and I will be a very good child to you.”

In a letter Renate still has that her mother sent to the reverend and his wife she had written:

“I’m thanking you for your beautiful and helpful letter. I would call myself happy to know my little one in a surrounding of so much affection and love.”

Tragically, both her mother and father were killed by the Nazis. In total, Renate lost 64 family members in the holocaust, Renate surviving because of the decisions her parents made 79 years ago. Over the last year Renate has discovered new information about the deaths of some of her closest relatives, coldly murdered in the open air by guards when their train to Treblinka was held up in bad weather.

I really wanted to get Renate’s story on record today because it is so important that we remember the families, the homes and lives torn apart, the children who never saw their family again, and the dangers and devastating consequences of racism, xenophobia, and antisemitism.

Renate is an absolutely brilliant woman and she keeps going because, as she has always told me, this extreme hatred and intolerance can always “raise its ugly head again.” The importance of Holocaust Memorial Day is that we learn these lessons and act to never see it repeated.

[Alex Sobel]

My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech, and I would like to pay tribute to somebody who used to sit here on these Benches who has a similar story: Lord Dubs. He also came here on the Kindertransport, and this year’s theme of Torn from Home is very apt, because he has done so much work for modern-day refugees and to bring modern-day children to this country. We should recognise his work and all he has done.

[Jessica Morden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

I join other hon. Members in paying tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. I also pay tribute to Renate and her family and to her continued commitment to educating and informing people about what she and millions of others went through within our lifetimes, as nothing can compare to the testimony of survivors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate, and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for securing it and my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) for his opening speech. In Newcastle, we will mark Holocaust Memorial Day this year, as we did last year, by honouring the memory of the victims of the holocaust and subsequent genocides, celebrating and listening to survivors, and remembering the acts of kindness, such as our city’s welcoming of Jewish children from Germany.

We will also remember that much of the antisemitic hatred that preceded the holocaust was directed against poor Jewish immigrants from Russia, Poland and the other countries of eastern Europe and that that hatred was present not only in Germany, but in France and here in the United Kingdom. We must remember that at the core of so much of the hatred that prepared the ground for the holocaust was the idea that Jews were alien and could never truly be German, French or English. We must commit to fighting that invidious and corrupting lie wherever it raises its head.

[Alex Sobel]

On that point, I spoke in last year’s Holocaust Memorial Day debate and the footage was put on Channel 4’s Facebook page, where I was accused of all those things that my hon. Friend mentions. People said that I was a fifth columnist, that I was not fit to sit in the British Parliament and that I was not properly British. That is exactly what my hon. Friend is talking about, and we need to fight against it.

[Chi Onwurah]

I agree with my hon. Friend that such lies must be called out whenever they are heard.

As my Jewish constituents have made clear, the terror of the holocaust does not fade for our Jewish communities. Incidents that may seem marginal and inconsequential to some are experienced from the point of view of survivors and their children and grandchildren as harbingers of horrors too awful to think about. Fear echoes down the generations while many of us go about our business feeling safe and secure. Recent studies have revealed the degree to which the first antisemitic legislation passed by the Nazi party was modelled on the racist laws of the American south and of British colonies such as South Africa. Remembrance must mean eternal vigilance against the politics of hatred and dehumanisation and the recognition that they do not make their first appearance as mass murder, but as a climate of religious or racial intolerance and political expediency.

Nowhere is that recognition more important than in discussions about the middle east. Those of us who support the cause of Palestinian rights must recognise that we see antisemitic ideas surface time and again in debates over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There must be zero tolerance of antisemitism in such debates, just as there must be space for an honest appraisal of the actual issues and behaviours of those involved in the conflict.

There must be zero tolerance within the Labour party, too. I am sad to report that Jewish constituents have told me that they no longer feel welcome in our party. I have written to and met both our leader and our general secretary to discuss the matter, and I have also met representatives of Jewish groups in Newcastle and nationally. I have been assured that the party is developing policies and allocating appropriate resources that will provide demonstrable evidence that we are committed to rooting out antisemitism. Antisemitism cases will be heard more quickly and the backlog cleared, and anyone using antisemitic tropes must be called out and subject to appropriate sanction.

However, we also need appropriate educational resources to help Members understand the history of antisemitism and antisemitic tropes, ensuring that we can express a wide range of views, particularly on Palestine and Israel, without implying any antisemitic views, either directly or indirectly. I have been assured that that will be developed and delivered soon.

In the party, in Newcastle and in the country, the holocaust must be remembered in words and in deeds.

Section 21 Evictions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 6th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the use of Section 21 evictions in the private rented sector.

It is a pleasure to open this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to do so in the presence of the Minister. I know that she is responding to a debate on the private rented sector for the second time in two weeks. I apologise for that, but I think it reflects the extent of concern about some of the issues in this rapidly growing housing sector.

This debate is the culmination of a campaign that has been run on behalf of a number of organisations working with private tenants, including Generation Rent most specifically, the London Renters Union, the New Economics Foundation and ACORN, which run the End Unfair Evictions campaign and have encouraged people to speak up about their experiences. The social media presence on the issue demonstrated some quite extraordinary experiences that tenants have had with homelessness and insecurity as a result of the use of a section 21 notice.

The campaign has also received backing from Children England, Independent Age, Age UK London, Crisis, the Salvation Army, Mind, Z2K and Shelter, which gave us a very good briefing on the issue. More than 50,000 people signed a petition calling on the Government to give renters more stability and certainty in their homes by abolishing section 21, which gave us the opportunity to have the debate. The petition ran for 10 weeks and was handed to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government at the end of August.

What is section 21, and why are we specifically concerned about it? Most private and some social tenants now live in assured shorthold tenancies. In order to bring those tenancies to an end, landlords have two options: section 8, which enables a landlord to regain possession before the end of a tenancy on one or more of several different grounds, or section 21, for which the landlord must give two months’ notice of the intention to seek possession. On the expiry of that notice period, the tenancy is not ended, but the landlord can bring accelerated possession proceedings based on the section 21 notice. Unless there is a defence, which can only be that the notice is not valid, the courts must then grant a possession order. If the tenant does not leave, the landlord can seek a warrant of possession and a bailiff’s appointment for eviction.

Section 21 notices cannot be served under specified circumstances, such as when a deposit has not been protected, if the landlord does not have a required licence, after the issuing of a council improvement notice or if the landlord has failed to provide a valid energy certificate, gas safety certificate or a “How to Rent” guide.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I have many private renters in my constituency and one issue that they bring up with me about section 21 is revenge evictions. Is that also a concern of hers?

East Coast Main Line Investment

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers]

I am very disappointed to hear that. I put three alternatives that the Minister could consider in my notes, and one of them was to extend one or two of those new services to Lincoln through to Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Given what the hon. Lady is saying, it might not be possible.

The Minister will be aware that an open-access operator has shown an interest and has previously been in negotiations with the Office of Road and Rail about direct services. That is yet again on hold. I understand that a review is taking place on access charges for open-access operators. I can understand the logic of that, but it creates further delay. Earlier this year, Grand Central was intending to put an application in to run four direct services from King’s Cross through to Cleethorpes via Doncaster and Scunthorpe, but that is now on hold.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Although the hon. Gentleman is outlining some of the difficulties he has in getting direct services to his constituency, I am pleased that the new publicly run LNER has just announced that it will extend direct services to Harrogate, which would increase the number of trains stopping in my constituency from one a day to six a day. That clearly shows that publicly run rail can deliver.

[Martin Vickers]

I was not intending to embark on a pro or anti-nationalisation debate, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that since privatisation—I cannot remember, and the Minister can probably give the exact figure—hundreds of millions of pounds from the private sector has been invested in the rail network. The simple reality is that if we nationalise the rail network, which I sincerely hope we do not, British Rail or whatever we choose to call it would be very low down on the list of demands on the Treasury. Do we want money for the health service, schools and 1,001 other things? The simple fact is that there would be a spiralling down, just as there was in the 1970s and 1980s.

To conclude, I urge the Minister to meet me to discuss further how we can get over the immediate problems and look forward to a direct service along the east coast main line serving my constituency and the neighbouring constituency of Grimsby. I ask him not to say, as many other Ministers have over the past few years, “When we get HS2, there will be more capacity on the east coast main line, so you will be able to get a service through to Cleethorpes.” I am afraid that that timescale is simply not acceptable, even if it is 2033 or thereabouts when HS2 comes along. If a week is a long time in politics, 15 years must be generations. I urge the Minister to look again at the economic arguments for the regeneration of an area that has just been granted a unique town deal status by the Government. We need improved road and rail networks. I am fully supportive of improvements to the east coast main line, but only if they can in addition provide direct services to Cleethorpes.

Open Access Rail Services

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 10th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Martin Vickers]

I thoroughly agree. My hon. Friend’s experience as a former Minister makes that a particularly relevant point.

We are currently experiencing record private investment in UK rail. In 2016-17, that investment totalled £925 million—the highest since records began. The vast majority—£767 million—was spent on rolling stock. Some of that went to Hull Trains.

Given the other demands on the Budget, the idea that more taxpayer investment would go towards the railways was a myth. I know the Opposition’s policy is to renationalise the railways, but those of us who remember the nationalised system know that, in fact, it spiralled down because of a lack of investment. The reality is that there are so many calls on Government investment that transport does not get what it deserves. If the Government have a choice between investing in the health service and improving the rail services to Cleethorpes, I rather suspect that the rail services to Cleethorpes would suffer.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On that point, I am a Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament, and there are proposals for the co-operatisation of the railways. An open access operator—Go-Op—is developing a route in the south-west. Diversifying rail ownership is a big priority for the Co-operative party and for me as a Member of Parliament. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need diversity of ownership in the system?

[Martin Vickers]

I am perfectly happy to have diversity of ownership—that is what the free market would most likely deliver. Sadly, the history of British Rail did nothing to encourage my enthusiasm for a nationalised system. Indeed, British Rail ended the direct service to Cleethorpes in 1992.

There has been record investment and record numbers of journeys in recent years. Passenger numbers fell under British Rail but, since privatisation in 1994, the numbers swelled to 1.65 billion in 2015—almost triple the low point of 1982. Although there have been clear failings by Virgin Trains, it is vital to look beyond the headlines. Thanks to the Transport Secretary’s efforts, rail efficiency has been improved, ensuring that passengers and taxpayers get maximum value. On average, 97% of every pound of passengers’ fares goes back into the railway, which is very welcome.

Since Virgin took over its franchise in 2015, it has contributed more to the taxpayer than when the service was publicly run. Refurbished trains, additional services and improved ticketed access are just a few of the benefits that passengers have experienced. Of course, Virgin is not blameless in the debacle, but it is not alone. Network Rail, the publicly owned element of the railways, failed to deliver the promised improvements on which Virgin based its final projections.

I have been reassured by the Transport Secretary’s commitment to a new approach from 2020, with the first regional public-private partnership on the route. The partnership will have one brand, one management team and one leader, which will ensure that it is transparent and accountable to both Parliament and passengers.

A privatised franchise system on the east coast is preferable to the publicly owned system that preceded it. It has also been improved dramatically by the advent of open access operators, which provide constant competition to drive up standards and outcomes for passengers. The main problem is that the rail industry has been reformed to an unsatisfactory halfway house between nationalisation and privatisation. The solution, contrary to what many in the Opposition would argue, is not to nationalise the whole system—the experience of British Rail shows where that will take us—but to push ahead with privatisation and extend the market by allowing open access on other lines which could benefit so greatly from it. The hard left so often tell us that true communism has not been tried, but in actual fact true competition has not been tried on our rail network.

Open access could be a logical component of the Prime Minister’s mission, which she set out at the party conference last year, saying of free markets that she was

“prepared to reform them when they don’t work.”

The rail service is a prime example of a market underperforming. The solution, rather than to take the market out of the picture altogether and reverse all the progress made over the past few decades, is to reform the market, taking on the monopolies so as to expand it and allow it to flourish.

Competition must extend beyond the bidding stage to avoid the winner being granted a complete monopoly. The message to existing franchise operators and bidders should be clear: expect competition in future.

Anti-Semitism

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

This has been an emotional debate, and an emotional debate for me—I came into politics to fight racism and I have never resiled from that position. For me, it has always been the case that racism includes anti-Semitism. Jew hatred is race hatred, and one anti-Semite in the Labour party is one too many.

I begin by congratulating my colleagues—

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Ms Abbott]

I need to make some progress. I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), for Bassetlaw (John Mann), for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth), for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), for Bury South (Mr Lewis), for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and for Dudley North (Ian Austin) on their very powerful speeches, but I think—

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

The Charedi community has asked me to make these points.

[Alex Sobel]

Will my right hon. Friend give way now?

[Ms Abbott]

There has been—[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Abbott]

indicated assent.

[Alex Sobel]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. Perhaps she was not aware that I was the only Jewish parliamentarian who was not called to speak in the debate.

After the holocaust memorial debate, I was subjected to quite horrific abuse. I shall give one example. Mr Leonard said on Channel 4’s Facebook page, “Why is this Jewish Zionazi speaking in the English Parliament?” Does she agree that we need to tackle this not just on social media —we need to take more action there—but right across the political spectrum in our own party?

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful that Members have allowed me to speak on behalf of the Charedi community. I want to go on, in the few minutes available—[Interruption.]

Local Government Funding

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Like many colleagues, I will concentrate my speech on the effects of the cuts on my local council in Leeds. I must declare an interest: I am still a city councillor until 3 May.

I pay tribute to the imagination and innovation of our Labour administration and to our great set of council officers who have brought forward many new and radical ways of working despite the difficult circumstances. None the less, the depth of the cuts means that many services are at breaking point. The people of Leeds have borne the burden of maintaining services, which should be paid for from the local government grant. Leeds is a proud and compassionate city with a robust economy. I am incredibly proud of the council’s approach, which, in the words of our city leader, Judith Blake, is to

“put the needs of our most vulnerable residents first, to improve our communities and bring people together in a peaceful and cohesive society and to boost the life chances of our young people by giving them the best opportunities we possibly can.”

By 2020, Leeds City Council will have seen its grant cut, year on year, by £267 million, and the budgetary pressures are not just restricted to revenue budgets either. The city faces a gap in Government funding for capital school projects of approximately £71.7 million. To make matters worse, the Government leave it to the market of free schools and academies to choose where to build new schools. The city has responsibility for placing children in schools, but does not know where those schools will be placed.

I wish to move on to the legion achievements of Leeds City Council since its return to Labour control in 2010. The adoption of a civic enterprise approach paid dividends in the early years of the austerity Budgets, and brought with it the insourcing of housing and housing maintenance, school meals, fleet services, cleaning, catering and plant nurseries. The council also created Aspire, a staff-owned, not-for-profit social enterprise, which provides care and support services to people with learning disabilities; it is the largest co-operative in Leeds.

The council, under the most difficult of circumstances, has delivered new social housing, with a £108 million council house growth programme, which aims to deliver 1,000 new homes by 2020. Personally, I am delighted that the right-to-buy programme and the use of £3 million of prudential borrowing has meant that our great homeless charity, St George’s Crypt, is developing 45 affordable supported living units for people who are homeless or in housing need.

The Labour administration has had to make some hard political choices, but Leeds is the only local authority in England to keep all its children’s centres open. These are invaluable facilities, which helped my own children in their early years. The council has also removed charges for burials and cremations for children under 16. It is compassionate indeed. Leeds has by far the lowest funding for special educational needs of all core cities, with £378 per head against a core city average of £472. I call on the Minister to revisit that gross injustice.

I wish to concentrate my final remarks on the city’s work on climate change. As the deputy executive member for climate change and sustainability, I proudly played a part in the city’s work until my election to this place. Before the historic Conference of Parties 21, Leeds was the first authority to commit to 100% clean energy by 2050. The city has begun many projects to achieve that ambitious environmental goal. In my first few months in office, we installed more than 1,000 solar roofs on council homes and buildings, but we could not continue the programme owing to the Government’s cut in the feed-in tariff for solar. The council has had an extensive programme of replacing diesel with electric vehicles and now has a fleet of more than 70 electric vehicles.

The city is installing a district heat and power network after securing nearly £6 million in European funding. The network will heat 22,000 homes, including high-rise blocks, which are in fuel poverty. The city’s plans on clean air are ambitious, unlike those of the Government who have been dragged kicking and screaming through the courts four times by ClientEarth. Leeds has grasped the nettle and is the first city to go to consultation on a zone to cover all roads in the outer ring road, which is a very large clean air zone, and its proposals are already affecting behaviour, with First Bus investing in cleaner Euro 6 diesel vehicles.

The council needs to achieve much more on air quality, and cannot do so without Government support. I am still waiting for a real commitment from the Government to support us in Leeds. Leeds has done everything asked of it—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call Jim McMahon.

Space Industry Bill [Lords]

Alex Sobel Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner]

I rise to speak to amendment 4, which I tabled, as well as the remaining new clauses and amendments.

Amendment 4 would give clarity to the UK’s space industry. As it stands, the Bill makes no provision to ensure that the industry works with the Government to create the regulatory framework that it so badly needs. The amendment would increase the focus on making the UK commercially attractive for potential spaceflight operators. As with new clause 3, the amendment was tabled to press the Government to publish clear regulations for the UK space industry, which is one of the Bill’s key issues.

Under the amendment, the Secretary of State would have to publish guidance for any forthcoming regulations and hold regular discussions with any potential operator before a licence was issued. The UK’s space industry needs as much clarity as possible; we do not want further uncertainty that may hinder growth. If the Government do not get this right, they could quite possibly deter investment, recruitment and growth in the space sector. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s views.

Labour Members generally support the aims of new clause 3, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford). The Bill does not set out the criteria for awarding licences, and nor does it describe the procedures in any great detail, which is a problem. When I spoke to new clause 2, I alluded to the fact that Labour wants the UK space industry to grow in the coming years, but the Government need to get this legislation right and have had the opportunity to do so. The industry must be made aware of regulations. We agree that the Government should lay a report before Parliament setting out the proposed licensing regulations in detail. That is fair and reasonable.

On new clause 3(3), Labour tabled an amendment in Committee that would have ensured that if space activities were established in any of the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, their respective environmental agencies and bodies, and respective Governments, would be consulted before any decision was made to grant an operator licence in their jurisdictions. Unfortunately, our amendment was defeated, so I welcome new clause 3, which presses the issue a little further.

The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire also tabled new clause 4, which deals with the liability issue that came up time and again in Committee.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

There are 40,000 jobs in the UK space industry. Would it not deter investment if the Government did not implement a liability cap for the industry?

[Karl Turner]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is right to say that 40,000 jobs rely on such a measure. Colleagues on both sides of the House have made the point that investment may be deterred if that is not in place.

New clause 4 deals with this very important issue of liability. The issue has been raised at every stage of the Bill’s consideration, both here and in the other place. Labour broadly supports the Bill, as we have reiterated throughout its passage, because we want the industry to grow so that high-skilled, high-paid and secure work is created across the country. Labour previously tabled amendments to get a discussion going about a liability cap. My colleagues in the other place tabled an amendment that would have removed any cap on a licensee’s liability, but that was merely a probing amendment with the intention of grabbing the Government’s attention so that they would seriously consider providing a definite liability cap in primary legislation. I am grateful to my colleagues in the other place for the work that they did. As I said in Committee, we were never opposed to a cap; we just wanted some clarity from the Government, as they must get this right. I think it fair to say that the Government have listened carefully to the points we made in Committee.

The UK space sector has made repeated representations to the Government that they should implement a cap for UK-licensed satellite launch operators. Britain’s space industry wants the Government to introduce a cap, I think at around €60 million. The Bill makes no mention of that, apart from the vague and lax use of the word “may”, which has now been amended to “must”. We are aware, however, that the Government stated previously—I think in Committee—that they opposed writing into legislation a mandatory cap on liability, as well as mandatory compensation from the Government, because that might breach state aid rules. I would be really grateful to the Minister if he clarified this particular point.

The industry has maintained throughout that it would not be able to secure insurance without a benchmark liability figure. The ambiguity from the Government on this issue could put off potential investment in the industry, as we have already heard, and harm the growth that the Bill sets out to achieve.

Requiring the Government to consult on and set a mandatory cap on a licensee’s liability for each launch individually, as well as basing it on the classification type of each launch, is reasonable and fair. We believe that the Government need to look again at this, and I see that the Minister is taking note of what is being said.

I will speak very briefly to Liberal Democrat amendments 1 to 3. Amendment 1 would make regulations made under clause 68 subject to the affirmative procedure. In the other place, Labour colleagues worked on a cross-party basis, it is fair to say, in an attempt to ensure that a number of the regulations under the Bill would be subject to the affirmative procedure. Labour also tabled a similar amendment in Committee. We are grateful to the Government for listening and taking on board the concerns raised in the other place, and the Bill now ensures that there is enhanced scrutiny of regulations under the affirmative procedure, which I am very glad to see.

Amendments 2 and 3 to schedule 6 are about ensuring that the devolved Administrations are notified when an order is made to obtain rights over land. In Committee, Labour tabled an amendment to ensure that, before any decisions or notices were made, there would be consultation with not only the relevant environment agencies of the devolved Administrations, but the devolved Administrations themselves. I pressed that amendment to a Division because I did not think that the Government went anything like far enough to ensure that the devolved Administrations would be involved in the overall process. Unfortunately, that amendment was defeated, but I hope that the Government have now fully appreciated its intent.