Covid-19 Vaccine: Take-up Rates in London

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Christopher Chope

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Andy Slaughter]

Thank you, Sir Christopher, for your stewardship of our proceedings this morning. I am grateful to colleagues from north, south, east and west London for speaking on behalf of their unique constituencies but also identifying some common problems; to the shadow Minister, who has shown, as always, the support and solidarity that London MPs can expect from northern colleagues; and to the Minister himself. The Minister will be able to judge whether he has satisfied us on every point raised today by how many people turn up to his Friday briefing this week.

If there is one takeaway for the Minister from this debate, it is the need, in the laudable rush to hit overall targets, not to forget those left behind. That could be people of certain ethnicities. I draw his attention to the Royal College of Nursing’s work on this issue, which shows that even among nursing staff there is a disparity between different ethnicities. There are also those who fall through the net. I have a 68-year-old constituent who, because of her good health for 20 years, lost her NHS number and now is told that she has to wait eight weeks before she can get the vaccine. There are people who simply fall through the net, and it is partly our job to ensure that that does not happen.

On the hesitancy issue, I ask the Minister to look at the work that we are doing in Hammersmith and in north-west London. It is really good stuff. It is good practice that perhaps can be reflected elsewhere. He might even, after having seen it, want to go away and fund it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered covid-19 vaccine take-up rates in London.

[Sir Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

The sitting will be suspended until 11 o’clock. May I ask those who have participated in this excellent debate to leave as quickly as possible?

Refugees in Calais

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Christopher Chope

Wednesday 6th January 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman must accept one intervention at a time.

[Andy Slaughter]

I was trying to save time, Mr Chope, but it obviously had the opposite effect. I will come to the good point made by the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) later, but I will first give way to the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald).

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is talking about the conditions in the jungle camp near Calais, which I have also visited, with the Bishop of Dover. I was similarly shocked by the conditions, which were much worse than I have seen in the official camps for Syrian refugees in countries such as Turkey. The conditions in the jungle camp are absolutely shocking and simply unacceptable for animals, let alone for humans, and the migrants certainly felt that they were living like animals, which was leading them to have a great hatred for the UK, the country that they hoped to come to and came towards with great hope—instead, they are very angry. It is good news that the French Government are planning to improve facilities and to construct a new camp. The hon. Gentleman might well yet do so, but I ask the Minister to update us on the UK Government’s conversations with the French about improving conditions and on the part that we are playing. Will the Minister also address the concerns of my Kent constituents about the security implications of the new camp?

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. I have indulged the hon. Lady, but normally interventions should be brief—they are interventions, rather than speeches.

[Andy Slaughter]

I am glad that you indulged the hon. Lady, Mr Chope, because it was a good intervention and one with which I agree. I must speed up a bit, but I will pick up on one point: I am afraid that not much comfort can be given, because the pace of action by the French Government is so slow, whether deliberately or through bureaucracy.

I want to bring another matter to the Minister’s attention, although it might be a debate for another day. If conditions in Calais are atrocious, they are far worse in Dunkirk. I have not visited Dunkirk, but I have had a long report from there. We were told—this was reported in lurid terms in the UK press—that a new refugee camp was to be built, à la Sangatte, at Dunkirk by the French Government. Perhaps so, but it too is to have those heated tents, and everything is taking much longer than it should be. It might well be winter before it is ready.

Importantly, while the camp is being constructed at Dunkirk, no resources will be allowed in. Only this week I had a report from Mr McTigue to say that police were not letting in any tents, blankets, building materials or wood for fuel, which adds to the misery. There are no signs so far of a permanent camp. I therefore urge the Minister to visit not only Calais but Dunkirk, because the conditions at Dunkirk are truly appalling given the freezing conditions and the lack of shelter, water and toilets. Each day young children are having to sleep in those conditions, without even enough food being supplied. Of the first 100 people vaccinated by HANDS International at Dunkirk, 96 had scabies. Such conditions should not prevail anywhere, frankly, but certainly not in northern Europe.

In the few moments I have left, let me ask the questions that I want the Minister to answer. How much are the UK Government spending in and around Calais? I think that the answer is nothing to relieve the refugee situation, but some £18 million on razor wire fences to stop refugees getting to Eurostar or other ways of reaching the UK. How are the Government liaising with the French? What pressure are they putting on the French Government? I ask that because of a Home Office statement—I think about Dunkirk, although it might well apply to Calais—that said:

“We do not get involved in what is a French decision on what they do with a camp in their country.”

I am afraid that that rather Pontius Pilate attitude will simply not do.

What steps are the Government taking to allow the reuniting of families? As I said, a large number of the unaccompanied children and the families in the French camps are there because their nearest relatives are in the UK. At the moment, other than risking their lives and trying to get through the tunnel or over on lorries, there is no way for them to achieve reunion with their families. What are the Government doing to facilitate asylum claims to the UK? How are they co-operating—this might be a difficult issue for them at the moment—with the European Union?

The Minister will have seen the recent report of the Select Committee on International Development, which was excellent and clearly recommended that this country should take 3,000 refugee children from within Europe. I do not know whether the Minister is in a position to respond to that. I must also pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) on such matters. She has visited the camps and heads the Labour party’s taskforce on refugee issues. She has called for a major new, co-ordinated humanitarian relief programme, including for Calais and Dunkirk; a proper series of assessments of who needs refugee support; and an increase in the number of people to whom this country is granting sanctuary.

The problems are severe and terrible, but we are still only talking about something perhaps in excess of 10,000 refugees in total; compared with the refugee crisis as a whole, the situation is not one that should be beyond the wit of Britain and France to resolve. I share the frustration of organisations such as Amnesty and Save the Children, which wish the Government to act or to act themselves, but at the moment they are prevented from doing so.

I ask the Minister to look at the terms of Dublin III and the UN convention on the rights of the child to see whether his Government are properly fulfilling their obligations under them. He might rely on Dublin III to say, “Britain has no responsibility,” but I urge him to acknowledge that we do have a responsibility—a humanitarian responsibility—in particular to the children in Calais and Dunkirk who have relatives in the UK, and to say how we may reunite them with their families.

I could say a lot more, but I will give the Minister time to respond. One of the many inspiring people I met in Calais was a man whom I will simply call Muhamad. He was a translator for UK forces in Afghanistan, but he did not qualify for the right to come to the UK, which some translators were given, because he was not still employed at the time—although his services to the UK forces were none the less for that. He is an inspiring figure in the camps and he helps to run the library and the education classes. He let me know through some of the people I met in Calais that a young friend of his called Masood was found dead in the back of a lorry at Dunkirk last week.

Any death of a child is a terrible tragedy, but in those circumstances I find it extraordinary—we are talking about people whom the Minister could get on a train and meet in an hour’s time. The reason why Masood wanted to come to the UK is because his nearest relative, his sister, was in the UK. However, the only way that he thought he could reach her and escape the terrible conditions in which he was living was to take the step that led to his untimely and tragic death. Those are the circumstances with which we are dealing. We cannot turn away and say that the situation is someone else’s responsibility. We have to play our part.

Housing Supply (London)

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Christopher Chope

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

Order. On several occasions, the right hon. Gentleman has tested my patience by using the expression “filibustering”. Nobody in this Chamber has been filibustering and if they had been, I would have brought them to order. I think it is very disappointing that, having relied on self-regulation, that seems manifestly to have failed and I have not been able to call as many Members present whom I would have wished to. However, we now have to move on to the wind-ups, because under the rules laid down by Mr Speaker we have a maximum of 10 minutes for the SNP spokesman. I call Dr Whiteford.

[Andy Slaughter]

On a point of order, Mr Chope. As Chair, you are of course entirely within your rights not to impose a time limit. However, because Members, particularly on the Government side, have not shown any restraint, and given that this is the most important issue for London Labour Members and that we have come here to try and contribute, I wonder whether the Front Benchers would concede a little time to us, so that we can at least make some contribution. That would seem a fair way to proceed.

[Mr Christopher Chope (in the Chair)]

I am going to call Dr Whiteford.

House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Christopher Chope

Friday 6th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I will be even briefer than the Minister.

The Opposition have supported the Bill throughout its passage. I agree with the Minister that the overall impact of the amendments would be to weaken the Bill and, thereby, damage its limited but important purpose.

The hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) spoke about amendment 6 in a moderate and plausible way. He always speaks in a moderate and plausible way. Sometimes—and I thought this might be the case today—what he says is actually moderate and plausible. However, I then listened to the even more emollient words of the Bill’s promoter, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), and, like the Minister, I am persuaded that the amendment is not necessary. It is right to raise the possibility of retrospection but, as has been explained, the Bill is not pregnant with that danger.

We are therefore happy not only to support the Bill, but to oppose the amendments.

[Mr Chope]

What a short but fascinating debate this has been. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Minister had a chance to stand at the Dispatch Box and participate. During the latter part of his comments, I became more concerned because he made the case for retrospection in relation to misconduct that would give rise to expulsion. That is exactly the concern that I have.

We heard last week from my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young) that one course of conduct that their lordships are keen to ensure results in expulsion is repeated breaches of offences. That means that if one was guilty of repeated misdemeanours, there would be the possibility of expulsion. There is therefore all the more reason why none of this should be retrospective. If repeat offences are to give rise to expulsion, rather than just a reprimand, that should only be prospective and not retrospective.

If the House had accepted the amendments in the first group, which we debated last Friday, I do not think that I would be so concerned, because those amendments would have linked the code of conduct much more closely to the provisions of the Bill. However, those amendments were not accepted. I remind the House what Lord Wallace of Saltaire said:

“I read the latest Code of Conduct again this morning, thinking that we need to be sure what we are on about. One of the issues that perhaps we need to discuss informally off the Floor is how far this measure is intended to refer only to conduct that is mentioned in the Code of Conduct or to egregious conduct of other sorts conducted by Members of this House. However, that is a question that we need not have in the Bill itself, but it is certainly a question that the Committee for Privileges and Conduct and others will need to consider at a later stage.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 November 2014; Vol. 757, c. 650-651.]

When I read out that quote last week, I did not get any assurance from my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire that conduct would be confined to what is in the current code of conduct or in any changed code of conduct. As I have said, the code of conduct is not specifically linked to the Bill. What is in the Bill is “conduct”. Unless we have that safeguard, the Standing Orders of the other place could be amended to impact on conduct that took place prior to the amendment of those Standing Orders, but subsequent to the enactment of the Bill. In my view that represents a danger of retrospection, and I cannot understand why the Government are against this measure. They may say that it is unnecessary in the light of assurances that have been given, but it would not be the first piece of Government legislation that was duplication and unnecessary, so that in itself cannot be a convincing and decisive argument against it. Because of the obiter dicta of people such as Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who seems to have a rather different agenda from that discussed by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire, we should make a final attempt to get one safeguard against retrospection into the Bill.

I will therefore withdraw amendment 1, on which we tried to vote last week, and instead I will test the will of the House on amendment 6. I beg to ask leave to withdraw amendment 1.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 6, page 1, line 17, after “Act”, insert “and any Standing Orders made under subsection (1)”—(Mr Chope.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Convicted Prisoners Voting Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Christopher Chope

Friday 5th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

I do not think that any of us quite expected to be debating the Bill, after the exciting afternoon that we have had so far.

Clause 1, which is the operative clause, states:

“A prisoner serving a custodial sentence is disqualified from voting at a parliamentary or local government election.”

I thought I had heard that before, so I looked at section 3 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which states:

“A convicted person during the time that he is detained in a penal institution in pursuance of his sentence”—

or unlawfully at large when he would otherwise be so detained—

“is legally incapable of voting at any parliamentary or local government election.”

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), but for him to propose a Bill that appears to repeat the existing law strikes me as otiose, and, given his attitude to many of the Bills with which we deal at this time of the week, it also strikes me as somewhat perplexing.

[Mr Chope]

rose—

[Mr Slaughter]

However, the hon. Gentleman is about to enlighten me.

[Mr Chope]

The Bill is intended to satisfy the European Court of Human Rights.

[Mr Slaughter]

I suspect that we have hit the nail on the head, Madam Deputy Speaker. I suspect that the Bill has not much to do with prisoners voting, and rather more to do with the European convention on human rights, the European Court of Human Rights and, probably, the Council of Europe and the European Union. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would like us to be well away from all those things, and, if he could tow us a bit more westward, would take us well away from Europe full stop. I can only say that I admire his fortitude in these matters. I am more at home with his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), who has said that sticking to international rules can be “irksome” at times, but that it has been the “settled view” of British Governments for centuries that such obligations should be met.

We do not need this Bill, I am afraid, although Opposition Front Benchers do not disagree with the sentiments that it expresses. I shall end my speech there, as I want to leave a little time for the Minister. I appreciate that it is only a little time.

Transport for London Bill [Lords]

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Christopher Chope

Tuesday 9th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

The short answer to the hon. Lady’s intervention is: once bitten, twice shy. I think that most of us in this House—certainly those of us who have served for a certain time—feel that we were bitten by the enthusiasm of successive Governments for the private finance initiative and the public-private partnership. We were told that they were new ways of financing our public services and public infrastructure and that they could only be good news for everybody. I speak as a member of the Conservative party, which promoted PFI, but what a disaster some of those PFI projects have turned out to be, largely because people thought they could get something for nothing and that, instead of saving on revenue expenditure, they could start borrowing and use rather obscure vehicles and arrangements to do so. Then, however, after reading the small print, we found out that, instead of being transferred, the risk—that was the principle the Treasury kept talking about in relation to PFI: it said it was not possible to have PFI unless there was a transfer of risk—had actually been retained.

As a London Member, the hon. Lady will be all too well aware of the problems in London associated with PFI/PPP projects in the health service, which have been a disaster in many respects. The people or the patients whom we should have helped are finding that the services they want are not now as good as they would like because of the costs of those projects, which in some cases continue to be a millstone around the necks of quite a lot of hospital trusts.

I have answered the hon. Lady by referring to a different sphere, but as soon as people start talking about new practices and methods, as the Minister did when he began his remarks about how the Bill will release a lot of revenue and capital, we need to be suspicious. At the end of the day, the only way to get better quality transport in London is by investing in it, which means using money from fare payers or taxpayers, or encouraging Transport for London to reduce its costs and find alternative revenue streams. Of course, one way would be to sell off surplus assets, and we should use the provisions of the Bill to encourage that, rather than to discourage it.

I do not know about the situation in Earls Court exhibition centre. I have no specialised knowledge about it, and I look forward to hearing from the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who represents the Hammersmith and Fulham interest in it. As a result of the last London borough elections, the issue of political risk has once again raised its head. The people engaged in that project thought that the council was benignly supportive of their proposal, but now that there has been a change of council, the new democratically elected council has said that it wants to revisit it all. I do not know the extent to which the council can do that, or whether the contract was already a done deal.

[Mr Andy Slaughter]

(Lab) (Hammersmith): I have resisted intervening because I want to get my full whack of time, but I have to come in on that point. There was always going to be a political risk in relation to that massive site—it covers two boroughs, with the mayoralty and various other interests, such as that of TfL—because it was a 20-year project. TfL signed up to a 20-year project, and tied its hands. It, above all people with political masters, should have known that that was the case.

[Mr Chope]

That is fascinating. I am glad that I gave way to the hon. Gentleman. When there is talk about reducing risks—the statement from the promoters states that the Bill will reduce risk and the costs of interest—we need to look at such assertions with quite a lot of scepticism.

To finish my point about TfL as the freeholder of Earls Court exhibition centre, let me ask why it is still the freeholder: why does TfL need to own Earls Court exhibition centre, and why does TfL not sell it? I do not know whether it could sell it to Hammersmith and Fulham council. In my view, TfL’s core business should not be to own an exhibition centre. If that had been the situation in my days in Wandsworth, we would very much have regarded it as one of those things to sell and get rid off to benefit local taxpayers, on the basis that if a freehold asset is sold, the receipts from it can be utilised immediately for the vendor’s top priorities. If TfL did not own the freehold of Earls Court exhibition centre, would it think of buying it? That is the sort of question that should be asked by those people who become star-struck by the idea that they are charged with developing some great property.

There has always been a glamour associated with owning assets. Municipalisation, whether of race courses or arts and entertainment centres, was often associated with the desire of the mayor and councillors to be able to get free tickets and hospitality by using what they saw as their role in looking after those important assets. My philosophical view is that they should never have had those assets in the first place. They should have sold them off and then enjoyed going out, paying for a drink themselves and saying, “Great. We’ve reduced the size of the local state and its apparatchiks in our area.” I am suspicious and sceptical about all of this. There are some fine people working for TfL, but if they think that they have skills that can be deployed in the property sector, they should go and get a job in the property sector.

I am particularly concerned about clause 4, which is the first clause of substance in the Bill. It proposes that what TfL cannot do itself should be allowed to be done by its subsidiaries. Members often speak of their concern about Henry VIII clauses, and this clause is the private Bill equivalent. It would allow TfL to set up subsidiaries at its own behest without any accountability, and those subsidiaries could then be used to do what TfL itself is not allowed to do. Why are we countenancing that? Why should the original safeguards, which were written into primary legislation—section 164(a) of the 1999 Act—be removed? My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said that if one had to go to the Public Works Loan Board or get bonds, one would have to pay higher interest rates than those one could get using these new subsidiaries as vehicles, but I think that is an unproven assertion. Let us consider other ways in which those things could be done.

Clause 5 would extend the power to invest in subsidiary companies to include limited partnership vehicles of one sort or another. Why are we doing that? Surely it would be much more transparent for TfL to set up a limited company that is properly accountable and then ensure that it produces accounts so that people can keep an eye on what it is doing. As soon as we get into the murky waters of partnerships and deal making that is not subject to public scrutiny, the people are not well served. It might be that among the well-paid employees of TfL there is a group of people who are much better than the directors of British Land at making deals to enhance the value of land in their ownership, but I somehow doubt it. Rather than encouraging TfL to aspire to set up subsidiaries that are like British Land, we should say that if it wants to set up subsidiaries, they should be proper companies that, as under the existing law, are subject to limited liability and open to public scrutiny.

We know that when we allow public organisations effectively to engage in devices to get themselves out of a short or longer term financial fix, it often results in tears. I remember when Hammersmith and Fulham was mortgaging all its lamp standards. It sold them—was it to a Japanese bank? I cannot remember—and it then leased them back because it obviously needed to have lamp standards. Those were the early days of what one might describe as a sort of barmy behaviour by Labour councils—that was one of the things that ultimately contributed to Hammersmith and Fulham becoming a Conservative-controlled authority.

There are examples of councils selling their assets then leasing them back and paying a lot more for them in the long term, but in the short term it looks good on the accounts. The council has a capital receipt from the sale of the asset, although local taxpayers will have to pay for the next 50 years for the consequences. That was at a time when the Department of the Environment, as it was then, made clear to the banks that we would not guarantee those assets. The banks thought, “Fantastic. We will buy all these lamp standards from Hammersmith and Fulham, and because we are buying them from Hammersmith and Fulham, if there are any difficulties, the money it owes us will be guaranteed by the Government.” The Department had to make clear to those foreign banks that if Hammersmith and Fulham, or any other council, defaulted on its obligations, the Government were not going to stand behind it.

I fear that some of the same thinking is creeping into this Bill, which is that in order to get over the problem of the £4 billion shortfall we should allow the proliferation of these vehicles. As the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington pointed out, if one couples clause 4 with the schedule, the mind boggles at all the things that could be charged by a TfL subsidiary without the consent of the Secretary of State—always remembering, of course, that under its existing powers TfL is not allowed to subject those things to a charge. If that measure were to go through unamended, it would create the potential for enormous mischief not just to London taxpayers, but to people who use TfL facilities. If Transport for London gets strapped for cash, it will have to put up its fares, reduce staffing or whatever, so the situation would not be without consequences.

I have a number of concerns about the Bill and I hope that some of them can be ironed out during the opposed Bill Committee. Underlying them all is the fact that I think it would be better if Transport for London concentrated on its core business and sought more equity investment—in other words, shareholder investment. Why does Transport for London not set up a subsidiary company, as it can do at the moment, and say, “We are going to sell shares in this limited company to the people of London”? Why not sell shares to users of Transport for London services? Why does it not raise that sort of money and, for good measure, say, “As an incentive, we will throw the assets of the Earls Court exhibition centre into the subsidiary company”? People who enjoy going to exhibitions at Earls Court could buy into that subsidiary company and perhaps get discounted entry prices, or whatever.

There is a lack of imagination in some of this, possibly because this process has been dragged out for so long that people have got into a tramline way of looking at it. Why do we not think more radically? Why do we need to be stuck with TfL, however good it is, and the same structure? Why do we not allow British taxpayers and property owners to buy shares in TfL, instead of using this sort of device, which will probably give the benefits to sovereign wealth funds, foreign banks, Russian oligarchs and whoever? They will be benefiting at the expense of the people of London. As somebody who was born in London, has spent a lot of time in London and had the privilege of leading a London council, I have the interests of the people of London at heart.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Slaughter]

Absolutely. I do not know whether I am right in suggesting that Earls Court was the fons et origo of that, but in any event the potential for it across London is huge. Moreover, as the hon. Member for Christchurch pointed out, the potential for it to go wrong is huge, and I think that that is what is going to happen.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for complimenting me earlier on what I had had to say. May I ask whether he thinks that TfL should sell off many of these surplus assets, rather than risking the setting up of vehicles for their development?

[Mr Slaughter]

I am coming to that point. I have given the House the benefit of what could be described as my knowledge of how things have progressed so far and what concessions have been made, but it is clear that clause 5 is intended to enable such vehicles to be set up, along with deals with pension funds and development partners for the management of secondary incomes to create income streams.

Obviously—this brings me back to the point that I think my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington was making—if TfL manages its property portfolio in the best interests of the farepayer with the aim of keeping fares down and, indeed, reducing them, I do not object to its finding ways of establishing the best return on assets, provided that those ways are legitimate and sound. In some cases, that might involve not selling an asset and investing the money at what would possibly be a low rate of return, but embarking on some form of joint venture. However, let me now deal with the rest of what I am against. I promise that, before I finish, I will respond to the hon. Gentleman’s specific point about whether sales per se are simply a better option, and whether we trust them.

There is a sense in which I would say yes to that. I do not want to be rude to TfL’s management, because I think that many of them are very good at what they do, particularly on the technical side. On the whole, however, they are no match for the major property developers of London. I am afraid that the same could be said about local authority regeneration and planning officers. Property developers see them coming and fleece them for everything they have, which is very unfortunate. It is particularly unfortunate because it is our money. What is presented in the first instance as a way of maximising return for the farepayer ends up with the poor old farepayer— and the taxpayer—picking up the major share of the bill. I think that when I say a little about Earls Court the House will understand exactly what I mean, because that is the best example.

It surprised me to learn that, unlike local authorities and other public bodies, TfL does not have a duty of best value under section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972. It says that it still tries to obtain best value for a site—presumably from a commercial point of view as much as for any other reason—but for a public body such as TfL this is a balancing exercise.

Of course we want TfL to maximise the return on its assets in the interests of its core business, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington said, but we also want it, as a public body under democratic control, to behave responsibly in environmental, social and economic terms. I fear that we are getting the worst of both worlds. We are getting poor-quality development, poor-quality decision making and poor-quality financial return. Therefore, the point about TfL’s area of competence is a serious one. I do not make it as a debating point to have a go at TfL. I wish it every success. But I have seen the evidence with my own eyes over many years.

Another reservation is to do with the collateral effects. Again, I will be brief on those, because they have been dealt with. According to the committee minutes, there will be some tax benefits in avoiding stamp duty, at least for TfL—it is a moot point whether we think that is a good thing to do or not—but when the benefits of avoiding tax go to the partner, that is a concern. As is the case with the Earls Court partner, major multinational property companies are avoiding paying UK tax by being registered in Jersey. TfL is facilitating that. That is plain wrong. A lack of transparency comes from the limited partnership model, rather than the limited liability partnership model. That is also plain wrong.

I also think, to put it crudely, that TfL is getting into bed with some dodgy characters. If they are not dodgy characters, then the people those people are getting into bed with are certainly dodgy. Capco, developers of Earls Court, has a partnership with the Kwok brothers, who are on trial for fraud in Hong Kong. When I put it to TfL last Friday that it should not be in that company, it said, “We have no association with the Kwoks”, but they signed a section 106 agreement for the site they were developing.

Let me give this example because it makes the point. The Earls Court area is subject to a masterplan. That was devised by Capco and everyone fell into line: the Mayor of London fell into line, as did TfL and the two Conservative-controlled boroughs. Therefore, we had the obscenity of a planning framework being designed around a planning application and of allowing a developer to act as predator on almost 80 acres of prime land in central London without any competition. The developer dictated its terms over a period of years, feeling that it had such pliant partners that it could do whatever it had to do.

As the hon. Member for Christchurch, who is long in the tooth and rather shrewder than a lot of politicians, said, that may work for a year or two or even five, but it will not work for longer than that and sooner or later there will be a change of regime in Hammersmith and Fulham and the apple cart will be upset. Possibly, in a year and a half, there will be a change of control at city hall and these schemes will still be in their infancy. Yet TfL has signed up to that masterplan, which I can evidence is not just a terrible scheme for the whole of west London but a terrible financial deal for the public sector partners.

All that land is being lost. Those premier exhibition centres in London contribute 16% of exhibition space in the UK and 30% of exhibition space in London. We will lose over 750 good-quality affordable homes, which will be demolished to make way for unaffordable homes. We will also lose the main engineering and maintenance depot for TfL and even TfL admits it does not know how it will cope without it. The first I heard about the move to Acton was when the hon. Member for Harrow East mentioned it today. It may have been a surprise to the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray). It was certainly a surprise to me.

At the Friday meeting and previously, I was told by TfL that there were no plans, and that the operational decisions had not been taken and probably would not be taken until 2020. However, it is a question not only of manufacture and maintenance but of the stabling of the trains. At the moment, TfL says that they have nowhere else to go. Therefore, we have a peculiar situation in which TfL has signed and voluntarily bound itself up to that masterplan, a terrible financial plan, a terrible social deal for my constituents and a terrible deal for the economic life of west London even though it is not in a position to deliver on it and does not look as if it ever will be. I cannot believe that by 2020 there will not have been some change in political control that would rule that out entirely. That is what I mean by the naivety, for want of a better word, in the way it has operated these schemes.

We have some of the players from the earlier debate here. The Minister and the shadow Minister and myself are present, and I wish we still had my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), because we had a very similar debate about the plans for HS2. As was largely not the case with Old Oak Common but is largely the case with King’s Cross, they involved going into an area that was already populated and already had housing that people wanted to live in and jobs that people wanted to do, and they were sold on the belief that it was a good commercial deal for the owner of that site. In my view it is simply unacceptable for that to happen. It is unacceptable that there should be that loss of homes—affordable, good-quality homes that people have occupied for 40 or 50 years—and their being demolished simply to hand over a site.

Yes, TfL got a terrible deal, but Hammersmith and Fulham council got an extraordinarily negligent deal that has to be investigated. It sold 23 acres of prime residential land for a net sum of £50 million, except within that £50 million it has to pay for the relocation and the purchase of the properties on that land, and with every month that property prices rise, that net sum is decreasing. Hammersmith and Fulham council—under its new Labour ownership, but gifted by its previous Conservative administration—could end up actually owing money for having given away 23 acres of prime land and having to displace 2,000 people who did not want to be displaced. That is what is happening in west London at the moment but it is on the basis of that strategy and plan that TfL wants to go forward with this kind of proposal. Can you wonder, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I am not terribly happy by it pursuing this course of action?

[Mr Chope]

What the hon. Gentleman has said is fascinating. Does he accept that what he has just described is available to us because of the transparency of the existing arrangements? However, if this Bill goes through, it may not be so easy in the future to be able to describe exactly what happens because there will not be that transparency.

[Mr Slaughter]

I have to say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman, although it has not been that transparent: it has taken rather a lot of work, over the last six of seven years and I am probably prematurely grey as a consequence. It has been like getting blood out of a stone, and so much work has been done, not primarily by me, but by the residents, the RMT, and people like my colleague my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington and the petitioners. They have worked day and night on this and have harried these people who are so irresponsible with the public assets that they hold—all public land at Earls Court, all being squandered and given away to developers, for losses of hundreds of millions, if not billions, of pounds.

Parliament (Amendment) Bill

Debate between Andy Slaughter and Christopher Chope

Friday 4th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

I had the privilege of listening to my hon. Friend when he made a very powerful speech introducing that Bill under the ten-minute rule. Nothing in my Bill cuts across or undermines anything in his Bill, which I hope will make swift progress when it comes before the House.

The Government’s argument against clause 2 of my Bill is given in paragraph 91 of today’s Command Paper:

“There is no immediate need to resolve this issue, since the provisions relating to a reduced number of MPs will not take effect until 2015. The Government therefore intends to reflect on the arguments made during the passage of this Bill”—

the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill—

“and set out its plans once there is greater clarity on the composition of the second Chamber, including how many Ministers could be drawn from there.”

It seems as though the Government are moving in the same direction, but clause 2 of my Bill would be a bit more of a nudge in that direction. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to confirm that the matter will be resolved during this Parliament. I certainly remain concerned about that.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Government and now the Boundary Commission are pressing on speedily with reviewing the legislature. Indeed, the Boundary Commission has, also today, published its new electoral quotas and confirmed the numbers of seats for each of the countries in the United Kingdom. It has also said that it intends to produce its provisional recommendations this autumn. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the Government are pressing on so quickly with the reduction in the legislature, they should at the same time look at the Executive?

[Mr Chope]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman completely. This is very important because we do not want the issue of how large the Executive will be to be left to the Executive to decide after the next general election. I think that the balance between the size of the Executive and the size of the legislature should be for the legislature to decide. If we are to have a smaller legislature, we need to impose a smaller Executive well in advance of the next election.