Transport for London Bill [Lords]: Revival
Debate between Andy Slaughter and Emily Thornberry(9 years ago)
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Emily Thornberry
I believe that that is exactly the position. This legal instrument was created in order to help to raise money. However, the difficulty is that we will be raising money on public land—public for the moment, at least. That is land owned by you, Madam Deputy Speaker, by me and by all of us, and we will be handing over some sort of investment in it to organisations that are cloudy, to say the least. Is there anything to stop these partners being offshore companies or being able to establish themselves with £2-worth of capital? Is there anything to stop documents naming certain people as responsible for the company, only for the Russian mafia to take over at a later stage? Are we handing over Caledonian Road, Old Street and potential developments in my constituency to such people? I certainly hope not, but I am worried that this Bill’s revival may allow that to happen.
Andy Slaughter
My hon. Friend is asking extremely pertinent questions, but I wonder who is going to answer them. If I get the opportunity to make a speech, I will try to answer them with the aid of the promoter’s statement on the one hand and the legal opinion obtained by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers on the other. The Bill’s sponsor, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), is now deep in thought, having gabbled through the end of his remarks without taking interventions on any of the substantive matters covered by the Bill. If this Bill is to be revived, does my hon. Friend agree that our questions should be answered tonight?
Emily Thornberry
I genuinely think so, because, as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) has said, we are talking about large swathes of publicly owned land in the centre of our capital. My constituency has the least amount of green space of any in the entire country, and all our brownfield sites need to be looked at very carefully in order to maximise housing. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on the need for housing, but frankly we do not need developments such as that currently taking place on our canal, where a one-bedroom flat is being sold for £826,000. That is not affordable housing for anyone who lives in Islington. We need real affordable housing, but the Bill does not seem to have any control over that.
Emily Thornberry
Certainly, the way things seem at the moment is that the property market in London only goes upwards. We will see what happens in the future. There has to be, in the end, a limit to it, and there may be some form of risk. One risk has to be, for example, finding asbestos. If asbestos is found at a development site, what happens then? Again, the risk is nationalised and the profits are privatised.
Andy Slaughter
My hon. Friend mentions asbestos. The site that begat all this nonsense in the first place is the Earls Court exhibition site, which is coming down at the moment and is absolutely full of asbestos. There are huge risks here. The brakes are being taken off. It seems ironic that Transport for London should think it needs to do something to ease up the London property market. The London property market is out of control as it is. Only TfL, with its lack of commercial acumen, could really think that it should prioritise building more luxury flats with whoever turns up to build them and make it as easy as possible, with no questions asked.
Emily Thornberry
If we do not use public land to build affordable housing, what land will we use? If we sell off the land, and it ends up in the hands of private property speculators, that will be the end of it, in terms of its being within the reach of Londoners.
Again, perhaps someone can enlighten me, but there has been talk that TfL could set up a subsidiary to insulate itself against risk. I do not understand what TfL has said about that, but, on the face of it, if it continues to own the land, or at least to manage it, it seems that a court would say, “The legal instrument might say one thing, but the reality is quite clear”, and strike it down. The project is being built on the never-never, and on very dubious grounds. We are asking serious questions about the risk this public body is being put under. What is TfL going to be doing with our land? What does it mean for the future of London? There are so many questions. I appreciate the Bill has a long history, but that makes it even more disappointing—to say the least—that these questions cannot be answered. They have been asked of TfL many times, yet we still do not have answers. In the absence of such answers, it does not seem correct to revive the Bill.
Andy Slaughter
I will attempt to answer my hon. Friend’s question, although, again, it would be better if the sponsor did. Counsel’s opinion, on exactly this point, expresses doubt about whether such an approach would be within the vires of TfL and lawful and that, even if such a subsidiary was formed, it might also give rise to the issue of vertical liability for TfL. It seems that, if that is what TfL is attempting, it has failed to do so in the Bill.
Emily Thornberry
That is very interesting. If that is counsel’s opinion, why can TfL not allay our fears? It is a pretty fundamental question. As I understand it, attempts have been made over several years to progress the Bill, yet there are still no answers to these important questions. It is not enough for TfL to say to the House, “Please revive the Bill. The Chancellor is going to take £700 million away from us, and we need to sell off our assets to fill the gap.” Economically, it makes no sense; socially, it is appalling; and, politically, it is extremely short sighted and not the sort of thing the House should allow.
Emily Thornberry
I am very grateful to my comrade for bringing me back from the brink. In those circumstances, there is nothing more to say about that.
Andy Slaughter
I wonder whether I can help my hon. Friend by putting it slightly differently. As London MPs we are very grateful for the support from great engineering and great railway towns around the country, such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell). I think the nail was hit on the head in the answer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes), who is no longer in his place, about whether there is a balance between Londoners who want access to housing and Londoners who want reasonable fares. The answer is that everybody is losing out under this scheme. The cover on this Bill has been blown by the revelation that money is going to be sucked out of London and that TfL is going to have to scrabble around, selling the family silver simply to pay the fares bill over the next year or two. That is a disgraceful way to run the economy.
Emily Thornberry
That, in summary, is my objection to the Bill. It seems to me that we need to call out its true intentions. I am afraid that, supporter as I am of TfL—I have written to its director to praise him, but I have to criticise other things—I have to say that TfL is making a mistake about this. I suspect that the reason it is trying to make this terrible mistake is that it is being pushed by the Government who are looking to entirely short-term gain. This is not in the interest of Londoners, so the Bill should not be revived.