Social Housing (Regulation) Bill [Lords]

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dehenna Davison]

I am proud to be here today opening the Report stage of the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill. The Bill has been long awaited, but I hope we can all agree that the time we have taken to engage with tenants and stakeholders has helped us to ensure that the Bill is as robust as possible. I am grateful that Grenfell United, Shelter and others are able to join us today as the Bill reaches its Report stage. I must pay tribute to them for their steadfast campaigning on this crucial legislation. I am also grateful to Members from across the House for the incredibly constructive way in which they have approached this legislation. Thanks to the strength and breadth of engagement, we have tabled a number of amendments and new clauses to reinforce the Bill even further, and I will begin with new clause 1, on Awaab’s law.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

As one of Rochdale borough’s two MPs, I thank the Minister’s Department for the speedy and sensitive way it has dealt with this, and I am sure that that would be echoed by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd), who sadly cannot be here for this debate. Can I ask my hon. Friend to give an assurance that once this legislation is passed, social housing tenants can have confidence that the homes they are provided with are fit for habitation in a way that simply has not been the case up to now?

[Dehenna Davison]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend not just for his contribution today but for the way in which he engaged with us following this incredibly tragic case. This legislation is designed specifically to ensure that terrible cases like that faced not only by Awaab but by the Grenfell United community do not happen again, and that tenants have the protection and the respect they deserve from social housing providers.

I know I am not alone in saying that I was deeply shocked by the tragic death of Awaab Ishak. The death of a child is always heartbreaking, and its having been entirely preventable makes it even more devastating. My thoughts remain with Awaab’s family in the difficult time that they have been going through. This terrible case has thrown into sharp relief the need for this Government to continue steadfastly in their mission to drive up the quality of this country’s social housing and, crucially, to rebalance the relationship between tenants and landlords. Within the Government we are well aware that, unfortunately, damp and mould are not the only hazards that can pose a threat to social residents’ health. For example, excessive cold and falls caused by disrepair in homes are among the top five hazards found in homes in England.

That is why the Secretary of State has tabled the Government new clause for Awaab’s law, which not only addresses the concerns underpinning the Awaab’s law proposals but goes further by enabling the Government to introduce new requirements on landlords to act on a broader range of hazards. We will take a power for the Secretary of State to set out in secondary legislation requirements for landlords to rectify hazards or rehouse residents within a certain time. Our new clause will empower tenants to challenge their landlords for inaction. It inserts an implied covenant into tenancy agreements that landlords will comply with the requirements prescribed in regulations. This will empower landlords to deal with hazards such as damp and mould in a timely fashion, knowing that if they fail to do so they can face a legal challenge from residents.

It is crucial that any new measures to address the issues of damp, mould and other hazards putting residents’ health at risk are proportionate and evidence-based and deliver the right outcomes for social residents in the long term. That is why we intend to consult on these new requirements, including time limits, within six months of Royal Assent and to lay the secondary legislation as soon as possible thereafter.

We are also tabling new clause 4 and Government amendments 1 and 11 to 14, which will ensure that the Regulator of Social Housing sets standards for landlords and provides tenants with information about how to make complaints and about their rights as tenants. To demonstrate our commitment to this, we have included a duty for the Secretary of State to issue a direction to this effect within six months of the Bill receiving Royal Assent.

I turn now to the important matter of professional standards in the sector. Grenfell United has long campaigned for mandatory qualifications to be introduced in the sector to ensure that professional standards are consistently high across the sector and to bring social housing into line with other frontline services such as social work, teaching and health and social care. At the earlier stages of the Bill I made it clear that we had to proceed cautiously on mandatory qualifications, as there was an identified risk that requirements could lead to housing associations being reclassified by the Office for National Statistics to the public sector, which in turn would hamper their ability to invest in improving the quality of existing homes and in building new stock.

However, I have made it clear in this process that we are here to listen and take on board comments from stakeholders and Members from across the House. We took heed of the arguments made by Grenfell United and Shelter and by those who spoke so passionately in both Houses on this matter. The tragic death of Awaab Ishak also underlined how vital it is that we use every lever at our disposal to deliver the consistently high level of professional standards that tenants deserve. Since the Commons Committee stage, we have worked incredibly hard to find a solution. I am grateful to Grenfell United and Shelter for their ongoing work with us on this issue and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) and my noble Friend Baroness Sanderson. I am proud to stand here today having tabled Government amendments 44 to 47 to deliver qualification requirements to improve the experience of social housing tenants.

We agree with the Government that the regulator should retain a high degree of operational independence and flexibility in formulating and implementing the inspections plan now required by clause 28, but we believe the Government are making a mistake in refusing to mandate the two basic requirements that we have proposed: namely, an inspection for all landlords irrespective of size at least once every four years.

Death of Awaab Ishak and Rochdale Boroughwide Housing

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

Again, I agree with my hon. Friend. The reality is that blaming lifestyles in a case like this is ridiculous; we know that the things that went wrong go way beyond individual decisions and lifestyles.

As I was about to say before my hon. Friend intervened, it is ludicrous to say to people that painting over mould is the answer. In my dim and distant youth, I lived in accommodation with mould, and when you walk into a building like that, you can feel it on your lungs. We know that children have much more sensitive lungs, so that combination cannot be blamed on lifestyle. The ventilation in the flat in this case was inadequate, but things could and should have been done about that. We know that the response of the housing association, RBH, was slow—as the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson) knows, RBH’s responses are customarily slow.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this very important debate, and I agree that it is probably one of the more distressing debates that any of us has had to participate in. He has made an extremely important point: tenants repeatedly have to report issues to RBH, and sometimes those issues simply are not logged. In fact, I have an example from just today. Yesterday, I asked two members of my team to visit people who had made complaints about RBH. We wrote to RBH about those specific complaints, and today it acknowledged the complaints—which had been lodged four times by the tenant—and said that it had now opened a case. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is absolutely ludicrous that tenants are not being listened to by their housing association, and have to come to their Member of Parliament to get basic, decent housing standards?

[Tony Lloyd]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. Sadly, that kind of response—among other things—is what led to the death of Awaab; that failure to do the basics right is at the heart of what went wrong. I also had a response from RBH this week regarding a constituent, telling me that it had dealt with the mould problem in her property. One would think that at the moment, mould would be so high on Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s agenda that it would be its No. 1 priority, yet the tenant has come back saying that far from the work having been done, the mould is still there. She has sent photographs to confirm that point.

When the Ishak family went to a solicitor because they could not get justice directly through the housing association, RBH used a legal block, which automatically put a block on repairs. Most of us would regard a policy like that as ludicrous, but in this case it was more than ludicrous: it was dangerous. We know that many, many things went wrong, but the thing that probably got me most was that a letter from a health visitor was lost through bad IT. The health visitor recommended that the family be rehoused, yet that recommendation was never acted on. That is—well, people can choose their own words as to what it is, but it is pretty devastating.

We know that many things have gone wrong. I say to the Minister that there needs to be an inquiry into RBH, even though we are two years on, because both the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton and I are of the view that RBH is simply not up to the job that we expect of it. That is not a criticism of many of the staff there: it is a criticism of the most senior managers, and indeed of the board. We need an investigation; even in recent days, whistleblowers—former employees—have talked about a culture of cost cutting at every turn, of bullying, and of failure to prioritise repairs. There is also the question of whether racism was involved, either institutional or more deliberate. Things like that have to be investigated.

This is not just a local issue. Mould does not exist just in homes and houses in the Rochdale borough; it is a nationwide problem, and we need nationwide solutions. The Secretary of State told us the other day that he believes that

“there are at least 2.3 million homes that fail the decent homes standard”—[Official Report, 16 November 2022; Vol. 722, c. 714.]

We have to do something about that. There are 800,000 homes with damp, of which 400,000 are in the social rented sector and 400,000 are in the private rented sector. It is a problem with social landlords and private landlords, and we have to deal with them both.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) says, we need to look at having an Awaab’s law to say that certain things must be done, including automatically treating mould as a potential health hazard. When mould or damp is reported, that should lead to an immediate response from the landlord. Anything else would be ridiculous. When the duty to repair comes in, there has to be a recognisable timescale. It is basic good housekeeping and we should put it on the statute book, because we know it is not happening. I can tell the House that it will be very popular, because 120,000 people have signed the petition that the Manchester Evening News has launched. I applaud those people and the MEN for taking up the case, and I applaud the fact that now the case has been raised, we are beginning to address the issues that the family want addressed.

We also need to look beyond the immediate legal framework for housing associations. We have to ensure that if they fail to do the job we ask of them, other mechanisms will come in. Public health authorities, the local authority, the Regulator of Social Housing and other agencies all need to be involved. We have to ensure —this is a matter for the Minister and the Government—that they are properly resourced to do the job of controlling that we ask of them. We must not give them a legal duty and legal capacity unless we also give them the resource to undertake their role.

One thing is bizarre. Supposedly, the Regulator of Social Housing is there to protect our interests by ensuring not only that housing associations are run with financial prudence, but that they conform to the standards that we expect. However, six months after Awaab died, the regulator did an in-depth assessment of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing. It gave RBH’s governance a G1—the best grade it can give, which is a little surprising —and said:

“Based on the evidence gained from the IDA, the regulator has assurance that RBH’s governance arrangements enable it to adequately control the organisation and to continue meeting its objectives.”

My goodness—I am glad that it is not in control of anything that affects me directly this very day.

The regulator needs to up its own game. I say again to the Minister that we must give regulatory authorities the powers and the duties of the role that we need them to perform if housing associations and private landlords fail, but let us make sure that we give them the capacity as well. That means money, by the way, because without money we cannot employ qualified, competent staff.

I turn to the role of the Secretary of State, who is in Rochdale today. It will be nice for him to hear this from someone on the Opposition Benches: I applaud the fact that he has been proactive in the days since the coronial inquest report. He has done a number of things that we all agree to be progress in the right direction, but I am a little uncomfortable about one thing, if I may say so.

When the Secretary of State and I had an exchange in Parliament earlier this week, he spoke about the possibility of fines when housing associations go wrong. He was reported today as saying that he intends to take £1 million off RBH, from the affordable homes programme. It turns out that that may have been misreported, so perhaps it is important to set the record straight. I understand that what he proposes is simply that the money will be there for Rochdale but not for RBH; if so, I would be grateful if the Minister clarified that. Fining housing associations never seems to me to be the brightest way forward, because it penalises tenants. For residents in my constituency, it means repairs are not done and the homes they need are not available.

Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Bill

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Friday 18th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt)—they say that brevity is the mother of wisdom. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman); this is his second private Member’s Bill, and it is an excellent and incredibly timely piece of legislation. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes) and for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) and the Minister for their work on this important Bill. I know that it has been a labour of love for them all.

I will admit a secret: I am a big fan of Friday sittings. I actually quite like them because we usually have a Bill like this that is born from somebody’s wisdom and understanding of a particular area of law. They attempt to address a single problem to facilitate an important change. We get to have a proper debate and to talk cross-party about the rights and wrongs of what is happening already, what can and cannot be done and where we go next. The Opposition naturally challenge that and ask us to go further, but we are given an opportunity to plug some gaps.

I will be honest: I have been thinking about housing a lot this week, for obvious reasons. We were all here for the statement about the tragic death of Awaab Ishak in Rochdale, the neighbouring constituency to mine. I have the same housing provider and, although this is not a debate on social housing, I will take a moment to develop my thinking on housing, because my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) touched on something very important: the role of housing in mental health, personal wellbeing and, as we saw, unfortunately, in that tragic case, physical wellbeing.

If we do not get simple things such as housing right, people’s lives can be utterly devastated. The reality is that there are people who are trapped in a system that simply has not been working properly. We assume that there are thousands of them, but the problem is that we do not have that data, as we have heard. For me, that is shocking. The fact that we consider it too expensive to collect data about what is happening to members of our society—including vulnerable people, people who rely on assistance and do not get it—is deeply concerning, to put it politely.

We have thousands of vulnerable citizens—whether they are people who have left prison or people who have mental health or physical health needs—who are reliant on a system that is simply not fit for purpose. Let me put on one of my many metaphorical hats as the chair of the all-party group on local government and as a recovering councillor, because I have some insight into the licensing world. Actually, I quite enjoyed reading the report from the HCLG Committee—sorry, the LUHC Committee. The names change almost as many times as the Ministers do these days—please do not note that down. The report highlighted some important areas where local government can do a great deal of good.

We are already well into the discussion about how we integrate health and social care, and housing is a really important part of that mix. Interestingly enough, when we talk about prison leavers, we say that the three things they need are a job, a home and a friend. A home is a really important part of that because it gives them stability and the means to access such things as work. We have a system where, essentially, scammers—slumlords—can trap people in worklessness and effective homelessness. They are being kept and are almost prisoners in the system.

I know from personal experience the good that local government can do. As an avowed Manchester liberal, I am slightly dubious about the idea that we need a national regulator. I would see that in the last instance. Personally, I would like to see local authorities sharing best practice. We saw a live example of that in the trial period, when Blackburn with Darwen unitary authority began communicating with its neighbours. As a unitary authority in Lancashire, I imagine that it has quite a lot of experience of doing that. It was a good example of best practice. We are also quite good at that in Greater Manchester. Well before the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, we had the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities, so we were already talking to one another.

There will be ways to develop a framework. My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) made the point that the regulatory framework might look different in different parts of the country. For example, it will look different in London from how it looks in Manchester. In rural communities, for example in Cornwall or Devon, it will have to take another form, but the underlying basic standards have to be there for everybody. It is about finding the right balance. When the Minister is summing up, will she give us some further thoughts on how this will be put in place?

On another note of caution, local government is extremely stretched and has been for a long time. Councils and council officers do a fantastic job, often with diminishing returns. I implore the Minister to ensure that, when we hand over these responsibilities to councils, they are properly funded. We will not find most local authorities wanting in their ability to deploy these skills, but, realistically, the pot has to have at least enough resource in it for them to discharge proper enforcement, as the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) mentioned in an earlier intervention.

I am certain that what we are debating here today is a necessary piece of legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich said, smart regulation is the way forward. The law should be a scalpel, not a machete. What we are trying to do here is to excise from this system the very worst people. The truth is that there are many organisations that are doing that very well and we want to encourage them. We want to have almost a gold standard for those people providing good quality housing—those people who can say, “Well, yes, we are licensed. We have met the conditions. You can feel safe and secure in my accommodation. When I say that I will provide support, it will actually be support.” It will not be—as we heard from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood)—just sticking their head round the door saying, “Are you alright?” when, quite frankly, they may not even have seen the individual in question. That is all to the good. Those providers will probably find that they have more influence and more agency with that regulatory framework. I am just very keen to make sure that it does not become too burdensome and too expensive for them to comply with it, so that good providers drop out of the market.

Most of the good points that could be made about this have been made, and I will not belabour the point because I know that this is a popular Bill. However, I do want to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East that it is remarkable to secure a private Member’s Bill in the first place, but to have two must seem like good fortune. To do what he has done with them is impressive, and he can be extremely proud of what he is doing here today. I am sure that his constituents are, too. I am extremely proud to have been able to participate in the debate.

Social Housing Standards

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for the points he makes. Again, I express my sympathy to his constituents who have had to deal with some of the defects that Rochdale Boroughwide Housing has exhibited for some years now, and I know that he has consistently questioned the service they have received.

On the first point about damp and mould, it is already the case under the legislation introduced by the hon. Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck)—the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018—that damp and mould is a No. 1 concern when it comes to whether a house is fit for human habitation. However, the hon. Member is quite right to say that, when it comes to identifying a category 1 hazard, reviewing that in the context of the decent homes standard is something we do have to do. I think that, under any circumstance or under any standard, the conditions in which Awaab’s family were living were simply not decent and would have failed the decent homes standard, but he is quite right that we need to keep these under constant review.

The hon. Member is also right to stress that, when it comes to appropriate support for people in all types of tenure, we need to make sure that local authorities are appropriately resourced to ensure that they can be the champions of those whom they are elected to represent.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

When I think about this case I vacillate between profound sadness and white-hot anger. This is not an isolated incident. Just this week, I was sent photographs of a house in Middleton with its walls caked in black mould and rising damp. That is an RBH property, and my constituent sent me a copy of her doctor’s note saying that she and her children are now severely ill because of these conditions. RBH are modern-day slumlords. Can I encourage my right hon. Friend, and I thank him for all his engagement thus far, to take up the suggestion of the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) to conduct a full root-and-branch investigation into the workings of RBH? Does he agree with me that, when the director is claiming £157,000 in earnings, he must bear full responsibility for what has happened?

[Michael Gove]

Again, I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his work. I know that he has been extraordinarily diligent in following up the cases of poor housing that have been brought to his attention. He is absolutely right that the leadership of RBH has presided over a terrible situation in his constituency. Action does need to be taken. He is absolutely right that we need to make sure that all of the tools at our disposal are used to investigate what went on and to hold those responsible to account. He is also right to say that individuals who earn well in excess of what our Prime Minister earns and who have responsibility for 12,500 homes should take the consequences of those actions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to modernise the planning system in England.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to modernise the planning system in England.

[Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

What steps he is taking to modernise the planning system in England.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and he is right to say that significant housing delivery is occurring at the moment in Aylesbury. There are two principal things that the Government seek to do to support his constituents. The first is to ensure that more infrastructure accompanies that housing; we will do that principally through our infrastructure levy, which will capture more of the land value uplift and put more money at the service of his excellent local council in Buckinghamshire. Secondly, we will ensure that more local people can be involved in the planning system by digitising it so that, at the touch of a smartphone, people can access and understand a plan and comment on or even object to a planning application. By doing so, we expect that we can boost the number of people who engage in our system and drive a truly localist approach.

[Chris Clarkson]

There is a great deal of concern in my Heywood and Middleton constituency and across Greater Manchester about the amount of green belt approved for release by the Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, as part of his Greater Manchester spatial framework. What assurances can my right hon. Friend give me about protection of the green belt as part of his Department’s new planning reforms?

[Robert Jenrick]

This Government made a manifesto commitment not just to protect the green belt, but to enhance it. At the moment, planning policy is clear that building on the green belt should be contemplated only in the most exceptional circumstances, and we intend to continue that through our modernised planning system. I appreciate the pressure that my hon. Friend and his constituents are under as a result of the proposed Greater Manchester spatial framework, which does not seem to accord with the wishes of local residents. I hope that as we come out of the pandemic, Manchester City Council and others with a good record of house building and regeneration will find opportunities for imaginative building on brownfield sites and around the city centre.

Planning Decisions: Local Involvement

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Like I think most Members, a substantial portion of my casework is on either planning or housing, so I am glad to participate in today’s debate. I would even say that I do not necessarily disagree with the thrust of it, although I ask Opposition Members whether they have actually spoken to any of their colleagues in local government.

[Christian Wakeford]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way on this point. Does he agree that while Labour Members are expressing their faux outrage and are already attacking their inadvertently misleading attack ads, what they really need to do is turn lecture mode off and listening mode on?

[Chris Clarkson]

I thank my hon. Friend for his clairvoyance, because I was about to say that the lived experience does not necessarily match the rhetoric, and nowhere is that clearer than in Andy Burnham’s love letter to developers, the Greater Manchester spatial framework. As Labour authorities were scrambling over one another to designate as much green belt as possible for development, one in particular stood out: Rochdale Borough Council, which volunteered to build more homes than were allocated. In fact, in the first conversation that I ever had with the council leader, he told me that he wanted to build as many unaffordable homes as possible. We thought that we had killed off the plan when the Conservative group on Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council voted it down, but now Andy has simply repackaged it and is trying to force it through again. Apparently, that constitutes listening to people.

We know that planning is a hot-button issue. Several hon. Members have mentioned the by-election result. I honestly congratulate the new hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sarah Green): it is a privilege and an achievement to get here. I take some issue with the way she arrived here, though. On Thursday evening, when I was trudging the streets of Chesham, I had the following conversations at door after door: “Oh, yes, I am a Conservative—I always vote Conservative—but I voted for the Liberal Democrats this time because they’ve promised to stop all the house building,” and “I voted for the Liberal Democrats this time because they’re going to stop HS2.” This is a party that talks about social aspiration, but they are the sort of people who make sure that they are not in the house when the cleaner is coming; a party that talks about the environment, but with a Range Rover in the drive that only ever does the school run; a party led by a man who criticised former politicians for becoming lobbyists, but who was a highly paid lobbyist when he was a former politician; a party that describes itself as democratic while trying to overturn the single largest democratic exercise in British history.

The simple fact of the matter is that simply telling people what they want to hear will never get the job done. We cannot just talk the talk; we have to walk the walk. I am cautiously optimistic about the planning Bill. In particular, I want to make it easier to build on brownfield, because we have an abundance of it in my constituency and a severe shortage of good-quality, affordable homes. In closing, I lay down a challenge to my council, because it is very keen on building. Instead of carving up our green belt, will it listen to what people are saying locally, as colleagues in Westminster have asked, and start developing the brownfield now?

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Having been born and raised in Germany, where people do not shy away from their past lest the lessons be forgotten, I thought I was reasonably well versed in this subject. Then, last January, I had the opportunity to visit Yad Vashem. I would urge any Member here to visit that memorial, Auschwitz-Birkenau, or any of the other testaments to the unspeakable evil we are debating today. I have no shame in saying that that experience broke me.

There is a passage in the Talmud that states:

“Once a person has sinned and repeated the sin, [he treats it] as if it has become permitted.”

That verse warns of the mesmeric ease with which the worst of human behaviour can be repeated and then normalised—what political theorist Hannah Arendt called the “banality of evil”. We have a duty, as a people who have enjoyed nearly 1,000 years of relative wealth, prosperity and freedom, to stand against that banality of evil wherever we perceive it. We have not always been equal to that task.

One of the darkest stains on the soul of this nation and, indeed, this place began with the phrase

“a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing”.

The catastrophe that followed allowed us to know those people a lot better, yet we still abandoned them to over 40 years of communist oppression after world war two as we turned inward to look after ourselves. “Enlightened self-interest” is rarely anything but. As Martin Niemöller once put it:

“Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestierte.”

“When they came for me, there was no one left to speak for me.”

In commemorating the shoah, we must not satisfy ourselves that we are remembering an historical event that happened many years ago; in a very real sense, it is ongoing. The places—Darfur, Srebrenica, Rwanda—and the names—Yazidi, Rohingya, Uyghur—have changed, but the evil has not.

By our simple luck of birth, we cannot justify turning a blind eye. Nor can modern geopolitical realpolitik give a free pass to the perpetrators, whom we meet on a regular basis, whom we talk to, and one of whom we invited here to give a speech in Westminster Hall. When Andrew Marr can show the Chinese ambassador footage of Uyghurs being rounded on to trains and his response is to talk about tourism in Xinjiang, and when official Chinese social media accounts can boast of liberating Uyghur women by sterilising them, we are staring into the void. We must decide whether we want the void to stare back at us.

As we remember the 6 million stolen lives of the shoah—HaShem yikom damam—I hope that Members across the Chamber will also remember those still fighting to live just because of who they are.

Council Tax: Government’s Proposed Increase

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Like a lot of people here, I found my route to Westminster via the town hall. I was quite surprised to listen to the oration by the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), because I was a councillor in her constituency for eight years. I sat through eight Salford City Council budgets, listened to the same speech year after year from the leader and then the elected Mayor as they decried the Government, and then I took out a copy of the previous year’s Salford Conservative Policy Forum alternative budget, which I penned myself, and ticked off each of the supposedly cruel and unconscionable measures that they rejected previously, having enacted them a year too late to do any good.

Financial mismanagement is the hallmark of Labour authorities. Pointless and often ruinous vanity projects are dressed up with Blair-era names like Invest to Save, and millions of pounds of taxpayers’ hard-earned money is shovelled in to prop them up as it transpires that local authorities probably should not be running, for example, a rugby stadium in Salford or an energy supplier in Nottingham.

In my experience, Labour authorities, far from being forced to increase council tax, have been some of the most enthusiastic proponents of increases, and Greater Manchester is a prime example. In Heywood and Middleton, my constituents will be faced with a council tax rise of almost 5%. The council is hiking rates by 3.99%. Andy Burnham will be adding the maximum £10 allowed for the police precept, and another £14 on top for his general precept. That will put a minimum burden of £58 per household on my constituency. Andy is right that it is the minimum, because he actually wanted more. Members will be aware that Andy got himself into a spot of bother recently as Greater Manchester police were taken into special measures because 80,000 crimes were not recorded. Despite being the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester and being warned by councillors, officers and MPs, Andy was apparently oblivious to this, but he has magnanimously promised to fix it—although it will cost you.

For Labour Members to come here and complain about council tax rises when their colleagues at local level have tripled the average council tax over the past 20 years so that the average council tax in a Labour authority is £84 higher than the equivalent in a Conservative authority is a heady mix of hubris, chutzpah and old-fashioned brass neck. Once again they come here with a false narrative, intending to stoke up an army of social media trolls, encouraging them to share misleading and sometimes entirely wrong posts and graphics, and to abuse and threaten, while they feign their dismay at these tactics in this Chamber. Instead of riling people up and deliberately frightening the most vulnerable, a serious Opposition would have come here with an alternative and wanting to debate with the Government about the best way to do things—but sadly, not today.

Westferry Printworks Development

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

First, I thank the Opposition for using one of their days to give Conservative Members a chance to talk about the Government’s excellent work on housing in the past 10 years.

Since 2010, 1.5 million new homes have been built across the country. Last year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith) mentioned, 241,000 homes were built—the highest level for 30 years. It is a fundamental tenet of good and responsible aspirational Government to give people the opportunity to own their own homes. Home ownership is not only good for the individuals concerned but good for the economy more broadly—it creates jobs and stimulates economic growth. This principle must continue to be at the heart of any Government policy.

I must turn, however, to the political motivations for calling this debate today—namely, the Westferry Printworks development. In recent years, Tower Hamlets has become synonymous with inefficiency, poor governance, corruption and financial mismanagement. The direct intervention of the Secretary of State in the affairs of this council is not isolated to this incident. I must therefore put it to the Opposition that the only reason this permission was put to the Secretary of State in the first place was that Labour-run Tower Hamlets refused to make a decision. In 2018, Tower Hamlets Council cancelled five meetings of the strategic development committee—in March, April, May, June and August—and a further meeting in January 2019. This is the committee that should have considered the development. With the necessary levels of accountability, scrutiny and oversight, decisions about housing rightly reside with local authorities and, where they exist, combined authorities. Considerable powers have been devolved to those bodies, and it is the responsibility of local leaders to ensure that where developments are approved, not only do they reflect the wishes of local communities but there is a proper infrastructure to support them.

We should be united across this House in welcoming the largest investment in affordable housing in a decade.

[Abena Oppong-Asare]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Clarkson]

No.

This year, a record £12.2 billion in grants will support the creation of affordable homes. I welcome the extension of the affordable homes programme, which has delivered 464,500 new affordable homes since 2010. The recent announcement of a boost in funding by £9.5 billion over five years will help to unlock billions more in public and private investment.

Despite the excellent efforts of the Government, not only in increasing the supply of affordable housing but in truly trying to enshrine the best traditions of localism into the planning system, communities can still be at the mercy of local leaders who ignore the wishes of the people they serve. Nothing illustrates this better than a story—one I like to refer to as “A Tale of Two Andys”. Since Andy Burnham became Mayor of Greater Manchester Combined Authority, just 1,715 affordable homes were completed in 2017-18 and 1,619 in 2018-19. That represents a 19% and 24% reduction, respectively, compared with figures for 2014-15, showing that the supply of affordable housing has gone backwards in Greater Manchester. Yet in the smaller West Midlands Combined Authority area, 3,801 affordable homes were built in 2018-19 alone, under the watch of Andy Street.

I believe it is entirely possible to support the building of affordable homes and garner the support of local communities at the same time. Therefore, I cannot fathom the Mayor of Greater Manchester’s strategy to seemingly jettison the sensible policy of “brownfield first”, whereby permissions are more likely to carry the support of local communities and to support important regeneration products in our towns and cities, and warrant the destruction of our green belt instead.

I have been working with local campaign groups in Heywood and Middleton such as Save our Slattocks, Save Bamford Green Belt and campaigners at Crimble Mill to resist the disastrous Greater Manchester spatial framework. I will continue to do so. Andy Burnham’s plan, at present, demonstrates a woeful lack of community engagement. I will use my privilege as a Member of this House to urge him to reconsider. Dickens himself would have described the approach taken in the west midlands as “the age of wisdom”. I am afraid that in Greater Manchester, with Labour’s Mayor, we are witnessing “the age of foolishness”.

Greater Manchester Spatial Framework and the Green Belt

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[James Daly]

My hon. Friend speaks powerfully, and I agree with every point he made.

One of the great faults of the GMSF is that it does not require local authorities to be proactive or innovative in their planning policy. Instead, it allows them to go for the easy option of allowing developers to build three, four and five-bedroom houses all over the green belt—houses that will be totally unaffordable to the vast majority of my constituents.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point about the nature of the housing being built. My local authority in Rochdale has signalled its intention to build more houses than required, and they will be mostly unaffordable. Does he agree that the strategy should take account of housing need?

[James Daly]

I agree with every word of my hon. Friend’s powerful point, which I am sure the Minister will address.

The proposals to build on the green belt come despite the Government’s alterations to the national planning policy framework, which have strengthened green belt protections. Why are local authorities such as Bury Council determined to build on the green belt rather than work innovatively to regenerate brownfield sites and provide truly affordable homes, by which I mean houses and flats with a value of less than £100,000? I believe that they are simply taking the easy option.

The defence to that charge by those who support the GMSF is that the Government are forcing them to build a certain number of homes in line with national guidance, and that to do so they must encroach on the green belt in Bury and elsewhere. That question was put to the Minister in a Westminster Hall debate the week before last, and has been put to Housing Ministers before him. Will the Minister confirm that councils are not mandated to build definitively the number of homes required under 2014 population projection figures? Those figures should be the starting point. Local authorities should conduct their own assessment of the number of homes that need to be built over the length of a local plan, and those homes should be affordable and in the places that people need them.