Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chris Williamson and Heidi Alexander

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

1. What steps the Government are taking to encourage firms to pay a living wage.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

5. What steps the Government are taking to encourage firms to pay a living wage.

Council and Social Housing

Debate between Chris Williamson and Heidi Alexander

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to be able to take part in the debate. Since I was elected to Parliament, I have probably spoken more about the need to increase the supply of genuinely affordable housing than about any other subject. I have done so not because I have any great expertise in that field, but because I know how desperate my constituents are to find homes that they can afford. Successive Governments have failed to appreciate the scale of the housing crisis. My fear is that the policies of the current Government will just make it worse.

Every fortnight, I sit in my advice surgery in south-east London and have the same conversation over and over again with families living in massively overcrowded accommodation who want me to help them find a home. Some will already have a council home or housing association property, but many more will be renting in the private sector. Most of the people who come to see me are in low-paid, often part-time work and juggling the pressures of bringing up their family while holding down a job.

I see mums who are on the edge of nervous breakdowns because their families are living in damp, depressing flats. I see dads who feel powerless to find their children a decent place to live. I often see children who are sharing a bed with their siblings, and sometimes I see children who have no bed at all. I also see families who live in a single room in a shared house. I say to myself that in 21st-century Britain, that cannot be right.

I often ask the constituents who come to see me what they do for a living. I ask them outright how much they earn. Obviously, their answers vary, but in the eight years for which I have been holding advice surgeries, first as a councillor and now as a Member of Parliament, not one of the families who have ever come to me for help with housing could afford to buy a property in London. For the vast majority of people who come to see me, even shared-ownership homes and part-rent, part-buy schemes are way out of their league. To access those homes, people need to be earning thousands of pounds more than many of my constituents.

Increasingly, people have been turning to the private sector to meet their housing needs and have been resorting to housing benefit to help them cover their rent. In Lewisham, private rents are basically double what social rents are, so for many of my constituents the private sector becomes an option only if the state pays money to their landlord. Yes, we have heard a lot about the housing benefit bill going up, but let us think about this. If private rents in my constituency are double the social rents, there is no surprise in that. Our failure to build adequate amounts of social housing has resulted in our lining the pockets of private landlords on an industrial scale—and make no mistake: the policies of the current Government will make that situation worse.

Social rented homes in my constituency are a hugely sought-after commodity. Demand massively outstrips supply. If I had a pound for every time I have explained that in my surgeries, I would be a rich woman. In London, 350,000 people are on waiting lists, yet only a tiny fraction of those people will actually be able to move each year. If we are to meet the housing needs of my constituents, we must dramatically increase the supply of social housing. I am relaxed about whether that is housing rented out by councils or housing associations, but I am clear that it needs to be genuinely affordable.

What are the current Government doing to build more social housing?

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

Not a lot.

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend gives the short answer. The current Government’s record over the last two years on social rented housing has been utterly shameful.

The Riots

Debate between Chris Williamson and Heidi Alexander

Thursday 13th October 2011 Westminster Hall

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure, Ms Clark, to serve under your chairmanship for the first time. This has been an excellent debate, and largely consensual. I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) on securing it, and on his measured speech. He set the tone for those who spoke after him.

Everyone in the Chamber and throughout the country was shocked and appalled by the scenes that they witnessed on the streets of our towns and cities in August. The Leader of the Opposition has made our position extremely clear. He said that nothing can excuse or justify the acts of violence that we witnessed in those terrible days a couple of months ago. It is right that people who engaged in riotous behaviour should face the full consequences of their actions, and that has been reflected in the contributions today.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) made an important point. He said that it is clear that there were complex reasons behind the riots, so it is important not to look for a quick fix and easy answers to what happened. It is important to examine those complex reasons in full detail, so that we understand why the terrible scenes occurred. He also stressed the importance of CCTV. There is a debate at the moment about its use, and whether it is valuable or should be reduced. He made the point extremely well that it has been invaluable in bringing to justice some of the people who were involved in the riots earlier this year.

The hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) highlighted the spirit of his constituents, and that was reflected in all towns and cities that were affected. We saw the best and the worst of human behaviour. I was pleased to hear him say that his opinion had shifted since his early response, and I welcome his support for early intervention. He also stressed the need to understand what went on, and to get to the bottom of it.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) made a passionate speech, and stressed the importance of people, whatever their community or background, understanding the difference between right and wrong. I totally agree. He also stressed the importance of neighbourhood and community policing, and said that something had clearly gone wrong with community policing in his constituency. That is regrettable, and there is a real need to re-establish trust in the police. It is essential to take that forward.

The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) commended the work of local authorities. Local authorities come in for a lot of criticism and receive a lot of brickbats, but their clean-up operations and responses were magnificent. I welcome his recognition of that, which was important to get on the record. I also share his view about the need for proportionate sentencing. Yes, people need to face the consequences of their actions, but the sentences must be proportionate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) stressed the importance of avoiding stigmatising entire groups—another important point with which I agree. She said that we must emphasise the need for respect, both within the community and for agencies that work on our behalf, including the police. She said that we should avoid a knee-jerk response, and highlighted the fantastic attitude in her constituency from the community, the general public, council workers and the police, who all responded magnificently. I welcome her putting those comments on the record.

The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) highlighted the opportunistic nature of much of the criminality in which people indulged, and he referred to the need to look at early intervention. He pointed out that local authorities will be at the forefront in dealing with the consequences of the riots and in finding solutions to prevent them from happening again. He stressed the importance of a sustainable funding stream. Investing in prevention is more cost-effective and far better than dealing with problems after they have happened.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) spoke about the impact of the riots on his constituency and stressed his concerns about inadequate police numbers. He mentioned the difficulties the police had in responding to the problems and riotous behaviour until more police were deployed from outside London to bring some order to the streets. He was worried about the reductions in police numbers, and called on the Government to rethink their proposed cuts to the number of police.

The hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) made a point about the use of language and said how important it is to avoid demonising single parents. I agree with him; that point was absolutely spot on. He reinforced the call from my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham for more black and Asian recruits to the police force, which will help to ensure a more sustainable and measured response. The hon. Gentleman also spoke from his own personal experience about the difficulties of policing, particularly the practical difficulties of more robust policing.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) also spoke about inadequate police numbers and the need to learn lessons about deployment. She noted how police were deployed in Croydon, which meant that it was difficult to deal with the outbreak of rioting in her own area, and she stressed the fear and anxiety felt by her community.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) spoke about the importance of being careful with the language that we use. We must be cognisant of police numbers and the tactics that were used. We all agree that it was important to send the strong message that people cannot get away with riotous behaviour. It is vital to regenerate those communities affected by the riots but, as hon. Members have pointed out, those areas that were not afflicted still have some of the underlying problems of the communities that were affected. We must be aware of that and ensure a measured response across the country.

It is important to look at how we can prevent a repetition of what happened in August and the appointment of Louise Casey to the troubled families unit is a welcome step in the right direction. I know of her work and have met her. She is a tremendous public servant and will do an excellent job in driving the agenda forward. We must also understand why such events happened, which will help to prevent a repetition.

As hon. Members have said, last month, we saw the best and worst facets of human behaviour. I believe that we must find a way of instilling a sense of civic pride in our communities and particularly our young people. It is difficult to understand how people can feel that it is acceptable under certain circumstances to smash up their own communities. If we can instil that sense of civic pride and hope, and give people a stake in their community, we will go a long way towards preventing a repetition of the awful scenes that we saw in August.

[Heidi Alexander]

My hon. Friend has picked up on an important point that I would have liked to mention in my earlier comments. It is about the presence of hope and the belief in a positive future, which stopped many people from taking part in the riots. That is one of the key things that we must get right. In some of our inner-city areas, young people, people in their 20s, believe that they have real opportunities.

[Chris Williamson]

I totally agree; my hon. Friend is spot on. It is essential that we achieve that objective, but the question is: how can it be done? There is a significant role for the youth service, and we must give young people hope through providing employment opportunities and adequate training. If we can do that, we will have a chance of instilling that sense of civic pride and hope that is the way forward.

All right hon. and hon. Members will have received a briefing note from the Children’s Society. It has made a few observations that are worth putting on the record. On youth services it states:

“We are concerned that the funding available for youth services has been cut substantially. The Early Intervention Grant, the main grant available for local authorities to provide services for children and young people, has been reduced in real terms by around 23% both this year, and for 2012/13…Market research conducted for The Children’s Society in April this year indicated that services for young people will be among the hardest hit with over a quarter of the local authorities responding stating that cuts to youth services were likely, as well as cuts to services for youth crime prevention and support for NEET young people. This is further compounded by the scrapping of the Educational Maintenance Allowance and the Future Jobs Fund. Youth unemployment has already hit record highs over the last year and over a third of 16 and 17-year-old school leavers are currently without a job.”

Those are real issues for the Government to look at, and in many ways they were reflected in the contributions from right hon. and hon. Members across the Chamber. I hope that the Government will think again about the way they are reducing funding for local authorities, particularly in key areas such as early intervention and youth services. Will the Minister give the Chamber the benefit of his thoughts on how we can ensure that local authorities commission early intervention services, which are under real threat? How will he prevent funding cuts from impairing local authorities’ ability to prevent a repetition of the riots and to respond effectively if there is—we all hope there will not be—another outbreak of riots next year? I ask that because police numbers and firefighter numbers are being reduced, and that will create real pressure if we are not careful. Bearing it in mind that local authorities are seeing reductions in their funding, I would be interested in hearing comments from the Minister on how we can ensure that those reductions will not impair the ability of those public services to respond effectively in the event of an outbreak of riotous behaviour in future.