Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Felicity Buchan]

As the House will understand, I cannot comment on individual bids, but the hon. Lady makes a compelling case. The relevant Minister is happy to meet her.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of the impact of increases in inflation on local authority budgets.

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

13. What recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of local authority funding.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)]

We recognise that councils have faced challenges since covid, which is one of the reasons why we allocated billions more in subsidies to local authorities in the financial year 2023-24. Discussions on public spending often require hard choices and trade-offs on many worthy intentions, but we hope that the additional billions allocated demonstrate the Government’s commitment to local authorities.

[Christian Wakeford]

Council budgets have been impacted by huge costs due to covid and the triple whammy of increases in demand for services, fuel prices and inflation. The Minister will know that people are scared and running out of hope, so will he outline what support is available now to ensure that councils can still provide the vital services that people need?

[Lee Rowley]

As I outlined, we have allocated additional funds to local authorities in this financial year. It is also a statement of fact that a number of local authorities in England have increased reserves as a result of covid. In the last financial year, additional grant funding of nearly £7 million has gone to the hon. Gentleman’s local council, Bury Council, for adult social care.

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[The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Rachel Maclean)]

My hon. Friend will know that that policy area is led by the Department for Business and Trade. Nevertheless, it is important that we work closely with a wide range of stakeholders and businesses to achieve a consensus. It can sometimes be challenging, but we are clear that any solution must be a sustainable one that works for the industry and its clients, addressing the need for surety and fair payment.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

T2. It has been more than 50 days since the Renters (Reform) Bill was introduced to Parliament. Despite ample parliamentary time, the Government have failed to set a date for Second Reading. In the last few weeks alone, the House has finished at 2 pm and 5 pm due to the Government bringing forward no business. Why do the Government not care about renters?

[Michael Gove]

The Bill, as you know, Mr Speaker, is beautifully formed, but the impact assessment that goes with it, as I pointed out earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), needs to be read in the round to see what a great piece of legislation it is. One thing that would enable us to bring forward legislation is if the Labour party were to end its pointless opposition to our Illegal Migration Bill. It is curious that the Labour party seems keener on being on the side of people smugglers than it is on the side of the private rented sector.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. There are many, many lessons to learn from the darkest era of our recent history, but one of those lessons must surely be the importance of political courage and political leadership. Those of us on the Opposition Benches know how important that is, and that no institution is immune from the scourge of antisemitism. One of the reasons why I raced back from Manchester this morning, where I had been at a conference debating housing, was in order to be here today to say loudly and clearly on behalf of the official Opposition how strongly we support what the Secretary of State and his colleagues are doing.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned Manchester, and as the MP for Bury South I am proud to represent many holocaust survivors, and I have been fortunate enough to meet them and share their stories. An institution and a museum, and more importantly an educational facility such as this, is intrinsic to us not only learning those lessons, but to making sure such things are never repeated. Does my hon. Friend agree that the best thing we can do to honour their memories and have a legacy for them while they are still alive, is to get this project going as quickly as possible, and ultimately to get it built and used?

[Lisa Nandy]

Absolutely. As a former student of Holy Cross College in Bury, I have met many of my hon. Friend’s constituents over the years. I know how important it is to them that they hand on the baton to the next generation, and that we do not allow this to be the moment when understanding and comprehension of what happened in that darkest moment of history is lost. They can then hand over that baton, and feel reassured that the future is safe in our hands and with future generations. I thank my hon. Friend for the work he has done in standing up for his community over and over again in this place. It is noticed in Bury, and it is noticed here.

With the march of time and the continued loss of survivors, the holocaust is moving from being part of lived experience to being part of history. As we begin to approach that moment, our generation should commit to teaching the next about the horrors in our past, and the lessons for the future. That is what this new, purpose built memorial in the heart of London is. It is a commitment to arm future generations against the horrors of the past, so that when we say “never again”, they can be sure we mean it. That is why Labour stands squarely behind the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Board of Deputies. We pay tribute to their work, and to the two co-chairs, Lord Eric Pickles and the right honourable Ed Balls, who have shown that this is not, and should never be, an issue that divides us.

As Karen Pollock, the inimitable chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said yesterday:

“It is crucial to remember that the Holocaust Memorial—and remembering the Holocaust in general—is not about planning permission, or square footage, or underground pipes. What these discussions are about at their heart, is people. People who were subjected to unimaginable suffering, simply because they were Jewish.”

Like many others, she has reminded me that none of us should ever make the mistake of thinking that this is history. Antisemitism did not die at the end of the holocaust. Around the world, Jewish communities have been targeted by terrorists in Germany, France, Belgium and many other countries.

Last year, anti-Jewish hate hit a record high in the United Kingdom, with abuse, threats and violent assaults levelled at Jewish children, women and men on the streets of Britain. The Jewish Leadership Council and the Community Security Trust are powerful advocates for their community. They have reminded me so often of the human cost of this, often with heartbreaking stories about the impact on their own families and children—children who go to school behind locked gates; security guards at the doors of synagogues. It shames our nation. This group accounts for less than 1% of the total religious population in the UK, but antisemitic hate crimes account for a staggering 23% of all religious hate crimes. It is completely unacceptable in a modern society where the experiences of the past are still so raw that that is happening every day in our communities, on our campuses and in our workplaces. We on the Labour Benches know that only too well and we are determined to tackle it.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

I would like to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my friend the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) for their contributions to today’s debate, as well as all those who have spoken before me. In particular, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), who gave a magnificent maiden speech—although I disagree with his choice of football club.

I would like to thank and pay tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust, as many Members have, and the Antisemitism Policy Trust for their vital work. I also thank the Community Security Trust, in particular Amanda Bomsytyk and Jonny Newton, for continuing to provide protection to the Jewish community not just in my constituency, but across the country. I thank The Fed in my constituency for their “My Voice” project, which publishes the life stories of holocaust survivors and refugees who have made Britain their home. I hope to raise that in Parliament later this year, and I hope for the support of colleagues. On a final note of thanks, I pay particular tribute to Karen Pollock and Danny Stone, whose counsel is widely sought and respected across this entire Chamber, and indeed across both Houses. Their impact on me and my education should not be underestimated.

We are all ordinary people who today can be extraordinary in our actions. We can all make decisions to challenge prejudice, stand up to hatred and speak out against identity-based persecution. That is the message of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust this year, and it was the story of so many during the holocaust. Genocide is facilitated by ordinary people. Ordinary people turn a blind eye, believe propaganda and join murderous regimes. Those who are persecuted, oppressed and murdered in genocide are not persecuted because of crimes they have committed, but simply because they are ordinary people who belong to a particular group. This is true of genocide the world over, but particularly in the case of the holocaust.

During the rise of Nazi Germany, ordinary people had choices. Many ordinary people were in positions of power, using Jewish people to advance their disgusting ideology and taking advantage of the economic circumstances following the first world war. Many of those in power believed this ideology, but many others were ordinary people obeying orders given to them by evil people. Ordinary people were, for instance, policemen involved in rounding up victims, secretaries typing the records of genocide, and dentists and doctors carrying out evil selections.

Those who were persecuted were ordinary people too, whether Jews, Soviet civilians and prisoners of war, disabled people, Romani people, gays or many, many others. Like us, they all had families, hopes and dreams, and a want and need to get on in life, find opportunities, be happy, and to give and feel love. They wanted to read and write, to contribute and maybe even hold high office, to represent their families and communities and feel free—things we all take for granted today.

Ordinary people also stand by as genocide happens around them. They do not partake, but they also do not speak out, preferring to turn a blind eye and pretend they have not seen it. They were keen not to get involved in case they were next, watching as Jews were snatched from their homes, with anxiety heightened and thoughts swirling around their head: “I hope they don’t come for me next.” What the holocaust showed is that they will. Never in this Chamber or out there must we walk on the other side when it comes to racism and injustice. As a famous civil rights activist once said:

“We do not need allies more devoted to order than to justice”.

I imagine Jews around the world would agree that antisemitism is the oldest racism and that it needs all of us here today to lead from the front and stand against those who wish to fan the flames of hatred and division to enhance their racist agenda.

We should all follow in the footsteps of the ordinary people who did not stand by—the righteous among the nations. Many of them will say that they are not extraordinary people, despite having done extraordinary things. They will say that they did not show superhuman bravery; they just did what was right. When Sir Nicholas Winton rescued 669 children from Czechoslovakia and brought them to the UK, thereby sparing them from the horrors of the holocaust, he simply said:

“Why are you making such a big deal out of it? I just helped a little; I was in the right place at the right time.”

I disagree with Sir Nicholas. He saved innocent children from a life of unimaginable trauma, torture and almost certain death, and gave them a life that at the time seemed impossible. I am sure we all agree that there can be no greater gift than the saving of a precious life.

We stand on the shoulders of giants in this Chamber today. Every single one of us, as leaders in our communities and constituencies, should wake up every day channelling the spirit of Sir Nicholas; doing the right thing, making the right choices, helping those who need it and standing tall in their corner when they need us. Leadership is about ordinary people rejecting division and hate. Leadership is about showing bravery in the face of adversity. Leadership is about choosing virtue over evil.

Earlier this week I visited the Terezín ghetto in Prague with the European Jewish Association. While there I heard at first hand from Gidon Lev, a survivor of Terezín, about how it was the site of the original propaganda from the Nazis. When media gathered to the ghetto, the Nazis were keen to stress that while, yes, it may be a ghetto, people were actually being looked after, and children were being educated and fed. Of course, this was all a front for the despicable treatment that was really happening to Jewish people. It was only following the work of the Red Cross that what was truly happening was uncovered.

Fake news is something we must stand shoulder to shoulder against with our Jewish brothers and sisters, from the rapid development of artificial intelligence, the digital doctoring of pictures and videos of the time, to the holocaust denial spreading like wildfire across social media. Ordinary people are still duped by fake news about the number of people murdered in the holocaust. Decades-old theories—in some cases, centuries-old—that Jewish people are somehow puppeteers of the world’s events, that they run our media, music industry and our sport and are somehow plotting against us, continue to put Jewish lives at risk.

We must never lose sight of the story of the holocaust and how ordinary people in power systemically dehumanised Jewish people so that other ordinary people could murder them on a scale that is simply hard to fathom. In short, we must always remember, and never forget. It must never happen again—not to Jews, not to anybody, not on our watch.

Death of Awaab Ishak and Rochdale Boroughwide Housing

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

I will deal with my hon. Friend’s initial points a little later, but on the question of the board, I do think that we now have to question the way it has operated. To allow the chief executive to cling on to his job until public pressure made that impossible is an indictment of those who sought to give him that cover.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, while it is welcome that Rochdale Boroughwide Housing has apologised, that is not good enough in these circumstances? It has admitted to making assumptions about lifestyles and therefore not dealing with the issue, which has cost such a young life and shows an inherent lack of leadership. The law has to be changed to make sure that landlords, both social and private, cannot ignore the health risks of damp and mould.

[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.

Management of the Economy and Ministerial Severance Payments

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

The Government absolutely acknowledge that people are in challenging circumstances across the country. We want to support those people, and in fact we have provided support to help the hon. Member’s constituents and help those on the lowest incomes—that has been our priority for some time. I do not know whether she will remember that we have already provided £37 billion by way of a support package to help people with the cost of living. We are helping millions of households and businesses with rising energy costs through the energy price guarantee and the energy bill relief scheme, saving a typical householder—those people in her constituency—£700 this winter. Indeed, nearly one in four families across the UK will be receiving a £324 cost of living payment, from last week, as part of our £1,200 package for the 8 million most vulnerable families.

We also recognise that one of the best ways to support people is helping them into work. Unemployment is at 3.6%, up from 3.5%, which was the lowest level since 1974. I am proud that we have helped more than half a million universal credit and jobseeker’s allowance claimants into jobs through our Way to Work scheme.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

The Minister speaks about helping those on the lowest incomes. What part of removing the caps on bankers’ bonuses or removing the 45% tax rate will help those people?

[Lucy Frazer]

The hon. Member is cherry-picking—and, of course, that particular announcement was of measures that will help the economy. He will know that, to help the most vulnerable, we have cut fuel duty and increased the personal threshold for national insurance contributions, raising it from £9,500 to £12,500. We are providing the cold weather payment, the warm home discount and the increase in the national living wage. For those with young children, we are providing £200 million a year to support the holiday activities and food programme. To help people into jobs, we have the kickstart and restart schemes and the skills bootcamps. We are helping vulnerable people across the board. Moreover, we have been doing so over the past year as these challenging circumstances have manifested themselves. [Interruption.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I now know what my Easter plans will be. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that making sure, through the exercise of permitted development rights, that we can provide people with the opportunity to holiday in places as beautiful as North Yorkshire is an entirely welcome development.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

Reported cases of antisemitism continue to rise, with the Community Security Trust recording a record 2,255 cases in 2021. The Government have funded the security at Jewish locations, including synagogues and schools, and this, unfortunately, is vital to ensuring the safety of the Jewish community. Will the Secretary of State commit to the continuation of this funding next year, as well as ensuring that it is adjusted for the increased cost associated with inflation?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. As the Minister who, as Secretary of State for Education, initiated that scheme, I will do everything I can to ensure it continues. But I would make one additional point: one of the things we can all do across this House in order to tackle the evil of antisemitism is stand against the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, and that is why when we bring forward legislation to outlaw BDS at local government level I hope we can count on the hon. Gentleman’s formidable voice pressing on those on his Front Bench the importance of supporting that legislation and not, as they did in the past, abstaining.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) after her excellent speech and my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), whom I congratulate on securing this debate. I join everybody in the Chamber in thanking the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Holocaust Educational Trust and everybody else who works in this area. I particularly pay tribute to the Antisemitism Policy Trust and its chief executive, Danny Stone, who does so much in supporting and providing the secretariat for the all-party group against antisemitism, which I and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) co-chair.

I will attend the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in Brigg in north Lincolnshire this Sunday, which will take place at our new memorial there. It is a town I have spoken about before that has little to zero Jewish population but which, through its town council and particularly Councillor Rob Waltham, decided that it wanted to do its bit and to do more to ensure that the memory of the holocaust is never forgotten. That is why, just a few years ago, following a competition in which local schools took part, a local pupil designed a fantastic new memorial in Brigg, and the town will come together on Sunday to ensure that we never forget.

I thank Demeter House School in Brigg, a special educational needs school that has been working with the University College London Centre for Holocaust Education to build its confidence in teaching its children about the holocaust. It is one of 165 schools across England taking part in that initiative, and I pay tribute to it for that.

Why is this debate so important? Sadly, the scourge of antisemitism continues to plague our society and others around the world. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark said, we have seen that in the past year with the case of Professor Miller at the University of Bristol, which failed to protect its students swiftly. This was a racist, antisemitic professor targeting Jewish students, accusing them of effectively being in the pay of the state of Israel—a classic antisemitic trope. In calling that out, as we did not so long so ago in an Adjournment debate, members of the all-party parliamentary group were singled out and attacked as being Zionist agents, agents of the state of Israel or in the pay of Israel.

Why is this debate necessary? As other Members have said, people visiting any social media platform over the past couple of years will have found antisemitic posts linking covid and the development of vaccines to Israel, to Jews, to the classic international conspiracy. We have seen, as has been referenced, the sickening sight of people on anti-lockdown protests wearing yellow stars.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Percy]

Of course I give way to the vice-chair of the APPG.

[Christian Wakeford]

Just last week we saw swastikas on the streets of Bury in protest against covid passes. It is depressing that we even need to say this in this House, but there is no place for antisemitism, these tropes or this hatred on our streets, campuses and society, and it needs a debate such as this to call it out and say, “No more.” [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

[Andrew Percy]

Absolutely—I could not agree more. Too many people throughout this coronavirus period have casually linked the necessary measures to Nazi Germany. My constituents are largely very sensible people—they have sent me here four times, which proves how sensible they are; and they have done so, I might add, in ever increasing numbers and with a higher percentage of the vote, but I digress—but I am afraid to say that even a small number of my constituents have sent me some of this material. One of them even sent me a photograph of the Nazi health pass, likening it to the vaccine mandate, even though the Nazis and Hitler himself were against vaccine mandates.

That is absolutely why this debate is necessary. We have this debate every year, and each time we can all trot out a whole range of different experiences and examples from the preceding year, as Members have done today—I will not repeat them—which prove the sad necessity for this debate and for the ongoing work we have to do on antisemitism.

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[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) for securing this very important debate. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) and for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), and the right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), for their incredibly moving and powerful speeches.

As has been said several times during the debate, when people think of the holocaust—the Shoah—we instantly go to Auschwitz-Birkenau. We instantly think of Bergen-Belsen . Earlier this week I was in Kyiv, in Ukraine, on a European Jewish Association delegation to Babi Yar, which was the location for the largest mass grave of 100,000 Jews who were killed one by one. There was no gas chamber; they were all shot. Their only crime was being Jewish.

While I was at that delegation, I took part in a symposium to discuss holocaust education, and the rise of antisemitism in football and on our streets across Europe. This is something that we all need to take extremely seriously. We need only consider the instances of last year, when there were not only antisemitic tropes such as blood libel on the streets of London, but convoys being driven throughout the country. It was not right then, and it is not right now.

I have spoken many times in the House about how proud I am to represent the constituency of Bury South, which is home to an extremely large and thriving Jewish community. Within that community there are a number of holocaust survivors, some of whom I have been privileged to speak with personally. I will never forget the way I was addressed by a Kindertransport survivor at a Jewish communal meeting before my election. In the United Kingdom, in 2019, he spoke about the fears for his family caused by the rise in antisemitic hate crime. To be approached in this manner and experience the dawning realisation that the lessons of the holocaust have not been learnt is something that should shock us all.

As the number of holocaust survivors tragically continues to dwindle, I also pay tribute to the second and third generations who are the children and grandchildren of the survivors. They work so hard to preserve the memory of their loved ones and ensure that future generations are aware of the holocaust, the worst crime ever committed. Let me I specifically mention the work of Noemie Lopian. She has published the memoirs of her father, a holocaust survivor, Dr Israel Bornstein. Alongside the grandson of a high- ranking SS Officer, Derek Niemann, they tour the country speaking about their families’ stories and instilling the importance of tolerance and fighting prejudice.

As has been mentioned throughout the debate, the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year is “One Day”. This is extremely powerful, and manages to encompass the whole lives of those poor victims and the survivors. It was inconceivable to someone having a happy childhood and growing up with a loving family that “One Day”, within a relatively short period, they would be facing the most unimaginable horrors. I read the words of a survivor, Iby Knill, who stated that from one day to the next, everything could change. She said that one day, she was greeted with an embrace; the very next day, people ran across the road to avoid being seen with her. I read the words of my constituent, Ike Alterman, someone who is rightly revered across the entire Jewish community and by royalty following his recent meetings with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. I will read the following section from his memoirs word for word:

“One day in 1942, they said that all Jewish people must congregate in the town square. You could only bring with you what you could carry in your hands and everything else you had to leave...So we were all lined up in the square, standing there for hours and hours and nothing was happening...Each line was about five deep and they started counting the people. I was standing behind my father and he told me to stay on my tiptoes to make me look taller than I was. So there was my dad, my mother, my sister and my little brother. And they came and they counted and just between my father and my mother they stopped, their hand gesture divided us. So my father and I were saved and the rest were marched out through the square...My little brother with his hands above his head. Rifles on them. Never to be seen again.”

For Ike and millions of others, the following years led them to suffer and witness abhorrent and unspeakable crimes. However, those incarcerated in the most appalling, brutal conditions dreamed that one day, they would be free. How the survivors managed this, I will never know, but they built new lives for themselves and thrived; they started businesses and had families, and now have countless numbers of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It is therefore imperative to tell the whole story of a survivor’s life, and I therefore commend the My Voice project, which is co-ordinated by The Fed in my constituency. That project documents the life stories of holocaust survivors living in Greater Manchester, and is unique in being located in the main Jewish social care provider in Greater Manchester, which enables it to provide holistic wrap-around care to the survivors as their testimony is recounted. The concept was provided by Margit Cohen, who came to the UK on the Kindertransport in 1938. She stated,

“I have to tell you my life story, my whole life story before I die.”

My Voice captures survivors’ stories in their own voices by sound recording and transcribing the storyteller’s words into individual books. These are more than just artifacts of oral history: they are records of each person’s experience and heritage, encompassing their entire life before, during and after the war years. The project intends the completed books to be used as groundbreaking educational resources to further understanding of the persecution of Jews and other minorities by the Nazi regime; to counter prejudice and revisionism; and to give courage and hope to other survivors of tyranny and oppression. To date, 30 life story books have been produced, and a further 12 are in various stages of production. The project works closely with Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, which houses the books in its museum, and the team of volunteers who work on the project also received a Queen’s award for voluntary service. I conclude by thanking those brave survivors for telling their stories.

Planning Decisions: Local Involvement

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I am sure that the entire House enjoyed the performance of the hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), the shadow Housing Minister, although I have to say that the closest he came to accuracy, Madam Deputy Speaker, was when he addressed you as Madam Deputy Speaker. However, at least he gives me the opportunity to put the case for a transparent, engaging and modern planning system that will help to deliver the homes that we need, to give everyone in our country the chance, if they want to, to get on to the housing ladder.

Our planning reforms are a sensible set of proposals to address the failures of the English planning system, which was conceived almost three quarters of a century ago and which many accept is now too slow, too difficult to navigate and too off-putting for the broad mass of communities. Right now, it can take up to seven years to adopt a local plan. Only 41% of local authorities have an up-to-date plan and some have no plan at all, all of which puts much of their communities at risk of speculative development.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

Talking about councils that have no plan, I refer the House to my Labour-led council in Bury. Does the Minister agree that while we want democratic engagement, the worst thing possible is to have that engagement and not listen to the people, as my council is doing to the over 10,000 people who want protection of the green belt, every single one of whom is being ignored?

[Christopher Pincher]

I hope that my hon. Friend’s council does listen, and I also hope, for that matter, that the Greater Manchester Mayor listens. We have given them £75 million of public funds to invest in brownfield remediation. Let him use it effectively for his constituents in Greater Manchester.

Individual planning applications can take up to five years to determine, in addition to plans potentially taking up to seven years. The system is not fast enough and it is not consistent, nor is it clear or engaging enough. We are committed to improving the system, because our reforms will protect our valuable and beautiful green spaces, with vital protections for the green belt.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend, who is a doughty campaigner for his constituents. As he will know, we introduced a tall buildings policy in London in the teeth of opposition from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. We are certainly open to the prospect of such policies more broadly, beyond London; I am happy to talk to my hon. Friend about that policy opportunity.

Our plans will make it easier for local people to really influence the plan in their community and have their say on the future development of their local area, including the standards of design that builders must adhere to.

[Christian Wakeford]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. We have talked about the huge importance of communities engaging in the planning process and of having a local plan, but does he agree that the most engaging way to get residents involved in the planning process is by rolling out more neighbourhood plans, so that the process can be devolved to the most local areas possible, whether they are areas of towns or villages?

[Christopher Pincher]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising neighbourhood plans. We are keen to advance the opportunities that they afford to their communities. We are very conscious that they tend to occur in the south of our country or in the more rural parts; we are determined to roll them out into places further north and places that are much more urban, so that those communities too can benefit from the opportunity.

Our proposals will transform how planning and plan-making is done, taking us from an era of planning notifications on lamp posts to digital, interactive services enabling prop-tech companies to develop more engaging ways to visualise and communicate planning information, in turn improving everyone’s overall understanding of what is happening and where. Plans will be more accessible, presented in new, visual map-based formats based on machine-readable data accompanied by clear site-specific requirements. As I say, communities will be engaged at the earliest stages of the plan-making process to ensure that their views are fully reflected. To make sure that local authorities have the tools that they need, we promise a holistic review of council planning resources, because we want councils and their officers to have the scope and the skills to plan strategically for their communities, involving communities much more closely in their plan-making, the design of their communities, and the infrastructure to support them.

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[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?

Land Banking

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to bring this important debate before the House this evening, which is important not only for me and Bury South, but for many across the country. Thank you, too, for marking this, my first Adjournment debate since being elected.

We have spoken frequently both in this place and in Westminster Hall about protecting our green belt and about the need to build houses. Over the past few years, plans to build new homes on our precious areas of green spaces have become one of the biggest issues in my constituency, in Greater Manchester, and, indeed, across the country.

Throughout my time in this House, I have pledged to preserve Bury’s green belt, over at Elton reservoir and in Simister, and ultimately to protect our environment from unnecessary development. I reaffirm that commitment right here, right now, because it is a commitment to seeing the borough at the forefront of brownfield development.

I thank the Minister for having many discussions and for coping with my concerns and complaints about the impact of green-belt development. We really need to tackle some of these issues, especially the land banking issue, which I will be coming on to.

Bringing forward brownfield regeneration will deliver more affordable and, ultimately, safer and better homes for all, which is something that, as a country, we desperately need. Our country desperately needs new homes to be built, and built in great numbers, but we cannot achieve that by encroaching on our green belt to find extra space when there are plenty of empty plots already waiting to be built on.

In 2019, almost 400,000 homes were given planning permission in England, but only 240,000 were actually built. Over a 10-year period, from 2009, 2.5 million homes were given planning permission, but only 1.5 million homes were actually built. That translates to a backlog of roughly 1 million unbuilt homes.

Planning in this country is already providing more land than needed to meet the Government target of 300,000 homes a year and we should not be looking to encroach any further on our green belt. In fact, we had a manifesto commitment to not only protect, but enhance the green belt, and that is something that we, on the Conservative Benches, can make sure we hold the Minister to.

Why is there this huge disparity between the number of planning permissions granted in the UK versus the number of homes actually being built? It is not the planning system. The planning system is not the constraint on house building; it is the property industry and land banking itself. Land banking is a pitfall in our complex planning system where developers buy and store a pipeline of land and obtain planning permission for that land, with no immediate intention to build the homes that have been approved.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his first Adjournment debate. I have no doubt that it will be the first of many. Does he not agree that, while we are sympathetic to those genuine developers who are outpriced in building on their site due to the rising price of steel, wood, plastic and other materials at this time, there are also those—and they are the ones that he is referring to—who deliberately hold land with planning permission to enhance the cost? Steps need to be taken to address those whose business is simply land banking, which can lead to price gouging. The Government, and the Minister in particular, must consider imposing penalties against these people, and one of those penalties should be taxing them heavily.

[Christian Wakeford]

I thank the hon. Member—indeed, he is my hon. Friend in this instance—for that helpful intervention. I will certainly get on to that point later in my argument. I have a particular concern when developer A holds field X, gets planning permission and then does not build, but they also happen to hold fields Y and Z, and it is just to create a greater need to get planning permission on those. The only real benefit is to the developer and their balance sheet. As my hon. Friend said, it is very much these developers who take advantage of the planning system; it allows them to profit without the homes being built—homes that we desperately need—in the locations that we need them.

As I was saying, land banking is a pitfall in a very complex planning system where developers buy and store a pipeline of land and obtain planning permission for that land, with no immediate intention to build the homes that have been approved. Being granted planning permission can increase the value of the land by more than 100 times in some instances, but instead of building homes, the developer sells the land off for profit. This practice is purely an investment for big property developers, and it inflates land prices, making it even more difficult for people to buy the homes they desperately need. It prevents young people and families from getting on the property ladder, and it also prevents the elderly from being able to downsize and move into bungalows, because we are not building the homes that we need.

In Britain, the timescales involved in land banking are particularly long, with people seeming to land bank in some instances for between five and 10 years of their building supply, compared with other countries such as Germany, Japan, the USA and even France, which have much shorter timescales. Indeed, in some of those countries, the phenomenon barely exists, so why is the UK different? Unfortunately, it is because of our planning system.

Land banking is also posing a serious threat to our green belt as the Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, has sought to look for extra space to build several thousand new homes by encroaching on green-belt areas such as Elton reservoir and Simister village in my constituency. I made a pledge during the election campaign to oppose those green-belt developers and find a meaningful solution so that we do not need to build on that land, and I make that commitment again to the electorate and the good people of Bury South.

I carried out a survey of my constituents recently. It found that roughly 56% of residents in Bury South felt that the green belt should never be built on, and that 95% took the view that Elton reservoir needed to be taken out of Mayor Andy Burnham’s house building plan, so if there is anything the Minister can do to assist in helping with that, it would be greatly appreciated. To add to the pushback against green-belt development, my local green-belt protection group in Bury South, Bury Folk Keep It Green, is roughly 10,000 members strong across a borough of 180,000 people, so it is a very large group. I hugely respect and admire the work it has been doing not only to bring the consensus on protecting our green belt to the fore, but to ensure that everyone in the constituency is aware of what is at risk and what could be destroyed.

The results speak for themselves. Let us listen to the people, and let us not destroy these precious areas of green space that we have pledged to protect. The planning White Paper talks about democratising a planning system that unfortunately fails far too many people. These are areas that have helped so many people mentally and physically during the pandemic, when we were all being told to go out and take advantage of our green fields and open green spaces. Indeed, I myself have taken my daughter for walks around Elton reservoir. We need to ensure that those areas are there for many years to come, so that many families can carry on enjoying them.

We need to look at changing the rules around the English planning system, ensure that legislation reflects ways to tackle the housing crisis and stop egregious cases of land banking, ensuring that land is built on and not stored. The 2017 Local Government Association report suggested introducing a council tax charge 12 months after planning permission had been granted, which would act as a disincentive for large property developers to land bank. It could also incentivise those developers to start building in the first place, further negating the need to build on our green spaces. If developers were forced to pay all that money every month, they would start building pretty quickly.

The Government should also work to bring thousands of empty homes and other types of property back into use, to ease the housing shortage and maximise the use of existing stock. The latest report suggested that there were roughly 665,000 vacant dwellings in the UK, and we need to make use of them. We are saying that we need to build 2 million homes, and those empty homes and those that are land banked represent a huge proportion of what we need to build.

I welcome the Government’s dedication and success in addressing the housing crisis and the protection of the environment. However, I urge them to reconsider the system we are currently operating in. We need a planning system that can bring about a better quality of life for all and a more sustainable future. We need a system that can bring down the price of land, capture land values for the public benefit and make housing truly affordable so that every family can ultimately benefit from the right to buy, get on the property ladder and take advantage of what we all should have as a fundamental right. I shall close by thanking the Minister for his kind words in our many conversations. I hope he will agree not only that we need to change, which is why we are bringing forward these changes now, but that we need to ensure that democracy and ultimately the people have a final say in this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. House prices have increased and that is a very good reason why we need to build more homes of different types and tenures across the country to ensure that people can get the home of their dreams either to buy or to rent. I was going to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), both doughty campaigners on behalf of their constituents, that we recognise that build out is important to ensure that communities see the homes they want and need built promptly.

The Government want homes to be built and expect house builders to deliver more homes more quickly and to a high quality standard. Indeed, we are exploring further options to support a prompt and faster build out as part of our proposed planning reforms. We are now analysing the responses to the consultation on our White Paper, “Planning for the future.” We had some 40,000 responses. That work will include pursuing further options to support faster build out of our proposed planning reforms. More details will follow.

I was interested to listen to my hon. Friend and hear ideas raised such as charging council tax on unbuilt permissions. It is an idea that has been mentioned previously, too. That will require some careful thinking because council tax is levied on properties and paid by the residents. Who would pay council tax on a permission? Would it be the developer, the land owner or the promoter? Those are questions we need to address if that option were to be further pursued.

[Christian Wakeford]

The council tax proposal is just one idea. Obviously, council tax as a policy is open to interpretation in this place. However, there are other ideas and notions, such as land value tax as soon as an application has been granted and the land value increases. That would certainly be an incentive to get people building again. What are the Minister’s thoughts on the potential of a land value tax?

[Christopher Pincher]

My hon. Friend is right that there are many options. I used that example because it has been positive, but it is also complex and needs to be thought through. Let me assure him that we are thinking through a number of options we can employ to ensure that more homes are built more quickly, to that high-quality standard that we expect, and that build-out occurs, as we all want to see.

We will also be looking at enforcement rules for landowners who wilfully abuse the planning system. We will talk more about that when we introduce the legislation. We know that our country does not have enough homes. It is a decades-long problem of demand consistently outstripping supply and it has undoubtedly fuelled rising house prices. Indeed, the median price in England is nearly eight times higher than the median gross annual earnings outside London. In London, it is nearly 12 times higher. How are people expected to get on the property ladder and buy their own home—even rent their own home—with such challenges? It is clear that things have to change.

Building the homes the country needs is at the heart of the Government’s commitment to levelling up across our United Kingdom. Our vision for the future of planning and home building in England has to be bold and ambitious. That is at the heart of our White Paper. It proposes changes to the focus and processes of planning, to secure better outcomes for local communities, in terms of land for homes, for beauty and for environmental quality.

Simplifying the content of local plans will be a big part of this. It will make it easier to identify areas suitable for development, such as brownfield land, and to protect the all-important green-belt land sites, which are the sorts of sites that my hon. Friend referred to. A good example of brownfield land development can be found at the East Lancashire Paper Mill site in his own constituency.

These changes will transform a system that has long been criticised as being too slow to provide housing for families, key workers and young people, and too weak in getting developers to pay their fair share towards supporting essential infrastructure such as local schools, roads, GP surgeries and clinics. It is our ambition to deliver 300,000 homes per year by the mid-2020s and one million homes over this Parliament.

Increasing the number of up-to-date local plans across England is central to achieving that goal. Local plans not only unlock land for development and ensure that the right number of new homes are being built in the right places, but they also provide local communities with an opportunity to have their say on how their local areas will transform over the coming years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Wakeford]

I thank the Minister for being very generous and giving way a second time. The Labour council in Bury does not have a local plan. We have been working on the Greater Manchester spatial framework but that has been pushed back time and time again, as the people say, “No.” What message can the Minister give to the Labour councillors about bringing forward a local plan, and doing so quickly?

[Christopher Pincher]

My message to all local authorities that do not have up-to-date local plans is: “Move as quickly as you can. If you do not, you do your constituents a disservice, because you leave them open to speculative development based on the presumption of sustainable development. It means you cannot protect your land, or support the communities that live on or around it, because you do not have a plan in place.”

Home building statistics show that in 2019 to 2020 there were nearly 244,000 net additional homes, including 220,000 new build homes. That is the highest annual increase for 30 years. The 2020 housing delivery test measurement, which we published in January, shows that around two thirds of local authorities have risen to the challenge and are supporting the delivery of the homes they need. The other third need to follow suit.

My hon. Friend referred to empty homes. I am pleased that the number of long-term empty homes has fallen by more than 30,000 since 2010. We have given councils powers and strong incentives to tackle long-term empty homes, including the power to increase council tax on them by up to 300% and to take over the management of them. Councils also receive the same new homes bonus for bringing an empty home back into use as for building a new one. It is probably worth mentioning that not all empty homes are habitable without some significant expenditure, or are in places where people need and want to live, but he raises an important point. I hope that I have demonstrated the Government’s commitment to getting appropriate empty homes back into use.

My hon. Friend also mentioned infrastructure. If we are to build new homes, we must have good infrastructure to support them. We recognise the crucial role that infrastructure plays in supporting new communities and improving neighbourhoods. Our manifesto committed to amending planning rules to ensure that the right infrastructure is in the right place before people take the step of moving into their homes. That is why we announced the national home building fund in the 2020 spending review.

The fund brings together existing housing, land and infrastructure funding streams into a single, flexible, more powerful pot, ensuring that roads, GP surgeries and schools are ready for people moving into new neighbourhoods, and driving an increase in supply in the areas of greatest need over the long term. At the next spending review, we will set out our proposals for the future of the national home building fund, to deliver on the Government’s commitment to invest £10 billion to unlock homes through the provision of infrastructure. That is on top of the £7.1 billion that we have already allocated, which we believe will unlock 860,000 new homes.

My hon. Friend mentioned the Government’s commitment to building back better after the pandemic and the importance of protecting the environment. Through the national planning policy framework, we have made it clear that planning policies and decisions should minimise the effects on biodiversity from development, protect our most sensitive habitats and provide net gains. That means that opportunities to incorporate biodiversity improvements in and around developments should be sought, especially where they can secure measurable net gains for biodiversity.

We intend to go further: 2021 will be a landmark year for environmental policy because in November we will host the UN climate change conference in Glasgow. Our Environment Bill will be a pivotal part of delivering the Government’s manifesto commitment to create the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on Earth. We will make provision for a mandatory 10% of biodiversity net gain improvements for a range of developments, including house building. That will ensure that future developments result in measurable enhancements to nature, strengthening the biodiversity of our environment overall. We will also give new powers to local authorities to tackle air pollution in their areas.

My hon. Friend made important reference to the green belt, and our priority as a Government is to continue to protect the status of our green-belt land. We stand by our manifesto commitment:

“In order to safeguard our green spaces, we will continue to prioritise brownfield development, particularly for the regeneration of our cities and towns.”

We are clear that green-belt land should be considered for release only if an authority can fully evidence that it has examined all other reasonable options for meeting its development needs.

In addition, the national planning policy framework makes it clear that there should be no approval of inappropriate development in the green belt, including most forms of new building, except in very exceptional circumstances, as determined by the local authority. That means that the authority should use as much brownfield land as possible, optimise development densities and co-ordinate with neighbouring authorities to accommodate development.

We are committed to working with local authorities to turn old, disused brownfield land back into use for vibrant, exciting new places, levelling up for communities across the country. We have announced a package of measures that sets a new and far-reaching cross-government strategy to build more homes, protect and enhance the environment and create growth opportunities across the country. It includes: our home building fund, providing £2 billion of funds to support often SMEs in the delivery of larger, mostly brownfield sites through loans for infrastructure and site preparation; and £2.9 billion to support small and medium-sized enterprises, custom builders and construction innovators to build housing, including on brownfield land.

Post Office Update

Christian Wakeford Excerpts

Wednesday 19th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to ask that question. One of the key reasons why I originally set it up as a non-statutory inquiry was to ensure that we were not overly burdened with bureaucracy and the need to “lawyer up”, which tends to extend statutory inquiries to three years and beyond. I have said to Sir Wyn that I do want an interim report to the original timescale, so that we can show the public progress, but we are going to have an extra year to ensure that extra evidence is considered. We will hold him to time as best we can, but we do want to ensure that we get the answers.

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

The importance of the Post Office has increased in every community across this country, especially as high street banks continue to close, as is the case in Radcliffe in my constituency, where there are now no banks. Does my hon. Friend agree that postmasters truly are the backbone of the Post Office, that it is those postmasters who have delivered such vital services up and down the country, particularly in towns such as Radcliffe, Whitefield and Prestwich, and that we need to strengthen that relationship? Does he therefore share my concern about the way in which many have been treated by the Post Office through this scandal?

[Paul Scully]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is what is so galling for the postmasters who had those roles in the past. They were the stalwarts and the backbone of their community; the stigma of being accused of false accounting or fraud must have been so unbearable, as we know from the incredibly tragic testament that we have heard. As well as getting answers on that, we want to reset the relationship with postmasters so that they can go back to being the centre of their community, adding such social value, and bringing and keeping communities together.