Brexit Negotiations

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are very conscious of the impact of decisions that are taken. We want to ensure that the industries that are so important to my hon. Friend’s constituency, and to others in the north-west and elsewhere in the UK, are able not just to continue, but to grow, expand and be world leading in a number of areas. We will take those considerations into account as we look at our future trade arrangements.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has negotiated a financial package for exiting the European Union. Can she confirm that there is a further bill to be paid for access in the future, and that there is absolutely no question of our leaving the European Union without settling our tab for the commitments that we made prior to the referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

We are not talking about paying for access to something in the future. There might be certain programmes and areas of which we do want to remain a member—[Interruption.] I have given examples in the past. In justice and home affairs, there may be some areas in which it makes sense for the United Kingdom to continue to operate with members of the European Union. The commitments that are set out in the joint progress report are very clear. This is about honouring the commitments that we have made in the context of agreeing the future partnership.

European Council

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The best contribution to the negotiations that the Government can make is the Prime Minister having a deep and special relationship with her fellow Cabinet members. If we are within touching distance of a common agreement, as she has said several times, it is surprising that there are so many different positions coming from her Cabinet colleagues so close to the recent summit. Can she get a grip of her Government, because that would be the most significant contribution to our negotiating position?

[The Prime Minister]

I used the phrase that we were within touching distance of a deal in relation to the citizens’ rights issue, and I have just indicated in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) that there are a number of issues still on the table, but I think we can see where we can go to ensure that we get that deal and that agreement. The Government are very clear on the position we have taken into the negotiations. I set it out in the Florence speech, and that is setting that vision for the future deep and special partnership. It is that vision that the European Union is now responding to.

Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

May I begin by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves)? She made an eloquent speech and is clearly going to fill the shoes of her predecessor. He was one of the more outstanding Members on the Labour Back Benches and will be remembered for many reasons, not all them to do with his approach to parliamentary debate, which we will all remember with affection. He was a forthright advocate on behalf of his constituents, and I can remember with a great deal of affection when he was my Whip too—we finished on good terms.

I associate myself with all the comments made about the first responders and the emergency services, about the officers of Kensington and Chelsea Council who went above and beyond the call of duty to try to respond to the needs of local people—it is sometimes overlooked that there were individuals who did an enormous amount of work; we need to recognise that—and, of course, about those affected by the tragedy.

The response exposed a complete failure on the part of Government, right the way to local government. It also exposed the fact that when local authorities reduce their manpower resources and the services they provide, and when they are so thin that they cannot respond in such circumstances, it is clear that we are going too far with reductions in investment in what is needed to support local communities. There is more to a council than a posh town hall; it is what is in it that counts. When a council prides itself on being able to give a £100 council tax rebate in the run-up to local elections, it leaves itself with few resources with which to respond in such circumstances. When that council takes what has to be described as a minimalist approach to providing and backing up those services and when it prides itself, first and foremost, on how little it spends, it is no wonder that there is no resilience when such a tragedy happens.

This is a tragedy that would have overwhelmed any local authority. The demand on local resources was huge, and any council would have needed the assistance of other local authorities to step in and support them, so one of the questions for the inquiry has to be: why, when those offers of help were made in the first 24 hours, did Kensington and Chelsea Council not respond to them? My local authority has been dealing with the concerns of local residents living in tower blocks, who want to know that they are safe, and using its communications and its housing officers and councillors to go out and talk to residents to reassure them, and to carry out the fire safety checks and everything else. At the same time it has been providing support to Kensington and Chelsea. It is quite clear from the response to those offers of help that there was something fundamentally wrong at the heart of Kensington and Chelsea. I pay tribute to those in the local community who spontaneously got together and responded to the needs of local people.

There are some lessons that we could have learned along the way, as the chair of the all-party group on fire safety rescue mentioned, and not just from Lakanal House. There have been incidents in other countries where exactly the same type of aluminium cladding caused the rapid spread of fires. The photographs of one that took place in 2014 in Melbourne, Australia—they are on the internet and were in the media at the time—look almost identical to those of the fire that took place at Grenfell Tower. What is surprising is that it is clear from talking to experts in the field—fire safety officers and others—that they knew the significance of that fire and the lessons that should have been learned about this type of cladding at the time. It is remarkable that there seems to have been no knowledge of that on the part of the Government or any review of the materials used for tower blocks at that time, because other countries did take action. They took steps to ban this type of cladding from being used on tower blocks.

There are questions to be asked. In the Lacrosse tower case in Melbourne, there was a sprinkler system in place, and some 500 people were evacuated from that block. No one died; they got out safely because a sprinkler system was in place. In some areas in that building the sprinkler system was overcome by the fire, but it was still sufficient to keep the fire from spreading within the building, thereby enabling people to leave. This question has to be asked: why have the Government not been learning these lessons along the way, not just from Lakanal, but from other fires that are clearly sending a message about the types of materials we use on these tower blocks? I want the inquiry to look into that.

Some countries take steps to limit the number of people who can live at height above a certain floor in tower blocks of specific designs. I also ask the inquiry to look into that. Do we need to have regulations in place to try to limit the number of people who live in tower blocks at height? This, again, was an issue in the Melbourne fire; because of shortages of housing and housing costs, so many people were crammed into the units in that tower block. Do we need to have a fire regulation on this? I ask the inquiry to look into that, too.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

When I met Sheffield local authority, it expressed concerns about the safety of not only tower block residents but individuals living in flats above takeaways and other commercial premises, which often share the same staircase, bathroom and kitchen as the commercial premises and often are very overcrowded—for example, with illegal immigrants sharing beds. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need to look into the possibility of having regulations in this area?

[Clive Efford]

I entirely agree. We need to look at that, as in another situation the numbers of people in a block could become an issue—and we do not know that that was not an issue in this instance as well.

The inquiry must also look at the issue raised by the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), about building control. There are a number of issues about enforcement and making regular checks on the work done when refurbishments take place. Are the fire blocks being put in place between the floors, for instance? The advice to me from a constituent of mine who is an expert and who has been in the media speaking about this case, and about this issue for many years, is that we are very lax about the enforcement of the fire blocks between the floors and around windows, and we need to ensure that there is proper enforcement of this. The inquiry must look into that, too.

Responsibility for appointing the building control must lie with the local authority. There must be clear lines of responsibility for maintaining these standards, and we must stop local authorities being side-lined over ensuring that safety standards are considered of the utmost importance when these schemes go ahead.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a scandal that no minimum qualifications are required to become a building control practitioner, and does he agree that we need urgent action on this?

[Clive Efford]

Yes, an incident such as this one shows that there must be a basic knowledge of fire safety regulations, and there are many other issues that building control has to cover, so of course there must be a minimum qualification requirement.

The current position on sprinklers makes no sense. New blocks built to new building standards over 30 metres high are required to have a sprinkler system installed. However, older buildings built to an older standard of building control are not required to retrofit. That is completely and utterly illogical. The Government—outside of the inquiry and everything else—must fund the retrofitting of sprinklers in those blocks of flats where that has been recommended by fire safety officers. There can be no equivocating on that. This fire shows that that is essential, and the Government should just accept that we cannot hold back on it any longer.

We are told that there was a plan to put fireproof cladding on to Grenfell Tower but that it was £2 per square metre more expensive than the cheaper version that was actually put on. If that is correct, the inquiry will obviously have something to say about it. There are some questions here. As I have said, this cheaper type of cladding was already on other blocks where similar fires had taken place. Why was it allowed to be used on this block? Is it true that the contractors who were erecting the cladding raised concerns about whether they should be putting that cladding on that block at that height? If it is true, action must obviously be taken against the people who made that decision.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Clive Efford]

I will not, because I am taking up some time and I want to sit down. I have had the nod from the Deputy Speaker, and if I do not sit down quite soon, I will not get called again.

My final question for the Minister is about the Building Regulations Advisory Committee. We were told that, in the light of the Lakanal report, that committee would meet to oversee fire regulations, but that meeting did not take place. The Minister said that that work would be completed by the end of this year, but the committee has not yet met. We need to hear from the Minister why, in the light of the report on Lakanal, that committee did not meet to review the fire regulations. In my opinion, this shows that the Government were asleep on the job. I hope that we will learn the lessons from this, once and for all, when the inquiry reports. Lakanal should have shown us the steps we needed to take to prevent this. Fires that have happened in other countries since Lakanal have pointed the way to the action that we should have taken. We have to learn the lessons once and for all to ensure that this type of tragedy never happens again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alok Sharma]

The Secretary of State and other Ministers have been absolutely clear: we do not want local authorities and housing associations to stop doing anything that is necessary to keep people safe. If they do not have the funding, we will work with them on the funding process.

[Clive Efford]

rose—

[Alok Sharma]

No, I will not give way as I really must get on.

A range of views have been expressed about the cause of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. What is vital is that we have a full independent public inquiry with a remit that goes way beyond the design, construction and modification of the building itself. An effective and prompt inquiry will necessarily have to follow defined terms of reference, and setting those is obviously crucial. The terms will be set formally by the Prime Minister, but she will do so following recommendations from the chair of the public inquiry, Sir Martin Moore-Bick. Sir Martin was appointed to head up the inquiry on 29 June and on that very day he visited the site and spoke with some of those who had been affected by the tragedy. Sir Martin has been absolutely clear in his desire to consult the affected residents about what the terms of the reference should be. I know that he has been meeting them to hear their views. He has also said that he welcomes the views from the wider community. Those are the actions of a person who wants proactively to engage with those directly affected right from the start. I urge hon. Members who have concerns or ideas about the terms of the inquiry to raise them with the team. The details are available on the inquiry website: grenfelltowerinquiry.org.uk.

During today’s debate, some concern has been expressed about Sir Martin’s suitability for the role, but as the First Secretary of State has said, he is independently appointed, extremely well qualified and totally impartial. Sir Martin is a hugely experienced former Court of Appeal judge. Judges decide cases solely on the evidence presented in court and in accordance with the law. As a senior judge, Sir Martin has worked across a range of cases. There have been cases where Sir Martin has been praised by civil liberties lawyers and cases where he has found in favour of housing association tenants, but in each case he will have made decisions based on the law and the evidence—nothing more, and nothing less.

Opposition Members may be aware that from December 2005 to December 2009, Sir Martin was chair of the legal services consultative panel, which advises successive Lord Chancellors on the regulation and training of lawyers, legal services and other related matters. The Lord Chancellors whom he served were Lord Falconer and Jack Straw. I have previously noted in this House that it is vital for Government, central and local, to work hard to win the trust of those people directly affected by this tragedy. I have no doubt that Sir Martin is similarly aware that he needs to foster that trust. I am sure that, as his dialogue with the local community continues, they will note that his only motivation is to get to the bottom of what happened.

I assure hon. Members that the Government will co-operate fully with the inquiry, and I hope that the same will be true of the local authority and any other individual or body whose work falls within the inquiry’s remit. It is absolutely vital that no stone is left unturned and that anyone who has done wrong has nowhere to hide. To help get to the truth, survivors of the fire and the families of the victims will receive funding for legal representation at the inquiry. Details of how they access that legal funding will follow once the inquiry is up and running.

Some concern has been raised about the lack of a coroner’s inquest into the deaths at Grenfell. Let me assure colleagues that there will be an inquest. The coroner is already investigating the deaths; that is a statutory duty. The police-led investigation is already under way in conjunction with the London Fire Brigade and the Health and Safety Executive. The police investigation will consider potential criminal liability. The police have been very clear: arrests will follow if any evidence of criminal wrongdoing is found. Unlike a coroner’s inquest, a full, judge-led public inquiry will allow us to look at the broader circumstances leading up to and surrounding the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower. It will also allow us to take any action necessary as quickly as possible to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.

A number of colleagues have expressed concerns about timing. Of course, we want the inquiry to be completed as quickly as possible and the main priority will be to establish the facts of what action is needed to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. It will be for Sir Martin to determine the timescale for the inquiry, but I am certain that he will be aware of the universal desire for an interim report to be published at the earliest opportunity.

In cases of some past disasters, such as Hillsborough and the sinking of the Marchioness, it took far too long for the whole story of what happened to emerge. We do not want that to be the case with Grenfell Tower. That was why the Prime Minister ordered a full public inquiry as soon as the scale of the tragedy became apparent. Regardless of politics or ideology and of what we think is the best course of action, all of us here want one thing: the truth. It might prove uncomfortable for some and it might not fit the preconception of others, but the truth must come out. I am confident that Sir Martin Moore-Bick will see that the truth does come out. The survivors of the Grenfell fire and the families of those who were lost deserve no less.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Grenfell Tower fire inquiry.

European Council

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I was reporting on were the subjects discussed at the European Council on Friday. I reported faithfully on those subjects.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the Prime Minister confirm that she was aware of the details in the document on EU nationals wanting to remain in the UK when, during the general election, she promised to cut immigration to the tens of thousands? Are the two compatible?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. In the document, we are talking about the rights of EU citizens living here in the United Kingdom. We are making a fair and serious offer that nobody will be forced to leave the United Kingdom and that families will not be split up. We want people to stay, and this is the document that will enable them to do so.

Grenfell Tower

Clive Efford Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend. We will consider that. Putting it in place here, with John Barradell as gold command, has helped to move things forward and ensure that the response has improved.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

When an independent safety review of a block of flats recommends retrofitting sprinklers, or major refurbishment, will the Government fund it?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman’s question seemed to be about any blocks of flats in the country, whether they be in private or public sector ownership—[Interruption.]

European Council

Clive Efford Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No. We will be negotiating free trade agreements with not just the EU, but other countries around the world. Crucially, other countries around the world are eager to work with us to negotiate free trade agreements. There are discussions with countries such as America, Australia, Mexico and India. We are already looking at the agreements that we can have as a United Kingdom outside the European Union.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister accept that her intransigence over amendments to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill and her pandering to the Brexit fanatics on her Back Benches, which have diminished the role and sovereignty of this Parliament over the Brexit process, have opened up the door to threatening the future integrity of the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

Amendments were put before this House; this House voted and took a decision. From the description that the hon. Gentleman has given, he seems to be saying that every time that this House takes a decision that he does not agree with, it is somehow a disrespect of Parliament. I have to tell him that that is not how this place works—we put our arguments and then vote on them; one sides wins and the other loses.

Chilcot Inquiry and Parliamentary Accountability

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the contributions made so far, especially the Minister’s. When we reflect on the matters we are debating this afternoon, it is very important that we first pay tribute, as the Minister did, to the hundreds of British servicemen and women and civilian personnel who lost their lives during the conflict in Iraq and that we send our thoughts to all the thousands of others who are still living with the injuries they suffered when serving in our armed forces.

We must never forget the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who died during the conflict, and subsequently as a result of the sectarian violence and terrorist outrages that have followed. They must all be uppermost in our minds when we talk about learning from the mistakes that were made in Iraq and ensuring that future Governments do not repeat those mistakes.

No matter whether we are one of those Members who voted against the war, as I did, or one of the many, on both sides of this House, who in good faith and good conscience voted in favour of the invasion, it is incumbent on us all to learn the lessons about what went wrong and, indeed, to apologise for what has been exposed by Sir John Chilcot as the collective failing of our institutions.

It is a little over four months since this House spent two full days debating the contents of the Chilcot report, and a week after that debate we spent several hours asking questions about it to the then Prime Minister, David Cameron. Much has changed since that debate, but in terms of the arguments we have heard about the evidence presented in the Chilcot report, I would say, with great respect, that we have, thus far, heard nothing new today.

The right hon. Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) has a long-standing contention—we have heard him set it out again just now—that, first, Parliament was deliberately misled by Tony Blair and his Government in the run-up to war; secondly, that intelligence allegedly known by Ministers to be false was deliberately presented to this House and to the public; thirdly, that this was all designed to deliver on a private pact that Tony Blair had made with George W. Bush to go to war with Iraq; and that the evidence for those contentions lies mainly in the six words written in a memo from the then Prime Minister to the then President.

Although I have listened very carefully again to the argument made by the right hon. Member for Gordon, we all know that those were exactly the contentions that Sir John Chilcot spent several years looking into, alongside all the evidence from memos and records of conversations, and from his many interviews with hundreds of witnesses. So let me say once again that Sir John deserves our thanks and our praise for conducting that vast but vital task with great care, diligence and objectivity.

The Chilcot report was the fifth, and hopefully the final, inquiry into the Iraq war. The first was published on 3 July 2003, before the tragic death of Dr David Kelly, before the capture of Saddam and while the search for weapons of mass destruction was still going on. That inquiry was undertaken by the Foreign Affairs Committee, on which I served at the time. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart) is the only other member of that Committee still sitting in this House. On looking back at the conclusions of that report, I note that on chemical and biological weapons we said:

“we have no doubt that the threat posed to United Kingdom forces was genuinely perceived as a real and present danger and that the steps taken to protect them were justified by the information available at the time.”

We were critical of the prominence and emphasis given to the 45-minute claim in the September 2002 dossier, saying that greater uncertainty should have surrounded the presentation of that and other claims. However, we concluded that those claims were

“well founded on the basis of the intelligence then available”

and that

“allegations of politically inspired meddling cannot credibly be established”.

We were highly critical of the February 2003 dossier—the so-called dodgy dossier—and the fact that Tony Blair had inadvertently presented it as “further intelligence” on the Floor of the House without realising its true provenance. However, that was 13 years ago. Four inquiries later, with the benefit of millions of pages of documentary evidence and hundreds of key witnesses to which my colleagues and I did not have access at the time, the conclusions have remained fundamentally the same.

There are many serious lessons to learn from the Chilcot report, and I will address them in a moment. However, on learning those lessons, we will do ourselves and future Governments no favours if we spend even more time in this House and in the Committee Rooms examining contentions that the Chilcot report and four other inquiries—at exhaustive length—have already found to be incorrect; nor will any of us benefit if we continue to try to turn a collective institutional and international failure in Iraq into an attempt to pillory and scapegoat one individual. Let me be clear: I totally disagreed, as many other people did, with Tony Blair on the Iraq war. I voted against our Government because I thought that our then Prime Minister was simply wrong, but never for one second did I believe that he was acting in bad faith, and I do not do so now.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

I rise to support my hon. Friend. Like him, I voted against the war at the time. Nothing has happened since then to make me think that I was wrong to do so, but I did not for one minute think that Tony Blair lied to this House, or attempted to mislead me. I just came to a different judgment. The problem is that in the minds of those who believe that we were misled, there is no report that will ever convince them otherwise, but it is time to learn the lessons for future generations and to move on.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, because he captures the mood that was prevalent at the time. Many of us wanted to vote against that war and we did so with a clear conscience because we felt that it was the wrong approach to resolving the problems in Iraq. I will go on to say a bit more about what should be done now.

G20 Summit

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. We can trade many products from various parts of the United Kingdom very well with other parts of the world. They are quality products, and it is the quality of the product that will lead to people wishing to take them.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Further to her answer to the hon. Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), the Prime Minister will have seen the reports that we have seen that there is a lack of people in the UK with the necessary experience to negotiate trade deals. Is that a matter of concern to her? Are we being forced to employ people from overseas to do that job because they have those necessary skills?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), I think it was important to focus the Government’s efforts on trade deals through the creation of a new Department—the Department for International Trade. That Department is building up its expertise and will continue to do so.

Panama Papers

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There is a role for making sure that people can pass on the family home exempt from inheritance tax. That is why we have set out steps during this Parliament to make sure that can happen, completing what was set out in our manifesto.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

The public would be more inclined to take the Prime Minister at his word when he says that he wants to clamp down on tax avoidance had his Government not appointed Edward Troup as executive chair of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in 2012. This is someone who said:

“Taxation is legalised extortion and is valid only to the extent of the law.”

Will the Prime Minister say what source of money he got to pay Mr Troup? Does someone with those views belong in HMRC?

[The Prime Minister]

Edward Troup is a dedicated public servant who does a very good job for HMRC. As reports in the papers this morning pointed out, he had a commercial career at Simmons and Simmons, one of the most respected City legal practices there is. Frankly, it is a good thing if we can attract people from private practice into HMRC to make sure that we collect all the money we should.

Oral Answers to Questions

Clive Efford Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly arrange for that meeting to take place. We should thank everyone who has worked at power stations that come to the end of their lives for the work that they have done to give us electricity to keep the lights on and our economy moving. My hon. Friend is right: as coal-fired power stations come to the end of their lives, we must ensure that proper redevelopment takes place so that we provide jobs for constituents like hers.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Q12. The Football Supporters Federation is considering calling on fans to hold mass walk-outs to get their voices heard about ticket prices. Will the Prime Minister act to give fans a place at the table in club boardrooms so that their voices can be heard when issues such as ticket prices are discussed?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very carefully at the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion because there is a problem whereby some clubs put up prices very rapidly every year, even though so much of the money for football comes through sponsorship, equipment and other sources. I will look carefully at what he says.