Social Housing Standards

Debate between Diane Abbott and Michael Gove

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I very much take on board the right hon. Gentleman’s point. One thing that I will look at and discuss with the regulator and the ombudsman is how we can ensure that there is a best practice timescale for responses to complaints so that we do not have the back and forth that he described.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that the family first raised the issue a year before their little boy died. That, in my view, points to the extreme culpability of the Rochdale Boroughwide housing association. It is my view not that its head should be fined but that, if he had any conscience, he would resign. Tens of thousands of people up and down the country are in properties that are riddled with damp and mould. I have the issue myself in Hackney, and one estate, Evelyn Court, is campaigning to try to get its landlord to do something about it. It is difficult to imagine anything sadder than watching your child literally cough to death because people who were supposed to act did not. The family are of the opinion that they were treated in this way because they were migrants and because they were black. We all know all sorts of tenants have this issue, but does the Secretary of State agree that some of us believe these tenants were treated like this because they were black?

[Michael Gove]

I am really grateful to the right hon. Lady for raising that question and for the way in which she raised it. It does seem to me, on the basis of the facts as we know them, that this family were victims of prejudice, whether unwitting or otherwise. There are other examples, and there have been other examples, of individuals in both the private rented sector and the social rented sector who have been treated with significantly less respect than they deserve because of attitudes that are rooted in prejudice. We all have a responsibility across this House to call that out when it occurs and to ensure that people, whatever their background, are treated with the dignity they deserve as human beings.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Diane Abbott and Michael Gove

Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Anna, the Polish community and indeed the wider citizens of Wrexham set a brilliant example, as so many do, of community action to support those in need. I congratulate her and my hon. Friend.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

Will the Secretary of State speak to his colleague the Home Secretary and make her aware that only issuing up until now 50 visas for Ukrainian refugees is quite wrong and brings shame upon this country?

[Michael Gove]

I talk to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary every day. The Home Secretary was in Poland at the border talking to those who were working with refugees: she was delivering while others, I am afraid, seek to make political points. We have a Home Secretary who is energetic, determined, on the job, talking to those on the frontline, making a difference, and I am afraid that when people want unity, purpose and delivery they will say to the right hon. Lady—