Provision of Council Housing

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 15th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Hinchliff]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. As usual, he makes a good point, and I wholly agree.

As our whole nation loses out on the stifled energy, talent and creativity of so many people held back by not having a secure home where they can put down roots and flourish, it is ever clearer that the magic of the invisible hand of the free market is little more than a fairy tale told by economists to justify a refusal to meet our obligations to the least well-off members of society. However, if we look to our past for inspiration, we see many parallels between the challenges confronting us now and those facing the great post-war Labour Government who took office 80 years ago. Then, Labour came into office determined to change the “devil take the hindmost” approach to housing policy in which, as Aneurin Bevan described:

“The higher income groups had their houses; the lower income groups had not. Speculative builders, supported enthusiastically, and even voraciously, by money-lending organisations, solved the problem of the higher income groups in the matter of housing”—[Official Report, 17 October 1945; Vol. 414, c. 1222.]

while the rest were left behind. Bevan’s solution was to start at the other end and focus on meeting the needs of the working class.

Our current state of affairs is much the same. We need the same priorities to get to the root of the contemporary housing crisis, because while house prices in many parts of the country are eye-wateringly high for all, the reality is that higher-income earners—frustrated though some of their ambitions may be—can find a home, while too often those at the other end of the spectrum cannot. Simply flooding the market with speculative developments will not address the problem. The only way to get high-quality homes that those on waiting lists can actually afford is to directly plan and deliver housing for people on low incomes. That is why we must have council housing —not housing built to maximise profits for developers’ shareholders—offering rents linked to local incomes, and hundreds of thousands of them. I will be quoting Bevan extensively, given his achievements in delivering high-quality council housing in this country.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Since the Labour Government established the social housing policy and built the houses that were needed, the number of council houses has reduced as the Thatcher Government decided to sell those houses off. I will not object to people buying their own homes, but the Government of that time did not allow the money generated to be reinvested in social housing, so the social housing stock reduced over time and has not been replaced. Does he agree that the only way to address the issue is to replace the housing that was lost?

[Chris Hinchliff]

I agree with my hon. Friend and will come to right to buy later in my speech.

As Bevan described,

“the speculative builder, by his very nature, is not a plannable instrument.”—[Official Report, 6 March 1946; Vol. 420, c. 451.]

They build what makes them most money, while we need our councils empowered to assess the needs of their communities and directly deliver for them, because that is in the public interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Hinchliff]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I fully agree.

Before I get to costs, I would like us for a moment to lift our eyes to the potential prizes to be won by a new generation of council housing across the country, because council housing is not just the most effective tool we have to cut waiting lists, it is not just the best policy for transforming the futures of the tens of thousands of children going to sleep every night in temporary accommodation, and it is not just the surest way to save billions of pounds from the housing benefits bill. As if each of those were not justification enough in their own right, council housing is also the best hope we have to create the new communities that foster the sort of life and society that the labour movement has always dreamed of and strived for.

This does not seem to be debated too often in this place, but the built environment we go about our daily lives in matters profoundly. The provision of council housing is not just about progress towards social justice and the eradication of inequality; it is also about building a world around ourselves that contributes every day to the experience of self-worth, happiness, peace, connection and leisure in all our lives. If we are to be judged by future generations, not just on how many houses we build but on what we build, a policy dominated by council housing, with local authorities in the driving seat able to plan and design developments matching the hopes and identity of each community, is essential to avoiding the condemnation of history.

Far too many of the estates thrown up in recent years by the private sector have been notable mainly for their identikit and bland miserablism. Even leaving aside the appalling quality of new build housing on many speculative developments, the status quo approach that housing policy has sunk into has in effect created a new phenomenon of spiritual slums, where a near total lack of facilities or features capable of instilling any sense of interest or civic pride condemns the young to a sentence of boredom. When we are building estates with more land given to car parking than space for children to play, rising disaffection and antisocial behaviour should not be a surprise to anyone. The choice facing the Labour Government in the provision of council housing is therefore between socialism and delinquency.

Similarly, the record of private housing development when it comes to integrating nature into our lives, a basic need that we know more and more clearly is essential to our mental health, is shocking. Research has found that environmental features promised in planning conditions are not being delivered almost half of the time. Simple measures to help declining insect populations, birds, bats and other iconic species have all been regularly shirked by developers, and nearly half of the native hedges that were supposed to be laid do not exist. Once again, public goods, even when legally committed to, routinely fail to materialise when we rely on private interests to meet our nation’s housing needs.

Public-led housing—council housing—offers the opportunity for different priorities that at last deliver something better. Just as 100 years ago the Independent Labour party trailblazer Ada Salter set about housing the working class of Bermondsey while also improving their lives by planting thousands of trees and filling open spaces with flowers, so now we can have council housing that goes hand in hand with nature.

What is more, while so-called affordable housing set at 80% of market rates is often used to justify speculative developments, in reality it continues to price key workers out of many parts of the country. The promise of a new era of council housing, in which rents were linked to local incomes, would create a more democratic and less stratified society in which people of all incomes lived side by side. I would welcome the Minister’s reassurance that at least 60% of the affordable homes programme will be homes for social rent or council housing.

Prioritising council-led delivery should also mean greater public accountability for maintenance and tenant support. That, sadly, is often lacking where housing associations have moved too far from their original purpose. If we want genuinely affordable homes for those currently priced out of the housing market, better place making, greener and more integrated communities, and all the things that our constituents are demanding, so that we can go from wishing for a better society to that being the lived reality across our nation, we must have housing funded by patient capital that can focus on wider benefits, rather than mere monetary calculations.

Across the country, the evidence could not be clearer: only public funding is capable of mobilising the necessary resources at the scale required through long-term investments to deliver the public goods so conspicuously absent in recent years. Over six years, at a time of shortages, debt, constraints, and competing demands on public expenditure that were even greater than ours, the post-war Labour Government oversaw the construction of more than 800,000 council houses—some of the best ever built in this country.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Chris Hinchliff]

I had better make some progress.

That is the yardstick the Government should measure themselves against. I now come at last to how we might go about achieving this. The place to start, as we have already heard, is with plugging the gap. We must stop draining our stock of council houses, year on year. It is a fact of mesmerising absurdity that in the last year of the previous Conservative Government, there was a net loss of social housing in this country, as over 20,000 homes for social rent were lost to right to buy. I welcome the determination of Labour Ministers to reform the right to buy, and to ensure that more homes are built than lost, and I especially welcome the planned 35-year exemption for newly built properties. I urge the Government to bring forward the necessary legislation for those changes as swiftly as possible.

Next, we need further planning reform to empower our local authorities to drive forward a council housing renaissance up and down the land. We need new social housing targets, to make the delivery of council housing the urgent priority of every local planning authority. Ministers must bring together local authorities and charities like Crisis to create fairer rules for eligibility for social housing, so that homeless people are no longer unfairly excluded. We need to build on the welcome measures that Ministers have already brought forward on hope value, by allowing local authorities to disregard it entirely for the purposes of purchasing land to meet housing targets. That would not only make the provision of council housing on a vastly increased scale viable by ending the payment of inflated sums of public money to wealthy landowners, slashing an estimated 38% off the total development costs of a mass-scale building programme; it would also allow local authorities to capture the full uplift in land values associated with the delivery of their local plans, and to fund projects that combine high-quality council housing with improved space for nature and expanded public infrastructure.

We must also face up to the reality of serious constraints on construction capacity due to a workforce that is too small and an inadequate supply of key materials. If we are to have the hundreds of thousands of council houses that we need in order to swiftly tackle the housing crisis, the Government should ensure that the new strategic planning authorities created through devolution have tools at their disposal to direct available resources where they are needed most, even if that means putting limits on construction for private profit.

Of course, many of our local authorities will need substantial support to rebuild the capacity necessary for a major council house building programme. As Shelter has said, in trying to balance budgets after years of funding cuts, local authorities have been forced to shut down their building operations, transfer their council stock to housing associations or focus on building private homes for sale. We will only see the council housing that our country desperately needs if we reverse that trend.

Alongside making more low-interest loans available to councils through the Public Works Loan Board, the Government should raise the money needed to invest in a new generation of local authority planners, ecologists, designers and architects through a windfall tax on the largest property developers, which have dominated the market and enjoyed super-normal profits for too long.

On funding, the Government have already committed to a transformative £39 billion over 10 years for the new affordable homes programme. I will not try the Minister’s patience by calling for additional money today, but front-loading this investment and driving it primarily towards council housing could see us well on our way.

I recognise that, even with all that, matching the scale of council housing delivery overseen by Attlee’s Government is a daunting task, but in the context of the upcoming Budget and increasingly vociferous debates on the merits of a wealth tax, I will take this opportunity to briefly fly the flag for the comparatively straightforward proposal of a levy on multiple home ownership. With so many in our society unable to access suitable housing at all, requiring those who own multiple homes to contribute to the public coffers a small percentage of the value of their additional properties would be both fair and proportionate.

That leaves a final, concluding point. The case for more council housing and what it could deliver for our society is overwhelming in its own right, but even if we were to reduce ourselves to desiccated calculating machines, concerned only with economic statistics, the irrefutable fact is that we cannot afford not to invest in hundreds of thousands of new council houses over the coming years. A major council house building programme would deliver a huge counter-cyclical boost to economic activity in every region of the country. Alongside the vast savings to be made on the cost of temporary accommodation provided by councils, there would be knock-on benefits from secure decent homes: they would reduce costs right across the public sector, from the NHS to our schools. In short, it would be fiscally reckless not to invest in a new generation of council housing.

We all deserve a warm, safe and affordable home, where we can put down roots and have the safety and security to flourish and grow. It is our duty to make that a reality. Hundreds of thousands of families cannot afford for us to delay or go slow. Now is the time for the Government to live up to their heritage and provide a new era of council housing that transforms lives up and down the country.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 2nd September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is about unlocking growth in all parts of the country. I hope that most hon. Members can see that people with skin in the game are working across the board to make sure that that potential is reached. I am talking not just about London—although London is incredibly important to that—but about all regions across our country.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

First, I thank Mayor Tracy Brabin for her investment in mass transit across West Yorkshire, including a new bus station in my town of Dewsbury. I am grateful for those investments, but how will this Bill stop a council from making the decision to distribute funding unequally across its borough? How would it stop a council from, for instance, making a decision to shut down a sports centre that is used by people of all ages on the pretence of there being reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete and then not taking steps to investigate or having a plan to reopen?

[Angela Rayner]

I welcome the hon. Member’s comments on the mass transit network for West Yorkshire, which I am sure will bring added benefits to his constituents. To his other point, obviously elected officials in local councils make decisions, and I would gently say to him that councils have faced significant pressures since the austerity measures of 2010, which I am sure he is aware of. I was in local government at the time, and I remember being a union rep and seeing the devastation.

We are trying to restore and empower local government, instead of this situation where they have to make incredibly difficult decisions that are harmful to their constituents. It is about being able to grow our economy and have a bigger slice of the cake. We are already investing more into local government so that we can deliver the services that people want. Within this Bill is the community assets element, which may be able to help communities in relation to high streets and to sports facilities, which can be utilised as an asset that they value in their local area.

We are also improving local transport for people in the west of England with Mayor Godwin. Our brilliant, ambitious mayors are making a difference every day for their regions. Working with them, we have already achieved so much after just a year in office. We are on track to achieve devolution across almost 80% of the country, covering 44 million people. We have created integrated funding settlements for Greater Manchester and the west midlands, giving their mayors the tools and freedoms to make decisions to get growth going, with Liverpool city region, London, the north-east, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire set to benefit from the same freedoms next year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on bringing forward this Bill, which embeds our ambition and champions the promise of devolution. It will mark the biggest transfer of power from Whitehall to our regions in a generation. It means that the protection of our public spaces will result in the improvement of our infrastructure and the strengthening of our local economy. Devolution should promote local accountability and bring decision makers closer to the people who feel the impact, and I wholeheartedly welcome the parts of the Bill that will ensure that. The creation of a community right to buy, offering more oversight on local policing and placing a duty on authorities to improve health and reduce health inequalities are also welcome steps in the right direction. The spirit of the Bill is one we should all support.

I bring clause 57 to the Government’s attention. It effectively abolishes the committee structure and introduces a measure that will impact on Sheffield, one of 38 councils running under the committee governance system. More than 80,000 people in a democratic referendum in Sheffield voted decisively in favour of a modern committee structure over the leader and cabinet model that clause 57 imposes. Through the referendum, Sheffield citizens chose collaboration through their committees, instead of decision-making powers being concentrated in fewer hands. Six years on from that referendum, the committee system works for Sheffield. It has delivered meaningful scrutiny where it was lacking before, and it has proven its worth in those moments where public trust has been under threat.

However, we are not here to discuss the merits and disadvantages of these two models of local governance. What matters is that residents have made a democratic decision at a local level, and it is important for that mandate to be respected and upheld. If the Bill passes in its current form, Sheffield is one of several councils that will be forced to undo those years of democratic engagement. I have received countless emails from constituents and campaigners, such as It’s Our City!, who have stressed just how important this democratic engagement has been for Sheffield, and they are right. One size does not fit all, and the LGA echoes that view.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

The hon. Member is making an extremely informed and important point in her speech. Does she agree that for Sheffield and her council the committee system has been better, more inclusive and more democratic for her residents than the original cabinet system? Does she endorse the view that any council that wants to go down a committee route, or any community that has already decided to do so should retain that right?

[Abtisam Mohamed]

The point that I am going to make is about existing committee structures retaining their models, rather than about new committees.

The Local Government Association has also called for councils to be able to retain their structures until local communities choose otherwise, and for my constituents, similarly, this is a matter of principle. Until the people of Sheffield choose another structure in another referendum, as promised, their decision should be allowed to stand, with the same flexibility that is being offered to those who chose to directly elect council mayors. There is still time to reflect that flexibility in the Bill, so I ask the Deputy Prime Minister to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Hallam (Olivia Blake) and me, as well as our local council leaders, to discuss the impact that these proposals will have on our communities and their trust in local governance and, more importantly, to ensure that devolution works for Sheffield.

--- Later in debate ---

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I have cut my six-minute speech down to three. I am a supporter of devolution and devolved power, community empowerment and local decision making. In my seat, we have a combined authority and, as I mentioned earlier, the benefits brought by the West Yorkshire Mayor in transport, with a new bus station, and in crime and policing. However, my community, even after being part of the combined authority for so long, is still not clear on where exactly the responsibilities of the council stop and those of the mayor start, or how they work together. I therefore stand here with some deep concerns.

Instead of empowering communities, the Bill risks recentralising power and bypassing local ward councillors and local actors who truly represent our diverse communities. In Kirklees, we have a cabinet system: eight councillors, none of whom is from Dewsbury and Batley, make major decisions that have an impact on every single resident and constituent in my constituency. Moving to a mandated cabinet system across the country is short-sighted, undemocratic, biased and discriminatory.

The Bill’s design places sweeping strategic powers in the hands of elected mayors and their appointed commissioners, who are often unelected. That is not genuine devolution; it is deception dressed up as localism.

The second issue is a lack of funding and financial transparency. A core failing of the Bill lies in its fiscal ambiguity. There is little detail on sustainable funding. Strategic authorities may depend heavily on mayoral precepts, levies or council contributions, risking instability and underfunded local services. On transparency, while the creation of a local audit office is welcome, this reactive measure attempts to patch a broken audit system where hundreds of authorities still face unaudited accounts, without addressing underlying systemic weaknesses such as wasteful procurement practices, a lack of transparency and unequal distribution of spend across wards.

Community voices are too often marginalised. The Bill does not prevent councils from letting vital community buildings be deliberately left in disrepair, then deciding to close the buildings because they do not have the funds to repair or run them.

In conclusion, this Bill is not devolution; it is a shift of power from local councils to centrally influenced mayors, with an opaque financial model and tokenistic community tools. The Bill must be updated to restore genuine local leadership; to guarantee long-term, transparent funding; to ensure that procurement and audit practices remain accountable and community-informed; and to embed real neighbourhood-level governance with proper funding and citizen engagement, planning and influence.

Birmingham Bin Strikes

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan) on tabling this urgent question and thank the Minister for his response. The Birmingham bin strikes are not just about waste. They are about what happens when the state retreats from local services without proper reform. The UK must confront the legacy of austerity, rethink how local government is funded and run and treat frontline workers with the respect and fairness they deserve. Failure to do so risks further breakdowns in public services and public trust not just in Birmingham but all over our country. Will the Minister explain what steps the Government are taking to analyse how we got into this mess in the first place and to ensure that no other council faces the same situation anywhere in our country?

[Jim McMahon]

We have to accept that there are some issues here that are unique to Birmingham. For instance, many councils across England dealt with equal pay over a decade ago, and Birmingham did not, which is why the liabilities have escalated in the way they have.

On the hon. Member’s fundamental point about fair funding and ensuring that local public services can be rebuilt, we can agree. We believe that most people’s local neighbourhood services have been impacted so heavily by not only austerity but the growth in demand in adult’s, children’s and temporary accommodation that we have to completely rethink both how we fund local government and how we reinvest back into prevention and early intervention to prevent that crisis management model.

Post-industrial Towns

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Jo White]

The development and growth of our infrastructure must include superfast broadband, so that we can all benefit from it. Too many areas are missing out, particularly remote, rural areas.

We need a strong economy that includes superfast broadband, AI and energy provision to ensure that we are supercharged for the future. The announcement made by the Government yesterday that British railways will use British steel is a welcome example. That commitment must be replicated in every infrastructure project across the country, in our nuclear ambitions, roadbuilding, munitions, prisons and hospital-building projects. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the industrial strategy gives priority to British companies while addressing our ambitious infrastructure commitments?

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

The towns of my constituency, Dewsbury and Batley, lie at the heart of West Yorkshire’s heavy woollen district. We have a proud history of textiles, and we were the centre for recycled wool textiles called shoddy and mungo. Today, we are actually the UK’s capital, if not the European capital, of putting people to sleep—that is, making beds. However, there has been very little investment from Government to help the furniture industry in my constituency. Does the hon. Member agree that, as well as technological investments, the Government should look to revitalise the workforces and niche industries in all parts of our country and help them to expand, grow and overcome the Brexit barriers?

[Jo White]

Again, I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. We all have our localised industries that we are proud of, but we need a Government who recognise that and enable local businesses to thrive and survive. This is about how we invest and encourage new businesses to invest in our local economies, which is an essential element of the industrial strategy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

Over the weekend, I dealt with a case in which a homeless pregnant woman, who was a victim of domestic abuse, was kicked out of her temporary accommodation by Kirklees council for no real reason and left on the street. Will the Minister explain or share with this House what steps will be taken to prevent councils from turfing out pregnant women who are victims of domestic abuse on to the street?

[Rushanara Ali]

I would be grateful if the hon. Member could write to me about that specific case. I will follow up with him.

Political Finance Rules

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I thank the hon. Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) for securing this important debate. The lack of transparency in the funding of our political parties is well documented, although I suspect not so well known among members of the public, who tend to associate the corrupting influence of money in politics with other countries, usually very far away. The reality is that it is taking place on our doorstep.

According to research done by Transparency International, almost �1 in every �10 reported by political parties and their members since 2001 has come from unknown or questionable sources. Some �42 million comes from donors alleged or proved to have been involved in other corruption, fraud or money laundering, and �38.6 million comes from unincorporated associations that have not reported the source of their income, despite Parliament introducing new transparency rules in 2010. The rest of its findings highlight millions from donors alleged or proved to be intermediaries for foreign funds and/or a hidden source, and millions from companies that have not made sufficient profits to support the political contributions they have made.

Other research has confirmed that successive Governments have invested trillions in the defence industry. Our new Government are also proposing to increase defence spending to 2.5% and then to 3%. The defence industry is reportedly responsible for approximately 40% of all corruption worldwide, and much of the money that we and other countries spend in defence is funnelled back through opaque channels into political parties and members. The industrial military complex needs to be investigated and dismantled.

The fact is that our political finance rules are too weak on hidden money, making the system vulnerable to subordination from rich individuals and secretive vested interests. My constituents and people from our country are concerned by the malign influence on Government policy of parties, Governments and Opposition Members and other Members accepting millions from state and industry lobbies, corporations and mega-rich donors.

[Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)]

The hon. Member is making a case. Does he agree that foreign money has no role in our democracy, and that one of the strongest ways in which we can clean up our politics and indeed strengthen our democracy is to make sure that the Electoral Commission has real teeth and has higher fining powers? Does he also agree that where we have concerns about foreign money coming into our country, we should have particular concerns about money coming from people such as Elon Musk?

[Iqbal Mohamed]

I completely agree with the hon. Member. The action that the Electoral Commission should be permitted to take should not just be limited to bigger, greater fines for donors. There should be consequences for those accepting donations and potentially being influenced.

My constituents and the people of this country see and feel in their daily lives the deep impacts of pro-rich, pro-war, anti-poor and anti-consumer decisions and policies. The solution lies in reforms: to tighten spending rules; to shine a light on the source of financial contributions; to lower spending limits to reduce campaign costs and reliance on large donations; to introduce donation caps of �10,000 a year for individuals and organisations, as recommended by the Committee on Standards in Public Life; to remove the corrupting influence of big money in politics; and to close loopholes to ensure that overseas trips for parliamentarians are funded only by trusted sources.

The UK used to lead the way on funding transparency. The UK was a founding member of the Open Government Partnership, and placed third in the 2014 OECD open data index, but in recent years the UK has slipped. The most recent OECD rankings saw the UK fall to 24th place, with stories about dodgy dealings, personal protective equipment procurement and Ministers� disappearing WhatsApp messages all contributing to the decline in the trust that the public place in their politicians.

As has been mentioned, it should be a cause for grave concern that of the �85 million of private donations in 2023 alone, two thirds came from 19 donors giving more than �1 million each, the highest ever share of mega donations. If we do not want our politics to go the way of American politics, with British equivalents to the likes of Elon Musk and his fellow tech billionaires blatantly using money to buy influence and remake politics in their own interests, we need tighter regulation of political finance than we currently have, and full transparency for the public.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Pennycook]

The publication of the “Commonhold White Paper” today marks the beginning of the end of the feudal leasehold system. We will succeed where the previous Government failed and bring that system to an end, but we are determined to provide immediate relief for leaseholders suffering from unreasonable and unfair charges at present.

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I rise to gently follow up on a critical request for urgent help that I made in November. In September 2023, Kirklees council temporarily closed Dewsbury sports centre for safety reasons due to reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. The centre remained closed until 5 November 2024 when the council unilaterally decided to permanently close the centre without investigation. I raised the issue with the Secretary of State for DCMS and have written to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor for assistance. Will the Deputy Prime Minister facilitate an update for me on the issue?

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Member makes an important point around safety and RAAC in our public buildings. We are absolutely committed to do all we can, despite the legacy given to us by the previous Government. I will ensure that he gets a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris).

Holocaust Memorial Day

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

It is an honour to speak in this debate. I pay tribute to all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed today, with powerful, moving and, in many instances, personal accounts.

In the UK on Holocaust Memorial Day we remember the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of people murdered under the Nazis’ persecution of other groups. We also remember the more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, as well as others who have suffered atrocities since world war two.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in Portcullis House and I heard the moving testimonies of Holocaust survivors Yisrael Abelesz and Alfred Garwood. I will not be the only person in this House who was deeply moved by their testimonies and, among those who listened to Radio 4 earlier in the week, by the interview of 92-year-old Holocaust survivor Ivor Perl, who was just 12 years old when forced into a cattle truck to Auschwitz, where he lost most of his family. What struck me about Ivor was how, despite everything he had seen and endured, he retained his capacity for love and his belief in the power of love. However, I was also struck by his sense of pessimism about the future and his feeling that the world today increasingly resembles the world of the 1930s. I am sad to say that I share that concern.

We have seen a growth across Europe of a politics that unashamedly demonises minority communities and presents them as aliens in our midst, to such a degree that people become inured to their plight or ill treatment. The Holocaust shows us where that toxic combination can lead. The Nazis’ attempt to rid Europe from what they saw as an alien presence in their midst did not happen overnight. They first had to dehumanise the Jews, depict them as an alien culture, subject them to antisemitic conspiracy theories that they were part of a global conspiracy to manipulate global events, and strip them of their citizenship rights.

In his recent film “Occupied City”, the director Steve McQueen shows how that unfolded in one city, Amsterdam, where the bulk of the Dutch Jewish population lived. His film chronicles the measures the Nazis took. They sacked all Jews from public sector jobs, banned them from all public places, closed down all Jewish schools, forced Jews to wear a special badge to demarcate them from everybody else, prevented them from marrying non-Jews, subjected them to daily humiliation and physical abuse and ultimately rounded up every Jew they could find and deported them to death camps.

The film chronicles the most tremendous heroism of ordinary Dutch people to resist those measures and show solidarity with their Jewish neighbours. However, it also shows that antisemitism had taken seed in Dutch society, where years of antisemitic propaganda had rotted the foundations of that society and many ordinary people collaborated in the persecution of the Jews and betrayed their neighbours. A Jewish community that numbered around 80,000 at the start of the Nazi occupation was reduced to 16,000 by the end of it. That picture was repeated in city after city across Europe. But those words do nothing to capture the sheer terror and horror of what the experience must have been like for the many millions of people unfortunate enough to have experienced it. The generational trauma that it has left in its wake resonates with every Jewish family to this day.

The Holocaust embodies the reality of fascism in power. Unfortunately, the ideas at the core of fascist ideology—racist narratives, wrapped up in ethno-nationalist fantasies—are on the rise. In Germany at present, we see the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, a party with neo-Nazis in its ranks, on track to be comfortably the second largest party in the German Parliament. In Austria, the far-right Freedom party recently won a third of the popular vote with an election pledge to remigrate citizens with migrant heritage.

A similar dynamic is well under way in France, Italy and other countries where the far right has significant electoral footholds. These are not fascist parties of the classic type, but they are walking on that ground. When Members—I am sorry to say—of this House demonise and talk about deporting immigrants, and the President of the United States commits to deporting millions of immigrant families, with the richest man in the world cheering him on while giving fascist salutes, it should send shivers down everyone’s spines. There is more than a whiff of the 1930s in the air.

Holocaust Memorial Day also pays tribute to the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia. We have already heard from the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) and others about the genocide in Bosnia that resulted in the deaths of 100,000 men, women and children, with 8,000 murdered in the Srebrenica massacre.

I wish to mention the other genocides that are commemorated on Holocaust Memorial Day. In the genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s, the Khmer Rouge sought to create a communist utopia, forcing urban populations into rural camps. Intellectuals, professionals, religious leaders and ethnic minorities were targeted. Approximately 1.7 million to 2 million people—about 25% of Cambodia’s population—were killed through executions, starvations and forced labour.

In Rwanda in the ‘90s, over the span of 100 days, an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred. The genocide was fuelled by deep ethnic tensions, propaganda and political instability. In Darfur, where the atrocities continue, Government-backed militias have carried out mass killings, rapes and displacement in response to an uprising by rebel groups. The conflict is characterised by ethnic cleansing, with hundreds of thousands of people killed and millions displaced. Unfortunately, violence and instability continue in the region. There are more recent examples, such as Myanmar.

As we remember on this 80th anniversary all those affected by the Holocaust, the Bosniaks killed in Srebrenica 30 years ago and the victims of the genocide that I have just mentioned, we should also remember all those who, in their day-to-day lives, have suffered atrocities in approximately 285 distinct armed conflicts since the end of the second world war. Let recommit to never allowing the politics of hatred, racism and demonisation, which contributed to the awful reality of fascism, to take hold in our society ever again.

In his interview, Ivor Perl said that

“the world has not learned anything, it gets repeated all over again”.

He is right. We have heard from Members across the House that we have failed to fulfil the promise of “never again” in these 80 years—never again for every single human being who walks this planet. However, there is nothing stopping us from fulfilling it from now for all people of all nations, all abilities, all faiths and none, and setting an example for the people of our country and the wider world to follow.

Grenfell Tower Inquiry

Iqbal Mohamed Excerpts

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)]

I, too, start by joining the Deputy Prime Minister in expressing my sincere condolences to the families tragically impacted by this avoidable disaster. I welcome her statement and the positive steps and actions she has outlined to address the findings of the inquiry.

I welcome the plans to introduce heavy penalties for those who fail to meet repair deadlines, but I share the concerns of campaigners that the timescales for making properties safe are way too long. The Deputy Prime Minister may say that the Government are taking “decisive action”, but the building safety fund was first opened for registration in 2020. The 2029 target must not be for the first building to be remediated—it must be guaranteed to be when the last one will be.

For over seven years, residents and leaseholders have continued to live with the mental anguish that the properties they and their families go to sleep in every night are unsafe, aware that what happened to the residents of Grenfell could well happen to them. As we have heard, residents also face extortionate home insurance bills and rising costs for repairs that should be the sole responsibility of the developers, while leaseholders face ruin, financially trapped in properties that they bought in good faith but were built in bad faith.

To widen the argument and the issue at hand, the picture of property developers cutting corners to make a profit and disregarding human life in the process is one that, before Grenfell, we wanted to believe belonged to a bygone era. Unfortunately, it is very much the reality of 21st-century Britain; a culture has become embedded where corporate bosses think they can get away with cutting corners in the pursuit of profit. We have seen the ugly imprint of that culture again and again, whether it is Government lobbyists scamming the public purse during the covid crisis, water companies polluting our rivers, the blatant disregard for truth and basic decency in the Post Office Horizon scandal, or people being burned alive in buildings that are not fit for purpose.

The only way to root out that culture is regulation to protect the public from those who seek to exploit them, and I am concerned that the Deputy Prime Minister does not go nearly far enough in that regard. We know that the property industry in general is rife with profiteering, and I am concerned that we will see more of the same as property agents hike up fees, earning hundreds of millions of pounds in the process by charging administration fees on works to make buildings safe. In opposition, the Labour party committed to preventing this by calling for the nationalisation of the process of fixing high-rise flats to eliminate administration fees, and I encourage the Government to pursue that policy.

I would like the Deputy Prime Minister to consider applying the risk assessment to buildings of under 11 metres as well. Campaigners are right to say not only that a comprehensive risk assessment must apply to buildings of all heights, but that building safety crises go far beyond external cladding and a holistic approach must give equal consideration to non-cladding defects—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order.