Debate on the Address

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 27th May 2015 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood). He has had a long and distinguished career, and he has a reputation as a deep thinker, but I really disagree with practically everything he says.

I should like to begin my remarks by thanking my constituents in Islington South and Finsbury for returning me to this place with such a convincing majority. I took my seat 10 years ago with a majority of 484. In this election, more people voted Labour in my constituency than had been the case for 50 years, and I now have a majority that is larger than the total number of people who voted for me in 2005. I am grateful to my constituents, although of course it could have been a better night. We were all very disappointed indeed that we did not come back as part of the Government, but I pledge now that I will not let my constituents down and that I will do everything I can to ensure that their lives are made better, not worse, over the next five years.

Many bread-and-butter issues are causing great concern, and it might well be the case that the Tories did not really expect to win the election—certainly not with a majority. They certainly expected to be able to knock a few rough edges off that manifesto by going into coalition discussions. How are they going to pay for the £7 billion-worth of tax cuts? Where are the £12 billion of unidentified welfare cuts going to come from? We hear various leaks: disability benefits, carers allowance and statutory maternity pay are all facing the chop, but that still does not amount to £12 billion, so where are the cuts going to come from?

The Conservatives say that a benefit cap of £23,000 will reward hard work, but we know from the past two years that such a cap does nothing of the kind. In my constituency, it pushes people out of Islington; children from established families in Islington have to leave their primary school and move out—not because £23,000 is not enough for the family to live on, but because it is not enough for their landlords to live on. The rents are so high and these people are expected to pay ridiculous amounts. Neither the Conservative manifesto nor the Queen’s Speech contains any answer to the housing crisis in inner London, across the south of England and, indeed, across the country. It is no answer to the housing crisis to say, “We will allow people who have secure tenancies in good affordable housing to buy those properties at a huge discount and local authorities can then pay the housing associations compensation by selling more affordable housing.” The only answer to our housing crisis is to build more homes.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her re-election as my parliamentary neighbour. She has made points about building more council housing and stopping the sale of housing association and council housing. Does she agree that it is also important to devolve powers to London, so that we can have full regulation of the private rented sector? We would, be able to make the exorbitant, extravagant and appalling rents charged in the private rented sector a thing of the past and end the social cleansing of central London, which is happening because of the strategy she describes.

[Emily Thornberry]

My hon. Friend speaks from his constituents’ experiences, which are similar to those of my constituents, and of many people who have lived in central London for generations and want to continue to do so but find that the current private market is completely unaffordable. Other capital cities across the world have some form of regulation of rents, but ours does not. Merely allowing capitalism, red in tooth and claw, without any form of regulation will not be enough to solve the central London housing crisis. I agree with him on that point.

I suspect there will be extensive debate on those issues throughout this Parliament—I will return to them again and again—but today I most wish to ask how we answer a question asked of me last week. At a dinner, I was sitting next to an artillery officer who has the same first name and age as my eldest son. When he said he had not met an MP before, I asked him what his one question to an MP would be. This lad, who is prepared to put his life on the line for us, said, “What are we fighting for?” I said that I did not know. A few years ago I would have said, “You are fighting for Britain, which has reached a time in its maturity when it is coming to terms with its colonial past. It has a place on the Security Council, is close to America and is part of the European Union. We have close relationships with the Commonwealth and friends across the world. We feel that our role is to promote human rights and international law. We have definitely made mistakes but we are a force for good internationally and we have a strong national identity.” I would have said that then, but I do not think we can say it now, and I really do not know where we are going.

The growth of petty nationalism is profoundly worrying to us all, and I do not want to see the break-up of Britain. I am Anglo-Irish, British and a Londoner, and I am part of Europe. I am a European and an internationalist. That very identity is being challenged at the moment and we are slipping down a slope, but nobody seemingly has the true will to stop this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

It is not the Lord Chancellor’s advice that I am looking for, but his skills in engaging everyone, including Parliament, in the extremely important debate that we must have before the Government come forward with legislation.

I was talking about tackling dark places. I should say that four newly re-elected Members of this House spent last week in Washington seeking the release of the United Kingdom’s last detainee in Guantanamo. It has to be said that a more unlikely group of political bedfellows would be extremely hard to find—me, the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter). Although it was clear from the beginning of the visit that we agreed on nothing else at all, the one thing we absolutely agreed on was that Shaker Aamer should be released for transfer to the United Kingdom. I am confident that we made some progress on our visit, but it is the most extraordinary injustice. On his visit to the United States earlier this year, the Prime Minister asked that Shaker Aamer be released for transfer to the United Kingdom, and the President promised to prioritise the matter, but since then virtually nothing has happened.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments and for his company on that important visit. Will he use this opportunity to put as much pressure as possible on the Government to speak up for what was the decision of the last House of Commons and what I am confident will be the decision of this House of Commons? We want Shaker Aamer released. He has twice been cleared for release and held illegally—in my view—for 13 years. He deserves his freedom and his family deserve to see him back.

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he is right, too, that this is a thorn in the side of the US-UK relationship. There is a huge online petition, and this has all the appearances of a slap in the face for the United States’ closest ally. I cannot think of any time since the second world war when a UK Prime Minister could have been treated so badly in his request to a President and the reaction to it. The House resolved unanimously on 17 March that Shaker Aamer should be transferred back to the United Kingdom. The message from Britain to the United States is to send Shaker Aamer back to Britain now.

Finally, in the five years since the last opening Queen’s Speech of a new Parliament, the world has become a much less safe and more challenged place, with serious difficulties facing us and our neighbours. One thinks of the threats spelt out by the Prime Minister on Ukraine, the Baltic states and the actions of President Putin, ISIL and the enormous humanitarian disaster that has engulfed Syria and Iraq, where a generation of children will be unlikely to get an education and, in many cases, do not even have a roof over their heads. At this time, however, Europe is facing largely inwards, dealing, quite rightly, with the problems of migrants coming across the sea from north Africa—some of the bravest people in the world—Ukraine, Greece and the euro.

There is precious little leadership from America either. We face this appalling catastrophe in the middle east and this grave threat from ISIL, which might soon have a port on the Mediterranean, but what strategy are the United Nations, America and Europe putting together to tackle this serious threat? There seems to be very little international leadership. Anyone who believes that the solution is to drop weapons worth £30,000 on cars worth less than £500 is living in cloud cuckoo land. It will require long-term, smart policies, political leadership and a political solution, but, in my view, we are nowhere near achieving that.

Tackling the alienation and deep poverty in our world—how right the Government are to stand by their commitment on international development and the 0.7% promise to the poorest people in the world—and making sure that better governance takes hold are the long-term policies that will start to make a difference, but for the moment the House must accept that there is precious little international leadership on tackling this grave problem facing all our constituents and many neighbouring countries.