Renters’ Rights Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

I thank the hon. Member for his comment. I hope that he recognises from my opening remarks that good landlords have nothing to fear from this Bill, and we will help them. The new database will help landlords to understand and meet their legal duties, and we will provide clear guidance. I will talk more about how that database will work.

Part 1 of the Bill will introduce a new, modern tenancy system that removes fixed-term tenancies, meaning that tenants can stay in their home until they decide to end the tenancy, and they will only need to give two months’ notice. This will end the injustice for tenants who want or need to leave at short notice but cannot, and allow both landlords and tenants the flexibility to respond to changes in their circumstances.

I want to make it clear that our Bill ensures that landlords will still be able to reclaim their properties when they legitimately need to, through clear and robust possession grounds. We have also considered the unique situation of student accommodation and specialist sectors such as stepping-stone accommodation, for which the Bill also includes a possession ground. In most cases, tenants will have four months’ notice, so that there is time to find a new home, and landlords will have to wait a year from the beginning of a tenancy before they can use the “moving in and selling” grounds for eviction. This honours our commitment to level the playing field decisively for renters, which goes further than the last Government’s ambitions. Of course, landlords will still be able to quickly evict tenants who engage in antisocial behaviour and make other people’s lives a misery, to protect the strong communities that we want to see flourishing around the country.

The Bill will also empower tenants to challenge unfair rent increases that are designed to drive them out. It will prevent tenants from being bound by rent review clauses, putting them in a stronger position to challenge unreasonable rent hikes at tribunal.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I welcome most of what is in this Bill. A third of my constituents live in the private rented sector. The last time I looked, there were hardly any available properties to rent in my constituency that were within the local housing allowance. The level of rent is astronomical, unaffordable and driving working-class communities out of inner-city areas. Does the Secretary of State not agree that the Bill needs to go further and bring in rent controls, so that housing is available for all people?

[Angela Rayner]

I understand the right hon. Gentleman’s point, but I disagree on how to resolve the issue. Rent controls restrict housing supply, which does not help anyone, but our Bill takes practical measures to help renters by empowering tenants to tackle unreasonable rent hikes and prohibiting unfair rental bidding, and we will continue to assess potential action on sky-high rents. Hopefully, we are taking measures that will help his constituents and others across the country.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I pay tribute to all the new Members who have delivered their maiden speeches, and I wish them well as Members of the House. I draw particular attention to the maiden speech made by the Member for Birmingham Perry Barr (Ayoub Khan), my colleague in the Independent group.

The issue of housing that we are debating today should have been a huger issue in the general election than it actually was. A quarter of a million people in this country are homeless at any one time. In my own area, 2,000 people are living in temporary accommodation —or, sadly, sleeping rough—including 850 children. I pay tribute to the many organisations in my area that do a huge amount of work to try to alleviate the problems of homelessness, including Streets Kitchen, the Single Homeless Project, Shelter from the Storm, and Acorn, which represents private sector tenants.

I welcome the Bill. Much of it is very good. It is a huge improvement on what has gone before. Frankly, it should have been law a long time ago. However, there are one or two areas that I think we should consider. British renters, on average, spend 30% of their income on rent, and the proportion is far higher in London. One in five private tenants spend more than half of their salary on private sector rent. Young people, especially those moving into inner-city areas, for instance in London, Birmingham, Newcastle and Manchester, are saddled with student debt and, on top of that, are paying phenomenal amounts of rent, usually in shared flats. It is quite normal for young people in my constituency to be renting flats for more than £2,000 a month, which they have to share with three or four other people. They might be happy sharing for a short time in their 20s and 30s, but as they get older they want their own place. They have no savings and no ability to save, and they have no security of tenure either. Something has to change.

I made this point in my intervention during the Secretary of State’s opening speech. I welcome the Bill, because ending no-fault eviction and providing security of tenure is a huge step forward. Providing for some predictability when it comes to getting repairs done and rights of representation is good, and the role of local government in these measures is also good. However, unless we address the fundamental issue of very high rents in the private rented sector, we will not make any progress.

In my constituency, about a third of people live in the private rented sector—up from less than 10% when I was first elected to the House many years ago—and the figure is rising all the time. The rents are incredibly high. When somebody who is on universal credit and eligible for housing benefit looks for a flat in my area, none is affordable within the local housing allowance. It is simply far too expensive, so the only thing that happens is that people move out. We need to bite the bullet and introduce rent controls in this country. It would not be the end of the world, and they would not destroy the private rented sector. Rent controls have been introduced in Berlin, and they are quite common across much of Europe and in the United States. Unless we introduce rent controls, we are going to have a continuing long-term problem.

I want to finish by saying that we are dealing with a desperate housing shortage in this country, and it will be resolved only by the comprehensive building of council housing with secure tenure and genuinely affordable rent. That will deal with the scourge of homelessness.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

For the benefit of new colleagues, one does not stride past a Dispatch Box once a debate is taking place.

Building Safety and Resilience

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rushanara Ali)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered building safety and resilience.

I rise to open this debate on the critical issue of building safety and resilience, following last week’s publication of the Grenfell inquiry’s final report. Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s findings on an entirely avoidable national tragedy were devastating, and I begin by remembering the 72 people who died, 18 of them children, in the biggest loss of life in a residential fire since the second world war. I pay tribute to the bereaved, the survivors and the wider Grenfell community, who have waited too long for the answers and justice that they deserve. It is thanks to their tireless crusade for truth, accountability and change that we are here today.

The final report of the Grenfell Tower inquiry represents a defining moment in the journey for justice. As Sir Martin stated:

“The simple truth is that the deaths that occurred were all avoidable, and those who lived in the tower were badly failed over a number of years and in a number of different ways by those who were responsible for ensuring the safety of the building and its occupants.”

The report shines a light on a terrible culture in the industry in the years leading up to the tragedy—a culture of putting profit before people, and a culture in which safety took a back seat. It reveals a building safety system that was fundamentally broken, with deficiencies that went unchallenged by different Governments. The consequences of these failures are still with us today; there are too many buildings with unsafe cladding and the pace of remediation has been too slow. We will consider all the recommendations in detail, and we will respond within six months. As part of that work, we will listen to and engage with the bereaved, survivors and residents in the immediate community. We will update Parliament annually on progress against every commitment we make. As the Prime Minister said,

“There must…be more radical action to stop something like this from ever happening again.”—[Official Report, 4 September 2024; Vol. 753, c. 313.]

The recent fire in Dagenham showed us the dangers that many residents continue to face. My east London constituency is among those with the most cladded high-rise blocks in the country, so I have long campaigned for the urgent remediation of affected buildings, and I know that Members across the House grapple with similar issues in their constituency. I have seen at first hand how relentless the work can be for residents who are trying to get remediation started. Our constituents not only have to endure the fear and uncertainty of living with unsafe cladding, but face the higher insurance premiums and service charges that go with it. The delays are holding people back. They cannot make plans or get on with their life. They live in fear. They feel stuck.

As Minister for building safety, I am honoured to have the opportunity to work alongside the Deputy Prime Minister to make things right and ensure that last week’s moment of truth becomes a legacy of change, so that no other community has to go through that suffering. We will bring the full power of Government to bear on this task. Above all, we will accelerate the pace of remediation and go further and faster to drive change across the industry.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I thank the Minister for what she just said. On the remedial works that will be done, some will be in the public sector; most will be in the private sector. In many cases, residents are paying the price in very high insurance premiums, as she rightly acknowledged. Could those residents who have suffered a great deal of stress and cost over the past few years expect some form of compensation for their losses, because of the failure of Government and the industry to undertake the proper remedial works?

[Rushanara Ali]

We recognise the impact on those with high insurance premiums. We will take action to protect them, and will have the necessary dialogue to address the right hon. Member’s points and ensure that there are not high insurance premiums.

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[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Rushanara Ali), to her position. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) said in an intervention a few moments ago, it is probably one of the most challenging and difficult jobs in Government. We all saw the struggles faced by Conservative Ministers who had to deal with these issues over many years; indeed, we are still struggling because we have not got to the position that we would all like to be in.

I want to comment on the many reports produced by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee in the last Parliament and the one before, when I was privileged to chair the Committee. We produced two reports after Grenfell, following Dame Judith Hackitt’s initial report on the issues to the Government. We also did pre-legislative scrutiny of the Building Safety Bill, followed up with a report, did quite a lot of work on things like construction products, and had correspondence with Ministers on those subjects. Every one of our reports was agreed unanimously by that cross-party Committee, and I am pleased that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), has indicated the Opposition’s support for the general approach to these matters; we all want to see building safety carried out on all the buildings in our constituencies in a timely and proper manner.

As I was looking back at Dame Judith’s report and deciding what I should say today, as well as picking out one or two bits of the Select Committee’s work, something struck me. She said that it was about not just building rules and regulations but culture. The Grenfell report clearly sets out that there needs to be an overall comprehensive review to avoid the gaps in regulations. That is absolutely right, and the Government will no doubt follow that through and report on what they are going to do, but Dame Judith said that there was a “race to the bottom” culture in the building industry—that it was about how cheaply could things be done. That was shown in Grenfell, as there were examples of cheaper products being substituted for others.

In the end, the safety of individuals was put behind financial returns. Unfortunately, that is far too common in the construction industry. The Minister may even struggle more with that fundamental reform to attitudes and culture than she does with the review of building regulations, which will be a struggle enough itself. That has to be borne in mind right the way through. Nevertheless, we look forward to the Government’s response to all the recommendations of Sir Martin Moore-Bick and his inquiry.

The Minister said in a written answer to me the other day that about 4,000 homes still have dangerous cladding on them. After all this time, that really is quite shocking. I wonder whether the Minister might consider updating that figure regularly—maybe placing it in the Library every three months—so we can all look at whether progress has been made quickly enough. She might even like to provide a list of all the buildings, their owners and their developers so we can start to see who the guilty parties are. Some have legitimate reasons for not having made changes yet, which we want to know, but others simply are not interested in getting on with the work that is their responsibility.

There are some other problems and challenges that the Minister might also like to address. My attention was drawn to a particular block that could access the building safety fund for the removal of cladding, but not for other safety work that needed to be done, including replacing missing firewalls and dangerous fire doors. That is okay when developers are involved, who should be pushed to put right their wrongs of their construction, but in this case, the developer had gone bust and the building was owned by its leaseholders. Where did they go in that situation? Well, actually, the building work just stopped.

We ended up with a building safety fund that is not comprehensive—the Select Committee recommended it cover all aspects of building safety work—and covers just cladding, and because other elements of building safety are not covered by the fund, there are situations where buildings are left unsafe and there is no one really to point the finger at and say, “They’re responsible.” The Minister probably cannot give me an answer to that point today, but I hope she will think about it. If we can start to identify precisely where these buildings are, many more such situations may emerge.

Where there are recalcitrant developers and owners, how can the leaseholders get help? As has been mentioned, they are often faced with high insurance costs and enormous worries about what happens next in their life. The Select Committee talked to people who were in despair, and that was a few years ago; they are probably still in despair now because nothing has changed in their situation. On top of that, they can be faced with legal costs to challenge the developers and owners. Can the Minister give us some assurance that her Department and officials will stand ready to offer all assistance possible to leaseholders in that situation, who are really struggling and desperate in many circumstances? The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership has done good work in providing assistance, but the technical and legal advice should really be coming from her Department.

I wanted to mention one or two other key issues, although if I tried to go through all the building safety issues that came up in the Select Committee, I would be here for a lot longer than today’s debate. Skills have been mentioned. When the Committee looked at the Building Safety Bill, we recommended a national system of third-party accreditation and registration for all professionals working on the design and construction of high-rise buildings. That did not include all the people who work on buildings, such as labourers and those with other skills, but all those involved with professional skills—whether it be architects, those overseeing construction work or building safety managers—should be properly accredited, and there ought to be a national system. It is clear that there are gaps in that regard.

As for those who work in the trades involved, it is a disgrace that under building electrical safety regulations, it is still the case that the only rules relate to “competent persons”. In a high-rise building, an electrician who does work in a kitchen where there is water, or in the garden where there is water, will not be covered by any building safety regulations. An electrician who does work in the bathroom will be covered, but will have to be part of a competent persons scheme—which does not mean that the person doing the work must be competent; it simply means that the company must be registered as having someone who is competent to sign off the work at the end of the day, even if the person never sees the work that has been done. The Committee reported on that several times back in 2015 and never got any further with it, so it needs to be looked at.

Construction products were clearly a problem at Grenfell, and I welcomed the comments about that in the Grenfell report. We called over and over again for a comprehensive review of the testing of products and their safety. We called for the publication of information not only about the products that had been tested and found to be safe, but about those that had failed. What Dame Judith Hackitt found initially in her review was that companies were going from one testing house to another with their products until they found one that passed them. No one was ever notified of the failures, and that cannot be right. Sir Martin Moore-Bick has called for more transparency over product testing, so can we ensure that failures are reported, as well as successes?

In all the costs of Grenfell, while developers are being held to account to some degree, not one construction product manufacturer has been asked to pay a single penny towards the cost of building remediation, although many of them are clearly responsible for some of the problems. Why is that? We pushed the then Government about it. We last wrote to the relevant Minister in March last year. The Government commissioned a report by Paul Morrell on construction products and safety, but never responded to it in detail. Will this Minister now look at it and give a response? Will she look at the testing and categorisation of products, and at how manufacturers can be made to pay some of the costs that should not fall on leaseholders or on social housing providers?

I am pleased by the recommendation in the Grenfell report that building control officers should always be appointed by an independent third party. The developers should not be choosing—in some cases—their own friends to sign off a building. In the case of the highest-rise buildings, the building safety regulator is now responsible for appointing building control officers.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Let me compliment the hon. Gentleman on all his work on this. Does he agree that one of the problems is the systemic underfunding of local authorities—leading to the inadequacy of all their inspection regimes, building control in particular—which has had such a devastating effect on the quality of building in so many parts of the country?

[Mr Betts]

Yes, I do. The Committee has made many recommendations in many reports about the whole issue of local authority funding and the squeezing of resources in respect of services of this kind, given the priority that authorities have to give to social care in all its forms and, now, temporary accommodation. As well as the question of resources, however, there is the question of independence. The building control officer will be beholden to the developer, whoever the developer is, because the developer will say, “If you give me a difficult time on this building, I will not give you any work for the next one.” That must be stopped. The last Government would say that they did so in respect of the highest-rise buildings, but it needs to be stopped for all buildings, and I am pleased about what Sir Martin said about that in his report.

Let me now return to the issue of social housing. I am sorry, but I must tell the Minister that I am not going to let it go away. Both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister made comments about the discrimination against and bad treatment of social housing tenants. For a long time we have had the attitude that this is poor housing for poor people who do not really matter. We must challenge that, because they do matter. Landlords in the social housing sector, housing associations and councils, will always do their best to make buildings safe, and in some cases—because there is no access to the building safety fund unless they can show that they cannot do the work, and they can always find some money to do it—that will mean squeezing the headroom in the housing revenue account or housing associations’ business plans. That squeezed headroom would otherwise be available for the building of new homes.

If the Government want to build 1.5 million new homes—and I fully support that; I think it is one of the best commitments that they are making—they will not be built by the private sector alone. A substantial number of social houses will have to be built, and that requires HRA resources and resources in the housing associations’ business plans. The more we squeeze them with other responsibilities that are not financed by the building safety fund, the less money will be available to build new social housing.

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[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I am delighted to be able to speak in this debate. I compliment and congratulate the Members who have made their first speeches: the hon. Members for Bromley and Biggin Hill (Peter Fortune), for Calder Valley (Josh Fenton-Glynn), for Guildford (Zöe Franklin), for Burnley (Oliver Ryan) and for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson), which is the town where I was born.

This debate, about building safety, comes on the back of the report by Sir Martin Moore-Bick on the Grenfell fire, which should be sobering reading for anybody who has any sort of public duty or is in public life. It catalogues how privatisation, underfunding, inadequate surveillance and inadequate supervision led to a vulnerable group of tenants being left in a desperate situation in which a large number died. He concludes in his report that every single one of those deaths could have been avoided, had there been proper regulation and protection. His proposals are far-reaching, and I look forward to the Government responding in detail, in the near future, on how they will ensure proper regulation and supervision and, above all, a role for local government as the local inspectorate of all buildings to ensure that they are all safe and that all the materials are correctly put together. The idea that deregulation can bring about safety is obviously nonsense, and this report has shown it to be such.

[Sarah Gibson]

Recent changes to building regulations require approved inspectors to be certified. That is welcome, but does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the original scheme, under which supervision was by local authorities, which were not financially tied to the contractor, developer or employer, was considerably safer than this deregulated system with approved inspectors? Perhaps the Government should look carefully at changing that.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. The watchword has to be independence, of both inspection and regulation. The idea that developers can mark their own homework has to be got rid of sharpish, because it is a dangerous precedent, and we can now see the results of it.

This horrible fire at Grenfell did not come from nowhere. There was the Knowsley fire and the Lakanal House fire. There were constant references to the dangers of inadequate or inappropriate cladding, the lack of fire equipment, and the fire risk that goes with that. This has to be the most massive wake-up call there has ever been. It also shows that communities, such as those in Grenfell, were treated with contempt by their local authority, regulators and others. They simply did not care. In Grenfell, there was a mixed group of working-class tenants living in a dangerous place. On the day that the report came out, one of the residents was asked about it, and he said that the cladding might as well have been made of firelighters, given the danger it presented to them all. Something quickly needs to be done about that.

We must look at how we deal with the need for remedial action. When the Grenfell fire took place, inspections were immediately made of buildings all over the country; that was the right thing to do. By and large, local authorities responded well and removed cladding. In my local authority, Islington, cladding was discovered on one local authority building, Fyfield House, and that was immediately removed by the authority. However, I find that buildings in the private sector and other buildings in which leaseholders live have not been dealt with in the same way or with the same efficiency, and tenants, residents and leaseholders are paying the price for that. To give an example, there is a nice leasehold development in my constituency called Highbury Square. It was apparently well built and has good facilities. The problem is that it has cladding that has not been certified or approved, so the insurance costs are very high. The developers do not want to pay for the remedial work, and despite numerous meetings being held with Ministers in the previous Government and so on, no action has been taken. The families living there cannot sell or move. They cannot do anything. They are absolutely stuck.

I said in my intervention on the Minister that those who have had to incur huge insurance costs just to remain in their flat should be compensated, and the stress among people who live in such places should also be recognised through compensation. If there is a huge dispute about who will pay for all this—I am quite sure that many companies will try to take legal action against the Government—surely it is the Government’s responsibility to step in, if necessary, and do the work. They can charge it to the owners of the freehold or leasehold who are the cause of the problem. In the case I mentioned, Aviva pension fund is responsible. In the case of the Drayton Park development in my constituency, which the Ministry is well aware of—I had several meetings about it with Ministers under the previous Government and many officials—it is Galliard Homes, which seems to be trying to evade its responsibility to ensure that the work is carried out.

I appeal to the Minister to look carefully at the excessive delays caused by endless arguments with developers and the owners of freeholds. Those delays have put people at risk and have led to enormous cost for them. I come across other developments all the time that seem to be in the same situation, including some of those at the former Arsenal stadium site. This debate is about all that.

In this debate, we also recognise how communities respond, and how they responded to the Grenfell fire. I went there the day after the fire, and met the firefighters who, unbelievably bravely, had been trying to deal with a fire the likes of which they had never seen before. They did not really have the wherewithal to deal with it. Their bravery was enormous and their stress was huge. Some of them received abuse from our media and others, who tried to put the blame on them. They are the last people who should be blamed. I also saw how the community came together. I have been on every one of the silent walks for Grenfell that take place every year on the anniversary, usually in the company of the former Member of Parliament for Kensington, Emma Dent Coad, who did a fantastic job, not just at the time as the MP, but since then, campaigning for safety and justice for the victims of Grenfell. It needs to be recognised that the community came together to support and to demand, and they expect answers from this Government, so that they can live in a place of safety in the future.

The last thing that I want to say—I know that others wish to speak—is that fundamentally this debate is about housing and how we treat people. We have had market domination of the principles of housing. We have gone away from the principle of housing as a human right and instead to a market solution to it all. We can see the results: several thousand people rough sleeping every night; tens of thousands of people living in grotesquely overcrowded conditions; and many people—in my constituency, a third of them—living in the private rented sector, which is largely unregulated, insecure and very expensive.

I have been leafing through the Renters’ Rights Bill just produced by the Secretary of State. I welcome much of what I have read, but unless the Bill addresses the fundamental issue of the cost of private renting, instead of leaving it to the market to set the cost, areas like mine will suffer from social cleansing for a long time to come. Working-class families will be moved out because they simply cannot afford to stay.

We want to maintain the communities in our inner-urban and city areas in all parts of the country, so we need rent regulation, as well as security of tenure and all that goes with it. That means public intervention, building more council houses and taking the market element out of how planning decisions are made on building council housing. Instead, we should say, “The priority for all our community is a sufficient supply of good-quality, well-designed council housing.”

I finish on this thought: we have the potential to build some wonderful places, but also to take over many empty properties and convert them into some form of council or social housing. We need to ensure that housing is well designed, with sufficient open space and good room sizes. When developers are creating a home for someone to live in, they should think it through—changes in life, disabilities that may occur and everything else—and ensure that we have the highest possible quality social housing design for the future. This report could be a great turning point in the way that we deal with housing in our society—or it could be shelved and forgotten in a few years’ time. The people of Grenfell, who suffered and are still grieving the loss of others, will never let us forget it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Chris Curtis to make his maiden speech.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

There are many amendments on which I could speak—indeed, the book of amendments seems to be almost as long, if not longer than the Bill itself—but I will limit myself to new clause 12, which I have tabled in my name and those of hon. Friends and colleagues, and on which amendments 44 to 47 are contingent. First, I declare my interest in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as chair of the quality and safeguarding board for a children’s company.

New clause 12 goes to the heart of my interests, as it deals with care-experienced children. Essentially, its purpose is to ensure that landlords do not discriminate against people who have grown up in the care system when making a decision on whom to rent a property to. It would place a specific duty on landlords, preventing them from denying those who have grown up in the care system a tenancy on that basis. Landlords found to be in breach of the new clause could be subject to penalties. That is the thrust of what I am trying to achieve, and it might strike a chord with many colleagues here.

Some may remember a recent case that highlighted the potential problem. The Guinness housing trust, in advertising a property for rent, specifically said that it was not available to care leavers. That was an extraordinary piece of discrimination, redolent of the bad old days when people put up signs saying, “No dogs, no Irish, no blacks”, if we can remember back that far. In that recent case, there was potential discrimination against young people who, through no fault of their own, had been through the care system. Guinness fortunately withdrew that straight away and apologised, but the case reinforced the vulnerabilities of some of the most vulnerable young people in our society when trying to get the most basic of daily requirements: a roof over their head. That is what is behind the new clause.

I thank the coalition of various charities and organisations that have done a lot of the heavy lifting on this issue, led by Barnardo’s and the charity for care-experienced young people, Become, as well as others. Let me say at the outset that new clause 12 is a probing amendment, and I am grateful for the positive engagement I have had from the Minister already. I am wholly optimistic that he will say some helpful and constructive things when he comes to respond. I will flesh out why this is an important amendment to this important Bill, in which I fully admit there are many other priorities.

As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have a long-standing interest in championing care-experienced young people, whether formerly as Children’s Minister or now as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for children and vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for care-experienced children and young people. Why do we need to do more to support care leavers when accessing accommodation in the private rented sector? It is imperative first for us to consider the bigger picture with the issues that our young people leaving care face. More than 85,000 children and young people are in the care system in England, which is a recent high. Every year, more than 12,000 of them leave that care system. We all know that unfortunately, despite all the best efforts and endeavours of successive Governments and Ministers, care leavers still have much poorer outcomes than their peers. They are less likely to gain good qualifications in the education system. Nearly half of the children in the care system have a mental health problem, and it is estimated that a quarter of homeless people have been in care at some point in their lives. They are also disproportionately represented in the justice system and make up over a quarter of serving prisoners.

From the age of 18, care-experienced young people are often expected to be financially independent and manage their own household bills, but research over many decades has shown that care leavers are much more financially vulnerable than their peers. A significant number live on or near the poverty line and struggle to make ends meet. [Interruption.] I am being echoed; as if Members cannot get enough of me once, they are now getting it in stereo with a time delay.

While inflation is beginning to come down, certain sectors continue to see large price increases, including the private rented sector. Private rental prices paid by tenants in the UK rose by some 6.2% in the 12 months to January this year, unchanged for the second consecutive month, and that puts huge pressure on all tenants. Young care leavers living independently at the age of just 18 have no support from the bank of mum and dad, and for them things can be especially tough.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

The Member is making a very important and excellent point about care leavers. Does he agree that one of the problems is that on reaching the age of 18 they are deemed to be able to be independent but they have no support network in the way other young people of 18 often do, and therefore while they are getting housing support they might not be getting the necessary emotional and advice support that all other 18-year-olds get and benefit from? There is therefore a need for some sort of arrangement to ensure there is a continued level of support well after the age of 18, if the individual young person actually wants that.

[Tim Loughton]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman up to a point, and of course young people do not magically become much more self-sustainable and resilient the day after their 18th birthday, but there have been many improvements over the years. There is extended support for care leavers up to the age of 25, and there are arrangements whereby they can still have a relationship, including a financial relationship, for example with foster carers, through the “staying put” scheme the Government have come up with, and many charities and organisations do very good work in providing support, but the point the right hon. Gentleman makes is right. Most of us are lucky enough to be able to go running back home to birth families for help and support in difficult times, but that is not always available to young people in the care system, although many do have the continual support of good quality foster carers and other carers they relied on when they were under the age of 18. However, they are vulnerable, and ensuring these young people have a safe and stable home to start their adult lives is really crucial.

Housing can act as a vehicle for stability, and without access to good quality accommodation young people will face challenges in getting a job, staying in education and ongoing training, accessing health services and everything else. However, despite the key role housing can play in helping a young person transitioning to independent living, many care leavers are struggling to find suitable accommodation in those early years after leaving care. It is estimated that one in three care leavers become homeless in the first two years immediately after they leave care, and one in four homeless people have been in care at some point in their lives, as I mentioned earlier.

Young care leavers face many barriers in accessing appropriate accommodation, and many will not be able to be addressed in this Bill. However, it does offer an opportunity to address one of those barriers: that landlords sometimes feel reluctant to rent to young people who have grown up in the care system. Young people in care tell charitable organisations in the youth sector that they come across landlords who are reluctant to rent to them because of their circumstances, and evidence from a survey of care leavers carried out by the charity Centrepoint found that over one in 10—some 13%—said they had been unable to access accommodation because the landlord was unwilling to accommodate them because of their status. That is not fair.

The problem is also likely to get worse given the growing evidence of a reduction in the number of private rental properties available across England. An investigation by the BBC found the number of properties available to rent across the whole of the UK had fallen by a third in the 18 months up to March 2023, and increased competition for the properties that are available has enabled more landlords to pick and choose which tenants they like, often going for the highest bidder, which of course makes it especially challenging for vulnerable groups such as care leavers.

In the last few years Barnardo’s has been running a campaign to try and improve access to suitable accommodation for care leavers. I certainly support the campaign, which calls on all local authorities to offer rent guarantor and deposit schemes for care leavers seeking to rent in the private rented sector. The MacAlister report on children in social care, which the Government commissioned and which was published last year, made a recommendation that being a care-experienced child should be a protected characteristic. So far in excess of 60 local authorities, including my own in West Sussex, have voluntarily acknowledged that, although the Government have not made it a statutory addition at this stage. So some local authorities are already providing help to care leavers, with deposits or a scheme where they can act as a corporate guarantor.

Such schemes greatly help make care-experienced young people more attractive tenants, and a number of local authorities report that such schemes have had significant successes. The scheme operated by Kent County Council has had no rent defaults from when it started in 2018 until 2021; however, such schemes are not offered by most local authorities. A freedom of information request by the Care Leaver Local Offer website to the 151 local authorities in England with a children’s social care department showed that 60% will not act as a guarantor for care leavers.

Building Safety

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the matter of low-rise blocks. According to the evidence that the Department has seen when looking at properties less than 11 metres high, it remains the case that the overwhelming majority do not require fire safety remediation, but I should be happy to meet my hon. Friend to talk about that in more detail. It is important that we continue to highlight the lower likelihood of a problem such as we are discussing today, but it is also important that there are routes to redress. The extension of the Defective Premises Act 1972 provides an opportunity in that regard. It is important for residents, leaseholders and others to be aware of such avenues, and I should be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss those further as well.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, and for the meeting I had with him and his staff recently about an issue facing my constituents. It concerns Galliard Homes and residents of Drayton Park in my constituency, who have been denied access to necessary information. Galliard Homes claims that the fire safety regulations have been adhered to, but that is hotly disputed by just about everybody else. As a result the residents are paying vastly enhanced insurance rates and are unable to move, unable to sell their homes, and unable to move on with their lives in any way. That is causing unbelievable levels of stress, of which many Members are well aware from events in their own constituencies.

The Minister is engaged with the issue and fully understands it. May I ask him to do two things? First, will he release all the information about the fire safety assessment so that an air of transparency surrounds all this? Secondly, will he ensure that the developer, Galliard Homes, steps up to the plate and does the remedial work that is necessary to bring down insurance costs and enable the residents to move on and get on with their lives?

[Lee Rowley]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for highlighting this issue, and I am also grateful for the meeting that he arranged with the representative of the leaseholders and the time that he gave for us to go through it. It is very useful to work through individual cases: although they are often the trickiest, the knottiest and the most challenging, it is important for us to understand the policy implications.

Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman—without going into the details of the individual property, which I should be happy to discuss with him separately—that in general we seek to be as transparent as we possibly can, hence the publication of some of the additional data today. We remain committed to making progress on both individual buildings and properties as a whole, and I hope that both the property and the developer that the right hon. Gentleman has highlighted will make progress as soon as possible.

Extremism Definition and Community Engagement

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Thursday 14th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Again, I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and commend him on the work he did in the Home Office during his time there. He will have known that there was an already existing definition, with which there was an obligation on Government not to engage with certain groups. He will also know that while he was there Sir William Shawcross pointed out that that definition needed to be updated and those engagement principles reinforced. We are simply continuing the work that my right hon. Friend did so diligently and effectively while at the Home Office. Organisations such as the British National Socialist Movement and Patriotic Alternative, which I mentioned, are ones that I hope no Member of this House would want to deal with. Obviously, however, each individual must look to their own conscience about the organisations with which they engage. This is purely about Government; Parliament is, quite rightly, sovereign.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

Following the point made by the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), I urge the Secretary of State to be cautious in all of this. Those of us who campaigned against apartheid in the 1970s were often condemned, and although the African National Congress was never banned in Britain, there were calls to ban it. Things change and history moves on; those who marched for peace in Ireland were condemned at the time, and later we had the Good Friday agreement. So I ask the Secretary of State: what is the status of this statement? Does it have legal force? Will it be an instruction to the police? Will it be an instruction to local authorities? Exactly how will it be implemented?

On pages 5 and 6 of the Secretary of State’s statement, he rightly makes the point that we have rights of religious assembly, free speech and organisation. It is important to state those, and they are all enshrined in the European convention on human rights. Will he assure us—because this is not mentioned anywhere in this document— that there is no plan by the Government or the Conservative party to withdraw from the European convention on human rights and therefore from the European Court of Human Rights? For all its failings and inefficiencies, the convention underpins human rights in a very important way.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the points he makes. His question gives me an opportunity to clarify that we will proceed with caution and that this definition governs only Government engagement and funding. Other autonomous organisations must and will make their own judgments; this is simply about what Government and their agencies do. He makes the point that people and organisations can change over time, and that is true. There are people who have been members of extremist organisations and have then changed their view and been invaluable in helping us to challenge the work of extremists: those who were formerly members of Islamist organisations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir have been valuable in countering that hate; and those people who were formerly members of neo-Nazi organisations have been invaluable in making sure that we can police their activities. Of course, it is always within the human heart to have the capacity to change and reform.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens]

My hon. Friend is correct that they should. I suspect they will not receive it from either the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Senedd, for many reasons. As he says, there is clearly an impact on devolution.

Devolution was approved overwhelmingly by the people of Scotland, and any erosion of it is strongly opposed by most, but not all, parties in that Parliament. I will let Members guess which party is least protective of Scotland’s interests. Scotland’s current legislative powers are guarded jealously, and there is strong demand for many—possibly all—reserved powers to be transferred to Scottish control. That is not surprising.

I and others will continue to explore the Bill’s deficiencies again today, pointing out its many contradictions.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I compliment the hon. Gentleman on his excellent speech. He has given very good democratic, social and moral reasons for why the Bill is in deep defect. Does he not think a better process would be for the Secretary of State now to withdraw the Bill altogether?

[Chris Stephens]

That would be very helpful indeed. The right hon. Gentleman is right. Those of us who have tabled amendments are trying to clean up a dog’s breakfast, which is very difficult. We are all trying to make the Bill a little better but, as my good friend says, the ultimate solution would be to withdraw it entirely.

I have highlighted the Bill’s contradictions, counter-productiveness and profound consequences, and I will be seeking to divide the House on amendment 28. I look forward to hearing other Members pursue their amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call Jeremy Corbyn.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I have not put in to speak.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call John McDonnell.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I echo the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge)? If we descend into accusations that those who do not support the Bill are antisemites, or that those who support it are Islamophobic, I think we are lost, to be honest. It is important that we are careful about our language.

There is a profound misunderstanding about what we are debating. If this is about the BDS movement itself, there are mechanisms that the Government can use to proscribe an organisation. But the debate on this Bill should be about BDS as a method, a tactic. I have supported boycotting, disinvesting and sanctioning a whole range of regimes. I campaigned with and supported the anti-apartheid movement of BDS with regard to South Africa. Actually, a large number of Members on both sides of the House supported that. I also did so with regard to Saudi Arabia and its execution—tragically, it is still doing this—of members of the gay community. I have campaigned with others across the House with regard to Sri Lanka and the persecution of the Tamils, including the murder of a number of my constituents when they visited their families. I am doing the same at the moment with regard to Bahrain because of its imprisonment of the political opposition. It is the same with Russia. I was a founder member 10 years ago of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign and we have been calling for sanctions against Russia for years—in advance of even the Government, to be honest. It is the same with Iran. I chair the Iranian workers’ movement committee, which supports trade unionists campaigning in Iran, many of whom are unfortunately in prison. There is also the Uyghurs.

On all of those, I have urged the use of BDS because when other representations and diplomacy fail, there are not many options left. One of the options, unfortunately, is the use of arms. In not promoting that, we have tried to find a middle lane, and that is economic isolation to try to influence. To be frank, it did work in South Africa. That is why we have tried to ensure that it is a mechanism that can be drawn upon. I agree, however, with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) on the Front Bench. The important thing is to ensure that if we use this mechanism, it is used properly and fairly and that we do not discriminate against one particular country. That is what I have not done. I have called for BDS with regard to goods coming from the occupied territories and Iran because they are against the international order.

Having sat in this House for 25 years and listened to speeches from Conservative representatives, I have learned a bit about conservatism, so what I find extraordinary is that this Bill is profoundly unconservative. Those on the Government Front Bench seem to be rejecting many of the individual amendments in front of us. I have listened to Government Members arguing that the Conservative party stands for freedom of speech, support for the law, the rights of property, the democratic rights of this Parliament, local government and other agencies, devolution of decision-making, and support for the action on the environment and human rights.

Let me turn to the amendments on freedom of speech. Amendments 28 and 3 prevent the Government introducing a gagging order on even just talking about this—having a debate about it. That is profoundly unconservative. I cannot believe that Government Members are not supporting those amendments. On the issue of rights of property, I say to the Conservative Member whose constituency I cannot remember that we are both members of the local government pension fund. The Government are overriding the rights to my property, which is my pension fund. I cannot believe that the Conservatives are doing that. That is my stored wages for over 20 years of service in local government over which I now lose control, and the amendment simply says that the members of that pension fund will be allowed to decide.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

My right hon. Friend will recall the days when we managed to persuade the GLC pension fund not to invest in apartheid South Africa, but, as I am sure he will agree, the fundamentals of the Bill are that it actually reduces a very large area of freedom of speech for elected local councillors. That, to me, undermines the whole principle of representative democracy within our society.

[John McDonnell]

I agree. I was chair of finance at that time. It was interesting because there was an awful lot of cross-party support on that, as we were then at the stage of the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, and the worst oppressions that were going on, including what happened in Soweto.

Let me go through the amendments themselves. On devolution and local decision-making, all that amendments 5, 16, 34 and new clause 2 do is ensure that local democracy takes place. The arguments that I have heard from those on the Conservative Benches on several occasions is that local councillors should have the right to represent their local communities and, above all else, they should listen to their local communities. When there have been rows on the Government Benches, it is often as a result of councils not having listened to their local communities, and sometimes I have agreed. These amendments simply enable the local community to express their views and for that to be taken into account.

On environmental concerns, amendments 8, 10, 15 and 11 are simply reinforcing many of the policies that the Conservative party has been advocating in our attempts to get to net zero and protect animals at the same time. I have often heard Government Members saying that upholding the law is an essential part of conservatism. Well, that is what amendments 6 and 17 do. They are simply saying that the use of this mechanism can be helpful in upholding international law.

This Bill is a bad Bill. I agree that there might be the potential to gain consensus on it. One way forward is through the amendment that the Labour Front Bench has tabled to try to look at human rights in general to see how statements defining human rights can be made by Government, and that then influencing what happens in other decision-making areas, such as in local government, pension funds and so on. I believe that there is an opportunity for that, but what I come back to is that this is not the time to do something that in any way divides our communities. If the Bill is in any way amendable, let us just pull it. The Government have done that before. There has been a pause on legislation, allowing wiser heads to come together and to come back with something that actually might work.

If there are arguments about the BDS movement, and I totally condemn some of the statements that I have heard from some of the leaders associated with it, that is a separate issue. This is about a method of trying to influence individual countries to behave in line with international law, protect the environment, and so on. It is about trying to set standards in other countries that we want to promote globally anyway.

Funding for Parks

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered funding for parks.

It is a pleasure to be in the Chamber with you, Mr Pritchard, a fellow Shropshire person and product of the open spaces of Shropshire. I will speak generally about parks and then in more detail about the problems faced by our parks and open spaces.

Parks are a major feature of our lives, providing opportunities to recreate, play games and observe nature, and for children to grow up. They are wonderful spaces. The oldest public park in Britain is in Birkenhead. Conceived in 1843 by Joseph Paxton, it developed into a wonderful open space—it is one of the largest parks in the country—and became iconic. It inspired Central Park in New York, which then inspired Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. So from Birkenhead we get San Francisco and the whole process of developing parks and open spaces. The park was an amazing achievement, and Paxton was, of course, the one who designed the Crystal Palace, which was built in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition.

Throughout the 19th century there was big development of parks, as benefactors provided money for them. There were redoubtable fighters for public open space in every city who were concerned about growing industrialisation and people’s loss of amenity and contact with nature. Hampstead Heath came from that process. In some cases, parks were developed from what had previously been common land. Sadly, in many other places, they were not, and we became a country of very densely populated urban areas. The demand for parks grew. In some cases they were developed. In some cases there are more parks in suburban parts of our cities than in the centre because of the way industrial development happened.

In a sense, the parks came into their own in this country during the covid pandemic. When we were locked down, people could recreate in parks. I have a bizarre memory of a man riding around Finsbury Park on a bicycle with a loudspeaker telling people to go home because it was too full. I could, of course, see his point, but I could feel the sadness of people who wanted to be outside enjoying a bit of urban space.

It is inner urban open space that I want to say the most about. My borough, Islington, is geographically quite small. It is one of the most densely populated boroughs in the country, if not the most densely populated. Until the end of the second world war in 1945, the only real open space in my constituency was Highbury Fields—there was Arsenal football ground as well, if we want to call that a public open space—in the south of the borough, on the edge of the City of London.

In 1945, something interesting happened across London and the other cities. The Abercrombie report, which was written during the war and was a planning idea for how London would develop after the war, was an incredibly far-sighted document. I might disagree with some of it—it was too keen on road building and not keen enough on other forms of transport—but it had a real vision for greening cities and enabling people to live with nature and have public open space near them.

At that time, in some parts of London there was less than 0.1 acres of open space per 1,000 people. In other words, there was no open space for many people in many parts of London. Abercrombie’s proposal, which has not totally been realised, was that London should aspire to have 4 acres of open space per 1,000 population. He realised that that would be very difficult, so he proposed a series of green routes that would link large open spaces in different parts of the city.

Most of the parks in my borough have been developed since 1945; some have been developed very recently. I have an aerial photograph in my office of a place called Wray Crescent, which, as the name indicates, is a crescent of housing; the picture shows the houses and gardens and so on. It is not there any more. The houses were all bought by the local authority and demolished, and a park was created in that space. There is a school next to my office that once had houses in what is now the school’s garden. Those houses were bought by the Inner London Education Authority and demolished to make a garden for the school. That is an incredibly brave thing for any public authority to do. Now, we would not even think about buying houses in order to create a park or open space because of the costs involved. We have to remember that some of this work was done by very far-sighted people.

We have nearly always achieved parks through a combination of wealthy benefactors—in some cases big charities, or even big landowners—and campaigns by ordinary people who just want something decent and to create more open space. One of my favourite parks in my constituency is Gillespie Park. I even led an Adjournment debate on it in the 1980s—[Laughter.] I have been here a long time, you see. At the time, Gillespie Park was a disused railway sidings. British Rail wanted to sell it, and there was a huge debate and campaign locally. Eventually, it won recognition as an open space, partly because British Rail made the fundamental public relations error of allowing people to use it on a temporary basis. Once people have been allowed to use a public open space temporarily, they are not going to give it up—and they did not give up Gillespie Park.

I was at the park on Sunday. It is beautiful: it is heavily wooded, with an amazing variety of bird and plant life, as well as fish life in the pond. We are very proud of it. There was an “apple day” on Sunday; hundreds of people came to enjoy different varieties of apple. I spoke to many of them, and I would guess that more than half of them have no open space of their own. They have no gardens or balconies—no open space whatsoever. The park is their lung. We have to remember that parks are there for everybody. We in this Chamber may have our own gardens at home, which we probably enjoy and love, but the vast majority of my constituents do not. Their only open space is the street or the park. They have no open space of their own. We should think very hard about that.

I was encouraged to seek this debate by the issues surrounding Finsbury Park, which is in the Tottenham constituency, just outside mine; I let the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) know that I would be raising it. Finsbury Park, which was established 150 years ago by the Metropolitan Board of Works, was designed to be very much bigger, but the board gave up on its expansion and sold some of the land for housing. It is still a substantial park, and a vital open space. After its development by the Metropolitan Board of Works, the park was taken over by the London County Council, and then by the Greater London Council, which actually ran it very well. The history of the park shows all kinds of things, from balloons taking off to anti-aircraft guns during the second world war and peace demonstrations in 1914. It has been a place for people all that time.

Like every other council, Haringey has funding problems, and it frequently lets out large parts of the park for concerts and entertainment and so on. The most recent figure I could find on the council’s income from concerts was £1.2 million for one year, which is a great deal of money. That involves a very substantial part of the park being taken over for several weeks on end, which causes a great deal of resentment. I am a patron of the Friends of Finsbury Park. Some time ago, a legal action was taken against Haringey Council to require it to spend the benefits of the concerts on the park, rather than on the generality of council expenditure. Although that action was successful, the park is still denied to a lot of people for quite a long time.

Managing the use of parks is always complicated and difficult; there are many demands, and it means trying to work out everybody’s life in a park. There are those who want to play football, cricket or baseball; those who want to just sit around doing nothing and playing music; those who want to play informal games; those who want to have birthday parties, and all the other things. There are also those who are keen on protecting trees and improving the biodiversity and natural life of parks. Managing parks is not simple. If we throw into the mix underfunding of the park, and pressure on the relevant local authority to raise more and more money from it in order to maintain it, we end up in a self-defeating circle where we lose the use of the park in order to make money to keep the park, which we cannot use. We have lost the use of it because of the many concerts that go on.

I am not against having concerts, festivals and parties in parks—absolutely not. I just think there has to be a balance and a limit on the numbers of them. They are not cheap and therefore not necessarily completely available to everybody. For example, the lowest priced Live Nation tickets last year in Finsbury Park were £190, way beyond the likely spending power of young people in the immediate area.

The problem affects my favourite local park, which I often use. It is a wonderful place and I am worried for its future, as I am worried for every other park’s future, unless we have some degree of guaranteed funding and protection of them. I can see the Minister becoming anxious, because I told him that I would say nothing he could possibly disagree with. I look forward to an intervention from him agreeing with my view.

[Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Ind)]

The right hon. Gentleman is giving a great speech and articulating the value of parks to our many local communities, including those across north London. Many parks are under unprecedented threat, whether from financial interests or from development—not least Stanley Park in my constituency, which was voted England’s best park last year. A local authority-led plan to develop part of the park has caused enormous disquiet in my constituency. Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in urging local authorities to be mindful of the health and wellbeing benefits of parks and to be conscious about protecting their status?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Stanley park is a wonderful park and a great place. Many other parks around the country are iconic and beautiful and all are at risk because of the danger of local authorities agreeing to a planning rule change that would allow parts of parks to be sold off.

It all seems very attractive at the time. Somebody in the council says, “Okay, we will sell off this bit of the park and get x million for this piece of land, and that will enable us to plug a spending gap somewhere else.” It is always a very attractive option. The problem is we will never, ever get the park back. Once it is gone, it is gone. It will not return. That is why I look forward to the Minister’s response and to the response to the Select Committee report.

We need to look again at the strength of legislation protecting public open spaces from development and from sale by local authorities so that that option is simply not available to local authorities. I am not saying that most local authorities want to sell parks—they do not—but we have to make sure parks are protected for all time. Fields in Trust has produced some interesting information. Between 2010 and 2021, there was a loss of £690 million in park funding across the whole country. Some 32% of parks have recorded a loss of frontline staff and 41% a loss of management; 23% have cut their development plans for any park; and 62% of local authorities—this is the saddest figure of all—expect to see the quality and appearance of their parks decline in the coming years.

The Government have said that they want money to be put aside for the development of new parks, and they have done that through the levelling-up fund. The number of new parks proposed is not very many—I think it was 100. Unless I have misunderstood the information that I have read in the various reports, only £9 million has been set aside for them. Well, we cannot develop even one park with £9 million, so I think that needs to be looked at carefully. If we want new parks, they have to be funded from somewhere, which I will come on to in a moment.

The Communities and Local Government Committee inquiry in 2016-17 was an important one, and it was revisited by the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee and by the Government in 2022. Clearly, a lot had changed in those five years. Covid had come, which enhanced the importance of parks but also led to a new round of funding problems for local authorities—£330 million less than in 2010 is now being spent on parks. The cuts in park expenditure have gone on and on. It is not clear what level of urban uplift is going to go on parks.

In a reply to a request from the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Minister said that he thought local authorities were best placed to decide how money is spent. Yes, that is absolutely true, but unless there is overall protection for the level of expenditure on parks they will obviously be a place where cuts are made. If a councillor is faced with a massive bill on social care, or other aspects of key services, people will say that the parks do not matter, so they can be cut a bit more. What people forget in that short-sighted view of things is that we can help to alleviate the mental health crisis with the provision of open spaces.

[Sarah Dyke (Somerton and Frome) (LD)]

I welcome this point being made, because parks have a clear benefit for our communities. They are an important cultural asset, but also improve people’s health and have an important role to play in maintaining our natural environment. Public Health England recognises the value of parks for people’s physical and mental health. It is understood that people who are living in areas with higher amounts of green space have a reduced likelihood of cardiovascular disease, for example. We must protect the funding of parks and ensure that these important cultural assets are maintained.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

The hon. Member is quite correct. There are numbers of people who are going through a mental health crisis who feel that it is alleviated to some extent by going to a park. I have met people with mental health conditions who are going through group therapy who meet and walk around a park together; they feel that that is a way of coming together in a calm atmosphere. We should never underestimate the value of parks to all of us, in every way. They are a place for nature, recreation, sport, and a place to give us a sense of calm in our lives.

There is an inequality of park provision, however, around the country. We need to look at that. We need to look at protecting funding by central Government to local government so that it can be ringfenced for parks. One suggestion in the Committee report was that every local authority should be required to try and achieve the green flag standard in their parks. Many councils try and do that anyway because they want to—which is good—but they need to do it more.

The funding of parks improved a bit when the lottery was introduced, which put quite a lot of money into the improvement of some parks. Lottery funding, like charity funding and donations for parks, is welcome, as that it can be used to improve sports facilities, planting and maybe bring in allotments and growing spaces. What gifts never do, however, is take into account the longer-term requirements of funding, such as the need for staff and the need to keep the thing going. That is where central Government expenditure and their relationship with local authorities is so important.

My fundamental point is that the lesson from my lovely local park, Finsbury Park, is that, while we love that park, it needs to be properly funded so that it does not have to give up so much space every year for expensive concerts. The same thing applies elsewhere. Hyde Park is taken over by Winter Wonderland for several weeks. It is fine that people enjoy Winter Wonderland, but what about people who just want to go to Hyde park to walk about? They cannot do it because of that. The same applies in many other places, so we need balance.

I hope the Government will look again at the two Committee interventions on this issue, which were helpful and designed to improve parks and open spaces, and realise their value. I hope the Government will say that they are prepared to ensure there is guaranteed funding. When dealing with overall planning, it is important to protect our green belt but also to protect our public open spaces and parks. We should also ensure that, with every major planning operation, there is improvement in the amount of open space and the creation of allotments and community growing spaces.

Our children need to be brought up to understand that we have to live with nature, not on top of nature. That creates a better understanding and more support for progressive environmental policies in future. I put this forward today because I hope it will provide an opportunity for the Opposition and the Government to give their proposals for the funding of our beautiful parks all over the country.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for calling this important debate and articulating so clearly the value of our parks estate and the challenges that it faces. I also thank the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke) for her remarks. I recently visited her constituency a number of times, and I can fully attest to the beauty of Somerset and its parks. Like the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), I will shamelessly plug some of my local parks, such as Locke Park, Lily Park, the Saltburn Valley gardens and Smiths Dock Park. Like him, I commend the friends groups who care for our parks and cemeteries too, such as the Friends of Redcar Cemetery and the Friends of Eston cemetery.

The UK’s 27,000 public parks are treasured assets that have been enriching the lives of our communities for more than 150 years. They provide opportunities for leisure, relaxation, exercise and connection to nature. However, parks are also fundamental to community cohesion, physical and mental health and wellbeing, biodiversity, climate change mitigation and civic pride. As the right hon. Member for Islington North said, during covid they were also a lifeline, providing a breathing space where people could relax, exercise and enjoy the outdoors, even in the most difficult of times.

The Government are fully committed to creating better access to parks and green spaces for all our communities. Although the main responsibility for urban parks lies with local authorities, the Government have made a number of targeted investments to support the sector. In 2022, as the right hon. Member mentioned, we launched the £9 million levelling-up parks fund to improve access to green spaces in disadvantaged neighbourhoods across the UK. I am pleased to share with the House today the fact that 90% of funded local authorities reported increased access to green spaces in disadvantaged urban areas, such as those that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome mentioned.

The levelling-up parks fund is an immediate example of the Government’s commitment to levelling up communities across the country. However, as has also been touched on, there is also lottery funding. Since 2019, the National Lottery Heritage Fund has invested over £36 million in parks and green spaces. Since that fund began in 1996, it has awarded over £950 million to create and restore more than 900 individual parks. As the right hon. Member may know, Caledonian Park in Islington received a grant of almost £2 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2016 to restore the historic clock tower and market railings.

Furthermore, in two rounds of pocket park funding in 2018 and 2019, the Government awarded grants of over £5 million to 266 community groups working in partnership with local authorities to create new community green spaces or to transform existing parks. Also, through the community ownership fund, the Government are awarding funding to a range of assets that are important to local communities. The fund has already invested over £500,000 to support five parks and green spaces. I should also mention the £2.6 billion UK shared prosperity fund, which is providing new funding for local investment. Local authorities will decide how to use that funding to best serve their communities, including by investing in improving and developing their parks.

The Government have always been clear that local authorities must have the freedom to choose how to use their budgets to best serve their local areas and priorities, which includes how they support their parks and green spaces. I am pleased to see that there are many examples across the country of local authorities developing innovative practice and partnerships to manage their parks estate. However, as the right hon. Member mentioned, it is important that those partnerships do not impinge on communities’ access to those parks. A balance has to be struck.

The right hon. Member may know that, in order to support parks, Camden Council and Islington Council have agreed a joint parks for health strategy. Health-related projects and social prescribing are being rolled out across both boroughs, and Islington Council is incorporating parks for health in its public realm by greening its highways and creating new green spaces.

Central Government continue to support local authorities in this regard. The Government have helped local authorities to develop innovative practice through the future parks accelerator programme, which we jointly funded with the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the National Trust in 2019. That programme funded eight local authority areas to pilot new ways of managing parks estates. The results are currently being evaluated and disseminated across the sector.

The green flag awards have been mentioned a few times already. The addition of the green flag awards scheme—which is owned by my Department and run by the Keep Britain Tidy charity under licence—promotes the national standard for parks and green spaces across the UK. Over 2,000 green flags were awarded this year, demonstrating that the parks that won them had met the highest-quality standard. I am also proud of the contribution of community groups and volunteers, such as the friends of parks groups, which have already been mentioned, in designing and managing local parks. Over 400 green flag awards have already been awarded to community-led parks, with many more to come, I am sure.

Getting the best for our parks is not just about spending more or dictating how local authorities should use their budgets. It is about communities, health authorities, park sector stakeholders, and local and national Government working together to get the best outcomes for our parks estates. That is why the Government have reflected on the importance of access to good-quality green space as a key factor for health in a wide range of policies, including the childhood obesity strategy, the loneliness strategy, the clean air strategy, “Sporting Future” and “The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health”. The Government have set clear expectations for how parks and green spaces should be incorporated into our communities in the national planning policy framework and the national design guide and code. We have outlined our ambition to ensure that every household is within a 15-minute walk from a quality green or blue space in our environment improvement plan, which we published in January this year.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the Minister for what he is saying. Does he think that there should be guidance from central Government about the amount of time that a park can be exclusively used for private interests or private commercial interests, in order to protect the generality of public access to what is valuable open space?

[Jacob Young]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that contribution. It touches on his points about what he feels are abuses happening in places such as Finsbury Park and Hyde Park. I would say that those decisions are best made locally. Obviously, there is a local democracy angle at play in local authorities, and authorities are held to account at the ballot box every couple of years. Certainly from my party’s perspective, we would always go to the ballot box ensuring that access to local parks was important.

Finally, if the House will indulge me, I want to share briefly my memories growing up as a child, visiting Albert Park in Middlesbrough. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it was a park gifted by a wealthy benefactor—our first mayor, Henry Bolckow—to the people of the town in 1865. Over 150 years later, that park is still in the centre of the town. When I was growing up, it played host to the Middlesbrough Mela—a celebration of the south Asian community in Teesside. We also have Stewart Park, where as a kid I would go and see the animals. Years later, I visited when it played host to BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in 2019.

As we have heard, parks are about history, celebration, memories and culture. They are the centre of communities and key to healthy communities. I add my thanks to those who protect and maintain our parks, particularly those in Redcar and Cleveland but nationally too, and to the armies of volunteers who do the same. Going forward, we must ensure that our parks’ workforces are well equipped with the skills to meet the current and future expectations of our communities. Learning and best practice from current park programmes needs to be embedded to develop and protect our parks for the future. We must work together to ensure that these treasured assets are passed on to future generations in the best possible condition, so that our children and grandchildren can enjoy them just as much as we have.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am pleased that we had this debate today; it gave us the chance to set out the issues facing us. I understand what the Minister said about the use of parks for mental health recuperation and the generality of people’s needs, and I fully support that. I hope that we will recognise that increasing pressure on local authorities to get an income from parks can be detrimental to the basic needs of parks. I look to the Government to at least set out guidelines on the amount of time that a park, or even part of it, should be taken out of public use and into exclusive private use, because I see a trend that is rather worrying—to me in my own area and, I suspect, to people all over the country.

I thank the Minister and the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for what they said, and I thank the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke). We value our parks; we love our parks, and they are the only open space that so many of our people ever get access to. We should value them.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered funding for parks.

Renters (Reform) Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 23rd October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; no one could doubt her sincerity or her commitment to making sure that we improve the condition of homes and that we deal with energy efficiency. The first thing to say is that the cost will be determined in the market. The amount that an individual might have to pay can be capped by legislation, but the cost is a function of the market. The second thing that it is important to stress is that the decent homes standard, and indeed the work we are doing on retrofitting overall, will improve, and has improved, energy efficiency, but we need to balance the improvement of energy efficiency against the costs that individual landlords and tenants face in a cost-of-living time that is challenging.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

rose—

[Jim Shannon]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

I am deeply sorry to hear about the personal tragedy that the hon. Lady’s constituents have suffered—please do pass on my sympathy and condolences. I would say, though, that this Bill leads to the abolition of section 21, and it does so in a way that I believe is right and proportionate. I will explain why I think it is necessary, but before doing so I must give way to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn).

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. I noted he said that, nationally, around 20% of the population live in the private rented sector. In constituencies such as mine, the figure is 30% to 35%, and many people feel very insecure in their lives. For those on universal credit and housing benefit, the problem is that the local housing allowance does not meet their rent needs. Therefore, they are actually subsidising landlords through their benefits and living in desperate poverty as a result of it. In turn, this forces people in mainly ex-council properties to leave the borough, so we end up with a sort of social cleansing of our inner cities all over the country. Does the Secretary of State understand that we need rent control, so that those people who cannot afford to remain in their own home get some comfort and are allowed to continue being a valuable part of our local communities?

[Michael Gove]

Although the right hon. Gentleman and I have had many disagreements, there is no one who doubts that he is a very assiduous constituency Member, and he is right that the pressures faced by a number of people in the private rented sector are significant. The principal reason for those rental pressures is inflation. We can debate the causes of inflation, but this Government are determined to do everything possible to halve it. and I believe the steps that we are taking have shown progress so far.

Freehold and Leasehold Reform

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. I thank the hon. Member for Dartford (Gareth Johnson) for securing it, and every one of us could amplify everything he said with very similar experiences from our own communities, even though the areas we live in are often very different geographically.

My constituency is spread between about 40% social rented, 30% owner-occupation and 30% in the private rented sector. The debate is essentially about owner-occupation and leaseholds, but within that 30% very few, or certainly a declining number, are in what I would call traditional freehold properties—where somebody owns the house and land, and their costs are their mortgage, if they have one, and all the relevant bills, but there are no service charges because there is no other involvement.

Any place that is now sold in my constituency as a single-family home inevitably gets bought by a property company and is divided up into a number of flats. Dividing a place up into flats is not of itself wrong, but the quality of the conversion is often a problem as is the resulting ownership issue. In my constituency, people who have bought a flat either in a new development or in a converted property are suffering appalling levels of stress; they believed they were going to have to pay a reasonable ground rent and reasonable service charges and management fees but then find after a very short time living there that they have no control whatsoever over any of those issues.

The system is very badly designed. Indeed, perhaps it was not designed at all, but it is so badly in existence that there is a positive incentive to manage badly, charge extortionately and be abusive towards those who live in these leasehold properties. This has been recounted by the hon. Members for St Ives (Derek Thomas), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) and for Dartford and I can absolutely relate to it.

Many people have got in touch with me about this and I want to give an example. In a sense, the business model of those who buy into the leasehold sector is appalling and offers incentives in all the wrong directions. There are five examples of that. The company that owns the property sets out charges to the leaseholders in the property and will directly benefit from having unnecessary work done in the building. Totally unnecessary work is created by the management company, and the leaseholder has no say in whether it is done and no say in the contractor who does it, yet they have to pay for it. There is an incentive for the company to choose the most expensive contractor and then charge on for it. Some of these companies are also incredibly litigious and threaten to take flat owners to court to start proceedings for repossession as soon as there is any element of late payment. Remember that many people who buy leasehold flats for the first time are young and have young families. They are in the most expensive and difficult times of their lives, and there is the greatest pressure on them as a result, so the stress levels are huge. The companies consistently use the same small set of suppliers across many of their properties, and those suppliers are also complicit in the running up or invoicing of ridiculously high charges across their whole estate portfolio. When residents try to communicate with the companies, they get fobbed off, blocked, or threatened with legal action and legal letters. The stress levels are appalling.

Let me give an example about electricity:

“In our most recent service charge 3 months ago, we were collectively billed £4k for commons parts electricity”—

the common parts have the amazing total of 10 LED lightbulbs in them, and:

“This was 10x the estimated expense for the period. Upon inspection it became clear that the power provider…chosen for us failed to take a single meter reading for the entire year and ‘estimated’ our bill.”

When the residents highlighted that, the company demanded they pay the total figure anyway. They are now in dispute over it.

There are many examples of excessive charges for minor or often unnecessary works or, as the hon. Member for Dartford pointed out, ludicrous charges for the almost non-existent cleaning of common parts. That can be just running a hoover over the carpet once a month, yet people are told to pay several hundred pounds a year for that kind of thing. It is the same with refuse collection, rubbish collection and so on. There must be some big changes to that.

The last testimony I will give is from somebody who bought a flat that they believed would be affordable. They then discovered that the company was

“proposing decorating works on our building at a cost of £19800. We received a quote of £7600 for exactly the same work from a local contractor. Although we nominated this contractor, as is our right, they have chosen to go ahead with the company that they always use. We can challenge this at tribunal but we would need £8-£10000 upfront costs”.

They have to pay that even to get a hearing. If ever there was an area that needed substantial investigation and reform, it is surely this one. People feel disempowered, angry and frustrated. They cannot sell and cannot move, and they have no idea what charges are coming down the road.

I have dealt with many cases of leaseholders who either bought their place from the local authority under right to buy or who bought it from somebody else who did. They often dispute the capital works charge or service charge. Sometimes they are right and sometimes they are not, but there is a clear process by which they can make that complaint. They can make it to the local authority, which is accountable. It is not always perfect, but there is usually agreement at the end, because there is a degree of accountability. With the companies, there is no accountability whatsoever. Every power lies with the person who has invested money to make a vast return, and the returns that are being made on leasehold properties are enormous.

I hope that the Minister will recognise that the stress that we are expressing—

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

indicated assent.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I see the Minister nodding; I thank her. I hope that she understands that the issue is not isolated to any one part of the country. The whole country is suffering from this, and we urgently need a serious process of leasehold reform that gives people some power over their own lives and in their own homes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachel Maclean]

I ask my hon. Friends and other Members for a little patience while I proceed through my speech. I want to set out precisely the Government’s commitment to legislation because I know that is the question that everybody wants to be answered and I have limited time in which to do that.

My hon. Friends the Members for Dartford and for Congleton pointed out that freeholders on new estates must pay charges towards the maintenance or upkeep of communal areas. The obligation to pay those charges might be provided by a deed of covenant or through an estate rent charge that forms part of the purchase contract. The Government believe that when buying a home, it should be clear to potential purchasers what the arrangements are for the maintenance of roads and upkeep of open spaces, public or otherwise. That information is most often set out in a freehold management inquiry form, which is published by the Law Society and widely used across the sector. However, I know that that information was not provided to some, or perhaps not drawn to their attention, at the point of purchase. Furthermore, in many cases contracts do not specify, limit or cap those freeholder charges. To compound matters, when people receive an invoice, they are not provided with information about what the charges cover. Much as with leaseholders, that lack of transparency, both at the homebuying stage and when people have settled into their property, leaves homeowners in a vulnerable position and is something that the Government intend to address.

Leaseholders already have certain protections and rights that will enable them to hold management companies to account. Freehold homeowners have no equivalent, even though they might be paying for the same or similar services, as highlighted in the remarks by my hon. Friends. The current situation is unfair. Where they are required to contribute, it is not appropriate that people have limited rights to challenge those costs, and we are committed to introducing legislation to plug that gap. We intend to create a new statutory regime for freehold homeowners based on the rights that leaseholders have, ensuring that estate management charges are reasonably incurred, that services provided are of an acceptable standard and that there is a right to challenge the reasonableness of charges at the property tribunal.

We will also give a right to change the provider of maintenance services by applying to the tribunal for the appointment of a manager. That might be useful if a homeowner is dissatisfied with the service they are receiving or there is a significant failure by the estate management provider in meeting their obligations. We will also consider the option of introducing a right to manage for freehold homeowners. It is not only estate management charges that need to be reasonable; that principle must also apply to administration fees that individual homeowners may face in their dealings with the estate management company.

Turning back to leaseholders, as highlighted by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston and the right hon. Member for Islington North, there is a similar situation. Leaseholders complain of unreasonable and excessive service charges and we strongly believe that service charges should be transparent and communicated effectively, with a clear route to challenge or redress if things go wrong. Many landlords and managing agents already demonstrate good practice and provide relevant information, but too many do not and are failing to provide sufficient information or clarity to leaseholders, especially over fees and service charges.

We recognise that the existing statutory requirements do not go far enough to enable leaseholders to identify and challenge unfair costs. That is why we will take action to support and empower leasehold homeowners. We will take action to increase service charge transparency to help leaseholders better understand what they are paying for, make it harder for landlords or managing agents to hide rip-off charges and enable leaseholders to more effectively challenge unreasonable fees or charges. I also want leaseholders to know that they can seek free advice from an organisation funded by the Government, the Leasehold Advisory Service, if they are concerned about charges that they are asked to pay.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

That sounds like a very promising development. Is the Minister aware that there is sometimes a problem with the ability to challenge because of legal processes or the enormous costs involved, so some people, such as the residents I was referring to, do not have the power to make a challenge even though that would be very justified?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point and he is absolutely right. He will hear about some of the things we are going to do to make it easier and fairer and not as expensive to challenge, and I shall to set out some more detail now.

When leaseholders challenge their landlord, we know, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that they are sometimes subject to unjustified legal costs, and we are committed to ensuring that leaseholders are not subject to them and, where appropriate, can claim the legal costs from the landlord, which certainly seems fairer than the current situation. Currently, if set out in the lease, leaseholders might be liable to pay their landlord’s legal costs regardless of the outcome of a dispute—even if they win the case. That is a classic case of heads you win, tails you lose. Also, the circumstances in which a leaseholder can claim their own legal costs from a landlord are currently very limited. That may lead to leaseholders facing higher bills than the charges being challenged in the first place and can deter leaseholders from taking their concerns to the courts or property tribunal, as the right hon. Gentleman says.

Whether on freehold estates or in leasehold or commonhold blocks, we are committed to raising professionalism and standards among all property agents, protecting consumers while defending the reputation of good agents from the actions of rogue operatives. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford has been working on that issue in his constituency, and I can assure him that I will continue to work with industry—I have regular dialogue with it—on improving best practice across the sector, including on codes of practice for property owners.

Ground rent was particularly highlighted by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston, and we are concerned about the escalating costs of ground rents for leaseholders who still pay them. As many will know, we asked the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate the potential mis-selling of homes and unfair terms in the sector and it has been successful in securing commitments benefiting over 20,000 leaseholders, including removing doubling ground rents.

Both enfranchisement and the right to manage help give leaseholders greater control. In most cases managing agents would still be used, but they would be accountable to leaseholders directly, rather than a third-party landlord, ensuring that interests are aligned. For those who want greater control over their homes, many leaseholders find the process for extending their lease or buying their freehold prohibitively expensive, complex or lacking in transparency and we equally understand that many right-to-manage applications fail on technicalities attributed to overly detailed procedure, which is why we asked the Law Commission to look into that. It has since published reports on enfranchisement, valuation and the right to manage.

To reduce the cost of enfranchisement, we are committed to tackling the problems with these existing arrangements at their root. We will abolish marriage value and cap ground rents in enfranchisement calculations, so that leaseholders who currently pay onerous ground rents do not also have to pay an onerous premium to buy their freehold. These changes will result in substantial savings for leaseholders, particularly those with less than 80 years left on their lease. These changes will also make sure that sufficient compensation is paid to landlords to reflect their legitimate property interests.

To make the process simpler and more transparent, we will introduce an online calculator to help leaseholders understand what they will pay to extend their lease or buy it out, and the Government are committed to reforms to improve access to the existing right to manage, whereby leaseholders may take over the management of their block without having to buy the freehold. We want to make the process of exercising the right to manage simpler, quicker and more flexible, and make the operation of it more effective. To that end, we are carefully considering the detail of the Law Commission’s recommendations.

To give homeowners greater control, we want to make sure that the benefits of freehold ownership are extended as far as possible. We remain committed to banning the sale of new leasehold houses so that, where possible, all new houses are provided as freehold from the outset. For flatted developments, we want to reinvigorate commonhold so that it can become a mainstream and widespread freehold alternative to leasehold for both new and existing flats. Again, we are reviewing the Law Commission’s detailed recommendations, which propose legal fixes that will make commonhold a desirable alternative in more and more settings. We have established the Commonhold Council, made up of consumer and housing industry experts, to advise the Government on how to prepare both consumers and the market for the widespread use of commonhold. Furthermore, the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 is levelling the playing field for future commonholds as well as benefiting new homeowners. It removes ground rents from new leaseholds, and the associated financial incentives for developers to build leasehold over commonhold, where ground rents were never permitted.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford for prompting such a vital debate and everybody for their contributions, and I am pleased that we have been able to discuss these issues properly. We plan to introduce reforms in the King’s Speech, which will take place in the autumn, so the reforms should take place within this Parliament. I recognise that every single Member would like a more detailed timeline, but I will continue to have these discussions, as Members have implored, both with my colleagues in the Department and with those across other channels who are responsible for tabling legislation.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), with his very pleasant reference to the late Ray Davies, who was a wonderful campaigner all his life.

A truly appalling piece of legislation has been put before us. It fits into the bigger picture of anti-democratic legislation that this Government have put forward that reduces the rights of free speech and assembly, over-empowers the police, restricts trade unions and tries to criminalise people who seek a place of safety and asylum on our shores. We have to put it in that context; it is yet another attack on the civil liberties of people in this country.

Over 70 organisations have expressed deep misgivings and opposition to the Bill. Muslim organisations, Jewish organisations, trade unions, human rights organisations, libertarian organisations, religious groups and many others have said that the Bill is wrong and that it will damage the civil liberties of everyone in this country. It gives massive power to the Secretary of State effectively to decide what local authorities can say, think or do. If a local authority, for example, decided it wanted to speak up about human rights in a country when a significant number of people from that country were living in its community—for example, there is a very large Somali community in my constituency—would my local authority not be allowed to say anything about Somalia under the Bill? It would have to seek the permission of the Secretary of State before it could do anything, and so it goes on; there are so many other examples.

Having been in this House since the 1980s, I sat through many debates about South Africa. There were many Members over there on the Government Benches—many—who supported the apartheid regime. They openly supported the apartheid regime, called Mandela a terrorist and asked for the banning of the African National Congress in this country. The ANC had its offices in my borough, and the South West Africa People’s Organisation, which led to the liberation of Namibia, had its offices in my constituency. There were calls to ban them and, when local authorities such as Sheffield led the way on local authority action and opposition to apartheid, they faced sanctions from the Government. Why were they so concerned about it, other than to prevent any effective, peaceful show of loyalty and support to the people of South Africa who were facing the horrors of the apartheid regime?

Under this legislation, what we did over South Africa would be impossible or illegal, so we would end up suspending councillors, prosecuting local authorities and surcharging councillors. I am not sure where it would lead. Some of us supported the people of Chile after General Pinochet seized power, and called for a boycott of Chilean goods and a non-investment policy in Chile; again, that would be illegal. On a different basis, some of us called for a boycott of Californian grapes when Californian grape pickers were facing oppression from police forces in California; again, that would be illegal. All the issues around the world that we are faced with, such as Indonesia’s behaviour in West Papua, the failure of Morocco to allow a referendum on the future of Western Sahara, Saudi Arabia and its war against Yemen—any expression of that would be banned by the Bill. A terrifying Bill has been put forward here today.

Most of the Bill has been framed around Palestine and Israel. Many groups in Israel are frightened by the Bill and what goes with it and also believe that there should be justice for the people of Palestine. I spent Saturday evening talking to Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative, who believes in non-violent resistance to the occupation. He pointed out to me—I noted the figures down as he was talking—that, at the moment on the west bank, there are 150 settlements, 70 more settlements are being planned or actually built at present, more than 400,000 Israeli people have been moved into those settlements and it is impossible for Palestinian people to move around their own area of land. The idea that the products made on those settlements that are sold outside should be seen as legitimate products—they are illegal within terms of international law and within terms of EU law. So I just ask that we understand the importance of the right of protest.

Today in Jenin, as an example of the occupation, 14,000 people are in a refugee camp that is less than 0.4 square kilometres—14,000 people in less than half a square kilometre of land. Israel Defense Forces says that it is not targeting civilians. It is impossible to use any kind of weaponry against the population there without targeting civilians. More have died. More bitterness, more hatred and more problems come down the road. Those people all around the world who want to support the Palestinian people are not antisemitic. They are not anti-Israeli groups, but what they do want is justice for the Palestinian people. That surely would be a much better and stronger message to send out from this House today, rather than the attempt to close down free speech in this country.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Reference has been made to Bob Kerslake consistently throughout today. Bob and I were friends. I go back longer than most, because I go back to 1981, when I was a young man and a GLC councillor and Bob was a young man and a GLC officer. I fully concur with all the tributes that have been paid, but I also want to say that he was a good man. He was a very good person and a good friend, and we will miss him.

Let me come on to this debate. I do not want to repeat some of the arguments, but I want to get on record for my constituents why I am voting the way I am this evening. I will vote in solidarity with the amendment, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) on her speech, but I will also be voting against the Bill, because I cannot do anything else.

The debate has largely focused on the specific BDS movement and Israel. Just to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), I want to talk about the right to boycott, to disinvest and to sanction as an issue. At the weekend I drafted an article, because I wanted to get clear in my own mind the whole issue around boycotts and the past history of the boycott, disinvestment and sanctions movement. To be frank, virtually all of my life I have been involved in some boycott, disinvestment or sanctions campaign, so it was almost like a flashback. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), I was outside the South African embassy when the City of London anti-apartheid group was on a 24-hour permanent picket.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I was arrested there.

[John McDonnell]

He was arrested; I was not. I was there on Christmas day simply singing carols.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

You got off lightly.

[John McDonnell]

I got off lightly. All we were singing for was the release of Nelson Mandela.

For the other one, I plead guilty. I was one of the organisers of the demonstrations over a decade ago against the royal visit of the Saudi leaders. We were calling for no public contracts to be awarded to companies operating in Saudi Arabia, because at that time they were beheading gay people for being gay. That was later focused on military support from this country for the Saudi attacks on Yemen. The list of BDS campaigns that I have supported goes on and on. I campaigned against the Bahraini regime and its ongoing brutal repression of the country’s democratic movement, and the continued imprisonment of opposition political leaders. We have met some of them over the years, and they are still inside.

I have campaigned against the Sri Lankan Administration owing to their genocidal attack on the Tamils, with their continued abuse of human rights, their use of torture, the disappearances, and the colonisations of Tamil homelands. Again, I have lost constituents who have been disappeared when they have gone out there. I campaigned for sanctions against the military junta in Myanmar to halt the attacks on the Rohingyas and to demand the freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Yes, I have supported the boycott of goods coming from the Palestinian territories occupied illegally by Israel. The campaign in my constituency was undertaken by young people when the bombings in Gaza were killing young people there. In solidarity, young people in my constituency went round the local shops asking them to check where their goods were coming from and urging them not to sell goods from the occupied territories.

There has been some reference to BDS campaigns being associated with antisemitism. That is not what I have witnessed in my constituency, but if there is evidence that individuals associated with these campaigns are antisemitic, we already have laws to deal with that, and I believe that the full force of the law against racist behaviour should therefore be deployed.

More recently, I have called for sanctions against the Chinese Government for the barbaric treatment of the Uyghurs, and also because they have imprisoned a group of my Unite trade union friends who worked with me on the British Airways campaigns. All they were demanding was adherence to democracy by the Chinese, and they have been inside for two and a half years, without any form of access to their families in many instances.

The common factor in all those campaigns is that they would not have been supported by Government policy. Therefore, they would have been rendered illegal in their demand for action by public authorities to boycott, disinvest and sanction. I agree with the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) that there needs to be clarity about who is making foreign policy and what is being referred to, because actually the Bill makes the Secretary of State ex cathedra—infallible—and puts at his whim decisions about what is right and what is wrong across the globe, when Governments in this country have consistently got it significantly wrong. They have certainly not backed such campaigns and would have outlawed them overall.

All those campaigns have focused on pressing for action from Government, local councils, pension funds, private companies and investors. It is interesting that a few hon. Members have mentioned the focus on the local government pension fund. I declare an interest as a member of the local government pension fund, and I think it is up to members of the fund to determine its investment policies. I must say, as a constituency MP, that the campaigns have reflected the diversity of my constituency. There is not a campaign that has not involved a constituent or group of constituents or has not been asked for by my constituents. It is a matter of standing in solidarity.

The advice of every human rights lawyer I have spoken to so far, and all the briefings from human rights groups and trade unionists, have all made it clear that that range of activities will be outlawed and it will be made illegal for decision makers even to talk about the strategy. That is why I oppose the Bill. I am voting against it because we have heard today, right across the House, that not a single clause has stood up to scrutiny. Therefore, I do not believe it can be amended; it is fundamentally flawed and should be defeated.

Let me make one final point, as an aside. We should change the Standing Orders or look at “Erskine May”, because it would have been useful if the Secretary of State coming here to present the Bill had actually read it or addressed the same Bill that we are addressing in this debate. All we saw today was a diatribe of the lowest politics we have seen for a long time, which divides our community unnecessarily and, to be frank, appallingly.