Summer Adjournment

Jim Fitzpatrick Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess), who chairs the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group, of which I am the secretary. I am pleased that he managed to mention us in his contribution. I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) to her place on the Opposition Front Bench; it is good to see her there this afternoon. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak briefly in this debate, and I am confident that, like the hon. Member for Southend West, I will be able to finish within the seven-minute limit prescribed by Madam Deputy Speaker earlier. I want to discuss four issues: the Island Health Trust scandal in my constituency; leasehold reform; fire service duties, including approved document B; and the accountability of housing associations and registered social landlords.

Island Health Trust is the landlord for a health centre in my constituency. The trust’s main sources of income are the rent paid by the NHS and service charges paid by the doctors. From that, the Island Health Trust has accumulated a surplus of some £1.3 million. Despite those reserves, the landlord is charging the practice an unaffordable service charge, leading it to vacate the first floor of the health centre and a loss of services. The trust was originally managed by local trustees, and any surplus was used to fund local health initiatives through a modest grants programme. That changed on 1 April 2016 when the chair, Suzanne Goodband, appointed a new board of people with no local connection. Serious allegations have been made relating to the governance and business management of the trust, including trustees’ personal financial advantage. In 2015-16, the chair was paid £179,176 for consultancy services in a charitable trust with a turnover of just £270,000. Many believe that the health centre, the land upon which it stands and the £1.3 million reserves are public assets, that the trust should be run by local trustees, and that the £1.3 million should be invested to support patients and health services for local people. I have written to Health Ministers and to the Charity Commission asking for urgent meetings to discuss intervention to prevent asset stripping and personal profit by individuals who seem to be more interested in their own wellbeing than that of the NHS and local patients.

The Government have been sending some positive signals on leasehold reform. The housing White Paper and the Conservative party manifesto both refer to greater fairness and transparency for leaseholders. In reaction, several housing developers have voluntarily addressed the rip-off known as the doubling of ground rents and, to their credit, have changed their policies, but regulation is still urgently needed in this area. Other areas that need attention include a fairer land valuation tribunal system, rights for leaseholders against exorbitant service charges, events fees, refurbishment costs and so on, protection for pensioners in retirement homes, and protection against unfair forfeiture proceedings for vulnerable leaseholders. Those and many other matters rightly deserve Government action and the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform, which I co-chair with the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and which now has more than 90 members, will welcome some progress. Indeed, the Prime Minister’s written statement this morning on “Machinery of Government Changes” included moving commonhold law from Ministry of Justice to the Department for Communities and Local Government, which seems a sensible step.

I commend the hon. Member for Worthing West on EDM 207 regarding commonhold reform, and I encourage hon. and right hon. Members from across the House to support it. I also welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who is the new vice-chair of the APPG. He has submitted a number of searching parliamentary questions on the topic, and his keen interest, along with that of so many other colleagues, is welcome.

Questions have arisen about the accountability of housing associations and registered social landlords. Accountability and transparency in this growing sector are overdue for examination. The Government’s drive towards mergers and takeovers of smaller housing associations is taking social landlords further from their tenants and residents. While there are some good example of RSLs, especially in my constituency, others are not so good, and I hope to secure a debate with other colleagues after the recess to discuss that with Ministers. Perhaps the Backbench Business Committee will be interested in supporting it. As an example of unwelcome new initiatives, I received an email this morning from a constituent saying that one RSL is now offering loans to residents at 99.9% APR. I am unsure whether that is an appropriate thing for RSLs to do and will explore the matter further outside the Chamber, but I would have hoped that social landlords would be more interested in promoting the credit union movement and helping to set up more local credit unions than becoming loan agents.

The review of the building regulations fire guidance contained in approved document B is well overdue, and the hon. Member for Southend West has been campaigning on that with the all-party parliamentary fire safety and rescue group for some time. I will not bore the House with the history of these matters, which is well documented, but ministerial statements from 2011 promised that a review would be complete by 2017. The Lakanal coroner recommended that that happen, and there have also been more recent recommendations. The review will be required whatever the findings of the public inquiry, so the sooner it can be started, the better.

Finally, I repeat my view that the fire service should be tasked with a statutory duty to deal with floods. They play a key role in every flood that happens, and they should not only have their work recognised, but get resources from the Government to do the job properly.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you, other colleagues, the staff of the House and those who look after us a very decent break over the recess. We all know that it is not a holiday, but we are entitled to a break.