Social Security and Pensions

Debate between Karen Buck and Jeremy Corbyn

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Buck]

The fact of the matter is that poverty is rising —pensioner poverty is rising, child poverty is rising, and the local housing allowance and the childcare element are not keeping up with costs. That is simply a fact.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

If I may, I will just take my hon. Friend back to the point she was making about rent levels, which have gone up extraordinarily in the past six months. London now has the highest rents of any city in Europe, and many people on benefits living in the private rented sector are paying well over £100 a month out of their remaining benefit. Does she not think that there is also a case for looking at local housing allowance levels?

[Ms Buck]

This freeze in local housing allowance, which is such a critical element of people’s income, is causing such hardship for hundreds of thousands of families. That is not only undermining living standards in the middle of a cost of living crisis, but leading to utterly perverse disparities between areas due to differences in rent inflation. The 30th percentile of rents in Bristol is £100 more than in Newbury, but the amount of housing support that those who live in Bristol can receive is £12.50 less than those who live in Newbury. To quote the Institute of Fiscal Studies again:

“the current approach makes little sense. It permanently bakes in historic information about differences in rents across the country, while entirely ignoring current information about those differences.”

We can see the real-world consequences playing out on our streets as rough sleeping soars and council homelessness units are stretched to breaking point.

Tenancies (Reform) Bill

Debate between Karen Buck and Jeremy Corbyn

Friday 28th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I hope that the Bill makes good progress today, and I compliment the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) for introducing it and for being very brief. I hope that all other Members will be suitably brief, as it is perfectly possible for someone to say why they support the Bill in 10 minutes, and it is also perfectly possible for those with doubts about it to express those succinctly in less than 10 minutes, so we should be able to conclude these proceedings today. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading so that we can make some progress on behalf of the many people in this country who are frightened of their living conditions. We should bear that fact in mind today.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brent Central on securing her position in the ballot and compliment her on her work on many other issues, especially her chairing of the all-party group on refugees. We should all thank her for being an exemplary chair of that effective group.

I think that my constituency has more private renters than almost anywhere else in the country, as more than 30%—27,000 tenants—of the community lives in the private rented sector. As my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) said, there is a wider debate about the need for significantly more legislation to improve the conditions of those in the private rented sector, including over lengths of tenancies and rent levels. I recognise, however, that the Bill is strictly limited to one aspect of the security of tenure of people living in the private rented sector.

At the moment, someone taking a flat in the private rented sector will normally get it for six months. They have no control over the rent, and in my community, as indeed in many across London, rents are going up far faster than anything else—far faster than the rate of inflation and certainly far faster than wages, and way above the benefit cap level. That means that there is social cleansing in all of central London, and now even in the London suburbs, as people are forced to move away because they can no longer afford to stay in their flat.

[Ms Buck]

One reason why I was unfortunately slightly late in arriving this morning—I had hoped to hear the hon. Member for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) introducing what I believe is an important Bill—was that I was dealing with the eviction of a nurse working for the Imperial hospital trust whose landlord has just put up the rent on her property, which also had disrepair problems. The local authority has offered her a property that would involve her making a two-hour commute, so she will almost certainly no longer be able to continue working for the hospital. Not only will she have to move yet again, but the hospital is likely to lose a qualified nurse.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. Sadly, it is a familiar story that when families or individuals are evicted and forced to move a long way away, they cannot continue their job. If they are desperate to keep their children in their existing primary school, those children may be forced to undertake journeys that are totally inappropriate for someone of their age. When I get on the train—a very busy one—in the morning at Finsbury Park station to come here, it is depressing to see the number of primary school children coming to the station. They do so because they have been forced to move a long distance away and are making the journey to try to retain their place in the local school and their part in the local community.

We need stability in our London communities, and that will be best achieved through the proper regulation of the private rented sector. The Bill would give tenants protection in respect of the poor conditions in which they are too often forced to live. I have experience of tenants complaining about the conditions in their flat, such as dangerous electrical conditions, inadequate heating, poor-quality windows, badly fitting doors, leaking roofs and excessive damp. Some of the places are so disgusting that they would do credit to Rachman, quite honestly.

I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) said about environmental health officers. They are the unsung heroes of the time through the work that they try to do. However, if people complain to the environmental health service, their landlord may then end the tenancy, meaning that those people are evicted and then have great difficulty finding anywhere else to live. In some cases, they could be declared as voluntary homeless, rather than involuntary homeless.

Some tenants believe that by withholding rent, they can force their landlord to carry out repairs. That might work sometimes, if the landlord decides that the repairs should be done so that they can get the rent in the normal way, but that is not a good system because the tenant does not have the protection they think they do for retaining their tenancy. The issue must be the protection of the tenant where there are bad conditions, and a local authority’s ability, through the environmental health service, to enforce decent, safe and sustainable conditions for the tenants, and that is what the Bill is designed to achieve.

This is no small matter. According to Shelter, there were 200,000 evictions over the past year because of complaints about environmental conditions, so I think it is time that we—the House of Commons; Parliament—did something about that and provided protection. A YouGov survey commissioned by Shelter found that one in eight tenants had not asked for repairs to be carried out in their home or challenged a rent increase because of fear of eviction. If one thinks of the size of the private rented sector in Britain, that means that a very large number of people are so frightened about the security aspect of having somewhere to live that they have not dared to exercise their legitimate rights to complain. One in 50 tenants has been evicted or served notice in the past year because they complained to their local council or landlord about problems in their homes. Certain groups are more likely to suffer retaliatory eviction: 10% of black and ethnic-minority households and 5% of households in receipt of housing benefit have experienced the problem. It is particularly prevalent in London, which is a very high-demand area, but it is not exclusively a London problem.

We need to pass the Bill today and then bring it into law as a sign that Parliament has taken account of the fundamental changes that are taking place in the housing market. The number of people living in owner-occupied accommodation is falling nationally—in my constituency, it amounts to fewer than 30% of households—and unless we offer decent security and good-quality conditions to people in the private rented sector, we pay the price. We pay the price in terms of under-achievement in schools and the disruption of children’s lives throughout their educational careers, and because if families are forced endlessly to move, they often, as we heard, lose jobs and opportunities as a result.

Although limited and specific in its requirements, the Bill would mean an awful lot to an awful lot of people. It would give them the security that they need. It would say to bad landlords—not all landlords are bad but, sadly, a considerable number are—“We have noticed what you are doing, we are on your case, and if you are going to make money out of letting a property, you will have to maintain it to a good standard rather than blaming your tenants for your inadequacy in looking after it.” I hope that the House passes the Bill today and we get it through before the end of this Parliament, so that we can say that we have done something for those people. Tenants in the private rented sector, of whom there are 27,000 in my constituency, deserve the same security as those in council and owner-occupied properties. They deserve to be able to live in decent, safe, clean, dry and secure accommodation, and I hope that we can achieve that today.

Private Rented Sector

Debate between Karen Buck and Jeremy Corbyn

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am delighted that we are having this debate, and very sad that it is so short, meaning that so many colleagues can speak only for a short time.

This is an enormous issue. As I pointed out in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), a third of my constituents now live in private rented accommodation. I keep a tally at my advice bureau every week of the highest rent I have come across in comparison with the rent that would have been paid if the house had remained a council property. Last week, I came across the following example. Flat A was a council tenancy, had been fully refurbished to the decent homes standard and was £100 a week. The tenancy was secure, the family was happy—so was everybody—and the children were doing well. The flat next door was £440 a week and repairs were not done. The ex-council tenant lives in Southend or wherever else and can apparently live comfortably off the income from one flat bought under right to buy. What is going on in the rented housing sector is disgusting and obscene.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Unfortunately, I will not give way to anyone as it will prevent others from speaking. We need an understanding of the urgency of regulation of the private rented sector to ensure that those people who go into it as tenants can be assured of getting their deposit back, which they often do not, of not being charged excessive search fees by the agencies, of not being harassed out of the property, and of its being maintained. Local authorities have some powers in that regard but we need far more powers for them to intervene and ensure that conditions are decent.

The experience in my constituency and that of my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), is that there is a large amount of funny money going into London. People are buying up large quantities of property, mainly in west London, and that has a knock-on effect on the whole private sector across London, leading to excessive rent rises. My constituents cannot afford to remain living in the area where their children go to school, or where they work, and they cannot afford to stay there if members of their family are unemployed but have caring duties relating to the wider family, so there is enormous population turnover. Having short-term tenancies with very high rents corrodes community and family life, and is fundamentally very damaging for all of us in the long run.

The local authority faces huge housing demands; it has 13,000 families on the priority list, and the council cannot possibly house them in its housing stock of 30,000 homes, so it has to house them in the private sector. On some occasions, there is a rent deposit scheme, but that is quite rare. On most occasions, the council is forced to house people in the private sector, wherever it can find homes. Very few people are rehoused in the borough; the local authority’s responsibilities are discharged all across London. Some London boroughs discharge those responsibilities to places well outside London.

Unless we build more council houses, regulate the private sector and guarantee that all our children will have somewhere decent, safe and warm to live, study and grow up, we pay the price—in ill health, in under-achievement in schools, in family break-up, and in crime. It is up to us to do something about that. We should start with regulation, because there will always be some private sector involvement, but we should then move on, particularly through investment in council housing, which will help us to solve this problem.

Gaza

Debate between Karen Buck and Jeremy Corbyn

Tuesday 15th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Ms Buck]

I absolutely agree. That point goes to the heart of everything that I am hoping to say in the debate.

I mentioned a very recent relaxation of the inventory of items permitted to enter Gaza. There are reports that the Israeli authorities have recently approved the entry of 11 new food and hygiene items to Gaza, including jam, halva, soda, juice, canned fruits, razor blades and paste, yet overall Gaza imports have declined by almost 26% compared with last week alone. This week’s figure constitutes 17% of the weekly average that entered during the first five months of 2007—2,807 truckloads of items—before the Hamas takeover. A relaxation of the inventory is certainly not reading across into a relaxation in the volume of vital goods. Diesel and petrol for general use have been delivered on only five occasions in the last 18 months. Industrial fuel for Gaza’s only power plant is also restricted. Between May and June, only one quarter of the quantity required to operate it at full capacity was allowed through.

Operation Cast Lead destroyed or damaged 50,000 Palestinian homes, 280 schools and a number of hospitals and medical facilities, which I and other hon. Members in the debate saw for ourselves in early March this year. However, concrete and steel have, broadly speaking, not been allowed into the strip, and glass was allowed in only for a very short period. The result has been an almost complete lack of reconstruction since the war. That is clearly not in line with UN Security Council resolution 1860, which during Operation Cast Lead called for the

“unimpeded provision…throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including food, fuel and medical treatment”.

The Goldstone report, arising from the UN fact-finding mission, further found that the blockade deprives Palestinians in the Gaza strip of their means of sustenance, housing and water, as well as denying them freedom of movement. The report found that Israel has specifically violated

“obligations it has as Occupying Power”

spelled out in the fourth Geneva convention, such as the duty to maintain medical and hospital establishments.

On 1 March, I and other parliamentarians present saw, during my second visit to the area, that sites continue to lie in ruins or badly damaged a year after Operation Cast Lead, including the American international school, which was destroyed by Israeli missiles in January 2009. Rubble has been cleared, but apart from some innovative “earth dwellings” to help the homeless, little reconstruction has taken place. In the southern town of Khan Younis, we visited some of the 2,600 housing units commissioned by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that have stood unfinished since the start of the siege. In total, $100 million-worth of UNRWA projects are on hold. Sewage treatment and the provision of safe drinking water are among the most urgent public health necessities, yet there too, materials are on hold for that crucial project.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I apologise for missing the first part of my hon. Friend’s speech. Did she also observe during her visit the psychological damage done, particularly to young people, by the sense of incarceration and imprisonment, lost ambitions and the inability to travel or see anything that the rest of us wish to see of this planet?

[Ms Buck]

I did indeed. We hear a great deal about the public health impact of the siege, and there is clear evidence that a shortage of minerals and vitamins in the diet of children is leading to very serious bone and dental health problems and broader public health problems, but mental health is of critical importance. It is of critical political importance as well. It is hard to measure and often people do not see mental health problems as representative of a traditional humanitarian crisis, of the type that we saw in the days after the Haiti earthquake, but it is arguable that a graver problem is being stored up, not just for the people of Palestine and Gaza, but for the Israeli people and for the future benefits of the peace process. Half the population of Gaza is under 18. Some 900,000 children and young people are trapped in an open prison. What that is doing to them and to the next generations of political leaders does not bear thinking about.

That is one of the reasons why I feel so sad. It seems that, again and again, we see a behaviour that is not necessarily in Israel’s own best interests and is really counter-productive. The other example of that is the destruction, referred to in an intervention, of the private economy as a consequence of the siege. We have seen the virtual total destruction of private commercial enterprise in Gaza. That, of course, has contributed to poverty because it contributes to unemployment, but it has also—this is a perverse consequence—strengthened Hamas in important ways.

The siege has contributed to the thriving tunnel operation—the means used for smuggling on a massive scale from Egypt into Gaza. We saw for ourselves some of the estimated 1,200 or so tunnels under the border, which permit about 4,000 items to enter Gaza, from cars and satellite dishes to the fabled lion that was brought into Gaza zoo and even basic medicines and food. That further disrupts the operation of the economy. The tunnels take a significant toll in human life. Some might say, “That’s the price you pay for what is in effect a criminal operation,” but it is seen as a lifeline—a way of breaking some of the most destructive elements of the siege. Because it provides revenue in the form of taxation on the smuggling operation, it strengthens Hamas’s hold on the economy, which is surely not what critics of the Hamas regime want.

Steps to close the tunnels, which are now being executed, will deprive Hamas of revenue, but tighten the screws still further on the siege of 1.5 million people. No doubt Israel is worried—I understand why—that a lifting of the blockade would be claimed by Hamas as a victory, yet it is hard to see a viable alternative strategy, unless it is believed that sheer desperation will lead the people of Gaza to punish Hamas in favour of a more moderate strategy, which they have yet to see will read across into an effective political solution, as we have seen with the settlement building on the west bank. I suggest that anyone holding such a belief is doomed to be disappointed.

I hope that the Minister will give us his assessment of the independent inquiry into the events on the Gaza flotilla. I hope that he will report back from the EU Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Brussels and advise us on what progress the EU can make, by itself and in discussions with other Quartet members, to lift the blockade urgently. Does he believe that any easing of restrictions will not merely ease the humanitarian situation, but underpin a strategy of reconstruction and the rebuilding of the private economy? Will the British Government do all that they can to strengthen the accountability of all parties in this conflict for war crimes and transgressions of international law leading up to, during and subsequent to Operation Cast Lead?

I shall conclude now, because many other hon. Members want to contribute to this important debate. I remain convinced that, whatever the larger politics of the situation in Gaza and the middle east, we must act with the utmost urgency to resolve the crisis afflicting 1.5 million civilians in Gaza—one of the gravest in the world today. Britain’s longstanding connection with the area should be used even more effectively to achieve a resolution.