Fire Safety Bill

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Shabana Mahmood

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 22nd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab) [V]]

There is a simple question for the House to consider today: should leaseholders be forced to pay for essential remediation works that they are compelled to undertake to their properties that have come about through no fault of their own? The only possible answer is no.

We know that the cladding calamity that has befallen so many of our constituents did not come about because leaseholders have failed in any way. All the costs that are attributable to the cladding scandal are down to failures by developers and successive Governments, who have presided over shocking, scandalous regulatory failure, which has pushed thousands of wholly innocent people to the brink of financial ruin.

We all know that the costs of the regulatory failure that has created this crisis are in the many billions of pounds, but they must not fall on the ordinary people who are not responsible for this mess. There are other ways, I believe, that the Government can raise the necessary money. They should introduce a levy on developers and the construction industry to fund the cost of remediation —both cladding removal and remediating the many other fire risks that many of us in the House have been raising for quite some time.

The Government should also strengthen procurement regulations so that local authorities and metro Mayors can prevent developers and construction companies that are failing to live up to their moral obligations and put right the fire hazards that they are responsible for creating from bidding for any further publicly funded development contracts. In that way, we can reward those who are doing the right thing and putting right the cladding issues in the buildings that they were responsible for putting up and, hopefully, force a rethink on the part of those who are failing to live up to their responsibilities by preventing them from bidding for further taxpayer-funded contracts.

But what is clear is that the Government must not pin the spiralling costs of this crisis on the ordinary people who are currently facing financial ruination. I urge all Members to keep the amendment tabled by the Bishop of Saint Albans in the Bill, because to do anything else is a dereliction of our duty. This House must do the right thing by leaseholders this evening.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The first thing to say is that I agree with many of the comments that have been made. It simply cannot be right that leaseholders are faced with bills of tens of thousands of pounds. Nevertheless, I cannot support the amendment because I do not think it is effective, for a number of reasons. First, it seems to put somebody—an indeterminate person—on the hook for fire safety remediation forever. As I read it, it is not limited to historical defects.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Shabana Mahmood

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

We have had a good debate—today and over the last few sitting days. It is a pleasure to close our Budget deliberations on behalf of the Opposition. I would like to start by congratulating the hon. Members for Kensington (Victoria Borwick), for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mhairi Black), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Chris Davies), for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) and for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on making their maiden speeches today. I am sure all Members will join me in wishing them well as they begin their journey of standing up for their constituents in this place.

Last week, the Chancellor delivered his first Budget of this Parliament. Although his rhetoric might have delivered him positive headlines on Thursday morning, the reality is that his Budget will deliver misery and hardship for ordinary working people because it leaves them worse off, penalised for doing the right thing in working and punished for circumstances outside their control. Not only does this Budget penalise people in low-paid work; it fails the test of building a more productive economy, because the Chancellor has either flunked or ducked the big long-term decisions that need to be made on infrastructure.

What ordinary working people in our country needed was a Budget that would make their lives easier, make work pay and help people not just on to the first rung of the work ladder but on to the next one—into better jobs with better prospects and better pay. Instead, the Chancellor focused his energies on his own bid for a better job, better prospects and better pay. Rather than help the working poor to move up, he focused on his own move next door.

The truth that Government Members have to confront is that 3 million working families will bear the brunt of the Chancellor’s £4.5 billion-worth of cuts to tax credits. These cuts will hit working people on middle and lower incomes, completely undermining the Tory argument that this is a Budget for working people. They penalised the very people in work who are trying to do the right thing and who do not earn enough to make ends meet. As I said only a week ago, it is wrong and unfair to remove tax credits from working people without first creating the conditions that would allow it to be done in a way that does not pull the rug from under people on low incomes—by hitting them with what is effectively a hefty work penalty. We all want to see a higher-wage economy, in which people are less reliant on tax credits to make ends meet, but we need to embed higher wages in the economy before we consider going ahead with any changes to tax credits.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Does the hon. Lady agree with her leader when she said that she should accept the changes to welfare and tax credits contained within this Budget?

[Shabana Mahmood]

That was hardly worth the wait. I have to say that the hon. Gentleman should have been paying attention to what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) actually said. She came out very strongly against the whole package of working tax credit changes. If he had listened to my remarks, rather than try to intervene with a Whip’s question, he would have realised that that is exactly what I am doing myself.

The Government will say that they have moved on pay. Again, however, there is a big difference between rhetoric and reality. The Government’s cuts to tax credits overwhelmingly outweigh their measures on pay. I welcome the proposed rises in the national minimum wage, which is still what it is. [Interruption.] I am pleased to see that the Chancellor has joined us. He has failed to explain why raising the minimum wage was so wrong only a few short weeks ago during the general election campaign, in view of our manifesto commitment, or how he came to agree with us so soon after the general election. Nevertheless, imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery. We are pleased to observe that the party that forced the last all-night sitting in the House in an attempt to block the introduction of the national minimum wage by the last Labour Government now agrees with us not only that it is important and necessary, but that it should go up. However, we should be clear about the fact that it is not a living wage.

There has always been a difference between the minimum wage and the living wage. Re-badging the new national minimum wage as a living wage will not help the Chancellor, because ordinary working people can see a political con for what it is. The Living Wage Foundation was quick off the mark on Budget day in making that very point. The inconvenient fact for the Chancellor is that the living wage—the real living wage—is calculated on the assumption of a full take-up of tax credits, the very tax credits that the Chancellor has just cut. To make up for the loss of those tax credits, a real living wage would have to be considerably higher than what the Chancellor is now promising working people in Britain.

The new national minimum wage rate of £7.20, when it is introduced next year, will be lower than the current living wage of £7.85. In effect, the Chancellor, who says that he stands with working people, will offer working people in 2016 the 2011 living wage, and we will not let him pretend otherwise. In the end, the simple truth is that the wage increases that are on their way are not enough to make up for the loss of tax credits.

Twenty-four hours after the Chancellor delivered his Budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies dismissed his claim that increasing the minimum wage would compensate working people. The IFS said:

“the key fact is that the increase in the minimum wage simply cannot provide full compensation for the majority of losses that will be experienced by tax credit recipients. That is just arithmetically impossible.”

The IFS also said that the biggest change, which sounded very technical, was the reduction in the work allowance. It explained:

“The work allowance is the amount that a claimant can earn before benefit starts to be withdrawn. Significant allowances were an integral part of the design of UC”

—universal credit—

“intended to give claimants an incentive to move into work. This reform will cost about 3 million families an average of £1,000 a year each. It will reduce the incentive for the first earner in a family to enter work.”

A regressive Budget with a work penalty of £1,000 a year: that is what the Government have delivered to ordinary working people in our country—and while they hit those ordinary working people, they also fail to address a central economic challenge—productivity. That is the puzzle that it is crucial for us to crack and solve, because getting it right is vital if we are to achieve higher living standards, sustained GDP growth, and effective deficit reduction, but this Budget failed the productivity test.

Tax Credits (Working Families)

Debate between Kevin Hollinrake and Shabana Mahmood

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Shabana Mahmood]

I want to make some progress, but I will give way a little later.

A study of tax credits by the Resolution Foundation in 2012 found that the introduction of working families tax credit, which was the predecessor to working tax credit, provided a

“small but direct boost to employment”,

particularly for single parents. The economics editor of the Financial Times recently said:

“Britain’s financial support for low income working families is a key reason why we now have a high employment rate and…the Prime Minister must take care not to put at risk a 20 year success story”.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

The hon. Lady cites the Resolution Foundation report. Does she agree with the same foundation’s report which says tax credits have

“a predictably negative impact on work incentives”?

[Shabana Mahmood]

No, I do not agree, and there is a difference between eliminating support from working people in the Budget tomorrow and charting a course that would look more like long-term reform of working tax credits to deal with some of the issues relating to clustering at 16 hours, which Members have spoken about previously. However, that should not be done before tackling the underlying factors that are driving people into low-paid employment and keeping them stuck in that employment.