Non-commissioned Exempt Accommodation

Debate between Lisa Nandy and Karen Buck

Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

Let me just say that I really regret this partisan tone. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that I entered local politics in 2006 having worked not just with children in care and young homeless teenagers at Centrepoint, but with child refugees, campaigning against practices such as those at Yarl’s Wood immigration detention centre that had happened under a Conservative Government but were also happening under a Labour Government. I will fight injustice wherever I find it and whoever is responsible for it, and I will stand up for people who do not have a voice. That is the great gift and privilege of this place. We are handed a megaphone through which we can shout loudly and make things change for some of the most vulnerable people in this country, and that is what we should do. I gently remind him, too, that the record under this Government has been appalling. Social housing builds have fallen off a cliff and housing-related support has been stripped away. Talk to any of the organisations, including Centrepoint, which I was proud to work for, and they will tell you that that situation is causing enormous harm not just to the people affected, but to many of the people who live in those communities, and it has to change.

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

I do not mind being partisan on this issue. Although the Labour Government, between 1997 and 2010, should have built more social housing, the absolute brutal fact of the matter is that the number of social lettings available for tenants has fallen from just under 400,000 to 300,000 in the past decade, and that is on this Government’s watch and they must take responsibility for it.

[Lisa Nandy]

I defer to my hon. Friend on that. She has been a superb champion for housing reform in this country over many, many years, including under the last Labour Government, and particularly in the past decade when we have seen exactly what she describes unfold. She has done more to reform and tighten up the law in this area through the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018 than the Government have done in the past 12 years, so, absolutely, I defer to her on that.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee

Debate between Lisa Nandy and Karen Buck

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and say to him that I absolutely accept that lessons have to be learned from the experience in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. There are a range of views in this House about the decisions taken over two decades by successive Governments on different sides of the Atlantic. All of us in this House should approach that inquiry with a level of humility and introspection. That does not mean we cannot learn the lessons right now from what has happened over the past 18 months, and learn them quickly.

In 20 years, not a single attack has been launched against us from Afghanistan. Those gains must be protected. We need to learn lessons and chart a course for the future. We deserve to know why for years successive Conservative Governments have dragged their heels over the resettlement of Afghan interpreters. One of my hon. Friends still has an interpreter who is in hiding and is being hunted door-to-door by the Taliban. We deserve to know why, when the Government had 18 months to plan, they were so completely unprepared that troops had to be sent into danger to pull people through crowds and on to planes.

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

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Many of us on the Opposition Benches and across the House will have constituents who have family members in Afghanistan—for example, I have a mother whose husband and two of her children are in Kabul, left behind in the chaos. While I pay tribute to the bravery of people who were working on the frontline, does my hon. Friend share my concern that we have heard so little from the Government over these weeks? Those desperate families are simply not getting the information or advice that we all need.

[Lisa Nandy]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her work on behalf of her constituents and their family members in Afghanistan. Members across the House have been working tirelessly to raise cases with the Government only to be told suddenly—despite the Prime Minister’s promise that we would all receive answers by last Monday—that we should not send emails and that not a single one would receive a response. It is disgraceful.

We deserve to know why, when the Foreign Office’s own assessment warned on 22 July that the Taliban were advancing rapidly, no action was taken, and why the Foreign Secretary appeared not to be aware of the report when it was raised with him by the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat). We deserve to know why the Foreign Office crisis centre was set up after Kabul had fallen, why crucial papers identifying local employees were left abandoned on an embassy floor and why thousands of emails from Members of this House addressing urgent cases are sitting unopened and unread in inboxes.

Ministers still come to the Dispatch Box unable to answer basic questions such as how many British nationals have been left behind, Departments are still unable to pick up the phone to each other to resolve basic issues, and the Prime Minister pledges that all cases will receive a response within hours but, weeks later, it has not been done. It is disgraceful. Lives are at risk.