Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Marco Longhi and Christopher Pincher

Monday 24th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

T5. There are currently no statutory requirements for a planning authority to consult immediate neighbours in another planning authority, nor are there any in relation to the issuing of certificates of lawful use. As a result, green belt development by the back door is happening right now between my constituency and neighbouring South Staffordshire. Will the Secretary of State agree to meet me to discuss those complexities in more detail?

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

I am obliged to my hon. Friend. As he will know, protecting the green belt is a firm manifesto commitment. Certificates of lawful use are intended to confirm that an existing use of land is lawful from a planning perspective. If there is any doubt about the lawfulness of the existing use, local authorities should reject the application and consider other ways of ensuring that progress is made. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the issue further.

Public Landmarks Review

Debate between Marco Longhi and Christopher Pincher

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

May I begin by congratulating both my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon) on securing this debate and the other Members who have spoken on their excellent, sincere and considered contributions? I always listen with great care and attention to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and, as far as I am able, I always do what I can to achieve his objects. No one, either, would ever question my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) for being anything other than punchy and patriotic in the pursuit of his constituents’ interests.

The starting point, and the end point, for this Government is that it is our duty to protect our nation’s history, traditions and heritage. We believe that our history shapes us, that we are poorer if we seek to deny that history, and that the right approach to statues and other public landmarks, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) attested, however contentious they may be to some, is to retain and, if it is appropriate, to explain them to enable better public understanding and respect.

Many Members, today and in previous debates in the House, have spoken proudly of the tradition that we have in this country of commemorating individuals with statues to acknowledge their contributions to society, whether at local or national level. Those erected by local communities can be a lasting and shared source of local pride. Frank Whittle, the inventor of the jet engine, is commemorated in Coventry, where he is from, and in Lutterworth, Rugby and a number of other places around our country. Edith Cavell’s memorial near Trafalgar Square was erected by public subscription, as was the statue in my own town, Tamworth, to Sir Robert Peel, a man who repealed the corn laws, emancipated the Catholics, founded the police—a force for liberal good in our country, even though last year there was a flurry on social media to pull him down.

My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington spoke about his concerns at the action of the Mayor of London in setting up his commission for diversity in the public realm, with the purported intention of increasing the representation of London’s great and diverse communities in its built environment, but the real aim of which seems to be to airbrush the past and demolish public monuments to our history. Certainly, its composition is concerning—as my hon. Friend suggested, one member has already been forced to resign—and although I have written to the Mayor about its true cost and its true intentions, he has yet to reply to me, so I share my hon. Friend’s concerns.

[Marco Longhi]

Does the Minister therefore agree that the £1.1 million that the Mayor purportedly intends to spend on his commission for statues should be spent on better supporting Londoners at this very difficult time, and that the Leader of the Opposition should direct the Mayor to do exactly that?

[Christopher Pincher]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who of course has a statue to the Earl of Dudley looking over his town in the west midlands. The Leader of the Opposition should take his Mayor in hand, but I am afraid that I must borrow from Euripides, who famously said that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. If Euripides were with us today, he would probably say that those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make members and leaders of the Labour party, because the leader of the Labour party has gone mad. He has been captured. He is a POW—a prisoner of woke. I trust that he will be released so that he can direct his friend the Mayor of London to pay greater attention to Londoners, because it will be for them, ultimately, to judge whether that £1.1 million of public expenditure is spent on statue destruction, or whether the Mayor might better spend his time and the public’s money trying to put up more homes for Londoners rather than pull down their statues in public parks.

I suspect that the Mayor’s real interest is to distract us and draw our attention away from his lamentable failure to build a better future for Londoners. To borrow from Churchill—by the way, his statues are going nowhere—Sadiq Khan is a very modest Mayor with much to be modest about. Let me be quite clear: his lopsided commission has no mandate to advocate for the removal of existing statues. The Government’s policy is that historic statues should be retained and explained rather than removed, and any such proposed removal of an historic statue should rightly be, and will be, subject to planning permission or listed building consent.

Leaseholders and Cladding

Debate between Marco Longhi and Christopher Pincher

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady. The decision of the Government was to make sure that those buildings that were most in need of remediation and where the owners could not pay should be, as it were, first in the queue for Government help. We want to work with the sector, with the leaseholder community and with the adviser Michael Wade to find solutions that will ensure that unfair bills do not fall upon leaseholders who are not responsible for the troubles that they face.

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con) [V]]

I should draw your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As a landlord myself, I make it my utmost priority to ensure that my tenants are safe in their homes. What steps is my right hon. Friend taking to ensure that all landlords are taking their duties seriously and acting on their tenants’ concerns?

[Christopher Pincher]

I can tell my hon. Friend that we have written to all those responsible for buildings, including their owners, where remediation has not started to remind them of their responsibilities and our expectation that remediation will begin by the end of the year. My hon. Friend the noble Lord Greenhalgh has convened roundtable meetings with owners and with local authority leaders to address the challenges that they face locally. We have made it clear that, from December, those responsible for buildings where remediation has not started and is not forecast to start by the end of this year will be publicly named. Those are active steps that we are undertaking to remind landlords and owners of their responsibilities.

Rented Homes: End of Evictions Ban

Debate between Marco Longhi and Christopher Pincher

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will know that effective communication is often the solution to many a problem. Will he assure the House that he will do everything he can to encourage landlords and tenants, who may be experiencing financial difficulties, to come together to work out flexible solutions?

[Christopher Pincher]

I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. I have had several conversations with the NRLA, I have had conversations with the judiciary and I have also spoken to Baroness Kennedy of Generation Rent. I have made those points to them and I make them to the House.