Draft Representation of the People (Overseas Electors etc.) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023 Draft Representation of the People (Overseas Electors etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Martyn Day Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 General Committees

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Mundell. I cannot help but contrast the different situations in these islands. Through voter ID, we are actually making it harder for domestic voters to vote, while we are expanding the ability of millions of others abroad to vote. I have no direct opposition to making it easier for people to vote—I think it should be made easier for them all to vote—but my concern about this measure relates to the risk of overseas influence and foreign money, particularly the potential for unincorporated associations to be used by registered electors overseas and thereby disproportionately skew politics in this country. On that basis, I will be happy to support the Opposition in a vote.

Antisemitic Attacks

Martyn Day Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

Yes, I do. I am grateful for the work of the Metropolitan police, Essex Police and other police forces across the country in recent days and the work they will be doing right now providing reassurance to Jewish communities, but my hon. Friend is right that the correct response to an incident like this is not merely engagement; the Jewish community, like all of us in society, wants to see action against the perpetrators of those offences. That is now happening: individuals have been arrested and those crimes are being investigated.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

I think we can all agree with the Centre for Holocaust Education on the importance of education in tackling antisemitism. However, given that a recent survey found that only 37% of young people know what the term “antisemitism” means, what more can the right hon. Gentleman do to ensure adequate funding is made available for education programmes so that future generations are aware of the history and causes of antisemitism?

[Robert Jenrick]

We have only to look on social media today to see that a very large number of our fellow citizens do not understand what antisemitism is, or else they would not be liking and sharing some of the memes and graphics, which are antisemitic and deeply offensive and are helping to fan the flames of the kinds of incidents we have seen in recent days. The Government are taking action in a number of respects, through the Holocaust Educational Trust, which the hon. Gentleman rightly praises, and the Antisemitism Policy Trust, which is doing work online, and through other works with the Holocaust education centre which we hope will be built near the Palace of Westminster and holocaust museums across the country, such as the Beth Shalom museum in north Nottinghamshire, so that we can raise awareness of these issues and help to debunk some of the myths.

CCRC Decision on 44 Post Office Prosecutions

Martyn Day Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for that really important point. It is important to remember what a vital service the post office is for all of us, and we must make sure that while we are looking backwards at the situation with sub-postmasters, we do not threaten the future viability of the network. On banking, we are working with the Post Office as it introduces greater services for various banks to expand the branches and the types of banks they can deal with in-house.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

I would urge the 73 Scottish cases whose convictions may be unsafe as a result of this injustice, which was overseen by consecutive Labour, Tory and Lib Dem Ministers, to contact the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission as a matter of urgency. Will the Minister, with his predecessors, write a cross-party letter to the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance apologising for the parts they have played in this saga?

[Paul Scully]

I would echo the hon. Gentleman’s call for people to make sure they are in touch if they believe their convictions are not safe, because the Post Office is determined to make sure, as it looks back and reviews those 900 prosecutions, that it will be in contact—it is committed to being in contact itself—with anybody it feels is part of the Horizon process.

Horizon: Sub-Postmaster Convictions

Martyn Day Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

Sub-postmasters who have been wronged, including in Romsey, need to ensure that their voices can be heard quickly, with no cost. They need to be sure that this can never happen again, and get the acknowledgement that there have been severe mistakes that have caused misery for so many.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

This scandal represents a massive failure of accountability and oversight, not just by Post Office Ltd, but by the Government. Will the Minister apologise to those whose lives have been ruined? What assurances can he provide that the losses arising from the Horizon case will not affect postmasters’ pay and unfairly penalise even more postmasters and sub-postmasters?

[Paul Scully]

There have been numerous attempts over the years to try to resolve the dispute. The fact is that the Post Office has independent operational control. However, facts have come to light through the litigation, revealing that the advice that the Government and the shareholders received over that period was flawed. That is why the Government will be monitoring closely the progress of the Post Office in delivering the programme of commitments following the settlement, including through the review. We have also reviewed the mechanisms that we have in place to maintain oversight of the Post Office, by increasing the frequency of shareholder meetings, establishing a Post Office policy team within the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and publishing a framework document to govern the relationship between BEIS, UK Government Investments and the Post Office.

Rough Sleeping

Martyn Day Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be delighted to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency. At the heart of our new strategy is bringing together a co-ordinated approach in central Government. Dame Louise Casey and I will work to ensure that all of us—the Department of Health, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office—work together as a team to deliver our commitment. We already see that work in local communities by some brilliant charities. For example, St Mungo’s takes mobile hubs to rough sleeping hotspots to bring all the services together. That is the surest way to tackle the challenge.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I agree that it is a moral scandal that we have rough sleeping in this day and age, and I wish him every success with his strategy to tackle rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament.

I have a few points to make. First, in the four years to 2019, the Scottish Government delivered five times more social rented properties per head of population than the Westminster Government. Progress out of poverty is thereby made more likely. Poverty rates are lower in Scotland owing to the existence of affordable housing. Earlier this month, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported that

“for someone with the same life circumstances such as qualifications, wage and family type, progress out of poverty is more likely if they live in Scotland or Northern Ireland than the rest of the UK.”

The JRF also attributes lower poverty rates in Scotland than in England and Wales to

“lower rents in the social housing sector as well as Scotland having a higher proportion of social rented properties”.

I have a couple of questions. Will the Government’s review of their homelessness strategy look at what is being done in other countries, including Scotland? Will they follow the Scottish Government’s lead in building genuinely affordable housing?

[Robert Jenrick]

I am grateful the hon. Gentleman for those comments. We will certainly and happily look at the experience in Scotland and other parts of the Union, as we do at international examples. One of the purposes of bringing in someone as respected as Dame Louise Casey, who not only has a great deal of experience within the UK but is an internationally respected figure, is to learn from other parts of the world. I believe we are already doing that. Our Housing First pilot is learning from what happens in Finland and the United States and we have seen tremendous progress—success rates up to 90% in some areas. First is the simple aim of getting people into accommodation; then there is provision of sophisticated, long-term, wrap-around support. We are keen to learn from best practice all over the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martyn Day Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Mrs Heather Wheeler)]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. We have asked the Law Commission to look at making it easier, quicker and more cost-effective for people to buy their freehold or extend their lease. It is also examining the options on reducing the premium that leaseholders must pay to do that. We look forward to its recommendations in the early part of next year.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

T6. A damning report from the Select Committee on Housing, Communities and Local Government has confirmed that the £200 million set aside to fund the removal of aluminium composite material cladding from private residential buildings will not be sufficient. Will the Secretary of State commit to funding work to ensure that all this potentially life-saving work can be carried out everywhere it is needed?

[James Brokenshire]

We believe that the £200 million, which was an exceptional sum, based on the extreme risk that this ACM cladding has, is sufficient to provide the necessary support to make the necessary remediation, the reason being that commitments are already in place from a number of private sector developers and builders, as well as other insurers, to see that that work is undertaken. It is on that basis that that sum has been ring-fenced.

House Building Targets

Martyn Day Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) for introducing this debate. She covered a range of issues and challenges, including mental health, the environment and local infrastructure.

We also heard from the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), who covered the issue of land banking. The hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) covered housing need and a change to a methodology based on ONS figures. The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) covered a range of issues, including the cost of housing and average wages, and a whole range of ideas for how we can build more houses. Her key message was “Let’s get building”, with which I wholeheartedly agree. The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) also raised issues with the current methodology and the need to provide more housing. I think we can all agree, no matter where we are in the country, that we need more houses.

Ensuring that everyone has a safe, warm and affordable home is central to a fairer and more prosperous society. People want to live in the communities to which they are affiliated or that offer employment, which often means that they might not want to live in a nearby town a few miles down the road.

Housing and planning are both devolved to Scotland. Sometimes in these debates, I feel like an international observer, but today so much is in common that there is a lot there and perhaps a few things that we can all learn from one another. In Scotland, the SNP is on track to deliver an ambitious target of 50,000 affordable homes in the lifetime of the current Scottish Parliament—which will expire in 2021—backed by a £3.3 billion investment. It is incredible to remember that when the SNP came to power in Scotland, the previous Administration had built just six council houses across the entire country.

By contrast, under the SNP, 20,255 new build homes had been completed across all sectors in the year ending in December 2018, which is an increase of 15%, or 2,669 homes, on the previous year. In the year to the end of March 2019—these figures only came out today, so I had to rewrite my script rapidly this morning at short notice—there were 1,413 council house completions. The total number of social sector completions, including housing associations, was 5,582, which is a 22% increase on the previous year. We need to build far more, but we are going in the right direction and a lot of lessons can be learned from that. The latest statistics show that the Scottish Government have now delivered almost 90,000 affordable homes since 2007. In the year to the end of March 2019, affordable housing supply completions totalled 9,535, up 12%, with 11,130 affordable housing approvals over the same period. We are going the right way.

The Scottish Government are providing more than £756 million for affordable housing this year, and that will increase by £70 million next year. Councils have been given long-term planning assumptions to March 2021. The Scottish Government will continue to lead the way on affordable housing supply in Scotland. In the four years to 2018, 50% more affordable housing units per head of population have been delivered than in England. That is something that we can be proud of, although we still need to build far more houses.

The Scottish Government are taking a range of other actions to bring empty properties back into use. This is an important area. I was shocked to read about the number of long-term empty homes in England, which is now estimated to be more than 216,000. Estimates put the figure in Scotland at about 37,000, but those figures are from different sources so I cannot compare them directly. The SNP supports the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership and a network of dedicated empty homes officers across Scotland. Since 2010, the partnership has been instrumental in bringing more than 2,800 empty homes back into use. There is obviously far more we can do and we are committed to that programme, so we will double support for the partnership from £212,500 in 2018 to more than £400,000 in 2021. We can all learn a lot from one another’s practice in housing.

Unhealthy Housing: Cost to the NHS

Martyn Day Excerpts

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, in what has been an interesting, consensual and informative debate that I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for having secured. All too often, we describe debates as important when they are not, but this debate is genuinely important, and it is good to see consensus about that across the Chamber. I thank the hon. Gentleman not just for his thorough opening speech, but for his work in chairing the all-party parliamentary group for healthy homes and buildings, and for the excellent report that it recently produced.

There is no doubt that housing is the foundation that connects people to their communities, or that healthy homes help empower full participation in community life. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, healthy homes lead to better educational attainment, higher workplace productivity, reduced emissions, lower energy bills and a lower carbon footprint—objectives that we would all unite in supporting. Poor housing, on the other hand, detrimentally contributes to physical and mental health inequalities through the effects of housing costs, housing quality, fuel poverty and the role of housing in community life, and many Members have provided examples and case studies that have helped to illustrate that point. Many people do not live in a home that is warm, dry and affordable, and those on the lowest incomes are most disproportionately affected. The hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) made some good points about housing and fuel poverty, an issue that affects my constituency, and one that we should be doing a lot more to tackle in this modern age.

Income, wealth and the welfare system are undoubtedly at the heart of the relationship between housing and health inequalities. Poverty-related inequalities represent thousands of premature deaths every year. In Scotland, both housing and health are devolved. I have some Scottish figures that give a wee bit of flavour; they are pretty similar to those we have heard from Members from elsewhere in the UK. Figures from NHS Scotland show that men in the most deprived areas spend nearly 25 fewer years in good health than those in the least deprived areas; for women, the figure is 22 years. Housing clearly has the potential to reduce or reinforce those inequalities. In Scotland, all homes are required to meet the tolerable standard of habitability. It is estimated that 1% of all homes fell below that standard in 2017—that is down from 4% in 2012, so we are going the right way. Perhaps more worrying is that, as Members have mentioned, the private sector is lagging behind; the public sector is leading the way. Private homes, which are a different matter, are in between.

There is a lot of work that we need to do in all areas of housing tenure, and there are several linked factors in that, such as the number of properties available in an area. The quality of the homes is also a major factor—as is affordability, perhaps more importantly. In Scotland, the Scottish National party has delivered more than 76,500 affordable homes since 2007, and is investing more than £3 billion to deliver at least another 50,000 affordable homes during the current parliamentary Session. The Scottish Government continue to support the empty homes partnership, which has brought 3,200 empty homes back into use since 2010. There are empty homes all around our country that could be put to use in housing people. The Scottish Government have introduced the Fuel Poverty (Target, Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Bill, which sets a target of no more than 5% of Scottish households being in fuel poverty by 2040. In my opinion, 5% is still too many, but if we can achieve that, it will be a step in the right direction.

Between 2007 and 2017, the average price of domestic fuel rose from £856 to £1,249 per annum—a rise of approximately 46%. That is a frightening figure over a decade; people’s wages certainly have not kept pace with that rise. Fuel poverty causes misery, ill health and debt, and living in a cold, damp environment can exacerbate health problems such as asthma and heart conditions, as a number of Members have mentioned. It is unacceptable in this modern age that any household should have to choose between heating and eating, yet people who are struggling to pay their bills often ration their use of energy, perhaps heating just one room, having to choose between cooking or heating their home, or limiting the use of washing machines and heating water for baths or showers, all of which can have an impact on people’s health and wellbeing. There is a correlation between fuel poverty and increased winter mortality, or excess winter deaths. Increased winter mortality is associated with low indoor temperatures, and the excess winter mortality figure for 2017-18 in Scotland was 4,800, a figure not significantly different from the English figures mentioned earlier.

To become a fairer and more just society, it is crucial that we end the scourge of fuel poverty. As technology moves forward, we should do a lot more on the “Big Mother” scenario, rather than the Big Brother scenario. Smart meters and other technology are growing all the time. It would not be impossible to have feedback from people’s homes on the temperature in their houses. Action could then be taken, particularly in areas where we know there are elderly people, or people with social conditions, to intervene and check why they are not heating their home properly. Perhaps we should even think about the health sector being able to prescribe heat. It may save money in the long run.

The worst housing position for anyone to find themselves in is homelessness. The health of people experiencing homelessness is significantly worse than that of the general population. The Library briefing provided for the debate highlighted a Local Government Association report that identified that 41% of homeless people have a long-term physical health problem, and 45% have a diagnosed mental health problem, compared with respective figures of 28% and 25% in the general population. That certainly fits with my experience locally; the people whom various homeless charities have been dealing with increasingly have mental health issues, as well as being homeless.

The last estimate of the healthcare cost associated with the homeless population was £86 million a year in 2010; the figure will undoubtedly be higher now. That shows that we can save money for the public purse by tackling homelessness. The Scottish Government are committed to eradicating rough sleeping in Scotland. They have allocated £21 million to rapid rehousing in the past year. The money came from their “ending homelessness together” fund. As a result of the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003, local authorities in Scotland have a duty to find permanent accommodation for all applicants who are unintentionally homeless. Last year, The Guardian reported that the National Audit Office had stated that homelessness is

“likely to have been driven by welfare reforms”,

which brings us back to poverty, the issue at the heart of so much of the homelessness and housing issue.

It is not all bad news, though. A report authored by Crisis and PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that allocating appropriate housing to homeless people improved their wellbeing, and increased economic output as a result of them entering employment. The same report stated that the Exchequer is projected to save a staggering £6,361 million as people are moved out of homelessness, through the reduced use of public services, ranging across everything from the NHS to criminal justice. We cannot afford to skimp on this. Austerity does not get us there. We need to spend money to save an absolute fortune by solving the problems.

Time is moving on, and there are so many aspects of the debate that I would have loved to have gone into. The debate is so wide-ranging, and the hon. Member for Strangford has picked a genuinely fascinating issue. I will touch briefly on overcrowding, which is at the opposite end of the homelessness spectrum. It has serious links to mental health, particularly for children and young people. Living in cramped conditions puts enormous pressure on family relationships. I have seen case studies in my constituency of marital break-ups and people forced to live with their extended family for an undue period. It causes depression, stress and anxiety. We need to tackle not only the extreme ends of the issue, but overcrowding. Fixing the housing problem is key to ensuring that everyone has their fundamental needs met and reducing pressure on our NHS. It can also bring in a huge amount of money for the public purse that we could put to better use.

Oral Answers to Questions

Martyn Day Excerpts

Monday 10th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jake Berry]

Our LEP review is about putting our LEPs on a permanent footing as we leave the European Union. Abolishing overlaps is about creating accountability for all LEPs and is part of a wider suite of reforms ensuring that LEP boards reflect the diverse communities they represent by asking them to have at least 50% of their boards made up of local businesswomen.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

T9. The UN rapporteur on racism looked at the impact of Brexit, and highlighted “the growth in the acceptability of explicit racial, ethnic and religious intolerance.” What are the Government doing to tackle that, and does the Secretary of State agree that recent comments from the Prime Minister have been deeply unhelpful in this regard?

[James Brokenshire]

It is right that we challenge and tackle religious intolerance, whatever form it takes. I look forward to continuing to work with the Scottish Government and others to underline the positive approach that we take to integration, and ensuring that if there is intolerance and bigotry, it is challenged and shown to be completely unacceptable.

Shale Gas Development

Martyn Day Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

As always, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I have to declare a non-financial interest: I am involved with local groups in my area.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies) on securing this timely, topical and extremely controversial debate. He always treats everything with a great sense of humour and great knowledge. He addressed the same problems that everybody brought up. Most Members agree that there is a huge problem, and recognised the confusion surrounding such developments. I particularly liked the point about local accidental activists becoming involved and becoming the voice for their communities. That is an essential point that we should all listen to.

I do not need to tell anyone that we in Scotland have some of the world’s greatest renewable resources. It is estimated that Scotland has one quarter of the entire offshore wind energy potential of the whole of Europe, and there are the same incredible figures for tidal energy. Those elements, when harnessed, can be seen as a blessing. That gives Members an understanding of why there is overwhelming support for renewables in Scotland, and why 99% of respondents to the Scottish Government’s consultation were diametrically opposed to fracking. That consultation received more than 60,000 responses in just four months. In my constituency and in the neighbouring constituency, Linlithgow and East Falkirk, there has been a long-standing and vigorous opposition to fracking.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning both our constituencies, which have a very long history with the shale industry, going back to the 1850s, with many communities built on the areas where there are deposits. There is clearly no support for fracking in our areas. Would it not be advisable for the UK Government to follow the lead of the Scottish Government and place a moratorium on all fracking?

[John Mc Nally]

I totally agree. My hon. Friend and I have attended various meetings and screenings about the experiences of communities across the world caused by fracking. In February this year, the Dutch Government announced the end of gas exploration in the Netherlands. Companies have been given four years to end the extraction process. That decision followed a five-year moratorium on further development after Government-funded studies, importantly, revealed that drilling for gas in the natural gas fields had led to double the number of earthquakes.