Oral Answers to Questions

Naz Shah Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I would be delighted to accept my hon. Friend’s invitation to Accrington. From what I have seen in her relatively short period in this House, she is exactly the strong voice that her constituents deserve. We have shown consistently through our initiatives, such as the towns fund, which we have been discussing, and the high streets fund, our commitment to levelling up all parts of the country, and we are doing that once again with our £900 million getting building fund, £34 million of which will benefit her constituents in Lancashire. I look forward to announcing, with her local enterprise partnership, those projects by the end of the month.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab) [V]]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the provision of appropriate community spaces and opportunities in town centres can be crucial to social cohesion? During decades of austerity, our communities have lost so much of their town centres. Will the Secretary of State tell me what steps are being taken to ensure that any town centre regeneration plan is drawn up with the help of the community members so that communities are prioritised and benefited, including through jobs and social spaces?

[Robert Jenrick]

I agree that we need to invest in our town centres and our high streets. The Government had begun that work even before the pandemic created so much additional economic disruption. The towns fund and the high streets fund are important initiatives that will help local communities to set a course for the future, with investment in infrastructure, in town centre regeneration, in skills, and in culture, and local people are at the heart of each and every one of those town deals or high street bids.

Oral Answers to Questions

Naz Shah Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Clarke]

The answer to that question is unequivocally no, they should not. As I set out in my previous answer, we are working closely with the Treasury on a comprehensive settlement for the sector, which we will bring forward in due course.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

The recent reports on disparity in the risk and outcomes of covid-19, published by Public Health England, confirmed that black and minority ethnic communities have been disproportionately affected by covid-19. What plans does the Minister have to ensure that areas that have been badly hit by covid-19, particularly those with large black and minority ethnic populations, receive the support necessary to recover from the social and economic effects of the outbreak?

[Mr Clarke]

The hon. Lady’s question is a good and important one. Obviously, that is something that the Government have published research on, and it is obviously a fast-evolving situation. We continue to work closely with councils that cover areas of high density of BAME population, including, for example, Bradford. We want to understand those pressures and as we do, then we will adjust our response accordingly.

Gujarati Community in the UK

Naz Shah Excerpts

Wednesday 30th October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas), it is unusual for me to agree with the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), but I thank him for securing this timely debate.

I have a small, minority Gujarati community in my constituency, predominantly of Muslim heritage. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of the Gujarati community to my constituency, and to associate myself with the comments about the community’s contribution, regardless of faith, to Great Britain. As the hon. Gentleman said, there are lots of inspirational stories about the community from across the country, and it is no different in Bradford West. The community makes up almost half the Indian community by size; it is diverse in religious belief, but united by language, heritage and history.

Many of the Gujarati community came to the UK as migrants from not just India but east Africa. Some were tragically forced out of countries such as Uganda by the likes of Idi Amin. Many overcame struggles and challenges on their journey to the UK, as well as the racism that was often faced by first-generation Gujaratis on their arrival, to become leaders in our community. Many hon. Members have mentioned the huge economic contribution that the community makes. Its long history in trading was transformed into entrepreneurial efforts, as we have heard. There was a revolution in the way that Gujaratis turned corner shops into empires, and built on that success to become business leaders in the UK.

Second and third-generation Gujaratis treat our ill in hospitals, teach our young people in schools and work at the highest levels of the public and private sectors, which shows just how important a contribution the community makes to the UK. Whether Hindus, Sikhs, Khojas, Ismailis, Dawoodi Bohras or Sunnis, they have often been at the forefront of charitable work across the UK, especially to support those most in need in the cold winter months.

Leadership and the fight against struggles are attributes woven into the rich history of Gujarati communities. Two of the most prominent leaders who fought British colonialism in India—Muhammed Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan, and Mahatma Gandhi—have roots connected to Gujarat.

Gujaratis in the UK have held firmly to the lessons of standing up to injustice. One of the best examples of that is from my aunties in the Gujarati community, Jayaben Desai and Yasu Patel, also known as the “strikers in saris”. In 1976, in the face of inequality, poor working conditions and low wages at the Grunwick film processing factory, they took to the streets. When even those who were meant to be supporting their cause had abandoned them, they led a campaign joined by almost 20,000 people.

Jayaben Desai quit her post in the factory in solidarity with her sacked colleague. As she left—I love this bit—the line manager compared her and her colleagues with chattering monkeys. She replied, “What you are running here is not a factory; it is a zoo. But in a zoo there are many types of animals. Some are monkeys who dance on your fingertips; others are lions who can bite your head off. We are the lions, Mr Manager.”

Like those lions, many of us have fought within the Labour movement to make the Labour party the vehicle of change that we see today. I want to show my gratitude to the Gujarati community, because their contribution to the UK makes it a better place for all across this great nation. I particularly thank the Khalifa Centre, which always welcomes me, and the communities in the Quba mosque in my constituency for their contribution to not just business, but faith, humanity and wider society. We are better for it.

Definition of Islamophobia

Naz Shah Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

As vice-chair of the all-party group on British Muslims, I thank my colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), for applying for this hugely important debate and the Backbench Business Committee for granting it.

Truth be told, when I look across the House today, I realise this debate is not just about the definition of Islamophobia; it is also about the ever-prevalent Islamophobia across our society and in the online world peddled by the far right, leading to attacks every day on British Muslims, and the acceptable norms of prejudice passed across the dinner table and, frankly, in enclaves of the Tory party that fuel Islamophobia or allow it to be ignored.

Those watching this debate will notice that, although every other Westminster political party has accepted the APPG definition of Islamophobia, one party has not: the Conservative party, which refuses to accept the definition. Indeed, every party in Scotland, including the Conservative party, has accepted and endorsed the definition. I pay tribute to Ruth Davidson for showing great leadership on that.

I originally prepared my speech for the debate that was postponed. Sadly, I can no longer deliver that speech because, just in the last 24 hours, I have witnessed the orchestrated nature of a machine that has come out in spectacular fashion in a continued attempt to shut down the voices and experiences of ordinary British Muslims. What I say today is neither a conspiracy nor some delusional hyperbole. I am referring to the fact that the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Martin Hewitt, wrote to the Prime Minister suggesting that the APPG definition of Islamophobia creates some sort of security risk. Let me put this to bed once and for all: this is a non-legally binding working definition, which is why that assertion is simply plain stupid. It is as stupid as saying that, because we have a non-legally binding definition of antisemitism, we can no longer do foreign policy in the middle east.

I am a member of the National Police Chiefs’ Council national roundtable for race, religion and belief, which until this week was chaired by Chief Constable Jon Boutcher. He was not aware of Martin Hewitt’s letter or concerns. Furthermore, Chief Constable Ian Hopkins, the national lead on matters of policing and diversity from Greater Manchester police, did not know either, and nor did John Robins, my chief constable in West Yorkshire.

What is deeply worrying is not only that Martin Hewitt attributes concerns to his colleagues without actually speaking to them, but that the intervention suggests that the police have a disgraceful lack of understanding of hate crimes. They recognise the importance of having racism and antisemitism defined, but the intervention suggests that the police are blind to the same need for Muslims, despite the fact that year on year the police have consistently produced figures that show an increase in hate crime against Muslims.

This is not just about a Government who are failing to listen to the British Muslim communities; this is about a Government who on the eve of this debate coincidently and conveniently had a security leak from within their highest office, the office of the Prime Minister, with the serious concerns of the protection of British Muslims played out as a game on the front pages of a national newspaper. This is no longer about a political party that is institutionally Islamophobic; this is about a Government telling a section of those they govern they will not only silence their voices and ignore their legitimate fears, but define their experiences and actively shut down those trying to represent their views.

If it is down to the experiences of women to define feminism, the experiences of people of colour to define racism, the experiences of Jews to define antisemitism, and the experiences of LGBTQ+ communities to define homophobia, I say to the Secretary of State: how dare he tell British Muslims that our experiences cannot define Islamophobia. If that is not a pernicious form of racism, what is it?

For me this is much more than just rejecting the definition. It is disgraceful when the most senior Muslim woman in the Tory party, the former chair of the party, Baroness Warsi, continuously calls for an inquiry into Islamophobia, yet time and again that is completely ignored. It is despicable that the Conservative party ran a dog-whistle Islamophobic campaign against the London Mayor Sadiq Khan and still refuses to apologise. It is unacceptable that, when I called for a debate on Islamophobia in this Chamber, the Leader of the House responded with blatant othering by suggesting that this was an issue for the Foreign Office, thus saying that British Muslims are not citizens of this nation. Maybe she was taking lessons from her colleague, the Home Secretary; I do not know. It is scandalous and frankly an act of misconduct in every field of work for a male to demean women for the way they choose to dress, yet it is unapologetically acceptable for the former Foreign Secretary to describe women in burkas as “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”. It is hypocrisy of the highest order when the Conservative party’s internal complaints procedure when dealing with Islamophobes is to publicly suspend them and privately sneak them back in when it thinks nobody is watching.

While all the above could be explained as a party in denial, the leak suggests this is a party in government that is willing to orchestrate a campaign to reject the recognition of the very real and prevalent nature of Islamophobia. A line has been crossed, beyond the failure to act, to send a clear message to British Muslim communities that this Government are not serious about the safety and security of British Muslims. As a British Muslim woman, that message is clear to me today, as it will be to those up and down this country.

In March 2018, when the right hon. Member for Broxtowe said to the Government that it was high time for there to be a proper legal definition of Islamophobia, the response from the Minister was:

“We do not accept the need for a definitive definition”.—[Official Report, 12 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 595.]

So a year ago, the Government said they did not need a definition and today they are saying they need a definition but just not the one accepted by British Muslims. They choose to reject the definition that is rooted in the experiences of British Muslims and thus is widely accepted by over 750 Muslims institutions and organisations.

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I can say hand on heart that she is speaking with the passion and clarity that I hear in mosques and Muslim community centres in my constituency. I heard from the Conservative Benches the comment that clearly not all Muslims agree with this definition and that is true, but I would just, through her, ask the Secretary of State to reflect on the same claims that are made by members of my own party about Jewish Voice for Labour and by other fringe groups who consistently seek to undermine the real fight against antisemitism. I am not talking about Members of this House who disagree; I am talking about fringe siren voices. Do not mistake the views of a minority with the views of the majority.

[Naz Shah]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and he is absolutely right. The truth is that the Conservative party refuses to accept the definition accepted by over 750 Muslim institutions and organisations from across the spectrum, spanning from the Muslim Council of Britain, the largest umbrella body for British Muslims, to prominent Muslim women groups such as the Muslim Women’s Network, to British Muslims for Secular Democracy, and that is in addition to 80 academics, some of whose life’s work has been on racism.

In the spirit of speaking about freedoms, let me turn the Secretary of State’s attention to article 3 of the universal declaration of human rights:

“everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of a person”.

So I ask him: when Mohammed Saleem was murdered in 2013 in an Islamophobic terrorist attack, where was his freedom? Where was his right to life? Where was the national response from the Government? Where were the advisers forming a definition of Islamophobia?

When Mushin Ahmed, an 81-year-old grandfather from Rotherham, was murdered in 2015 in an Islamophobic terrorist attack, where was the Government response to his murder? In fact, never mind the Government not forming any sort of strategy to tackle Islamophobia: after his right to life was denied—after the duty to protect a Muslim grandfather was failed—where was the Government statement? Where was the Cobra meeting? Why was there no taskforce? Why have this Government failed to act while Islamophobia has continued to rise and rise and rise? It then took the third far-right Islamophobic attack, the mowing down of Makram Ali outside Finsbury park in Ramadan 2017, for the Government to finally acknowledge that this was terrorism.

I make no apologies for my emotions today. It has only been two months since we saw the deadly attacks in Christchurch, where over 50 Muslims were murdered at their place of worship. I do not want to personalise this debate, but I think it is important to give examples to illustrate the problem. These are just a handful of comments directed towards me—the ones I could read without crying. Beyond that, Muslims receive such abuse every single day as they go about their lives: “String her up”; “I will do time for you”; “I hope you see your children dead in your arms”; and “You don’t deserve life...You are pure evil and your clock is ticking.”

Lives have been lost, globally and in the UK, and only now has the Islamophobia debate got to this stage —and even then through a Backbench Business debate. If we do not act today, I ask which Muslim’s life must go next before we simply recognise and understand Islamophobia. Never before have I shared this openly, but I do question, as many Muslims across this country do, which Muslim’s life will be next and whether it will be mine.

So I ask the Secretary of State and the Government to rethink their decision. It is high time we accepted this definition and moved forward to actually tackle Islamophobia. For those of privilege, a definition—or no definition—is just semantics, but for British Muslims, it is about their safety, the security of their lives and the fear of their sisters’ hijabs being pulled off on the streets. It is about their places of worship being attacked while they pray; it is about being denied a job because of their Muslim-sounding name and struggling to make ends meet; and it is about their right to be equal citizens because of the faith they belong to.

I have also discussed this matter at length with the Foreign Office Minister, Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon. As well as being the Prime Minister’s special representative on freedom of religion and belief, he is one of the most senior members of the British Ahmadiyya community. He agrees with the term “Islamophobia” and believes that this definition protects the Ahmadiyya community. What better assurance could the Government want than that? I share this because, when speaking to various Ministers from the Home Office, one of the concerns raised has been the issue of the definition not dealing with sectarianism. I put it to the Minister that, if sectarianism is something that this Government want to address, we can convene a roundtable with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, representatives of ultra-orthodox and liberal Jewry, the plethora of sects and castes within the British Hindu community and representatives of various Muslim sects and other religions to ensure that we consider the issue of sectarianism in its totality. Surely the Secretary of State is not suggesting that the Government are only interested in sectarianism within the Muslim community, because such an exceptionalist approach would be dangerous and divisive.

To conclude, the choice of which side of history the Government choose to stand on is a choice for them, but the fight for equal protection for British Muslims will go on. Those of us, Muslim or not, who believe in equality for all will stand shoulder to shoulder with them. The Conservative party has sadly always found itself on the wrong side of history. It did so with women’s rights and with the rights of black people and of the LGBTQ+ community. Every time, it finds itself on the wrong side of history and, every time, it is my party that has to teach it what equality means. Once again today, as we see Islamophobia on the rise, we see the Conservative party failing even to acknowledge the term “Islamophobia” or give this latest form of racism a definition.

Over the past month, I have seen this Government—and those connected to them through a tangled web of think-tanks, newspapers and other ideological bedfellows —ramp up their opposition to British Muslims who are seeking a protection framework equal to those given to our fellow citizens. This has not gone unnoticed in Parliament, in our constituencies, on the streets or in the homes where a young British Muslim community feels that, under this Government, it has been forced to frame and fight its own civil rights movement. The effect of this will eventually be felt in Parliament when the Conservatives, now no longer fit to govern, feel the consequences, through the ballot box, of failing to give everyone in this country equal value and worth. If I, as a Muslim woman MP representing the largest Muslim constituency in the country, do not feel safe, how do I tell those people that they will be safe?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Soubry (Broxtowe) (Change UK)]

It is a great honour to follow the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown). I agree with everything that she, every other Opposition speaker and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) have said.

I hope that the Secretary of State has listened to all the speeches made in support of the definition and that he will take away from them the following. The fact is that if the Conservative party is to understand why proportionately more people from black and ethnic minority communities voted for Trump in America than voted Conservative in 2017, it has to examine the reaction to this report and read in Hansard the speech of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), who I am sorry is no longer in his place. On his basis, the report has been dismissed for no other reason than that the chairs of the APPG are white liberals. Well, I am proud to be called a white, small “l” liberal, and I am even more proud to have helped form this report. I played a very small part in it. The hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) played a considerable part in bringing it all together, and I am sure he will agree that the report was driven by Baroness Warsi, a member and former chair of the Conservative party. Those are interesting and valid points.

I speak as a former barrister. As a barrister, I was taught to look at the evidence. I am not a Muslim and, as it happens, there are very few Muslims in my constituency. The hon. Member for Ilford North is not a Muslim either. He has told us about his own faith, and I have no faith. The fact is that we have absolutely no stake in any of this. We are not from that community, but we are open-hearted and open-minded, and I hope that others will think that that has contributed to what we have done.

We listened. This report, which I am so proud of—it is one of the things I am most proud of in my nine years in this place—is based on the evidence of British Muslims. Unfortunately, too many of them live every day with prejudice, intolerance and Islamophobia. That is their lives. It is what defines them and that cannot be right—it is wrong. We have to stop talking about it and start acting and we begin that action to eradicate Islamophobia, which is rising in our society, by defining it. That is the right thing to do, even though on a previous occasion, as the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) reminded us, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), said that the Government’s view was that we did not need a definition. I am pleased that the Government now accept that we need a definition. I say to the Secretary of State that it is here, in this report.

We went into this with absolutely no fixed views whatsoever—none at all. Month after month, we took evidence from individual Muslims and community groups that represent real British Muslims with real-life experiences. We also broadened the process out to politicians. For example, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) was one of our best witnesses. He is not a Muslim but he talked about his experiences as a Member of Parliament. The issue has been close to his heart for many years. We also spoke to academics.

We gathered the evidence and then we sat down and tried to work out a definition. I was in the Conservative party at the time and wrote in an email, “Islamophobia is racism”. It is racist—that is its root. That is what it is about. I think there was a universal sense of shock among the group that I had come to that conclusion. Obviously, the hon. Member for Ilford North came to the same conclusion. When we look at the evidence and understand where academic thought has got to, we see that of course Islamophobia is rooted in racism and it is racism.

We then had a discussion, which the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield began to discuss. It was one of the best debates in a group that I have ever attended. I am so sorry he is not in his place, but he would agree that he was cynical about saying that this was rooted in racism—and rightly so because many people would be. But he sat and listened and we had this rigorous, brilliant debate with young Muslim academics, older Muslim academics, other academics and many others who have studied this, and he was convinced. I gently say to the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings that it is extraordinary for him to criticise this report, which I doubt he has read, based on a breakfast and then another report, which the hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) and others have so rightly utterly demolished. Read this report and understand why we have come to these conclusions.

If I wanted to know about racism, I would be more likely to listen to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy); given that he is a black British man, I think he might know a little more about racism than the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings. If I want to know about race and what racism is, I am again going to turn to the right hon. Member for Tottenham because he clearly knows a darn sight more about it, not because of the colour of his skin, but because he has actually done some research and has listened to the academics and many others. He understands, among other things, the root of the word “racism”, as the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield does. It is a fascinating lesson in history to understand how “racism” emerged as a word, what it meant and how it has developed, not just over decades, but over centuries.

[Naz Shah]

rose—

[Anna Soubry]

I will give way in a moment. The hon. Member for Ilford North rightly explained that the definition of racism—or the definition of race—is no longer about biology; it is about a social concept. It can be defined by that antagonism, but it is also now, in the modern world, about groups that share the same culture, the same history, the same language—it can even include social classes. It has moved on in its definition and it clearly embraces Muslims. I will quickly give way now, if I am allowed, Madam Deputy Speaker. [Interruption.] It seems the hon. Lady has changed her mind on intervening; no problem with that. So it is right, when we define Islamophobia in the way that we do, to say that it is a form of racism and it is rooted in racism.

The other point I wish to make is about phobia and why we describe Islamophobia in that way. Phobia is an irrational dislike and has many forms. It can be a dislike. It can also encompass fear and hatred. I mention one of the things our definition absolutely does and understands. Many others make the mistake of thinking that this growing problem in our society—this bigotry and prejudice that ranges from the everyday insults and offensive language aimed at individual Muslims right through to terrorist murders—is anti-Muslim hatred. The computer that churns out a higher insurance premium for somebody simply because they have Mohammed in their name does not hate Muslims. Indeed, the person who put the information in to churn out that nonsense probably does not hate Muslims either. So we must not fall into the trap of saying that it is anti-Muslim hatred.

This is a cracking report. It is based on evidence from the people who know and understand this. It has been accepted by dozens of their communities and by every political party, apart from the Conservative party. If it is good enough for Ruth Davidson, it is good enough for our Prime Minister.

Local Government and Social Care Funding

Naz Shah Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

Absolutely. I will leave it to the Secretary of State to answer that, because I think that Birmingham has been dealt a bad set of cards by this Government.

It is not just Birmingham. Researchers from Cambridge University have exposed the uneven impact of the Government’s funding of local government. They have found that since 2010 changes in local authority spending power have ranged from a drop of 46% to a fall of a mere 1.6%. When we compare these reductions to the indices of deprivation, we see that more deprived areas have been forced to undergo bigger cuts in service spending, with smaller spending cuts in the least deprived areas. Nine of the 10 most deprived councils have seen cuts three times the national average.

These findings are backed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which also suggests that since 2016 the most well-off councils have actually seen an increase of 2.8% to their spending power, while the poorest areas have seen very little growth, despite having faced the largest pressures on their services.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

Does the shadow Secretary of State agree that the fact that eight of the 10 councils receiving the largest cuts are Labour-controlled while eight of the 10 receiving the lowest cuts are Conservative-controlled reinforces the need for this Opposition day debate?

[Andrew Gwynne]

Absolutely. We have to highlight the unfairness. We have to keep on until the Government wake up, smell the coffee and understand the damage they are doing to the fabric of so many communities in England through cutting our local neighbourhood services and depriving people-based services, such as adult social care and children’s services, of the resources they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins).

Let me start by highlighting to those who are watching the debate across the nation that we are debating local council funding because it is an Opposition day. The Conservative party has continued to delay, distract and sometimes even destroy any meaningful conversation on Brexit, as a result jeopardising the discussions on other issues that are faced by people across our communities and constituencies. I therefore thank the shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for the leadership he has shown on this matter.

As we have heard, by 2020 local authorities will have faced a reduction in core funding from the Government of nearly £16 billion since 2010. That means that councils will have lost 60p out of every £1 the Government used to provide for spending on local services. In Bradford over the past 10 years, we have seen huge cuts to our local council funding. In 2010, we received more than £500 million. In 2019, we received just under £400 million. On average, that is a loss of £750 per household across the city of Bradford.

Conservative Members may want to turn the debate into a conversation about spending formulas, but the reality on the ground is clear. We do not need statistics to tell us about the growing levels of deprivation in our constituencies. The stark reality can be seen in the lack of properly funded services, the non-existent youth services, the reduction in bobbies on the beat, the oversized classes and overcrowded classrooms, and the decline in living standards faced by the poorest in our communities.

I ask the Minister: what do I say to the young people in my constituency? It has one of the youngest populations in Europe, with 30% of Bradfordians being under the age of 20, yet it has among the highest levels of youth unemployment. How do I tell the younger generation that they do not have access to the youth services that were there before because we now have a Tory Government in power? How do I explain to them that because they have a Labour council, the Government disproportionately play politics with their life opportunities?

The facts speak for themselves: Bradford appears in the list of the top five councils to receive the biggest cuts to their total spending power over the past 10 years. Why is it that eight of the 10 councils that have received the largest cuts are under Labour control, while eight of the 10 councils that have received the smallest cuts are under Conservative control? I say today loudly and clearly: this Government have played party politics with Brexit, but we will not sit by silently as they play politics with the lives of people who vote Labour and the lives of our other constituents. The Government should protect all citizens equally, and it is frankly unacceptable that my constituents and many others are being left worse off by this Government. The people of this country are watching, and, with the local elections on their way, they will know which party stands for their best interests.

I was listening to the Minister earlier when he was giving out statistics and saying how the Government had done this and done that. The truth is that they have this April failed for a fifth time to publish their Green Paper on health and social care. How can any council have confidence in this Government when they hide behind the Brexit shambles to avoid dealing with the issues that are pertinent to our communities? What kind of decisions do the Government want our councils to make in 2019 when we do not have enough money? Do they want them to cut social care? Do they want them to cut children’s services? Or do they want them to cut bin collections, which have already dropped down to once a fortnight?

The upcoming fair funding review is a proper stitch-up. It threatens to make the funding situation even worse, as it proposes to remove deprivation as a factor in its core funding calculations. Let me tell the Minister this: removing deprivation as a core issue in the funding formula will be absolutely devastating. She should come to Bradford West; I will show her what deprivation really is. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has already warned that removing deprivation in that way would result in moving resources from the more deprived councils to the less deprived, predominantly Conservative-controlled suburban and rural councils. How is that fair and equal?

These cuts have not hit all councils equally. Analysis from the Commons Library shows that, since 2010, Tory areas have had a far smaller reduction in spending power per household as a percentage and in cash terms. Government policy has led to an increased dependency on council tax as a funding mechanism, leading to a postcode lottery and hitting deprived families hardest. Households in Labour areas pay an average of £351 less in council tax. How can this Government be okay with the deprivation in Bradford West and places like it? We need to elect as many Labour councillors as possible on 2 May to stand up against these unfair Tory cuts. The people of this country are watching, as I have said. They know which party stands for their best interests. If the Conservatives are so confident, let them close their eyes when they look at the polls and call a general election. We on this side of the House are ready to give this country the Government it deserves.

Windrush

Naz Shah Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am happy to tell my hon. Friend that the answer is absolutely nothing. It is right that we have a compliant environment when it comes to immigration, and in fact when it comes to all laws, to make sure that those laws are enforced. It is not just the right thing to do for everyone in the country, but it is particularly right for migrants who come here legally and wish to settle in our country. They also want to know that that is the correct route and that those who are here illegally will be dealt with.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

First, from the daughter of a Pakistani migrant to the son of a Pakistani migrant, mubarak upon your appointment.

DCLG played an integral part in the implementation of the “hostile environment” policy under the right hon. Gentleman’s watch. Can he outline exactly what he did to resist that? Can he confirm that he now has permission to bring the axe down on his own Prime Minister’s shocking and shameful legacy in the Home Office?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Lady for her opening comments. She talks about the compliant environment. The Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 and the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 were introduced not by this Government but by the previous Labour Government. Many Governments have been working consistently to make sure that we have a compliant environment.

Local Government Funding

Naz Shah Excerpts

Wednesday 28th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Yes, I would certainly encourage all those councils that are creative and innovative, and that want to support local businesses and to look at new ways of funding and delivering services, to bid when we open up opportunities for new pilots.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

Like businesses, councils need stability, particularly with Brexit happening. Will the Secretary of State inform the House why his Department has not bid for any of the Government’s pot of funding to prepare for Brexit, to help councils?

[Sajid Javid]

My Department is very much involved in the preparations for Brexit. We have attended several recent EU exit committee meetings and we are involved. The hon. Lady should wait and see what happens. In due course, she will learn more about my Department’s approach.

In expanding the pilots, we have responded to what councils have told us, and we are doing the same in other areas. For example, the housing infrastructure fund recognises the crucial role that councils play in helping to deliver the homes that our country desperately needs, by providing billions in additional finance to support new development. We all know that we cannot achieve the new housing we need without having in place the right infrastructure, including schools, healthcare facilities, transport links and other essential types of infrastructure. We have received a staggering 430 bids, worth almost £14 billion, to deliver 1.5 million homes. That demonstrates the incredible ambition out there to tackle the housing crisis—an ambition that we are keen to get fully behind; hence our move to more than double the housing infrastructure fund at the autumn Budget, in which we dedicated an additional £2.7 billion, bringing the total to £5 billion. I was delighted recently to announce the first funding allocation of £866 million for 133 projects that will help to unlock some 200,000 additional homes. The work under way with a total of 45 local areas to deliver major infrastructure projects worth £4.1 billion could potentially deliver an additional 400,000 homes.

In his remarks earlier, the shadow Secretary of State talked about house building having fallen to its lowest levels since the 1920s—I think that is what he said. He is right about it having fallen to its lowest level since the 1920s, but he is wrong about when it happened. It happened in the last year of the previous Labour Government, when the current shadow housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), was the actual housing Minister. Since then, it is up by more than 50%.

I recently announced almost £300 million of funding for housing deals in Greater Manchester, the west of England and Oxfordshire, and a housing deal for the West Midlands. The West Midlands deal backs the mayor’s ambitions to build some 215,000 homes by 2030-31. Isn’t Andy Street doing a fantastic job, Madam Deputy Speaker? You do not have to answer that. Those deals represent another important step towards meeting one of the defining challenges of our time, as do the measures we are taking on social care.

--- Later in debate ---

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

I feel like this is one of those debates where there may be less disagreement than usual, given the appalling cuts that almost all our councils have faced over the last seven years. Let us be clear that council budgets are at breaking point. There are very few places left to cut. We are talking about our councils struggling to stay financially viable. There is little to nothing known about their sustainability from 2020 onwards, and there is real fear in our communities as we begin to lose services that are essential to people’s wellbeing. The truth is that the Government have put so much pressure on councils that statutory services have never been on a more insecure footing. They have put ever-increasing pressure on councils such as mine in Bradford and in other areas that sadly face the reality of deprivation.

In February in this Chamber, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government said that

“local government delivers vital services for the communities they serve—services that many of us take for granted, provided by dedicated, often unsung councillors and officers in places that we are all proud to call home. As such, as I have said before, local government is the frontline of our democracy and deserves the resources it needs to do its job,”

which is to

“deliver truly world-class services.”—[Official Report, 7 February 2018; Vol. 635, c. 1561.]

So the question is: why do the Government treat our tremendous councils, councillors and officers with such contempt, expecting them to provide world-class services that people desperately need with crumbs from the table?

Bradford will have seen a near 30% reduction in its funding by 2020. It will have lost in real terms nearly £65 million from its budgets, and all the Government can do is tell it to manage and keep providing essential services. The difficulty—this has been true of many councils for a long time—is that there is no room left to cut. We are at breaking point, with councils having to lose frontline services at a rate of change that leaves some of the most vulnerable in our communities at risk. In Bradford alone, we face some of the most difficult decisions yet, and that is before we need to find another nearly £30 million in savings in the next year.

A local group, Bradford Families Against Children’s Services Cuts, is fighting to try and save the special educational needs and disability and children’s services provision in the city. These real families are directly affected by the cuts, but the council is in an impossible position: instead of the expected £15 million funding from central Government, it will receive only £7.5 million. Let me be clear: this is at the Government’s door—they are deciding that these services are not worth protecting. The same is true for our early years children’s services, where, because of the extreme savings required by the Government, we are likely to have to lose nearly 200 members of staff. This is the grim reality for councils up and down the country while they strive to provide the most important services with less and less money.

This is not sustainable, and as the National Audit Office report on the financial sustainability of local authorities highlighted in no uncertain terms, as pressures grow, there are real and immediate risks to statutory services. Sadly, the Government seem content to keep dividing people. The chair of Solace and chief executive of Doncaster council wrote in The Guardian that councils can take no

“more shocks to what is already a shocked system.”

They are being thrown over a cliff edge, and Northamptonshire Council is one of those examples. The Government can wrap it up how they want, but the fact is that the situation is due to their cuts and their austerity policies. They really need to take stock and change those policies.

Integrated Communities

Naz Shah Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I commend my hon. Friend on his remarks. I note that he represents what is probably one of the most diverse constituencies in the country, and it is all the richer and culturally stronger for that. He raised the particular issue of English and schooling. He is quite right—the evidence shows this—that some people abuse the freedoms that we give to schooling by taking their children out of the education system altogether and sending them to unregistered schools, which raises all sorts of issues, not least about the safeguarding of those children. We have committed in the Green Paper to a review by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education of the guidelines on home schooling and the requirements to have all schools registered, and he will also look at Ofsted’s powers.

[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s proposals, particularly in the context of Bradford, where we met previously. Bradford is doing some great work on integration, whether through the Science and Media Museum’s gaming festival, the literature festival or, indeed, Bradford’s curry festival. The truth is, though, that this Government’s cuts of more than £130 million to ESOL provision have decimated the local infrastructure available to deliver the plans that he is talking about. What assurances can he give that my city will not be left with a shoestring budget with which to deliver this vision of his?

[Sajid Javid]

I assure the hon. Lady that we share the same goals. I know that she cares deeply about this, as we have spoken about these kinds of issues before. As she knows, Bradford is one of our pilot areas, and we have already started work there. It does not have to wait; this has already started. Bradford will have access to new funding for that work, and we want to work with people there to innovate. We want to listen to their ideas, because they are the people on the ground who are dealing with these issues day in, day out. The hon. Lady is right to refer to resources, which are of course important, but practice and how things are done are equally important, and we want to learn from that, too.