Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Robbie Moore

Friday 24th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend makes another excellent point. It is important that what is said by any individual who represents a body of people or a community carries weight and is heard. If a local authority is too large in terms of the number of residents it represents, or its geographical area is too great, or a single city within a local authority’s boundaries is getting all the attention from that local authority, with the outlying towns and villages being deprioritised, there is a real risk that communities will suffer. Unfortunately, that is exactly what my constituents are experiencing within the communities that I represent. Communities in Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden, Steeton, Riddlesdown, East Morton, the Worth Valley and areas within my wider constituency are full of passionate people who quite rightly are incredibly proud of where they live. They want their area to grow, thrive and prosper, but, for far too long, have felt completely unrepresented and ignored by our local authority, Bradford Council.

The Bill is all about creating smaller unitary authorities, so that a local authority is able to better focus on the needs of their local residents. I do not seek to create a further tier of government, but, simply, to make local government work for local people and local communities.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for introducing this Bill. As he knows, as his parliamentary neighbour, my constituency suffers exactly the same problem as his in that it is ruled by Bradford Council but without any real say. Normally, in local elections, people would be told to vote to change their council if they do not like what it is doing. However, if all of my constituents and all of his constituents voted against the local council, it would still not change the make up of the council. That means that we are completely disenfranchised when the council is merely concentrating on its Bradford city heartland. Is it not the case that this Bill, which would allow a referendum, would enable people, including those in Bradford because it would affect them as well, to have a say? Is that not a way of making sure that people can feel properly represented by their local authority?

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[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. For a lot of our residents, all they care about is the delivery of basic services. They are not necessarily bothered about the political make-up of a council; they just want to get what they are paying for through their council tax.

I come to a clear illustration of where decisions by Bradford Council are not made in tune with local priorities. It was only last week that Labour-run Bradford Council was forced into a screeching U-turn on its decision to close the Keighley tip, a household waste and recycling centre that is heavily utilised by many of my constituents and businesses. Had the council ploughed on with its decision to close the tip, it would have forced residents to take their waste to other sites, causing congestion at busy locations where tips are provided. They might have had to go into the clean air zone tax area to get rid of their waste, so they would have been doubly charged for a very basic level of service. Had it not been for the fantastic local community champions Laura Kelly and Martin Crangle getting together a petition, which received well in excess of 7,300 signatures—a petition that I presented to the House—Labour-run Bradford Council would not have changed its decision and we would now be without a local tip.

[Philip Davies]

I want to follow up on my hon. Friend’s point about how much some of the wards in his constituency and mine are billed for council tax, and how little they get back. Not only are they billed for huge amounts of money; they actually pay it. About 99.9% of the council tax asked for in our wards is paid, yet the council tax receipts for Labour wards in Bradford—such as City ward, where the council collects only roughly 60% of the council tax that is billed—are lamentable. Not only are we paying so much more and getting very little back, but we are actually subsidising the lack of collection of council tax in other wards in Bradford.

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend makes a point that I suspect is deeply infuriating not only to my constituents, but to the constituents of many hon. Members of this House. It is about fairness: if an individual is paying council tax or a business is paying business rates, they expect all others to be paying the same contribution for the level of service they receive. That is a big frustration for many of my constituents in Keighley and Ilkley.

The Government have a positive growth agenda and want to drive inward investment into our areas, but it is incredibly frustrating when our local authority is not getting on with the jobs that we want to see delivered. Bradford Council has still not delivered the Silsden to Steeton pedestrian bridge, despite the fact that the money has been allocated by our Conservative Government. Bradford Council has dithered and delayed on the project, and now says it will not be delivered until 2026. This is a project that has continued to cost more and more as Bradford Council dithers and delays.

In the centre of Keighley we have a much-loved green space on North Street. Bradford Council recently decided to ignore a decisive public referendum in which 61% of people voted at polling stations to keep the green space. Again, it was a campaign fought tirelessly by Laura Kelly. Despite the fantastic result, Bradford Council is determined to plough on regardless, in direct contrast to the views clearly expressed by the residents of Keighley.

Local Authority Boundaries (Referendums) Bill

Debate between Philip Davies and Robbie Moore

Friday 25th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

Of course, Darlington is now one of the thriving towns of the north. Keighley absolutely wants to be one, too, but we are stifled by the system we have locally, under which we are completely forgotten about. In my view, Bradford Council disregards the voice of Keighley and Ilkley and we must be heard.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend knows, I fully support him in this and I want my constituency to join his in this new local authority. Does he agree that there is nothing in the Bill that anybody should disagree with, because if Bradford Council is doing such a wonderful job representing his constituents and mine, presumably they will vote against setting up a new local authority when the referendum takes place? It is presumably because Bradford Council knows how badly it is representing our constituents that it is so frightened of this legislation.

[Robbie Moore]

My hon. Friend and neighbour makes a very important point. No one should live in fear of the Bill because it triggers better democracy. Local voices will be heard, so we can ensure that services are delivered better at a local level. I will come on to why this issue is so passionately considered by many of my constituents due to the ongoing failings of Bradford Council.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore). As he knows, I fully support him on this Bill, and I thought he set out the case fantastically well. I should say that the people of Keighley and Ilkley are very lucky to have him representing them. He is a fantastic Member of Parliament both in this place and locally, and I very much trust he will be for many years to come.

Both my hon. Friend and I stood at the last election on a promise that we would endeavour to break our constituencies away from Bradford Council. He set out many of the reasons why Bradford Council is failing. Actually, it is failing not just our constituents, but the people of Bradford. However, they have their own Members of Parliament to represent them, and it is our duty to represent our constituents. It is not just that Bradford Council is failing and incompetent, although it is. It is worse than that, as far as I am concerned: it is actually that it does not care about our constituents; it just cares about its Bradford heartlands. If you do not mind, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give a couple of examples to illustrate why that is the case, should anybody deny it. There are many examples I could give, but I am going to give two that I think set out the case quite clearly.

Bradford Council is of course always strapped for cash, if we listen to it, and my hon. Friend made a very good point about council tax income, which I will come on to a bit later. It announced a few years ago that it was going to close the swimming pool in Bingley in my constituency, which was a very popular and well-used facility that was used by lots of the schoolchildren we are trying to encourage to do more sport. Of course, Bradford Council’s reason is always that it has not got enough money, and some people may have some sympathy with that. Unfortunately, at the same time as it made the announcement about closing Bingley swimming pool, it announced that it was going to build five brand-new swimming pools in other parts of the Bradford district—so much for lack of resources being the issue. It was quite blatantly because it wanted to put them in its Labour heartlands, and it did not really care about people in Bingley.

However, I have a better, ongoing example. One thing in Bradford Council’s Airedale masterplan from years ago—from about the time I became the local MP, if not before—was to introduce a Shipley eastern bypass. It was recommended by the consultants Arup, who were paid by Bradford Council to come up with this masterplan. It recommended a Shipley eastern bypass, which I wholly agree with and have been campaigning for ever since. After the then Secretary of State for Transport came to see with his own eyes the issues that would be resolved by a Shipley eastern bypass, in early 2019 the Government gave Bradford Council hundreds of thousands of pounds to conduct a feasibility study of this proposal—to see how much it would cost, where it would go and all the rest of it.

Bradford Council was given this money, and it agreed that it would produce the feasibility study by the autumn of 2019. The autumn of 2019 came and went, and no feasibility study was produced by Bradford Council. Then it was going to be the spring of 2020, but that came and went, and there was no feasibility study. We are now almost in March 2022, and Bradford Council still has not completed the feasibility study into the Shipley eastern bypass, and then it has the brass neck to complain that it does not get infrastructure investment into the Bradford district. The Government are trying to facilitate this, and it cannot even do the small bit of the jigsaw that it has to put in place. If that does not demonstrate beyond any doubt that Bradford Council does not care about infrastructure in my constituency, I do not know what would. It would not surprise me if it had barely started it. It clearly does not want to do the project because it would largely benefit the people of my constituency, so it is of zero interest. I think that is pretty shocking, to be perfectly honest.

Bradford Council has not completed a feasibility study, which is either because it is wholly incompetent or because it does not care about my constituents. Those are the only two explanations that anyone can offer. I am happy for it to explain which one it is—it can choose. It can make a public statement about that. I do not care which one it is, but it is clearly one or the other. That proves beyond any doubt in my mind that it really does not care about my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley rightly feels the same about his constituency.

The Bradford area is not suited to being so big—it is too big. I will give a simple explanation of why it does not work. People and the local media often ask me what I am doing for Bradford. As it happens, I do quite a lot, including helping to secure millions of pounds to help the old Odeon in Bradford become a live music venue—without that Government support, that project would not have been viable—and, along with colleagues in Bradford, helping to save the National Media Museum, which was threatened with closure. But, the thing is, no one ever asks Bradford MPs what they are doing for Shipley or Keighley—it is always a one-way street. That goes to show how this area does not work for anybody. We are thrown in as if we are part of Bradford when we have our own needs—and frankly, for my constituents, decision making in Bradford is just as remote as decision making in Whitehall.

My hon. Friend gave some good examples of Bradford Council’s failures. He mentioned child sexual exploitation and how we need a Rotherham-style inquiry to get to the bottom of that, but it continually refuses to agree to that because it is more concerned with trying to protect its reputation than with those children who have been put in a terrible situation. He also mentioned how the Government took children’s services away from the council because it had been failing so badly. We have had some terrible cases. The awful murder of Star Hobson, which happened in my hon. Friend’s constituency, uncovered huge failings by Bradford Council, which had been made well aware of the case.

I agree with my hon. Friend that one of the worst aspects of Bradford Council for my constituents relates to building on the green belt, which affects his constituents just as it does mine. That also goes to show how useless the council is. It is always banging on about regenerating Bradford and how important that is for the district—it does not talk much about regenerating Keighley or Shipley—and then it builds hundreds of houses on the green belt in Wharfedale in my constituency. Of course, people in Wharfedale do not shop in Bradford because it is not easy for them to get to Bradford; they get on the train and go to Leeds. Bradford Council’s housing policy is actually regenerating Leeds rather than Bradford.

Bradford Council does not build houses in places where people would want to work and shop in Bradford. It does not have a joined-up policy to help itself; it is just a numbers exercise for the council, with it wanting to build as many houses as it can in desirable areas of our constituencies to tick a box without any thought about our constituents or even how Bradford might be helped. I am almost certain that a local authority made up only of our two constituencies would not have agreed to some of the housing developments that Bradford Council has imposed on my constituents against their wishes. It will not rest until it has concreted over every last bit of green-belt land in my constituency, which is something that I try to stop.

My hon. Friend mentioned how his constituency has been excluded from the levelling-up fund. I have the same story to tell. We might think that a council that has been griping for years that it has not had enough money to do anything would have had lots of projects ready to go—those that it had wanted to do for years and years. Bingley is the second largest place in my constituency. I have asked Bradford Council to develop a levelling-up fund bid for Bingley. Given how many years Bingley has been under the control of Bradford Council, one would have thought it would have something on the shelf—“If we got £20 million for Bingley, this is what we’d do.” The Government announced a levelling-up fund—“Put your bids in.” Bradford Council said, “Can we have one for Bingley?” and it was “Oh no. We haven’t got anything ready for that. We can’t. We’ll have to start working on it.” Start working on it! They had not even thought about how they might regenerate Bingley.

Indeed, they had thought about it so little that they were not even in a position to put in a bid when the Government are handing out money. They are having to start working out what they might do to regenerate Bingley. We missed the first round of bidding, putting at risk whether we may or may not get anything from a future bid. But do not worry, Madam Deputy Speaker, a bid for Bradford West was ready to go in the first round, and I am sure my constituents were hugely reassured by that.

[Robbie Moore]

Does my hon. Friend agree it is shocking that when this Conservative Government come along and say, “You can apply for up to £20 million for the Shipley constituency and £20 million for the Keighley constituency”, there was not even an application for up to £40 million that could have come in to revitalise the Aire valley corridor? It was not even applied for.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it is frustrating for those of us who are trying to do the best for our local area to have a local authority that has all the power in the area but does not do its bit. It is telling that the biggest investments we have had recently in the towns fund for Shipley and Keighley have both come from the Government, and not from the Labour council that has had years to try to regenerate the town centres but has not done anything about it. That is why the Bill is so important to me and my constituents, and they will welcome it.

Time is against us, and I accept that the Minister may not be able to accept the Bill today. I hope, however, that she will commit to holding further discussions with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley to see how we can progress the grave injustice that our constituents are facing, and see what can be done to ensure they are properly represented at local level. Surely local government should be all about being local—indeed, as local as possible. What on earth is the point of it if it is so big in area that people feel no affinity to the local government area that is governing them? It is completely pointless. We must make local government much more local again.

The Bill is a perfect way of going about that. It would mean that our two constituencies would be able to petition to set up a new local authority. If the majority of my constituents, and those of my hon. Friend, wanted that to happen, it would happen. Who can be against that form of local democracy and ensuring that we have a local authority that our constituents want? Does any political party want to oppose that principle? I cannot think they would want to face their electorate by saying that they are opposed to that principle, but we will be delighted to hear what the Labour party says about whether it favours that kind of local democracy. My constituents do not want to be part of Bradford Council, and neither do those of my hon. Friend.

I am prepared to be more generous than my hon. Friend, and I hope the Minister will also take this into consideration. Under the Bill—I think my hon. Friend is right to do this in principle—if a majority of voters in those two constituencies wanted to break away and set up their own local authority, the Government would implement that. I am prepared to make a generous offer to go further. I am happy to have a referendum in the whole Bradford district about whether we should break away from Bradford Council. It would mean that the Bradford part of that district would have the majority of people in it, but I am happy to take my chances on that. People might say, “Well of course if you break away that will affect Bradford”, but I am happy for everyone to have a vote in that referendum. Let’s go for it. I will make that generous offer. Who could possibly disagree with that? I hope that the Government will look at what can be done to ensure that local government is genuinely local, so that my constituents are no longer short-changed by the appalling Bradford Council, which is not only incompetent but does not really care about my constituents or those of my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley.



I commend my hon. Friend for keeping to his promise at the last election to do whatever he could to ensure that our constituencies break away from the horror of Bradford Council and set up our own local authority. This would be a viable local authority—it would be exactly the same size as neighbouring Calderdale Council, so nobody could say that it was not viable. I therefore hope the Government will take steps to ensure that my constituents and his can be properly looked after and feel represented at a local democracy level, because they are certainly not at the moment. It is an absolute pleasure to be the parliamentary neighbour of my hon. Friend, who is a superb representative of his constituents. I stand shoulder to shoulder with him on this Bill, and we will not give in. We will keep up this fight until we get justice for our constituents.

Child Sexual Exploitation: Bradford

Debate between Philip Davies and Robbie Moore

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Robbie Moore]

This is a very delicate subject and I am acutely conscious of that. I must admit that I am nervous talking about it, but we have to address these issues. Every community across the country is different, including mine, but we have to look at the common denominator. I want to be very clear that this is not about race or pitching communities against each other. It is about looking at the facts, so we can address them head on and move forward.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend and parliamentary neighbour for giving way. I commend him for bringing forward this debate and for all the work he is doing locally to shine a light on this issue. Does he agree that this is about the victims and ensuring they get the justice they deserve, and ensuring there are no future victims of this terrible crime? Does he agree that if Bradford Council and the authorities there will not bring forward a much needed inquiry—partly because, presumably, it will expose huge amounts of wrongdoing on their part—the Government should make sure that we have an inquiry, so that we can get to the bottom of what has gone wrong and make sure it never, ever happens again?

[Robbie Moore]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for making those points. We must never forget who is at the centre of this debate and who is experiencing these horrific, vile acts. I will come on to some of the alarming and horrific cases experienced by many young girls across my constituency and the wider Bradford district. We need to be absolutely clear that local leaders, Bradford Council and our new West Yorkshire Mayor should be using their position to call this issue out for what it is; be clear about taking these issues forward; and be wanting to get behind resolving these issues. My view is very clear: we need a Rotherham-style inquiry to address these issues. Finally, on his point about influence from a national level going down to local leaders, I very much hope to use this opportunity to encourage the Government to use their weight to put pressure on Bradford Council and our new West Yorkshire Mayor to do the right thing.

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[Robbie Moore]

I thank my hon. Friend for her kind intervention. As representatives, we are all elected to do the very best for our community and call out the difference between what is right and what is wrong. This is not a political issue; it is about doing the right thing to stand up for our communities.

This summer, a limited review, which focused on just five children who had been sexually abused over the past 20 years in the Bradford district, was published. It makes horrifying reading. Let me tell the House about Anna—not her real name—who is mentioned in the review. She was repeatedly sexually abused by gangs of men while she was in care. The review says that when she was 15, she had an Islamic marriage with her abuser, and her social worker attended the ceremony.

Ruby—not her real name—had a disrupted childhood, which included the death of her mother when Ruby was a very young child. At the age of 13, Ruby was identified as being at risk of child sexual abuse. Throughout her childhood, she experienced 14 different placements in looked-after care. She was sexually abused, and the report identifies that childcare services in Bradford

“did not keep her safe.”

The limited review published in the summer is only a 50-page document. To my mind, it reflects only the tip of the iceberg of what has been going on across the Bradford district. In 2016, a group of 12 men who committed serious sexual offences against two young girls from Keighley and Bradford were jailed for a collective 132 years. One of those girls was raped by five men in succession. Live cases involving grooming gangs are still working their way through the courts. Only last October, 21 men from Keighley and Bradford were arrested after being linked to offences that allegedly occurred against a young girl between 2001 and 2009.

Decisive action is needed if we are to deal with the issue. That is why we need a full, independent Rotherham-style inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Keighley and the wider Bradford district.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; I commend him for everything he says. Is it not shocking that the leader of Bradford Council, Susan Hinchcliffe, has said that we should not have a Rotherham-style inquiry in Bradford because it “won’t find anything new”? Is that not shocking complacency on the part of the leader of Bradford Council? If the council has nothing to hide, it would have nothing to fear from such an inquiry; we could all know once and for all exactly what has happened, satisfy ourselves that there is nothing to hide, and make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. Is her attitude not terrible and complacent? Does it not show complete disregard for the victims?

[Robbie Moore]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for his kind intervention. He eloquently makes a crucial point: the leader of Bradford Council is in a unique position to trigger a Rotherham-style inquiry. I do not understand what the council, or others such as our new West Yorkshire Mayor, should have to fear from being more open and transparent or from wanting to move things forward in the best interests of victims across our constituencies and the wider Bradford district.

How do we get there? How do we instigate a full Rotherham-style inquiry? As happened in Rotherham, Bradford Council can and should appoint an independent chair such as Professor Alexis Jay to conduct an independent inquiry into its handling, and associated agencies’ handling, of child sexual exploitation over the past 20 years.

We need to learn lessons locally to find out what has been going wrong with institutions such as Bradford Council, West Yorkshire police and Bradford’s child protection services. Believe me, they need addressing. Bradford’s children’s services department is in a state of chaos. In 2018 it was rated by Ofsted as inadequate, needing severe improvement. Only this summer the Government had to step in and put a commissioner in charge of the department to look at it, and only this week a further Ofsted report was released: it was incredibly damning, stating that no improvement was taking place at a sufficient pace.

[Philip Davies]

Is it not telling, given all these failings of children’s services at Bradford Council, that council leaders never take responsibility for those failings? There is a merry-go-round of children’s services directors being fired and hired, while the people at the top of the council never accept responsibility for the failings that occur on their watch.

[Robbie Moore]

Leaders of any organisation have a responsibility to do the right thing. It is unfortunate that Bradford’s children’s services department has been on the watch of not only the current council leader, but the same chief executive who has presided over those children’s services since 2015—yet here we are in 2021 with the Government having to step in and do the right thing.

In August, as I have said, a damning report was produced, and that is why Bradford Council needs to stop sweeping this issue under the carpet and launch a full, independent, Rotherham-style inquiry. I will settle for nothing less. As Anna—one of the victims I talked about earlier—said:

“What victims need is a full inquiry, if Rotherham had one, why are we denying it to the thousands of children here in Bradford.”

I have received endless pieces of correspondence asking why so little has been done to tackle child sexual exploitation over the past 20-plus years across the Bradford district. Since I was elected, less than two years ago, I have raised this issue repeatedly, both locally and here in the House. I am raising it again today, and I will continue to raise it. I will not let this issue drop. I was even told that by continuing to raise it I was stoking racial tensions, but that is the nub of this issue. It is not being dealt with. This has nothing to do with stoking racial tensions. It is about the difference between right and wrong, and fundamentally it is about protecting young children.

Those in positions of responsibility need to have the guts to take action. Too many people in positions of responsibility have ducked this issue for decades. Take my predecessor, John Grogan, who said: that an inquiry would not

“be in the best interests of young people.”

Our new West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin, the former Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen, is now in charge of policing in West Yorkshire. She is in a perfect position to show leadership and tackle this issue once and for all.

Kashmir

Debate between Philip Davies and Robbie Moore

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Westminster Hall

[Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) for securing this really important debate. I want to say a huge thanks to all my constituents who contacted me specifically on this issue. I know it sits very close to their hearts.

Kashmir has been living under heavy lockdown restrictions since August 2019, following the special status of Jammu and Kashmir being revoked by India. We should be clear about what these lockdowns actually mean. No foreign journalists are being allowed into Kashmir by the Indian Government. Thousands of people have been arrested and face harassment and imprisonment without due cause: lawyers, small business owners, journalists, students and of course human rights activists. Phone lines have been blocked and internet access taken away. Although some communication has been restored, it is patchy and heavily controlled by the Government.

Legal reforms have been made so that residents’ property rights can be revoked. Properties have been destroyed and innocent people are losing their lives. It is reported that nearly 300 Kashmiris have been killed and over 1,600 injured, and more than 900 houses have been destroyed since special status was revoked. That, quite rightly, is causing a huge amount of concern for many of my constituents across Keighley. These stories are being reported to me—to all of us, as we have heard—and they are harrowing.

Of course, as elected politicians in the United Kingdom we cannot decide on domestic policy in another country, but we can use our influence to ensure that this terrible situation is investigated and that our Government use their weight to put on pressure to reach a solution. The UK’s fundamental values are freedom and democracy. That applies not only to the situation in Kashmir, but around the world. Only yesterday, I said that to the Foreign Secretary during his statement on the terrible situation in western China.

I say to the Minister that now is the time to hear the allegations of human rights abuses from both sides of the line of control, but particularly from the Indian side. Only last October, speaking in the Middle East Institute in Washington DC, the world heard the President of Azad Kashmir accuse India of genocide. It is not in India’s interest for those allegations to go stated without investigation. I call on the Government to take this issue extremely seriously.

I would like to see UN human rights officials get access to both sides of the line of control, to find out the facts. Of course, India and Pakistan are both longstanding friends of our country. That is strengthened by the large Indian and Pakistani communities across our country. But a solution to the situation in Kashmir must be sought—after all, both countries are nuclear powers—and it must be sought at speed.

I know the Prime Minister is due to visit India at some point. I hope that he will raise the issue directly with Prime Minister Modi and seek his reassurances that all is being done to seek a solution. The UK must stand for freedom and democracy. That applies around the world, including in Kashmir.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

We will keep the five-minute limit going.