Greensill Capital

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

No.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op) [V]]

When businesses continue to collapse and charities fold in our constituencies because they have not received a penny of support, it now appears that not everything that the former Prime Minister did was for the record, as exchanges took place to procure hundreds of millions of pounds out of the Treasury for a company that he was profiting from. The very loopholes that Labour tried to close in his lobbying legislation left sufficient room for that corruption. So will the Minister stop hiding the detail and now publish a timeline of every meeting, call, text message and conversation between the former Prime Minister and Members of this current Conservative Government and their officials—publish them before this House, so that we can understand the extent of his lobbying?

[Paul Scully]

The Chancellor has published his text messages and there is a review that, rather than hiding, will go into the detail. As I said, all the parties involved have pledged their commitment to comply with that investigation, which will report back at the end of June.

Planning for the Future

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to be called in today’s debate, Sir Charles, yet again discussing “Planning for the Future”. I am surprised we are still here after the debate in the Chamber a few weeks ago, when there was deep concern across the House about the proposals, since the language painted a very different picture from the reality of what they would bring.

I want to focus on York, my constituency, and the real challenges we are facing with the whole planning system that will be exacerbated by “Planning for the Future”. The Government talk about giving back control and local people having a say, but when it comes to “Planning for the Future”, there is virtually no meaningful involvement. There may be consultation but certainly no involvement in the depth of planning decisions about their local environment.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Public engagement seems to be higher for individual planning applications than broader planning consultations. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be more democratic to encourage and facilitate public engagement at every stage and at every level, and that these changes will lead to more decisions being made behind closed doors and make things worse, not better?

[Rachael Maskell]

I absolutely do agree with my hon. Friend, not least when infill housing development proposals come forward and there is actually very little accountability. That is why it is so important that local people have a say about their community—they know it best.

The reality is that whoever holds the cheque book holds the power in planning, and it is set to get worse under the proposed changes. I want to set out the problem that we are facing in York Central, in what would be a renewable area, and why the current system and “Planning for the Future” will fail York for generations.

Some 80% of housing need is for family housing, and I do not know a family that does not want a house with a garden, yet the planning for York Central will mean that 80% of housing is unaffordable one or two-bedroom flats—nothing that our constituency needs, despite over £155 million of public money being poured into the scheme—built on 45 hectares of public land. Already, under the current system, the housing is for investors, not residents.

That is nothing short of immoral when people are living in damp, overcrowded, poor-quality private rented sector houses. I was just looking at the figures: in York we have lost 45 socially rented homes, and that situation is getting worse with right to buy. We have a real housing crisis here, and this paper does not match our needs. These people have nowhere to go in York: if they cannot move out, which is the only option, they are left in this housing crisis; if they do move out, our local economy suffers, because we do not have the skills mix that our city needs.

York Central is adjacent to the rail station, which is one of the best-connected locations in the country; it is the mid-point between Edinburgh and London, a destination for HS2, if that is still going ahead—although today that looks uncertain—and at the intersection with the trans-Pennine route. If I look across to places such as Crewe or Curzon Street in Birmingham, the opportunity for creating jobs on these sites has been realised, and economic investment has been prioritised. However, York Central will provide just 6,500 jobs because the majority of the site is being handed over to housing.

The way the partnership has been set out means that Network Rail, Homes England and the National Railway Museum own the site and control the decisions. These bodies are not based in York. The Lib Dem-Green council, bizarrely, extracted itself from any decision making on the site. We now have the largest brownfield site in Europe, in the northern powerhouse, having its future determined by three national organisations with no interest in the future of the city.

The National Railway Museum rightly wants to see an upgrade to the museum by 2025 to celebrate 200 years of the railway, but Homes England has the power and money, and is certainly not putting forward the proposals our city needs. Homes England has a responsibility not only for developing housing, but for the economic future of our city, yet it has no understanding of our current economic situation. It is talking about putting low-wage, low-skill jobs on the site, when we need high-value jobs. We have a great opportunity with the bioscience industry, the digital creative sector and rail jobs for the future, and we know that there is investment interest. However, those things will be locked out of the site because of this imbalance, with Homes England holding the cards.

What we want to do is truly build back better by ensuring that we have good-quality jobs and the homes that people need in our city for the wider economy. “Planning for the Future” fails to address the situation. We must first address local need and then local opportunities to drive development. “Planning for the Future” further takes away powers of local scrutiny and will mean that those with the power, money and opportunity end up recreating our cities in a way that meets their short-term financial interests and undermines the long-term economic health of our city.

When it comes to the incredible city of York, it will result in future generations not having the good-quality jobs that I want them to have. Families will not have the housing they need, our local economy will be completely skewed, we will not have the skills we need and we will be overrun by speculative investors. Surely that is not what the Minister wants, and yet that will be the outcome of “Planning for the Future”.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I shall do my utmost to respond to this wide-ranging debate in nine minutes. I congratulate the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) on securing this debate. For her, Christmas has come early, as it has for other right hon. and hon. Members around the Chamber who have been able to express themselves eloquently and passionately on a matter that should concern us all. I will try to address all the points raised by colleagues.

I shall begin by trying to clear up a misunderstanding that has been abroad in this debate and has also been around for some time, which is about what happens to the existing planning system. What we are trying to do through the proposals that we have tabled is to create a quicker, more transparent planning system. When applications that vary from the local plan are made, however, they will still need to be made through the present planning application process. In conservation and protected areas, all applications will require a bespoke approach through the present planning system, so it does not go away. We simply want a quicker and faster process that we can also apply. I hope that clears up that particular matter.

Two consultations were launched on 6 August. The first, on the local housing need calculation, closed on 1 October, and the second, on the broader, more forward-looking reforms in our White Paper, closed on 29 October. We received 2,500 responses to the local housing need calculation and some 44,000 to the White Paper. The local housing need calculation was all about making sure that we address the issue of affordability, which we know is a challenge in many communities around our country where housing is simply too expensive for many people to achieve. We all recognise that we need to do something about that.

We also need to make sure that we regenerate our communities and level up, and ensure the best use of brownfield. Those are considerations in our local housing need calculation. We also, to address the points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and others, need to be very clear about the challenge of building tall buildings in places that do not have them and do not want them because they are simply not appropriate.

It is not for me to try to play Santa Claus in this debate. My ministerial portfolio does not include responsibility for the festive season, but I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be able to say something soon about local housing need. This debate is focused particularly on the White Paper on planning reform. I am sure all of us will recognise that with so many responses to the consultation, it will take us a while to work through them. We want to do that because it is a genuine consultation, as I have said to colleagues across the Chamber on numerous occasions.

The consultation was not the end of the process of working through our reform proposals; it is the beginning. Through the first several months of next year, we will need to kick off workstreams on specific themes that develop out of the consultation, and to refine our proposals such that they are good and tight for the legislation that must and will come. That will enable us to table a Bill to deliver quickly the planning reforms we want, begin the systemic and cultural change necessary in our planning system, and ensure that the proposals are embedded, with public consent, as quickly as possible.

When I became the Minister with responsibility for housing and planning, I learned how long it took to implement the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which we rely on for the majority of our planning decisions. I assumed that by 1948 everything was working effectively and quickly and everybody knew what to do. In fact, that particular Act was not fully enforced until the early 1960s. The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 took 14 or 15 years to fully roll out. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 and the Localism Act 2011 have still not been fully implemented. My point is that we need to approach this with care, think through our proposals with as much consensus as possible, and ready all the stakeholders in the planning process so that we can effect that cultural and systemic shift. That is our approach and it will remain as such over the coming weeks and months.

We all agree that we must reform our planning system. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Felicity Buchan) was kind in her remarks: she said that the Government have done very well in building new homes for people over several years. Our target is to build 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of this decade. That is a manifesto commitment that we will deliver.

The fact is that our present local planning system accounts for only 178,000 new homes a year, so the system must improve. Organisations as disparate as Crisis and KPMG all say that we need to build more than 250,000 homes a year if we are going to meet our needs. Therefore, a system that takes seven years to adopt a local plan, and which can take a further five years to develop large-scale housing and the infrastructure that supports it, is simply not going to build the homes we need.

[Rachael Maskell]

York has not had a local plan for over 50 years, so we have other difficulties. Does the Minister recognise that it is not just about quantum? Tenure of housing is also important and needs to match the need that is out there.

[Christopher Pincher]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. It is for local councils and local authorities to determine what sorts of housing they need in their local communities. The whole point of our proposal is to give local authorities and communities much more power to design their communities strategically and holistically, so that they can say where they want homes to be built; the types of homes they want them to be; what they are going to look like; what sort of infrastructure is going to support them; and what the building requirement controls will be.

We want to make sure that we build more affordable housing. Members will know that our affordable homes programme injects £12.2 billion of funds into affordable housing, which is the biggest cash injection in 50 years. More than 50% of the properties that will be built under that programme in the next five years will be for affordable or social rent. Some 32,000 of them will be for social rent—double the number built under the previous programme and substantially more than the number of council houses built in Wales last year. Only 12 council houses were built in Labour-run Wales in 2019. Thanks to its approach to council housing, the Labour party cannot even house a Welsh rugby team in Wales, so we will take no lectures from the Opposition about our approach to affordable housing.

In the short time I have left, let me say a word about the environment, because it is important. Through the Environment Bill, we want to make sure that we offer a net gain in biodiversity. That will form the basis of our approach to housing proposals, as adumbrated in our White Paper, including the future homes standard, which will drive a 75% improvement in carbon emissions from our new housing stock. The green homes grant will invest in and retrofit about 600,000 homes around our country, ensuring that they are more fuel efficient and effective in delivering for their residents.

We are determined to make our proposals work and to ensure that all our colleagues around the House of Commons, of whatever stripe, as well as other stakeholders, understand and support them, whether they be planning professionals, local councillors, local communities with neighbourhood plans—which I am keen to build into our process—or developers, big or small. We are determined to make sure that these plans have the wholehearted support of all those involved in them, because only through that mechanism can we make them work.

The Future of the High Street

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Our identity is drawn from the places where we live and our high streets are very much part of that, so the eerie emptiness of our high streets at this time must present a new opportunity to re-imagine our high streets.

York has the worst-hit high street in the country, so we are really feeling the pain. Some 65% of York is made up of independent businesses, and Indie York is calling on the Government to do more to support them —not least because of the high rateable value in our city. I say to everyone in my community: please shop local this Christmas and visit our virtual high street.

In a nutshell, this is where the problem sits: where property is owned by private landlords, many are more interested in their investment portfolios than the location and in maintaining high property values and a high investment return for themselves. That really damages our high streets because the high rents only top up their balances, in turn pushing up the value of high streets through rents, rateable values and business rates. This false economy must be challenged if we are to build back better.

One frustration is that the covid grants and loans have slipped through the hands of businesses to landlords—and often straight into their offshore bank accounts, as they are overseas investors. This has neither helped our communities nor brought value to the taxpayer. How much taxpayers’ money is now sitting in tax havens as a result of these payments? There are no obligations to help local shops and businesses through this difficult time—not least when overseas investors are twice as likely to have vacant premises on our high streets. The Government should not only review this scandal but legislate to address it.

So many colleagues have mentioned business rates today, and I have held debates on how we can reform business rates. The fairest way is to move to a turnover tax or a profit-related tax that would include all businesses.

Let me turn to the issue of how we should move our high streets from business improvement districts to community improvement districts. Bishopthorpe Road in York has had the secret of growth and has created a really vibrant high street because it has been about community first. That model is being replicated elsewhere across York.

We also need to look at the opportunity to put into our city more places for families, such as Explore York, our library, where people are not allowed to whisper but can certainly enjoy the Lego table, the craft table and knitting in the corner—and even reading a book. As we see in York, our entrepreneurs and business owners are really keeping our high streets alive.

Homelessness and Temporary Accommodation

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you as the Chair today, Sir Edward. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) who continues to champion the needs of the most vulnerable in our communities.

When someone comes into politics, they take the power given to them to bring about change. The Minister has the pen in her hand and has the power today to make a significant difference to all of our communities. We have to see a step change, because over the last decade we have seen homelessness and temporary accommodation use increase on such a scale. This is not about bricks and mortar; it is about people’s lives and their existence. They are challenged day by day by the system.

I call on the Minister to build those houses—not the luxury flats that are going up in my constituency that, quite frankly, nobody can afford to live in. We need to look at housing as a human right in a human rights city, such as York. That is my call today.

The Housing Minister has said that we have to evaluate the Housing First programme. It has already been evaluated by the University of York. Professor Nicholas Pleace has put that evaluation in place, so there is no excuse to delay. We need that rolling out because it makes a difference, ensuring that people have the stability of a home and the wrap-around support that is so vital. I want to focus on bringing those services together, around the individual, to meet their needs.

Some of the funding that the Government have brought forward has focused on taking people off the streets. It should be about settling people in stability in their lives and in their new homes. It is a perverse incentive because if the money is then withdrawn, because people are no longer on the streets, then there is not money to invest in people’s lives. It is absolutely crucial that we look at that to ensure that that money is ongoing.

I draw attention to the York system change network, which I met yesterday. We know that people have complex lives and needs, and that it is only when agencies come together that we can often solve those particular needs for individuals. In York we have a network of the police, mental health, community and voluntary sector organisations, the local authority and substance misuse services, that is there to break cycles in people’s lives and to work towards complex solutions. We should be championing those initiatives in order to drive down the complex issues that surround people when they are homeless.

The Minister has choices when she comes to respond to the debate, and I trust that she will, for once, give real hope that we will solve the homelessness and temporary accommodation crisis that we are facing in our country.

Covid-19: Funding for Local Authorities

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) on introducing this debate. I am increasingly concerned about the finances of City of York Council, in terms of both sufficiency and its investment choices.

Staff have been incredible in the way they have stepped up in this crisis, working in the most difficult circumstances and going above and beyond. Social care staff have put themselves at risk to meet demand. Social workers have found new ways to safeguard children. Refuse staff have continued to keep our streets clean and bins emptied. There are so many more I want to thank today. The increased demand on them must be recognised. More than claps and kind words, they must receive a proper pay rise this year. If the Chancellor reneges on that, it will never be forgotten.

In York, due to the high rateable values, need has not been met by grants. As offshore landlords have pocketed the benefits of these grants in their tax havens, businesses are vanishing from our high street. Labour wants councils to be able to support the local economy. In York, where 30,000 people work in hospitality, retail and tourism, we have the worst-hit high streets in the country and are one of the worst affected places in general. The 8 million visitors who normally come to our city just are not there.

I want to point to a few specific areas. We know there has been increased demand in domiciliary care, because families are not placing people in care homes for fear that they will not be able to visit and because of the risk of infection. The costs have increased significantly over the last few months and must be met. The same is true of charities. When it comes to the end of the financial year, many are fearful that they will not see their contracts renewed. Already £10 billion in debt, they need security in order to safeguard their futures. As the sector says, charities have never been needed more, but we must also recognise that they have never been more in need themselves.

On public health, it has been an incredible story in York. As we were heading into tier 3, we were able to turn the ship around, bucking national trends and reducing infection rates considerably. Contact tracing has been at the heart of that, yet we need more funding to do more to ensure that we lock down this virus in future, not people or the economy. I trust that the Minister will look at the resourcing of public health to ensure that it can do its job with sufficiency.

On the investments of City of York Council, at the heart of my constituency is York Central, the largest brownfield site in the country—I know that the Minister and I are going to discuss this. City of York Council has invested £35 million, which will turn out to be about £57 million. The other delivery partners, Network Rail and Homes England, will get their costs back plus 20% profit from the development, but City of York Council will not see such a return.

That needs scrutiny, not least in the light of the current situation, and because of its other poor investment choices, such as paying out £500,000 to a former chief executive, which the auditors are, rightly, not happy to sign off. There is something that needs investigation, and I trust that my discussions with the Minister will get to the bottom of those issues so that we can spend our money wisely in our city.

Covid-19: Employment Rights

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I put on record my interest as a member of Unite and GMB. Work is so gendered, which was brought into the spotlight in May when PwC highlighted that 78% of those who had already lost their jobs due to covid were women. Today, I want to focus my remarks on the impact of covid on women at work.

We know that inequality grows, particularly for working-class women. Think about the fact that only 9% of working-class women are able to work at home, compared with 44% of professional women. We know that women are also exposed to extraordinary risks in the light of their duties and their work. More women, particularly working-class women, have had their hours reduced. In June, that reached 52% of all women. Research showed that working-class women had double the reduction in hours of professional women.

Although the virus is gendered in so many ways, it is in particular weighted against women in the workplace. We know that improvements in employment rights would improve opportunity, in particular around absence payments. Statutory sick pay is a massive issue; the fact that we do not have proper statutory sick pay has a huge impact. We also know that women carry the vast majority of caring responsibilities for children and parents, and therefore need additional support. I am, therefore, supporting campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed’s call for a parent isolation grant. We know that working parents are having to take time off for childcare and, as a result, in many cases they do not get any income at all, taking unpaid leave. A grant would be a real game changer in ensuring that women are not further discriminated against and further disadvantaged in the workplace. It would work simply for the periods that parents are having to look after an isolating child, with them being remunerated for that.

I want to highlight the plight of pregnant women. Again, we know that their rights have been curtailed, particularly in the light of increased risk for women in the third trimester of their pregnancy. Yesterday in the Chamber, we heard the difficulties of that. I ask that the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 be fully extended and provision be put in place to ensure that women in their third trimester can get full payment at home and that that should not trigger their parental leave. Finally, I want to put on record the Pregnancy and Maternity (Redundancy Protection) Bill introduced by the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller); it is vital to support women in the workplace during this time, in the light of the redundancies they have experienced.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

I will gladly work with the hon. Gentleman in continuing to discuss workers’ rights in this area and other areas. It is important that the employment Bill, when it does come, not only extends workers’ rights in the way that we talked about in our manifesto, but does so in a way that fully reflects the situation we are going through and the lessons learned from the pandemic.

Some hon. Members talked about pregnancy and maternity discrimination. That is not acceptable under any circumstances. We have continued to remind employers of their existing responsibilities under current legislation. Equalities legislation requires that employers must not discriminate in the workplace based on gender, pregnancy or maternity. Following the Government’s consultation in 2019, we are extending the redundancy protection period afforded to mothers on maternity leave to six months, once the new mother has returned to work, and to those taking adoption leave and shared parental leave.

We have taken steps to support new parents by passing emergency legislation that ensures that parents who are furloughed during the period, and are determined to be entitled to maternity, adoption and other family related statutory pay, do not lose out.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister give greater clarity about what rights women in the third trimester of pregnancy have to protect themselves and their children?

Live Events and Weddings: Covid-19 Support

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank you, Mr Gray, for chairing today’s debate, and I thank the 209 petitioners in my constituency—couples waiting for their happy day and the many people working in the weddings industry. I have met many people working in the industry, and last Thursday held a meeting with people who worked in all sorts of trades. I learned much, and it was fascinating to hear that 400,000 jobs across the country are dependent on the wedding industry, bringing in an income of £14.7 billion. In addition, we have a large tourist trade in the wedding industry, which attracts many couples to the UK to get married, so this issue is extensive for the economy as a whole and for people’s livelihoods and jobs.

An industry that should bring so much joy is, at the moment, bringing so much hardship. In the first two months of lockdown, people experienced the cancellation or postponement of weddings, so staff could not be furloughed; they had to work flat out to try to support couples during that time. Then, of course, they moved into the harsh reality of being unable to access vital Government support, the self-employed income support scheme and grants. We have heard about the VAT measures, which many organisations have been unable to access, and business rates, because many do not have direct premises.

The hardship has been acute for many. I heard from those working in the sector—predominantly women, I have to emphasise—that they had saved up for their first home and are therefore unable to access such things as universal credit. They are now living off their savings, eight months into the lockdown and pandemic. However, they described the future as well, which is where the Government can really help.

The announcement of the further lockdown and the extension of the furlough scheme to next March has brought a presumption that weddings will not be resuming any time soon. We therefore need the publication of a comprehensive plan on weddings so that people can start making plans. To give an example, one celebrant had 48 weddings booked for this year. Two went ahead as micro-weddings, 36 moved into next year and are now being rearranged because people are not confident, one moved into 2022 and seven were lost. That is the scale of the impact of the cancellation of weddings. Many are deferring for the second or even third time.

We therefore need to ensure that weddings are safe and socially distanced. If they can be certificated, that would be really helpful. Also, there is a lack of evidence to suggest that these are places where infections will be spread, an inference made by Public Health England. If there has been any evidence of infection, it would be good to have that data from Public Health England, but we need to ensure that there is testing and that specific support is introduced. Those working in the wedding industry in my constituency have asked for a scheme akin to the film and TV production restart scheme to help restart the industry.

Planning and House Building

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt). I agree with what he said.

Anyone who has ever visited York will understand why we must not make a mistake with planning. Layers of history lie under our streets. The minster dominates our landscape and the green strays reach into the heart of York. “Planning for the Future” threatens that, it threatens our economy, and it will not meet our housing need.

York tells the story of planning. The inspirational Rowntrees, through their work on poverty, moved York’s slums into the UK’s first garden village, New Earswick, more than 100 years ago. They built spacious and well-proportioned houses with gardens, with allotments and amenities nearby. The Rowntrees met need and provided the very best of housing.

This is not just about numbers; it is about the quality and type of housing. It is so necessary to address those things, but the White Paper does not. Seebohm Rowntree held the first land inquiry in 1912, which sowed the seeds for the first Housing Act in 1919, based on his experience in York. The White Paper removes local democracy, residents’ voices, and investment in amenities and the environment. It is a handout for the development industry, not a hand up for those in housing need.

Before I highlight a couple of failings in the White Paper, I want to dig underground. Archaeology is the springboard to York’s tourism. All archaeological interest, perhaps, as yet, unrecorded, undesignated and currently undiscovered, must have time for a full desk and field evaluation. Getting planning wrong, as was the case with the Queen’s Hotel in York, which was built in 1989, left archaeologists unable to prove where our Roman forum lay. That resulted in an obligation being placed on developers in 1990 to safeguard archaeology in the planning system. The White Paper “Planning for the Future” puts this back, as planning permission goes before archaeological evaluation in both growth and renewal areas. It is turning back the clock on planning by 30 years. Our economy depends on good archaeology. It must come before planning decisions.

We have a housing crisis in York. Last year, only 22 homes for social rent were built in my constituency. More houses were sold under right to buy and, with need increasing as we speak, more than 1,775 people are on the housing waiting list. This White Paper does not address that need. Homelessness, overcrowding, poor placement of housing and, of course, extortionate costs for the private rented and purchase sector means that people and skills are being moved out of our city, skewing our economy as a result, so we must address the housing need before us. With local determination removed, there is automatic outline planning permission in growth areas, presumption in favour of development and renewal in infill areas, and no obligation in those areas on affordable housing. That is wrong and a huge mistake by the Government. We will find out about this only through digital portals, which excludes those who are not connected but read the printed planning proposals in York’s press. We must keep those traditional methods in place.

Finally, let me turn to York Central. The Minister and I need to talk. This densely planned housing development will choke off York’s economic opportunity for the future, building luxury houses for the investment market rather than building houses to meet the housing needs of my city. That will further skew the housing economy. “Planning for the Future” is not what our city needs. What we need are proper plans, which involve local people shaping the future of York for all.

Covid-19: Maternity and Parental Leave

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in such an important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the 337 people from my constituency of York Central who signed the petition, which aims to make things right for parents.

I want to put on the record how important it is to support women through their pregnancies. Will the Minister raise with colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care how essential it is that birthing partners and fathers are able to accompany the woman from pregnancy to birth—antenatal care, scans and hospital appointments—and for any care required after birth?

I will touch on two key issues. First, I thank the Petitions Committee for its report and its 23 recommendations, on which I want to reflect in the little time that I have. A constituent has written to me about neonatal care. She is a mother who gave birth 11 weeks early during the pandemic. That is so difficult, not least when her baby was moved to Middlesbrough, which is now in lockdown. She and her family need to be able to spend appropriate time to nurture and be with their baby. Bringing forward neonatal leave by two years would really assist her in that, and doing so now would help her even more. In the same way that the Government have moved at lightspeed to bring in so many measures during the pandemic, I ask that they bring in this important measure to support families in their time of need—April 2023 is too late.

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on adoption and permanence, the second issue I want to look at is the current inequality between adoptive parents and birth parents. Will the Minister take another look at that inequality, not least in the Government’s response to the Petitions Committee report? We know, for instance, that self-employed adoptive parents are not entitled to an equivalent to the maternity allowance that self-employed mothers can access. They can ask the local authority for support, but they may not get it, and it is means-tested, unlike for birth parents. The 2016 independent review of self-employment in the UK highlighted that disadvantage, yet four years on, there has been no redress. I ask the Government: why?

Special guardians are currently not entitled to any form of parental leave or pay, yet they fulfil a crucial parental role. That creates real inequality: research shows that around half of kinship carers have to give up work to care for their children. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who last week published an excellent report about the real hardship that kinship parents face. We need to see real change. Labour would have introduced a year of maternity pay and leave, following best practice, and we need to get that right for all parents.

I urge the Minister to bring forward proposals to ensure that there is no inequality between adopters and special guardians, and birth parents. For many of those parents, bonding with their child and addressing the issues of attachment are so important if their families are to succeed and thrive in future. Despite their response, I ask the Government to revisit those issues to ensure that we can create strong families in future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Scully]

As I say, it is the overall aspect of the right balance, in terms of maternity leave, between the time and the money that we believe is both generous and fair—getting that right balance as a day one right.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North talked about what we are doing to look forward with care in the early years. The Prime Minister has asked my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) to carry out a review on how to improve health outcomes for babies and children from disadvantaged backgrounds. That review will focus on the first 1,001 days of a baby’s life, from birth to age two and a half. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North says that she is on that committee, which is fantastic. I am looking forward to seeing what comes of that and what recommendations come forward.

On social groups for babies and children, I know how important baby and toddler groups are to new parents and babies, and how distressing it has been for parents to suffer through lockdown. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham talked about GPs and what they can and cannot do in terms of health visits. There is a contractual requirement from 1 April 2020 for GPs to offer maternal post-natal consultation at six to eight weeks after birth—live and stillbirth—as an additional appointment to the baby check in the first six to eight weeks. The Government gave an additional £12 million, invested through the GP contract, to support all practices to deliver that.

On mental health, clearly this is a concerning time for mothers. It is important, as we talk about giving mental health parity with physical health, that we are committed to supporting everyone’s mental wellbeing, especially during this unprecedented period. New parents can continue to access mental health services, including virtually, and the Department of Health and Social Care has released more tailored guidance to help people to deal with the outbreak.

[Rachael Maskell]

Will the Minister give way?

[Paul Scully]

I will not, because I have literally only a minute left and I want the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North to be able to respond.

There is no way I can talk about all hon. Members’ comments in the minute that I have left, but as I said in my response to the core of the petition, the Government believe that the entitlement to 52 weeks of maternity leave and 39 weeks of statutory maternity pay or maternity allowance is already very generous. I should perhaps add that those entitlements are provided to enable pregnant women and new mothers to prepare for and recover from birth and bond with their child.

We need to make sure that as we relax lockdown, there are new opportunities for new parents to spend their maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave in the way that they envisaged prior to the pandemic. The recent relaxations have been possible only because we took the difficult decision to introduce stringent social distancing measures, including lockdown. In fact, as we are now learning, we still need to be vigilant at maintaining social distancing, to protect lives.

In conclusion, may I thank the petitioners? We will continue to work on those first early years, to ensure that parents and children can get the support that they want.

End of Eviction Moratorium

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to my right hon. Friend, who is a doughty campaigner for her constituents in Chipping Barnet. I agree that we need to build upon the programme that she mentions. That is why, on 18 July, we announced the next steps accommodation programme, which I referred to earlier. At that point, it had spent about £263 million on 3,000 homes to help the long-term homeless. Dame Louise Casey is tasked with ensuring that we get people off the streets and keep them off the streets. As a result of the measures that we have undertaken, about 90% of those who were homeless at the start of the epidemic are now housed. We will continue to discharge our obligations. That is why, on 17 September, we announced further funds to the tune of £93 million to support the sorts of programme to which my right hon. Friend referred.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

York has one of the highest levels of private rent in the country. So many people are falling into rent arrears, and we do not have any capacity in our social housing provision. In fact, the waiting list has gone up by 300—over 20%—over the last six months. How will the Minister ensure that local authorities such as mine have sufficient resources in their discretionary grant to support constituents and stop them becoming homeless?

[Christopher Pincher]

As I have already described, we have disbursed £180 million in discretionary housing payments to local authorities to support them in supporting those in difficulty. We have spent several billion pounds on supporting local authorities through this pandemic, and we will keep our proposals under review, to ensure that we help everybody who is affected by this crisis, including the hon. Lady’s constituents in York. The measures put in place by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer—described by the shadow Chancellor as a “lifeline”—and by the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), which to date have injected a further £9.3 billion into our welfare safety net, are designed to do exactly what we want to do: keep people off the street, keep them in their homes and keep them in their jobs as we move through this crisis.