Levelling-up Fund Round 2

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s good advice, because those who were unsuccessful in round 1 have been successful in round 2. Round 3 is coming up and I look forward to announcing further funds in due course.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

This has been another kick in the teeth for the people of Leeds from this Conservative Government. After cuts totalling £2 billion to Leeds City Council’s funding since 2010, a bid to redevelop Fearnville sports centre in my constituency has been rejected yet again. All six bids from Leeds were rejected. There are zero pounds for Leeds, while in the Prime Minister’s wealthy constituency up the road, there is £19 million for him. Is it not the case that what this is really about is not levelling up, but Tory favouritism and the Tories looking after their own? Leeds deserves far better.

[Lucy Frazer]

As someone who grew up in Leeds, I think it is a great area. It has had significant regeneration over the years, which I have seen at first hand. Of course, further generation would be welcome. On the point about Opposition parties, I reiterate that 45% of the funding has gone to Opposition areas.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Lee Rowley]

The right hon. Lady raises an important point. We need to get these properties resolved, mitigated and improved and that needs to be done in a way that works, as much as it can, for leaseholders, who should not be impacted by this in the first place. I will be happy to receive any information on the building she mentioned; I visited a flat in Manchester just a few weeks ago which had a similar issue and I will be happy to talk to her about this specific issue in more detail.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

12. What assessment he has made of the feasibility of bringing in voter ID for local elections in May 2023.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley)]

The Government continue to work actively to ensure that voter ID is delivered in time for the 2023 elections, and we will continue to work with the Electoral Commission and all other parties, including local authorities, to ensure that that occurs.

[Richard Burgon]

I thank the Minister for his answer, but the Government’s imposition of voter ID, despite there being hardly any instances of voter fraud, is a crass attempt at vote rigging, and now the Electoral Commission and the Local Government Association are warning it will not even be possible to have everything ready by this May’s local elections. So will the Minister do the right thing for our democracy and pause the roll-out, or will the Minister ignore the experts and plough on, knowing full well that ploughing on and ignoring the experts will disenfranchise so many people across our country?

[Lee Rowley]

Just as when we discussed this in the statutory instrument debate, the hon. Gentleman has deployed some pretty outrageous rhetoric on an important issue. The issue is important for the integrity of the ballot box going forward, and we will continue to work with all parties. I will be speaking with the Electoral Commission shortly, which just today has begun its process of outlining this to people through its communications campaign, and we will ensure that in May 2023, when people go to the ballot box, they are able to cast their vote, and that people have an absolute commitment from this Government that votes are cast by people who are who they say they are.

Council Tax

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I have listened with great interest to the Minister’s assurances to the House and the country, but it will not surprise Conservative Members to learn that I am not assured, nor will my constituents be assured.

Tony Benn talked of the importance of the vote. He talked very movingly of the way in which universal suffrage had helped to transfer power from the marketplace to the ballot box, giving our citizens the right to obtain through voting what they could not obtain through their wallets, whether it be free healthcare, free education, or a say in our country’s laws. That right is under threat from these regulations, which are littered with discriminatory inconsistencies. They are not, in fact, a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but, in my view, a deliberate voter suppression strategy—a strategy not to suppress just any voters, but to suppress certain groups of voters in particular.

These regulations are straight out of the right-wing United States Republican playbook. Over there, they try to find ways of stopping people being able to vote. How else can we explain the way in which young people are discriminated against in the regulations? I believe they are a deliberate voter suppression strategy against working-class communities in particular, and, in particular, black and ethnic minority working-class communities and young working-class people, because the Conservatives have taken the view that those are the people who are less likely to vote for them.

The regulations also have a broader context that should disturb all of us who are concerned about hard-won British democratic freedoms. In our society, there are three main ways for people to fight back against unpopular policies or express discontent with a Government they do not like, or an employer they do not like. There is the right to protest peacefully, the right to take industrial action and withdraw labour, and, of course, the right to vote. These regulations on voter ID need to be seen within the context of an authoritarian drift on the part of a Government who have in their sights the right to protest peacefully, the right to take strike action, and the right to vote with ease. That is profoundly disturbing. The Members on the other side of the debate are probably split between those who believe that this is necessary and desirable and those who do not really believe that it is necessary and desirable, but are going along with it because they are going along with that authoritarian drift.

Even if we were to accept the introduction of voter ID, which I and others certainly do not, when we look at the inconsistencies in the regulations with regard to which voter ID is acceptable and which is not, we see that it is a real dog’s dinner—a real anti-democratic dog’s dinner. These regulations should send a shiver down the spines of all those who believe in civil and democratic liberties in our society. They should send a shiver down the spines of people, regardless of their political views, who believe that the right of every citizen to vote, the right of every worker to withdraw labour and the right of every citizen to engage in peaceful protest are rights that were hard won and should be cherished and defended. It is because we defend those hard-won civil liberties and principles that we oppose these regulations, and oppose this Government’s disgraceful authoritarian drift.

Called-in Planning Decision: West Cumbria

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Thursday 8th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

Again, the 350-page report looks at all the evidence and the competing arguments before coming to that conclusion. I know my hon. Friend, like many colleagues, looked closely at that report before coming to his own judgment, and I urge all colleagues across this House to do so.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

The hon. Member for Bolton West (Chris Green) talks about the ongoing revival of coal mines. Not only is this decision an act of climate vandalism, but steel industry experts say it is completely unnecessary and that the British steel industry needs green investment. We know that solving the energy crisis and securing good, local, well-paid jobs across the country are important, but is not investing in renewables and the national programme of housing insulation the real way to do that?

[Michael Gove]

The Government are investing in renewables, and the leadership that has been shown by the UK Government and partners across the UK in the provision of offshore wind is a demonstration of that. As I pointed out, when it comes to offshore and onshore wind, steel is a critical component in the manufacture of the turbines that we rely on. If we are to continue to produce steel in future, we will need coking coal for decades to come, and the inspector concludes it is better that it comes from a mine that is net zero.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Felicity Buchan)]

The Government remain committed to our 10-year vision for the reform of adult social care, and we are taking forward proposals in the “People at the Heart of Care” White Paper. As my right hon. Friend will appreciate, following last Thursday’s fiscal statement, Departments are reviewing specific spending plans, and details will be announced in due course.

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

T8. Tory austerity has hit councils hard. Under the Tory Government, Leeds City Council has been hit by cuts of £2 billion, which is money needed for key local services. Would not another round of austerity be an act of Government vandalism punishing the poorest areas in our country?

[Michael Gove]

No.

Grenfell Tower: Fifth Anniversary

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, and I especially thank those MPs from across the House, including Back-Bench MPs from the governing party and all the Opposition parties, who supported its application. It is essential that we have a moment like this in the House to remember the events at Grenfell, to mark the worst domestic fire in living memory, to commemorate the 72 people killed and to acknowledge all those whose lives were changed for the worse that day. Such a debate is an important moment of reflection. It should also be an opportunity for the House to show that it is learning the lessons of that atrocity by taking the action needed to prevent it from ever happening again.

I ask the Government for an annual debate in Government time when the House can receive and debate reports on progress made on the Grenfell fire inquiry recommendations and to discuss changes to our justice system and the changes that must be made to make homes safe if we are to show that lessons are truly being learned. If we allow the memory of Grenfell to slip away, there is a real risk that the changes needed to prevent another Grenfell will slip away with it.

I want to focus on two areas: the need for justice for all those killed, for the survivors, for the bereaved families and for the wider community; and the changes that we need to ensure that it never happens again. Five years on from the fire, it is clear that bereaved families and survivors feel deeply let down by our justice system, and they have every right to do so. They are rightly asking, “Where are the criminal charges? Why are those who made the decisions that turned Grenfell into a deathtrap still walking free, and why, five years on, have those who ignored residents’ warnings not been held to account?”

The deep sense of injustice goes all the way back to day one of the atrocity. Hours after the fire, a public inquiry was announced, even though families had wanted the criminal investigation to go first. I remind the House that, while bereaved and affected families were mourning their loved ones, seeking a new place to live and trying to continue to bring up their children and look after their parents, they had to launch a public campaign over the nature of the public inquiry to stop it from being done to them rather than with them. They were initially refused the simplest of demands for the public inquiry to be led by a broad-based panel; a demand to help them have trust in it. There had to be protests, marches and petitions signed by more than 150,000 people to get the House to even debate such an inquiry panel before it was belatedly granted. As shadow Justice Secretary during the fire and its aftermath, I was privileged to work with the families as they campaigned for that simple demand, but I remember feeling sick to my stomach that their energies had to go into fighting for something that should be a basic right.

From the very outset, the confidence of the survivors and bereaved family members in the justice system was damaged and it is clear that it has not been repaired. As Grenfell United said this week:

“For 5 years we’ve had to endure a justice system that protects the powerful. A system that prevents justice. Whilst this system exists, we face the same unachievable battle as the many before us. From Aberfan, to Hillsborough, justice has been denied & #Grenfell is no different. They left us to search for answers, they mocked us publicly. Now, they stand in the way of justice. We must pave a new way forward. We must hold those responsible to account.”

We know that this experience of our justice system is not a one-off. Hillsborough and Bloody Sunday are just two examples of when the state blocked the truth and justice for years, sowing distrust and undermining justice.

Going forward, one way to show that lessons have been learnt would be to make changes, so that families do not have to fight for years more than necessary in inquiries to get justice. For many, the history of inquiries in this country often gives the impression that they are there to slow down justice and deny justice. We should implement the Hillsborough law, backed by the Grenfell families, as a matter of the utmost urgency. It would not address all the issues that led to such appalling treatment of the Grenfell families, but it would ensure that in future the scales of justice are not so tilted against ordinary families and in favour of public authorities who hold all power. But of course, true justice will only be done when those responsible, be they politicians, officials or company decision makers, are fully held to account, including through the criminal courts.

We have heard a lot in recent days about ensuring that this atrocity never happens again, but the Grenfell families believe that, five years on, another Grenfell is a very real possibility. Already at the inquiry there has been a mountain of evidence of how profits were prioritised over safety, how privatisation and deregulation watered down building standards, and how cuts and austerity contributed. All that must be tackled if the words “never again” are not just platitudes from politicians. The lessons from the inquiry must be implemented in full, however uncomfortable that is for the Government. But there are already deep concerns that lessons will be ignored and that they already are being ignored.

The Government, so far, have failed to implement a single recommendation directed at them from the first phase of the inquiry. Worse still, they are actively rejecting some of the recommendations. One key recommendation from the inquiry’s first phase was to make it mandatory for owners of high-rise flats to arrange personal emergency evacuation plans, known as PEEPs, for disabled people. Of the 37 disabled people living at Grenfell, 15 lost their lives—41%—yet the Home Office recently rejected that recommendation. It is a total scandal that once again profits seem to be being put before life, with the Government labelling this recommendation impractical and too costly. That breaks a previous Government promise to implement the recommendations in full. What is the point of an inquiry if the recommendations are then rejected?

Peter Apps, the journalist who has perhaps best covered housing and fire safety in the aftermath of Grenfell, says that that happened after the Home Office had one-to-one conversations with building owners and ignored its own consultation responses. No wonder Edward Daffarn, a Grenfell resident who warned of a catastrophic fire months before it happened, says that the Government are playing Russian roulette with people’s lives.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I am sorry that I will not be able to make a speech in this debate as I will be in Committee.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it was quite extraordinary that plans for people with disabilities to leave in the event of a fire were not already in place and legally required in the first place? It is even more extraordinary that, with the evidence that emerged during the inquiry that such plans were needed, the Government, having said repeatedly in this House that they would implement the findings of the Grenfell inquiry in full, are now backtracking and putting at risk our most vulnerable people, which we find quite unacceptable.

[Richard Burgon]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I hope that after this debate the Government will revisit their position and their rejection of that important recommendation from the first phase of the inquiry.

That is not the only concern about fire safety measures not being addressed. Government officials did not heed coroner advice after the Lakanal House fire killed six people in 2009. It was followed by an even more deadly fire. We cannot allow the same to happen after Grenfell. Yet as David Badillo, the first of many firefighters who went into Grenfell Tower, wrote this week:

“Apparently 72 lost lives is not enough. There is still no requirement for a second staircase in high rises. No requirement to fit fire alarms in all high rises. No national strategy on how to evacuate high rises.”

The figure revealed this week by the Fire Brigades Union, of 221 firefighter positions cut since Grenfell, represents a serious failure to change course after the loss of 11,000 firefighter roles between 2010 and 2017. Of course, a failure to sufficiently address the housing safety crisis is another reason why we have to take with a healthy dose of scepticism claims that lessons have so far been learned. Even on the ground in Kensington and Chelsea the situation is not yet resolved. Three Grenfell households are still to be rehoused, while 50 more have replacement homes unsuitable for their needs in numerous ways. After five years, it is unacceptable that people are still being treated as second-class citizens.

More widely, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people are still at risk in unsafe housing. Work is still to be completed on 111 buildings that are over 18 metres tall and have exactly the type of aluminium composite material—ACM—cladding identified by the Grenfell inquiry as a leading cause of the 2017 atrocity. Some 640,000 people are still living in buildings with that exact type of cladding. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Last week, after accessing Government figures, LBC reported that almost 10,000 buildings in England are unsafe due to dangerous cladding and other associated fire risks. Those shocking figures include at least 903 buildings over 18 metres tall with cladding systems that need to be removed. A study last year estimated that between 6,000 and 8,900 mid-rise residential buildings, between 11 metres and 18 metres in height, require remediation, partial remediation or mitigation works.

As well as the danger to their lives, as End Our Cladding Scandal has so well documented, there are the financial costs, with many living in unsafe homes that they cannot sell and facing bankruptcy because their house has plummeted in value. This is affecting their physical health and their mental health. Surely, five years on from Grenfell, one of its legacies should be an end to all unsafe homes.

I want to conclude with the words of the families in a statement made this week:

“We don’t want our 72 to be remembered for what happened, but for what changed.”

Those are their words. We need more than the apologies of politicians. We need more than an inquiry. We need to see justice properly done and we need real change to the practices, cultures and policies that led to so many people needlessly losing their lives five years ago.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Burgon]

I thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have contributed to this very important debate. I am glad that the Government have committed to an annual debate on this in Government time.

I hear the Minister say that he and the Government will take seriously every recommendation from the inquiry, but I would like the Government to commit to implement every single recommendation, not just to take them seriously. I would like the Government to revisit their decision and overturn their rejection of personal evacuation plans. I would like the Government to help all people hit by the cladding crisis and surely, as we have heard from other Members, the cladding companies should pay. We need a commitment that no one in this country will live in a fire-unsafe home, and we do need the urgent implementation of the Hillsborough law, because the duty of candour from public authorities is so important.

Along with other Members, I was on the very moving memorial walk the other night, and we sensed the unity. I want to pay tribute to Councillor Emma Dent Coad, who has continued to pursue this injustice and advocate for local residents in the community in which she lives.

I want to finish with two brief quotes. One is from the journalist Peter Apps, who wrote in a recent article:

“What has emerged is a profoundly depressing portrait of a private sector with a near psychopathic disregard for human life, and a public sector which exists to do little more than serve or imitate it.”

However, I want the final words of this debate, fittingly, to be from the families, the bereaved and the survivors of Grenfell United, who said:

“We must pave a new way forward. We must hold those responsible to account.”

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Our thoughts are with all those families affected by this awful tragedy, but particularly at this time.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the fifth anniversary of the Grenfell Tower fire.

Building Safety Bill

Richard Burgon Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 21st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Four years on from the Grenfell fire, a fire that killed 72 people and shone a tragic light on the reality of how race, class and inequality shape the lives of working-class people in our country, we are still yet to see the changes needed to make housing safe. Four years later, hundreds of thousands of people are still living with unsafe cladding and other fire safety problems. Millions are caught up in the wider building safety crisis, yet the Government have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to make any small steps forward in the Bill—a Bill riddled with major flaws. It must be amended as it passes through this House.

The Bill, together with the statement that the Secretary of State has published today, is as it stands a betrayal of those who needed the Government to step in and support them following Grenfell. Despite the promises of Conservative Ministers, many leaseholders are still having to pay. Without decisive Government action, they will pay more in the future. Legal advice for the Labour party found that the Bill will make it more likely, not less likely, that leaseholders would have to pick up the costs of fixing cladding issues.

Four years on from Grenfell, what explains the inadequacies of the Bill before us today? What explains the four years of foot-dragging and the four years of refusal to deliver the protections that leaseholders need? This year, dodgy contracts have been exposed and the stench of corruption has grown ever stronger, with polls showing that most people see this Government as corrupt. Well, those people will not be reassured by the fact that developers who build flats with unsafe cladding have donated £2.5 million to the Conservatives since Grenfell and that Conservative MPs have then voted time after time after time to block amendments to protect leaseholders from the cost of removing dangerous cladding. Nor will they be reassured that, according to the anti-corruption body Transparency International, £1 in every £5 donated to the Conservative party since 2010 came from those with substantial interests in the housing market. And, of course, we have a Housing Secretary who admitted to unlawfully signing off a £1 billion housing project which saved a Conservative party donor millions of pounds.

Tory MPs and the Government, if they want, can show that they are not in the pockets of developers by backing amendments that will come to ensure that the cost of building safety remediation is not passed on to innocent homeowners and tenants. It is remarkable that if the Minister himself were not here, not a single Conservative MP would be on the Conservative Benches today—not good enough. Members should back the amendments to improve the Bill.

Fire and Rehire

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to see you in the chair, Mrs Murray. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) for securing this debate. Fire and rehire is the latest in a long line of tools used by the Tories and bullying bosses to drive down pay and conditions of workers. It is a form of legalised robbery. The same work—sometimes more—is expected to be done but for less pay. The aim is simple: to transfer wealth from wages to profits. How do they hope to get away with that? By exploiting workers’ insecurity at a time of crisis. When we should be building a fairer society out of the covid crisis, unscrupulous bosses are being given a green light to intimidate workers into accepting worse pay and conditions.

This is not just about the one in 10 workers threatened so far. Fire and rehire is the new Tory blueprint for the whole economy. It will grow dramatically as furlough ends, unless the law is changed. The aim is to drag down everyone’s terms and conditions, a real race to the bottom. Workers lose out, bosses gain: it is Thatcherism on steroids. Of course, the Prime Minister claims he is against this, but words are cheap; action is what matters. There is not a single Back-Bench Tory MP here for the debate.

The truth is that the Government could ban this disgraceful practice overnight. If the Prime Minister introduced the legislation today, Labour would back it. With the stroke of a pen, the threat would be gone. Other countries have already banned fire and rehire. If only the Tories were as quick in responding to that issue as they are in responding to WhatsApp messages from their corporate sponsors. As a trade union lawyer, before I became a Member of Parliament, I saw the immense suffering of those subjected to fire and rehire, but now it is being carried out on an industrial scale, so the fightback must be on an industrial scale too. I have joined British Gas workers on the GMB picket in Leeds, fighting back against that company’s appalling behaviour; and I commend and congratulate Unite the Union on defending so many workers who have been affected by fire and rehire and on getting that agenda on to the national agenda.

I will end with a message to every worker who has been forced to take action against the disgraceful practice. They have my absolute, unwavering support in standing up to bully boy tactics and the shameful inaction of the Conservative Government.