Office Block Conversions: Essex

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered permitted development rights for office block conversions in Essex.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I wish to talk about a pressing and ongoing issue in my constituency of Harlow that can be described only as ghetto building, human warehousing and social cleansing, under the expanded permitted development rights legislation.

Let me be clear: I believe in more housing. We face a crisis in this country, with 1.2 million people on the waiting list for social housing, and more than 682,000 people living in overcrowded accommodation. Yet studies by the University of Sheffield show that 94% of land in the UK is not built on. Housing consultant Colin Wiles even suggested that English golf courses occupy more land than homes.

I am pleased that the Government are accelerating our house building programme, with 1.3 million homes delivered since 2010. My constituency of Harlow is set to benefit from 16,500 new homes by 2033 from the Harlow and Gilston garden town alone. I agree in principle with the motivation behind expanded permitted development rights legislation, to make it easier for new housing to be built, and when the legislation came to the House of Commons, no party opposed it. I have even seen how permitted development rights can be a success. Edinburgh House, formerly home to Pearson publishers, has been converted by Land Charter Homes into quality apartments that are close to the station, with good transport links.

However, as the BBC “Panorama” documentary detailed last week, permitted development rights have been an unmitigated disaster for our town. The reasons for that are threefold. First, Harlow has become a prime location for such developments, with 12 former office block conversions, including Terminus House, Templefields and Redstone House. Harlow’s proximity to London and comparatively lower property prices make it a preferred location for developers; but, of course, the legislation does not require the builds to comply with local planning regulations. As such, around 1,100 units have been created in Harlow—a town of around 40,000 homes—none of which has been tested against the requirements of the local plan.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the creation en masse of new, relatively inexpensive accommodation in Harlow has made such properties an attractive option for councils outside Harlow looking to house individuals who have presented as homeless in their area. That has allowed predominantly London councils to socially cleanse their boroughs and to place vulnerable individuals, often with additional needs, into those converted properties as temporary accommodation. A freedom of information request that I made in July 2019 found that 32 Labour councils have made out-of-area placements.

In Harlow, we have had an influx, receiving placements from Barking and Dagenham, Enfield and Harrow, to name just a few. The placing authority does not have to notify Harlow Council, or offer any additional funding to cope with the increased demand on local services. The situation has been exacerbated by the fact that Harlow Council did not take up the full capacity of Terminus House when it was initially offered by Caridon Property to house Harlow residents in need of accommodation. We might well ask whether Harlow Council, had it accepted that offer, could have worked with landlords to ensure that the housing was of good quality. However, Caridon offered the remaining units to other authorities for rental, causing that increase in placements of individuals from other areas.

Thirdly, the impact of the influx on Harlow has been catastrophic. The rabbit-hutch housing developments have been a hive of criminal activity and drug abuse, placing huge pressures on our local police, A&E and social services. The “Panorama” investigation found that Essex police have been called to one site—Templefields—nearly 600 times in three years, and of course Harlow taxpayers bear the brunt of all such problems.

Our local schools are under immense pressure. One primary school, Tany’s Dell, looks after pupils from 20 families currently living in nearby temporary accommodation at Templefields House. The teachers have described issues relating to safeguarding, poor attendance, anxiety and even exhaustion from the 30-minute walk to school, undertaken by children some of whom are as young as just three years old. There are no buses or any proper public transport links around that building.

I believe passionately that it is my duty in Parliament to address social injustice. I am not blaming the individuals and families, who are taken away from their usual support networks of friends and family.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend has always been a champion of social justice and, not for the first time, does this House a great service in bringing to our attention matters that are of both local import and national consequence. Does he agree that the report recently published by the commission that the Government tasked with looking at building beautiful places is highly pertinent to the debate? If we build homes in which people want to live, in places that they can feel proud of, social solidarity will be the result. I hope that the Government will shortly respond to those recommendations.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank my right hon. Friend. He is right: beauty is everything in building. When I initially saw the legislation on converting office blocks, I thought that it would be a good idea. I never imagined that loopholes in the legislation would allow the building of literal ghettos—of tiny rooms, as I will describe later—without any thought to beauty, aesthetics or the local environment for the poor residents who have to live in such places.

Often such properties are developed in areas never intended for residential dwelling. They are placed in isolated employment areas of the town with poor public transport routes, as I have just highlighted, making it difficult for residents to integrate socially and economically into the community. That is why it is so important that councils play at least some role in determining where such conversions take place. Individuals arrive, unfamiliar with social and counselling services and schools, and can feel unsupported in the new area. I am not against those vulnerable families—we have a duty to help every vulnerable family—but I have a duty to my constituents, and when families who have nothing to do with Harlow are brought to the town, they are separated from their own networks and support.

If families are not deemed vulnerable at the time of placement, it is easy for their new difficult living situation to affect that. Regularly in my constituency surgeries, and when I am out and about across our town of Harlow, I meet families living in such ghettos and hear moving stories. One lady, a recovering drug addict, was placed on a corridor where other residents were taking drugs right in front of her. That lady was sent from another borough. She had no links to Harlow, and was trying to get her life back on track, doing everything possible to get off drugs. She was a single parent, living in a room hardly bigger than the table behind me, and was now surrounded by drug dealers and people taking crack and other kinds of drugs. I ask the Minister how we can expect that lady, and so many others like her, to get their lives back on track living in such an unhealthy, unpalatable and unacceptable environment.

Ongoing support following placement is necessary if families are to thrive in their new area. Does the Minister not agree that in order to provide support, councils must first be notified of their placement and be given the funding to provide the care that vulnerable families need through local services? Permitted development rights were never meant to be about building ghettos. Nor were they about living space, and letting councils ship people off like cattle to the east of England and to Harlow.

I made this clear at the beginning of my speech: I know we need more housing, and I recognise that permitted development rights have made an important contribution in some parts of the country, but there have to be rules, particularly about quality, and councils must have some say in how the office blocks are converted. As one resident told me, the buildings were built for paper, not people, which sums it up exactly. If we truly want to help people, homes must be quality, safe spaces, not tiny box rooms where a single parent and a little baby live in a space where one can barely put one’s arms out without touching the walls and where the so-called kitchen is a yard away from the bed. They should not be housed in the same corridor as drug users and violent individuals.

In January, the Secretary of State confirmed to me in the Chamber that the review into permitted development rights

“will be taking forward any reforms necessary”.

He recognised that,

“All properties built in this country need to be safe.”—[Official Report, 20 January 2020; Vol. 670, c. 34.]

BBC’s “Panorama” documented cases where councils house individuals, couples and families in single rooms. Kitchens and toilets are metres apart. That is not a proper living environment. Shelter estimates that poor housing costs the NHS £1.4 billion a year. I ask the Minister again: in the Department’s review into permitted development rights, will he look beyond the numbers and consider the quality of housing being built? Will he work with colleagues to reform the legislation and make it a requirement in law that all properties, for temporary accommodation or not, meet minimum national space standards?

According to the House of Commons Library, local authorities have had powers to restrict permitted development rights under an article 4 direction at least since the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995. Changes made in 2010 mean it is now for local planning authorities

“to confirm all Article 4 directions”,

making it easier for councils to invoke restrictions on permitted development rights. In Harlow, the council should have acted earlier. Only in March last year did it seek an article 4 direction in certain areas of the town.

The issue has been ongoing for years, but there is another factor. The Library confirmed to me that,

“residential premises created from office conversions under permitted development which add to an authority’s council tax base... count for the purpose of the New Homes Bonus payments”

received by local councils. So is there therefore very little financial incentive to take action to restrict the developments? That is particularly the case in Harlow, where the new homes bonus created a grant back to the council worth more than £1 million in 2018-19. With more than half of the new properties last year being office conversions, Harlow Council should do more to use the money to help individuals and provide security around the town.

Furthermore, sections 76 to 93 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 grant powers to the council to seek a closure order for a property on the grounds of either disorderly, offensive or criminal behaviour; serious nuisance to the public; or disorder near the premises. To be fair, the order is not a permanent solution. It lasts only six months, and other local authority closure powers are substantially limited in their scope, for example, to deal with environmental concerns.

Councils need stronger powers to take meaningful action against permitted development right conversions where they create issues for our town. Having said that, councils should do more to use the powers that are available to them. I believe ghettos such as Terminus House and Templefields should be closed down once and for all. Will the Minister ensure that the review provides stronger solutions to allow councils to deal with the issues that permitted development rights have created and that exist now?

The current state of permitted development rights raises numerous issues. First, councils take advantage of cheap converted office blocks to ship people off to the east, where they believe there is living space. Individuals with additional needs, who require support from their local authority, are being dumped in shoddy, rabbit-hutch housing, with the receiving authority having to pick up the pieces. There is no sense of a duty of care for the individuals. There is no notification and no extra funding granted to the receiving authority to provide resources, and certain parts of the country are disproportionately affected. In areas such as Harlow, the pressure on the taxpayer, local services and schools is enormous.

Vulnerable individuals are housed together in isolated areas, away from their support networks, creating a breeding ground for criminal and antisocial behaviour. Those trying to get their lives back on track must do battle with an unhealthy living environment every day. I urge the Minister and the Secretary of State to spend 30 minutes watching the BBC’s “Panorama” programme, which makes an unanswerable case for the need for affordable and more quality housing.

The permitted development rights legislation has been disastrous in certain circumstances. The people of Harlow have been let down by councils and by flaws in the legislation that seems to support quantity over quality housing. They have been let down by the planning guidelines, which should give more powers to stop unsuitable accommodation in certain areas, and they have been let down by the fact that when the vulnerable families come through, there is no extra support or funding. I urge the Government and the Minister to take urgent action. In the 21st century—in 2020—we must put a stop to London boroughs’ social cleansing and the building of ghettos. We must put a stop to it all. We must give local authorities stronger powers to shut down human warehouses and ensure our councils have a real say on office block conversions.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Luke Hall)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) for calling this debate. It is an issue that he is extremely passionate about; he has raised it in the House many times. He is a champion on this issue, regularly lobbying Ministers to ensure that he gets his point across. He has done so again, extremely powerfully, today. I thank him for his contribution.

The hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) made a powerful speech. She has invited me to come to her constituency twice in the last week. I spent part of my youth growing up there, and it would be a pleasure to come back to speak to her and to see the issues at first hand.

I take on board some of the points raised by the shadow spokesperson, the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). The homelessness advice and support team have not heard some of the specific issues that she has raised about developments in her constituency, so I will ensure that that information is taken away, and that the team gets in touch with her local authority following the debate.

Nobody here today is in any doubt that the root of the issue is the need for new homes. We want housing for all those who aspire to have a home, whether a home of their own or a home to rent. A key part of achieving our ambition is to reduce homelessness, end rough sleeping and give people the homes that they need. Building the homes that this country needs, closing the opportunity gap and helping millions of young people into homes is something we want to focus on.

Together, we have delivered more than 1.5 million new homes since 2010. Of those, more than 465,000 are affordable homes, which includes 325,000 homes for affordable rent and 140,000 for social rent. We delivered 240,000 additional homes in the past year, which was the highest number in any year but one in more than 30 years. To build on that success, we have committed to deliver 300,000 new homes every year by the mid-2020s, which we will do by committing at least £44 billion of funding over five years.

We are reviewing the affordable homes programme, providing more than £9 billion up to March 2022, which will deliver a quarter of a million new affordable homes of a wide range of tenures, including shared ownership and social rent. The Government are also lifting the housing borrowing cap for councils, so that local authorities can deliver a new generation of council housing. In addition, to help people to buy homes where they already live, last week we launched a consultation on First Homes. These are discounted homes for local people and key workers, and the policy has the potential to save them tens of thousands of pounds and help them take their first steps on the property ladder.

To support the delivery of new housing, there is a duty on local planning authorities to have in place local plans, which need to allocate sufficient land in our towns and villages for new homes, and to have policies that encourage appropriate development. Some 302 local planning authorities have an adopted local plan— 89% of all local authorities—and 145 have plans adopted within the past five years. In the coming months, we shall set out an ambitious planning White Paper, which will continue the simplification of the planning system for the public and for small builders and make more land available for housing.

This debate links to the issue of homelessness, including in Harlow. Some important points have been made about homeless households and the impact that poor housing quality has on families, individuals and the community. We need to address that, whether in Harlow or any other town in our country. In 2020, it is unacceptable that anybody should have to sleep rough, especially at a time when we are enduring sub-zero temperatures. That is why we have brought forward our manifesto commitment to end rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament, rather than 2027. We want people to feel safe and secure in their own home.

On temporary accommodation, we always want to see homeless individuals and families moved into settled accommodation as soon as possible and on a permanent basis. The action that we are taking to increase the delivery of housing supports that. However, we do of course recognise the important role that temporary accommodation can play in the meantime, in ensuring that no family is without a roof over their head. We understand that there has been an increase in the number of households in TA in recent years. Although the overall numbers have been rising, the number of households with children has remained relatively stable since the introduction of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017—a groundbreaking piece of legislation. The increase in TA numbers since the Act took effect has been almost entirely driven by single households receiving help that was previously unavailable to them.

For the first time, the Act requires local authorities and public servants and the third sector to work together to actively prevent and relieve homelessness for people who are at risk, irrespective of whether they are a family or a single person. That means that more single people, who might otherwise have been on the streets, are getting the help that they need.

To help local authorities deliver their new duties under the HRA, we have created a specialist team of homelessness advice and support team advisers with expertise in the sector, to challenge and support local authorities in tackling the issue in their area. At the same time as supporting councils to deliver a transformation in their local homelessness services, the team has helped local authorities to deliver a 39% reduction in the number of families housed in B&B accommodation for longer than six weeks.

I absolutely acknowledge that my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow has raised particular developments in his constituency. However, we recognise the importance of providing self-contained homes for families in need, and permitted development rights can play a role in enabling that. It is easy to dismiss the value of a person having a house and home to call their own—I know my right hon. Friend is not doing so—and we think that permitted development rights play an important role in the system.

My right hon. Friend raised the issue of people being moved by councils from other local authority areas, in his case from London, and placed in his constituency. We are clear that, as far as possible, local authorities should avoid placing households outside their borough. However, in some areas where there is a limited supply of suitable accommodation, it has been necessary to place households outside their local area. It should always be a last resort—I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend on that point. Where it does happen, the council should place the household as near as possible to their home local authority. The local authority also has a legal duty to notify the receiving local authority of any households that are placed in its area.

It is important to stress that households have the right to appeal against the decision made by the local authority, if they feel that the TA that they have been placed in is not suitable. Collaboration between local authorities is paramount, which is why we welcome the initiative taken by the Local Government Association to bring together local authorities from London and around the country to try to address concerns about unsuitable out-of-area placements, including the use of blocks converted under permitted development rights. That will also help to deal with the concern that councils may be unaware of placements that are taking place in their area.

We completely recognise the particular challenges that London boroughs face in securing suitable temporary accommodation. To tackle those challenges, we have invested £37.8 million into a partnership of local authorities across London, which has set up Capital Letters, a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee that enables councils to pool their procurement activity in order to access an improved supply of good-quality accommodation to prevent and relieve homelessness. Capital Letters will reduce the use of expensive nightly paid temporary accommodation and ensure that properties are allocated more locally than they currently are.

[Robert Halfon]

I realise that the Minister has stepped in because the previous Housing Minister, to whom I pay tribute for her championing of blue-collar Conservatism, has sadly left her post. However, I say to the Minister that this is not a last resort for the councils around London that are dumping their people in my constituency. It is a first resort; it is the easy option. It means they do not have to pay for those people, and there are no strictures that say they must notify Harlow Council. The Minister may not be able to answer this question today, but I want to know what specifically is going to be done in my constituency to stop these things happening, and to ensure that permitted development rights are only allowed for five-star-quality accommodation, not for the kinds of things that I have described in my speech, and which the hon. Members for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) and for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) have reported to be happening in their constituencies.

[Luke Hall]

My right hon. Friend is completely right to raise the challenges that his local authority faces, and I know that the Secretary of State has visited that local authority to discuss the significant impact that it has been dealing with. The best thing may be for the new Housing Minister, upon appointment, to write to my right hon. Friend to update him about the Government’s plans and the work we are doing. If he wants to meet me to discuss this issue further, I am happy to meet him, but I am sure that the new Housing Minister will be able to give him some satisfaction.

National permitted development rights for the change of use to residential continue to play an important part in the planning system and make an important contribution to housing delivery. Those rights are delivering additional, much-needed homes that may not have been delivered otherwise, and have attracted new developers into the market. As has been mentioned, in the four years to March 2019, some 54,000 homes to buy or rent have been delivered through those rights, which allow a change of use from office to residential. We are clear that permitted development rights are a worthwhile way of making better use of existing buildings and preventing them from lying dormant and unused, which helps reduce the need to build on greenfield sites. Those rights also provide flexibility for property owners and offer a simplified approach to securing planning agreements. Where there are local issues that residents feel strongly about, planning authorities can of course consult with the community about whether to remove a permitted development right.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow mentioned good-quality homes being created through permitted development rights in his constituency, and I am glad that he did so. We do not want local authorities to be in a hurry to remove rights; they should take the time to ensure that they are getting those decisions right. Harlow has already removed the permitted development right for the change of use from office to residential in parts of that borough, and rights have been removed from buildings in the area around the developments described by my right hon. Friend. The Government expect that all homes should be of good quality, including those used for TA, and should meet building regulations —of course, the majority of developers ensure that they do so.

[Robert Halfon]

I realise that my hon. Friend stepped in at the last minute, and I do not want to make things difficult, given that he did not know that he would be responding to today’s debate. However, in my view, these places need to be closed down immediately, and as I highlighted in my remarks, there are some powers to do so. Could not the Government work with the local council to bring in special powers to close down these unsuitable buildings, which are causing misery for the people in them and the people of Harlow? We need action on this issue. I realise that my hon. Friend may not be able to properly answer me today, but could someone—whether he or the Housing Minister— contact me to say whether it would be possible to take emergency action?

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the Labour Members present, the hon. Members for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) and for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones). There is a lot of unity on this issue across all parties in the House, and the Minister has done a very good job of standing in at the last minute to respond to this debate. However, I urge him to make sure that the Department does everything possible to deal with this problem, because it is ruining towns and places for the people and families who live in them, including the people of Harlow.

The crucial point is about planning and the quality of housing that is allowed to be built, because these landlords would not be able to do what they are doing if there were strict rules about the size of the housing. Permitted development rights were not meant to be about temporary accommodation; they were meant to be about affordable housing, which is why I supported them. Although there was no vote in the House of Commons at the time—those rights were backed by all parties—I never would have supported them if I had known then what has happened over the past few years. We need the review of quality standards to have real teeth and substance, so that this situation is changed forthwith, and the existing buildings in Harlow need to be closed down, because they should not be allowed in this day and age. The Government, working with local councils, should take action to close those buildings down and make sure the residents in them have other accommodation to go to. We need to stop this once and for all.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered permitted development rights for office block conversions in Essex.

Building Safety

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I cannot give the right hon. Gentleman precise details of the negotiations, but they are continuing and we will work closely to see what arrangements we can put in place. I encourage any building owner to take action immediately. Building owners need to conduct a fire safety assessment of their building, if that is required, and then take any steps required. No delay should be encouraged by any of us.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I welcome the statement. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the issue of permitted development rights and the problems it has caused my constituency. How will the building safety regulations apply to that? What is he doing to ensure quality housing and proper building safety for permitted development rights buildings?

[Robert Jenrick]

My right hon. Friend and I have discussed permitted development rights in the past, and he has taken me to Harlow to see some of the issues there. That is why we have reviewed the permitted development office-to-residential regulations and will be taking forward any reforms necessary as a result. All properties built in this country need to be safe. That will have to feed through to all of the Government’s policies and our whole building safety regime.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

We cannot wait for primary legislation; we have to get on with it now. In particular, there are lots of things in the Letwin review that can work with the grain and the weave of current planning policy. For example, we will shortly be issuing guidance on housing diversification, which is one of the key suggestions in the review. We are encouraging local authorities to introduce local plans, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) urged us to do, so that landowners can realise the obligations placed upon them and so that the value of community contributions and affordable housing can be factored into the land price.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Permitted development rights have damaged the economic and social fabric of Harlow, increased crime and placed intolerable burdens on our education and social services. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said he would review them. What has happened to that review and what is the outcome?

[Mrs Wheeler]

I appreciate my right hon. Friend’s question, having recently visited Harlow to discuss this matter with him. In the round, 42,000 homes were delivered in the three years to March 2018 under permitted development rights with a change of use from office to residential. Earlier this year we announced a review of the quality standard of homes provided through permitted development rights for the conversion of buildings to residential use. The review is expected to conclude later this year. Today, I have written to all local authorities to remind them of their responsibilities regarding out-of-borough placements.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I will look and am looking carefully at the submissions that have been made. I want to see greater devolution across Yorkshire. I recognise Yorkshire’s ambition to have those powers transferred down and I look forward to continuing discussions with the hon. Gentleman and others on how best that can be advanced.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

T3. I thank my right hon. Friend for meeting me to discuss permitted development rights, but does he not agree that the policy has not worked? It has allowed landlords to build ghettos and London councillors to socially cleanse their most vulnerable families to places such as Harlow, yet we have not been given the resources to deal with the extra burden. Will he look at that and change the rules?

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for highlighting this issue, which he and I met and discussed directly. He knows that we made a commitment in the recent spring statement to examine permitted development rights in relation to the conversion of office to residential property, but I am content to look more broadly at where the burden lies with some of these transfers, because it is important that we get this right.

Stronger Towns Fund

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

As I have indicated already, in response to earlier questions, we will confirm the additional funding we will provide to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to reflect this new funding for England.

The hon. Lady asks about the UK shared prosperity fund, which is separate from this; I want to stress that. We are committed to creating the new fund to reduce inequalities between communities across our four nations by raising productivity once we have left the EU. We will operate that across the United Kingdom. We have made a commitment that we will respect the devolution settlements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and we will engage with the devolved Administrations to ensure that the fund works for all places across our United Kingdom.

We will consult widely on the design of the UK shared prosperity fund. I recognise the importance of reassuring local areas on the future of local growth and we will also be consulting firmly with the devolved Administrations. We have repeated our commitment to respect the devolution settlement and we intend to commence discussions between Ministers of the UK Government and the Governments of the nations in advance of the consultation. The hon. Lady can have my assurance of that in relation to the UK shared prosperity fund. We are committed to do that.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I strongly welcome this post-Brexit dividend, which I am sure is the beginning of more dividend to come. My right hon. Friend kindly mentioned my constituency of Harlow, which, despite being a wonderful place to live, has significant deprivation and disadvantage. Will he confirm the timing and the mechanisms for applying for this grant, so that we can apply for regeneration and for our new hospital? Although the east of England gets £25 million, will he confirm the mechanism for applying for money from the extra £600 million fund that he has announced?

[James Brokenshire]

My right hon. Friend rightly makes the distinction between the two elements of the fund and the town deals that we want to see emerging from both of them. On the first element, we have allocated this on the basis of a number of different factors, but I will be publishing a prospectus—that is the next stage—to set out the application process and the basis for the applications we want to see coming through from the towns that can apply under the £600 million fund. We will be setting that out in detail so that towns such as Harlow, which I know he is so passionate about, are able to apply.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We engage with the Home Office regularly to deal with the funds for unaccompanied asylum seekers and other such people. I am happy to realise that issue in the next of my regular meetings with the Immigration Minister.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Permitted development rights have been a disaster for my consistency of Harlow, as London councils have socially cleansed their residents and sent 400 troubled families to our constituency. We do not have the resources to look after them in the way they should be. Will my hon. Friend look at permitted development rights, undertake a review and ensure Harlow Council has the resources it needs to look after those 400 extra troubled families?

[Rishi Sunak]

I will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss that issue. Of course, vulnerable children must be housed appropriately and looked after, but we should ensure that that is done as closely as possible to where it makes sense for their communities.

Budget Resolutions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

1st reading: House of Commons
Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)]

This week’s Budget was a Budget for our proud public services, jobs, housing, opportunity and enterprise, and a brighter future for every part of our country. Above all, it was a Budget dedicated to the British people and their tireless efforts to rebuild the economy and to bring it back from the brink and the chaos under the last Labour Government. Let us not forget what a mountain we have had to climb.

Thanks to the Labour party, we are running the highest budget deficit in peacetime, with the Government having to borrow £1 for every £4 they spent. It has been difficult to turn that around, but the families and communities that make up this great country can be confident that their hard work and the Government’s balanced, long-term approach have paid off.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I strongly welcome the measures in the Budget, particularly those to help small shops on our high streets—they will transform our high streets. Will my right hon. Friend set out what the Budget and the Government are doing to ensure that we have more affordable and social housing?

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his early intervention. I intend to cover several housing announcements, but he rightly underlines the Government’s commitment to build the homes that our country needs. We want councils, housing associations and the private sector to build, thereby meeting the challenges and problems that the broken housing market has presented. The Government are determined to fix that.

Windrush

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Yes.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Just as my right hon. Friend did in his previous Department in fighting anti-Semitism, looking after the victims of Grenfell and championing affordable housing, will he make social justice a defining part of his mission in his new role, so that something like the Windrush saga can never happen again?

[Sajid Javid]

I can make that commitment. Every part of this Government is committed to furthering social justice, and that will be at the heart of my Department.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We probably will not reach the end of the Order Paper and it would be sad to be deprived of the intellect and eloquence of the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), so if he wishes to come in now, he can.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

20. My hon. Friend the Minister will be aware of the excellent homeless shelter in Harlow called Streets2Homes. What measures is she taking to support local homeless shelters?

[Mrs Wheeler]

Homeless shelters will form part of the rough sleeping strategy we are bringing out at the end of June or the beginning of July. We expect there to be a sea change in how all the different parts of the social sector, the charitable sector and local government deal with rough sleeping and homelessness. I think my right hon. Friend will enjoy reading the rough sleeping strategy.

Anti-Semitism

Robert Halfon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Last year, I was in Harlow town centre at a street stall, as I usually am on Saturdays, to speak to constituents. Completely unexpectedly, a man who I know to be from the left came at me screaming, “Go back to Israel.” It happened so quickly that I was unable to take a photo. However, I know that anti-Semitic acts like this, unthinkable a few years ago, are becoming increasingly commonplace. Demonstrations outside Parliament and Labour party headquarters would not have been well-attended if anti-Semitism was not seen by most as a dangerous and growing problem. That is why I am glad that this very timely debate is going ahead.

[Andrew Bridgen]

My hon. Friend is from the Jewish community and I am not. Does he agree, though, that we all have a duty to fight anti-Semitism, not because it is the right thing to do and the decent thing to do but because it is essential for the wellbeing of our wider society, as history shows us that anti-Semitism is always the thin end of a very nasty and very wide potentially racist wedge?

[Robert Halfon]

My hon. Friend puts it exactly right and sums up, in essence, much of what will be debated today.

I have been amazed to see guards outside synagogues. The shadow Minister mentioned schools. I remember being at a synagogue where the rabbi said to the Jewish people inside, “Please do not congregate outside when we finish the service because you might get abuse or something even worse.” I thought, “How can it be, in the 21st century, when we thought we had escaped the horrors of Nazi Germany, that Jews are told that by a rabbi in a synagogue?”

There appears to be in some sections of the left an accepted belief that all Jews are either Israeli settlers, very rich, or part of the capitalist establishment, and these claims are then linked to even more sinister conspiracy theories.

At best, it used to be acceptable to use the fig leaf of “Zionist” or “Israelite” as a cloak for anti-Semitism. Now, anti-Semitism has got so bad that the people who hate the Jews do not even use those terms any more. Anti-Semitism is out in its naked viciousness for everyone to see. The air has grown tighter; you feel very hot, you undo a button on your shirt and your mouth goes dry. This is still a great country and a wonderful place for Jewish people, but things have changed. I always thought that this was the greatest country in the world. My father was an immigrant here, having escaped from pogroms in Libya, and I never imagined that one would feel the air tightening in this country.

I would like to give special appreciation for the enormous work of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann)—what a great man he is—and the APPG against anti-Semitism, as well as other Labour MPs, such as the hon. Members for Dudley North (Ian Austin) and for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who is a good friend of the state of Israel, and many others.

However, I genuinely believe that the current Labour leadership is, at best, turning a blind eye to the problem and, at worst, condoning anti-Semitism. I say that with a heavy heart. I see the membership of dubious Facebook groups, the defence of anti-Semitic murals and the phoney reports produced by the now Baroness Chakrabarti, and they indicate three unwise monkeys: see no anti-Semitism, hear no anti-Semitism and do not speak out against anti-Semitism. That is the first problem.

The second problem is social media. As Front Benchers and shadow Front Benchers have highlighted, the internet has become a sewer for anti-Semitism. We spend so much time worrying about Facebook collecting our data for advertisements, but Facebook and Twitter have become social networks acting as a septic tank in which a disgusting and non-stop stream of anti-Semitic sewage collects. What is even worse is that when someone is a victim of anti-Semitism on social media sites, the duty is on them to get it corrected and not the other way round. Why are books and newspapers rightly punished for the publication of any kind of anti-Semitic content, but social media platforms act with impunity? They should be subject to the same laws as everybody else.

We have to ensure that community leaders and political leaders do everything possible to condemn anti-Semitism in every form it takes without hesitation or equivocation. Leadership has to set an example. We have to do more to support the Holocaust Educational Trust—I have been to Auschwitz with it—and to train teachers. We need to ensure that university campuses are welcoming environments for students of all backgrounds. The Office for Students should play a role, as the APPG against anti-Semitism recommends. The Government must go further in stamping out all extremist terror groups, including proscribing Hezbollah’s political arm. People should not be allowed to march down Trafalgar Square and Whitehall waving Hezbollah flags.

This debate is a vital opportunity to bring to the fore the widespread and escalating problem of anti-Semitism. It is also an opportunity to be constructive. Let us go forward, and let the leaders of all political parties unite to condemn anti-Semitic content, deal with the social media companies and do more to educate our people about anti-Semitism.