Sir David Amess Summer Adjournment

Roger Gale Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate and to remember the late Sir David Amess, who rattled off so many issues when he used to speak in the debate. I am taking him as my inspiration for this speech, although I will not do it as fast as he would have done it.

It has been another remarkably busy Session for me and my team, and three and half years into this job, it continues to be an enormous privilege to serve the people of Putney, Roehampton, Wandsworth town and Southfields. I invite you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to join me at the Roehampton community week celebrations and events in August. It would be an honour if you can join us and it will be the highlight of the summer in my constituency.

I thank everyone involved in my Putney Gives campaign to support donations to our local foodbanks. The synagogue, the mosque, churches, schools and businesses all came together, and we donated two thirds of a tonne of much-needed food and other provisions to local people who are really struggling at this time during the summer.

I have received more than 18,500 emails from constituents since the parliamentary Session began in May last year and my hard-working team and I have sent out nearly 27,000 in reply. I thank my hard-working and caring parliamentary staff team— Matt, Dan, Mercy, Anna, Jack and Anisah—for all of their work. Together with constituents across the constituency, we are a campaigning team and I have been campaigning hard on the climate emergency; the housing crisis; cladding; discrimination; young carers; early years services; youth services; special educational needs; tackling crime; cleaning up our air; the NHS; saving bus routes; and dealing with sewage in rivers. We saved some allotments in Southfields from being developed on. We are campaigning for a lift for East Putney station. We are also seeking to reopen Hammersmith bridge—yes, it is still closed and I cannot believe it either! We need funding from the Government to reopen it. We are campaigning to stop the closure of ticket offices and to increase safe cycle lanes and cycle parking, so that more people who want to cycle in our wonderful constituency can do so. That is far from an exhaustive list.

As we close for the summer and this long Session continues, the Government continue to provide more questions than answers, so I have several issues I wish to raise today. First, I want to thank all those in NHS Supply Chain for movement on our campaign for NHS uniforms to be standardised. In the equivalent debate three years ago, I talked about Putney’s Scrubbery, which, at that time, with covid hard upon us, had mobilised lots of volunteers to make scrubs in hospitals. As they did so, they found out that the NHS scrubs were not fit for purpose: they were made for men who were much bigger than most of the staff; and they were not standardised across hospitals, which made it difficult to do laundry services and cost a lot more money. We have been campaigning on this issue. As a result, following hard work by staff at NHS Supply Chain, this has been turned around. Some 50,000 people got involved in the consultation and now uniforms that are more comfortable, fit for purpose and save money are being developed. So I am grateful to all of those who have helped with that campaign.

My next issue is probably the biggest question being asked by Putney residents at the moment: where is the Renters (Reform) Bill? Every week, with bated breath, I have looked at the Order Paper to see what is on in the next week in here, but I have never seen that Bill. Will the Minister explain at the end of this debate to the 21,000 private renters in my constituency, which has an average rent of more than £4,500 a month, where the Bill is? Why do I have to keep asking about it? Why is it taking so long?

It has been 1,500 days and four Prime Ministers since the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) first promised to scrap no-fault evictions, back in April 2019. That was announced with huge fanfare but it was never followed up. The situation is getting desperate. Since then, more than 50,000 households have been threatened with homelessness by section 21 notices. No-fault evictions are a leading cause of households approaching their councils for homelessness relief. No-fault evictions have gone up by 116% this year and, with mortgage rises being passed on by landlords, many renters are facing homelessness. I have spoken to many in the past few weeks. The Deputy Prime Minister reiterated the line at Prime Minister’s questions recently that the Bill would be brought forward when parliamentary time allows. We have had plenty of parliamentary time since then, and we will probably have some more this afternoon, but we will not see the Bill this side of the summer recess, leaving renters across the country waiting yet again.

I thank all the schools in my constituency that have welcomed me to visit them. I get a lot of questions and answers—I get all sorts of questions. I am given a hard time, rightly, by lots of young people from across the constituency, but every time I talk with schools and young people they raise one issue above every other: mental health. We need to talk about child and adolescent mental health services and the long waiting lists. A quarter of a million children in the UK with mental health problems have been denied the help they need because the NHS is struggling to keep up with the demand for services. Some 95% of GPs believe that mental health services for children and young people are critically failing and have deteriorated in the past six years. Ministers have failed to deliver on parity of esteem for mental health services and children, especially, are being badly let down.

Labour has a plan for this. We will provide a specialist mental health support service in every secondary school. We will put an open-access mental health hub for children and young people in every community, providing that much-needed early intervention—prevention. We cannot wait until we are in government—we cannot wait for that—to do something about this matter. I seek a response from the Government on their solutions to this issue. They are very welcome to steal and implement Labour’s plans for improving our mental health services.

My next issue is driving test waiting times. This has been concerning for many of my constituents who have been waiting an extraordinary amount of time to get their test booked. Many are unable to take up new jobs because, by the time they have managed to book a test, they have lost their job offer. That is very concerning. Recently, I had to book a test with my daughter and found that it was harder to get a test date than to get Taylor Swift or Glastonbury tickets. We woke up at 6 o’clock on a Monday morning, went online, and then found that there were 8,400 people in the queue ahead of us for the test. We had to wait half an hour for the queue to go down, and then we jumped on the last remaining test in the whole London area, which was many miles away from us in north London. This crisis is going on, and I do not think that it is being raised enough in the House, which is why I am doing so now.

In England, the average wait time for a test is 13.6 weeks. Before 2020, it was just six weeks, which is an acceptable amount of time, but waiting about six months on average is just not acceptable. In London, it is worse. Of the 26 test centres in London, 16 have wait times of 24 weeks—the average is 17 and a half weeks. In the many written parliamentary questions that I have put to the Department for Transport, I have asked exactly how long people are having to wait, how many Londoners are able to get tests in London, and what the situation is across the country. The Department could not give me information on that. Officials said that they had no data because the moving and the rebooking of tests means that they do not know when people first booked their tests. That is not good enough. If the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency does not even have the data on waiting list times, it cannot fix the problem. Will the Minister look at the system, as it really is not working at the moment, and take this matter up with the Department for Transport and the DVSA?

The next issue, which has cross-party support, is my campaign to ban plastic in wet wipes. It has come a long way and I know that Members are waiting with bated breath to find out what the next steps are. I introduced my private Member’s Bill in 2021, and it was supported by Members from across the House. Billions of wet wipes are used every year, and, because they contain plastic, they do not break down, they block sewers, they add costs to our water bills and they cause environmental damage in our rivers and oceans. There was a consultation, which was great, and it ended in February last year. Suppliers, retailers and all parts of the industry are united in saying that a ban could be achieved. Tesco and Boots have led the way as retailers, banning plastic in all the wet wipes that they sell, which amounts to billions of wet wipes a year. Producers and retailers agree that a date could be set, and that they could introduce a ban. The Government’s plan for water was published in April. There was the opportunity to get the ban. It included an announcement from the Government that it would be done—fantastic. So far so good, but there is no actual ban and there is no actual date. Instead, we have a promise of another consultation. I ask the Minister today: why is there another consultation; when will it be launched; and when will the actual ban come in?

I wish to finish on the climate emergency. One of the first things I did when I was elected MP for Putney was set up the Putney Environment Commission. It is a wonderful thriving group of activists and local people who want to take ownership of our local environment and tackle the climate emergency globally, nationally, locally, and in our own gardens. We held a recent meeting focused on the need to save nature, and how much of a nature-depleted country we are compared with other countries. Local people in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields see the data, they see Europe being scorched as we speak with record-breaking heat, and they see the inaction of the Government, and they are horrified. They do not want to stand by and do nothing about it.

It is not just the people of Putney who are concerned about the failure of the Conservative Government to do enough on the environment. The Climate Change Committee has highlighted 18 areas in which the Conservative Government are failing on energy and climate. Those include failure to reform the planning system to bring more home-grown power online; failure on renewables; failure on energy efficiency; failure on making new homes green; failure in comparison to other countries; failure to take global climate leadership; failure on heat pumps; failure on hydrogen for home heating; failure on the delivery of nature targets; failure to deliver on international commitments, instead going backwards; failure to grasp the opportunity to protect consumers; failure on workers and skills; failure to address the UK’s second highest-emitting sector, which is buildings; and failure on fossil fuels and stopping more coal mines from being built.

The Government have failed to ensure that their own Departments, such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, meet the Committee’s priorities. They have also failed on green financing, which should be underpinning all of those actions. The Government should be going further and faster on climate action. I hope there is time for reflection over the summer recess, and that action on the climate can be speeded up incredibly. We cannot wait for the Labour Government who will take that action: we need it now.

Today, there are train strikes and an NHS doctors’ strike. My son graduates from university next week, but was told last week when he should have had his mark that it has not been allocated, so he will be graduating without even a mark after three difficult years at university under covid. That is because the Government have failed university staff, and are failing students. Food and housing costs are also spiralling. I cannot look back on the past 13 years without the word “failure” coming to mind. This country deserves better—Putney, Roehampton, Wandsworth town and Southfields deserve better.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish you and all Members present a restful and joyful summer. If you get the chance, do come and visit gorgeous Putney. It is a fantastic place to come in the summer, and I am so proud to be its MP.

Royal Assent

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that His Majesty has signified his Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023

Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023

Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023

Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023

Illegal Migration Act 2023

Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023

Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023.