Holocaust Memorial Bill

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

I, too, rise to support the construction of the holocaust memorial and learning centre. I hope that we will be able to remove any remaining barriers and get the work started as soon as possible.

We have heard important voices, including my friend the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), raising concern about the location of the memorial. Of course, they must be listened to with courtesy and all consideration. However, surely it is right that the memorial be somewhere in close proximity to the heart of Britain’s democracy, where we can reflect and remember the most extreme consequences of despotic dictatorships and the atrocities committed by elected and unelected regimes around the world. That must be what drives all of us here to do and be better, and to unite in condemnation of the ethnic cleansing and genocide still being inflicted on many peoples today. The world looks to us for our collective voice and our actions, and a memorial to the victims of the holocaust is a positive and permanent signpost of our commitment to uphold human rights and affirm definitive rejection of anti-Jewish racism.

A memorial speaks louder than the badges we sometimes wear in this Chamber. It is a mark of our pledge to interfere and disrupt when we see mass murder, racial injustice, and acts of terror carried out by weak and failing Governments in their increasingly desperate pursuit of ultimate power over their own citizens. We see and condemn the treatment of people in Ethiopia, the Hazara persecuted in Afghanistan, Uyghurs, Rohingya, Ahmadi, Baluch and Christians around the world, but closer to home, our own recent past with regard to antisemitism is nothing to be proud of either, and we have heard a lot today about how it is absolutely on the rise.

My party in particular has moved considerably in the past few years, but that does not eliminate the need to be open and honest about our shameful record. A change of leadership and the adoption of a tougher approach are not necessarily all we need to do. When those of us who did speak up were trolled, hounded and harassed, particularly as new MPs, we received absolutely no support whatsoever. Indeed, the supporters of our former leader used his name in the written or verbal attacks spat at us across the rooms in which meetings were held. Although the majority of that unpleasant minority group of members decided to leave the Labour party on the election of a new leader, some do shamefully remain.

In March 2018, when the Jewish community felt they had no choice but to gather in protest, they chose Parliament Square and peacefully held placards reading, “Enough is Enough”. While many members of our shadow Cabinet and Front-Bench MPs chose to do and say absolutely nothing—present company excepted—those of us who attended that rally to support our Jewish friends and colleagues were watched by a senior member of the former leader’s staff, who stood under the arches as we re-entered through Carriage Gates and wrote down in his notebook the names of all who attended.

There followed almost two more years of relentless calls for some of us to be deselected and removed from our seats, with former colleagues and activist journalists inciting social media pile-ons, appearing at rallies and roadshows, and sharing platforms alongside celebrity socialists. Decent Jewish women, democratically elected as Members of Parliament, felt that they had no choice but to step away from this place. We must never allow such things to happen again.

For me, a memorial is a reminder to fight antisemitism wherever and whenever we see it, reminding ourselves that in the evil design to create a so-called Aryan master race, Hitler and the Nazis targeted and murdered millions of Jews, Roma and gay people. We cannot ever be complacent, and that nudge to remember ought to be somewhere we in this House can see and visit.

I will end with the words of Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust and friend to many in this House—my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) read some of her words earlier. She said:

“It is crucial to remember that the Holocaust Memorial—and remembering the Holocaust in general—is not about planning permission, or square footage, or underground pipes. What these discussions are about at their heart, is people.

People who were subjected to unimaginable suffering, simply because they were Jewish. People who were stripped of their homes, their citizenship and their dignity; and forced into overcrowded ghettos, labour camps, and concentration camps. People who were made to dig their own graves and were shot into pits in forests and ravines across Europe, or gassed to death in purpose-built killing centres.

And it is about people who against all odds survived, and made their home here in the UK.”

That is what we need to never forget. If there is a tangible reminder on our very doorstep, we have no excuse to ignore the plight of others persecuted by evil despotic regimes around the globe.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

Yesterday, my friend Paula Sherriff—a much missed former Member of this House—tweeted a quote that read:

“If we held a moment of silence for every victim of the Holocaust we would be silent for eleven and a half years.”

It is often easy to feel disconnected from the figures and statistics that are read out in this place. Six million people. Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Most of us will struggle to imagine a number too huge to picture in our minds. It is easier, then, for us to imagine what it might feel like in our own lives if overnight the family living next door to us were to disappear, if several of our classmates and teachers did not turn up for school one day, and if there were noticeably fewer people around—emptier shops, cafés, gyms and school playgrounds—just as there has been during lockdown.

But 6 million people did not catch an infectious respiratory virus; they were forced out of their homes, rounded up, robbed, starved, humiliated, branded, tortured, experimented on and killed because of their race and religion. One deranged bully devised and built a murderous plan to wipe out an entire race of people. Of course he could not do this alone, so he tapped into some of our most complicated human flaws—weakness, fear, vulnerability, ignorance—and harnessed them to produce mass inhumanity. Despotic bullies disarm us by yelling their hatred and spite. We all fear becoming their next target. The safest option is to run and hide, to be compliant and complicit. Our instinct is to protect ourselves and those closest to us. But some chose not to.

The people in this place are all here because we chose, one way or another, not to be bystanders. The political arena is not for the faint-hearted, and, sadly, despite what we all now know about the atrocities enacted by the leaders of the Nazi regime, the world has not learnt to stop electing bullies who use their positions of power to make the lives of some intolerable, and they do so in plain sight. Some shout about building walls, inciting hatred, fuelling division, legitimising racism and even encouraging violence. Others arrange to have their political opponents or critics assassinated and poisoned, try to rig elections, and refuse to relinquish power or recognise democracy.

Right now, we know that there are groups of people being persecuted, imprisoned, rounded up, robbed, tortured and branded because of their race and religion. And what are we doing to stop it? We have to find ways to make sure that we are not being mere bystanders. Let us all be braver, like those who resisted. As Edmund Burke said:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Rough Sleeping

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

I should be delighted to visit Wolverhampton. As I have said before, I volunteered at that charity as a teenager, and it is a fantastic organisation. We will be working to see how we can roll out the funds to provide those 6,000 move-on units across the country, which we will do in various ways: through new properties, through use of the private rented sector, and by refurbishing existing accommodation.

There are numerous good examples in the west midlands. Housing First is being piloted there, and just before Christmas I visited Walsall, not so far from my hon. Friend’s constituency, to see a lady who had moved into good-quality accommodation for the first time in many years after sleeping rough in Walsall. That is exactly the kind of intervention that we want to see throughout the country.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

The south-east has the highest rates of homelessness outside London. The Secretary of State has mentioned the provision of beds and the moving-on service, but does he recognise that this issue does not simply relate to those who are sleeping in doorways, although that is bad enough? Every day my team helps families whose members—sometimes pregnant—are often sleeping three or four to one bedroom. When will affordable, suitable accommodation come to Canterbury for them, so that my team no longer has to bid daily for the two or three properties that are currently available?

[Robert Jenrick]

We are investing more than ever before in affordable housing. Our affordable homes programme is a £9 billion commitment to provide 250,000 affordable homes. We have also made a manifesto commitment that when the programme ends we will replace it with another, which I hope will be bigger and more ambitious and help to make genuinely affordable homes available in more parts of the country, including Canterbury.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I certainly look forward to perhaps continuing this discussion with my hon. Friend outside the Chamber, and I commend him for his work in rightly highlighting the issue of value for money. Of course we can and should do more, and it is important that where there is good practice we learn from that.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State aware that 544 homes across Kent managed by East Kent Housing have not been regularly subjected to vital landlord gas safety assessments, and has he had conversations with the four local authorities, cash-strapped themselves, across the affected parts of Kent to make sure that this never happens again?

[James Brokenshire]

I am very willing to talk to the hon. Lady about the issue she highlights, and obviously safety for residents is an absolute priority concern for me and Members across the House, so if there are further details that she would like to share with me I would be very happy to pursue this on behalf of her and her constituents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Wheeler]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that innovative idea. We have already agreed some money for ports down on the south coast, where there is a predominance of naval people, who have come together to build a number of units as one group. I think this idea has legs—if not sea legs, then Army legs.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

22. What assessment he has made of trends in the level of home ownership among under-45-year-olds since 2010.

[The Minister for Housing (Kit Malthouse)]

The proportion of under-45-year-olds owning their own home was 50% in 2010-11. That fell to 42% in 2016-17, in the aftermath of the crash, but happily it has since risen to 45% in 2017-18. Supported by Government schemes including Help to Buy and right to buy, the number of first-time buyers rose to more than 370,000 in 2018, an 86% increase since 2010.

[Rosie Duffield]

Many of my constituents are simply priced out of the housing market. Rental properties and mortgages are out of reach to all but the wealthiest, meaning that families who have lived for generations in villages such as Bridge, Chartham and Sturry, where their parents and grandparents grew up, are now simply unable to afford a property. Will the Minister acknowledge that we urgently need realistically priced affordable homes for the next generation, especially in rural areas?

[Kit Malthouse]

Yes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the death rate among homeless people.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the death rate among homeless people.

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

16. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the death rate among homeless people.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

As I said before Christmas, these figures are hugely shocking. As I have already indicated, one death is one too many. That is why we are committed to taking action across the board; I pointed to the £100 million rough sleeping strategy. At times like this when we have colder weather, we have also allocated an extra £5 million over and above some of our additional work with short-term capacity to support councils to ensure that we are actually giving the help that is needed to some of the most vulnerable in our society.

[Rosie Duffield]

This week I spoke to the Hepatitis C Trust and my local homeless charity, Porchlight, who highlighted rough sleepers as a significantly vulnerable group in terms of alcohol and drug dependency. What steps are the Secretary of State and his Department taking to help homeless people to access mental health and addiction services?

Secure Tenancies (Victims of Domestic Abuse) Bill [ Lords ] (First sitting)

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 27th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Alex Norris]

I came this morning more in hope than expectation. I can count how many Opposition Members there are and how many Government Members, which brings a certain likelihood to whether we will get what we hope for out of the sitting. Come what may, I want to know that we have made the case for the person who has made that incredibly difficult decision and weighed up the pros and cons, and removed all the artificial arguments against leaving that very dangerous situation. There cannot be any worse argument in that column than, “I can’t afford the money to do so”. That would be an awful reflection on us as a society. Wherever that happens, we must do our absolute best to remove it. We will have let people down if, in their moment of greatest challenge, they turn to the services we rely on to live our lives freely and find out that they are asked for a fee that they cannot afford.

We have heard lots of sums discussed so far in the debate. We will have seen it in our casework as well. Every single time, whether the fee is £25, £50, £70, £100 or £150, it is always a suspiciously round number. There is no calculation that sits behind it. I do not think anybody is saying that we want to see public service finance suddenly decimated by this extra requirement of support—that is not the case. Hon. Friends have made the point that it is done because it can be done. We have the chance this morning to make sure that it cannot be done and we ought to take it. There are very compelling arguments for amendment 3.

On evidence, will the Minister say what evidentiary standard she thinks local authorities will be looking for and whether there will be local variants? That comes back to the arguments that we made earlier about training, local discretion and any possibility of a postcode lottery. I hope that that will not be the case.

What will be the exemptions? I am conscious of the exemptions in other pieces of legislation. I think about benefits from the Department of Work and Pensions which have a domestic violence exemption. Similarly, there is the application for the exemption from the Child Maintenance Service. Are similar exemptions likely to apply here?

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

As Opposition Members have mentioned many times, the barriers to leaving are crucial. We are talking mostly about women who have spent months, years, sometimes decades making mental lists over and again about their route out. Their route out will be to sort out the children’s school, to talk to their friends, to reach out to someone and to go to services. All those things take huge amounts of courage at the first step and then the next step, and then it possibly gets easier.

Our main responsibility today is to remove all the barriers on that route out. If those of us here decide to do something, we mostly have the money to do it. These women have been controlled financially, which is the main way in which women are controlled in a domestic violence situation. The partner may have run up debts that the woman cannot deal with, or certainly will have stopped access to money for anything from children’s presents to basic sanitary products and food. We have a duty to make sure that that crucial element is included in the Bill.

Finances are the barrier—the brick wall with no holes. Someone might be able to deal with the other things; they might be able to borrow a little money from a grandparent for a children’s present or for Tampax, but they will not be able to find £100—from the list of desperate, emergency things in their head—to prove that they have been a victim. It is essential to make sure that that is not a thing that happens.

[Mrs Wheeler]

I am sure we can all agree that we are not at ease with the idea of charging a fee to a victim of abuse who is seeking evidence of that abuse. The issue was raised when the Bill was debated in the Lords, and it was discussed on Second Reading in the Commons, particularly in relation to the medical profession.

As I understand the matter, the provision of notes or letters of evidence of abuse falls outside a GP’s NHS contract, and therefore a fee can be charged. Negotiations for the 2018-19 contracts are currently going on, and the Minister for Faith, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth, who took the Bill through the Lords, has written to the Department of Health and Social Care to raise the concerns that arose among peers about this issue during the Bill’s passage through the Lords. As I said to hon. Members on Second Reading, I shall inform the House when we have a response to that letter.

It is, however, important to remember that victims of abuse may seek evidence from a wide variety of sources—not just GP letters or notes—as set out in the homelessness code of guidance. As part of the variety of evidence that can be supplied, an individual, as a data subject, can ask to be provided with their medical records.

Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation and Liability for Housing Standards) Bill

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Friday 19th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

This is such an important issue, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) on securing the debate and on all her tireless work on this issue over the past two years. I wish I could say that all homes in my constituency were fit for human habitation. I would love to be able to say that, but unfortunately I cannot. Sometimes, social housing provided for and on behalf of our local authority has the highest proliferation of category 1 hazards and other factors that put at risk people’s health and safety.

One example in Canterbury involves a lovely family who came to see me. They have three children and they found themselves homeless in November after their private landlord sold the property. Since then, they have been moved from pillar to post, from one unsuitable unhealthy property to the next. They have been moved five times in two months. How, in supposedly affluent Canterbury, in the supposedly affluent south-east, can there be so many places that are unfit for human habitation? One house provided to the family by the council was riddled with bedbugs crawling everywhere, and there was also a serious leak. The family’s mattresses and other belongings are now ruined, but they have yet to be compensated.

The family were then moved to a house that had been freshly painted to disguise a serious mould problem. Now, their children are exposed to mould and fungus growing inside their home. It is around their beds, their clothes and their toys. We all know that damp and mould can worsen conditions such as asthma, eczema and chest infections, and articles published in The BMJ show that adults living in mouldy homes are also more likely to have symptoms such as fainting, headaches, fevers and even raised anxiety. I wanted to tell the House about that family this morning because I am disgusted by the way they have been treated and housed. I have put a video of their accommodation on my social media. Please go and see it; I promise you will be horrified. Any council that places people in accommodation such as that should be ashamed.

[Clive Lewis]

I am saddened to hear about the way in which my hon. Friend’s constituents have been treated by the local authority in Kent, but would she acknowledge that not all local authorities are the same? My own Labour-led Norwich City Council has 15,000 properties, and not one of them has a category 1 hazard. In the private sector, however, nearly 3,000 of the 14,000 homes have a category 1 hazard, and they charge two to three times as much rent.

[Rosie Duffield]

I absolutely acknowledge that. That is disgraceful.

Some of the providers in Kent are failing the public, but this is bigger than Kent; this is a national shame. As we have heard from the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), local authorities cannot enforce the housing health and safety rating system—the HHSRS—against themselves, and social tenants can often do very little about poor, unhealthy accommodation.

This Bill is important. It will prevent cases like the one I have described today and compel local authorities to carry out repairs, and I support it wholeheartedly. All social tenants and renters deserve accommodation that is safe. The old saying is that there is no place like home, but for many families in Britain that is true for all the wrong reasons. Let us change that today and make sure that all homes are fit for human habitation.