Planning for the Future

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Planning for the Future White Paper.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. There is a great deal to consider in the White Paper, which takes as its starting point the idea that the lack of progress in building the homes we need in this country is largely due to our system of planning controls and approval. I should declare an interest at the outset. I have been happily married to a town planner —a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute—for 18 years, which just goes to show that not all politicians are at loggerheads with town planners. I can see by the number of people who have applied to speak in the debate that the issues raised in the White Paper have generated a great deal of interest. As an MP for an urban constituency that none the less has more than half its square mileage covered by a national nature reserve I believe I have as much insight as anyone into the balances that need to be struck in our planning system between preserving our environment and building more homes.

The White Paper proposes a number of reforms to how planning permissions are granted. Among them are a proposal that development land should be divided up into different zones—growth, renewal and protected—each with different approval rules. That proposal will remove the ability of locally elected councillors to scrutinise individual applications on their merits. Engagement with local communities will instead be only in the development of the local plan. In the White Paper it is envisaged somehow that that approach will engage groups who have previously been excluded from planning decisions, although it does not give details of how that will be achieved.

There are many other contentious proposals in the White Paper and I am confident that each of the points will be fully debated during the sitting, but I want to make two specific points. The world faces a climate emergency—a fact that the Conservative Government have belatedly woken up to. Having spent a decade trying to cut the “green crap”, in the words of their former leader, the Conservatives have recently made encouraging moves towards recognising that the climate crisis is real, our environment is degrading, and it is high time our Government got on and did something about it.

Among the most urgent challenges facing us, not just as a nation but in partnership with other nations across the world, is that of cutting our carbon emissions. I welcome the Government’s commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. That commitment was underlined by the Prime Minister’s announcement of his 10-point plan last month. There was also an announcement on renewables in yesterday’s energy White Paper. However, all those announcements are missing the details of the actual plan to get there. Where are the policies? Where are the interim targets? Where is the funding?

The areas that need to be tackled are well known. We need to decarbonise our transport, power generation, agriculture and industry; but above all we need to decarbonise our housing. We need a step change in how our homes are built, how we heat them and how we cook our food. There are two key approaches we need to take to combat carbon emissions. The first is to upgrade existing homes with better insulation and sources of heating and power. The second is to ensure that all new homes are built to net zero carbon standards. That standard was ready to go in 2015 when the Liberal Democrats left government but was rejected by the Conservatives in 2016. The Government are now returning to it, but promise only a 75% decrease in carbon emissions by 2025. A million homes have been built since 2015. In itself that is hardly suggestive of a planning system that impedes development. Those homes have been built without a zero carbon homes standard. All of them will need to be expensively upgraded in the future.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my near neighbour for giving way. She mentioned going back to existing buildings. Is she aware of the Architects’ Journal campaign to retrofit? That could be an idea. Does she share my concern that often design is sacrificed in all this? There was a report last year by the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission, but it feels as if there is a possibility of ushering in the slums of the future. We need to emphasise more retrofitting stuff—and beauty, properly.

[Sarah Olney]

The hon. Lady makes some interesting points. The Liberal Democrats are absolutely committed to supporting policies for retrofitting—or upgrading, as I prefer to call it, as it is a slightly more future-focused look. I believe that the particular value of that policy is that it will benefit our lowest-income families the most. They are the ones who are living in the worst housing and who will benefit most from the reduction in heating bills that will result from, for example, better insulated homes. I am glad that she mentioned building design, because that is precisely the point I am making. If we can design our buildings from the start to achieve a net zero carbon output, those benefits would be there from day one and could be seen both in reduced carbon emissions and reduced heating bills.

The planning White Paper is a missed opportunity to do much more to embed this net zero carbon ambition into our planning policy and thus facilitate the step change that we need to see in our new housing developments. It is only through the constraints applied by the planning system that we can hope to see net zero carbon homes built by private sector housing companies that want to build cheaply and quickly.

The legislative framework already exists if the Government would only use it. The proposed planning reforms should bind together the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Climate Change Act 2008 to confirm that local planning authorities have a clear and specific duty to address climate change in their planning decisions. Carbon reduction would then become a material consideration in the planning process, enabling local authorities to reject applications that would not seek to achieve net zero carbon in the resulting developments, and the law could enable local authorities to go further if they wished by allowing them to put carbon reduction targets in their local plan.

The failure of the White Paper to explore opportunities to achieve net zero carbon in our housing is indicative of the Government’s failure to provide a proper plan to achieve their overall target of net zero carbon by 2050. However, it is not just a climate emergency that we face; we are also confronted by an environmental emergency. The threat to our natural environment has never been greater and the Government must do much more to tackle it. There could not be a better opportunity than a planning White Paper to make proposals about how we balance our need for housing and economic development with our need to protect our green spaces and wildlife.

There is a very real environmental pressure in every part of the country and the Government urgently need to set policy on it and provide a clear lead. However, in proposing a zoned approach to development, they are heading in precisely the wrong direction. By allowing the automatic granting of planning permissions in growth and renewal zones, the planning process will no longer be able to mitigate against environmental damage in those locations or restrict development where environmental damage cannot be mitigated.

I would struggle to think of a single part of my constituency that could be designated as an unrestricted growth zone, where development would need to take no account at all of environmental impact. The proposal to introduce such zones rides roughshod over the many small decisions that can be made by those who know their local areas and can arrive at the best solution for the local population and the local environment.

CCRC Decision on 44 Post Office Prosecutions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 5th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

On compensation, it depends on the situation of the people involved. Those who have been wrongfully convicted have recourse through the courts. I have regular contact with Nick Read, the chief executive, and other members of the board to make sure that we look at post office closures as reported to me by MPs and from updates, and increase and improve recruitment of postmasters, which will be achieved through a better future relationship.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Will the Minister join me in thanking all those at the Post Office and Royal Mail who have kept us all going throughout this crisis? As we know, a disproportionate number are from BME communities, who have experienced such death and suffering, like my constituent Varchas Patel and his family. They are pleased that their appeal is not being contested, but they wonder what action is now being taken against those at the top—those in management and leadership positions in the organisation—who presided over this scandal. Or are this algorithm-obsessed Government stuck in a “computer says no” mode?

[Paul Scully]

I can assure the hon. Lady that the computer very much says yes, which is why we have launched an independent inquiry.

Westferry Printworks Development

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Reed]

The hon. Gentleman gives me the opportunity to repeat the same point: let us see the documentation from the Department and the advice that was given to the Secretary of State—openly, transparently, for everybody to see—and then we will know exactly whether what happened was in breach of the ministerial code of conduct and the planning code.

Instead of being open and transparent, the Secretary of State has gone to great lengths to keep the documentation secret. Tower Hamlets Council took out a judicial review of his decision and was rewarded with a high-handed and arrogant letter from the Department accusing it of going on a fishing expedition, until someone realised that a judicial review would require the Secretary of State to release all the documentation and correspondence about the decision in open court for everyone to see. He then took an extraordinary step. Suddenly that “fishing expedition” did not look quite so speculative, because he quashed his own decision and declared it to be unlawful because of apparent bias. That is explosive. A leading planning barrister says that it is without precedent and raises questions about the integrity of the entire planning system. That prompts the question of what in the documentation is so embarrassing and so bad that it is better to admit taking a biased and unlawful decision than to publish the documents in open court.

There is only one way to clear this up. Let us see the documents. Let us see that there was no breach of ministerial code. If the Secretary of State continues to refuse, let us have a full investigation by the Cabinet Secretary. Without it, there can be no trust in the Secretary of State or the planning system over which he presides. Without that trust, who on earth will believe that the Secretary of State has the credibility to take the numerous decisions that he makes every day, let alone reform the entire planning system, as he has said he wants to do?

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we do not need a detailed chronology or to go over the books with a fine-toothed comb to realise that this is redolent of the stench of sleaze? It brought down the Major Government. The suggestion of unfair advantage to donors or supporters is sleaze writ large. The wheels are coming off this oven- ready Government.

[Steve Reed]

I very much hope that the Secretary of State will agree to publish the documentation, because if he is right, it will lay to rest the concerns that my hon. Friend has shared.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher]

It is the first time that the hon. Gentleman and I have sparred across the Dispatch Box—that is correct, so let us hold on to that.

The hon. Gentleman was rather ungenerous: we have made £1.6 billion available to remediate the buildings that need it. Remediation work has begun or been completed on 95% of all social-sector buildings that had unsafe ACM cladding on them, and remediation work has begun or been completed on 40% of such buildings in the private sector, while the other 60% have their plans in train. We want these buildings to be made safe as quickly as possible. That is why we have put the money on the table, why we will press for action to be taken and why the buildings will be made safe under this Government.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

What steps the Government are taking to protect private renters facing financial difficulties as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.

[The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)]

The Government have introduced measures to help tenants to continue to pay their rent; we are supporting workers by paying up to 80% of their wages; we have increased the amount available to welfare claimants; and we have raised the local housing allowance rate to the 30th percentile of market rents in each area.

[Dr Huq]

I thank the Minister for his response, but on the day that Marcus Rashford, a 22 year-old footballer, wrote to all of us in the House to raise the spectre of family impoverishment under coronavirus, does he recognise the fact that a substantial proportion of private renters have dependent children—they are not all bedsit-land stereotypes? Will he bring forward immediately the plans to end section-21 evictions? The Conservatives are the party of the family; if people are losing their jobs already, they should protect families and homes now.

[Christopher Pincher]

I am obliged to the hon. Lady for her question. We have committed to bring forward legislation to enhance renters’ security, and that includes the abolition of section-21 evictions, but we will do it in a safe, sensible and sustained way. In the interim, the Government have worked with the judiciary, legal representatives and the advice sector on arrangements to ensure that courts are better able to address those tenants who are in difficult positions, and we have spent £7 billion of public money through the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that people can get the help that they need. We are working with the National Residential Landlords Association. It advises me that private rented sector rents have fallen by about 1% in the latest round of tenancy renewals. We are working hard across the space, particularly with the private rented sector, to make sure people get the help that they deserve.

Horizon: Sub-Postmaster Convictions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. She is right about its being a much-loved institution. What we must not lose is the amazing work of post offices and sub-postmasters up and down the country. We must make sure that their reputations are not tarnished by what happened over a 20-year period. We need answers as quickly as possible, so that I, the Government and all of us can see the recommendations that the chairman will bring forward from that review.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Many happy returns, Mr Speaker.

For the Patels, moving from being managers of Acton Crown post office for more than three decades to their own sub-postmaster role in the country was meant to be a dream come true, but it turned into a nightmare when they lost not only substantial sums of money but their mental and physical health and their reputations. Mr Patel ended up with a criminal electronic tag—the humiliation of it. They want to know why in Acton, for more than 20 years, they were seen as upstanding pillars of the community—they handled multi-million pound sums and had a safe key—but suddenly in Oxfordshire they were falsely branded as criminals. Why did it take the Criminal Cases Review Commission to say that there had been a miscarriage of justice? Where was the oversight? Finally, can the Minister make good on the promise that Paula Vennells gave me in 2018 that Acton Crown post office will reopen? It closed on her watch, and she has since done a runner.

[Paul Scully]

We have had the most stable network of post offices for a number of years now, on which—obviously, covid-19 notwithstanding—we need to make sure we can build. I also want answers to why the three Patels—her constituents, who were fine, upstanding members of the community—were seen in that way because of the actions of the Post Office. That is why we need to get this review done and why we need to get the independent chairman’s recommendations out, so that we can see justice done.

Private Rented Sector

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the private rented sector.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I declare my interest as a landlady to private renters and I refer everyone here to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I know the whole House is focused on the coronavirus—rightfully so—and I think I speak on behalf of everyone here when I say that our thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones and those suffering the symptoms and having to self-isolate. I give a nod to everyone here, including our civil servants who have made the effort to come in. Things are quite scary, and I have just found out that my daughter’s nursery is closing, which is the scariest prospect for the children. I want to talk about how coronavirus will impact those who privately rent, especially those on a low income.

The crisis poses a serious threat to private renters. I wanted to bring this topic up because I do not want people to have to choose between whether they pay rent or self-isolate should they be faced with the symptoms in the months and weeks ahead. I am sure the Minister understands that we need to act now to protect tenants. A large number could be unfairly evicted, which could lead to homelessness if people start to fall behind in paying rent in one of the scariest and most dangerous periods of our history in this country. It is vital that we protect people in the private rented sector from homelessness and vital to insulate them financially to ensure that security of tenure is available to them if they feel they need to self-isolate and cannot go to work. I hope the Minister will seriously consider Labour’s Front Bench proposals on rent deferrals and a ban on evicting those who fall behind in their rent because of coronavirus.

A lot has been talked about coronavirus in terms of what happens if we get it, what we should do, and how we should self-isolate, but one thing missing, perhaps rightly, is what happens when we actually get the symptoms. The godmother of my children—Members need not worry; I have not been near her in weeks—got it and she told me the breath was taken away out of her. She was lying in bed and could not get up. She felt like a shadow of her former self. There was absolutely no way she could go to work, but she is in a situation where, even if she does not go to work, she will still get paid. She is one of the lucky ones because she can continue to live in her house, but that is not the case for all of us, which is why this debate is so important today.

It is not only working-age renters that coronavirus will impact. I have looked at the Office for National Statistics and found a few facts and figures that surprised me. The private rented sector is gradually becoming older as fewer families can afford to buy a home. According to Age UK, more than 700,000 over-60s privately rent in England, and the proportion of households headed by older renters has doubled in the past 15 years. In my constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn, an estimated 937 over-60s are on housing benefit alone. Older renters are more likely than homeowners to have long-term health problems. I am sure other Members are aware from their advice surgeries that problems in the private rented sector are rife. We have probably all dealt with damp walls and other conditions that people live in. We have to ensure that older and more vulnerable renters are protected, which is why this debate is so important today.

We know that poorly maintained housing is rife in the private rented sector. As a democracy, as a Government and as a country, we need to start looking at it more and more, especially as we have been warned over and again that we are more likely to get the virus if we have an underlying health condition.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who is making a passionate speech. The other day at the all-party group on housing and planning, it was pointed out that one in four adults in this country suffers from a diagnosable mental health condition, and one in five says that it is exacerbated by their housing. Does she agree that with this killer/death/invisible pandemic in our midst we should address mental health conditions, too, in the housing picture? Will she also pay tribute to our hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) and her Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018, which the Government agreed to only after Grenfell?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I will pay tribute to our hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) shortly, but what my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) says is very important. I have not mentioned mental health in this speech, because it is already too long, as most people can see. However, every time I hold an advice surgery, 80% of my casework is based on housing. When I deal with housing casework, people say, “Well, I have asthma”, or this or that problem medically, and then, “As a result, I have had mental health problems,” so there is a clear link between the housing conditions that someone lives in and the mental health problems that they may develop. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and I hope that the Minister will address this topic.

More and more people are growing old in substandard rented accommodation, and that shines a light on the fact that, as a country, we do not take private renting seriously. Five million people in the UK live in the private rented sector, which is an enormous number, up from 2.8 million in 2007. The proportion of renting households in London, where my hon. Friend and I are MPs, is expected to grow to 40% of the total in five years’ time. Again, these are staggering figures, yet I feel that too often as politicians, and as a Government, we see renting as nothing more than a stepping stone to home ownership. While the aspiration to own a home is common among us, including many of my constituents, the obscene cost of housing, especially in London, puts this dream well out of reach for the hundreds of thousands of private renters who are living on the breadline and the 63% who say that they have no savings at all. We have to do more to tackle the problem facing private renters. The economic and social crisis that we face as a result of coronavirus is shining a light on how many low-income private renters’ lives are fragile, and it lends greater urgency—and maybe provides an opportunity—to address this and provide them with the security and safety that they need.

I want to talk a bit about my constituency of Hampstead and Kilburn, because we have one of the largest proportions of people who live in private rented houses in the country—30% of my constituency privately rents. The more than doubling of the private rented sector over the last 20 years has meant that in the Borough of Camden, which I live in, that type of tenure is now only slightly smaller than the owner-occupied sector. Ahead of this debate, I emailed my constituents to ask them for their experiences and thoughts about it. I was overwhelmed by the number of people who emailed to talk about their experience and how important this issue was to them. Many made the point that privately renting is not a short-term solution for them. They will have to do it for the rest of their lives, and therefore, they feel very passionately that we as politicians should tackle the problems that come with it.

The No. 1 thing that came up over and over again is how unaffordable renting in London is. That came out loud and clear and I am sure that my hon. Friend—a London Member—will recognise that. Renters in Camden face the fourth highest rents in the whole country. The median monthly rent for a two-bedroom flat is over £2,000. That reflects the dramatic growth in rents that we have seen in the last decade, far outstripping any rise in earnings that my constituents may have had.

Housing and Planning

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

It used to be said that an Englishman’s home is his castle, but our suburbs are now changing. We have mixed communities. The targets that local authorities are under and the deregulation of planning means that castles in the air are springing up round our way, literally changing the physical form. It might have been called high-rise hell in a different age. London’s highest building is not in the square mile. It has just been approved by the Ealing planning committee and will be 55 storeys in North Acton. Because our capital is girdled by green belt, literally the only way is up. The sky is the limit. Tall buildings raise a range of questions on space standards and air quality. Post-Grenfell we have all heard horror stories of cladding and fire safety. Of the 551 buildings approved last year in London, 450 were residential, with 24 in Ealing, but that is dwarfed by 64 in Greenwich. Groups such as Stop the Towers argue that the new buildings are changing the low-rise, low-density nature of suburban Ealing, and the new developments all seem to come with youth-oriented marketing. One wonders how many more vibrant quarters Ealing can take, particularly as we have an ageing population everywhere. Demographically we know that very soon a majority of the population will be over 60, and people in social housing who come to my surgery want rehousing to the ground floor because of mobility issues. People in their suburban semis, their huge piles, want to sit on those because the new developments are too small to have the grandchildren round.

At the other end of the age scale, in North Acton there is a thing called the Collective, which involves co-living. The Telegraph describes it as the future of renting. There are huge communal spaces, brunches, daily speakers and live music, but tiny accommodation designed for celibacy. [Laughter.] It is not cheap. One has to be in work and able to afford £1,000 a month. So what is my solution? I urge the Minister to take seriously my proposal to have a suburban taskforce. We have crumbling infrastructure and older housing stock alongside hideous towers. He could take a multi-dimensional approach. His predecessor was very warm towards this, but, alas, he has been shuffled off the ministerial coil. May I have a meeting with the Minister? A whole bunch of us, including Conservative Members, want to take this forward to save our suburbs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Cunningham]

There is no doubt about it; there is this bias towards owning a home, and time and again we hear MPs, particularly on the Government side, talking about that ambition. These days, however, many people, even well-paid researchers in Parliament with a second income, cannot afford to do that, so we have to address homes for rent as well.

Currently, it feels that we have piecemeal development, with half a dozen flats built here and a few houses built there. That will never address what we need, and so we have longer and longer housing waiting lists, and people are being priced out of the private sector, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) has just mentioned.

One way in which we can show we are taking housing and planning seriously is by empowering local authorities to strengthen their planning departments. They really need more planning officers. I think that most planning officers now work in the private sector, popping up at all these appeals that are held across the country, and of course it is the developers who win out at the end of the day. However, councils do not just need resources; they also need the confidence and the guidance from Government in order to crack on with things.

[Dr Huq]

My hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech. Does he agree that conservation officers also seem to have been cut from every council, as well as design review panels, and that beauty is being sacrificed in this transactional way?

[Alex Cunningham]

It is not just happening in the planning sector; it is happening across local authorities. My own local authority in Stockton has lost more than half its budget since 2010, so there is a shortage of expertise across the piece in local government to hold developers and other organisations to account.

I back what the Royal Town Planning Institute has argued for, which is championing civic planning, and building strong and responsive local planning authorities. The RTPI has also recommended that central Government do more by providing grants for social housing, by providing stronger direction on suitable land for housing, and by sharing more of any land value uplift with the public and using that uplift in value to fund affordable housing. The ideas are there and the hon. Member for Harborough has helped the Minister immensely.

That said, I also value the hon. Gentleman’s contribution to the ongoing debate in Parliament about how we can move forward on housing in the best way possible, and I look forward to hearing more of what he has to say in the future. However, the bottom line, which is where I have just got to in my speech, is that it is up to the Government to be prepared to take the steps to make change happen.

Assisted Dying Law

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Christine Jardine]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point. That is something we would have to be aware of, but I believe it is up to us to address it. It is up to the lawmakers and the Government in this country to ensure that we increase our investment in palliative care as a choice. There is that word again: choice. Free will—the ability to choose.

Seven years ago, in another landmark, my belief in that was firmed up by a conversation following a newspaper article I had written. At the time, the late, irrepressible Margo MacDonald was guiding her second, ultimately unsuccessful bid to make assisted dying legal in Scotland through the Parliament at Holyrood. I originally met Margo while I was a young journalist, and her amazing personality and commitment had a huge impact on me. That did not have an impact on my politics, of course—we had very different views—but I recognised in her someone who lived their beliefs and their politics. I had spoken to her while I was writing the piece, and I visited her office afterwards. On this issue more than any other, she had a profound effect on me. It was several years ago now, but that conversation has stayed with me and made me determined to protect the right of the individual—my right; your right—to choose to have the dignity that we want in our final moments. Why should any of us, knowing that we are not going to survive, be forced to endure unnecessary pain?

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. I am pleased that she has not brought any legislation before us, because I found this issue very difficult when we last faced it, in 2015. I actively abstained by voting in both Lobbies, and I was told off by the then Speaker for doing so. I get her point that saying goodbye in an airport is not the best thing for people who choose to go to Switzerland, but at the same time I worry about safeguards. This could be exploited as a shortcut if NHS funds are not as we want. Does she agree, at least, that more research is needed? Nothing seems to have happened in Parliament since 2015. We need more evidence before we decide on this.

[Christine Jardine]

I take the hon. Lady’s point. That is the purpose of this debate. It is intended to get the ball rolling, look for the evidence, find out what people are afraid of, and consider the safeguards we need and how the law can be improved. We are not going to do that overnight. We certainly are not going to do it today, and I will not suggest any changes today, other than to say that we should look for the evidence and at what people want from the law.

Since this debate was publicised, I have been contacted—I am sure we all have—by a number of constituents. In some cases, they called for caution; in others, they expressed their opposition. However, in very many more, they expressed support. One in particular that I found moving came from a woman who was a palliative care nurse for more than 20 years, and who during that time witnessed numerous examples of the current assisted dying law failing dying people. One example she gave was of a gentleman with motor neurone disease who had a particularly undignified final few months of life. He was cared for at home at first before moving into a hospice, where he clearly expressed the wish that he wanted help to die. The staff had to explain to him and go over the reasons why they could not do that; it simply was not possible.

This gentleman’s motor neurone disease had affected him in such a way that his legs were still working, but he was not able to use the top half of his body. One day, he tried to throw himself down the stairs as a way of ending his life. Despite him fully admitting that he was trying to end his life, some of the staff understandably claimed that he had probably fallen, and that it was an accident. Perhaps they did not want to admit or acknowledge what he had tried to do, because of the position in which the law put everyone, but that gentleman did not get to express his distress about the way he would die or have it addressed as he wanted. I understand he lived for another two months or so before he died in a hospice. I am grateful to my constituent for sharing that story because it highlights the invidious position in which the current law puts everyone.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Luke Hall]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He raises a really important point about the need for councils and police forces to work together. I commend the work that his Conservative police and crime commissioner is doing, and I highlight the Government’s commitment to recruit 20,000 police officers across our country, with 6,000 police officers being recruited in the next year.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

7. What plans the Government have to bring forward legislative proposals to reform leasehold property.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Robert Jenrick)]

We are committed to reforming the leasehold market so that it is fairer for consumers and the abuses that we have seen in recent years are addressed. To achieve this, we have a comprehensive programme of reform, and we are moving forward with legislation, beginning with the Bill set out in the Queen’s Speech banning new leasehold houses and reducing ground rents on future leases to zero.

[Dr Huq]

The Secretary of State says he is committed to reform. Since 2015, I have come across countless cases of people trapped on iniquitous terms in relation to ground rent, cladding—you name it—and unable to extend without paying through the nose. In that same time, however, the Government have had seven consultations, and there is no concrete legislation about anything they are actually going to do. Can he tell us when he will end this feudal hangover, which is unique to England, once and for all?

[Robert Jenrick]

The hon. Lady is incorrect. The Queen’s Speech made it clear that we will be bringing forward legislation. We intend to publish a draft Bill shortly, which will take the first steps that I have just described. We are also awaiting the next report of the Law Commission. We have just received one on enfranchisement. It is a very important issue, and I certainly want to take forward its recommendations to ensure a simpler and fairer system. The next report of the Law Commission will be on commonhold. Again, we will be paying close attention to that. At our encouragement, the Competition and Markets Authority is now looking into the mis-selling of leaseholds, which is another important issue. Be under no illusion: we will be taking forward leasehold reform, and soon.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I do agree, and I am well aware of the housing opportunities that are being taken up in and around my hon. Friend’s constituency and the work that is going on there. He has made a powerful point. If we ensure that all types and tenures of housing are being developed, that housing will be delivered more quickly, and that is where the focus lies.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

14. The average full-time salary among my constituents is above national norms at £37,500, but that is still way off the house price that the Government class as affordable, at £450,000, and it is half the cost of the average sale achieved in W5 in the first quarter of the year, which was £905,348. One flat even changed hands for £3.5 million. What are the Government doing to relieve the pressures on young people specifically in London, where salaries and speculation are forcing out everyone but the children of the super-rich?

[James Brokenshire]

About £9 billion is being spent on the affordable homes programme, and half of that is going to London. I hope that the hon. Lady will join me in encouraging the Mayor of London to focus on the delivery of housing of all types for all people, and to ensure that there is that bright prospect in London as well as the rest of the country.