Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Ruth George and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

Committee: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Monday 18th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I will try to be brief, because we all want to get to the vote and then move on, but I will say that the measures we are considering are far too little and far too late. Homelessness has doubled in Britain, and in Brighton it has tripled, with 10% of adults now on the housing register. How do these proposals help them? The measures will increase house prices for first-time buyers. I know the Minister says that he has better data than the OBR, but I tend to believe the OBR, which was set up by the Conservative Government to provide independent analysis, over the books that are cooked in the Treasury—[Interruption.] Yes, the books that are cooked in the Treasury. What we need are clear supply-side measures—[Interruption.] The evidence for cooked books is that the OBR does not believe the Government’s figures. The evidence comes from the independent regulator. Let me get back to what I want to say, otherwise I will be distracted and we will be here for longer.

We clearly have a problem with young people and first-time buyers getting into the property market. In my constituency today, only five studio flats are on the market for less than £200,000. With average earnings in Brighton lower than the average for the rest of Britain, the introduction of a stamp duty waiver will make not one jot of difference, because people cannot afford to raise money for a deposit and to go to banks to ask them to lend. What we really need is decent social and council housing so that people can move into secure tenancies. I asked the Prime Minister whether she would lift the housing revenue account cap. We see in the Bill that there will be a lift to the value of £1 billion, if councils apply, but of course £22 billion would be made available, at no direct cost to the Government, if they just lifted the cap completely. Why will they not? Because they are scared—they are chicken—to allow working people to have decent homes. Clearly they want to keep people subjugated and in poor-quality rented private property. That is the only conclusion I can draw from their miserable set of proposals.

Another thing we need is planning regulation that is stronger, not weaker. Until very recently, I sat on my local council’s planning committee. Time and again we were toothless in enforcing the social and affordable housing requirements. We do not need to give councils less power to enforce those requirements; we need to give them more powers to enforce them. The measures in the Bill to try to deregulate the planning sector go in completely the opposite direction.

I could make other points, but I am not going to talk anymore—let us go home. It is quite clear that I will be voting against the Government’s measures, because they are absolutely useless for dealing with homelessness and house building. In fact, they will make matters worse.

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) in saying that I am proud of Labour’s record on housing. I am proud of how we invested in 2 million more new homes, increased home ownership by 1 million, and made sure that more than 1 million homes were brought up to a decent standard, fit for human habitation, which is what we need to see now.

Since 2010, we have seen home ownership fall by 200,000 as house prices have risen by an average of 32%. Of those homes that have been built, less than 20% have been affordable, as councils’ rights to impose affordable limits have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) said, been taken away, with the rug pulled out from under their feet. What have we had instead? We have had £10 billion invested in the Help to Buy scheme, which even Morgan Stanley said has almost entirely gone towards raising house prices and increasing the share prices of the biggest house builders.

In my constituency, those house builders are not content with all the assistance from Help to Buy. Almost all their new homes are sold on leasehold—or fleecehold, as it has been called—so people do not feel that they actually own the home in which they live, despite having paid an inflated price for it. They still have to pay ground rent; they are still being fleeced with maintenance charges; and they still have to pay fees to a third party. It does not feel like home ownership any more. This is actually private rental as well as home ownership.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Ruth George and Lloyd Russell-Moyle

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris).

As I said in the general election campaign and since to my constituents, I respect the result of the referendum, but this Bill is not about whether Britain leaves the European Union. It is about how we leave it, what role Parliament has in the process and how we safeguard all our vital rights and protections as we leave. I believe that Brexit must not lead to any drop in those rights and protections and that the power to decide them should be brought back to Parliament. In fact, bringing powers back to Parliament was one of the major arguments of Brexit’s proponents. In March 2016, the Foreign Secretary announced his decision on how he would campaign in the referendum, saying:

“Sometimes the public can see all too plainly the impotence of their own elected politicians… That enrages them… Democracy matters… At a time when Brussels should be devolving power, it is hauling more and more towards the centre, and there is no way that Britain can be unaffected.”

Well, we have not been unaffected. In fact, the Government are now looking to our decision to leave the EU as an excuse for far greater centralisation of power than we have had for almost 500 years. The Bill would put huge and unaccountable power into the hands of Ministers, sideline Parliament on major decisions and thereby put our crucial rights and protections at risk. Members should not just take my word for it.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the recent case of the Government acting illegally over employment tribunal fees is an example of how they cannot be trusted to act legally and justly for this country, and why Parliament needs to scrutinise them?

[Ruth George]

I absolutely agree.

The House of Commons Library, in its impartial comment, says:

“Clauses 7, 8 and 9 of the Bill grant the Government new and unprecedented powers.”

Parliament is being asked to grant wide powers when there is little idea yet of how they might be exercised.

I have seen for myself how the process of secondary legislation can be abused, when working on behalf of low-paid shop workers, many of whom are subject to attacks and injury. Five years ago, I was appalled at the secondary legislation Committee that debated some of the most abhorrent cuts proposed by the last Government —cuts to compensation for over 90% of innocent victims of crime. To their credit, every single Conservative Member on the First Delegated Legislation Committee called on the Government to withdraw or amend their proposals, including the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who is not renowned for his opposition to spending cuts.

However, instead of listening to their own Members and to the whole Committee, and instead of reconsidering the legislation, the Government just changed the Committee. Six weeks later, the same proposed cuts came back to a second Committee with three Parliamentary Private Secretaries, the vice-chair of the Conservative party and the Conservative party chair’s parliamentary adviser. As the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) told us, the Conservatives on the new Committee said not one word during the two-hour debate on the proposals; instead, they simply voted them through.

It is wrong for the Government to use this Bill, which is fundamentally important to the process of Brexit, to seek such methods to undermine our powers in Parliament. This power grab is so significant that it undermines the primary purpose of the Bill—to transpose EU regulations into UK law.

We are expected to believe that the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union is listening to the comments made on both sides of the House about the flaws in this Bill, but he has not been seen in the Chamber for the last seven and a half hours of this debate, so I am not quite sure how much he is listening.

Such sweeping powers as the Government are seeking would cause lasting damage to the role and power of Parliament and do nothing to help deliver the Brexit deal we need—one that puts jobs and the economy first and maintains our rights and protections.

As the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) put it just a month ago:

“It is about control. Do we make our laws according to our own democratic principles on the day we have left or not?”

The Bill says that we do not. For that hon. Member and for all other hon. Members, this Bill is about upholding our democratic principles. By voting against it, I will uphold those principles.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

There is nothing wrong with our Supreme Court, but what better than to have an additional protection? I think that the hon. Gentleman makes a ridiculous argument.

My next point is about safeguards for the current statutory instruments. Much of EU law has been brought into UK law as statutory instruments. Those statutory instruments are underpinned by EU law, which includes an ability to fine Governments for overstepping that law. If EU oversight is removed but the statutory instruments continue to exist, they will be weak to amendment through the negative procedure. That puts people’s rights to things such as TUPE and the working time directive at risk. Clearly, therefore, those statutory instruments should have additional statutory underpinning such that they cannot be removed using the negative procedure.

[Ruth George]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we should not trust the party that refused to implement the social chapter at all, with all its rights at work that come from Europe?