Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sajid Javid and Chris Ruane

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend has raised an important issue—the need to ensure that we have seasonal agricultural labour—and I should be happy to meet her and other colleagues to discuss it further.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

T10. In 2016, my constituent’s son Lee Bennison was killed when a motorist collided with his motorbike. The motorist was found to be driving under the influence of drugs. Only days earlier, he had been stopped by police and had undergone blood and urine tests. The results of such tests take three weeks to come back from the lab. If roadside evidential testing for drugs had been available, Lee Bennison would be alive today. Will the Department introduce such testing?

Grenfell Tower Fire/Fire Safety

Debate between Sajid Javid and Chris Ruane

Monday 26th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman will know that, as we speak, it is a legal requirement for local authorities and housing associations that they ensure that the homes they offer to tenants are fit for habitation. They should be meeting those requirements already. I gave the example of Camden; it should already have been meeting those requirements. Despite that, if authorities and associations are not able to do that from their current resources, they should get on with the job and meet those requirements, and we will work with them and give them the support they need.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

It is good to be back, Mr Speaker.

Ann Jones, the Assembly Member for the Vale of Clwyd, has brought forward her own legislation to introduce sprinklers in all new-build houses in Wales. I am a firm believer in the dictum that out of badness comes good. What happened at Grenfell Tower was bad—it was a tragedy. Can we use this disaster to open a complete review of fire safety across the UK, not just on the issue of cladding, but on insulation, containment, emergency lighting and especially sprinkler systems, and for not just high towers but other vulnerable housing, such as houses of multiple occupation?

[Sajid Javid]

As I said in my statement, there will certainly be a need for a complete review across the UK.

Youth Unemployment

Debate between Sajid Javid and Chris Ruane

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane]

I am informed by my hon. Friend that it is £30,000 for Eton. Under the scheme, its cost £6,500 to turn around a young life. But no, that is too much. There are a million young people—and the number is rising—on the dole. What will be the cost if they fall into a life of crime? If that positive path is denied them, they might turn down a negative path. It costs £50,000 a year to keep a person incarcerated. That is money down the drain.

[Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Ruane]

No, I would get told off. I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I feel that I would.

My local future jobs fund is administered by Rhyl city strategy and is one of the most effective in the country. It had a monthly target to put 320 people back to work. It was bang on every month. It was so effective that it had to hunt for another 100 young people to put back to work, which it got through the WCVA. That effective partnership has been snuffed out by the Conservative party. A key part of the success of the FJF in my constituency was that the funding was delivered to a local partnership. That minimised bureaucracy and red tape, which the Conservative party is always banging on about—there was no red tape or bureaucracy in the FJF in Rhyl. That was welcomed by the employer.

Shorter-term, unsubsidised schemes will not work. They did not work in the past, and they will not work in the future.