Spending Round 2019

Debate between Sajid Javid and John Redwood

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Wokingham and West Berkshire Councils need money for social care and schools. The current funding is not adequate. I am grateful to the Chancellor. This is very welcome. Does he agree that, at a time of world slowdown, led by a manufacturing recession in several leading countries, a boost to the economy is much needed here and that this is part of that boost?

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great experience. I very much agree that one of the outcomes of today’s spending round will be a further confidence boost to our economy.

Knife Crime

Debate between Sajid Javid and John Redwood

Monday 4th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I welcome the right hon. Lady’s comments. I do believe that the action that we are taking is the right action, but I am also very open-minded about considering what further action can be taken. I think it important to listen to police chiefs, police and crime commissioners and others, and to consider whether other measures can be introduced. The idea of knife crime prevention orders came directly from the police, the Mayor of London and others, and we acted very quickly to pursue that.

As for the public health approach that the right hon. Lady and others have mentioned, it is important for all public Departments to buy into it. I want it to be statutory because I want Departments including the Department for Health and Social Care, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Education to make it a priority: I think that they all have an important role to play.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What action are the Government taking to ensure that enough resources are available and preferably targeted on this priority, and what further action can they take to spread best practice from places that have had more success?

UK Nationals returning from Syria

Debate between Sajid Javid and John Redwood

Monday 18th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

How will the UK authorities go about finding the evidence concerning those UK citizens who went abroad to join a terrorist organisation and to fight or intervene in acts of brutality or support those who did?

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend highlights an important issue. Members will understand why it is very difficult to gather evidence when someone has gone to a completely ungoverned space where we have no consular presence and no diplomatic relations of any type, and nor do our allies.

That said, we put a huge amount of effort—I take this opportunity to commend our security services, the police and some of our international partners—into gathering battlefield evidence and having that ready to use whenever appropriate. If we can supply that evidence in some cases to our partners for cases that they wish to bring in front of their courts, we will try to work constructively with them. The UN has also been looking at this. New measures are being considered on battlefield evidence conventions, and Britain, through the Ministry of Defence, is making an incredibly important contribution to that.

Police Grant Report

Debate between Sajid Javid and John Redwood

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman highlights that there are sometimes special situations, and special grants are needed to deal with exactly what he has mentioned. I am happy to make sure that Home Office Ministers meet him to discuss that further, as it is a very important point.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I thank the Home Secretary for understanding the need and coming up with a much better settlement for us. Does he agree that Thames Valley, which contains fast-growing areas of the country such as mine, where a lot of extra housing is going in, needs some extra money just to keep pace with the extra number of people who require a police service?

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with my right hon. Friend on that, and I thank him for his support. He highlights the need for this extra funding, and I know that he will welcome the support that will be provided—I believe it is almost £34 million—to his force.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Debate between Sajid Javid and John Redwood

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. No doubt he has had some time to digest the legal opinion, but he might also note that it is perfectly consistent with what the Attorney General said at this Dispatch Box earlier this week. He made it clear then that, naturally, what he is providing is legal analysis, but this should also been seen in the context of the politics of such a situation, and he set that out quite clearly as well on the day. I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the remarks that the Attorney General made on that point earlier this week.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Home Secretary confirm that if we approve the withdrawal agreement, the UK will have to pay a lot of money for many years after we have left the European Union, although there are no cash limits or numbers in the documents, and very general heads? Will he also confirm that the EU will have preponderant power in deciding just how vast this open-ended commitment will be, and that it will be massively more than £39 billion?

[Sajid Javid]

In the withdrawal agreement, there is an estimated amount that the UK will pay. It will not be instant; it is over a number of years. The general figure that has been talked of by Government Ministers and others is a total of £39 billion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Sajid Javid and John Redwood

Monday 16th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I am sure that the hon. and learned Lady agrees that we want an immigration system that serves the national interest—that brings immigration down to sustainable levels but also gives the skills that we need for the entire UK, of course including Scotland. My right hon. Friend the Immigration Minister is planning to visit Scotland this summer to meet Ministers.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I am glad that my right hon. Friend is working on a new UK-based migration policy to hit the Government’s targets. Does he accept that we might need this as early as 30 March next year if we leave without an agreement?

[Sajid Javid]

As always, my right hon. Friend makes a very important point. While we are working on the basis that we will not need it as early as 30 March, he is absolutely right to point out that we should be prepared for all eventualities, and that is exactly what we are doing.

National Planning Policy Framework

Debate between Sajid Javid and John Redwood

Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Lady started by saying that many communities do not have the homes that they need—I agree. I have been saying that for a long time, which is why we have been taking action on many fronts and why we have announced this action today. Let us explore what the hon. Lady meant, because she cannot ignore the huge role that the Government of which she was a part, formed by the party that she supports, played in the housing crisis facing this country.

From 1997 to 2010, the average house price rose from three and a half times average earnings to seven times such earnings. That is Labour’s legacy. Labour, more than anyone else, has created that crisis of unaffordability. When the shadow Secretary of State was Housing Minister, house building fell to its lowest level in our peacetime history since the 1920s, and social housing fell by 421,000 units. We will not take any lectures from the Opposition about how to deal with a housing crisis that they helped to create. Their policies are about rent controls and the requisition of private property. They have no ideas.

The hon. Lady is right that there is an issue with resources in planning departments, but she is also wrong, because we have already dealt with that issue. Perhaps she did not notice that local authorities are able to increase their planning fees by at least 20% as long as that money is put back into their planning departments. That measure has been welcomed not just by local authorities, but throughout the industry.

The hon. Lady says that the planning process is not part of the problem, but she has clearly not been listening to what the problem is. She has not been out there talking to local authorities and developers, or finding out what communities actually think. If she had, she would know that local authorities in England are together planning for 169,000 houses a year, which is nowhere near the number that we need. We need a change in the formula, so that we get the right number of homes in the right places.

The hon. Lady talked about the importance of giving communities a greater say. That is great, because this is the first time that I have heard that she is supporting our neighbourhood planning process—thank you very much. She also talked about garden cities, towns and villages, and she was right, so I thank her again for supporting our policy, as that is exactly what we are proposing up and down the country. Lastly, she mentioned that brownfield land must be the priority. Again, that is our policy—thank you very much for your support.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Wokingham Borough Council, the unitary authority in my area, has issued a very large number of planning permissions—well above its five-yearly amounts under the plan—but the build rate has not always been high enough. Will the Secretary of State help such local authorities through experiments to find ways of increasing the build rate, so that homes are built where they are agreed to be built, rather than granting on appeal houses elsewhere where there would not be the same infrastructure contribution and the same ability to fit in with the plan?

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend raises a real and important issue, which he knows I have discussed with his local authority. The measures subject to the consultations that we are announcing today will certainly help with that problem. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset will provide further help when he reports back on the work that he is doing.

Local Government Finance

Debate between Sajid Javid and John Redwood

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I very much agree with the point that my hon. Friend makes about looking at the fairness of the distribution, and I know that he has spoken powerfully about that in the past. We are looking at it, and I will come to it shortly in my speech.

A world of constant change, involving big shifts in demographics, lifestyles and technology, demands an updated and more responsive way of distributing funding. That means that we have to question the fairness of the current system, which is why I was pleased to launch a formal consultation on a review of councils’ relative needs and resources in December. This is not just a paper exercise. We have an unparalleled opportunity to be really bold and ambitious, and to consider with the sector where the most up-to-date evidence and data lead on drivers of local authority costs and to create a whole new system that gives councils the confidence to face the opportunities and challenges of the future.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

That is an excellent idea. Can the Secretary of State reassure the unitaries in my part of Berkshire that he does not envisage them going into negative grant, as it is called—in other words, getting no help at all?

[Sajid Javid]

I can give my right hon. Friend some reassurance on that matter. I will come to it in more detail in a moment, and I hope that he will be genuinely reassured.