Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Debate between Sajid Javid and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Tuesday 26th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I will make some progress and give way in a moment.

This is why I am laying this order to proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety and crack down on several other terror organisations. Subject to the will of Parliament, this order will make membership of any part of Hezbollah a criminal offence in the UK. It will give police the power to tackle those who fly its gun-emblazoned flag on our streets, inflaming community tensions. It will give us more power to disrupt the activity of an organisation who are committed to armed combat, who violently oppose the Israeli people, who destabilised a fragile middle east, who helped to prolong the brutal Syrian conflict, and whose attacks have reached into Europe. We will not hesitate to proscribe groups where they pose a terrorist threat.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I strongly support the decision that my right hon. Friend has taken. The statement that I have seen from the Opposition makes a distinction between the political and military wings of Hezbollah and demands proof that the so-called political wing falls foul of proscription criteria. Will he confirm that Hezbollah itself makes no such distinction, which is entirely plastic and artificial? They are one and the same.

[Sajid Javid]

I shall come to my hon. Friend’s important point in a moment. It is fair to say that Hezbollah itself laughs at that distinction—it mocks it. It does not understand why some countries continue to make this artificial distinction. My hon. Friend has raised an important point.

Housing and Social Security

Debate between Sajid Javid and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Thursday 22nd June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

It is Government policy that people should have the right to buy their home, whether it is a council house or a housing association property. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are piloting how the housing association right to buy programme works. We will then work on how we can take it forward.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

On that point, the housing associations in London have made it very clear collectively that they are willing and able to massively ramp up the number of homes they are building. The one thing they ask from the Government is to accelerate the release of publicly owned land so that they can do so. Is that still very much part of the agenda?

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend touches on a very important point. The public sector land programme is designed to do just that. In the past seven years, it has released record amounts of land for hundreds of thousands of new homes. There is always more to do. That is why we set out plans in the housing White Paper to achieve even more from that programme.

I can tell Labour Members one more thing that has happened since 2010: more council housing has been built in the past seven years than was built in the previous 13 years. Going back to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), enough public sector land has been released to deliver at least 130,000 new homes, which is equivalent to a city the size of Nottingham.

More than 300,000 new homes were granted planning permission in the year up to March, which was up 15% on the previous 12 months. New build dwelling starts rose by 15% compared with the previous period. Once people are in their homes, they are staying in them because mortgage repossessions are at their lowest level for 35 years. This Government can offer an ambitious, far-reaching plans for the future of house building, built on solid foundations of real success.

I want to contrast that with what is on offer from the Labour party. Let us look at what happened last time Labour was in charge of housing. When Labour came to power in 1997, the average house cost 3.5 times the average salary. When it left office 13 years later, the average house cost seven times the average salary—a massive collapse in affordability and the biggest the country has ever seen. That hit ordinary working people the hardest.