Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Simon Hughes and Jack Dromey

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

As the hon. Gentleman will hear if I have a chance to say a word, I am very supportive of what he is arguing for and of the amendment that his hon. Friends have tabled. With respect, though, I would like to correct something that he said. The opinion that he just quoted was that of the Joint Committee on Human Rights—not the Westminster convention, or whatever he called it—which is making exactly the argument that he is putting to the House.

[Jack Dromey]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention; he is of course right.

We support a rigorous and fair justice system, but it must ensure that where a serious miscarriage of justice has happened, innocent people receive fair compensation for all that they have suffered, which, in the more extreme cases, can involve years of their lives. If a miscarriage of justice has taken place, it is the justice system’s mistake, and it should be its job to put it right, not to make it harder for innocent people to do so. If—God forbid!—we ever saw a repeat of what happened with the Birmingham bombings and the subsequent convictions, it would be absolutely unthinkable that those people would not be entitled to compensation.

I very much hope that the Minister will respond constructively to the amendment and our representations. We intend to support the amendment in the other place, where we believe that further detailed scrutiny should take place, because the Government have got it wrong and we must put that wrong right.

Housing

Debate between Simon Hughes and Jack Dromey

Wednesday 5th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jack Dromey]

Sadly, when we took office in 1997 we were confronted with a Conservative legacy of disrepair and neglect. We invested £19 billion to bring more than 1.5 million homes up to the decent homes standard, and I have seen in my constituency how that transformed the lives of the people in those homes. Some 75% of all tenants concerned had their homes brought up to the decent homes standard. Did the hon. Gentleman’s Government stick to that progress when they took office? No, they did not.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I have been in this House for nearly 30 years, and the whole time we have been short of affordable housing, under Tory and Labour Governments, but Labour built less council housing than any previous Administration. The hon. Gentleman’s criticism would be more effective if he acknowledged Labour’s failure to put housing at the top of its agenda. The difference is that this Government understand that housing has to be at the top of their agenda.

[Jack Dromey]

A record of 2 million more homes, 1 million more mortgages holders, half a million more affordable homes and 1.6 million homes brought up to the decent homes standard is one that we can rightly be proud of. All I will say now, as I will say later on, is that in the here and now there is a pretty dramatic contrast between what Labour councils and Conservative-led councils are doing in building new council homes, taking advantage of the housing revenue account reforms, reforms that we pioneered.