Barry Gardiner
MP for Brent West · Labour · United Kingdom
“Sir Desmond, imagine that the top brains in the country’s security and intelligence community produced a report that told you how to save the world. You would want to see it, right? Well, the report we are discussing is not about how to save the world; it is about what happens if we do not.”
“The nuclear threat will rise as clashes between nuclear powers become more frequent. Those are the cold assessments of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The Government were right to think that those assessments might scare people—they scare me—but they were wrong to think that they could hide them from the public.”
“The Minister will know that the grant structure on which UKRI is based gives out grants for a maximum of three to five years. Very few are for five years—most are for three years or under—yet the sort of long-term scientific development that my hon.”
“My hon. Friend is making a superb case for the importance of funding for her deep earth facility. I had the privilege of going to the National Oceanography Centre’s deep oceans facility, and the innovative science there on carbon sequestration is superb.”
“The Prime Minister has spoken powerfully about the devolution of power and giving back control. Will he therefore ensure that the proposals for commonhold and leasehold reform, for which 5 million leaseholders in this country are waiting with bated breath, do give that power and control back to those people, through the right to enfranchi…”
“We know how much land there is in the UK, and we know the extent of our inland waters and seas, so we can know how much we have to do to protect them, as we are required to do by target 3 of the global biodiversity framework.”
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“I was listening to the right hon. Gentleman’s argument on onion futures trading. How does he reconcile that? Does it not give the lie to his argument about NFTs? It shows precisely that anything can be traded as a derivative in that way and therefore there would be no specific reason—he previously outlined this—to put NFTs into the other regulation. I find that his arguments conflict.”
“At a time when our household energy bills are the highest in history, the OBR says that real household disposable income is decreasing by 4.3% this year and by 5.7% over the next two years. That is the largest decline since the year before I was born—and I, though I may feel like one, am no spring chicken. The Chancellor had four E’s, but he missed out the most pressing E of all: the environment. The Committee on Climate Change set out that we will not achieve our net zero target without a strategic programme to reform our regulatory frameworks and market design that galvanises between £300 billion and £430 billion of investment and removes the barriers to the construction of a new renewable energy infrastructure. I am afraid this Budget simply does not measure up.”
“I also support the Government’s desire to boost enterprise and to grow wealth in our country. I understand the case for R&D tax credits, even at the level of 100%, but they should not contradict the Government’s other objectives. If they pay those credits to international companies such as Amazon, which will pay no tax in the UK while siphoning its profits out of the country, it is not our economy that they are growing. Equally, it makes no sense to be paying 100% of the cost of oil and gas companies such as BP and Shell for exploitation of new fossil fuel reserves in the North sea, which will contradict our net zero objectives. These companies are already making record profits on the backs of bill payers in the UK. I would ask the Chancellor to put a green filter on R&D tax credits.”
“Member also posed what I thought was a rather rhetorical question to the House. He asked: “But who knows best how to spend their money—the businesses or the Government?” He did not stay for an answer, but my constituents might have replied: best to achieve what? If it is to spend that money in such a way as to maximise the return to their shareholders, the right hon. Member is correct: the answer is business. However, if it is to spend that money in such a way as to achieve the maximum public good, it is undoubtably the Government, by using the money paid in tax to keep us safe by paying our armed forces; to keep us healthy by paying for our NHS; or to keep us wealthy by investing in education and apprenticeships, so that those businesses have the supply of skills and labour they need to make that profit in the first place.”
“He said that they should have thought through the tax take policy in “a way that would actually work”. It is just a pity that he was not part of any Government who could have done anything about it. The question my constituents would ask is: work for whom? I have spoken before in this Chamber of the queues that stretch down the Ealing Road in my constituency and around the corner, where I live, in Chaplin Road—extending over half a mile—waiting for the food bank at the Shri Sanatan Mandir to open. For the past 13 years, the economy has not actually been working for them. It has been working for the individuals who have managed to amass a pension pot in excess of the £1,060,000 lifetime allowance limit. After today, it will work even more for those people, as they can shelter even more money from tax. The right hon.”
“Friend the Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler), my constituency neighbour, has been urging every Chancellor since George Osborne to resolve this inequality. I welcome the action taken to allocate £20 billion—over 20 years—for carbon capture, use and storage. But again, what chutzpah. Thirteen years ago, the incoming Tory-Liberal Government inherited £4 billion already allocated to CCUS, and they cut it. Too often, debate in Parliament degenerates into set speeches, but the Budget debate is one of those occasions when we really can take on each other’s speeches and respond to what has been said. I listened very carefully to the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who attacked the Chancellor and pointed out the failures of his party to adopt a consistent economic policy to lower the overall tax take.”
“It would be churlish not to welcome some aspects of this Budget. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Yes, absolutely. The extra money for childcare is not comprehensive and it does not recreate the life-changing Sure Start of the last Labour Government, but it will make a real difference to parents of young children. But what chutzpah! What chutzpah of the Chancellor to steal some of the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) and take credit for addressing childcare costs, but then delay implementation of the policy until the middle of next year, in time for a Labour Government to pay for it. I welcome the action taken on prepayment meters, which will make a real difference to some of the poorest families in our country. But again, what chutzpah. My hon.”
“The Home Secretary will be aware that the bulk of the 500,000 people she says have come through safe and legal routes are from Ukraine and Hong Kong. Regarding Afghanistan, she will also know that, in the whole of the last year, since the new safe route was put in place, only 22 individuals from Afghanistan have been accepted through that route. Is it any surprise to the Home Secretary, then, that 8,500 Afghans made a small boat crossing to the UK last year? Having rendered meaningless any safe and legal route from Afghanistan, where does the Home Secretary believe she derives the moral authority to criminalise those 8,500 people simply because of their mode of travel?”
“To see the injustice of marriage value, one need only to consider the price difference on the open market between a leasehold flat with a 125-year lease and the same flat with a share of freehold. The difference is nil, yet the first is on a yo-yo tender, whereby an owner, such as the Duke of Westminster, sells for the full market value, only to receive the entire property back at the end of the lease, allowing him to sell it all over again or, more often, to receive a large payment to extend the lease when the reduction in the term risks being so short that no lender will advance a mortgage on it and the property becomes unsaleable by the leaseholder, who sees the value of their asset diminishing to zero.”
“In truth, the debate about a wholesale reform of leasehold goes back much further. In the modern era, it starts almost exactly 50 years before 14 June 2017, with the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, which gave qualifying long leaseholders of houses the statutory right to buy the freehold of their homes. In 1969, a problem arose: the Lands Tribunal ruling in Custins v. Hearts of Oak Benefit Society noted that the 1967 Act treated the open market for the reversion of the lease as including marriage value. That is why the Government promptly and rightly reversed that decision with section 82 of the Housing Act 1969. They did not wish to artificially increase the cost for people wishing to buy the freehold of their own home.”
“For many people, the issue of leasehold crystalised after the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire and the subsequent purgatory that hundreds of thousands of residents throughout the country found themselves living through as they waited to have their own buildings’ fire safety defects remediated. They are still waiting. It was about much more than cladding and EWS1 forms. Residents who found that their homes had been constructed without internal fire stopping, or with inappropriate materials or inadequate fire doors, were unable to sell their property and move on with their lives because construction companies, project managers, surveyors, developers, freeholders, building control, the National House Building Council and managing agents all sought to pass responsibility among themselves. Nobody wanted to pick up the bill for remediation.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered leaseholders and managing agents. I am grateful to present this debate under your chairmanship, Sir George, because I know that you have significant involvement with your local leaseholders in Knowsley, for which they are very grateful. Saying the word “leasehold” to any Member of Parliament is likely to begin a long conversation on one of two things: fire safety or service charges. I could have phrased that better: it would be more accurate to say “unsafe homes caused by fire safety defects” and “rip-off service charges by unscrupulous managing agents”.”
“The law allows the freeholder to benefit from that asymmetry and impose considerable extra costs on any leaseholder who wishes to purchase or extend the lease on their home. When the Government come to legislate for leasehold reform—they have promised to do so and I look forward to that—I trust that they will understand that it is that fundamental injustice that has kept leaseholders prisoner to the vagaries of their freeholder and, often, the outrageous services charges imposed by their managing agents.”
“I am most grateful to the Father of the House, who is also co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform, for his knowledge, his campaigning over many years and his intervention. In the Housing Act 1974, which still related only to houses, and the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, which gave leaseholders the right, if more than 50% of them wished to, to purchase the freehold interest in their block, the concept of marriage value was sadly reintroduced. Marriage value has been at the heart of many of leaseholders’ problems for more than half a century, simply because the freehold title of the property is worth more to them than to anyone else by virtue of the fact that they live in it.”
“Indeed, Sir George. My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) is no stranger to witty epithets, and his suggestion that we should stop polishing and start abolishing was absolutely right. Before I turn to some egregious instances of service charges and call out by name some of the managing agents that have played fast and loose with the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which provides that service charges must be “reasonable” and that services and works must be carried out to “a reasonable standard”, I wish to acknowledge some of the individuals who have championed the cause of leasehold reform over many years.”
“Not with us at the moment is my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee, who has done a huge amount over the years. It is about not just those in this House; outside of the House there are many more. I pay special tribute to Charlotte Martin, who founded, with Nigel Wilkins, who is sadly no longer with us, the campaign against residential leaseholds, and who did so much, with Neil Mulcock, to usher in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.”
“I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has managed to get those condemnations on the record. I am sure that his constituents will be most grateful, as I am, for his doing so. He is right. The trouble is that the law is there: it is the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, which makes it clear that unreasonable charges should not be levied, and that services and works have to be done to “a reasonable standard”. It is all there in statute; the trouble is that it is not enforced and that the mechanism for enforcement has gone awry, as I will come on to. I already paid tribute to the Father of the House, whose long-standing campaign on this issue is an inspiration to us all. He co-chairs the all-party parliamentary group with my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who has also done so much on this issue.”
“In October 2019, the then Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey), confirmed in a written statement the Government’s intention to take forward those measures. In 2020, the Law Commission published its report and recommendations. It is not good enough to say that the Government have been busy with other priorities. Since 2017, we have had seven Secretaries of State and nine Housing Ministers, yet leaseholders are still being ripped off.”
“Specifically, he committed them to legislate to prohibit the creation of new residential long leases on newly built or existing freehold houses, other than in exceptional circumstances; to restrict ground rents in newly established leases of houses and flats to a peppercorn; to address loopholes in order to improve transparency and fairness for leaseholders and freeholders; and to work with the Law Commission to support existing leaseholders. The Government said that would include making buying a freehold or extending a lease “easier, faster, fairer and cheaper”. In April 2018, the Government announced that managing agents in the sector would be subject to regulation by an independent body and that a code of practice would set out minimum standards for key areas of activity, including service charges.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He highlights something that is really important to us all: the mental health problems that this issue causes. It is not just a financial issue; it has both physical and mental health implications. There was one more person to whom I was going to pay tribute. If I left her out, I would be in deep trouble, because it is my own head of office, Jackie George, who keeps a database of more than 7,000 leaseholders in my constituency and who keeps in touch with them regularly. In 2017, the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), committed the Government to act on leasehold abuses.”
“Company law allows companies to avoid their obligations, go into administration while the directors set up new companies and repeat their scams all over again. This misery will end only when we have an end to leasehold. Our country has put up with a feudal system of land tenure for almost 2,000 years. It is time it stopped.”
“The 1985 Act already provides that service charges must be reasonable and services and works must be carried out to a reasonable standard. The problem is the whole imbalance of power between the leaseholder and the freeholder. Leasehold tribunals were intended to be a cheap, efficient way of resolving normal disputes between reasonable people without enormous legal costs, but landlords have intimidated leaseholders by engaging vast arrays of lawyers and threatening them with forfeiture and bankruptcy. There is a way to end this misery, but it is not with a new code of practice. Companies do not obey the existing primary legislation; they will not abide by a new code of practice. The way to end this misery is not with the safety regulator.”
“They owe money to 202 families.” Of course FirstPort did not want the case heard in public: section 27A(5) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 states that “the tenant is not to be taken to have agreed or admitted any matter by reason only of having made any payment.” Tenants often pay expressly disputed service charges to avoid the risk of forfeiture and preserve their home and the value of their lease. Of course FirstPort did not want that in the public domain, but it now is, and 200 other families have now been given heart that it is possible to take FirstPort on and beat it. Already, 42 other leaseholders on the estate have signed up to a class action. But the point is that this should not be happening. A code of conduct for managing agents will not do any good.”
“FirstPort sought to rely in its defence on two factors: it tried to rely on the payments made by leaseholders—in other words, by paying up they had intimated consent; and, especially ironic given the FirstPort practice of delay, it tried to rely on the length of time the leaseholder had taken in bringing the challenge to the tribunal. On Friday 13 January, the last working day before the hearing, I received the following email in my office from my constituent at 5 pm: “They are settling all of the claim. Their lawyers harassed me all week and made the offer on Friday afternoon, just hours before the hearing this Monday. They did not want this case heard as they have been lying to Barry.”
“In 2019, Nigel Howell, the then chief executive, conceded to me that it was unlawful for his company to impose late penalty fees on leaseholders who had disputed their charges—but not all leaseholders have been refunded. Nigel Howell also confirmed to me that his company had charged costs for areas not under FirstPort’s management and promised that a 20% refund would be given in the following year’s accounts. Strangely, Nigel Howell was removed from his post as chief executive. After years of suffering, one brave, resilient resident finally took FirstPort to the tribunal.”
“There is a lack of accountability and transparency over what the residents are charged for and whether the costs are reasonably incurred and reasonable in amount. There is a total failure to provide leaseholders with a breakdown of service charges. Many of my constituents can wait more than 20 months for accounts to be finalised. Even when FirstPort admits that refunds are owed to the leaseholder because of double counting, overcharging or charging for services not provided, the requests for the return of the overpayments are often ignored, or the returns can take many months to be made. FirstPort also charged multiple administration penalty charges of £60 each when someone queried the costs. One resident ended up being billed for more than £400 of admin charges and was then browbeaten into paying because of the threat of legal action.”
“One resident wrote to me about a typical example of its practice, saying: “I was charged £1725.88 for internal and external decorations (painting of the windows). My windows are UPVC - no redecoration was required.” Another wrote to tell me: “The back fill of the stack pipe which causes water to come up into my kitchen sink and has flooded my kitchen on many occasions is still an issue after 15 years of reporting it.” Yet another person explained: “My flat is a one-bedroom flat, one of the smallest on the estate and I was charged £2861 for redecorations - almost double the costs levied on the larger 2-bedroom flats this matter remains unresolved.” FirstPort’s response to those and the more than 500 more complaints like them that I have received is to make no response and ignore things for as long as possible—for months and years, not days and weeks.”
“One of its leaseholders wrote to me from Barons Court in my constituency, saying: “Dear Barry, every double bed apartment now costs £6000 up from £2600 per year a 130% increase in service charge and we had to pay for the Waking Watch. The management company will not tell us how much commission they receive from the insurance premiums. We arranged our own fire tests and paid for critical remediation work.” The name of the company FirstPort is well known to many Members. Since 2013, my constituents in Chamberlayne Walk have been challenging unreasonable service charges by FirstPort management services. I say unreasonable but, in fact, the word “fraudulent” is closer to the truth: it even charged for the management of surrounding land that it did not own and was not its to manage.”
“Strangely, it fails again the following day, and another day rate is charged to fix it again—and so on, day after day, until astronomical charges have been incurred, with the managing agents able to take a management fee every time, of course. I have written to all these managing agents, challenging them to justify their service charges and other fees, and to none have I been writing longer than Freshwater and its associated companies—at the last count more than 150 linked under the same beneficial ownership. It is because of Freshwater that in 1999 I launched my original campaign for what became the 2002 Act.”
“At the Living City development in Colindale in my constituency, leaseholders were advised in March last year that after the constant failure of the communal hot water supply to the building over three successive winters, they would receive a rebate on their service charge, only for that offer to be countermanded in October last year. Residents noted that their insurance cover appeared to be paying for associated commercial units, and found that the premium had been increased by 100%. Lift maintenance is also charged, conveniently, on a day rate rather than a job rate: the lift fails, and a day rate is charged to fix it.”
“A detailed explanation has not been provided.” Hallmark Premier Estates is the managing agent there, but it is not providing a premier service—just as it is failing to do in Parkside Place in Barham village, where the insurance premium, which was £22,738 in 2021, has risen 108% to £47,415. No wonder I was told yesterday that the landlord would be replacing Hallmark as the managing agents for “unspecified reasons”. One leaseholder in Lawns Court said: “I have lived in my flat for 39 years, but I find I can no longer struggle to keep it - the service charges for my one-bedroom flat have risen from £1600 per annum to over £5000 per annum. That is a 212% increase.” The managing agents there are Aldermartin, Baines & Cuthbert.”
“For my constituents and millions like them throughout the country, the delay is imposing financial penury and severe impacts on their mental and physical health, as the right hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) said. The impacts include those on the residents of Williams Way in my constituency of Brent North, from where one resident wrote to me saying: “My wife cried last night when I shared a few things about all of this. Management fees have increased: £5,600 in 2020 to £8,400 in 2022—I cannot afford to pay this significant increase. That is a 50% increase. Water storage has increased from £564 in 2020 to £1068—an 89% increase. The insurance premium charged at £5,820.76 in 2021 increased to £20,726.23 in 2022—a staggering 256% increase.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Leaseholders are not asking for special favours; they simply want equity and justice. The Government’s survey reported that more than 70% of leaseholders regretted buying a leasehold property. In London, and in my constituency of Brent North, the leasehold model accounts for more than 90% of properties sold. I do not believe that my constituents should have to wait a moment longer for basic rights over their own homes, the right to manage, and the right not to be subjected to unreasonable and sometimes fabricated service charges and then bullied into submission by managing agents who threaten legal proceedings and, ultimately, forfeiture.”
“Sowcrest sold to a Canadian company, which then sold to Wembley Central Ltd, which is established in Jersey. They claim that it is for them to do the remediation work on the building, yet Sowcrest was the original freeholder and the developer itself. Those are the sorts of entangled webs that we are dealing with here. With that, I look to the Minister to do all that he can in government to bring forward the legislation. I hope that it conforms to the four points—the four challenges—that my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), speaking from our Front Bench, mentioned. We all look forward, ultimately, to seeing an end to this appalling practice. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered leaseholders and managing agents.”
“Their plans are on hold. Their lives are on hold. It is really interesting to hear the case that my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) made about a 3,000% increase in service charges. I am glad that the Minister has agreed to take up that case and look into it further, because it is astonishing. There are two key points that I want to follow up. The first is the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), who talked about the scandal of managing agents often being at the centre of a web of companies all linked to the same beneficial owners. In Wembley Central Apartments in my constituency—I am not sure that I will get this entirely right—St Modwens and Sowcrest were the joint developers.”
“I am very grateful to all hon. and right hon. Members who have spoken in this debate. It is clear that there is a compelling case for wholesale reform in this area. The hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) has done himself no harm in Steinbeck Grange today, I am quite sure, but the point that he made is one that we all share. It was ably made by the right hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) as well. He said that that resident had said that he had to reassess his life. For so many people, that is what is happening. Millions of people in this country are having to reassess their lives and the possibilities that they thought were open to them—even on changing jobs—trapped in their own homes, unable to sell, unable to move to a new job, or trapped in a one-bedroom home, unable to have any more children.”
“Before the Minister moves on from the business of accountable persons, does she share the concern of many of my constituents that, by appointing the accountable person, the Government are doing one important thing and setting out that someone is actually responsible? The problem has been that the buck has been passed all around. But in doing that, the Government are passing to the residents—the commonhold association itself—the responsibility that should properly lie with the developer of the building, whose responsibility it was to ensure that the building was constructed properly in the first place. In many cases, it was not.”
“Clearly, the building regulator will accrue a huge amount of information. Will the Minister set out how many building regulators there will be? Will there be only one? If so, what facilities and resources will be made available to the regulator to enable it to cope with the influx of information and sift it so that the safety end is achieved?”
“Friend said, this is about not just fire doors, which are at least there physically and can be seen, but internal fire stopping, which may not have been put in during construction. That is one of the things that makes a building most susceptible to fire, yet it is not mentioned in regulation 8. That is essential if people are to fulfil the duties that the Government are placing them. Ultimately, this issue goes back to where responsibility lies. It is great that we are trying to nail that down, and I appreciate what the Government are trying to do, but there are real, practical constraints. We need to know what the penalties are and how the regulations will be enforced.”
“Many of them are labouring under problems with their existing managing agents, such as huge increases in their service charges or often completely inappropriate items billed to them erroneously. They therefore want to be enfranchised and to take on the responsibility as managing agents themselves. With that, however, will come the new responsibilities, which are incredibly onerous. My hon. Friend was absolutely right to ask about penalties. Those who exercise those responsibilities, or try to, have to know what will happen to them if they fail to do so—not wilfully or through negligence, but because it is simply not possible to secure all the appropriate information in the timeframe. There is then the question of what happens if they cannot access the information. As my hon.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your rigorous chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I share the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich. Here we have huge responsibilities being placed on individuals or commonhold associations without the necessary power to do what is being obligated. Those who have engaged with leaseholders over many years know that communications between residents in a large tower block often take huge lengths of time. They are not instantaneous. The idea that within 28 days the appropriate person will be able to ensure that they have all the information from other residents is fanciful. Communications just do not work like that in tower blocks. That will discourage leaseholders from taking over the management of their building.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way again; she is being generous in engaging in debate. In answering the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich asked about fire doors, she referred to regulation 18, which talks about “fire and smoke control equipment” and specifically excludes that which is “provided by a resident for their own use.” “Equipment” does not sound as if it includes fire stopping. Will the Minister please clarify where responsibility lies for fire stopping in a building?”
“The Secretary of State said that those who built these buildings did not always build them safely, “at times knowingly”. What sanctions will be faced by those who knowingly took shortcuts on safety, endangering and blighting residents’ lives, and who will bring them? As for the companies that he says must either sign or get out and find another business, what happens when they simply go out of business and pop up under another name?”
“Will the Minister accept that health and safety legislation in this country—to ensure guards on machinery, for example, to stop people’s hands being chopped off—was won because workers withdrew their labour? Does he understand that the ambulance workers and the nurses say that the very reason they are going on strike is to make sure that the service is safe? What he is saying at the Dispatch Box is complete rubbish.”
“Does my right hon. Friend understand that the Government are authorising employers to do what not even a court in this country can? Under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, no court can compel an employee to do any work or attend any place for the doing of any work, but after a notification to a union of the identity of workers to be requisitioned, the Bill requires the union to take reasonable steps to ensure that all members of the union identified in that work notice comply with it. Is that not absolutely turning the whole system on its head?”
“My right hon. Friend is being extremely generous in giving way. Does she accept that the only way a union can avoid the situation she has just talked about, where unfair dismissal protection is taken away from workers, is by ensuring that they become an instrument of coercion, of the state and of the employer? For 35 years in this country, legislation has provided that a trade union is prohibited by law from disciplining or expelling a member who refuses to take part in a strike. Under the Bill, the same trade union may be required to discipline or expel a member who does what their workmates and they themselves may have voted for—namely, to withdraw their labour. Jonathan Swift could not have made this up. Nothing in all Lilliput or Brobdingnag could come up with a more ludicrous situation.”
“These are the words of Hassan Firouzi: “Whether or not I sign confession papers, they will kill me. My only wish is to see my daughter one last time. After 10 years, God finally gave us a child. I only got to see her for 18 days before being arrested for protesting. I miss my daughter so much. My only wish is that I get to see my daughter one last time before they kill me.” He is another citizen who has been condemned to death. I have adopted his case at the urging of a close Iranian friend in my constituency. Does the Foreign Secretary believe that it is helpful for Members of Parliament to adopt individual people on death row in Iran to publicise their cases and put maximum pressure on the regime?”
“The hon. Lady is presenting a reasoned case, but she knows, and she has just used the word, that these things should be negotiated. The measures in this Bill are by fiat of the Secretary of State.”
“That the Secretary of State in Whitehall should claim the power to legislate by regulation to interfere in devolved areas of government and to impose restrictions in different parts of this Union on the right to strike in transport, education, health and other public services in Scotland and Wales is more than unwarranted. It is more than inappropriate. It is a deliberate provocation and offence.”
“The primary legislation that the Secretary of State can amend or repeal is defined to include an Act of the Senedd or the Scottish Parliament. That should set alarm bells ringing for all of us, nationalists and Unionists alike. What is being proposed is that the Secretary of State in Westminster should have the power by regulation to override devolved legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd—and to do so with minimal scrutiny in this House. If the Executive had intended to provoke constitutional outrage and call into question the very basis of the devolutionary settlements, they could not have designed a piece of legislation better guaranteed to do so.”