Dame Meg Hillier
MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have huge respect for the Minister, but she has said that she will not take any interventions. She is a very good Minister, and I trust that she will answer in detail the points that have been raised in the House today; having discussions with her and the Government after the debate is too late…”
“My hon. Friend talks about who makes our laws, and she has talked in articles that she has written about the primacy of this place. If the Bill goes forward, is she willing to accept amendments?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend to her place and thank her for that response, which demonstrates the complications of these schemes. I asked the National Audit Office to look into this, and yesterday the Public Accounts Committee published its report on compensation schemes, suggesting that a central body be established.”
“I am pleased by my right hon. Friend’s answer, but she is in a unique position across Government to ensure that we are protecting not only women, but those who are blind or have visual impairments, who really value this technology.”
“I welcome the Chancellor’s clampdown on speculation and leaks ahead of the Budget; it is certainly an important step he has taken. On the issue of certainty, the National Wealth Fund is a critical investor in crowding in private investment around the UK. I noted that he has changed the remit.”
“Further to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), it is important that we talk here and that we have diplomacy, but what practical actions are the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence taking to ensure that there is a review of physical defence and security, so that we send a clear message to t…”
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“I was glad that the Chancellor, in an almost throwaway line, pledged that the Government would pursue building owners and developers to ensure that they paid their share. That is absolutely right. Some of the estimates are high because everything to do with fire safety that has gone wrong in a building is being added to the bill. Frankly, if a developer did not put a fire door in properly, it should not be down to the taxpayer or homeowner to backfill for that; that should be down to the people who made the mistake. The track record shows that for any Government, getting money back from the private sector once there has been a taxpayer-funded giveaway is challenging. I will look closely at the detail to make sure that those who were irresponsible do not get away with it. An area that is missing from the Budget is Brexit preparations.”
“It may well be that £1 billion is a drop in the ocean of what is required, and the money is only for properties over 18 metres high, yet the latest Government guidance note includes buildings over 11 metres. The Chancellor spoke quite loosely about removing all dangerous cladding; that is a very wide promise, and in the Red Book, all I see is that detail will be laid out in the spending review that is expected in July, so there is a delay in getting more details, and a further delay before the promise is implemented. If the spending review is delayed because of coronavirus, or for any other reason, people in my constituency and across the country will remain in limbo, waiting to find out what will happen.”
“The wait for a two-bedroom property for someone in the “urgent” band is seven years. For those in the “priority” band, it is three years, and it is six years for those in the “general” band. Madam Deputy Speaker, can you imagine waiting six or seven years to get your child and your family into stable accommodation? I have rafts of examples of people in temporary accommodation who are living in one room in a hostel with their children. I absolutely welcome the money that the Chancellor has committed to removal of dangerous cladding. So many of my constituents are mortgage prisoners who face bankruptcy, and whose life is on hold, so that money is a welcome step, but—there is a “but”—it is probably not as much money as is needed.”
“I will not, I am afraid, because of the time. Another issue that I am very concerned about is housing. Money for housing may be a start, but it depends exactly where it is going. According to the Red Book, the money is for an affordable housing fund, but my definition, and my constituents’ definition, of affordable housing is very different from the Prime Minister’s when he was Mayor of London. In high-cost areas such as Hackney, it is vital that housing be properly affordable. I have so many constituents living in really difficult circumstances. As of August last year, there were over 13,000 households on the housing register in Hackney. That is a 33% increase over the past five years, and responsibility for that lies firmly, squarely at the Government’s door. The wait for new housing is life-changing.”
“Will the Secretary of State update us on the thinking about what will happen, if this does continue as is projected, for schools? If schools close, what in particular will happen to children on free school meals, whose parents massively rely on them to keep their children well fed?”
“The hon. Gentleman rightly highlights the contribution that so many Commonwealth citizens have made to our country, including of course those who came over on the Windrush. That also includes the 160 Commonwealth citizens identified by the Public Accounts Committee who may find themselves in the same position as the Windrush generation, but whom the Government are refusing to track and contact. Does he not think that we owe it to our Commonwealth brothers and sisters to do that work to make sure they do not have to go through the pain that so many have already gone through?”
“The Department invested nearly £300 million of taxpayers’ money in the airport on St Helena. Will the Minister update us on whether aircraft can now land and take off from that expensive airport?”
“We have known for years that people on outsourced contracts do not have access to sick pay. The coronavirus is now throwing up that problem for the wider community, yet we heard the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy talk about people going on to universal credit—he does not live in the real world if he thinks that is possible within three days—and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care talks today about seven days’ isolation and, when pressed, about ringing the GP. Can he give very clear advice to those who have to choose between working and eating, so that we make sure they do not go to work when they are ill?”
“The Minister spoke earlier about the importance of investment in the FE workforce, but many lecturers in FE are working part time on insecure contracts. When will the Government make sure the funding stream is secure enough for FE colleges to recruit people who will actually be able to spend time investing in their career and in their pupils?”
“The Minister said that councils are responsible for their own decisions. He is right on one level, but many local authorities are increasingly over-exposing themselves to certain commercial sectors—the Public Accounts Committee has examined this in depth—putting at risk council tax payers and the fabric of local government in their areas. He will know that some councils are at risk right now, so what is his Department doing to ensure that we are protecting council tax payers where local government is not doing so well?”
“The Home Secretary has said that additional points will be awarded for occupations that struggle to fill vacancies. In the tech sector, jobs are often lower paid at the start and ill-defined—they do not actually have a job title. So how will she ensure that the MAC recognises those emerging jobs and can act in real time?”
“Yesterday, in Westminster Hall, more than 30 Members of Parliament raised concerns about our constituents who are living in properties with unsafe cladding. Many of them are mortgage prisoners. They are facing life-changing bills and are having to put their lives on hold. Is it not about time that the Government had a longer debate in this Chamber about the real, serious concerns, as the Government, hopefully, come up with a swift solution to deal with this problem?”
“They must make sure that bad developers do not get away with it and, if they are considering loans, that loans are to the developer rather than the owner, because a loan increases the lack of mortgageability. The certificate of safety would help a lot of my constituents, right here, right now. If the Minister could reassure us on that one issue alone today, that would help a lot of people right now, while we recognise that there are bigger challenges ahead.”
“There are challenges in tracking down owners, and a shortage of skills for surveys and remedial work. Has the Migration Advisory Committee looked at the skills that are needed and whether they could be urgently rushed through, so that more people could be available to speed up the work, which is being done on a riskier buildings first basis? Then there is the inability to get the paperwork. Some of the properties could get mortgages, but without the right certificate, they cannot, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central highlighted. There are too many mortgage prisoners. The previous Secretary of State made a bold decision with the ministerial direction to set up the fund to deal with ACM cladding. This Government need to be equally bold.”
“One constituent tells me: “I can neither re-mortgage or sell my flat. I am currently stuck paying a variable rate mortgage, and am paying £800 more a month than necessary.” That is on top of the other costs around waking watch and so on. Insurance costs have gone up for blocks around the country, which the excellent all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform heard about only a few weeks ago. That does not look like it is going away, and the Minister needs to look at that. Insurance companies should not just get away with this. The reality of the risk is probably not as high as their algorithm throws up, but it is punitive for residents. Shared owners are paying the whole cost, not just for the bit that they own, so there is a problem with the shared ownership model.”
“All my cladding is being removed and, happily, my developer is footing the entire bill, although no doubt my property is worth nothing at the moment. I argue not for myself but for the many constituents who are not in as fortunate a position as I am. The costs mount up. There are the survey costs. Hackney Council has been given £88,000 for data collection, which has got to cover more than 200 council blocks. It is inadequate. There are survey costs for all building owners, which fall on the leaseholders. There is the cost of remedial work, some of which needs to happen immediately—for example, new fire alarms in individual flats and in corridors. That work has to happen before removing waking watch can even be considered, and we have heard about the costs of waking watch. There are the hugely increased mortgage costs.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who summarised what we would all have said, had he not covered it so thoroughly. I want to focus on the costs to individuals and ultimately to the taxpayer—if the Government implement a bailout—and to highlight the impact on many of my constituents. It is fair to say that after the Grenfell fire, Hackney was relatively unscathed, despite having a large number of tower blocks, because aluminium composite material cladding affected a few blocks, but not many. However, the new rules have affected so many of my constituents. I declare an interest, as I am a leaseholder myself.”
“My hon. Friend is right to raise the unfair cost to leaseholders, which we have all highlighted. Does she agree that, as the taxpayer could ultimately foot the bill, we should make sure that dodgy developers, or those who will not step up to the mark, do not get away with a situation where the taxpayer bails people out just because they will not pay?”
“Does not the delay in getting the data in speak to the lack of expertise available? I spoke to one of my housing associations at the end of last week, and it is having to assess its buildings in risk order. Many people in not so risky buildings will never get the work done to get the necessary paperwork—the data—to get a mortgage, which is also important for the property owners.”
“The Minister has paid tribute to MPs for doing their best and for showing the best of MPs. What we hoped for was the best of the Minister, doing the best by our constituents. Although we recognise the action that the Government took after the Grenfell fire, our residents need some assurance and action, so they know that they will not have to wait years for the issue to be resolved. Can she give our constituents any comfort today?”
“Will the Minister tell us whether she has spoken to—or will speak to—the Migration Advisory Committee about ensuring that we have the right skills to do the work properly and quickly?”
“If there is an argument for having lone workers—there may be challenges for employers if we suddenly say, “You must always have more than one person there”—proper devices should be available to them. Petrol stations, for example, have well worn routes for this, and bookies also have a process, although it is not always perfect. In many shops, people are very vulnerable: they are often right out there, loading the shelves and very much in the frontline. I do not think lone working is acceptable in most cases, but where it happens there must be proper support, which could be enshrined in law. Thirdly, there need to be security guards. Big chains and employers should ensure that they have proper security and people trained to deal with conflict. Fourthly, we need more prosecutions. The number of prosecutions is just woeful.”
“It is not acceptable that people have to face such abuse when they go to work. That is not all in the hands of the Government, but I want to touch on what the Government could do. First, they could publish their response to the call for evidence. Even an interim response would help those of us who have an interest in this issue, including the bodies that my hon. Friend named, to get to grips with what can be done practically. We would rather get it right than have the Government wait ages and produce a blueprint that they think is right but that cannot be changed. We must engage from all our different perspectives. We have a shared agenda—I hope—to ensure that the people on the frontline are protected. Secondly, it should be a legal requirement that shop workers who are employees and lone workers get proper support.”
“As a number of Members highlighted, with more than 50 types of products restricted by law, many small retail premises deal with the frontline interaction between enforcement of the law and people who may not want the law to be enforced. I have some simple asks of the Government. First, as was highlighted, it is now more than 200 days since the Government closed their call for evidence on violence and abuse towards shop staff. It is estimated that there have been 200,000 incidents of violence towards shop workers in that time. Around 12,500 of those incidents—I am a Labour and Co-operative MP—involved Co-operative colleagues. That is just unacceptable. If that were happening in any other sector, we would be having a hoo-hah in the main Chamber rather than a small, albeit important, debate in Westminster Hall.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Gary. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) on securing the debate. My hon. Friend covered most of the important points, so, given the time, I will cut to the chase. However, it is important for me to put on the record that my constituency, which is in the borough of Hackney, has a high percentage of small businesses. More than 95% of them employ fewer than six people, and a large number of them are retail premises. A lot of them are small, family-run businesses. We pride ourselves on our independent shops, but I also want to focus on employees of larger organisations.”
“As I have reached the end of my time, I cannot go into any of the horrific examples, but I know all hon. Members are aware of such examples. I completely agree that we need more prosecutions and tougher sentences.”
“It was extraordinary to hear the Treasury Minister talk about the biggest year-on-year increase in funding after a decade of major cuts. He knows, because he can do the maths, that that is nowhere near making any recompense. The Public Accounts Committee looked in detail at local government spending and we concluded that in simple terms, it was being squeezed massively, particularly for children’s and adult’s social services. When will he acknowledge that for many things that his Government purport to want to deliver, local government is key and that it needs sustainable and increased funding to make up for the cuts of the previous decade?”
“It is good to have certainty over HS2, but the Prime Minister has unveiled a raft of big spending projects. Where is the money going to come from?”
“It is important to remember that it was the Labour Government who introduced a points-based system. It is important to remember, too, that many of the workers we need in this country cannot come in under the immigration cap of £30,000. The Home Secretary has looked at that for some professions, but will she widen it to ensure we get the workers we need?”
“I was interested to read the updated impact assessment, which reduces the assumption that there will be 15,000 claims to 11,500 claims. Will the Home Secretary explain why that is the case and whether the Bill will cover the 160,000 Commonwealth citizens who could be affected, to which the Public Accounts Committee drew attention last year?”
“My right hon. Friend will have noted in the letter that we have seen from the second permanent secretary at the Home Office that of the more than1,000 claimants, only 36 have been settled to the tune of just over £62,000. Does she not agree that, although extending it is not a bad thing in one way, it is in danger of delaying the very vital payments that so many of our constituents deserve?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the big problems is that the Home Office systems are not up to scratch? To cope with both Windrush and the potential non-Caribbean Commonwealth applications as well as EU citizens, whom she rightly highlighted, the Home Office systems need to be improved.”
“The hon. Gentleman raised the issue of employer checks. One of the big concerns for many of my constituents is that they are required to have a biometric residence permit, because their little piece of paper from the Immigration and Nationality Directorate—or whichever form of the immigration system it was at the time—is no longer acceptable. The Home Office, crucially, does not write and tell them that, and it is only on a routine check by their employer that they find out. Many of them are then out of work for many months while they wait for their BRP to arrive. Does he agree that that is a scandal that the Home Office also needs to address?”
“The hon. Gentleman says that it was not intentional, but many of us were raising concerns for some time about constituents who were facing this very situation. The Home Office and Ministers failed to put that together to see that there was a systemic issue. Does he not at least acknowledge that? I hope we would all agree on both sides of the House that the Home Office systems are not, and have not been for some time, up to scratch and need to be improved.”
“The Public Accounts Committee is not in the business of scaremongering, but from the very beginning we have raised concerns about the pace and the over-ambitious nature of this policy. Only today, the Minister listed so many changes that have taken place since it was rolled out that it shows there is a problem. In our last session on this issue, we heard from local authorities about the millions of pounds they are having to put aside to help people. With this extra time, will he look at what support he can give local authorities who are having to backfill mistakes by his Department?”
“This does smack of either a deliberate decision to make sure that the mainstream press is being discussed in this way in this House today, or just an almighty mistake. Will the Minister, who is a reasonable woman, not use this opportunity to say sorry and that it will not happen again?”
“We have had as many defence reviews as you have had hot dinners, Mr Speaker, and I am beginning to think that I have got to the point where I have heard so many Defence Ministers tell us that it is going to be different this time. There have been repeated reviews, and as the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), said, too often there is a mismatch between the money and the plans. What, realistically, will the Secretary of State do that is different, because every delay in this costs money and every tough decision ducked does no service to our armed services or the security of our country?”
“In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), the Minister said that he would look at further legislation, but she hit the nail on the head. This man was released from prison, and immediately followed by armed police. The Minister seems to have ruled out control orders, so what will be in the emergency legislation that means that that risk cannot happen again? If this man was so dangerous why was he let out?”
“Q10. The shortage of GPs has reached crisis point. In his answer to the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter), the Prime Minister did nothing to allay the fears and concerns of patients who are waiting weeks to see a GP now. People in training is all very well, but what is he going to do now to make sure patients can access GPs?”
“There are real concerns in east London about the big delays in the breast cancer screening programme, meaning that many women are not getting their first screening until close to their 53rd birthday. Will the Minister meet me and other concerned east London MPs to ensure that we tackle that, to the benefit of our constituents?”
“One of the real concerns in my constituency is the inability of people who want to rent to do so privately with the money that is available. Will the Secretary of State look at local housing allowance rates to ensure that families who could be living in the private sector—because they cannot obtain social housing—are not living in single hostel rooms, as many of my constituents have been for many years?”
“I should declare that I am a leaseholder and all my cladding is being removed—happily, I am one of the fortunate few whose developer is paying for it. However, many of my constituents are mortgage prisoners, shared owners, or people on low incomes, and they are trapped in that position and unable to move their lives on. The Secretary of State has said warm words about talking to the Treasury, but we all know how difficult it can be to get money out of it. Is he looking at other options, such as interest-free loans on a long-term basis? How quickly can he move? These leaseholders are trapped and need to know whether they will be waiting for months or years.”
“As many of us heard at a meeting here on Thursday night and many of us know from our case load, so many people are caught in really difficult circumstances because of the issue of cladding. Those leaseholders are mortgage prisoners or their properties are valued at zero. Will the Secretary of State give them some assurance that the Government are taking this seriously and will act fast, because people’s lives are unable to move on while they await a decision on the second type of cladding?”
“One of the major crises is the recruitment of GPs, so it is not just money that needs to be thrown at the issues. What steps is the Treasury taking to ensure that when money is provided, it is spent well and, crucially, that it is not stop-start funding, so that the NHS can properly plan for the long term, particularly in the recruitment of frontline staff?”
“Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and I represent 40,000 EU citizens. It is foolhardy of the Government to believe that they can suddenly change the immigration system and achieve a great, simple new deal. I have been there. I have seen 10 years of it getting worse, and the Government need to heed that warning very carefully. I am also concerned about the time allocated for this debate. It has been too short and it is not democratic.”
“As a Home Office Minister, I negotiated many of these issues on behalf of the British Government when Labour was last in government, which was some time ago. I say respectfully to the right hon. Gentleman that the decision to remove the possibility of extending the implementation period is a foolish step, because it allows no wiggle room. I know that the Government have a great belief that setting a deadline will give them greater ability to negotiate, but I think there is a real risk that they could end up throwing the baby out with the bath- water. That would not bring the country together. We are also going to see quangos rising like the phoenix, as many European regulations will have to be replicated in British law. So much for the bonfire of red tape. On immigration, I tremble. Between us, my right hon.”
“Very many people in my constituency are working several low-paid jobs on irregular contracts. They are very insecure. I cannot see how they will experience the benefits. I want to see protection in law. The provision to provide support for unaccompanied asylum seeker children has been removed. I have been dealing with this issue as an elected politician since 1994, when I was a councillor and we found children wandering alone on Holloway Road in Islington. It is important to work in partnership with the EU to deal with that. Let us not forget why they come—trafficking. Let us deal with the cause, not the symptom. It is mean spirited to take out that provision. There are also many issues relating to security, but we do not have time to go into them today.”
“We were critical of the Government at times, and rightly so—I hope that the right hon. Gentleman would expect us to be critical of him when he gets things wrong—but we went at it constructively by looking at the facts and the data and by working hard to press the Government to do a better job. I will list my reasons for not voting to give the Bill its Second Reading, and I hope the Government will listen. We will vote against it not because we are sore losers, but because there are valid reasons to believe that this rushed Bill and rushed debate could result in real problems for the future. The Bill is weak on workers’ rights—that is categorically clear. It is a poor argument to assume that there will be a trickle down of benefits when businesses allegedly—or hopefully, as the Government would say—do well.”
“Then, very reluctantly and late in the day, I came to the idea of a second referendum as a way of breaking that impasse, but, even in my very remain constituency, that was not part of the major discourse in the 2017 general election. We have to remember that. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the entrenchment of positions when debating this issue, but I urge Government Members to remember that, too. The Secretary of State and I—and, indeed, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire—once served together on the Public Accounts Committee. Over the past two years, the Committee membership has represented every range of views on Brexit. It would not be possible to find a more diverse range of views, yet we were unanimous in our agreement on the more than 11 reports we produced.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley), who spoke characteristically thoughtfully and without triumphalism. He was absolutely right to do so—I speak as someone who represents a constituency that voted 78% for remain—and this debate must continue in that tone. Let us be clear about why we are here. There has been a total failure of political craft. In 2015 even I voted for the referendum, because it is a convention of this House to support a majority Government in the early days of their administration. The Conservative party won the 2015 general election and I backed that referendum, against many of my instincts. From then on, there was failure: things were slow, cumbersome, secretive and there was a lot of dither.”