Clive Efford
MP for Eltham and Chislehurst · Labour · United Kingdom
“Thank you for allowing me to take part in this statement, Madam Deputy Speaker, given that I was not here at the beginning—I was carrying out my duties elsewhere in the House. I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. What is she likely to do in my part of south-east London for technical and vocational places?”
“I rise to speak to amendment 97 in my name, which would remove clause 10 from the Bill. Clause 10 gives powers to the Secretary of State to vary the proportion of public and private provision of health services if they consider that to do so is in the interests of the health service.”
“Labour’s 2024 plan to make work pay set out a welcome desire to bring more essential services back into public control—something that is welcomed by health workers across the country, because so far the “biggest wave of insourcing in a generation”, as was promised, has felt more like a trickle when it comes to the NHS.”
“The explanatory notes for the Bill say that this new flexibility is necessary “where there may otherwise be a breakdown in provision of a health service.” Can we imagine a situation where the Secretary of State has concerns about a health service and that an approach to assist a local provider would be rebuffed?”
“There are ample powers to enable the Secretary of State to intervene and resolve breakdowns in the provision of a health service. On clause 10, we must balance what it adds in those situations against its potential misuse by an ideologically driven Government that are determined to privatise our NHS.”
“It was a pleasure to join my right hon. Friend at Greenwich council’s development of 435 council properties in my constituency for the launch of the social and affordable housing programme. Some 70,000 homes are planned, and that is welcome and overdue.”
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“I am grateful to the Prime Minister for giving way. Nine days have elapsed since the attack on Douma. The President of the United States tweeted about it, and there was a highly publicised Cabinet meeting on the morning of 12 April. On that day, comments of the Prime Minister in that Cabinet meeting were reported in the press. No one here would have asked for secret details of the attacks. We would have asked about the long-term strategy for getting people around the table to discuss the future. She set out yesterday her objective in this attack, but is that attack likely to increase the possibility of getting those people around the table to bring a solution to the problem in Syria? No, it is not.”
“It adds nothing to our debates if people suggest that Members on either side of the Chamber are not determined to see chemical weapons eradicated. They may will different means, but everyone is equally determined. With that in mind, I believe that Bashar al-Assad should be pursued for all his days until he is arraigned before a court to answer for the crime of using chemical weapons on his people. Having said that, when the Prime Minister comes to this House to speak to Members of Parliament and answer questions, she is speaking to the people of this country, and she missed an opportunity to do that last week. Nine days elapsed before the airstrikes, and if these circumstances arise again in future, she must come to this House and account for what she intends to do.”
“We rightly protect many major sporting events for terrestrial TV, including the forthcoming FA cup and the FIFA World cup. There is widespread concern across the House that the FIFA World cup will be exploited by Putin as a propaganda coup. What is the Minister doing with the FA, the BBC and FIFA to minimise the opportunities for it to be exploited in that way?”
“Based on Government statistics, 63 schools in my borough will lose funding of £300,000 per annum between 2015 and 2020. Can the Minister tell me what happened to the Prime Minister’s promise to maintain pupil funding?”
“In the years before the 2008 crash, we were told that the people who were running the City of London were the masters of the universe and we could not touch them. We are seeing the same sort of arrogance from the large internet companies, such as Facebook. The way they are using data, and researching how to use data, is completely unregulated. Other areas of research that affect people’s lives are highly regulated. The Data Protection Bill does not go far enough to protect people’s data and the research that goes into manipulating it.”
“On the basis that it is subject to negotiation, the Government have refused to implement the agreed replacement to the regime for the inadequate 2004 clinical trial directive. This is essential for our pharmaceutical trade, because we face going off a cliff edge and not being able to participate in collaborative clinical trials with EU research institutions, so when is the Minister going to implement that replacement directive?”
“I am sure that I am not alone in being less than impressed with the answers given by the Foreign Secretary when he was quizzed on the “Today” programme this morning about what action the Government are taking to freeze the assets of people associated with the Putin regime as part of our response to what happened in Salisbury. I know that the Government cannot give us a running commentary on exactly what they are doing at the moment, but this House will want an account of what urgent action they took to freeze assets to prevent them from being moved. Will the Leader of the House convey that to the Government and make arrangements for such a statement in the near future?”
“I do not find the Secretary of State’s statement at all reassuring. Nine months on, he has come to the House to say that we have just discovered that the fire doors were defective and only lasted 15 minutes in the case of a fire, not 30 minutes. My constituents are told to stay put on the basis that those doors give the fire service time to come and rescue people in tower blocks. He says that this is not a systemic problem, but just what does that mean? Were these defective doors fitted in the knowledge that they only lasted 15 minutes? Is the manufacturer to blame? How widespread is this? Are the doors in the blocks in my constituency defective? I really find this statement defective. Can we have another statement from the Secretary of State to update us with the real facts of the situation?”
“Russia has consistently behaved in this manner over a long period, but that has not stopped the elite of our major sporting organisations, such as the IOC and the proven-to-be-corrupt FIFA regime under Sepp Blatter, from allocating major sports tournaments to Russia. Does the Prime Minister agree that the elite in our sport need to look at themselves and not isolate themselves from human rights issues and criminal law when they allocate major tournaments?”
“In 2009-10, the last Labour Government had 40,000 housing starts in one year. This Government have financed 199 in the last six months. Given that we have such a shortage of social housing and a homelessness crisis, how do the Government explain this risible performance?”
“Are there any circumstances in which, following the transition period, we would make a financial contribution to the European budget in order to have access to any markets?”
“My constituency is plagued with rogue landlords who are buying up residential homes, turning them into homes for multiple occupation, often fuelled by milking the housing benefit budget, and pricing local people out of the market. The problem is a lack of ability to enforce planning regulations. As rogue landlords use permitted development, will the Secretary of State look at the resources that local authorities have to police planning applications and people who are developing under permitted development?”
“9. Whether his Department can prevent a rail operating company from bidding to retain its franchise as a result of that company’s performance.”
“I take it from that answer that it is possible for the Secretary of State to deny an existing franchise holder the right to rebid in a new tendering process. Govia, which has had the south eastern franchise for a long time, has consistently been a poor performer, so can he remove Govia from the service? If it were to get the franchise, what guarantees can he give to my constituents that they will get the improved service that they deserve?”
“Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson came before a Committee of this House and admitted to committing crimes by bribing police officers—such was the scale of their arrogance; they felt that they were so powerful that they could take on Parliament and they had the Metropolitan police in their pockets. That shows the scale of the position we had reached when the Secretary of State voted in favour of the legislation that he is now trying to repeal. Has he forgotten what happened to the victims? Our duty is to give a voice in this House to people who are weak and vulnerable. As Members of Parliament, we have a duty to stand up for them. The Secretary of State has failed to do that today.”
“I am sure that we all want to pay tribute to the public sector workers who have struggled into work in this severe weather to keep vital services running, but may we have a statement on our preparedness for this weather? In all the years that I have been alive, we have had winter. We also have severe episodes of winter, but we seem to fall over quite easily when that happens. Countries that have this sort of weather on a regular basis seem to cope with it. May we have a statement on our resilience, so that we can learn lessons from what has happened this year, in the hope that we can get our trains running a bit better so that people are not left waiting at cold stations with no information about what is going on?”
“When the Government are considering this, will they think about why the same level of due diligence was not applied to Toby Young? Was it Government and ministerial interference—yes or no?”
“8. What discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on monitoring crimes committed by prisoners via social media and mobile phones.”
“I thank the Minister for her answer, but I have recently been dealing with two cases where violent partners have been running a campaign of threats and intimidation from within prison against their former partners, yet they are still up for parole. It does not seem that the police locally, who are investigating these crimes, are contacting the MOJ and the Prison Service to ensure that this is taken into account when these people are considered for parole.”
“Has the Secretary of State had the chance to speak to the Sri Lankan ambassador regarding his defence attaché Brigadier Priyanka Fernando and his behaviour on 4 February, when he made throat-slitting gestures to Tamil protesters? If somebody else incited hatred in that way on our streets, they would be interviewed by the police. Will the Minister make arrangements for Brigadier Priyanka Fernando to be interviewed by the police about that crime?”
“Alfie’s mother said that any one of the 30 seizures that he has a day could be life-threatening, so there is incredible urgency. I have heard the Minister say that he is very sympathetic and I do not doubt that for a minute, but I have not heard him say when he will make a decision to help Alfie because of that urgency.”
“The gross yield of the gambling industry is £13 billion a year, yet GambleAware has been able to raise only £8.6 million through the voluntary levy. Come on, Minister—we have to do better than that.”
“Will the right hon. Lady say what she has done in her role as Leader of the House to satisfy herself of the accuracy of reports into the economic impact of Brexit produced by civil servants? Will she make a statement on what she is doing to prevent Ministers from attacking the motives of the civil servants who produce those reports?”
“T5. Does the Secretary of State agree that it would be wholly unacceptable if, as a consequence of creating accountable care organisations, private companies gained control of strategic decisions on local health services?”
“The Minister did not answer the question from the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). How many local authorities is he talking to that have concerns about their funding next year?”
“A White Paper is a consultation document, but it seems to me that the Government are delaying consulting on what should go into a consultation document. Are we not in this situation because the extreme right wing of the Tory party, who are extreme Brexiters, have formed a tail that is wagging the Tory dog?”
“I am sure that the Minister did not mean to mislead the House regarding the impact of the flu epidemic on our A&Es, so will he confirm that the delays to people being treated in A&E, and the fact that people have been waiting on trollies in corridors and that ambulances have been queueing at the doors of A&E, predated the flu epidemic?”
“The Minister has constantly referred to financial flexibility for local authorities, so does that mean an additional borrowing allowance? If so, does that come from the housing revenue account or the general fund, or are the Government going to fund it?”
“I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) for her tenacity in following up this issue. I do not doubt for a minute the Minister’s commitment to wanting to see the situation resolved, but she has been sent here today, after the matter had been kicked into the long grass, to tell us that the Government are deliberating what lawnmower to use. The Department of Health’s interference in the terms of reference was wholly unwelcome, and if the inquiry is to be independent, the judge leading it must set the parameters regarding what happened prior to the incidents and how people were treated afterwards. The judge must set their own terms of reference.”
“My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. Does he agree that the Government’s reason for terminating Victoria services on the Bexleyheath line—that the services somehow create problems because they have to cross over and that the complexity is not surmountable by modern technology or signalling—is an excuse? The people who run the service are benefiting at the expense of the passengers who use it.”
“I recently undertook a journey on our Bexleyheath line service with a disabled person who was using a wheelchair, to demonstrate how inconvenient it will be when the Victoria line link is removed with the new franchise. She would then have to change at Lewisham, and she says that she would not undertake that journey. Is it right that we are designing disabled people out of our rail service? Will the Minister implore her colleagues to change their minds?”
“Although a hedge fund seems to have been able to bet against Carillion and make millions of pounds, the Government’s due diligence gave it a clean bill of health. Can the Minister assure the House that at no stage did departmental officials advise Ministers against giving it further contracts following the profits warnings, and that Ministers did not act against any such advice?”
“I congratulate the Secretary of State on facing down the Prime Minister on Monday, when what emerged was one man, two jobs, no governor. He must accept that the £6 billion in cuts to social care since 2010 has had a major impact, particularly on winter crises. Does he regret the Government’s decision to take that money out of social care?”
“Before the Minister sits down, I want to clarify a matter. In my constituency, I have a number of homes in multiple occupation that are a source of antisocial problems, drugs and violence and are poorly managed. Many of them are owned by one company. If a banning order were applied to a company that owned properties, would it apply to all its properties or just to the individual property?”
“If we are talking about an organisation—a company that is a fit and proper person, which is what we are seeking to achieve—surely if it is found to be criminally negligent or to have mismanaged its property, it follows that it should not be running other properties either. I seek clarification around that.”
“I wish you, Mr Robertson, everyone on the Committee and all the officials here a happy new year. I will not keep the Committee long, and I will put my questions at the start to give people a fair chance of finding answers. My first question is something that I mentioned earlier. In my constituency, a single company owns several properties. If it is found to have committed a criminal offence relating to one of those properties, and if the local authority then sorts a banning order, will that banning order to the company therefore mean that all its properties have to be taken over by a local housing authority or will the order apply to just that one property?”
“What about damage that arises during the period in which a housing authority is in charge of the property? Who is liable? Does the landlord have any say over who manages that property during a banning order period, or is that to be determined by the tribunal and the local housing authority? I would like some clarification on those points.”
“I will, if I can just get my questions out to give people in the room the chance to hand the Minister a note if necessary. I am trying to be fair to him. I know the situation and I am genuinely after the answers, rather than trying to trip him up. On the resourcing of tribunals, are we expecting a glut of these applications? My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby raised the issue of tenants’ rights during this period; they do need to be protected. We do not want a flurry of evictions coming about as a result of this measure, as has been pointed out by the hon. Member for The Cotswolds. People might decide that they want to sell the property, or even attempt to evict the tenants under the guise of wanting to sell the property, and therefore seek possession.”
“It is important that a banning order is taken not just because that is desirable, but because we are taking punitive action against a landlord as they are not a desirable body to be managing their property, albeit for a year and possibly for a fixed period beyond that. At the same time, it is important that we are alive to the fact that those organisations will be prepared for actions such as these and will just shift the property’s ownership around if they have a say in who takes over its management. They will no doubt have their own pet agency to take over and run it should the hiccup of a banning order occur. We want the orders to stick and we want them to be painful for those rogue landlords, so that we prevent them from entering into this kind of business in the first place. Perhaps the Minister will deal with my question now.”
“I would like some clarification on that, too, but I feel the latter should be the case. The default position should be for the property to go to the local housing authority, because my experience with these companies, as I have described, has been that if we check with Companies House we find that they not only shift the properties around, but shift the companies around. They change the responsible person for the company just by changing a few letters in the name, because there are other things going on behind some of these companies, such as tax avoidance and defaults on mortgages. With rogue landlords, this goes much deeper than the issue of letting properties, though I accept that the vast majority of landlords are not like that. Those are the people we are legislating for here.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is no good the Secretary of State coming here and wringing her hands; the Government had plenty of opportunity to put the restrictions in place to prevent the resale of these tickets online. The Government were warned about this and failed to act—small wonder since they had one of these online ticket touts on the board of directors giving them advice. It is time they stood up for consumers.”
“Q5. Mr Speaker, happy Christmas. Last year, the Prime Minister told the Radio Times that on Christmas day she likes to prepare and cook her own goose. In the spirit of Christmas, may I suggest that to extract the maximum pleasure from the messy job of stuffing her goose, she names it either Michael or Boris? [ Interruption. ]”
“I have never heard so many Tories come into the Chamber and welcome a council tax increase. The look on the Minister’s face while he has been standing at the Dispatch Box—if he walked down the street, he would be stopped and searched. He has one hand in the pocket of every single citizen in this country, and he is telling them that they will see an increase in funding for their police, but they have to pay more tax for it. That is exactly what he is doing, and he is making the poorest in our communities pay for it. The Metropolitan police has been cut by £1 billion since 2010, under the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. Is he suggesting that we put a precept on council tax to backfill that hole? Crime is increasing and police numbers are down to the lowest they have been in 20 years. What is he going to do about that?”
“The £39 billion is to pay for commitments that we entered into freely when we were a full, operating member of the European Union. If we fell out of the European Union and failed to pay that bill, what freedom would the European Union and independent European Union countries have under WTO rules to interfere with the trade agreements we would be negotiating with other countries?”
“Dame Judith Hackitt draws attention to how the privatisation of things such as fire inspections has denuded local authorities of essential expertise, and that is also true of building control. Can we bring such deregulation to an end, urgently, because people continue to be put at risk? Can we bring such matters back under the responsibility of local authorities, where they belong?”
“The Minister has to accept that when the Government stepped in with South London Healthcare NHS Trust in 2013, they imposed their own interim director, just as they are now doing at King’s, and imposed the restructuring of south-east London health but never, ever funded it. That has led to the crisis at King’s today. The buck stops with the Tories. You just cannot trust the Tories with the NHS.”
“The Prime Minister has negotiated a financial package for exiting the European Union. Can she confirm that there is a further bill to be paid for access in the future, and that there is absolutely no question of our leaving the European Union without settling our tab for the commitments that we made prior to the referendum?”
“My hon. Friend is exposing whether the Government are hiding facts from the House over the cost of the divorce bill. Is he concerned, as I am, that the lack of scrutiny means we do not know what we are getting for the money? For instance, we have heard from Government Members that we are leaving a club. Well, we have to settle our tab before leaving a club. They are also confusing that with the future trade deal. We are not seeing what the cost of the trade deal will be. There seem to be two figures here: the cost of leaving and the cost of a trade deal—but we are not getting that detail from the Government.”
“Article 50 was designed to be harsh on the country that triggered it. Its author, Mr Giuliano Amato, a former Italian Prime Minister, described it as a “safety valve that was there” but should never be used. Are we not setting an unrealistic timescale and is it not time for us to seek to delay the implementation of leaving the European Union, so we can resolve issues around the customs union and the single market?”
“The Home Secretary has to accept that £1 billion-worth of cuts to the Metropolitan police has had an impact on counter-terrorism. She said that she intends to increase funding for counter-terrorism, but will she guarantee that that will not come at the expense of essential community policing?”