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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“Could some of the efficiency that the Minister has spoken about with regard to Crossrail be applied to Southeastern, which has been providing an appalling service? Will she agree to meet a delegation of MPs from south-east London to discuss how that might be done?”
“Q12. The Football Supporters Federation is considering calling on fans to hold mass walk-outs to get their voices heard about ticket prices. Will the Prime Minister act to give fans a place at the table in club boardrooms so that their voices can be heard when issues such as ticket prices are discussed?”
“The Secretary of State said that the report was “far-reaching, with national implications.” I have to say that this should have been a statement, not an urgent question. The right hon. Gentleman did not answer the question about the number of misdiagnoses on the 111 system. He needs to give more detail. The report suggests that other deaths of young children may be associated with misdiagnosis by 111. How many other cases are under investigation?”
“Are the Government demanding that all United Kingdom-based agencies, whether sporting, financial or criminal, actively search for evidence of corruption and cheating in our sport?”
“May I join the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) in wishing the Minister all the best for her forthcoming maternity leave? I am sure that we all look forward to the birth of a budding young athlete. While volunteers at the grassroots of sport struggle with scarce resources and ever-increasing charges for facilities, we are seeing a growing number of scandals involving those at the elite end of sport lining their pockets with money that could well be invested in the grassroots. That is demoralising for those who work so hard to deliver sport in our communities. Is it not time to insist that people who are found guilty of doping, match-fixing or accepting bribes are given life bans, no matter who they are?”
“A unilateral boycott of any sporting event in Russia by this country would be futile. There is no denying that delivering the world athletics championships, the winter Olympics and the 2020 World cup, while behaving like an international pariah, is a major propaganda coup for Putin. What does the Home Secretary think we can do to work with sympathetic nations to ensure that Putin cannot deliver these sorts of propaganda coups in future?”
“My constituents have been suffering all week from cancelled trains because of a landslide on our local rail line. Can we have a statement from the Transport Secretary, because the knock-on effect is complete chaos on all lines? People have received no information from Southeastern about when the service is likely to be reinstated and they are suffering trying to get to and from work. Businesses are also suffering, so we really need someone to get a grip of the situation.”
“The right hon. Gentleman represents a major part of central London that has some of the highest land and housing values. Will he answer the question that the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) completely avoided and say whether he agrees that the two-for-one policy is absolutely worthless unless the income from the sale of those houses is reinvested in the same local authority area in central London?”
“Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the removal of secure tenancies from council tenants was not in the Conservative manifesto and that the Government have no mandate to introduce that abolition? Council tenants were not warned by the Conservatives that they would impose this on them.”
“May I take the Secretary of State back to his comment about humility? Will he take this opportunity to apologise to council tenants for not informing them at the general election of the Conservatives’ intention to take away their secure tenancies and for introducing that measure only towards the end of the Bill’s Report stage? Council tenants were not given that information before they went to vote in the general election.”
“What the Tories do not understand is that social housing is an essential part of any major city’s economy. People need to live close to where they work. Particularly on the back of the fare increases that we have seen from this Tory Mayor, people cannot afford to do low income jobs, live in outer London and travel into central London. That is why low-cost social housing is so essential in areas of high land values in central London. The Tories do not understand it—they never have and they never will. They have always had a hatred of social housing. This is a Bill that Margaret Thatcher could not have dreamt of. It is a disaster for communities in London and I’ll tell you what: the Tories will rue the day that they did this.”
“It is just a war on social housing. However, the Tories are prepared to subsidise home ownership. I am happy to see the subsidising of home ownership through various schemes, but it is not fair when the money is taken away from social housing. The Chartered Institute of Housing estimates that the cost of this measure will be £3.3 billion. We are yet to see where that money will come from. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) says that there will be two-for-one replacement in Greater London. Where are the figures to show that that adds up? It is a fig leaf to cover his embarrassment at the Bill, which is disastrous for communities in London. It is an excuse written up on the back of the fag packet by Lynton Crosby, who is running his campaign. It will not work for people in London.”
“There is the forced sale of housing association properties and the forced sale of high-value council housing properties to subsidise the rebuilding of housing association properties. We are yet to see the figures that prove that that is financially viable. To the Government’s eternal shame, there is the removal of secure tenancies, with no mandate from the electorate whatsoever. There was no warning. We said that this was what the Tories wanted to do in 2010. We were told that we were lying. We are not lying now, are we, because it is exactly what they have done at the first opportunity to introduce it. There is pay to stay. If someone goes out and increases their income or if the family income increases, they will be penalised with a higher rent. In what other social field would the Tories introduce a policy like that?”
“We will take no lectures from the Government on home ownership. It is at its lowest level for a generation and has gone down in every year under their tenure. They have to explain why they scrapped the £8.4-billion investment that was put into the programme in 2008 to build houses of all sorts, including affordable houses to buy, and cut it down to £660 million in their first Budget. This is a war on social housing. For London, it is a war on traditional, long-standing, established working-class communities that have played their part in the economy of London for generations. There are several measures in the Bill that will wipe out the future of social housing. On planning, section 106 funding used to pay for most social housing, but will now pay for starter homes.”
“Q3. With home ownership down to its lowest level in a generation, and down every year since the right hon. Gentleman became Prime Minister, why did Tory MPs vote against Labour’s amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill last night, which would have protected the publicly funded discount for new starter homes for future buyers? Is that not better value for money for first-time buyers and for the taxpayer, yes or no?”
“May I take the Prime Minister back to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)? I cannot believe he thinks that the 3,000 children wanting to come to this country are trying to break in—”
“That is what the Prime Minister said. I will give him the chance to put the record straight, but it is not acceptable to say that the disagreement among non-governmental organisations about how to help these children is an argument for doing nothing. We are asking for an in-principle commitment to help 3,000 children. Will he give that?”
“My local authority faces cuts of £77 million next year, and as the Secretary of State has indicated, there will be precious little left to invest back into social care costs. If my council is to meet the growing demand for social care, it certainly needs to be able to ensure that extra funds are made available from the savings it can make. Is the Secretary of State confident that the funds made available will mean that people will not miss out on social care over the next five years?”
“The Lords listened to that and used the power that they rarely use to make the Government think again. The Chancellor came back to the House and wanted to be cheered for saying that he would never do it again. The Lords were proven to be correct, so the power was proven to be useful. This is just a spat and a tantrum from the Government because the Lords had the temerity to make the Government think again.”
“Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and merry Christmas to you and to everyone in the House. The power under discussion is one that the Lords seldom use. The fact that it has been used so rarely in its history probably proves why it should be there for a House that is required to make the Government think again. The Lords knew that what the Government had claimed at the Budget was wrong, and they discovered with the benefit of hindsight that the claims of the Chancellor that people would not be worse off were incorrect, and that working families with children would have been thousands of pounds a year worse off. It was not just the Opposition who were pointing that out to the Government. A significant number of Government Back Benchers were doing so as well.”
“Will the Secretary of State say more about what is being done in relation to the position of the Iraqi Government on the Sunni community, who are a mainstay of Daesh in that area and are enabling it to run an effective economy and to pay wages to civil servants, soldiers and others because of the technical expertise of many of the people who have gone from Iraq into the area? If we are going to deal with Daesh in the long run, what pressure can be put on the Iraqi Government to deal with that fundamental problem?”
“On the garden bridge, which no one has ever asked me for, TfL intends to build the Silvertown tunnel in south-east London to relieve congestion at the Blackwall tunnel, but it says that local residents will have to pay for it through tolls, though no other river crossing in London has charges. Perhaps the garden bridge should have an entrance fee, so that it can pay for itself instead of taking money away from vital transport links that are needed in the rest of London.”
“However, the equivalent of a small city has been built in Docklands. We have seen massive expansion not just of housing, which will continue to grow, but of businesses and leisure, and more and more people want to go north and south on the eastern part of the Thames corridor, rather than on the traditional route, like the spokes of a wheel, served by suburban rail that goes in and out of central London. Without increasing significantly public transport links that go north and south across that east Thames corridor, we will congest even more the central London transport system, because people have no choice, if they want to use public transport, other than to go in and then out.”
“That applies particularly to residents of the boroughs of Greenwich, Tower Hamlets and Newham, for which the Blackwall tunnel is the nearest river crossing. People have to use that crossing to get across the river, so we are seeing a significant impact on people’s daily routine because quite often they are delayed and cannot predict when they will be able to get through the tunnel. In addition, many businesses lose time and money because of the traffic congestion. We need to deal with the traffic congestion at the Blackwall tunnel and we need a third bore, but dealing with the issue by building a road crossing alone will not be sufficient. We have been offered buses by TfL, and we will take the buses. They have buses in other parts of London, and of course we want more buses.”
“It is a daily environmental disaster and occurs when queues of traffic build up, particularly at peak times, causing a huge environmental problem of air pollution in that part of our borough. The topography of the area means that a lot of pollution collects in the river valley, and having stationary traffic stuck there for long periods just adds to the problem. That traffic will not disappear. It needs to go somewhere and the problem needs some relief. There are no alternatives. We do not have the London Underground in south-east London beyond North Greenwich station and people rely heavily on surface and suburban rail services, which are already at over capacity so we need to increase capacity there. I will come to that later. In many circumstances, people are forced to drive.”
“It is a pleasure to take part in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) on securing this important debate. I start by associating myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) on the cruise liner. I will not go into detail because I do not intend to speak about that, but I entirely agree with his points. I, too, want to be parochial and I will talk mainly about the proposed Silvertown tunnel in the context of TfL’s funding. I have long called for a solution to the problem of traffic congestion on the approach roads to the Blackwall tunnel.”
“We have bus services, but other than that, TfL spends precious little on investment in that part of London, so asking for—no, demanding—a DLR link as part of the scheme is just asking to be compensated for the lack of investment in previous years. If people in my area are to be asked to pay a toll to pay for the river crossing, we should toll every river crossing in London and make everyone pay to cross the river, because that is the only fair balance that we could strike. I see the Minister’s eyebrows going up as he thinks, “Actually, there might be a point there. We might be able to make some money.” It is true that we have sat by in south-east London and watched money being spent on the London underground, while getting precious little—”
“I do not see why my constituents should have to pay to cross the river when no one else in London does. If TfL says that the only way to fund schemes in the future—because of the cuts to its budget—is to introduce tolling, I say that it has to be fair to my constituents, who in recent years have watched billions of pounds being invested in the London underground, which does not come anywhere near where we live. We accept that it is a major contributor to London’s economy and is vital—no one disputes that—but the comparison between the investment in other parts of London and that in outer south-east London does not stand up to scrutiny.”
“Friend the Member for Harrow West pointed out, the DLR has in recent times increased its usership significantly—by more than 50%. It has gone up from a few million passengers, as my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse said, to nearly 100 million passengers a year. That shows how effective it can be, so a DLR link from Silvertown to North Greenwich—that is then brought down the route corridor of the A102 to places such as Kidbrooke and Eltham—will have a significant impact by changing people’s choices of the transport method that they use to get across the river in that part of the city. We cannot allow traffic to grow, and I accept that some form of tolling will be needed, but no one else in London pays to cross the river by their local bridge.”
“It was a single-decker bus and it quickly filled up, so a double-decker service had to be introduced. That service is now often oversubscribed and passengers are left behind at the terminal where the bus starts—at North Greenwich—such is the increasing demand from people for public transport links along the route corridor of the A102, which connects with the A2 and my constituency of Eltham. A road crossing, therefore, will not be sufficient: we need to have the DLR. If TfL is not going to build a DLR link, there is no point in building the Silvertown link, because it will just become as congested as the Blackwall tunnel is now. People will have no alternative to switch to—in the large numbers that we need them to switch—if we are to protect that route from becoming congested again in the future, just with more cars. As my hon.”
“I cannot think of a better reason to want more buses. To get even more parochial for a minute, I want to put in a plug for TfL finally to deal with the issues with my local services, on which my constituents have been campaigning. I am talking about the B16 and 178 buses through Kidbrooke. Those issues must be resolved; we are not accepting no for an answer, and we welcome the moves that it has made already on the B16. The 132 bus runs from Eltham to North Greenwich, and when I became a Member of Parliament I campaigned for its introduction. TfL came to my office to meet me and said, “There’s no demand for such a service.” It was to provide a public transport link along the route corridor of the A102, the Blackwall tunnel approach road. Finally, as the Olympics approached, we got an extension of the 132 bus route down to North Greenwich.”
“At peak times, trains that run through my constituency—through Eltham, New Eltham, Plumstead and along all those routes—are heavily oversubscribed. They have so many passengers they have PIXCs—people in excess of capacity. We need to increase capacity on those lines. That means that when the Thameslink scheme is completed and the new rolling stock becomes available, the current Thameslink rolling stock must be made available to Southeastern, which wants to purchase it, so that it can increase capacity on those vital services in south-east London.”
“The site is unsuitable for people to live on, but it would be suited to other uses. Perhaps some sort of land swap could be arranged with the Kidbrooke Village regeneration and a school could be built where it was intended to build a Sainsbury’s supermarket. I urge TfL to sit down with the London borough of Greenwich and with Berkeley Homes, which is doing the development, to consider that option, rather than cramming housing on to the site, which is unsuitable because of its location. Finally, I want to turn to TfL taking over the running of suburban trains, which are vital for my constituency as it relies entirely on suburban trains as the major route into London because—as I said—we do not have direct links to the London underground. If that is to happen, TfL needs to start planning ahead now.”
“They might well, but there are bridges beyond Vauxhall. I can point all the bridges out to the Minister if he needs me to do that; I can name them all. We need the Silvertown link, but it cannot be built without the DLR. I want to move on to talk about a site in Kidbrooke, Henley Cross that is owned by TfL. TfL is definitely trying to maximise its income from that site, but we need such sites, which are in public ownership, to be used to provide local services and vital affordable housing where possible, not just sold off to the highest bidder. I would like to put in a bid to TfL to consider that site in relation to the Kidbrooke regeneration and the need to identify sites for secondary schools in the borough of Greenwich. Henley Cross is situated between the motorway—well, the approach road to the Blackwall tunnel—and the railway.”
“I am delighted that the Minister has more than doubled the budget, but only 10% of it goes on consumers, the police force and small businesses. What is the Minister doing to encourage small businesses that are time-poor, meaning that they are not able to engage with this sort of administration? What is he going to do for business in Eltham, to ensure that they are safe online?”
“When the Minister introduced that amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill, he referred to 380 households that occupy social housing with two or more spare bedrooms, and cited that as a reason for wanting to manage the stock more efficiently and to move people around social housing. Given that the Government are concerned about under-occupation, is it their policy not to allow people who under-occupy properties the right to buy?”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry, but the reason I tried to intervene again is that the Minister, discourteously, completely ignored the point I made, presumably because it was too awkward for him.”
“On the very last day of consideration of the Housing and Planning Bill, the Conservatives passed an amendment to bring to an end secure tenancies in social housing. That was done without consultation or any impact assessment. Can the Secretary of State tell me where he warned council tenants that this was in the Conservative manifesto?”
“My understanding is that the trade unions have made representations on behalf of staff who, for good reasons, want to remain anonymous. Should HMRC continue to ignore representations on behalf of legitimate trade unions, or should it act now and search the offices of Sports Direct?”
“I congratulate the Secretary of State on her role in achieving this historic agreement. Does she accept that if the Government are to meet their commitment and show leadership in the world, they must change their approach to renewable energies, in particular to onshore wind?”
“The Secretary of State has come to the House today to try to hoodwink us all into thinking that he is the most incompetent and indecisive Secretary of State that there has ever been, but no one is fooled by his attempt to take a hit on behalf of the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith). This is a fix for next year’s mayoral election, and nothing else. It certainly has nothing to do with anything that is in the national interest. [Interruption.]”
“It is two years since Labour forced the Government to commit to introducing a racing right to ensure that racing gets a fair return on all forms of betting based in the UK. It is estimated that the industry is missing out on £30 million a year. I press the Minister again: when can we expect a conclusion to the discussions on the horseracing right, and what discussions has she had with the industry about a sports betting right for all sports, which the last Labour Government initiated, that can be reinvested in grassroots sport?”
“May we have a debate on cuts to the police? The Metropolitan police is making clerical staff redundant and filling those posts with warranted officers. That flies in the face of the Government’s policy of making police more visible to the public; I assume that the Met will adopt a policy of moving desks closer to windows to fulfil that requirement. May we have a debate on that, as it is seriously depleting the number of officers available in our communities?”
“That will fundamentally undermine the future of Daesh more than any bombing campaign. A bombing campaign without troops on the ground will not be effective. The Government have completely failed to make the case, which is why I cannot support them tonight.”
“I will not vote with the Government tonight, but I want to get it on the record that I unequivocally condemn those people who have been intimidating Members of this House over tonight’s vote. I know that hon. Members weigh these issues up very heavily, and whatever side of the argument they come from, I give them my full respect. I have not been convinced by the Government about the presence of 70,000 moderate Free Syrian Army forces on the ground; the Government have failed to make the case that they exist. Those forces are made up of a number of very disparate groups, some of several thousand soldiers, and some of just a few hundred. Unfortunately, the Government have also failed to make the political case. One issue that they did not address was the treatment of the Sunni minority in Iraq, and that must be done.”
“The Secretary of State has to accept his responsibility in bringing about the cancellation of operations, because if he had been prepared to go to ACAS at the outset, all this would have been avoided. Does he accept that he is going to have to change his attitude towards negotiating with these junior doctors if we are to get the satisfactory outcome that we all want?”
“I accept that ISIL presents a clear and present threat to this country, whether or not we are involved in bombing in Iraq or Syria or both: I need no convincing of what the terrorists’ intentions are. I also welcome the Prime Minister’s assurance that the motion that he will present to the House will rule out any mission creep beyond dealing with ISIL, but may I ask him to go further? I think that the weakness in his argument today relates to the question of who will occupy and control that territory if we force ISIL into retreat. Will he come back to us with more details, in order to convince us that action will result in the outcome that we desire?”
“Is the answer to the question from the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) that MPs do not run schools or decide policy within them? For example, I suspect that not every school in his constituency is campaigning to come out of Europe. Does that mean that he is failing in some way as an MP?”
“The Minister has just told us that the Secretary of State is across the road in his office and cannot be bothered to come here to account for an unprecedented strike by junior doctors in our national health service. That is an absolute disgrace! The Prime Minister has said that this is his miners’ strike. The doctors are prepared to go to arbitration. The public will know that if this strike goes ahead it will be because the Government will not go to arbitration. It will be the fault of the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister.”
“The Government’s decisions have had a devastating impact on our manufacturing industry in the UK. That flies in the face of exactly what the Government say they want to achieve in creating an industrial balance within our economy. Just like the steel industry, the Government have been found wanting.”