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.”
The complete record
Every one of 3,378 lines we hold for Clive Efford, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 9 of 68.
“I am sure that all the people the Secretary of State told to get off their backsides will be very sympathetic to the fact that she needed to go on holiday while this crisis was in progress. On revenue and costs, the Secretary of State has itemised a number of things that the Government will cover, but schools face a vast range of potential revenue costs, including surveyors and other costs. Is she saying that all costs relating to RAAC will be covered?”
“Can the Minister reassure me that my constituent will be able to access the scheme?”
“Since 2015, the proportion of crimes that result in a perpetrator facing a punishment has gone down by two thirds. Is that because the Government had a policy of cutting 21,000 police officers?”
“I pay tribute to the Minister for his handling of the matter. I also pay tribute to his predecessor, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), to Lord Arbuthnot and to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones): they have done an excellent job on what is an unbelievable scandal. My constituent was convicted and went to prison under the Horizon scheme, but the Post Office has never accepted that it was Horizon evidence that sent him to prison. What position does that leave him in? Does the Minister agree that it would not be fair for the corrupt Post Office to be able to deny that person the compensation to which he is clearly entitled? The chances that Horizon had nothing to do with his conviction are minuscule. It should not be possible for the Post Office to prevent him from getting compensation.”
“In July, the Government published a review of the treatment of LGBTQ+ veterans. The previous Secretary of State’s response to that won him many plaudits and his reaction was welcomed, but he did say that he would take his time to ensure we got things right. Can the Minister give us an update on when we can expect a response to the recommendations?”
“In answer to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister wanted praise for the inception of the partnership for global infrastructure and investment. The agreement that was signed by the US, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union is described as a landmark agreement, creating an economic corridor across Europe, the middle east and India. If the inception of the global partnership is worth claiming praise for, will he explain—he did not answer this question earlier—why Britain was not a signatory to that memorandum of understanding?”
“As such, it should be considered in addition to, rather than in place of, any professional advice that you seek.” Just exactly how will the Government determine what they will pay for? What work will they accept? Will it be the professional judgment of the people the schools engage, or will it be the surveyors from the eight companies that the Secretary of State has just spoken about? How will these matters be resolved going forward, because the devil in these things is always in the detail?”
“What has been exposed is how close the Government were prepared to go to catastrophe in one of our schools before they took last-minute action this summer, just before schools went back. A school in my constituency has had to close substantial parts of its buildings. A letter from the DFE, following their discussions, says: “As officials discussed with” the trust “the immediate actions should be treated as a short-term measure and you should already be developing a long-term plan for remediation of RAAC panels in your building.” The next paragraph goes on: “Please note the building survey in June 2023 was carried out as part of the DFE’s central RAAC Assessment Programme.”
“What can the Secretary of State say today to ensure that we do not see such delays and obfuscation in this case?”
“I welcome this statement, and I sincerely welcome the manner in which it has been delivered. It shows the Defence Secretary’s leadership qualities, which have been all too lacking in many other leading politicians in recent times. I pay tribute to my constituent Simon Hinchley-Robson, who urged me to bring his case to the Floor of the House in an Adjournment debate. He was horribly physically abused after being outed by a doctor who had given him a medical examination, before being summarily dismissed from the RAF. He was denied his pension and his opportunity to serve his country. He, like many others, deserves redress. What I do not want to see are the interminable cases we are seeing with contaminated blood, Grenfell and the Post Office.”
“Why was the Kent police’s recommendation to investigate White never acted on? Why was Witness Purple’s identity given to Matthew White when Matthew White was being interviewed as a possible suspect? Why did Cressida Dick order Driscoll not to bother investigating the other suspects? Why did she state, when she shut down the ongoing investigation into Stephen’s murder, “There were no viable lines of inquiry”? Will the Met now apologise and accept that that was not true? Why was Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll forced to retire when he had uncovered more discarded evidence that warranted further investigation and has resulted in Matthew White being named as the sixth suspect? All of this means that there should be a further inquiry, which must be completely independent of the Met. What has been exposed goes beyond incompetence.”
“But what the police were expert at, so many times, was mishandling information relating to Matthew White. Can it be explained by incompetence? Why was James Grant not properly recorded as an informant? Why did the detail of Grant’s evidence not lead officers to ask where it came from? Why was the evidence from Matthew White’s stepfather overlooked for 20 years? How did the wrong name for the stepfather come to be recorded? Why was finding the blond-haired sixth attacker not given priority from the outset? Why was the similarity between White and the witnesses’ descriptions not noted? Why was White not picked up for questioning after he was photographed coming out of a house that was under surveillance soon after the murder? Why was the link between Grant and White never made by the investigation?”
“Mr Severs’s information was passed to the investigation team, but was not followed up until 20 years later, when Chief Inspector Driscoll tracked down White’s stepfather, Mr Severs. He confirmed that White had told him that he had been at the murder scene. The BBC found that that information was given to Detective Inspector Brian Weeden, who was in charge of the investigation. That was confirmed in Brian Weeden’s notebook. A meeting with White was planned but never happened. Consider this for a moment: the officer in charge of a major investigation is contacted by a fellow officer, with information coming from a relative of an individual who, he claims, was present at the murder scene—and it is forgotten. The conclusion of the Macpherson inquiry was that incompetence, not corruption, hampered the investigation.”
“Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll began investigating Stephen’s murder in 2006. It was his excellent work that resulted in the convictions of Dobson and Norris in 2012. The day after the convictions, his then superior officer Cressida Dick told him not to bother going after the other suspects. That was despite the judge urging him to do so. Driscoll and his team, to their credit, continued to investigate. He uncovered a vital statement that had been ignored in the original investigation. He discovered that Jack Severs, the stepfather of Matthew White, had given evidence via a friend who was a serving police officer, stating that Matthew White knew more than he had told the police and that he had been present at Stephen’s murder. That only happened eventually, because the wrong name was recorded for the stepfather.”
“Both Macpherson and Kent police could see that Matthew White was a potential suspect, but the Met failed to act. The BBC interviewed an informant called Witness Purple. In 1999, Witness Purple gave evidence to the police with details of the attack on Stephen that could only have come from someone who was there. In 2000, White was arrested and questioned about Purple’s information. The police read Purple’s statement to White, at the same time revealing Purple’s identity. Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll told the BBC that that was “alerting the bad guys…and that cannot be good police work.” White made no comment in answer and was let go. What could possibly be gained by letting a suspect know the identity of someone giving information against them, other than to silence that informant? Purple stopped co-operating.”
“He was mentioned in the Macpherson report as Witness K but, because he was not considered a suspect, his alibi was never questioned. The BBC has demonstrated that his alibi cannot be true. Even Macpherson himself said that White was a significant person. The final report of the Macpherson inquiry said that Grant’s information “might have provided the key to the solution of the case in quick time. This was because James Grant’s source was close to the suspects, if he was not involved with them himself.” In 1997, Kent police asked one of the original investigating officers whether they had ever investigated White. He said: “I can’t really answer that. I didn’t think after those lines”— whatever that means. One of Kent’s conclusions was that White should be investigated. That was never done.”
“James Grant was not properly registered as an informant, despite having spoken several times to DS Davidson. In 1997, Grant was interviewed by Kent police, who were called in to carry out a review of the original investigation. He said that he had told his handler DS Davidson back in 1993 that his source was Matthew White. DS Davidson denied that, and the Macpherson inquiry accepted his denial. When that fact was later relayed to the detective in charge of the case, Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden, he expressed shock. In the two weeks after Stephen’s murder, Matthew White was photographed coming out of a house that was under surveillance. Despite the fact that the descriptions of the sixth attacker matched White, he was not arrested or questioned as a suspect.”
“He has since confirmed that he believes that Matthew White was that person. He described him as having frizzy light brown or blond hair that came down over his ears—completely different from the other attackers. When the evidence is re-read in the light of the BBC findings, it becomes apparent that identifying White would have been key to solving the case at the very start. To put it another way, anyone wanting to hamper the inquiry would want to ensure that Matthew White was never identified as the sixth attacker. The day after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, James Grant—not his real name—walked into a police station to give information. Such was the detail of his information that it should have been clear to the officers that Grant either was a suspect or had been talking to someone who was present at Stephen’s murder.”
“It concluded that Putnam, Hamilton and Polaine—an experienced police officer and two senior barristers—were confusing Norris with another member of the Norris family who had been killed two years before Stephen’s murder. That is despite all three stating that that was not correct. Davidson is central to the failure of the original investigation. He handled a key witness, whose information could have identified Matthew White in the first couple of days of the investigation. Why is the recent identification of Matthew White so significant? Because, of all the attackers, he stood out among the witnesses’ descriptions. He was the one they could describe in detail. Duwayne Brooks, who was with Stephen and was closest to him when he was attacked, always stated that the first attacker was the one he could remember the most and could identify.”
“He also said that when this information was passed to him in late ’98, it was considered “of great significance”. David Hamilton was the head of legal affairs at the Met at that time. In a witness statement to a recent corruption inquiry, he recalled “a suspicion of an association or contact between Davidson and the Norris family”. In 2000, he wrote: “Disclosures relevant to Davidson’s contact with the Norris family could have an adverse effect on the Commissioner’s position in the ongoing High Court action by Mr and Mrs Lawrence.” Stephen’s family immediately asked for an investigation into the 1998 revelations, which was carried out by the IPCC.”
“I was assured that the Met did indeed believe Davidson to be an extremely corrupt officer, but that that did not have anything to do with the Stephen Lawrence investigation. I asked why the Met chose to make that statement in a programme about Stephen Lawrence if it had nothing to do with the investigation. I never got a satisfactory answer. The Met suggested to me that it used the programme to call out Davidson, which I took to be further evidence of the contempt it had for this case. In 1998, Martin Polaine, a Crown Prosecution Service barrister, was put in charge of reviewing police corruption evidence from Operation Russia. In a corruption proceeding, he told the Old Bailey of a “recollection I was told by someone in CIB3 of a link between Clifford Norris and Davidson.” CIB3 was the unit conducting Operation Russia.”
“Putnam claims that he understood that his testimony about the link between Norris and Davidson would be reported to the inquiry. The information from Yates and Putnam was not passed to the inquiry. The Met disputes Putnam’s claim that he told his handlers of that link, but Putnam repeated it under oath. I contacted the Met and demanded to know why Yates had accused DS Davidson of corruption in a programme about the murder of Stephen Lawrence. I pointed out that the Macpherson inquiry had not concluded that corruption had hampered the investigation. I was invited to Scotland Yard to meet the Independent Police Complaints Commission and Cressida Dick; I was not permitted to meet John Yates.”
“In 2014, another officer, Detective Sergeant John Davidson, was also exonerated of charges. In a 2006 documentary about the murder of Stephen Lawrence, Davidson was described by then Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Yates as one of the most corrupt officers in the Met. In 1998, Yates was head of Operation Russia, an investigation into a syndicate of corrupt officers in the south-east regional crime squad. One of the officers under investigation, Neil Putnam, turned supergrass. He disclosed in his evidence a link between DS Davidson and Clifford Norris—the father of David Norris, who murdered Stephen Lawrence. Yates wrote of their association in a memo to the Met while the Macpherson inquiry was still taking evidence.”
“We are here today thanks to the excellent detective work of two people: the BBC reporter Daniel De Simone, who uncovered evidence that was originally ignored and spoke to key witnesses exposing the failings of the original inquiry, and Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll, whose outstanding work along with his team secured the convictions of David Norris and Gary Dobson in 2012 and uncovered other vital information. The culmination of their combined efforts is that the Met has been forced to accept that Matthew White is a suspect in the attack and is likely to have been the blond-haired sixth attacker. Last week, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that four officers would not face prosecution for failures in public office for their part in the now discredited police investigation.”
“One of my first acts on becoming a Member of Parliament was to table a question in the House calling for a public inquiry into the investigation into Stephen’s murder. I pay tribute to my former colleague John Austin, who supported me in doing so. Despite the stench of corruption that surrounded the case from the start, the Macpherson inquiry did not conclude that corruption hampered the investigation. Despite many revelations and investigations along the way, corruption has always been denied.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered the Metropolitan Police investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I will start, as is fitting, by paying tribute to Doreen and Neville Lawrence. Time after time, they have faced setback after setback, yet they continue to campaign with dignity for justice for their murdered son. It is a dignity that puts the shabby performance of the Met to shame. We can only imagine the anger and frustration that they feel, having to endure another revelation that yet again exposes the failings of the investigation into Stephen’s murder and raises the suspicion that corruption hampered it from the start. Stephen Lawrence was murdered in Eltham on 22 April 1993.”
“In relation to the murder of Stephen Lawrence, I have gone back over all the evidence, and there were clear failings in the investigation—so many in certain aspects of it that it is difficult to say it was incompetence. If we do not have an independent investigation, away from the Met, how will the public have confidence in the outcome?”
“We cannot leave it there. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the Metropolitan Police investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.”
“It is a tragedy that the case still casts a shadow over the Metropolitan police. The mistakes that have been made, particularly those in relation to evidence relating to Matthew White, are too numerous to be coincidental. They are worthy of an investigation independent of the Metropolitan police. Even a review by Chief Inspector Clive Driscoll might suffice, because he is the one who stands out among the Met officers as somebody committed to seeing justice in this case. We often hear people talk about victims; if there any victims we should listen to, it is the Lawrence family. We should talk to them about how we can resolve the issue and take it forward. When Cressida Dick closed down the investigation into Stephen’s murder, she said that no further viable lines of inquiry were open. That was not true. The Met have to accept that.”
“The Minister is clearly on Southeastern time. That is why he was late getting the analogy. He said that just 10% of tickets are sold over the counter, but that does not explain who are using the ticket offices and what alternative arrangements he is going to make for them. Southeastern has announced 40 ticket office closures, 35 of which are in south-east London—that is 35 in south-east London. That is an outrage. One in my constituency has closed, but all the ones around my constituency are closing as well. What will he do to ensure that these people not only keep their jobs once they are moved out from behind the glass, but are not moved from being redeployed to redundancy? And what will he do about the 10% who rely on ticket offices?”
“I wonder whether the Leader of the House could contact her colleagues at the Ministry of Defence? On 8 June, veterans from the LGBT community were expecting the LGBT report to be published. Many service people were forced out of the services; they had their careers cut short and were denied the opportunity of a pension. They are expecting that report imminently, but a date has not yet been given. As we are fast approaching the end of term, can she arrange for a statement to be made, please?”
“7. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on the adequacy of the planning system for clean energy projects.”
“Last weekend, James Robottom, the head of onshore wind at RenewableUK, said that he does not expect much from the Government’s consultation on planning. He said that obstacles to new onshore wind development would “severely hinder investment in the onshore wind industry and its supply chain due to the high level of risk and uncertainty they create. We are being denied the opportunity for thousands of new jobs and billions in private investment”. In the meantime, that is costing English families £180 per year. It means damage to the economy, damage to the environment, and higher bills for families. Is it not time that we got this useless Government out of the way so that we can sort it out?”
“I, too, add my condolences to the family of Bob Kerslake, who did excellent work in my borough tackling poverty. I would congratulate the Secretary of State on this announcement if it did not come 13 years into a Conservative Government. It is a bit like Bobby Ewing coming out of the shower, the way the Secretary of State is saying, “I’ve just realised there’s a crisis in the NHS.” We went into covid with 2.4 million people on waiting lists, which was a record. It is now up to 7.4 million. The report itself says that we have 154,000 fewer staff than we need today in the NHS. After 13 years in government, if the Tories really cared about the NHS, it would not be in the state it is in, would it?”
“This privatised industry knows that, at the end of the day, the banker of last resort is the British taxpayer. That is exactly where we are with Thames Water, which has been taking profits for the last 35 years and not investing for the future. Regardless of what went on before, we must have investment in what is in front of the industry, but Thames Water has failed to plan ahead. It has taken money but not done the job expected of it while being in charge of such an essential public service. What will the Government do to protect consumers and ensure that we plan ahead for the industry?”
“The impact assessment illustrates the cost of the Government’s decisions. Nobody else is to blame. The Government have had 13 and a half years, but we are in this mess. On 25 May, when I asked the Minister about dealing with asylum claims, he told me that increasing the pace of dealing with asylum claims would likely increase the number of people coming across on small boats. He also said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck): “the faster the process, the more pull factor”. —[ Official Report , 25 May 2023; Vol. 733, c. 439.] Where are those statements borne out in the impact assessment?”
“Talking to those people who gave evidence about their personal experiences, he said: “I record in the report that some of the milestones that eventually led to the Government’s acceptance of a moral case for compensation have been marked by the reactions from individuals in power when they have listened—actually listened—to people describing what happened to them and their families. So the right place to start my report was with some of your voices, and that is where it begins. I urge those responsible for considering my recommendations to start there, listening to you and appreciating the depths of what you have experienced so that they, like me, can understand why compensation is overdue.”1.24 pm”
“My constituents have some requests of the Government, which echo what has been asked by other hon. Members but I will reiterate. The Government have been intransigent in setting up the compensation scheme and there has been a lack of transparency. What are they hiding? Are they actively looking for a chair now? When will that person be in place? Why are they not willing to preregister affected people, particularly parents and children, with possible claims to compensation in order to speed up the process? On the devolution issue, we do not want devolved Governments to set up different compensation schemes, as the scandal occurred pre-devolution. We want one central scheme. The time for sympathy is over and the time for action is now. I will finish where I started, with the words of Sir Brian Langstaff.”
“They suffered prejudice; their relationships suffered; they suffered harassment, both where they lived and from work colleagues; they were threatened by people they knew, who were upset when they found out; they were unable to get insurance, so they could not get a mortgage, which compounded the problems of being harassed by neighbours, as they were unable to move away; careers were lost; pensions were lost; education was destroyed; and there were impacts on family. Lee Moorey talks about how his mother struggled financially, and Mary talks about the impact on her son, who was 14 when his father died. They both talk about the psychological impacts. One of the appeals made by Sir Brian Langstaff is that the Government provide psychological support in England, which is provided in the rest of the UK.”
“I am one of the less than 35 still alive.” Mary Grindley met her husband in the 1970s and they married in 1980, knowing that he was a severe haemophilia sufferer. She gave up teaching in 1991 to look after her husband, John. He died in June 1994, aged 41. Her testimony is harrowing. Her son, Tim, lost his father at the age of 14. To read their stories, as I have done over the last couple of days, is harrowing. That they have had to expose their private details to the public gaze in order to get justice is shameful. I have been reading about those people’s experiences.”
“I pay tribute to my constituents, Lee Moorey and Mary Grindley, who have been campaigning on the issue over many years and have recently come to see me. Mr Moorey went to Treloar’s School when he was 12 and he wrote: “I am a severe haemophiliac A sufferer. I attended Treloar’s in 1985 aged 12 years. At the age of 14 years, I was told I was HIV positive and that I had only a few years to live. You can imagine the impact this had on myself and my family. I have watched so many of my Treloar blood brothers pass away, I suffer from survivor’s guilt. From the early 1970s until the late 1980s approximately 130 haemophiliacs went to Treloar’s, of which less than 35 are alive today due to infected blood.”
“I too pay tribute to the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for securing the debate and for the work they have done on this issue, on behalf of all of us and particularly on behalf of those who have been campaigning for justice for so long. I draw the Minister’s attention to the words of Sir Brian Langstaff, who implores those who will make the decisions and respond to his recommendations to listen to the victims. I also warn the Minister that the final report, which will be published in the autumn, will be extremely damning. Just imagine what will be said if the Government have not responded to the interim report when that final report comes out, so I urge the Minister to heed that warning.”
“I intervene to give my hon. Friend a chance to get his throat in order. Does he agree with me that, first and foremost, the Prime Minister withdrew his Labour on Monday with the intention of not showing leadership, which is a remarkable feat on the part of a Prime Minister? Does my hon. Friend agree that these are the death throes of a Government who have really run out of steam? They are trying to blame everybody else for what is going wrong. They are going for a cheap headline and have created this piece of legislation, which is anti-trade union and anti-democratic, to try to throw the blame on to the trade unions and workers, and away from where it really lies—with this Government.”
“In 2016, Exercise Cygnus tested the country’s preparedness for a pandemic. Was the Government’s response at that time adequate, and what can the Chancellor do in his current role to make sure that we are properly prepared in the future?”
“The Resolution Foundation estimates that mortgage payers will pay an average of £2,900 more in the next year due to increases in interest rates. Some 13% of retirees are still paying mortgages at the time of retirement, and 770,000 households are not claiming pension credit, so do not qualify for pension credit payments. This Government have been a disaster for pensioners, particularly those with mortgages. If the Minister has done his research, can he tell us how many people on pension credit applied for mortgage interest support? How many pensioners are facing interest rates rising faster than their pensions?”
“About 47% of parents say that the cost of living crisis is making it difficult for their children to participate in sport. The levels of participation among the poorest social groups is down on six years ago. What will the Secretary of State do in her plan to drive up participation in sport in those communities?”
“A constituent of mine, a mother of two, has been forced to bring up her children during their teenage years without maintenance payments from their father. He, meanwhile, set up home with a new partner and set up a company that claimed that it employed him on the minimum wage. Meanwhile, they both drive around in Tesla cars and have gone on to set up three more companies. This individual—this monster who left his children absolutely destitute throughout this period—has used the Child Maintenance Service’s appeals process several times to avoid making payments. May we have a statement from the relevant Minister on this matter, so that we can raise our concerns about the Child Maintenance Service’s backlog and discuss how these individuals can be stopped from being able to avoid making payments in future?”
“The Minister claims that the current economic climate is down to the world economic situation, but in the next breath he claims that if, at some unspecified date in the future, things get better, that would be down to the Government. Over the recent period, mortgage borrowers have contributed an extra £1 billion in interest rates. Over the next couple of years, they are predicted to contribute £9 billion. The previous Prime Minister has apologised for her contribution to that, so why will he not do the same?”
“Local authorities are trying to do as much as they can with the resources they have, but this requires a Government willing to step in and make the serious change we need if we are to address population decline in central London. The birth rate is down in London, but it is not down in the rest of the country; I urge the Government to look at the reasons behind that. I will finish by urging the Government to consider the facts that everyone has set out in this excellent debate. I also ask the Minister to contact me about the Avery Hill site, if he is not going to go ahead with the school.”
“I used to play football with friends who went to Archbishop Tenison’s, because Lambeth is not far from Walworth. I remember those schools well, but the places we used to live in no longer exist. That is the problem that we are facing in central London. We have privatised the provision of social housing. We have relied on private developers to deliver on social housing through planning gain. When we stopped local authorities building houses, we slowed the provision of social houses. Against the loss of those houses being sold, we have hollowed out large parts of London, which has very high land values for social housing. It is a problem not just for schools but for our economy, and it is something that we must address. The Mayor is doing everything he can.”