Gareth Thomas
MP for Harrow West · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“Local councils such as Harrow need to invest more in youth facilities that divert young people away from crime. Some of the CCTV projects in my constituency that Harrow council has turned down—in Wealdstone, south Harrow and central Harrow—should get funding.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) on securing the debate and on the way in which he approached the subject. I join him and my hon.”
“I also want to suggest that the Metropolitan police does not get recognition across the whole of the UK for its hugely important work in tackling national and international crime, and that perhaps more recognition of that is required in the funding formula.”
“In particular, in Harrow, we recently saw enforcement teams contracted out to an organisation called Kingdom. The responsibility for that contract was with Harrow council. There was widespread criticism of the way some of the staff employed by Kingdom tried to levy fines on a number of young people in south Harrow, in my constituency.”
“One way we can further support the Metropolitan police is by allowing it to keep more of the proceeds from successful operations, such as recovering stolen funds hidden in bitcoin assets. I congratulate my hon.”
“Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has done a huge amount to try to redirect funding from other parts of his budget to minimise the impact of that cut.”
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“Q14. On a related issue, after the publication of the Russia report the Prime Minister claimed“tackling illicit finance and driving dirty money and money launderers out of the UK is a priority.”His warnings to Mr Putin of late would surely have carried more bite if he had used the 18 months since the publication of the Russia report to legislate for an economic crime Act to stop the flow of dirty money from Russia. Why has he not prioritised this issue of national security?”
“The Minister will understand that this case, among other things, will reinforce the profound concern about the level of violence towards women and the lack of accountability for men who are responsible for that violence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Sarah Jones) alluded to in her remarks, the Government have so far refused to make violence against women and girls a strategic policing priority. Given the seriousness of this latest report, the fact that it is not an isolated case and the clear need for cultural change across the Metropolitan police, will the Minister stop procrastinating and bring that in?”
“Businesses in financial services are more likely to invest here as opposed to European markets if an agreement is reached with the EU on financial services regulation. Last March, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen), said that he expected such an agreement to be signed expeditiously. It still has not been. When does the Minister think the memorandum of understanding on financial services regulation will finally be signed?”
“Given the growing list of companies setting out the real and obvious difficulties they are facing in accessing markets in Europe, and given the many very practical suggestions that business groups have put forward to the Government in recent weeks, from negotiating a veterinary agreement and making progress on mutual recognition, to even just getting agreement on shared customs advice, when are Ministers going to try a bit harder to help businesses make Brexit work?”
“Given the Government’s underwhelming performance on trade to date, even the small gains from joining the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership would be welcome, but one issue that the previous Secretary of State always ducked was China’s interest. Given President Xi’s reaffirmation on Monday of China’s desire to join the CPTPP, can the Secretary of State clarify whether Britain would have the right to veto China’s accession?”
“I am delighted to say that the unsuccessful attempt by the board of Liverpool Victoria to demutualise and sell up to the controversial American private equity giant Bain Capital just before Christmas was unsuccessful, but it revealed a series of legislative and regulatory weaknesses in the rules governing mutuals. Almost 90% of the owners of Liverpool Victoria rejected the board’s dismal deal, but will the Leader of the House nevertheless find time for a debate about how to strengthen the mutual sector and its rules?”
“Working with Harrow Council, Harrow schools, the police and the NHS, he has set out in some detail the concerns of young people in Harrow aged between nine and 18. Some 6,000 of them were interviewed about the challenges they face, and issues around support for their mental health and for more activities that they can take part in during holidays and after school are urgent. More support for those types of organisations, which want to bring funding into my constituency, would be extremely welcome.”
“Harrow town centre has many redeeming features, with many great businesses, but it is still scarred on occasion by antisocial behaviour. Having a dedicated police team for that town centre to mirror the one in the Prime Minister’s constituency in Uxbridge would be extremely welcome. As I already alluded to, the British Transport police have to take stronger action and be a stronger presence around Harrow-on-the-Hill station and Harrow and Wealdstone station, which young people and older people consistently report as places where they are worried about being attacked or do not feel safe. Lastly, I want to praise the work of the Young Harrow Foundation and its excellent chief executive, Dan Burke.”
“Too many of those activities, because of austerity over the last 10 years, are no longer available. On a more general point, we need action on the poverty that too many young people in my community in Harrow are experiencing, which prevents them being able to do their homework when they want to or being able to take part in other activities that my children will take for granted, because their parents simply cannot afford them. Action is essential going forward. What specific action does that mean? Harrow missed out in the announcement by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in October last year on getting a dedicated police team for the centre of our area. I hope that will be rectified as a matter of urgency.”
“One can understand that in the context of covid a little, but it is striking that the pattern of such backlogs has been increasing since 2010. The chair of the Criminal Bar Association has made a similar point—that there were cases of 17-year-olds awaiting trial who were not likely to have their cases come to court until next year at the earliest. Those delays can only mean anguish and fear for victims, more uncertainty for those accused children, and the sense that there is somehow impunity for the worst cases of antisocial behaviour. As other Members on both the Government and Opposition Benches have alluded to, we need more support for schools to support young people who are at risk of being bullied and who are at risk of getting in with gangs, and more support for activities that they can join in the holidays or after school.”
“I think particularly about some of the comments that young women have made to me about the sexual harassment that they have faced in one or two of those transport hubs in particular. A national point that I would make, which is reflected in Harrow, and echoes a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), is about the justice system. Quicker action by the courts to process the cases of young people accused of wrongdoing is essential. I was struck by the report by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of probation, which found that at the end of 2020 the backlog of children awaiting court appearances in England and Wales had increased by more than 50% compared with the same period the previous year.”
“We are fortunate in having strong local leadership across the three boroughs of which Harrow is part, but we certainly do not have the level of local policing that we had under the previous Labour Government, when each ward and community had a sergeant, three police constables and three or four police community support officers, able to take real local intelligence and use it in a sensitive way to get better police outcomes. I would like to see stronger action by the British Transport police around the many transport hubs in my constituency. We need to see enforcement activity that people know about, and that helps to offer comfort to people who are worried that they might be victims of antisocial behaviour around those transport hubs.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stockton South (Matt Vickers) for securing this debate, although, as a father of two young children, I find it slightly unnerving to be reminded of my parental responsibilities for their future behaviour. I have been fortunate to listen to some great speeches and, as a result, intend to be entirely parochial in my comments about the needs of my constituency. My constituents, who are worried about antisocial behaviour and youth crime, want to see five things. First, they want more police and, crucially, more sympathetic policing.”
“On the watch of the former Post Office managing director Mr Alan Cook, now the very well-paid chair of Liverpool Victoria, I understand more than 160 sub-postmasters were prosecuted and almost 60 went to prison. I hope the Minister is able to say how many of those sub-postmasters will be compensated and whether Mr Cook has been invited to give evidence to Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry. Specifically, does the Minister share my view that, for that record as well as his ill-judged effort to demutualise LV=, there are questions as to whether Mr Cook is any longer a fit and proper person to run a major business?”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate and for his work as one of the co-chairs of the APPG. If I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mrs Miller, I hope to raise the case of General Shavendra Silva, current chief of defence staff in Sri Lanka and apparently responsible for gross human rights violations including torture and extra-judicial killings. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s need to focus his remarks today, but I ask his APPG to consider that case at a further session down the line.”
“Friend the Member for Rhondda, I will be very interested to hear, as will my constituents and many others across the UK, what her Department’s reaction is to the dossier that the ITJP submitted back in April.”
“The US has already imposed a travel ban on General Silva and his family, having found him accountable through command responsibility for “gross violations of human rights, namely extrajudicial killings, by the 58th Division of the Sri Lanka Army”. The question is why we as a country have not followed suit and imposed similar restrictions on Mr Silva, particularly around travel but also around financial assets and so on, or used the tools available to us under the Magnitsky package of measures to hold at least one person properly responsible for those terrible abuses at the end of that conflict. Although the Minister will quite rightly feel a responsibility to answer the questions and points put by my hon.”
“Despite repeated efforts by the international community, the Sri Lankan Government have resisted any efforts to bring to account any of those responsible for those abuses. Despite their best efforts, however, groups of individuals and non-governmental organisations have chronicled the evidence of those human rights abuses. I hope that the Minister is aware that on 9 April the International Truth and Justice Project submitted to her Department a 50-page dossier setting out General Shavendra Silva’s complicity in the human rights violations that took place in the north of Sri Lanka towards the end of 2008 through to May 2009. General Silva was then commander of the elite 58 Division of the Sri Lankan army, which was very much involved in the conflict.”
“I cannot compete with the quality of the two previous speeches. They were both excellent. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for securing the debate. I simply want to raise the case of one particular individual, who now holds the position of chief of the defence staff and commander of the Sri Lankan army, General Shavendra Silva. Those who have followed the terrible events in Sri Lanka at the end of the conflict in 2009 will be aware that evidence has emerged over the last 12 years of widespread human rights abuses at that time, including extrajudicial killings and extensive use of torture, deliberate attacks on civilian targets, including hospitals, and the use of weapons that have been banned internationally, such as white phosphorus and cluster munitions.”
“The Chancellor of the Exchequer will be aware of the considerable public unease about the proposed demutualisation of Liverpool Victoria. Will he therefore consider sympathetically the cross-party letter he has received from over 100 parliamentarians calling for a review of the law governing mutuals?”
“Free trade negotiations with the US are vital to lifting Donald Trump’s tariffs on British steel and aluminium exports, which in turn are crucial to protecting jobs and businesses in communities across our country. Given that the US has already agreed to lift tariffs on many EU steel products, if we are to get a level playing field for our firms and our workers, might it not be time for Lord Frost to be given a little help to stop bungling discussions with the EU so that this vital US-UK trade deal can be sorted?”
“The emergence of the omicron variant surely underlines that, if we are to protect our citizens from covid, we need to help to accelerate vaccination programmes in developing countries. With Norway the latest country to agree that, in these exceptional circumstances, a temporary waiver on patent rules to help boost vaccine production is needed, why is the Secretary of State so intent on blocking any progress on such a deal?”
“If we are to help reduce the chance of further variants emerging that will threaten the health of our citizens, we clearly need to accelerate vaccination programmes in other countries, particularly in the Commonwealth. Why are Ministers therefore so determined to use the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting next week to block progress towards achieving—as South Africa and India want—a temporary waiver of intellectual property rules to help developing countries to develop their own vaccine manufacturing capacity?”
“Their children play in the same playgrounds and they use the same public services as I do, so why should they not have the same opportunities as I and those who look like me do?”
“In my experience, the Muslim community in Harrow is astonishingly generous. Harrow Central Mosque has helped to raise money for a primary school in need of new computers and an overhaul of the books in the school library. The Sri Lankan Muslim Cultural Centre, one of the contenders for best-run mosque in the UK, played a critical role during lockdown in helping to get food and clothing to those in need, and the remarkable Mahfil Ali community in north Harrow, as well as helping to run a soup kitchen, has been attending midnight mass on Christmas eve at its nearest Anglican church for the last 12 years. By any definition, that is a remarkably generous gesture of interfaith respect and love. Muslims in Harrow walk the same streets as I do and shop in the same supermarkets.”
“Survey after survey shows Muslim adults held back from even getting interviews, never mind full-time work, and we know from the evidence that the MCB published that it costs more to live if someone is a Muslim. They pay more to insure their car, for example, and those with an apparently obvious Muslim name who seek a flat get fewer replies. In Harrow, there are too many examples of Islamophobia, from casual graffiti in tube stations and men spitting at Muslim women wearing the jilbab in north Harrow to the Muslim woman from Harrow called a terrorist, a bomber, while travelling on the train. There are examples, too, of job discrimination against Muslims and in local politics, with—I say this gently in the context of what has gone before—Conservative councillors partly responsible. It is that day-to-day reality that needs to change.”
“It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) on leading it in the extremely effective and passionate way that he has. The statistics that the Muslim Council of Britain has published for Islamophobia Awareness Month underline the urgent need for greater education and awareness about Islam, the Muslim community and Islamophobia. They underline the need for those of us in positions of authority to speak out. Crucially, they underline the need for the Government to demonstrate leadership on this issue. Muslims have just as much right to be safe and be given the opportunity to fulfil their potential as those of us who are not Muslims. Almost 50% of all recorded religious hate crimes are targeted against Muslims.”
“Can you advise me, Madam Deputy Speaker, on how to encourage Treasury Ministers to persuade the FCA to publish in full the details of the new board and the tender document, so that our constituents who are members of LV have all the relevant information in front of them before they decide how to vote on the future of LV?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. As you will be aware, the proposed demutualisation of Liverpool Victoria and its sale to Bain Capital has generated considerable public concern. The current chief executive of LV is claiming that all the bids LV received would have led to demutualisation and loss of membership rights. I understand that that might not be the full story, and that the tender document issued to Bain and others might have been specifically written with demutualisation in mind. I also understand that the full new board of LV, if the deal goes through, has been approved by the Financial Conduct Authority, but is being kept secret by Bain.”
“T2. A loophole in company law means that Bain Capital does not have to reveal how much it is paying the army of advisers helping it demutualise Liverpool Victoria. FTI Consulting, Clifford Chance, Fenchurch Advisory Partners and others have all benefited, perhaps by as much as £50 million or more. Does the Secretary of State not think that the members of Liverpool Victoria, whose money this is, have a right to know exactly how their money is being spent?”
“Does my hon. Friend also think there should be a requirement on water companies to report that information to their consumers, perhaps in the form of formal consumer committees of each water company, so that that company is more likely to be held to account by the very consumers who suffer from this dumping of sewage?”
“Since privatisation, there has been a 40% real-terms hike in bills, almost £60 billion in payments to shareholders, and more than £50 billion in debt loaded on to water companies to make those payments to shareholders. One of the problems with the argument made by the right hon. Members for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), and by the hon. Member for Keighley (Robbie Moore), is that it glosses over the issue of ownership and, in particular, the fact that annual investment in water supply infrastructure was lower in 2018 than in 1990. That rather suggests that there has been, for some time, a serious question mark about whether our privatisation is delivering.”
“I appreciate the opportunity to speak in this debate. I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on opening the debate. I want to underline in particular the figure that she used: 39 million tonnes of raw sewage was dumped in the River Thames in 2019. As someone who loves walking by the Thames, occasionally swimming in it, and certainly canoeing on it, that figure gives even me pause for thought. The contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey), for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) were very powerful in their critique of the ownership of water companies.”
“I urge the Minister to take away the need to give consumers more direct power over and say in the operation of the water companies on which we all rely.”
“We could maintain pressure on water companies to bring down the amount of sewage dumped in our streams long after the news cycle has moved on to other issues by giving the consumers of water companies more power, perhaps in the form of a requirement that any increase in bills—or if the Minister were willing to be radical, any increase in the salary of the chief executive and board—has to be approved by the consumers of that company. There should be a water users consumer committee for each water company, with real power to hold to account the board of that company. At the moment, only two committees, without any substantive powers, cover the whole operation of the English water companies. They are clearly not having much impact.”
“The right hon. Gentleman will have to forgive me. I was concentrating on other things in the 10 years before privatisation—I am not quite that old. If he shares the Opposition’s concerns about the quality of performance of the privatised water companies, I welcome that. I recognise that the Minister is not likely to give a commitment today to bring the water companies back into public ownership of one sort or another. I will therefore suggest a third way.”
“Secondly, members of Yorkshire cricket club were raising concerns about what was going on, but the governance structures at Yorkshire clearly did not allow those concerns to get to the very top and have an impact. There is, rightly, a campaign for fans to have a seat on the board of football clubs. Is it not time for consideration to be given to fans having a place on the board of cricket clubs as well?”
“May I strongly associate myself with the praise for the courage of Azeem Rafiq, the condemnation of institutional racism at Yorkshire cricket club more generally and the concerns raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) about the lack of a Government-backed definition of Islamophobia? There are two other specific things the Minister should focus on. First, last year Sport England found a 14-point gap between the percentage of white British people participating in sport and that of British Asians taking part in sport. So it would be good to know what the Minister is going to do to put a target in place to bring that gap down quickly.”
“On the subject of levelling up, will the Secretary of State tell the House why he thinks it is acceptable for schools to be worse off in real terms now than they were in 2010?”
“If there is anything that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury can do today, it would be lovely to have a date for when that legislative package might come forward.”
“Friends on this side of the House have rightly described the huge windfalls that the shareholders in water and sewerage companies have attracted over the years, and it is surely high time for consumers to be given significant power to decide when a discharge should take place, for example, or whether a chief executive’s pay should rise. That should be the most urgent consideration before a change of ownership takes place, and it would be good to see that happen. Finally, Ministers have promised many times that there would be new investment in credit unions and a programme of legislative change to help to drive a significant expansion of that sector. There is still no evidence of when that programme of legislative change will happen.”
“We need to see much more investment in the Metropolitan police, notwithstanding the significant need for reform that has again been revealed as a result of the Sarah Everard case and the cases of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman. We are desperate to see a dedicated police team once again in central Harrow, and the British Transport police desperately need more funding, not least in my constituency, to improve safety on the tube network for women and girls. That issue has been raised at a number of meetings with the police locally. I want to lament the fact that there seems to be nobody in Government who is seriously committed to the co-operative movement. Sadly, no investment in support of more co-op housing was announced in the Budget, and there is no sense of the need to give consumers more power. Many hon.”
“While it is good that police officers are being recruited, when the recruitment programme that the Government are funding comes to an end, we will still have fewer officers in the UK than we had in 2010. The number of police community support officers has fallen by about 40%, and those missing officers are not being replaced. What that means in practice for the communities in my constituency is that the local police team that they had become used to at the end of the last Labour Government—a sergeant and, usually, three police constables and four PCSOs for each ward in our borough, a highly visible police presence—has been cut to just one PC and one PCSO, and that is in no small part due to the efforts of the current Mayor of London.”
“Harrow Council, which I think does a very difficult job as well as it can in managing the housing shortfall, desperately needs still further funds to invest in social housing. I hope that some of those funds will eventually become available, so that those vulnerable families who are facing eviction—many have recently come out of care, some have experienced domestic abuse in the past, and many are single-person households in work who are looking after children but facing the prospect of having to up sticks and move again at a cost to themselves, and who will face the same prospect yet again in three or five years—will finally be given hope by a significant social housing programme. Apart from a very brief reference in the Secretary of State’s speech, there has been no mention of police funding.”
“I hope that Members with constituencies outside London will forgive me for making the fairly obvious point that London remains the epicentre of the housing crisis. It has the severest homelessness rates in the country: there are more than 165,000 homeless Londoners living in temporary accommodation, representing two thirds of the homelessness in the UK overall, and some 250,000 Londoners are on waiting lists for council housing. Given that, according to an analysis carried out by the Local Government Association, those who are managing to live in social housing face a £2,000 lower housing bill than those who live in the private rented sector, we can understand why there is still so much support for investment in more social housing.”
“On the estate at the moment, because it is being rebuilt, a series of vulnerable families are living in the temporary accommodation that is now available there. Many of them have spent all their time in temporary accommodation, moving from one not very suitable house to another even less suitable house. As they face the prospect of being evicted, for understandable reasons—so that the rest of the programme of rebuilding works can be completed—they are wondering, not unreasonably, when, if ever, they will have the chance of a permanent social home. While there are one or two examples of positive progress in the Budget in terms of funds to tackle homelessness, there is no sense of any recognition in the Treasury of a national need for investment in social housing.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt), and I wish him well in his campaign for the university in Milton Keynes to be recognised and supported. I hope he will forgive me for picking up only that part of his speech, and focusing on some equally important but none the less parochial examples of my own. The Grange Farm estate is just half a mile from probably the most famous establishment in my constituency, Harrow School, but the world in which the people on the Grange Farm estate live is very different from the world that the Harrow School students come from. However, I am pleased to say that the estate has secured funding and, through a programme of investment by Harrow Council, is being rebuilt. Members are therefore entitled to wonder why I should raise it in the context of a Budget debate.”
“Last month, the previous Secretary of State said that it had been a mistake to focus “too much on trade with the EU despite the richest opportunities being in the Asia-Pacific.” Are the Government now making the reverse mistake by focusing too much on small gains in Asia despite the far bigger losses we are facing in Europe?”
“Perhaps I can encourage my hon. Friend to pay tribute to the community credit unions that have branches, and that actively encourage people to bring cash in and that help them to take cash out. Does she agree that community credit unions need more support from the Government to expand their networks and offer more services, so that they are even more attractive?”
“Why not establish with employers, for the first time, a right to save: the right of the employee to go to the employer and say, “I want to save a small sum of money”—however small—“through a payroll deduction service”—perhaps with a credit union that the employer has sat down with and chosen—“and in that both help myself to be more financially resilient, and help my credit union and my community to grow and offer the services that are necessary”?”